Nor ever
again let thyself be seen roving the public places afoot."
She obeyed him instantly, without a murmur; and he himself lingered at
the gates with Tsamanni until her litter had passed out, escorted by
Ayoub and Marzak walking each on one side of it and neither daring to
meet the angry eye of the Basha.
Asad looked sourly after that litter, a sneer on his heavy lips.
"As her beauty wanes so her presumption waxes, he growled. "She is
growing old, Tsamanni--old and lean and shrewish, and no fit mate for a
Member of the Prophet's House. It were perhaps a pleasing thing in the
sight of Allah that we replaced her." And then, referring obviously to
that other one, his eye turning towards the penthouse the curtains of
which were drawn again, he changed his tone.
"Didst thou mark, 0 Tsamanni, with what a grace she moved?--lithely and
nobly as a young gazelle. Verily, so much beauty was never created by
the All-Wise to be cast into the Pit."
"May it not have been sent to comfort some True-Believer?" wondered the
subtle wazeer. "To Allah all things are possible."
"Why else, indeed?" said Asad. "It was written; and even as none may
obtain what is not written, so none may avoid what is. I am resolved.
Stay thou here, Tsamanni. Remain for the outcry and purchase her. She
shall be taught the True Faith. She shall be saved from the furnace."
The command had come, the thing that Tsamanni had so ardently desired.
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