life.

They swept round the corner, those men and women, screaming vengeance
on her who lived in luxury whilst they starved; who hung herself with
jewels and neglected to pay the trifling debts of the bazaar; who lived
in a house built on the site of their demolished homes. They rushed
past and over her lying begrimed and foul, one with the dust of the
ill-lighted street They drove her face into the dust; they marked her
beautiful body with the shape of their feet; but they did not kill her.

She wanted to live.

The pack passed on to the bazaar, carrying with it the definite news of
the return of the woman Zulannah; and if you had looked close you would
have seen the cunning in the eyes of the man who had carried the hens;
if you had listened to his whispered words you would have shivered at
the ferocity of his counsel.

In the passing of ten minutes you would, if you had walked that way,
have walked through empty streets in the vicinity of the courtesan's
house, and there would have been nothing or nobody to whisper to you of
the men, women, children, and dogs standing packed in the rooms and
passages and courtyards, waiting for a given signal.

The moon looked down on a peaceful scene as Zulannah, wrapped in filthy
garments, crept stealthily from shadow to shadow.

Had she been more observant, she would have wondered at the intense
stillness of the bazaar, which, no matter at what hour of the night, is
full of little sounds; the song of a woman, or her laugh, or her cry;
the crack of a whip; the baying of dogs.

If she had looked back she would have seen the stealthy opening of
doors, the craning of a furtive head as quickly withdrawn.

She paid no heed.

She was so near, so very near the place in the wall hidden in the
shadow of the _talik_ palms and in which was the secret door which
opened on the pressing of a certain brick in the third row from the
top. And once in the house, with a veil across her face, a whip or
dagger in her hand, she would show them who was master, cripple or no
cripple, fool that she had been to have submitted to the black Qatim,
but thrice fool he, who knew nothing of that other bank in which
one-half her fortune and one-half her jewels were kept in safe custody
against such a rainy day as this.

She cursed herself for the blundering, feeble way she had set about
revenge; she cursed the moon; the agony of her limbs; the stretch which
lay between one shadow and another; but sh