As you can guess, I slept fitfully that night. Here I was again, with my essentials trapped in the mangle, and devil a thing to do but grin and bear it—but it was such madness, I kept swearing to myself as I thumped the pillow. Once on a day I'd have wept, or even prayed, but not now; I'd never had any good from either in the past. I could only sweat and hope—I'd come through so much, so often, perhaps my luck would hold again. One thing I was sure of—the first man into the water tomorrow night was going to be H. Flashman, and no bones about it.
I loafed about my tent, worrying, next morning, while the camp hummed around me—you never saw so many happy faces at the prospect of impending dissolution. How many of them would be alive next day? Not that I cared—I'd have seen 'em all dead and damned if only I could come off safe. My guts were beginning to churn in earnest as the hours went by, and finally I was in such a sweat I couldn't stand it any longer. I decided to go up to the pavilion and have a last shot at talking some sense into Yakub Beg—I didn't know what I could say, but if the worst came to the worst I might even chance a flat refusal to have anything to do with his mad venture, and see what he would do about it. In this desperate frame of mind I made my way up through the village, which was quiet with everyone being down in the camp below, went through the little archway and past the screen to the garden—and there was Ko Dali's daughter, alone, sitting by the fountain, trailing her fingers in the water, with that damned kitten watching the ripples.
In spite of my fearful preoccupations—which were entirely her fault, in the first place—I felt the old Adam stir at the sight of her. She was wearing a close-fitting white robe with a gold-embroidered border, and her shapely little bare feet peeping out beneath it; round her head was the inevitable turban, also of white. She looked like Sheherazade in the caliph's garden, and didn't she know it, just?
"Yakub is not here," says she, before I'd even had time to state my business. "He has ridden out with the others to talk with Buzurg Khan; perhaps by evening he will have returned." She stroked the kitten. "Will you wait?"
It was an invitation if ever I heard one—and I'm used to them. But it was unexpected, and as I've said, I was something wary of this young woman. So I hesitated, while she watched me, smiling with her lips closed, and I was just on the point of making my apology and withdrawing, when she leaned down to the kitten and said:
"Why do you suppose such a tall fellow is so afraid, little sister? Can you tell? No? He would be wise not to let Yakub Beg know it—for it would be a great shame to the Atalik Ghazi to find fear in his blood brother."
I don't know when I've been taken more aback. I stood astonished as she went on, with her face close to the kitten's:
"We knew it the first night, at Fort Raim—you remember I told you? We felt it even in his mouth. And we both saw it, last night, when Yakub Beg pressed him into our venture—the others did not, for he dissembles well, this angliski. But we knew, you and I, little terror of the larder. We saw the fear in his eyes when he tried to persuade them. We see it now." She picked the kitten up and nuzzled it against her cheek. "What are we to make of him, then?"
"Well, I'm damned!" I was beginning, and took a stride forward, red in the face, and stopped.
"Now he is angry, as well as frightened," says she, pretending to whisper in the brute's ear. "Is that not fine? We have stirred him to rage, which is one of the seven forbidden sins he feels against us. Yes, pretty tiger, he feels another one as well. Which one? Come, little foolish, that is easy—no, not envy, why should he envy us? Ah, you have guessed it, you wanton of the night walls, you trifler in jimai najaiz.*(*Illicit love.) Is it not scandalous? But be at ease—we are safe from him. For does he not fear?"
Kutebar was undoubtedly right—this one should have had the mischief tanned out of her when she was knee-high. I stood there, wattling, no doubt, and trying to think of a cutting retort—but interrupting a conversation between a woman and a cat ain't as easy as it might seem. One tends to look a fool.
"You think it a pity, scourge of the milk bowls? Well … there it is. If lechery cannot cast out fear, what then? What does he fear, you ask? Oh, so many things—death, as all men do. That is no matter, so that they do not cross the line from 'will' to 'will not'. But he fears also Yakub Beg, which is wisdom—although Yakub Beg is far away, and we are quite alone here. So … still he wavers, although desire struggles with fear in him. Which will triumph, do you suppose? Is it not exciting, little trollop of the willow-trees? Are your male cats so timorous? Do they fear even to sit beside you?"
I wasn't standing for that, anyway—besides, I was becoming decidedly interested. I came round the fountain and sat down on the grass. And, damme, the kitten popped its face round her head and miaowed at me.
"There, brave little sister!" She cuddled it, turned to look at me out of those slanting black eyes, and returned to her conversation. "Would you protect your mistress, then? Eyah, it is not necessary—for what will he do? He will gnaw his lip, while his mouth grows dry with fear and desire—he will think. Oh, such thoughts—there is no protection against them. Do you not feel them touching us, embracing us, enfolding us, burning us with their passion? Alas, it is only an illusion—and like to remain one, so great is his fear."
I've seduced—and been seduced—in some odd ways, but never before with a kitten pressed into service as pimp. She was right, of course—I was scared, not only of Yakub Beg, but of her: she knew too much, this one, for any man's comfort, and if I knew anything at all it wasn't just for love of my brawny frame and bonny black whiskers that she was taunting me into attempting her. There was something else—but with that slim white shape tantalizing me within arm's length, and that murmuring voice, and the drift of her perfume, subtle and sweet as a garden flower, I didn't care. I reached out—and hesitated, sweating lustfully. My God, I wanted her, but -
"And now he pants, and trembles, and fears to touch, my furry sweet. Like the little boys at the confectioner's stall, or a beardless youth biting his nails outside a brothel, and he such a fine, strong—nothing of a man. He -"
"Damn you!" roars I, "and damn your Yakub Beg! Come here!"
And I grabbed her round the body, one hand on her breast, the other on her belly, and pulled her roughly to me. She came without resistance, her head back, and those almond eyes looking up at me, her lips parted; I was shaking as I brought my mouth down on them, and pulled the robe from her shoulders, gripping her sharp-pointed breasts in my hands. She lay quivering against me for a moment, and then pulled free, pushing the kitten gently aside with her foot.
"Go find a mouse, little idleness. Will you occupy your mistress all day with silly chatter?"
And then she turned towards me, pushing me back and down with her hands on my chest, and sliding astride of me while her tongue flickered out against my lips and then my eyelids and cheeks and into my ear. I grappled her, yammering lustfully, as she shrugged off the robe and began working nimbly at my girdle—and no sooner had we set to partners and commenced heaving passionately away, than up comes that damned kitten beside my head, and Ko Dali's daughter had to pause and lift her face to blow at it.
"Does no one pay heed to you, then? Fie, selfish little inquisitive! Can your mistress not have a moment to pleasure herself with an angliski—a thing she has never done before?" And they purred at each other while I was going mad—I've never been more mortified in my life.
"I shall tell you all about it later," said she, which is an astonishing thing to hear, when you're at grips.