CHAPTER XIV
TWO ON THE ROOF
"Come up on the roof with me, and I will tell you that thing I have been waiting to tell you," said Oureda. "Aunt Mabrouka will not follow us there, because she hates going up the narrow stairs with the high steps.
Besides, she will perhaps think I really want to show you the sunset."
Sanda had been in the Agha"s house for three days, and always since the first evening a fierce simoon had been hurling the hot sand against the shut windows like spray from a wild golden sea. It had not been possible to sit in the fountain court of the harem, the hidden garden of the women, protected though it was by four high walls. Sanda and Oureda had scarcely been alone together for more than a few minutes at a time, and even if they had been, Oureda would not have spoken. As she said, she had been waiting. Sanda had felt, during the three days, that she was being watched and studied, not only by Lella Mabrouka, but by the girl.
Their eyes were always on her; and though Sanda DeLisle was very young, and had never tried consciously to become a student of human character, it seemed to her, in these new and strange conditions of life which sharpened her powers of discernment, that she could dimly read what the brains behind the eyes were thinking.
Lella Mabrouka"s eyes, though old (as age is counted with Arab women) were beady-bright and keen as a hawk"s, yet she was clever enough to veil thought by wearing the expressionless mask of an idol in the presence of the girls. Sanda had to pierce that veil; and she felt as if from behind it a hostile thing peered out, spying for treachery in the new inmate of the house, hoping rather than fearing to find it, and ready to pounce if a chance came. The stealthy watcher seemed to be saying, "What are you here for, daughter of Christian dogs? You must have some scheme in your head to defeat our hopes and wishes; but if you have, I"ll find out what it is, and break it--break you, too, if need be."
No sinister thing looked out from the eyes of Oureda, but something infinitely sad and wistful kept repeating: "Can I trust you? Oh, I think so, I believe so, more and more. But it is so desperately important to be certain. I must wait a little while yet."
Always, through the countless inquiries of Lella Mabrouka and the girl about France and England (Ireland meant nothing to them) and Sanda"s bringing up, and the life of women in Europe, the visitor was conscious of the real questions in their souls. But on the third day the feverish anxiety had burnt itself out behind Oureda"s topaz-brown eyes. They were eager still, but clear, and her wistful smile was no longer strained. Whatever the burden was that she hid, she had decided to beg Sanda"s help in carrying or getting rid of it. And instinctively realizing this, Sanda ceased to feel that the Arab girl was of an entirely different world from hers, remote as a creature of another planet. The Agha"s daughter was transformed in the eyes of her guest.
From a mere picturesque figure in a vivid fairy tale, she became pathetically, poignantly human. Sanda began to hear the call of another soul yearning to have her soul as its friend, and all that was warm and impulsive in her responded. A thrill of expectation stirred in her veins when, on the evening of the third day, after the wind had died a sudden, swift death, Oureda whispered the real reason for going up to the roof.
Sanda had been looking forward to mounting those narrow stairs (with the steep steps which Lella Mabrouka hated), because Oureda had several times spoken of the view far away to the dunes, and the wonderful colours of sunrise and sunset, when the sky flowered like a hanging garden. Perhaps the Arab girl had been cleverly "working up" to this moment, so that the suggestion, made instantly after the death of the simoon, might seem natural to her aunt. In any case it was as Oureda had hoped. Lella Mabrouka did not follow the girls.
When they came out on the flat white expanse of roof, Sanda gave a cry of surprised admiration. She had known it would be beautiful up there, to see so far over the desert, but the real picture was more wonderful than her imagination could have painted. The sun had just dropped behind the waving line of dunes and dragged the fierce wind with him like a tiger in leash. All the world was magically still after the constant purring and roaring of the new-conquered beast. The voice of the Muezzin chanting the sunset call to prayer--the prayer of _Moghreb_--seemed only to emphasize the vast silence. Up from the shimmering gold of the western sky, behind the gold of the dunes, slowly moved along separate spears of flame-bright rose, like the fingers of a gigantic Hand of Fatma spread across the sapphire heaven to bless her father"s people.
From this flaming sign in the west poured a pink radiance as of falling rubies. The wonderful light rained over the marble whiteness of the distant mosque--the great mosque of Djazerta--and fired the whole ma.s.s of the piled oasis-town behind its dark line of palms. The light showered roses over the girls" heads and dresses, stained the snow of the roof, with its low, bubbling domes, and streaming eastward turned flat plain and far billowing dune into a sea of flame.
Sanda"s spirit worshipped the incredible beauty of the scene, and then flew northward to the two men whom she loved. She thought of her father, and wondered where Richard Stanton was at that moment. Then Max Doran"s face came between her and the man she had named "Sir Knight." She remembered her dream of herself and Max in the desert, and was vexed because she had not dreamed the same dream about Stanton instead.
"How wonderful it is here!" she half whispered, and Oureda answered impatiently:
"Yes, it is wonderful; but don"t let us talk of it, or even think of it any more, because I have so much to say to you, and Aunt Mabrouka will send to call us if my father comes. Besides, we can see this on any night when the wind does not blow."
She had in her hand a large silk handkerchief tied in the form of a bag; and sitting down on the low, queerly battlemented wall which protected the flat roof, she untied and opened the bundle on her lap. It was full of yellow grain, and she gave Sanda a handful. "That"s for the doves,"
she said. "They will know somehow that we are here, and presently they will come. If Aunt Mabrouka sends her own woman, Taous, up to listen and spy on us she will find us feeding the doves."
"But why should Lella Mabrouka do such a thing?" Sanda ventured to ask, taking the grain, and seating herself beside Oureda.
"You will understand that, and a great many other things, when I have told you what I am going to tell," answered the "Little Rose." "From books my father has let me read, and from things you have said, I have seen that Roumia girls are not like us, even in their thoughts. Perhaps you are thinking now that I am very sly; and so I am, but not because I love slyness. It is only because I have to be subtle in self-defence against those who are older and wiser than I am. Everything in our lives makes us women stealthy as cats. It is not our fault. At least, it is not mine. Some women--some girls--may enjoy the excitement, but not I.
Perhaps I am different from others, because I have the blood of Europe in my veins. My father"s mother was Sicilian. My own mother was Spanish.
And he, my father, is an enlightened man, with broader views and more knowledge of the world than most Caids of the south. They all pride themselves on knowing a little French in these days, he tells me, and some have even made visits to Paris once in their lives. But you know already what he is."
"Yes, he is a magnificent man," Sanda agreed, "even greater than I expected from what my father said of him."
She had met the Agha only once, for a ceremonious half-hour on the evening of her arrival at his house, when he had begged permission as of a visiting princess to see and welcome her; yet this punctiliousness was not neglect, but Arab courtesy; and Ben Raana had talked to her of the world in general and Paris in particular, in French, which, though somewhat stilted and guttural, was curiously Parisian in wording and expression. He was one of the handsomest men she had ever seen, scarcely darker in colour than many Frenchmen of the Midi, and marvellously dignified, with his long black beard, his great, sad eyes whose overhanging line of brow almost met above the eagle nose, and the magnificent gray, silver embroidered burnous worn in the guest"s honour.
He had appeared to Sanda years younger than the widowed Mabrouka; and though she was a dark, withered likeness of him, it was not surprising to learn that Lella Mabrouka was only a half-sister of the Agha, born of an Arab mother.
"You know he has had but one wife, my own mother," Oureda said proudly.
"That is considered almost a sin in our religion, yet he could never bring himself to look with love on any woman, after her, nor to give her a rival, even for the sake of having a son. I adore him for that--how could I help it, since he says I am her image?--and for letting me learn things Arab girls of the south are seldom taught, in order that I may have something of her cleverness that held his love, as her beauty won it. Yet, if he had married a second wife when my mother died, and she had given him a son, my life would be happier now."
"How can that be?" asked Sanda. "I couldn"t love my father in the way I do if he had put somebody else in my mother"s place, and spoiled all the beautiful romance."
"My father"s romance with my mother was like a strange poem, for she was the daughter of Catholic Spanish people, who had an orange plantation near Blida, and wished her to enter a convent. But my father rode by with some French officers and saw her on her way to church. That one look decided their whole lives. Yes, it would have been a pity to spoil their romance; yet, keeping its poetry is spoiling mine."
"You mean your Aunt Mabrouka. But a stepmother might be worse."
"No, it isn"t only Aunt Mabrouka I am thinking of. It is her son, who is my father"s heir because he has no son of his own. My father is very enlightened in many ways, but in others he is as narrow and hard as the rest of our people, who hold to their old customs more firmly than they hold to life. My father intends me for the wife of Si Tahar, who met and brought you to our house."
Sanda could not keep back a little gasp of dismay. "Oh, no! it"s not possible!" she cried. "You"re so beautiful, and so fair. He"s so--so----"
"Hideous. Don"t be afraid to say the word to me. I love you for it. But because Tahar"s not deformed from birth, and the strength and beauty of the line isn"t threatened, his looks make no difference to my father. To him it seems far more important that I should be the wife of the heir, so that money and land need not be divided after his death, than that I should love my husband before my marriage. You see, that can hardly ever happen to a girl of our race and religion. If Tahar were not my cousin I should never even have seen him, nor he me. And if I had not seen him, it would perhaps be a little better, for there would be the excitement and mystery of the unknown. We are brought up to expect that; and if already I hadn"t learned to dislike Tahar for his own sake and his mother"s, I should be no worse off than other girls--except for one thing: _the great thing of my life_."
Her voice fell lower than before, and her companion on the wall had to bend close to catch the whisper. "What is that thing?" Sanda dropped the words into a frightened pause, while Oureda"s glance went quickly to the well of the staircase.
"It is what I came here to tell you about," the Arab girl answered. "I forced myself to wait, but now I am sure of you as if you were my own sister. We are going to open our hearts to each other. Do you know what it is to have a man in your life--a man who is not father or brother, and yet is of great importance to you; so great that you think of him by day and dream of him by night?"
"Yes, there are two such men in my life," Sanda replied; and was surprised at herself that she should have said two. More truly there was only one man, not counting her father, who had a place in her thoughts.
"Two men!" Oureda echoed, looking shocked. "But how can there be two?"
Sanda felt herself blushing and ashamed before the woman of another race. She tried to explain, though it was difficult, because she had given the answer without stopping to think: indeed, it had almost spoken itself. "I fancy I said that because you asked me about dreams,"
she apologized. "The man who has been my hero all my life--and always will be, I suppose, though he doesn"t care for me and thinks of me as a child--I can"t dream of, for some strange reason. He"s seldom out of my thoughts by day for very long, I believe; but the other--I hardly know why I mentioned him!--is only a friend, and quite a new friend. He"s nothing to me at all, really, though I"m interested in him because of the strange way we met and were thrown together. But the odd thing is, I dream of him--often."
"The women of my people say it is the man you dream of who has touched your soul," Oureda said thoughtfully.
"That"s a very poetical idea, but I"m sure it isn"t true!" Sanda exclaimed. "Now tell me about yourself, because if Lella Mabrouka should send----"
"Yes, I am, oh, so anxious to tell you! But what you said about the man of your thoughts and the man of your dreams was very queer, and made me forget for an instant. I am glad you love some one, for that will help you to understand me, and by and by you will tell me more. Already I can see that you must be almost as unhappy as I am, because you say the one you care for doesn"t care for you. That must be terrible, but you are free, and perhaps some day you can make him care. As for me, if I am not saved soon, I shall be married to Tahar and lost forever."
"But surely your father, who loves you so dearly, won"t actually force you to marry against your will?"
"He will expect me to obey, and I shall have to obey or--kill myself.
Rather that, only--oh, Sanda, I am a coward! At the last minute my courage might fail. The one thing my father would promise was that I should be left as I am till my seventeenth birthday. That very day is fixed for the beginning of the marriage feast. We shall have a whole week of rejoicing. Think of the horror of it for me! I had a year of hope when he made the promise. Now I have less than six months. And in all that time nothing has happened."
Sanda saw by the girl"s look and guessed by the quiver of her voice that she was not speaking vaguely. There was something in particular which she had been praying for, counting upon from day to day. And that thing had not happened.
CHAPTER XV
THE SECRET LINK
The Hand of Fatma was gone from the sky. Ruby had turned to amethyst, amethyst to the gray-blue of star sapphire, and the red fire of the dunes had burned out to an ashen pallor. The change had come suddenly while the girls talked; and when Sanda realized it, she shivered a little, with a touch of superst.i.tion she had learned from her two Irish aunts. All this cold whiteness after the jewelled blaze of colour was like the death of youth and hope. She pushed the thought away hastily, telling herself it had come only because Oureda had threatened to put an end to her own life rather than marry Tahar; yet it would not go far away. Like a vaguely visible, ghostly shape it seemed to stand behind the Arab girl as she talked on, telling the story of her childhood and a love that had grown with her growth.
There was another cousin, it appeared, the son of her mother"s sister.
He was all Spanish. There was not a drop of Arab blood in his veins, unless it came through Saracen ancestors in the days when Moorish kings reigned over Andalusia.
"You know, now you"ve been with us even these few days," Oureda said, "that the harem of an Arab Cad isn"t a nest of wives, as people in Europe who have never seen one suppose! My father has laughed when he told me Christians believed that. Now, Aunt Mabrouka and I and our servants are the only women in my father"s harem; but when I was a little girl, before my mother died--I can just remember her--besides my mother herself there was her sister, whose Spanish husband had been drowned at sea. An Arab man thinks it a disgrace if any women related even distantly to him or his wife are thrown on the world to make their own living. It could never happen with an Arab woman if she were respectable. And even though my mother"s sister was Spanish and a Christian, my father offered her and her boy a home. Already his own sister, Aunt Mabrouka, had come to stay with us, and had brought her son Tahar. Neither of the boys lived in the harem of course, for they were old enough to be in the men"s part of the house, and have men for their servants; but they came every day to see their mothers. Even then, though I was a tiny child, I hated Tahar--and loved Manoel Valdez. Tahar had had smallpox, and looked just as he looks now, only worse, because he has a bad chin that his beard hides; and Manoel was handsome. Oh, you can"t imagine how handsome Manoel was! He was like the ideal all girls, even Arab girls, must dream of, I think. I can see him now--as plainly as I see you in this sad, pale light that comes up from the desert at night."
"Is it long since you parted?" Sanda asked quickly, to put away that persistent thought of trouble.