XXVIII
"In the name of the All-Merciful and Pitiful! We seek refuge with theLord of the Day, against the sinfulness of beings created by Him;against all evil, and against the night, lest they overcome ussuddenly."
It was the Prayer of the Dawn, El Fejur; and Victoria heard it cried inthe voices of the old men of the zmala, early in the morning, as shedressed to continue her journey.
Every one was astir in the _tente sultane_, behind the different curtainpartitions, and outside were the noises of the douar, waking to a newday. The girl could not wait for the coffee that Fafann would bring her,for she was eager to see the caravan that Si Maieddine was assembling.As soon as she was ready she stole out into the dim dawn, more mystic inthe desert than moon-rise or moon-setting. The air was crisp andtingling, and smelled of wild thyme, the herb that nomad women love, andwear crushed in their bosoms, or thrust up their nostrils. The camelshad not come yet, for the men of the douar had not finished theirprayer. In the wide open space where they had watched the dance lastnight, now they were praying, sons of Ishmael, a crowd of prostratewhite figures, their faces against the sand.
Victoria stood waiting by the big tent, but she had not much need forpatience. Soon the desert prayer was over, and the zmala was buzzingwith excitement, as it had buzzed when the travellers arrived.
The Soudanese Negroes who had danced the wild dance appeared leading twowhite meharis, running camels, aristocrats of the camel world. On theback of each rose a cage-like bassour, draped with haoulis, stripedrose-colour and purple. The desert beasts moved delicately, on legslonger and more slender than those of pack-camels, their necks swayinglike the necks of swans who swim with the tide. Victoria thought themlike magnificent, four-legged cousins of ostriches, and thesuperciliousness of their expressions amused her; the look they had ofelderly ladies, dissatisfied with every one but themselves, andconscious of being supremely "well-connected." "A camel cannot see itsown hump, but it can see those of others," she had heard M'Barka say.
As Victoria stood alone in the dawn, laughing at the ghostly meharis,and looking with interest at the heavily laden pack-camel and the mulepiled up with tents and mattresses, Maieddine came riding round frombehind the great tent, all in white, on a white stallion. Seeing thegirl, he tested her courage, and made a bid for her admiration byreining El Biod in suddenly, making him stand erect on his hind feet,pawing the air and dancing. But Roumia as she was, and unaccustomed tosuch manoeuvres, she neither ran back nor screamed. She was not ashamedto show her admiration of man and horse, and Maieddine did not know thather thoughts were more of El Biod the white, "drinker of air," thesaddle of crimson velvet and tafilet leather embroidered in gold, andthe bridle from Figuig, encrusted with silver, than of the rider.
"This is the horse of whom I told thee," Maieddine said, letting El Biodcome down again on all four feet. "He was blessed as a foal by havingthe magical words 'Bissem Allah' whispered over him as he drew the firstdraught of his mother's milk. But thou wilt endow him with new gifts ifthou touchest his forehead with thy hand. Wilt thou do that, for hissake, and for mine?"
Victoria patted the flesh-coloured star on the stallion's white face,not knowing that, if a girl's fingers lie between the eyes of an Arab'shorse, it is as much as to say that she is ready to ride with him to theworld's end. But Maieddine knew, and the thought warmed his blood. Hewas superstitious, like all Arabs, and he had wanted a sign of success.Now he had it. He longed to kiss the little fingers as they rested on ElBiod's forehead, but he said to himself, "Patience; it will not be longbefore I kiss her lips."
"El Biod is my citadel," he smiled to her. "Thou knowest we have thesame word for horse and citadel in Arabic? And that is because a bravestallion is a warrior's citadel, built on the wind, a rampart betweenhim and the enemy. And we think the angels gave a horse the same heartas a man, that he might be our friend as well as servant, and carry uson his back to Paradise. Whether that is true or not, to-day El Biod andI are already on the threshold of Paradise, because we are thy guides,thy guardians through the desert which we love."
As he made this speech, Maieddine watched the girl's face anxiously, tosee whether she would resent the implication, but she only smiled in herfrank way, knowing the Arab language to be largely the language ofcompliment; and he was encouraged. Perhaps he had been over-cautiouswith her, he thought; for, after all, he had no reason to believe thatshe cared for any man, and as he had a record of great successes withwomen, why be so timid with an unsophisticated girl? Each day, he toldhimself, he would take another and longer step forward; but for themoment he must be content. He began to talk about the meharis and theNegroes who would go with them and the beasts of burden.
When it was time for Victoria and M'Barka to be helped into theirbassourahs, Maieddine would not let the Soudanese touch the meharis. Itwas he who made the animals kneel, pulling gently on the bridle attachedto a ring in the left nostril of each; and both subsided gracefully inhaughty silence instead of uttering the hideous gobbling which commoncamels make when they get down and get up, or when they are loaded orunloaded. These beasts, Guelbi and Mansour, had been bought from Moors,across the border where Oran and Morocco run together, and had beentrained since babyhood by smugglers for smuggling purposes. "If a manwould have a silent camel," said Maieddine, "he must get him fromsmugglers. For the best of reasons their animals are taught never tomake a noise."
M'Barka was to have Fafann in the same bassour, but Victoria would haveher rose and purple cage to herself. Maieddine told her how, as thecamel rose, she must first bow forward, then bend back; and, obeyingcarefully, she laughed like a child as the tall mehari straightened theknees of his forelegs, bearing his weight upon them as if on his feet,then got to his hind feet, while his "front knees," as she called them,were still on the ground, and last of all swung himself on to all fourof his heart-shaped feet. Oh, how high in the air she felt when Guelbiwas up, ready to start! She had had no idea that he was such a tall,moving tower, under the bassour.
"What a sky-scraping camel!" she exclaimed. And then had to explain toMaieddine what she meant; for though he knew Paris, for him Americamight as well have been on another planet.
He rode beside Victoria's mehari, when good-byes had been said,blessings exchanged, and the little caravan had started. Looking outbetween the haoulis which protected her from sun and wind, the handsomeArab on his Arab horse seemed far below her, as Romeo must have seemedto Juliet on her balcony; and to him the fair face, framed with dazzlinghair was like a guiding star.
"Thou canst rest in thy bassour?" he asked. "The motion of thy beastgives thee no discomfort?"
"No. Truly it is a cradle," she answered. "I had read that to ride on acamel was misery, but this is like being rocked on the bough of a treewhen the wind blows."
"To sit in a bassour is very different from riding on a saddle, or evenon a mattress, as the poor Bedouin women sometimes ride, or the dancersjourneying from one place to another. I would not let thee travel withme unless I had been able to offer thee all the luxuries which a sultanamight command. With nothing less would I have been content, because tome thou art a queen."
"At least thou hast given me a beautiful moving throne," laughedVictoria; "and because thou art taking me on it to my sister, I'm happyto-day as a queen."
"Then, if thou art happy, I also am happy," he said. "And when an Arabis happy, his lips would sing the song that is in his heart. Wilt thoube angry or pleased if I sing thee a love-song of the desert?"
"I cannot be angry, because the song will not really be for me,"Victoria answered with the simplicity which had often disarmed anddisconcerted Maieddine. "And I shall be pleased, because in the desertit is good to hear desert songs."
This was not exactly the answer which he had wanted, but he made thebest of it, telling himself that he had not much longer to wait.
"Leaders of camels sing," he said, "to make the beasts' burdens weighless heavily. But thy mehari has no burden. Thou in thy bassour artlighter on hi
s back than a feather on the wing of a dove. My song is formy own heart, and for thine heart, if thou wilt have it, not for Guelbi,though the meaning of Guelbi is 'heart of mine.'"
Then Maieddine sang as he rode, his bridle lying loose, an old Arabsong, wild and very sad, as all Arab music sounds, even when it is thecry of joy:
"Truly, though I were to die, it would be naught, If I were near my love, for whom my bosom aches, For whom my heart is beating.
"Yes, I am to die, but death is nothing O ye who pass and see me dying, For I have kissed the eyes, the mouth that I desired."
"But that is a sad song," said Victoria, when Maieddine ceased histragic chant, after many verses.
"Thou wouldst not say so, if thou hadst ever loved. Nothing is sad to alover, except to lose his love, or not to have his love returned."
"But an Arab girl has no chance to love," Victoria argued. "Her fathergives her to a man when she is a child, and they have never even spokento each other until after the wedding."
"We of the younger generation do not like these child marriages,"Maieddine apologized, eagerly. "And, in any case, an Arab man, unless hebe useless as a mule without an eye, knows how to make a girl love himin spite of herself. We are not like the men of Europe, bound down by athousand conventions. Besides, we sometimes fall in love with women notof our own race. These we teach to love us before marriage."
Victoria laughed again, for she felt light-hearted in the beautifulmorning. "Do Arab men always succeed as teachers?"
"What is written is written," he answered slowly. "Yet it is writtenthat a strong man carves his own fate. And for thyself, wouldst thouknow what awaits thee in the future?"
"I trust in God and my star."
"Thou wouldst not, then, that the desert speak to thee with its tongueof sand out of the wisdom of all ages?"
"What dost thou mean?"
"I mean that my cousin, Lella M'Barka, can divine the future from thesand of the Sahara, which gave her life, and life to her ancestors for athousand years before her. It is a gift. Wilt thou that she exercise itfor thee to-night, when we camp?"
"There is hardly any real sand in this part of the desert," saidVictoria, seeking some excuse not to hear M'Barka's prophecies, yet notto hurt M'Barka's feelings, or Maieddine's. "It is all far away, wherewe see the hills which look golden as ripe grain. And we cannot reachthose hills by evening."
"My cousin always carries the sand for her divining. Every night shereads in the sand what will happen to her on the morrow, just as thewomen of Europe tell their fate by the cards. It is sand from the dunesround Touggourt; and mingled with it is a little from Mecca, which wasbrought to her by a holy man, a marabout. It would give her pleasure toread the sand for thee."
"Then I will ask her to do it," Victoria promised.
As the day grew, its first brightness faded. A wind blew up from thesouth, and slowly darkened the sky with a strange lilac haze, whichseemed tangible as thin silk gauze. Behind it the sun glimmered like agreat silver plate, and the desert turned pale, as in moonlight.Although the ground was hard under the camels' feet, the wind carriedwith it from far-away spaces a fine powder of sand which at last forcedVictoria to let down the haoulis, and Maieddine and the two Negroes tocover their faces with the veils of their turbans, up to the eyes.
"It will rain this afternoon," M'Barka prophesied from between hercurtains.
"No," Maieddine contradicted her. "There has been rain this month, andthou knowest better than I do that beyond El Aghouat it rains but oncein five years. Else, why do the men of the M'Zab country break theirhearts to dig deep wells? There will be no rain. It is but a sand-stormwe have to fear."
"Yet I feel in the roots of my hair and behind my eyes that the rain iscoming."
Maieddine shrugged his shoulders, for an Arab does not twice contradicta woman, unless she be his wife. But the lilac haze became a pall ofcrape, and the noon meal was hurried. Maieddine saved some of thesurprises he had brought for a more favourable time. Hardly had theystarted on again, when rain began to fall, spreading over the desert ina quivering silver net whose threads broke and were constantly mendedagain. Then the rough road (to which the little caravan did not keep)and all the many diverging tracks became wide silver ribbons, lacingthe plain broken with green dayas. A few minutes more--incredibly few,it seemed to Victoria--and the dayas were deep lakes, where the waterswirled and bubbled round the trunks of young pistachio trees. A torrentpoured from the mourning sky, and there was a wild sound of marchingwater, which Victoria could hear, under the haoulis which sheltered her.No water came through them, for the arching form of the bassour was likethe roof of a tent, and the rain poured down on either side. She peepedout, enjoying her own comfort, while pitying Maieddine 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 ofdepression. By and by they came to an oued, which should have been adry, stony bed without a trickle of water; but half an hour's downpourhad created a river, as if by black magic; and Victoria could guess theforce at which it was rushing, by the stout resistance she felt Guelbihad to make, as he waded through.
"A little more, and we could not have crossed," said Maieddine, whenthey 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 thedeglet nour, in my desert?"
Victoria did not understand his metaphor, for the deglet nour is thefinest of all dates, translucent as amber, sweet as honey, and so dearthat 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 isthe deglet nour of Paradise, and nourishes a man's soul, so that he canbear 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 shecould look out again from between the curtains. Soon they would dry inthe hot sun.
"Thou hast much to learn then, about Arab men," Maieddine answered, "andfortunate is thy teacher. It is little to say that we would sacrificeour lives for the women we love, because for us life is not that greattreasure it is to the Roumis, who cling to it desperately. We would dofar more than give our lives for the beloved woman, we Arabs. We wouldgive our heads, which is the greatest sacrifice a man of Islam couldmake."
"But is not that the same thing as giving life?"
"It is a thousandfold more. It is giving up the joy of eternity. For weare taught to believe that if a man's head is severed from his body, italone 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 athing?"
He feared that he had made a mistake, and that she would look upon himas an alien, a pagan, with whom she could have no sympathy. "If I ammore modern in my ideas than my forefathers," he said tactfully, "I mustnot confess it to a Roumia, must I, oh Rose of the West?--for that wouldbe disloyal to Islam. Yet if I did believe, still would I give my headfor the love of the one woman, the star of my destiny, she whose sweetlook deserves that the word 'ain' should stand for bright fountain, andfor the ineffable light in a virgin's eyes."
"I did not know until to-day, Si Maieddine, that thou wert a poet,"Victoria told him.
"All true Arabs are poets. Our language--the literary, not the commonArabic--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 thouwilt learn other things about me, while we journey together in thedesert."
As he said this he looked at her with a look which even her simplicitycould not have mistaken if she had thought of it; but instantly thevision of Saidee came between her eyes and his. The current of her ideaswas abruptly changed. "How many days n
ow," she asked suddenly, "will thejourney 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 westarted?"
"Oh no, no," she reassured him. "I love it. I am not tired at all.But--I did not question thee at first because thou didst not desire meto know thy plans, while I was still within touch of Europeans. Thoudidst not put this reason in such words, for thou wouldst not have letme feel I had not thy full trust. But it was natural thou shouldst notgive it, when thou hadst so little acquaintance with me, and I did notcomplain. Now it is different. Even if I wished, I could neither speaknor 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 sayeach night, 'So many more times must the sun rise and set before I seemy sister.'"
"Many suns must rise and set," Maieddine confessed doggedly.
"But--when first thou planned the journey, thou saidst; 'In a fortnightthou canst send thy friends news, I hope.'"
"If I had told thee then, that it must be longer, wouldst thou have comewith me? I think not. For thou sayest I did not wholly trust thee. Howmuch 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 LellaM'Barka, and thou hast slept in the tent of my father, and in the housesof my friends. But I saw in thine eyes at that time a doubt thou didstnot wish to let thyself feel, because through me alone was there a wayto reach thy sister. I wished to bring thee to her, for thy sake, andfor her sake, though I have never looked upon her face and nevershall----"
"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 wasvery 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 wertanxious to go to her, at no matter what cost, and I feared to disheartenthee, to break thy courage, while I was still a stranger, and could notjustify 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 likeevasions. They are unworthy."
"I am sorry," Maieddine returned, so humbly that he disarmed her. "Itwould 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 thenight, wondering how I can repay thee everything."
"When we come to the end of the journey, I will tell thee of a thingthou canst do, for my happiness," Maieddine said in a low voice, as ifhalf to himself.
"Wilt thou tell me now to what place we are going? I should like toknow, and I should like to hear thee describe it."
He did not speak for a moment. Then he said slowly; "It is a grief todeny thee anything, oh Rose, but the secret is not mine to tell, even tothee."
"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 samething?"
"Thou meanest, the secret about Cassim, my sister's husband?"
"Cassim ben Halim has ceased to live."
Victoria gave a little cry. "Dead! But thou hast made me believe, inspite of the rumours, that he lived."
"I cannot explain to thee," Maieddine answered gloomily, as if hating torefuse her anything. "In the end, thou wilt know all, and why I had tobe silent."
"But my sister?" the girl pleaded. "There is no mystery about her? Thouhast concealed nothing which concerns Saidee?"
"Thou hast my word that I will take thee to the place where she is. Thougavest me thy trust. Give it me again."
"I have not taken it away. It is thine," said Victoria.