XLV
"Oh Lella Saida, there is a message, of which I hardly dare to speak,"whispered Noura to her mistress, when she brought supper for the twosisters, 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. Hernerves 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. Shehated everybody and everything, because all hope was gone now. The doorto 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 forthee, lady. It is for the Little Rose, thy sister."
"If thou dost not speak out instantly, I will strike thee!" Saideeexclaimed, on the verge of hysterical tears.
"And if I speak, still thou wilt strike! Be this upon thine own head, mymistress. The Ouled Nail has dared send her woman, saying that if theLittle Rose will visit her house after supper, it will be for the goodof all concerned, since she has a thing to tell of great importance. Atfirst 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. TheOuled Nail is a demon when in a temper, and she would thrust pins intoHadda's arms and thighs."
Saidee blushed with anger, disgustful words tingling on her tongue; butshe remained silent, her lips parted.
"Of course I won't go," said Victoria, shocked. The very existence ofMiluda was to her a dreadful mystery upon which she could not bear tolet her mind dwell.
"I'm not sure," Saidee murmured. "Let me think. This means somethingvery curious, I can't think what. But I should like to know. It can'tmake things worse for us if you accept her invitation. It may make thembetter. 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 herdoubts. "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 toher 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," wasSaidee's last advice. And it sounded very Eastern to Victoria.
She hated her errand, but undertook it without further protest, since itwas for Saidee's sake.
Hadda was old and ugly. She and Noura had been born in the quarter ofthe freed Negroes, in the village across the river, and knew nothing ofany 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 tovisit M'Barka in the women's guest-house, since the night when Maieddinebrought her to the Zaouia; and when she had time to think of her bodilyneeds, she realized that she longed desperately for exercise. Physicallyit was a relief to walk even the short distance between Saidee's houseand Miluda's; but her cheeks tingled with some emotion she could hardlyunderstand when she saw that the Ouled Nail's garden-court was largerand more beautiful than Saidee's.
Miluda, however, was not waiting for her in the garden. The girl wasescorted upstairs, perhaps to show her how much more important was thefavourite wife of the marabout than a mere Roumia, an unmarried maiden.
A meal had been cleared away, in a room larger and better furnished thanSaidee's and on the floor stood a large copper incense-burner, a thinblue smoke filtering through the perforations, clouding the atmosphereand loading it with heavy perfume. Behind the mist Victoria saw a divan,spread with trailing folds of purple velvet, stamped with gold; andsomething lay curled up on a huge tiger-skin, flung over pillows.
As the blue incense wreaths floated aside the curled thing on the tigerskin moved, and the light from a copper lamp like Saidee's, streamedthrough huge coloured lumps of glass, into a pair of brilliant eyes. Adelicate brown hand, ringed on each finger, waved away the smoke of acigarette it held, and Victoria saw a small face, which was like theface of a perfectly beautiful doll. Never had she imagined anything soutterly pagan; yet the creature was childlike, even innocent in itsexpression, as a baby tigress might be innocent.
Having sat up, the little heathen goddess squatted in her shrine, onlybestirring herself to show the Roumia how beautiful she was, and whatwonderful jewellery she had. She thought, that without doubt, the girlwould run back jealously to the sister (whom Miluda despised) to pourout floods of description. She herself had heard much of Lella Saida,and supposed that unfortunate woman had as eagerly collected informationabout her; but it was especially piquant that further details ofenviable magnificence should be carried back by the forlorn wife'ssister.
The Ouled Nail tinkled at the slightest movement, even with the heavingof her bosom, as she breathed, making music with many necklaces, andlong earrings that clinked against them. Dozens of old silver cases,tubes, and little jewelled boxes containing holy relics; hairs ofMohammed's beard; a bit of web spun by the sacred spider which saved hislife; moles' feet blessed by marabouts, and texts from the Koran; allthese hung over Miluda's breast, on chains of turquoise and amber beads.They rattled metallically, and her bracelets and anklets tinkled. Someluscious perfume hung about her, intoxicatingly sweet. A thick, braidedclump of hair was looped on each side of the small face painted white asivory, and her eyes, under lashes half an inch long, were bright andunhuman as those of an untamed gazelle.
"Wilt thou sit down?" she asked, waving the hand with the cigarettetowards a French chair, upholstered in red brocade. "The Sidi gave methat 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 heardmuch of thee and of thy youth and beauty. I see that my women did notlie. But perhaps thou art not as young as I am, though I have been awife for a year, and have borne a beautiful babe. I am not yet sixteen."
Victoria did not answer, and the Ouled Nail gazed at her unwinkingly, asa child gazes.
"Thou hast travelled much, even more than the marabout himself, hastthou not?" she inquired, graciously. "I have heard that thou hast beento England. Are there many Arab villages there, and is it true that theKing was deposed when the Sultan, the head of our faith, lost histhrone?"
"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 indeedthou wert as beautiful as I; another is, that I had a thing to givethee, and before I tell thee my third reason, thou shalt have the gift."
She fumbled in the tawny folds of the tiger-skin on which she lay, andpresently held out a bracelet, made of flexible squares of gold, likescales, jewelled with different stones.
"It is thy wedding present from me," she said. "I wish to give it,because it is not long since I myself was married, and because we areboth young. Besides, Si Maieddine is a good friend of the marabout. Ihave heard that he is brave and handsome, all that a young girl can mostdesire in a husband."
"I am not going to marry Si Maieddine," said Victoria. "I thank thee;but thou must keep thy gift for his bride when he finds one."
"He has found her in thee. The marriage will be a week from to-morrow,if Allah wills, and he will take thee away to his home. The marabouthimself has told me this, though he does not know that I have sent forthee, and that thou art with me now."
"Allah does not will," said the girl.
"Perhaps not, since thy bridegroom-to-be lies ill with marsh fever, soHadda has told me. He came back from Algiers with the sickness heavyupon him
, caught in the saltpetre marshes that stretch between Biskraand Touggourt. I know those marshes, for I was in Biskra with my motherwhen she danced there; but she was careful, and we did not lie at nightin the dangerous regions where the great mosquitoes are. Men are nevercareful, though they do not like to be ill, and thy bridegroom isfretting. But he will be better in a few days if he takes the draughtswhich the marabout has blessed for him; and if the wedding is not in aweek, it will be a few days later. It is in Allah's hands."
"I tell thee, it will be never," Victoria persisted. "And I believe thoubut sayest these things to torture me."
"Dost thou not love Si Maieddine?" Miluda asked innocently.
"Not at all."
"Then it must be that thou lovest some other man. Dost thou, Roumia?"
"Thou hast no right to ask such questions."
"Be not angry, Roumia, for we are coming now to the great reason why Isent for thee. It is to help thee. I wish to know whether there is a manof thine own people thou preferest to Si Maieddine."
"Why shouldst thou wish to help me? Thou hast never seen me till now."
"I will speak the truth with thee," said Miluda, "because thy facepleases me, though I prefer my own. Thine is pure and good, like theface of the white angel that is ever at our right hand; and even if Ishould speak falsely, I think thou wouldst not be deceived. Before I sawthee, I did not care whether thou wert happy or sad. It was nothing tome; but I saw a way of getting thee and thy sister out of my husband'shouse, and for a long time I have wished thy sister gone. Not that I amjealous of her. I have not seen her face, but I know she is already old,and if she were not friendless in our land, the Sidi would have put heraway at the time of my marriage to him, since long ago he has ceased tocare whether she lives or dies. But his heart is great, and he has kepther under his roof for kindness' sake, though she has given him nochild, and is no longer a wife to him. I alone fill his life."
She paused, hoping perhaps that Victoria would answer; but the girl wassilent, biting her lip, her eyes cast down. So Miluda talked on, morequietly.
"There is a wise woman in the city, who brings me perfumes and silkswhich have come to Oued Tolga by caravan from Tunis. She has told methat thy sister has ill-wished me, and that I shall never have a boy--areal child--while Lella Saida breathes the same air with me. That is thereason I want her to be gone. I will not help thee to go, unless thoutakest her with thee."
"I will never, never leave this place unless we go together," Victoriaanswered, deeply interested and excited now.
"That is well. And if she loves thee also, she would not go alone; so mywish is to do what I can for both."
"What canst thou do?" the girl asked.
"I will tell thee. But first there is something to make clear. I was onmy roof to-day, when a young Roumi rode up to the Zaouia on the roadfrom Oued Tolga. He looked towards the roofs, and I wondered. From mine,I cannot see much of thy sister's roof, but I watched, and I saw an armoutstretched, to throw a packet. Then I said to myself that he had comefor thee. And later I was sure, because my women told me that while hetalked with the marabout, the door which leads to thy sister's roof wasnailed up hastily, by command of the master. Some order must have gonefrom him, unknown to the Roumi, while the two men were together. I couldcoax nothing of the story from the Sidi when he came to me, but he wasvexed, and his brows drew together over eyes which for the first timedid not seem to look at me with pleasure."
"Thou hast guessed aright," Victoria admitted, thankful that Miluda'ssuspicions concerned her affairs only, and not Saidee's. "The man whocame here was my friend. I care for him more than for any one in theworld, except my sister; and if I cannot marry him, I will die ratherthan marry Si Maieddine or any other."
"Then, unless I help thee, thou wilt have to die, for nothing which thoualone, or thy sister can do, will open the gates for thee to go out,except as Si Maieddine's wife."
"Then help me," said Victoria, boldly, "and thou wilt be rid of us bothforever."
"It is with our wits we must work, not with our hands," replied theOuled Nail. "The power of the marabout is great. He has many men toserve him, and the gates are strong, while women are very, very weak.Yet I have seen into the master's heart, and I can give thee a key whichwill unlock the gates. Only it had better be done soon, for when SiMaieddine is well, he will fight for thee; and if thou goest forth free,he will follow, and take thee in the dunes."
Victoria shivered, for the picture was vivid before her eyes, as Miludapainted it. "Give me the key," she said in a low voice.
"The key of the master's heart is his son," the other answered, in atone that kept down anger and humiliation. "Even me he would sacrificeto his boy. I know it well, and I hate the child. I pray for one of myown, for because the Sidi loves me, and did not love the boy's mother,he would care ten thousand times more for a child of mine. The wisewoman says so, and I believe it. When thy sister is gone, I shall have aboy, and nothing left to wish for on earth. Send a message to thy lover,saying that the marabout's only son is at school in Oued Tolga, thecity. Tell him to steal the child and hide it, making a bargain with themarabout that he shall have it safely back, if he will let thee and thysister go; otherwise he shall never see it again."
"That would be a cruel thing to do, and my sister could not consent,"said Victoria, "even if we were able to send a message."
"Hadda would send the message. A friend from the village is coming tosee her, and the master has no suspicion of me at present, as he has ofthee. We could send a letter, and Hadda would manage everything. Butthere is not much time, for now while my husband is with Si Maieddine,treating him for his fever, is our only chance, to-night. We haveperhaps an hour in which to decide and arrange everything. After that,his coming may be announced to me. And no harm would happen to thechild. The master would suffer in his mind for a short time, till hedecided to make terms, that is all. As for me, have no fear of mybetraying thee. Thou needst but revenge thyself by letting the masterknow how I plotted for the stealing of his boy, for him to put me out ofhis heart and house forever. Then I should have to kill myself with aknife, or with poison; and I am young and happy, and do not desire todie yet. Go now, and tell thy sister what I have said. Let her answerfor thee, for she knows this land and the people of it, and she is wiserthan thou."
Without another word or look at the beautiful pagan face, Victoria wentout of the room, and found Hadda waiting to hurry her away.