very hopeless one. A number of extremely polite, and elaborately
braided, officials heard me with interest and pity; and having covered
some folios of paper with notes declared that nothing could be done. For
themselves, their theory was that the Moor Sidi had been talking about
my treasure, and that some other domestic in the Hotel de la Regence had
opened my door while I slept and got possession of the ornament with
little risk. But that any one should recover the property was in their
idea a preposterous assumption.
"It is on its way to Paris," said one of them as he closed his note-book
with a snap, "and there's an end of it. We shall, without doubt, watch
the servants of the hotel closely for some time, but that should not
encourage you. It is possible that the man Mohammed, the porter of the
place, may know something of the affair. We shall have his house
searched to-day, but, my friend, _ne vous montez pas la tete_, we are
not in Paris, and the upper town is worse than a beehive. I am afraid
that your hope of seeing the thing again is small."
I was afraid so, too; but being accustomed to strange losses and to
strange recoveries, I determined to venture something in the hazard, and
to remain in Algiers for a few weeks, at any rate. The most difficult
part of my work lay in my ignorance of the city, and in that matter Sidi
alone could help me. Every day we went with measured and expectant tread
through that labyrinth of fantastic and half-dark streets, where
repulsive hags grin at the wickets below, and dark eyes coquette at the
gratings above; every day we delved in booths and bazaars, we haggled
with the jewel sellers, we bartered with the gold workers, but to no
purpose. I had come to think at last that the loss was not worth further
trouble; and had made up my mind to return to London, when I
recollected with some self-reproach that I had as yet neglected one of
the very simplest means to grapple with the occasion--that I had, in
fact, offered no reward for the recovery of the jeweled scimitar, and to
this omission owed, I did not doubt, the utter absence of clue or
conviction.
When I was yet angry with myself at this absurd oversight I had a second
thought which was even more useful, and one to which I owed much before
I had done with the matter. I remembered that the French police had set
down my loss to the loud talk of Sidi amongst the others at the hotel.
Why, then, I asked, should not this man also scatter the tidings that I
would give so many hundreds of francs for the recovery of the scimitar?
No sooner had I got the idea than I acted upon it.
"Sidi," said I, when he came to me on the next morning, "I have heard
much of your cleverness, but you have not yet found my property; now I
will give a thousand francs to the man who brings it here within a
week."
To my utter surprise he bowed his head with his old gravity, and
answered, "If Allah wills, the jewel is found."
This was amazing, no doubt, and in its way a triumph of impudence. If he
could find it with that ease, then he must have known by whom it was
stolen. I turned upon him at once with the accusation, but he stood with
the gravity of granite and responded to all my threats with the simple
greeting, as of a father to a son,--
"And upon you be peace."
To have argued with such a rogue would have been as useful as a
demonstration in theology before a mollah; to have accused him boldly of
the theft would have been absurd, even had I not possessed such a wealth
of testimony in his favor. I sent him about his business, therefore, and
went in search of my friend Chassaigne, who had been away since I lost
the trinket, but was then at the arsenal again. The lieutenant took the
news with edifying calmness, but assured me that I had at last taken the
only course which was at all likely to result in success.
"Our friend the Moor," said he, "is the most honorable of his kind in
Algiers, where all are rogues. I do not believe for a moment that he
stole the jewels, although his father, his uncle, or his own brother may
have done so. Your reward may tempt him to return them if the police set
up a hue and cry; but if he suggests that you go up in the old town to
receive them, tell him you will do nothing of the sort. There are far
too many dark eyes and sharp knives there for an Englishman's taste, and
a Moor still has claims in Paradise for every Frank he sticks. If you
took the other course, and sought your money from this hotel-keeper, he
would bring a hundred to swear that you did not lose the stones in the
hotel, and you would be where you are. It's annoying to adopt a _laissez
aller_ policy, but I fear you can do nothing else."
I thought that he was right, but my habitual obstinacy was all upon me,
and I found myself as much determined to recover the jewels I had lost
as if they had been worth ten thousand pounds. I was quite sure that
the police would do nothing, and save that they informed me in a
cumbrous document that they had searched the house of Mohammed the
porter, and of five others, my surmise proved a true one. It was left to
Sidi, and for Sidi I waited on the morning of the ninth day with an
expectancy which was unwarrantably large. He came to me at his usual
hour, eight o'clock, and when he had salaamed, he said,--
"If Allah is willing, the jewel is found--but the money is not enough."
"Not enough!" said I, choking almost with anger, "the money is not
enough! Why, you brazen-faced blackguard, what do you mean?"
He replied with an appeal to the beard of the Prophet, and an evident
word of contempt for my commercial understanding. The irony of the whole
situation was so great, and his immobility so stupendous, that I quickly
forbore my anger and said,--
"Very well, Sidi, we will make it fifteen hundred francs." And with that
he went off again, and I saw him no more until the next day, when he
repeated the _incha Allaeh_ and the intimation that the price was too
low. On this occasion my anger overcame me. I seized him by the throat,
and shaking him roughly, said,--
"You consummate rascal, I believe you have the jewels all the time; if
you don't bring them in an hour, I will take you to the police myself."
My anger availed me no more than my forbearance. It did but awaken that
inherent dignity before which I cowed; and when I had done with him, he
left me and came no more for three days. On the third morning when he
returned he looked at me with reproach marked in his deep black eyes;
and raising his hands to heaven he protested once more in the old words,
and to the old conclusion. I was then so wearied of the very sound of
his voice that I took him by the shoulders and held him down upon an
ottoman until he would consent to bargain with me, shekel by shekel for
the return of my gems; and in the end he consented to make me the
longest speech that I had yet had from his lips.
"By the beard of my father," said he, "I protest to milord that neither
I nor my people have the precious thing he wots of; but the dog of a
thief, upon whose head be desolation, is known to me. For money he took
the jewel, for money he shall lay it again at milord's feet; yet not
here, but in the house of his people, where none shall see and none
shall know."
A long argument, and some fine bargaining, enabled me to get to the
bottom of the whole story; but only under a solemn oath that the keeping
of the secret should be shared by no one. With much fine recital and
many appeals to the holy marabouts to bear witness, Sidi demonstrated
that the thief was no other than Mohammed the porter, who had the stone
hidden with extraordinary cunning, and from whom it was to be got only
at my own personal risk.
"Under the shadow of the Kasbah it lies," said he; "under the shadow of
the Kasbah must you seek it with those I shall send to you, and no
others. Obey them in all things; be silent when they are silent, speak
when they speak, fly and lose not haste when they bid you fly."
This was all very vague, but a deeper acquaintance with his purpose made
it the more clear. In answer to my question why he could not bring the
jewel to the hotel, he said that it would never be surrendered except to
a certain force; and with that force he would supply me. He himself
seemed to be under an oath to bear no hand to the emprise; and he was
emphatic in laying down the condition that I must go absolutely alone;
or, said he, "the hand of Fatma shall not be passed nor that which you
seek come to you."
Now, the proper spirit in which to have received this suggestion would
have been that of an uncompromising negative. Chassaigne had cautioned
me particularly against going into the old town, and here was I
hearkening to a proposition to visit it not only by night, but in the
company of those who possibly were honest, but more possibly were
cut-throats. I knew well enough what he would say to the venture; and
truly I was much disposed to refuse it at the beginning, and to go to
London as I had at first intended. This I told Sidi, and he gave me for
answer a shrug of the shoulders, which implied that if I did, my
property, for which I hoped to get a thousand pounds, would certainly
remain behind me. Nor did threats and entreaties move him one iota from
his position, neither on that day nor on the next two; so that I saw in
the end that I had better decide quickly, or take ship and fly a city of
indolent Frenchmen and rascally Moors.
It would prove tedious to recount to you the various processes of
reasoning by which, finally, I found myself of a mind to court this
hazard and agreed to Sidi's terms. He on his part had vouched for my
safety; and after all, the man who ever wraps his life in cotton-wool,
as it were, must see little beyond the stuffy box on his own habitation.
Here was a chance to see the Moors _chez-eux_, possibly to risk a broken
head with them; in any case, a chance which an adventurous man might be
thankful for, and which I took.
Having once agreed to Sidi's terms, he set upon the realization of the
project with unusual ardor. The very next evening was chosen for the
undertaking, the hour being close upon ten, and the Moor himself
accompanying me some part of the way. He had advised me to equip myself
_en Arabe_ for the business; and this I did with some little discomfort,
especially in the manipulation of the long burnouse, and in the carriage
of appalling headgear which he would not allow me to dispense with. I
had put these things on at the hotel; but as it is not unusual for a
Frank to ape the Moor when wishing to explore the upper town at night, I
escaped unpleasant curiosity, and arrived at the steep ascent of the Rue
de la Lyre, feeling that I was like, at any rate, to get more excitement
out of the old city than nine-tenths of the Englishmen who visit her.
Almost at the top of the street the Moor's friends met me. I could see
little of their faces, for they covered them as much as possible with
their somber-hued cloaks, but they salaamed profoundly on greeting me;
and Sidi took his leave when he had exchanged a few words in Arabic with
them. From that time onward they did not speak, but went straight
forward into the old quarter, and soon we had entered a narrow way where
flights of stairs, frequently recurring, led one up towards the Kasbah.
Here the gables seemed to be exchanging whispered confidences as they
craned forwards across the stone-paved ascent; you could see the zenith
of the silver sky shot with starlight through the jutting angles of
rickety roofs and bulging eaves; the hand of Fatma protected the hidden
doors of the pole-shored but singularly picturesque houses; the sound of
tom-toms and _derboukas_ came from the courts of the Kahouaji. The peace
of the scene, deriving something from the distant and seductive
harmonies, got color from the slanting flood of moonlight which streamed
upon the pavement, from the swell of song floating upward from the
hidden courts. Here and there one imagined that black eyes looked down
upon one from the gratings of the shadowed windows above; a Biskri,
strong of limb and bronzed, lurked now and then in the dark angles of
the quaint labyrinth; a few Moors passing down to the lower city
inclined their heads gravely as we passed them. But for the most part
the children of the Prophet had gone to their recreations or their
sleep; the narrow path of stairs was untenanted, the silence and
softness of an African night held sway with all its potent beauty.
We must have mounted for ten minutes or more before my guides stopped at
a large house in a particularly uninviting looking _cul-de-sac_; and
having spoken a few words with an old crone at the wicket, we gained
admittance to a large court, and found it packed with a very curious
company. It was a picturesque place, gloriously tiled, and surrounded by
a gallery supported on slender columns of exquisite shape, terminating
in Moorish arches and fretwork balustrades. There the women, numbering
some score, sat; but I, knowing the danger of betraying the faintest
interest in a Moor's household, averted my eyes at once, and examined
more minutely the strange scene below. Here was a dense throng
surrounding a dervish who danced until he foamed; a throng of bronzed
and bearded Arabs sipping coffee and smoking hubble-bubble pipes with
profound gravity; a throng which seemed incapable of expressing any sort
of emotion, either of pleasure or of pain. At the further end of the
court, where many luxuriant palms and jars of gorgeous flowers gave
ornament to a raised dais, musicians squatted upon their haunches,
playing upon divers strange instruments, guitars, flutes, and the
gourd-like _derbouka_, and sent up a hideous and unbroken wave of
discordant harmony which made the teeth chatter and seemed to agitate
one's very marrow. It was a strange scene, full of life and color, and
above all of activity; and to what it owed its origin I have not learnt
to this day. I know only that our coming with such a lack of ceremony
did not disconcert either the host or his guests. They paused a moment
to give us an "Es-salaam alikoum," to which we returned the expected
"Oua alikoum es-salaam;" and with that we sat amongst the company, but
in a very conspicuous place, and took coffee with the gravity of the
others.
I must confess that the surprise of finding myself in such a place was
very great. I had gone with the Moors to recover a thousand pounds'
worth of property, but how the visit brought me nearer to that, or to
any purpose whatever, I could not see. I knew that I was the only
European in the company, and all tradition as well as common-sense told
me of my danger. Yet I had gone of my own will, and the Moor Sidi had
encouraged me to the risk, which after all, I thought, was worth
bartering for the sight of so strange an entertainment. Indeed, it is
not in accord with my fatalistic creed to conjure up terrors of the mind
in moments of comparative tranquillity; and when I realized that the
question of wisdom, or want of wisdom, was no longer under discussion, I
fell in with the spirit of this singular festivity--and waited for
enlightenment.
The feast of performance was now going briskly. A conjurer trod upon the
heels of the dervish, and performed a few palpable feats which deceived
no one but himself; and after that we had the expected dancing girls,
and the Ouled-Nails. Nor were the latter the central piece, as it were,
of our host's program; for presently the Moors about me ceased their
babbling; there was a restless chatter in the gallery above, the old
host whispered something to his attendant, and new musicians, who had
relieved the others, struck up a hideous banging of tom-toms,
flageolets, and guitars. At that very moment, when I had come to the
conclusion that Sidi ben Ahmed had made a fool of me, and that my
errand was to end idly, one of my guides spoke for the first time,
putting his mouth close to my ear, and using very passable English.
"Now," said he, "be ready;" but whether he meant me to prepare for some
saltatory display, or for action, he did not condescend to say; and
before I could ask him a great applause greeted the advent of a dancing
girl, who bounded into the arena with a conventional run, and at once
began her amazing gyrations.
She was a beautiful girl, not more than eighteen years of age, I should
think, and probably a Circassian. She had clear-cut features, a
complexion bright with the freshness of youth, a figure of fine balance
and maturity; but the most striking thing about her was her hair. More
abundant or glossier tresses I have never seen. In color, a deep
golden-red, this magnificent silky gift was bunched upon her head in a
great coil at the back, and fell thence almost to her feet. It covered
her when she chose as the burnouses covered the Moors who watched her;
and she used it in her dancing with a _chic_ and skill unimaginable. In
one moment coiling it about her body so that she seemed wrapped in a
sheen of gold; in the next cast like an outspread fan behind her, she
presented a picture ravishing beyond description, and one which drew
shouts of "Zorah, Zorah!" even from the women in the galleries above. I
sat under the spell, enraptured like the rest; and as the girl floated
with a dreamy lightness, or pirouetted with amazing agility, or swept
past me with a motion that was the very essence of grace, I was ready
to declare that the dance was unrivaled by anything I had seen in any of
the capitals.
Now, the girl must have been dancing for a couple of minutes, and the
audience was thoroughly held by her prodigious cleverness, when I,
engrossed as the others, was suddenly interrupted in my contemplation of
her by the action of the Moors, my guides. To my utter surprise they all of
a sudden stood up on either side of me, and one of them crying to me in
English as before to be ready, the other seemed to wait for the girl
Zorah, who, with streaming hair and body thrown well back, was dancing
down towards us.
A few of the company near to us turned their heads, and cried out at the
interruption; but the girl came on with quick steps, and when she was
just upon us, the Moor who waited seized her by her hair, and putting
his hands in the great coil upon her head, he unrolled it with a strong
grasp, and the missing scimitar, to my unutterable surprise, rolled out
upon the pavement.
I am willing to confess that for one moment the whole action dazed me so
completely that I stood like a fool gaping at the jewel, and at the
girl, who had begun to cling to the Moor and to scream. The thing was so
unlooked for, so strange, so incredible, that I could do nothing but ask
myself if it were really my bauble that lay upon the floor, or was I the
victim of an incomprehensible trick? Yet there was the jewel, and there
at my elbow were the two Moors, now all ready for the action aftermath.
Scarce, in fact, had one of them picked up my property and crammed it
into my hand before the uproar began, the whole roomful of erstwhile
sedate-looking men springing to their feet and turning upon us. For an
instant, the Moor who had snatched the jewel for me kept them back with
an harangue in Arabic of which I did not understand one word; but his
best and only card failed him at the first playing, and it remained to
face the danger and to fight it.
Of the extraordinary scene that followed I remember but little. It
seemed to me that I was surrounded in an instant by hungry, gleaming
hawk-like eyes which glowed with mischief; that women screamed, that
lamps were overturned; that I saw knives flashing on every side of me.
Had Sidi's men then failed him or displayed any craven cunning, I take
it that my body might have been hurled from the Kasbah within a minute
of the recovery of the jewel; but they showed quite an uncommon fidelity
and courage. Standing on either side of me so that my body was almost
wedged between theirs, they suddenly flashed long knives in the air, and
cut and parried with wondrous dexterity. For myself, I had only my
fists, and these I used with a generous freedom, thinking even in the
danger that a Moor's face is a substantial one to hit; and that a little
boxing goes a long way with him. Yet I could not help but realize that
the minute was a supreme one, and as the crowd of demoniacal and
shouting figures pressed nearer and nearer, threatening to bear us down
in the _melee_, I heard my heart thumping, and began to grow giddy.
As the press became more furious, the two men who had done so well were
gradually carried away from me. I found myself at last in the lower
corner of the room, surrounded by four burly fellows (the main body of
the company swarming round the Moors, my guides); and of these but one
had a knife in his hand. With this, taking the aggressive, he made a
prodigious cut at me, which slit my left arm from the shoulder almost to
the elbow; but I had no pain from the wound in the excitement of the
moment; and I sent him howling like a dervish with a heavy blow low down
upon the chest. Of the others, one I hit on the chin, whereupon he cried
like a woman; but the remaining two sprang upon me with altogether an
unlooked-for activity; and bore me down with a heavy crash upon the
pavement. I thought then that the end had come; for not only was I half
stunned with the blow, but the man who knelt upon my chest gripped my
throat with grim ferocity and threatened to squeeze the life out of me
as I lay. In that supreme moment I recollect that the lights of the room
danced before my eyes in surprising shapes; that I saw a vision of
dark-eyed but screaming women in the gallery above; that the jewel in my
vest cut my skin under the pressure of the Moor's knee; and that I fell
to wondering if I would live one minute or five. Then, as a new and
violent shouting reached me, even above the singing in my ears, the Moor
suddenly let go his hold, the light of the scene gave way to utter
impenetrable darkness, and I fainted.
[Illustration: Buying the scimitar.
--_Page 152_]
* * * * *
Next day I took _dejeuner_ at the Cafe Apollon with my arm in a sling,
and Chassaigne's talk to whet my appetite. He had occupied himself
during the morning in cross-examining Sidi, from whom he had wormed the
whole secret of the robbery.
"It is as clear as the sun," said he, "the porter Mohammed was advised
to steal the jewel by the man I unfortunately recommended to you.
Mohammed, knowing that the police would search his house and watch him,
hid the jewel in his wife's hair."
"His wife!" said I. "Was this dancing girl married to a scamp like
that?"
"Certainly; these Circassians don't make great matches, if they make a
good many of them. Their husbands are generally loafers about the cafes;
and this girl was no more fortunate in that way than most of her
sisters. You see, the fun of the business is that Sidi got two thousand
francs from this man for telling him how to steal your jewels, and
another two thousand from you for stealing them back again. That's why
he did not go with you himself last night. Luckily, I went into your
hotel at ten o'clock, and learning from the man where you had gone, I
followed you with a dozen of my fellows."
"You came at a happy time, my dear fellow," said I, "in another five
minutes I should have needed only an executor."
"That's true; you were nearly dead when I had the pleasure of kicking
the man who sat on your head. But it was your own fault, you must
admit."
"Any way," said I, "I got the stones, and that's something."
He agreed to this, and when I had thanked him for the great service he
had done me, we parted. That night I left Algiers, carrying with me the
pacific benediction of the admirable Moor, Sidi, who, despite the fact
that I had kicked him down the steps of the hotel in the morning, came
with me to the steamer, and patronized me to the end of it. I can hear
to this day his last and final salutation:--
"Blessed be Allah, the jewel is found!"
THE SEVEN EMERALDS.
THE SEVEN EMERALDS.