Page:Weird Tales volume 32 number 05.djvu/92

612 on me wherever there was room, around my head, on arms and wrists and ankles, in my ears and nose and on every finger. Even my toes, hidden in soft slippers of white kid with silver tassels, had rings thrust on them till they seemed like little curtain-rods. My robe was heavy satin, stiff with jeweled embroidery; the veil that covered it was held in place by a gold crown. Slave-women had to steady me as I walked through the corridors, for the weight of gown and jewelry was not much less than a hundred pounds. They sat me in a chair, the first I'd seen in Yousouf Pasha's house, and crowds of women guests filed by, murmuring charms against the evil eye and examining my costume critically. Etiquette required that I set my face in an unchanging smile and hold the grimace steadily. This was not hard to do, for my cheeks and lips and chin were so stiff with enamel that I felt as if I sat for a life-mask.

How long the ordeal lasted I don't know, but I was almost fainting from fatigue when the slaves came to conduct me to the bridal chamber. One grasped me by each arm, and supported by them I walked down the room. The women dropped back as I passed and reached out to touch my gown or veil for luck. "Mâshallah—Allah shield thee from the envious!" came the murmured benediction as I made my slow progress to the room before whose doors two eunuchs stood with drawn sabers. The veil was drawn across my face and pinned in place, and with a giggling push the slave-girls shoved me through the door.

Inside was an old gentleman, very straight, very slender, most aristocratic. He was buttoned tightly in a double-breasted frock coat which fairly blazed with decorations. Save for his red tarboosh he might have been an artist's ideal of a Southern colonel, for he had the small white beard and sweeping white mustache inseparable from that stock character in pictures. As I came forward he bowed in European fashion, then took my hand and raised it to his lips. Next he put both hands up to my crown and raised it from my head, then drew the jeweled pins from my veil. I don't think I quite realized what had happened till that instant; then a flush so vivid that I felt it burn my cheeks swept through my face. This was Foulik Bey, my bride-groom, and by unveiling me he had accepted me as his. I was Ismet Foulik Hanum, wife of Foulik Bey—I who five months earlier had been Lynne Foster, Ph.D.

Through the windows of my carriage I could see the preparations for the bride's welcome as we drew up at the entranceway of Foulik Bey's palace. Two camels had been sacrificed, that I might walk across warm blood, and the poor beasts were still kicking feebly as I was taken from the carriage and led over the red stain that trickled from their severed throats. Slaves threw ears of wheat and gold coins in my path. An egg—symbol of fertility—was put beneath my foot to break as I stepped across the threshold of the haremilkharemlik [sic]. Ten chamashirdji-kalfa, or body slaves, greeted me with profound temanas as I came into the suite of rooms assigned to me. I had come "home."

in Foulik's harem was a counterpart of that I'd known in Yousouf's, except that it was stricter. I was a hanum, it was true, but I was fourth in rank, my husband's youngest wife, and subject to the wishes and commands of his first wife, or