'What of the latter part of the prophecy?' Roger asked. ' Have you a brother who is likely to succeed the present Sultan? ' '1 have one brother, Mahmoud, but he is not the heir apparent. The Sultanate passes not from father to son, but to the eldest male member of the Osmali family. Mustapha, my father's eldest son by a Turkish Kadine, is the next in line. Only should he die will my brother ever come to the throne.'1
'1 wonder,' Roger mused, ' if the prophecy will come true for Madame Bonaparte. In Paris, a few years ago, when the General was almost unknown, another sybil named La Normande made a very similar prediction about her future. I think, though, that the General has a long way to go yet before he can make himself a King. Tell me, now, how is the siege going? '
'There was most furious fighting up to a few days ago,' Zanthe replied. ' But the garrison is holding its own; largely, I believe, owing to the help given by the English. It is said that the Admiral Sir Smith often comes ashore and says how the fighting should be conducted. He has, too, several able Lieutenants. There is a Colonel Phelippeaux who has mounted many cannon on our walls and a Captain Miller who commands the British gun teams that have been sent into the city to help in its defence. Even so, the French are making progress in the north-east quarter. I expect you heard that terrible rumbling a few days after you were put in this room. That was a part of the great tower tumbling down in ruins after the French exploded a mine under it, and since then they have held a small section of the outer wall."
For a few moments they fell silent, then instinctively they began to kiss and made love again. When their passion was temporarily spent Roger remarked:
' From the way in which Djezzar addressed you as '' my beautiful one" when he granted your request to spare my life, I imagined that, as you had become a widow, he had taken you as one of his wives.'
She shook her head. ' That he has lustful thoughts about me is
1 Historical note:
Aim6e Dubucq de Rivery's son, known as ' The Reformerbecame the Sultan Mahmoud II and reigned from 1808 to 1839.
true. His eyes devour me whenever he sees me, even at a distance. He sent his Chief Eunuch to me shortly after I arrived here, offering to divorce one of his wives and take me in her place. He is a most horrible man, so naturally I declined his offer.'
'Have you no fear that he may attempt to take you against your will? ' Roger asked anxiously.
She kissed him. ' You need have no fear of that, dear love. As I am the daughter of a Sultan he had to provide me with my own suite of apartments, and custom forbids him to enter them. Before the war it would have been a different matter. Then he was virtually an independent ruler and all Syria bowed the knee to him. Married or single, I would not have risked a visit to his city of Acre. But now he is dependent on the Turkish forces and the goodwill of the Porte to maintain himself against the French. It is the right of my cousin, the present Sultan, to give me again in marriage to whom he will, and he certainly would not give me to a Pasha who in the past has flouted his authority. For Djezzar to force me into marriage without my cousin's consent, or molest me, would mean risking his whole future. Being an ambitious man, you may be sure he will not do that.'
With her head on Roger's chest they dozed for a while, then she roused and began gently to caress him. For a few minutes he pretended to be asleep then, with a laugh of delight, crushed her to him. For a third time their mutual passion carried them to Paradise. Then with long, happy sighs, they lay still.
Soon afterwards the first flush of dawn showed through the arrow-slit window. With great reluctance Zanthe sat up and said that she must leave him, but before doing so she gave him most careful instructions to guide his behaviour during the coming day. After another score of lingering kisses and endearments they tore themselves apart.
A few hours later the old negress, Gezubb, roused him from a heavy sleep. With her she brought the garments and sandals of a eunuch. Having washed himself and put on the clothes, he accompanied her downstairs. Zanthe had told him that no one in the seraglio understood French and that he should pretend that he knew no Turkish or Arabic. He could not then be called on to answer awkward questions and, when he did have to appear to have picked up a few words of Turkish, he must try, as far as possible, to imitate the high, piping voices of the eunuchs.
The enormously fat Chief Eunuch was a lazy, normally good-tempered man. He showed no hostility to Roger and, by signs, set him to clear out the bird cages in the aviary. It was not a particularly unpleasant task and occupied him for most of the morning. But when he had finished, two other eunuchs cornered him, and, with cries of ' Christian dogset about him with their heavy, leather belts.
He knew that if he seriously injured either of them it would be certain to cause trouble and put Zanthe in a difficult situation; so he defended himself as best he could without striking out. Grimly he put up with quite a beating but, before it was over, by good luck, Zanthe came into the room.
Immediately they caught sight of her they stopped, but with her tawny eyes blazing she walked purposefully towards them. Seizing each of them by an ear, she smashed their faces one against the other with all her strength and, from his night's experience, Roger knew that her splendid limbs were as strong as those of many a man. As she continued to bash their heads together they set up a shrill yelling, which brought all the others running into the room.
Letting her victims go, Zanthe pointed at Roger then cried to the assembled group in tones of fury, 'The Roumi is not for you. He is here as my slave and plaything. Should any of you dare to lay a finger on him I'll have you bastinadoed.' Then, turning on Roger, she slapped him twice hard across the face.
That evening, as a further demonstration of her apparent feelings towards him, she made him turn somersaults in front of her divan. Each time his legs were in the air she jabbed a bamboo pole into his side, causing him to fall in a flurry of arms and legs on to the hard floor.
When she came to his room again at midnight she implored his pardon; but he assured her that none of his falls had hurt, and that such treatment was just what was needed to convince the eunuchs that tormenting him and making him a laughing stock for her women gave her pleasure.
Again they spent the greater part of the night giving free rein to their passionate delight in one another, or lying embraced in a blissful doze. Before she left him they devised other ways in which, without causing him any serious pain, she could appear to chastise and humiliate him.
For more than a month matters continued in much the same way, except that during the daytime Zanthe gradually relaxed her severity towards him. The unspoken excuse provided by her to the eunuchs for so doing was that no one else in the seraglio understood French, whereas Roger could read the books in that language which she had brought from Cairo in her baggage. In the morning he continued to clean out the cages in the aviary and later in the day spent hours reading aloud to her.
Night after night, after they had revelled together, she gave him such news of the siege as reached her. During April the French succeeded in bringing their trenches right up to the walls and exploding a number of mines under them. However, in the middle of that month their efforts against the city had been greatly reduced, owing to the approach of relieving forces. A body of troops, said to be commanded by General Junot, had been detached and had inflicted a heavy defeat on a Turkish force near Nazareth. Then, a week later, Bonaparte was reported to have left his headquarters and to have gained a victory over the larger part of the Army of the Pasha of Damascus.