Zahara

“ As a matter of fact, it was she who was bored of the life she led in Limehouse—in chilly, misty Limehouse—and who had grown so very lonely since Safiyeh had come. In the dark gray eyes looking up at her she read recognition of her secret. Here was a man possessing that rare masculine attribute, intuition. Zahara knew a fear that was half delightful. Fear because she might fail in either of two ways and delight because the contest was equal. ”

“ Nature, indeed, had cast her in a rare mould, and from her unusual hair, which was like dull gold, to her slender ankles and tiny feet, she was one of the most perfectly fashioned human beings who ever added to the beauty of the world.
Yet Agapoulos preferred Safiyeh. Zahara could hear him coming to her room even as she sat there, chin in hands, staring at her own bewitching reflection. Presently she would slip out and speak to Harry Grantham. ”

“ Men now read the fulfilment of the disastrous omens and predictions which ushered in the capture of Zahara. The melancholy romance or ballad, with the burden of Ay de mi Alhama, "Woe is me, Alhama," composed probably by some one of the nation not long after this event, shows how deep was the dejection which settled on the spirits of the people. The old king, Abul Hacen, however, far from resigning himself to useless lamentation, sought to retrieve his loss by the most vigorous measures. ”

“ She had an uneasy feeling that Safiyeh, who was only sixteen, knew more of this mystery than she did. Once, shortly after the Egyptian girl had come to the house of Agapoulos, Zahara had playfully placed her round white arm against that of the more dusky beauty, and:
“Look!” she had exclaimed. “I am cream and you are coffee.”
“It is true,” the other had admitted in her practical, serious way, “but some men do not like cream. All men like coffee.” ”

“ Chapter XXVI OF THE FORTRESS OF ALHAMA, AND HOW WISELY IT WAS GOVERNED BY THE COUNT DE TENDILLA.
In this part of his chronicle the worthy father Fray Antonio Agapida indulges in triumphant exultation over the downfall of Zahara. Heaven sometimes speaks (says he) through the mouths of false prophets for the confusion of the wicked. By the fall of this fortress was the prediction of the santon of Granada in some measure fulfilled, that "the ruins of Zahara should fall upon the heads of the infidels." ”

“ Now as she peeped through the lattice in the screen she could see the Greek haggling with Grantham and a tall gray-haired man whom she supposed to be Sir Horace Tipton. They were debating the additional fees to be paid if Zahara, the Star of Egypt, was to present the secret and wonderful dance of which all men had heard but which only a true daughter of the ancient tribe of the Ghawazi could perform. ”

“ She could not understand why as her power of winning men increased her power to hold them diminished. Safiyeh was a mere inexperienced child—yet Agapoulos had brought her to the house, and Zahara, wise in woman's lore, had recognized the familiar change of manner. ”

“ Agapoulos was dressing and would not be disturbed. Hassan went back to those who waited, but ere long returned again chattering volubly to himself. Going behind the carven screen he rapped upon the door of Zahara's room, and she directed him to come in. To Zahara, Hassan was no more than a piece of furniture, and she thought as little of his intruding while she was in the midst of her toilet as another woman would have thought of the entrance of a maid.
“Two men,” reported Hassan, “who won't go away until they see somebody.” ”

“ The view from the crumbling towers is superb, and the little town climbing up the precipitous hill is full of interesting remains, the most important [95] of which is perhaps a square yard of red silk of Arabic manufacture called tafetán, with the remains of some Arabic characters in white. This was the banner of the Moslems, surrendered after the fall of Granada to Ferdinand and Isabella. It is now regarded as a religious relic, and is carried once a year in procession through the streets after the image of the patron saint of Zahara. ”

“ Zara, the Captive Queen, is beyond comparison the strong character of this play. There is a spice and fire even in her wickedness, which make her terribly attractive, and give her a more powerful hold on the sympathies than the decorous and dolorous Almeria, for all her virtuous sorrows and perplexities. Zara's passion is of the true Oriental type, leaping from the extremes of love and hate with the fierceness and rapidity of lightning. ”

“ Why gaze ye not, Xarifa, with all the gazing town?
Hear, hear the trumpet how it swells, and how the people cry!
He stops at Zara's palace gate--why sit ye still--oh, why?"
"At Zara's gate stops Zara's mate; in him shall I discover
The dark-eyed youth pledged me his truth with tears, and was my lover?
I will not rise, with dreary eyes, nor lay my cushion down,
To gaze on false Andalla with all the gazing town!"
ZARA'S EAR-RINGS
"My ear-rings! my ear-rings! they've dropped into the well,
And what to say to Muça, I cannot, cannot tell." ”

“ I, my lord, have never plotted or rebelled against you."
"Answer my question, Zara. Do you know anything about this plot? Yes or no. Say no, and I shall believe you."
"Your slave has never plotted against her lord," replied I. "Further I cannot answer your question."
"Then it is true;—and Zara—even Zara is false!" cried the sultan, clasping his hands in agony. "O! where can a person in my situation find one who is faithful and true, when Zara, even Zara is false?"
"No—no, my lord," cried I, bursting into tears; "Zara is true;—always has been, always will be, true. ”

“ Take my jewels, my lord, and present them to her, they will make her more beautiful in your sight—to me they are now worthless. Go to her, and in a few days you will forget that ever there was such a person as the unhappy, the neglected, the disgraced, and polluted Zara.” And I burst into tears, for even with all his ill usage, I was miserable at the idea of parting with him; for what will not a woman forgive to a man who has obtained her favour and her love?
“What can I do to prove that I repent?” cried the sultan. “Tell me, Zara. I have supplicated for pardon, what more can I do?” ”

“ Add to this the personality of the Princess Zara, her half hesitating smile of welcome in which pleasure and dread were equally mingled; suffuse her face with a quick blush, and instantly replace it with a touch of pallor; render her manner with a suggestion of hauteur, softened by a gesture of timidity and doubt; listen to her voice, low-toned and infinitely calm yet vibrating in a minor chord of uncertainty and dread; feel the clasp of her hand, cold when it touches yours, yet instantly thrilling you with a glow induced by the contact, and—remain thoroughly master of yourself if you can. ”

“ I stood before her, not with bowed head, as perhaps I might have done had my true feelings been expressed, but with bowed and stricken heart, suddenly aware that I had gained the glory of her love only to lose it, and in a manner which carried with it no redress.
"I have completed an organization of men, Zara," I went on, calmly, and in a tone which I endeavored to render as monotonous as possible, "that has for its purpose the undoing of nihilism, as it is now practiced. That body of men extends, in its ramifications, throughout St. Petersburg, and even to other cities of Russia. ”

“ Zarah turned deadly pale; her frame trembled. "Oh, Lycidas, have mercy upon me!" she gasped. "It is sin in me even to listen; it were cruelty to suffer you to hope. Our law forbids a daughter of Abraham to wed a Gentile; to return your love would be rebellion against my God, apostasy from the faith of my fathers; better to suffer—better to die!"—and with an effort releasing her icy-cold hand from the clasp of the man whom she loved, Zarah sprang hurriedly past him, and with the speed of a frightened gazelle fled up the staircase, and back into the chamber in which she had left Hadassah. ”

“ Time became a blank; the world was blotted out; existence was only an incident; we, ourselves, with our bodies, our energies, our capabilities, had become mere atoms in the immensity of that greatest of all God's creations, Love.
There were murderers waiting in the street to do me to death; I thanked God for their presence, since because of it, Zara had been brought to the confession and expression of her love for me. She was a nihilist queen and she had played with the affections of men in order to stupefy them to her purposes, as demanded by the cause she served ”

“ Zara de Echeveria needed no adornment to emphasize the attractions of her gorgeous self. She was one of those rare women who are rendered more attractive by the absence of all ornament and her dark eyes were more luminous and brilliant than any jewel she might have worn. Her gown, though rich, was simplicity itself, and inasmuch as her servants had found time during the hours since their arrival, to decorate the rooms according to the princess' tastes, she was surrounded by much the same settings that would have been contained in her own palatial home at St. Petersburg. ”

“ Thy girl's heart is too selfish to forego its own joy for his sake. Thou dost not love enough to sacrifice thy happiness to win his freedom. I had thought more nobly of thee, Zara.
[Pg 125] Zara. I will be worthy all thou mayst have thought me; but thou canst little know the desolation thou hast brought me. Thou shalt see how deeply thou hast wronged me, and my love. I will bear all, suffer all, if it will win the life and liberty of him I love so deeply and so well. ”

“ It was Zara who spoke first, however, looking suddenly up in her companion's face with one of her bright and sparkling smiles, and saying, "It is a strange house, is it not, Sir Edward? and we are a strange family?"
"Nay, I do not see that," replied the young officer. "With every new person whose acquaintance we make, we are like a traveller for the first time in a foreign country, and must learn the secrets of the land before we can find our way rightly."
"Oh, secrets enough here!" cried Zara. "Every one has his secret but myself. I have none, thank God! My good father is full of them ”

“ I hurried through the hall and up the staircase quickly, and should have gone straight into Zara's boudoir had I not heard a sound of voices which caused me to stop precipitately outside the door. Zara was speaking. Her low, musical accents fell like a silver chime on the air.
"I have told you," she said, "again and again that it is impossible. You waste your life in the pursuit of a phantom; for a phantom I must be to you always—a mere dream, not a woman such as your love would satisfy. You are a strong man, in sound health and spirits; you care for the world and the things that are in it. ”

“ She did not fall. She took a step forward, and knelt quietly and decorously by Ayesha’s side, as if for night prayers. Her volcanic language contrasted strangely with the imperturbable tranquillity of her demeanour.
Zoraiya. Oh! Zara, thou hast slain her, slain the fair flower of Granada. The darling of Hiaya’s heart is dead.
Spanish Lady. The girl speaks truth. ’Twas Zara’s arm that struck.
Zoraiya (conscientiously) . From this hour I do renounce the creed [Pg 66] whose fatal worship of bad passions has led thee on, step by step, to this blood-guiltiness. ”

“ Petersburg, the city itself, nihilism, Russia, the czar had ceased to exist for me, however. Whatever she may have seen upon the street that had brought that startled cry to her lips, and had made her turn about and grasp my arm, had also brought into her countenance an expression of such overwhelming and overpowering concern for me, that I knew with a perfect knowledge in that instant, that Zara loved me.
Have you ever been swayed by an impulse that is utterly beyond your control, and before which all other considerations degenerate to such utter insignificance as not to exist at all? ”

“ For a long time after that we were silent, and Zara was the first to rouse from our mutual revery.
"Dubravnik," she said, and you can have no idea how sweetly that name was made to sound by her utterance of it, "I have not yet completed the story I was telling you; but there is only a little more, and you must hear it."
"Yes," I replied. "As you will, Zara. I am content. But need we go more deeply into the sorrows of that poor girl and her suffering brother? Let us rather talk of the great joy that has come to us. There seems to be nothing but joy in the world, when I look into your eyes. ”

“ In the death-scene, where the full tide of womanly feeling, which has been driven out of Zara's heart by the volcanic shocks of fierce passions, comes pouring back with whelming force, Zelma lost none of her power, but won new laurels, bedewed with tears from "eyes unused to weep." ”

“ I have found him to be a man who is worthy of much admiration; a man for whom I have infinite respect and esteem, notwithstanding the charges you make against him, and the things of which you deem him guilty." She made a gesture of repulsion, but I took no notice of it, and went on. "I find now, Zara, in the light of what has occurred here between us, and in the glory of our great love, that I must tell you who and what I am, and how it happens that I am here with you, at this moment." She bowed her head in acknowledgment of my statement, but made no reply in words. ”

“ He hath borne arms against thy king, slain thy kindred, brought woe and desolation thro' the land our fathers gave us. And thou wouldst plead for him! Shame on thee! Thou art no true daughter of thy suffering country if thou canst waste one tear on those who were well lodged in our most dreary dungeons. Call thy pride to aid thee, Zara, and be worthy of thy noble name.
Zara. Father, thou hast often told me woman's lot was 'mid the quiet scenes of home, and that no thoughts of fame or glory should lie within a heart where only gentleness and love should dwell ”