VI
Stephen's prophecy came true. They had a better dinner than any one elsehad, and enjoyed it as an adventure. Victoria thought their waiter aparticularly good-natured man, because instead of sulking over hisduties he beamed. Stephen might, if he had chosen, have thrown anotherlight upon the waiter's smiles; but he didn't choose. And he was happy.He gave Victoria good advice, and promised help from Nevill Caird. "He'ssure to meet me at the ship," he said, "and if you'll let me, I'llintroduce him to you. He may be able to find out everything you want toknow."
Stephen would have liked to go on talking after dinner, but the girl,ashamed of having taken up so much of his time, would not be tempted.She went to her cabin, and thought of him, as well as of her sister; andhe thought of her while he walked on deck, under the stars.
"For a moment white, then gone forever."
Again the words came singing into his head. She was white--white as thislacelike foam that silvered the Mediterranean blue; but she had not goneforever, as he had thought when he likened her whiteness to thespindrift on the dark Channel waves. She had come into his life oncemore, unexpectedly; and she might brighten it again for a short time onland, in that unknown garden his thoughts pictured, behind the gate ofthe East. Yet she would not be of his life. There was no place in it fora girl. Still, he thought of her, and went on thinking, involuntarilyplanning things which he and Nevill Caird would do to help the child, inher romantic errand. Of course she must not be allowed to travel aboutAlgeria alone. Once settled in Algiers she must stay there quietly tillthe authorities found her sister.
He used that powerful-sounding word "authorities" vaguely in his mind,but he was sure that the thing would be simple enough. The police couldbe applied to, if Nevill and his friends should be unable to discoverBen Halim and his American wife. Almost unconsciously, Stephen sawhimself earning Victoria Ray's gratitude. It was a pleasant fancy, andhe followed it as one wanders down a flowery path found in a darkforest.
Victoria's thoughts of him were as many, though different.
She had never filled her mind with nonsense about men, as many girls do.As she would have said to herself, she had been too busy. When girls atschool had talked of being in love, and of marrying, she had beeninterested, as if in a story-book, but it had not seemed to her that shewould ever fall in love or be married. It seemed so less than ever, nowthat she was at last actually on her way to look for Saidee. She wasintensely excited, and there was room only for the one absorbing thoughtin mind and heart; yet she was not as anxious as most others would havebeen in her place. Now that Heaven had helped her so far, she was sureshe would be helped to the end. It would be too bad to be true thatanything dreadful should have happened to Saidee--anything from whichshe, Victoria, could not save her; and so now, very soon perhaps,everything would come right. It seemed to the girl that somehow Stephenwas part of a great scheme, that he had been sent into her life for apurpose. Otherwise, why should he have been so kind since the first, andhave appeared this second time, when she had almost forgotten him in thepress of other thoughts? Why should he be going where she was going, andwhy should he have a friend who had known Algiers and Algeria since thetime when Saidee's letters had ceased?
All these arguments were childlike; but Victoria Ray had not passed farbeyond childhood; and though her ideas of religion were herown--unlearned and unconventional--such as they were they meanteverything to her. Many things which she had heard in churches hadseemed unreal to the girl; but she believed that the Great Power movingthe Universe planned her affairs as well as the affairs of the stars,and with equal interest. She thought that her soul was a spark given outby that Power, and that what was God in her had only to call to the Allof God to be answered. She had called, asking to find Saidee, and nowshe was going to find her, just how she did not yet know; but she hardlydoubted that Stephen Knight was connected with the way. Otherwise, whatwas the good of him to her? And Victoria was far too humble in heropinion of herself, despite that buoyant confidence in her star, toimagine that she could be of any use to him. She could be useful toSaidee; that was all. She hoped for nothing more. And little as she knewof society, she understood that Stephen belonged to a different worldfrom hers; the world where people were rich, and gay, and clever, andamused themselves; the high world, from a social point of view. Shesupposed, too, that Stephen looked upon her as a little girl, while shein her turn regarded him gratefully and admiringly, as from a distance.And she believed that he must be a very good man.
It would never have occurred to Victoria Ray to call him, even inthought, her "White Knight," as Margot Lorenzi persisted in calling him,and had called him in the famous interview. But it struck her, themoment she heard his name, that it somehow fitted him like a suit ofarmour. She was fond of finding an appropriateness in names, andsometimes, if she were tired or a little discouraged, she repeated herown aloud, several times over: "Victoria, Victoria. I am Victoria,"until she felt strong again to conquer every difficulty which might riseagainst her, in living up to her name. Now she was of opinion thatStephen's face would do very well in the picture of a young knight ofolden days, going out to fight for the True Cross. Indeed, he looked asif he had already passed through the preparation of a long vigil, forhis face was worn, and his eyes seldom smiled even when he laughed andseemed amused. His features gave her an idea that the Creator had takena great deal of pains in chiselling them, not slighting a single line.She had seen handsomer men--indeed, the splendid Arab on the ship washandsomer--but she thought, if she were a general who wanted a man tolead a forlorn hope which meant almost certain death, she would chooseone of Stephen's type. She had the impression that he would not hesitateto sacrifice himself for a cause, or even for a person, in an emergency,although he had the air of one used to good fortune, who loved to takehis own way in the small things of life.
And so she finally went to sleep thinking of Stephen.
It is seldom that even the _Charles Quex_, one of the fastest shipsplying between Marseilles and Algiers, makes the trip in eighteen hours,as advertised. Generally she takes two half-days and a night, but thistime people began to say that she would do it in twenty-two hours. Veryearly in the dawning she passed the Balearic Isles, mysterious purple inan opal sea, and it was not yet noon when the jagged line of the AtlasMountains hovered in pale blue shadow along a paler horizon. Then, asthe turbines whirred, the shadow materialized, taking a golden solidityand wildness of outline. At length the tower of a lighthouse started outclear white against blue, as a shaft of sunshine struck it. Next, thenearer mountains slowly turned to green, as a chameleon changes: theAdmiralty Island came clearly into view; the ancient nest of thosefierce pirates who for centuries scourged the Mediterranean; and last ofall, the climbing town of Algiers, old Al-Djezair-el-Bahadja, took formlike thick patterns of mother-o'-pearl set in bright green enamel, thepatterns eventually separating themselves into individual buildings.The strange, bulbous domes of a Byzantine cathedral on a hill sprang uplike a huge tropical plant of many flowers, unfolding fantastic buds ofdeep rose-colour, against a sky of violet flame.
"At last, Africa!" said Victoria, standing beside Stephen, and leaningon the rail. She spoke to herself, half whispering the words, hardlyaware that she uttered them, but Stephen heard. The two had not beenlong together during the morning, for each had been shy of giving toomuch of himself or herself, although they had secretly wished for eachother's society. As the voyage drew to a close, however, Stephen was nolonger able to resist an attraction which he felt like a compellingmagnetism. His excuse was that he wanted to know Miss Ray's firstimpressions of the place she had constantly seen in her thoughts duringten years.
"Is it like what you expected?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, "it's like, because I have photographs. And I've readevery book I could get hold of, old and new, in French as well asEnglish. I always kept up my French, you know, for the same reason thatI studied Arabic. I think I could tell the names of some of thebuildings, without making mistakes.
Yet it looks different, as theliving face of a person is different from a portrait in black and white.And I never imagined such a sky. I didn't know skies could be of such acolour. It's as if pale fire were burning behind a thin veil of blue."
It was as she said. Stephen had seen vivid skies on the Riviera, butthere the blue was more opaque, like the blue of the turquoise. Here itwas ethereal and quivering, like the violet fire that hovers overburning ship-logs. He was glad the sky of Africa was unlike any othersky he had known. It intensified the thrill of enchantment he had begunto feel. It seemed to him that it might be possible for a man to forgetthings in a country where even the sky was of another blue.
Sometimes, when Stephen had read in books of travel (at which he seldomeven glanced), or in novels, about "the mystery of the East," he hadsmiled in a superior way. Why should the East be more mysterious thanthe West, or North, or South, except that women were shut up in haremsand wore veils if they stirred out of doors? Such customs could scarcelymake a whole country mysterious. But now, though he had not yet landed,he knew that he would be compelled to acknowledge the indefinablemystery at which he had sneered. Already he fancied an elusiveinfluence, like the touch of a ghost. It was in the pulsing azure of thesky; in the wild forms of the Atlas and far Kabyle mountains stretchinginto vague, pale distances; in the ivory white of the low-domed roofsthat gleamed against the vivid green hill of the Sahel, like pearls on aveiled woman's breast.
"Is it what you thought it would be?" Victoria inquired in her turn.
"I hadn't thought much about it," Stephen had to confess, fearing shewould consider such indifference uninteresting. He did not add whatremained of the truth, that he had thought of Algiers as a refuge fromwhat had become disagreeable, rather than as a beautiful place which hewished to see for its own sake. "I'd made no picture in my mind. Youknow a lot more about it all than I do, though you've lived so far away,and I within a distance of forty-eight hours."
"That great copper-coloured church high on the hill is Notre Damed'Afrique," said the girl. "She's like a dark sister of Notre Dame de laGarde, who watches over Marseilles, isn't she? I think I could love her,though she's ugly, really. And I've read in a book that if you walk upthe hill to visit her and say a prayer, you may have a hundred days'indulgence."
Much good an "indulgence" would do him now, Stephen thought bitterly.
As the ship steamed closer inshore, the dreamlike beauty of the whitetown on the green hillside sharpened into a reality which might haveseemed disappointingly modern and French, had it not been for thesprinkling of domes, the pointing fingers of minarets with glitteringtiles of bronzy green, and the groups of old Arab houses crowded inamong the crudities of a new, Western civilization. Down by the wharffor which the boat aimed like a homing bird, were huddled a few of thesehouses, ancient dwellings turned into commercial offices where shippingbusiness was transacted. They looked forlorn, yet beautiful, likehaggard slavewomen who remembered days of greatness in a far-off land.
The _Charles Quex_ slackened speed as she neared the harbour, and everydetail of the town leaped to the eyes, dazzling in the southernsunshine. The encircling arms of break-waters were flung out to sea in avast embrace; the smoke of vessels threaded with dark, wavy lines thepure crystal of the air; the quays were heaped with merchandise, some ofit in bales, as if it might have been brought by caravans across thedesert. There was a clanking of cranes at work, a creaking of chains, aflapping of canvas, and many sounds which blend in the harsh poetry ofsea-harbours. Then voices of men rose shrilly above all heavier noises,as the ship slowly turned and crept beside a floating pontoon. Thejourney together was over for Stephen Knight and Victoria Ray.