Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/409

 "Save for my eyes, my face was closely veiled, and, sauntering amid the crowd of beautiful women, my eyes fell upon the apartment wherein, from the papyrus, I knew that my adored one was confined. I opened the door carelessly and, imitating a woman's tone, bade her come forth and follow me into the presence of her lord. She recognised me in a moment, and faltered forth some words of surprise at my daring, which the rest of the women thought were expressions of fear at the fate which might be hers. We reached the lower floor and, passing through the guest chamber, were soon in the court adjacent. No one attempted to bar our way, for my plan was entirely unsuspected, and before it was discovered we were happily beyond pursuit!

"With my lovely bride, Hestra, I journeyed down the peaceful waters of the Nile, and viewed with delighted eyes the green fields of waving corn and the grey ridges of limestone rock that at times extended to the river's brink. Down the winding river we floated, until before us lay the cataract where the waters tumbled amid snowy foam, and the red felspar crystals glittered a warmer hue beneath the sun shining in the cloudless blue sky above. Then we ventured to return, and passing through Sinai, crossed into Arabia, whence by slow degrees I brought home the peerless Hestra to the palace from which I had set forth long before.

"So long had my absence been that the one to whom the charge of my palace had been intrusted thought I had perished in lands afar, and so he occupied my place and adorned him with the apparel which befitted me alone as a prince in the land. When at last I arrived at Ghuzni, and he was removed from the position which he had wrongfully assumed, there arose in his breast a feeling of jealousy, and henceforth he sought in many ways to bring sorrow to me or even to encompass me with death. Knowing that I was sprung from the tribe of the Barukzai, he sought to turn against me the enmity of the more powerful Saduzai, and in order to accomplish his purpose he spread rumours abroad which were brought to me from time to time by the more faithful of my slaves.

"When such reports reached my ears I vowed vengeance against him, yet in the presence of Hestra my anger would die away, and so I left him to say what he would, knowing that his words were false. Despite his crooked talk he often entered the palace and listened while I recounted one of my adventures when journeying Egypt, and then Hestra, my beloved, following the maxim of the great Prophet, busied herself the while with her distaff, stopping occasionally to glance at me with her starlight eyes.

"Now hearken, that I may tell ye the full depths of a man's duplicity. It chanced that he fell ill, and when men inquired of him wherefore, he summoned them to the couch on which he lay and whispered that Hestra, my princess, had the gift of the evil eye, and that his sickness was caused by her! Nay, he even dared to say that I, Prince Darak, was held fast beneath her subtle spells, and that dire evil would surely fall upon the city if she were suffered to live! When the terrible report was brought to me I stood aghast at the depths of the man's baseness, and resolved that no whisper of the rumour should reach the ears of the princess. When in the streets of Ghuzni I chanced to