"Then I will ask her to do it," Victoria promised.
As the day grew, its first brightness faded. A wind blew up from the south, and slowly darkened the sky with a strange lilac haze, which seemed tangible as thin silk gauze. Behind it the sun glimmered like a great silver plate, and the desert turned pale, as in moonlight.
Although the ground was hard under the camels" feet, the wind carried with it from far-away s.p.a.ces a fine powder of sand which at last forced Victoria to let down the haoulis, and Maeddine and the two Negroes to cover their faces with the veils of their turbans, up to the eyes.
"It will rain this afternoon," M"Barka prophesied from between her curtains.
"No," Maeddine contradicted her. "There has been rain this month, and thou knowest better than I do that beyond El Aghouat it rains but once in five years. Else, why do the men of the M"Zab country break their hearts to dig deep wells? There will be no rain. It is but a sand-storm we have to fear."
"Yet I feel in the roots of my hair and behind my eyes that the rain is coming."
Maeddine shrugged his shoulders, for an Arab does not twice contradict a woman, unless she be his wife. But the lilac haze became a pall of c.r.a.pe, and the noon meal was hurried. Maeddine saved some of the surprises he had brought for a more favourable time. Hardly had they started on again, when rain began to fall, spreading over the desert in a quivering silver net whose threads broke and were constantly mended again. Then the rough road (to which the little caravan did not keep) and all the many diverging tracks became wide silver ribbons, lacing the plain broken with green dayas. A few minutes more--incredibly few, it seemed to Victoria--and the dayas were deep lakes, where the water swirled and bubbled round the trunks of young pistachio trees. A torrent poured from the mourning sky, and there was a wild sound of marching water, which Victoria could hear, under the haoulis which sheltered her.
No water came through them, for the arching form of the ba.s.sour was like the roof of a tent, and the rain poured down on either side. She peeped out, enjoying her own comfort, while pitying Maeddine and the Negroes; but all three had covered their thin burnouses with immensely thick, white, hooded cloaks, woven of sheep"s wool, and they had no air of depression. By and by they came to an oued, which should have been a dry, stony bed without a trickle of water; but half an hour"s downpour had created a river, as if by black magic; and Victoria could guess the force at which it was rushing, by the stout resistance she felt Guelbi had to make, as he waded through.
"A little more, and we could not have crossed," said Maeddine, when they had mounted up safely on the other side of the oued.
"Art thou not very wet and miserable?" the girl asked sympathetically.
"I--miserable?" he echoed. "I--who am privileged to feast upon the deglet nour, in my desert?"
Victoria did not understand his metaphor, for the deglet nour is the finest of all dates, translucent as amber, sweet as honey, and so dear that only rich men or great marabouts ever taste it. "The deglet nour?"
she repeated, puzzled.
"Dost thou not know the saying that the smile of a beautiful maiden is the deglet nour of Paradise, and nourishes a man"s soul, so that he can bear any discomfort without being conscious that he suffers?"
"I did not know that Arab men set women so high," said Victoria, surprised; for now the rain had stopped, suddenly as it began, and she could look out again from between the curtains. Soon they would dry in the hot sun.
"Thou hast much to learn then, about Arab men," Maeddine answered, "and fortunate is thy teacher. It is little to say that we would sacrifice our lives for the women we love, because for us life is not that great treasure it is to the Roumis, who cling to it desperately. We would do far more than give our lives for the beloved woman, we Arabs. We would give our heads, which is the greatest sacrifice a man of Islam could make."
"But is not that the same thing as giving life?"
"It is a thousandfold more. It is giving up the joy of eternity. For we are taught to believe that if a man"s head is severed from his body, it alone goes to Paradise. His soul is maimed. It is but a bodiless head, and all celestial joys are for ever denied to it."
"How horrible!" the girl exclaimed. "Dost thou really believe such a thing?"
He feared that he had made a mistake, and that she would look upon him as an alien, a pagan, with whom she could have no sympathy. "If I am more modern in my ideas than my forefathers," he said tactfully, "I must not confess it to a Roumia, must I, oh Rose of the West?--for that would be disloyal to Islam. Yet if I did believe, still would I give my head for the love of the one woman, the star of my destiny, she whose sweet look deserves that the word "an" should stand for bright fountain, and for the ineffable light in a virgin"s eyes."
"I did not know until to-day, Si Maeddine, that thou wert a poet,"
Victoria told him.
"All true Arabs are poets. Our language--the literary, not the common Arabic--is the language of poets, as thou must have read in thy books.
But I have now such inspiration as perhaps no man ever had; and thou wilt learn other things about me, while we journey together in the desert."
As he said this he looked at her with a look which even her simplicity could not have mistaken if she had thought of it; but instantly the vision of Saidee came between her eyes and his. The current of her ideas was abruptly changed. "How many days now," she asked suddenly, "will the journey last?"
His face fell. "Art thou tired already of this new way of travelling, that thou askest me a question thou hast not once asked since we started?"
"Oh no, no," she rea.s.sured him. "I love it. I am not tired at all.
But--I did not question thee at first because thou didst not desire me to know thy plans, while I was still within touch of Europeans. Thou didst not put this reason in such words, for thou wouldst not have let me feel I had not thy full trust. But it was natural thou shouldst not give it, when thou hadst so little acquaintance with me, and I did not complain. Now it is different. Even if I wished, I could neither speak nor write to any one I ever knew. Therefore I question thee."
"Art thou impatient for the end?" he wanted to know, jealously.
"Not impatient. I am happy. Yet I should like to count the days, and say each night, "So many more times must the sun rise and set before I see my sister.""
"Many suns must rise and set," Maeddine confessed doggedly.
"But--when first thou planned the journey, thou saidst; "In a fortnight thou canst send thy friends news, I hope.""
"If I had told thee then, that it must be longer, wouldst thou have come with me? I think not. For thou sayest I did not wholly trust thee. How much less didst thou trust me?"
"Completely. Or I would not have put myself in thy charge."
"Perhaps thou art convinced of that now, when thou knowest me and Lella M"Barka, and thou hast slept in the tent of my father, and in the houses of my friends. But I saw in thine eyes at that time a doubt thou didst not wish to let thyself feel, because through me alone was there a way to reach thy sister. I wished to bring thee to her, for thy sake, and for her sake, though I have never looked upon her face and never shall----"
"Why dost thou say "never shall"?" the girl broke in upon him suddenly.
The blood mounted to his face. He had made a second mistake, and she was very quick to catch him up.
"It was but a figure of speech," he corrected himself.
"Thou dost not mean that she"s shut up, and no man allowed to see her?"
"I know nothing. Thou wilt find out all for thyself. But thou wert anxious to go to her, at no matter what cost, and I feared to dishearten thee, to break thy courage, while I was still a stranger, and could not justify myself in thine eyes. Now, wilt thou forgive me an evasion, which was to save thee anxiety, if I say frankly that, travel as we may, we cannot reach our journey"s end for many days yet?"
"I must forgive thee," said Victoria, with a sigh. "Yet I do not like evasions. They are unworthy."
"I am sorry," Maeddine returned, so humbly that he disarmed her. "It would be terrible to offend thee."
"There can be no question of offence," she consoled him. "I am very, very grateful for all thou hast done for me. I often lie awake in the night, wondering how I can repay thee everything."
"When we come to the end of the journey, I will tell thee of a thing thou canst do, for my happiness," Maeddine said in a low voice, as if half to himself.
"Wilt thou tell me now to what place we are going? I should like to know, and I should like to hear thee describe it."
He did not speak for a moment. Then he said slowly; "It is a grief to deny thee anything, oh Rose, but the secret is not mine to tell, even to thee."
"The secret!" she echoed. "Thou hast never called it a secret."
"If I did not use that word, did I not give thee to understand the same thing?"
"Thou meanest, the secret about Ca.s.sim, my sister"s husband?"
"Ca.s.sim ben Halim has ceased to live."
Victoria gave a little cry. "Dead! But thou hast made me believe, in spite of the rumours, that he lived."
"I cannot explain to thee," Maeddine answered gloomily, as if hating to refuse her anything. "In the end, thou wilt know all, and why I had to be silent."
"But my sister?" the girl pleaded. "There is no mystery about her? Thou hast concealed nothing which concerns Saidee?"