whilst those who had
mocked him went in search of cool leaves to place upon the bruised
portion of their backs and those two whose heads he had cracked
together for having resisted him lay quite still.

Returned to the hovel as the sun was sinking, and in high fettle, he
donned red tunic, huge turban and rattling scimitar and strutted with
all the negro's delight in fine feathers in front of the mirror which
rested against the crumbling plaster walls.

And then he suddenly stopped and stared into the glass.

The filthy straw in the corner of the room had moved. His face went
grey; great beads of sweat showed upon his chest, his knees shook, then
he fell on his face and covered his head with a corner of the
green-yellow Kidderminster carpet, when a voice feebly craved for water
and a small blood-stained hand weakly pulled at the straw.

Zulannah was not dead.

He lay terror-stricken for some long time, then slowly got to his
knees, tore off the fine feathers and flung the scimitar into a far
corner; then, naked save for the loin-cloth, sat down with his back to
the straw and pulled at his curly oiled hair, a sure sign in him of
deep thought.

Then he grinned and, rising, walked across the floor, and, sitting down
again, pulled the woman from under the straw.

No! Zulannah was not dead, nor even fatally hurt, but she was horrible
to look upon when the Ethiopian had washed her clean by means of a
handful of straw dipped in a broken pitcher of water.

The dog's great fangs had driven behind the ear, severing the mastoid
nerve so that the mouth was pulled right up the left side of the face;
it had also injured the muscle controlling the eyelid, causing it to
droop and giving a diabolical leer to the once beautiful doe-like eye;
it had also injured the muscle of the neck so that the head was
slightly twisted; but, worst of all, the other dog had driven its
terrible fangs into the muscle above the knees, injuring it so that she
would never walk straight again.

And Qatim sat back on his haunches, and laughed, clapping his enormous
hands.

She was not dead, and her hands were not injured, but she was too
hideous to show herself unveiled and too twisted to be recognised in
the street.

So all that was left to him to do was to cure her injuries--which he
did, and quickly, under the advice of an old herbalist in the Silk
Market,--and then sit down for the rest of his life whilst she drew
strange little marks on t