Victoria did not wait in her room to be told that the carriage had come
to take her away. It was better, Si Maïeddine had said, that only a few
people should know the exact manner of her going. A few minutes before
seven, therefore, she went down to the entrance-hall of the hotel, which
was not yet lighted. Her appearance was a signal for the Arab porter,
who was waiting, to run softly upstairs and return with her hand
luggage.
For some moments Victoria stood near the door, interesting herself in a
map of Algeria which hung on the wall. A clock began to strike as her
eyes wandered over the desert, and was on the last stroke of seven, when
a carriage drove up. It was drawn by two handsome brown mules with
leather and copper harness which matched the colour of their shining
coats, and was driven by a heavy, smooth-faced Negro in a white turban
and an embroidered cafetan of dark blue. The carriage windows were
shuttered, and as the black coachman pulled up his mules, he looked
neither to the right nor to the left. It was the hotel porter who opened
the door, and as Victoria stepped in without delay, he thrust two
hand-bags after her, snapping the door sharply.
It was almost dark inside the carriage, but she could see a white
figure, which in the dimness had neither face nor definite shape; and
there was a perfume as of aromatic amulets grown warm on a human body.
"Pardon, lady, I am Hsina, the servant of Lella M'Barka Bent Djellab,
sent to wait upon thee," spoke a soft and guttural voice, in Arabic.
"Blessings be upon thee!"
"And upon thee blessings," Victoria responded in the Arab fashion which
she had learned while many miles of land and sea lay between her and the
country of Islam. "I was told to expect thee."
"Eïhoua!" cried the woman, "The little pink rose has the gift of
tongues!" As she grew accustomed to the twilight, Victoria made out a
black face, and white teeth framed in a large smile. A pair of dark eyes
glittered with delight as the Roumia answered in Arabic, although Arabic
was not the language of the negress's own people. She chattered as she
helped Victoria into a plain white gandourah. The white hat and hat-pins
amused her, and when she had arranged the voluminous haïck in spite of
the joltings of the carriage, she examined these European curiosities
with interest. Whenever she moved, the warm perfume of amulets grew
stronger, overpowering the faint mustiness of the cushions and
upholstery.
"Never have I held such things in my hands!" Hsina gurgled. "Yet often
have I wished that I might touch them, when driving with my mistress and
peeping at the passers by, and the strange finery of foreign women in
the French bazaars."
Victoria listened politely, answering if necessary; yet her interest was
concentrated in peering through the slits in the wooden shutter of the
nearest window. She did not know Algiers well enough to recognize
landmarks; but after driving for what seemed like fifteen or twenty
minutes through streets where lights began to turn the twilight blue,
she caught a glint of the sea. Almost immediately the trotting mules
stopped, and the negress Hsina, hiding Victoria's hat in the folds of
her haïck, turned the handle of the door.
Victoria looked out into azure dusk, and after the closeness of the
shuttered carriage, thankfully drew in a breath of salt-laden air. One
quick glance showed her a street near the sea, on a level not much above
the gleaming water. There were high walls, evidently very old, hiding
Arab mansions once important, and there were other ancient dwellings,
which had been partly transformed for business or military uses by the
French. The girl's hasty impression was of a melancholy neighbourhood
which had been rich and stately long ago in old pirate days, perhaps.
There was only time for a glance to right and left before a nailed door
opened in the flatness of a whitewashed wall which was the front of an
Arab house. No light shone out, but the opening of the door proved that
some one had been listening for the sound of carriage wheels.
"Descend, lady. I will follow with thy baggage," said Hsina.
The girl obeyed, but she was suddenly conscious of a qualm as she had to
turn from the blue twilight, to pass behind that half-open door into
darkness, and the mystery of unknown things.
Before she had time to put her foot to the ground the door was thrown
wide open, and two stout Negroes dressed exactly alike in flowing white
burnouses stepped out of the house to stand on either side the carriage
door. Raising their arms as high as their heads they made two white
walls of their long cloaks between which Victoria could pass, as if
enclosed in a narrow aisle. Hsina came close upon her heels; and as they
reached the threshold of the house the white-robed black servants
dropped their arms, followed the two women, and shut the nailed door.
Then, despite the dimness of the place, they bowed their heads turning
aside as if humbly to make it evident that their unworthy eyes did not
venture to rest upon the veiled form of their mistress's guest. As for
Hsina, she, too, was veiled, though her age and ugliness would have
permitted her face to be revealed without offence to Mussulman ideas of
propriety. It was mere vanity on her part to preserve the mystery as
dear to the heart of the Moslem woman as to the jealous prejudice of the
man.
A faint glittering of the walls told Victoria that the corridor she had
entered was lined with tiles; and she could dimly see seats let in like
low shelves along its length, on either side. It was but a short
passage, with a turn into a second still shorter. At the end of this
hung a dark curtain, which Hsina lifted for Victoria to pass on, round
another turn into a wider hall, lit by an Arab lamp with glass panes
framed in delicately carved copper. The chain which suspended it from
cedar beams swayed slightly, causing the light to move from colour to
colour of the old tiles, and to strike out gleams from the marble floor
and ivory-like pillars set into the walls. The end of this corridor also
was masked by a curtain of wool, dyed and woven by the hands of nomad
tribes, tent-dwellers in the desert; and when Hsina had lifted it,
Victoria saw a small square court with a fountain in the centre.
It was not on a grand scale, like those in the palace owned by Nevill
Caird; but the fountain was graceful and charming, ornamented with the
carved, bursting pomegranates beloved by the Moors of Granada, and the
marble columns which supported a projecting balcony were wreathed with
red roses and honeysuckle.
On each of the four sides of the quadrangle, paved with black and white
marble, there were little windows, and large glass doors draped on the
inside with curtains thin enough to show faint pink and golden lights.
"O my mistress, Lella M'Barka, I have brought thy guest!" cried Hsina,
in a loud, sing-song voice, as if she were chanting; whereupon one of
the glass doors opened, letting out a rosy radiance, and a Bedouin
woman-servant dressed in a striped foutah appeared on the threshold. She
was old, with crinkled grey hair under a scarlet handkerchief, and a
blue cross was tattooed between her eyes.
"In the name of Lella M'Barka be thou welcome," she said. "My mistress
has been suffering all day, and fears to rise, lest her strength fail
for to-morrow's journey, or she would come forth to meet thee, O Flower
of the West! As it is, she begs that thou wilt come to her. But first
suffer me to remove thy haïck, that the eyes of Lella M'Barka may be
refreshed by thy beauty."
She would have unfastened the long drapery, but Hsina put down
Victoria's luggage, and pushing away the two brown hands, tattooed with
blue mittens, she herself unfastened the veil. "No, this is _my_ lady,
and my work, Fafann," she objected.
"But it is my duty to take her in," replied the Bedouin woman,
jealously. "It is the wish of Lella M'Barka. Go thou and make ready the
room of the guest."
Hsina flounced away across the court, and Fafann held open both the door
and the curtains. Victoria obeyed her gesture and went into the room
beyond. It was long and narrow, with a ceiling of carved wood painted in
colours which had once been violent, but were now faded. The walls were
partly covered with hangings like the curtains that shaded the glass
door; but, on one side, between gold-embroidered crimson draperies, were
windows, and in the white stucco above, showed lace-like openings,
patterned to represent peacocks, the tails jewelled with glass of
different colours. On the opposite side opened doors of dark wood inlaid
with mother-o'-pearl; and these stood ajar, revealing rows of shelves
littered with little gilded bottles, or piled with beautiful brocades
that were shot with gold in the pink light of an Arab lamp.
There was little furniture; only a few low, round tables, or maidas,
completely overlaid with the snow of mother-o'-pearl; two or three
tabourets of the same material, and, at one end of the room a low divan,
where something white and orange-yellow and purple lay half buried in
cushions.
Though the light was dim, Victoria could see as she went nearer a thin
face the colour of pale amber, and a pair of immense dark eyes that
glittered in deep hollows. A thin woman of more than middle age, with
black hair, silver-streaked, moved slightly and held out an emaciated
hand heavy with rings. Her head was tied round with a silk handkerchief
or takrita of pansy purple; she wore seroual, full trousers of soft
white silk, and under a gold-threaded orange-coloured jacket or rlila, a
blouse of lilac gauze, covered with sequins and open at the neck. On the
bony arm which she held out to Victoria hung many bracelets, golden
serpents of Djebbel Amour, and pearls braided with gold wire and coral
beads. Her great eyes, ringed with kohl, had a tortured look, and there
were hollows under the high cheek-bones. If she had ever been handsome,
all beauty of flesh had now been drained away by suffering; yet stricken
as she was there remained an almost indefinable distinction, an air of
supreme pride befitting a princess of the Sahara.
Her scorching fingers pressed Victoria's hand, as she gazed up at the
girl's face with hungry curiosity and interest such as the Spirit of
Death might feel in looking at the Spirit of Life.
"Thou art fresh and fair, O daughter, as a lily bud opening in the spray
of a fountain, and radiant as sunrise shining on a desert lake," she
said in a weary voice, slightly hoarse, yet with some flutelike notes.
"My cousin spoke but truth of thee. Thou art worthy of a reward at the
end of that long journey we shall take together, thou, and he, and I. I
have never seen thy sister whom thou seekest, but I have friends, who
knew her in other days. For her sake and thine own, kiss me on my
cheeks, for with women of my race, it is the seal of friendship."
Victoria bent and touched the faded face under each of the great burning
eyes. The perfume of _ambre_, loved in the East, came up to her
nostrils, and the invalid's breath was aflame.
"Art thou strong enough for a journey, Lella M'Barka?" the girl asked.
"Not in my own strength, but in that which Allah will give me, I shall
be strong," the sick woman answered with controlled passion. "Ever
since I knew that I could not hope to reach Mecca, and kiss the sacred
black stone, or pray in the Mosque of the holy Lella Fatima, I have
wished to visit a certain great marabout in the south. The pity of Allah
for a daughter who is weak will permit the blessing of this marabout,
who has inherited the inestimable gift of Baraka, to be the same to me,
body and soul, as the pilgrimage to Mecca which is beyond the power of
my flesh. Another must say for me the Fatakah there. I believe that I
shall be healed, and have vowed to give a great feast if I return to
Algiers, in celebration of the miracle. Had it not been for my cousin's
wish that I should go with thee, I should not have felt that the hour
had come when I might face the ordeal of such a journey to the far
south. But the prayer of Si Maïeddine, who, after his father, is the
last man left of his line, has kindled in my veins a fire which I
thought had burnt out forever. Have no fear, daughter. I shall be ready
to start at dawn to-morrow."
"Does the marabout who has the gift of Baraka live near the place where
I must go to find my sister?" Victoria inquired, rather timidly; for she
did not know how far she might venture to question Si Maïeddine's
cousin.
Lella M'Barka looked at her suddenly and strangely. Then her face
settled into a sphinx-like expression, as if she had been turned to
stone. "I shall be thy companion to the end of thy journey," she
answered in a dull, tired tone. "Wilt thou visit thy room now, or wilt
thou remain with me until Fafann and Hsina bring thy evening meal? I
hope that thou wilt sup here by my side: yet if it pains thee to take
food near one in ill health, who does not eat, speak, and thou shalt be
served in another place."
Victoria hastened to protest that she would prefer to eat in the company
of her hostess, which seemed to please Lella M'Barka. She began to ask
the girl questions about herself, complimenting her upon her knowledge
of Arabic; and Victoria answered, though only half her brain seemed to
be listening. She was glad that she had trusted Si Maïeddine, and she
felt safe in the house of his cousin; but now that she was removed from
European influences, she could not see why the mystery concerning Ben
Halim and the journey which would lead to his house, should be kept up.
She had read enough books about Arab customs and superstitions to know
that there are few saints believed to possess the gift of Baraka, the
power given by Allah for the curing of all fleshly ills. Only the very
greatest of the marabouts are supposed to have this power, receiving it
direct from Allah, or inheriting it from a pious saint--father or more
distant relative--who handed down the maraboutship. Therefore, if she
had time and inclination, she could probably learn from any devout
Mussulman the abiding places of all such famous saints as remained upon
the earth. In that way, by setting her wits to work, she might guess the
secret if Si Maïeddine still tried to make a mystery of their
destination. But, somehow, she felt that it would not be fair to seek
information which he did not want her to have. She must go on trusting
him, and by and by he would tell her all she wanted to know.
Lella M'Barka had invited her guest to sit on cushions beside the divan
where she lay, and the interest in her feverish eyes, which seldom left
Victoria's face, was so intense as to embarrass the girl.
"Thou hast wondrous hair," she said, "and when it is unbound it must be
a fountain of living gold. Is it some kind of henna grown in thy
country, which dyes it that beautiful colour?"
Victoria told her that Nature alone was the dyer.
"Thou art not yet affianced; that is well," murmured the invalid. "Our
young girls have their hair tinted with henna when they are betrothed,
that they may be more fair in the eyes of their husbands. But thou
couldst scarcely be lovelier than thou art; for thy skin is of pearl,
though there is no paint upon it, and thy lips are pink as rose petals.
Yet a little messouak to make them scarlet, like coral, and kohl to
give thine eyes lustre would add to thy brilliancy. Also the hand of
woman reddened with henna is as a brazier of rosy flame to kindle the
heart of a lover. When thou seest thy sister, thou wilt surely find that
she has made herself mistress of these arts, and many more."
"Canst thou tell me nothing of her, Lella M'Barka?"
"Nothing, save that I have a friend who has said she was fair. And it is
not many moons since I heard that she was blessed with health."
"Is she happy?" Victoria was tempted to persist.
"She should be happy. She is a fortunate woman. Would I could tell thee
more, but I live the life of a mole in these days, and have little
knowledge. Thou wilt see her with thine own eyes before long, I have no
doubt. And now comes food which my women have prepared for thee. In my
house, all are people of the desert, and we keep the desert customs,
since my husband has been gathered to his fathers--my husband, to whose
house in Algiers I came as a bride from the Sahara. Such a meal as thou
wilt eat to-night, mayst thou eat often with a blessing, in the country
of the sun."
Fafann, who had softly left the room when the guest had been introduced,
now came back, with great tinkling of khal-khal, and mnaguach, the huge
earrings which hung so low as to strike the silver beads twisted round
her throat. She was smiling, and pleasantly excited at the presence of a
visitor whose arrival broke the tiresome monotony of an invalid's
household. When she had set one of the pearly maidas in front of
Victoria's seat of cushions, she held back the curtains for Hsina to
enter, carrying a copper tray. This the negress placed on the maida, and
uncovered a china bowl balanced in a silver stand, like a giant coffee
cup of Moorish fashion. It contained hot soup, called cheurba, in which
Hsina had put so much fell-fell, the red pepper loved by Arabs, that
Victoria's lips were burned. But it was good, and she would not wince
though the tears stung her eyes as she drank, for Lella M'Barka and the
two servants were watching her eagerly.
Afterwards came a kouskous of chicken and farina, which she ate with a
large spoon whose bowl was of tortoiseshell, the handle of ivory tipped
with coral. Then, when the girl hoped there might be nothing more,
appeared tadjine, a ragout of mutton with artichokes and peas, followed
by a rich preserve of melon, and many elaborate cakes iced with pink and
purple sugar, and powdered with little gold sequins that had to be
picked off as the cake was eaten. At last, there was thick, sweet
coffee, in a cup like a little egg-shell supported in filigree gold (for
no Mussulman may touch lip to metal), and at the end Fafann poured
rosewater over Victoria's fingers, wiping them on a napkin of fine
damask.
"Now thou hast eaten and drunk, thou must allow thyself to be dressed by
my women in the garments of an Arab maiden of high birth, which I have
ready for thee," said Lella M'Barka, brightening with the eagerness of a
little child at the prospect of dressing a beautiful new doll. "Fafann
shall bring everything here, and thou shalt be told how to robe thyself
afterwards. I wish to see that all is right, for to-morrow morning thou
must arise while it is still dark, that we may start with the first
dawn."
Fafann and Hsina had forgotten their jealousies in the delight of the
new play. They moved about, laughing and chattering, and were not
chidden for the noise they made. From shelves behind the inlaid doors in
the wall, they took down exquisite boxes of mother-o'-pearl and red
tortoiseshell. Also there were small bundles wrapped in gold brocade,
and tied round with bright green cord. These were all laid on a
dim-coloured Kairouan rug, at the side of the divan, and the two women
squatted on the floor to open them, while their mistress leaned on her
thin elbow among cushions, and skins of golden jackal from the Sahara.
From one box came wide trousers of white silk, like Lella M'Barka's;
from another, vests of satin and velvet of pale shades embroidered with
gold or silver. A fat parcel contained delicately tinted stockings and
high-heeled slippers of different sizes. A second bundle contained
blouses of thin silk and gauze, and in a pearl box were pretty little
chechias of sequined velvet, caps so small as to fit the head closely;
and besides these, there were sashes and gandourahs, and haïcks white
and fleecy, woven from the softest wool.
When everything was well displayed, the Bedouin and the negress sprang
up, lithe as leopards, and to Victoria's surprise began to undress her.
"Please let me do it myself!" she protested, but they did not listen or
understand, chattering her into silence, as if they had been lively
though elderly monkeys. Giggling over the hooks and buttons which were
comical to them, they turned and twisted her between their hands,
fumbling at neck and waist with black fingers, and brown fingers
tattooed blue, until she, too, began to laugh. She laughed herself into
helplessness, and encouraged by her wild merriment, and Lella M'Barka's
smiles and exclamations punctuated with fits of coughing, they set to
work at pulling out hairpins, and the tortoise-shell combs that kept the
Roumia's red gold waves in place. At last down tumbled the thick curly
locks which Stephen Knight had thought so beautiful when they flowed
round her shoulders in the Dance of the Shadow.
The invalid made her kneel, just as she was in her petticoat, in order
to pass long, ringed fingers through the soft masses, and lift them up
for the pleasure of letting them fall. When the golden veil, as Lella
M'Barka called it, had been praised and admired over and over again, the
order was given to braid it in two long plaits, leaving the ends to curl
as they would. Then, the game of dressing the doll could begin, but
first the embroidered petticoat of batiste with blue ribbons at the top
of its flounce, and the simple pretty little stays had to be examined
with keen interest. Nothing like these things had ever been seen by
mistress or servants, except in occasional peeps through shuttered
carriage windows when passing French shops: for Lella M'Barka Bent
Djellab, daughter of Princes of Touggourt, was what young Arabs call
"vieux turban." She was old-fashioned in her ideas, would have no
European furniture or decorations, and until to-night had never
consented to know a Roumia, much less receive one into her house. She
had felt that she was making a great concession in granting her cousin's
request, but she had forgotten her sense of condescension in
entertaining an unveiled girl, a Christian, now that she saw what the
girl was like. She was too old and lonely to be jealous of Victoria's
beauty; and as Si Maïeddine, her favourite cousin, deigned to admire
this young foreigner, Lella M'Barka took an unselfish pride in each of
the American girl's charms.
When she was dressed to all outward appearances precisely like the
daughter of a high-born Arab family, Fafann brought a mirror framed in
mother-o'-pearl, and Victoria could not help admiring herself a little.
She wished half unconsciously that Stephen Knight could see her, with
hair looped in two great shining braids on either side her face, under
the sequined chechia of sapphire velvet; and then she was ashamed of her
own vanity.
Having been dressed, she was obliged to prove, before the three women
would be satisfied, that she understood how each garment ought to be
arranged; and later she had to try on a new gandourah, with a white
burnouse such as women wear, and the haïck she had worn in coming to the
house. Hsina would help her in the morning, she was told, but it would
be better that she should know how to do things properly for herself,
since only Fafann would be with them on the journey, and she might
sometimes be busy with Lella M'Barka when Victoria was dressing.
The excitement of adorning the beautiful doll had tired the invalid. The
dark lines under her eyes were very blue, and the flesh of her face
seemed to hang loose, making her look piteously haggard. She offered but
feeble objections when her guest proposed to say good night, and after a
few more compliments and blessings, Victoria was able to slip away,
escorted by the negress.
The room where she was to sleep was on another side of the court from
that of Lella M'Barka, but Hsina took great pains to assure her that
there was nothing to fear. No one could come into this court; and
she--Hsina--slept near by with Fafann. To clap the hands once would be
to bring one of them instantly. And Hsina would wake her before dawn.
Victoria's long, narrow sleeping room had the bed across one end, in
Arab fashion. It was placed in an alcove and built into the wall, with
pillars in front, of gilded wood, and yellow brocaded curtains of a
curious, Oriental design. At the opposite end of the room stood a large
cupboard, like a buffet, beautifully inlaid with mother-o'-pearl, and
along the length of the room ran shelves neatly piled with
bright-coloured bed-clothing, or ferrachiyas. Above these shelves texts
from the Koran were exquisitely illuminated in red, blue and gold, like
a frieze; and there were tinselled pictures of relatives of the Prophet,
and of Mohammed's Angel-horse, Borak. The floor was covered with soft,
dark-coloured rugs; and on a square of white linen was a huge copper
basin full of water, with folded towels laid beside it.
The bed was not uncomfortable, but Victoria could not sleep. She did not
even wish to sleep. It was too wonderful to think that to-morrow she
would be on her way to Saidee.