"No, of course I would do nothing which could bring harm to Si Maeddine," Victoria said, the eagerness dying out of her voice. "I have kept my word with him. I have let n.o.body know--n.o.body at all. But we could trust Mr. Knight and Mr. Caird. And to see them there, in the courtyard, and let them go--it is too much!"
"Why shouldst thou consider me, whom thou hast known but a few days, when thou wouldst be hurrying on towards thy sister Sada? Yet it will surely be my death if thou makest any sign to those men. My heart would cease to beat. It beats but weakly now."
With a sigh, Victoria turned away from the moucharabia, and crossing the room to M"Barka, sat down on a rug by the side of her couch. "I do consider thee," she said. "If it were not for thee and Si Maeddine, I might not be able to get to Saidee at all; so I must not mind being delayed a few days. It is worse for thee than for me, because thou art suffering."
"When a true believer lies ill for more than three days, his sins are all forgiven him," M"Barka consoled herself. She put out a hot hand, and laid it on Victoria"s head. "Thou art a good child. Thou hast given up thine own will to do what is right."
"I"m not quite sure at this moment that I am doing what is right,"
murmured Victoria. "But I can"t make thee more ill than thou art, so I must let Mr. Knight go. And probably I shall never see him, never hear of him again. He will look for me, and then he will grow tired, and perhaps go home to England before I can write to let him know I am safe with Saidee." Her voice broke a little. She bent down her head, and there were tears in her eyes.
She heard the creaking of the gate as it shut. The motor-car had gone panting away. For a moment it seemed as if her heart would break. Just one glimpse had she caught of Stephen"s face, and it had looked to her more than ever like the face of a knight who would fight to the death for a good cause. She had not quite realized how n.o.ble a face it was, or how hard it would be to let it pa.s.s out of her life. He would always hate her if he guessed she had sat there, knowing he had come so far for her sake?--she was sure it was for her sake--and had made no sign. But he would not guess. And it was true, as Lella M"Barka said, he was nothing to her. Saidee was everything. And she was going to Saidee. She must think only of Saidee, and the day of their meeting.
Stephen had never seen an Arab cemetery; and it seemed to him that this Mussulman burial-place, scattered over two low hills, in the midst of desert wastes, was beautiful and pathetic. The afternoon sunshine beat upon the koubbahs of marabouts, and the plastered graves or headstones of less important folk; but so pearly pale were they all that the golden quality of the light was blanched as if by some strange, white magic, and became like moonlight shining on a field of snow.
There were no names on any of the tombs, even the grandest. Here and there on a woman"s grave was a hand of Fatma, or a pair of the Prophet"s slippers; and on those of a few men were turbans carved in marble, to tell that the dead had made pilgrimage to Mecca. All faces were turned towards the sacred city, as Mussulmans turn when they kneel to pray, in mosque or in desert; and the white slabs, narrow or broad, long or short, ornamental or plain, flat or roofed with fantastic maraboutic domes, were placed very close together. At one end of the cemetery, only bits of pottery marked the graves; yet each bit was a little different from the other, meaning as much to those who had placed them there as names and epitaphs in European burial grounds. On the snowy headstones and flat platforms, drops of rose-coloured wax from little candles, lay like tears of blood shed by the mourners, and there was a scattered spray of faded orange blossoms, brought by some loving hand from a far-away garden in an oasis.
"Here lies my cousin, Ca.s.sim ben Halim," said the Cad, pointing to a grave comparatively new, surmounted at the head with a carved turban.
Nearer to it than any other tomb was that of a woman, beautified with the Prophet"s slippers.
"Is it possible that his wife lies beside him?" Stephen made Nevill ask.
"It is a lady of his house. I can say no more. When his body was brought here, hers was brought also, in a coffin, which is permitted to the women of Islam, with the request that it should be placed near my cousin"s tomb. This was done; and it is all I can tell, because it is all I know."
The Arab looked the Englishman straight in the eyes as he answered; and Stephen felt that in this place, so simple, so peaceful, so near to nature"s heart, it would be difficult for a man to lie to another, even though that man were a son of Islam, the other a "dog of a Christian."
For the first time he began to believe that Ca.s.sim ben Halim had in truth died, and that Victoria Ray"s sister was perhaps dead also. Her death alone could satisfactorily explain her long silence. And against the circ.u.mstantial evidence of this little grave, adorned with the slippers of the Prophet, there was only a girl"s impression--Victoria"s feeling that, if Saidee were dead, she "must have known."
The two friends stood for a while by the white graves, where the sunshine lay like moonlight on snow; and then, because there was nothing more for them to do in that place, they thanked the Cad, and made ready to go their way. Again he politely refused their offer to drive him up to his own gate, and bade them good-bye when they had got into the car.
He stood and watched it go b.u.mping away over the rough, desert road, pieces of which had been gnawed off by a late flood, as a cake is bitten round the edge by a greedy child.
They had had enough of motor-cars for that day, up there on the hill!
The Cad was glad when the sound died. The machine was no more suited to his country, he thought, than were the men of Europe who tore about the world in it, trying to interfere in other people"s business.
"El hamdou-lillah! G.o.d be praised!" he whispered, as the yellow automobile vanished from sight and Maeddine came out from the cl.u.s.ter of black tents in the yellow sand.
XXVI
Next day, Lella M"Barka was well enough to begin the march again. They started, in the same curtained carriage, at that moment before dawn while it is still dark, and a thin white cloth seems spread over the dead face of night. Then day came trembling along the horizon, and the shadows of horses and carriage grew long and grotesquely deformed. It was the time, M"Barka said, when Chitan the devil, and the evil Djenoun that possess people"s minds and drive them insane, were most powerful; and she would hardly listen when Victoria answered that she did not believe in Djenoun.
In a long day, they came to Bou-Saada, reaching the hidden oasis after nightfall, and staying in the house of the Cad with whom Stephen and Nevill had talked of Ben Halim. Lella M"Barka was related to the Cad"s wife, and was so happy in meeting a cousin after years of separation, that the fever in her blood was cooled; and in the morning she was able to go on.
Then came two days of driving to Djelfa, at first in a country strange enough to be Djinn-haunted, a country of gloomy mountains, and deep water-courses like badly healed wounds; pa.s.sing through dry river-beds, and over broken roads with here and there a bordj where men brought water to the mules, in skins held together with ropes of straw. At last, after a night, not too comfortable, spent in a dismal bordj, they came to a wilderness which any fairytale-teller would have called the end of the world. The road had dwindled to a track across gloomy desert, all the more desolate, somehow, because of the dry asparto gra.s.s growing thinly among stones. Nothing seemed to live or move in this world, except a lizard that whisked its grey-green length across the road, a long-legged bird which hopped gloomily out of the way, or a few ragged black and white sheep with n.o.body to drive them. In the heat of the day nothing stirred, not even the air, though the distance shimmered and trembled with heat; but towards night jackals padded lithely from one rock shelter to another. The carriage drove through a vast plain, rimmed with far-away mountains, red as porphyry, but fading to purple at the horizon. Victoria felt that she would never come to the end of this plain, that it must finish only with eternity; and she wished in an occasional burst of impatience that she were travelling in Nevill Caird"s motor-car. She could reach her sister in a third of the time!
She told herself that these thoughts were ungrateful to Maeddine, who was doing so much for her sake, and she kept up her spirits whether they dragged on tediously, or stopped by the way to eat, or to let M"Barka rest. She tried to control her restlessness, but feared that Maeddine saw it, for he took pains to explain, more than once, how necessary was the detour they were making. Along this route he had friends who were glad to entertain them at night, and give them mules or horses, and besides, it was an advantage that the way should be unfrequented by Europeans. He cheered her by describing the interest of the journey when, by and by, she would ride a mehari, sitting in a ba.s.sour, made of branches heated and bent into shape like a great cage, lined and draped with soft haoulis of beautiful colours, and comfortably cushioned. It would not be long now before they should come to the douar of his father the Agha, beyond El Aghouat. She would have a wonderful experience there; and according to Maeddine, all the rest of the journey would be an enchantment. Never for a moment would he let her tire. Oh, he would promise that she should be half sorry when the last day came! As for Lella M"Barka, the Rose of the West need not fear, for the ba.s.sour was easy as a cradle to a woman of the desert; and M"Barka, rightfully a princess of Touggourt, was desert-born and bred.
Queer little patches of growing grain, or miniature orchards enlivened the dull plain round the ugly Saharian town of Djelfa, headquarters of the Ouled Nals. The place looked unprepossessingly new and French, and obtrusively military; dismal, too, in the dusty sand which a wailing wind blew through the streets; but scarcely a Frenchman was to be seen, except the soldiers. Many Arabs worked with surprising briskness at the loading or unloading of great carts, men of the Ouled Nals, with eyes more mysterious than the eyes of veiled women; tall fellows wearing high shoes of soft, pale brown leather made for walking long distances in heavy sand; and Maeddine said that there was great traffic and commerce between Djelfa and the M"Zab country, where she and he and M"Barka would arrive presently, after pa.s.sing his father"s douar.
Maeddine was uneasy until they were out of Djelfa, for, though few Europeans travelled that way, and the road is hideous for motors, still it was not impossible that a certain yellow car had slipped in before them, to lie in wait. The Cad"s house, where they spent that night, was outside the town, and behind its closed doors and little windows there was no fear of intruders. It was good to be sure of shelter and security under a friend"s roof; and so far, in spite of the adventure at Ben Sliman"s, everything was going well enough. Only--Maeddine was a little disappointed in Victoria"s manner towards himself. She was sweet and friendly, and grateful for all he did, but she did not seem interested in him as a man. He felt that she was eager to get on, that she was counting the days, not because of any pleasure they might bring in his society, but to make them pa.s.s more quickly. Still, with the deep-rooted patience of the Arab, he went on hoping. His father, Agha of the Ouled-Serrin, reigned in the desert like a petty king. Maeddine thought that the douar and the Agha"s state must impress her; and the journey on from there would be a splendid experience, different indeed from this interminable jogging along, cramped up in a carriage, with M"Barka sighing, or leaning a heavy head on the girl"s shoulder. Out in the open, Victoria in her ba.s.sour, he on the horse which he would take from his father"s goum, travelling would be pure joy. And Maeddine had been saving up many surprises for that time, things he meant to do for the girl, which must turn her heart towards him.
Beyond Djelfa, on the low mountains that alone broke the monotony of the dismal plain, little watch-towers rose dark along the sky-line--watch-towers old as Roman days. Sometimes the travellers met a mounted man wearing a long, hooded cloak over his white burnous; a cavalier of the Bureau Arabe, or native policeman on his beat, under the authority of a civil organization more powerful in the Sahara than the army. These men, riding alone, saluted Si Maeddine almost with reverence, and Lella M"Barka told Victoria, with pride, that her cousin was immensely respected by the French Government. He had done much for France in the far south, where his family influence was great, and he had adjusted difficulties between the desert men and their rulers. "He is more tolerant than I, to those through whom Allah has punished us for our sins," said the woman of the Sahara. "I was brought up in an older school; and though I may love one of the Roumis, as I have learned to love thee, oh White Rose, I cannot love whole Christian nations.
Maeddine is wiser than I, yet I would not change my opinions for his; unless, as I often think, he really----" she stopped suddenly, frowning at herself. "This dreariness is not _our_ desert," she explained eagerly to the girl, as the horses dragged the carriage over the sandy earth, through whose hard brown surface the harsh, colourless blades of _drinn_ p.r.i.c.ked like a few spa.r.s.e hairs on the head of a shrivelled old man. "In the Sahara, there are four kinds of desert, because Allah put four angels in charge, giving each his own portion. The Angel of the Chebka was cold of nature, with no kindness in his heart, and was jealous of the others; so the Chebka is desolate, sown with sharp rocks which were upheaved from under the earth before man came, and its dark ravines are still haunted by evil spirits. The Angel of the Hameda was careless, and forgot to pray for cool valleys and good water, so the Hameda hardened into a great plateau of rock. The Angel of the Gaci was loved by a houri, who appeared to him and danced on the firm sand of his desert.
Vanishing, she scattered many jewels, and fruits from the celestial gardens which turned into beautifully coloured stones as they fell, and there they have lain from that day to this. But best of all was the Angel of the Erg, our desert--desert of the shifting dunes, never twice the same, yet always more beautiful to-day than yesterday; treacherous to strangers, but kind as the bosom of a mother to her children. The first three angels were men, but the fourth and best is the angel woman who sows the heaven with stars, for lamps to light her own desert, and all the world beside, even the world of infidels."
M"Barka and Maeddine both talked a great deal of El Aghouat, which M"Barka called the desert pearl, next in beauty to her own wild Touggourt, and Maeddine laughingly likened the oasis-town to Paris. "It is the Paris of our Sahara," he said, "and all the desert men, from Cads to camel-drivers, look forward to its pleasures."
He planned to let the girl see El Aghouat for the first time at sunset.
That was to be one of his surprises. By nature he was dramatic; and the birth of the sun and the death of the sun are the great dramas of the desert. He wished to be the hero of such a drama for Victoria, with El Aghouat for his background; for there, he was leading her in at the gate of his own country.
When they had pa.s.sed the strange rock-shape known as the Chapeau de Gendarme, and the line of mountains which is like the great wall of China, Maeddine defied the danger he had never quite ceased to fear during the five long days since the adventure on the other side of Bou-Saada. He ordered the carriage curtains to be rolled up as tightly as they would go, and Victoria saw a place so beautiful that it was like the secret garden of some Eastern king. It was as if they had driven abruptly over the edge of a vast bowl half filled with gold dust, and ringed round its rim with quivering rosy flames. Perhaps the king of the garden had a dragon whose business it was to keep the fire always alight to prevent robbers from coming to steal the gold dust; and so ardently had it been blazing there for centuries, that all the sky up to the zenith had caught fire, burning with so dazzling an intensity of violet that Victoria thought she could warm her hands in its reflection on the sand. In the azure crucible diamonds were melting, boiling up in a radiant spray, but suddenly the violet splendour was cooled, and after a vague quivering of rainbow tints, the celestial rose tree of the Sahara sunset climbed blossoming over the whole blue dome, east, west, north and south.
In the bottom of the golden bowl, there was a river bed to cross, on a bridge of planks, but among the burning stones trickled a mere runnel of water, bright as spilt mercury. And Maeddine chose the moment when the minarets of El Aghouat rose from a sea of palms, to point out the strange, pale hills crowned by old koubbahs of marabouts and the military hospital. He told the story of the Arab revolt of fifty odd years ago; and while he praised the gallantry of the French, Victoria saw in his eyes, heard in the thrill of his voice, that his admiration was for his own people. This made her thoughtful, for though it was natural enough to sympathize with the Arabs who had stood the siege and been reconquered after desperate fighting, until now his point of view had seemed to be the modern, progressive, French point of view. Quickly the question flashed through her mind--"Is he letting himself go, showing me his real self, because I"m in the desert with him, and he thinks I"ll never go back among Europeans?"
She shivered a little at the thought, but she put it away with the doubt of Maeddine that came with it. Never had he given her the least cause to fear him, and she would go on trusting in his good faith, as she had trusted from the first.
Still, there was that creeping chill, in contrast to the warm glory of the sunset, which seemed to shame it by giving a glimpse of the desert"s heart, which was Maeddine"s heart. She hurried to say how beautiful was El Aghouat; and that night, in the house of the Cad, (an uncle of Maeddine"s on his mother"s side), as the women grouped round her, hospitable and admiring, she reproached herself again for her suspicion.
The wife of the Cad was dignified and gentle. There were daughters growing up, and though they knew nothing, or seemed to know nothing, of Saidee, they were sure that, if Maeddine knew, all was well. Because they were his cousins they had seen and been seen by him, and the young girls poured out all the untaught romance of their little dim souls in praise of Maeddine. Once they were on the point of saying something which their mother seemed to think indiscreet, and checked them quickly.
Then they stopped, laughing; and their laughter, like the laughter of little children, was so contagious that Victoria laughed too.
There was some dreadful European furniture of sprawling, "nouveau art"
design in the guest-room which she and Lella M"Barka shared; and as Victoria lay awake on the hard bed, of which the girls were proud, she said to herself that she had not been half grateful enough to Si Maeddine. For ten years she had tried to find Saidee, and until the other day she had been little nearer her heart"s desire than when she was a child, hoping and longing in the school garret. Now Maeddine had made the way easy--almost too easy, for the road to the golden silence had become so wonderful that she was tempted to forget her haste to reach the end.
XXVII
"There is my father"s douar," said Si Maeddine; and Victoria"s eyes followed his pointing finger.
Into a stony and desolate waste had billowed one golden wave of sand, and on the fringe of this wave, the girl saw a village of tents, black and brown, lying closely together, as a fleet of dark fishing-boats lie in the water. There were many little tents, very flat and low, crouched around one which even at a distance was conspicuous for its enormous size. It looked like a squatting giant among an army of pigmies; and the level light of late afternoon gave extraordinary value to its colours, which were brighter and newer than those of the lesser tents. As their swaying carriage brought the travellers nearer, Victoria could see deep red and brown stripes, separated by narrow bands of white. For background, there was a knot of trees; for they had come south of El Aghouat to the strange region of dayas, where the stony desolation is broken by little emerald hollows, running with water, like big round bowls stuck full of delicate greenery and blossoms.
Suddenly, as Victoria looked, figures began running about, and almost before she had time to speak, ten or a dozen men in white, mounted on horses, came speeding across the desert.
A stain of red showed in Maeddine"s cheeks, and his eyes lighted up.
"They have been watching, expecting us," he said. "Now my father is sending men to bid us welcome."
"Perhaps he is coming himself," said Victoria, for there was one figure riding in the centre which seemed to her more splendidly dignified than the others, though all were magnificent hors.e.m.e.n.
"No. It would not be right that the Agha himself should come to meet his son," Maeddine explained. "Besides he would be wearing a scarlet burnous, embroidered with gold. He does me enough honour in sending out the pick of his goum, which is among the finest of the Sahara."
Victoria had picked up a great deal of desert lore by this time, and knew that the "pick of the goum" would mean the best horses in the Agha"s stables, the crack riders among his trained men--fighting men, such as he would give to the Government, if Arab soldiers were needed.
The dozen cavaliers swept over the desert, making the sand fly up under the horses" hoofs in a yellow spray; and nearing the carriage they spread themselves in a semi-circle, the man Victoria had mistaken for the Agha riding forward to speak to Maeddine.