I saw what might be a peculiarly nimble young ghost floating among the shadows of the houses. It did not pass close to my lying place—if I were to see it at all, I must be wide-awake and on the lookout. As it started to move along the wall, I rose and took a course that would intercept it not far from the gate. I too avoided the spaces of bright moonlight. I did not want to catch some evil eye, or the attention of anyone who lay awake. Soon the byres hid me from any doorway or pavilion.
When I had drawn within a hundred paces of my tryster, she was no longer ghostlike, but as hard to see as a sprite in the web of light and shadow. If she had seen me, she had not acknowledged me. As she came close to the gate she stopped and looked back, but not as though in expectation of my coming. When she did see me, she gave the impression of being startled. She stood motionless a few seconds, then drew back into the shadow. I waved my hand.
When I came up to her she was standing midway between light and shade, her hands clasped, her raven hair flowing, her eyes long and lifted a little at the corners, and a dreamy beauty upon her face.
With this expression and her whole posture, her costume was in poetic keeping. A silken robe tucked in under her arms laid bare the swell of her breast and confided her small voluptuous form; over her naked shoulders hung the piece of embroidered silk her grandfather had offered Nicolo today; her black hair flowed, and her feet were bare of sandals. She let the shadows partly conceal her beauties in a show of shyness that was no doubt some old propriety among her people. Indeed I got the impression of time-honored formality not only in her bearing but in her dress. I was almost sure that a concubine of the sultan presented herself in this fashion when he summoned her to his couch on a moonlit court.
“Koba (Evening Star)!”
Her eyes that had avoided mine wheeled in surprise.
“Do you speak Arabic?” she asked in that tongue. But her pronunciation made it sound like some other language.
“It’s almost my native tongue.”
“Why, you speak it as it’s spoken in very Oman!”
“I delight that you speak it also, moon of beauty.”
“But the great malik—I think he’s your father—spoke Tatar to my grandsire.”
“I doubt if the Tatar language lends itself well to talk of love.”
“It is good for discussing horses, hunting, and war. Arabic was my mother’s tongue, and it has been pleasant to my ears, so the effendi will forgive me for lingering this long.”
“I wouldn’t forgive you if you left me.”
“Lord, it’s not fitting that we should meet so in the dark, both of us unattended, and I in immodest raiment. I was hot and could not sleep and the moon beguiled me——”
No doubt this was what a Sultan’s concubine was supposed to say to her master, part of a time-honored ritual, when she had gone walking in her master’s garden after a eunuch had whispered something in her ear.
“We needn’t waste time or breath on the proprieties, bringer of delight,” I broke in. “None are necessary after our eyes had met today, and you had given me a smile.”
She stood quite still for several long-drawn seconds and an expression stole into her face that I could not read. If I were to guess it, she was half frightened, half wonder-struck. She gave me a furtive glance, then moved enough to bring her face and breast full into the moonlight.
“You called me Cobah,” she remarked in a thoughtful tone.
“I think it fits you well.”
“Perhaps you’ve mistaken me for a virgin. Instead I’m a widow of half a year, and I’m soon to become the wife of my husband’s brother. That is the custom among my people.”
“Then for the moment you are free.”
“Effendi, is it your desire——?”
“My great desire.”
Then my scalp tightened with the effect of creeping, for I remembered another meeting under the moon. It was far off in time and space. The stars were grouped the same, although some I had known had dropped behind the western horizon, and some I did not know had risen in the east. Our island there had been surrounded by silver waters instead of silver desert.
The beauty that I sought then was of another birth and order than that I was seeking now. Still, as the shock of remembrance passed I felt only gray regret. I had bartered away my pearl never to be reclaimed and I must make the most of my returns. I must no longer let the dead past cast shadows backward over the glimmering present.
2
I bent my head and kissed Araxie’s rose-red mouth. And that rose was not of delicate and subdued hue, but the scarlet rose of Persia, red as the breast of the desert falcon. Her eyes began to shine with intense excitement.
“It’s too dangerous here,” she whispered.
“Where can we go?”
“Outside the gate. There’s an old Mohammedan tomb close by——”
“Let’s not have anything to do with death.”
“Why, those bones have been dust a thousand years!”
“Still, we can’t go out the gate, because there’s no one to lock it behind us.”
“There’s no danger from the Karaunas tonight. There might be a greater danger inside the wall.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“It doesn’t matter. Follow me, my lord.”
She stood poised—reminding me of a beautiful black-and-white bird with gay-colored wings about to take flight—until I nodded. Then she could hardly resist running in the light way of village girls, and when I would move cautiously from shadow to shadow, she became impatient. She clutched my hand and tugged it and hers was damp with sweat, but it was a smoother hand and more voluptuous than I would have expected from a field-working village girl.
“Take care, lest your grandsire see us,” I whispered when she started to cross half an acre of smooth-spread moonlight.
“He’s half-blind and sleeps like a babe,” she answered in great impatience. “I’m more afraid of the sharp eyes of your sire.”
“Why should you be? Has he——” But I did not know what to ask.
“He desires me himself, and I take him for one as proud and unyielding as a king.”
“Would you rather have him? Decide quickly.”
“No, I’ve chosen you.”
“If you leave me to go to him, I’ll kill you.”
“By Gog and Magog, I never will.”
Instead of angering or frightening my companion, the savage threat fanned her passion. With rough ardor, she clutched my neck and pressed the full length of her body and thighs against mine. Her belly thrust slowly forward until she stood in the shape of a drawn bow, my shoulders drawn atop hers and pressed down with great strength.
“Fall with me, man of the West!” she cried. “Am I not cushion enough for your tender bones?”
“Not into the dust.” But I was half ashamed of my squeamishness, so out of place on an adventure of this kind, and troubled by some distaste of mind about the escapade itself. Whatever its cause, it did not curb the sudden, avid hunger of the flesh. I felt no tenderness toward the desert girl but knew she wanted none. She was beautiful in her wild way and I, and I thought she, had kept a long fast.
“Have the women of Frankistan taught you nothing, or are they eggshell frail?” she asked. “This is the way we Arghun women prove our lovers.”
Arghun was a Tatar word I had heard Nicolo use. I thought it meant of mixed blood.
“I’m no Arghun man, but a Venetian.”
“Then in Allah’s name make haste.”
Again she took my hand, and as fast as I would follow, led me by way of the shadows to a picket fence. It enclosed not more than half an acre, protecting from the livestock a stack of new-cut unthreshed millet. I felt a brief chill in following Araxie though the gate and closing it behind us. I had heard of capturing wild stallions on the steppes by tying a mare in heat in a pen with a drop barrier. The ground was bone-bare except for the dull glimmer of the high moon.