How often one hears of the European’s boredom whilst watching the Nautch Dance in which the Indian Nautch girl, fully clothed, indeed in high tight bodice and ankle-length, voluminous skirt, will drive her native audience clean crazy with the tapping of her feet and slight, undulating movements of the slender body and rod-like arms.  It is indeed the dullest thing on earth to watch if you are unable to follow and interpret every little movement.  But if you can—­well! the unexpurgated version of the Arabian Nights will be as milk-and-water compared to the heady brew offered for your consumption.  And the old Harrovian sitting cross-legged, upon a heap of cushions, with the smoke of the nargileh, drifting from between his lips, smiled as he picked up the thread of the same old story which had been spun for him when, an arrogant youth of twelve summers, he had ruled his house with no gentle hand.

Otherwise he showed little interest and felt no desire to lift the tantalising veil; neither did he turn his head, else might he have seen the ebony face of the Ethiopian eunuch peering from between a mass of flowers, from which point of vantage he watched the scene with intent to report thereon to his black twin-brother.

At last, and very slowly, and with a growing feeling of resentment in the place where her heart by rights should have been, Zulannah sped down the court upon her toes and fell at the edge of the piled cushions, causing the dogs to growl softly at her daring.

“Thou art a beautiful dancer, woman,” said Hugh Carden Ali, making no movement to lift the veil.  “Behold, I have passed a pleasant hour and would reward thee.  What thou wilt.  Money—­jewels?—­speak.”

From behind the wisp of veil which fluttered in the dancer’s quick breathing came the barely whispered answer.

“I hear thee not, woman; raise thy voice and be not afraid.  I will give thee what thou desirest.”

“One hour!”

The man bent forward to catch the words, and when their full import struck him, leapt to his feet and catching the woman’s wrist jerked her upright, ripping the veil from before her face.

“Zulannah!” he cried, and sprang back, having heard of the lady’s deft handling of her dagger when in the tantrums.  Then he caught both wrists and held her pinioned, looking with loathing into the exquisite, furious face, whilst the great dogs, fangs bared, ruffs upstanding, sniffed suspiciously at the knees and waist, even rising on their hind-legs to snuff the slender neck of this woman who had angered their master.

For a second he held her with arms stretched to breaking-point and henna’d toes barely touching the ground, then threw her across the cushions, whilst the dogs growled softly as they prowled, belly to ground, about the prostrate figure and the ebony-hued eunuch tore at his woolly hirsute covering amongst the flowers.

But courtesans have tears as well as other kinds of women, and they use them every whit as effectively, perhaps a bit better, on account of the stoutness of their hearts.