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Page:Walter Matthew Gallichan - Women under Polygamy (1914).djvu/222

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WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY

The spell is cast. These two are secretly enamoured. They wish to converse; they long to be alone. But a whisper in Cairo is heard a mile away. Spies lurk everywhere; they seem to hover invisibly in the air. One is never safe from them. The crafty eunuchs do not lose sight of their charge. She is watched by vigilant eyes; dogged by unseen hirelings, who hold her very life in their keeping. Even a gleam from her eyes may betray her to her custodians. Her look should be demure and downcast.

Tingling with curiosity and assailed by tyrannous desire, the stranger waits the next day, in the hope of snatching an answering flash from those peerless eyes. He is rewarded. But his triumph is marred by the approach of a dark-visaged, sullen guardian, who eyes him with a smile of cruel menace. He is an eunuch. Is this creature bribable? The young adventurer has heard of elopements from the harem, aided by the guards. He returns the eunuch's leer with a significant expression. He is now bent upon the conquest and abduction of the lovely Georgian, whose image is before him by day and night.

These things are done. By a contest in wily methods, the would-be champion and deliverer of the damsel succeeds in parleying unseen with her dusky spy. The man's palm itches for baksheesh. Probably he loves a girl in the harem, and he would like

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