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The Princess And The Jewel Doctor
by
“To-day they sell jewels by auction near the Mosquee Djama-ez-Zitouna,” he said. “Would the gracious Princess like to see the market of the jewels?”
The Princess put her hand to her eyes and assented in a low voice. Abdul turned out of the sunshine into a narrow alley covered with a wooden roof. It was full of shadows and of squatting men, who held out brown hands to the Princess as she passed. But she was staring at the shadows and did not see the merchants of Goblin Market. Leaving this alley Abdul led her abruptly into a dense crowd of Arabs, who were all talking, gesticulating, and moving hither and thither, apparently under the influence of extreme excitement. Many of them held rings, bracelets, or brooches between their fingers, and some extended palms upon which lay quantities of uncut jewels–turquoises, sapphires, and emeralds. At a little distance a grave man was noting down something in a book. But the Princess scarcely observed the progress of the jewel auction. Her attention had been attracted by an extraordinary figure that stood near her. This was an immensely tall Arab, dressed in a dingy brown robe, and wearing upon his shaven head, which narrowed almost to a point at the back, a red fez with a large black tassel. His claw-like hands were covered with rings and his bony wrists with bracelets. But the attention of the Princess was riveted by his eyes. They were small and bright, and squinted horribly–so horribly, that it was impossible to tell at what he was looking. These eyes gave to his face an expression of diabolic and ruthless vigilance and cunning. He seemed at the same time to be seeing everything and to be gazing definitely at nothing.
“That is Safti, the jewel doctor,” murmured Abdul in the ear of the Princess.
“A jewel doctor! What is that?” asked the Princess.
“When you are sick he cures you with jewels.”
“And what can he cure?” said the Princess, still looking at Safti, who was now bargaining vociferously with a fat Arab for a piece of milk-white jade.
“All things. I was sick of a fever that comes with the summer. He gave me a stone crushed to a powder, and I was well. He saved from death one of the Bey’s sons, who was dying from hijada. And then, too, he has a stone in a ring which can preserve sight to him who is going blind.”
The Princess started violently.
“Impossible!” she cried.
“It is true,” said Abdul. “It is a green stone–like that.”
He pointed to an emerald which an Arab was holding up to the light.
The Princess put her hand to her eyes. They still ached, and her temples were throbbing furiously.
“I cannot stay here,” she said. “It is too hot. But—- tell the jewel doctor that I wish to visit him. Where does he live?”
“In a little street, Rue Ben-Ziad, in a little house. But he is rich.” Abdul spread his arms abroad. “When will the gracious Princess—-?”
“This afternoon. At–at four o’clock you will take me.”
Abdul spoke to Safti, who turned, squinted horribly at the Princess, and salaamed to her with a curious and contradictory dignity, turning his fingers, covered with jewels, towards the earth.
That afternoon, at four, when the venerable Madame de Rosnikoff was still drinking her weak tea and reading her French novel, the Princess and Abdul stood before the low wooden door of the jewel doctor’s house. Abdul struck upon it, and the terrible physician appeared in the dark aperture, looking all ways with his deformed eyes, which fascinated the Princess. Having ascertained that he could speak a little broken French, like many of the Tunisian Arabs, she bade Abdul wait outside, and entered the hovel of the jewel doctor, who shut close the door behind her.
The room in which she found herself was dark and scented. Faint light from the street filtered in through an aperture in the wall, across which was partially drawn a wooden shutter. Round the room ran a divan covered with straw matting, and Safti now conducted the Princess ceremoniously to this, and handed her a cup of thick coffee, which he took from a brass tray that was placed upon a stand. As she sipped the coffee and looked at the pointed head and twisted gaze of Safti, the Princess heard some distant Arab at a street corner singing monotonously a tuneless song, and the scent, the darkness, the reiterated song, and the tall, strange creature standing silently before her gave to her, in their combination, the atmosphere of a dream. She found it difficult to speak, to explain her errand.