"Luckily I"d outridden the guide. I made him think afterward that I"d jumped off my horse to pick up the whip, which I dropped for a blind, in case of spying eyes. Tied up in the silk handkerchief--an Arab-looking handkerchief--was a string of amber beads. Do you remember the beads Miss Ray bought of Miss Soubise, and wore to your house?"
"I remember she had a handsome string of old prayer-beads."
"Is this the one?" Stephen took the handkerchief and its contents from his pocket, and Nevill examined the large, round lumps of gleaming amber, which were somewhat irregular in shape. Captain Sabine looked on with interest.
"I can"t be sure," Nevill said reluctantly.
"Well, I can," Stephen answered with confidence. "She showed it to me, in your garden. I remember a fly in the biggest bead, which was clear, with a brown spot, and a clouded bead on either side of it. I had the necklace in my hand. Besides, even if I weren"t as certain as I am, who would throw a string of amber beads at my feet, if it weren"t some one trying to attract my attention, in the only way possible? It was as much as to say, "I know you"ve come looking for me. If you"re told I"m not here, it"s false." I was a good long way from the gates; but much nearer to a lot of white roofs grouped behind the high wall of the Zaoua, than I would have been in riding on, closer to the gates. Unfortunately there are high parapets to screen any one standing on the roofs. And anyhow, by the time the beads were thrown, I was too low down in the hollow to see even a waved hand or handkerchief. Still, with that necklace in my pocket, I knew pretty well what I was about, in talking with the marabout."
"You thought you did," said Nevill. "But you"d have known a lot more if only you could have made Captain Sabine"s acquaintance before you started."
Stephen looked questioningly at the Frenchman.
"Perhaps it would be better to speak in English," suggested Sabine. "I have not much, but I get on. And the kitchen windows are not far away.
Our good landlord and his wife do not cook with their ears. I was telling your friend that the marabout himself has a European wife--who is said to be a great beauty. These things get out. I have heard that she has red hair and skin as white as cream. That is also the description which Mr. Caird gave me of the young lady seeking a sister.
It makes one put two and two together, does it not?"
"By Jove!" exclaimed Stephen. He and Nevill looked at each other, but Nevill raised his eyebrows slightly. He had not thought it best, at present, to give the mystery of Ca.s.sim ben Halim, as he now deciphered it, into a French officer"s keeping. It was a secret in which France would be deeply, perhaps inconveniently, interested. A little later, the interference of the French might be welcome, but it would be just as well not to bring it in prematurely, or separately from their own personal interests. "I wish to heaven," Stephen went on, "I"d known this when I was talking to the fellow! And yet--I"m not sure it would have made much difference. We were deadly polite to each other, but I hinted in a veiled way that, if he were concealing any secret from me, the French authorities might have something to say to him. I was obsequious about the great power of Islam in general, and his in particular, but I suggested that France was the upper dog just now. Maybe his guilty conscience made him think I knew more than I did. I hope he expects to have the whole power of France down on him, as well as the United States, which I waved over his head, Miss Ray being an American. Of course I remembered your advice, Nevill, and was tactful--for her sake, for fear anything should be visited on her. I didn"t say I thought he was hiding her in the Zaoua. I put it as if I wanted his help in finding her. But naturally he expects me back again; and we must make our plans to storm the fortress and reduce it to subjection. There isn"t an hour to waste, either, since this necklace, and Captain Sabine"s knowledge, have proved to us that she"s there. Too bad we didn"t know it earlier, as we might have done something decisive in the beginning. But now we do know, with Captain Sabine"s good will and introduction we may get the military element here to lend a hand in the negotiations. A European girl can"t be shut up with impunity, I should think, even in this part of the world. And the marabout has every reason not to get in the bad books of the French."
"He is in their very best books at present," said Sabine. "He is thought much of. The peace of the southern desert is largely in his hands. My country would not be easily persuaded to offend him. It might be said in his defence that he is not compelled to tell strangers if he has a European wife, and her sister arrives to pay her a visit. Arab ideas are peculiar; and we have to respect them."
"I think my friend and I must talk the whole matter over," said Stephen, "and then, perhaps, we can make up our minds to a plan of action we couldn"t have taken if it weren"t for what you"ve told us--about the marabout and his European wife."
"I am glad if I have helped," Sabine answered. "And"--rather wistfully--"I should like to help further."
XLV
"Oh Lella Sada, there is a message, of which I hardly dare to speak,"
whispered Noura to her mistress, when she brought supper for the two sisters, the night when the way to the roof had been closed up.
"Tell me what it is, and do not be foolish," Saidee said sharply. Her nerves were keyed to the breaking point, and she had no patience left.
It was almost a pleasure to visit her misery upon some one else. She hated everybody and everything, because all hope was gone now. The door to the roof was nailed shut; and she and Victoria were buried alive.
"But one sends the message who must not be named; and it is not even for thee, lady. It is for the Little Rose, thy sister."
"If thou dost not speak out instantly, I will strike thee!" Saidee exclaimed, on the verge of hysterical tears.
"And if I speak, still thou wilt strike! Be this upon thine own head, my mistress. The Ouled Nal has dared send her woman, saying that if the Little Rose will visit her house after supper, it will be for the good of all concerned, since she has a thing to tell of great importance. At first I would have refused even to take the message, but her woman, Hadda, is my cousin, and she feared to go back without some answer. The Ouled Nal is a demon when in a temper, and she would thrust pins into Hadda"s arms and thighs."
Saidee blushed with anger, disgustful words tingling on her tongue; but she remained silent, her lips parted.
"Of course I won"t go," said Victoria, shocked. The very existence of Miluda was to her a dreadful mystery upon which she could not bear to let her mind dwell.
"I"m not sure," Saidee murmured. "Let me think. This means something very curious, I can"t think what. But I should like to know. It can"t make things worse for us if you accept her invitation. It may make them better. Will you go and see what the creature wants?"
"Oh, Saidee, how can I?"
"Because I ask it," Saidee answered, the girl"s opposition deciding her doubts. "She can"t eat you."
"It isn"t that I"m afraid----"
"I know! It"s because of your loyalty to me. But if I send you, Babe, you needn"t mind. It will be for my sake."
"Hadda is waiting for an answer," Noura hinted.
"My sister will go. Is the woman ready to take her?"
"I will find out, lady."
In a moment the negress came back. "Hadda will lead the Little Rose to her mistress. She is glad that it is to be now, and not later."
"Be very careful what you say, and forget nothing that _she_ says," was Saidee"s last advice. And it sounded very Eastern to Victoria.
She hated her errand, but undertook it without further protest, since it was for Saidee"s sake.
Hadda was old and ugly. She and Noura had been born in the quarter of the freed Negroes, in the village across the river, and knew nothing of any world beyond; yet all the wiliness and wisdom of female things, since Eve--woman, cat and snake--glittered under their slanting eyelids.
Victoria had not been out of her sister"s rooms and garden, except to visit M"Barka in the women"s guest-house, since the night when Maeddine brought her to the Zaoua; and when she had time to think of her bodily needs, she realized that she longed desperately for exercise. Physically it was a relief to walk even the short distance between Saidee"s house and Miluda"s; but her cheeks tingled with some emotion she could hardly understand when she saw that the Ouled Nal"s garden-court was larger and more beautiful than Saidee"s.
Miluda, however, was not waiting for her in the garden. The girl was escorted upstairs, perhaps to show her how much more important was the favourite wife of the marabout than a mere Roumia, an unmarried maiden.
A meal had been cleared away, in a room larger and better furnished than Saidee"s and on the floor stood a large copper incense-burner, a thin blue smoke filtering through the perforations, clouding the atmosphere and loading it with heavy perfume. Behind the mist Victoria saw a divan, spread with trailing folds of purple velvet, stamped with gold; and something lay curled up on a huge tiger-skin, flung over pillows.
As the blue incense wreaths floated aside the curled thing on the tiger skin moved, and the light from a copper lamp like Saidee"s, streamed through huge coloured lumps of gla.s.s, into a pair of brilliant eyes. A delicate brown hand, ringed on each finger, waved away the smoke of a cigarette it held, and Victoria saw a small face, which was like the face of a perfectly beautiful doll. Never had she imagined anything so utterly pagan; yet the creature was childlike, even innocent in its expression, as a baby tigress might be innocent.
Having sat up, the little heathen G.o.ddess squatted in her shrine, only bestirring herself to show the Roumia how beautiful she was, and what wonderful jewellery she had. She thought, that without doubt, the girl would run back jealously to the sister (whom Miluda despised) to pour out floods of description. She herself had heard much of Lella Sada, and supposed that unfortunate woman had as eagerly collected information about her; but it was especially piquant that further details of enviable magnificence should be carried back by the forlorn wife"s sister.
The Ouled Nal tinkled at the slightest movement, even with the heaving of her bosom, as she breathed, making music with many necklaces, and long earrings that clinked against them. Dozens of old silver cases, tubes, and little jewelled boxes containing holy relics; hairs of Mohammed"s beard; a bit of web spun by the sacred spider which saved his life; moles" feet blessed by marabouts, and texts from the Koran; all these hung over Miluda"s breast, on chains of turquoise and amber beads.
They rattled metallically, and her bracelets and anklets tinkled. Some luscious perfume hung about her, intoxicatingly sweet. A thick, braided clump of hair was looped on each side of the small face painted white as ivory, and her eyes, under lashes half an inch long, were bright and unhuman as those of an untamed gazelle.
"Wilt thou sit down?" she asked, waving the hand with the cigarette towards a French chair, upholstered in red brocade. "The Sidi gave me that seat because I asked for it. He gives me all I ask for."
"I will stand," answered Victoria.
"Oh, it is true, then, thou speakest Arab! I had heard so. I have heard much of thee and of thy youth and beauty. I see that my women did not lie. But perhaps thou art not as young as I am, though I have been a wife for a year, and have borne a beautiful babe. I am not yet sixteen."
Victoria did not answer, and the Ouled Nal gazed at her unwinkingly, as a child gazes.
"Thou hast travelled much, even more than the marabout himself, hast thou not?" she inquired, graciously. "I have heard that thou hast been to England. Are there many Arab villages there, and is it true that the King was deposed when the Sultan, the head of our faith, lost his throne?"
"There are no Arab villages, and the King still reigns," said Victoria.
"But I think thou didst not send for me to ask these questions?"
"Thou art right. Yet there is no harm in asking them. I sent for thee, for three reasons. One is, that I wished to see thee, to know if indeed thou wert as beautiful as I; another is, that I had a thing to give thee, and before I tell thee my third reason, thou shalt have the gift."