"Desmond, has it ever occurred to you that I am serpentine?"
He was startled and made no answer.
"Well--has it?"
"Yes," he said truthfully.
"Why?"
"Every one thinks so. You are so thin. You move so silently. Your body
is so elastic and controlled. You always look as if you could glide into
places where other women could never go, and be at home in attitudes
they could never assume."
"But I'm an actress--my body is trained, you know, to lie, to fall, as I
choose."
"Other actresses don't give one the same impression."
"No," she said thoughtfully. "My peculiar physique has a great deal to
do with it."
"Of course, and there's something more than that, something mental."
Claire's heavy eyes grew more thoughtful. The white lids fluttered lower
over them till they looked like the eyes of one half asleep. She lay in
silence, plunged in a reverie that was deep and dark. In this reverie
she forgot to move her fan, which dropped from her hand and fell softly
upon the rug. Renfrew did not interrupt her. His worship had learned to
wait upon her moods. A huge dragon-fly passed on its journey towards the
far blue range of the Atlas Mountains. It whirred in its haste, and its
burnished body shone in the sunshine between its gleaming wings. Claire
snatched at it with her hand, but missed it.
"I should like to wear it as a jewel," she said.
Then she turned slowly again towards Renfrew, and continued her nocturne
as if it had never been broken off.
"The canvas flap fell down again over the doorway, Desmond, and it
seemed that just then the breeze died away, expiring in that angry gust.
I could not see anything but the interior of the tent, and only that
very dimly. But this man outside. I wanted to see him."
"Did you recognise that he was not one of the soldiers, then?"
"Perfectly. He was not dressed as they are. They were entirely muffled
up with hoods drawn forward above their faces. And in their hands one
could see their guns. This man was bareheaded, and looked half naked.
And in his hands--"
She stopped meditatively.
"Was there anything in his hands?"
"Well--yes, there was."
"What?"
"I wanted to know what it was. But at first I only lay quite still and
wished the wind would come again and blow the flap up so that I could
see out. But it had quite gone down. The canvas did not even quiver."
"Was it near dawn?"
"I haven't an idea. Does the breeze sink then?"
"Very often."
"Ah! Perhaps it was then. Oh, but you'll see in a minute what nonsense
it is to think about that. I lay still, as I said, for some time,
waiting for the breeze. And when it wouldn't come, I made up my mind
that I must arrive at a decision either to turn my face on the pillow
and go to sleep, or else to get up, go to the tent door, and look out."
"To see this man?"
"Exactly."
"Which did you do?"
"Turned my face on the pillow."
"And went off to sleep?"
"No, grew most intensely awake--as I supposed. The pillow was like fire
against my cheek. It burnt me. With the departure of the breeze the
night had become suddenly most intolerably hot. I turned over on my back
and lay like that. Then I felt as if there was sand on the sheets."
"Sand! Impossible! We aren't in the desert."
"No. But it seemed as if I lay in hot sand. I shifted my position, but
it made no difference. I sat up. The tent door was still closed. I
listened. All those dogs had ceased to bark. There wasn't a sound. Even
the jackals had left off whining. Then I slipped out of bed and threw
that rose-coloured Moorish cloak over me. It rustled just like a thing
rustles in grass, Desmond."
She looked at him with a sort of peculiar significance, and as if she
expected him to gather something definite from the remark.
"A thing in grass," he repeated, wondering. "What sort of thing?"
But Claire avoided the question. She had taken up the fan again, and was
opening and shutting it with a quiet and careful sort of precision, as
she went on in a low and even voice:--
"I disliked this rustling, and held the cloak tightly together with my
hands. I felt as if the man outside the tent had been waiting to hear
that very little noise."
"The rustling?"
"Yes. And that when he heard it he smiled to himself. I didn't intend he
should hear it again though, and as I glided towards the tent door, I
held the cloak very tight and away from my body. And I don't think I can
have made any noise. You know how softly I can move when I choose?"
"Yes."
"When I got to the door, I waited. I couldn't hear the man; but I felt
that he was still there, just on the other side of the flap."
Renfrew leaned forward on the rug. He felt deeply interested, perhaps
only because Claire was the narrator. She held him much as she could
hold an audience in a theatre, by her pose, her hands, her pale, almost
weary face, her heavy sombre eyes, even more than by any words she
chanced to be uttering. She could make anything seem vitally important
if she chose, simply by her manner. Renfrew's pipe had gone out; but he
did not know it, and still kept it between his lips.
"I waited for some time by the flap," Claire continued calmly. "I was
going to lift it presently, I knew; but I could not do it at once. The
man and I were standing, I suppose, for full five minutes only divided
by that strip of canvas. I tried not to breathe audibly, and I could not
hear him breathe. At last I resolved to see him, and considered how I
should do so. If I remained standing and looked out, I should have to
push the flap quite away and my eyes would be nearly on a level with
his. He would certainly see me. I didn't wish that. I didn't intend at
all that he should see me. Therefore I resolved to lie down."
"On the ground?"
"Yes, quite flat, and to raise the bottom of the flap gently an inch or
two. This would enable me to see him without being seen, if I did it
without noise. I dropped down quite softly. Do you remember my death in
'Camille'?"
Renfrew nodded.
"Almost like that. But the rose-coloured stuff rustled again. I wished I
hadn't put it on. I raised the flap very slightly and peeped out. Do
you know what I felt like just then, Desmond?"
"What?"
"Just like a snake in ambush. When my cloak rustled, it was the grass
against my body. I lay in cover, and could see my enemy like a creature
in a forest, or a reptile in scrub."
She glanced round at the bushes and the densely growing palms.
"Yes, I lay there like a snake in the grass."
She stretched herself out on the rug as she spoke, with her head towards
Renfrew and her eyes fastened on his.
"I saw first the feet of the man close to my eyes. His feet were almost
black and bare. His legs were bare. My glance travelled up him, and I
saw that his chest and his arms were bare too. He was clothed in a sort
of loose rough garment, the colour of sacking, that fell into a kind of
hood behind; and he looked enormously powerful. That struck me very
much--his power."
"Did you see his face?"
"Quite well. It was the face of a man watching and listening with the
closest attention. He was smiling slightly, too, as if something that
had just happened had satisfied him. I knew he had heard the rustle of
my robe as I slipped to the ground."
"But why should that please him?"
"It told him that I was there, that I was attentive too."
Renfrew's face slightly darkened.
"As I looked, I saw what he was holding in his hands."
"What was it--a dagger--a staff?"
"A serpent."
Renfrew could not repress an exclamation.
"Very large and striped. Its skin was like shot silk in the moonlight.
It writhed softly between his hands, and turned its flat head from side
to side. It seemed to be trying to bend down towards where I lay. Its
tongue shot out like a length of riband out of one of those wooden
winders that you buy in cheap shops. I should think its body was quite
five feet long, and its colour seemed to change as it turned about.
Sometimes it was pink, then it looked dull green and almost black. Once
it wriggled down so near to the ground that I could see two fangs in its
open mouth like hooks, and the roof of its mouth was flesh colour."
"How abominable!" said Renfrew, softly.
"I didn't feel it so at all," Claire said. "I wanted it to come to
me,--back into the grass where such things are safe. But the man
wouldn't let it go. He thrust it into his breast. He wanted to have his
hands free."
"Good God, Claire--what for? Did he--?"
She smiled at his sudden violence, which showed his interest.
"When the snake was safe, he drew out, still smiling and listening, a
little pipe that looked as if it were made of straw, very common and
dirty. He held it up to his black lips, and began to play very softly
and sleepily. Desmond, the tune he played was charmed. It was a tune
composed--for--for--"
She broke off.
"You know the Pied Piper had his tune," she said; "the rats had to
follow it. Well, this tune was for the serpents."
"To charm them you mean?"
"Wisely--dangerously--almost irresistibly, perhaps in time, Desmond,
quite, quite irresistibly. There is a music for all creatures, all
reptiles, birds,--everything that lives; this was for the snakes."
"Well, but, Claire, how did you know that?"
She looked at him with a sort of dull amusement and pity in her
half-shut eyes.
"Shall I tell you?"
"Yes."
"I knew it, because the tune charmed me, Desmond."
"Ah, you are acting! I half suspected it from the first," Renfrew
exclaimed almost roughly.
He sat up as a man who has been lying under a spell stirs when the spell
is broken. Now he knew that his pipe was out, and he felt for his
match-box. But Claire still kept her eyes fixed on him, and laid her
hand on his arm gently.
"No, I am not acting," she said. "The tune charmed me. You see I am a
woman; and there are many women who feel at moments that what attracts
some special creature, thing, of the so-called world without a soul,
attracts them too. Some men can whistle a woman as they would a dog,
can't they?"
"Perhaps."
"Yes, and some men can charm a woman as they could charm a serpent."
"I don't understand you, Claire."
"You don't choose to. The animal is in us all, hidden deftly by Nature,
the artful dodger of the scheme of creation, Desmond; and we know it
when the right tune is played to summon it from its slumber in the nest
of the human body. Only the right tune can waken it."
"The animal! But--"
"Or the reptile, perhaps. What does it matter? This was the right tune
for me. I lay there like a snake in the grass and it thrilled me! And
all the time the black man smiled and listened for the rustling at his
feet. You look black, Desmond! How absurd of you to be angry!"
And she closed her fingers over his hand till the frown died out of his
face.
"The tune seemed to draw me to the man. I understood just how he had
captured the serpent that lay hidden in his bosom. It had once lain in
ambush as I lay now, long ago perhaps, in the desert among the rocks, on
the sand, Desmond."
"Ah, the sand!" he said, remembering suddenly the strange feeling
Claire had described as coming upon her when she was trying to sleep.
"Yes. And he had drawn it from the sand to the oasis among the palms
where he stood playing, till he heard its rustling in the grass about
his feet, as it glided nearer to him, and nearer, and nearer, till at
last it reared up its body, and wound up him and round him, and laid its
flat head between his great hands. Yes, that was how it came."
"You fancy."
"I know. But I would not go. I determined that I would not, and I lay
perfectly still. But all the time I longed to go. I had an almost
irresistible passion for movement towards that tune. It seemed to me a
stream of music into which I yearned to plunge, and drown and die. And
it flowed up there at the man's lips! The longing increased as he piped
the tune, over and over and over again, almost under his breath. I was
sick with it, and it hurt me because I resisted it. And at last I knew
that resisting it would kill me. I must either go, or not go, and die.
There was no alternative. That music simply claimed me. It had the right
to. And if I denied that right I should cease. I did deny it."