"What was its real purpose?" She
smiled a smile of infinite knowledge to hide her utter ignorance, her
inability to supply even a reason that should wear an air of truth.
"Dost ask me, 0 perspicuous Asad? Are not thine eyes as sharp, thy wits
as keen at least as mine, that what is clear to me should be hidden from
thee? Or hath this Sakr-el-Bahr bewitched thee with enchantments of
Babyl?"
He strode to her and caught her wrist in a cruelly rough grip of his
sinewy old hand.
"His purpose, thou jade! Pour out the foulness of thy mind. Speak!"
She sat up, flushed and defiant.
"I will not speak," said she.
"Thou wilt not? Now, by the Head of Allah! dost dare to stand before my
face and defy me, thy Lord? I'll have thee whipped, Fenzileh. I have
been too tender of thee these many years--so tender that thou hast
forgot the rods that await the disobedient wife. Speak then ere thy
flesh is bruised or speak thereafter, at thy pleasure."
"I will not," she repeated. "Though I be flung to the hooks, not
another word will I say of Sakr-el-Bahr. Shall I unveil the truth to be
spurned and scorned and dubbed a liar and the mother of lies?" Then
abruptly changing she fell to weeping. "O source of my life!" she cried
to him, "how cruelly unjust to me thou art!" She was grovelling now, a
thing of supplest grace, her lovely arms entwining his knees. "When my
love for thee drives me to utter what I see, I earn but thy anger, which
is more than I can endure.
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