CHAPTER XXII.

SLAVERY.

THE pen of an eloquent traveller has thus described the city which Harold and the Shararat Bedouins entered after their painful journey through the desert.

"A broad deep valley, descending ledge after ledge, till its innermost depths are hidden from sight amid far-reaching shelves of reddish rock; below, everywhere studded with tufts of palm-groves, and clustering fruit-trees in dark green patches down to the farthest end of its windings; a large brown mass of irregular masonry crowning a central hill; beyond, a tall and solitary tower overlooking the opposite bank of the hollow, and farther down small round turrets and flat house-tops half buried amid the garden foliage."

"Is this India, bright beautiful India at last!" exclaimed Shelah, looking on the lovely scene with delight. To her, at least, the sight of houses and fruit-trees gave unmingled pleasure; the child, enjoying the present, neither took thought for the future, nor felt regret for the past.

Djauf presented an unusually gay appearance on the morning when it was entered by Harold and the Bedouin band. It was the day closing the grand festivities with which were celebrated the marriage of the Arabian Governor's eldest daughter. The bazaars were crowded with people in the gayest of Oriental costumes, and noisy with drums and other instruments unpleasing to European ears, with vociferous shouting and gabbling in half-a-dozen different tongues. The inhabitants of the city were easily distinguished from the wild sons of the desert, being taller in stature, lighter in complexion, and franker in manner, with long curling black locks; the Djaufites showed to advantage beside the suspicious-looking Bedouins.

Here Persians went prancing by on their high-mottled steeds, there Arabs, wearing red cotton vests with large hanging sleeves, their heads enwrapped in kerchiefs striped red and yellow, lounged along or chattered at the numerous stalls piled with sweetmeats for which Djauf is famed. Bihistes, bending under their burdens were with difficulty making their way through the crowds, stopping frequently to impart "the gift of God" to the thirsty. Camels, donkeys, cattle, helped to block up the roads, but no one seemed to be in a hurry. The day was one intended for pleasure, and Shelah enjoyed the bright changing scene and the noise, as if all the tamasha had been got up for her special amusement.

The centre of all the excitement and gaiety is the castle in which the governor dwells, and from which the bridal procession is in a short time to emerge. This castle is a large mass of irregular masonry, with a thick tower in the centre, suggestive rather of strength than of beauty. We will enter through the arched gate, and cross the large paved court, which is crowded with the bridegroom's followers and the governor's armed retainers. A hundred sabres flash in the sun, intermingled with guns, and weapons of ruder construction. Turbans of various hues, high caps, the fez, the kerchief twisted round the head, embroidered cloaks bordered with silver and gold, here a red mantle, there a costly shawl, with glitter of sparkling jewels which, in the East, are by no means left to the exclusive use of women, make the scene suggestive of one read of in the "Arabian Nights."

An inner court brings us into the Governor's large reception room called the Khawah, where the potentate of Djauf sits in state, propped on his gold-striped cushions, to receive the congratulations of his numerous guests. The bride is not visible; we must imagine her dressed in red and gold, and almost weighed down with jewels, the central point of interest in the zenana, which is as densely crowded with chattering women as the court and banqueting room are with men.

But in the midst of the brilliant scene, a cloud is on the Governor's face. He had promised to his son-in-law the gift of a favourite Nubian slave, skilled in music, perfect in the art of preparing coffee, something of a jester withal, and behold! On the very day of the departure of the wedded pair, Barahat has fallen down and broken his leg, after—oh! shameful sound to Mahomedan ears!—too free indulgence in the forbidden!

"Let not his Highness's mind be disturbed," said a courtier, whose head was encircled with a kerchief adorned with a broad band of camels' hair, skilfully entwined with bright coloured silk. "If the Nubian fell, it was kismat (fate), the loss of a slave is more easily supplied than that of a good horse. Some Shararat Bedouins came into the city at daybreak, bringing with them a handsome slave, of the complexion of a Circassian and the mien of a prince, and a white child with hair red as the beard of the Prophet. The slaves are both for sale."

"Of what race? Where found? What price do the robbers demand?" asked the ruler of Djauf.

"They come from some Wiliyati (European) land," said the Arab; "no robber tells where he found his spoil, these slaves may have been taken from some wreck on the coast. Sixty gold tomauns are asked for the young man, and twenty for the girl."

"What can they do?" asked the Governor, after for a brief space turning over the subject in his mind, whilst leisurely sipping his coffee.

The courtier gave a list of accomplishments to which Harold certainly laid no claim. The white slave was a poet, a musician; the girl who accompanied him danced to his playing.

The Arab would not have dared to have declared all this had he not thought that, the bridal party being on the point of starting for a place distant hundreds of miles from Djauf, there was no danger of detection. The sinfulness of fraud and falsehood never troubled the conscience of the Arab, for he could not be said to possess one. He had been nurtured on lies, and felt rather pride than shame at success in cheating his employer.

After obtaining from the governor the eighty pieces of gold, the courtier hurried off to make his purchases from the Shararat Arabs. It brought the hot blood to Harold's pale cheek when, standing silently by, he heard the wrangling, the eager bargaining, the noisy asseverations, the blasphemous appeals to heaven, over the sale of an Englishman. It was humiliating to have his price beaten down, as if he had been some mere beast of burden.

"What are they saying? Why are they so angry? What are they quarrelling about?" asked Shelah. "And why are they looking so hard at me?" Harold could not give utterance to a reply to the questions asked by the poor little slave.

"After all," thought Harold, "I am not the first one of the Lord's people to have to endure the humiliation of having a price put upon me." Harold remembered Joseph; he remembered One far more exalted than Israel's son, for whose sacred person pieces of silver had been counted down. It is only in sin that there is shame.

The courtier was skilful in the art of bargaining, and, after at least half-an-hour given to noisy disputing, he paid down forty tomauns for Harold, Shelah being thrown in as a make-weight by Tewfik, who considered the baronet's child as a thing of no value at all.

The first result of a change of masters was a very welcome one to the slaves. Harold had been unable to change his garments since the day when he had fallen into Bedouin hands; and this, with the impossibility of bathing, had been to the English gentleman one of the most unsupportable of his trials. But, having become a gift from the Governor of Djauf to his high-born son-in-law, the slave must appear in befitting guise, with not a grain of dust upon him. Hartley had at once the luxury of a bath, and then was clothed from head to foot in spotless white, a muslin turban was wound around his head, and around his waist was twisted a kamarband of crimson and gold.

Given over to the charge of some Arab women, Shelah also underwent a transformation. Greatly enchanted with her finery, Shelah met Harold about an hour afterwards. The Lammikin was attired in yellow gauze, spangled with silver, her red locks hidden under a large veil of the same gaudy material.

"Am I not grand?—Like a queen!" exclaimed Shelah. "And are not these people kind to dress me like this! But oh, Mr. Hartley!" added the Lammikin, as she looked up with wondering admiration at Harold in his Oriental costume. "You are quite beautiful! You look like one of the angels in the book of Bible pictures! You want nothing but white wings! Do you think that they will grow?" asked the child.

The faintest of smiles rose to Harold's lips at the artless question. He thought, with a sigh, of the verse:

"'Oh, that I had wings like a dove, then would I flee away and be at rest!'"