The expedition with which Reuel Briggs found himself connected was made
up of artists, savants and several men--capitalists--who represented
the business interests of the venture. Before the white cliffs of the
English coast were entirely lost to view, Reuel’s natural propensities
for leadership were being fully recognized by the students about him.
There was an immediate demand for his professional services and he was
kept busy for many days. And it was the best panacea for a nature like
his--deep and silent and self-suppressing. He had abandoned happiness
for duty; he had stifled all those ominous voices which rose from the
depth of his heart, and said to him: “Will you ever return? and if you
return will you find your dear one? and, if you find her, will she not
have changed? will she have preserved your memory as faithfully as you
will preserve hers?”
A thousand times a day while he performed his duties mechanically,
his fate haunted him--the renunciation which called on him to give up
happiness, to open to mishap the fatal door absence. All the men of
the party were more or less silent and distrait, even Charlie Vance
was subdued and thoughtful. But Briggs suffered more than any of them,
although he succeeded in affecting a certain air of indifference. As he
gradually calmed down and peace returned to his mind, he was surprised
to feel the resignation that possessed him. Some unseen presence spoke
to his inner being words of consolation and hope. He was shown very
clearly his own inability to control events, and that his fate was no
longer in his own hands but ordered by a being of infinite pity and
love. After hours spent in soul-communion with the spirit of Dianthe,
he would sink into refreshing slumber and away in peace. Her letters
were bright spots, very entertaining and describing minutely her life
and daily occupation since his departure. He lived upon them during the
voyage to Tripoli, sustained by the hope of finding one upon arriving
at that city.
One fine evening when the sun was setting, they arrived at Tripoli.
Their course lay toward the southward, and standing on deck, Reuel
watched the scene--a landscape strange in form, which would have
delighted him and filled him with transports of joy; now he felt
something akin to indifference.
The ripples that flit the burnished surface of the long undulating
billows tinkled continually on the sides of the vessel. He was aware of
a low-lying spectral-pale band of shore. That portion of Africa whose
nudity is only covered by the fallow mantle of the desert gave a most
sad impression to the gazer. The Moors call it “Bled el Ateusch,” the
Country of Thirst; and, as there is an intimate relation between the
character of a country and that of its people, Reuel realized vividly
that the race who dwelt here must be different from those of the rest
of the world.
“Ah! that is our first glimpse of Africa, is it?” said Adonis’s voice,
full of delight, beside him.
He turned to see his friend offering him a telescope. “At last we are
here. In the morning we shall set our feet on the enchanted ground.”
In the distance one could indeed make out upon the deep blue of the
sky the profile of Djema el Gomgi, the great mosque on the shores of
the Mediterranean. At a few cable lengths away the city smiles at them
with all the fascination of a modern Cleopatra, circled with an oasis
of palms studded with hundreds of domes and minarets. Against a sky
of amethyst the city stands forth with a penetrating charm. It is the
eternal enchantment of the cities of the Orient seen at a distance;
but, alas! set foot within them, the illusion vanishes and disgust
seizes you. Like beautiful bodies they have the appearance of life, but
within the worm of decay and death eats ceaselessly.
At twilight in this atmosphere the city outlines itself faintly, then
disappears in dusky haze. One by one the stars came into the sky until
the heavens were a twinkling blaze; the sea murmured even her soft
refrain and slept with the transparency of a mirror, flecked here and
there with fugitive traces of phosphorescence.
The two young men stood a long time on the deck gazing toward the shore.
“Great night!” exclaimed Adonis at length with a long-drawn sigh of
satisfaction. “It promises to be better than anything Barnum has ever
given us even at a dollar extra reserved seat.”
Reuel smiled in spite of himself; after all, Charlie was a home-line
warranted to ward off homesickness. On board there was the sound
of hurrying feet and a murmur of suppressed excitement, but it had
subsided shortly; an hour later “sleep and oblivion reigned over all.”
In the morning, amid the bustle of departure the mail came on board.
There were two letters for Reuel. He seated himself in the seclusion
of the cabin safe from prying eyes. Travelling across the space that
separated him from America, his thoughts were under the trees in the
garden of Vance Hall. In the fresh morning light he thought he could
discern the dress of his beloved as she came toward him between the
trees.
Again he was interrupted by Charlie’s jolly countenance. He held an
open letter in his hand. “There, Doc., there’s Molly’s letter. Read it,
read it; don’t have any qualms of conscience about it. There’s a good
bit in it concerning the Madam, see? I thought you’d like to read it.”
Then he sauntered away to talk with Jim Titus about the supplies for
the trip across the desert.
Jim was proving himself a necessary part of the expedition. He was a
Negro of the old régime who felt that the Anglo-Saxon was appointed by
God to rule over the African. He showed his thoughts in his obsequious
manner, his subservient “massa,” and his daily conversation with those
about him. Jim superintended the arrangement of the table of the
exploring party, haggled over prices with the hucksters, quarreled with
the galley cooks and ended by doing all the cooking for his party in
addition to keeping his eye on “Massa Briggs.” All of this was very
pleasant, but sometimes Reuel caught a gleam in Jim’s furtive black eye
which set him thinking and wondering at the latter’s great interest in
himself; but he accounted for this because of Livingston’s admonitions
to Jim to “take care of Dr. Briggs.”
Willing or not, the company of travellers were made to take part in
the noisy scene on deck when a horde of dirty rascals waylaid them, and
after many uses and combination of all sorts over a few cents, they
and their luggage were transported to the Custom House. “Ye gods!”
exclaimed Charlie in deep disgust, “what a jostling, and what a noise.”
All the little world about them was in an uproar, everyone signalling,
gesticulating, speaking at once. Such a fray bewilders a civilized
man, but those familiar with Southern exuberance regard it tranquilly,
well knowing the disorder is more apparent than real. Those of the
party who were familiar with the scene, looked on highly amused at the
bewilderment of the novices.
Most of them had acquired the necessary art of not hurrying, and under
their direction the examination of the baggage proceeded rapidly.
Presently, following a robust porter, they had traversed an open
place filled with the benches and chairs of a “café,” and soon the
travellers were surprised and amused to find themselves objects of
general curiosity. Coffee and nargiles were there merely as a pretext,
in reality the gathering was in their honor. The names of the members
of the expedition were known, together with its object of visiting
Meroe of ancient fame, the arrival of such respectable visitors is a
great event. Then, too, Tripoli is the natural road by which Africa has
been attacked by many illustrious explorers because of the facility
of communication with the country of the Blacks. Nowhere in northern
Africa does the Great Desert advance so near the sea. The Atlas range
rises from the Atlantic coast, extending far eastward. This range loses
itself in the gulf of Little Syrta, and the vast, long-pent-up element,
knowing no more barrier, spreads its yellow, sandy waves as far as the
Nile, enveloping the last half-submerged summits which form a rosary of
oases.
Under the Sultan’s rule Tripoli has remained the capital of a truly
barbaric state, virgin of improvements, with just enough dilapidated
abandon, dirt and picturesqueness to make the delight of the artist.
Arabs were everywhere; veiled women looked at the Christians with
melting eyes above their wrappings. Mohammedanism, already twelve
centuries old, has, after a period of inactivity, awakened anew in
Africa, and is rapidly spreading. Very unlike the Christians, the
faithful of today are the same fervid Faithful of Omar and Mohammed.
Incredulity, indifference, so widely spread among other sects are
unknown to them.
Supper-time found the entire party seated on the floor around a
well-spread tray, set on a small box. They had taken possession of the
one living-room of a mud house. It was primitive but clean. A post
or two supported the thatched ceiling. There were no windows. The
furniture consisted of a few rugs and cushions. But the one idea of
the party being sleep, they were soon sunk in a profound and dreamless
slumber.
The next day and the next were spent in trying to gain an audience with
the Sheik Mohammed Abdallah, and the days lengthened into weeks and
a month finally rolled into oblivion. Meantime there were no letters
for Dr. Briggs and Charlie Vance. Everyone else in the party had been
blessed with many letters, even Jim was not forgotten.
Reuel had learned to be patient in the dolce far miente of the East,
but not so Charlie. He fumed and fretted continually after the
first weeks had passed. But promptly at two, one hot afternoon the
Sheik knocked at the door of their hut. He was a handsome man of
forty years--tall, straight, with clear brown eyes, good features,
a well-shaped moustache and well-trimmed black beard. Authority
surrounded him like an atmosphere. He greeted the party in French and
Arabic and invited them to his house where a feast was spread for them.
Presents were given and received and then they were introduced to
Ababdis, an owner of camels who was used to leading parties into the
wilderness. After much haggling over prices, it was decided to take
fifteen camels and their drivers. Supplies were to consist of biscuit,
rice, tea, sugar, coffee, wax candles, charcoal and a copious supply
of water bags. It was decided not to start until Monday, after the
coming of the mail, which was again due. After leaving Tripoli, it was
doubtful when they would receive news from America again. The mail
came. Again Jim was the only one who received a letter from the United
States. Reuel handed it to him with a feeling of homesickness and a
sinking of the heart.
Monday morning found them mounted and ready for the long journey across
the desert to the first oasis. From the back of a camel Charlie Vance
kept the party in good humor with his quaint remarks. “Say, Doc., it’s
worth the price. How I wish the pater, your wife and Molly could see us
now. Livingston wouldn’t do a thing to these chocolate colored gentry
of Arabia.”
“And Miss Scott? where does she come in?” questioned Reuel with an
assumption of gaiety he was far from feeling.
“Oh,” replied Charlie, not at all non-plussed. “Cora isn’t in the
picture; I’m thinking of a houri.”
“Same old thing, Charlie--the ladies?”
“No,” said Charlie, solemnly. “It’s business this time. Say, Briggs,
the sight of a camel always makes me a child again. The long-necked
beast is inevitably associated in my mind with Barnum’s circus and
playing hookey. Pop wants me to put out my sign and go in for business,
but the show business suits me better. For instance,” he continued
with a wave of his hand including the entire caravan, “Arabs, camels,
stray lions, panthers, scorpions, serpents, explorers, etc., with a few
remarks by yours truly, to the accompaniment of the band--always the
band you know, would make an interesting show--a sort of combination
of Barnum and Kiralfy. The houris would do Kiralfy’s act, you know.
There’s money in it.”
“Were you ever serious in your life, Charlie?”
“What the deuce is the need of playing funeral all the time, tell me
that, Briggs, will you?”
The great desert had the sea’s monotony. They rode on and on hour after
hour. The elements of the view were simple. Narrow valleys and plains
bounded by picturesque hills lay all about them. The nearer hills to
the right had shoulders and hollows at almost regular intervals, and a
sky-line of an almost regular curve. Under foot the short grass always
seemed sparse, and the low sage-shrubs rather dingy, but as they looked
over the plain stretching away in every direction, it had a distinctly
green tint. They saw occasionally a red poppy and a purple iris. Not
a tree was to be seen, nor a rock. Sometimes the land lay absolutely
level and smooth, with hardly a stone larger than a bean. The soft blue
sky was cloudless, the caravan seemed to be the only living creature
larger than a gazelle in the great solitude. Even Reuel was aroused to
enthusiasm by the sight of a herd of these graceful creatures skimming
the plain. High in the air the larks soared and sang.
As they went southward the hot sun poured its level rays upon them, and
the song of the drivers was a relief to their thoughts. The singing
reminded travellers of Venetian gondoliers, possessing as it did the
plaintive sweetness of the most exquisite European airs. There was
generally a leading voice answered by a full chorus. Reuel thought
he had never heard music more fascinating. Ababdis would assume the
leading part. “Ah, when shall I see my family again; the rain has
fallen and made a canal between me and my home. Oh, shall I never see
it more?” Then would follow the chorus of drivers: “Oh, what pleasure,
what delight, to see my family again; when I see my father, mother,
brothers, sisters, I will hoist a flag on the head of my camel for
joy!” About the middle of the week they were making their way over the
Great Desert where it becomes an elevated plateau crossed by rocky
ridges, with intervening sandy plains mostly barren, but with here and
there a solitary tree, and sometimes a few clumps of grass. The caravan
was skirting the base of one of these ridges, which culminated in a
cliff looking, in the distance, like a half-ruined castle, which the
Arabs believed to be enchanted. Reuel determined to visit this cliff,
and saying nothing to any one, and accompanied only by Jim and followed
by the warnings of the Arabs to beware of lions, they started for the
piles of masonry, which they reached in a couple of hours. The moon
rose in unclouded splendor, and Moore’s lines came to his heart:
“O, such a blessed night as this,
I often think if friends were near,
How we should feel, and gaze with bliss
Upon the moonlight scenery here.”
He strolled into the royal ruin, stumbling over broken carvings,
and into hollows concealed by luminous plants, beneath whose shades
dwelt noisome things that wriggled away in the marvelous white light.
Climbing through what was once a door, he stepped out on a ledge of
masonry, that hung sheer seven hundred feet over the plain. Reuel got
out his pipe and it was soon in full blast, while the smoker set to
building castles in the curls of blue smoke, that floated lightly into
space. Jim with the guns waited for him at the foot of the hill.
Under the influence of the soothing narcotic and the spell of the
silver moon, Reuel dreamed of fame and fortune he would carry home
to lay at a little woman’s feet. Presently his castle-building was
interrupted by a low wail--not exactly the mew of a cat, nor yet the
sound of a lute.
Again the sound.
What could it be?
“Ah, I have it!” muttered Reuel; “it’s the Arabs singing in the camp.”
Little did he imagine that within ten paces of him crouched an enormous
leopard.
Little did he imagine that he was creeping, creeping toward him, as a
cat squirms at a bird.
He sat on the ruined ledge of the parapet, within two feet of the edge;
seven hundred feet below the desert sand glittered like molten silver
in the gorgeous moonlight.
He was unarmed, having given Jim his revolver to hold.
Reuel sat there entirely unconscious of danger; presently a vague
feeling struck him, not of fear, not of dread, but a feeling that if
he turned his head he would see an enemy, and without knowing why, he
slowly turned his head.
Great heavens! what did he see? A thrill of horror passed through him
as his eyes rested upon those of an enormous brute, glaring like hot
coals set in blood-red circles.
Its mouth was wide open, its whiskers moving like the antennae of a
lobster. It lay on its belly, its hindquarters raised, its forepaws
planted in the tawny sand ready to spring.
The moon played on the spots of its body. The dark spots became
silvered, and relapsed into darkness as the animal breathed, while its
tail lashed about, occasionally whipping the sand with a peculiar whish.
How was he to withstand its spring?
The weight of its body would send him over the precipice like a shot.
Strange to say a grim satisfaction came to him at the thought that the
brute must go down with him. Where could he hold? Could he clutch at
anything? he asked himself.
He dared not remove his eyes from those of the leopard. He could not
in fact. But in a sort of introverted glance he saw that nothing stood
between him and space but a bare, polished wall, that shone white
beneath the moonbeams.
“Was there a loose stone--a stone that would crush in the skull of the
blood-thirsty animal?” Not so much as a pebble to cast into the depths,
for he had already searched for one to fling over, as people do when
perched on eminences. He cried for help, “Jim! Jim! O-o-o-h, Jim!”
There came no reply; not the slightest sound broke the stillness as the
sound of his cries died away.
Reuel was now cool--cool as a cucumber--so cool that he deliberately
placed himself in position to receive the rush of the terrific brute.
He felt himself moving gently back his right foot, shuffling it back
until his heel came against an unevenness in the rock, which gave him a
sort of purchase--something to back it.
He gathered himself together for a supreme effort, every nerve being at
the highest condition of tension.
It is extraordinary all the thoughts that pass like lightning in a
second of time, through the mind, while face to face with death.
Volumes of ideas flashed through his brain as he stood on the stone
ledge, with eternity awaiting him, knowing that this would be the end
of all his hopes and fears and pleasant plans for future happiness,
that he would go down to death in the embrace of the infuriated animal
before him, its steel-like claws buried in his flesh, its fetid breath
filling his nostrils. He thought of his darling love, and of how the
light would go out of her existence with his death. He thought of
Livingston, of the fellows who had gathered to bid him God speed,
of the paragraphs in the papers. All these things came as harrowing
pictures as he stood at bay in the liquid pearl of the silent moon.
The leopard began to move its hindquarters from side to side. A spring
was at hand.
Reuel yelled then--yelled till the walls of the ruined castle echoed
again--yelled as if he had 10,000 voices in his throat--yelled, as a
man only yells when on his being heard depends his chance for dear life.
The beast turned its head sharply, and prepared to spring. For a second
Briggs thought that a pantomime trick might give him a chance. What if
he were to wait until the animal actually leaped, and then turn aside?
Carried forward by its own weight and momentum it would go over the
ledge and be dashed to pieces on the rocks below.
It was worth trying. A drowning man catches at a straw. Instinctively
Reuel measured his distance. He could step aside and let the brute
pass, but that was all. The ledge was narrow. He was, unhappily, in
very good condition. The sea-voyage had fattened him, and it was just a
chance that he could escape being carried over by the brute.
He accepted the chance.
Then came the fearful moment.
The leopard swayed a little backward!
Then, to his intense delight, he heard a shout of encouragement in
Vance’s well-known voice, “Coming, Briggs, coming!”
The next moment a hand was laid on his shoulder from a window above;
it was Charlie, who trembling with anxiety had crept through the ruin,
and, oh, blessed sight! handed Reuel his revolver.
Briggs made short work of the leopard: he let him have three
barrels--all in the head.
Vance had become alarmed for the safety of his friend, and had gone to
the ruin to meet him. When very nearly there, he had heard the first
cry for help, and had urged his camel forward. Arrived at the castle he
had found Jim apparently dead with sleep, coiled up on the warm sand.
How he could sleep within sound of the piercing cries uttered by Briggs
was long a mystery to the two friends.