The Golden Scorpion

'Have I said something that displeases you?' she asked, resting a white-gloved hand on his arm. 'I am sorry.'

'No, no,' he assured her. 'But I was thinking—I cannot help thinking … '

'How wicked I am?' she whispered.

'How lovely you are!' he said hotly, 'and how maddening it is to remember that you are an accomplice of criminals!'

'Oh,' she said, and removed her hand, but not before he had felt how it trembled. They were about to enter the tea-room when she added: 'Please don't say that until I have told you why I do what I do.'

Obeying a sudden impulse, he took her hand and drew it close under his arm.

'No,' he said; 'I won't. I was a brute, Miska. Miska means 'musk', surely?'

'Yes.' She glanced up at him timidly. 'Do you think it a pretty name?'

'Very,' he said, laughing.

Underlying the Western veneer was the fascinating naivete of the Eastern woman, and Miska had all the suave grace, too, which belongs to the women of the Orient, so that many admiring glances followed her charming figure as she crossed the room to a vacant table.

'Now,' said Stuart, when he had given an order to the waiter, 'what do you want to tell me? Whatever it may be, I am all anxiety to hear it. I promise that I will only act upon anything you may tell me in the event of my life, or that of another, being palpably endangered by my silence.'

'Very well. I want to tell you,' replied Miska, 'why I stay with Fo-Hi.'

'Who is Fo-Hi?'

'I do not know!'

'What!' said Stuart. 'I am afraid I don't understand you.'

'If I speak in French will you be able to follow what I say?'

'Certainly. Are you more at ease with French?'

'Yes,' replied Miska, beginning to speak in the latter language. 'My mother was French, you see, and although I can speak in English fairly well I cannot yet think in English. Do you understand?

'Perfectly. So perhaps you will now explain to whom you refer when you speak of Fo-Hi.'

Miska glanced apprehensively around her, bending further forward over the table.

'Let me tell you from the beginning,' she said in a low voice, 'and then you will understand. It must not take me long. You see me as I am to-day because of a dreadful misfortune that befell me when I was fifteen years old.'

'My father was Wali of Aleppo, and my mother, his third wife, was a Frenchwoman, a member of a theatrical company which had come to Cairo, where he had first seen her. She must have loved him, for she gave up the world, embraced Islam and entered his harem in the great house on the outskirts of Aleppo. Perhaps it was because he, too, was half French, that they were mutually attracted. My father's mother was a Frenchwoman also, you understand.

'Until I was fifteen years of age, I never left the harem, but my mother taught me French and also a little English; and she prevailed upon my father not to give me in marriage so early as is usual in the East. She taught me to understand the ways of European women, and we used to have Paris journals and many books come to us regularly. Then an awful pestilence visited Aleppo. People were dying in the mosques and in the streets, and my father decided to send my mother and myself and some others of the harem to his brother's house in Damaskus.

'Perhaps you will think that such things do not happen in these days, and particularly to members of the household of a chief magistrate, but I can only tell you what is true. On the second night of our journey a band of Arabs swept down upon the caravan, overpowered the guards, killing them all, and carried of everything of value which we had. Me, also, they carried off—me and one other, a little Syrian girl, my cousin. Oh!' she shuddered violently—'even now I can sometimes hear the shrieks of my mother … and I can hear, also, the way they suddenly ceased, those cries … '

Stuart looked up with a start to find a Swiss waiter placing tea upon the table. He felt like rubbing his eyes. He had been dragged rudely back from the Syrian desert to the prosaic realities of a London hotel.

'Perhaps,' continued Miska, 'you will think that we were ill-treated, but it was not so. No one molested us. We were given every comfort which desert life can provide, servant to wait upon us and plenty of good food. After several weeks' journeying we came to a large city, having many minarets and domes glimmering in the moonlight; for we entered at night. Indeed, we always travelled at night. At the time I had no idea of the name of this city but I learned afterwards that it was Mecca.

'As we proceeded through the streets, the Assyrian girl and I peeped out through the little windows of the shibriyeh—which is a kind of tent on the back of a camel—in which we travelled, hoping to see some familiar face or someone to whom we could appeal. But there seemed to be scarcely anyone visible in the streets, although lights shone out from many windows, and the few men we saw seemed to be anxious to avoid us. In fact, several ran down side turnings as the camels approached.

'We stopped before the gate of a large house which was presently opened, and the camels entered the courtyard. We descended, and I saw that a number of small apartments surrounded the courtyard in the manner of a caravanserai. Then, suddenly, I saw something else, and I knew why we had been treated with such consideration on the journey; I knew into what hand I had fallen—I knew that I was in the house of a slave-dealer!'

'Good heavens!' muttered Stuart—'this is almost incredible.'

'I knew you would doubt what I had to tell you,' declared Miska plaintively; 'but I solemnly swear what I tell you is the truth. Yes, I was in the house of a slave-dealer, and on the very next day, because I was proficient in languages, in music and in dancing, and also because—according to their Eastern ideas—I was pretty, the dealer, Mohammed Abd-el-Bali … offered me for sale.'

She stopped, lowering her eyes and flushing hotly, then continued with hesitancy.

'In a small room which I can never forget I was offered the only indignity which I had been called upon to suffer since my abduction. I was exhibited to prospective purchasers.'

'As she spoke the words, Miska's eyes flashed passionately and her hand, which lay on the table, trembled. Stuart silently reached across and rested his own upon it.

'There were all kinds of girls,' Miska continued, 'black and brown and white, in the adjoining rooms, and some of them were singing and some dancing, whilst others wept. Four different visitors inspected me critically, two of them being agents for royal harems and the other two—how shall I say it?— wealthy connoisseurs. But the price asked by Mohammed Abd-el-Bali was beyond the purses of all except one of the agents. He had indeed settled the bargain, when the singing and dancing and shouting—every sound it seemed— ceased about me … and into the little room in which I crouched amongst perfumed cushions at the feet of the two men, walked Fo-Hi.'

Chapter 4 Miska's Story (concluded)

'Of course, I did not know that this was his name at the time; I only knew that a tall Chinaman had entered the room—and that his face was entirely covered by a green veil.'

Stuart started, but did not interrupt Miska's story.

'This veil gave him in some way a frightfully malign and repellent appearance. As he stood in the doorway looking down I seemed to feel his gaze passing over me like a flame, although of course I could not see his eyes. For a moment he stood there looking at me; and much as his presence had affected me, its affect upon the slave-dealer and my purchaser was extraordinary. They seemed to be stricken dumb. Suddenly the Chinaman spoke, in perfect Arabic. 'Her price?' he said.

'Mohammed Abd-el-Bali, standing trembling before him, replied:

''Miska is already sold, lord, but——'

''Her price?' repeated the Chinaman, in the same hard metallic voice and without the slightest change of intonation.