Achmed Abdullah

“ He thought of her, her crimson lips, her black eyes, the twinkling diamond nose stud. He stared. Then, suddenly, he screamed. He rose to his feet, stumbling, tottering, his hands outstretched,
“The drum!” he cried. “Give it to me!”
“Hush—for the love of the All-Merciful!” came Mahdi Ibrahim's whisper, warning, yet in it a lilting accent of elation. “Death is on the roof top, yah Sidi!” as one of the snakes flopped down, nervous, frightened out of its drunken rhythm.
“The drum! Give it to me!” repeated Burton in a high, cracked voice. ”

“ They shot out their perverse flat heads, the eyes piercing in the direction of their old enemy, man, tonguing and hissing with the inherited hate and fear of a thousand generations of snakes. But calmly, dreamily, Mahdi Ibrahim stared at them. A silent battle it was, for mastery, for life and death, with the eyes the only weapon and the drum—the tok-tak-tok of the swinging ivory drum. ”

“ Mahdi Ibrahim squatted down. His left hand disappeared in the burnouse, came out with the drum. It commenced swinging, left, right, left, like a pendulum, as he beat it with gentle, dry taps.
Tok-tak! spoke the drum. Tok-tocko-tak!—with a hiccoughy, syncopated rhythm. Tok-tak-tok!—insistingly, while the snake charmer stared at the basket with dreamy immobility. Tok-tak-tok!
And presently a flat, wicked head appeared from beneath the top of the basket; a second; a third. The snakes plopped down. They began to dance, swaying, circling, gyrating, following the pendulum of the drum. ”

“ Burton sat up. “You lie—you lie! You are crazy——” Then he read the truth in the other's eyes. An ashen pallor spread to his very lips. His voice shook: “Oh God!”
“It came suddenly this afternoon,” said the dragoman, forgetting the English slang of which he was so proud, speaking gently as he might to a child. “A fever. Then death. Come, my master!” He forced Burton to rise. “A woman is a woman, and fate is fate. Who can escape what is written on the forehead? Bismillah irrahman errahmin!” he mumbled piously as he saw that Burton was tottering, about to fall. “Take my arm. Sit on the roof. ”

“ The American sipped his coffee,
“Her husband is old,” continued the other. “Also weak. Also trusting. Also a fool.”
And, master psychologist, he let the matter drop until that evening when, the snake charmer having come, performed and left, Burton once more watched the neighboring roof top. Janina was sitting cross-legged on a pillow. She did not look up. She twanged her guitar, and again the flame of desire burned through Burton's soul and set his heart to beating fearfully hammering against his ribs, leaving him breathless, without volition, without resistance. ”

“ Occasionally Mahdi Ibrahim came and squatted on the roof top and beat his drum—tok-tak-tok—forcing the snakes to dance drunkenly. But as a rule Pitts Burton dismissed him, impatiently, curtly. For he had begun—quite unreasonably, he owned up to himself—to dislike the snake charmer's hawkish, sardonic face. He wondered if the man knew. ”

“ He slid the drum back in his burnouse, rose, pounced upon the snakes, picked them up, two in his right, the male reptile in his left hand, crammed them quickly into the basket, closed it, tied it with a stout rope and turned to Burton with a smile and an outstretched hand.
“Is the Sidi satisfied?” he asked in the fluent English which he had learned years earlier in an American circus.
“Bully! Here you are.” There was the clink of money “But——”
“Yes, Sidi?”
“I've seen you do your little parlor trick before. You usually get the brutes up again—force them to do a second dance.” ”

“ The strength of the yellow lands came to him with a mighty sweep, a feeling of triumphant elation, a falling away of the useless burdens of life, the useless thoughts, the useless worries and ambitions. ”

“ I am not Jew or an Armenian that I should bargain! One hundred and ninety——”
“Go to the devil!”
Pitts Burton left the roof top, while Nadj Omar smiled. He put his head on one side, considering. Then he stepped close to the parapet and whistled—two high notes, followed by fluttering tremolo and ending in a throaty gurgle, exactly like a crane calling to its mate. He waited, listening tensely; repeated the call; and presently the answer came in a soft warble from Mohammed's house.
[Illustration: Every day Pitts Burton rode into the vaulted silences of the Sahara]
He stared down. ”

“ Nadj Omar, Burton's houseboy and dragoman, had explained, “so they won't bite. Also to bring luck to the house of Si Mohammed el-Busiri.”
“Is that my new neighbor's name?”
“Yes,” Nadj Omar had replied; adding in the amazing mixture of English slang which he had picked up from tourists and during a journey as stoker to Liverpool and back, “No end bloody swanky family—descendant of the Prophet and all that sort of rot—eh what, old dear?”
Even now Burton still heard a commotion behind the parapet—a heavy dragging of furniture; a girl's high laugh ”

“ The dragoman stepped to his side.
“The lady Janina likes your face—right-o!” he said with calm directness.
“How do you know?”
“The Kisslar Agassi told me—the head eunuch. No end clever chap—my word! Once he lost a she-camel and four years later knew her colt by its foot.”
Burton laughed.
“It is now nine o'clock,” the other went on.
“Well?”
“Si Mohammed's other two wives are very old and very fat. They are asleep. They hide their leaky tongues in their snores.” He lighted a cigarette. ”