The Mark of the Beast Part 18

"He stood over me while I dressed warmly, then hurried me out into the open again. Grandmother had made no sound, given no sign of waking, and I wondered. I wanted to go into the little room where her bed was, but my captor would not let me--I never saw her again, and can only fear that, if G.o.d had not already taken her in her sleep (and sometimes I think this must have been the case), she was slain with the rest of the old people.

"Of the next week I have no distinct remembrance. I believe I travelled, travelled, travelled, ate, drank, slept, but all my faculties seemed numbed, and my mind was largely a blank. It was when I was being taken into Constantinople, that I began to arouse from my strange mental and physical stupor.

"It was through the cool mist of the morning that I got my first glimpse of the city of which I had heard so much. Santa Sophia, rising like some beautiful dream-structure, with the points of its four light, airy, minarets flas.h.i.+ng in the sunlight. Then, little by little, kiosks, tall sad-looking cypresses, sycamores, and the other thousand-and-one wonders of that city of beautiful and revolting contradictions, took shape and form.

"By seven o'clock we were in the heart of the city, and breakfasting.

My captor had treated me with a certain rough kindness through all the journey, and done his best to hearten me. He had told me my fate--to be sold into a harem--but he had pictured it as glowingly, as glitteringly as his rough eloquence would let him. And, with all the blood of countless centuries of Eastern races coursing in my veins, and in the more or less stunned, stupified condition in which that awful night-tragedy had left me, I yielded, for the time, to the fatalism with which we Easterns are familiarized from our babyhood.

"My captor was no novice at the business of selling a girl, neither was he a stranger to the house to which he had taken me. For, after breakfast, he showed me into a little room with one quaint, Arabesque window. In this room there was a bath, and every toilette requisite, while, from a tin box that he brought in, he took out a number of most exquisite outer and under garments. Telling me to make myself as beautiful-looking as I knew how, he presently left me.

"I am afraid that for a time I was too overwhelmed to do more than weep. Then as I remembered that it would be the worse for me if I angered my master, I bathed and anointed myself, though I remember how once I paused, as I scented my body, and said, through my blinding tears: 'This is like preparing myself for a sacrificial altar.'

"I was sitting an hour later, on an ottoman in the room outside the bath-room, when I heard voices, and steps, and a moment later my master, accompanied by a little tub of a man, with fatted-hog kind of face, greasy-looking, and wrinkled with fat, out of which peered two tiny black eyes--like currants stuck in a bladder of lard--and twinkling most villainously, entered the room.

"He was very richly dressed, and bore the name of Osman Mahmed, and, as I afterwards learned, he was very high in office and in favour with the Sultan. He was fabulously rich, and, excepting the Sultan, had the most extensive harem in the city.

"I had, as a child, learned the Turkish tongue, and had no difficulty in following all that pa.s.sed between the seller and buyer. Then after being lightly pinched, pressed, and squeezed, and ogled, the bargain was struck, the money for my purchase was paid, and my captor was instructed to take me, veiled, to the purchaser's palace at two o'clock that afternoon.

"I was taken, as arranged, to the Palace, and given in charge of the head eunuch. A few minutes later, two female slaves took me to a large dressing-room. Here I was bathed again, and sprayed with a very valuable perfume, a curious blending of rose and patchouli.

"I have three crosses tatooed on my body. Each cross consists of eleven blue dots, one on each of my shoulders, and one on my breast, and I noticed a look of horror come into the faces of the two slave-women who were attending me, but neither of them asked any question of me.

"My hair was well-groomed, and beautifully dressed, and strings of gold sequins, and glittering jewelled stars were twisted amid the swathes of my hair. Then came my robing in garments, so rich, so wonderful, that they almost took my breath away. When the very last touch had been given to this wonderful toilette, one of the attendants gave me a _cachou_ from a box to sweeten my breath.

"Then, for a time, I was left alone, a strange and awful fear of some coming evil stealing over me. For I could not forget the looks of fear and of terror of the slave-women, at the sight of the crosses on my arms and breast.

"Wondering what type of place I was in, I got up and looked out of the cas.e.m.e.nt. A marble court lay just below the window, and, in the centre of the court was a most beautiful marble basin, quite twenty feet across, from the heart of which there rose a fountain, with a graceful _jet d' eau_, flinging its spray high in the air. Two flights of bal.u.s.traded steps led down into the basin, a few white doves fluttered about the steps. Flower borders and beds were artistically dotted about the court; and cool-looking, shady bowers clung to the high walls like swallow-nests to the house-eaves.

"But the beauty of all I saw could not drive from me the strange sense of dread of some coming disaster. Suddenly, a huge Sudanese eunuch appeared, and signed for me to follow him; and a minute later I was ushered into a room where the chief eunuch, and that hideous little tub of a Vizier, who had bought me, were.

"The fat, greasy face was distorted with rage, the eyes were blood-shot and fierce, and his voice was almost a scream, as he cried out to me:

"'What is this they tell me of you, you Lebanon beast? Are you one of those dogs, the Christians?'

"'I am!' I replied.

"The fat little beast on the dais spat at me, the foul expectoration falling short of my robe by barely a foot.

"'Your body, the body I bought,' he yelled, 'is d.a.m.ned by the cursed sign of the cross, they tell me.'

"I gave him no reply, and he yelled, 'I will see for myself.' Then to the two eunuchs, he yelled: 'Strip her!'

"The men did his bidding, and nude, and shamed, I stood before that foul tyrant.

"'Bring her closer!' he yelled, and the big Soudanese lifted me bodily, and dropped me upon my feet on a mat not a yard from the Vizier.

"He glared at the tatooed cross upon my breast, then with a fearful curse, he spat full into my breast, the vileness running down the sacred sign. Then, as a fiendish look filled his face, he ordered the chief eunuch to send me for sale in any market that would be open for such carrion.

"At a word from the chief eunuch, the big Soudanese s.n.a.t.c.hed me up in his brawny hands, tucked me under his arm, as a father might laughingly carry his five-year-old boy, and bore me off.

"The rest of the story is all too wonderful for more than the merest outline. I was being taken through the streets, veiled, of course, to a dealer in girls, when suddenly I saw my brother Ha.s.san, coming towards me. My veil, of course, would prevent his knowing me, but tearing off my veil, I leaped towards him, crying:

"Ha.s.san, Ha.s.san, save me!"

She paused in her recital, her voice choked with deep emotion for a moment, then, as she recovered herself, she went on:

"'How wonderful are G.o.d's providences! His ways are past finding out!'

"Ha.s.san was walking--when I met him--with an officer of the American Emba.s.sy--Ha.s.san was clerking for this officer--and though the eunuch tried to make a fuss, when he knew who the officer was, he scuttled back to the Palace as hard as he could go.

"That night, Ha.s.san and I left the city, lest there should be any attempt to seize me, and--"

She paused suddenly, and he leaped to his feet at the same instant, for, from the direction of the city, there came sounds of loud and prolonged hurrahing.

"I will go out and see what is going on!" he said. "Perhaps," he added, "in these disturbed times, it would be well for you to fasten the doors, while I am gone. Whether the people of the house or I, return first, you can easily ascertain who it is, before you open.

Meanwhile, find your way to the other parts of the house, and make yourself coffee or anything else that you may need--and,"

He held out his hand--: "Good bye, for the present, and, another time, you must tell me the rest of your wonderful story, and especially how it came about that you knew so much of Christianity and yet did not share in the 'Rapture' of Christ's own."

With the warmth of her Southern, Eastern nature, remembering how he had saved her, she lifted the hand he gave her, to her lips, and kissed it pa.s.sionately, leaving two heavy tear-drops on it, when she dropped it.

A moment later she was alone. She had barred the outer doors, when he left.

CHAPTER XI.

HERO-WORs.h.i.+P.

Neither George Bullen, or the "Lebanon Rose," whom he had so opportunely saved, had had any idea of how rapidly time had fled during that afternoon. On reaching the street, and looking at his watch, George was amazed to find that it was past six o'clock. Moving as briskly as it was wise to do, so as not to call attention to himself, he made his way to where the noise of the mult.i.tude told him that something extra was happening.

He soon discovered that the excitement came from a kind of impromptu ma.s.s meeting that had followed upon the appearance of Apleon riding on his now celebrated black charger.

The first thing which struck Bullen was the fact that, already, every one seemed to be wearing the "Covenant" sign--"The Mark of the Beast."

He himself appeared to be the only person who was not wearing it.

And--was it fancy? or did Apleon's eyes fix on him with a momentary scowl.

The second thing which struck him, was the intense admiration and homage of the great crowd--all cla.s.ses alike seemed absolutely infatuated--for this Emperor-Dictator of the world, Lucien Apleon, "The Anti-christ."

Two cries rose loud and laudatory from the mult.i.tude "Who is like Apleon? Who dare oppose him?" It was the ultimate fruit of the jingoism of the previous years!

"This is what John beheld," Bullen told himself, "_all the world wondered after the Beast_!" They are, already, wors.h.i.+pping him, in their poor deluded hearts, as a G.o.d!

Almost, it seemed to the young journalist as though there was headed up in this one man--the Man of Sin--all that men through the by-gone ages had wors.h.i.+pped. The captivating power of ancient Babylon. The mighty prowess of the Medo-Persian, the power that held all the world in subjection and awe. The Grecian polish. The Roman legal ac.u.men, and martial perfection. All these things seemed combined in this one notable man. And added to all this, there was his resistless attractiveness, his beauty of face, his grace of form, his wondrous voice, his regal air--"_all the world wondered after him_."

As, after awhile, he walked slowly homewards, George Bullen asked himself the question:

"How can it have come to pa.s.s, that in comparatively so short a time, it should be possible for all the world to be ready to yield an almost idolatrous obedience to one man?"