people."
"But my clansmen are in deadly feud with thine," I observedreflectively.
"Does that affect thy decision?" she enquired in a tone of reproach.
I reflected, and saw how utterly impossible it seemed that I myselfcould escape the vigilance of these ever-watchful guards of the manygates which lay between myself and freedom. I glanced at the frail girllying upon my poor ragged divan, her girdle and throat blazing withjewels, and felt my heart sink within me.
"Thou thinkest that because I am a woman I have no courage," sheobserved, her keen eyes reading my secret thoughts. "But hist! listen!"
I held my breath, and as I did so the footsteps of men fell upon theflags of the courtyard. We peered forth through the chink in the woodenshutter, which at night closed my window, and saw two men carrying abier, followed by two gigantic negro eunuchs. Upon the bier was a bodycovered by a cloth; and as it passed we both caught sight ofgay-coloured silks and lace. Below the black pall a slim white hand,sparkling with diamonds, moved convulsively, and as the _cortege_passed, a low stifling cry reached us--the despairing cry of a woman.
"All!" gasped my companion, dismayed. "It is Zulaimena! Yesterday sheruled the harem, but this morning it was whispered into our lord's earthat she had tried to poison him, and he condemned her and myself to begiven alive to the alligators," and she shuddered at thought of the fatewhich awaited her if detected.
Conversing only in whispers, we waited till the palace was hushed insleep. Then, when she had attired herself in one of my oldserving-dresses and bound her hair tightly, we crept cautiously out intothe moonlit court. Over the horse-shoe arch of the harem-gate thesingle light burned yellow and faint, while on either side the guardscrouched, their dead fingers still grasping their ponderous scimitars.All was still, therefore quietly and swiftly we passed into the Court ofthe Treasury, and thence into that of the Eunuchs. Here we wereinstantly challenged by two guards with drawn swords, clansmen of thosewho lay dead at the harem-gate.
"Whence goest thou?" they both enquired with one voice, suddenlyawakened from gazing mutely at the stars, their blades flashing in themoonbeams.
"Our master, the Grand Vizier, has had an apoplexy, and is dying!" Icried, uttering the first excuse that rose to my lips. "Let not hislife be upon thine heads, for we go forth to seek the court physicianIbrahim."
"Speed on the wings of haste!" they cried. "May the One Merciful havecompassion upon him!"
Thus we passed onward, relating the same story at each gate, and beingaccorded the same free passage, until at last we came to an enormoussteel-bound door which gave exit into the city; the gate which wasclosed and barred by its ponderous bolts at the _maghrib_ hour, andopened not until dawn save for the dark faced Sultan himself.
Here I gave exactly the same account of our intentions to the captain ofthe guard. He chanced to be a friend of my master's, and was greatlyconcerned when I vividly described his critical condition.
"Let the slaves pass!" I heard him cry a moment later, and, with a loudcreaking, the iron-studded door which had resisted centuries of siegeand battle, slowly swung back upon its creaking hinges. At thatinstant, however, a prying guard raised his lantern and held it close tomy companion's face.
"By the Prophet's beard, a woman!" he cried aloud, starting back, aninstant later. "We are tricked!"
"Seize them!" commanded the captain, and in a moment three guards threwthemselves upon us. Swift as thought I drew my keen _jambiyah_, mytrusty knife which I had ever carried in my sash throughout mycaptivity, and plunged it into the heart of the first man who laid handsupon me, while a second later the man who gripped Zohra, received a cutfull across his broad negro features which for ever spoilt his beauty.Then, with a wild shout to my companion to follow, I dashed forward andran for my life.
Lithe and agile as a gazelle in the desert she sped on beside me alongthe dark crooked silent streets. In a few minutes the tragedy of theharem-gate would be discovered, and every effort would be then made torecapture the eloping favourite of the brutal Black Sultan. We knewwell that if captured both of us would be given alive to the alligators,a punishment too terrible to contemplate. But together we sped on, ourpace quickened by the fiendish yells of our pursuers, until doubling ina maze of narrow crooked streets, we succeeded at last, with Allahdirecting our footsteps, in evading the howling guards and gaining oneof the four gates of the city, where the same story as we had told inthe Fada resulted in the barrier being opened for us, and a moment laterwe found ourselves in the wild, barren plain, at that hour lying whitebeneath the brilliant moon. We paused not, however, to admirepicturesque effects, but strode boldly forward, eager to put as great adistance as possible between ourselves and the stronghold of the Ahir,ere the dawn.
Fortunately my bright-eyed fellow-fugitive was well acquainted with thecountry around Agadez, therefore we were enabled to journey byuntravelled paths; but the three days we spent in that burninginhospitable wilderness, ere we reached the well where we obtained ourfirst handful of dates and slaked our thirst, were among the mostterrible of any I have experienced during my many wanderings over thesandy Saharan waste.
On that evening when the mysterious horizon was ablaze with the fierysunset, and I had turned my face to the Holy Ca'aba, I was dismayed todiscover that, instead of travelling towards the country of her people,the Kel-Oui, we had struck out in an entirely different direction, butwhen I mentioned it she merely replied--
"I promised, in return for thine assistance, to lead thee unto the ThreeDwarfs of Lebo, the secret of which none know save myself. Ere threesuns have set thine eyes shall witness that which will amaze thee."
Next day we trudged still forward into a stony, almost impenetrablecountry, utterly unknown to me, and two days later, having ascended arocky ridge, my conductress suddenly halted almost breathless, her tinyfeet sadly cut by the sharp stones notwithstanding the wrappings I hadplaced about them, and pointing before her, cried--
"Behold! The Three Dwarfs!"
Eagerly I strained mine eyes in the direction indicated, and therediscerned in the small oasis below, about an hour's march distant, threecolossal pyramids of rock of similar shape to those beside the Nile.
"Yon fertile spot was Lebo until ten years ago, when the men of theBlack Sultan came and destroyed it, and took its inhabitants as slaves,"she explained. "See! From here thou canst distinguish the white wallsof the ruins gleaming amongst the palms. We of the Kel-Oui had livedhere since the days of the Prophet, until our enemies of the Ahirconquered us. But let us haste forward, and I will impart unto thee thesecret I have promised."
Together we clambered down over the rocks and gained the sandy plain, atlast reaching the ruined and desolate town where the crackedsmoke-stained walls were half overgrown by tangled masses of greenery,welcome in that sunbaked wilderness, and presently came to the base ofthe first of the colossal monuments of a past and long-forgotten age.They were built of blocks of dark grey granite, sadly chipped and wornat the base, but higher up still well preserved, having regard to thegenerations that must have arisen and passed since the hands that builtthem crumbled to dust.
"By pure accident," explained the bright-faced girl when together wehalted to gaze upward, "I discovered the secret of these wonders ofLebo. Thou hast, by thy lion's courage, saved my life, therefore untothee is due the greatest reward that I can offer thee. Two years ago Ifell captive in the hands of thy people, the Azjar, over in theTinghert, and it was by thine own good favour I was released. That iswhy I recognised thee in the palace of Agadez. Now once again I owe myfreedom unto thee; therefore, in order that the months thou hast spentin Agadez shall not be wholly wasted, I will reveal unto thee the secretwhich I have always withheld from mine own people."
Then, taking my hand, she quickly walked along the base of the giantstructure until she came to the corner facing the direction of thesunrise; then, counting her footsteps, she proceeded with care, stoppingat last beneath the sloping wall, and examining t
he ground. At her feetwas a small slab, hidden by the red sand of the desert, which sheremoved, drawing from beneath it a roll of untanned leopard-hide. Thisshe unwrapped carefully, displaying to my gaze a worn and tatteredparchment, once emblazoned in blue and gold, but now sadly faded andhalf illegible.
I examined it eagerly, and found it written in puzzling hieroglyphics,such as I had never before seen.
"Our marabout Ahman, who was well versed in the language of theancients, deciphered this for me only a few hours before his death. Itis the testimony of the great Lebo, king of all the lands from thesouthern shore of Lake Tsad to the Congo, and founder of the Kel-Ouination, now, alas! so sadly fallen from their high estate. Theparchment states plainly that Lebo, having conquered and despoiled theEthiopians in the last year of his reign, gathered together
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