An elderly man, with a reddish beard, got up from the row of men grouped
behind the musicians, and muttered to one of the youths who had been
making the powder speak. They argued for a moment, and then the boy,
handing his gun to the elder man, walked with dignity to a closed gate,
large enough to let in the goats and donkeys pertaining to the two
houses. This gate he opened half-way, standing in the aperture and
looking up sullenly as the Roumis came down the narrow, slippery track
which led to it.
"Cebah el-kheir, ia Sidi--Good day, sir," said Nevill, agreeably, in his
best Arabic. "Ta' rafi el-a' riya?--Do you speak Arabic?"
The young man bowed, not yet conciliated. "Ach men sebba jit lhena, ia
Sidi?--Why have you come here, sir?" he asked suspiciously, in very
guttural Arabic.
Relieved to find that they would have no great difficulty in
understanding each other, Nevill plunged into explanations, pointing to
Josette's card. They had come recommended by the malema at Tlemcen. They
brought good wishes and a present to the bride of the village, the
virtuous and beautiful Mouni, from whom they would gladly receive
information concerning a European lady. Was this the house of her
father? Would they be permitted to speak with her, and give this little
watch from Algiers?
Nevill made his climax by opening the velvet case, and the brown eyes of
the Kabyle boy flashed with uncontrollable admiration, though his face
remained immobile. He answered that this was indeed the house of
Mouni's father, and he himself was the brother of Mouni. This was the
last day of her wedding-feast, and in an hour she would go to the home
of her husband. The consent of the latter, as well as of her father,
must be asked before strangers could hope to speak with her.
Nevertheless, the Roumis were welcome to enter the yard and watch the
entertainment while Mouni's brother consulted with those most concerned
in this business.
The boy stood aside, inviting them to pass through the gate, and the
Englishmen availed themselves of his courtesy, waiting just inside until
the red-bearded man came forward. He and his son consulted together, and
then a dark young man in a white burnous was called to join the
conclave. He was a handsome fellow, with a haughtily intelligent face,
and an air of breeding superior to the others.
"This is my sister's husband. He too speaks Arabic, but my father not so
much." The boy introduced his brother-in-law. "Messaud-ben-Arzen is the
son of our Caïd," (he spoke proudly). "Will you tell him and my father
what your business is with Mouni?"
Nevill broke into more explanations, and evidently they were
satisfactory, for, while the dancing and the powder play were stopped,
and the squatting ranks of guests stared silently, the two Roumis were
conducted into the house.
It was larger than most of the houses in the village, but apart from the
stable of the animals through which the visitors passed, there was but
one room, long and narrow, lighted by two small windows. The darkest
corner was the bedroom, which had a platform of stone on which rugs were
spread, and there was a lower mound of dried mud, roughly curtained off
from the rest with two or three red and blue foutahs suspended on ropes
made of twisted alfa, or dried grass. Toward the farther end, a hole in
the floor was the family cooking-place, and behind it an elevation of
beaten earth made a wide shelf for a long row of jars shaped like the
Roman amphoræ of two thousand years ago. Pegs driven into one of the
walls were hung with gandourahs and a foutah or two; and of furniture,
worthy of that name in the eyes of Europeans, there was none.
At the bedroom end of the room, several women were gathered round a
central object of interest, and though the light was dim after the vivid
sunshine outside, the visitors guessed that the object of interest was
the bride. Decorously they paused near the door, while a great deal of
arguing went on, in which the shriller voices of women mingled with the
guttural tones of the men. Nevill could catch no word, for they were
talking their own Kabyle tongue which had come down from their
forefathers the Berbers, lords of the land long years before the Arabs
drove them into the high mountains. But at last the group opened, and a
young woman stepped out with half-shy eagerness. She was loaded with
jewels, and her foutah was barbarically splendid in colour, but she was
almost as fair as her father; a slim creature with grey eyes, and brown
curly hair that showed under her orange foulard.
Proud of her French, she began talking in that language, welcoming the
guests, telling them how glad she was to see friends of her dear
Mademoiselle Soubise. But soon she must be gone to her husband's house,
and already the dark young bridegroom, son of the Caïd, was growing
impatient. There was no time to be lost, if they were to learn anything
of Ben Halim's wife.
As a preface to what they wished to ask, Nevill made a presentation
speech, placing the velvet watch-case in Mouni's hand, and she opened it
with a kind of moan expressing intense rapture. Never had she seen
anything so beautiful, and she would cheerfully have recalled every
phase of her career from earliest babyhood, if by doing so she could
have pleased the givers.
"But yes," she answered to Nevill's first questions, "the beautiful lady
whom I served was the wife of Sidi Cassim ben Halim. At first it was in
Algiers that I lived with her, but soon we left, and went to the
country, far, oh, very far away, going towards the south. The house was
like a large farmhouse, and to me as a child--for I was but a child--it
seemed fine and grand. Yet my lady was not pleased. She found it rough,
and different from any place to which she was used. Poor, beautiful
lady! She was not happy there. She cried a great deal, and each day I
thought she grew paler than the day before."
Mouni spoke in French, hesitating now and then for a word, or putting in
two or three in Arabic, before she stopped to think, as she grew
interested in her subject. Stephen understood almost all she said, and
was too impatient to leave the catechizing to Nevill.
"Whereabouts was this farmhouse?" he asked. "Can't you tell us how to
find it?"
Mouni searched her memory. "I was not yet thirteen," she said. "It is
nine years since I left that place; and I travelled in a shut-up
carriage, with a cousin, older than I, who had been already in the house
of the lady when I came. She told her mistress of me, and I was sent
for, because I was quick and lively in my ways, and white of face,
almost as white as the beautiful lady herself. My work was to wait on
the mistress, and help my cousin, who was her maid. Yamina--that was my
cousin's name--could have told you more about the place in the country
than I, for she was even then a woman. But she died a few months after
we both left the beautiful lady. We left because the master thought my
cousin carried a letter for her mistress, which he did not wish sent;
and he gave orders that we should no longer live under his roof."
"Surely you can remember where you went, and how you went, on leaving
the farmhouse?" Stephen persisted.
"Oh yes, we went back to Algiers. But it was a long distance, and took
us many days, because we had only a little money, and Yamina would not
spend it in buying tickets for the diligence, all the way. We walked
many miles, and only took a diligence when I cried, and was too tired
to move a step farther. At night we drove sometimes, I remember, and
often we rested under the tents of nomads who were kind to us.
"While I was with the lady, I never went outside the great courtyard. It
is not strange that now, after all these years, I cannot tell you more
clearly where the house was. But it was a great white house, on a hill,
and round it was a high wall, with towers that overlooked the country
beneath. And in those towers, which were on either side the big, wide
gate, were little windows through which men could spy, or even shoot if
they chose."
"Did you never hear the name of any town that was near?" Stephen went
on.
"I do not think there was a town near; yet there was a village not far
off to the south. I saw it from the hill-top, both as I went in at the
gate with my cousin, and when, months later, I was sent away with her.
We did not pass through it, because our road was to and from the north;
and I do not even know the name of the village. But there was a cemetery
outside it, where some of the master's ancestors and relations were
buried. I heard my lady speak of it one day, when she cried because she
feared to die and be laid there without ever again seeing her own
country and her own people. Oh, and once I heard Yamina talk with
another servant about an oasis called Bou-Saada. It was not near, yet I
think it could be reached by diligence in a long day."
"Good!" broke in Nevill. "There's our first real clue! Bou-Saada I know
well. When people who come and visit me want a glimpse of the desert in
a hurry, Bou-Saada is where I take them. One motors there from Algiers
in seven or eight hours--through mountains at first, then on the fringe
of the desert; but it's true, as Mouni says, going by diligence, and
walking now and then, it would be a journey of days. Her description of
the house on the hill, looking down over a village and cemetery, will be
a big help. And Ben Halim's name is sure to be known in the country
round, if he ever lived there."
"He may have been gone for years," said Stephen. "And if there's a
conspiracy of silence in Algiers, why not elsewhere?"
"Well, at least we've got a clue, and will follow it up for all we know.
By Jove, this is giving me a new interest in life!" And Nevill rubbed
his hands in a boyish way he had. "Tell us what the beautiful lady was
like," he went on to Mouni.
"Her skin was like the snow on our mountain-tops when the sunrise paints
the white with rose," answered Mouni. "Her hair was redder than the red
of henna, and when it was unfastened it hung down below her waist. Her
eyes were dark as a night without moon, and her teeth were little,
little pearls. Yet for all her beauty she was not happy. She wasted the
flower of her youth in sadness, and though the master was noble, and
splendid as the sun to look upon, I think she had no love to give him,
perhaps because he was grave and seldom smiled, or because she was a
Roumia and could not suit herself to the ways of true believers."
"Did she keep to her own religion?" asked Stephen.
"That I cannot tell. I was too young to understand. She never talked of
such things before me, but she kept to none of our customs, that I know.
In the three months I served her, never did she leave the house, not
even to visit the cemetery on a Friday, as perhaps the master would have
allowed her to do, if she had wished."
"Do you remember if she spoke of a sister?"
"She had a photograph of a little girl, whose picture looked like
herself. Once she told me it was her sister, but the next day the
photograph was gone from its place, and I never saw it again. Yamina
thought the master was jealous, because our lady looked at it a great
deal."
"Was there any other lady in that house," Nevill ventured, "or was yours
the master's only wife?"
"There was no other lady at that time," Mouni replied promptly.
"So far, so good," said Nevill. "Well, Legs, I don't think there's any
doubt we've got hold of the right end of the stick now. Mouni's
beautiful lady and Miss Ray's sister Saidee are certainly one and the
same. Ho for the white farmhouse on the hill!"
"Must we go back to Algiers, or can we get to Bou-Saada from here?"
Stephen asked.
Nevill laughed. "You are in a hurry! Oh, we can get there from here all
right. Would you like to start now?"
Stephen's face reddened. "Why not, if we've found out all we can from
this girl?" He tried to speak indifferently.
Nevill laughed again. "Very well. There's nothing left then, except to
say good-bye to the fair bride and her relations."
He had expected to get back to Algiers that night, slipping away from
the high passes of Grand Kabylia before dusk, and reaching home late, by
lamplight. But now the plan was changed. They were not to see Algiers
again until Stephen had made acquaintance with the desert. By setting
off at once, they might arrive at Bou-Saada some time in the dark hours;
and Nevill upset his old arrangements with good grace. Why should he
mind? he asked, when Stephen apologized shame-facedly for his
impatience. Bou-Saada was as good a place as any, except Tlemcen, and
this adventure would give him an excuse for a letter, even two letters,
to Josette Soubise. She would want to hear about Mouni's wedding, and
the stately Kabyle home which they had visited. Besides she would be
curious to know whether they found the white farmhouse on the hill, and
if so, what they learned there of the beautiful lady and her mysterious
fate. Oh yes, it would certainly mean two letters at least: one from
Bou-Saada, one after the search for the farmhouse; and Nevill thought
himself in luck, for he was not allowed to write often to Josette.
After Michélet the road, a mere shelf projecting along a precipice,
slants upward on its way to the Col de Tirouda, sharp as a knife aimed
at the heart of the mountains. From far below clouds boil up as if the
valleys smoked after a destroying fire, and through flying mists flush
the ruddy earth, turning the white film to pinkish gauze. Crimson and
purple stones shine like uncut jewels, and cascades of yellow gorse,
under red-flowering trees, pour down over low-growing white flowers,
which embroider the rose-coloured rocks.
Then, suddenly, gone is the green Kabyle mountain-world, gone like a
dream the tangle of ridges and chasms, the bright tapestry of fig trees
and silver olives, dark karoubias (the wild locusts of John the Baptist)
and climbing roses. Rough, coarse grass has eaten up the flowers, or
winds sweeping down from the Col have killed them. Only a few stunted
trees bend grotesquely to peer over the sheer sides of shadowed gorges
as the road strains up and up, twisting like a scar left by a whip-lash,
on the naked brown shoulders of a slave. So at last it flings a loop
over the Col de Tirouda. Then, round a corner the wand of an invisible
magician waves: darkness and winter cold become summer warmth and light.
This light was the level golden glory of late afternoon when Stephen saw
it from Nevill's car; and so green were the wide stretching meadows and
shining rivers far below, that he seemed to be looking at them through
an emerald, as Nero used to gaze at his gardens in Rome. Down the motor
plunged towards the light, threading back and forth a network of
zig-zags, until long before sunset they were in the warm lowlands,
racing towards Bordj-bou Arreredj and Msila. Beyond Msila, they would
follow the desert track which would bring them by and by to the oasis
town of Bou-Saada.
If Stephen had been a tourist, guide-book in hand, he would have
delighted in the stony road among the mountains between Bordj-bou
Arreredj and Msila; but it was the future, not the past, which held his
thoughts to-day, and he had no more than a passing glance for ruined
mosques and palaces. It was only after nightfall, far beyond the town of
Msila, far beyond the vast plain of the Hodna, that his first dim
glimpse of the desert thrilled him out of self-absorption.
Even under the stars which crusted a moonless sky, the vast stretches of
billowing sand glimmered faintly golden as a phosphorescent sea. And
among the dimly gleaming waves of that endless waste the motor tossed,
rocking on the rough track like a small boat in mid-ocean.
Nowhere was there any sound except the throbbing of their machinery, and
a fairy fiddling of unseen crickets, which seemed to make the silence
more intense, under the great sparkling dome that hung over the gold.
"Now I am in the place where she wished to be: the golden silence,"
Stephen said to himself. And he found himself listening, as if for the
call Victoria had promised to give if she needed him.