“There will be death in Sidi-Massarli to-night, monsieur. It is the
will of Allah. Blessed be Allah.”
I got up, locked the heavy door of the Bordj, and put the key in the
inner pocket of my coat. As I did so, I fancied I saw the heavy black
lids of the murderer’s closed eyes flutter for a moment. But I cannot
be sure. My head was aching with fatigue. The Spahi, too, looked stupid
with sleep. He jerked the cord, the murderer awoke with a start,
glanced heavily round, stood up. Pulling him as one would an obstinate
dog, the Spahi made him lie down on the bare floor in the corner of
the Bordj, ere he himself curled up in the thick quilt which had been
rolled up behind his high saddle. I made no protest, but when the Spahi
was asleep, his lean brown hand laid upon his sword, his musket under
his shaven head, I pushed one of my blankets over to the murderer, who
lay looking like a heap of rags against the white wall. He smiled at me
gently, as he had smiled when the desert drum was beating, and drew the
blanket over his mighty limbs and face.
I did not mean to sleep that night. Tired though I was my brain was
so excited that I felt I should not. I blew out the candle without
even the thought that it would be necessary to struggle against sleep.
And in the darkness I heard for an instant the roar of the wind
outside, the heavy breathing of my two strange companions within. For
an instant—then it seemed as if a shutter was drawn suddenly over
the light in my brain. Blackness filled the room where the thoughts
develop, crowd, stir in endless activities. Slumber fell upon me like
a great stone that strikes a man down to dumbness, to unconsciousness.
* * * * *
Far in the night I had a dream. I cannot recall it accurately now. I
could not recall it even the next morning when I awoke. But in this
dream, it seemed to me that fingers felt softly about my heart. I
was conscious of their fluttering touch. It was as if I were dead,
and as if the doctor laid for a moment his hand upon my heart to
convince himself that the pulse of life no longer beat. And this action
wove itself naturally into the dream I had. The fingers so soft, so
surreptitious, were lifted from my breast, and I sank deeper into the
gulf of sleep, below the place of dreams. For I was a tired man that
night. At the first breath of dawn I stirred and woke. It was cold. I
put out one hand and drew up my quilt. Then I lay still. The wind had
sunk. I no longer heard it roaring over the desert. For a moment I
hardly remembered where I was, then memory came back and I listened for
the deep breathing of the Spahi and the murderer. Even when the wind
blew I had heard it. I did not hear it now. I lay there under my quilt
for some minutes listening. The silence was intense. Had they gone
already, started on their way to El Arba? The Bordj was in darkness,
for the windows were very small, and dawn had scarcely begun to break
outside and had not yet filtered in through the wooden shutters which
barred them. I disliked this complete silence, and felt about for the
matches I had laid beside the candle before turning in. I could not
find them. Someone had moved them, then. The heaviness of sleep had
quite left me now, and I remembered clearly all the incidents of the
previous evening. The roll of the desert drum sounded again in my
ears. I threw off my quilt, got up, and moved softly over the stone
floor towards the corner where the murderer had lain down to sleep. I
bent down to touch him and touched the stone. They had gone, then! It
was strange that I had not been waked by their departure. Besides, I
had the key of the door. I thrust my hand into the breast-pocket of
my coat which I had worn while I slept. The key was no longer there.
Then I remembered my dream and the fingers fluttering round my heart.
Stumbling in the blackness I came to the place where the Spahi had
lain, stretched out my hands and felt naked flesh. My hands recoiled
from it, for it was very cold.
Half-an-hour later the one-eyed Arab who kept the Bordj, roused by my
beating upon the door with the butt end of my revolver, came with D’oud
to ask what was the matter. The door had to be broken in. This took
some time. Long before I could escape, the light of the sun, entering
through the little arched windows, had illumined the nude corpse of
the Spahi, the gaping red wound in his throat, the heap of murderer’s
rags that lay across his feet.
M’hammed Bouaziz, in the red cloak, the red boots, sword at his side,
musket slung over his shoulder, was galloping over the desert on his
way to freedom.
* * * * *
But six months later he was taken at night outside a café by the lake
at Tunis. He was gazing through the doorway at a girl who was posturing
to the sound of pipes between two rows of Arabs. The light from the
café fell upon his face, the dancer uttered a cry.
“M’hammed Bouaziz!”
“Aïchouch!”
The law avenged the Spahi, and this time it was not to prison they led
my friend of Sidi-Massarli, but to an open space before a squad of
soldiers just when the dawn was breaking.
_THE PRINCESS AND THE JEWEL DOCTOR_
In St. Petersburg society there may be met at the present time a
certain Russian Princess, who is noted for her beauty, for an ugly
defect—she has lost the forefinger of her left hand—and for her
extraordinary attachment to the city of Tunis, where she has spent
at least three months of each year since 1890—the year in which she
suffered the accident that deprived her of a finger. What that accident
was, and why she is so passionately attached to Tunis, nobody in
Russia seems to know, not even her doting husband, who bows to all her
caprices. But two persons could explain the matter—a Tunisian guide
named Abdul, and a rather mysterious individual who follows a humble
calling in the Rue Ben-Ziad, close to the Tunis bazaars. This latter is
the Princess’s personal attendant during her yearly visit to Tunis. He
accompanies her everywhere, may be seen in the hall of her hotel when
she is at home, on the box of her carriage when she drives out, close
behind her when she is walking. He is her shadow in Africa. Only when
she goes back to Russia does he return to his profession in the Rue
Ben-Ziad.
This is the exact history of the accident which befell the Princess
in 1890. In the spring of that year she arrived one night at Tunis.
She had not long been married to an honourable man whom she adored.
She was rich, pretty, and popular. Yet her life was clouded by a great
fear that sometimes made the darkness of night almost intolerable to
her. She dreaded lest the darkness of blindness should come upon her.
Both her mother, now dead, and her grandfather had laboured under this
defect. They had been born with sight, and had become totally blind
ere they reached the age of forty. Princess Danischeff—as we may call
her for the purpose of this story—trembled when she thought of their
fate, and that it might be hers. Certain books that she read, certain
conversations on the subject of heredity that she heard in Petersburg
society fed her terror. Occasionally, too, when she stood under a
strong light she felt a slight pain in her eyes. She never spoke of her
fear, but she fell into a condition of nervous exhaustion that alarmed
her husband and her physician. The latter recommended foreign travel
as a tonic. The former, who was detained in the capital by political
affairs, reluctantly agreed to a separation from his wife. And thus
it came about, that, late one night of spring, the Princess and her
companion, the elderly Countess de Rosnikoff, arrived in Tunis at the
close of a tour in Algeria, and put up at the Hotel Royal.
The bazaars of Tunis are among the best that exist in the world of
bazaars, and, on the morning after her arrival, the Princess was
anxious to explore them with her companion. But Madame de Rosnikoff was
fatigued by her journey from Constantine. She begged the Princess to go
without her, desiring earnestly to be left in her bedroom with a cup of
weak tea and a French novel. The Princess, therefore, ordered a guide
and set forth to the bazaars.
The guide’s name was Abdul. He was a talkative young Eastern, and as he
turned with the Princess into the network of tiny alleys that spreads
from the Bab-el-bahar to the bazaars, he poured forth a flood of
information about the marvels of his native city. The Princess listened
idly. That morning she was cruelly pre-occupied. As she stepped out of
the hotel into the bright sunshine she had felt a sharp pain in her
eyes, and now, though she held over her head a large green parasol, the
pain continued. She looked at the light and thought of the darkness
that might be coming upon her, and the chatter of Abdul sounded vague
in her ears. Presently, however, she was forced to attend to him, for
he asked her a direct question.
“To-day they sell jewels by auction near the Mosquée Djama-ez-Zitouna,”
he said. “Would the gracious Princess like to see the market of the
jewels?”
The Princess put her hand to her eyes and assented in a low voice.
Abdul turned out of the sunshine into a narrow alley covered with a
wooden roof. It was full of shadows and of squatting men, who held out
brown hands to the Princess as she passed. But she was staring at the
shadows and did not see the merchants of Goblin Market. Leaving this
alley Abdul led her abruptly into a dense crowd of Arabs, who were
all talking, gesticulating, and moving hither and thither, apparently
under the influence of extreme excitement. Many of them held rings,
bracelets, or brooches between their fingers, and some extended palms
upon which lay quantities of uncut jewels—turquoises, sapphires, and
emeralds. At a little distance a grave man was noting down something in
a book. But the Princess scarcely observed the progress of the jewel
auction. Her attention had been attracted by an extraordinary figure
that stood near her. This was an immensely tall Arab, dressed in a
dingy brown robe, and wearing upon his shaven head, which narrowed
almost to a point at the back, a red fez with a large black tassel.
His claw-like hands were covered with rings and his bony wrists with
bracelets. But the attention of the Princess was riveted by his eyes.
They were small and bright, and squinted horribly—so horribly, that it
was impossible to tell at what he was looking. These eyes gave to his
face an expression of diabolic and ruthless vigilance and cunning.
He seemed at the same time to be seeing everything and to be gazing
definitely at nothing.
“That is Safti, the jewel doctor,” murmured Abdul in the ear of the
Princess.
“A jewel doctor! What is that?” asked the Princess.
“When you are sick he cures you with jewels.”
“And what can he cure?” said the Princess, still looking at Safti,
who was now bargaining vociferously with a fat Arab for a piece of
milk-white jade.
“All things. I was sick of a fever that comes with the summer. He gave
me a stone crushed to a powder, and I was well. He saved from death one
of the Bey’s sons, who was dying from hijada. And then, too, he has a
stone in a ring which can preserve sight to him who is going blind.”
The Princess started violently.
“Impossible!” she cried.
“It is true,” said Abdul. “It is a green stone—like that.”
He pointed to an emerald which an Arab was holding up to the light.
The Princess put her hand to her eyes. They still ached, and her
temples were throbbing furiously.
“I cannot stay here,” she said. “It is too hot. But—tell the jewel
doctor that I wish to visit him. Where does he live?”
“In a little street, Rue Ben-Ziad, in a little house. But he is rich.”
Abdul spread his arms abroad. “When will the gracious Princess⸺?”
“This afternoon. At—at four o’clock you will take me.”
Abdul spoke to Safti, who turned, squinted horribly at the Princess,
and salaamed to her with a curious and contradictory dignity, turning
his fingers, covered with jewels, towards the earth.
That afternoon, at four, when the venerable Madame de Rosnikoff was
still drinking her weak tea and reading her French novel, the Princess
and Abdul stood before the low wooden door of the jewel doctor’s house.
Abdul struck upon it, and the terrible physician appeared in the dark
aperture, looking all ways with his deformed eyes, which fascinated
the Princess. Having ascertained that he could speak a little broken
French, like many of the Tunisian Arabs, she bade Abdul wait outside,
and entered the hovel of the jewel doctor, who shut close the door
behind her.
The room in which she found herself was dark and scented. Faint
light from the street filtered in through an aperture in the wall,
across which was partially drawn a wooden shutter. Round the room
ran a divan covered with straw matting, and Safti now conducted the
Princess ceremoniously to this, and handed her a cup of thick coffee,
which he took from a brass tray that was placed upon a stand. As she
sipped the coffee and looked at the pointed head and twisted gaze
of Safti, the Princess heard some distant Arab at a street corner
singing monotonously a tuneless song, and the scent, the darkness,
the reiterated song, and the tall, strange creature standing silently
before her gave to her, in their combination, the atmosphere of a
dream. She found it difficult to speak, to explain her errand.
At length she said: “You are a doctor? You can cure the sick?”
Safti salaamed.
“With jewels? Is that possible?”
“Jewels are the only medicine,” Safti replied, speaking with sudden
volubility. “With the ruby I cure madness, with the white jade the
disease of the hijada, and with the bloodstone hæmorrhage. I have made
a man who was ill of fever wear a topaz, and he arose from bed and
walked happily in the street.”
“And with an emerald,” interrupted the Princess; “have you not
preserved sight with an emerald? They told me so.”
Safti’s expression suddenly became grim and suspicious.
“Who said that?” he asked sharply.
“Abdul. Is it true? Can it be true?”
Her cheeks were flushed. She spoke almost with violence, laying her
hand upon his arm. Safti seemed to stare hard into the corners of the
little room. Perhaps he was really looking at the Princess. At length
he said: “It is true.”
“I will give any price you ask for it,” said the Princess.
“You!” said Safti. “But you⸺”
Suddenly he lifted his lean hands, took the face of the Princess
between them quite gently, and turned it towards the small window. She
had begun to tremble. Holding her soft cheeks with his brown fingers,
Safti remained motionless for a long time, during which it seemed to
the Princess that he was looking away from her at some distant object.
She watched his frightful and surreptitious eyes, that never told the
truth, she heard the distant Arab’s everlasting song, and her dream
became a nightmare. At last Safti dropped his hands and said:
“It may be that some day you will need my emerald.”
The Princess felt as if at that moment a bullet entered her heart.
“Give it me—give it me!” she cried. “I am rich. I⸺”
“I do not sell my medicines,” Safti answered. “Those who use them must
live near me, here in Tunis. When they are healed they give back to me
the jewel that has saved them. But you—you live far off.”
With the swiftness of a woman the Princess saw that persuasion would be
useless. Safti’s face looked hard as brown wood. She seemed to recover
from her emotion, and said quietly:
“At least you will let me see the emerald?”
Safti went to a small bureau that stood at the back of the room,
opened one of its drawers with a key which he drew from beneath his
dingy robe, lifted a small silver box carefully out, returned to the
Princess, and put the box into her hand.
“Open it,” he said.
She obeyed, and took out a very small and antique gold ring, in which
was set a rather dull emerald. Safti drew it gently from her, and put
it upon the forefinger of her left hand. It was so tiny that it would
not pass beyond the joint of the finger, and it looked ugly and odd
upon the Princess, who wore many beautiful rings. Now that she saw it
she felt the superstition that had sprung from her terror dying within
her. Safti, with his crooked eyes, must have read her thought in her
face, for he said:
“The Princess is wrong. That medicine could cure her. The one who wears
it for three months in each year can never be blind.”
Taking the emerald from her finger, he touched her two eyes with it,
and it seemed to the Princess that, as he did so, the pain she felt in
them withdrew. Her desire for the jewel instantly returned.
“Let me wear it,” she said, putting forth all her charm to soften the
jewel doctor. “Let me take it with me to Russia. I will make you rich.”
Safti shook his head.
“The Princess may wear it here, in Tunis,” he replied. “Not elsewhere.”
She began to temporise, hoping to conquer his resistance later.
“I may take it with me now?” she asked.
“At a fee.”
“I will pay it.”
The jewel doctor went to the door, and called in Abdul. Five minutes
later the Princess passed the singing Arab at the corner of the street,
Rue Ben-Ziad. She had signed a paper pledging herself to return the
emerald to Safti at the end of forty-eight hours, and to pay 125 francs
for her possession of it during that time. And she wore the emerald on
the forefinger of her left hand.
On the following morning Madame de Rosnikoff said to the Princess:
“I hate Tunis. It has an evil climate. The tea here is too strong, and
I feel sure the drains are bad. Last night I was feverish. I am always
feverish when I am near bad drains.”
The Princess, who had slept well, and had waked with no pain in her
eyes, answered these complaints cheerily, made the Countess some
tea that was really weak, and drove her out in the sunshine to see
Carthage. The Countess did not see it, because there is no longer
a Carthage. She went to bed that night in a bad humour, and again
complained of drains the next morning. This time the Princess did not
heed her, for she was thinking of the hour when she must return the
emerald to Safti.
“What an ugly ring that is,” said the old Countess. “Where did you get
it? It is too small. Why do you wear it?”
“I—I bought it in the bazaars,” answered the Princess.
“My dear, you wasted your money,” said the companion; and she went to
bed with another French novel.
That afternoon the Princess implored Safti to sell her the emerald, and
as he persistently declined she renewed her lease of it for another
forty-eight hours. As she left the jewel doctor’s home she did not
notice that he spoke some words in a low and eager voice to Abdul,
pointing towards her as he did so. Nor did she see the strange bustle
of varied life in the street as she walked slowly under the great
Moorish arch of the Porte de France. She was deeply thoughtful.
Since she had worn the ugly ring of Safti she had suffered no pain
from her eyes, and a strange certainty had gradually come upon her
that, while the emerald was in her possession, she would be safe from
the terrible disease of which she had so long lived in terror. Yet
Safti would not let her have the ring. And she could not live for ever
in Tunis. Already she had prolonged her stay abroad, and was due in
Russia, where her anxious husband awaited her. She knew not what to
do. Suddenly an idea occurred to her. It made her flush red and tingle
with shame. She glanced up, and saw the lustrous eyes of Abdul fixed
intently upon her. As he left her at the door of the hotel he said,
“The Princess will stay long in Tunis?”
“Another week at least, Abdul,” she answered carelessly. “You can go
home now. I shall not want you any more to-day.”
And she walked into the hotel without looking at him again. When she
was in her room she sent for a list of the steamers sailing daily from
Tunis for the different ports of Africa and Europe. Presently she came
to the bedside of Madame de Rosnikoff.
“Countess,” she said, “you are no better?”
“How can I be? The drains are bad, and the tea here is too strong.”
“There is a boat that leaves for Sicily at midnight—for Marsala. Shall
we go in her?”
The old lady bounded on her pillow.
“Straight on by Italy to Russia?” she cried joyfully.
The Princess nodded. A fierce excitement shone in her pretty eyes, and
her little hands were trembling as she looked down at the dull emerald
of Safti.
* * * * *
At eleven o’clock that night the Princess and the Countess got into a
carriage, drove to the edge of the huge salt lake by which Tunis lies,
and went on board the _Stella d’Italia_. The sky was starless. The
winds were still, and it was very dark. As the ship glided out from
the shore the old Countess hurried below. But the Princess remained
on deck, leaning upon the bulwark, and gazing at the fading lights of
the city where Safti dwelt. Two flames seemed burning in her heart,
a fierce flame of joy, a fierce flame of contempt—of contempt for
herself. For was she not a common thief? She looked at Safti’s ring on
her finger, and flushed scarlet in the darkness. Yet she was joyful,
triumphant, as she heard the beating of the ship’s heart, and saw the
lights of Tunis growing fainter in the distance, and felt the onward
movement of the _Stella d’Italia_ through the night. She felt herself
nearer to Russia with each throb of the machinery. And from Russia she
would expiate her sin. From Russia she would compensate Safti for his
loss. The lights of Tunis grew fainter. She thought of the open sea.
But suddenly she felt that the ship was slowing down. The engines beat
more feebly, then ceased to beat. The ship glided on for a moment in
silence, and stopped. A cold fear ran over the Princess. She called to
a sailor.
“Why,” she said, “why do we stop? Is anything wrong?”
He pointed to some lights on the port side.
“We are off Hammam-Lif, madame,” he said. “We are going to lie to for
half-an-hour to take in cargo.”
To the Princess that half-hour seemed all eternity. She remained upon
deck, and whenever she heard the splash of oars as a boat drew near, or
the guttural sound of an Arab voice, she trembled, and, staring into
the blackness, fancied that she saw the tall figure, the pointed head,
and the deformed eyes of the jewel doctor. But the minutes passed. The
cargo was all got on board. The boats drew off. And once again the ship
shuddered as the heart of her began to beat, and the ebon water ran
backward from her prow.
Then the Princess was glad. She laid the hand on which shone Safti’s
emerald upon the bulwark, and gazed towards the sea, turning her back
upon the lights of Hammam-Lif. She thought of safety, of Russia. She
did not hear a soft step drawing near upon the deck behind her. She did
not see the flash of steel descending to the bulwark on which her hand
was laid.
But suddenly the horrible cry of a woman in agony rang through the
night. It was instantly succeeded by a splash in the water, as a tall
figure dived over the vessel’s side.
When the sun rose on the following day over the minarets of Tunis the
_Stella d’Italia_, with the Princess on board, was far out at sea.
The emerald of Safti was once more in the little house in the Rue
Ben-Ziad.
It was still upon the Princess’s finger.
_THE FIGURE IN THE MIRAGE_
On a windy night of Spring I sat by a great fire that had been built
by Moors on a plain of Morocco under the shadow of a white city, and
talked with a fellow-countryman, stranger to me till that day. We had
met in the morning in a filthy alley of the town, and had forgathered.
He was a wanderer for pleasure like myself, and, learning that he was
staying in a dreary hostelry haunted by fever, I invited him to dine
in my camp, and to pass the night in one of the small peaked tents
that served me and my Moorish attendants as home. He consented gladly.
Dinner was over—no bad one, for Moors can cook, can even make delicious
caramel pudding in desert places—and Mohammed, my stalwart _valet de
chambre_, had given us most excellent coffee. Now we smoked by the
great fire, looked up at the marvellously bright stars, and told,
as is the way of travellers, tales of our wanderings. My companion,
whom I took at first to be a rather ironic, sceptical, and by nature
unimaginative globe-trotter—he was a hard-looking, iron-grey man of
middle-age—related the usual tiger story, the time-honoured elephant
anecdote, and a couple of snake yarns of no special value, and I was
beginning to fear that I should get little entertainment from so
prosaic a sportsman, when I chanced to mention the desert.
“Ah!” said my guest, taking his pipe from his mouth, “the desert is the
strangest thing in nature, as woman is the strangest thing in human
nature. And when you get them together—desert and woman—by Jove!”
He paused, then he shot a keen glance at me.
“Ever been in the Sahara?” he said.
I replied in the affirmative, but added that I had as yet only seen the
fringe of it.
“Biskra, I suppose,” he rejoined, “and the nearest oasis, Sidi-Okba,
and so on?”
I nodded. I saw I was in for another tale, and anticipated some history
of shooting exploits under the salt mountain of El Outaya.
“Well,” he continued, “I know the Sahara pretty fairly, and about the
oddest thing I ever could believe in I heard of and believed in there.”
“Something about gazelle?” I queried.
“Gazelle? No—a woman!” he replied.
As he spoke a Moor glided out of the windy darkness, and threw an
armful of dry reeds on the fire. The flames flared up vehemently, and I
saw that the face of my companion had changed. The hardness of it was
smoothed away. Some memory, that held its romance, sat with him.
“A woman,” he repeated, knocking the ashes out of his pipe almost
sentimentally—“more than that, a French woman of Paris, with the
nameless charm, the _chic_, the⸺But I’ll tell you. Some years ago
three Parisians—a man, his wife, and her unmarried sister, a girl of
eighteen, with an angel and a devil in her dark beauty—came to a great
resolve. They decided that they were tired of the Francais, sick of
the Bois, bored to death with the boulevards, that they wanted to see
for themselves the famous French colonies which were for ever being
talked about in the Chamber. They determined to travel. No sooner was
the determination come to than they were off. Hôtel des Colonies,
Marseilles; steamboat, _Le Général Chanzy_; five o’clock on a splendid,
sunny afternoon—Algiers, with its terraces, its white villas, its
palms, trees, and its Spahis!”
“But⸺” I began.
He foresaw my objection.
“There were Spahis, and that’s a point of my story. Some fête was on in
the town while our Parisians were there. All the African troops were
out—Zouaves, chasseurs, tirailleurs. The Governor went in procession
to perform some ceremony, and in front of his carriage rode sixteen
Spahis—probably got in from that desert camp of theirs near El Outaya.
All this was long before the Tsar visited Paris, and our Parisians
had never before seen the dashing Spahis, had only heard of them,
of their magnificent horses, their turbans and flowing Arab robes,
their gorgeous figures, lustrous eyes, and diabolic horsemanship. You
know how they ride? No cavalry to touch them—not even the Cossacks!
Well, our French friends were struck. The unmarried sister, more
especially, was _bouleversée_ by these glorious demons. As they
caracoled beneath the balcony on which she was leaning she clapped
her little hands, in their white kid gloves, and threw down a shower
of roses. The falling flowers frightened the horses. They pranced,
bucked, reared. One Spahi—a great fellow, eyes like a desert eagle,
grand aquiline profile—on whom three roses had dropped, looked up,
saw mademoiselle—call her Valérie—gazing down with her great, bright
eyes—they were deuced fine eyes, by Jove!⸺”
“You’ve seen her?” I asked.
“—and flashed a smile at her with his white teeth. It was his last
day in the service. He was in grand spirits. ‘_Mon Dieu! Mais quelles
dents!_’ she sang out. Her people laughed at her. The Spahi looked at
her again—not smiling. She shrank back on the balcony. Then his place
was taken by the Governor—small imperial, _chapeau de forme_, evening
dress, landau and pair. Mademoiselle was _désolée_. Why couldn’t
civilised men look like Spahis? Why were all Parisians commonplace?
Why—why? Her sister and brother-in-law called her the savage
worshipper, and took her down to the café on the terrace to dine. And
all through dinner mademoiselle talked of the _beaux_ Spahis—in the
plural, with a secret reservation in her heart. After Algiers our
Parisians went by way of Constantine to Biskra. Now they saw desert
for the first time—the curious iron-grey, velvety-brown, and rose-pink
mountains; the nomadic Arabs camping in their earth-coloured tents
patched with rags; the camels against the skyline; the everlasting
sands, broken here and there by the deep green shadows of distant
oases, where the close-growing palms, seen from far off, give to the
desert almost the effect that clouds give to Cornish waters. At Biskra
mademoiselle—oh! what she must have looked like under the mimosa-trees
before the Hôtel de l’Oasis!⸺”
“Then you’ve seen her,” I began.
“—mademoiselle became enthusiastic again, and, almost before they
knew it, her sister and brother-in-law were committed to a desert
expedition, were fitted out with a dragoman, tents, mules—the whole
show, in fact—and one blazing hot day found themselves out in
that sunshine—you know it—with Biskra a green shadow on that sea,
the mountains behind the sulphur springs turning from bronze to
black-brown in the distance, and the table flatness of the desert
stretching ahead of them to the limits of the world and the judgment
day.”
My companion paused, took a flaming reed from the fire, put it to his
pipe bowl, pulled hard at his pipe—all the time staring straight before
him, as if, among the glowing logs, he saw the caravan of the Parisians
winding onward across the desert sands. Then he turned to me, sighed,
and said:
“You’ve seen mirage?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Have you noticed that in mirage the things one fancies one sees
generally appear in large numbers—buildings crowded as in towns,
trees growing together as in woods, men shoulder to shoulder in large
companies?”
My experience of mirage in the desert was so, and I acknowledged it.
“Have you ever seen in a mirage a solitary figure?” he continued.