"On the contrary. But--well, I can't help feeling it would do you more
good to show an absorbing interest in Miss Ray's affairs, this time."
"So I have an absorbing interest," Nevill protested, remorsefully. "I
don't want you to suppose I mean to neglect them. I assure you----"
Stephen laughed, though a little constrainedly. "Don't apologise, my
dear fellow. Miss Ray's no more to me than to you, except that I
happened to make her acquaintance a few days sooner."
"I know," Nevill agreed, mildly. Then, after a pause, which he earnestly
occupied in crumbling bread. "Only I'm head over ears in love with
another woman, while you're free to think of her, or any other girl,
every minute of the day."
Stephen's face reddened. "I am not free," he said in a low voice.
"I beg your pardon. I hoped you were. I still think--you ought to be."
Nevill spoke quickly, and without giving Stephen time to reply, he
hurried on; "Miss Ray may arrive here yet. Or she may have found out
about Mouni in some other way, and have gone to see her in Grand
Kabylia--who knows?"
"If she were merely going there to inquire about her sister, why should
she have to make a mystery of her movements?"
"Well, it's on the cards that whatever she wanted to do, she didn't care
to be bothered with our troublesome advice and offers of help. Our
interest was, perhaps, too pressing."
"Mademoiselle Soubise is of that opinion, anyhow--in regard to you,"
remarked Stephen.
"What--that angel _jealous_? It's too good to be true! But I'll relieve
her mind of any such idea."
"If you'll take one more tip from me, I'd leave her mind alone for the
present."
"Why, you flinty-hearted reprobate?"
"Well, I'm no authority. But all's fair in love and war. And sometimes
an outsider sees features of the game which the players don't see."
"That's true, anyhow," Nevill agreed. "Let's _both_ remember that--eh?"
and he got up from the table abruptly, as if to keep Stephen from
answering, or asking what he meant.
They had several empty hours, between the time of finishing luncheon,
and five o'clock, when they were to meet Mademoiselle Soubise and her
chaperon, so they took Josette's advice and went sightseeing.
Preoccupied as he was, Stephen could not be indifferent to the
excursion, for Tlemcen is the shrine of gems in Arab architecture, only
equalled at Granada itself. Though he was so ignorant still of eastern
lore, that he hardly knew the meaning of the word mihrab, the arched
recess looking towards Mecca, in the Mosque of the lawyer-saint Aboul
Hassan, held him captive for many moments with its beauty. Its
ornamentation was like the spread tail of Nevill's white peacock, or the
spokes of a silver wheel incrusted with an intricate pattern in jewels.
Not a mosque in town, or outside the gates, did they leave unvisited,
lest, as Nevill said, Josette Soubise should ask embarrassing questions;
and the last hour of probation they gave to the old town. There, as they
stopped to look in at the workshops of the weavers, and the bakers, or
stared at the hands of Fatma-Zora painted in henna on the doors of Jews
and True Believers, crowds of ragged boys and girls followed them,
laughing and begging as gaily as if begging were a game. Only this band
of children, and heavily jewelled girls of Morocco or Spain, with
unveiled, ivory faces and eyes like suns, looked at the Englishmen, as
Stephen and Nevill passed the isolated blue and green houses, in front
of which the women sat in a bath of sunshine. Arabs and Jews walked by
proudly, and did not seem to see that there were strangers in their
midst.
When at last it was time to go back to the hotel, and motor to the École
Indigène, Josette was ready, plainly dressed in black. She introduced
her friends to the bride, Madame de Vaux, a merry young woman, blonde by
nature and art, who laughed always, like the children in the Arab town.
She admired Knight far more than Caird, because she liked tall, dark
men, her own husband being red and stout. Therefore, she would have been
delighted to play the tactful chaperon, if Josette had not continually
broken in upon her duet with Stephen, ordering them both to look at this
or that.
The country through which they drove after passing out of the gate in
the modern French wall, might have been the south of England in
midsummer, had it not been peopled by the dignified Arab figures which
never lost their strangeness and novelty for Stephen. Here, in the west
country, they glittered in finery like gorgeous birds: sky-blue jacket,
scarlet fez and sash glowing behind a lacework of green branches netted
with flowers, where a man hoed his fields or planted his garden.
Hung with a tapestry of roses, immense brown walls lay crumbling--ruined
gateways, and shattered traces of the triple fortifications which
defended Tlemcen when the Almohades were in power. By a clear rill of
water gushing along the roadside, a group of delicate broken arches
marked the tomb of the "flying saint," Sidi Abou Ishad el Taïyer, an
early Wright or Blériot who could swim through the air; and though in
his grave a chest of gold was said to be buried, no one--not even the
lawless men from over the border--had ever dared dig for the treasure.
Close by, under the running water, a Moor had found a huge lump of
silver which must have lain for no one could tell how many years,
looking like a grey stone under a sheet of glass; nevertheless, the
neighbouring tomb had still remained inviolate, for Sidi Abou Ishad el
Taïyer was a much respected saint, even more loved than the marabout who
sent rain for the gift of a sacrificed fowl, or he who cured sore eyes
in answer to prayer. Only Sidi Bou-Medine himself was more important;
and presently (because the distance was short, though the car had
travelled slowly) they came to the footpath in the hills which must be
ascended on foot, to reach the shrine of the powerful saint, friend of
great Sidi Abd el Kader.
Already they could see the minaret of the mosque, high above the mean
village which clustered round it, rising as a flame rises against a
windless sky, while beneath this shining Giralda lay half-ruined houses
rejuvenated with whitewash or coats of vivid blue. They passed up a
narrow street redeemed from sordidness by a domed koubbah or two; and
from the roofed balconies of cafés maures, Arabs looked down on them
with large, dreamy eyes like clouded stars. All the glory and pride of
the village was concentrated in the tomb and beautiful mosque of the
saint whose name falls sweet on the ear as the music of a summer storm,
the tinkle and boom of rain and thunder coming together: Sidi
Bou-Medine.
Toddling girls with henna-dyed hair, and miniature brown men, like
blowing flower-petals in scarlet, yellow, and blue, who had swarmed up
the street after the Roumis, stopped at the portals of the mosque and
the sacred tomb. But there was a humming in the air like the song of
bees, which floated rhythmically out from the zaouïa, the school in the
mosque where many boys squatted cross-legged before the aged Taleb who
taught the Koran; bowing, swaying towards him, droning out the words of
the Prophet, some half asleep, nodding against the onyx pillars.
In the shadow of the mosque it was cool, though the crown of the
minaret, gemmed with priceless tiles from Fez, blazed in the sun's rays
as if it were on fire. Into this coolness the four strangers passed,
involuntarily hushing their voices in the portico of decorated walls and
hanging honeycombs of stucco whence, through great doors of ancient,
greenish bronze (doors said to have arrived miraculously from across the
sea), they found their way into a courtyard open to the sky, where a
fountain waved silver plumes over a marble basin. Two or three dignified
Arab men bathed their feet in preparation for the afternoon prayer, and
tired travellers from a distance slept upon mats of woven straw, spread
on tiles like a pavement of precious stones, or dozed in the little
cells made for the students who came in the grand old days. The sons of
Islam were reverent, yet happy and at home on the threshold of Allah's
house, and Stephen began to understand, as Nevill and Josette already
understood, something of the vast influence of the Mohammedan religion.
Only Madame de Vaux remained flippant. In the car, she had laughed at
the women muffled in their haïcks, saying that as the men of Tlemcen
were so tyrannical about hiding female faces, it was strange they did
not veil the hens and cows. In the shadowy mosque, with its five naves,
she giggled at the yellow babouches out of which her little high-heeled
shoes slipped, and threatened to recite a French verse under the
delicate arch of the pale blue mihrab.
But Stephen was impressed with the serene beauty of the Moslem temple,
where, between labyrinths of glimmering pillars like young ash trees in
moonlight, across vistas of rainbow-coloured rugs like flower-beds, the
worshippers looked out at God's blue sky instead of peering through
thick, stained-glass windows; where the music was the murmur of running
water, instead of sounding organ-pipes; and where the winds of heaven
bore away the odours of incense before they staled. He wondered whether
a place of prayer like this--white-walled, severely simple despite the
veil-like adornment of arabesques--did not more tend to religious
contemplation than a cathedral of Italy or Spain, with its bloodstained
Christs, its Virgins, and its saints. Did this Arab art perhaps more
truly express the fervour of faith which needs no extraneous
elaborations, because it has no doubts? But presently calling up a
vision of the high, dim aisles, the strong yet soaring columns, all the
mysterious purity of gothic cathedrals, he convinced himself that, after
all, the old monkish architects had the real secret of mystic
aspirations in the human heart.
When Josette and Nevill led the way out of the mosque, Stephen was in
the right mood for the tomb of that ineffable saint of Islam, Shaoib ibn
Husain el Andalousi, Sidi Bou-Medine. He was almost ready to believe in
the extraordinary virtue of the earth which had the honour of covering
the marabout's remains. It annoyed him that Madame de Vaux should laugh
at the lowness of the doorway under which they had to stoop, and that
she should make fun of the suspended ostrich eggs, the tinselled
pictures and mirrors, the glass lustres and ancient lanterns, the spilt
candle-wax of many colours, or the old, old flags which covered the
walls and the high structure of carved wood which was the saint's last
resting-place.
A grave Arab who approved their air of respect, gave a pinch of earth
each to Stephen and Nevill, wrapped in paper, repeating Josette's
assurance that their wishes would be granted. It would be necessary, he
added, to reflect long before selecting the one desire of the soul
which was to be put above all others. But Nevill had no hesitation. He
wished instantly, and tucked the tiny parcel away in the pocket nearest
his heart.
"And you, Monsieur?" asked Madame de Vaux, smiling at Stephen. "It does
not appear easy to choose. Ah, now you have decided! Will you tell me
what you wished?"
"I think I mustn't do that. Saints favour those who can keep secrets,"
said Stephen, teasingly. Yet he made his wish in earnest, after turning
over several in his mind. To ask for his own future happiness, in spite
of obstacles which would prove the marabout's power, was the most
intelligent thing to do; but somehow the desire clamouring loudest at
the moment was for Victoria, and the rest might go ungranted.
"I wish that I may find her safe and happy," he said over the pinch of
earth before putting it into what Josette named his "poche du coeur."
"As for me," remarked Madame de Vaux, "I will not derange any of their
Moslem saints, thank you. I have more influential ones of my own, who
might be annoyed. And it is stuffy in this tomb. I am sure it is full of
microbes. Let us go and see the ruined palace of the Black Sultan who,
Josette says, founded everything here that was worth founding. That
there should be a Black Sultan sounds like a fairy tale. And I like
fairy tales next to bon-bons and new hats."
So they made their pilgrimage to the third treasure of the hill-village;
and then away to where the crumbling walls of Mansourah, and that great
tower, which is one of the noblest Moorish relics in all Algeria, rise
out of a flowering plain.
Cherry blossoms fell in scented snow over their heads as the car ran
back to Tlemcen, and out once more, through the Moorish Porte de Fez,
past the reservoir built by a king for an Arab beauty to sail her boats
upon. Sunset was near, and the sky blazed red as if Mansourah burned
with ten thousand torches.
The way led through vast blue lakes which were fields of periwinkles,
and along the road trotted pink-robed children, whose heads were wrapped
in kerchiefs of royal purple. They led sheep with golden-gleaming
fleece, and at the tombs of marabouts they paused to pray, among groups
of kneeling figures in long white cloaks and turbans. All the atmosphere
swam with changing colours, such as come and go in the heart of a
fire-opal.
Very beautiful must have been the city of Mansourah, named after
murdered Sultan el Mansour, the Victorious, who built its vast
fortifications, its mosques and vanished palaces, its caravanserais and
baths, in the seven years when he was besieging Tlemcen. And still are
its ruins beautiful, after more than five centuries of pillage and
destruction. Josette Soubise loved the place, and often came to it when
her day's work was done, therefore she was happy showing it to Nevill
and--incidentally--to the others.
The great brown wall pricked with holes like an enormous wasp's nest,
the ruined watch-towers, and the soaring, honey-coloured minaret with
its intricate carvings, its marble pillars, its tiles and inset enamels
iridescent as a Brazilian beetle's wing, all gleamed with a splendour
that was an enchantment, in the fire of sunset. The scent of aromatic
herbs, such as Arabs love and use to cure their fevers, was bitter-sweet
in the fall of the dew, and birds cried to each other from hidden nests
among the ruins.
"Mussulmans think that the spirits of their dead fly back to visit their
own graves, or places they have loved, in the form of birds," said
Josette, looking up at the minaret, large marguerites with orange
centres embroidering her black dress, as she stood knee-deep in their
waving gold. "I half believe that these birds among the lovely carvings
of the tower are the priests who used to read the Koran in the mosque,
and could not bear to leave it. The birds in the walls are the soldiers
who defended the city."
As she spoke there was a flight of wings, black against the rose and
mauve of the sunset. "There!" she exclaimed. "Arabs would call that an
omen! To see birds flying at sundown has a special meaning for them. If
a man wanted something, he would know that he could get it only by going
in the direction the birds take."
"Which way are they flying?" asked Stephen.
All four followed the flight of wings with their eyes.
"They are going south-east," said Nevill.