was his favourite wife. She was a beautiful woman, but I found afterwards that she had a cruel and pitiless heart. She did not seem to care for the attentions the Sultan lavished on me. I even thought there was a gleam of satisfaction on her countenance as he led me to a remote part of the harem.
We passed through two or three doors until nothing could be heard of the sounds of music or conversation we had just left. We were now in a rich apartment with an elegant bed. As I was somewhat agitated the Sultan sat on a sofa beside me and began to soothe me. His person was agreeable and I began to enjoy his conversation. I knew what was coming, but I neither desired nor dreaded it much.
'Now please undress yourself,' he said. I obeyed at once, taking off everything but my chemise; in the meantime he had stripped stark naked. It made my heart beat violently as I looked for the first time on a man's shaft ready for action. He came and unbuttoned my chemise and let it drop to the floor. I covered my face with my hands.
He lifted me and laid my back on the bed close to the edge of it and knelt on the floor beside me. Then he spread my thighs wide apart and opened the lips between them and made a critical examination of my virginity. 'By Allah!' he exclaimed, 'a crescent-shaped maidenhead. It brings good luck to the captor!'
'I am glad it pleases you, my lord,' said I, timidly.
The Sultan gave a sudden cry of agony and fell across me. I took my hands from my face and saw Fatima holding a shawl tightly around his head while a man whom I had never seen was driving a dagger into his body with repeated blows. I tried to call out, but my voice was frozen with horror.
'Dare to make a noise,' said Fatima, 'and you shall share his fate.'
I knelt to plead for my life, but they took no further notice of me till they had satisfied themselves that the Sultan was dead. Fatima flung the covers over the body.
'Let me be the first to congratulate you as Sultan of Muscat,' she said, turning to her companion.
'The most beautiful woman in Muscat has the right to congratulate me,' he said. Then he turned towards me, let his eyes rove over my naked form and addressed some soothing words to me.
'Have the decency to put on your clothes and follow me, hussy,' said Fatima.
While I was dressing the Sultan parted with Fatima, first giving her some instructions about the harem to carry out while he went to confirm his authority with the troops.
The conspiracy at the crowning act, at which I was present, was perfectly successful, and the new Sultan reigned without opposition. Fatima was absolute in the harem. She kept me as much as possible out of sight of the new Sultan, though she allowed him to have free access to the other women. He took every opportunity to speak to me, but I avoided him with horror. I could not forget the scene of the assassination.
One evening after he had been more persistent in his attentions, Fatima called me into a room alone. She told me to lie down on the bed, and, when I had obeyed her, she turned my petticoats up over my head. I was so afraid of the beautiful tigress that I dared not stir; I only begged for mercy.
'Lie still, I shall not hurt you,' she said, and, having pulled my thighs apart, she opened my sheath with her fingers. I heard the 'click' of scissors and felt a slight but keen pain. I put my hand involuntarily to the place and felt that my maidenhead was gone.
'Now,' she said, 'you will not play your arts on the Sultan any more on pretence of being a virgin.'
I burst into tears of mortification and anger. and went into my room with the blood trickling down my thighs.
The next evening the Sultan came into the women's apartments. Fatima hastily ordered me from the room on some errand.
'Don't be too harsh with the poor maid,' he said.
'Maid!' she retorted, contemptuously. 'She has lain with half the young men in Yemen.'
'I will match your wager on that,' he said.
'Very well,' she said. 'If you are right you shall lie with her tonight. If I am right I will dispose of her.'
This conversation was carried on in a low tone, but I overheard it. She arose and bade me follow her. The Sultan came after us to the bedroom.
'Now feel the hussy,' she said, 'and satisfy yourself.'
The Sultan, brute as he was, was very much embarrassed. But he drew me towards him, put his hands under my clothes and with his finger satisfied himself that my maidenhead was gone. I was then dismissed with my cheeks flaming with rage and shame, and then the two devils passed the night together. Once more after this the Sultan sought an opportunity to be alone with me, which I baffled. Fatima's keen eyes detected him and my fate was sealed.
That evening I was seized in my room by the eunuchs, bound and gagged and sewn in a sack. After being carried a short distance in silence, the creaking of a boat and the rippling of water revealed to me the awful doom to which I was to be consigned. I could not move; I could not call. I was lifted and flung into the water and heard a boat row away.
I settled slowly under the waves, and, as my clothes became saturated, the water reached my nostrils. I made in hopeless agony a prayer to Allah; as if in answer to it I heard the stroke of oars. They became louder and louder till the water settled over me and I knew no more.
I returned to consciousness lying in the bottom of a boat, the sweet moonlight streaming in my face and the eyes of a young man gazing earnestly into my own. He must have been pleased with what he saw there. 'Sweet houri of paradise, she lives,' he said, in a tender and manly tone.
His attentions were unremitting until I was fully restored and my lungs freed from water. Then he arranged me in the bottom of the boat with his coat for a pillow. 'Lie close, we may be observed,' he said.
He rowed silently to shore in the suburbs of the city where he had a little dwelling, which we reached without observation and to which he made me welcome. He offered me in the most delicate manner some clothing of his own until mine could be dried. Then he cooked me a nice meal, and after I was thus refreshed we conversed without reserve.
He listened to my story with his face beaming with compassion; it lighted with joy when I allowed him to infer that my person as well as heart was still to be disposed of as far as any man was concerned. I emphasised man for I thought of the fiendish and jealous rape Fatima had accomplished.
Hassan, for that was his name, soon told his story. He had come into the city to seek his fortune and had been driven to smuggling to obtain a livelihood. It was while on the alert at this vocation that he had been able to save me. 'We must fly before morning,' he said, 'if we would be safe.'
He would be the happiest man in the world if I could suffer him to take me to his desert home. So much kindness after so much cruelty completely won my heart. He read my assent in my eyes and, kissing me tenderly, went out to make his preparations to go. We were soon both mounted on a single horse and miles away from Muscat.
We had been an hour on the road and were still borne along at the same unflagging gallop. Hassan held me in front of him like a baby in his arms, often kissing me, his kisses constantly growing more ardent until I felt his stiff shaft pressing against my person. He suggested that I should ride astride awhile and rest myself by a change of position.
I obeyed his suggestion, turning with my face towards his, putting my arms around his neck, while my thighs were wide open over Hassan's. He let the bridle drop over the horse's neck, whose headlong pace subsided into a gentle canter which was like the rocking of a cradle. Hassan put his arm around my loins and lifted me a little; his other hand was busy clearing away the petticoats and then I felt the crest of his naked shaft knocking for entrance between my naked thighs.
I was willing to yield to Hassan anything that he wished but no sooner had the lips of my sheath been penetrated than I involuntarily clung more tightly around his neck and, sustaining myself in that way, prevented him from entering further. I found the sensation entirely different, however, from that which I had experienced when the fingers of the Imam explored the same entrance. Now the organ seemed adapted to the place and excited a sensation of pleasure.
I offered my mouth to Hassan and returned his ardent kisses with an ardour equally warm. A desire to secure more of the delightful intruder overcame my dread of the intrusion. I loosened my hold on Hassan's neck and my weight drove his shaft so completely home, notwithstanding the tightness of the fit, that his crest rested on my womb. It felt so unexpectedly good that I gave a murmur of delight. The motion of the horse kept partially withdrawing and then completely sending it in again at every canter. The first thrust, good as it was, was
