While Bugles Blow!

 

An offer came from the crowd.

 

The girl, standing there stripped before this barrage of eyes, hung her head. Her hair was long and brown and fell so as to partly hide her delicately featured face. Her eyes, blacked with kohl, flicked upward every few seconds to look at the men who bid for her.

 

“A rotten shame,” thought the Lieutenant.

 

Offers were buffeted about. The auctioneer bellowed and roared, told funny stories, extolled the virtues of Jeppa women and finally brought a bidder up to a good price.

 

The money was paid on the spot. The big-chested, hairy-faced Berber took his merchandise. The girl, to the Lieutenant’s surprise, went willingly enough.

 

“And now!” cried the auctioneer. “We have the best of the lot. I have here a jewel, a flame-colored flower, worth a sultan’s ransom. Untouched, pure as spring water, brought up in the harem, the very harem of Kirzigh himself. She is the finest of all. When she looks at you, you think two moons have risen. When she sighs you think the gentle breezes have cooled your brows. When she talks you think that nightingales have swarmed down from the heavens. She is a gift of Allah, more beautiful than the houris themselves. Her waist could be encircled with the smallest hand. A glimpse of her face and figure would pull a dead man from his shroud. And her hair! It is the color of the dawn, of the evening. It is the color of silk beyond value. It is a crown of molten gold flowing across her milk white shoulders. My brothers, gaze upon this woman and be confounded!”

 

He threw back a drape, dramatically bringing forth another article.

 

The Lieutenant had, until now, thought that this was just some pat speech of the auctioneer’s. The Lieutenant had seen many, many Arab and Berber women. Some of them were very pretty, yes, but not like this one.

 

My God, no!

 

She was all the auctioneer said and more, and the Lieutenant began to think poorly of the auctioneer’s oratorical abilities.

 

She was beautiful, but the mention of it made that word pale and insipid.

 

In all his life, in magazines, on the screen, the Lieutenant had never beheld such a face or such a figure.

 

Her hair was golden red, her eyes were clear and alive and gray. She looked down into the crowd as though she gazed upon so many mangy camels.

 

The crowd said not a word. Not one man there breathed for the space of a dozen heartbeats.

 

Suddenly an engulfing roar soared skyward. They slapped each other and slapped themselves and laughed and cheered and howled with pleasure.

 

The auctioneer, conscious that he had done something great, puffed up considerably, stroked his beard and waited for them to grow quiet.

 

The girl was haughty and unafraid. It was her voice which struck the crowd into silence.

 

“What one among you dares make a bid for Morgiana, Buddir al Buddor, daughter of the Caid?”

 

They gaped at her. Never in the history of Harj had a woman captive had the courage to speak from the auction block.

 

“Why don’t you bid?” she cried. “Look at me. I am beautiful. I am worth ten thousand pieces of gold. Buy me as you buy a camel or a barb. Bid, beasts, and show me which one among you wants me the most.”

 

For seconds nothing sounded but the clattering of palms in the public square. Then a stately Berber stepped forward and cried, “One hundred pieces of gold I bid for the honor of breaking that woman’s spirit.”

 

Another voice roared, “Two hundred pieces of gold.”

 

A third cried, “Three hundred.”

 

The first bidder, stroking his beard, looked up at the girl thoughtfully.

 

She called to him. “Am I not worth it? Will you not bid five hundred, you malformed ox? Bid and show them, and then I’ll show you which one of us is broken first.”

 

The Lieutenant was still dazed. His heart was beating queerly and gave little bumps every time her white teeth flashed. Then he tried to catch hold of himself. This was no way for the conqueror of Harj to act. No way at all.

 

He felt something press against his side. His fingers closed on a terrific weight. He glanced down.

 

Just as though some spirit had come to him unseen and had departed without noise, he found himself possessed of a big sack. It jingled.

 

“Bid!” cried the girl. “Buy me for a bargain at ten thousand pieces of gold. Ah, you’re afraid. Afraid I might tear your eyes out of your heads and pluck your beards, hair by hair. We’ll see about that. Bid!”

 

The Lieutenant raised the bag to shoulder height. The auctioneer stared blankly at him and at the sack.

 

The Lieutenant threw the money to the block. The bag broke and gold scattered over it like a torrent of sunlight.

 

The auctioneer’s helpers dashed forward and scooped up the wealth. To their practiced eyes, it amounted to some seven or eight hundred pieces of gold.

 

The crowd cheered. In the middle of a nightmare, the Lieutenant stepped up, took the girl’s hand in his own and tried to pull her away with him.

 

She stood where she was. He touched her again and their eyes met and clashed.

 

Suddenly she seized his hand, jerked it toward her and sank her teeth in it to the bone.

 

The sudden pain of it made the Lieutenant strike. The girl reeled back, dropping his hand. He looked down at the flowing blood. A stain as red as his own was against the girl’s cheek.

 

In Shilha, the Lieutenant said, “Come with me.”

 

She withdrew a little farther, head erect, glaring, drawing the cloak the auctioneer had handed her tightly about her white body.

 

The Lieutenant knew he was acting a fool. The girl hated him and, suddenly, he hated the girl.

 

In a voice as hard as Toledo steel, he said, “Come with me or stay where you are. I care very little what you do. I bought you with no intention of giving you anything but your liberty. You can stay here and be damned!”

 

He about-faced, started down. The crowd opened a path for him.

 

Heels ringing on the stones, he went across the square and turned down a side street, heading back for the fort.

 

He stopped and looked back.

 

The girl was ten feet behind him and they were, for the moment, alone.

 

Nothing had altered in her manner. She was merely following him because she could do nothing else.

 

“Walk beside me, if you’ll walk at all,” said the Lieutenant, harshly.

 

“Slaves,” she said, “always follow at a respectful distance.” Her voice purred in a deadly way. “Lead on, my master.”