The thought that perhaps, while he waited, he had been quietly made a prisoner, brought Stephen to his feet. He was on the point of trying the inner door, when it opened, and the masked marabout stood looking at him, with keen eyes which the black veil seemed to darken and make sinister.
Without speaking, the Arab closed, but did not latch, the door behind him; and standing still he spoke in the deep voice that was slightly m.u.f.fled by the thin band of woollen stuff over the lower part of his face.
"Thou hast sent me an urgent summons to hear tidings of my son," he said in his correct, measured French. "What canst thou know, which I do not know already?"
"I began to think you were not very desirous to hear my news," replied Stephen, "as I have been compelled to wait so long that my friends in Oued Tolga will be wondering what detains me in the Zaoua, or whether any accident has befallen me."
"As thou wert doubtless informed, I am not well, and was not prepared to receive guests. I have made an exception in thy favour, because of the message thou sent. Pray, do not keep me in suspense, if harm has come to my son." Sidi Mohammed did not invite his guest to sit down.
"No harm has come to the boy," Stephen rea.s.sured him. "He is in good hands."
"In charge of his uncle, whom I have appointed his guardian," the marabout broke in.
"He doesn"t know anything yet," Stephen said to himself, quickly. Then, aloud: "At present, he is not in charge of his uncle, but is with a friend of mine. He will be sent back safe and well to Oued Tolga, when you have discovered the whereabouts of Miss Ray--the young lady of whom you knew nothing the other day--and when you have produced her. I know now, with absolute certainty, that she is here in the Zaoua. When she leaves it, with me and the escort I have brought, to join her friends, you will see your son again, but not before; and never unless Miss Ray is given up."
The marabout"s dark hands clenched themselves, and he took a step forward, but stopped and stood still, tall and rigid, within arm"s-length of the Englishman.
"Thou darest to come here and threaten me!" he said. "Thou art a fool.
If thou and thy friends have stolen my child, all will be punished, not by me, but by the power which is set above me to rule this land--France."
"We have no fear of such punishment, or any other," Stephen answered.
"We have "dared" to take the boy; and I have dared, as you say, to come here and threaten, but not idly. We have not only your son, but your secret, in our possession; and if Miss Ray is not allowed to go, or if anything happens to me, you will never see your boy again, because France herself will come between you and him. You will be sent to prison as a fraudulent pretender, and the boy will become a ward of the nation.
He will no longer have a father."
The dark eyes blazed above the mask, though still the marabout did not move. "Thou art a liar and a madman," he said. "I do not understand thy ravings, for they have no meaning."
"They will have a fatal meaning for Ca.s.sim ben Halim if they reach the ears of the French authorities, who believe him dead," said Stephen, quietly. "Ben Halim was only a disgraced officer, not a criminal, until he conspired against the Government, and stole a great position which belonged to another man. Since then, prison doors are open for him if his plottings are found out."
Unwittingly Stephen chose words which were as daggers in the breast of the Arab. Although made without knowledge of the secret work to which the marabout had vowed himself and all that was his, the young man"s threat sounded like a hint so terrible in its meaning that Ben Halim"s heart turned suddenly to water. He saw himself exposed, defeated, hand and foot in the enemy"s power. How this Roumi had wormed out the hidden truth he could not conceive; but he realized on the instant that the situation was desperate, and his brain seemed to him to become a delicate and intricate piece of mechanism, moving with oiled wheels. All the genius of a great soldier and a great diplomat were needed at one and the same time, and if he could not call such inspiration to his aid he was lost. He had been tempted for one volcanic second to stab Stephen with the dagger which he always carried under his burnous and embroidered vest, but a lightning-flash of reason bade him hold his hand. There were other ways--there must be other ways. Fortunately Maeddine had not been told of the Roumi"s presence in the Zaoua, and need not learn anything concerning him or his proposals until the time came when a friend could be of use and not a hindrance. Even in this moment, when he saw before his eyes a fiery picture of ruin, Ben Halim realized that Maeddine"s pa.s.sion for Victoria Ray might be utilized by and by, for the second time.
Not once did the dark eyes falter or turn from the enemy"s, and Stephen could not help admiring the Arab"s splendid self-control. It was impossible to feel contempt for Ben Halim, even for Ben Halim trapped.
Stephen had talked with an air of cool indifference, his hands in his pockets, but in one pocket was a revolver, and he kept his fingers on it as the marabout stood facing him silently after the ultimatum.
"I have listened to the end," the Arab said at last, "because I wished to hear what strange folly thou hadst got in thy brain. But now, when thou hast finished apparently, I cannot make head or tail of thy accusations. Of a man named Ca.s.sim ben Halim I may have heard, but he is dead. Thou canst hardly believe in truth that he and I are one; but even if thou dost believe it, I care little, for if thou wert unwise enough to go with such a story to my masters and friends the French, they could bring a hundred proofs that thy tale was false, and they would laugh thee to scorn. I have no fear of anything thou canst do against me; but if it is true that thou and thy friend have stolen my son, rather than harm should come to him who is my all on earth, I may be weak enough to treat with thee."
"I have brought proof that the boy is gone," returned Stephen. For the moment, he tacitly accepted the att.i.tude which the marabout chose to take up. "Let the fellow save his face by pretending to yield entirely for the boy"s sake," he said to himself. "What can it matter so long as he does yield?"
In the pocket with the revolver was a letter which Sabine had induced Ha.s.san ben Saad to write, and now Stephen produced it. The writing was in Arabic, of course; but Sabine, who knew the language well, had translated every word for him before he started from Oued Tolga. Stephen knew, therefore, that the boy"s uncle, without confessing how he had strayed from duty, admitted that, "by an incredible misfortune," the young Mohammed had been enticed away from him. He feared, Ha.s.san ben Saad added, to make a disturbance, as an influential friend--Captain Sabine--advised him to inform the marabout of what had happened before taking public action which the child"s father might disapprove.
The Arab frowned as he read on, not wholly because of his anger with the boy"s guardian, though that burned in his heart, hot as a new-kindled fire, and could be extinguished only by revenge.
"This Captain Sabine," he said slowly, "I know slightly. He called upon me at a time when he made a well in the neighbourhood. Was it he who put into thine head these ridiculous notions concerning a dead man? I warn thee to answer truly if thou wouldst gain anything from me."
"My countrymen don"t, as a rule, transact business by telling diplomatic lies," said Stephen smiling, as he felt that he could now afford to smile. "Captain Sabine did not put the notion into my head."
"Hast thou spoken of it to him?"
Stephen shrugged his shoulders slightly. "I do not see that I"m called upon to answer that question. All I will say is, you need have no fear of Captain Sabine or of any one else, once Miss Ray is safely out of this place."
The marabout turned this answer over quickly in his mind. He knew that, if Sabine or any Frenchman suspected his ident.i.ty and his plans for the future, he was irretrievably lost. No private consideration would induce a French officer to spare him, if aware that he hoped eventually to overthrow the rule of France in North Africa. This being the case (and believing that Knight had learned of the plot), he reflected that Sabine could not have been taken into the secret, otherwise the Englishman dare not make promises. He saw too, that it would have been impolitic for Knight to take Sabine into his confidence. A Frenchman in the secret would have ruined this _coup d"etat_; and, beginning to respect Stephen as an enemy, he decided that he was too clever to be in real partnership with the officer. Ben Halim"s growing conviction was that his wife, Saidee, had told Victoria all she knew and all she suspected, and that the girl had somehow contrived to smuggle a letter out of the Zaoua to her English lover.
The distrust and dislike he had long felt for Saidee suddenly burst into a flame of hatred. He longed to crush under his foot the face he had once loved, to grind out its beauty with a spurred heel. And he hated the girl, too, though he could not punish her as he could punish Saidee, for he must have Maeddine"s help presently, and Maeddine would insist that she should be protected, whatever might happen to others. But he was beginning to see light ahead, if he might take it for granted that his secret was suspected by no more than four persons--Saidee, Victoria, and the two Englishmen who were acting for the girl.
"I see by this letter from my brother-in-law that it is even as thou sayest; thou and thy friend together have committed the cruel wrong of which thou boastest," Ben Halim said at last. "A father robbed of his one son is as a stag pinned to earth with a spear through his heart. He is in the hands of the hunter, his courage ebbing with his life-blood.
Had this thing been done when thou wert here before, I should have been powerless to pay the tribute, for the lady over whom thou claimst a right was not within my gates. Now, I admit, she has come. If she wish to go with thee, she is free to do so. But I will send with her men of my own, to travel by her side, and refuse to surrender her until my child is given into their hands."
"That is easy to arrange," Stephen agreed. "I will telegraph to my friend, who is by this time--as you can see by your letter--two days"
journey away or more. He will return with your son, and an escort, but only a certain distance. I will meet him at some place appointed, and we will hand the boy over to your men."
"It will be better that the exchange should be made here," said the marabout.
"I can see why it might be so from your point of view, but that view is not ours. You have too much power here, and frankly, I don"t trust you.
You"ll admit that I"d be a fool if I did! The meeting must be at some distance from your Zaoua."
The marabout raised his eyebrows superciliously. They said--"So thou art afraid!" But Stephen was not to be taunted into an imprudence where Victoria"s safety was at stake.
"Those are our terms," he repeated.
"Very well, I accept," said the Arab. "Thou mayest send a message to the lady, inviting her to leave my house with thee; and I a.s.sure thee, that in any case I would have no wish to keep her, other than the desire of hospitality. Thou canst take her at once, if she will go; and pa.s.sing through the city, with her and my men, thou canst send thy telegram.
Appoint as a meeting place the Bordj of Toudja, one day"s march from the town of Oued Tolga. When my men have the child in their keeping, thou wilt be free to go in peace with the girl and thy friend."
"I should be glad if thou wouldst send for her, and let me talk with her here," Stephen suggested.
"No, that cannot be," the marabout answered decidedly. "When she is out of my house, I wash my hands of her; but while she is under my roof it would be shameful that she should speak, even in my presence, with a strange man."
Stephen was ready to concede a point, if he could get his wish in another way. "Give me paper, then, and I will write to the lady," he said. "There will be an answer, and it must be brought to me quickly, for already I have stopped longer than I expected, and Captain Sabine, who knows I have come to call upon you and fetch a friend, may be anxious."
He spoke his last words with a certain emphasis, knowing that Ben Halim would understand the scarcely veiled threat.
The marabout went into the next room, and got some French writing paper.
Stephen wrote a hasty note, begging Victoria to leave the Zaoua under his care. He would take her, he said, to Lady MacGregor, who had come to Touggourt on purpose to be at hand if wanted. He wrote in English, but because he was sure that Ben Halim knew the language, he said nothing to Victoria about her sister. Only he mentioned, as if carelessly, that he had brought a good camel with a comfortable ba.s.sour large enough for two.
When the letter was in an envelope, addressed to Miss Ray, the marabout took it from Stephen and handed it to somebody outside the door, no doubt one of the three watchers. There were mumbled instructions in Arabic, and ten minutes later an answer came back. Stephen could have shouted for joy at sight of Victoria"s handwriting. There were only a few lines, in pencil, but he knew that he would keep them always, with her first letter.
"Oh, how glad I am that you"re here!" she wrote. "By and by I hope to thank you--but of course I can"t come without my sister. She is wretched, and wants to leave the man who seems to her no longer a husband, but she thinks he will not want to let her go. Tell him that it must be both of us, or neither. Or if you feel it would be better, give him this to read, and ask him to send an answer."
Stephen guessed why the girl had written in French. She had fancied that the marabout would not choose to admit his knowledge of English, and he admired the quickness of her wit in a sudden emergency.
As he handed the letter to the Arab, Stephen would have given a great deal to see the face under the black mask. He could read nothing of the man"s mind through the downcast eyelids, with their long black fringe of close-set lashes. And he knew that Ben Halim must have finished the short letter at least sixty seconds before he chose to look up from the paper.
"It is best," the marabout said slowly, "that the two sisters go together. A man of Islam has the right to repudiate a woman who gives him no children, but I have been merciful. Now an opportunity has come to rid myself of a burden, without turning adrift one who is helpless and friendless. For my son"s sake I have granted thy request; for my own sake I grant the girl"s request: but both, only on one condition--that thou swearest in the name of thy G.o.d, and upon the head of thy father, never to breathe with thy lips, or put with thy hand upon paper, the malicious story about me, at which thou hast to-day hinted; that thou enforce upon the two sisters the same silence, which, before going, they must promise me to guard for ever. Though there is no foundation for the wicked fabrication, and no persons of intelligence who know me would believe it, even if I had no proof, still for a man who holds a place of spiritual eminence, evil gossip is a disgrace."
"I promise for myself, for my friend, and for both the ladies, silence on that subject, so long as we may live. I swear before my G.o.d, and on the head of my dead father, that I will keep my word, if you keep yours to me," said Stephen, who knew only half the secret. Yet he was astonished at gaining his point so easily. He had expected more trouble.
Nevertheless, he did not see how the marabout could manage to play him false, if he wanted to get his boy and hide the truth about himself.
"I am content," said the Arab. "And thou shouldst be content, since thou hast driven a successful bargain, and it is as if the contract between us were signed in my heart"s blood. Now, I will leave thee. When the ladies are ready, thou shalt be called by one of the men who will be of their escort. It is not necessary that thou and I meet again, since we have, I hope, finished our business together, once and for ever."