Before morning light, Si Maïeddine was in his cousin's house. Hsina had
not yet called Victoria, but Lella M'Barka was up and dressed, ready to
receive Maïeddine in the room where she had entertained the Roumia girl
last night. Being a near relation, Si Maïeddine was allowed to see Lella
M'Barka unveiled; and even in the pink and gold light of the hanging
lamps, she was ghastly under her paint. The young man was struck with
her martyred look, and pitied her; but stronger than his pity was the
fear that she might fail him--if not to-day, before the journey's end.
She would have to undergo a strain terrible for an invalid, and he could
spare her much of this if he chose; but he would not choose, though he
was fond of his cousin, and grateful in a way. To spare her would mean
the risk of failure for him.
Each called down salutations and peace upon the head of the other, and
Lella M'Barka asked Maïeddine if he would drink coffee. He thanked her,
but had already taken coffee. And she? All her strength would be needed.
She must not neglect to sustain herself now that everything depended
upon her health.
"My health!" she echoed, with a sigh, and a gesture of something like
despair. "O my cousin, if thou knewest how I suffer, how I dread what
lies before me, thou wouldst in mercy change thy plans even now. Thou
wouldst go the short way to the end of our journey. Think of the
difference to me! A week or eight days of travel at most, instead of
three weeks, or more if I falter by the way, and thou art forced to
wait."
Maïeddine's face hardened under her imploring eyes, but he answered with
gentleness, "Thou knowest, my kind friend and cousin, that I would give
my blood to save thee suffering, but it is more than my blood that thou
askest now. It is my heart, for my heart is in this journey and what I
hope from it, as I told thee yesterday. We discussed it all, thou and I,
between us. Thou hast loved, and I made thee understand something of
what I feel for this girl, whose beauty, as thou hast seen, is that of
the houris in Paradise. Never have I found her like; and it may be I
care more because of the obstacles which stand high as a wall between me
and her. Because of the man who is her sister's husband, I must not fail
in respect, or even seem to fail. I cannot take her and ride away, as I
might with a maiden humbly placed, trusting to make her happy after she
was mine. My winning must be done first, as is the way of the Roumis,
and she will be hard to win. Already she feels that one of my race has
stolen and hidden her sister; for this, in her heart, she fears and half
distrusts all Arabs. A week would give me no time to capture her love,
and when the journey is over it will be too late. Then, at best, I can
see little of her, even if she be allowed to keep something of her
European freedom. It is from this journey together--the long, long
journey--that I hope everything. No pains shall be spared. No luxury
shall she lack even on the hardest stretches of the way. She shall know
that she owes all to my thought and care. In three weeks I can pull down
that high wall between us. She will have learned to depend on me, to
need me, to long for me when I am out of her sight, as the gazelle longs
for a fountain of sweet water."
"Poet and dreamer thou hast become, Maïeddine," said Lella M'Barka with
a tired smile.
"I have become a lover. That means both and more. My heart is set on
success with this girl: and yesterday thou didst promise to help. In
return, I offered thee a present that is like the gift of new life to a
woman, the amulet my father's dead brother rubbed on the sacred Black
Stone at Mecca, touched by the foot of the Prophet. I assured thee that
at the end of our journey I would persuade the marabout to make the
amulet as potent for good to thee as the Black Stone itself, against
which thou canst never cool the fever in thy forehead. Then, when he has
used his power, and thou hast pressed the amulet on thy brows, thou
mayst read the destiny of men and women written between their eyes, as a
sand-diviner reads fate in the sands. Thou wilt become in thine own
right a marabouta, and be sure of Heaven when thou diest. This blessing
the marabout will give, not for thy sake, but for mine, because I will
do for him certain things which he has long desired, and so far I have
never consented to undertake. Thou wilt gain greatly through keeping thy
word to me. Believing in thy courage and good faith, I have made all
arrangements for the journey. Not once last night did I close my eyes in
sleep. There was not a moment to rest, for I had many telegrams to send,
and letters to write, asking my friends along the different stages of
the way, after we have left the train, to lend me relays of mules or
horses. I have had to collect supplies, to think of and plan out details
for which most men would have needed a week's preparation, yet I have
completed all in twelve hours. I believe nothing has been forgotten,
nothing neglected. And can it be that my prop will fail me at the last
moment?"
"No, I will not fail thee, unless soul and body part," Lella M'Barka
answered. "I but hoped that thou mightest feel differently, that in
pity--but I see I was wrong to ask. I will pray that the amulet, and the
hope of the divine benediction of the baraka may support me to the end."
"I, too, will pray, dear cousin. Be brave, and remember, the journey is
to be taken, in easy stages. All the comforts I am preparing are for
thee, as well as for this white rose whose beauty has stolen the heart
out of my breast."
"It is true. Thou art kind, or I would not love thee even as I should
have loved a son, had one been given me," said the haggard woman,
meekly. "Does _she_ know that there will be three weeks or more of
travelling?"
"No. I told her vaguely that she could hardly hope to see her sister in
less than a fortnight. I feared that, at first hearing, the thought of
such distances, separating her from what she has known of life, might
cause her to hesitate. But she will be willing to sacrifice herself and
travel less rapidly than she hoped, when she sees that thou art weak and
ailing. She has a heart with room in it for the welfare of others."
"Most women have. It is expected of us." Lella M'Barka sighed again,
faintly. "But she is all that thou describedst to me, of beauty and
sweetness. When she has been converted to the True Faith, as thy wife,
nothing will be lacking to make her perfect."
Hsina appeared at the door. "Thy guest, O Lella M'Barka, is having her
coffee, and is eating bread with it," she announced. "In a few minutes
she will be ready. Shall I fetch her down while the gracious lord
honours the house with his presence, or----"
"My guest is a Roumia, and it is not forbidden that she show her face to
men," answered Hsina's mistress. "She will travel veiled, because, for
reasons that do not concern thee, it is wiser. But she is free to appear
before the Lord Maïeddine. Bring her; and remember this, when I am gone.
If to a living soul outside this house thou speakest of the Roumia
maiden, or even of my journey, worse things will happen to thee than
tearing thy tongue out by the roots."
"So thou saidst last night to me, and to all the others," the negress
answered, like a sulky child. "As we are faithful, it is not necessary
to say it again." Without waiting to be scolded for her impudence, as
she knew she deserved, she went out, to return five minutes later with
Victoria.
Maïeddine's eyes lighted when he saw the girl in Arab dress. It seemed
to him that she was far more beautiful, because, like all Arabs, he
detested the severe cut of a European woman's gowns. He loved bright
colours and voluptuous outlines.
It was only beginning to be daylight when they left the house and went
out to the carriage in which Victoria had been driven the night before.
She and Lella M'Barka were both veiled, though there was no eye to see
them. Hsina and Fafann took out several bundles, wrapped in dark red
woollen haïcks, and the Negro servants carried two curious trunks of
wood painted bright green, with coloured flowers and scrolls of gold
upon them, and shining, flat covers of brass. In these was contained the
luggage from the house; Maïeddine's had already gone to the railway
station. He wore a plain, dark blue burnous, with the hood up, and his
chin and mouth were covered by the lower folds of the small veil which
fell from his turban, as if he were riding in the desert against a wind
storm. It would have been impossible even for a friend to recognize him,
and the two women in their white veils were like all native women of
wealth and breeding in Algiers. Hsina was crying, and Fafann, who
expected to go with her mistress, was insufferably important. Victoria
felt that she was living in a fairy story, and the wearing of the veil
excited and amused her. She was happy, and looked forward to the journey
itself as well as to the journey's end.
There were few people in the railway station, and Victoria saw no
European travellers. Maïeddine had taken the tickets already, but he did
not tell her the name of the place to which they were going by rail. She
would have liked to ask, but as neither Si Maïeddine nor Lella M'Barka
encouraged questions, she reminded herself that she could easily read
the names of the stations as they passed.
Soon the train came in, and Maïeddine put them into a first-class
compartment, which was labelled "reserved," though all other Arabs were
going second or third. Fafann arranged cushions and haïcks for Lella
M'Barka; and at six o'clock a feeble, sulky-sounding trumpet blew,
signalling the train to move out of the station.
Victoria was not sleepy, though she had lain awake thinking excitedly
all night; but Lella M'Barka bade her rest, as the day would be tiring.
No one talked, and presently Fafann began to snore. The girl's eyes met
Si Maïeddine's, and they smiled at each other. This made him seem to her
more like an ordinary human being than he had seemed before.
After a while, she dropped into a doze, and was surprised when she waked
up, to find that it was nearly nine o'clock. Fafann had roused her by
moving about, collecting bundles. Soon they would be "there." And as the
train slowed down, Victoria saw that "there" was Bouira.
This place was the destination of a number of Arab travellers, but the
instant they were out of the train, these passengers appeared to melt
away unobtrusively. Only one carriage was waiting, and that was for Si
Maïeddine and his party.
It was a very different carriage from Lella M'Barka's, in Algiers; a
vehicle for the country, Victoria thought it not unlike old-fashioned
chaises in which farmers' families sometimes drove to Potterston, to
church. It had side and back curtains of canvas, which were fastened
down, and an Arab driver stood by the heads of two strong black mules.
"This carriage belongs to a friend of mine, a Caïd," Maïeddine explained
to Victoria. "He has lent it to me, with his driver and mules, to use as
long as I wish. But we shall have to change the mules often, before we
begin at last to travel in a different way."
"How quickly thou hast arranged everything," exclaimed the girl.
This was a welcome sign of appreciation, and Maïeddine was pleased. "I
sent the Caïd a telegram," he said. "And there were many more telegrams
to other places, far ahead. That is one good thing which the French have
brought to our country. The telegraph goes to the most remote places in
the Sahara. By and by, thou wilt see the poles striding away over desert
dunes."
"By and by! Dost thou mean to-day?" asked Victoria.
"No, it will be many days before thou seest the great dunes. But thou
wilt see them in the end, and I think thou wilt love them as I do.
Meanwhile, there will be other things of interest. I shall not let thee
tire of the way, though it be long."
He helped them into the carriage, the invalid first, then Victoria, and
got in after them; Fafann, muffled in her veil, sitting on the seat
beside the driver.
"By this time Mr. Knight has my letter, and has read it," the girl said
to herself. "Oh, I do hope he won't be disgusted, and think me
ungrateful. How glad I shall be when the day comes for me to explain."
As it happened, the letter was in Maïeddine's thoughts at the same
moment. It occurred to him, too, that it would have been read by now. He
knew to whom it had been written, for he had got a friend of his to
bring him a list of passengers on board the _Charles Quex_ on her last
trip from Marseilles to Algiers. Also, he had learned at whose house
Stephen Knight was staying.
Maïeddine would gladly have forgotten to post the letter, and could have
done so without hurting his conscience. But he had thought it might be
better for Knight to know that Miss Ray was starting on a journey, and
that there was no hope of hearing from her for a fortnight. Victoria had
been ready to show him the letter, therefore she had not written any
forbidden details; and Knight would probably feel that she must be left
to manage her own affairs in her own way. No doubt he would be curious,
and ask questions at the Hotel de la Kasbah, but Maïeddine believed that
he had made it impossible for Europeans to find out anything there, or
elsewhere. He knew that men of Western countries could be interested in
a girl without being actually in love with her; and though it was almost
impossible to imagine a man, even a European, so cold as not to fall in
love with Victoria at first sight, he hoped that Knight was blind enough
not to appreciate her, or that his affections were otherwise engaged.
After all, the two had been strangers when they came on the boat, or had
met only once before, therefore the Englishman had no right to take
steps unauthorized by the girl. Altogether, Maïeddine thought he had
reason to be satisfied with the present, and to hope in the future.