XV
Nothing could be heard of Victoria at any place of departure for ships,nor at the railway stations. Stephen agreed with Nevill that it wouldnot be fair to lay the matter in the hands of the police, lest in someway the girl's mysterious "plan" should be defeated. But he could notput out of his head an insistent idea that the Arab on board the_Charles Quex_ might stand for something in this underhand business.Stephen could not rest until he had found out the name of this man, andwhat had become of him after arriving at Algiers. As for the name,having appeared on the passenger list, it was easily obtained withoutexpert help. The Arab was a certain Sidi Maieddine ben el Hadj Messaoud;and when Jeanne Soubise was applied to for information concerning him,she was able to learn from her Arab friends that he was a young man ofgood family, the son of an Agha or desert chief, whose douar lay farsouth, in the neighbourhood of El-Aghouat. He was respected by theFrench authorities and esteemed by the Governor of Algiers. Known to beambitious, he was anxious to stand well with the ruling power, and amongthe dissipated, sensuous young Arabs of his class and generation, he waslooked upon as an example and a shining light. The only fault found inhim by his own people was that he inclined to be too modern, too Frenchin his political opinions; and his French friends found no fault withhim at all.
It seemed impossible that a person so highly placed would dare risk hisfuture by kidnapping a European girl, and Jeanne Soubise advised Stephento turn his suspicions in another direction. Still he would not besatisfied, until he had found and engaged a private detective, said tobe clever, who had lately seceded from a Paris agency and set up forhimself in Algiers. Through him, Stephen hoped to learn how SidiMaieddine ben el Hadj Messaoud had occupied himself after landing fromthe _Charles Quex_; but all he did learn was that the Arab, accompaniedby his servant and no one else, had, after calling on the Governor, leftAlgiers immediately for El-Aghouat. At least, he had taken train forBogharie, and was known to have affairs of importance to settle betweenhis father the Agha, and the French authorities. Secret inquiries at theHotel de la Kasbah elicited answers, unvaryingly the same. SidiMaieddine ben el Hadj Messaoud was not a patron of the house, and hadnever been seen there. No one answering at all to his description hadstopped in, or even called at, the hotel.
Of course, the value of such assurances was negatived by the fact thatArabs hold together against foreigners, and that if Si Maieddine wishedto be incognito among his own people, his wish would probably berespected, in spite of bribery. Besides, he was rich enough to offerbribes on his own part. Circumstantial evidence, however, being againstthe supposition that the man had followed Victoria after landing,Stephen abandoned it for the time, and urged the detective, AdolpheRoslin, to trace the cabman who had driven Miss Ray away from her hotel.Roslin was told nothing about Victoria's private interests, but she wasaccurately described to him, and he was instructed to begin his searchby finding the squint-eyed cab-driver who had brought the girl to lunchat Djenan el Djouad.
Only in the affair of Cassim ben Halim did Stephen and Nevill decide toact openly, Nevill using such influence as he had at the Governor'spalace. They both hoped to learn something which in compassion orprudence had been kept from the girl; but they failed, as Victoria hadfailed. If a scandal had driven the Arab captain of Spahis from thearmy and from Algiers, the authorities were not ready to unearth it nowin order to satisfy the curiosity, legitimate or illegitimate, of twoEnglishmen.
Captain Cassim ben Halim el Cheik el Arab, had resigned from the army onaccount of ill-health, rather more than nine years ago, and having soldhis house in Algiers had soon after left Algeria to travel abroad. Hehad never returned, and there was evidence that he had been burned todeath in a great fire at Constantinople a year or two later. The fewliving relatives he had in Algeria believed him to be dead; and a housewhich Ben Halim had owned not far from Bou Saada, had passed into thehands of his uncle, Caid of a desert-village in the district. As to BenHalim's marriage with an American girl, nobody knew anything. Thepresent Governor and his staff had come to Algiers after his supposeddeath; and if Nevill suspected a deliberate reticence behind certainanswers to his questions, perhaps he was mistaken. Cassim ben Halim andhis affairs could now be of little importance to French officials.
It did not take Roslin an hour to produce the squinting cabman; but theold Arab was able to prove that he had been otherwise engaged than indriving Miss Ray on the evening when she left the Hotel de la Kasbah.His son had been ill, and the father had given up work in order to playnurse. A doctor corroborated this story, and nothing was to be gained inthat direction.
Then it was that Nevill almost timidly renewed his suggestion of a visitto Tlemcen. They could find out by telegraphing Josette, he admitted,whether or no Victoria Ray had arrived, but if she were not already inTlemcen, she might come later, to see Mouni. And even if not, they mightfind out how to reach Saidee, by catechizing the Kabyle girl. Once theyknew the way to Victoria's sister, it was next best to knowing the wayto find Victoria herself. This last argument was not to be despised. Itimpressed Stephen, and he consented at once to "try their luck" atTlemcen.
Early in the morning of the second day after the coming of Victoria'sletter, the two men started in Nevill's yellow car, the merry-eyedchauffeur charmed at the prospect of a journey worth doing. He wastired, he remarked to Stephen, "de tous ces petits voyages d'unedemi-heure, comme les tristes promenades des enfants, sans une seuleaventure."
They had bidden good-bye to Lady MacGregor, and most of the familyanimals, overnight, and it was hardly eight o'clock when they leftDjenan el Djouad, for the day's journey would be long. A magical light,like the light in a dream, gilded the hills of the Sahel; and beyond laythe vast plain of the Metidja, a golden bowl, heaped to its swelling rimof mountains with the fairest fruits of Algeria.
The car rushed through a world of blossoms, fragrant open country fullof flowers, and past towns that did their small utmost to bring Franceinto the land which France had conquered. Boufarik, with its tallmonument to a brave French soldier who fought against tremendous odds:Blidah, a walled and fortified mixture of garrison and orange-grove,with a market-place like a scene in the "Arabian Nights": Orleansville,modern and ostentatiously French, built upon ruins of vast antiquity,and hotter than all other towns in the dry cup of the Chelif Valley:Relizane, Perregaux, and finally Oran (famed still for its old Spanishforts), which they reached by moonlight.
Always there were fields embroidered round the edges with wild flowersof blue and gold, and rose. Always there were white, dusty roads, alongwhich other motors sometimes raced, but oftener there were farm-carts,wagons pulled by strings of mules, and horses with horned harness likethe harness in Provence or on the Spanish border. There were huge,two-storied diligences, too, drawn by six or eight black mules, crammedunder their canvas roofs with white- or brown-robed Arabs, and goingvery fast.
From Oran they might have gone on the same night, reaching the end oftheir journey after a few hours' spin, but Nevill explained that hastewould be vain. They could not see Mademoiselle Soubise until past nine,so better sleep at Oran, start at dawn, and see something of theroad,--a road more picturesque than any they had travelled.
It was not for Stephen to offer objections, though he was in a moodwhich made him long to push on without stopping, even though there wereno motive for haste. He was ashamed of the mood, however, and hardlyunderstood what it meant, since he had come to Algeria in search ofpeace. When first he landed, and until the day of Victoria's letter, hehad been enormously interested in the panorama of the East which passedbefore his eyes. He had eagerly noticed each detail of colour andstrangeness, but now, though the London lethargy was gone, in its placehad been born a disturbing restlessness which would not let him lookimpersonally at life as at a picture.
Questioning himself as he lay awake in the Oran hotel, with windows opento the moonlight, Stephen was forced to admit that the picture wasblurred because Victoria had gone out of it. Her figure had been in theforeground when first h
e had seen the moving panorama, and all the resthad been only a magical frame for her. The charm of her radiant youth,and the romance of the errand which had brought her knocking, when heknocked, at the door of the East, had turned the glamour into glory. Nowshe had vanished; and as her letter said, it might be that she wouldnever come back. The centre of interest was transferred to the unknownplace where she had gone, and Stephen began to see that his impatienceto be moving was born of the wish not only to know that she was safe,but to see her again.
He was angry with himself at this discovery, and almost he was angrywith Victoria. If he had not her affairs to worry over, Africa would begiving him the rest cure he had expected. He would be calmly enjoyingthis run through beautiful country, instead of chafing to rush on tothe end. Since, in all probability, he could do the girl no good, andcertainly she could do him none, he half wished that one or the otherhad crossed from Marseilles to Algiers on a different ship. What heneeded was peace, not any new and feverish personal interest in life.Yes, decidedly he wished that he had never known Victoria Ray.
But the wish did not live long. Suddenly her face, her eyes, came beforehim in the night. He heard her say that she would give him "half herstar," and his heart grew sick with longing.
"I hope to Heaven I'm not going to love that girl," he said aloud to thedarkness. If no other woman came into his life, he might be able to getthrough it well enough with Margot. He could hunt and shoot, and doother things that consoled men for lack of something better. But if--heknew he must not let there be an "if." He must go on thinking ofVictoria Ray as a child, a charming little friend whom he wished tohelp. Any other thought of her would mean ruin.
Before dawn they were called, and started as the sun showed over thehorizon.
So they ran into the western country, near to the Morocco border. Dullat first, save for its flooding flowers, soon the way wound among darkmountains, from whose helmeted heads trailed the long plumes of whitecascades, and whose feet--like the stone feet of Egyptian kings inruined temples--were bathed by lakes that glimmered in the depths ofgorges.
It was a land of legends and dreams round about Tlemcen, the "Key of theWest," city of beautiful mosques. The mountains were honeycombed withonyx mines; and rising out of wide plains were crumbling brownfortresses, haunted by the ghosts of long-dead Arabs who had buriedhoards of money in secret hiding-places, and died before they couldunearth their treasure. Tombs of kings and princes, and koubbahs ofrenowned marabouts, Arab saints, gleamed white, or yellow as old gold,under the faded silver of ancient olive trees, in fields that ran redwith blood of poppies. Minarets jewelled like peacocks' tails soaredabove the tops of blossoming chestnuts. On low trees or bushes, guardingthe graves of saints, fluttered many-coloured rags, left there byfaithful men and women who had prayed at the shrine for health orfortune; and for every foot of ground there was some wild tale of war orlove, an echo from days so long ago that history had mingledinextricably with lore of fairies.
Nevill was excited and talkative as they drove into the old town, oncethe light of western Algeria. They passed in by the gateway of Oran, andthrough streets that tried to be French, but contrived somehow to beArab. Nevill told stories of the days when Tlemcen had queened it overthe west, and coined her own money; of the marabouts after whom the mostfamous mosques were named: Sidi-el-Haloui, the confectioner-saint fromSeville, who preached to the children and made them sweetmeats; of thelawyer-saint, Sidi Aboul Hassan from Arabia, and others. But he did notspeak of Josette Soubise, until suddenly he touched Stephen's arm asthey passed the high wall of a garden.
"There, that's where _she_ teaches," he said; and it was not necessaryto add a name.
Stephen glanced at him quickly. Nevill looked very young. His eyes nolonger seemed to gaze at far-away things which no one else could see.All his interests were centred near at hand.
"Don't you mean to stop?" Stephen asked, surprised that the car went on.
"No; school's begun. We'll have to wait till the noon interval, and eventhen we shan't be allowed indoors, for a good many of the girls are overtwelve, the age for veiling--_hadjabah_, they call it--when they're shutup, and no man, except near relations, can see their faces. Several ofthe girls are already engaged. I believe there's one, not fourteen,who's been divorced twice, though she's still interested in dolls.Weird, isn't it? Josette will talk with us in the garden. But we'llhave time now to take rooms at the hotel and wash off the dust. To eatsomething too, if you're hungry."
But Stephen was no hungrier than Nevill, whose excitement, perhaps, wascontagious.
The hotel was in a wide _place_, so thickly planted with acacias andchestnut trees as to resemble a shabby park. An Arab servant showed themto adjoining rooms, plain but clean, and a half-breed girl brought tinsof hot water and vases of syringas. As for roses, she said in hybridFrench, no one troubled about them--there were too many in Tlemcen. Ah!but it was a land of plenty! The gentlemen would be happy, and wish tostay a long time. There was meat and good wine for almost nothing, andbeggars need not ask twice for bread--fine, white bread, baked as theMoors baked, across the border.
As they bathed and dressed more carefully than they had dressed for theearly-morning start, strange sounds came up from the square below, whichwas full of people, laughing, quarrelling, playing games, strikingbargains, singing songs. Arab bootblacks clamoured for custom at thehotel-door, pushing one another aside, fiercely. Little boys inembroidered green or crimson jackets sat on the hard, yellow earth,playing an intricate game like "jack stones," and disputed so violentlythat men and even women stopped to remonstrate, and separate them; now agrave, prosperous Jew dressed in red (Jewish mourning in the province ofOran); then an old Kabyle woman of the plains, in a short skirt of fieryorange scarcely hiding the thin sticks of legs that were stained withhenna half-way up the calves, like painted stockings. Moors from acrossthe frontier--fierce men with eagle faces and striped cloaks--groupedtogether, whispering and gesticulating, stared at with suspicion by themilder Arabs, who attributed all the crimes of Tlemcen to the wild menfrom over the border. Black giants from the Negro quarter kept together,somewhat humble, yet laughing and happy. Slender, coffee-coloured youthsdrove miniature cows from Morocco, or tiny black donkeys, heavily ladenand raw with sores, colliding with well-dressed Turks, who had the airof merchants, and looked as if they could not forget that Tlemcen hadlong been theirs before the French dominion. Bored but handsome officersrode through the square on Arab horses graceful as deer, and did noteven glance at passing women, closely veiled in long white haicks.
It was lively and amusing in the sunlight; but just as the two friendswere ready to go out, the sky was swept with violet clouds. A stormthreatened fiercely, but they started out despite its warning, turningdeaf ears to the importunities of a Koulougli guide who wished to showthem the mosques, "ver' cheap." He followed them, but they hurried on,pushing so sturdily through a flock of pink-headed sheep, which pouredin a wave over the pavement, that they might have out-run the rain hadthey not been brought to a sudden standstill by a funeral procession.
It was the strangest sight Stephen had seen yet, and he hardly noticedthat, in a burst of sunlight, rain had begun to pelt down through thecanopy of trees.
The band of figures in brown burnouses marched quickly, with a sharprustling of many slippered feet moving in unison, and golden spears ofrain seemed to pierce the white turbans of the men who carried the bier.As they marched, fifty voices rose and fell wildly in a stirring chant,exciting and terrible as the beat-beat of a tom-tom, sometimes a shoutof barbaric triumph, sometimes a mourning wail. Then, abruptly, a haltwas made in the glittering rain, and the bearers were changed, becauseof the luck it brings Arab men to carry the corpse of a friend.
Just in front of the two Englishmen the body rested for an instant,stretched out long and piteously flat, showing its thin shape throughthe mat of woven straw which wrapped it, only the head and feet beingwound with linen. So, by and by, it would be laid, without a coffin, inits shallo
w grave in the Arab cemetery, out on the road to SidiBou-Medine.
There were but a few seconds of delay. Then the new bearers lifted thebier by its long poles, and the procession moved swiftly, feverishly, onagain, the wild chant trailing behind as it passed, like a tornwar-banner. The thrill of the wailing crept through Stephen's veins, androused an old, childish superstition which an Irish nurse had implantedin him when he was a little boy. According to Peggy Brian it was "acruel bad omen" to meet a funeral, especially after coming into a newtown. "Wait for a corpse," said she, "an' ye'll wait while yer luck goesby."
"They're singing a song in praise of the dead man's good deeds, and oftriumph for the joys he'll know in Paradise," explained Nevill. "It'sonly the women who weep and scratch their faces when those they lovehave died. The men rejoice, or try to. Soon, they are saying, this onewho has gone will be in gardens fair as the gardens of Allah Himself,where sit beautiful houris, in robes woven of diamonds, sapphires, andrubies, each gem of which has an eye of its own that glitters through avapour of smouldering ambergris, while fountains send up pearly spray inthe shade of fragrant cedars."
"No wonder the Mohammedan poor don't fear death, if they expect toexchange their hovels for such quarters," said Stephen. "I wish Iunderstood Arabic."
"It's a difficult language to keep in your mind, and I don't know itwell," Nevill answered. "But Jeanne and Josette Soubise speak it likenatives; and the other day when Miss Ray lunched with us, I thought herknowledge of Arabic wonderful for a person who'd picked it up frombooks."
Stephen did not answer. He wished that Nevill had not brought thethought of Victoria into his mind at the moment when he was recallinghis old nurse's silly superstition. Victoria laughed at superstitions,but he was not sure that he could laugh, in this barbaric land where itseemed that anything might happen.