"But of course. I see how it is." The dimples were gone, and the brightness of Josette"s eyes was overcast. She looked at Nevill wistfully, and a flash of sympathetic understanding enlightened Stephen.
No doubt she was generously solicitous for the fate of Victoria Ray, but there was something different from solicitude in her darkening eyes.
"Good! she"s jealous. She thinks Nevill"s heart"s been caught in the rebound," he told himself. But Nevill remained modestly unconscious.
"Miss Ray may arrive yet," he suggested. "We"d better stop to-day, anyhow, on the chance; don"t you think so, Stephen? and then, if there"s no news of her when we get back to Algiers, go on to interview the bride in Grand Kabylia?"
Stephen had not the heart to dispute the wisdom of this decision, though he was sure that, since Victoria was not in Tlemcen now, she would never come.
"So you think we"ve made a long journey for nothing, Mademoiselle Josette?" said Nevill.
"But yes. So it turns out."
"Seeing an old friend doesn"t count, then?"
"Oh, well, that can seem but little--in comparison to what you hoped.
Still, you can show Monsieur Knight the sights. He may not guess how beautiful they are. Have you told him there are things here as wonderful as in the Alhambra itself, things made by the Moors who were in Granada?"
"I"ve told him about all I care most for in Tlemcen," returned Nevill, with that boyish demureness he affected sometimes. "But I"m not a competent cicerone. If you want Knight to do justice to the wonders of this place, you"ll have to be our guide. We"ve got room for several large-sized chaperons in the car. Do come. Don"t say you won"t! I feel as if I couldn"t stand it."
His tone was so desperate that Josette laughed some of her brightness back again. "Then I suppose I mustn"t refuse. And I should like going--after school hours. Madame de Vaux, who is the bride of a French officer, will join us, I think, for she and I are friends, and besides, she has had no chance to see things yet. She has been busy settling in her quarters--and I have helped her a little."
"When can you start?" asked Nevill, enraptured at the prospect of a few happy hours s.n.a.t.c.hed from fate.
"Not till five."
His face fell. "But that"s cruel!"
"It would be cruel to my children to desert them sooner. Don"t forget I am malema--malema before all. And there will be time for seeing nearly everything. We can go to Sidi Bou-Medine, afterwards to the ruins of Mansourah by sunset. Meanwhile, show your friend the things near by, without me; the old town, with its different quarters for the Jews, the Arabs, and the Negroes. He will like the leather-workers and the bakers, and the weavers of hacks. And you will not need me for the Grande Mosquee, or for the Mosquee of Aboul Ha.s.san, where Monsieur Knight will see the most beautiful mihrab in all the world. When he has looked at that, he cannot be sorry he has come to Tlemcen; and if he has regrets, Sidi Bou-Medine will take them away."
"Has Sidi Bou-Medine the power to cure all sorrows?" Stephen asked, smiling.
"Indeed, yes. Why, Sidi Bou-Medine himself is one of the greatest marabouts. You have but to take a pinch of earth from his tomb, and make a wish upon it. Only one wish, but it is sure to be granted, whatever it may be, if you keep the packet of earth afterwards, and wear it near your heart."
"What a shame you never told me that before. The time I"ve wasted!"
exclaimed Nevill. "But I"ll make up for it now. Thank Heaven I"m superst.i.tious."
They had forgotten Stephen, and laughing into each other"s eyes, were perfectly happy for the moment. Stephen was glad, yet he felt vaguely resentful that they could forget the girl for whose sake the journey to Tlemcen had ostensibly been undertaken. They were ready to squander hours in a pretence of sightseeing, hours which might have been spent in getting back to Algiers and so hastening on the expedition to Grand Kabylia. How selfish people in love could be! And charming as Josette Soubise was, it seemed strange to Stephen that she should stand for perfection to a man who had seen Victoria Ray.
Nevill was imploring Josette to lunch with them, chaperoned by Madame de Vaux, and Josette was firmly refusing. Then he begged that they might leave money as a gift for the malema"s scholars, and this offer she accepted, only regretting that the young men could not be permitted to give the _cadeau_ with their own hands. "My girls are so pretty," she said, "and it is a picture to see them at their embroidery frames, or the carpet making, their fingers flying, their eyes always on the coloured designs, which are the same as their ancestresses used a century ago, before the industry declined. I love them all, the dear creatures, and they love me, though I am a Roumia and an unbeliever. I ought to be happy in their affection, helping them to success. And now I must run back to my flock, or the lambs will be getting into mischief.
Au revoir--five o"clock. You will find me waiting with Madame de Vaux."
At luncheon, in the bare, cool dining-room of the hotel, Nevill was like a man in a dream. He sat half smiling, not knowing what he ate, hardly conscious of the talk and laughter of the French officers at another table. Just at the last, however, he roused himself. "I can"t help being happy. I see her so seldom. And I keep turning over in my mind what new arguments in favour of myself I can bring forward when I propose this afternoon--for of course I shall propose, if you and the bride will kindly give me the chance. I know she won"t have me--but I always do propose, on the principle that much dropping may wear away a stone."
"Suppose you break the habit just for once," ventured Stephen.
Nevill looked anxious. "Why, do you think the case is hopeless?"
"On the contrary. But--well, I can"t help feeling it would do you more good to show an absorbing interest in Miss Ray"s affairs, this time."
"So I have an absorbing interest," Nevill protested, remorsefully. "I don"t want you to suppose I mean to neglect them. I a.s.sure you----"
Stephen laughed, though a little constrainedly. "Don"t apologise, my dear fellow. Miss Ray"s no more to me than to you, except that I happened to make her acquaintance a few days sooner."
"I know," Nevill agreed, mildly. Then, after a pause, which he earnestly occupied in crumbling bread. "Only I"m head over ears in love with another woman, while you"re free to think of her, or any other girl, every minute of the day."
Stephen"s face reddened. "I am not free," he said in a low voice.
"I beg your pardon. I hoped you were. I still think--you ought to be."
Nevill spoke quickly, and without giving Stephen time to reply, he hurried on; "Miss Ray may arrive here yet. Or she may have found out about Mouni in some other way, and have gone to see her in Grand Kabylia--who knows?"
"If she were merely going there to inquire about her sister, why should she have to make a mystery of her movements?"
"Well, it"s on the cards that whatever she wanted to do, she didn"t care to be bothered with our troublesome advice and offers of help. Our interest was, perhaps, too pressing."
"Mademoiselle Soubise is of that opinion, anyhow--in regard to you,"
remarked Stephen.
"What--that angel _jealous_? It"s too good to be true! But I"ll relieve her mind of any such idea."
"If you"ll take one more tip from me, I"d leave her mind alone for the present."
"Why, you flinty-hearted reprobate?"
"Well, I"m no authority. But all"s fair in love and war. And sometimes an outsider sees features of the game which the players don"t see."
"That"s true, anyhow," Nevill agreed. "Let"s _both_ remember that--eh?"
and he got up from the table abruptly, as if to keep Stephen from answering, or asking what he meant.
They had several empty hours, between the time of finishing luncheon, and five o"clock, when they were to meet Mademoiselle Soubise and her chaperon, so they took Josette"s advice and went sightseeing.
Preoccupied as he was, Stephen could not be indifferent to the excursion, for Tlemcen is the shrine of gems in Arab architecture, only equalled at Granada itself. Though he was so ignorant still of eastern lore, that he hardly knew the meaning of the word mihrab, the arched recess looking towards Mecca, in the Mosque of the lawyer-saint Aboul Ha.s.san, held him captive for many moments with its beauty. Its ornamentation was like the spread tail of Nevill"s white peac.o.c.k, or the spokes of a silver wheel incrusted with an intricate pattern in jewels.
Not a mosque in town, or outside the gates, did they leave unvisited, lest, as Nevill said, Josette Soubise should ask embarra.s.sing questions; and the last hour of probation they gave to the old town. There, as they stopped to look in at the workshops of the weavers, and the bakers, or stared at the hands of Fatma-Zora painted in henna on the doors of Jews and True Believers, crowds of ragged boys and girls followed them, laughing and begging as gaily as if begging were a game. Only this band of children, and heavily jewelled girls of Morocco or Spain, with unveiled, ivory faces and eyes like suns, looked at the Englishmen, as Stephen and Nevill pa.s.sed the isolated blue and green houses, in front of which the women sat in a bath of sunshine. Arabs and Jews walked by proudly, and did not seem to see that there were strangers in their midst.
When at last it was time to go back to the hotel, and motor to the ecole Indigene, Josette was ready, plainly dressed in black. She introduced her friends to the bride, Madame de Vaux, a merry young woman, blonde by nature and art, who laughed always, like the children in the Arab town.
She admired Knight far more than Caird, because she liked tall, dark men, her own husband being red and stout. Therefore, she would have been delighted to play the tactful chaperon, if Josette had not continually broken in upon her duet with Stephen, ordering them both to look at this or that.
The country through which they drove after pa.s.sing out of the gate in the modern French wall, might have been the south of England in midsummer, had it not been peopled by the dignified Arab figures which never lost their strangeness and novelty for Stephen. Here, in the west country, they glittered in finery like gorgeous birds: sky-blue jacket, scarlet fez and sash glowing behind a lacework of green branches netted with flowers, where a man hoed his fields or planted his garden.
Hung with a tapestry of roses, immense brown walls lay crumbling--ruined gateways, and shattered traces of the triple fortifications which defended Tlemcen when the Almohades were in power. By a clear rill of water gushing along the roadside, a group of delicate broken arches marked the tomb of the "flying saint," Sidi Abou Ishad el Tayer, an early Wright or Bleriot who could swim through the air; and though in his grave a chest of gold was said to be buried, no one--not even the lawless men from over the border--had ever dared dig for the treasure.
Close by, under the running water, a Moor had found a huge lump of silver which must have lain for no one could tell how many years, looking like a grey stone under a sheet of gla.s.s; nevertheless, the neighbouring tomb had still remained inviolate, for Sidi Abou Ishad el Tayer was a much respected saint, even more loved than the marabout who sent rain for the gift of a sacrificed fowl, or he who cured sore eyes in answer to prayer. Only Sidi Bou-Medine himself was more important; and presently (because the distance was short, though the car had travelled slowly) they came to the footpath in the hills which must be ascended on foot, to reach the shrine of the powerful saint, friend of great Sidi Abd el Kader.
Already they could see the minaret of the mosque, high above the mean village which cl.u.s.tered round it, rising as a flame rises against a windless sky, while beneath this shining Giralda lay half-ruined houses rejuvenated with whitewash or coats of vivid blue. They pa.s.sed up a narrow street redeemed from sordidness by a domed koubbah or two; and from the roofed balconies of cafes maures, Arabs looked down on them with large, dreamy eyes like clouded stars. All the glory and pride of the village was concentrated in the tomb and beautiful mosque of the saint whose name falls sweet on the ear as the music of a summer storm, the tinkle and boom of rain and thunder coming together: Sidi Bou-Medine.
Toddling girls with henna-dyed hair, and miniature brown men, like blowing flower-petals in scarlet, yellow, and blue, who had swarmed up the street after the Roumis, stopped at the portals of the mosque and the sacred tomb. But there was a humming in the air like the song of bees, which floated rhythmically out from the zaoua, the school in the mosque where many boys squatted cross-legged before the aged Taleb who taught the Koran; bowing, swaying towards him, droning out the words of the Prophet, some half asleep, nodding against the onyx pillars.
In the shadow of the mosque it was cool, though the crown of the minaret, gemmed with priceless tiles from Fez, blazed in the sun"s rays as if it were on fire. Into this coolness the four strangers pa.s.sed, involuntarily hushing their voices in the portico of decorated walls and hanging honeycombs of stucco whence, through great doors of ancient, greenish bronze (doors said to have arrived miraculously from across the sea), they found their way into a courtyard open to the sky, where a fountain waved silver plumes over a marble basin. Two or three dignified Arab men bathed their feet in preparation for the afternoon prayer, and tired travellers from a distance slept upon mats of woven straw, spread on tiles like a pavement of precious stones, or dozed in the little cells made for the students who came in the grand old days. The sons of Islam were reverent, yet happy and at home on the threshold of Allah"s house, and Stephen began to understand, as Nevill and Josette already understood, something of the vast influence of the Mohammedan religion.
Only Madame de Vaux remained flippant. In the car, she had laughed at the women m.u.f.fled in their hacks, saying that as the men of Tlemcen were so tyrannical about hiding female faces, it was strange they did not veil the hens and cows. In the shadowy mosque, with its five naves, she giggled at the yellow babouches out of which her little high-heeled shoes slipped, and threatened to recite a French verse under the delicate arch of the pale blue mihrab.