more out of those jibs. Faster! faster! You're as slow as the grace of
God at a miser's funeral.... If I only had a crew...."
§ 10
She stopped in her swift flight to him through the dusk of the Midi
garden.
"Dearest, why is your face so white? Your hands bruised?"
"The consul said something to me--about you--and I knocked him down."
"Oh!" she said, a shocked little cry, and: "Oh!" a drawn-out wail of
pain. "Why did you strike him?"
"Because he lied about you."
Her face was turned from him, in the dusk of the crickets, toward the
wooded amphitheater, where dead Pontius roved wild-eyed in the dusk,
where Lazarus tossed uneasily in his second sleep, where the Greeks lay
in alien soil, and the shadows of Roman legionaries looked puzzled at
the flat sea, not recognizing busy Tiber--her back was to him, her head
up in pain, her nerve-wrenched hands uneasy, white....
"He didn't lie," she said at last. "Oh, you'd have known it sooner or
later. No! no! He didn't lie."
"Claire-Anne!"
"He didn't lie. I was just a fool to think--oh, well, he didn't lie. No,
no!" she repeated. "He didn't lie." She threw out a hand hopelessly. "He
didn't lie."
He went up to her in the dusk, put his hands gently on her shoulders.
The quivering frame became still suddenly, with a greater nervousness.
She was like a deer ready to bound away....
"I don't see what I could have done, Claire-Anne. But--can I do anything
now?"
She turned toward him suddenly. Her face was a mask of pain--and
surprise.
"Then you haven't grown cold to me, unmerciful, ... or gross?"
"Why, no, Claire-Anne!"
"And you know."
"I--know, but I don't understand...."
She gave a queer, little shuddering cry, half laugh, half sob. She moved
over to the seat by the whispering mulberry-tree, and dropped in it, her
hands covering her face.
"All the wrong," she said, "that people call wrong I've done I didn't
mind. But the one decent thing--of loving you--that's kept me awake all
the time you were away. It's been like a sin, letting you love me. The
rest was destiny, but this one thing was--I."
She suddenly raised her face, her eyes shining through the humid mask of
it.
"Would you--could you--understand?"
"Tell me, Claire-Anne, what you want to."
She drew a short gasping breath, turned her head away, looked up,
turned it away again, paused for breath, gripped his hand by the
wrist....
"I ... I ... I was the child of actors, and they died, and there was
enough money to bring me up and educate me, and give me my chance on the
stage.... And I wasn't good enough.... I was too much myself. Couldn't
quite be other characters. I don't know if you understand.... But ...
then a man got infatuated with me and married me.... And later he wished
he'd married a--comfortable woman with a fortune.... And then he died
and left me ... not very much.... But that was not the reason.... I was
left, how do you say?... stranded. I had no career, no husband, no
child, no business. France, it is not easy ... not easy anywhere....
Friends? People are too busy.... And I was ... just there.... And all
around me life bubbled and flowed, and I was ... not dead, not alive ...
and alone ... I might have been a leper, but even lepers have colonies,
and some one to be kind to them ... not dead, not alive ... and alone. I
was so young.... It was unfair. Life was everywhere like a sparkling
wine ... but where I was, was flat....
"And then--then I met a man ... it was pleasant for a while--to have
some one to talk to, to go around with. It's so pleasant to laugh. You
don't know how pleasant until you haven't laughed for a long time.... He
didn't want to marry ... and in the end it was a choice of--oh, well ...
or going back to being not dead, not alive ... and I couldn't go, just
couldn't. And he gave me presents of money.... And then he got married.
I don't blame him ... a comfortable woman with a fortune ... but I
wasn't left for long.... Where one goes, others always follow....
There's a sort of ... _sentier intuitif_, a psychic path....
"And I wasn't so ashamed ... I was a little glad I had a place in the
world ... a work even.... And every one might despise me.... I had a
place.... I was no longer not dead, not alive.... I was even thankful
for that.... Until I met you with your--terrible courtesy, with your
understanding.... My head and my heart melted, and my body, too, and all
had been so firm, so decided.... And I dreamed that I could snatch a
while from destiny.... But--you see.... What the consul said was true,
so ... dearest--but I mustn't ever call you dearest again."
"Claire-Anne!"
"Well, then--dearest, you see why I couldn't marry you when you asked."
She laughed bitterly. "If you had only known...."
He took a terrible grip on himself, faced her, looked at her.
"Claire-Anne, will you marry me now?"
"I don't know why you say it, but I know one thing: you are true. And I
thank you ... but please don't make me cry any more. I have cried so
much when you were away.... If only five years ago before I was ...
_estropiée_ ... crippled....
"Destiny...."
§ 11
Dusk had gone; darkness had come, and now darkness itself would leave
soon, for the third quarter of a great saffron moon showed its edge in
the eastward. Marseilles was like the pale light of a candle. And a
great palpable darkness had settled like water in the hollow of the
woods.
"Dearest"--her voice took sudden strength--"will you forgive me? I don't
say that just as if I'd done a small wrong. But will a big power come
out of your heart and say: 'It's all right, Claire-Anne. I understood.'
It will be so much for me to know that--in the days when you are gone--"
"But, Claire-Anne, I'm not gone--"
"You must go, dearest. You must go now. Don't you see?" Her voice grew
gentle. "You couldn't stay any more. It wouldn't be like you, somehow.
And I wouldn't have you spoiled in my eyes ... darling, you could never
be ... but you must go...."
"And you, Claire-Anne--"
"Destiny ... a long, lean finger ... a path...."
"But you never know--"
"We know, we poor women, Shane. We know.... Shane, don't you understand
... what makes the ... girl in the archway, the emperor's mistress,
drink, take ether ... do strange horrors?.... They know.... And they
want to escape from seeing it ... for an instant even ... the terrible
story of the _Belle Heaulmière_ ... the 'Armorer's Daughter':
_"Ainsi le bon temps regretons
Entre nous, pauvres vielles sotes,
Assises bas, à crouppetons,
Tout en ung tas commes pelotes_,
_A petit feu de chenevotes
Tost allumées, tost estaintes:
Et jadis fusmes si mignotes!...
Ainsi emprent à maintes et maintes._
"Do you understand, Shane, do you understand? So we regret the good old
times, poor old light women, gathered together like fagots, and
hunkering over a straw fire, soon lit, soon out--_tost allumées, tost
estaintes_ ... and once we were so dainty. To many and many's the one it
happens. _Pauvres vielles sotes!_ Poor old light women, Shane.... _Et
jadis fusmes si mignotes!_ ... Dainty as I am, they were once.... And do
you blame them now when see it coming ... the drink, the ether ... the
abominable things...."
"O my God! Claire-Anne!"
"Heart of hearts, Shane. I once escaped to light, where they escape to
oblivion.... Once I had you, and all my life I'll remember it.... All my
life I'll remember: I once knew a man.... And it will be a help, so much
a help...."
"Oh, Claire-Anne, it can't be!"
"It must be, dearest heart. It is--decreed. Darling, sometimes I
thought--Do you remember your showing me the poor prince's dagger, and
our talking about him--setting himself free--and I said I thought I
could understand why he did not.... I've wanted to, myself.... But....
There's a way you're brought up, when you're young.... They put such
fear of God in you ... such fear of hell ... you never could--throw
things down and go straight to Him, and say: 'I couldn't. I just simply
couldn't. I hadn't the strength. I couldn't ... just....' And they never
think of Him saying: 'Of course you couldn't.... And it was all My
fault. I wasn't looking.... I've so much to think of.... You did right
to come to Me....' But, no! no! One fears. They teach you so much fear,
Shane, when you are young ... so that even this is better--this--game,
where none win.... And so--one goes on...."
She rose suddenly and clutched his shoulders in panic. Her mouth twisted
in piteous agony....
"Oh, but dearest, dearest, _pauvres vielles sotes_, poor old light
women.... Shane, _assises bas, à crouppetons_, in an archway, hoping for
a drunken farmer with a couple of sous ... and so cold, so cold, with a
little fire of straw stalks ... _tost allumées, tost estaintes!_" ...
"No, Claire-Anne! no!"
"A drunken farmer, or traveling pedler.... _Et jadis fusmes si
mignotes_ ... and so dainty once!"
"No!" His voice took the ring of decision. She didn't hear him. Her
voice broke into a torrent of sobs.
"Take me in your arms, Shane, once more. And let my heart come into your
heart, where it's so warm ... and I'll have something to remember in the
days when it will be ... so cold, so cold ... and I'll be there warming
old bones.... _A petit feu de chenevotes_.... Shane, dearest,
please...."
He took her in his arms, and her body seemed to be some light envelope
in which a great turmoil of spirit beat, as a wild bird beats against a
cage.... He could hardly hold her body so much was her tortured
sobbing.... So much did what was within wheel and beat, beat and wheel,
in unendurable panic. Her voice murmured in his wet shoulder:
"_Pauvre vielle sote!_ O Shane, Shane ... _pauvre vielle sote!"_ ...
§ 12
Above him, to starboard, he could hear the churning of the tug that was
to take them from the docks to the open sea. Overhead the pilot was
stamping impatiently. Forward the mate was roaring like a bull:
"Where is that damned apprentice? Tell him to lay aft and bear a hand
with the warps."
In a minute or so he would have to go on the poop and give orders to let
go and haul in. The tug was blowing, "Hurry up...." He ought to be on
deck now.... He hated to go up ... he hated to see the last of
Marseilles ... he would never see Marseilles again....
Was all ready? Yes, all was ready. Cargo, supplies, sea-chest,
everything for the long voyage he had decided--had to decide--on at the
last minute. Forward across the Atlantic to where the sou'east trades
blew, and then south'ard reaching under all sail--the fleecy clouds, the
bright constellations of the alien pole, the strange fish-like birds,
the flying-fish, the bonita, the albacore; the chill gust from the River
Plate; the roar of the gales of the forties; the tremendous fight around
the Horn, with a glimpse of land now and then as they fought for
easting--the bleak rocks of Diego Ramirez and the Iledefonsos, and
perhaps the blue ridge of Cape Horn, or of the False Cape; then,
northward to Callao ... anywhere, everywhere ... new seas, new lands,
new cities ... but never again Marseilles....
And he would never see her again, _La Mielleuse_--couldn't if he wanted
to ... never again ... irrevocable.... On that pillow she had laid her
head, her dark darling head!... And last night he had seen it for the
last time, dark, smiling in sleep, on a snowy pillow.... He remembered
as he might remember a strange pantomime.... His going to his coat
for--what he had there ... the silent tiptoe ... the gentle raising of
her left arm, as she smiled in her sleep ... the sudden weakness at her
soft warm beauty ... the decision.... Of course he had done right!... Of
course!... Of course!...
Overhead the pilot stamped on the deck in a flurry of impatience. The
tug wailed in irritation. He must get on deck....
He threw one last glance around.... He had everything he needed for
himself.... Nothing lacking.... His eyes paused for a moment on his
desk. Wait! Where was the dagger? Prince Charles's dagger?
He gripped himself in fright. Was he going--had he gone--mad? He knew
where that was ... he knew ... he knew.... It was--
"Ogh!" A flash of horror went over him.... But he had done right ... of
course he had done right....
"All's ready, sir," the mate called in to his cabin.
"Yes?..."
"Man, you're no' ill?" the mate looked at him, queerly.
"Of course I'm not ill." He swung on deck. "All right? Let go aft, then,
and haul in. Tug a little westward: a little more westward. Hard a port,
Mr. McKinstry. All right! Let go all, for'a'd.... She's off...."
PART FOUR
THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO
§ 1
"_Ya Zan_," came his wife's slow grave voice, "O Shane, when your ship
is in trouble, or does not go fast, do the passengers beat you?"
"Of course not," Campbell laughed. "What put that in your little head?"
"When I went with my uncle, Arif Bey, on the pilgrimage to Mecca--Arif
was a Moslem that year"--she bit the thread of the embroidery she was
doing with her little sharp teeth, _tkk!_--"our ship anchored for the
night in _Birkat Faraun_--Pharaoh's Bay. In the morning it would not
move, so the Maghrabi pilgrims beat the captain terribly. And once at
Al-Akabah, when the captain lost sight of shores for one whole long day,
the Maghrabis beat him again. They said he should have known better.
Don't--don't they ever beat you, _ya Zan_?"
"Not yet, Fenzile. They only beat bad skippers."
"But our _Rais_ was a good sailor. He must have been a good sailor, Zan.
He was very old. He was very pious, too. He said the prayers. Do you
ever say the prayers, Zan, when the sea looks as if it were about to be
angry?"
"What sort of prayers, Fenzile?"
"Oh, prayers. Let me see." Her dark eyes had the look he loved, as if
she had turned around and were rummaging within herself, as a woman
seeks diligently and yet slowly in a chest. "Oh, like the Moslem's _Hizb
al-Bahr_. You ought to know that prayer, _ya Zan_. It will make you safe
at sea. I wonder you, a great _Rais_, do not know that prayer."
"What is the prayer, Fenzile?"
"'We pray Thee for safety in our goings forth and our standings
still.... Subject unto us this sea, even as Thou didst subject the deep
to Moses, and as Thou didst subject the fire to Abraham, and as Thou
didst subject the iron to David, and as Thou didst subject the wind and
the devils and djinns and mankind to Solomon, and as Thou didst subject
the moon and _Al-Burah_ to Mohammed, on whom be Allah's mercy and His
blessing! And subject unto us all the seas in earth and heaven, in Thy
visible and in Thine invisible worlds, the sea of this life and the sea
of futurity. O Thou Who reignest over everything and unto Whom all
things return.' ... You must know that prayer, and say that prayer, _ya
Zan_. What do you do when it is very stormy?"
"Oh, take in as little sail as possible and keep shoving ahead."
"I don't understand," she let the embroidery fall in her lap. "I see
your ship from the quays and I can't understand how you guide such a big
ship. And how you go at night, Zan, that I cannot understand. It is so
dark at night. There is a terrible lot I do not understand. I am very
stupid."
"You are very dear and darling, Fenzile. You understand how to take care
of a house and how to be very beautiful, and be very loving--"
"Do I, Zanim? That is not hard. That is not very much. That is not like
sailing a ship on the sea."
Without, Beirut seethed with life. Thin, gaunt dogs barked and snarled
in the narrow staired streets. Came the cry of the donkey-boys. Came the
cry of the water-sellers. Came the shouts of the young Syrians over the
gammon game. Loped the laden camels. Tramped the French soldiers. Came a
new hum....
Fenzile rose and went through the courtyard, past the little fountain
with the orange-trees, past the staircase to the upper gallery, came to
the barred iron gates, looked a moment, moved modestly back into the
shadows....
"O look, _ya Zan_," her grave voice became excited. "Come quickly. See.
It is Ahmet Ali, with his attendants and a lot of people following him."
"And who is Ahmet Ali?"
"Ahmet Ali! don't you know, Zanim? The great wrestler, Ahmet Ali. The
wrestler from Aleppo...."
§ 2
Through the grilled door, in the opal shade of the walls, Shane saw the
wrestler stroll down the street; a big bulk of a man in white robe and
turban, olive-skinned, heavy on his feet, seeming more like a prosperous
young merchant than a wrestling champion of a vilayet. Yet underneath
the white robes Shane could sense the immense arms and shoulders, the
powerful legs. Very heavily he moved, muscle-bound a good deal, Shane
thought; a man for pushing and crushing and resisting, but not for fast,
nervous work, sinew and brain coördinating like the crack of a whip. A
Cornish wrestler would turn him inside out within a minute; a Japanese
would pitch him like a ball before he had even taken his stance. But
once he had a grip he would be irresistible.
"So that's Ahmet Ali."
"Yes, Zan," Fenzile clapped her hands with delight, like a child seeing
a circus procession. "Oh, he is a great wrestler. He beat Yussuf
Hussein, the Cairene, and he beat a great Russian wrestler who came on a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem. And he beat a French sailor. And he beat a
Tartar. Oh, he is a great wrestler, Ahmet Ali."
The wrestler had come nearer. Behind him came four or five supporters,
in cloth white as his. Behind them came a ruck of Syrian youths,
effeminate, vicious. Came a croud of donkey-boys, impish, black. The
wrestler walked more slowly as he approached to pass the iron doors. And
Shane was startled into a sudden smile at the sight of his face--a
girl's face, with a girl's eyes. And in his hand was a rose. A wrestler
with a rose!
"Why, a man could kill him."
"Oh, no! Oh, no, Zan!" Fenzile said. "He is very strong. He conquered
Yussuf Hussein, the Cairene, and Yussuf Hussein could bend horseshoes
with his bare hands. He is very strong, very powerful Ahmet Ali."
The wrestler was walking slowly past the house throwing glances through
the grill with his full girl's eyes. A quick suspicion came into
Campbell's mind. He turned to his wife.
"Does he come past here often?"
"Yes, yes, Zan. Every day."
"Does he stop and look into the court like that, every time?"
"Yes, Zan. Every time," she smiled.
"Do you know whom he's looking for?"
"Yes, Zan. For me."
Campbell's hand shot out suddenly and caught her wrist.
"Fenzile," his voice was cold. "You aren't carrying on with, encouraging
this--Ahmet Ali?"
"Zan Cam'el," her child's eyes flashed unexpectedly. "I am no cheap
Cairene woman. I am a Druse girl. The daughter of a Druse Bey."
"I am sorry, Fenzile."
She looked at him steadily with her great green eyes, green of the sea,
and as he looked at her sweet roundish face, her little mouth half open
in sincerity, her calm brow, her brown arch of eyebrow, she seemed to
him no more than a beautiful proud child. There was no guile in her.
"You mustn't be foolish, you know, Fenzile."
"_Severim Seni._ I love only you, Zan. But it is so funny to see him go
by, I must always smile. Don't you think it funny, Zan?"
"No, I don't think it at all funny."
"Oh, but it is funny, Zan. A big strong wrestler like that to be foolish
over a very little woman. And for a cheap showman of the market-place to
be lifting his eyes to a daughter of the Druse emirs. It is funny."
"It isn't funny. And he isn't much of a wrestler anyway."
"Oh, but he is, Zan. He is a very great wrestler. They say he threw and
killed a bear."
"O kooltooluk. Hell! I could throw him myself."
She said nothing, turning her head, and reaching for her embroidery.
"Don't you believe me, Fenzile? I tell you I could make mince-meat of
him."
"Of course, Zan. Of course you could." And she smiled. But this time it
wasn't the delighted smile of a child. It was the grave patient smile of
a wise woman. And Shane knew it. Past that barrier he could not break.
And on her belief he could make no impress. There was no use arguing,
talking. She would just smile and agree. And her ideal of strength and
power would be the muscle-bound hulk of the Aleppo man, with the girl's
face and the girl's eyes, and the rose in his hand. And Shane, all his
life inured to sport, hard as iron, supple as a whip, with his science
picked up from Swedish quartermasters and Japanese gendarmes, from mates
and crimps in all parts of the world, would always be in her eyes an
infant compared to the monstrous Syrian! Not that it mattered a tinker's
curse, but--
Oh, damn the wrestler from Aleppo!
§ 3
He had thought, when he left Liverpool on a gusty February day, of all
the peace and quiet, of the color and life there would be on the Asian
shore ... Europe had somehow particularly sickened him on this last
voyage.... All its repose was sordid, all its passion was calculated.
England and its queen mourned the sudden death of the prince consort,
but it mourned him with a sort of middle-class domesticity, and no
majesty. So a grocer's family might have mourned, remembering how well
papa cut the mutton.... He was so damned good at everything, Albert was,
and he approved of art and science--within reason.... There was a
contest for a human ideal in America, and in the ports of England
privateers were being fitted out, to help the South, as the Greeks
might, for a price.... And Napoleon, that solemn comedian, was making
ready his expedition to Mexico, with fine words and a tradesman's
cunning.... And the drums of Ulster roared for Garibaldi, rejoicing in
the downfall of the harlot on seven hills, as Ulster pleasantly
considered the papal states, while Victor Emmanuel, sly Latin that he
was, thought little of liberty and much about Rome.... Aye, kings!
And so a great nostalgia had come over Shane Campbell on this voyage for
the Syrian port and the wife he had married there. He wanted sunshine.
He wanted color. He wanted simplicity of life. Killing there was in
Syria, great killing too. But it was the sort of killing one understood
and could forgive. A Druse disliked a Maronite Christian, so he went
quietly and knifed him. Another Maronite resented that, and killed a
Druse; and they were all at it, hell-for-leather. But it was passion and
fanaticism, not high-flown words and docile armies and the tradesmen
sneaking up behind.... Ave, war!
And he was sick of the damned Mersey fog, and he was sick of the
drunkenness of Scotland Road, and he was sick of the sleet lashing
Hoylake links. He was sick of Pharisaical importers who did the heathen
in the eye on Saturday and on Sunday in their blasted conventicles
thumped their black-covered craws in respectable humility.... In Little
Asia religion was a passion, not a smug hypocrisy; and though the
heathen was dishonest, yet it was not the mathematical reasoned
dishonesty of the Christian. It was a childish game, like
horse-coping.... And in the East they did not blow gin in your face,
smelling like turpentine....
And he was sick of the abominable homes, the horsehair furniture with
the anti-macassars--Lord! and they called themselves clean.... He wanted
the spotlessness of the Syrian courtyard.... The daubs on the British
walls, sentimental St. Bernard dogs and dray-horses with calves' eyes,
brought him to a laughing point when he thought of the subtlety of color
and line in strange Persian rugs....
And he was sick of British women, with their knuckled hands, their
splayed feet. Their abominable dressing, too, a bust and a brooch and a
hooped skirt--their grocers' conventions, prudish, almost obscene,
avoiding of the natural in word, deed, or thought.... He wanted Fenzile,
with her eyes, _vert de mer_, her full childish face, her slim hands
with the orange-tinted finger nails, her silken trousers, her little
slippers of silver and blue.... Her soft arms, her back-thrown head, her
closed lids.... And the fountain twinkling in the soft Syrian night,
while afar off some Arab singer chanted a poem of Lyla Khanim's:
"_Beni ser-mest u hayran eyleyen ol yar; janim dir_.... The world is a
prison and my heart is scarred.... My tears are like a vineyard's
fountain, O absent one...."