Layelah was watchful of Almah; she seemed studying her to see how far this woman of another race differed from the Kosekin. She would often turn from me and talk with Almah for a long time, questioning her about her people and their ways. Almah"s manner was somewhat reserved, and it was rendered somewhat more so from the fact that her mind was always full of the prospect of our impending doom. Each jom as it came and went brought us nearer to that awful time, and the hour was surely coming when we should be taken to the outer square and to the top of the pyramid of sacrifice.
Once Layelah sat for some time silent and involved in thought. At length she began to speak to me.
"Almah," said she, "is very different from us. She loves you and you love her. She ought to give you up. Almah, you ought to give up Atam-or, since you love him."
Almah looked confused, and made some reply to the effect that she belonged to a different race with different customs.
"But you should follow our customs. You are one of us now. You can easily find another who will take him."
Almah threw a piteous glance at me and said nothing.
"I," said Layelah, "will take him."
She spoke these words with an air of magnanimity, as though putting it in the light of a favor to Almah; but Almah did not make any reply, and after some silence Layelah spoke of something else.
Not long after we were alone together, and Layelah returned to the subject. She referred to Almah"s want of sympathy with the manners of the Kosekin, and a.s.serted that she ought to aim after a separation.
"I love her," said I, with great warmth, "and will never give her up."
"But she must give you up; it is the woman"s place to take the first step. I should be willing to take you."
As Layelah said this she looked at me very earnestly, as if anxious to see how I accepted this offer. It was for me a most embarra.s.sing moment. I loved Almah, but Layelah also was most agreeable, and I liked her very much; indeed, so much so that I could not bear to say anything that might hurt her feelings. Among all the Kosekin there was not one who was not infinitely inferior to her in my eyes. Still, I loved Almah, and I told her so again, thinking that in this way I might repel her without giving offence.
But Layelah was quite ready with her reply.
"If you love Almah," said she, "that is the very reason why you should marry me."
This made me feel more embarra.s.sed than ever.
I stammered something about my own feelings--the manners and customs of my race--and the fear that I had of acting against my own principles. "Besides," I added, "I"m afraid it would make you unhappy."
"Oh no," said Layelah, briskly; "on the contrary, it would make me very happy indeed."
I began to be more and more aghast at this tremendous frankness, and was utterly at a loss what to say.
"My father," continued Layelah, "is different from the other Kosekin, and so am I. I seek requital for love, and do not think it an evil."
A sudden thought now suggested itself, and I caught at it as a last resort.
"You have," said I, "some lover among the Kosekin. Why do you not marry him?"
Layelah smiled.
"I have no lover that I love," said she, "among the Kosekin."
My feeble effort was thus a miserable failure. I was about saying something concerning the Kosekin alphabet or something else of an equally appropriate nature, when she prevented me.
"Atam-or," said she, in a low voice.
"Layelah," said I, with my mind full of confusion.
"I love you!"
She sat looking at me with her beautiful face all aglow her dark eyes fixed on mine with an intense and eager gaze. I looked at her and said not one single word. Layelah was the first to break the awkward silence.
"You love Almah, Atam-or; but say, do you not love me? You smile at me, you meet me always when I come with warm greetings, and you seem to enjoy yourself in my society. Say, Atam-or, do you not love me?"
This was a perilous and a tremendous moment. The fact is, I did like Layelah very much indeed, and I wanted to tell her so; but my ignorance of the language did not allow me to observe those nice distinctions of meaning which exist between the words "like" and "love." I knew no other word than the one Kosekin word meaning "love,"
and could not think of any meaning "like." It was, therefore, a very trying position for me.
"Dear Layelah," said I, floundering and stammering in my confusion, "I love you; I--"
But here I was interrupted without waiting for any further words; the beautiful creature flung her arms around me and clung to me with a fond embrace. As for me, I was utterly confounded, bewildered, and desperate. I thought of my darling Almah, whom alone I loved. It seemed at that moment as though I was not only false to her, but as if I was even endangering her life. My only thought now was to clear up my meaning.
"Dear Layelah," said I, as I sat with her arms around me, and with my own around her slender waist, "I do not want to hurt your feelings."
"Oh, Atam-or! oh, my love! never, never did I know such bliss as this."
Here again I was overwhelmed, but I still persisted in my effort.
"Dear Layelah," said I, "I love Almah most dearly and most tenderly."
"Oh, Atam-or, why speak of that? I know it well. And so by our Kosekin law you give her up; among us, lovers never marry. So you take me, your own Layelah, and you will have me for your bride; and my love for you is ten thousand times stronger than that of the cold and melancholy Almah. She may marry my papa."
This suggestion filled me with dismay.
"Oh no," said I. "Never, never will I give up Almah!"
"Certainly not," said Layelah; "you do not give her up--she gives you up."
"She never will," said I.
"Oh yes," said Layelah; "I will tell her that you wish it."
"I do not wish it," said I. "I love her, and will never give her up."
"It"s all the same," said Layelah. "You cannot marry her at all. No one will marry you. You and Almah are victims and the State has given you the matchless honor of death. Common people who love one another may marry if they choose, and take the punishment which the law a.s.signs but ill.u.s.trious victims who love cannot marry, and so, my Atam-or, you have only me."
I need not say that all this was excessively embarra.s.sing I was certainly fond of Layelah, and liked her too much to hurt her feelings. Had I been one of the Kosekin I might perhaps have managed better; but being a European, a man of the Aryan race--being such, and sitting there with the beautiful Layelah lavishing all her affections upon me--why, it stands to reason that I could not have the heart to wound her feelings in any way. I was taken at an utter disadvantage.
Never in my life had I heard of women taking the initiative. Layelah had proposed to me, she would not listen to refusal, and I had not the heart to wound her. I had made all the fight I could by persisting in a.s.serting my love for Almah, but all my a.s.sertions were brushed lightly aside as trivial things.
Let any gentleman put himself in my situation, and ask himself what he would do. What would he do if such a thing could happen to him at home? But there such a thing could not happen, and so there is no use in supposing an impossible case. At any rate I think I deserve sympathy. Who could keep his presence of mind under such circ.u.mstances? With us a young lady who loves one man can easily repel another suitor; but here it was very different, for how could I repel Layelah? Could I turn upon her and say "Unhand me"? Could I say "Away!
I am another"s"? Of course I couldn"t; and what"s worse, if I had said such things Layelah would have smiled me down into silence. The fact is, it doesn"t do for women to take the initiative--it"s not fair. I had stood a good deal among the Kosekin. Their love of darkness, their pa.s.sion for death, their contempt of riches, their yearning after unrequited love, their human sacrifices, their cannibalism, all had more or less become familiar to me, and I had learned to acquiesce in silence; but now when it came to this--that a woman should propose to a man--it really was more than a fellow could stand. I felt this at that moment very forcibly; but then the worst of it was that Layelah was so confoundedly pretty, and had such a nice way with her, that hang me if I knew what to say.
Meanwhile Layelah was not silent; she had all her wits about her.
"Dear papa," said she, "would make such a nice husband for Almah. He is a widower, you know. I could easily persuade him to marry her. He always does whatever I ask him to do."
"But victims cannot marry, you said."