Chapter XI: “But hate and friendship both find their end.”

Outside the Lebrassa & Cooper factory, all was quiet and peaceful in the early morning sun. Inside, the business of the day had started, and Cooper was issuing orders to the colored assistants before ascending to his office on the floor above.

When he left the store to go up the steps leading to the balcony, Yoni came out from behind the building. She followed him to the office and leant against the door, watching him sullenly.

Presently, as she showed no inclination either to speak or go away, he looked up from his books.

“Well?” he asked sharply.

“I have seen her. She has a face like a star set in the black cloud of her hair. Hands so small, fit for nothing save to hold the heart of a man. And a voice that ripples sweet as flowing water.”

“What of it?” Cooper asked impatiently.

“Then you talk of vengeance!”

“Why not?”

Contemptuously she laughed.

“Why not indeed! I’ve seen the Sultan with her. He’s her slave and servant. He! The Lord of Doomana!”

“He treats her as the white men treat their women,” Cooper explained.

“She was afraid last night. I know, for I was close by and saw them. He saw it too, and comforted her with soft words. I don’t know what was said, for they spoke in her language. And he drew her arm through his, and it might have been the earth’s greatest treasure for the care he used.”

Uneasily Cooper glanced at her, wishing his partner would come and deal with this incubus of a woman.

“As soon as my wife is able to travel we’re going up-country,” he said in a soothing manner. “She, as my wife’s friend, goes with us. One day she will stray from the camp and not return. Down here my wife’s story will pacify the white men--that her friend was lost in the forest and devoured by some wild beast. But you and I and the Sultan, Yoni, will know what really happened.”

“That she is to be taken to Kallu, to be sacrificed on the altar her father fouled?”

“Exactly.”

“But if our Sultan is going to kill her, why does he act as if he were her lover?”

“He wishes her to believe him her friend, so that she’ll have no idea what his motive really is.”

“It’s a pastime he finds pleasure in, and would have more of. I followed them last night. My night was spent in the garden watching--the garden I’ve been free to wander in these many years, but am now forbidden to enter. Why?”

As Cooper ignored the question, Yoni answered it herself.

“Because a Star has risen in the Heart of Darkness. I know. Have I not spent my life at his feet? Are there no hands good enough to serve that girl but he must wait upon her himself? Last night it was a tray set with dainty morsels. This morning when she came from that room, who went to meet her with the haste of a supplicant lover, to take her to a lounge set in the sweetest corner of the balcony, to place cushions at her head, to tempt her again with dainties, running to and fro, a woman’s slave? Who? The Sultan!”

Cooper’s temper was rising, but he was anxious to keep the peace.

“The hunt needs great skill,” he answered in a dogged manner. “The game is shy and frightened--a nervous girl feeling insecure in her new surroundings. Our Sultan is lulling her into a sense of safety before he makes the next move.”

“It is a task men love--to soothe the fears of such as she. With little hands so small and white, and eyes like twin flowers of blue set in a roseleaf, other thoughts than vengeance enter the heart of man.”

Cooper’s supply of patience suddenly ran out.

“Confound you!” he cried. “The truest word your brother spoke was when he called you a fool.”

After that, silence reigned in the office.

Presently, the sound of some one coming up the steps made him heave a sigh of relief.

With eyes that had a glint of fear in their somber depths, Yoni turned and looked at the man coming along the balcony. But she might not have been there for all the notice Lebrassa took of her.

“What’s this woman doing here?” he asked sharply, in the vernacular. “I won’t have the natives loafing round my premises.”

With a quick movement, full of grace and abandon, Yoni bowed deeply before him.

“I came to give my lord greeting,” she said.

Without taking the least notice of her Lebrassa moved away.

“Has my lord no greeting for his slave?” she asked with a note of abject pleading.

Lebrassa turned his back on her, and, picking up a budget of letters, began to open and read them.

Cooper glanced quickly from one to the other.

“I don’t think you should be so offhand with her,” he said presently in English, and with an air of diffidence.

“Since when has it been my habit to propitiate?”

“She knows too much. What’s more, she’s madly jealous of that girl.”

A look of savage arrogance came to Lebrassa’s face.

“I presume you mean your wife’s friend,” he said. “In future you will refer to her as Miss Graham, and in no other manner.”

With that Lebrassa left the office.

He went to his private apartments, Yoni following him.

“My lord is angry,” she said with a cringing air.

“I have no use for those who disobey me.”

In an anxious manner, she touched his arm.

“I hoped--” she began.

With a savage gesture, he shook her hand off.

“Don’t touch me, woman,” he cried angrily.

Alarmed and anxious, Yoni watched him.

“Is it for nothing I’ve been your faithful servant these long years?” she ventured. “I, Yoni, Keeper of the Stars, priestess of Doomana, who gave all for the sake of love.”

“Don’t talk to me of love.”

“Essel, my cousin, who spoke first of love? My lord was a good pleader in the dead days.”

In loathing he looked at her, as if the mention of the blood tie between them was more than he could bear.

Watching him in a threatening manner, Yoni drew away.

“And if I go to the white men and say, ‘Come, I will show you the Hyena, the Sultan of Kallu--the man you have looked for these many years’--what then?”

“Do as you please, only keep out of my sight.”

“My lord has no fear?”

“Fear! Of what?”

“It is he who won my heart, only to crush it. Essel, my cousin, see, I am at your feet.”

With a lithe movement Yoni was prostrate before him.

With hatred and aversion, he turned his back on her.

“Go back to the darkness that bred you. I’ve done with such as you,” he cried savagely.

There was a moan, like that of an animal in deadly pain. Yoni crept out on to the balcony and crouched there shivering in the sunshine.