Precisely at seven o'clock we presented ourselves at the Commandant's,
Mary looking very pretty in her transparent white dress, brilliant sack
of Tunis silk, and necklets and bracelets of coral and palm-seeds. The
little thing had such loving, dark eyes, such a soft bloom on her
cheeks, and such a sweet mouth, that I could hardly blame the Général
for wishing to have her sit beside him at dinner. The Commandant, being
a little shy, would have given up all his privileges as host, but the
Général insisted upon the Commandant leading her in, and she sat
between the two. It was very mortifying for the Capitaine and the
Lieutenant; the former made an effort to be complimentary and
entertaining across the table, but the latter looked quite crestfallen,
and hardly raised his eyes from his plate. When we retired to the
drawing-room, matters went a little better. The tame gazelle was brought
in for Mademoiselle Marie to see; and while the Général and the
Commandant had a long discussion on military affairs, the rest of us
sported with the pretty creature and made pleasant plans for the morrow.
Then an amusing game of cards was set on foot, over which we were
growing very merry, when up came the Général and the Commandant.
"Eh, bien!" said the Général, slyly nudging the Capitaine. "We have not
been so engrossed, but we heard one or two pleasant things talked of.
Upon my word, Capitaine, I am half disposed not to go to Mascara till
after your picnic to the water-falls."
"You will do my poor little fête great honor, mon Général," answered the
Capitaine, adding, naïvely, "but I think that the wild geese flying
northwards means rain."
"Not a bit of it. We shall have no rain until a fortnight after
Christmas. Mademoiselle Marie, I shall do myself the honor of offering
you one of my horses to ride."
"Mademoiselle has already condescended to accept mine," the Capitaine
put in, with stiffness.
"Mademoiselle Marie, this gentleman has no horse fit to carry a lady.
The brute he offers you has no more mouth than an elephant. Keep on the
safe side and ride mine, which is a lamb, I assure you, mademoiselle,--a
lamb."
The Général spoke in jest, but the Capitaine was very near losing his
temper. Mary being thus appealed to, thought to extricate herself from
the difficulty by declaring herself half afraid to ride either horse,
being an inexperienced horsewoman. But both the gentlemen had mules, and
both the gentlemen's mules were the best. Poor Mary colored, and looked
at me in despair.
"I think," I said, "the safest plan will be for my sister to try the
horses, and see which suits her the best."
Then the different routes to the water-falls were discussed, and the
different Douars or Arab villages where it would be best to have a
Diffa, or feast, provided,--Mary's judgment being asked in every
instance. All this time the Lieutenant had turned over the leaves of a
newspaper very meekly, and the Commandant had caressed his tame
gazelle. As soon as she could politely free herself, Mary went up to
him.
"How pretty, and playful, and fond it is!" she said, stooping down to
stroke the little creature. The grave face of the Commandant brightened.
"Yes; it would be very _triste_ here without the little thing."
"Do you never go to France, monsieur?"
"I shall perhaps go in two years' time; but you see, mademoiselle, that
is a long time to look forward to; and if my mother should not be
living, I might as well stay here."
"Do you like fighting the Arabs in the Desert, then, monsieur?"
"Mademoiselle, when one takes up the profession of arms, fighting and
exile are _choses entendues_. I often sigh for a settled, domestic life;
but I might have been worse off. I might have gone to Mexico, for
instance."
The Commandant's manner was so simple, so manly, and so tinged with
sadness, that I think any woman would have sympathized with him as much
as my little sister Mary did. She, poor child, having lived all her life
in a school-room, was quite ready to make a hero of any man that smiled
kindly upon her; and here were four heroes, in handsome uniforms, all
smiling upon her at once! There was the sweet sense of youth drawing
her to the Lieutenant; but I think the Commandant stood next in her
favor, and she could not for a moment forget the courteous kindness of
the other two.
"It must all be a dream, Tom," she said, as she gave me her good-night
kiss; "but, oh! if it is a dream, don't let me wake yet."
We dreamed some wonderful things in the next few days. Dominique made us
get up, one morning, very early, and drove us in his little wooden gig
to an Arab encampment miles away in the Desert. It was dawn when we
started, and large, pale stars were shining in a violet sky; then, like
a gorgeous butterfly emerging from a dusky chrysalis, came the Eastern
day, and we felt as if living in a world warmed by a hundred suns. The
warm, intoxicating light took possession of our senses, and so sweet, so
rarefied, so indescribably delicious was the air, that it seemed to give
wings to our dull bodies. Every now and then we were overtaken by clouds
of locusts, their little wings glistening like diamonds against the soft
sky, or flocks of starlings darkened the air, or a serried line of wild
geese passed majestically overhead. Then we came to the tents, and at
our approach a dozen dogs rushed out to snap and snarl, and a hundred
little naked children scampered and scuttled across the way. A stately
Bedouin made us welcome, and, while Dominique transacted business with
him, his women gathered around us, chattering and grinning like
children. Then we were feasted upon cous-cous-sou and figs, and took
leave, after many "salamaleks."
Another day we went out hunting gazelles, bivouacking along a riverside,
and feasting, Arab fashion, off a sheep roasted whole. Dominique had
found a pretty little French girl, daughter of a travelling farrier, to
act as Mary's handmaid; and she now felt less isolated among so many
men, and less shy, too. The poor child stood a fair chance of being
spoiled, what with suddenly finding herself transformed from a
school-room Cinderella to a fairy-tale princess, and having four lovers,
all heroes, at once. For it was impossible to deny that the Général, the
Commandant, the Capitaine, and the Lieutenant all behaved like lovers,
presenting her with jackal skins, ostrich plumes and eggs, rare birds,
and other treasures of the Sahara. The Général went so far as to give
her a little negro boy about ten years old, though this gift we had
accepted only temporarily, not quite knowing what to do with him when we
left Teschoun.
Christmas-day came at last. Mary had artfully evaded the delicate point
about horses by declaring herself afraid of every one's beast but
Dominique's; accordingly, mounted on Dominique's ugly hack, she led the
way with the Général, her long, bright hair flowing in curls over her
shoulders, her cheeks glowing with excitement. The pleasure and
picturesqueness of the last few days--for Mary had an artistic
perception of beauty--had brought out a new side to her character; and
she quite surprised me, from time to time, with her saucy humor and
quick repartee.
We made a brilliant cavalcade, what with the uniforms of the officers,
and the richly embroidered saddles and bright-red burnouses of our
attendant spahis. After riding some miles across a monotonous tract of
stony desert, we came to a majestic sierra of crag, down which fell a
dozen water-falls, narrow and bright as sword-blades. A thin little
stream threaded the ravine, and on its banks grew clumps of the
tamarisk, the oleander, and the thuya, making an oasis grateful to the
eyes. Here we sat down and ate our Christmas breakfast, with stray
thoughts of village bells chiming at home, and school children lustily
singing their Christmas hymns.
Our host, the Capitaine, had provided a sumptuous feast of Desert
fare,--roast quails and plovers, cous-cous-sou, figs, dates, and
bananas, with the addition of champagne; and we were very merry.
"Mademoiselle," said the Capitaine, "think what our next Christmas will
be if you are not here. Persuade monsieur, your brother, to purchase
some land between Mascara and Teschoun, so that we shall not lose you
altogether."
The Général nudged the Commandant.
"You see what our friend the Capitaine is dreaming of! Mon Capitaine,
your escadron is sure to be sent into the interior this spring; put all
romances out of your head, my dear fellow, and do not entice monsieur
into the committal of follies."
"I am not the only one to entertain romances," said the Capitaine,
coolly. "You, mon Général, did us all the honor to spend Christmas at
Teschoun. We can but attribute such a condescension to the gracious
influence of mademoiselle."
"Look well after the Commandant when I am gone, gentlemen," continued
the Général, looking round with a smile. "Matters are gone so far
already that he loses his temper if a fellow-officer but jests with him.
What a terrible slur it would be upon the glorious annals of
French-African conquest, if such a brave officer should show himself
fonder of stuffing birds for an English demoiselle than running swords
through ungrateful Arabs!" and the Général looked round with a very
comical expression of mock horror.
"Mademoiselle has indiscriminately accepted our tokens of homage," the
Commandant said, maliciously.
"But it yet remains to be seen whose offering has been most acceptable
to her," went on the Général, adding, _au grand sérieux_, "we won't
resort to duels unless absolutely necessary."
This sort of banter lasted so long that poor Mary's cheeks burned with
mixed vanity and mortification, and she made an excuse to leave us.
"And what does our Lieutenant advise monsieur to do?" asked the
Général,--"to settle here, or to follow his escadron to the Desert?"
Whereupon the poor Lieutenant colored, and said nothing.
What an experience it was, that Christmas-day in the Desert! The noonday
sun seemed to dissolve in the warm atmosphere, and, instead of a single
orb shining overhead, large and golden, we had melted suns innumerable
about us, and almost lost the sense of corporeity in their charmed
medium.
When the short bright day waned, and the large stars were coming out one
by one, we found ourselves near home; and when the heavens had turned to
bluish-black, and the stars to splendid silvery moons, we passed under
the gate of Teschoun, and saw our shadows, darker and deeper than real
things, fall across the white walls of mosque and fortress. For shadow
and substance lost their identity in the Desert and one is always on the
point of mistaking the one for the other: if anything, shadow is the
more real of the two.
So absorbed was I in the suggestions of this mysterious beauty, that I
had forgotten all about my sister's lovers till we were fairly in our
little sitting-room. Then Mary began to sigh and blush, and to hint that
she thought we had better leave Teschoun very soon.
"You see, Tom, dear," she said, with tears in her eyes, "the Général
says he adores me, and the Commandant says he never loved any one in the
world until he saw me, and the Capitaine says that if I go away he will
blow his brains out, and what am I to do?"
"And the Lieutenant,--what did he say?"
"He says nothing," said Mary, looking down; "and,"--here came a
sob,--"and I like him best of all!"
"But, if he does not declare the same liking for you, we must leave him
out of the question, and choose between the other three, I suppose."
"He does not speak because he is too modest: I'm sure he likes me," Mary
added, still ready to cry.
"His state of feeling does not help us much, unless expressed," I
replied. "Meantime, what am I to say to the Général, the Commandant,
and the Capitaine, if they ask to marry you?"
The little thing plucked at the folds of her riding-skirt in the
greatest perplexity.
"I like the Général and I like the Commandant, and I ought not to
dislike the Capitaine; but I cannot marry one without offending the
others; and, if I were to marry out here in the Desert, Tom, would you
stay, too?"
We had been living in such utter fairy-land lately, that I felt as if it
were quite possible for me to marry some brown-skinned, soft-eyed
Rebecca, and turn Mahometan. But, in any case, could I desire for my
sister a happier fate than to marry one of these brave gentlemen, and
live in the sunny South all the rest of her days? She would be rescued
from a life of toil and friendlessness, and have another protector
besides her Bohemian of a brother.
"My dear child," I said, "it would be impossible for me to say that our
lives should be spent together; but you may be quite sure that nothing
would utterly divide them. The chief point is, of all your lovers, whom
do you love?"
To this question I could elicit no positive reply. Mary, in fact, was
half in love with the Général and the Commandant, and wholly in love
with the Lieutenant, and was quite incapable of deciding her own fate.
"You must not laugh at me," she said, simply, as we bade each other
good-night; "it is so new to me to have lovers, and so delightful, that
I wish I could go on forever being happy, and making them happy, without
marrying either." Then she blushed and ran off to bed.
The next morning we were taking our early coffee, when we heard the
clatter of horses' feet, and, looking out, saw one of the Général's
splendid, brown-skinned, red-cloaked spahis dashing into the town at a
furious rate. He pulled up at Dominique's door, and, letting his little
barb prance and rear at will, looked towards us, showing his white teeth
and waving a letter in one hand.
I left my breakfast and ran down to him. We exchanged "salamaleks," and
then he put the letter in my hand, adding, in broken French, "Le
Général,--envoyer cela,--va faire le guerre,--la-bas." Then he put spurs
to his horse's flanks, and dashed away as fast as he had come.