Zorah. A Love-Tale of Modern Egypt

Front matter

■ I I ■ ■ ■ I ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ H ■ I ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ BY THE SAME AUTHOR. MUSTARD LEAVES; Or, A GLIMPSE OF LONDON SOCIETY. (D.T.S.) Complete in One Volume, price 3s. 6d. SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. "A bright, unpretending, pleasant little tale, with some of its characters so lifelike as to seem drawn direct from life, and with sketehes also photographic, but rather kindly than caustic, of society at each side of the Atlantic." — Truth. ' ' Unusually fresh and original in treatment. Is a well-written varia tion on the old theme of man's deceit and woman's credulity. No small skill is required to render sympathetic the character of a heroine who is entirely governed by the dictates of an unreasoning passion, yet fair Maggie Gordon is a dainty and fascinating creation. The first part of this clever little story, which shows the New Hampshire village far from the world's ken, forms a picture full of pretty touches, and quite justifies Lord George Standish's opinion that he has stumbled upon Arcadia The tale develops into a full-blown 'society story,' but it is the author's keen yet delicate sense of observation and ease of style which render it superior to most works of this class." — Morning Post.

"The melancholy and painful narrative is very cleverly told. Miss Gordon is a striking picture and the 'society' scenes are admirably drawn, piquant, and yet not overdone. The author has observed widely, wisely, and well." — Qalignani's Messenger. "Is one of the brightest books of the season, a happy and clever combination of social study and love-story. " — Detroit Free Press. "There are many spirited touches in the character-sketching, and the humour of the story is breezy and pleasant. Taken altogether, the book is bright and entertaining reading." — Boston Evening Gazette. "To those who are at all acquainted with the personal characteristics either of London society or the Anglo-American colony in Paris, this cleverly written little book will prove decidedly attractive reading. The treatment of the characters is as well planned as that of the story.

Nowhere the detailed and multiplied features, when applied to single characters, make a satirical portraiture offensively distinct, while, nevertheless, the individuality of characters may be fixed with a fair amount of certainty. Aside from stinging little ' mustard leaves ' of personalities, there are many bits of description that possess not only decided merit, but give also the plainest evidence of the personal familiarity of the writer with the societies depicted The oil and water mixture of the American elements in English society is admirably drawn, and it is this feature which forms the main conception of the book itself." — The American Register. "A semi-satirical sketch of London society, interwoven with a pathetic love-story, interesting in itself, apart from the fact that the characters are well-known society people." — London Morning Post.

Chapter II

When Mustapha Bey left the English girl with her father, some half an hour after the departure of the little slave, he did so with a distinct feeling of disappointment, such as not unfrequently weighed upon him after being in her society. She was undoubtedly beautiful, but she was very cold, and his ardent admiration seemed not to touch her to one responsive thought ; yet, in spite of all, he loved her well, too well for his peace, and by every word and act tried to win a return of his affection. He had thought to do her a pleasure in giving her the slave girl who had so keenly excited her interest, but she had only laughed at his idea ; and it was with this distinct feeling of pain and mortification rankling in his mind that he recalled the offer and its rejection, as he rode slowly along the ZORAH, crowded Shoobra road.

That broad straight avenue, bordered by sycamore, fig, and acacia trees, and having on either side great meadows dotted with ibises, was crowded with carriages and conveyances of all descriptions, and the gay stream of human life came and went cease lessly in the fragrant sunshiny air. Carefully watched beauties of the hareems smfled at the almond-eyed Arab from their English broughams, in gay defiance of the ugly eunuchs riding beside their carriages, the thin gauze veils which they wore only enhancing the beauty of their dark eyes and dazzling skins ; while women of foreign lands likewise turned to look at the noble steed and his nobler rider, in evident admiration of both. But Mustapha was careless of one as of the other, and, weary and depressed, he stopped before the door of his own house.

The exterior of the building was plain and simple, but the interior was richly and luxuriously furnished. A fountain plashed musically in the centre of the marble floor, which was wrought in cui'ious mosaic patterns, and was of a lower level than the Leewan, or raised end of the room, where thick carpets from ZORAH, Turkey and Smyrna were spread, and a tiger skin lay stretched before a low divan. The ceiling was elaborately decorated, and earthen ware tiles were let into the lower part of the walls, upon which were carved brackets ancl shelves, supporting finely wrought vessels of silver and gold. The room itself was lofty and airy, the doors were inlaid with choicest woodwork, and the high windows allowed the western sun to come through them in narrow shafts of light, which touched the marble floor into warmth and colour, and flashed prismatic rays into the spray of the fountain.

Musta pha Bey threw himself impatiently upon a cushioned divan in one of the alcoves of the wall and clapped his hands. "The child whom Houseyn brought home, bring her to me," was the order he gave to the slave who had appeared at his summons. In a few moments Zorah in her shining raiment, after a low reverence, stood proudly before him. She was older than he had at first supposed her to be, and he looked at her in silence for some time, critically regarding her beauty. " Sit here, child," he said kindly, pointing ZORAH to a cushion at his feet, "and tell me of yourself." " What would my lord that I should tell him, save that Zorah's heart is grateful to him for that which he hath done this day ? " And before the Arab could guess the girl's inten tion, she fell on her knees, and with a graceful motion pressed both hands to her heart, her lovely eyes fixed the while in passionate gratitude upon his face.

Mustapha smiled. " I bought you because the fair daughter of the Frank wished to save you from the serpents, and I thought to do her a pleasure in giving you to her." " But my lord will not send me away ! " the slave girl cried quickly, the old look of fright returning to her eyes. " She would not accept you, little one, and I marvel at her want of taste." Again he gazed fixedly at the slave, finding new beauties in the tender outlines of her form, half child, half woman, and the velvety smoothness of her dusky cheek, which he stroked gently as he spoke. Zorah drew closer to him, and laid her hand timidly in his. ZORAH " Tell me, pretty one, have you always lived with old Joosef ? " " No, oh no ! " exclaimed the girl, with a shudder. " Long, long ago, Zorah lived in a palace like this, only more beautiful still ; " and she looked gravely around at the luxury of the room. ' ' There were slaves in rich dresses — slaves who waited upon Zorah — and lovely women, but Hameda was loveliest of all, and she was my mother.

All day I played, and danced, and was happy, until that dark day came when the sun no longer shone for Hameda, and the eunuchs chased her from the garden by the Bosphorus. Then she wandered on and on, far from the Crescent city ; but I never left her, and when some old pasha brought her to this dreary Cairo, I came too. Soon Hameda was ill, and her beauty faded away ; then the pasha left her, but I stayed with her. We wandered far out on the desert near the great Pyramids, and for two days the Bedaween fed us ; but then came the wind and the sand-storm, and although we took shelter by the side of the mighty Sphinx, and I was safe when the waves of sand had drifted by, Hameda was too ill and weak, she could not ZORAH. bear the cruel wind, and when the storm was over, Zorah was alone." The slave had told her story in monotonous passionless tones, such as a musical instrument gives forth when time and ill-usage have broken all its harmony, leaving only the soul less keys to echo hollow sounds.

Her listener was touched by the simple tale, where he could so plainly read between the lines, and his hand again rested caressingly on the girl's soft hair as her voice died away in silence. " And after that ? " he asked, gently. But Zorah's mood had changed : she started to her feet, her slight form quivering with passion. "After that," she repeated, in high shrill tones, " he stole me — that infamous old man ! He made my life a terror in his loathsome den with those hideous serpents — one long misery, until you came like the Sun-god and saved me. All the love in Zorah's heart is yours for ever ! " She threw herself at his feet, and clasped his knees, and a strange feeling came to Mustapha as her impassioned face was raised to his, whilst she prayed again in fervent tones, " Only keep me — do not send me away — and Zorah will love you always !

" ZORAH, 25 The Arab gazed earnestly at the eloquent young face. Had he done well by this forlorn child ? or was the life he had chosen for her worse still than that from which he hacl taken her ? It is always a question whether the ills we know are not preferable to those we rashly go to meet in efforts to better our condition. For an ordinary peasant, a child of the " fella heen," the existence of a favoured slave in the hareem of a princess, would seem a kinder fate than to wander about the streets with a brutal old man, in company with repulsive reptiles and grinning apes. But this girl appeared to be something more than an ordinary jDeasant ; she was evidently what the French would call une sensitive, for whom the greatest powers of enjoyment or suffering lay not in external circumstances, but in the feelings and affec tions.

Would it not have been better for her had these remained dull and deadened by the coarse brutality of the life she must have led with the snake-charmer, instead of having had her gratitude awakened ? — gratitude so great that love was sure to follow, and that love a pas sion born in all fulness of strength, not grow ing gradually from day to day and year to year. ZORAH The Arab almost reproached himself for the deed he had done in charity and compassion to the child herself, and with a wish to please the woman he cared for. She was wonderfully lovely, this wild young thing, all untaught, knowing nothing of rules and convention alities. If she loved, it would be with a whole undivided heart, asking little in return for all ; and love so spontaneous is sweet to those who obtain it. No gift of the gods is greater.

A terrible temptation came to the master of ceremonies. He had longed for love, and was weary with disappointment, and this beautiful child pleaded only to love him. Why not keep her, as she urged ? But the memory of Edith Vance's clear blue eyes came to him ; she would surely question about the girl who had interested her, and what answer should he give ? Still another thought came ; that new life he would lead — that life whose first command was purity. No ; to his high resolves, as well as to the woman whom he hoped to make his wife, he would be true, come what might. The slave, with quick instinct, felt that a change had come over ZORAH him, and, springing again to her feet, she said smilingly — " When my lord is weary, I will cheer him and make his heart glad. See, I will dance for him thus ; " and without further prelude she threw her hands above her head and danced — danced not as a child of earth, but as some dusky spirit from another world, with an abandonment and grace of movement im possible to describe, so light and airy, yet so full of fire and passion was her every gesture.

From time to time she would raise her rounded arms above her head, clasping the hands, small and delicate as a child's, then suddenly would place them at her side or behind her back with a most utter grace of motion. Turn ing and swaying, she passed and repassed before the Arab, flashing glances dark as night from the depths of her wondrous eyes, until the man felt his brain turn, and closed his own eyes to shut out the girl's bewildering beauty. Surely this must be something more than an ordinary slave picked up by chance, and bought for a few hundred piastres. Again came the question — had he done well by the child? Had it not been wiser to have left ZORAH, her as she was, and not to have called into living flame the slumbering passion of her woman heart? Whatever the answer, it was too late — the harm had been done, and all that was now left was to render that harm as slight as possible.

As the slave still danced with intoxicating grace, floating through the air like some unreal being of other spheres, Mustapha decided that personally he must see her as seldom as possible, but that no care or effort on his part should be spared to make her life a happier and better one than it could have been had he not interfered in the fashioning of it. He turned resolutely away from the brilliant, flashing figure, as it continued dancing to a slow undulating movement, under the sun rays shining through the narrow windows, and his face grew grave and dark. Little escaped Zorah's notice, and she stopped dancing as suddenly as she had begun, the instant she perceived that the Arab no longer regarded her. In a corner of the room stood a cithara — an oriental guitar; this she took in her childish hands, and throwing herself on the tiger-skin at the ZORAH, 29 feet of Mustapha, her face glowing with new beauty from the exercise of dancing, her eyes large and lustrous, she touched the strings.

"May the slave sing to her lord?" she asked, in low musical tones ; and without awaiting permission, she chanted, rather than sang, to a curious rhythmic measure, the following words : — ;< Thou hast made me ill, 0 my beloved ! And my desire is for nothing but thy medicine. Perhaps, 0 full moon, thou wilt have mercy upon me ! Beloved of my heart, remain with me ! " Zorah paused for a moment, but the Arab did not speak. He sat gazing in a fascinated way at the slave, whose eyes never left his face. Quickly changing the music to an air so mournful that it swept as a wail through the lofty room, she sang again : — " A lover saw another afflicted in like manner : he said to him, ' Whither art thou going 1 ' He stopped and told his story : they both wept together. They went to the Kadee of love, both together to complain.

The three wept, and said, ' Whither is our love gone 1 ' The night ! the night ! 0 thou with sweet hands, holding the dewy peach, Whence were ye, and whence were we, when ye ensnared us ? " The plaintive sounds died away, and there ZORAH, was silence. The girl would have imperilled the vows of an anchorite, with her curious mixture of a chfld's naivete' and a woman's passion; and Mustapha Bey, a hot-blooded Oriental, felt the need of all his resolves to banish her from his presence. At the same time, he felt more than ever that she must go, lest those resolves should prove worthless beside her dangerous beauty. Rising hastily, he thanked her for the song, and summoning a slave, bade him lead her to her apartment. " To-morrow she must go to the Princess Saydeh," was the master of ceremonies' half regretful thought, as Zorah, with a deep sa laam and a reproachful look, left his presence.

CHAPTER 'III. The day had fallen, and the sunbeams softened to shadows ; and while Mustapha changed the European dress he usually wore for some loose robe of soft Eastern silk, slaves brought to the apartment silver lamps fed by aromatic oil, which threw a softened glow upon the decorations of the room, and upon the lissom figure and perfect features of the Arab himself, as he leaned back amongst the soft rugs and downy cushions. He held a book in his hand, but made no attempt to read it, and from time to time he looked expectantly around, as though awaiting some one. The silence, however, remained unbroken ; and, still with the look of expectation upon his face, Mustapha settled himself among his cushions and opened the book. He had perhaps read for some ten or fifteen minutes, when a low clear voice fell upon his ear.

ZORAH, " Peace be with you." " And with you peace," was the Arab's im mediate answer, as he rose from the divan and with a glad smile welcomed the new-comer, who by no visible means had entered the apartment, — only appeared in a spot which a moment before had been vacant. " I heard your call this afternoon, and, as you see, have obeyed it by being in readiness for you. It is long since you have communica ted with me." " We have left that moment until danger threatened your happiness for now and through all time." As the visitor spoke, the light fell full upon his most marked and peculiar features. All the materialism of a mortal man seemed worn and refined away from the deep-set eyes, the clear pale cheek, and the sweet stern mouth, for both sweetness and sternness were oddly blended in his expression.

The painfully thin form was clad in some loose garment of clinging dark material, which intensified the unnatural paleness of the face and hands, while all the vitality of the man seemed con centrated in his eyes, which burned with an ZORAH, 33 intense spiritual fire, in which no glow of pas sion having any trace of the earth, earthy, found place. " I could almost welcome danger which brings me so great a pleasure as the presence of Gopal Chundra," the Arab said, in courtly tones, as he urged his guest to be seated, and himself returned to the cushioned divan. " Speak not so, my brother, for the danger which threatens you is real. You have gone too far on the road to good for so weak a thing as a woman to turn you aside from the higher life." Mustapha's face flushed deeply, but he lost no time in replying to the unwelcome insinua tion.

" So far from turning me away from good, she has made me believe in all pure and holy things ; has made me regret the lost years wasted in careless idleness and pleasure ; has made me long to do good to my fellows, ancl choose always the better part." " And your seven years of training as a neophyte, which you were so keen to under take, and have not yet completed, where are they ? " c ZORAH The voice was stern and low, — the burning eyes were fixed upon the beautiful face oppo site him. " Seven years," continued the mystic, — " the time Jacob served for love of Rachel, and served yet again when a cruel deceit robbed him of his well-deserved reward. You, too, could serve the time for a woman, yet not to attain the awful dignity of a proficient, to be in turn an Adept and a Brother." Mustapha turned uneasily on his silken cushions, as though to avoid the searching eye and penetrating voice ; then abruptly facing his questioner, he spoke gravely and rever ently — " Gopal Chundra, your teachings have made me long for all that is highest and purest ; but she whom I love also serves God — a God who teaches that man can be in the world, yet not of the world ; that he can, through good works ancl good deeds done to his fellow-man, and by love, an immense love for humanity as a whole, and faith so strong that it still believes, al though actual demonstration be denied it, at last attain to that blessed state which is not the ' sinless, stirless rest,' the Nirvana of ZORAH 35 the Buddhistr, or the negative rest of Brahma, nor yet the sensual paradise of the Prophet, but a state of eternal and active blessedness where we shall be joined through the great hereafter with those whom we love in this finite present.

Is not that a faith worthy of being followed, ancl leading to the highest good ? " "Brother, the era of blind faith has gone by ; that of earnest inquiry is come. You would dream of possible happiness for the soul, — we can show you the positive fate of that soul, and draw direct results from the use or abuse of opportunities in this present life, as affecting the life hereafter. Will you reject undoubted facts for chimerical dreams?" " I would choose the best," murmured the Arab, in low uncertain tones ; " but you call me to a life of utter seclusion ancl absolute physical purity, and warn me that the most resolute courage is staggered at the revelations which must come to him who aspires to the awful heights of adeptship reached by the true mystic. My soul shrinks from the loneliness of the life."

" Say rather that you would lose the simple ZORAH grandeur of the truth, towards which you have gone far on the right road, for the love of a woman. And mark me, — she whom you love has but little soul to lose, so light a thing it is which in her is called a soul. The slave whom you saved to-day, in her native ignor ance, untaught save by love, has more soul than she for whom you risk your own. Adieu ; I may yet again appear in astral body to you, ancl of the mysteries you have learned enough to hear and know the silvery bell : but woe be to him who has gone so far, yet turneth back ! " Where the speaker had been there was again empty space. The Arab Mustapha sat in his room alone. In his searchings after truth, the master of ceremonies had fallen in with Gopal Chundra, the most fanatical of believers in the science of occultism.

At a glance this priest of the mystic faith had comprehended how the highly strung sensitive nature of the Arab, tinged as it was with oriental superstition, predisposed him to the acceptance of occult doctrines. He had induced him to become a pupil ; and so eager had Mustapha been in the r 37 ZORAH pursuance of his studies, that Gopal Chundra had initiated him into more intimate know ledge of his faith than was the usual habit of the brotherhood with a new disciple until he has irrevocably joined the Adepts. The coun ter-influence which had been brought to bear upon the mind of Mustapha, through his love for a Christian woman, gave serious uneasiness to his teacher, threatening, as it did, ultimate defeat to the hopes of years ; and anxiety on the part of the mystic to save for the brotherhood so promising a member, had resulted in this sudden visit to the Arab at his own home in Cairo.

Mustapha pondered long after Gopal Chun dra had left him ; but the determination which for a moment had been unsettled by the arguments of the mystic, renewed itself with redoubled force so soon as the priest's powerful personal influence was removed, ancl the puzzled uncertain expression on the beau tiful features changed slowly to one of quiet resolve. Not lightly could his decision again be disturbed. The hareem to which Zorah was sent on the ZORAH, following day was that of the " Pearl of the East," the peerless Saydeh, who in loveliness rivalled all the women of Egypt. About the time when the Englishman and his daughter first came to Cairo, this princess had just ended, according to Moslem law, the term of her widowhood — four months and ten days ; ancl acting upon her prerogative as a daughter of the royal house, to choose a husband for herself, she determined that the fascinating Mustapha Bey, whom she called cousin, but who was not within the prescribed limits of relationship which would prevent a marriage, should be her second choice.

This flattering distinction was anything but agreeable to its object, and he dreaded being subjected to the strict surveillance under which future husbands of royal princesses were in his country generally placed. To his surprise, however, this was spared him, owing to the fact, which naturally he did not know, that Saydeh had a fancy not only that he should become her husband — a matter easily arranged by command of her kinsman the Khedive — but in addition to this, that he should lay at her feet love and homage such ZORAH 39 as she had been told men in other lands offer to the women they marry. When Mustapha brought to her the 'child rescued from the snake-charmer, she promised, with dazzling smiles, that the girl should be come her own personal attendant, and be treated as no slave had ever been before.

"You must come often and learn how your waif of the desert blooms in the atmosphere of the hareem," she had said, as the master of ceremonies, with many florid compliments and assurances of affection, took his leave ; and she felt a throb of triumph in thinking that one more link bound him to her. Zorah looked after him with adoration in her great dark eyes ; for to her greatful heart he appeared less a man than a god, and in childish enthusiasm she vowed to him an eternal devotion. But other eyes followed the Arab as he left the palace in the Shoobra road, having a far different expression from those of the little slave. Achmet Pasha, the most restless and intriguing spirit in the land, envied and hated Mustapha Bey. Not only did he occupy the place which Achmet himself coveted in the ZORAH, affections of Ismail the Khedive, and was the recipient of the favours dispensed by that ruler ; but he threatened to win the woman Achmet desired to make his wife, the peerless Princess Saydeh, and for this he swore by the beard of the Prophet that harm should come to the Arab.

Chapter IV

There was a moment, some years since, when a few far-sighted men in England saw that a transfer of themselves and their property to the banks of the Nile meant solid wealth ancl prosperity, and among these clever calculators was Robert Vance. The change was a com paratively easy one for him to make, as he had no home ties, and his only child, a girl of eighteen, had been more than willing to ex change her conventional life, and the foggy days in her own land, for the glowing rainless skies of the East, and the chance of adventures in an unknown country. From the moment of landing at Alexandria, she had realised all the new strangeness of her sur roundings. The gorgeous colouring in nature, and in the dress of the natives ; the tropical plants and flowers which she had formerly ZORAH looked upon as rare exotics, and which here appeared to be ordinary garden ornaments ; the confusion of tongues around her, a very babel of sounds ; the long lines of camels with their disdainful countenances ; the large Egyp tian donkeys, followed by their fantastically dressed drivers; the sais, or running footmen, with their long rods and flowing sleeves stretched out like wings behind them, — everything, the smallest incident of daily life, was novel and interesting.

It was a ceaseless wonder to her why the babies perched upon their mothers' shoulders did not tumble off; and an endless source of amusement to watch the Egyptian women of the middle - class, enveloped in the habarah, which converted them into shapeless bundles of black or white silk, which bundles, by ways ancl means known only to themselves, managed to mount their donkeys and ride to the bazaars ancl shops. All in turn amused and interested her — all but the cruel snake-charmers, whom she cordially detested. It had been during the first year of their stay in Egypt that Mr Vance and his daughter met at the house of Aboushendi, one of the ZORAH 43 great merchants of Alexandria, the handsome Court favourite, Mustapha Bey. In his fanci ful Eastern similes the Arab hacl compared the young English girl to a snow-maiden, or some pure white spirit, so delicately fair did she appear in comparison with the dark-skinned women of Egypt ; and this ice-maiden quickly fired his own hot-blooded oriental nature with a passionate love, which he had great difficulty in concealing.