And, at the mention of the enemies of his country, the General indulged in a wink. When he was ready to go, he sent the Lieutenant to order his horse, much as if he had been a little boy of ten years old; and on taking leave added half a dozen commissions in the same peremptory tone.
The poor Lieutenant listened very submissively, but no sooner had the General dashed down the street, followed by his servant, equally well mounted, than he grew gay and easy again.
As soon as we were alone, Mary brought out her slender supply of gala dresses, and we discussed the important subject of her toilet of the next evening.
"It seems to me," I said, "that if you dress for the Lieutenant, you will displease the Capitaine; if you dress for the Capitaine, you will displease the Commandant; and if you dress for the Commandant, you will displease the General."
Mary gathered up her fineries in alarm. "Don"t you think I had better stay away from the dinner altogether, Tom?"
"By no means," I said; "settle the matter by dressing to please me."
Which she accordingly did, and the result was a semi-moresque, dainty, and glowing bit of costume quite in keeping with the time and place.
II.
Precisely at seven o"clock we presented ourselves at the Commandant"s, Mary looking very pretty in her transparent white dress, brilliant sack of Tunis silk, and necklets and bracelets of coral and palm-seeds. The little thing had such loving, dark eyes, such a soft bloom on her cheeks, and such a sweet mouth, that I could hardly blame the General for wishing to have her sit beside him at dinner. The Commandant, being a little shy, would have given up all his privileges as host, but the General insisted upon the Commandant leading her in, and she sat between the two. It was very mortifying for the Capitaine and the Lieutenant; the former made an effort to be complimentary and entertaining across the table, but the latter looked quite crestfallen, and hardly raised his eyes from his plate. When we retired to the drawing-room, matters went a little better. The tame gazelle was brought in for Mademoiselle Marie to see; and while the General and the Commandant had a long discussion on military affairs, the rest of us sported with the pretty creature and made pleasant plans for the morrow.
Then an amusing game of cards was set on foot, over which we were growing very merry, when up came the General and the Commandant.
"Eh, bien!" said the General, slyly nudging the Capitaine. "We have not been so engrossed, but we heard one or two pleasant things talked of.
Upon my word, Capitaine, I am half disposed not to go to Mascara till after your picnic to the water-falls."
"You will do my poor little fete great honor, mon General," answered the Capitaine, adding, navely, "but I think that the wild geese flying northwards means rain."
"Not a bit of it. We shall have no rain until a fortnight after Christmas. Mademoiselle Marie, I shall do myself the honor of offering you one of my horses to ride."
"Mademoiselle has already condescended to accept mine," the Capitaine put in, with stiffness.
"Mademoiselle Marie, this gentleman has no horse fit to carry a lady.
The brute he offers you has no more mouth than an elephant. Keep on the safe side and ride mine, which is a lamb, I a.s.sure you, mademoiselle,--a lamb."
The General spoke in jest, but the Capitaine was very near losing his temper. Mary being thus appealed to, thought to extricate herself from the difficulty by declaring herself half afraid to ride either horse, being an inexperienced horsewoman. But both the gentlemen had mules, and both the gentlemen"s mules were the best. Poor Mary colored, and looked at me in despair.
"I think," I said, "the safest plan will be for my sister to try the horses, and see which suits her the best."
Then the different routes to the water-falls were discussed, and the different Douars or Arab villages where it would be best to have a Diffa, or feast, provided,--Mary"s judgment being asked in every instance. All this time the Lieutenant had turned over the leaves of a newspaper very meekly, and the Commandant had caressed his tame gazelle. As soon as she could politely free herself, Mary went up to him.
"How pretty, and playful, and fond it is!" she said, stooping down to stroke the little creature. The grave face of the Commandant brightened.
"Yes; it would be very _triste_ here without the little thing."
"Do you never go to France, monsieur?"
"I shall perhaps go in two years" time; but you see, mademoiselle, that is a long time to look forward to; and if my mother should not be living, I might as well stay here."
"Do you like fighting the Arabs in the Desert, then, monsieur?"
"Mademoiselle, when one takes up the profession of arms, fighting and exile are _choses entendues_. I often sigh for a settled, domestic life; but I might have been worse off. I might have gone to Mexico, for instance."
The Commandant"s manner was so simple, so manly, and so tinged with sadness, that I think any woman would have sympathized with him as much as my little sister Mary did. She, poor child, having lived all her life in a school-room, was quite ready to make a hero of any man that smiled kindly upon her; and here were four heroes, in handsome uniforms, all smiling upon her at once! There was the sweet sense of youth drawing her to the Lieutenant; but I think the Commandant stood next in her favor, and she could not for a moment forget the courteous kindness of the other two.
"It must all be a dream, Tom," she said, as she gave me her good-night kiss; "but, oh! if it is a dream, don"t let me wake yet."
We dreamed some wonderful things in the next few days. Dominique made us get up, one morning, very early, and drove us in his little wooden gig to an Arab encampment miles away in the Desert. It was dawn when we started, and large, pale stars were shining in a violet sky; then, like a gorgeous b.u.t.terfly emerging from a dusky chrysalis, came the Eastern day, and we felt as if living in a world warmed by a hundred suns. The warm, intoxicating light took possession of our senses, and so sweet, so rarefied, so indescribably delicious was the air, that it seemed to give wings to our dull bodies. Every now and then we were overtaken by clouds of locusts, their little wings glistening like diamonds against the soft sky, or flocks of starlings darkened the air, or a serried line of wild geese pa.s.sed majestically overhead. Then we came to the tents, and at our approach a dozen dogs rushed out to snap and snarl, and a hundred little naked children scampered and scuttled across the way. A stately Bedouin made us welcome, and, while Dominique transacted business with him, his women gathered around us, chattering and grinning like children. Then we were feasted upon cous-cous-sou and figs, and took leave, after many "salamaleks."
Another day we went out hunting gazelles, bivouacking along a riverside, and feasting, Arab fashion, off a sheep roasted whole. Dominique had found a pretty little French girl, daughter of a travelling farrier, to act as Mary"s handmaid; and she now felt less isolated among so many men, and less shy, too. The poor child stood a fair chance of being spoiled, what with suddenly finding herself transformed from a school-room Cinderella to a fairy-tale princess, and having four lovers, all heroes, at once. For it was impossible to deny that the General, the Commandant, the Capitaine, and the Lieutenant all behaved like lovers, presenting her with jackal skins, ostrich plumes and eggs, rare birds, and other treasures of the Sahara. The General went so far as to give her a little negro boy about ten years old, though this gift we had accepted only temporarily, not quite knowing what to do with him when we left Teschoun.
Christmas-day came at last. Mary had artfully evaded the delicate point about horses by declaring herself afraid of every one"s beast but Dominique"s; accordingly, mounted on Dominique"s ugly hack, she led the way with the General, her long, bright hair flowing in curls over her shoulders, her cheeks glowing with excitement. The pleasure and picturesqueness of the last few days--for Mary had an artistic perception of beauty--had brought out a new side to her character; and she quite surprised me, from time to time, with her saucy humor and quick repartee.
We made a brilliant cavalcade, what with the uniforms of the officers, and the richly embroidered saddles and bright-red burnouses of our attendant spahis. After riding some miles across a monotonous tract of stony desert, we came to a majestic sierra of crag, down which fell a dozen water-falls, narrow and bright as sword-blades. A thin little stream threaded the ravine, and on its banks grew clumps of the tamarisk, the oleander, and the thuya, making an oasis grateful to the eyes. Here we sat down and ate our Christmas breakfast, with stray thoughts of village bells chiming at home, and school children l.u.s.tily singing their Christmas hymns.
Our host, the Capitaine, had provided a sumptuous feast of Desert fare,--roast quails and plovers, cous-cous-sou, figs, dates, and bananas, with the addition of champagne; and we were very merry.
"Mademoiselle," said the Capitaine, "think what our next Christmas will be if you are not here. Persuade monsieur, your brother, to purchase some land between Mascara and Teschoun, so that we shall not lose you altogether."
The General nudged the Commandant.
"You see what our friend the Capitaine is dreaming of! Mon Capitaine, your escadron is sure to be sent into the interior this spring; put all romances out of your head, my dear fellow, and do not entice monsieur into the committal of follies."
"I am not the only one to entertain romances," said the Capitaine, coolly. "You, mon General, did us all the honor to spend Christmas at Teschoun. We can but attribute such a condescension to the gracious influence of mademoiselle."
"Look well after the Commandant when I am gone, gentlemen," continued the General, looking round with a smile. "Matters are gone so far already that he loses his temper if a fellow-officer but jests with him.
What a terrible slur it would be upon the glorious annals of French-African conquest, if such a brave officer should show himself fonder of stuffing birds for an English demoiselle than running swords through ungrateful Arabs!" and the General looked round with a very comical expression of mock horror.
"Mademoiselle has indiscriminately accepted our tokens of homage," the Commandant said, maliciously.
"But it yet remains to be seen whose offering has been most acceptable to her," went on the General, adding, _au grand serieux_, "we won"t resort to duels unless absolutely necessary."
This sort of banter lasted so long that poor Mary"s cheeks burned with mixed vanity and mortification, and she made an excuse to leave us.
"And what does our Lieutenant advise monsieur to do?" asked the General,--"to settle here, or to follow his escadron to the Desert?"
Whereupon the poor Lieutenant colored, and said nothing.
What an experience it was, that Christmas-day in the Desert! The noonday sun seemed to dissolve in the warm atmosphere, and, instead of a single orb shining overhead, large and golden, we had melted suns innumerable about us, and almost lost the sense of corporeity in their charmed medium.
When the short bright day waned, and the large stars were coming out one by one, we found ourselves near home; and when the heavens had turned to bluish-black, and the stars to splendid silvery moons, we pa.s.sed under the gate of Teschoun, and saw our shadows, darker and deeper than real things, fall across the white walls of mosque and fortress. For shadow and substance lost their ident.i.ty in the Desert and one is always on the point of mistaking the one for the other: if anything, shadow is the more real of the two.
So absorbed was I in the suggestions of this mysterious beauty, that I had forgotten all about my sister"s lovers till we were fairly in our little sitting-room. Then Mary began to sigh and blush, and to hint that she thought we had better leave Teschoun very soon.
"You see, Tom, dear," she said, with tears in her eyes, "the General says he adores me, and the Commandant says he never loved any one in the world until he saw me, and the Capitaine says that if I go away he will blow his brains out, and what am I to do?"
"And the Lieutenant,--what did he say?"
"He says nothing," said Mary, looking down; "and,"--here came a sob,--"and I like him best of all!"
"But, if he does not declare the same liking for you, we must leave him out of the question, and choose between the other three, I suppose."
"He does not speak because he is too modest: I"m sure he likes me," Mary added, still ready to cry.
"His state of feeling does not help us much, unless expressed," I replied. "Meantime, what am I to say to the General, the Commandant, and the Capitaine, if they ask to marry you?"