THE 
 WEDNESDAY WIFE
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS 
 ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OP CANADA, LTD. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 THE 
 WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 JULIETTE GORDON SMITH 
 
 jfteto gork 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1921 
 
 Alt rights reserved
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES Or AMERICA 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1921, 
 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and printed. Published September, 1921. 
 
 Press of 
 
 J. J. Little & Ives Company 
 New York, U. 8. A.
 
 S13G007
 
 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THREE DOVES IN A COTE 
 
 IT was evening in the harem of Attar abu Hamed al 
 Hassen. 
 
 The master gazed across at Aletra, and, though she 
 looked not nor even glanced through the veil of her 
 long black lashes she knew and he knew that she 
 knew he was looking. 
 
 Attar and his three wives Jeppa and Zulaykha and 
 Aletra were sitting about on cushions on the floor of 
 the harem. Jeppa, his Monday wife, sat nearest him, 
 it being the eve of Monday, from which time the day 
 is reckoned in the East. Zulaykha, his Tuesday wife, 
 sat next to her; and Aletra, his Wednesday wife, 
 farthest away. 
 
 Attar, contrary to the Occidental conception of a 
 Mohammedan, was large and blond, almost herculean 
 in build, and wore a great curling beard. Hta mother 
 had been a gift to his father from one of the half- 
 Turkish, half-Russian tribes of the border, with perhaps 
 more Russian than Turkish blood in her veins, and the 
 old Mohammedan had loved her well. 
 
 Besides being cast in a noble mold, his eyes held in 
 
 1
 
 2 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 their depths the calm power, the fearless gentleness of 
 a great nature. Not only was he good to look upon, 
 but he was a good man, and deplored the truant habit of 
 his eyes to wander past Jeppa and Zulaykha and rest 
 with delight upon Aletra, 
 
 For, according to his faith, it was his duty not only 
 to devote himself to Jeppa on Monday, but to hold 
 her and her only in his thoughts on that day. Tues- 
 day was Zulaykha's and Wednesday ah, Wednesday 
 was Aletra's! 
 
 At other times Attar had contented himself with 
 counting the days and the hours till Wednesday should 
 come again, but to-night it was different; he knew that 
 the hours would be lost in the days, the days in the 
 weeks, and the weeks in the months before another 
 Wednesday would find the young Aletra in his arms 
 again. For on the morrow he would begin his journey 
 to the far-distant Occident, taking with him much pre- 
 cious merchandise, and it would be a year perhaps 
 two before he would sit in the harem again. 
 
 "When I am away," said the master, breaking the 
 silence, "ever I think of ye as three turtle-doves, dwell- 
 ing in love and sweetness together, ministering unto 
 one another in all kindness. How desolate and dreary 
 must be the one wife of the uncivilized man of the 
 West!" 
 
 "And the care of the harem when there are no 
 slaves?" added Jeppa. 
 
 "She destroyeth her beauty to accomplish much labor, 
 and at the same time bear children for her husband," 
 he rejoined. 
 
 "It should be a life of bondage," said Jeppa, shaking 
 her head.
 
 THREE DOVES IN A COTE 3 
 
 "But when there are many slaves," spoke Zulaykha, 
 "it is, perchance, not so hard." 
 
 Aletra said nothing; her eyes were fixed upon invis- 
 ible distance as if she were listening intently. There 
 were voices faint, then coming nearer men's voices 
 singing in the night. The words they sang were old 
 when the sires of their grandsires sang them in the 
 narrow streets hundreds of years before, or in the light 
 of the caravan fires when crossing the desert. 
 
 The voices came nearer, great voices that seemed to 
 answer the silent call of Sahara. At the end of the 
 chanted words was ever a low, echoing urge as of souls 
 grown impatient: 
 
 "O tentsman, haste and strike the tents, I pray; 
 
 The day grows late. 
 The caravan's already under way ; 
 
 They will not wait. 
 The drummer sounds already the first drum; 
 
 The mule-bells call; 
 Their leads the drivers on the camels lay. 
 
 Mate calls to mate. 
 The evening-prayer is near, and lo ! to-night 
 
 The sky is clear; 
 The risen moon looks on the sun's last ray. 
 
 Beyond the gate " 
 
 The singers passed, and their voices grew faint be- 
 yond the mosque; still none spoke. 
 
 "Have we not heard these words since we were chil- 
 dren ?" thought Attar. "Why strike they us into silence 
 this night? Is it Kismet?" 
 
 The caravan call had unsealed the lips of the night. 
 Very close, a shrill, boyish voice sang of the love of 
 Yoseph and Zulaykha; but, breaking in upon it, as if 
 brushing aside so frail and pure a thing as the childish
 
 note, rising threadlike in the outer darkness, came the 
 sound of deeper voices from the inexhaustible wells of 
 human knowledge and desire mighty voices pulsing 
 softly, singing the tender, deathless love-songs of the 
 East. 
 
 Again after each strain there was a low murmur, in 
 which pathos and passion were so blended that they 
 seemed an ecstasy of sorrow. As they came nearer 
 the words were plain. Aletra listened as if she drank 
 in their essence: 
 
 "Fair love, my heart I give to thee 
 
 Good night! I go. 
 Nay, thy sweet form I will not fear 
 
 Good night! I go. 
 Should I behold thee ne'er again 
 
 'Tis right, 'tis right. 
 I clasp this hour of parting tight 
 
 Good night! I go. 
 With raven tress and visage clear, 
 
 Enchantress dear, 
 Hast made my daylight dark and drear : 
 
 Good night ! I go. 
 O light of faith, thy face thy hair 
 
 Like doubt's despair! 
 Both this and that yield torment rare 
 
 Good night! I go." 
 
 The spirit of the night pulsed and throbbed with the 
 unsipped cup of life still in its grasp. The hours were 
 young and the veil of love had not yet been lifted, nor 
 the first kiss yet fallen upon her eyelids; but Hope, 
 Expectation, was in every breath. When, suddenly, as 
 if Allah had touched a great, vibrating chord in the 
 universe, the call of the muezzin sounded from hun- 
 dreds of minarets, and like so many souls answering,
 
 THREE DOVES IN A COTE 5 
 
 "Here am I," to the voice of the eternal, countless 
 voices murmured the nightfall prayer of 'Ashr : 
 
 "Allah hu Ak Bar! Allah hu Ak Bar!" 
 
 From the housetops, streets, harems, bazaars from 
 the throats of Imaums and Marabouts, from men good 
 and bad came the same prayer : 
 
 "Allah hu Ak Bar! Allah, hu Ak Bar!" And in it 
 was the spirit of intense spiritual love. 
 
 All other sounds had ceased save this strange, half- 
 heard harmony that meant love and God. 
 
 It was as if in some far place of the frozen North 
 love and worship had parted, and kept traveling around 
 the opposite ends of the earth till they met at last in 
 the land of the cassia and lotus, and mingled as mingle 
 the sands of the desert till one is like unto the other. 
 For nowhere else on earth is love so human, and no- 
 where else is worship so divine. 
 
 The prayer had broken the spirit of silence, and when 
 it was over Attar exclaimed : 
 
 "By the beard of the prophet! I had forgotten to 
 tell thee the latest gossip." Here he paused. "Another 
 of the Sultan's wives hath escaped!" 
 
 "What sayest thou 3" 
 
 "Another?" 
 
 "How passed she the gates?" 
 
 "Tell us! Tell us!" came the quick questions. 
 
 "Ah!" with a deprecating lift of the hands, sug- 
 gesting the fatalism of the Orient "how may one 
 know these things? She may have looked through the 
 gates and seen the wives of humbler men, like me, 
 taking their steps unwatched to the bazaars, walking in 
 the yellow sunshine; and when the eunuch dozed or, 
 perchance, counted his gold, she was tempted and passed
 
 6 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 out to shame and wandering and danger. Or," he 
 continued, smiling, "or she may have been neglected. 
 The Sultan hath many wives. Who knoweth why a 
 woman is content or not content ?" 
 
 "And it could be that she was not neglected," drawled 
 Zulaykha sweetly. "That could be the trouble. I 
 would not be in the seraglio for all the sweets and soft 
 rugs and tinkling music and silent-footed slaves. The 
 Sultan is too ' 
 
 "Stop!" said Attar with quiet, authoritative rebuke. 
 "He is the Sultan. Forget not that." 
 
 Zulaykha grew suddenly sober under the rebuke, the 
 more because it came so seldom. Seeing this, Attar 
 added in half banter to soothe her feelings: 
 
 "If thou shouldst bear a girl child, and in time the 
 Sultan should ask her of me, thou wouldst plume thy- 
 self with pride and give her with thy blessing." 
 
 Zulaykha cast him a grateful look, and answered 
 archly : 
 
 "If her eyes should be as clear and her hair as gold 
 as thine, O master, she would be good even for the 
 Sultan!" 
 
 "Did I not tell thee?" laughed Attar roundly. He 
 held Jeppa's hand between his own, but he looked over 
 her head at Aletra. 
 
 "If thou art prospered of Allah on thy journey, wilt 
 thou bring with thee any other wife?" asked Jeppa 
 placidly. 
 
 "Ah!" again lifting his hands, palms outward 
 "how may I know if Allah wills or not ?" 
 
 "An thou dost, I pray she may be amiable and not 
 so high-born as to look with scorn upon us," she said 
 gently.
 
 THREE DOVES IN A COTE 7 
 
 "Look with scorn upon thee, my orange blossom !" he 
 laughed in derision, laying his arms about her shoul- 
 ders. "In no man's harem beams so much noble loveli- 
 ness as in mine." 
 
 He drew Jeppa's head to his shoulder, but for an 
 instant his eyes sought Aletra's downcast face. 
 
 "Such words are honey and delight to the hearts of 
 the harem," answered Jeppa. "We are like sisters, 
 only closer; for the morrow cannot see us scattered as 
 the petals of a flower, one to a near harem, and one to 
 a far." 
 
 "I am young yet not thirty-five," answered Attar. 
 "My father hath had but three wives at my age; and 
 when he died he had five. And as thou knowest, he 
 had sixty years; so I have no need of haste." 
 
 "But thou wilt have more wives than thy father in 
 the fullness of time, that thy place in paradise may do 
 thy father honor when Allah calleth thee," said Jeppa 
 proudly; and then in a lower tone, as if breathing a 
 thought, she continued: "I pray we may dwell in 
 sweetness and industry to thy advantage, and that our 
 children may smile in contentment together." 
 
 With this she stretched her hand toward Zulaykha, 
 who, being at the gateway of motherhood, answered 
 with a strange smile the mystery of which haunts a 
 woman's eyes when she is in league with the Infinite 
 and a soul has been called from the vasts. 
 
 Zulaykha was part Egyptian, with eyes that seemed 
 to turn inward on some great, satisfying dream, except 
 when they rested upon Aletra; then a veil seemed to 
 fall between them and her visions of joy. She was now 
 the tender charge of Jeppa and Aletra as well.
 
 8 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "Where thou art will always be peace, O Jeppa," 
 answered Attar honestly. 
 
 "Thou speakest beautiful words; but how could there 
 be aught but peace with such sweetness as the 
 two companions thou hast given me ?" she returned 
 modestly. 
 
 Attar bowed his head in assent, and again his truant 
 eyes rested upon the curve of Aletra's neck from ear 
 to shoulder. Jeppa may or may not have noticed it, 
 but in accordance with a magnanimity that the first 
 wives of Oriental harems early school themselves to 
 acquire, she said: 
 
 "An thou hast seven wives, one for each day of the 
 week, not one will have so sweet a voice or such dancing 
 grace as Aletra." And then, wishing to please him on 
 this his last night at home, she added: "Bid her sing 
 to thee before thou goest," 
 
 Attar hesitated. It Was like praying not to be 
 scorched and then walking into the flames ; but, that he 
 hesitated was sufficient. 
 
 "Dost thou, O gentlest of women, bid her sing?" he 
 queried of Jeppa. 
 
 "Aye, that with the morning thou mayst carry beau- 
 tiful thoughts away with thee." 
 
 Aletra's face was a pale mask, neither demure nor 
 anxious, till Attar spoke; then the surge of life showed 
 delicately pink to her dark brows. 
 
 "Aletra He paused for the pure delight of ut>- 
 
 tering her name. "Aletra, sing thou of the rose and the 
 nightingale." 
 
 From her position beside Zulaykha, where she seemed 
 even smaller than the little Egyptian, Aletra rose. The 
 movement was like the unfolding of a flower delicately
 
 THEEE DOVES IN A COTE 9 
 
 deliberate, disclosing new beauties in each transition, 
 until she stood erect, a tall, slim, lily of a woman. 
 
 Each time she arose thus, it was a fresh surprise to 
 Attar. So finely was she fashioned that she gave a 
 suggestion of delicate fragility associated only with 
 small women. 
 
 Ske paused a moment and, with a supple motion, 
 turned her head and asked : 
 
 "Wilt thou that I fetch the lute?" 
 
 "Nay," said Attar, his eyes dwelling with pleasure 
 on the poised figure. But he tightened the pressure 
 about Jeppa's waist, for this was not Wednesday. 
 
 Aletra stood motionless, but her poise vibrated with 
 life. 
 
 Presently she began almost speaking the first words 
 of a Persian ghazal, with its ever-haunting words, 
 recurring and still recurring in that peculiar rhythm 
 that other nations have so vainly sought to catch. In a 
 far corner of the harem court an amber light cast a 
 faint halo upon the shadows, outlining the swaying 
 figure in its floating raiment, gently undulating like a 
 flower stirred by the breath of spring, and upon the 
 three forms on the rugs. 
 
 Aletra's heart was breaking for a look into the eyes 
 of the master ; yet not once did she raise her own. 
 
 There are two kinds of women those who look and 
 subjugate the heart of man and those who reign by 
 being looked upon. Aletra was born to be looked upon, 
 and not only was she a lure to the eye, but added to her 
 great beauty was her voice, sweet, pure, palpitating 
 with feminine seductiveness. 
 
 Moments followed each other, but the time was 
 golden-winged and bedewed with the honey of delight.
 
 10 
 
 Attar listened to the velvet-soft voice rising and falling, 
 to the tenderness and wooing of the words, to the refusal 
 and surrender of the swaying arms. 
 
 In the cadence of her voice he heard only the whisper 
 of her heart to his. The night wind from many rose- 
 gardens seemed to float about her, and their perfume 
 to nestle in her hair. 
 
 Not only with her lips did she sing, but her round, 
 slim arms, the constant fluent motion of her shapely 
 hands, her ankles and wrists and mouth and brows, 
 also sang their love-sweet harmony to the man's heart 
 and soul and senses, as his eyes rested upon her. The 
 beauty of the ghazals he only dimly comprehended ; but 
 the night and the passion of the night he understood ; 
 and it consumed him. 
 
 The gentle odor of the south wind, the incense of 
 sandal and aloe wood, and the spices that perfumed the 
 rugs, the honeyed sweetness of rose-leaves, and Aletra, 
 like a flower of the night with all the mysterious grace 
 of alluring, enchanting, forbidden womanhood burned 
 into his brain, never to be forgotten. 
 
 Through different ghazals and old Arabic and Per- 
 sian verse, she told the story of all loves the desire, 
 the heart-break, the surrender, the final merging into 
 tragedy or infinite satisfaction and then she stopped. 
 But the last word blended so gently into the silence as 
 to seem a soothing emanation from the fragrance of 
 the scented African night. 
 
 "It is beautiful," sighed Jeppa. Zulaykha appeared 
 to doze lightly ; for what is the song of the love-bird to 
 the dream of the first nestling ? Attar said nothing, and 
 Aletra turned toward the casement in the wall. 
 
 "Behold!" she cried, and pointed with arms out-
 
 THREE DOVES IN A COTE 11 
 
 stretched and head turned, "Behold the moon shineth 
 upon the mosque! Wake thou, Zulaykha, and make a 
 wish. It will touch the minaret before thou canst reach 
 the casement." 
 
 "Thou, O Aletra, canst make thy wish for my safe 
 return while I wander in strange lands/' said Attar 
 softly. 
 
 Her voice trembled as she answered : 
 
 "At every call of the muezzin." 
 
 Her eyes were not raised toward the mosque; for 
 the space of a moment they sought the master's face. 
 Neither looked he upon the mosque. Aletra held his 
 gaze. 
 
 Zulaykha, who had but seemed to doze, saw the 
 look, and in that moment all the soft docile charm of 
 her olive face vanished, and a dark tenseness seemed 
 to clothe her. None saw the look. It passed swiftly 
 as the shadow of a bird upon the wing and when 
 Jeppa spoke to her she answered in all sweetness. 
 
 Then, with the arrogance of one who expects to give 
 a son to the master, she besought fate for the safe birth 
 of a man-child with fair hair and sturdy limbs. Aletra 
 had no child or the prospect of such a blessing, and 
 Zulaykha besought Allah with wild fierceness that he 
 never permit her to bear a child for the master, only 
 girls. For in Islam, a child means a boy. 
 
 The heavy flowers of the Bougainvillea that covered 
 the white wall around the harem court looked black in 
 the shadows, and the leaves of the date-palms seemed 
 like etchings of ink upon a lambent field like fingers 
 of fate stretched toward the silver mystery of the 
 night. Above the high wall, the mosque rose darkly in 
 the distance. But even as they looked, it turned to
 
 12 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 shimmering silver as if a veil, thin as air, light as star- 
 dust, had been silently spread, luminous, gleaming, on 
 the dew-wet places till it glistened, sparkled, scintil- 
 lated, on the tiled sides of the minaret. The moon had 
 risen over Tunis. 
 
 Attar sighed deeply. 
 
 "The night groweth old, my children," he said, turn- 
 ing to Jeppa. "I had not thought it so late," he con- 
 tinued in apology to her. 
 
 "We can sleep when thou art gone," she answered. 
 
 Reluctantly he closed the casement where Aletra 
 stood, still looking, still wishing what? 
 
 "Good night, O Zulaykha," said Jeppa, admonish- 
 ingly. "Keep the mists from coming in thy casement. 
 And thou, Aletra," turning with a tenderer warmth 
 toward the other, "remember thou art not really a night- 
 ingale, nor yet a rose. Seek thy bed thou needest 
 rest." 
 
 She spoke as a mother might. 
 
 "Sweet one, let me tarry still a moment, for the 
 moon yet lies upon the mosque," answered Aletra, who 
 had opened the casement a little way to look again 
 upon the night. 
 
 "Stay, then, but not overlong. See, Zulaykha hath 
 gone, and the master will hold me accountable for his 
 nightingale." 
 
 "I will stay but a short moment," said the girl. 
 
 "Good night, O Aletra," said Attar as he led Jeppa 
 to her part of the harem. A moment more and she had 
 passed within the room, but he paused in the doorway, 
 for Aletra had not answered. Very softly, as if Allah 
 or his listening soul might hear, he whispered with 
 infinite tenderness:
 
 THEEE DOVES IN A COTE 13 
 
 "Aletra!" 
 
 He held out his arms as he spoke. She heard, but 
 did not see. He waited for her to turn, but she did not. 
 She was at war with Allah and his law; she dared not 
 look. Then she said: 
 
 "Good night, my master." It was almost a sob. 
 
 Attar took a step forward. His face was pale, his 
 eyes tragic with the weight of the law of Allah. 
 
 Aletra did not turn, but buried her face in her arms. 
 He took another step toward her, then paused. Jeppa 
 was moving about in the room but he did not go in. 
 He stood irresolute torn between the primal instinct 
 for the one woman and an inherited tradition in an 
 agony of indecision. He took another step forward 
 wavered, then quickly turning, passed within to Jeppa 
 and closed the olive-wood door.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 LONG before the breaking of dawn the household of 
 Attar abu Hamed al Hassen was astir, for with the 
 muezzin's call to sunrise prayer the master would begin 
 his journey to the far distant Occident. Even in the 
 harem the children were awakened after the first sleepy 
 crowing of the cocks. 
 
 There was Hamed, first and most important of all, 
 the eldest son, by Jeppa. He was now fourteen, and 
 many had been the talks of getting him a wife. Such 
 girl-children of ten or twelve as were taken to the 
 baths commanded Jeppa's closest attention. 
 
 For the young men of the Orient are indebted to 
 their mothers for their first wives. Education and 
 accomplishments enter into the consideration, but birth, 
 beauty, health, and the ability to embroider are essen- 
 tials. Yet no girl had commended herself sufficiently 
 in Jeppa's eyes to be worthy of her beautiful boy. 
 
 Then there was Selim, a nephew, a lad of seventeen, 
 who was to follow Attar in half a year with merchan- 
 dise that the camels would bring from across the desert. 
 He was tall, but slim and pale. He had lately broken 
 his leg and still walked with supports. 
 
 There were also two other children, girls, who were 
 in the harem with the women. One of them belonged 
 
 14
 
 "WEAK FOE LOVE OF THEE" 15 
 
 to Jeppa Zema, who was eight years old. The other, 
 Zittarra, was the child of a kinsman who had perished 
 in the desert ten years before. 
 
 Zittarra could embroider more beautifully than any 
 other girl of her age. Already there had been two 
 askings for her in marriage. Though she was not quite 
 thirteen, she was finely developed and of modest mien, 
 and her beauty occasioned much admiration in the 
 baths. These all shared Attar's fatherly attention. 
 
 Again and again he folded each child in his arms 
 with great affection, and many were the admonishing, 
 tender or encouraging words he gave them on this, his 
 last morning at home. 
 
 Of the women Zulaykha was the chief recipient of 
 his attentions she being so near to becoming a mother. 
 
 Many times had the master and Zulaykha discussed 
 the naming of the babe that would come in his absence. 
 But it was only on this morning that they decided 
 that, if it were a boy, it should be called Jafiz, and if a 
 girl, Shireen. 
 
 "Jeppa," said Attar, when he had soothed Zulaykha, 
 "thou wilt buy what silks and canvas thou shalt need 
 at Verna's Bazaar, and teach Zema her lute, and have 
 good care that Hamed take not the fever " 
 
 Here he was interrupted by little Zema's kisses as she 
 clung to him, begging: 
 
 "Bring to me a golden mendeel with jewels when 
 thou returnest." 
 
 "Yea ! That will I," he answered. 
 
 "Forget not my horse," cried Hamed through the 
 casement, "and a sword, O my father!" 
 
 "Is that all thou cravest?" asked Attar.
 
 16 
 
 "Yea, I would rather have them than a wife I 
 like not girls." 
 
 "Thou art wise, my son. It troubleth the heart to 
 get them, and it breaketh the heart to leave them." 
 
 With this he embraced Zulaykha his Tuesday wife 
 and tried to dry her tears with his kerchief. The 
 children cried and clung about their father with the 
 tenacity of imperious youth. 
 
 Jeppa was pale, but soothed little Zema with loving 
 words and promises. She possessed the grace of ex- 
 treme womanliness, impossible for manhood to ignore. 
 Feeling this, Attar reached over Zulaykha's head and, 
 laying his hand lightly on her shoulders, said : 
 
 "May Allah guide and keep thee, O Jeppa thee 
 and thy children. Thou art in truth my good wife, and 
 I will love thee well." 
 
 Jeppa raised her eyes. In them lay the world- 
 old look of womanhood inscrutable, mysterious, 
 disconcerting. 
 
 "I will treasure thy words," she answered with 
 lowered eyes that gave him the sense of having seen 
 into a strange country, and then suddenly having had 
 it closed from his view. Zulaykha's weeping became 
 hysterical as the time of parting grew near visions of 
 disaster tormented her. 
 
 "We shall never see thee again ! My boy will never 
 hear thee calling Allah's blessings upon his head !" she 
 moaned. 
 
 "Peace, Zulaykha ! Art thou not of the faithful ? 
 Canst thou not trust the might of Allah's hand to bear 
 me back again?" 
 
 "Yea, O master; I will try. But if the water or the
 
 "WEAK FOR LOVE OF THEE" 17 
 
 ravening world of which thou hast told us should con- 
 sume thee, or I should go while giving life to thy child, 
 make thou a tryst with me, I pray, in paradise, that I 
 may be again with thee and hear thy voice!" she said 
 brokenly. 
 
 "It shall be as thou sayest, Zulaykha. If aught 
 befall me, I shall call thee, too, to paradise. Now, dry 
 thine eyes and cheer thy heart for naught is there in 
 the great world to fear, and always at the hour of 
 prayer, though I hear not the muezzin's call, my heart 
 will turn to Allah. Fear not, and let thy parting 
 courage give me peace to carry on my journey." 
 
 As he spoke he soothed the weeping woman with 
 tender looks and soft caresses. But even as the words 
 fell from his lips he wondered that Aletra came not 
 before him. 
 
 At first he was not sorry to have it so, for Jeppa 
 perhaps had seen enough to wound her gentle heart the 
 night before and he was trying to live a blameless life 
 before Allah. But when Aletra did not come, and it 
 neared the time of his departure, he grew anxious. 
 
 "She, too, hath had her struggle through the long 
 white hours of the night, even as I ; she, too, hath con- 
 quered, even as I," he thought. But he listened for 
 her footsteps and grew restless. 
 
 When at last there remeained but half an hour he 
 asked Jeppa: 
 
 "Where is Aletra ? She waketh late on such a day." 
 
 And Jeppa answered: 
 
 "Blame her not, O master she loveth thee well, as 
 thou knowest, and hath gone to the bazaar, that she 
 may get thee a parting gift to take away with thee."
 
 18 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 Even while Jeppa was speaking a wave of great 
 happiness rushed over him, and his voice was as soft 
 as the wind in spring-time when he objected: 
 
 "But the distance is great. She may not return in 
 time!" 
 
 Then Jeppa veiled her eyes and answered low so 
 that Zulaykha might not hear: 
 
 "Her way is past the road to the harbor where thy 
 ship lieth. If she come not here in time thou wilt meet 
 her on the way." 
 
 Then, though she saw it not, his eyes beamed upon 
 her with such gratitude that almost it had seemed 
 love, but it was not. For though he thought his heart 
 was full and overflowing he had not yet known love. 
 
 The precious moments passed. They could not fly 
 too swiftly for to part with Aletra with no other eye 
 to see was something he had not dared to pray for. 
 
 Zulaykha still moaned her omens of disaster, but she 
 had grown less vehement, and there was resignation in 
 her cry: "Salaam Alek!" The children echoed Zu- 
 laykha's lamentations. Jeppa alone stood calm, reas- 
 suring, comforting. 
 
 "It is time that thou didst go," she said at last. "I 
 will do what is in the path before me. Comfort thou 
 thine heart that all will be well in thy harem, and have 
 no evil forebodings about thy journey. Allah will keep 
 thee safe." 
 
 Almost reverently Attar put his hand upon her head 
 without speech, for his heart was full. Then, turning, 
 he again embraced each of the children and repeated the 
 bismillah, without which no Moslem begins a journey; 
 then turned and almost fled out of the harem, out of the 
 courtyard, into the street, into the gray dawn, where 
 Aletra waited.
 
 "WEAK FOE LOVE OF THEE" 19 
 
 But when the gate of the harem had closed upon him 
 Zulaykha rose and her face grew dark. 
 
 "Aletra?" she questioned. "What didst thou mur- 
 mur to the master concerning Aletra? And where 
 hideth she that she may steal the master's love?" 
 
 "Peace, Zulaykha," said Jeppa softly. 
 
 "Peace sayest thou? Peace bideth not in a house 
 where one craveth all." 
 
 Jeppa made no answer ; the Egyptian crouched again 
 upon the rugs in sullen anger. 
 
 Attar had gone some distance when he passed an 
 ancient temple. Stopping to look about him he felt a 
 touch light as the dropping of a leaf upon his arm. 
 Impatient of the delay he questioned : 
 
 "Who art thou ? And what wilt thou ? I am in haste 
 to go to meet my ship." 
 
 "O master!" came a voice from the folds of the veil. 
 
 "Aletra ! Thou !" he said softly ; and drew her into 
 the shadow of the wall. With impatient fingers he 
 lifted her veil and looked into her eyes. 
 
 "O master, master!" she sobbed, and her soul was 
 on her lips. "I cannot let thee go." 
 
 "Nay, thou shouldst be brave like unto Jeppa," he 
 chided fondly. 
 
 "Ah, Jeppa hath her children that are of thee, and 
 Zulaykha her hope, and the children have their dreams 
 but I have only thee." 
 
 In the hidden recess of the ruins where they stood 
 she dropped the dark haik from her shoulders and 
 threw her arms before her face. 
 
 "Nay, but thou knowest that it is meet that I go, 
 my Flower of Paradise. It is the will of Allah," he 
 remonstrated soothingly. 
 
 "I cannot let thee go," she said again.
 
 20 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 He took her slender hands from before her face and 
 placed them about his neck. The contact calmed the 
 white anguish in her face, and as he put his arm about 
 her she trembled. Her body swayed like a reed on his 
 supporting arm, and when his lips touched hers and 
 lingered in their ardor she scarcely breathed in the 
 supremacy of her happiness the divine sufficiency of 
 love's moment lest he note the time and release her. 
 
 She saw his face bent above her ; she felt the strength 
 of his arm, and would have been content to die, for the 
 bliss of eternity was crowded into the flying moments. 
 She lay in his arms almost inert, yielding, half aswoon. 
 
 He bent his head, and his eyes feasted upon the 
 lissom figure in its clinging garments. The grace of 
 the delicate limbs, the absolute abandon, the childish 
 helplessness, the heavenly sweetness of her brows and 
 mouth and closed eyes and curved cheek as she swayed 
 like a flower in his arms delighted him. His gaze 
 consumed her ; she felt it through the magic of a sense 
 we comprehend not. A slight tenseness ran through 
 the slim body, and the faintest movement of resistance. 
 But Attar crushed her to him and again sought her 
 lips. The clinging tenderness of his kisses robbed her 
 of all strength, and she surrendered her will, as she 
 had her flowerlike body, to the strength of his caresses. 
 
 Then suddenly a great shame fell upon her. With 
 her soft hands she lifted his head, and, looking into 
 the fire of his eyes, whispered despairingly: 
 
 "Thou lovest me not." 
 
 "I love thee not ?" 
 
 "Nay thou lovest me not, O master!" 
 
 "And thinkest thou I know not the time is fleeing! 
 Hast thou not made a coward of me ? Am I not grown 
 so weak for love of thee that I sail not to-day ?"
 
 "WEAK FOR LOVE OF THEE" 21 
 
 "Not sail today, thou sayest?" 
 
 "Nay." 
 
 "Thou wilt sail to-day," she answered, and she tried 
 to free herself ; but he would not let her go. 
 
 H)e drew her closer, and began in a softer tone : 
 
 "My cherry-blossom, my cassiabud, my beautiful 
 hyacinth thou art sweeter than all the spices in the 
 Sultan's seraglio, O delight of my heart! Last night 
 it seemed as if thou hadst a bird imprisoned in thy 
 throat that could make men forget all honor, right, 
 Allah himself and I tried to hold the thought of thee 
 from me as I would one of the great sins, as became the 
 husband of so perfect a wife as Jeppa. For it was 
 Monday, and Monday was hers. But when I slept, 
 when my soul was free, I dreamed of thee O Aletra, 
 I dreamed of thee!" he repeated softly. 
 
 "And I dreamed of thee," she whispered. 
 
 "And what was thy dream ?" 
 
 "I dreamed," she answered and her eyes looked 
 into the distance, as one who sees into the unseen, and 
 her words came slowly and very low "I dreamed that 
 I knew thou didst love me; that there was a great 
 throng, greater than a thousand caravans coming in 
 from the desert all strange. 
 
 "I dreamed that I had lost thee, and my search was 
 as for a grain of millet in the sands of the Sahara, or 
 on the shore of the sea; and and then I heard thee 
 say : 'Aletra, I love thee well ; and time and multitude 
 and distance are as nothing in the hand of love.' And 
 then I felt thy arms about me, even as now." 
 
 Again he strained her to him, but she resisted. 
 
 "Why dost thou turn from me?" he asked im- 
 patiently. 
 
 "It is time that thou didst go."
 
 22 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "Nay, for I go not to-day. I wait another ship 
 another Wednesday," he said softly. 
 
 "But thy holdings are in this?" 
 
 "They are safe." 
 
 "Nay, thou goest now. There still is time." 
 
 With this she tried to free herself from the great 
 arms that held her. So they stood, she who had flown 
 to him trying to release herself. At last he let his arms 
 fall from her and stood back. 
 
 "It is thou who lovest me not," he said reproachfully. 
 
 Then Aletra lifted her eyes. There was in them 
 that which he never had seen before. So the houris of 
 paradise must look, he thought, when they proffer the 
 essence of love that has passed through its last dis- 
 tillation and has been purified of Allah. So frail, so 
 heaven-born sweet, she looked, that he dared not touch 
 her. 
 
 He had told her that she did not love him; and for 
 answer, she had lifted a corner of the curtain of para- 
 dise, and shown him her soul, stainless in its purity, 
 perfect in its love. As he looked, the burning, eager 
 splendor of his eyes changed, and a new light shone 
 from them ; and his countenance was transformed. 
 
 So love quickened and was born in his consciousness. 
 And though they touched each other not so much as by 
 the tips of their fingers, they were nearer than the 
 rapturous ardor of clinging lips had ever brought them. 
 
 "Now, O My Heart, shalt thou go," she whispered. 
 
 "Yea, but I go not alone. Thy love goeth with me." 
 
 "And I stay not alone, for thy love bideth beside 
 me," she answered. 
 
 The newly risen sun touched the dome of the distant 
 mosque as with a thousand golden spears; and the
 
 "WEAK FOR LOVE OF THEE" 23 
 
 muezzin's call floated to them on the breath of the 
 morning wind ; but when it had ceased Aletra cried : 
 
 "Haste, haste! Thy ship, thy ship!" and she pointed 
 toward the harbor. But Attar, still dazed with the 
 new mystery of womanhood, said: 
 
 "I go. But how canst thou send me now, when thou 
 hast cried within the hour: '0 master, I cannot let 
 thee go' ?" 
 
 And she made answer with feigned lightness to hide 
 the tears that were so near: 
 
 "Knowest thou not that it is harder for a woman 
 to part from the man she loveth, if he would go, than 
 if he would tarry?" 
 
 With this she gathered her veil that she had cast 
 aside, and made it fast with trembling fingers. 
 
 "Thou hast not the space of a moment to lose," she 
 counseled. "Go thou, and Allah and my love go with 
 thee." 
 
 Then, seeing that he would tarry, she gathered her 
 Jiabrah about her and fled. 
 
 Attar called to her and started to follow, but she 
 heeded him not as she sped swiftly on between the 
 crumbled walls of the temple. Seeing that she would 
 not obey he paused, and looking up beheld her on a 
 part of the ruin just above him. 
 
 "O master, master," she said slowly. "An thou 
 knowest love, which in truth is the essence of wisdom, 
 hasten thou with all speed to thy ship." 
 
 Then, as Attar looked for a foothold to reach her, she 
 turned and once more vanished between the broken 
 columns. When her face no longer tempted him he 
 thought of her words:
 
 24 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "An thou knowest love, which in truth is the essence 
 of wisdom, hasten thou with all speed to thy ship." 
 
 And, sighing, he took his way toward the road to 
 the harbor. 
 
 Attar Al Hassen had scant time to reach the waterside 
 and embark. 
 
 As the ship swung into the golden path of the newly 
 risen sun he strained his eyes for a sight of the fleeing 
 black figure of Aletra. Back and forth his gaze roamed 
 from the ruins to different openings or gates in the 
 walls of the fast receding city, but he could catch no 
 glimpse of her. 
 
 Then suddenly he saw her. She had not left the 
 ruins, but had wound her way between the fallen walls 
 and pillars, each higher than the othor, till at last she 
 stood clear against the sky, upon the furthermost pro- 
 jection looking toward the sea. The sun was full upon 
 her. 
 
 As he looked, she unwound her veil and let it float 
 like a misty cloud of incense as if it would remind him 
 of its lingering perfume of lotus and amber, which 
 still clung to his garments. 
 
 "Aletra!" he said softly; "Aletra!" 
 
 As if she had heard, the tiny glint of white shone 
 for the time of a breath against the gray veil. Then, 
 as a silver cloud obscured the intense brightness of the 
 sun, she disappeared like a vapor, leaving no trace, and 
 he saw her no longer.
 
 CHAPTEK III 
 
 WORD FROM THE MASTER AND A DREAD 
 
 IT was August in the harem court of Attar ahu 
 Hamed al Hassen. Two months had passed since the 
 master had journeyed to the far Occident with rugs 
 and silks and precious carvings. His three wives now 
 sat upon the rugs, much as they had sat the evening 
 before his departure Jeppa next to the main opening, 
 embroidering, as also was Aletra. 
 
 The mid-summer heat drew the perfume from the 
 very heart of the roses, even as their stems grew weak 
 and let the burden of blossoms droop their heads like 
 tired maidens at noontime. 
 
 The heavy flowers of the Bougainvillea, warmly 
 purple, showed upon the white wall of the court be- 
 yond. A small lemon tree cast a light shade upon the 
 ground. Zulaykha held her babe up for the hundredth 
 time to trace the lineaments of Attar in its unmolded 
 countenance. 
 
 "Hamed hath looked thus when he was a babe," said 
 Jeppa. Zulaykha turned half indignantly, and cast a 
 doubting look upon her. 
 
 "Had he so strong and lusty a body, then ?" 
 
 And Jeppa, looking again upon the infant, an- 
 swered : 
 
 "Nay, he was stricken with a fever that would not 
 
 25
 
 26 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 mend. And the master feared that he would not long 
 bless our lives." Then she added softly : "But I knew 
 that he would." 
 
 "How didst thou know?" asked Zulaykha, putting 
 her hand to her own child's head lovingly. Then she 
 added in agitation: 
 
 "Feel thou his brow, O Jeppa. Doth it not seem 
 hot to thee ?" 
 
 Jeppa slowly fastened her needle in her work, and 
 felt the infant's head. Then she smiled, and said : 
 
 "Nay, Zulaykha, all is well with him; but thou wilt 
 have many frights before he doth see his first year. 
 They are a part of motherhood." 
 
 Aletra lifted her head to a rose-jar that stood near 
 an opening in the harem court where they sat. 
 
 "They have both given sons to Attar," she thought, 
 "while I am like the roses wilting in the cool kiosks" ; 
 and she sighed. 
 
 "What lieth so heavy upon thy heart, Aletra ?" asked 
 Jeppa. "Is aught amiss with thy altar-cloth?" 
 
 "Nay; it groweth under my hands well," she 
 answered. 
 
 "But thinkest thou such dogs of Christians will like 
 a mosque broidered upon their altars ?" asked Zulaykha, 
 stroking the head of her sleeping child. 
 
 For the piece Aletra was working on was to go to 
 an English church. 
 
 "I doubt it not," said Aletra. "For hath not the 
 master told us of great temples fashioned like the 
 mosques of the Byzantines even in the far New Coun- 
 try where he now journeyeth ?" 
 
 "It should be a great land," said Jeppa, "taking five 
 days' swift travel to get from one side to the other."
 
 WORD FEOM THE MASTEE 27 
 
 "He saith no word of bringing any other wife from 
 that country. It would cost much ; it is so far. I pray 
 he do not. And what sayest thou, Aletra?" smiled 
 Zulaykha. For the coming of a new wife is usually 
 felt the worst by the last one preceding when the num- 
 ber of wives is small, especially if a stranger is selected 
 by the husband. 
 
 "I care not," answered Aletra while a smile and 
 rosy blush mounted to her brow at the memory of her 
 parting with Attar. 
 
 "So thou sayest now," laughed Zulaykha, "But 
 wait till he entereth with some golden-haired lily of the 
 West, and biddeth thee love her for his sake. 
 Then- 
 
 "Then," quickly interrupted Aletra, "should I love 
 her for his sake. It could not make as much as the 
 weight of a feather difference." 
 
 Jeppa always had admired Aletra, But as she 
 looked at her now calm, beautiful, without fear she 
 loved her. 
 
 Jeppa had been selected for Attar by his mother 
 when she was but ten years old; and the first few 
 months after she was brought to the harem, she was a 
 frightened child. Two years later his mother died ; and 
 in soothing the boy-husband's sorrow, she had begun a 
 comprehending, comforting friendship. 
 
 This friendship lasted through the years. But love, 
 timid and trembling at the door of her heart, had been 
 frightened away when Zulaykha was given to Attar by 
 a great ameer and was made welcome as a wife. She 
 loved Attar, but the full expression of her affection 
 was only for her children, and of late for Aletra.
 
 28 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "Why carest thou not?" persisted Zulaykha tor- 
 mentingly. 
 
 "For that it maketh no difference," said Aletra 
 sweetly. 
 
 "Oh, oh ! Art thou then so sure of always being the 
 favorite?" said Zulaykha. 
 
 "Peace, peace !" interrupted Jeppa. "When one day 
 of the week is greater than another, then will there be 
 favorites." 
 
 "Thou art right, O Jeppa," said Aletra. 
 
 Having spoken, she began to fold her work. There 
 was a deft grace about the movement that made it a 
 delight to look upon. As she leaned lightly against the 
 rose-jar, she smiled upon Jeppa; the smile lingered like 
 a clinging caress and its winning sweetness warmed 
 the heart of the older woman. 
 
 There was an awkward silence after Jeppa' s reproof, 
 which presently was broken by the call to evening 
 prayer, "Allah hu Ak Bar! Allah hu Ak Bar!" As the 
 three women prostrated themselves, a spear of sunshine 
 shot through an opening in the walled court and, like 
 a benediction from the skies, touched Aletra's head 
 with its brightness. 
 
 The place was silent. No sound of traffic or speech 
 marred the sudden stillness only the slow sonorous 
 chant of the muezzin: "God is most great! God is 
 most great!" 
 
 The slanting sunlight touched the little group with 
 the magic of beauty. A bee drowsed languidly over 
 the roses. The yellow curtains floated softly in the 
 casement openings. The spell of the hour was over all. 
 The chanting continued, "Allah hu Ak Bar! Allah hu 
 Ak Bar!" Then it ceased, and a great wave of sound 
 like the surge of the sea, filled the world about.
 
 WORD FEOM THE MASTER 29 
 
 The moment with Allah in the silence was past. 
 The three women rose, smiled at each other, and Jeppa 
 and Aletra folded their work while Zulaykha still 
 fondled her babe. The day was coming to a close, as 
 many other days had come and gone, without incident 
 for this is the manner of harem life when Hamed 
 rushed to his mother, crying: 
 
 "A letter! A letter!" 
 
 Instantly there was a great stir, and exclamations of 
 impatience came from Zulaykha and Hamed as Jeppa 
 opened the letter and silently scanned the first pages. 
 
 "Allah is merciful and compassionate," she said. 
 "All is well. I will read it to ye." And she read: 
 
 "Blessing upon thee, O Jeppa: 
 
 "Allah be with thee in the brightness of the morning and 
 when the night cometh down in darkness with thee and 
 Zulaykha and Aletra, and all that are in my harem. 
 
 "I am alone in a great khan a hotel, they call it thinking 
 of my sun and my moon and my stars in the little court gar- 
 den beyond the waters and the land that stretcheth between. 
 
 "What civilization is this, that separateth a man from his 
 wives ! But for the laws made by these pigs of Christians, 
 thou and Zulaykha and Aletra would be here with me and 
 I would be happy. As it is, I turn my face to the East, and 
 wish for mine own they that Allah, out of his bounty, hath 
 given me. 
 
 "I hunger with a great desire for the sound of soft 
 voices and a word in Arabic, and the thirst of my heart 
 will not be slaked. I laugh aloud at the simple thought of 
 these infidels. But yesterday, one bath said to me: 'Dost 
 thou not think it better to have one wife, as is our custom 
 here?' 
 
 "And I made answer: 'N"ay! Nay! I think it most un- 
 seemly.' 
 
 "And again I told him: It would be the work of three 
 wives to do that which your wife doeth of work in the harem' 
 home, they call it 'ministering to ber children.' 
 
 " 'But she would rather die than have me take another wife,
 
 30 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 even if I could/ he made answer. And his one wife, who was 
 present for here, husbands take any man into their harems, 
 and let them speak to their unveiled wives spoke, saying: 
 'A woman endureth much for the surety that she only and her 
 children will be cherished by her husband.' 
 
 "And I said to her: 'Ah, madam, our women are not like 
 that. They love one another, and are like sisters; and the 
 child of one is the care of all the others. They speak softly, 
 and move like the flowers, and are not jealous.' 
 
 "Then I told them of thee, Jeppa, and how lonely thou 
 wouldst be without Zulaykha and Aletra. And I showed 
 them the letter thou hadst sent me telling of Zulaykha's 
 beautiful boy, and how thou didst pray Allah that night of 
 her great suffering. I had to translate it, as she knew only 
 her own tongue. 
 
 "But she said thy writing was beautiful, and was amazed 
 that Mohammedan women had any book knowledge. I told 
 her of Aletra's speaking and writing five tongues, and of 
 Zulaykha's beautiful embroideries, and of thine art with the 
 flute. As it was Wednesday, I carried Aletra's kerchief and 
 I showed it her; and she marveled again that I had not 
 my own name on it in place of Aletra's. Her husband has 
 his own initial on his kerchiefs the pig! 
 
 "Ever they marvel that I desire not to live in their country. 
 
 "Nay ! Nay ! My children give me the soft music of the 
 muezzin's call, and the winds murmuring through mimosa 
 trees, the rose-gardens, the shady kiosks, the spices, the rugs, 
 and above all, the women, of the East, with their uncramped 
 bodies and screened faces and soft tongues. 
 
 "There are those here, O my Doves, who would come with 
 me if I asked them. The unveiled eyes of many are boldly 
 looking for men. I want none of them but hunger for a 
 sight of mine own! 
 
 "Tell Zulaykha to write everything about her boy. I re- 
 joice that Hamed and Zema heed thy word and learn of thee. 
 
 "Tell Aletra not to weaken her eyes working by night on 
 her broidery, as thou sayest she doth. I send her my loving 
 commands to get her rest, and not sit the night out." 
 
 Here Jeppa paused in the reading, and looking at 
 Aletra said:
 
 WORD FEOM THE MASTER 31 
 
 "I told thee I would tell him!" 
 
 Then she continued to read minute instructions 
 about the buying of supplies, and other household mat- 
 ters. Then came the prayer, without which the Moslem 
 never closed his letter : 
 
 "In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate! 
 May he protect ye from the darkness of the night which 
 falleth like a cloak upon dangers, known and unknown; and 
 from the storm and the lightning that issue therefrom; and 
 preserve thee in sweet peace, till I shall come again. Rest 
 secure, O little household, in the love of thy absent master. 
 "ATTAR ABU HAMED AL HASSEN." 
 
 A sigh of contentment issued in unison from the lips 
 of the three women, followed by a fervent "Great is 
 Allah !" 
 
 "He saith naught of bringing my yataghan," said 
 Hamed disappointedly, leaving the harem. 
 
 Jeppa still held the letter, rereading certain parts, 
 when she turned the last page and found there an 
 added paragraph. 
 
 "More followeth!" she exclaimed in surprise; and 
 she read: 
 
 "I have but just met a man and family, fresh from Aca. 
 They tell me the Imaum there, Abdul Baha, hath ever a 
 multitude about him. They say this Imaum is the Blessed 
 Perfection, and many believe he is the Messiah, or the Lord 
 Isa (Jesus) come to life again. 
 
 "This man from Aca hath a son and two daughters. They 
 speak Arabic, Persian, Spanish, French, and some English. 
 
 "I may have a surprise for ye when I return to the East. 
 I hasten now with this to the ship. Hafiz, the kinsman of 
 Nazar, will bring it to thee, and the time is short. 
 
 "Allah be with thee. 
 
 "A." 
 
 This second reading dampened the sweet sense of
 
 32 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 pleasurable security left by the first. Jeppa folded the 
 letter with great care, creasing it again and again, and 
 said nothing. Zulaykha lifted her thick brows and 
 pursed her lips. 
 
 "We might well expect it," she said at last. "I felt 
 a whispering of it." 
 
 "Expect what ?" said Aletra, lifting her head. 
 
 "Another wife." 
 
 "He saith naught of another wife ?" 
 
 "Nay. But that is what he meaneth." 
 
 "How knowest thou what he meaneth?" returned 
 Aletra. But her face wore the paleness of death, and 
 her eyes held in their depths the inscrutable world-old 
 look of womanhood.
 
 CHAPTEK IV 
 
 ALETBA'S PBAYEB TO THE MOON 
 
 IT was nearing midnight in the harem of Attar abu 
 Hamed al Hassen. Jeppa heard Aletra leave her 
 bed and make her way softly to the roof. The moon 
 had not yet risen and only the soft starlight marked 
 the shadow-wrapped minarets about the city, the 
 seraglio in the distance and the nearer mosque. 
 
 The girl stood with her eyes cast down and her head 
 bent, murmuring: 
 
 "O Allah, most Just, most Merciful, protect thou 
 him from the witchery of the strangers those that 
 look upon him with desire and would tempt him from 
 the true faith." 
 
 A thin, gray veil fluttered about her shoulders, and 
 her unbound hair fell about her face in billowy 
 splendor. 
 
 Jeppa had followed, not to spy, but to comfort and 
 soothe. Now, being come, she hesitated. Aletra stood 
 motionless looking toward the mosque, as if waiting. 
 Presently long shadows leaped from the walls and they 
 were dark, threadlike, lacy etchings upon the white 
 gravel in the court below. 
 
 Then suddenly the bright moonlight fell silveringly 
 upon the shining tiles of the minarets. And as Jeppa 
 watched in the shadow the girl lifted her hands and 
 sank upon her knees. 
 
 33
 
 34: THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "Allah, Allah, Allah!" she breathed. "Tell him 
 that Aletra keepeth her tryst with him that as the 
 moon now shineth upon the mosque so my love falleth 
 upon him. The country is far where he journey eth, O 
 heart of Allah! But the moon seeketh him out and 
 findeth him, even there. Even so, my heart goeth across 
 the world to him. Tell him this, O soul of Allah, or 
 I perish. 
 
 "Forgive thou my transgressions that I call to him 
 across the world for this being Monday, his heart be- 
 longeth to Jeppa the gentle, the true, the lovely one. 
 Give her the dream of paradise as she resteth in chaste 
 obedience to thy law, and let the perfect ones of para- 
 dise kiss her brow ; while I I, in my torment beseech 
 thee for a sign, a word that the master hath not 
 forgotten me. 
 
 "But even, O most just Allah, even if he should tear 
 my heart, keep thou him from the darkness of the night 
 and the darkness of the waters, and preserve him unto 
 paradise." 
 
 Then, as if in answer to her cry, the voice of the 
 muezzin floated tenderly on the midnight air. As she 
 prostrated herself, it fell like answering balm on her 
 anguished senses, and a great wave of peace swept over 
 her, even as the dawn creeps over the hushed darkness 
 of the night, revealing the promise of day. 
 
 Jeppa had crept closer while the frenzy of the prayer 
 lasted; so that, as they rose when the muezzin's voice 
 had died, the two women faced each other. Jeppa 
 opened her arms, and Aletra, knowing that the other 
 had seen the nakedness of her soul, fell upon her neck 
 and wept. 
 
 "My heart, I am wicked. Touch me not, lest thy
 
 ALETEA'S PKAYER TO THE MOON 35 
 
 purity be defiled," said the girl ; the older woman held 
 her the tighter. 
 
 "Answer, for thou art the soul of truth," sobbed 
 Aletra. "How didst th6u feel when Zulaykha was 
 brought here?" 
 
 Jeppa made no answer. 
 
 "Speak!" 
 
 "It is so long." 
 
 "Yea, but the memory of woman is long." 
 
 "I was but a child." 
 
 "Children are we always ; but Allah hath given us to 
 feel." 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 "Answer, Jeppa thou perfect one. How was it 
 with thee when Zulaykha was brought here?" 
 
 Still no answer. 
 
 "ISTay, thou shalt not tell me for by no word am I 
 answered better than by words." 
 
 Then Jeppa lifted her head and said : 
 
 "I was as thou art now and thou wilt be as I am 
 now." 
 
 "Never I Though I live an hundred lives." 
 
 "The time is not yet fulfilled." 
 
 "]STor ever will be." 
 
 "I fear nothing from the master's words," the first 
 wife continued, ignoring the vehement denials of the 
 other. "It is but the poison of Zulaykha's tongue that 
 rankleth in thy bosom." 
 
 "What other meaning have his words?" asked 
 Aletra. 
 
 "They could mean a thousand things a pilgrimage, 
 a fortune, gifts, honors anything but a woman." 
 
 "Why not a woman?"
 
 36 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "That least of all would he speak of. He is a man. 
 Thou hast yet that to learn. Men prate not, as do 
 women, of that which they know causeth trouble. They 
 act." 
 
 "But, my eyes " 
 
 "There is yet another reason." 
 
 "What reason?" 
 
 "He loveth thee too well." 
 
 "Jeppa, I bade him Salaam Alek alone I robbed 
 Zulaykha of one moment of bliss." 
 
 "I know," said Jeppa, 
 
 "How didst thou know?" with surprise as she held 
 Jeppa from her and looked questioningly into her eyes. 
 
 "I sent him." 
 
 "Thou!" 
 
 "Yea I told him thou wouldst meet him on the 
 way; and he hath not been able to conceal his joy nay, 
 consume me not with thy kisses," she added. 
 
 "Thou hast brought the blossom of comfort to my 
 heart. Of a truth, Allah hath given me my word, my 
 sign. Praise be unto him !" 
 
 "Even so," said Jeppa. 
 
 "Yet am I ungrateful, and wish that I might have 
 first seen the light in the New Country." 
 
 "Blaspheme not lest thou bringest the wrath of 
 Allah upon thy head!" 
 
 "Didst thou hear aught? Harken!" Aletra whis- 
 pered. 
 
 "It is but the stirring of Zulaykha's child." 
 
 Then, fearing that the mother would rise to comfort 
 her babe, and be wounded to find them in secret speech, 
 they made their way back, past Zulaykha and into their 
 softly curtained rooms, with careful footfalls and a 
 silent embrace at parting.
 
 CKAPTEK Y 
 
 IN THE PASSING SOUL OF SUMMER 
 
 THE soul of the summer was passing in the harem 
 of Attar abu Hamed al Hassen. Flowers that had 
 bloomed for months were dying from an overdose of 
 life, like broken beauties that have lived too much. 
 Even the colors of such as still blossomed were faded 
 and faint. 
 
 In August there came a strange sickness. Some said 
 the caravans brought it from beyond the desert; others 
 said it was the hand of the Prophet against the unfaith- 
 ful and even the faithful who consorted with the 
 infidel Christians. But such poison did it spread upon 
 the air that where one died of the sickness ten were 
 stricken, and almost none rose up to health again. 
 
 In September the women stopped visiting in the 
 harems. When October came the baths were deserted. 
 If it became known that one was sick, whether in the 
 most costly seraglio or the poorest hut, the people fled; 
 and so great was the fear of the plague that if any of the 
 household appeared those who saw her cried : "Hence, 
 hence ! Why wouldst thou defile us ?" or, in the case 
 of a relative, "Why wouldst thou encompass the de- 
 struction of our children?" 
 
 When the kinsmen of the stricken besought, "Give 
 us food or we perish," the more compassionate would 
 
 37
 
 38 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 leave food at a certain place but refused coin lest they 
 might become affected. 
 
 Often a slight illness was taken for the plague, be- 
 cause such as had it would ever call it by some other 
 name. Everywhere there was hiding and deception. 
 Sometimes even death was concealed that the mem- 
 bers of the family might have one day more to go forth 
 to the bazaars and buy food. 
 
 The sickness spread, and nothing was done to prevent 
 it. The government took no steps, or very weak ones, 
 and the merchants feared lest their holdings should be 
 condemned if the truth became known. So there were 
 great numbers of the stricken in hiding. Often children 
 would go to the schools in the mosques fresh from the 
 embrace of plague victims and remain. Again, others 
 were driven away because a brother had perhaps been 
 moaning with the toothache the night before. 
 
 In the harem of Attar all was quiet. The women 
 stayed at home for the most part But in October 
 Hamed fell ill unto death. Jeppa did not summon a 
 physician, but brewed medicine of foreign powders 
 that the master had brought with him from his travels 
 two years before, and which was said to possess magic 
 for deadly fevers. 
 
 Zulaykha had fled with her child at the first fear of 
 danger. As none would take her in she returned to the 
 harem. But she ran with her babe and screamed when- 
 ever she caught sight of Jeppa. Aletra wanted to help 
 nurse the sick boy, but the mother would not let her. 
 
 "Keep thy strength," she said, "for Zulaykha may 
 need thee." 
 
 So through the days and the nights that followed 
 Jeppa nursed her first-born alone, with a mother's
 
 IN THE PASSING SOUL OF SUMMEE 39 
 
 endurance, strengthened his weak frame with a mother's 
 prayers, fed his fainting soul with a mother's love. 
 She said the beautiful prayers of the Koran unceas- 
 ingly, while she cooled his fevered body and led his 
 delirious ravings into the mellow chant of the muezzin. 
 
 On the night of the third day Allah hearkened to her 
 prayer and a great peace fell upon her. And she slept 
 beside the low couch of her son. When she awoke 
 it was day, but before turning toward the boy she 
 bowed herself in prayer, saying: "In the joy of my 
 heart I thank thee, O Allah, who art most great, most 
 compassionate, that thou hast saved my first-born unto 
 me, that thou hast given him healing sleep." 
 
 And when she turned it was even as she had said. 
 The boy slept, and his brow was damp and cool and 
 unclouded. From that day he mended, and there was 
 great rejoicing, not only in the harem, but among all 
 the people for Hamed was the only one that had 
 recovered of the many stricken. 
 
 And Jeppa told them .all of what she had done with 
 the powder but she gave the praise to Allah. The 
 people were divided in their faith. There were those 
 who said, "It was the hand of Allah that mixed the 
 potion. The works of Allah are mighty and incom- 
 prehensible. ISTo man may understand them." 
 
 Again there were those who said: "She hath offered 
 herself to Allah in place of the boy, and he hath had 
 compassion upon her." 
 
 But miracle or not, if any fell ill they sent for a sup 
 of the blessed draft, as they called the mixture she had 
 given the child. 
 
 Very often Jeppa went herself to the sick. Zulaykha 
 would scream with rage on her return, forbidding her
 
 40 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 to even look at her little Hafiz lest he be contaminated. 
 But Jeppa continued going, and many of the sick 
 recovered. Whether they had the plague or not was 
 to be questioned, but the effect upon the people was 
 the same as if they had. 
 
 Aletra asked her one night: "Dost thou not think 
 that many are sick with fear?" 
 
 "It may well be," admitted Jeppa. 
 
 "The gentleness of thy face healeth them thy quiet 
 faith." 
 
 "I know not, O my Eyes; but when the fear left me 
 the fever left Hamed." 
 
 "Would that I had such power!" sighed Aletra. 
 
 "When thou art a mother Allah will give it unto 
 thee." 
 
 "And doth being a mother make up all other loss?" 
 
 "All other. It is what Allah hath made us for that 
 we might know the fullness of joy." 
 
 "But the love of man " 
 
 "The love of man is but a step that leadeth to the 
 paradise of mother-bliss." 
 
 "I do not understand." 
 
 "Nay, but some happy day thou wilt. Then will 
 the smile of the master be less to thee than the cry of 
 thy child." 
 
 Just then little Zema came into the harem. Her 
 face was flushed, and she moved heavily toward her 
 mother. 
 
 "I thirst," she said. 
 
 Jeppa gave her water, and she asked for more. And 
 the mother-heart grew fearful as she nestled her close 
 against her breast. 
 
 "Give her unto me," said 'Aletra.
 
 IN THE PASSING SOUL OF SUMMEB 41 
 
 "Nay! Nay!" cried the child. "None but thou, 
 mama none but thou !" And she clung to Jeppa. 
 
 As they spoke a man leading a camel stopped before 
 the outer wall. He was a trusted Soudanese servant 
 of the Sultan, and brought a command that Jeppa come 
 at once to the seraglio, bringing with her "the holy 
 draft." 
 
 "The Ranee (the favorite) of the Commander of 
 the Faithful is stricken and hath heard of the magic 
 of the potion," he said. "I bring a camel, for we go 
 not by the road lest the evil of the plague be in the 
 dust. Bid her come at once and bring with her the 
 holy draft." 
 
 When Zulaykha brought the message Jeppa's face 
 grew white. Zulaykha knew not that little Zema was 
 ill, as she often nestled in her mother's arms. But 
 Aletra knew what was passing in Jeppa's heart and 
 answered for her : 
 
 "Bid him refresh himself, Zulaykha, that Jeppa may 
 have fair time to make ready. Give him dates and 
 honey-cakes and milk, that he grow not impatient." 
 
 "And why should I do this?" retorted Zulaykha. 
 "TJiou canst do it, an thou wilt." 
 
 "Nay, why wilt thou not?" from Aletra. 
 
 "I have the master's child to think of." 
 
 "But," pleaded Aletra, "I cannot for I go to help 
 Jeppa make ready and to nurse little Zema, who is 
 stricken of a fever." 
 
 "Stricken sayest thou !" screamed Zulaykha ; "strick- 
 en! Then should she fare forth with her mother." 
 
 "Peace, Zulaykha!" spoke Jeppa over the restless 
 form of the child. "Go feed the messenger and give 
 him drink and beguile him for a time while I pray."
 
 42 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 The voice of the muezzin chanting in a monotonous 
 refrain broke in on the discussion : 
 
 "Allah hu Ale Bar! Allah hu Ak Bar!" 
 
 This over, Zulaykha turned and fled into the outer 
 court. 
 
 "Thou canst not go, O Jeppa!" said Aletra when 
 they were alone. 
 
 "How disobey?" 
 
 "He hath never seen thy face. The ladies of the 
 harem also have never seen thy face." 
 
 "And what then?" 
 
 "I will go in thy place." 
 
 "Thou?" 
 
 "Yea. Thou shalt give me of thy precious draft, 
 and I, too, shall pray as thou hast prayed." 
 
 "It is not within the possible." 
 
 "Yea, it is. My speech shall be calm and slow and 
 soft even as thine; and I will mock thy gentle nature 
 till thou shalt not know me." 
 
 "I thank thee," began Jeppa, shaking her head. 
 
 "I will pray," continued the girl, not heeding Jeppa's 
 interruption, "I will pray so may I purge away my 
 sins as well." 
 
 "The master I could never lift mine eyes to his 
 again if aught befell thee," she objected. 
 
 "Danger is here also," Aletra said, "and protection 
 is for the faithful wherever Allah is." 
 
 "But Zulaykha?" 
 
 "Will never venture near thee. Fear will keep her 
 far distant." 
 
 Jeppa took counsel with herself and was silent. 
 
 "No, I cannot be unfaithful to the care the master 
 hath given me of thee," she answered at last the cold
 
 IH THE PASSING SOUL OF SUMMER 43 
 
 drops standing upon her brow like dew upon a lily. 
 "Take thou my child," she continued bravely, "and 
 do thy woman's part. So shall she yet smile upon us." 
 
 "O Jeppa, dost thou so trust me?" 
 
 "Yea, for the mother in thee but sleepeth. It will 
 wake to meet my Zema's need. I fear not." 
 
 With this she tried to loosen the child's feverish hold 
 upon her shoulder, but she clung the tighter, entreating 
 with blazing eyes: "Mama, mama!" 
 
 "Go thou, Zema, to Aletra," said Jeppa coaxingly. 
 
 "Nay, I want but thee, but thee," she screamed, 
 "mama, mama !" 
 
 Each word tore the mother's heart grown weaker 
 with longing to surrender, as again and yet again she 
 tried to loosen the hold of the little fingers. 
 
 "Thou wilt kill thy child, Jeppa. Hearken to the 
 wisdom of my words or we shall all perish and none 
 be here to give the master welcome." 
 
 Jeppa struggled a moment with her soul; then said 
 faintly : 
 
 "So be it; but lift not thy veil even while thou stay- 
 est in the harem, for thou art beautiful and the eunuch 
 hath eyes." 
 
 "Had I but some disfiguring stain!" exclaimed 
 Aletra. 
 
 "What meanest thou ?" 
 
 "I should make my face so unholy to look upon that 
 any man who beheld it would fly from me." 
 
 "But thou hast not time. Hasten and let me clothe 
 thee and veil thee, for I hear him walking in his 
 impatience. Zulaykha hath not done that which we 
 bade her." 
 
 With haste and trembling the two women made their
 
 44 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 way to Jeppa' s part of the harem. Little Zema, still 
 clasped in the arms of her mother, lay like a wilted 
 flower after the storm of her emotion. 
 
 Jeppa put the child upon her own bed and flitted 
 here and there with great rapidity, giving advice and 
 cautioning the other of many things. She filled a small 
 glass with the healing draft, giving directions as she 
 shook the flask and looked to see if the powder was 
 melted. But always she ended with the words : "Allah 
 alone hath wrought the healing. Most great and com- 
 passionate is Allah!" And again: "Give the draft 
 that the favorite be not displeased with thee; but pray 
 that thy fears and her fears may be at rest and all 
 will be well." 
 
 Before the hour was out Aletra stood beside the 
 camel. Zulaykha had vanished in dread. Hamed had 
 been sent away with a kinsman's caravan to the far 
 distant Village of the Weavers, where dwelt his father's 
 people. Zittarra had been sent to another kinsman. 
 So there was none to know that it was not Jeppa that 
 fared forth.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 t 
 
 "IP THE RANEE DIE, O ALLAH 1 
 
 THE tossing and rocking of the camel gave Aletra 
 scant time to think; but of one thing she tried to 
 assure herself: the new character which she was at- 
 tempting to assume. For it was possible that Jeppa' s 
 wonderful serenity was known at the seraglio. 
 
 "Thou art Jeppa. Thy speech must be soft and 
 slow, and thy words prayerful," she told herself in 
 the pauses of the fearful rocking. "Thou art Jeppa." 
 
 They traveled slowly, on account of the stones that 
 had fallen in many places. But the great Sudanese 
 who had been sent for her seemed to know every foot 
 of the way, and guided the camel with much care. 
 
 As they entered the seraglio there was much whisper- 
 ing and running to and fro of slaves. Then Babek, the 
 tremendous eunuch in charge of the harem, came and 
 conducted her into the presence of the Sultan. 
 
 The Commander of the Faithful reclined upon a low 
 divan of carved olive-wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl 
 and jewels, and spread with rugs of Oriental mag- 
 nificence. Fear was in his face as he clasped and 
 unclasped his hands nervously. 
 
 "Hast thou a draft to heal the plague? Speak thou 
 the truth!" he commanded. 
 
 "That say I not," Aletra made answer slowly, tak- 
 
 45
 
 46 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 ing the manner of Jeppa as closely as she could. "Who 
 am I to know the will of Allah ?" 
 
 "Is it Allah or the draft that healeth ?" he asked 
 impatiently. 
 
 "Without Allah would be no draft no Sultan no 
 ranee no Jeppa." 
 
 "Thy speech hath reverence, as becometh a good 
 woman," he commended ; then added : "Lift thy veil." 
 
 "My master hath ever taught me to obey the voice of 
 the rulers and those in high places, O mighty Sultan; 
 but, as thou desireth that I heal the princess, let no 
 man look upon my face lest my power be gone not 
 even the eunuch that watcheth over the harem." 
 
 "Why not he? He is not a man." 
 
 "Nay, but perchance he hath been, in some life long 
 since burned to ashes." 
 
 "Art thou, then, so beautiful as to stir the memory 
 of the dead ?" 
 
 "I beautiful!" she cried in the sad voice of Jeppa. 
 "Mock me not, O Sultan, lest I fail; but fetch me 
 straightway unto the lady, that I may compose myself 
 for her sake." 
 
 "So shall it be," he answered, clapping his hands 
 for the slaves, who stood apart. "And if she be re- 
 stored to me, thou shall not have cause to say Omar hath 
 stinted in his guerdon. Seest thou this jewel?" he 
 continued, showing a great sapphire set in a ring of 
 dull Egyptian gold. 
 
 "This will I give thee and a necklace, with pearls 
 as large as the eggs of birds." 
 
 "Nay, O Commander of the Faithful !" began Aletra, 
 but he stopped her, saying:
 
 "IF THE EANEE DIE, ALLAH!" 47 
 
 "Thou shalt be rich; and any honor within my gift 
 shall be thine for the asking." 
 
 "Allah is merciful, O Most Gracious Master," she 
 answered speaking slowly and evenly, as Jeppa might, 
 choosing her words with wisdom. "Yet wait till I have 
 saved the princess; and while thou art waiting, hold 
 no unholy thought wrong no man ; think of no woman ; 
 and walk with Allah alone. 
 
 "So shall it be the easier for me; for the master and 
 the wife are one flesh, and the honor of one is the praise 
 of the other. So that if Allah look with favor upon 
 thee, even so shall the princess find favor in his sight." 
 
 Having spoken, she turned to the waiting slaves, and 
 said: 
 
 "Lead me to the princess." 
 
 Though the Sultan had given no word of dom- 
 mand, they obeyed her as one having power. And, bow- 
 ing low, she left his presence. But when once away, 
 she shook as with the palsy from fear, and gave thanks 
 to Jeppa for bidding her keep her veil drawn even when 
 with the women. 
 
 "If the ranee die, O Allah, what will befall me ?" she 
 asked herself, and grew cold with fear.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE PBINCESS AND THE POTION 
 
 THE princess lay upon a low couch. About her were 
 wrappings of embroidered silk. The couch was 
 golden, and there were many cushions and soft rugs. 
 The veil about her shoulders and her garments shone 
 like cobwebs in the sunshine; yet, though bright in 
 color gold, saffron, amber they shaded one into the 
 other. The air was heavy with many spices, and in- 
 cense twigs burned on a copper brazier, making the air 
 dense with aromatic mist. 
 
 The princess low-browed and tinted like the olive 
 when it is ripe from the kiss of the sun was beautiful 
 beyond any woman Aletra had ever beheld. Her women 
 were grouped about her in fear and despair; but as 
 Aletra entered, their cry of joy! "Lu-lw-lvsw-u!" 
 echoed through the harem. They cried the Zagharee! 
 for did they not consider her as sent from Allah to save 
 them as well as the ranee ? 
 
 Aletra, though, who had seen both Hamed and little 
 Zema when they first fell ill, knew, as soon as her eyes 
 rested upon the favorite, that she was but sore afraid, 
 and not stricken of the plague. 
 
 "O Allah, be merciful and send me the blessed draft 
 before it is too late," the princess was moaning as she 
 entered. Then, her eyes falling upon Aletra, she well 
 
 48
 
 49 
 
 nigh strangled in her frenzy as she demanded: "Hast 
 thou the draft ? Haste, haste ! Give it unto me that 
 I may drink, and woe betide thee if it easeth me not !" 
 
 But Aletra, knowing that she was nigh unto mad- 
 ness, was loath to give the small flagon which she had 
 brought lest the ranee quaff it at a draft and grow rest- 
 less if her fears did not vanish speedily. So she an- 
 swered, with the even sweetness of Jeppa's tone that 
 she tried ever to remember : 
 
 "Art thou in haste to enter paradise, O Princess?" 
 
 "JSTay, so waste not thy time with words but give 
 me the potion," answered the ranee angrily. 
 
 "Thou shalt take it, but as I give it thee," said 
 Aletra. 
 
 The favorite looked upon her in silent rage. She 
 paid no heed, but continued speaking evenly, as might 
 Jeppa : 
 
 "It is so potent that a sup too much, and thou wert 
 beyond my help." 
 
 At the command, in the quiet, fearless voice, the 
 princess would have torn the veil from Aletra's face, or 
 otherwise humiliated her; but she did not, because of 
 her fear. So, rolling her great eyes, she screamed: 
 
 "Then, why dost thou not give it me ? Why delayest 
 thou ? I scarcely breathe, and the measure of my heart 
 is growing weak !" 
 
 Aletra did not answer, but bade the slaves bring her 
 cups and vessels. With care, she poured a few drops of 
 the liquor into a cup, placed it in another vessel, and 
 surrounded it with water. Then she waited in silence 
 to gain time and cast the spell of the unknown upon 
 the waiting women. 
 
 She was still trembling with fear, when the call to
 
 50 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 evening prayer fell upon the huddled group, "Allah hu 
 Ale Bar! Allah hu Ak Bar!" 
 
 He who called the prayer was near at hand. In- 
 stantly, as if possessed of a single body, the women 
 prostrated themselves. Aletra turned to do the same, 
 when the Princess rose and clutched her garments, 
 crying: 
 
 "Thou shall not pray to Allah till thou hast given 
 me the draft. Canst thou not see that I perish ?" 
 
 Then Aletra raised her hand and said in soft reproof : 
 
 "Hearken ! Dost thou not hear, Ranee, that there 
 is none greater than Allah ?" 
 
 And though she did not prostrate herself, as the 
 angry princess still stood beside her, she chanted the 
 call in even accents with the muezzin. 
 
 After the call had ceased she chanted slowly from 
 the Koran, for protection from evil and darkness and 
 death, ending with: 
 
 "In the name of the Prophet, by the sun and its 
 rising greatness, by the moon when it followeth him, by 
 the day when it showeth its splendor, by the night when 
 it covereth him with darkness, by the heaven and Him 
 who built it, by the earth and Him who spread it forth, 
 by the sea and Him who formed it; spread thou thy 
 healing over the house of him who leadeth the Faith- 
 ful, and speak the word of healing and of peace !" 
 
 Under the spell of her voice the princess grew calm. 
 When she had finished, Aletra gave the potion, saying : 
 
 "Drink, O Princess, wfell beloved one and may 
 Allah make thee whole, that thou mayst delight the 
 heart of the Master." 
 
 The favorite took it like a child, despite its bitter- 
 ness. Having swallowed the medicine she sank back 
 among her cushions and closed her eyes.
 
 THE PRINCESS AND THE POTION 51 
 
 A beautiful slave girl crept timidly toward the couch, 
 composed the amber wrappings, and covered her mis- 
 tress's feet with a silken rug. 
 
 There was silence, as if they waited for the miracle. 
 Drawn faces were turned toward Aletra as if toward 
 a prophetess who possessed the power of magic. For 
 had she not covered Fatma, the princess, with confu- 
 sion and made her as a little child? Was she not the 
 visible redeemer from the plague, should they be 
 stricken ? Then, too, she had not lifted her veil. Mys- 
 tery enveloped her as darkness does the night. So 
 serene and high she seemed to them that they were 
 ready to cast themselves at her feet and seek protection 
 from the scourge, and but for the presence of the ranee 
 they would have done so. 
 
 Aletra, behind her veil, was praying Allah to take 
 her safely away from the seraglio, and thinking how 
 she could save the precious liquor, for Jeppa would 
 sorely need it if little Zema were ill long. So Aletra 
 thought and prayed in the heavy silence. 
 
 The princess appeared to sleep; the women scarce 
 drew their breaths. She had turned so that her back 
 was toward the women, and lay facing Aletra. Her 
 peaceful breathing led them to believe that she slept. 
 
 But when Aletra turned her head to arrange her veil, 
 she found the great dark eyes full upon her, and a 
 strange new sense of danger, as of being in the power 
 of some beast of the wilds, made her knees to totter 
 beneath her. All control seemed to be slipping away, 
 and a weakness caused her to tremble. 
 
 "Allah, Allah, Allah !" she cried in the stillness of 
 her heart, "protect thou me from the eyes of those that 
 hate!" 
 
 She uttered no word of the prayer, but stood like a
 
 52 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 young prophetess, with arms upraised till the calm of 
 heaven fell upon her. And when the hour had passed 
 thus in silence, she said softly to the young slave girl : 
 
 "Bring unto me the cup. The time cometh for an- 
 other potion." 
 
 "So soon, Jeppa?" sighed the princess, as if just 
 awakened. 
 
 "Every hour," Aletra made answer. 
 
 "Throughout the night ?" asked the favorite. 
 
 "Throughout the night," she was answered. 
 
 "Wilt thou tarry, or leave the draft with my 
 women ?" 
 
 "I will tarry." 
 
 "How long?" 
 
 "Till thou art whole." 
 
 "And when shall that be?" 
 
 "At midday prayer on the morrow." 
 
 "How knowest thou that? Hast thou not said none 
 is greater than Allah ?" 
 
 "Yea; and for that he is Allah, thy life shall be 
 spared." 
 
 "And my women ?" 
 
 "They are not stricken." 
 
 "Nay, not now ; yet they be within the hour." 
 
 At this there was a rising, horrified murmur from 
 the crouching group. 
 
 "They may well be, prophetess; for is not the 
 plague in the harem? By what magic should they 
 escape when even I lie stricken ?" 
 
 "None but the Most Great may say who shall be 
 stricken and who go free, O princess!" 
 
 "Yet would it be well to have thee close," said Fatma. 
 
 Aletra made no answer, but consumed much time in
 
 THE PRINCESS AND THE POTION 53 
 
 preparing the medicine. Her measured movements 
 angered the favorite. 
 
 "Canst thou not hasten the brewing, messenger 
 of the prophet? See, I faint again. Abla! Abla! 
 Haste !" she screamed to the beautiful slave girl. "Feel 
 thou my heart. It pulseth, it pulseth ! Oh, I fear I 
 fear I shall perish!" 
 
 At this there was great confusion, crying, and moan- 
 ing among the women. Four slaves supported the rav- 
 ing princess, while Aletra held the potion to her lips. 
 This time the features were distorted because of the 
 bitterness of the cup. 
 
 "Thou hast doubled the dose," she cried as she drew 
 her brows together. 
 
 "Nay, it is the same," assured Aletra. 
 
 The princess again appeared to sleep, and again ob- 
 served Aletra through lowered lids. All through the 
 night, at every watch, Aletra gave her a few drops of 
 the draft. 
 
 At the sunrise call to prayer the stricken one was so 
 exhausted that she slept, and Aletra gave thanks in her 
 heart, for this was what she had prayed for an hour, 
 even a few blessed moments, when she could be free 
 from the gaze of those half-closed eyes and the fear 
 that oppressed her. 
 
 The call of the muezzin ceased, and as the women 
 rose softly she turned to them, and said : 
 
 "If thy mistress stir so much as an eyelid call ye me." 
 
 And when they had assured her with awe in their 
 glances, she folded herself in a rug and lay down to rest. 
 
 The vigil of the night had made her eyes heavy, and 
 before the women had rolled the ends of the rug about 
 her feet she slept. Hour after hour passed, and neither
 
 54 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 awoke. It was at the close of the midday prayer that 
 Abla, the slave girl, who alone had kept awake, tried 
 to arouse Aletra. 
 
 "Who art thou ?" she asked, startled from a familiar 
 dream of Jeppa and Zulaykha by the girl's touch, at 
 the same time throwing off her veil. Then suddenly 
 she remembered and, quickly covering her face, asked: 
 
 "How fareth it with the princess?" 
 
 "She still sleepeth," answered the girl. "But Ba- 
 bek, the chief eunuch, craveth speech with thee." 
 
 "What is thy name, girl?" whispered Aletra. 
 
 "Abla, O most beautiful one!" softly breathed the 
 girl. 
 
 "Abla, an thou wouldst have thy freedom, say not 
 to any that I am fair. Say that my face hath a griev- 
 ous distemper." 
 
 "Why should I so belie thee, O prophetess ?" 
 
 "Nay, thou canst say that my heart is good. A good 
 heart hath never yet tempted the flesh." 
 
 Instantly the girl understood through that unwritten 
 knowledge that women have of one another. 
 
 "Thou wouldst away thou f earest the Sultan ?" she 
 whispered as Aletra secured her veil. "Then let not 
 Babek see thy face, but show thyself unto the princess. 
 So may she be healed the sooner that thou mayst away. 
 Thinkest thou, O lady, that she hath been stricken?" 
 the girl added very low. 
 
 "Nay stricken of fear alone." 
 
 "I care not for my freedom, O Jeppa but to live 
 in the light of thy heavenly countenance " 
 
 Just then the princess moved, and Abla flew to her 
 side. Aletra went to the door, where Babek awaited 
 her. 
 
 "The most gracious master hath commanded me to
 
 THE PRINCESS AND THE POTION 55 
 
 fetch thee to him that he may have word concerning 
 the princess." 
 
 As he spoke he bent from his great height, as if 
 speaking to a child, and his eyes sought to penetrate 
 the shelter of her veil. 
 
 "Say unto him," Aletra made answer, "that the 
 malady mendeth slowly, but that I dare not leave her 
 for the space of a moment." 
 
 Babek waited, as if loath to carry her words; then 
 turning, went his way. 
 
 Aletra thought to get away by evening prayer; but 
 the princess was perverse, begged her to lift her veil, 
 threatened, then coaxed her. Failing in every way to 
 penetrate the protecting hoik which hid not only the 
 face, but the entire figure of the mysterious prophetess 
 she turned her wrath upon Abla, and had her ban- 
 ished from her presence and beaten by order of Babek, 
 to whom she sent complaints. 
 
 It was only at midnight, after sore trials of her 
 patience, weary and sick with fright, that Aletra left 
 the princess for a few hours to go to the room set apart 
 for her, that she might close her eyes in sleep. On the 
 way she asked the slave, who led her : 
 
 "Canst thou send the girl, Abla, to me ?" 
 
 And the slave answered, prostrating herself: 
 
 "Yea, O prophetess! I will rouse her straightway 
 and send her unto thee. Hast thou any further 
 command ?" 
 
 "None. Rise and carry thy message swiftly unto 
 Abla." 
 
 "I go," said the woman, rising; and a moment later 
 she disappeared as silently as glides the cobra in the 
 shadows of the jungle,
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ALETRA AND THE SLAVE GIEL 
 
 ALETEA had never seen a place of so much mag- 
 nificence as the room that had been set apart for 
 her. It was even richer than that occupied by the 
 princess. 
 
 The door, which she closed hastily when the slave 
 disappeared, was of cunningly carved olive-wood. The 
 golden bed was enormous, and covered with beauti- 
 fully wrought designs of shining pearl, designs of lotus 
 blossoms and half-human flowers of paradise that never 
 bloomed on earth the imaginings of some artist 
 enamored of the fantastic mysteries of the blest abode, 
 but not quite willing to abandon the subtle inspiration 
 of human womanhood. 
 
 This Tunisian bed was piled with silken fabrics of 
 different tints, from the faintest blush of dawn to the 
 deepest rose and saffron, all heavy with embroidery. 
 The rugs were woven of pure silk, and were as thick 
 from one side to the other as a man's hand; and the 
 perfume that had been spilled upon them was made of 
 the souls of flowers, and would last a century. 
 
 The walls were covered with silks, embroidered in 
 fanciful arabesques, so wonderful in their harmony 
 that the whole seemed like a leaf from the books of 
 paradise. 
 
 66
 
 ALETEA AND THE SLAVE GIRL 57 
 
 Aletra loved beauty ; and though spent with watching 
 and fright, while her limbs scarce sustained her and 
 her eyes ached from looking through the veil so long, 
 she could not smother a cry of delight as she touched 
 the shimmering fabrics. 
 
 Throwing herself upon the great bed, in the heart 
 of the silken billows, she began to loosen her veil, the 
 better to drink in the beauty about her. She sighed : 
 
 "Here need I not act the part of Jeppa. Here am 
 I Aletra once again." 
 
 She lifted the heavy veil, but sprang up quickly and 
 covered her face to admit Abla, who had called softly at 
 the door. The girl's eyes were swollen with weeping, 
 for Babek had been merciless; but the look of idolatry 
 filled them as she crossed the threshold. 
 
 "I am come, O lady," she said. 
 
 "Enter and make fast the door," Aletra answered. 
 
 Abla was the daughter of a Berber who had fallen 
 in battle before one of the desert cities. After her 
 father's death she was sold into slavery, and became 
 one of the attendants upon the ladies of the harem. 
 
 "I would not close mine eyes till I knew thou wert 
 here to guard the door," Aletra began in her own warm, 
 caressing voice, with no trace of Jeppa's calmness. 
 With this she again threw off her veil and dark haik, 
 and raised her round, young arms in their freedom. 
 Abla gazed upon her in wordless astonishment at the 
 perfection of her beauty. 
 
 "Thou art as lovely as the springtime," she gasped; 
 "but thou art wearied unto death. Let me unbind thy 
 garments and soothe thee to sleep." 
 
 "Mine eyes crave sleep. But there is something 
 here" putting her hand to her brow "that will not
 
 58 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 let me sleep. I fear O Abla, I fear the princess!" 
 she said rapidly. "Why doth she delay my journeying 
 forth ? I fear Babek also, and the Sultan." 
 
 "It is but that thy spirit is worn, O lady, and causeth 
 thee to tremble at naught. I will watch the rest of the 
 night while thou sleepest." Abla made answer softly, 
 at the same time loosening the other's garments with 
 silken touch. "And who shall say," she continued, 
 "that she may not bid thee depart laden with jewels?" 
 
 "Thy words hold comfort and wisdom, but I would 
 I were a bird that I might fly through the casement 
 and away to mine own." 
 
 So they talked far into the night, Abla ever com- 
 forting as she poured perfumed water from a brazen 
 ewer upon her hands, and soothed the other's tired 
 limbs, saying ever and again : 
 
 "Thou art more beautiful than the princess. Yea, 
 an hundredfold, an hundredfold !" 
 
 Aletra's fears grew less; she slept, almost. The 
 girl's voice was like music as she murmured : 
 
 "Allah give thee sleep, O lady, and make thee to 
 smile in thy dreams, while Abla watcheth." 
 
 Her praises and prayers were so blended into a 
 lullaby that at last sleep came. Then, moving very 
 softly, the little slave made a pallet beside the door and 
 laid herself gently upon it. Twice in the hours that 
 followed she thought she heard footsteps, but bravely 
 told herself it was but the spirit of darkness knocking 
 at the door of restless hearts. 
 
 So passed the second night in the harem of the 
 Sultan.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 ZULAYKHA COMES UPON A SECRET 
 
 IT was midday in the harem of Attar al Hassen ; there 
 was no sign of life in the little garden or the court j 
 yet the evidence of inhabitants gave to the place a 
 subtle suggestion that the insensate objects tabourets, 
 rose jars, divans, cushions all the intimate parapher- 
 nalii of domestic life, were but holding their breath, 
 suspending their usefulness in an hour of supreme 
 tension. The personality of inanimate things, which is 
 sometimes as forceful, as compelling or repelling, as if 
 possessed of sensate bodies hovered about the abode. 
 
 It was the fourth day since Aletra's departure for 
 the seraglio. The psychic atmosphere of the little 
 harem court was one of suspense, fear, acute waiting. 
 Zulaykha, who entered at this hour, felt it subcon- 
 sciously but fully. Her face was blanched with fear, 
 and as she stepped cautiously she looked about, as if, 
 mayhap, danger might be lurking near. 
 
 It was the first time she had ventured to go to 
 Jeppa's room since Zema was stricken. For she had 
 told herself many times: "If Jeppa come not bacl^ 
 from the seraglio and Aletra sicken caring for Zema, 
 I alone will be left to welcome the master." 
 
 Though she did not allow herself to dwell upon 
 this prospect, there were moments when it almost grew 
 
 59
 
 60 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 into a hope; and these moments yielded satisfaction. 
 Again she reasoned: "I have the care of the master's 
 child. Is it not meet that I, who have borne him and 
 still suckle him, should avoid all danger ?" So she had 
 gone into the little kiosk and made it tight against the 
 winds of night, and lived there wholly for her child and 
 herself. 
 
 But despite all her care Hafiz grew restless, and 
 when she felt his little body unnaturally cold or warm 
 against her breast, she became frenzied with fear. 
 
 "Oh, that Jeppa had not gone to the seraglio," she 
 moaned. At last, tortured with anxiety for her child, 
 she ventured into the little court. Hearing no sound, 
 she crept closer to Aletra's room. Added to her fear 
 of the plague, was the possibility that Aletra might need 
 help for Zema or herself, and that if she refused and the 
 master heard ever of it, he would divorce her in his 
 anger. Still again, had she not the preceding wife's 
 hatred in her heart against Aletra ? All powerful rea- 
 sons ; but above them, and setting them quite aside, was 
 her mother-instinct. This, and this alone, made it 
 possible for her to quiet her trembling and take the first 
 step into the harem. Having entered, she was in an 
 agony of indecision. "Oh, could I but see where Aletra 
 keepeth the draft," she thought. "I could steal hither 
 and take it for Hafiz." 
 
 As she stepped upon the rug a cushion fell from a 
 divan. She was so startled that her heart almost stopped 
 beating. It was the same on which Aletra always sat 
 when Attar was at home. 'Now, as it fell almost at her 
 feet, a wave of anger crimsoned her face and she spurned 
 it with the tip of her slipper. 
 
 The action had been without thought or direction ; but 
 when she saw that the cushion lay like a crushed thing
 
 ZULAYKHA COMES UPON A SECRET 61 
 
 against the master's rug, seeming to have sought pro- 
 tection in its heavy folds, she shuddered as at an omen. 
 And as if the inanimate object had accused her, she 
 picked it up and replaced it on the divan. 
 
 Her steps were stealthy, as if the stillness of the place 
 were sleep from which it might awaken at any moment 
 and behold her with its hundred eyes. Stealing so 
 quietly along the familiar place like a silent-footed 
 wraith over its former haunts, she reached the door of 
 Aletra's room. Very softly she opened it; first a little 
 way, then further till she saw that there was no one 
 within. 
 
 Aletra's veil lay over one end of the bed; otherwise 
 the room was in perfect order; but it had that inex- 
 plicable character of the unused, unoccupied habitation. 
 Zulaykha felt rather than understood this quality, and 
 a fierce, wild joy welled up in her heart a joy that she 
 did not need to define. 
 
 Emboldened by the vacant room, she took her steps 
 with less caution, and overturned a rose-jar. The next 
 moment Jeppa stood before her. 
 
 "Jeppa, thou !" she cried. 
 
 "Yea; but why comest thou hither, O Zulaykha?" 
 
 "Hafiz, O Jeppa, hath been restless, and I fear " 
 
 "Yea," interrupted the other, "thou fearest. That 
 is thy weakness. Yet it is thy strength as well, else 
 naught would have brought thee hither." 
 
 "An I had thought thou wert here, I had come 
 sooner." 
 
 "I thank thee," returned Jeppa, but without warmth. 
 This feeling of repulsion toward Zulaykha's friendly 
 advances had always filled her gentle heart with self- 
 reproach. 
 
 "When didst thou return?" asked Zulaykha, and
 
 62 
 
 almost in the same breath she questioned again : "And 
 where is Aletra ?" 
 
 The first wife came closer to her and, looking into 
 her eyes, answered : 
 
 "O Zulaykha, I will tell thee all. Aletra hath fared 
 forth in my place that my Zema a mother's care might 
 have; yet " 
 
 Here the Egyptian interrupted her. Speaking of 
 Zema reminded her of Hafiz; and without even asking 
 how it fared with the other's child she almost demanded : 
 
 "Give me of the draft. I cannot tarry lest my child 
 become fretful in my absence." 
 
 "The draft ' began Jeppa, but again the other 
 
 interrupted : 
 
 "Yea, the draft! Thou darest not refuse it to the 
 master's child. Is he not the same to him as thy 
 Hamed?" 
 
 "Thou art welcome to the draft," said the other 
 sadly. "Yet would I tell thee that it hath no virtue, 
 for Zema mendeth not and my heart is sore afraid." 
 
 "Thou art afraid?" said Zulaykha in amaze, for 
 her reliance had been upon the draft. 
 
 Jeppa made no answer, but fetched the draft and 
 divided it, and gave her a small flagon. And Zulaykha 
 turned and swiftly left the room. But even as she sped 
 back to the kiosk with the draft held close to her breast, 
 she thought of the master's return, and reflected that 
 if Aletra still tarried in the seraglio, she would once 
 more be the pride of Al Hassen's harem. 
 
 But within the hour Hafiz was truly stricken, and she 
 forgot the master in the master's child.
 
 CHAPTEE X 
 
 PRYING EYES IN THE NIGHT 
 
 THE princess was even more capricious the next 
 day. She was entirely healed of her fear of the 
 plague, but sought to torment Aletra in a thousand 
 ways to draw from her the secret of the miraculous 
 potion. The day after it was the same; and the next 
 day, and the next. Each night found Aletra a little 
 less confident, and her fears grew. The ministrations 
 of Abla alone saved her from sinking utterly. Day 
 after day the favorite refused to let her go forth. 
 
 Abla slept much in the day, as she had been set apart 
 to serve the prophetess. But at night she kept a faithful 
 watch, for there was something more than the spirit 
 of the night abroad in the court of the harem of Al 
 Haroun. 
 
 Another thing Abla noticed every day some beau- 
 tiful object was added to Aletra's room. The silver 
 ewer was replaced by a golden one. The bronze lamp 
 disappeared, and in its place glowed a crystal zone with 
 intricate chasing. Every day there were flowers, per- 
 fumes, delight a kind of candy-paste, with alluring 
 foreign flavoring and many other things to tempt or 
 please a woman. 
 
 "Blast thou seen this?" asked Abla one night, hold- 
 ing out a shimmering shawl of dull blue with embroid- 
 eries and copper. 
 
 63
 
 64 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "Wonderful!" cried Aletra, enraptured. "A year's 
 patience hath not wrought such a shawl," she continued 
 as she wound it about her slim young body in delight. 
 
 "It may well have taken two years. Look, the stitches 
 are as fine as weaving!" exclaimed the little maid, ex- 
 amining it with admiration. 
 
 "And what is this," asked Aletra, lifting a filmy 
 Oriental dress silken blouse and trousers of faintest 
 pink from the divan. "Who hath brought this hither ? 
 And these?" she asked as she pointed to the dazzling 
 beauty of many silken garments. 
 
 "I know not, lady ; but it must be by order of the 
 master." 
 
 "The Sultan ?" gasped Aletra. "Ah, he hath much 
 gratitude in his heart for that I have saved the prin- 
 cess." 
 
 Abla looked long into the eyes of her mistress, then 
 answered : 
 
 "Nay, I think Babek sent them." 
 
 "And why?" questioned Aletra. 
 
 "Soft raiment, and gold and silver, and perfume and 
 sweets for the tongue are to women more than a far- 
 away master." 
 
 "What meanest thou, Abla ?" 
 
 "O lady, look not upon thy servant with so dark a 
 cloud upon thy brow, lest she perish." 
 
 "Thou answerest me not. Speak." 
 
 "And thou wilt not chide me ?" 
 
 "Thou hast my word." 
 
 "Then, most beautiful one whose hair is like unto 
 the woven dreams of a moonless night, whose flesh is 
 like unto the fabric of rose-leaf, whose eyes are soft as 
 a young deer's in mating time, whose "
 
 PRYING EYES IN THE NIGHT 65 
 
 "Have done," interrupted the other. "That is no 
 answer." 
 
 "With thy beauty," persisted the girl unheeding, 
 "thou canst well he the favorite of the harem." 
 
 "I am the wife of Attar," Aletra answered simply. 
 "Foolish Abla, these tempt not me," touching lightly 
 the garments and the shawl about her shoulders. "And 
 again," she continued, smiling, "thou forgettest the 
 princess." 
 
 "Her sun would be set forever, and thou wouldst 
 reign over the harem in gentleness for many a year." 
 
 Aletra shook her head in protest. 
 
 "Think well, O lady, over the words of thy slave 
 who would die for thee." 
 
 Suddenly Aletra put her finger to her lips. 
 
 "Hast heard aught, Abla?" she whispered, scarce 
 breathing. 
 
 "Nay, not now," said the girl, listening. "But often 
 in the night." 
 
 "Whence did it come? Should there perchance be 
 an opening beyond the hangings in the wall, 'twere 
 easy to look through the jewels in the tapestry." 
 
 "Then would thy beauty be no secret." 
 
 They listened for hours, but heard no sound save the 
 muezzin's call to midnight prayer floating softly on the 
 windless night. 
 
 "On the morrow," whispered Aletra, "I go forth 
 and none shall stay me. But to-day I said unto her 
 that word should be sent to the Sultan that she was 
 healed." 
 
 "What answer made she?" 
 
 " 'An thou dost,' she said, 'I will throw myself into 
 such frenzy of torment that he will not believe thee.' '
 
 66 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "O lady, an thou wouldst go forth on the morrow, 
 thou hast but to show the princess thy face and she 
 will be healed, and send thee right speedily !' : 
 
 The next day, being the eighth day since Aletra had 
 come to the palace, she made ready to depart. 
 
 Entering the presence of the favorite, she said 
 calmly : 
 
 "To-day I leave thee, O princess, to return unto my 
 people." 
 
 "Thou sayest bravely," she answered. "I am not 
 yet sound, and thou hast not given me the secret of the 
 draft nor yet have I seen thy face. Art thou a man, 
 that thou hidest thyself from women ?" 
 
 "Let all but thee depart, O lady, and I will show 
 thee my face," Aletra made answer. 
 
 The princess clapped her hands. 
 
 "Go forth even to the last one," she commanded, 
 "and make fast the doors." 
 
 Aletra was clad in the garments of tinted silk that 
 she had found in her room, and looked like a rose in 
 delicate pink bloom. When she threw off the dark hoik 
 and veil that enveloped her, she stood forth a dream 
 of exquisite beauty. Fatma sprang from the divan like 
 a great cat. 
 
 "What art thou a houri from paradise ?" she asked. 
 
 Aletra smiled and answered : 
 
 "I am a woman, anhungered for the sight of mine 
 own people. Wilt thou let me go, O princess?" 
 
 "I can deny thee nothing," the other sighed. "Wilt 
 thou go in the evening, or now, so that thou mayst be 
 with thy people at nightfall prayer ?" 
 
 "It would delight my heart, O lady, to go within 
 the hour," Aletra answered.
 
 PEYING EYES IN THE NIGHT 67 
 
 Then the favorite took from her arm a bracelet of 
 Egyptian gold, jeweled and carved like a serpent, and 
 gave it to her. 
 
 "Now, wrap thy haik well about thee and cover 
 thy face well; and let not Babek see thee. And thou 
 canst go. I am healed." 
 
 "Wilt thou, O princess, send such word unto the 
 master, the defender of the faithful, that I need not 
 vex him with my presence ?" said Aletra. 
 
 The favorite looked long into her eyes and questioned : 
 
 "Thou lovest thine own master?" 
 
 "Thou art a sorceress, O lady. Thou art right." 
 
 The other laughed. 
 
 "Then go and may Allah guard thee safely to thine 
 own people. I will send such word to the master as 
 will speed thee on thy journey without delay." 
 
 Within the hour Aletra was ready to depart; but 
 Babek brought the commands of the Sultan that she 
 come before him.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A HOURI FROM PARADISE 
 
 A GREAT change had come in the inner court of the 
 Sultan's harem since the day Aletra came to the 
 palace. 
 
 The tiny stream that ran through it, and that had 
 been silent then, now purled with musical insistence 
 over barriers of coral, and diverged here and there into 
 confining banks of carved marble. The long leaves of 
 the Egyptian lotus showed dark green against the 
 Parian whiteness ; and in quiet little pools hundreds of 
 small iridescent fish disported themselves. 
 
 Further back were divans of carved mother-of-pearl, 
 of teak and olive-wood, and of brazen metal, against 
 the walls, which were covered with Tunisian silks 
 wrought in harmonious chromatic scales of color. 
 
 At the opening to the different corridors hung heavy 
 silken rugs, softly shaded, pale as the dawn, glowing 
 amber as the desert at noonday under the sun, deep 
 as the shadows that haunt the sacred groves. The lives 
 of many had gone into these rugs generations of the 
 faithful, from the furthermost parts of Islam Ispahan, 
 Bokhara, Mecca, holy Khairwan, wherever the muezzin 
 called. As they prayed one prayer the eternal "Allah 
 hu Ak Bar! Allah hu Ak Bar!" so they wrought one 
 harmony into the rugs, with never a discord. 
 
 68
 
 A HOUKI FEOM PAEADISE 69 
 
 The soft arpeggios of color ran from the deepest bass 
 to the palest flutelike treble, with the softness of ex- 
 quisite fluency. Along the middle register the chords 
 of blue and pale saffron and rose and amber were en- 
 trancing. 
 
 The bright daylight from above revealed much that 
 could not be seen the day before; while in the alcoves 
 that had been dark on her arrival the first day, lights 
 of different colors gleamed from lamps of crystal and 
 amethyst and richly jeweled brasses. 
 
 Hundreds of birds with bright plumage flitted among 
 the flowering rosetrees from Lebanon, that grew on the 
 banks of the stream and sang or chirped their happiness. 
 
 Of a truth, Babek knew how to read the heart of his 
 royal master. Did he sorrow ? There were dim lights, 
 few flowers, no birds, silently moving gray-swathed 
 slaves nothing to contradict or irritate his mood. Did 
 he rejoice as to-day ? Hundreds of birds were loosed ; 
 the waters were given full flow through the mimic 
 river; flowers without number shed their perfume; 
 Tombouctuan incense twigs burned in dragonlike 
 braziers hundreds of years old, while musk and amber 
 and aloe and cassia, sandal and Turkish ouried mingled 
 in a sensuous symphony. 
 
 Beautiful slaves with tinkling armlets and anklets 
 moved like butterflies among the rose foliage, barely 
 touching the floor in their fairy lightness. Also many 
 of the younger women of the harem, from different 
 parts of the world, were brought before him on this day. 
 
 There were faces on which the story of desert an- 
 cestry was written. Bright-haired Kabyle girls who had 
 dipped their feet in the waters of the Oued Sehou or 
 had run like the deer among the peaks of the Djurdjura
 
 70 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 Mountains ; beautiful women with the blood of Romans 
 and Greeks and haughty Castilians in their veins; 
 proudly stepping damsels from Damascus. A garden 
 of human flowers sprung from many nations, clad like 
 poppies in multicolored raiment, and tinkling with 
 bracelets and anklets of gold and silver, earrings and 
 belts having many jeweled pendants. 
 
 This was a day of rejoicing, for had not the light 
 of the harem smiled once more in the fullness of health ? 
 And was it not Babek's province to express his master's 
 delight by ministering to every sense? 
 
 There was soft music everywhere, as if emanating 
 from the hearts of the flowers or the moving water of 
 the stream. Little tom-toms sounded like a background 
 beyond the first wall ; and the shriek of a hautboy could 
 be heard dimly through many walls. 
 
 The Sultan asked for a rose. A dozen nimble feet 
 ran to fetch it. One girl, swifter than the rest a 
 dancer who had been found in Algeria by the ever- 
 watchful eye of Babek, and brought to the harem was 
 the first to reach him. Her feet barely touched the 
 ground; and as she flew to him she circled several 
 times upon the rug at his feet, put the stem of the rose 
 in her mouth and bent backward so that the beautiful 
 long curve of her throat lay before him. 
 
 But he looked coldly upon her. Again she swung 
 her beautiful body into circles this time holding the 
 rose in her henna-tinted fingers, and bending so that 
 her lips, red with stain of mesouak, touched his hand, 
 while her kohl-tinted eyes gazed up at him with steady 
 brilliancy. He took the rose and smiled faintly; and 
 the girl withdrew. 
 
 Into this Eden of form and color and scent and
 
 71 
 
 sound, Aletra was brought to receive her reward for 
 healing the princess. The rejoicing had begun early. 
 Aletra hardly recognized the court wherein she had 
 tarried so short a time on her arrival; and the face of 
 the commander of the faithful was so changed from the 
 fear-stricken one she remembered that she was loath to 
 believe it was the same, as he smilingly bade her to 
 come before him. 
 
 The something noble that comes from habitual com- 
 mand was in his face, till almost he seemed brave; and 
 his white silk garments fell about him as became one 
 appointed by Allah. 
 
 "Here, O prophetess," he said, "is the sapphire I 
 pledged to thee. It hath once been the treasure of a 
 great sorcerer who was wont to work magic by looking 
 into its depths. With it hath he brought before his 
 eye far places, and the image of those he willed came 
 in answer to his call when he looked upon it. And here 
 are pearls. 
 
 "And further will I give thee of any goods that thou 
 mayst ask of my hands; for behold the princess hath 
 sent me a rose, and in its heart she hath thrust a scroll, 
 saying, 'I am as a bird in the springtime, calling unto its 
 mate. My body is healed, and my heart calleth for 
 thee.' I rejoice in thy magic, O Jeppa." 
 
 Aletra took the glittering jewels and could not sub- 
 due a cry of delight. This pleased him, for he was in 
 happy heart ; and he said again : 
 
 "What further is thy wish ?" 
 
 And Aletra made answer: 
 
 "The slave-girl, Abla 
 
 But before she had finished he had waved his hand 
 to Babek, saying: "Bring her."
 
 72 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 Then, turning to Aletra, he repeated : 
 
 "And what further? Of silken stuffs or rugs, say 
 what thou wilt." 
 
 But she feared to tarry, and said modestly: 
 
 "Thou hast given enough, O mighty Sultan, and a 
 thousandfold too much." 
 
 "Not for the Ranee's life," he assured her. 
 
 Then he bade a slave bring shawls of different colors, 
 and rugs, and silver veils, heavy with sequins; and 
 when Abla was brought he bade her carry them for her 
 new mistress. 
 
 "And now, Salaam Alek, O Jeppa! Thou art a 
 good woman, in whom thy husband and children should 
 rejoice. Allah guard the and keep thee thee and 
 thy people." 
 
 Then Babek came toward her to take her away into 
 the outer court and set her on her journey. He carried 
 a great bird with bright plumage and an ivorylike 
 beak; and he said to Aletra as he stooped low toward 
 her: 
 
 "This is my gift to thee, O prophetess." And he 
 came very close to her. 
 
 He held the head of the bird in his hand ; but even 
 as he spoke, and as if it had been the beak of the bird, 
 he suddenly plucked the veil from her face.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE SULTAN'S DECISION 
 
 ALETRA tried to cover her face, but tlie Sultan 
 cried : 
 
 "Let be! Let be!" Then turning to Babek: "De- 
 part!" And extending his arm toward the women: 
 "And these also take them hence!" 
 
 Then to Abla, who moved not: "Thou canst wait 
 thy mistress in the outer court." 
 
 Babek prostrated himself, but smiled secretly as he 
 turned and led Abla away. When the curtain dropped 
 upon the others, and they were alone, the Sultan com- 
 manded : 
 
 "Come hither, and tell me why thou hast sought to 
 hide thy face from me." 
 
 "For that I have been taught by the Koran that my 
 face and my duty belong to my master." 
 
 "Why comest thou not to me ?" 
 
 Aletra stood with her eyes bent upon the ground, 
 made no answer, nor moved a step. 
 
 "Thou art as beautiful as a pomegranate when it is 
 ripening." 
 
 Then as he continued to look upon her : 
 
 "Thou shalt have thy slaves and all that Omar can 
 give thee for my heart goeth out to thee. Come hither 
 upon the rug at my feet and lift thine eyes to mine." 
 
 73
 
 74 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 Aletra was stricken with, a great fear, and the white 
 beauty of her face touched him with a strange com- 
 passion, so that he was not wroth with her disobedience. 
 He said after a time: 
 
 "Thou wilt not? Then must I e'en come to thee." 
 
 But Aletra, fearing him, lifted her head and, looking 
 into his eyes, pleaded with humility : 
 
 "0 Commander of the Faithful, great and good art 
 thou. Suffer me to go hence with thy blessing. 
 Allah hath heard thy prayers and my prayers and the 
 princess whose beauty is as glorious as the morning, 
 hath been saved to thee." 
 
 The Sultan, while he appeared to be listening, heard 
 not a word so dazzled was he with the soft, pleading 
 witchery of her eyes. After a time he spoke: 
 
 "Yea, thou art a swaying lotus-blossom," he said, as 
 if communing with himself; "a houri escaped from 
 paradise." 
 
 With this he rose and came toward her. Aletra fled 
 lightly. He followed, and his eyes were terrible in 
 their intensity. But when he had overtaken her, he 
 held her from him better to drink in the sight of her 
 beauty. She besought him piteously to send her forth 
 to her people, but he heard not a word. 
 
 Fearing to madden him by struggling, she drew away 
 from him, step by step, he following gently. At last 
 he said, holding her hand firmly : 
 
 "Harken unto reason. Omar will have what his heart 
 craveth. Are not wives given and taken every day, and 
 no one maketh a cry ? I seek not to rob thy husband. 
 He shall have riches and other wives; but thee will I 
 have." 
 
 "I am the wife of Attar," said Aletra simply, when
 
 THE SULTAN'S DECISION 75 
 
 ho paused, "and though thou art great, there is one 
 greater than thou, even Allah. The meanest of thy 
 slaves knoweth the obligations of a wife." 
 
 "Thy speech charmeth me, as doth thy face, O Jeppa. 
 But thinkest thou thy master will think of thee when 
 he chooseth another wife, and longeth for the day when 
 he may sit beside her on the rug?" 
 
 Aletra shuddered as she thought of the daughters of 
 the man from Aka. Seeing this, he smiled and con- 
 tinued : 
 
 "Then, when thou art forsaken, perchance wouldst 
 thou come to Omar. But I want not that which an- 
 other man hath cast aside. I want thee now to-day. 
 The softest rugs from beyond the desert shall lie at thy 
 feet. Perfume of a hundred Persian rose-gardens shall 
 be distilled for thy delight. Thou shalt have every color 
 of the rainbow cunningly caught in thy silken raiment, 
 and thy jewels shall be worth a king's ransom." 
 
 "O Sultan," she began, with proudly lifted head ; but 
 he broke upon her speech not ungently : 
 
 "Keep silence that Omar may finish. Thou shalt 
 clap thy little hands, and an hundred slaves shall answer 
 to thy pleasure; for thou wilt be the Nburmahal the 
 pearl of the harem. And what wilt thou give for all 
 this, that delighteth the heart of a woman ? Thou wilt 
 but be kind to Omar; thou wilt smile upon him and 
 sing a ghazal for him; thou wilt give him thy lips 
 when thou wouldst have him know the blessedness of 
 paradise. For his heart will be beneath thy sandal, and 
 his will tangles in the meshes of thy hair." 
 
 Aletra looked deep and long into the glowing eyes 
 so near her own; and with the world-old knowledge of 
 woman, she felt that it were as easy to turn the course
 
 76 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 of the Nile as to change his purpose or touch his heart 
 with pleading or prayer or anger or tears. 
 
 So she answered with guile: "Thou art tempting." 
 
 And he smiled: "Nay, O Jeppa; I but awaken thy 
 reason." 
 
 "But thou art over all the poeple. What will Islam 
 say? That thou hast stolen another man's wife yet 
 will they but speak the truth. And I shall be unholy 
 before Allah a false wife." 
 
 "I will buy thee from thy husband after." 
 
 "Then, buy thou me first" 
 
 "But thou wilt leave me." 
 
 "Yea, till thou takest me as wife." 
 
 "I cannot let thee hence." 
 
 "It is the one way." And Aletra's voice was firm. 
 
 "It is my will that thou stayest." 
 
 "It is my will that I go hence." 
 
 "Which hath the greater power?" laughed the Sul- 
 tan. "I but plead to please thine ear for that which I 
 can take." 
 
 "Yet are there things thou canst not take." 
 
 "What can I not take?" he asked, delighted with the 
 spirit of her words. 
 
 "My heart." 
 
 "Nay; I were a fool to crave it where thy body is 
 so divine," he interrupted. 
 
 Not heeding him, she continued : 
 
 "Thou canst make me hate thee, but thou canst not 
 make me love thee. Thou canst not paint a smile upon 
 my face, or lift my arms willingly about thy neck, or 
 raise my lips with desire to thine. These things, the 
 warmth and the willingness of my love, are the gifts of 
 my soul."
 
 THE SULTAN'S DECISION 77 
 
 "Thou speakest with rare wisdom," he answered 
 when he had looked long upon her. "Also knowest thou 
 the heart of a man and that which he craveth. Thou 
 art mine, yet would I know the price of the unseen 
 things that are within thy gift." 
 
 Slowly she raised her eyes, and they were filled with 
 innocent trouble. 
 
 "O mighty Sultan," she said at last, " 'tis but a small 
 boon I ask of thee: The master hath journeyed from 
 Tunis, and there are those within the harem that I love. 
 Suffer me to return thither and wait thy summons, and 
 when thy gracious offer for my poor beauty hath been 
 accepted, then will I return to the seraglio an thou 
 still desirest me." 
 
 "Where fareth thy master?" asked the Sultan. 
 
 "How may a woman know ? But aught thou sendest 
 to the Bazaar of Nazrullah and Al Hassen will find him 
 right speedily." 
 
 "But thy soul asketh of me to lose thee for a time. 
 If thou wouldst but tempt me to do somewhat rash to 
 possess thee! But thou tempest me with thy lips to 
 deny my own, to let thee go. What manner of houri 
 art thou? I will not wait." 
 
 "Then why speakest thou of thy heart beneath my 
 sandal, and " 
 
 "It is for love of thee that I will not let thee hence." 
 
 "Then, O Sultan, thou wilt have the rose without 
 the perfume, the bird without the song, the woman 
 without her love. Is not the perfume, the song, the 
 love, more than the other nay, the very soul of 
 pleasure ?" 
 
 Then, casting aside the black haik in which she was
 
 78 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 muffled, she stood before him in the full glory of her 
 beauty, as the princess had beheld her. 
 
 "Am I worth the waiting?" she asked, with gently 
 lowered head and arm outstretched. 
 
 The Sultan gazed upon her with delight, and as he 
 looked she wove the magic of her smile about him till 
 she felt that he grew weak to do her will. 
 
 "Is the conquering of a woman's heart as nothing? 
 Will I not know thee for a just man, keeping the law 
 of Islam, of Allah ?" 
 
 "Yet is it grievous hard, that which thou askest of 
 me." 
 
 "Grievous hard?" repeated Aletra, and her brows 
 darkened with anger and her lip curled. "Thou mean- 
 est I am not worth a few days or weeks of waiting ?" 
 
 "Nay, turn not so darkling a brow upon me thou art 
 worth an eternity of waiting. I shall praise Allah if 
 in paradise there is one like unto thee." 
 
 "Now speakest thou from thy princely heart," said 
 the girl, smiling divinely upon him. "Now do I see 
 the richness of thy heart's treasure, that the woman 
 thou lovest shall find." 
 
 Her words filled him with pleasure and pride. 
 
 "Thou art once more a mighty man," she continued, 
 "strong in justice and the right of Allah ; for that thou 
 art willing to do a great deed to battle with thyself 
 against thyself, and conquer." 
 
 She could see that he was giving her words considera- 
 tion, and straightway began to swathe the silver veil 
 about her shoulders, speaking the while : 
 
 "The conquerer hath scant pleasure in the slaves 
 which he taketh in battle; but thinketh of the woman 
 who hath waited him, the woman who counteth the days
 
 THE SULTAN'S DECISION 79 
 
 and even the nights till she shall behold him, and pour 
 the attar of her heart at his feet." 
 
 "Wouldst thou so count the days and even the nights, 
 O Jeppa?" and his face was gentle, till nearly it 
 seemed beautiful. 
 
 "Even so shall I count the hours when I fare forth 
 from thee," she answered. 
 
 He looked long into her eyes, and the glory of them 
 made his will grow weak. 
 
 As he spoke not, Aletra held the flashing sapphire 
 and pearls toward him. 
 
 "And thou dost not trust me, I leave these with thee. 
 And thou knowest well 'tis not within the heart of 
 woman to part with such jewels." 
 
 "Nay, take them," he said; "but know, O Rose of 
 the Dawn, thou takest not alone jewels and rugs and 
 silk stuff with thee, but the heart of Omar as well. 
 Be heedful of it; do all thou canst to hasten thy 
 return unto me. And I will send my offer unto 
 thy master this day. In all will I delay my happiness 
 seven days, that I may have the perfume, the song, and 
 the love," he smiled ; "but on the morning of the seventh 
 day my slaves will wait before the door of thy house 
 and bring thee again to the seraglio where awaiteth thee 
 royal homage and a Sultan's favor. 
 
 "Think not/' he said, reading her countenance, "that 
 thy master will refuse. An he would so risk his sta- 
 tion, that which I shall offer for thee could 'no man 
 refuse. I will set him over a desert city and enrich him 
 with lands and slaves and other wives." 
 
 As he spoke the last words, he came nearer, and noting 
 the sudden whiteness of her face, he thought he had 
 affrighted her.
 
 80 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "Meantime, O my pomegranate blossom, the fairest 
 food in my mouth will turn bitter ; the flowers will seem 
 faded; the sweetest music will ring discords in my 
 ear." 
 
 As he paused, Aletra wound her veils about her. 
 
 "But wait," he pleaded. "Before thou swathest thy- 
 self in the darkness of thy haik, hast thou no gentle 
 favor for Omar, that he, remembering, may feast 
 upon ?" 
 
 Aletra lifted her round young arms, took his face 
 between her hands, drew it down, and bending lightly 
 toward him, laid her lips upon his brow. Then, 
 before he should detain her, she turned swiftly from his 
 presence out into the court where Abla waited; past 
 Babek, who stared in amaze when he saw her, and 
 toward the great gate. 
 
 "Open !" she commanded Babek. 
 
 "Doth the commander of the faithful let thee go 
 hence?" he asked. 
 
 "An thy life would be easy when I return, thou 
 shouldst obey without question," she answered. 
 
 But even as she spoke, a slave ran forward and told 
 him to send her to her people with all possible comfort 
 and state.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IN THE DESOLATE DOVE-COTE 
 
 So Aletra's return journey was begun. Tremblingly 
 had she come, lest she suffer if the princess die. 
 Returning, she was rich with jewels. Abla looked won- 
 deringly at her new mistress but questioned not, as be- 
 came her station. Yet she thought her far from wise 
 to leave the Sultan if he wanted her to stay. 
 
 Aletra spoke little. The only thought that smote 
 her and spoiled the happiness of her departure was her 
 deceit of Omar, whose eyes were ever before her as she 
 had looked upon them last. Then she thought of 
 Attar, and straightway forgot the look in the other's 
 eyes. 
 
 They returned in a carriage drawn by two white 
 horses. As she neared home, she was enraptured at the 
 thought of seeing Jeppa again; and with the delight 
 of a child pictured herself unfolding the silken shawls 
 and giving to each one Jeppa, little Zema and Zu- 
 laykha and her baby, all should have something. So 
 plainly did she see them all, that she smiled and spoke 
 very softly to Abla. 
 
 "Art thou sorry to fare forth from the seraglio? I 
 promised thee to give thee thy freedom an thou wouldst 
 be a friend to me, and now I give it thee." 
 
 "And wouldst thou drive me from thy presence, O 
 Jeppa?" cried Abla in despair. 
 
 81
 
 82 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "Nay, thou mayst bide with me it would grieve me 
 sore to lose thee." 
 
 "Then keep thou me as a slave; and if I can serve, 
 though it draw the last breath from my body, thou shalt 
 not find Abla lacking." 
 
 "Say not overmuch. Thou little knowest how I may 
 call upon thee," Aletra answered ; for the days to come 
 were hidden from her eyes as by a stone wall, and 
 she wished not to think of them, nor to speak of them, 
 till she had taken counsel with Jeppa, in whose wisdom 
 she trusted as a child does in its mother. 
 
 "Jeppa would know; Jeppa would make all clear," 
 was her hope. 
 
 As they came nearer, so consumed was she with 
 thoughts, and so rejoiced at her freedom and the near 
 prospect of being so soon with Jeppa again, that she 
 took no heed of the gloom on the faces of the men they 
 passed, nor noted the many funerals that were halted 
 on the way to change pall-bearers, that each might have 
 the attendant luck of this office. When they reached 
 the abode of Al Hassen she was amazed to find that 
 the outer door stood open, and when they had entered 
 her amazement grew that none moved about in the 
 court. 
 
 She called not, fearing lest any should know that she 
 had gone in place of Jeppa, But, bidding Abla wait 
 in the court, she went alone into the harem. 
 
 "Jeppa!" she cried; "Jeppa! It is Aletra, come 
 back." 
 
 Getting no answer, she called : 
 
 "Zulaykha, Zulaykha!" 
 
 Then, "Hamed! Selim!"
 
 IN THE DESOLATE DOVE-COTE 83 
 
 But none made answer. No sound came from the 
 men's quarters. She went from room to room, calling 
 each by name. In Jeppa's room there was unusual con- 
 fusion ; in her own, the veil that she had discarded lay 
 as she had thrown it, half on the bed, half on the floor. 
 Jeppa's half-finished embroidery lay upon the cushions. 
 
 In Zulaykha's room also there was disorder: an un j 
 emptied basin, a litter of Hafiz's little shirts and other 
 clothing. Again she called, but getting no answer she 
 fled to the Salamlik. As she stood upon the threshold, 
 a small door in the outer wall was opened, and Selim 
 entered. 
 
 "Aletra ! Thou !" he cried, "Allah be praised." 
 
 "Have all departed? Speak, O Selim," she com- 
 manded. "Why lookest thou upon me thus? Where 
 bide they: Jeppa and Zulaykha and Zema all?" she 
 besought, laying hold of his garment. 
 
 "Jeppa," said the boy, sorrowfully, "Jeppa hath gone 
 to the gardens that Allah hath prepared for all good 
 women. With her have gone Zulaykha Zema 
 Hafiz " 
 
 "O Allah! Allah! Allah! Had I but come 
 sooner!" she cried, and she tore her garments and the 
 jeweled veil that covered her face, and beat upon her 
 breast. 
 
 Hearing her cry, Abla came from the court where she 
 waited, and Aletra poured the black tidings into the 
 girl's ear. 
 
 "Would I had stayed! Would I had perished with 
 them!" she moaned; and she tore away from Abla's 
 ministering hands and listened not to Selim's words of 
 solace, and would not be comforted.
 
 84 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 After a time the boy, who in the master's absence 
 was the head of the house, commanded her to stop weep- 
 ing lest she fall ill. 
 
 "Peace," said Abla, in her childish voice that seemed 
 so alien to her words. "Peace. When Allah hath not 
 of joy sufficient to give unto the world, he giveth tears." 
 
 Thus admonished, the boy kept silent, and Abla min- 
 istered to her mistress. Looking upon Abla, Selim 
 straightened himself to his full height, and arranged 
 his dark TwJbrd, and even in the moment that she soothed 
 Aletra she saw and was not displeased. So fell the 
 seed of love in the loam of death ; and, as it quickened, 
 a thrill of life ran through the house of desolation. 
 
 As if a word of comfort had been spoken, Aletra 
 lifted her head from Abla's arm and told of her journey 
 to the seraglio in place of Jeppa. 
 
 "And art thou not Jeppa ?" asked Abla, wonderingly. 
 
 "Nay, therefore am I unconsoled. I trod the path 
 of life, and left her to the black death." 
 
 As she spoke, she cried anew in her distress. Selim 
 questioned, but told her not of Zulaykha's word that she, 
 Aletra, had gone right willingly that she might escape 
 the plague when first Zema was stricken. Thus the 
 sin of Zulaykha's tortured heart lay hidden with her 
 soft olive body till she should hear the call to paradise. 
 
 "I asked thy freedom, Abla, but to give it thee," she 
 said brokenly at last. "Yet were it best, perchance, 
 that thou return again to the seraglio. Selim, my kins- 
 man, shall take thee hither, an thou wiliest 
 
 "Why hold her freedom so lightly?" said Selim, be- 
 fore Abla could answer. "Thou art overborne with 
 the sorrow of the moment. Calm thy fear ; I will take
 
 IN THE DESOLATE DOVE-COTE 85 
 
 ye both to a place of safety where ye can bide till word 
 cometh from the master." 
 
 " 'A place of safety/ sayest thou ? A place of safety 
 canst thou not find in all Tunisia wherein to hide me !" 
 she made answer. 
 
 "Why sayest thou so?" questioned Selim. 
 
 "For that a hundred eyes are upon me. The Sultan 
 desireth me even now he sendeth an offer to the 
 master an offer that would tempt any Moslem in 
 Tunisia." 
 
 Then she set forth all that had befallen her since 
 Jeppa had sent her forth with the draft all but the 
 promise to return to the Sultan. 
 
 "Then then " faltered Selim "then why hast 
 
 thou come hither again? Thinkest thou my kinsman 
 will refuse the Sultan? Thinkest thou his life would 
 be worth aught an he were so foolish ? Even if thou 
 wouldst turn thy back upon the royal favor." 
 
 "Selim/' said Aletra, and suddenly she seemed taller 
 of stature, "thou speakest to thy kinsman's wife. And 
 till he bestow her upon another, she will remain as be- 
 cometh a good woman." 
 
 The boy lowered his head, and she spoke again : 
 
 "Thou shalt put Abla in a place of safety and go 
 thine own way. I fare forth in the night and seek the 
 desert road the road which leadeth to Tombouctu and 
 beyond, to the Village of the Weavers, where bideth the 
 master's kinsman." 
 
 "I leave thee not," said Abla, and Aletra made 
 answer : 
 
 "None shall fare with me, lest they betray me to the 
 eyes that watch."
 
 86 
 
 Then silence fell between them, and they were all 
 sore troubled; for, like a gleam of lightning in the 
 brooding cloud of sorrow, was the danger of opposing 
 the desire of the Sultan. After a time Abla broke the 
 silence, speaking gently : 
 
 "Thou, O Selim, art a man ! Thou wilt find a way." 
 
 "The Village of the Weavers is far," he said to 
 Aletra. "How wilt thou fare ?" 
 
 Though he spoke to Aletra, he looked at Abla, and 
 the look of a man was in his eyes. 
 
 "The Sultan hath enriched me," said Aletra. "And 
 gold buyeth camels and food and shelter." 
 
 "Nay, Aletra ; thou shalt wait in safety." 
 
 "Thou comprehendest not 
 
 "Yea, well do I comprehend. Harken, the seraglio 
 knoweth thee as Jeppa. As Jeppa hast thou gone hence 
 and returned. Thou art Jeppa! An the slaves come 
 on the morrow for word of Jeppa a hundred tongues 
 will tell them she hath perished of the plague, for she 
 hath been taken away within the hour. Bide close; let 
 none see thee; answer not those who beat upon the door 
 when I fare forth." 
 
 "And what preventeth the slaves from searching 
 within ?" asked Abla. 
 
 "Death," said Selim. 
 
 "And what preventeth death from finding us here 
 also?" 
 
 "Allah," he replied again. 
 
 "Yea, Allah alone can help us," responded Aletra. 
 
 "Mahmud, the fig merchant, hath had passports for 
 his sisters who perished as did Jeppa. They would have 
 journeyed to the new country. These papers will I ask, 
 and thee, O Aletra, will I send to the master !"
 
 IN THE DESOLATE DOVE-COTE i 87 
 
 And when Abla had listened to his last words, she 
 saw the wisdom of them and rose lightly from the rug 
 and began dancing about the court, singing the joy song 
 of the Arab women. But Aletra stopped her. Yet, 
 even as she chided her, her own eyes grew large with 
 hope. 
 
 "Thinkest thou they watch not the harbor and this 
 house and the bazaar? O Selim, Babek hath eyes in 
 the back of his tarboosh and seeth all things." 
 
 "Then shall he see what he shall see, for I will 
 straightway fare into the desert, taking with me two 
 women with double veils and much show of secrecy 1 
 ISTazrullah, my kinsman's partner, hath bidden me hence 
 e'er he fled Tunis." 
 
 "Hath Nazrullah fled ?" asked Aletra. 
 
 "Yea; many of his household perished, and he hath 
 sent for the Sheik Saoud, to hold the bazaar. I fear 
 not." 
 
 Then he added thoughtfully: 
 
 "They bring men of medicine, who wear veils like 
 women, and prate of insects so fine thou mayst not see 
 them in the water and the air and the dust, and the 
 Sultan forbiddeth it not, for he dreadeth to offend the 
 Roumi. 
 
 "But fools are they all fools! So many days as is 
 good for him a man may live and no more. And 
 Allah has counted them and bound them in sheaves, as 
 wheat is bound by the reaper thousands of years before 
 he is born into the world. Knowing this, I fear not. 
 Great is the name of Allah !" 
 
 "When farest thou for the ship's papers?" asked 
 Abla. 
 
 "Even now," answered Selim.
 
 88 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "The night cometh apace; I should feel greater 
 strength if thou bide within," said Aletra. "Fare forth 
 in the dawning, lest those who should see thee in the 
 night should question thy haste and follow after." 
 
 "Hast supped?" asked Abla gently. 
 
 "Nay, but little food hath passed my lips since Fri- 
 day. There is milk within and cakes and dates," he 
 said as if he had forgotten to offer them. "I will fetch 
 them and thou mayst eat." 
 
 "Nay," said the girl; "sit thou beside Aletra as be- 
 fitteth the master's kinsman, and I will serve thee both." 
 
 So Abla moved into the gray shadows in the room 
 beyond and found the food upon a long table, and when 
 she had placed it fitly, she returned and set it before 
 them. There were honey cakes and figs and dates and 
 a bowl of goat's milk, and she lit a wrought lamp and 
 brewed coffee; and the odor of the coffee comforted 
 Selim, and he looked upon the girl with great gentle- 
 ness as she passed back and forth in the soft light. 
 Aletra would not partake of food. 
 
 "Thou canst bide in the master's room, thou and 
 Abla," he said ; "the plague hath not entered it." 
 
 At his words Aletra rose, and, bidding Abla tarry 
 and minister to Selim and refresh herself, she went 
 from the Salamlik. On the threshold she paused. 
 
 "On the morrow," said Selim, seeing the torture of 
 fear upon her face "on the morrow shalt thou and 
 Abla take ship. Thou wilt be a solace to the heart of 
 the master." 
 
 "I am loath to bring heavy tidings unto him," said 
 Aletra. 
 
 "Nor needst thou; for at dawn, when Murad abu 
 Mahmud, the Syrian fig merchant, began his journey
 
 IN THE DESOLATE DOVE-COTE 89 
 
 I gave him word of all that had befallen the house of 
 my kinsman, that he might tell it unto him. He goeth 
 to the place where the master bideth and such tidings 
 come better from the mouth of a friend than in un- 
 thinking script." 
 
 "Allah be praised that my tongue bring not the tid- 
 ings !" said Aletra, and she took her way to the master's 
 room. 
 
 When Aletra had made fast the door of the master's 
 room, she threw herself, sobbing, upon the great Tuni- 
 sian bed. What hath Selim said concerning Attar's 
 safety if he opposed the Sultan ? Fear, doubt, anguish, 
 and love tore at her heart till she cried out in her 
 distress : 
 
 "Allah, O Allah, let him forswear the lands, the city, 
 the palaces ! And Allah, O Allah, the wives turn his 
 heart toward me or I perish !" 
 
 Then, as she sobbed, she saw a white burnoose that 
 Attar often wore on desert journeys or in the cool of 
 autumn evenings, hanging beside the bed. She rose and 
 covered it with kisses and wound it about her. The 
 indefinable individual odor that clung to it, blending 
 with musk, spices, and tambac, comforted her as a living 
 presence. She nestled in its embrace, caressed the 
 folds, and, brushing her soft face against it, she spoke 
 to it as if to the master. 
 
 Abla tarried long, for Selim would not suffer her to 
 go. As she tempted him with the food she spoke softly 
 and as if naught were amiss. 
 
 But when an hour had passed she rose to go. 
 
 "Wilt thou show me the way to Aletra ?" she said, and 
 he showed her.
 
 90 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "LaJatic sidi," she said when she stood before the 
 master's door. 
 
 "Lalatic sidi" returned Selim; but the boy scarce 
 knew his own voice, so deep and rich it sounded as he 
 said the Arabic good night. 
 
 With the dawn Selim fared forth to seek the pass- 
 ports. He had great hope, for never had the govern- 
 ment been strict in these matters. 
 
 "An all is well I return before the noonday call to 
 prayer," he said at parting. When he had gone, Aletra 
 sighed : 
 
 "Far better were it for me and for thee that we fare 
 into the desert, and I pray Allah that he find not the 
 ship's papers. I am sore afraid that we go not hence 
 in the ship. In Sahara one hoik is as like to another 
 as are the sands under the feet, and many are the 
 places of hiding." 
 
 "Comfort thy heart," soothed Abla, "and concern not 
 thyself with flight till the return of thy kinsman." 
 
 Yet was Aletra's heart ever tortured with fear of the 
 undertaking. When the muezzin sounded the noonday 
 prayer, Selim had not returned. Abla grew anxious, 
 fearful. Aletra was silent. 
 
 The hours came and went, but Selim came not. The 
 women prayed. The sun crept in from the west through 
 the high, flower-fringed casement ; still Selim came not. 
 They crept cautiously about the Salamlik, peering 
 through hidden casements. 
 
 Twice they heard knockings upon the door, and when 
 those who had beat upon the door sought the houses on 
 either side, and were told that the plague lay heavy 
 upon the house of Al Hassen, they tarried not, but fled 
 speedily.
 
 IN THE DESOLATE DOVE-COTE 91 
 
 When all was quiet, Abla crept to the casement and 
 saw a great figure astride a white stallion. Beside him 
 as he fared away ran one of the seraglio slaves. Abla 
 trembled, but Aletra grew calm with the nearness of 
 danger upon them. 
 
 Fearing that Babek had left some guard below, they 
 dared not speak lest they be heard; but crouched in 
 breathless silence beneath the casements, ever hoping 
 for the sound of Selim's footsteps. But the sun left 
 the narrow street and Selim came not. The shadow 
 crept slowly upward along the walls of the mosque, but 
 he came not. 
 
 The sun glinted at last only as a spark of white flame 
 upon the topmost tiles of the minaret, yet he came not. 
 The street was wrapped in shadows and the mosque was 
 gray when the evening prayer sounded, and they prayed 
 Allah for protection against the unknown the terrible 
 unknown and again listened and waited. And still he 
 came not. 
 
 There was no moon a bank of clouds loomed high 
 toward the east and hid the early stars the mosque 
 grew dim and faded in the darkness, and still they were 
 alone. 
 
 As the nightfall call to prayer sounded, they pros- 
 trated themselves, and when the solemn "Allah hu AJc 
 Bar! Allah hu Ak Bar!" had ceased Aletra called softly 
 into the darkness: "Allah, Allah, Allah, thou who art 
 merciful and compassionate, hide the wife of the mas- 
 ter ! Let the darkness that we fear be our safety, and 
 the waiting our deliverance !" Then they watched again 
 in the silence. 
 
 Toward midnight the moon rose and touched the 
 rounded dome of the mosque. Aletra, extending her 
 arms, prayed silently for the safety of the master, as
 
 92 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 ever she did when the light of the moon first fell upon 
 the sacred dome. 
 
 Abla, grown weary with suspense and fear, slept. 
 Aletra kept her vigil alone.
 
 CHAPTEK XIV 
 
 IN THE WAKE OF THE LAZAEINES 
 
 IT was well past midnight when Aletra and Abla, who 
 were still crouching beneath the casement, heard a 
 faint sound in the lower court of the Salamlik, as of 
 some one moving cautiously. Abla crept softly to the 
 doorway and, looking into the darkness, saw a white 
 figure moving stealthily. 
 
 She feared to stir or cry out, but even as she thought 
 of how best to hide her mistress, the figure crept into 
 the band of moonlight that fell through an upper case- 
 ment, and she saw that it was Selim. 
 Twice he had come back, he told them, but feared to 
 pass the Sultan's slaves that waited below. Finally he 
 made a pretense of being stricken of the plague himself, 
 and asked them to help him to the shelter of the court. 
 This they did, having a kindly heart; but they fled the 
 moment Selim had entered, so that the house was no 
 longer watched. 
 
 "And the ship's papers ?" asked Abla. 
 
 "Allah be praised, I have them," said the boy; and 
 he gave two pieces of parchment into the hands of 
 Aletra. "And now we must need hasten, for the way 
 is clear. Take with thee what thou wilt and make 
 ready." 
 
 Aletra wound what silks and garments she could 
 
 93
 
 94 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 about her, gifts from the Sultan. Selim would not 
 stop for sup or morsel, but hurried the two women into 
 the street and on the way to the harbor. And when the 
 dawn had come, they were hidden not far from the 
 ship. 
 
 "Well were it to delay going upon the ship till the 
 full time of sailing," said Aletra; for a great fear was 
 upon her. 
 
 When it was near to the time for the ship's departure, 
 a desert man passed, leading a camel which bore an 
 empty bassourah. Selim spoke to him, saying that the 
 women were worn with a long journey and asking that 
 he take them the short distance to the ship in the 
 bassourah. The man agreed, and took them to the 
 harbor. And when the sun had risen, they stood upon 
 the deck. 
 
 Selim had come quite close to them on land, before 
 they took ship, and Abla had dropped a red rose from 
 the folds of her haik that was all. Selim saw and 
 waited, that he might lift it and put it to his lips. But 
 Aletra, having seen, put forth her hand and touched 
 Abla in reproof as if the girl had spoken. 
 
 "Whose the eye, O my heart, that will look for a rose 
 to blossom at the hem of my Jiaik?" said the girl close 
 to her ear. And for the reason that hers was a heart 
 not given to fear she sought to cheer her mistress by 
 further words of courage. 
 
 "Doth not the ship sail within the hour?" she com- 
 forted. 
 
 "Hast ever seen the great figure yonder?" asked 
 Aletra, not heeding the girl's words. Abla looked 
 through the opening in her veil and shrank with fright
 
 IN THE WAKE OF THE LAZARIKES 95 
 
 behind one of the other women that stood near. Draw- 
 ing Aletra toward her, she whispered : 
 
 "It is even Haraven, an eunuch of the Sultan, than 
 whom none but Babek is greater. Would to Allah I had 
 not dropped the rose." 
 
 Even as Abla spoke the eunuch lifted his hand, and 
 two lesser slaves sprang to his side. For the space of a 
 moment they stood before him, listening to his words. 
 The little maid trembled, and the hand with which 
 Aletra sought to strengthen her was as if the snows had 
 touched it. 
 
 Then, even as their eyes were upon the great eunuch, 
 he turned and left the ship. The slaves, being of lesser 
 stature, were lost among the throng of the departing 
 and the kinsmen of the departing. There was much 
 commotion and many people were speaking in different 
 tongues. Some fled from the plague, swearing they, 
 feared it not, others because they feared their mer- 
 chandise would cheapen in remaining near the sickness. 
 Many spoke in great excitement. 
 
 Abla drew Aletra into a place of security, and to- 
 gether they crouched upon some rugs and woven stuffs 
 and listened and took courage as none spoke of them or 
 of any search of the seraglio slaves. 
 
 Chiefly they spoke of a Syrian girl who had perished 
 of the plague in the harbor the day before, and blas- 
 phemed that her body had not yet been removed. The 
 lepers, who alone will touch those stricken of the plague, 
 had not yet come for her. Abla trembled in the shadows 
 as she listened, for she had the added fear of the plague. 
 Aletra shuddered in her compassion for the stranger 
 who lay upon the sands.
 
 96 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 The moments passed. Those who went not with the 
 ship sought the shore. There was much shouting of 
 salaams and bismillahs. A motion of life ran through 
 the ship a movement such as stirs the horse of an Arab 
 ere the rider giveth the word to depart. 
 
 The two girls were well hidden when, half crouching 
 like Kabyle dogs in the wilderness, the two slaves of the 
 Sultan burst through the throng and, seeing the crouch-* 
 ing figures in the shadow, tore the veils from the faces 
 of Aletra and Abla, crying: 
 
 "In the name of the Sultan, are these the two women 
 who fare forth as the daughters of Nazrullah, the rug 
 merchant ?" 
 
 He who was of small stature and the older spoke. 
 As he pronounced the name of the Sultan, all voices 
 were hushed, and when he cried his question a second 
 time the master of the ship looked upon the two women 
 and commanded them to show the paper setting forth 
 their name and country. 
 
 Aletra obeyed, and the slaves laid hold upon them 
 and bore them to the edge of the ship amid the clamor 
 of the throng. 
 
 "Two ladies from the royal harem !" passed from lip 
 to lip. 
 
 "Two of the Sultan's wives escaped !" 
 
 Men spoke without concealment as the two were 
 borne along. One standing close to Aletra said: 
 
 "]STo wall that hath yet been made is strong enough 
 to preserve the virtue of a woman." 
 
 "The redder the lips the greater the conceit they 
 cover," said another. 
 
 And at the very edge of the ship one, a Koumi, a 
 stranger, said: "What punishment will they receive, 
 these fleeing wives ?"
 
 97 
 
 And as the slave grasped her garments roughly she 
 heard a Moslem answer: "Death." 
 
 His voice was compassionate, and he shook his head. 
 
 "They are both flowers of paradise," said an Arab, 
 looking upon their unveiled faces. "The little one a 
 cassia bud, the other one a flower of the snows. She 
 need not fear being stricken unto death by the royal 
 disfavor. But once in a lifetime doth a man gaze upon 
 such beauty. White as the face of the angel of grief is 
 she, yet trembling not nor weeping." 
 
 Then, coming closer, he said, almost at Aletra's ear: 
 
 "An thou tellest the commander of the faithful thou 
 hast fled for that he hath not loved thee enough, thou 
 wilt be forgiven; and if thou art, remember the Arab, 
 David al Kebar." 
 
 And in the moment they stood waiting for the ship 
 to make fast again, that they might be put ashore, she 
 turned her great eyes full upon the Arab who had 
 spoken, and he sprang aside as if she smote him between 
 the eyes ; for in the look she cast upon him was a desola- 
 tion that spoke with a greater surety than her lips could 
 have spoken, seeming to say : "Peace ; I crave not life. 
 I am greater than life, greater than death." 
 
 Abla screamed as the larger slave grasped her arm 
 with brutal strength and hurried her on. He also tore 
 the veil from her weeping face, for she had sought to 
 cover it again and hide her distress. When they had 
 reached the shore, and while the ship's people leaned 
 from the decks and looked upon them and spoke concern- 
 ing their beauty openly, as if they were women of the 
 dancers, Aletra asked the older slave softly: 
 
 "What punishment dost think will be meted out to 
 him who unveils the faces of the Sultan's chosen ones 
 to the men of the street ?"
 
 98 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "I had not thought I but did it for safety," an- 
 swered the slave, drawing the veil over her face himself. 
 "I meant not to cause thee shame." He trembled as he 
 spoke. Then, as she did not speak again, he asked, still 
 trembling : 
 
 "An I serve thee from hence on with all gentleness, 
 wilt thou, O lady, remember this against me?" 
 
 "And my slave girl ?" she asked, touching Abla. 
 
 "And the girl also," he answered humbly. 
 
 "Then will I not remember," she said kindly, and 
 with her own hand she drew the veil over the child's 
 tortured face. Then, being anxious to glean what she 
 might from the affrighted slave, she questioned him 
 concerning Babek's plans, and he made answer: 
 
 "Babek knoweth naught of this. He believeth thou 
 didst perish of the plague. It is the craft of Haraven 
 hath found thee. He is second and craveth the honor of 
 being first eunuch of the harem, which station Babek 
 now holdeth. 
 
 "This hath he told even unto me and my brother who 
 guardeth thy girl, and he hath promised us much gold. 
 I have not closed mine eyes since thou didst leave the 
 seraglio ; ever was I near thee, for none others would he 
 trust than my brother and me, who are born of the same 
 mother." 
 
 "And if thou hadst failed ?" asked Aletra. 
 
 "Then was Babek or the Sultan to know naught of 
 this. And further, O lady, I will tell thee an thou 
 boldest thy silence concerning thy desire to flee ne'er 
 will it reach the ear of the Sultan. Haraven hath told 
 me to give thee this word. He will tell the Sultan that 
 he found thee visiting a kinsman's harem and waiting 
 for his summons to return to the seraglio."
 
 99 
 
 "How great will be thy reward ?" asked Aletra, think- 
 ing of the sapphire hidden in her bosom, yet fearing to 
 offer it for ransom lest he tear it from her and never- 
 theless deliver her to the harem. But ere he could 
 answer, the throng amid which they moved bore back 
 upon them in sudden fear. The slave held fast to her 
 hoik, but a cry arose the dreaded cry : 
 
 "The lepers, the lepers, the Lazarines." 
 
 It flew from mouth to mouth. 
 
 "They carry those who perished of the plague!" 
 
 Those that were before them rushed against the slave 
 that held Aletra and he had almost fallen. In that 
 moment his hold upon the haik was loosened, and Abla, 
 who had ever watched the hand that held her mistress, 
 pressed before Aletra and into her place, so that when 
 the slave grasped the haik again quickly, it was the hoik 
 of Abla that he held. 
 
 Then, pressing Aletra's hand on the other side, she 
 breathed softly: 
 
 "An thou walkest in the footsteps of the lepers with 
 those that mourn, thou mayest deliver thyself." 
 
 Many women, Tzmfc-wrapped and veiled, pressed 
 against them on either side in their sudden fear of the 
 lepers and the plague, and as Aletra drew back another 
 quickly took her place beside Abla, and she made her 
 way toward the side whence came the procession. 
 
 And when Aletra had come to the edge of the throng 
 she went forth with the mourners, fearlessly walking 
 with them, even in the footsteps of the lepers.
 
 CHAPTEK XV 
 
 THE KETUBN OF ATTAB 
 
 IT was dawn on the Mediterranean timid, gray dawn, 
 before the red silk disk of the sun had stained the hein 
 of the sea. 
 
 Attar abu Hamed al Hassen, who had paced the deck 
 throughout the watches of the night, now stood motion- 
 less, looking toward the south, where, wrapped in a 
 mantle of sea-mist, lay Tunis, the mecca or the grave 
 of his desires. 
 
 A white wool burnoose fell about his massive shoul- 
 ders and partly hid his face, but did not fully conceal 
 the golden beard and splendid brow. His eyes were 
 trying to pierce the veil that lay between him and the 
 mosques and minarets of the southern shore: the veil 
 of the morning. 
 
 Even since Mahmud, the fig merchant, had met him 
 in the new country and given him Selim's message con- 
 cerning that which had befallen his harem, he had longed 
 with all the strength of his heart for a sight of Tunis. 
 
 They were anguished days for him, those first days 
 after he had listened to the words of Mahmud. The 
 knowledge that Aletra was left to him brought him no 
 solace, for Selim gave Mahmud no word of Aletra faring 
 to the seraglio, lest it overburden his kinsman with 
 
 100
 
 THE RETURN OF ATTAR 101 
 
 grief, but bade him tell that his beautiful wife had not 
 been stricken. 
 
 As a man who has been told that his date-palms lie 
 buried under the ashes of ^Etna doth not rejoice that 
 his far olive groves are spared, but wildly bewails his 
 loss, even so mourned he for those that had been taken, 
 nor praised Allah nor thought of her who had been left 
 to him. 
 
 Sleep came not to him, and when he rose and walked 
 into the night, repeating the prayers of the Koran for 
 comfort, it was ever memory and not the thought of 
 Allah that fared beside him. 
 
 Without delay he began his journey to Africa. But 
 it was only when he had left Marseilles, and was on the 
 Mediterranean, that he felt the full weight of his loss. 
 The last night out he spent on deck, his heart torn with 
 unrest. At midnight he had gone below and clad him- 
 self in the raiment of his own country. There was a 
 vague solace in the mere touch of native garments that 
 comforted him. 
 
 Now, as he stood in the pale, windless morning, gaz- 
 ing toward the south, a faint glow, like the translucent 
 sheen of a fire-opal, tinged the waters of the east. There 
 was a slight ripple of wind that, for a moment, made 
 the glassy surface dapple, softly pink, like a magic tes- 
 selation of mother of pearl. Another moment, as the 
 wind blew straight toward the ship, the pink of the 
 rippling water deepened to rose to red to crimson 
 to flame to gold : the sun had risen. 
 
 As the first slant spears of burnished light fell upon 
 the deck, Attar prostrated himself. It was the hour of 
 the prayer of dawn. 
 
 When he had prayed, he turned once more to the
 
 102 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 south and again his eyes sought for a glimpse of the 
 outlines of Tunisia. 
 
 He did not break his fast; but hours later, as the 
 harbor came dimly into view, a new strength filled him 
 as if he had eaten of fine meats and sweetened bread. 
 
 When at last the ship came into the bay, he was con- 
 sumed with impatience. 
 
 As it neared the landing, the midday prayer sounded 
 from the countless soaring minarets of the city, and in 
 that moment, while he listened, the thongs that fettered 
 his soul fell from him and left him free to spend his 
 sorrow, and, hiding his face, he wept. Thus his grief 
 was eased, as the flowing of blood eases a wound and 
 prepares it for the marvel of healing. 
 
 After landing, Attar made his way with all speed 
 toward the bazaar. As there was a change in his home- 
 coming, so was there a change in Tunis. The life and 
 color that were wont to flood the streets of the city 
 were missing. The throngs of Rounds that at other 
 times brought wealth to the souks were missing also, and 
 those who went abroad seemed to be keeping pace with 
 the invisible sorrow that walked beside them. 
 
 The plague had spent itself, but desolation followed 
 in its wake, and put its stamp upon the faces of those 
 that were spared. 
 
 As he made his way along the narrow arched street 
 beneath the overhanging roofs, he came upon many who 
 gave him greeting. But after the first words of wel- 
 come each in turn shook his head, lifted his hands, or 
 besought the compassion of Allah; for all Tunis was 
 like unto a man who had had a grave sickness and whose 
 strength has not yet returned.
 
 THE RETURN OF ATTAR 103 
 
 Owing to the ethics of the Orient, no one condoled 
 with him on the death of his wives, for the faintest 
 interest concerning another man's wives shows great 
 lack of breeding. Probably few knew of his loss. Gos- 
 sip had been greatly restricted during the plague, on ac- 
 count of the closing of the baths, and if any man knew 
 he would never dream of broaching the subject, for the 
 greatest tribute to a virtuous woman of the East is to 
 say: "No man but her husband hath looked upon her 
 since womanhood in life or in death, or spoken of her." 
 
 When he came to the great mosque, though in anxiety 
 to reach the bazaar, he stopped long enough to repeat 
 the bismillah. But he had no room in his consciousness 
 for the beauty of the interior, the Moorish tiles, the 
 beautiful minibar, with its fretwork of marble lace, the 
 wonderful glass and tiles, the rare marbles with their 
 hint of captured sunshine. No detail of the sacred 
 place assailed his consciousness; but the merging of all 
 the colors, the form, the fabrics, fell upon the man's 
 anxious unrest like a deep chord of harmony, and every 
 moment, whether he stepped upon the soft matting or 
 pressed his forehead to the ground in humility, he 
 gained in power and that strange spiritual pride pe- 
 culiar to the sons of Islam. The mysterious grandeur 
 that distinguishes the true believer invests the meanest 
 beggar of the East with the bearing of a raja. For the 
 discomfort, trials, sorrow, or whatever may harrow the 
 kingdom of the hour, is completely dwarfed by the con- 
 templation of the ages that have been theirs in the past, 
 and the ages that they will inherit in the future in the 
 heart of Allah. 
 
 As he left the mosque, he came upk>n an old kinsman,
 
 104 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 the Sheik Alewa Saoud, who, when his amazement was 
 mastered, fell upon his breast and embraced him, cry- 
 ing: 
 
 "Of a truth Allah hath sent thee. Much hath hap- 
 pened in Tunis since thou hast gone hence, and I have 
 craved word with thee." 
 
 "Yea, O my father, the hand of fate hath fallen 
 heavy upon my house, and its affliction hath brought me 
 hither." 
 
 At this the sheik embraced him again and spoke with 
 the tenderness of a woman, saying: 
 
 "I sorrow with thee as if it were mine own sorrow, 
 for hast thou not lost a son ? And art thou not my kins- 
 man?" 
 
 When Attar heard this, he grasped the other's gar- 
 ments and cried out in his agony: 
 
 "Hamed; tell me not that Hamed also hath per- 
 ished?" 
 
 "Nay, not Hamed, but an infant. Hamed is in safety 
 far from Tunis, in the Village of the Weavers, whither 
 he journeyed with thy kinsman Yoseph." 
 
 "Allah be praised," said the younger man. "Yet is 
 mine affliction deep." 
 
 The sheik being of his father's house and a man of 
 wisdom, he told him concerning the loss of his wives. 
 Had the old man not been such he would not have spoken 
 of the women of his harem, but he said naught of Aletra. 
 
 When he had finished, the sheik laid his hand 
 upon his shoulder and said : 
 
 "Thou hast none to give thee welcome in thine own 
 house. Fare with me unto mine, for my flesh yearneth 
 toward thee as to a son." 
 
 But Attar told him of Aletra, who had left the
 
 THE RETURN OF ATTAR 105 
 
 stricken house, and who was in safety in the harem of 
 his partner, JSTazrullah. 
 
 "Nazrullah !" said the old man. "Nazrullah hath 
 gone unto his date oasis, he and his household." 
 
 "Wherefore hath he gone? Was his house also 
 stricken?" asked Attar. 
 
 "Yea, he hath lost two children." This meant boys, 
 for they only are called children. 
 
 He also told him that Nazrullah himself was stricken 
 almost unto death and was carried away on the backs of 
 his slaves. 
 
 "A-a-aa," said Attar, "who, then, holdeth the 
 bazaar ?" 
 
 "When first his house was stricken, he sent for me, 
 knowing that I had no fear of the plague, and I have 
 done as I would with mine own holdings. But in his 
 haste he hath not given me directions concerning thine 
 abode in the new country, and though I have searched 
 the strongbox, I could find none, for Nazrullah bade me 
 write and give thee tidings that thou shouldst blame 
 him not for leaving Tunis." 
 
 "Hath he left word concerning Aletra with thee? 
 Hath he perchance taken her hence with his women?" 
 
 "Naught hath he said concerning thy household save 
 of Selim, thy young kinsman. The boy, he said, would 
 journey into the desert to meet the caravan that brought 
 him merchandise, that it come not into the city of the 
 plague and be held for months." Then, seeing the 
 trouble in the other's face, he added : 
 
 "But the plague is over, my son. It may be that a 
 welcome doth await thee in thine own house; that thy 
 beautiful woman hath returned thereto, and even now 
 tendeth the flowers in the casements."
 
 106 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "She should not have left the others," said Attar, and 
 hearing the harshness of his tone the sheik said : 
 
 "Be not so swift to censure, O my son! Knowest 
 thou this of a truth that she hath forsaken the others ?" 
 
 Then Attar gave him Selim's letter, which set forth 
 the names of those who had perished and much concern- 
 ing his merchandise, and the words: 
 
 Aletra hath gone from thine house when the first one was 
 stricken, and when she returneth I will send her to the harem 
 of Nazrullah to await thee. Jeppa hath bidden me tell none 
 of Aletra's departure, but to give thee word that she was in 
 safety and to blame her not. 
 
 When he had finished reading, he sought to cheer 
 the younger man, saying : 
 
 "I will go with thee to thy house. Perchance thy 
 beautiful woman awaiteth thee there, having returned 
 when the plague was over." 
 
 Attar did not answer, and they walked on in silence. 
 But when they were come before his house, and he saw 
 that the flowers still bloomed in the deep casements, 
 that they were bright against the white of the wall, a 
 sudden, fierce, swift, unbidden, almost unwelcome joy 
 tore at his heart, for he thought of the words of the 
 sheik. 
 
 And, even as his kinsman knocked upon the door, he 
 looked upward toward the window and called softly, 
 "Aletra, Aletra!" thinking that perhaps she would 
 come to the window and look through the veil of flowers 
 and behold him. 
 
 When no one came, the old man knocked again. The 
 sound echoed faintly through the stone corridor beyond, 
 but no pattering footsteps hastened, no willing hands 
 unbarred. Then a great fear fell upon the heart of the
 
 THE EETUEN OF ATTAE 107 
 
 master, and his hand trembled as he gave Saoud the 
 key, which he carried ever with him. His kinsman 
 unlocked the door. As it swung back, the chill air 
 struck him with a sense of the abandoned desolation of 
 the place. 
 
 Solemnly, slowly, as if in a mosque or in the presence 
 of the dead, they entered. In the salamlik, the court 
 garden, the little court, the harem, everywhere, the 
 quiet was unbroken. 
 
 H left the sheik in the salamlik and passed through 
 the bab-el-harem (door of the harem) alone, calling 
 softly, but only the echo of his own voice came back 
 to him for answer. He went first to Jeppa's room. 
 Here was a strange kind of disorder, unusual in any- 
 thing belonging to Jeppa. In Zulaykha's room were a 
 small tub of water and some of Hafiz's little garments, 
 and many other things here and there and medicines in 
 boxes and bottles. 
 
 Aletra's room was in perfect order but for a white 
 veil that lay half on the floor and half on the bed. The 
 bed itself was covered wtih pieces of unfinished em- 
 broidery in different stages of completion. There was 
 an altar-cloth that Aletra had wrought; it was nearly 
 finished, and a gauzy silver veil that Jeppa had written 
 of when she began to embroider it. 
 
 The silence in this room, this paradise, which his 
 mind had ever pictured as the Mecca of his love, tor- 
 tured him, and, fearing to lose his reason in its per- 
 fumed desolation, he fled back into the court. 
 
 But when he found that none was there, he returned 
 to the Salamlik, and when the sheik beheld him, his face 
 was as the face of one stricken. Saoud sought to com- 
 fort him with words and embraces, but for answer the
 
 108 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 other asked that he consider him not ungrateful, but 
 that he craved an hour alone with his dead. His kins- 
 man was loath to leave him, and spoke again of Aletra : 
 
 "Thy heart is sick, O my son ; yet such is the manner 
 of man when he heareth that his date-palms are buried 
 beneath the ashes of ^Etna that he doth not rejoice be- 
 cause his far olive-groves are spared. Yet in time he 
 seeketh the shade of the olive-grove and delighteth in 
 its fruit." 
 
 But Attar answered not, and turned again toward 
 the bab-el-harem. 
 
 "Go then, O Attar!" said the sheik. "It is well 
 betimes to feed thy sorrow with the sweet morsels of 
 grief that it may be surfeited the quicker. Such is the 
 medicine of nature. And meanwhile I will go forth 
 and question the master of the house to the right of 
 thee and to the left and the old women, and I will send 
 one to the baths which have but just been opened 
 again. I will glean what I may of gossip concerning 
 thy wife." 
 
 And Attar listened; but, shaking his head, passed 
 again through the bab-el-harem. He did not enter Al- 
 etra's room again, nor Zulaykha's, but went as ever 
 when his heart was sore, to Jeppa's part of the harem. 
 
 Ever since Mahmud, the fig merchant, had met him 
 in the new country and given him Selim's message con- 
 cerning that which had befallen his harem, he had 
 mourned for Jeppa. In the night that followed sleep 
 came not to him, and even when he rose and walked into 
 the night, repeating the prayers of the Koran for 
 comfort, it was yet memory and not the thought of 
 Allah that fared beside him. 
 
 Of Aletra he thought not at all; it was of Jeppa he
 
 THE KETUKN OF ATTAK 109 
 
 thought. It was the child face of Jeppa before it wore 
 the inscrutable veil of womanhood that was ever be- 
 fore him the soft music of Jeppa' s words that mocked 
 his ears with fantom whispers. 
 
 As he passed Zulaykha's door, he upbraided himself 
 that he did not think enough of her Zulaykha with 
 her docile eyes, her plump neck, her full lips. She had 
 loved him and borne him a son, yet it was of Jeppa 
 "Jeppa, the perfect one," as he called her in secret 
 that he thought. 
 
 Now, as he entered her room, she came before his 
 vision as she had looked when his mother brought her 
 home, a frightened child, scarce more mature than waa 
 Zema when he left the East. He thought of her small 
 stature, not reaching near his shoulder ; of her soft flesh, 
 as he had shyly taken her in his arms when they had 
 been left alone for a moment, before his mother had 
 taken her away to put her to bed with the other 
 children; for the little wedding had been more in the 
 nature of an adoption of a daughter-in-law into the 
 family than a real marriage the mother thinking that 
 she could not begin too soon to train a wife for her 
 son. 
 
 He thought of her frightened look, of her gratitude 
 when she knew he was pleased with her. He remem- 
 bered their first years together. Hbw, when his mother 
 admonished her, she would fly to him for comfort, and, 
 nestling in his arms, would relieve her little heart with 
 the words: 
 
 "Thou never reproachest me, it mattereth not how 
 great the cause;" and of how he would reassure her, 
 delighting in the softness of her touch as she clung to 
 him or passed her little hands lovingly over his face.
 
 110 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 Once how well he remembered it! about a year 
 after his mother had surprised him with her as a 
 "wife," she had had a particularly trying day with her 
 embroidery, and the mother had been severe. 
 
 The memory of that day was as clear to him as if it 
 had been yesterday. He had just returned from meet- 
 ing the caravan of his kinsman Yoseph, and had not 
 seen Jeppa for three days. When they were alone she 
 ran to him, like the child she was, and passed her 
 little fingers over his hands, upon his arms and his 
 face and his neck, her touch like the tender petals of 
 white jasmines. 
 
 "The day," she said, "hath many hours when thou 
 art gone, and the stitches go not where I place the needle, 
 and thy excellent mother hath cause to wax wroth with 
 me many times. And, though I lock mine eyes close, 
 the tears fall upon the silken mesh I 'broider, and I ask 
 Allah to give me greater cunning with my work. But 
 when thou art come" here she paused and smiled, ex- 
 pressive of the great change "the silk flieth through 
 the eye of the needle, the needle flieth along the mesh, 
 and the flower bloometh upon it as if the angels had 
 wrought it and not I." 
 
 As she spoke, he held her close, closer than he had 
 ever dared crush the soft little body before, and she had 
 sighed with the delight of a child. She had lifted her 
 little hands and felt his forehead, his cheeks, his lips, 
 over again. 
 
 "I should see thee, even if I were blind," she cooed, 
 "by thy flesh it feeleth so strong." As she spoke, her 
 breath touched his face a strange, delightful, disturb- 
 ing sense of pleasure came over him. 
 
 "And why should not my flesh seem strong, am I 
 not a man ?" he asked, and she had said :
 
 THE RETURN OF ATTAR 111 
 
 "Nay, thou art not," in an affrighted whisper, and 
 he had answered, holding her closer still: "Of a cer- 
 tainty I am, and thou, soft, little white flower of para- 
 dise, art a woman." And he held her from him and 
 looked upon the miracle his man-grown fancy had found 
 within the hour. 
 
 Slowly he had bent his head to meet her waiting lips. 
 It was as if children had carelessly lifted a precious 
 chalice, filled with the wine of ages, and, without know- 
 ing its meaning or worth, drained it as they would a 
 cup of milk. 
 
 Yet that moment of white innocence and the memory 
 of her childish lips were with him, like a purifying 
 flame. And he could not realize that all this clinging 
 softness and gentleness were gone; that his flower of 
 yesterday had shed its milk-white petals; that never 
 again would its perfume mingle with his breath. 
 
 Then followed remorse remorse for his welcome of 
 Zulaykha. True, Jeppa was glad when she came, for 
 had she not said so ? And then there was Aletra ! He 
 reproached himself for that last night in the harem, 
 when with Jeppa beside him, he had thbught and 
 dreamed hours away with the vision of Aletra ever be- 
 fore him. 
 
 Did she know it? Jeppa, the faithful Jeppa, the 
 perfect? Yea yea, she knew it! Or why in the 
 morning had she sped him forth to find the other ? He 
 groaned in spirit, condemned alike by his conscience 
 and the prophet; his soul sickened with self-reproach. 
 If sorrow shrives the soul, the purgatory of those nights 
 had left him sinless. 
 
 When the hour was fulfilled, and he heard the sheik 
 at the door, he left the harem ; but as he passed Aletra' s 
 door on the way, he felt a quick resentment toward her
 
 112 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 for that she had deserted Jeppa. But when he had 
 opened and beheld the sheik's face, a sudden fear seized 
 him that Aletra, too, had perished. 
 
 His kinsman did not speak nor look into his eyes; 
 but set food before him, a dish of cous-cous, brought to 
 the door by a woman who knew there was naught in 
 the house of food ; also a jug of mare's milk. Al Hassen 
 would not sup, but questioned him concerning his tid- 
 ings; and when the other would not speak he burst 
 forth in a torrent of words: 
 
 "Thou canst hold thy peace an thou wilt, O my 
 father; but I see in thine eyes that Allah hath taken 
 even her." The old man still kept silent. Then, be- 
 thinking that in time the other would hear the gossip 
 of the wells, even as he had heard it, he broke the 
 silence, saying: 
 
 "Nay, O my son, thy beautiful wife perished not!" 
 
 "What meanest thou, then ?" cried Attar as he read 
 his kinsman's face, and he grasped him with such 
 strength that the other cried out: "Peace, peace, I 
 will tell thee!" 
 
 And he told of what was spoken at the great well 
 that one of his wives had fared forth upon a camel with 
 silken trappings, and that he would see her no more. 
 But the words had not left the old man's mouth before 
 Attar cried out in his wrath: 
 
 "Lies! Lies! Black as the slime of the wells at 
 which they were made," and his face was terrible to 
 behold, for suddenly the blood rushed once more along 
 his veins till his flesh burned with the fires they had 
 kindled. 
 
 The man of age and wisdom sought not to stay his 
 wrath for a time ; but when he saw that it grew in place
 
 THE KETUKN OF ATTAB 113 
 
 of lessening, he counseled him to wait without blaming 
 or believing. 
 
 "Let us move wisely, as if ordered by reason/' he 
 said. "There are letters at the bazaar. These have I 
 sent for ; they should be here presently. In them mayst 
 thou find word that will comfort thy heart. Selim, 
 thy nephew, hath gone out of Tunis ere I came. ISTaz- 
 rullah bade me open all letters till he should send for 
 them, or return. This have I done. But those that 
 bore thy name have I not opened." 
 
 "Hast thou had word from Nazrullah ?" asked the 
 master. 
 
 "Yea, from the caravans." 
 
 Though no letter had been received, word had come 
 that he was safe in one of the small oases. In mid- 
 desert one caravan passing or meeting another will 
 pause, and in the space of an hour, with all the un- 
 hurried grace of a friendly conversation, the most mo- 
 mentous messages will be sent by a stranger to a 
 stranger. 
 
 Such messages will pass from one caravan to another 
 until they reach their destination in their original con- 
 struction, and their inviolate transmission constitutes a 
 part of the desert code of honor. 
 
 In such manner came word from Nazrullah, and 
 was received as unquestionably the truth. 
 
 "And from Selim?" 
 
 "Nay, but ISTazrullah hath told me the boy would go 
 forth to meet the caravan with merchandise. Ramon, 
 the wizard, who hath brought fresh serpents but yester- 
 day, spoke with him well out of Tunis ; therefore is he 
 safe. Thou art prospered in one thing, I doubt not, 
 for a demand hath come more than a moon past that
 
 114 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 thou send rugs and silken stuffs for the consideration of 
 the harem ladies at the seraglio, and a letter bearing 
 the royal seal hath come soon thereafter. Oft was I 
 tempted to break it, but it bore thy name and I would 
 not 
 
 "Hast thou searched well for any word that could 
 have been left for thine eye alone? Hast thou looked 
 even among the garments of thy women for such a 
 script?" 
 
 "Nay," said Attar, "my grief hath overwhelmed me." 
 
 "Then, O my son, go thou unto thy harem and search, 
 and if thou wilt I will go to thine own room. It may 
 be that we shall find some message." Attar bowed his 
 head and led the way. 
 
 "Thou mayst follow even here," he said at the bab-el- 
 harem. "Naught is there but desolation within." 
 
 They spent nearly an hour searching everywhere in 
 Jeppa's and Zulaykha's part of the harem, but without 
 results. Finding nothing, Attar went again to Aletra's 
 room and lifted the embroideries, one by one, rever- 
 ently, as sacred relics left by vanished hands. 
 
 As he moved about and bent over, he saw a small 
 paper, half hidden by the massive footboard of the 
 Tunisian bed. It was Jeppa's letter to Aletra, sealed 
 as she had left it, for Aletra had never found it after 
 she returned from the seraglio. He read : 
 
 Peace be unto thee, O Aletra! May Allah give thee the 
 great blessing. I wait not that I may tell thee with my 
 lips of all that hath befallen us since thou hast fared forth, 
 for there is that within me that bids me write that bids me 
 speak to thee to-night, and quickly for I know that only in 
 paradise shall I see thee again, and I want thee to know the 
 fullness of a mother's love and gratitude.
 
 THE RETURN OF ATTAR 115 
 
 By thy going in my place was I with little Zema even to 
 the end of her frail life. Tell thou unto the master when he 
 come Zulaykha calleth. I will finish when I have minis- 
 tered unto her. 
 
 There was nothing more beyond the interruption. 
 Her writing, usually so delicately perfect, was tremu- 
 lous, and as Attar read, tears dropped upon the uneven 
 scroll. When he had finished he put it to his lips for a 
 long moment. 
 
 "Thine, O Jeppa, hath ever been the hand to com- 
 fort me to ease my sorrow; ever hath wisdom sat 
 upon thy childish brow; ever hast thou spoken the 
 word of peace and sought to fulfill the wishes of my 
 heart, and it is still thy little hand that showeth the 
 way that uncovereth that which was a mystery." 
 
 Holding the mute missive in his hand, he could 
 almost see the calm face of Jeppa, he could almost hear 
 her low voice saying : "It was Aletra who fared to the 
 seraglio Aletra, and not thy Jeppa. Aletra it was 
 that hath been seen faring forth on the camel with 
 silken trappings; but she hath gone by my wish, not 
 her own, and the plague was at the seraglio. It was 
 not delight that tempted her." 
 
 All this he thought in the short moment before he 
 sought the sheik. 
 
 "This explaineth much," said his kinsman after read- 
 ing, "and also have I seen that in thine own part of the 
 house which maketh it seem that one other than thou 
 hath lain there a woman." 
 
 "JSTay, sayest thou?" cried Attar in amazement, and 
 he passed quickly within. To him also it was plain 
 that the room had been occupied and by a woman.
 
 116 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 The perfume of wistaria, sweetly vagrant, spoke of 
 Aletra, 
 
 His own white gondoura had the scent mingled with 
 its tambac and amber, and there were long hairs as 
 long as his arm upon the white surface. The gon- 
 doura had been used by Aletra! When he realized 
 this, he took it up and covered it with a passion of kisses. 
 
 There was also a shawl in the room, a shawl of great 
 beauty, worth the price of a camel dull blue, with 
 copper workings, as minute as weaving. This he held 
 aloft, and they gazed upon it in wonder, for naught 
 had ever come into his house of such worth. 
 
 "She hath returned !" he cried in his joy. 
 
 "Yea," said the old man, then added: "Yet is she 
 not here." 
 
 But even as he spoke there was the sound of some 
 one without, and he left Attar and went to the door and 
 took the letters from the messenger who had been sent 
 for them to the bazaar, and he carried them to the 
 master. When Attar saw that there were many he 
 said to his kinsman: 
 
 "Open thou, also, and read; for I have no secrets 
 from thee." 
 
 The old man lifted the letter which bore the royal 
 seal, but the seal did not show, for he had placed it 
 downward on his way, doubting not since he had read 
 Jeppa's script that this letter bore evil tidings to his 
 kinsman. 
 
 But when he had opened the letter and read the first 
 words, he cried out in amaze : 
 
 "By Allah, this is for thine eye alone. No longer 
 needest thou doubt where bideth thy beautiful woman." 
 
 Attar almost tore the paper from his hand, and to- 
 gether they read the Sultan's scroll :
 
 THE RETURN OF ATTAR 117 
 
 ATTAR ABU HAMED AL HASSEN : 
 
 In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate, 
 greeting ! 
 
 I have been instructed by the representative of Allah, the 
 Sultan, who hath been entrusted with the leading of Islam, 
 and whose judgment and will are unquestioned, to give unto 
 thee the good tidings that thy wife Jeppa hath found favor in 
 his eyes. 
 
 "Jeppa! Jeppa!" cried Attar in amazement, but 
 the other was consumed with wonder, and held his eyes 
 upon the paper. 
 
 "Read," he said with impatience, and they continued 
 to scan the page together. 
 
 Oft hath our royal master honored some brave man with a 
 gift of bright-eyes from the garden of his own harem; but 
 never before hath he sought to honor any son of Islam by 
 taking a flower that hath shed its first perfume for another 
 man's delight. 
 
 Art thou, Attar abu Hamed al Hassen, overwhelmed with 
 this, the greatest honor that hath befallen thy house? And 
 art thou not stricken dumb with amazement that he who 
 holdeth Islam in the hollow of his hand should consider the 
 holy right of one of his subjects, and ask for that which he 
 hath the power to take? 
 
 Added to this honor he doth thee, by taking a wife from 
 thy harem, he will furthermore recompense thee with three 
 bales of silken stuffs, three prayer-rugs from Mecca one of 
 which hath taken a whole family ten good years to weave, and 
 upon which three Marabouts hath turned their faces toward 
 the kaaba. 
 
 Also he giveth thee three horses whose heels spurn the 
 highway, scarce touching it with embroidered saddles and 
 trappings, and three burden-bearing camels, and three white 
 camels of great speed with silk-draped bassourahs, and in 
 two of these wilt thou find a jasmine flower from the gardens 
 of the inner harem: one with hair of gold and eyes like the 
 sky, the other with the darkness of the tempest in her hair.
 
 118 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 Either hath a rich beauty of flesh and smoothness and 
 bloom upon the skin, for have they not eaten of the perfumed 
 sweets of the seraglio of over a year? 
 
 In two of the silken bassourahs shalt thou find these won- 
 derful living gifts, and the third shall be empty, that thou 
 canst withdraw when thou are wearied with visiting in the 
 others, and meditate upon the kindness of thy royal master's 
 heart. 
 
 "But," thou askest, "whither go I on a desert journey?" 
 and I answer, thou hast not yet heard all, for it is the pleasure 
 of the Incomparable One, the Sultan, that thou be set in 
 power over one of the desert cities, that thy name may go 
 down the road of generations as a great man, honored above 
 all others by the leader of the faithful. 
 
 Well favored slaves, also, shall fare forth with thee, and 
 thy wishes shall be supplied before they are known to thine 
 own heart. Furthermore, thou shalt have a ring, a seal of 
 lote blossoms, and whatever favor thou cravest, in reason, for 
 the good of thy house, shall thou be given as long as thou 
 livest. 
 
 And what wilt thou do to show thy gratitude for such 
 princely favors? Thou wilt write in the space below, ten 
 words, and the words shall be : Jeppa, I divorce thee, I divorce 
 thee, I divorce thee ! and thou shalt sign thy name. As thou 
 writest, speak, also, the same words aloud. Was ever so 
 kingly a price given for ten little words ? 
 
 Yet, O Attar abu Hamed al Hassen, would I give thee 
 counsel to use all haste in despatching them by a swift and 
 sure messenger, as soon as the ink drieth, lest the wind blow 
 out of another part of the heavens and turn the royal mind 
 to other pleasures. 
 
 Such, O my brother, are the wishes of the Sultan. 
 
 May Allah keep thee humble in thy prosperity. 
 
 HAFIZ ABOUL AL HARROUN, 
 Royal Scribe. 
 
 "She hath gone in Jeppa' s place, taking the name of 
 Jeppa," said the sheik abruptly when they had finished 
 reading.
 
 THE EETUEN OF ATTAE 119 
 
 Then, as Attar did not speak, but began rereading 
 certain portions of the letter while his brows were 
 drawn and his lips set, the old man added: 
 
 "Of a truth those words were written in a royal 
 hour. He offereth thee much." 
 
 There was almost a question in the last words, but 
 Attar heard them not, and, throwing the script from 
 him and flinging his burnoose aside, he said in a 
 strangled voice as if he were alone, as if he had quite 
 forgotten the sheik: 
 
 "By Allah " Then again: "By Allah " 
 
 There was no more. The words were like a cry in 
 the extremity of being. But whether it was fear or 
 grief or hate his kinsman could not know. His face 
 was white ; his eyes, deep blue in his pleasure, were now 
 black and wore that veiled look peculiar to Orientals 
 when they wish to conceal the quality of their emotions. 
 
 Among the peoples of the East a man may call his 
 enemy the son of a dog, a thief, a murderer, curse his 
 flesh, wish him to be eaten by jackals, or to have naught 
 but sand with which to quench his thirst, and they may 
 again be friends; but when he is silent, when his face 
 shows neither rage nor hate, when his eyes are veiled 
 beyond the reading of any emotion, he is to be feared 
 to the death. 
 
 Therefore, noting his silence, and seeing the cur- 
 tained look before his eyes, the sheik said no word for a 
 time while Attar stood like a statue looking into space 
 with his unseeing and unrevealing eyes. At length 
 Saoud repeated, with the same rising inflection that 
 had the quality of a question: "Hb hath offered thee 
 much ?" 
 
 Then, as if he had not spoken, the master asked :
 
 120 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "Wilt thou, O my father, bear my answer to the 
 seraglio ?" 
 
 "Yea, of a certainty; but have a care, and remem- 
 ber she is but a woman." 
 
 Again, as if the other had not spoken, Attar said : 
 
 "I will not hold thee overlong." 
 
 Drawing forth paper, he lifted a pen, wrote but a 
 few words then folded the sheet, and would have sealed 
 it but that his kinsman stayed his hand, saying: 
 
 "Thou art young, O my son, and thy blood is the 
 blood of youth. What hast thou written to thy Sultan ?" 
 
 Attar opened the letter and read : 
 
 "Greetings unto thee, O mighty Sultan: 
 
 "Thy letter concerning my wife hath come to me, and here 
 I set forth my answer : Thou art too poor to buy her. There- 
 fore let thy slaves put her before the great gates where I 
 will wait that I may bear her to my house, for she is my wife. 
 "ATTAR ABU HAMED AL HASSEN." 
 
 "Thou art the son of my brother," said the old man 
 slowly, shaking his head when he had listened. "Thy 
 words do thy heart honor yet I am sore troubled con- 
 cerning that which will happen when they meet the 
 Sultan's eye. Do you know what he will do ?" the old 
 man asked fearfully. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Listen !" 
 
 Attar tried to speak, but the sheik stopped him. 
 
 "Peace," he said; "age bringeth wisdom. Let us 
 move with reason, and consider well. That," he con- 
 tinued, pointing to the Sultan's letter which lay upon 
 the rug, "hath been sent more than a moon past. It
 
 THE RETURN OF ATTAE 121 
 
 was written when the plague lay heavy upon Tunis 
 when even the royal heart held fear. 
 
 "Therefore, thinking of the wrath of Allah, he that 
 may take what he will hath asked of thee even as a 
 common man, offering thee a price. But thinkest thou 
 he hath waited thy answer through the days and the 
 nights that have followed this writing?" 
 
 "Peace, peace," cried the master, "I can sustain no 
 more." 
 
 "It is for that reason I would advise thee, for 
 what would be the worth of thy life an I carry thy 
 words to the seraglio ? An thou hast any hope of seeing 
 thy Nourmahal once more within thy harem, thou must 
 needs use craft against power and wisdom against de- 
 sire. Furthermore, there are other messages here await- 
 ing thine eye. Perchance there is one from Aletra." 
 
 At these words Attar quickly grasped the other let- 
 ters, which he had forgotten, and sought eagerly among 
 them for a stroke of Aletra's pen. And when he found 
 none, he took up a sealed letter in Selim's script that 
 bore on the outside his name and the words: 
 
 Enclose this in the letter of the Sheik Nazrullah to my 
 kinsman, Attar abu Hamed al Hassen. 
 
 And he opened and read: 
 
 If thou hearest not from Aletra, question the Imaum, in 
 whom she will confide if she be still in Tunis. She is not 
 witb Nazrullah, but make thy questions with all secrecy. 
 More I fear to write lest I get thee into trouble, but later 
 will I send thee fuller word. Thou canst take the comfort 
 to thy heart tbat she batb not been stricken.
 
 122 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 Having read eagerly, lie turned quickly toward his 
 kinsman. 
 
 "I will go to the Imaum at once," he said. "Selim 
 biddeth me question him concerning Aletra. Read thou 
 the script." 
 
 As the other read, he turned to go; but before he 
 reached the door the voice of his kinsman stopped him. 
 
 "None but Allah may question the Imaum," he said, 
 "for he, also, hath perished." 
 
 With a motion of despair the other turned from the 
 door and continued to search among the letters for any- 
 thing that he might find concerning Aletra. 
 
 When the last script had been scanned, and there 
 was naught further of moment, Attar asked : 
 
 "Upon what road hath Selim journeyed ?" 
 
 "That know I not," returned his kinsman; "but an 
 thou seest Eamon, he will tell thee. Also, if she hath 
 returned and how else came such a shawl into thy 
 harem ? she may be in hiding nearby." 
 
 "Yea," said Attar, and his heart gave a great bound, 
 then fell as he thought that, finding none left on her 
 return, she might have been taken back to the royal 
 harem. 
 
 "Yea," he repeated, "an she hath left the seraglio, I 
 will find her though every sand of the desert feel my 
 footsteps; though I search under the leaves of every 
 garden in Tunis." 
 
 "It is well," said Saoud, "and now let us leave this 
 abode of sorrow which sickeneth thy mind. Let us make 
 fast the door and seek Ramon ere I take the message to 
 the Sultan. I would also counsel that thou layest bare 
 thy heart before Ramon. It is not for naught that he is
 
 123 
 
 called the 'Wizard of the Desert.' ' And Attar bowed 
 his head. 
 
 When they had secured the door, they fared forth, 
 Attar to seek the wizard and Saoud to learn what he 
 could of the seraglio slaves. For, notwithstanding what 
 he had said, he believed Aletra was still in the seraglio. 
 When they met toward nightfall, Attar, who had 
 not yet found Ramon, was impatient to continue the 
 search ; but as the hour was late, and as the sheik coun- 
 seled waiting till the morrow, when they would go forth 
 together, he saw the wisdom of his words, and went with 
 him to his house where they passed the night.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE TEAIL OF THE DANCING WOMAN 
 
 AT sunrise they began the search again, but all they 
 could learn was that Ramon was expected at the 
 place of auction at noon ; so Attar returned to his house 
 to make a further search, and it was near noon when 
 he fared forth to meet the sheik at the fritter-shop of 
 Ben Ali. 
 
 As Attar passed the court of the Mosque of Sadi Ben 
 Zaid on his way to meet his kinsman, one of the doves 
 that circle ceaselessly about the minaret fell disabled 
 upon the stones at his feet. It was not mortally hurt, 
 for it struggled with fluttering, widespread wings about 
 the street. 
 
 He made several efforts to catch it, but ever it eluded 
 him with short, low flights, barely skimming the ground. 
 He could have captured almost any of the numberless 
 gray doves that were unhurt, but this wounded white 
 one continued to elude him. 
 
 After a space, as its pinions grew weak, he 
 stepped forward for there was yet time before Saoud 
 would reach the fritter-shop, where they were to meet. 
 He was in a fever of anxiety to see the wizard and 
 hear the words he might be able to give him of Selim. 
 
 As it was not yet noon, and he had to wait, and as 
 waiting is one of the virtues of the East, he watched the 
 
 124
 
 THE TRAIL OF THE DANCING WOMAN 125 
 
 dove. Its wings soon dropped and spread in the dust; 
 slower and slower become its movements, shorter and 
 shorter its earth-skimming nights, till at last it rested a 
 moment on the stones, spent but still fluttering. 
 
 Another, also, had been watching it a man. He 
 now came from the other side of the narrow street, and 
 lifting the dove in his hands began to examine it for the 
 hurt. This was soon found, for one tiny, stemlike leg 
 hung disabled. Attar drew near him. 
 
 "Give me the kindness of a match," said the man, 
 who was a Hindu. And while Attar felt for his case, 
 the other resumed, now speaking to the dove: 
 
 "A little string and a twig and a little time and 
 again shalt thou circle the minarets." 
 
 The bird lay content in his hand, twisting its head 
 from side to side to look into his face in childlike ques- 
 tioning. Even when the little leg was straightened and 
 bound against the twig it made no struggle. 
 
 Attar watched the kind deftness of the Hindu's hand. 
 But now, as he looked upon the face bent above the 
 dove, he felt that he must be in the presence of some 
 holy man so full of loving, compassionate tenderness 
 it was. 
 
 "Thou are skilled ?" said Attar when the other had 
 finished and the dove had settled in security. 
 
 "But little," answered the Hindu in Arabic. "Yet 
 many years among the tribes of the air have made me 
 think for them." 
 
 A rare, beautiful kindliness shone from his eyes. As 
 he spoke, he balanced the dove upon his wrist. 
 
 It was a special auction day; many caravans had 
 come fresh from the desert, and there was much talk 
 of a herd of young mehari (racing camels) being
 
 126 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 brought from a far oasis. As the crowd began to 
 thicken, the stranger with the dove was being jostled. 
 He carried a small basket in one hand and the wounded 
 dove in the other. 
 
 "Canst thou not rest the dove in the basket?" asked 
 Attar. The stranger smiled and answered: 
 
 "Nay; it is best thus for the dove." So Attar's 
 commanding height and bulk forced a way for the 
 Hindu, the dove still perched serenely upon his arm. 
 
 When they had reached an opening, he thanked the 
 Moslem with gentle courtesy and a grave humility. 
 But, even as he showed his appreciation, there was also 
 an expression of stifled amusement. Attar did not 
 catch this; for, having suddenly become aware of the 
 lapse of time, he was in haste to reach the fritter-shop. 
 
 He might have lingered longer, however ; for, though 
 the sheik was awaiting him, it was some time before the 
 boy set to watch for the Wizard brought them word that 
 he was come. 
 
 When they reached the court, they found the crowd 
 so dense they could not make their way through it. But 
 the boy, dodging beneath elbows and between legs of 
 tall Arabs, soon stood beside the snake charmer the 
 "Wizard of the Desert," as the Hindu mystic was 
 called. 
 
 Saoud had bidden him ask for a moment before the 
 performance began. But there are perhaps other boys 
 who would have forgotten the message in the wonder 
 of beholding a great nag the monstrous cobra of the 
 desert used as a plaything ; while men who would have 
 sprung in the air with fright if confronted by the rep- 
 tile in any other way circled closely about, within easy 
 striking distance of its deadly fangs.
 
 THE TEAIL OF THE DANCING WOMAN 127 
 
 When Attar and his kinsman had bribed and pushed 
 their way through the crowd of desert men Berbers, 
 Bedouins, Arabs, Nomads into the inner circle, the 
 great reptile, brown as the sands of the desert from 
 whose leagues it came, had begun to raise its head. 
 
 From the coiled mass upon the silken rug the head 
 rose, moving from side to side, as the Wizard swayed 
 his body in unison with the air that floated crystal clear 
 from the flute which he held lightly. 
 
 "Is that Eamon ?" asked Attar ; for when he beheld 
 the charmer of snakes he saw with amazement that he 
 was none other than the man who had lifted the dove 
 in the court of the mosque. 
 
 The cobra appeared to be fascinated with the melody, 
 and kept time by moving its graceful head from side to 
 side. From right to left, from left to right, it moved 
 with the slow, swaying motion of a pendulum. Each 
 time the head of the nag was raised insensibly higher ; 
 the monster was uncoiling. 
 
 It was perhaps six feet in length; but where a few 
 moments before the head had been raised two feet, it 
 was now as high as the heads of the smaller boys about 
 the circle. 
 
 Even as they looked, it passed this mark. Back 
 and forth, back and forth, to and fro it followed the 
 sure, unhurried, measured motion of the figure before 
 it it was now as high as the waists of the men, yet 
 no one sought to retreat; nor would it have been pos- 
 sible, with the dense mass of humanity packed closely 
 about. 
 
 The coils on the rug were scarcely diminished in ap- 
 parent length, but were growing slimmer. The head 
 was now as high as the breast of the Wizard, and had
 
 128 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 changed in shape. It was growing larger, swelling 
 about the neck. 
 
 The sun shone full upon its back, tipping each minute 
 brown enameled scale with gold as it moved to and fro 
 in the shadowless space. Its armor of gleaming topaz 
 ran the gamut of golden notes with each sinuous motion. 
 
 It was even with the man's face to and fro, to and 
 fro, it swayed with the music. It was now as high as 
 his eyes his forehead the top of his head. For an 
 instant it seemed to tower above him. As a reflex from 
 the prolonged tenseness, there was a slight movement in 
 the crowd, and in that time a child who was being held 
 aloft put out its hand as if to caress the reptile. 
 
 The eyes of the man who held him were so intent 
 upon the cobra that he did not notice the movement of 
 the little hand till, with incredible swiftness, the ser- 
 pent's head darted past him toward it. 
 
 But even as the cobra made its sudden plunge at the 
 child's arm, which was the only motionless object within 
 its vision, Ramon with wonderful agility put forth his 
 hand and, brushing the child's arm away almost 
 roughly, pursued a series of slow motions that ever 
 tended downward till with every wavelike movement 
 the serpent's height began to diminish. The circle of 
 men gazed with fascinated eyes when at last the hand of 
 the Wizard went down down down and with it the 
 great, swelling, beautiful head of the monster. 
 
 Later, as the cobra lay coiled in the sunlight, the 
 man who held the child came closer to the Wizard and 
 spoke in a low tone that only he might hear, saying: 
 
 "Much have I heard of the wisdom of Ramon the 
 Wizard; but to-day have I seen the workings of his 
 compassion. For well I know," he continued, "that
 
 THE TRAIL OF THE DANCING WOMAN 129 
 
 thou hast taken thy life in thine hand to save a child, 
 and any favor whatsoever thou cravest at the hands of 
 Hassin al Marmud is thine. 
 
 "By the gracious favor of the sublime Sultan I am in 
 the seraglio, and when thy feet crave to press the 
 royal rugs of the Salamlik thou shalt but breathe my 
 name and the gates will open." 
 
 And the Wizard replied lightly: 
 
 "Consider not thy danger to have been so grave. Few 
 are the moments of the day when we walk not upon the 
 turf of our own graves; but if the scant earth hold us 
 up in the sunshine as we pass over, why turn back and 
 measure the depth of the turf that sustained us? Go 
 thy way, and waste not thy gratitude upon a charmer of 
 serpents." 
 
 Having spoken these words he turned away; and 
 when the sheik saw that he was finished, he brought 
 Attar before him, and as they sought the fritter-shop 
 they asked him of Selim. 
 
 "I held no word with him," returned the Hindu; 
 "but David, the camel-driver, hath bound a lotion on 
 the foot of his beast, which had gone lame, and they 
 conversed more than an hour." 
 
 "And where bideth David ?" asked Attar. 
 
 "He hath gone to Khairwan, but he returneth by 
 Friday. The greater haste will be to await him here," 
 he added, seeing Attar's impatience. 
 
 When they were seated upon the rugs Aneese, the 
 waiter, came and, bending from his lordly height, placed 
 a cup of coffee at the foot of each. 
 
 The deep green of the tiles, the soft, subdued tints 
 of the fixtures, the odor of the fritters and coffee, the 
 slow motions of the Arabs that served, all produced a
 
 130 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 comforting effect. The day was warm for December, 
 and the coolness of the arched shop was restful. 
 
 "Ramon knoweth the heart of man," said the sheik, 
 in Arabic, after they had sipped their coffee, "and thou 
 wilt find help if thou givest him word of thy per- 
 plexity." 
 
 Attar nodded, and together they told the Wizard of 
 the complications surrounding the disappearance of 
 Aletra. There was a look of thoughtful intelligence 
 upon the Hindu's face as the story unfolded, showing 
 that he took a deep interest ; but at mention of the Sul- 
 tan's offer he shook his head. 
 
 "It is well-nigh impossible to penetrate into the 
 secrets of the seraglio, as thou knowest," he said. 
 
 The others could not but concur, yet there was a look 
 of determination, as well as acute suffering, upon At- 
 tar's face. The determination came, perhaps, from his 
 Russian mother, or his long residence in the Occident ; 
 but Ramon noticed only the look of misery, and his 
 heart went out to him with the same compassion he 
 had felt for the dove for he, too, had known suffering. 
 
 He regarded him much as he had the wounded dove ; 
 but binding a man's heart was a greater task when the 
 string must come from the Sultan's seraglio. 
 
 He knit his brows and thought deeply in the silence 
 that followed. Presently his face cleared and he spoke 
 the one word : "Idillah." 
 
 "The dancer?" asked the old sheik. 
 
 "She hath once been a woman of the royal harem. 
 Capricious, cold, unscrupulous," he answered slowly. 
 
 "And Ramon understandeth women," said the sheik. 
 
 Ramon shook his head. 
 
 "Say that I understand Sanscrit or the serpents, or
 
 THE TRAIL OF THE DANCING WOMAN 131 
 
 that I can read the secrets of the stars anything which 
 is within the possible; but women ah, they are differ- 
 ent! Yet will I go hence and learn if this woman be 
 still in the Street of the Dancers. For thou knowest 
 such are here to-day and there to-morrow, having no 
 sure abiding place." 
 
 With this he left them, and they took their way to 
 the bazaar to find if any message or script had come 
 from Selim or Nazrullah.
 
 CHAPTEK XVII 
 
 IN THE DANCING WOMAN'S CHAMBER. 
 
 THAT night Idillah danced the dance of the Iris as 
 never before. The three men sat together well to 
 the front. Attar drew his burnoose so that but little of 
 his face could be seen. His mood was not for entertain- 
 ment; yet he wanted to read the lineaments of the 
 woman who alone could help him through her knowledge 
 of the slaves of the royal household. 
 
 The girl seemed to know that she was before a new 
 and critical presence. Attar aroused her interest by 
 his carriage, the shimmer of his silken garments, and 
 by the golden beard, which was not concealed. All 
 these fanned her imagination, though she could not see 
 his face. 
 
 As the moments passed and he became interested, he 
 did not notice that the Hindu, by moving adroitly, had 
 managed to draw the hood of his mantle back, a little 
 at a time, so that Idillah, seeing him, should single him 
 out and mark him with her favor, that the meeting 
 might be easier. 
 
 He had little faith in Attar's tact, and was, in truth, 
 afraid that his coldness and directness in questioning 
 might not only lose them her assistance, but be the 
 means of warning the royal harem. 
 
 132
 
 IN THE DANCING WOMAN'S CHAMBER 133 
 
 The life of the dancing girl had not yet written its 
 story upon her face. She was fair of mixed desert 
 and Berber blood with hair that was almost tawny 
 in the sunlight and darkly splendid in the shadow, and 
 had the wondering eyes of a child. 
 
 The dance of the Iris was as voluptuous as the per- 
 fume of the flower from which it took its name. There 
 was something strangely harmonious between it and the 
 music of the half-smothered tom-toms little tom-toms, 
 struck in a broken measure lightly, until somehow they 
 suggested an echo in their murmurous tones. 
 
 The dance had motive, as do all the dances of the 
 East; but in the different poses and circles, while she 
 was graceful and wonderfully mobile, the impression 
 upon the beholder was like looking upon a picture with- 
 out perspective. The symbolic, tragic intensity that un- 
 derlies all genius, when associated with color or motion 
 or sound, was entirely lacking; yet she was the whole 
 picture, and men went wild in their enthusiasm. 
 
 They showered coins and flowers and trinkets upon 
 her, and she danced upon the coins and flowers and 
 trinkets, nor lifted one in her henna-tinted fingers. 
 
 The old sheik unfastened a small jewel with his 
 bony fingers and threw it to her. Ramon threw her a 
 handful of coins and looked at her with his great soft, 
 brown eyes. He had a fashion of looking at women in 
 such a way as to make the coin he threw seem but as 
 an inconsequent accompaniment. 
 
 Idillah recognized the flattery of the look and smiled ; 
 but Attar, the golden-bearded giant, continued to look 
 upon her without seeing her. With the instinct of a 
 pretty woman she resented this, and determined to make 
 him see. The trick of bending her head upon his knee,
 
 134 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 or falling, a quivering heap, at his feet, which many of 
 the dancers use was beneath her. 
 
 She circled and swirled and beamed about him, but 
 always, as if she feared his detaining hand, she darted 
 away like a bird. Again and again she came so close 
 that he felt her breath, but so swift were her movements 
 that he could not have touched her if he had sought to 
 do so. Once he moved his hand for more coin. She 
 was quite close, when, laughing into his eyes, she swam 
 away in the cloud of incense and tambak smoke and 
 vanished. 
 
 The three men rose immediately and went out to 
 await her exit. She was already in the doorway. A 
 slave had picked the flowers and trinkets and coins from 
 the floor and given them into her hands ; but as the men 
 came into view, she lifted the spoil and laughingly threw 
 it among the beggars that crowded the doorway. It 
 was said that she did this every night. 
 
 Ramon and the sheik urged Attar forward; but he 
 was loath to go, and prevailed upon the Hindu to get 
 speech with her, while he and the other waited in the 
 shadow. In a few minutes Ramon returned with a 
 scrap of paper in his hand. 
 
 "An hour before midnight," he said, "go thou to this 
 place. Idillah will await thee." 
 
 "Thou hast told her why I would have speech with 
 her ?" asked Attar. 
 
 Ramon was silent. 
 
 "Thinkest thou she hath been willing?" resumed 
 Attar. 
 
 "Thou hast seen me with her but the space of a 
 moment. How should I tell her of thy story ?" returned 
 the Hindu impatiently, and he would have left the
 
 IN" THE DANCING WOMAN'S CHAMBER 135 
 
 others, but he feared that Attar might anger Idillah 
 by delaying ; so he waited, and when the hour had come, 
 led the Moslem with many cautions and much advice 
 to the foot of Idillah's little stairway. 
 
 When Attar had mounted the stair by the light of the 
 small candle at the top, he was undecided as to the 
 best way of dealing with the girl. The Wizard's sug- 
 gestion that he tell her that he was seeking a jewel 
 that he prized would have been good in the hands of 
 Ramon. 
 
 "But I am not Ramon," he thought, "and every man 
 hath a way by which he attaineth his desire, and that 
 way is the easiest to him. None may graft the vine 
 upon the fig-tree, nor the fig upon the date-palm." Yet 
 he was admitted to Idillah before he had formed any 
 plan better than the Hindu's. 
 
 The sudden glare of the brilliantly lighted room, with 
 its blotches of color, half bewildered him. 
 
 Idillah had been one of the favorite wives at the 
 seraglio, but so intolerant was she of the royal favor 
 straying for a moment that she kept the harem in con- 
 tinual unrest. So, one day when the master himself 
 tired of her caprices, he bestowed her as a mark of honor 
 upon a petty ruler who had done him a service. 
 
 The new owner was mercenary, and valued the beau- 
 tiful silken dower of his new wife fully as much as he 
 did the wife herself. But before many moons he was 
 glad to divorce her, and even to add to the dower that 
 she had brought with her, to be free from her imperious 
 exactions of courtesy and attentions. 
 
 His four other wives, docile as they were, having 
 scarcely drawn a peaceful breath if the master so much
 
 136 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 as looked upon them, felt almost translated to paradise 
 when she gathered her silken dower and took her de- 
 parture. 
 
 It was a part of this dower that met the gaze of Attar 
 as he entered. There was no method or arrangement, 
 of color or period. The effect was barbaric, crude, ele- 
 mental in its confusion, yet nothing else would have 
 expressed the woman who stood in the midst of it half 
 so well. The light came from many wrought lamps, but 
 one was higher than the rest. Under this stood Idillah. 
 
 She had cast aside the dancing-robe, and wore a Per- 
 sian scarf of shadowy silk wrapped about her perfect 
 body, after the fashion of Eastern girls in the desert. 
 The folds of the silk shimmered and gleamed almost 
 white on the high lights of her shapely limbs. She held 
 a red rose in her dazzling teeth, and smiled as she 
 noticed his confusion. 
 
 When he did not speak, she came toward him. 
 
 "Salaama," she said, and made an obesiance fit for 
 greeting the Sultan. 
 
 "Peace be with thee, Idillah," he answered simply. 
 "Ramon gaveth me word that I could talk with thee." 
 
 Idillah nodded, and led him to a small divan in an- 
 other part of the rich, crowded room, and with dainty 
 grace loosened the fastenings of his silken burnoose. 
 
 She knew that he was speaking of having word with 
 her; but as the hood of the concealing mantle dropped 
 away, the majestic beauty the grandeur of the man 
 made her heedless of his words, and the hero-worship 
 of a child shone from her eyes as she threw herself upon 
 the floor at his feet to listen. 
 
 "Thou wert in the royal harem?" he asked, looking 
 upon the perfection of her grace pityingly.
 
 IN THE DANCING WOMAN'S CHAMBER 137 
 
 "Yea," she answered ; "but many are there who have 
 shared the favor of the Sultan that thou wouldst not 
 turn thy head to gaze upon." 
 
 "Thou comprehendest not," he answered. 
 
 "Thou art right, O noble sheik! Idillah knoweth 
 not what grace Allah hath given her to win thy favor." 
 
 Then, for she was vain of the perfect poses of her 
 dancing, she added: 
 
 "Did the dance of the Iris please thee?" laughing 
 at her own conceit "that thou wouldst break it from 
 its stem and wear it ?" 
 
 When he answered not she repeated : "Did my danc- 
 ing please thee?" 
 
 "Yea," said Attar. "It was good." 
 
 "Good, good!" exclaimed the girl, in amaze at the 
 coldness of his tone. Then musingly : "It was not my 
 dancing ?" and she smiled. "Hath my face found favor 
 in thine eyes? Am I beautiful? I am hungry for a 
 word from thee, for wherever thou goest shouldst have 
 the fairest." 
 
 "Knowest thou not that thou art fair?" he asked 
 chidingly. 
 
 "Many have so spoken," she said, "and I have held 
 their words no closer than doth the wind of the desert 
 a mote of fleece. But word of thine would I treasure 
 as a deep-hued jewel of gladness." 
 
 "Then, Idillah," he answered, with a faint smile, 
 "thou art fair," and she waited eagerly for more praise. 
 "Thou hast a goodly form, a bright eye, and much hair 
 of a rich color, and thy teeth are sound, showing that 
 thou are both young and healthy." 
 
 As he spoke, her face changed. The pleased, ewy 
 smile of gratification was followed by a questioning look
 
 138 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 a look of non-comprehension; then her color rose 
 slowly in anger. 
 
 "And comest thou hither in the silence of the night 
 to tell me that my eyes are good, and that I am, for- 
 sooth, young and healthy?" 
 
 She had risen, and stood before him in growing fury. 
 
 "An thou hadst not asked me," he said, "I would have 
 said naught of thy beauty, which to thee must be com- 
 mon enough ; for hast thou not seen it daily ?" 
 
 "Speak not of me, of my beauty, of my dancing, or 
 of anything that concerneth me. None of these are 
 aught to thee, or ever shall be!" she shrilled in her 
 anger. 
 
 "Thou art right," he agreed. "They concern me 
 not. Rather would I that thou wert old and ill-favored, 
 so wouldst thou have a soft heart." 
 
 "A soft heart ? What manner of man art thou, Attar 
 abu Hamed al Hassen?" 
 
 But he was wearied, and so filled with anxiety that he 
 became angry in his turn at her desire for compliment. 
 
 "Ramon, the Wizard, hath told me that thou couldst 
 help me in my search. Art thou willing to favor me 
 with the knowledge thou hast, or dost thou refuse ?" 
 
 "Ramon, the Wizard, said naught of any quest," said 
 Idillah. 
 
 "Wallahi!" exclaimed Attar. "I crave thy forgive- 
 ness with my forehead in the dust, and thank thee for 
 the favor thou hast shown a sorrowing son of Islam !" 
 
 His sudden contrition and homage soothed her vanity, 
 the more that it graced a man so nobly made. 
 
 "Speak," she said, after a pause, as she stood with 
 clasped hands and with eyes upon the floor "speak,
 
 IN THE DANCING WOMAN'S CHAMBER 139 
 
 and that which lieth within the power of Idillah is 
 thine, even now before thou asketh." 
 
 "Thy words are words of comfort to my heart," he 
 answered. "I will tell thee. I seek one who was in the 
 royal harem." 
 
 "Bideth she there now ?" asked Idillah. 
 
 "I know not; but much dependeth upon that knowl- 
 edge. Canst thou help me to that knowledge ?" 
 
 " 'Tis long since I was in the harem," she answered, 
 averting her eyes. 
 
 "Canst thou not think of some slave?" 
 
 "Nay, I changed my slaves often." 
 
 "Or one who hath, perchance, brought sweets or 
 broideries ?" 
 
 "Nay." 
 
 "Thou seest no way?" he asked, gathering his bur- 
 noose from the divan. 
 
 "Nay. It were a grave deed to pry into the mys- 
 teries of the seraglio, and life itself may be the forfeit, 
 
 Attar, and thou art too goodly a man to perish for a 
 woman." 
 
 "I will find another way," he said, rising. "I thank 
 thee for the favor of listening to my sorrows." 
 
 "Is it a slave thou seekest ? Would she be among the 
 slaves ?" she asked, to detain him. 
 
 "Nay, the Nourmahal would she be." 
 
 "What sayest thou ? Wait. Could I but go into the 
 seraglio as a veiled woman " She interrupted her- 
 self with a laugh. 
 
 "Yet am I merry that I have outgrown the veil ; that 
 
 1 am no longer the slave of any man, but free, free to 
 talk to whom I will, as now in the depths of the night."
 
 140 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "But thy honor?" questioned Attar. He spoke sor- 
 rowfully. 
 
 "Honor! sayest thou? I have now the honor of a 
 man, a Moslem, a Christian, a Hindu have I not had 
 speech with all ?" 
 
 As he continued to look reproachfully upon her, she 
 moved uneasily and asked, half defiantly : 
 
 "Is there any virtue greater than that of a true son 
 of Islam ? Even so is mine. I steal not, nor defraud, 
 nor bear false witness, nor defile the mosques with cries 
 of Wallahi. I kill not, nor spread sedition, nor consort 
 with unbelievers. 
 
 "Mine is the honor of a man behold me !" she said, 
 raising her right arm in a heroic attitude. "~No more 
 defiled than the godliest, godlier than the most defiled. 
 This honor, the honor of a man, I pledge thee in keeping 
 the secret of thy undertaking. Here is my hand." 
 
 "Since it is thy will to be measured after the manner 
 of men, I touch not thy hand." 
 
 "Thy reason?" 
 
 "Man rendereth to the utmost for his pleasure. 
 Women like thee not only waste the lives that God 
 hath given them, but spend the souls and fortunes of 
 men for the beam of a jewel or the deep dye of raiment 
 or the power of a moment." 
 
 "Man rendereth unto the utmost farthing, thou say- 
 est?" she asked, with blazing eyes. 
 
 "Thou hast spoken of the honor of man. Such is a 
 part of that honor." 
 
 "Fool, fool that thou art," she cried, "with thy great 
 stature, and thy beauty and wisdom, and thine eyes' 
 searching sight ! Canst thou not see that the price thy 
 honor knoweth is mean, bare, all worthless beside that
 
 IN THE DANCING WOMAN'S CHAMBER 141 
 
 which we give. Thinkest them that the gifts of gold or 
 jewels or fair raiment preserve the honor of the giver ? 
 Then how much greater the honor of one like unto me, 
 who giveth her pride, her body, her soul, her children's 
 reverence; who bringeth her father to shame and her 
 mother into infamy !" 
 
 She burst into frantic weeping. 
 
 "0 women of Islam ! When will the unbelievers 
 teach the Moslem? When will the Moslem mother 
 nurse her children in the safe knowledge of the un- 
 changing love of the master? They see it not, but 
 babble of Kismet the Imaums, and Mollahs while 
 the Christians walk step by step into the fertile places 
 of Africa. Can they not see that the Christians are 
 born in truth by women that believe the love of the 
 master is for them alone? 
 
 "O, my holy friend," she continued, shaking her 
 head, "the bravest man in Islam is half coward, for he 
 is the offspring of a woman who ever has been afraid. 
 Give unto the women of Islam security, and they will 
 breed power !" 
 
 She looked past Attar into the distance, and her 
 features were set as in prophecy. 
 
 "Idillah," he said gravely, laying his hand upon her 
 head, "thou hast a strife with Allah, not men ; for unto 
 both men and women hath he given his commands, and 
 well thou knowest a man's station in paradise dependst 
 upon the number of his wives and children. Thou art 
 not like unto the others. Get thee away, and take the 
 veil for some good man." 
 
 "Nay, why take the veil ? Men veil not their faces 
 that they may not be seen of women."
 
 142 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 Attar turned away impatiently. "Quarrel with Allah 
 an thou wilt. I made not the laws nor the veils." 
 
 "Nay, but thou boldest thyself above touching the 
 tips of my fingers, for that mine honor is the same as 
 thine own. I dance for the love of the quick motion, 
 and the smiling faces, the lights, the music, and the love 
 in the eyes of every man. I seek it as those who hunger 
 seek food." 
 
 "Hast thou found it not ?" asked Attar. 
 
 "Nay, I think I have found it, but 'tis a mirage, 
 ever a mirage a scorching wilderness where I would 
 gather flowers." 
 
 "An thou shouldst find it in the arms of a wanderer 
 in the desert ?" he asked. 
 
 "Then would I cast aside all other thoughts for him, 
 and in the place where he had planted his foot, there 
 would I put mine also until we reached the utmost 
 height." 
 
 "For him wouldst thou take the veil ?" asked Attar. 
 
 "Nay, nor need would there be for the veil of wool or 
 of silk, for the veil of disdain for all others would hide 
 my smiles." 
 
 Turning, she waved her hand about the room. 
 
 "There are good men in Islam," he interrupted. 
 
 "Have I not seen them ?" she answered scornfully, "at 
 the palace of dancers, with their sons beside them ? 
 Have I not seen their fingers linger as they place a coin 
 upon the forehead of some favorite a woman they hold 
 as the dust beneath their feet, for hath she not sinned 
 greatly in not having wisdom for herself and them 
 also?" 
 
 "Yet the wives of Moslems are happy, living in peace 
 with the masters men like unto the ones thou hast 
 seen."
 
 IN THE DANCING WOMAN'S CHAMBEK 143 
 
 "Happy, sayest thou ?" she answered. "What know- 
 est thou, a man, of the heart of a woman?" Then 
 slowly : 
 
 "I tell thee they are not happy, an they love." 
 
 "Thou thinkest ?" he asked sadly. 
 
 "J"ay, the wise only are the ones who think learned 
 men of reason like thee women but know." 
 
 Again she pointed to the things about her as when he 
 interrupted her before. 
 
 "These adornments of my abode are the gifts of the 
 Sultan and my sheik husband. My short life with the 
 last as his wife is all that shameth me, O righteous one ; 
 yet art thou so much better than I ? Again the honor of 
 man I offer thee in thy undertaking. Wilt thou 
 take it ?" 
 
 This time he said: 
 
 "I take thy hand, yet not as holding the honor of a 
 man, but that of a woman, which is greater. Idillah, 
 thou hast a beautiful soul, and I honor thee." 
 
 The hand he took was cold, but her eyes looked fear- 
 lessly into his. 
 
 "When thou seekest me again, thou will not find me 
 in the Street of the Dancers," she said. Then, with a 
 sudden change, she whirled about ; the seeress gone, she 
 was once more a thing of lightness; yet her lips 
 trembled, and her eyes were floating in a mist as she 
 attempted a trivial smile. 
 
 A glass of water stood upon a tabouret at her side. 
 She drank it eagerly, then with quick, sure motions she 
 opened the Koran and took from its leaves some pieces 
 of paper. Attar, who was standing with his burnoose 
 wrapped around him in readiness to depart, watched 
 her in silence as she prepared to write. 
 
 "Tarry," she said; "I will put the words upon this
 
 144 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 paper that will take thee into the seraglio. Yet much 
 caution must I command, being in scant favor, and my 
 hand lendeth itself but poorly to the forming of script; 
 so rest thy weariness upon the couch while I put down 
 such words as shall give thee greatest opportunity." 
 
 As he hesitated, she added: "It will be well after 
 the call of the gaffirs when I make ready to seal, so make 
 thyself content." 
 
 Attar was weary, and the softness of the couch with 
 its perfumed rugs and robes was grateful. Before be- 
 ginning to write, Idillah took from the corner a great 
 pipe, filled with Turkish tambak mixture and, without 
 touching his hand, gave it to him. He watched her 
 poise her pen, consider, and write. 
 
 There was a faint sound of music, for they were still 
 dancing not far away. With the pipe came a feeling of 
 drowsy comfort. Soon the figure of Idillah, with her 
 knitted brow and flying fingers, became less distinct, 
 vague, shadowy, and presently the pipe fell from his lips 
 upon the heavy bokarra, and he slept. 
 
 Having sealed the letter, she rose, turned quickly, and 
 brought it to Attar. 
 
 "Here is the letter that will bring thee into the heart 
 of the seraglio, where I go not now, and thy wisdom 
 must do for thee what remaineth to be done," she said. 
 
 When there was no answer, she called him sharply, 
 and would have put her icy hand upon his face and 
 sought to rouse him by stronger means, but something 
 stayed her. 
 
 In the profoundness of his sleep much of the dignity 
 that was a part of his bearing was gone. The lines of 
 suffering also that were recently carved upon his fea- 
 tures had disappeared, and that look of helplessness
 
 IN THE DANCING WOMAN'S CHAMBER 145 
 
 peculiar to men of great stature when off guard was 
 upon him. 
 
 Despite the golden beard and the great frame, there 
 was a boyishness in the wide, smooth brow, the unem- 
 bittered lips, that touched the protecting maternal in- 
 stinct of the woman as she looked down upon him ; and, 
 despairing of awakening him without clamor, she lifted 
 a rug and laid it gently upon him, as if he were in truth 
 a child. 
 
 The night had grown chilly, for the great furnace of 
 sunlit sand in the distance had cooled for many hours. 
 
 Twice she put forth her hand to waken him, and twice 
 she withdrew it. 
 
 As she looked upon the abandon of the great body in 
 extreme weariness, the dawning of a new sense of wom T 
 anhood stirred her heart. This man, who slept quietly 
 within sight of her perfect self, was the first that ever 
 had gazed upon her tenderly, but without desire. 
 
 As she looked, he sighed deeply, as one whose boat of 
 dreams sailed in the leaden waters of despair. Hearing 
 this, a great compassion filled her, and in place of 
 awakening him, with touch light as the breath of dawn, 
 she covered him with other silken rugs and embroidered 
 stuffs; but never did her hand touch his or her lips 
 satisfy their craving. 
 
 "Thou shalt sleep till first the morning breaks," she 
 whispered softly. "And thy slave Idillah will keep 
 watch at thy feet." 
 
 Having laden the sleeping figure with the warmest 
 of the rugs, she extinguished the lights, one by one, 
 until only a tiny gleam showed through the mimic 
 crescent of Damascus brasswork.
 
 146 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 She shivered as she gathered the folds of a white 
 wool haik about her and made ready to rest. 
 
 Before the couch on which Attar lay, and which was 
 the only bed in the room, was a great rug from Mecca. 
 On this she sought rest ; but as she drew the other rugs 
 upon her, she saw that, waking, the man could not but 
 behold her. Very softly she rose and, using all her fine 
 strength, drew the Mecca rug across the foot of the 
 angerib beyond hazard of his waking gaze. 
 
 The room was very still; even the music in the dis- 
 tance had ceased, and only the occasional stealthy open- 
 ing of a door and the shuffling of slippered feet sounded 
 in the night. 
 
 Attar slept the insensate sleep of profound oblivion. 
 Idillah slept not ; but, drawing the embroidered burnoose 
 over her head, sobbed forth her heart in the call that is 
 ages old: 
 
 "Allah, Allah, Allah! Thou who art merciful and 
 compassionate, absolve thou me from mine iniquity. 
 Allah, Allah, Allah!"
 
 WHEN" Attar came down the little stairway in the 
 dawn, he went straightway to the house of the 
 sheik and told him of the help Idillah had given, and 
 showed him her letter to Babek. But his kinsman 
 frowned, for he was not well pleased that Attar should 
 enter the seraglio, and he sought to reason with him. 
 
 "My son," he said, pressing his hand upon the other's 
 breast, "thou are consuming thyself and thy goods for 
 a woman. Such is not the command of Allah. What 
 is a woman ? Doth not the Koran say : 'A man's wives 
 are his lands?' Doth not a man love his land for the 
 fruits of the land ? 
 
 "The jasmine flower that perfumeth the shade, the 
 date that refresheth his strength, the juice of the grape 
 that quencheth his thirst, are the fruits of the land, and 
 therefore he holdeth the land precious; but the Sultan 
 offereth thee two wives for this woman, and, further- 
 more, giveth thee such substance as shall permit thee 
 to raise up a household of great magnitude." 
 
 Attar kept silence. The sheik looked irritated. 
 
 "Thou wouldst commit a sin," he said. 
 
 "What wouldst thou have me do?" asked Attar, lift- 
 ing his hands. 
 
 "What doth a man do when his house hath fallen 
 147
 
 148 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 about him ? He buildeth again with fresh mortar and 
 new bricks, and whiteneth it over, and sitteth in the 
 shade of the new vine, and liveth according to the 
 commands of Allah. 
 
 "Thou shouldst straightway take to thyself such 
 wives as thou canst, and when thy children rise about 
 thee in thy age, wilt thou look forward to paradise, 
 where thou shalt have a place among the true believers. 
 The Sultan hath thy wife; take what he giveth thee; 
 established thy household," advised the sheik earnestly. 
 
 This gave Attar no comfort, and he made ready to 
 depart. 
 
 "Then take thou the letter," said the sheik after a 
 pause, seeing that the other's heart was set, "lay it be- 
 fore the commander of the faithful, and ask what it 
 meaneth. Say no word more, but wait and listen, and 
 cast thine eyes about thee ; and if he say thy wife hath 
 ceased to be thy wife, take what he hath promised thee, 
 for what is written is written. 
 
 "If he say he hath her not, ask thou where she hath 
 fared. No other word shalt thou say, for silence is 
 ever a hard questioner, and the heart will answer to its 
 commands when the spoken word will seal the lips." 
 
 "Thinkest thou I will hear the truth?" 
 
 "An thou gettest speech with the Sultan yea." 
 
 Then Attar, refusing to partake of food, drew his 
 burnoose about him. 
 
 "Allah speed thy project and bless thee with a great 
 household," said the old man. 
 
 "Peace be ever with thee," returned Attar, and he 
 left him and took his way toward the palace of the 
 Sultan. 
 
 On presenting Idillah's letter, Attar was conducted
 
 ATTAK'S HOUB OF DECISION 149 
 
 without difficulty to Babek. Having read the letter the 
 chief eunuch of the harem frowned and said : 
 
 "The royal master is much concerned with affairs of 
 state, and hath little time to give thought to the harem." 
 
 Attar produced the letter that had been sent to him 
 by the Sultan's command, and, showing the seal, asked 
 that he be brought into the presence of the commander 
 of the faithful without delay. Babek, whose duty it 
 was to know the royal temper as the physician knows 
 the patient's pulse, hesitated and asked : 
 
 "Idillah, how fareth she?" 
 
 "Sound and well favored is Idillah," returned Attar. 
 
 "Bideth she yet in the Street of the Dancers?" he 
 questioned again for it was a grievous thing in his 
 mind that Idillah had been sent from the seraglio 
 and a still more grievous thing that she had gone to the 
 Street of the Dancers. 
 
 "No more will she abide there," answered the other. 
 
 Babek was well pleased with the words, and inter- 
 preted them in but one way. He questioned no further, 
 and left him, saying: 
 
 "An the Sultan will see thee, I will bring thee word 
 forthwith." 
 
 It was an hour after the midday call to prayer when 
 he returned and motioned Attar to follow. 
 
 "I will take thee to the inner doors," said Babek as 
 they went toward the great room where sat the Sultan. 
 "And thou shalt bide thy time to enter for there be 
 many with him. Also would I counsel that thy message 
 be brief and thy speech soft for much hath disturbed 
 the royal mind and it is speedy to anger." 
 
 Attar made no answer, and the slave spoke again : 
 
 "Certain Franks bearing messages of import from 
 their own country be with him even now "
 
 150 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "Franks, sayest thou?" questioned Attar, for at the 
 time there was an unnamed trouble seething in Islam 
 against the Franks. 
 
 "Yea, and the air which bloweth from the inner 
 court smelleth of much controversy," answered the 
 enunch. 
 
 As they waited beyond the last door, Attar found that 
 it was as Babek had said. Those who passed out wore 
 the garments of mystery. No word spoke any, yet about 
 the calmest Moor or Arab or Berber that issued from 
 the shadow beyond was the odor of war. 
 
 Suddenly the curtains were held wide and two men 
 issued therefrom both Roumis. 
 
 "The Franks !" passed in subdued speech from lip to 
 lip. One of the men was smaller than the least among 
 those that waited, and the faces of both were dark 
 with anger. The brow of the older Frank was crimson, 
 and though the air was chill, he sweated great drops, so 
 wroth was he with the happenings within. As he drew 
 his kerchief forth, it fell upon the tiled floor near the 
 feet of Attar. 
 
 The Moslem did not stoop to lift it; but another 
 also a man of princely figure clad in costly silk and 
 wearing a head-covering of distinction, sprang to restore 
 the piece of linen. For all his princely trappings, the 
 Moor bent low as he proffered the kerchief and smiled 
 as if to gain favor. 
 
 But the Frank took it without giving thanks, and 
 went on his way muttering a curse upon Islam with 
 scant care that it should not be heard. Attar followed. 
 
 "I heard thee but faintly," he said, standing in the 
 path of the Frank, "and perchance my ear hath deceived 
 me perchance thou hast but cursed thine own im-
 
 ATTAR'S HOUR OF DECISION 151 
 
 patience; yet had thy words a different seeming a 
 seeming of dangerous import," he added, and his eyes 
 grew dark, "if spoken within the ear of a true believer." 
 
 The Frank, a man of valor who feared not the num- 
 bers of Islam, so clothed was he with the dignity of his 
 country or he had not carried such word to the Sultan 
 as he had brought, was about to repeat the oath when he 
 paused with the words upon his lips. There was that 
 in the blue-black eyes of the Moslem which made him, 
 for a moment, doubt the easy conquest of Tunisia and 
 the Moors ; still Attar waited with unwavering calmness 
 that had in it more of demand than any show of power. 
 
 The Frank's wrath died. Anger is but a lash for 
 slaves; he was himself a brave man, and he read the 
 fearlessness of the Moslem before him. 
 
 "Thou art right, O sheik," he said with a greater 
 courtesy than he had shown the Sultan. 
 
 Still Attar waited. 
 
 "Thou art a loyal subject," spoke the Frank again, 
 "and now suffer me to go my way." 
 
 "First, O noble stranger, would I hear thy words 
 again, that mine ear may be sure of their meaning; 
 for I would crave thy pardon for having suspected aught 
 of blasphemy from thy honorable lips." 
 
 The Frank laughed joylessly; then, replacing the 
 kerchief in his garments, said quickly, as if he liked not 
 the taste of the words : 
 
 "I but cursed mine own impatience, O sheik." 
 
 "It is well," returned Attar; "I crave thy pardon 
 with my forehead in the dust;" and he stepped aside 
 that the Frank might pass. 
 
 Within, a brave-seeming court stood about the Sultan, 
 strong, long-limbed Moslems, bravely clad in colors of
 
 152 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 pride and courage, in silks and brocades and em- 
 broideries, and wearing jewels that bespoke much 
 substance. 
 
 The Sultan wore a brooding look, as if he saw that 
 beyond the shadows which caused him grave displeasure 
 nigh unto fear. Those near the divan whereon he re- 
 clined spoke soft words, praising his wisdom and 
 princely courage. But he answered them not. 
 
 They numbered over the strength of Tunisia and 
 Maroc and the desert cities that called him Sultan, and 
 strove yith jest and honeyed words to banish his 
 concern. 
 
 "Waste not thy quick youth in brooding; naught but 
 sorcery may overcome thee ;" and : "What is written is 
 written," they counseled in differing words, but he an- 
 swered them not. 
 
 "The Roumis have disturbed the serenity of thy noble 
 mind, O most gracious Commander of the Faithful/' 
 said one who had his ear. "Let there be music give 
 word that the dancing girls be brought forth to charm 
 thy gray moments. Babek thou Babek !" he called, as 
 he saw the great eunuch leaning near the door. 
 
 The moment the eunuch had waited for was come, 
 and he approached those about the Sultan, and spoke 
 into the ear of a sheik who was older than the rest. 
 From lip to lip the word passed : 
 
 "Attar abu Hamed al Hassen," said the Sultan 
 slowly, when the word had been repeated to him. 
 "Whence coineth he? The name is not unknown to 
 mine ear, yet do I not recall where it hath fitted into the 
 royal pattern." 
 
 "He is the Moslem to whom thou didst offer princely 
 holdings for the Prophetess Jeppa," said Haroun, the
 
 ATTAR'S HOUR OF DECISION 153 
 
 scribe who had written to Attar. "Wilt thou have 
 speech with him ?" 
 
 "Nay," said the Sultan, suddenly remembering, "give 
 unto him whatever he asketh of the things thou hast set 
 forth in the letter and send him hence for the sound 
 of his name bringeth a great sadness upon me." 
 
 And the scribe went to Attar and told him of the 
 words of the commander of the faithful. But the scribe 
 returned right speedily, bringing words that the Moslem 
 accepted not the gifts for that he would not have given 
 his wife. 
 
 When the Sultan heard this, he was wroth, and had 
 Attar brought close and questioned him, as if disbe- 
 lieving the words of the scribe. 
 
 "Attar al Hassen," he cried, "answer an thou valuest 
 thy life and the favor of thy Sultan : An thy wife had 
 lived, wouldst thou not have made her a gift to the royal 
 harem ?" 
 
 And Al Hassen made answer : 
 
 "She was my wife unto no man would I have given 
 her." 
 
 Amazement alone restrained the Sultan's words. At- 
 tar's eyes gazed into his without a tremor. 
 
 "Thou didst ask for the truth, O Mighty Sultan ! I 
 would not have given her unto thee." 
 
 For the space of a moment the royal glance had well- 
 nigh withered him where he stood. 
 
 "First am I defied of the Franks," cried the Sultan 
 in hot wrath, "and within the hour doth a Moslem ques- 
 tion my favor. An the woman were living thy madness 
 were explained perchance forgiven. But seeing thou 
 hast naught to gain, why troublest thou me ?" 
 
 Attar would have spoken, but the other would not
 
 154 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 suffer him. He was in a dark mood. His anger had 
 grown for days, and those that waited about scarce 
 breathed till he should pronounce punishment upon the 
 man who had set the torch of ill-chosen words to the fuel 
 that lay ready for the flame. 
 
 Attar alone gazed calm and unafraid into the eyes 
 of the Sultan. This but fanned the ruler's anger, 
 though he still sought to preserve a princely mien. 
 
 "Thou shalt go forth, Attar abu Hamed al Hassen," 
 he said after a pause; "thou shalt go forth in poverty 
 as thou hast chosen. But come not back. Tunisia hath 
 but scant need for such as thee." 
 
 Then, his anger rising beyond the power of his con- 
 trol, he cried: 
 
 "Hence ! Hence ! Offend mine ears no more." 
 
 And Attar, being satisfied that the commander of the 
 faithful knew not that Aletra lived, bowed his head and 
 went quickly from the royal presence. 
 
 Then Babek bent swiftly and spoke into the Sultan's 
 ear, and told him of that which had happened in the 
 outer court. The ruler could scarce believe his words; 
 but when others vouched for them the story having 
 wafted into the great room he bade a slave go quickly 
 and bring Attar again before him for the happening 
 was a great draft to his pride, and he was greatly 
 pleased that the Frank had been thus humbled even be- 
 fore those of Islam by a common man. When Attar was 
 come, he questioned him. 
 
 "Why hast thou done this thing unto the Frank, O 
 Al Hassen ?" 
 
 And Attar answered simply: 
 "Naught else was there to do." 
 
 And again he looked calmly, without fear, yet with-
 
 ATTAB'S HOUR OF DECISION 155 
 
 out pleasure, into the royal eyes, though the Sultan now 
 smiled upon him. 
 
 "Thou art an honest man," cried the commander of 
 the faithful. "Would that Islam had more like unto 
 thee." 
 
 Then suddenly he asked: "What thinkest thou of 
 the danger of the Frank? Thinkest thou it is but a 
 wind that bloweth over the country?" 
 
 "That know I not, Sultan! Yet were it safe to 
 make the tents secure when the wind bloweth." 
 
 "Thou hast spoken. And for thy words, which chime 
 with mine own thoughts, and for what thou hast done 
 to an enemy of Islam, will I make thee the bearer of 
 my answer to the Franks which has been promised 
 within the moon. 
 
 "Thou art he for whom I have sought an incor- 
 ruptible man. Thou shalt bide in the seraglio as one 
 invested with high office. Await my summons," he said, 
 rising, and without waiting for an answer he turned to 
 Babek and ordered: 
 
 "Pick from the fairest a dozen slaves to minister to 
 the Sheik al Hassen, and conduct him to the part of the 
 palace where were lodged the recently departed guests 
 from Persia. Also for his pleasure bring Azalia, the 
 Greek, and Zittarra, the Kabylian. 
 
 "Thus do I reward thee, O Attar al Hassen, for 
 speaking the truth without fear or greed. Both of these 
 my wives in the royal harem that I bestow upon thee 
 are beautiful." 
 
 Attar strove to speak without interrupting the Sultan, 
 but the other raised his hand for silence. 
 
 "Forget thy Jeppa, who is now in paradise, in the 
 smiles of living lips."
 
 156 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 And before Attar could speak, he gathered his shim- 
 mering robes about him and, moving toward the corri- 
 dor, disappeared among the waiting slaves. 
 
 When he had gone, Babek led Al Hassen into the 
 great outer court, with its fountains and carvings and 
 tiles and rugs, the same that Aletra had entered the 
 day she left the seraglio, but Attar saw nothing of its 
 beauty and splendor, nor thought of the favor that had 
 befallen him, except insofar as it increased his trouble. 
 
 "Thou hast well-nigh destroyed thyself," said Babek, 
 "but in the moment art thou a great man. I can see 
 that if thou art wise thou wilt be greater than any in 
 the seraglio." 
 
 "Who hath brought thee word that she hath been 
 stricken of the plague and perished ?" asked Attar, not 
 heeding the eunuch's words. 
 
 "So important was the mission that I trusted none, 
 but went myself to thine house." 
 
 "And whom didst thou have speech with?" 
 
 "There were none within, but all that lived near gave 
 unto me word that Jeppa had perished of the plague, 
 and bade me fare to the cemetery if I believed not, and 
 I went and found that Jeppa rested there." 
 
 Attar would not tell him of the difference in the 
 women, lest the other renew his quest to gain the favor 
 of his royal master ; yet he wished for some small word 
 that Aletra might have said concerning him, and asked : 
 
 "Hadst thou speech with Jeppa ?" 
 
 "Yea," answered Babek. 
 
 "Hath she given thee any word or command ?" 
 
 "Yea," again the other answered. 
 
 "And that word ?" urged Attar hungrily. 
 
 "When she fared forth, I was loath to have the great
 
 ATTAR'S HOUR OF DECISION 157 
 
 gate opened till I should have some word from the 
 master; and in her impatience she said unto me: 'An 
 thou wouldst have a fair life when I return, open thou 
 speedily and obey my commands.' ' 
 
 "Said she so ?" asked Attar in alarm, looking search- 
 ingly at Babek. 
 
 "Even so," answered the slave, and there was an air 
 of truth about his words. 
 
 In the hour that followed, when he was alone in that 
 part of the seraglio given over to him, he was sore 
 troubled at the words Babek had spoken, and doubt, 
 colder than the chill of a desert night, crept about his 
 heart doubt of Aletra. Then, as if a door had been 
 opened into the outer world, he heard the voice of this 
 world : 
 
 "Why dost thou hesitate to live the life thou hast 
 ever lived, and that thy fathers have lived before thee ? 
 Why takest thou not the land and the camels, the gold 
 and the silk stuffs and the wives?" 
 
 The odor of flowers and burning incense filled the 
 room. And, as he thought, a woman's silken scarf was 
 cast upon the divan near him. 
 
 Lifting his gaze he saw a girl of great beauty. She 
 was unveiled, and her eyes were red from weeping. 
 His heart was kindly, and the sight of a woman in tears 
 was ever a painful one to him, so he sought to comfort 
 her, thinking she, perchance, had displeased the 
 favorite. 
 
 "Thy mistress hath been wroth with thee ?" he began, 
 and waited for an answer. 
 
 She made no answer, and he spoke again : 
 
 "Dry thine eyes and fear not, for thou lookest a fair 
 damsel and good."
 
 158 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 The girl continued to regard him, but still answered 
 not, though she seemed indignant in her bearing, and 
 the flash of her steady, black eyes reproached him. 
 
 "Why weepest thou? Answer." 
 
 "I weep not," she said in idiomatic Arabic. 
 
 "Why hast thou wept, then? Wouldst thou aught 
 of me?" 
 
 "Naught," she answered, still looking upon him with 
 eyes of unwinking brilliancy. 
 
 "Who art thou?" he asked at length. 
 
 "Thy wife, Azalia," she answered in a low voice. 
 
 "Nay," he returned, "I have no such wife. Aletra is 
 the name of my wife." 
 
 "The royal master hath but just given me to thee. 
 Within the hour hath Babek conducted me hither. 
 Therefore weep I that I must fare from the seraglio." 
 
 "Thou needst not, perchance," he answered, with 
 knitted brows, for he had thought the Sultan would 
 have called him into his presence again before he gave 
 him all of that which he had promised. Then would he 
 have told him that he was not of a willing heart to take 
 unto himself more wives until he had mourned for those 
 he had lost. 
 
 The girl still stood before him, and thinking that he 
 had taken her explanation of her tears as a token that 
 she liked him not, she hastened to speak, for the sight 
 of so well-made a man went far to comfort the wild 
 weeping that Babek had threatened to chastise her for. 
 
 "Nay," she said, "I wept that I feared that thou 
 wouldst have been ill-favored. Now that mine eyes 
 behold thee I am content." 
 
 He seemed not to hear her; and, thinking that he 
 was still displeased with her words about leaving the
 
 ATTAR'S HOUR OF DECISION 159 
 
 seraglio, she came closer, cast her gay silken scarf aside 
 and looked into his eyes, smiling. 
 
 The smile changed her face, her eyes seeming to be a 
 part of it. It was as if through a floating mass of 
 smoke, a pale flame had leaped, casting a burnished 
 glow and warming all it touched. The strange power 
 that slumbers in the great eyes of the Oriental was in- 
 tensified, concentrated in the smile. 
 
 He felt, as he looked upon her, that in some way she 
 represented Islam, represented woman as the Moslem 
 comprehends her. 
 
 All that had once been to him was wakened by her 
 smile, which fell about him as a cloak of some bright- 
 hued fabric. After a moment, and while he was still 
 looking into her eyes, they wavered, rose again to meet 
 his, then with a fluttering the heavy lids covered them. 
 She turned away and sighed. 
 
 Unconsciously he took a step forward. Her pose, 
 meditative in its outward seeming, was still subtly in- 
 tense and alluring. An indefinite, feminine aura sur- 
 rounded her. The look of her eyes, though red with 
 weeping ; the slight droop of the full, softly molded lips, 
 the splendid head, all were parts of an untamed, primi- 
 tive, magnificent being subdued by the great, dominat- 
 ing, major force of elemental nature. 
 
 As he did not come nearer nor speak, she raised her 
 eyes again. They were not the eyes of a woman, but 
 of woman the woman of the East. In their depths he 
 dimly read the Moslem creed, the Spirit of the Harem, 
 the traditions of his life, and he felt that his hour of 
 decision had come. 
 
 As he wavered, a lute girl who waited beyond the
 
 160 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 inner curtain sent out quivering, silvery notes into the 
 dusk. The frail strain came through the silken curtain : 
 
 "The bulbul wanders to and fro " 
 
 The words of the song were those Aletra had sung 
 the night before his departure. He listened intently, 
 his arms half extended toward Azalia listened as if he 
 heard something from afar. She waited the woman's 
 look of invitation still in her eyes. But even as he 
 gazed upon her she seemed to him farther away. She 
 sang: 
 
 "His wind is weak, his note is low." 
 
 The eyes into which his looked were loosing their 
 spell 
 
 "In vain he makes his song. 
 Since she he wooed so long 
 
 No more sheds perfume on the air around." 
 
 As he listened the presence of woman faded at the 
 distant faint call of memory memory of a woman. 
 He still looked upon Azalia, beholding her not, till the 
 lute girl's song was stilled by the prayer of Ashr', the 
 sunset call: "Allah hu Ak Bar! Allah hu Ak Bar! 
 Allah hu Ak Bar!" 
 
 Attar prostrated himself, but even while he prayed, 
 he thought of his tryst in the court of the mosque and 
 reproached himself, and when the prayer had ceased, he 
 rose, and turning, left the perfumed promises of Islam 
 without looking further upon the woman, for he knew 
 that his hour of decision had come and gone.
 
 CHAPTEE XIX 
 
 ON THE KIM OF THE DESERT 
 
 RAMON and the Sheik Saoud waited in the court of 
 the mosque beside the palace for some time. It was 
 nearing the evening-call, and Attar had said he would 
 meet them an hour before. But as the time passed, the 
 Wizard became impatient and rose from his half re- 
 clining position. 
 
 "I will go hence and look after my serpents," he said, 
 and he withdrew, leaving the sheik to wait alone. 
 
 And when he reached his lodgings, he brought forth 
 the reptiles. There were many, some small, and of 
 bright colors, that he sometimes wound about his arm ; 
 a very young python, and the cobra that he had charmed 
 the day before. 
 
 First he lifted the small ones and played with them 
 as one would with a young dog, speaking the while as is 
 the habit of those who have lived much alone with 
 nature. The language was not Arabic nor Bengalese, 
 but was more like the Hindu, and resembled an incanta- 
 tion, yet was not one. It was the tongue of his unrest, 
 the voice of the unwalled wilderness that had become a 
 part of him. 
 
 "The fool," he said, "to tarry in the shadow of the 
 seraglio! He hath a great frame and the wit of a 
 camel." 
 
 161
 
 162 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 Unrest and vexation were strong upon him, but his 
 life with the adepts in the fastnesses of the mountains 
 had taught him that it was impossible for one to con- 
 trol others unless he first control himself, and he felt 
 the need of such action as would mean concentration. 
 
 With a firm touch he opened the basket that held the 
 naga. 
 
 "Come forth," he said, "and save thy master's reason, 
 for he hath much need of it." 
 
 The serpent had not been fed recently and was rest- 
 less and eager to leave the nestlike abode. As it 
 stretched upon the floor, the iTindu attracted its atten- 
 tion and it prepared to strike. He evaded the thrust 
 and waved his hand threateningly to provoke its anger. 
 So, for many minutes, he played with danger, every 
 thought, action, and impulse under command. It was a 
 game of death; he staked his life again and again on 
 his skill. 
 
 "Once more," he said to the cobra, when he had tired 
 of his sport, "once more hast thou preserved thy master 
 from madness." 
 
 And he placed the serpent again in security, wrapped 
 his mantle about him and went back to the court of 
 the mosque. Attar came within the moment. 
 
 "Hast thou found her whom thou didst seek ?" asked 
 Saoud eagerly. 
 
 "Nay. The Sultan believeth in truth that she has 
 perished, as also doth Babek, nor would I tell them of 
 my hope. But much trouble hath befallen me : the Sul- 
 tan hath given me all the goods set forth in his letter 
 and also hath he given me two wives." 
 
 "This is thy sorrow?" asked Ramon, while the old 
 sheik looked well pleased.
 
 163 
 
 "Even this," answered Attar. "But let us go into a 
 place of greater secrecy. Much hath befallen that I 
 would tell unto thee." 
 
 As they fared from the court of the mosque, they 
 came upon David, the young Jewish Arab whom Attar 
 had sought the day before. Ramon questioned him : 
 
 "Dost thou, O David, remember the boy Selim from 
 Tunis the one who had the lame camel that thou 
 didst try to heal in the desert ?" 
 
 "Yea," answered the Jew. 
 
 "Of whose house was he ?" 
 
 "Of the house of Al Hassen. Selim abu Yoseph al 
 Hassen was he called." 
 
 "Hath he fared alone on his journey? How many 
 numbered he in his caravan?" 
 
 "There was but a single camel," returned the man. 
 "He but journeyed for merchandise to Biskra." 
 
 "Knowest thou this of a certainty ?" 
 
 "Yea. None were with him but his two wives, and 
 he journeyed to the Village of the Weavers, where dwell 
 his kinsmen." 
 
 Attar sought to question him also, but the Hindu re- 
 strained him by a quick touch upon his garment. And 
 when Ramon had questioned the Jew concerning his 
 abode they let him go upon his way. Attar would 
 follow. 
 
 "Calm thine impatience," cautioned the Hindu. As 
 he spoke, he drew them into a shadowed niche that they 
 might take counsel together. 
 
 "Thou hast not questioned where he hath seen Selim 
 in the desert," said Attar, still looking after the boy. 
 
 " 'Twas but a short way from the Tombouctu road. 
 He was beneath my eye, yet knew I not how many were
 
 164 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 in his caravan, for he came alone to our tents," answered 
 Ramon. 
 
 And Attar would journey straightway upon the road 
 to Tombouctu. Nor thought he of the displeasure of the 
 Sultan if it be found that he was not in the seraglio. 
 And it was with difficulty that Saoud and Ramon drew 
 from his lips the happenings of the day. 
 
 The old sheik besought him to take the gifts the 
 Sultan had bestowed and also the wives, and wait word 
 from Selim ; but the younger man would not heed him. 
 The Hindu saw that security lay in distance distance 
 from the seraglio and the royal master, and when he 
 had thought deeply he questioned: 
 
 "When wouldst thou begin thy journey? For thou 
 knowest that if she be in hiding, to none other than thee 
 will she discover herself." 
 
 "Yea," returned Attar, "I would go hence in the 
 night that I may not be held and punished for base 
 ingratitude." 
 
 Ramon dissented scornfully. 
 
 "Truth is there in the words that 'A great body hath 
 scant wit.' Thinkest thou to escape the eye of the Sul- 
 tan ?" he asked impatiently. 
 
 "Seest thou another way ?" 
 
 "Yea; let the Sultan send thee forth. Leave thou 
 thy perplexity to me, and make ready for thy journey. 
 I, too, fare toward the desert, by the sunrise call to 
 prayer, and will go with thee along much of thy way." 
 
 "How dost thou think to go into the presence of the 
 Sultan and get his will to send me hence ?" asked Attar. 
 
 Ramon remembered the words of Hassen al Marmud, 
 whose child he had saved from the venom of the ser- 
 pent, but he answered simply :
 
 ON" THE EIM OF THE DESEET 165 
 
 "An I stay the night to tell thee, I had no time to go 
 before the Sultan." 
 
 "Yet : 
 
 "Yet ! What meanest thou ? Have not I given thee 
 word, 'Leave the Sultan unto me?' If thou wouldst 
 have my poor services, speak, for in truth my path lieth 
 well the other way from thine, and I have but tarried 
 the day to help thee. If I can serve thee not, speak 
 also that I may go upon my way quickly." 
 
 "What dost thou counsel?" asked Attar, and his face 
 was troubled. 
 
 For answer the other slowly removed his burnoose 
 and seated himself. 
 
 "I will tell thee of what I should have spoken, had I 
 fared to the seraglio this night," he said calmly. 
 
 "Dost thou not go ?" asked Attar in alarm. 
 
 "N~ay, O my friend," he answered, "how may I tarry 
 to tell thee, and be before the Sultan also? An I do 
 the one, I may not do the other," he concluded. 
 
 "Let it be even as thou sayest," said the Moslem at 
 last. 
 
 "An thou hadst such reason when we were first come 
 here, I had been well on my way," returned the Wizard 
 reproachfully. "I will meet thee an hour before mid- 
 night at the house of thy kinsman." 
 
 It was past midnight when the moon had set. There 
 were but a few hours of darkness ahead when Ramon 
 opened the door softly and entered. 
 
 "Allah be praised," cried Attar, and clasped him in a 
 great embrace. 
 
 "All is in readiness," said the Hindu. "There are 
 good horses and a burden-bearing camel the Sultan
 
 166 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 bids the haste with all speed to thy son, who lieth ill in 
 the desert. 
 
 "How hast thou accomplished this?" asked Attar. 
 
 "Wilt thou that we bide here the night that I may 
 tell thee ?" Ramon made answer. "For an thou art not 
 again in Tunis by the waning of the next moon, neither 
 riches, nor lands, nor rug stuffs, nor camels, nor honor 
 shall be thine. In truth, all wilt thou forfeit." 
 
 "And the wives?" 
 
 "Them also wilt thou forfeit." 
 
 "It is well," answered Attar, breathing deeply as if a 
 great burden had been taken from him, and they went 
 out into the night. 
 
 When they left Tunis, Attar and Ramon rode horses 
 which were the gift of the Sultan. Ramon's two Su- 
 danese followed with the gift-camel and those that be- 
 longed to Ramon, the beasts being laden with tents and 
 rugs and other things needful for the journey. 
 
 The Wizard had taken the dove with him, it being 
 helpless and trying ever to pick away the cords that held 
 the small splints in place. Attar had counseled giving 
 it to Idillah, but Ramon objected, saying that the dove 
 should not be polluted by her touch. Then, thinking 
 of the dancing girl's words, he said after a time: 
 
 "Hast ever questioned thyself if the stain that forever 
 clings to the hand of a woman be so easily cleansed from 
 that of a man ?" 
 
 "Nay," returned Ramon, "never have I questioned 
 the wisdom of the most great."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 ALETEA SHOWS KEEN WIT 
 
 WHEN Aletra had followed in the footsteps of the 
 lepers for a little way she heard a great confusion 
 of voices. The slaves who had held her darted into the 
 throng on either side, shouting "In the name of the 
 Sultan!" and lifting such veils as they thought might 
 conceal the countenance of her whom they sought. 
 
 Steadfastly she followed the unclean feigning a 
 halting gait which made her seem of smaller stature and 
 older, though it is ever hard to determine the age of a 
 haik-wrapped woman in the Orient, so completely cov- 
 ered is her body as well as her face. 
 
 The older slave came close, and fearing that he mis- 
 trusted her she carefully covered her hand and extended 
 it for alms. A moment he paused in fright, then be- 
 stowed a coin upon her and hastened on his search. 
 
 When she had followed the lepers some distance and 
 was come near to the cemeteries, a blind man besought 
 that some one lead him, for he had none of his own 
 house left unto him. Aletra paused and spoke to 
 the man. He liked well the sound of her voice, and as 
 he was hidden in the corner of a wall, she sank at his 
 feet and began latching his shoes as might a daughter. 
 And he had much gratitude and besought her services, 
 saying: 
 
 167
 
 168 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "I would fare out of Tunis by nightfall an I get one 
 to go with me. All of my house are perished, and I 
 would return to mine own people; for I am not of this 
 country, as thou seest, but an Egyptian, a Copt. I 
 have such substance as shall take me on my journey 
 and leave a small wage for one to minister to my needs." 
 
 "Desolation also encompasseth my house," said 
 Aletra. "I alone am left. I fare with thee right will- 
 ingly an I go as thy daughter, no other way." 
 
 To this the man agreed and took her to his abode. 
 He liked well her voice, but he asked that she lift her 
 veil and suffer him to read the lineaments of her face 
 with his hand, and when he had done this he was 
 amazed at her beauty. 
 
 "Knowest thou not," he said in a troubled voice, 
 "that safer is it by far to journey with a jewel of price 
 than with a beautiful woman ?" 
 
 Aletra feared he would not take her thence, but took 
 courage as he spoke again. 
 
 "Yet also art thou a good woman, and a good woman 
 is ever discreet." Then he asked : "Of whose house art 
 thou?" 
 
 "Of the house of Najeb Hafed Harroun, who dwell- 
 eth afar, nigh unto Beirut, in Syria," she made answer, 
 but she told him not that her father had been bred in 
 Tunisia and that he that dwelt in Beirut was but a 
 distant kinsman of her father's whom she had never 
 seen. 
 
 "It is well," said the Copt. "I am of the house of 
 Zobel Ben Zewar, and since those of nearest kin have 
 perished here in Tunis, I return to the Land of Egypt 
 where dwell my people, and Egypt lieth nigh unto the
 
 ALETRA SHOWS KEEN WIT 169 
 
 country thou wouldst reach, an thou farest to thy kins- 
 man's house." 
 
 "Of a truth am I favored of Allah," said Aletra, and 
 she lifted the sleeve of the man's garment to her lips. 
 
 "How art thou called, my daughter ?" he asked. 
 
 "How was thy youngest daughter called ?" questioned 
 Aletra. 
 
 "Hagar," he answered, "her mother was of the 
 Jews." 
 
 "Then call thou me Hagar." 
 
 "Thou hast wisdom," he praised. "Yet hast thou 
 such wisdom as to ever keep thy face concealed ?" 
 
 "Yea, O my father," she answered, "and when e'er 
 I unveil, e'en before women will I make myself so ill- 
 favored that none will ask me of thee for their sons in 
 marriage." 
 
 "Wit hast thou also," he said, and a goodly smile 
 broke through the wrinkles of his aged face. "Wit, yea, 
 and wisdom," he repeated, "and beauty, and something 
 greater than these that thou wouldst protect thy 
 virtue." 
 
 As he spoke he laid his hand upon her head in bless- 
 ing. Her heart was filled with comfort at the touch, yet 
 would she not burden him with her secret. Later, when 
 she went forth to buy food, he said again as he put coin 
 in her hand : 
 
 "Be thou discreet, O my daughter, and suffer not the 
 wind to trifle with thy veil, for a beautiful woman is 
 more dangerous to hold than a jewel of price, and mine 
 ear craveth the sound of thy voice on this journey. Thou 
 seemest but a child, yet thou hast the rare wisdom of
 
 170 
 
 And she assured him and went forth, but ever she 
 thought of his words and of the great sapphire that lay 
 hidden against her breast. 
 
 As she came near to the bazaar, the seraglio slaves 
 tore the veils from women who stood waiting. But, 
 before any had seen her, she turned and fled back to the 
 abode of Zobel. 
 
 She had brought with her only flour, and lacked many 
 things; but as she came before her door an Arab boy 
 besought her to buy five eggs which he held in the corner 
 of his small burnoose, and she was glad, and took them. 
 As she prepared the fritters Zobel craved, she trembled 
 so that her hands scarce held the basins, and though 
 in the security of the walls she barkened to every sound 
 without. 
 
 "Allah, O Allah, preserve thou me from the eyes that 
 watch/' she besought. "Hear me, hear me, O Allah, 
 for my heart fainteth with a great fear." 
 
 As she broke one of the eggs into the meal, the outer 
 shell went into fragments, but the skin beneath it held 
 for a moment like parchment. As she looked upon it, a 
 swift memory of the lepers she had seen but on hour 
 past smote her, and suddenly hope sprang in her heart. 
 
 With great care she took the inner lining from the 
 shell and laid it upon her face as she had seen her mother 
 lay it upon a hand that had been seared by the fire, and 
 when she looked upon herself she shrank with fright, 
 even in the moment that she rejoiced ; for the white skin 
 of the egg clung to her features even as the skin cleaveth 
 to the face of a leper till there was no spot left un- 
 covered. 
 
 She told Zobel naught of this, for he would be
 
 ALETRA SHOWS KEEN WIT 171 
 
 loath to have the people cry "Unclean," and refuse to 
 harbor them. But she took great care to draw her veil 
 closely even when speaking to the women in the house 
 and in the bazaar, whither she fared again to buy 
 things needful for the journey, which they began at 
 nightfall. 
 
 She feared for Selini and Abla, and thought to pass 
 her own door as they left the city and leave a scroll for 
 the boy. This she prepared a script bidding him not 
 to follow her and saying she was in safety, but when 
 she was come before the door of her own abode, she saw 
 him and Abla standing without, and beside them were 
 the two slaves that had torn her from the ship, and she 
 feared to tarry lest they suspect her. 
 
 Seeing Abla with Selim she had no further anxiety 
 concerning the girl, for love, she knew, groweth even 
 in the loam of death; but she went slowly as if her 
 burden were heavy, that she might hear a word of that 
 which was spoken. This was easy, for Abla cried 
 wildly : 
 
 "Awah! Awah! have I not told these that my 
 mistress sped swiftly to the water's edge and, without 
 waiting, sprang into the sea !" 
 
 Aletra would have tarried; but Zobel, missing her 
 from his side, called "Hagar, Hagar," and, fearing lest 
 her voice betray both her and Abla, she answered not, 
 but hurried her steps, and taking his hand led him 
 away through the streets of the city till they came to 
 the outer edge. 
 
 When the night had fallen, they were beyond Tunis 
 and their faces were set toward the desert, which re- 
 vealeth and concealeth many things.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 WARNINGS OF THE PARDONER^ WRATH 
 
 PEACE be unto thee." 
 Ramon, sitting beside a palm of the oasis, raised 
 his eyes to the Arab who spoke. The man had ridden a 
 swift camel and now came toward him, unwinding the 
 scarf of his cafia and taking a scroll therefrom. 
 
 "And unto thee," said Ramon in response. 
 
 "Allah send thee good tidings," said the Arab as he 
 proffered the parchment. Ramon did not unfold it, but 
 sought to read the nomad's face. Seeing naught written 
 thereon of knowledge, he called the Sudanese and bade 
 them set forth food and drink for the messenger. 
 
 "Allah increase thee a thousand-fold," said the man 
 as he followed the slaves. The gaze of the Hindu fol- 
 lowed him, seeking to read from tarboosh or burnoose 
 the station of the man. 
 
 The camel might have come from the royal cara- 
 vansaries, and he relished not that the eyes of one who 
 served the Sultan be upon him while he read. 
 
 For days the little caravan had journeyed on into the 
 desert, sometimes halting near nomad camps, some- 
 times in the vast plains of sand. Once, when they 
 were about eight days from Tunis, an Arab boy, young 
 enough to be allowed to go unnoticed among the Moslem 
 women who journey in the desert, furnished the de- 
 
 172
 
 WARNINGS OF THE PARDONER'S WRATH 173 
 
 scription of a beautiful girl and told of her traveling in 
 the care of a youth called Selim. 
 
 On hearing this, Attar was impatient to go the way 
 this Selim and the woman had gone; but after riding 
 half a day, when they had come upon the little party, 
 he was disappointed to find that his quest was fruitless, 
 the youth was not Selim, and the girl did not recognize 
 him. 
 
 Again they heard of a woman who had but lately been 
 in the seraglio. She was with a small caravan, but when 
 they had turned aside and come upon the camp, they 
 saw by the glow of the fire that the woman was not 
 Aletra ; and as there was no other they turned back. 
 
 Their camels were swift, but they made slight prog- 
 ress in their journey. As each clue proved a mirage, 
 the Moslem's words were fewer, his smile became rarer, 
 and his face held a deep sadness that forbade the voice 
 of solace. 
 
 Ramon had ridden beside him more often than be- 
 fore ; for the Hindu had the gift of silence, and his pres- 
 ence soothed the heart. But they had been wandering 
 more than a score of days, and must needs go beyond 
 the sultanate or return, an the Moslem should be safe. 
 
 ISTow that no eye was upon him, the Wizard broke the 
 seal and unfolded the parchment. He read : 
 
 Peace be unto thee, O Ramon the Unknowable. The scroll 
 setting forth the way thy quest fareth hath come to me. 
 Yet word from me canst thou not expect. Thy serpents 
 would be kinder than I were I so near as they. I write 
 now for the reason that what Allah hath denied thee in the 
 token of a loving heart, lie hath given thee doubly in wit. 
 
 I had not dared to set this before the eyes of him who is 
 with thee, but I know that thou wilt be beside him, that
 
 174 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 thou wilt endure to the end, thinking thy unutterable 
 thoughts, but silent. And it is because of this silence that 
 I write thee, and thou wilt see by these words that I have 
 trusted thee, even with the things that concern mine own 
 life. Therefore seek solitude when thou readest and tell 
 none of the import of my words. 
 
 How the knowledge here set forth hath come to me I need 
 not tell thee, but the truth of Allah is in my words, therefore 
 give heed. 
 
 Have a care for the life of him who is with thee, for danger 
 threateneth also in the dunes. The Pardoner, the Highest, 
 hath been in hot wrath, and he who looketh to his pleasure 
 hath fared from Tunis with camels and trappings of a mer- 
 chant. But the beasts are from the royal caravansaries and 
 one beareth a bassourah with silken lining an empty bas- 
 sourah and lesser slaves have questioned concerning the 
 way of the Moslem with the golden beard. 
 
 Thy footsteps are followed and the shadow of thy camels 
 are spied upon. Thou canst not hold the woman from the 
 royal lips, but thou hast wit to preserve the Moslem who 
 would destroy himself for a dream. 
 
 I will continue to bide in the shelter of my kinsman's 
 harem, whither I have gone from the Street of the Dancers, 
 an thou wouldst write. Yet would I counsel thee to send 
 no word lest it betray thy quest, which Allah protect. 
 
 Salaama. 
 
 SHE WHO DANCED BEFORE THEE THY LAST NIGHT IN TUNIS 
 
 When Ramon had read this lengthy epistle, he said 
 naught to Attar about it, but hid the letter in his 
 burnoose. 
 
 "For," he thought, "destruction awaiteth him if lie 
 measure his strength with the power of the Sultan, and 
 in the silence of the desert is safety, and even peace 
 cometh there on the wings of time."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE LOVE OF THE SERPENT CHAKMEE 
 
 IT was night in the Sahara, before the rising of a late 
 moon. Ramon and Attar sat in the shelter of a great 
 dune, for it was cold, and the fire but smoldered. 
 
 Neither spoke; but, though the night was young, 
 they drew their fur garments close and held their 
 burnooses tightly about their faces. For the breath of 
 the desert night is like the coldness of a woman who 
 realizes that she has smiled too warmly in an earlier 
 hour; following closely upon the quivering heat of the 
 shadowless golden day, the leaden cold of the sand 
 wilderness is doubly felt. 
 
 Two Sudanese were on their way to a merrymaking 
 before the fires of a great caravan that rested not far 
 away. 
 
 As they passed, their voices came faintly on the clear 
 air. Ratani, the older one, was singing. The melan- 
 choly of his minor tones was echoed at intervals by the 
 notes of a flute reedlike, mellow, haunting, limpid as 
 if the sighs of love and sorrow and desire had trembled 
 over the strings of a human heart and melted into one 
 another. 
 
 The melody was for the singer's best-loved wife, who, 
 through the compassion of Allah, the Most Great, 
 awaited him at the gates of paradise. 
 
 175
 
 176 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 And, though he embellished and changed the song 
 with each repetition, it held ever that strange com- 
 mingling of asceticism, spiritual adoration, and sensu- 
 ous entreaty that distinguishes the love-songs of the 
 East from all others. It may not have reached the ever- 
 listening ear of the houri at the gates of the blest abode, 
 but the woman who heard it the woman before the 
 fires of the scattered nomad tents in the Sahara night 
 sighed. 
 
 The sound of the flute swelled or diminished as the 
 player rose upon a dune or sank in the deep hollows, till 
 it grew faint and was lost in the distance, echoing only 
 at intervals, like a silver thread of sound, in the fancies 
 of those who had listened. 
 
 Ramon rose and threw some fresh fagots upon the 
 smoldering fire, first gathering the half-burned pieces 
 into a pyramid ; then he returned to his place beside the 
 Moslem. The fire was to one side, so that the radiance 
 from it accentuated the shadowy billows of sand that 
 rose and fell beneath the vapor-like star-shine. 
 
 Attar's eyes were fixed upon the faint silver distances 
 of the desert, with the eternal question that unpeopled 
 vasts provoke. He had taken no heed when the Hindu 
 rose or returned ; for the desert is filled with thoughts, 
 as the ocean with water. 
 
 Since journeying into the desert, they had followed 
 the slenderest threads of trails that promised any clue 
 to Aletra or Selim's movements. But, as one by one 
 these clues ended in nothing but disappointment, they 
 discussed the subject less and less, and fell to forming 
 theories silently as they rode upon their camels 
 theories that, like the changing dunes, swirled into new 
 shapes and perspectives with every breath of desert 
 wind.
 
 THE LOVE OF THE SERPENT CHARMEE 177 
 
 Their only and last hope now was that Aletra had 
 reached the Village of the Weavers with Selim, leaving 
 no trace of her journey for others to follow. 
 
 Attar was changed much. His great stature was un- 
 bent. He was still colossal in form, but no longer gave 
 the suggestion of limitless strength, as in the past. He 
 seemed like a white mystic. The broad brow, the 
 shadowed splendor of the dark-blue eyes, the solemnity 
 of his distant gaze all told of a newly awakened con- 
 sciousness that was tearing the flesh and stamping the 
 brow with the incomparable knowledge and dignity of 
 suffering. 
 
 Twice, as they sat in the starlight, Ramon thought to 
 touch him or to speak. But, looking into his face, he 
 saw that he was far away on the ceaseless quest; and, 
 fearing to cross the path of his thoughts, he did not 
 break the silence till he saw by a slight movement of 
 the other that he had followed the trail of fancy or 
 hope to the end and was come back. Then, with touch 
 soft as a woman's, he laid his hand upon Attar's and 
 asked : 
 
 "Is thy heart hopeful ? Thou hast thought long." 
 
 "Nay," was the answer. "I see neither light nor the 
 promise of light." 
 
 "Yet, could they have journeyed by another way to 
 the mountains; and, also, could there be another Selim 
 of frail stature with whom the woman traveled ?" mused 
 Ramon. The other shook his head sadly. 
 
 "A year back," he said "a year back I sat amid a 
 blooming harem beloved loving. To-night I lie in 
 the desert, desolate." 
 
 "Yet thou livest, and canst demand much of life." 
 
 "Thou hast spoken well, O my friend. But the 
 flower of my life is an aloe, bitter to the taste."
 
 178 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "At times the future, that swathes itself in amber 
 and flame, is a shriveled monster in the unwinding, and 
 again, garbed in gray, the day may unfold to bright- 
 ness, as a dark-hued haik, when lifted, discloseth the 
 face of a beautiful woman." 
 
 Attar, who had borne his sorrow with dignity, nor 
 spoken of his grief, groaned as he listened. 
 
 "Thou knowest not," he said after a pause. "Thou 
 knowest not the torment of thy words. For all the 
 years that my life shall number, be they few or many, 
 are wound about the heart of my beautiful woman." 
 
 "Even so, O my friend, with the passing of the years 
 cometh peace." 
 
 "Thou, O Ramon, art not a man but a saint! A 
 patient, silent Marabout; to thee can I open my heart. 
 To thee and to none other. Ne'er was there woman like 
 Aletra! She she " Then in sudden fury he in- 
 terrupted himself. "An any man hath taken her from 
 me be he Bedouin or Sultan he shall pay the red 
 price !" 
 
 From the passion of the outburst it was plain to 
 Ramon that this thought was not new to the other 
 that it had ridden with him on the journey and haunted 
 his fancies at night. And for this it was that he had 
 fared with him out of the sight of the Sultan's palace. 
 For he thought that Aletra still lived behind the gates 
 of some one of the great harems. Now he made answer : 
 
 "Such words but poison thy body and wear thy soul. 
 Strength and fulfilment come only with the tranquillity 
 of nature. Destruction cometh with the wrath of a mo- 
 ment, and foameth in the mouth of the tempest. So 
 much power canst thou use each day, and unto it must 
 thou not seek to add, lest thou go outside the great law 
 of the worlds.
 
 THE LOVE OF THE SERPENT CHAEMER 179 
 
 "Consume not thy soul to ashes in the melting-pot of 
 hate," he concluded softly, again laying his hand upon 
 the Moslem's shoulder. 
 
 "Thy words, O Ramon, are words of wisdom; "but 
 scant room in my heart is there for wisdom when I think 
 of Aletra. An thou hadst seen her or heard her voice 
 thou wouldst know ! If I could but tell thee ! She was 
 fairer than a flower like a cypress " 
 
 With faltering voice he buried his face in the folds of 
 his white burnoose and sobbed as if for the dead: 
 
 "Oh, my beautiful woman, my beautiful woman !" 
 
 "Perchance," said the Hindu softly, "she hath come 
 nigh unto being as fair as my beautiful woman." 
 
 "Thine?" exclaimed Attar in amaze, startled out of 
 his bitterness. 
 
 "Yea, mine," returned Ramon with the sudden as- 
 perity that often found its way into his tone, like light- 
 ning on the gray of a cloud. 
 
 "I had not known," apologized Attar. "A man 
 groweth selfish in his sorrow. Where dwelleth she ?" 
 
 "In the house of my rival Ravanna, one of the 
 princes of India." 
 
 "Ever knew I thou wert not like unto the nomads, 
 though thou livest their life," returned the Moslem. 
 
 He wanted to ask further, but with Oriental courtesy 
 forbore, yet an unseen cord had drawn them closer; 
 both had suffered. That was why he had bared his 
 heart without shame. 
 
 There was silence for a time between them. Then 
 the Hindu spoke: 
 
 "Shall I tell thee how it befell that I made friends 
 with the serpents of the desert how I hid mine eyes 
 from the sight of love for many years how I con- 
 sumed my soul in the longing for a sight of the one
 
 180 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 face the one forbidden face? Shall I tell unto thee 
 the story of Naketa?" 
 
 "An thou deemest me worthy," returned the Mos- 
 lem softly. 
 
 Silence was about them the silence of the desert 
 which can be likened unto none other. They were sur- 
 rounded by the space, the vastness, the mystery of what 
 is, and has been, and ever will be. 
 
 In the great stillness stretching beneath the stars the 
 earth attuned to the voice of Sahara will hear a pulsing 
 a close and clear and rhythmic pulsing from the very 
 heart of God. Ramon heard it ; Attar felt it ; and by it 
 were measured all things human and divine. Ramon 
 took from the folds of his burnoose a small object, and 
 after gazing upon it in the dim light, handed it to Attar. 
 
 "Naketa," he said, as if presenting a sensate being, 
 yet scarcely breathing the name. His voice held a new 
 note tender and caressing. Then, as the other turned 
 toward the fire the better to see, he gently took the small 
 piece of carved ivory back. Light and darkness were 
 as one to him, and he looked for a long moment upon it. 
 
 Silence fell between them for a time, then Ramon 
 spoke very slowly, as if he were alone: 
 
 "Vain is the man who thinketh his own sorrow or 
 delight differeth from another's, or that another could 
 ever look upon the face of his beautiful woman with 
 the same eyes that he beholdeth her with. Thy beau- 
 tiful woman filleth thy heart, even so was my heart filled 
 by Naketa. Thy flesh and thy soul crave thy beautiful 
 woman; happiness canst thou not see without her, nor 
 considerest thou a paradise where she is not. 
 
 "Even so my flesh and my soul craved mine, nor saw 
 I happiness in this or any other life without her. An-
 
 THE LOVE OF THE SEEPENT CHARMER 181 
 
 other desired thy flower of perfection and took her to 
 himself, giving thee substance which thou didst cast 
 aside. Another craved my flower of perfection, took 
 her unto himself, and sent me gold, which I also cast 
 aside. Thy wrath craveth that this man shall pay the 
 red price even so thirsted I for the blood of the man 1 
 who betrayed me. 
 
 "Thus far, O Attar abu Hamed al Hassen, have we 
 journeyed the paths of bliss and the black wilderness of 
 hate together. How this befell hath little weight, and 
 that which came to me I doubt will ever come to thee. 
 Yet will I tell thee, that thou mayest know the measure 
 of power a man may mete unto himself." 
 
 Again he paused, then began in short, abrupt sen- 
 tences. His voice was hard and he spoke as if with an 
 effort : 
 
 "Once in the years that followed, I, a charmer of 
 serpents, came upon this man, mighty in his riches and 
 strength. My beautiful woman loved him. Then, when 
 she believed me dead they had a child. For her 
 sake I had never returned to India or claimed mine in- 
 heritance or title, lest she know the bitterness of the cup 
 I drank alone. When I thought of this, my fingers 
 writhed to tear at his heart. Then fate put his life in 
 my power. I had but to wait the swift stroke of a 
 serpent's fang and he would be destroyed. I saved him 
 for her sake. 
 
 "Greater bitterness than this can no man know. I 
 wish to thee that thou shalt never be called upon to 
 bear the knowledge that thy pearl is content without 
 thee, or that thou shalt ever know the bitterness of spar- 
 ing the life of him who wronged thee to secure the hap- 
 piness of the woman thou lovest.
 
 182 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "This have I done, and it hath seared my soul yet 
 of such moments is power begotten. Such knowledge 
 learned I in the grotto of the White Mystics, whither I 
 went in the first days of my sorrow when the spirit of 
 me was sick unto death. Knowledge cometh slowly and 
 after much fasting, and every man must buy it for him- 
 self with countless hours of patience and suppression 
 of the puny human will. 
 
 "Thus it befell that the enemy within me, that had 
 fed upon my life's blood through many years, perished 
 in that swift moment when the serpent sought to strike 
 Ravanna; for in that moment my angel-deva tore him 
 from my heart and freed me from his consuming grasp ; 
 for in that moment, when I had conquered my desire for 
 Naketa, I first began to know the meaning of the mys- 
 tery of love. 
 
 "The next day, as Ravanna rode away, I saw him 
 large-limbed, serene, confident But even as I looked 
 upon my rags, I knew that for the shadow of a moment 
 I had been as the great Om (God) the moment that I 
 had conquered the enemy within me, the thirst for blood 
 the moment when I had given him his life. 
 
 "Did his lips smile ? Did he move in lusty health ? 
 It was my gift. Did Naketa's lips move in prayer for 
 the return of her love? My hand had answered her 
 prayer. I had passed from the torment of effect, to the 
 great order of cause." 
 
 "Thou hast never seen thy Naketa again?" asked 
 Attar. 
 
 "2sTever have I feasted mine eyes upon her again." 
 
 "And hast thou ne'er sought the solace of a wife?" 
 asked the Moslem. 
 
 "Yea," admitted the Hindu. "Soon after the de-
 
 THE LOVE OF THE SERPENT CHARMER 183 
 
 parture of Eavanna I fell ill of a desert fever, and the 
 daughter of a weaver ministered unto me. When I 
 waxed strong again, her father gave her to me to wife. 
 
 "I told her of Naketa. She made no answer, but 
 served me in humility and kindness. 
 
 "For three years she had been a good wife to me, 
 when one day a stranger set his tent hard by my own. 
 It was evening, about a moon later, that she, Sohora, 
 came and, bending low before me, asked that I divorce 
 her and bestow her upon the stranger. 
 
 " 'Have I not treated thee well, or hath thy burden 
 been too heavy?' I questioned, and she made answer, 
 sorrowfully : 
 
 " 'Nay, thou art ever a kind master.' 
 
 " 'This man,' I told her, 'will cause thee to bear 
 heavy burdens, and hath a harsh voice. Wherein is his 
 advantage over me ?' 
 
 "And after a time she answered slowly, veiling her 
 eyes that I should not see the hurt. 
 
 " 'He hath not the memory of a Naketa.' ' 
 
 Here Ramon paused, as if the confidence were at 
 an end. 
 
 "And what didst thou ?" asked Attar. 
 
 He smiled sadly. 
 
 "She had spoken that which was unanswerable, and 
 when the time of divorce was fulfilled I gathered what 
 substance I had and gave it to her as a dower and sent 
 her forth with her new husband, who had no memory 
 of a Naketa. 
 
 "Women," he mused after a pause, "good women, 
 crave love, and are not content with its counterfeit." 
 
 "What meanest thoib by counterfeit?" asked the 
 Moslem.
 
 184 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "The flesh hath many loves, the heart but one," 
 answered the Hindu. 
 
 "Thou speakest the truth," sighed the Moslem. 
 
 "Women are like flowers," said Ramon slowly. 
 "Some bloom content with richest color beside marsh 
 wastes, where the air is heavy and the water hath a poi- 
 sonous flow, and he who would may stoop and pluck 
 them. And some there be that blow in snowy white- 
 ness only on the heights, and he who craveth to touch 
 them must cast all worldly weights aside and climb un- 
 hampered by detaining arms." 
 
 "And hath there been no other?" asked the Moslem, 
 ignoring the simile. 
 
 "None but the flowers along the roadside." 
 
 As he spoke, the shadow of the Sudanese who had re- 
 turned fell between the two men and the flickering fire. 
 Ramon rose, and drawing his mantle about him, sought 
 his tent.
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII 
 
 ALETRA BEADS THE SAPPHIRE'S TALE 
 
 IT was midday in the Sahara. The Eed Kocks of 
 Jazeb rose like tongues of fire from the lips of the 
 dunes. 
 
 Aletra and the Copt, Zobel Ben Zewar, had traveled 
 many leagues into the desert she with her beauty thrice 
 veiled, he sightless but ever searching the yellow dis- 
 tances with the torch of memory and calling upon her 
 to people the shining wastes with the fancies of his lost 
 youth. 
 
 Their tents lay in the shadow of the rocks, and at a 
 little distance was a young camel eating durah. Beyond 
 were other tents, for it happened often that they trav- 
 eled with friendly Bedawi faring upon the same road. 
 
 Zobel, relieved from the rocking of the camel, ap- 
 peared to doze, but his sightless eyes strove ever to 
 pierce the yellow distances about him. Having been 
 blind but a few years, he knew the beauty, the vastness, 
 the clearness, the magic of the desert. The brilliance 
 of the sun lifted something of the darkness that hung 
 before his eyes, while the smell of the tents and the 
 camels and the rugs brought memories that were nigh 
 as clear as vision. 
 
 Aletra drew her veil close, for though she disfigured 
 not her face when she fared with the Copt alone, ever 
 
 185
 
 186 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 she lay the parchment upon it when they chanced to 
 journey with others; and when it was thus covered with 
 sickly whiteness she veiled it doubly. For this reason 
 the women of the caravans liked her not, thinking her 
 prideful or that her veil hid mystery. 
 
 Now she stood by the mouth of the tent looking over 
 the rolling dunes as if she might read the future. 
 Though many had overtaken them, no word had drifted 
 to her ear concerning any of her house, yet she was not 
 cast down or discouraged, for safety also hid in the 
 silence. 
 
 And even when separated from those that fared along 
 the way, she had no fear. Sahara, the silent spirit, 
 wrapped in the magic of the sun, made her heart strong. 
 Sahara, mother of the moon-children who whisper 
 secrets to those that sleep on the sand, comforted her. 
 
 The seraglio, the silent-footed slaves, the raiment of 
 magnificence, and the burning eyes of the Sultan seemed 
 far remote as a dream in some distant world, unreal 
 as if they had happened to women other than herself. 
 Yet her parting with Attar seemed of a nearer day 
 very close. At times she could seem to smell the tambac 
 of his burnoose and the amber that scented its folds. 
 
 The nights were never lonely, for the dreams her 
 thoughts wove of him were delicately tender, though 
 ravishingly sweet and sufficing. The unreason of 
 knowledge was upon her. She felt the mystery that is 
 no longer mystery to those that harken to the voice of 
 the desert. 
 
 And with every step into the further, inner heart of 
 the dunes she felt as if she were drawing near to the 
 master. Oft her lips broke into song that was as of a
 
 ALETEA READS THE SAPPHIRE'S TALE 187 
 
 bird in mating-time. Such a note trembled upon her 
 lips at the moment, as the Copt strove to people the 
 golden field with visions of the past. 
 
 "Ah, youth!" he cried. "Hagar, thou art young. 
 What seest thou ? What color have the stones ? What 
 voice hath the sand?" 
 
 "The rocks, O my father, are red and deep like the 
 stain of henna, like the brightness of coral also in places, 
 and like the color of a costly rug. Gold, too, are the 
 rocks where the sun shineth upon them and saffron and 
 amber, and the dunes are white and yellow and gray in 
 the distance, and closer they answer the sun in a 
 brightness that dazzleth the eye." 
 
 "Lie the mountains in the distance a girdle of gray 
 or of blue or of purple? One of these it is, for men's 
 eyes may change, but Sahara is changeless. The sires 
 of men that have slumbered for thousands of years have 
 seen it as thou seest it, and as many years will fall upon 
 it in the future, still will it wear its aged youth." 
 
 When he ceased speaking, Aletra answered: 
 
 "The mountains are clad as in the raiment of kings, O 
 my father, in purple, with turbans of snow that touch 
 the sky." 
 
 The Copt smiled his wrinkled smile that made his 
 face seem goodly. 
 
 "It is not that which is in the desert, but that which 
 the eye beholdeth, that maketh the picture and keepeth 
 it in the mind till the days have grown old. But the 
 voice of the wilderness what sayest the voice, my 
 daughter ?" 
 
 For a time she answered not, her eyes bent upon the 
 far distances.
 
 188 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "The voice, O my father, speaketh strange words, 
 some to thee and some to me. But to both it sayeth that 
 it hath many golden years still in its bosom." 
 
 "It is well," he answered, satisfied, and again silence 
 fell between them. 
 
 The camels fell upon durah. The Bedawi of the near 
 tents sat about their noonday fires; the dogs slept in 
 the sun; unbroken silence lay over the distance. 
 
 After a time Zobel bent his ear upon the sand and 
 listened. Twice he did this, then spoke softly to Aletra, 
 whom he called Hagar: 
 
 "Hearest thou aught?" 
 
 "Naught," she answered, and gazed afar. 
 
 "Seest thou aught?" 
 
 "Nay." 
 
 Again he listened. 
 
 "Camels. One two three four many I can 
 count them not come toward us." 
 
 Still the dogs lay silent and the desert men rested 
 without perceiving. 
 
 "Many camels come, also a horse," said the Copt. 
 
 What had been taken from him in sight had been 
 given him doubly in hearing. To Aletra the silence 
 was unbroken; but she knew his power, whether of 
 hearing or foretelling, and hastened into the tent and 
 put the parchment freshly upon her face; for he had 
 pointed the way the caravan was approaching, and ever 
 she feared caravans traveling swiftly and overtaking 
 them. 
 
 When she came forth again, the dogs were drinking 
 the air and a young camel groaned as if in greeting or 
 unrest. The Bedawi bent their eyes upon the distance, 
 and soon a cloud a small, white cloud rose like smoke
 
 ALETRA EEADS THE SAPPHIRE'S TALE 189 
 
 beyond the f arther dunes. As if created with a single 
 heart and will, the desert men sprang to their feet, the 
 dogs lifted their voices, the camels stamped or roared 
 with the uneasiness of the hour, and the women drew 
 their veils against the eye of the stranger. 
 
 Swiftly the cloud widened; higher it rose as the 
 strange caravan approached, till within the cloud could 
 be seen camels many and a horse. The camels were 
 white and swift and young and carried merchandise. 
 And when they approached, it was seen that one carried 
 a bassourah. They were the camels of a merchant of 
 Tunis so said a slave who ran before; for the caravan 
 was held at a little distance and word sent to the Bedawi 
 that their women might seek shelter from the eyes of 
 strangers. When this was accomplished, the merchant 
 and those that were with him came forward. 
 
 "Peace be unto you," they cried, salaaming, and 
 again "Peace be unto you," and again "Peace be unto 
 you." 
 
 "And unto you," the Bedawi made answer. 
 
 "And unto you," said Zobel. 
 
 The stranger and those that were with him alighted, 
 and they were made welcome. Their camels wepe 
 fed and their water-skins filled with water from the 
 spring beyond the rocks, and their tents were spread 
 and their curtains were hung for they had come a 
 long distance and would tarry the night. 
 
 Aletra, hidden within the tent, sought to behold the 
 strangers. 
 
 Through a rent in the cloth she saw those that were 
 with him, but the merchant held his burnoose so that 
 she saw not his face. 
 
 There were many slaves with the stranger's caravan,
 
 190 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 and they made fires and prepared food that had a rich 
 odor ; and the Bedawi women, thinking another woman 
 had come in the bassourali, sent tea flavored with the 
 leaves of mint and such sweets as they had with them; 
 but the bassourah was empty. No woman was with the 
 caravan. 
 
 Aletra came from the tent and mingled with the 
 Bedawi, but she could not gain sight of the merchant. 
 Those that had seen him said he was ill-favored and as 
 one used to command. Hearing this, she turned away 
 sadly, for ever in her dreams Attar had ridden to her 
 on a camel ; and ever, though she feared the swift cara- 
 van coming from the south, also she hoped and visioned 
 delight in the sand-smoke of every one that overtook 
 them. Now, seeing that there was neither anything to 
 hope for or to fear, she sat before the tent and listened 
 to the gossip that ever travels with the swift. 
 
 "Idillah hath left the Street of the Dancers." 
 
 "The leader of the faithful hath a new favorite sheik 
 upon whom he lavisheth honor." 
 
 "The Franks were driven from the Sultan's presence 
 by a man of the people." 
 
 And through it all she listened and hungered for a 
 word from the house of the master, yet feared she to 
 question, for she ever remembered the wise words of 
 Zobel: 
 
 "Silence is a shield, my daughter a shield that pre- 
 serveth as a fine armor." 
 
 The Bedawi and even the Copt were bidden to the 
 feast, and when all had partaken, a merrymaking was 
 begun, tom-toms were beaten, and a Rauwha told stories 
 before his tent. A young camel-driver, with a voice like
 
 ALETEA BEADS THE SAPPHIEE'S TALE 191 
 
 a flute, sang of the beauty of a woman whose loveliness 
 fired the hearts of those who listened. . 
 
 There was also a sand-diviner, who told the secrets 
 of Kismet, that which has been hidden from the be- 
 ginning. And when one and another of the desert 
 women heard the words of fate concerning the things 
 that were to befall each one, there was weeping and 
 laughter and cries of "A'i, tii, rii!" 
 
 To him, as he stirred the grains of prophecy, Aletra 
 listened despite her anxious fear lest the lifting of 
 the corner of her veil should guide one who sought her. 
 And as she listened there came and stood at her side the 
 merchant, whom she heeded not at first. Yet as the 
 diviner spoke, with the monotone of his calling, solemn 
 as a Marabout, Aletra' s soul within her became aware 
 that sharp, eager eyes were upon her, that they seemed 
 belike to pierce the covering of her hoik. 
 
 She arose and looked at the merchant. Of his face 
 she could see naught, for he was closely muffled in his 
 white burnoose. Yet a nameless terror gripped at her 
 heart for, by Allah, he was of the stature and the 
 girth and the haughty, truculent bearing of one 
 who 
 
 "Jeppa!" 
 
 It was the voice of Babek, the chief eunuch of the 
 seraglio, that spoke. 
 
 Aletra shrieked and would have fled into the tent, 
 but Babek barred her way with his great bulk. 
 
 Taking a ring bearing the royal seal from his bur- 
 noose, he held it aloft and called upon the men of the 
 caravan to harken, and spoke as one having authority : 
 
 "I have deceived ye, O my brethren," he said. "I
 
 192 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 am not a merchant, but one of the royal household 
 Babek, chief eunuch of the great harem. And I pro- 
 claim this woman, the woman of mystery who standeth 
 before you, to be the JSTourmahal of the Sultan, Jeppa, 
 of Tunis." 
 
 And he came close to Aletra and would have plucked 
 her veil away but that she drew back and raised her 
 hand. 
 
 "Need is there none to unveil the desire of the Com- 
 mander of the Faithful before the eyes of lesser men," 
 she said. I deny not that I am Jeppa of Tunis, yet 
 would I have speech with the concerning the things 
 which have befallen me, where none may hear." 
 
 And Babek fell back, saying: 
 
 "Thou hast rare wisdom. Let it be even as thou 
 sayest." 
 
 And she took him within the tent, and when she had 
 closed the mouth thereof she questioned: 
 
 "Hath word come from the master? Hath he given 
 me unto the Sultan ?" 
 
 But she held her veil close, though her white arm 
 was bared to the shoulder. Babek, seeing her weak- 
 ness, was a long moment in answering, and he framed 
 his words craftily that her woman's pride should serve 
 him in the long journey back to the seraglio. 
 
 "Hiath he given me unto the Sultan?" she asked 
 again. 
 
 "Yea," said the eunuch. "He that was thy master 
 hath returned from the new country and is one of the 
 royal household. In the hour of his return came he 
 before the Sultan that he might be given that which was 
 promised an thou wert dead for it was rumored that 
 thou didst perish. But he believed not that thou wert
 
 dead, and the Sultan promised him greater things an 
 he should find thee. 
 
 "He hath his part in the seraglio wherein to dwell, 
 and hath also been given the tribute of a desert city 
 wherein he may rule. From his own harem hath the 
 Sultan given him wives Zittara, the Kabylian, and 
 Azalia, the Greek both of these hast thou seen both 
 thou knowest are fair." 
 
 When he had said this, Aletra cried : 
 
 "Tell me no more! Tell me no more!" and she 
 sank to the sand and put her forehead upon it, and the 
 meaning of life grew suddenly dark before her. But 
 Babek, having no tenderness, spoke again : 
 
 "He delighteth most in Azalia. But all of these 
 things are the price of thee and thou art not forthcom- 
 ing. And, having found that thou hadst fled with the 
 Copt, he seeketh thee. Therefore hath he bidden me 
 persuade thee, an I came upon thee first, and give thee 
 his excuses that he would not hide thee in a poor harem 
 when thou art craved of the Great. And he beseecheth 
 thee to submit thyself to the Sultan." 
 
 "He hath sent such word ?" said Aletra in anger. 
 
 "Yea. And furthermore he hath said that thou 
 shouldst consider his fortune as well as thine." 
 
 And again she said: 
 
 "He hath said this?" 
 
 But she could scarce speak the words, so overcome 
 was she with amazement and wrath. 
 
 "Yea," he answered again, and he was well pleased 
 with the workings of his crafty words. "The sheik, Al 
 Hassen, hath also set forth upon another road that he 
 may tell thee with his own lips lest thou shouldst doubt 
 me. At Biskra shalt thou see him if it be not sooner."
 
 194 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 And when she heard this, she was silent, and walked 
 a little way from the slave and covered her veil even 
 with her hands lest he peer through it. When she 
 spoke again her voice was changed. It was as if rocks, 
 grating against one another, fell from a great distance. 
 
 "But how wilt thou make peace with the Sultan for 
 me?" she asked. 
 
 "He shall think that thou hast been taken for ransom, 
 and that I rescued thee." 
 
 "It is well," she said. "And now will I charge thee 
 with words to the Sheik al Hassen, for I crave not to 
 see his face again. Tell him I sigh for the fragrance 
 of the Sultan's harem that the Sultan hath cast a spell 
 over me with the glory of his glance that his touch 
 sendeth my blood into delight, and that I shall die 
 content an I have the honor of bearing a son to him. 
 Tell him I picked Azalia for him, as she is beautiful 
 and hath wit enough. 
 
 "Tell him " she choked upon the words. "Nay, 
 Babek, believe my words or believe them not, as thou 
 wilt ; but tell him tell him tell him." And her body 
 trembled with the agony and rage of the moment. 
 
 "And now thou mayest leave me," she said, and the 
 slave turned to go, but e'er he left her he said : 
 
 "I will make ready thy tent of silk that I have 
 brought, and put fresh rugs in the bassourah which 
 waiteth thee, and its perfumed curtains shall be of any 
 tint thou shalt consider, for, O Jeppa, thou art not as 
 other women. Generations have passed since such 
 beauty, and wit, and courage hath cast a shadow in the 
 great harem. Thou hast made a thrice blessed choice 
 for thyself and for Islam. May the blessing of Allah 
 be upon thee "
 
 ALETRA READS THE SAPPHIRE'S TALE 195 
 
 But she motioned him to go. And when she was 
 alone, she smote her breast and fell upon the sand and 
 wound her arms aloft as in a frenzy, and loosened the 
 mantle from about her white throat as if it bound her. 
 "Allah," she said. "Allah, Allah," and "Azalia the 
 Greek ! Azalia the Greek," she repeated, "preferred of 
 me ! And for this have I risked a sultan's displeasure 
 for this have I walked with the unclean and worn 
 coarse raiment and toiled beneath heavy loads as might 
 a nomad," and again she smothered a cry of desolation. 
 
 "Allah preserve me from madness," she moaned as 
 she rocked herself in her woe. "But he shall pay to 
 the uttermost. Yea; for Azalia shall tell him how 
 mine eyes thirst for a sight of the Sultan; how mine 
 ears feast upon the Sultan's words; how I pray 
 Allah for a son. I shall laugh with her at the poor 
 wit of the Sheik al Hassen, and tell of the gray years 
 that were mine beneath his roof. Yea, he shall pay; 
 he shall pay !" she cried as she tore the coarse garments 
 from her body and prepared to remove the parchment. 
 
 "Come forth, my beauty," she called as if to a 
 woman other than herself. But when she was half 
 unclad, she paused, and the words of Babek came to 
 her afresh. 
 
 "If he brought word that I had become a leper I 
 would be neither of the dead nor of the harem, and he 
 would lose his greatness and also Azalia, the Greek." 
 
 And she thought long. 
 
 "I fear," she murmured, "that the things I would 
 do I cannot do, and that I shall look for a sight of the 
 master's face. Awha! Awha!" 
 
 Then the words of the slave came to her again and 
 anger consumed her anew, and she sprang frorn^ the
 
 196 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 sand to clothe herself in the garments Babek had sent. 
 The sapphire fell from her bosom and lay upon the 
 sand. But even as she stooped to lift it, the words of 
 the Sultan came to her: 
 
 "This hath been the magic jewel of a great diviner, 
 and holdeth secrets in its heart." 
 
 The light fell upon it through a rent in the cloth 
 above her. The jewel was blue like the water in deep 
 places, and like the water, the eye could not reach its 
 depth. 
 
 "Tell unto me," she said, holding the sapphire, "tell 
 unto me the truth. The future lieth hidden in darkness. 
 The truth ! The truth ! The truth !" she besought. 
 
 And as she looked into the heart of the stone, her 
 anger dropped from her like a torn garment, and the 
 strength of her rage forsook her, and she was weak as a 
 young child ; for three words burned in the heart of the 
 sapphire, not in script, but in the language of under- 
 standing which hath not form nor color, and the words 
 were: 
 
 "He hath lied." 
 
 Without, the slaves were making ready her tent of 
 silk. She heard Babek give command concerning her 
 food and the trappings of her bassourah, heard the 
 sound of gold passing from hand to hand, breathed the 
 fragrance of the scented stuffs that were to adorn her 
 bed. But still she lay upon the sand looking into the 
 sapphire; and in the magic of the hour it seemed that 
 the master stood beside her. 
 
 When night had fallen, she wound her coarse haik 
 about her and went forth to find Babek. As she passed 
 the silken tent that had been spread for her, those that
 
 ALETRA READS THE SAPPHIRE'S TALE 197 
 
 were in her way salaamed low, as if to a princess, 
 while others sprinkled perfume in her path. 
 
 When he beheld her, Babek came forward to know 
 her wish, and she commanded him to follow her till they 
 were beyond the hearing of others. And when they 
 had gone a little way, she paused on the farther side 
 of the great rocks, and looking through the swathings 
 of her veil, said three words: 
 
 "Thou hast lied." 
 
 "I ! Lie !" cried the eunuch. A sudden fury shook 
 the great figure of the slave. 
 
 "This to me ?" he cried, and made a swift step for- 
 ward. "Knowest thou not, thou scraping of a poor 
 man's harem, that I may have thee beaten till naught 
 remaineth of thy beauty ?" he cried in hot rage. 
 "Knowest thou not that thy life lieth in my hands? 
 The darkness of the walled death shall be thine an thou 
 openest thy lips in my presence again. And now will I 
 give thee a sign of the gentleness of Babek's hand !" 
 
 As he spoke, he sprang toward her, reaching as if to 
 grasp and destroy her. But what is the might of a giant 
 eunuch, a royal caravan, a host of slaves, nay, even the 
 Sultan himself, compared to a woman's wit ? 
 
 In that moment she unveiled her face. 
 
 His hands fell as if palsied. 
 
 "A leper! Thou! Great Allah! Thou a leper!" 
 
 "Thou seest," she said coldly. "Now go hence and 
 tell to thy master how poorly hast thou guarded the 
 treasure of his heart." 
 
 As she spoke she covered her face, for she craved 
 not that his gaze be upon her over long. 
 
 "How how " began Babek as he stood trembling 
 
 in the shelter of a rock whither he had fled for fear.
 
 198 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "Dost doubt ? Wouldst look further ? Wouldst per- 
 chance touch my tortured face? Behold, I am will- 
 ing!" she cried, approaching him. 
 
 "Touch me not ! Touch me not !" he yelled in terror. 
 "Wouldst thou destroy me utterly ?" 
 
 But heeding him not, she bore swiftly upon him and 
 seized his garments. 
 
 "Allah send thee a thousand deaths !" he cried as he 
 tore from her grasp. And crying "Unclean ! Un- 
 clean !" he fled into the gathering night.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE GALLOP OF THE SAND STEEDS 
 
 ALETEA slept not when the night had fallen, nor 
 ceased to harken to any that passed beside the tent. 
 But when it was nigh unto midnight, sleep overcame her 
 for an hour. 
 
 When she awoke, she could see by the sheen of the 
 sand close outside the tent that the moon had come 
 up, and she rose to keep the tryst of prayer for the 
 master as she had told him she would, ever, when the 
 moon first lay upon the mosque. And when she came 
 without she looked toward the tents of Babek, and lo 
 there were none ; and again to the place where the tents 
 of the Bedawi had risen, and behold, they also were 
 gone. 
 
 And as far as she could discern in the crystal light 
 of the moon, was naught to be seen of man or camel 
 or tent other than the tent of Zobel beside her own, and 
 the young camel that was tethered beyond the caravan's 
 dead fires. 
 
 ~No wind was abroad ; the dunes rolled in magic clear- 
 ness beneath the silver light, so white, so pure it was, 
 that colors like faint woven silks fresh from the looms 
 of paradise showed close and far. She had no fear of 
 the loneliness. The night smiled upon her, and from 
 her shadowed place beside the rock she smiled back upon 
 
 199
 
 200 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 it and lifted her arms toward it and her lips, still tinted 
 with the rose of her dreams, exalted the hour as if tid- 
 ings of great good were upon her and she had come into 
 security. 
 
 In her short sleep she had dreamed that it was spring, 
 that she stood in the little kiosk in the harem garden at 
 Tunis, and that Attar came to her. He wore a white 
 burnoose and seemed to have just come from a desert 
 journey. And as he neared her, the wind blew and a 
 shower of rose-petals covered them both and they 
 laughed in delight. Then, with the magic that fashions 
 dreams, it seemed that a child lay on her breast, and 
 that stooping, he kissed them both. Her waking had 
 been slow, and she still clung to the memory of the hour. 
 
 Zobel, having watched long before her tent, at last 
 had fallen asleep on his rugs, and breathed almost with- 
 out sound as though overcome with great weariness. 
 She wakened him not, but sped lightly over the sand as 
 if dancing in a garden, for in the hour of her deliverance 
 her heart rejoiced. 
 
 "Lo," she said aloud in a voice like the crystal of 
 the moon. "Lo, ne'er before have I known why the 
 desert is likened unto the garden of Allah." 
 
 And she drank in the beauty of the sand-flowers and 
 the many colored terraces of the desert that lead to the 
 palace of the moon; and she laughed with the white 
 limbed maidens of the moon as they chased the shadows 
 over the dunes, their tresses of mysterious light trailing 
 behind them. The rocks that marked the distances were 
 like kiosks with trellises of faint bloom upon them; 
 wondrous tints of colors born in heaven lay in places 
 over the gardens of the sand. 
 
 Above were the fields of blue where the stars and the
 
 THE GALLOP OF THE SAND STEEDS 201 
 
 sand held fantasy and quick combat, and over all was 
 the silence the whispering silence of Sahara that 
 tells the secrets of eternity. Above her a quick shower 
 of stars seemed so close that she must hear them crash- 
 ing one against another ; but there was no sound, it was 
 as if they were a mirage. 
 
 She wove her arms lightly in the invisible lacework 
 of moonbeams as she had when she last stood before 
 the master. Her bare feet made no sound upon the 
 sand ; the movement of her young limbs was music. So 
 might a houri of the blest abodes appear when waiting 
 the summons of the inner paradise. 
 
 She sank upon a dune, and making a pillow of sand, 
 lay looking up at the stars which, faint in the greater 
 light, still held fantasy above her, darting hither and 
 thither in the blue gardens of the sky. And as she 
 listened to the silence, it seemed struggling as if to 
 speak. A something was coming toward her, swift on 
 the wings of the wind. As she strove to listen to the 
 voice of the silence, a veil came over the further dunes 
 a veil that hid the whiteness of the magic light. 
 
 As she looked it grew darker till the desert lay once 
 more, not a garden, but a waste of shrouded sand. To 
 those that have bided in the desert, the voice of the 
 dunes is like unto the voice of Allah, silent, yet reaching 
 to them from far distances of space, and he who hath 
 once heard it despiseth it not. 
 
 Aletra strove with impatience to hear the voice to 
 the end, but the spirit had fled. Then, swift upon the 
 silence came the sound of sand-rain tapping upon the 
 tents, and a duller sound as it struck against the rocks. 
 
 The young camel resting beyond the dead fires com-
 
 202 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 plained. The wind shook the tent wherein Zobel slept 
 and he stirred. 
 
 "Hagar, Hagar!" he called, but half aroused. And 
 she went to him. 
 
 ''There is something that cometh toward us," said 
 Aletra. 
 
 "A caravan?" he questioned. 
 
 "Nay, a great wind darkeneth the desert." 
 
 "The moon shineth not?" 
 
 "Yea, like unto silver, and I see not the form of a 
 cloud ; but the voice of the desert hath spoken as I lay 
 upon the sand." 
 
 "Be not affrighted. It is not the time of the 
 khamsin." 
 
 "And must all things come in the fitness of time?" 
 she asked. "I tell thee a sirocco cometh upon us." 
 
 But, as thus the hours passed and the wind came not, 
 it seemed as if the Copt were right. The desert lay a 
 gray waste like a slumbering sea beneath a near sky. 
 But when the day was a few hours old, the sand began 
 to wind its weavings swiftly. Small whirlwinds rose 
 from the dunes and vanished in swirling spray. Beyond, 
 Sahara-mist rose, like clouds, saffron and brown, mov- 
 ing swiftly. Above, the sun was like a great lamp of 
 copper in an amber globe. The rushing of the wind 
 filled the silence as a voice to which multitudes listened. 
 The camel strained against that which bound it. 
 
 Zobel's face was grave. Billows of sand beat against 
 the near rocks, breaking in mighty surfs. Small pieces 
 of stone struck with the sound of hail upon other stones 
 that lay about it was as if the writhings of a serpent 
 filled the world, yet as if a terrible wisdom drove all
 
 THE GALLOP OF THE SAND STEEDS 203 
 
 before it. The rocks, now covered with whitening sand, 
 were like crouching gods of a past that was dead of a 
 yesterday long since forgotten. 
 
 The wind tore over the wastes without hindrance to 
 its wrath, and its tongue was the tongue of vengeance. 
 But it was not the wind of the sea that spoke. There 
 was anxiety, mystery, urge, mighty conflict in it, that 
 spoke with the voice of living man dread magic, a 
 hurrying something that drives the soul, a tortured 
 closeness upon knowledge that is yet in its blindness, 
 the unknown an unrest deeper than the sea or the 
 power that uprooteth in the wooded places of the earth. 
 
 It was like no other thing, for it was the risen wind 
 of Sahara. 
 
 "Doth the sand hide the sky?" asked Zobel. 
 
 "Yea, O my father!" 
 
 "Doth the wind come from the east or the west?" 
 
 "From the west, yet a little from the south." 
 
 "Oh, that I had my sight! My sight!" 
 
 "What wouldst thou do that I cannot do for thee?" 
 she questioned. 
 
 "Mount the camel and ride ride across the wind. 
 Move move that the sand become not thy winding 
 sheet !" 
 
 "That couldst thou not do, O my father; for the 
 desert riseth a yellow tide and the billows are mighty." 
 
 "Yea, do I not hear?" he answered. "But in a 
 storm must the ship ride or go down to destruction. 
 Hearest thou," he cried, "even the beast sayeth this, 
 and would flee the death of the dunes." 
 
 For even as they spoke the camel tore at its moorings 
 and sent a tortured cry into the wilderness. It was 
 morn, but the darkness of nightfall was over all.
 
 204 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "I will go forth and bring the beast into the shadow 
 of the rock," said Aletra. "And thou shalt ride forth 
 or bide as is thy will." 
 
 Leagues of rushing wind were as endless parchments 
 unrolled in the madness of haste that the eye might be- 
 hold the writing of Kismet. She was not afraid, but, 
 drawing her garments more closely, stepped into the 
 darkening tumult. 
 
 "Stay thou beside the tent!" she cried through the 
 wind. "Fear not for me!" 
 
 Ere she reached the place beside the fires the young 
 camel had torn away, but stood with uplifted head, not 
 yet knowing of its freedom. Aletra called the feeding- 
 call and blindly sought to find durah to tempt it ; but, as 
 if it heard another a voice from a great distance it 
 roared even as the storm and fled into the heart of the 
 tempest. 
 
 For the space of a moment the sun shone through the 
 waves dimly ; then, as if all the spirits of those who had 
 perished in the sand from the beginning of time had 
 risen, each bringing a host armed with invisible lancers, 
 the desert closed about her. The fleeing camel was 
 blotted from her sight ; the tents were gone. And as she 
 listened to the neighing of the sand-steeds that tore over 
 the desert, the gates of the sands closed upon her.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 STRANGE WRITING IN THE SAND 
 
 FOR two days Attar and the Hindu journeyed stead- 
 ily into the desert and toward the Village of the 
 Weavers, concerning which place the Moslem, deceived 
 his heart with hope. 
 
 Ramon, as if half repenting his confidence, rode 
 apart and well in advance. His camel, seeming to un- 
 derstand his mood, quickened his stride whenever the 
 other neared him. 
 
 There was not so much as a footstep in the sand, 
 and the vastness and the windless silence of the yellow 
 plain had nothing to impart ; but was rather a quivering 
 mirror, before which to adorn oneself with the fine 
 things of the soul. 
 
 Ramon wondered not at the vastness about him. 
 Having lived in it so many years, something of it 
 had entered his soul and made him what he was a 
 seer who looked into the great heart of things and 
 scorned nothing not even the smallest moving thing 
 upon the sand, yet who exalted nothing into greatness. 
 
 To him the desert itself was a scroll of fate, unroll- 
 ing, league by league, to the music of the sun. Sahara, 
 changeless in its eternal change, was not to him a place 
 through which he was journeying to a definite end, but 
 
 205
 
 206 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 was rather the beginning, the intervening time and the 
 end, within itself. 
 
 On the morn of the third day a yellow morn bend- 
 ing over the battlements of sand they were driven 
 from the path of their journey by a great wind. So 
 swift was it, and so suddenly blew the rising clouds from 
 the breast of the desert, that, though all speed was made 
 in folding the tents and loading the camels, they were 
 overwhelmed by the darkness and fury of the storm. 
 
 The great voices of the two Sudanese kept the camels 
 together as the beasts plunged across the path of the 
 wind with scarce a leading. Yet was this not the heart 
 of the tempest, but only the wings of the storm that 
 brushed them. 
 
 Within an hour the khamsin had passed, and but for a 
 fallen date-palm beside a spring and clean-swept, track- 
 less dunes that reached into the distances, there was no 
 echo left of it in the golden day. But it was well after 
 the noonday prayer ere the caravan had come nigh unto 
 the traveled road again. 
 
 When they were come to a rock that had a green 
 mouth which bespoke a hidden spring, they spread the 
 tents and relieved the camels of their burdens, and while 
 the beasts groaned and complained in bitterness even 
 while they ate the scant durah Attar went a little way 
 apart that he might give thanks for their deliverance 
 and speak further with Allah concerning his quest 
 for in the heart of the tempest a voice had spoken to him 
 with a tongue of fire, and a hope that was nigh unto 
 certainty was upon him. 
 
 He sought a place between two great dunes and, bow- 
 ing his forehead to the sand, spoke sacred words and bo- 
 sought Allah to prosper his search.
 
 STEANGE WEITING IN THE SAND 207 
 
 The wind had left the waste trackless, but when he 
 rose and turned his face toward the west, a writing of 
 strange words lay before him a writing in Arabic: 
 
 "Seek and thou shalt find." 
 
 He bent above the crumpled scroll and scanned it 
 eagerly. Then, even while he feared that some stray 
 feather of the wind left from the day would sweep it 
 hence, he called loudly to Ramon, and when the Wizard 
 was come they studied the script together. 
 
 "The words hold a strange meaning," said Attar. 
 "]STone but the hand of Allah may preserve aught upon 
 the sand when the wind bloweth as it hath this day. 
 What sayest thou and we follow for a space the way 
 if seemeth to point toward the west ?" 
 
 "It is well," said the Hindu.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 LOVE IS DISCLOSED TO ALETRA 
 
 THEY took their way over low dunes and in shallow 
 troughs, and again along a level stretch, swept clean 
 as a garden path. When the half of an hour had passed, 
 and there was no trace of man or caravan, they thought 
 to return ; for night falls quickly in the desert, and the 
 sun was nigh unto the setting, and they turned. But, 
 mounting the last dune, Attar's camel stumbled; and 
 after examining the beast's foot, and when he looked 
 down into the deep trough beyond, there, almost before 
 him, in the shelter of the dune, he saw the words again, 
 written feebly upon the sand: 
 
 "Seek and thou shalt find." 
 
 "It is a sign from the hand of Allan," said the Mos- 
 lem ; "for, seest thou, there is no footprint ?" 
 
 The Hindu bent his eyes closely upon the scroll. 
 
 "He who kath written this is nigh unto death with 
 weakness or palsy," he said. "Let us go farther." 
 
 And they went in silence along a small path, and they 
 held their eyes in close search upon the sand. And 
 when they were come beside a palm that grew near a 
 great stone, again the words, "Seek and thou shalt find," 
 were written in the sand. Yet had they not sought 
 they would have passed them by, so broken was the 
 script, so weakly faint 
 
 208
 
 LOVE IS DISCLOSED TO ALETRA 209 
 
 There was naught else; but they went a few paces 
 farther into the west and beyond the stone, and there 
 they beheld no track of beast nor man, but the mark of a 
 hand beside the small path. 
 
 And when they had gone over the rise and down and 
 along a level way they come upon an Egyptian, bent, 
 shriveled with age, his eyes bandaged, his lips cracked 
 with thirst. His body was almost cold from the advanc- 
 ing night. Life still beat in the aged pulse, but he 
 could not speak. 
 
 As they bent above him, the sun showed a half circle 
 in the crimson west. 
 
 They had gone far in the unmarked dunes, so Attar 
 lifted the small, shriveled figure and bore it to his 
 camel ; and when the beast had knelt he mounted it, still 
 holding his burden. 
 
 His great arms formed a bed for the Egyptian, and 
 as the breath of the waning day was chill, he opened 
 his burnoose and drew it over the wasted form. 
 
 Ramon, whose camel was very swift, went before, 
 that the path should be marked for Attar's beast; for 
 there was still a slight wind, and they could not see to 
 return by the way they had come. Even the small path 
 that had been made by the Egyptian dragging himself 
 along the sand had been swept away. 
 
 When the warmth of the Moslem's body had pene- 
 trated his flesh, the man stirred feebly. And when the 
 meaning of life returned to the Copt and he could speak 
 he called weakly: 
 
 "Hagar, my daughter Hagar, where art thou ?" 
 
 Then, feeling the motion of the camel, and also that 
 he was held in strong arms, he became affrighted and 
 sought to free himself.
 
 210 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "Well-nigh hast thou perished," said Attar gently, 
 "but for thy thought to write upon the sand." 
 
 "Thou hast a strange voice. Where is Hagar?" 
 asked the Copt. 
 
 "Naught have we seen of any but thee. Are thy 
 tents far?" 
 
 "In the shadow of the Red Rocks of Jazeb. Yet 
 know I not how far they lie; one full day have I wan- 
 dered and a night," he said brokenly. "The wind 
 came my daughter, who journeyed with me had 
 scarce left the tent when the camel fled over the 
 dunes. Vainly she tried to stay him with a call of 
 food, and fared quickly after the beast then came the 
 khamsin, swift and with the sting of a thousand 
 serpents. 
 
 "But even through the wind I heard her voice calling : 
 'Seek the tent, O my father; seek the tent and fear not 
 for me.' But, though I have sought, I have found it 
 not, and my sightless eyes have led me into the wilder- 
 ness, and Hagar is alone." 
 
 "To be a woman and alone in the desert is not good," 
 said the Moslem. "And when thou hast had thy morsel, 
 we will go in all haste to thy daughter." 
 
 "May the blessings of the Lord Isa rest upon thee and 
 thy children and theirs," murmured the other. 
 
 But when they had returned to the tents of Ramon 
 and Attar, the Copt was far spent, and the Wizard 
 feared that he could not survive any further journey, 
 and when they had taken him from the camel he began 
 ministering to the man with his own hands. Now, a 
 Copt is an Egyptian Christian, and the servants of 
 Ramon, being Moslems, considered such scarce better 
 than the dogs.
 
 But ever as they ministered to him the man called, 
 "Hagar, Hagar !" as one in the toils of a fever, and he 
 begged them to put forth at once and seek the girl. 
 Attar drew his burnoose about him, and, taking a skin 
 of camel's milk and some water and bread and dates, 
 fared to the Red Bocks of Jazeb, promising the Copt to 
 find his daughter and bring her unto him. 
 
 The Red Rocks were a little more than a league 
 distant. Zobel, the Copt, mistaking the length of the 
 hours, had groped blindly in a path never far from his 
 own tent. 
 
 "Small wonder," thought Attar; "yet must the 
 woman also have strayed, else with the eyes of youth 
 would she have found her father." 
 
 When he had come upon the rocks, a tent lay near 
 them a tent the wind had torn widely. A drift of 
 sand held it else would it have blown afar. No further 
 trace of life was there. The wind had washed all foot- 
 steps from the sand. 
 
 Clambering to the top of the rocks, Attar looked far 
 over the dunes. Leagues of waste rolled into the dis- 
 tance, but naught else met his gaze. Then he lifted 
 his voice and sent it in a mighty call over the dunes. 
 
 "Hagar, Hagar, Hagar !" Thrice he called, and then 
 listened for answer. At the sound of the third call 
 there was a cry faint unto fancy it was, but bore the 
 meaning of a woman in extremity, and he descended, 
 and, looking about him with care, saw a piece of cloth 
 lying close beneath the shelter of a rock. A form moved 
 weakly beneath it. 
 
 He swept the sand away and found a woman a 
 woman swathed in Inmk and veils. But when he un- 
 covered her he sprang back in affright.
 
 212 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "A leper!" cried Attar, for a face white unto death, 
 with the withered whiteness of the unclean, lay before 
 him, and he would not touch her. He returned to 
 the camel and took of the water and cleansed his hands. 
 Yet even as he did this he knew that he would go back 
 to the woman and minister to her, for she was perishing 
 and he thought how he would do this without touching 
 her. 
 
 At last he took the rug, for he durst not lay his 
 hands upon her without protection, and approached her 
 where she lay and freed her from the tent stuff which 
 covered her and plucked at her haik. But ever he kept 
 from touching her, and the sweat of fear was upon his 
 brow. 
 
 "Hath the tent bruised thee?" he asked when she 
 moved as if in pain. "Hast thou 
 
 He said no more, for at the sound of his voice the 
 woman opened her eyes. A moment she looked blindly 
 into his face. Then, with sudden strength, she cried : 
 
 "Master, O master!" and held forth her arms. 
 
 "Aletra! Aletra!" 
 
 Forgetting his fear, he folded her in a swift 
 embrace. In the gladness of the moment she thought 
 not of the parchment veil upon her face. 
 
 At the joy of his touch a new strength ran swiftly 
 through her veins, and when he put a cup to her lips 
 she said : 
 
 "0 my master, I crave naught but the sight of thy 
 face the face mine eyes have hungered for in the still 
 watches of the night and in the noontime and the 
 evening." 
 
 And he took her in his arms again and wrapped her 
 in his burnoose as if he would defend her from the
 
 LOVE IS DISCLOSED TO ALETRA 213 
 
 world. Then, even as she feasted her eyes upon him, 
 swift, like the thrust of a knife in her heart, came the 
 thought that Babek had not lied. And she questioned: 
 
 "How comest thou to wander so far from, thy new 
 magnificence whereunto the Commander of the Faithful 
 hath appointed thee ?" 
 
 "I have his leave to journey," said Attar. 
 
 "And the city thou shalt rule over ?" she cried, yet 
 waited not for his answer; for now that she saw the 
 sorrow upon his face, she thought it the sorrow of the 
 last farewell from her, and the compassion, like unto a 
 holy man's, which shone in his eyes tore her with anger, 
 and even in the hour of their meeting she could not 
 silence the bitterness of her tongue. 
 
 "And Azalia, the Greek," she cried "bideth she still 
 in the seraglio, or journeyeth she with thee?" 
 
 "In the seraglio," he answered sadly, "and there will 
 she bide." 
 
 But Aletra understood him riot, and thought he sor- 
 rowed for that he must needs give her to the Sultan; 
 black rage assailed her, and she tore her coarse 
 garments, and the golden reaches of the desert turned 
 dark in her eyes, and the years grew black before her. 
 
 Babek had not lied ! 
 
 "Go thou !" she cried, trying to rise. "The wilder- 
 ness is kinder to me than thine eyes. The sands more 
 pitiful than thy lips, an thou admittest Babek's words 
 as truth." 
 
 "And what hath Babek told thee ?" he questioned. 
 
 But she would not answer, and calling "Awah! 
 Awah!" beat upon her breast; yet she wept not. He 
 would have gathered her to him again but that she tore 
 away.
 
 214 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 "Ne'er, though the years be few or many, am I for 
 thee again." 
 
 "Wouldst thou deny me in the hour of our meeting ?" 
 he chided. 
 
 "Yea, in this hour and forever. Thou shalt return 
 without me." 
 
 And, thinking she would separate herself from him 
 because of the leprosy, ho sought to soothe her with 
 gentle words, but she would not listen and turned 
 away. 
 
 "Alone shall I dwell in the wilderness," she said, "for 
 in the hour hath youth forsaken me." 
 
 "Forget not, O my beloved, that thou art my wife. I 
 am thy master, and where I bid thee dwell there wilt 
 thou dwell," he said in gentle chiding. 
 
 "]STay!" she cried in a fresh burst of bitterness. 
 "Thou canst not take me to the seraglio. But in the 
 evening the women who dwell in the great harem the 
 women shall tell Azalia, of Aletra, how she hath 
 fled a Sultan for thee, and Azalia shall tell them how 
 thou didst find her more to thy pleasure. And the 
 desert city thou shalt rule over " 
 
 "Peace, O my life," he said softly, taking her hand, 
 which she strove to draw from him. "Henceforth shall 
 I live in the far places of the world I and thou ; and 
 the city I rule shall be a city without walls wherein 
 dwell but two thou and I. 
 
 "We will bide in the desert ; and when the night falls 
 I will tell thee of all I have refused for thee, and that I 
 am well pleased that I did thus. And thou shalt tell 
 me over again the words of the Sultan, and how thou 
 didst fare from his favor and forsake the seraglio to be 
 with me. And, though in hiding, will we be content."
 
 LOVE IS DISCLOSED TO ALETRA 215 
 
 As he spoke, she listened eagerly, thinking that, 
 having beheld her, he could not put her away, and that 
 he would hide in the desert from the Sultan's dis- 
 pleasure. And her heart beat wildly, and she cast her 
 veil swiftly from her, but in that moment she thought 
 of the parchment. And, as if a great fright had sud- 
 denly seized her, she covered her face with her hands 
 that he should not look upon her. And she cast herself 
 at his feet. 
 
 But when she would speak, he silenced her and gath- 
 ered her to him, and in that moment the sands were as 
 of dazzling gold and the unseen blossoms of the silence 
 spread a wondrous perfume. The moments that passed 
 were singing years of delight, and each grain of the 
 desert whispered : 
 
 "This is love love beyond which hath never been 
 offered to woman. He believeth thee a leper, yet feareth 
 not to touch thee." 
 
 And she could not stop him nor speak for the words 
 that poured from his lips, and his face was like that of 
 some holy man who had become purified in earth's sor- 
 rows. And when he suffered her to speak, she bowed 
 her head again at his feet. 
 
 "O Allah," she cried, "give unto me a penance to 
 ease mine heart for that I have doubted love like unto 
 this!" 
 
 Then, clasping his feet, she cried afresh: 
 
 "O master, unworthy am I to unlatch thy shoes !" 
 
 She wept, and her tears loosened the parchment, 
 and she cast it away unseen of the master. And her 
 face shone as she were a daughter of the moon, so fair 
 it was. As he continued to comfort her with the 
 words of a love that was greater than passion of the
 
 216 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 flesh, greater than ambition or security or life itself, 
 she unbound her hair and spread it as a shining carpet 
 before him, and besought him to rest his feet upon it. 
 But he bent and lifted her from the sand and beheld 
 her. 
 
 "Allah !" he cried, leaping back in amazement. 
 "Allah! A miracle!" 
 
 Then, still gazing into her face, he pressed his palms 
 to his brow. 
 
 "Allah," he cried, rising, "preserve thou me from 
 madness !" 
 
 She feared that he was angered that she had 
 deceived him, and she told him how she had covered 
 her features with a living parchment like unto the skin 
 of the lepers that she might preserve her beauty from 
 the craving of the Sultan, and of how Babek had lied 
 and tempted her but the night before. 
 
 He was filled with wonder and delight as he listened. 
 But as she continued to speak even as the Sultan had 
 listened to her words in the seraglio, not hearing them 
 for that the sight of her beauty had dulled his ear, so 
 also Attar now heard her words in the heart of the 
 wilderness without understanding them ; for the miracle 
 of her kneeling upon the sand, with her shining hair 
 lying about her, made him deaf. 
 
 But in his eyes dwelt the fire, the life, the desire of 
 his manhood. His gaze caressed her, clothed her, em- 
 braced her, warmed her, fed her. As she looked the 
 desert faded, and she saw naught but his eyes. They 
 drew her, they encompassed her, interpreted the mean- 
 ing of the creation of life. 
 
 Though they had scorched with a lesser flame when 
 she had withdrawn from him in the ruined temple be- 
 fore he had fared away, now there was naught to flee
 
 LOVE IS DISCLOSED TO ALETRA 217 
 
 from. Yet their flaming hunger was a thousandfold in- 
 creased. But it was as the white flame of a censer, 
 compared with the fire of a nomad's camp. The one 
 consumeth ; the other purifieth. Passion, the passion of 
 the ruined temple before the birth of love, would have 
 consumed her womanhood, made of it something less 
 eternal than Allah had ordained; but, purified by the 
 flame of love that braved the danger of a living death, 
 it became the measure of the intention of the Most 
 Great, the holy flame in the divine censer wherein souls 
 are created under the eye of Allah souls that redeem 
 the world. 
 
 Looking, she crept closer, till in the swift strength 
 of his embrace the desert vanished and the skies were 
 veiled and the rocks and the far distances were blotted 
 out. In the moment of her humility and surrender his 
 power was hers, his strength hers, his desire, his will 
 hers. 
 
 Caress for caress she gave him ; heart-beat for heart- 
 beat. In the moment she understood the voice of the 
 silence and what it would tell her in the moon-radiance 
 of the night that was past. Sahara sang its vast lullaby 
 of wordless, soundless music ; the sky covered them with 
 weaving of the souls of roses; the silence lay, a per- 
 fumed amber carpet, at their feet. 
 
 That night, Attar's quest being finished, the Hindu 
 bade him farewell and fared back into the wilderness 
 whence he had come. The Moslem, standing before 
 Aletra's tent, saw him in the growing dimness for a 
 while as he rode farther in the golden mist of the night 
 on his camel. Then he vanished in the eternal silence of 
 Sahara, and Attar beheld him no more, nor did he 
 hear of him.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 IT was the third day after the finding of Aletra. A 
 caravan journeying to Egypt passed, and great was 
 the rejoicing of the Copt, Zobel Ben Zewar; for with 
 it journeyed a young man of his own house. And with 
 blessings upon Aletra, whom he loved as a daughter, 
 and upon Attar, he bade them farewell after many 
 words of good counsel. 
 
 Attar, being alone for a space, began to write to the 
 Sultan. This was not easy, for to confess his ingrati- 
 tude was to make poor return for the favors bestowed 
 upon him by the royal hand. Again, the wives be- 
 stowed upon him were his, according to the law and 
 the Prophet, and the honor of such gifts from the im- 
 perial harem must needs be treated with respect. He 
 thought long before he drew the parchment to him and 
 began: 
 
 To THE COMMANDER OF THE FAITHFUL: 
 
 Sultan of those who still barken to the words of the Prophet. 
 Peace be unto thee. May Allah bless thee and all that dwell 
 in the shadow of thy seraglios throughout the land. 
 
 This is from the hand of the Moslem whose wife that 
 was called Jeppa found favor in thy sight when she came 
 to the royal harem to minister to one of thy household one 
 of whom I may not speak. Jeppa, the real Jeppa, wife of 
 my young manhood, a woman beyond price, lieth in the great 
 
 218
 
 CONCLUSION 219 
 
 silence. Her hast thou, O great Sultan, never beheld, for 
 she whom thou didst look upon was Aletra, my beautiful- 
 wife, who had gone to the royal harem in the place of Jeppa, 
 whose child was even then stricken. 
 
 This knew I not when I stood before thee in Tunis. Yet 
 strong was I in the faith that once more would I look into the 
 eyes of Aletra, and Allah rewarded my faith, for I found her. 
 Great is the power of Allah. 
 
 Why do I write these words, O Chosen One of Heaven? 
 For what I would give to thine ear a secret. As the leech 
 findeth the plague-spot that causeth death, even so may the 
 plague-spot that consumeth Islam be found upon the many 
 rugs and cushions of the harems throughout the East. 
 
 There, upon the faces of the women that are mothers, and 
 of those who are to be the mothers of men, will be found 
 the secret of the failure of the hosts of the Prophet when 
 they stand forth in battle with other nations. 
 
 I would not, O mighty Sultan, have thee think that a son 
 of Islam looked with favor upon the ways of the infidel; but 
 of one great truth concerning them would I speak : It is for 
 the reason that their women are unafraid that the armies of 
 the Christian nations rule the world. 
 
 The day fast approacheth when Islam shall have need of 
 men to meet the Eoumi men strong enough to be for- 
 bearing, holy enough to be compassionate, great enough 
 to be humble. 
 
 To this end should the rulers of the people of the Prophet 
 seek to raise up a mighty nation whose words may echo in 
 the council chambers of distant lands. To this end should 
 the spirit of Islam bend the thought of its young children, 
 and call into the future to those still unbegotten, that in 
 the time of trial Islam shall not be overcome. 
 
 But these men of the coming Islam the Islam whose 
 prayers are murmured by the lips of a fifth of the world 
 will not be the sons of women who bred them in fear and 
 suckled them on black jealousy; for a man may get his 
 stature from the bones of his father and his growth from 
 his father's way of life; but oft he getteth his heart from 
 the woman who trembled ere she bore him, who nursed him
 
 220 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 in sorrow, who carried him sleeping upon her tortured breast. 
 
 As the silence of the desert assaileth the ear in the first 
 watches of travel, even so should the dumbness of the woman 
 of Islam assail the ear of the believer and speak with a greater 
 power than the rush of winds or the rolling of thunder. 
 
 For, though she serve ever so humbly, there is revolt in her 
 heart. And the child she will bear shall, in a not distant day, 
 stand thus before the powers of the world : revolting in heart 
 and mind, and though he battle with the fierceness of a 
 dervish he is overcome, while the fat places of Islam are 
 divided before his eyes and the holy places made to be without 
 holiness. 
 
 0, thou whom Allah hath set over the souls of many, let 
 me beseech thee to proclaim from the housetops this truth: 
 That it is to the women of a nation that that nation must 
 look for a finer race of men, and it is to the Moslem women 
 that the Moslem must look if Islam shall ever again take 
 her place in the council of nations. 
 
 And now would I speak of the two wives thou didst give 
 from the sanctuary of thine own harem. Azalia, the only one 
 that hath come before me, wept grievously that she should 
 be stricken from thy holy presence. She was fair to look 
 upon as a rose in noonday in the heart of August, but though 
 she was fair I touched her not. 
 
 That night I fared into the wilderness to find her whom 
 thou hast seen, the rose of the world to me. In the desert I 
 made a covenant with Allah an I found her I would be unto 
 her as she was unto me, and having found her, from this day 
 forth until I shall be gathered to my fathers, even as she 
 hath kept her heart pure for me, will my heart concern itself 
 with no other woman. 
 
 Therefore, mighty Sultan, though I am not ungrateful 
 for thy favor, or heedless of the honors thou didst cover me 
 with, my pen is forced to write these words my tongue doth 
 now utter : "Azalia, I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce 
 thee I Zittarra, I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce 
 thee!" 
 
 Concerning the gold and jewels thou hast further bestowed 
 upon me, they still lie in the royal seraglio, for knowing that 
 I would return no more, I took them not hence.
 
 CONCLUSION 221 
 
 I ask not pardon, for that were too much to ask from even 
 such a bountiful heart as thine. But, an ever the life of 
 Attar al Hassen will serve thee in any task of danger or death, 
 it is thine. 
 
 Thus unto thee, who are not only Sultan, but man as well, 
 with tears, the tears of an exile, I whisper farewell, and to 
 the graves of my fathers, to all those I loved in my youth, a 
 tender, long farewell do I write, for well I know I must enter 
 thy sultanate no more. 
 
 ATTAR ABU HAMED AL HASSEN. 
 
 Aletra returned as he wrote the last farewell. Seeing 
 the many sheets of paper and the gravity of his face, 
 she drew back, and would have gone out again, lest she 
 disturb him, had he not bidden her stay. The three 
 days since they met had been days of glowing happiness 
 and black misery to her. The master was still her 
 world, and her hope of the world to come, but the calm 
 security of the women of the West was not hers. 
 
 Attar had been led by the miracle of words that had 
 endured in the sands. The words of the Lord Isa and 
 the prophecy of the Egyptian still besought his ear, yet 
 was he none the less a Moslem in admitting the power 
 of a prophet besides Mohammed. This, she knew, did 
 not weaken his belief in the Mohammedan religion. 
 And in the fullness of time, she reasoned, he would 
 lead the life of his fathers and complete his harem of 
 seven wives, after the manner of his intention before 
 lie left Tunis. 
 
 When she thought of this, the idea that death migbt 
 come to her first filled her with a fierce joy. Then she 
 would press these thoughts into the curtained future, 
 and turn from them to the present. It was her hour 
 and the woman of the East has been taught the value 
 of her hour, and also its briefness, its pitiful briefness I 
 
 She was so completely his that the knowledge that she
 
 222 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 had withheld something of what transpired in the royal 
 harem bore heavily upon her, and she laid not only 
 every word and action of that time before him, but 
 every thought as well. And when he had heard, seeing 
 the transparent purity of her womanhood, he believed 
 her, and honored her for the truth of her lips. 
 
 Now, although he bade her stay, she did not allow 
 her eyes to rest upon the pages. But when he had 
 gathered them together and read them carefully over, 
 he turned and looked toward her as she sat upon a rug a 
 little way apart. "Why art thou so white, O my Flower 
 of the Dawn ?" he asked. 
 
 "I know not," she answered. 
 
 "Hast thou sorrowed much ?" he said tenderly. 
 
 "Yea." 
 
 "Yet now the pomegranate of happiness bursteth into 
 bloom." 
 
 For answer she looked long into his eyes. Words 
 were ever few upon her lips, but her eyes had that 
 satisfying quality that made words seem weak. 
 
 "Now thy lips should be as the heart of a rose. 
 There is no longer any cause for sorrow." 
 
 "Knowest thou not, O master," she said slowly, "that 
 there are many kinds of pain in the life of a woman? 
 There is the pain of sorrow and the pain of happiness. 
 It is as if a woman had brought forth a son after much 
 travail and labor; and as if she feareth to look upon 
 that son lest there be blemish upon him ; and even when 
 she hath looked and found him sound, she still claspeth 
 a new fear to her heart concerning other things that she 
 may only know with the passing of time." 
 
 "Travaileth thy heart thus ?" he asked.
 
 CONCLUSION 223 
 
 "Even so travaileth my heart, O master," she 
 answered, and for a moment the love in her eyes was 
 eclipsed by a desolation that mirrored all the fear which 
 had torn the hearts of all the women whose blood pulsed 
 in her veins. But even e'er he saw it, the shadow was 
 gone, and bringing her cushion beside him, she sank 
 upon it and rested her face against his hand. 
 
 "My well-beloved," he whispered, bending and en- 
 circling her with his arms. "Concern not thy heart with 
 our new-born happiness. It hath no blemish, and time 
 will unfold no blemish. An I coined thy worth into 
 words, never would I finish telling thee of the glory of 
 thy smile, the light of thine eyes, the beauty of thy 
 form, the softness of the bloom upon thy cheeks." 
 
 As he spoke, he took her hand and nestled it against 
 his heart. 
 
 "Take my heart," he said, "thou woman of my earthly 
 paradise. Take it in thy pink palms. The red blood 
 floweth through it. Feel the pulsing of it against thy 
 little fingers, and as thou feelest each throb know that 
 it is thine thine thine." 
 
 Every word he spoke thrilled her with exquisite 
 waves of emotion, almost an anguish in their delight. 
 Both her soul and young body tasted their sweetness 
 and radiated an intoxicating magnetism in answer. 
 Her head fell back upon his arm ; she looked into his 
 face that was so close; the oblivion of the present was 
 slowly closing upon her when, once more, the specter of 
 the future came between, and for an instant desolation 
 entered her eyes. 
 
 "What dost thou fear ?' he asked. "When thou look- 
 est thus thou art thrusting thorns into the naked heart
 
 224 THE WEDNESDAY WIFE 
 
 of thy Attar the heart that lies helpless in thy soft 
 hands. Bruise it not with any look of sorrow; rejoice, 
 for it is but the spring-time of our marriage." 
 
 "I rejoice," she said, rising and pointing to the 
 papers. "Thou hast written many pages." She had 
 lost something of her fear. "Hast thou written con- 
 cerning thy holdings and thy house in Tunis?" 
 
 Attar took the letter and began to unfold the pages 
 till he came to the first, then gave it all into her hands, 
 saying: 
 
 "Read thou, that henceforth and forever thou shalt 
 add peace unto thy love and faith unto thy peace and 
 from them gather the fruit of security." 
 
 And she read and when she had finished, she stood 
 before him clad in a new beauty. It was as if a mortal 
 woman had stood before the spirit of the universe, and 
 as if, with a touch of his wings, he had bestowed immor- 
 tality upon her. So had the gift of faith fallen upon 
 Aletra. 
 
 She spoke no word, but as they stood apart looking 
 into each other's eyes, each reading the soul of the 
 other, each feeling the security of faith against the 
 infinite mysteries of time though neither as much as 
 touched the tips of the fingers of the other they were 
 closer than ever the clinging of arms and ardent lips 
 had brought them. 
 
 Then, as she still held the letter, she spoke, saying : 
 
 "Chain not thy heart with words, O master, lest in 
 the years to come they turn and wound thee." 
 
 And he made answer : 
 
 "Fear not, O my Elower of the Dawn. The joys 
 of the flesh are as the leaves of the wine of life, giving 
 it something of beauty and grace yet swept hither and
 
 CONCLUSION 225 
 
 thither. The wind bloweth upon them, they are scat- 
 tered or fall to the earth and are forgotten. 
 
 "But love is the flower of the vine; and in the heart 
 of the flower dwelleth that which has been, and is, and 
 ever will be: the mystery that hath neither beginning 
 nor end nor certain place nor any season the mystery 
 that is present in all things, and yet dwelleth in the 
 inner heart of Allah, the mystery that is Allah."
 
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