TWO ON THE ROOF
"Come up on the roof with me, and I will tell you that thing I have been
waiting to tell you," said Ourïeda. "Aunt Mabrouka will not follow us
there, because she hates going up the narrow stairs with the high steps.
Besides, she will perhaps think I really want to show you the sunset."
Sanda had been in the Agha's house for three days, and always since the
first evening a fierce simoon had been hurling the hot sand against the
shut windows like spray from a wild golden sea. It had not been possible
to sit in the fountain court of the harem, the hidden garden of the
women, protected though it was by four high walls. Sanda and Ourïeda had
scarcely been alone together for more than a few minutes at a time, and
even if they had been, Ourïeda would not have spoken. As she said, she
had been waiting. Sanda had felt, during the three days, that she was
being watched and studied, not only by Lella Mabrouka, but by the girl.
Their eyes were always on her; and though Sanda DeLisle was very young,
and had never tried consciously to become a student of human character,
it seemed to her, in these new and strange conditions of life which
sharpened her powers of discernment, that she could dimly read what the
brains behind the eyes were thinking.
Lella Mabrouka's eyes, though old (as age is counted with Arab women)
were beady-bright and keen as a hawk's, yet she was clever enough to
veil thought by wearing the expressionless mask of an idol in the
presence of the girls. Sanda had to pierce that veil; and she felt as if
from behind it a hostile thing peered out, spying for treachery in the
new inmate of the house, hoping rather than fearing to find it, and
ready to pounce if a chance came. The stealthy watcher seemed to be
saying, "What are you here for, daughter of Christian dogs? You must
have some scheme in your head to defeat our hopes and wishes; but if you
have, I'll find out what it is, and break it--break you, too, if need
be."
No sinister thing looked out from the eyes of Ourïeda, but something
infinitely sad and wistful kept repeating: "Can I trust you? Oh, I think
so, I believe so, more and more. But it is so desperately important to
be certain. I must wait a little while yet."
Always, through the countless inquiries of Lella Mabrouka and the girl
about France and England (Ireland meant nothing to them) and Sanda's
bringing up, and the life of women in Europe, the visitor was conscious
of the real questions in their souls. But on the third day the feverish
anxiety had burnt itself out behind Ourïeda's topaz-brown eyes. They
were eager still, but clear, and her wistful smile was no longer
strained. Whatever the burden was that she hid, she had decided to beg
Sanda's help in carrying or getting rid of it. And instinctively
realizing this, Sanda ceased to feel that the Arab girl was of an
entirely different world from hers, remote as a creature of another
planet. The Agha's daughter was transformed in the eyes of her guest.
From a mere picturesque figure in a vivid fairy tale, she became
pathetically, poignantly human. Sanda began to hear the call of another
soul yearning to have her soul as its friend, and all that was warm and
impulsive in her responded. A thrill of expectation stirred in her veins
when, on the evening of the third day, after the wind had died a sudden,
swift death, Ourïeda whispered the real reason for going up to the roof.
Sanda had been looking forward to mounting those narrow stairs (with the
steep steps which Lella Mabrouka hated), because Ourïeda had several
times spoken of the view far away to the dunes, and the wonderful
colours of sunrise and sunset, when the sky flowered like a hanging
garden. Perhaps the Arab girl had been cleverly "working up" to this
moment, so that the suggestion, made instantly after the death of the
simoon, might seem natural to her aunt. In any case it was as Ourïeda
had hoped. Lella Mabrouka did not follow the girls.
When they came out on the flat white expanse of roof, Sanda gave a cry
of surprised admiration. She had known it would be beautiful up there,
to see so far over the desert, but the real picture was more wonderful
than her imagination could have painted. The sun had just dropped behind
the waving line of dunes and dragged the fierce wind with him like a
tiger in leash. All the world was magically still after the constant
purring and roaring of the new-conquered beast. The voice of the Muezzin
chanting the sunset call to prayer--the prayer of _Moghreb_--seemed only
to emphasize the vast silence. Up from the shimmering gold of the
western sky, behind the gold of the dunes, slowly moved along separate
spears of flame-bright rose, like the fingers of a gigantic Hand of
Fatma spread across the sapphire heaven to bless her father's people.
From this flaming sign in the west poured a pink radiance as of falling
rubies. The wonderful light rained over the marble whiteness of the
distant mosque--the great mosque of Djazerta--and fired the whole mass
of the piled oasis-town behind its dark line of palms. The light
showered roses over the girls' heads and dresses, stained the snow of
the roof, with its low, bubbling domes, and streaming eastward turned
flat plain and far billowing dune into a sea of flame.
Sanda's spirit worshipped the incredible beauty of the scene, and then
flew northward to the two men whom she loved. She thought of her father,
and wondered where Richard Stanton was at that moment. Then Max Doran's
face came between her and the man she had named "Sir Knight." She
remembered her dream of herself and Max in the desert, and was vexed
because she had not dreamed the same dream about Stanton instead.
"How wonderful it is here!" she half whispered, and Ourïeda answered
impatiently:
"Yes, it is wonderful; but don't let us talk of it, or even think of it
any more, because I have so much to say to you, and Aunt Mabrouka will
send to call us if my father comes. Besides, we can see this on any
night when the wind does not blow."
She had in her hand a large silk handkerchief tied in the form of a bag;
and sitting down on the low, queerly battlemented wall which protected
the flat roof, she untied and opened the bundle on her lap. It was full
of yellow grain, and she gave Sanda a handful. "That's for the doves,"
she said. "They will know somehow that we are here, and presently they
will come. If Aunt Mabrouka sends her own woman, Taous, up to listen and
spy on us she will find us feeding the doves."
"But why should Lella Mabrouka do such a thing?" Sanda ventured to ask,
taking the grain, and seating herself beside Ourïeda.
"You will understand that, and a great many other things, when I have
told you what I am going to tell," answered the "Little Rose." "From
books my father has let me read, and from things you have said, I have
seen that Roumia girls are not like us, even in their thoughts. Perhaps
you are thinking now that I am very sly; and so I am, but not because I
love slyness. It is only because I have to be subtle in self-defence
against those who are older and wiser than I am. Everything in our lives
makes us women stealthy as cats. It is not our fault. At least, it is
not mine. Some women--some girls--may enjoy the excitement, but not I.
Perhaps I am different from others, because I have the blood of Europe
in my veins. My father's mother was Sicilian. My own mother was Spanish.
And he, my father, is an enlightened man, with broader views and more
knowledge of the world than most Caids of the south. They all pride
themselves on knowing a little French in these days, he tells me, and
some have even made visits to Paris once in their lives. But you know
already what he is."
"Yes, he is a magnificent man," Sanda agreed, "even greater than I
expected from what my father said of him."
She had met the Agha only once, for a ceremonious half-hour on the
evening of her arrival at his house, when he had begged permission as of
a visiting princess to see and welcome her; yet this punctiliousness was
not neglect, but Arab courtesy; and Ben Râana had talked to her of the
world in general and Paris in particular, in French, which, though
somewhat stilted and guttural, was curiously Parisian in wording and
expression. He was one of the handsomest men she had ever seen, scarcely
darker in colour than many Frenchmen of the Midi, and marvellously
dignified, with his long black beard, his great, sad eyes whose
overhanging line of brow almost met above the eagle nose, and the
magnificent gray, silver embroidered burnous worn in the guest's honour.
He had appeared to Sanda years younger than the widowed Mabrouka; and
though she was a dark, withered likeness of him, it was not surprising
to learn that Lella Mabrouka was only a half-sister of the Agha, born of
an Arab mother.
"You know he has had but one wife, my own mother," Ourïeda said proudly.
"That is considered almost a sin in our religion, yet he could never
bring himself to look with love on any woman, after her, nor to give her
a rival, even for the sake of having a son. I adore him for that--how
could I help it, since he says I am her image?--and for letting me learn
things Arab girls of the south are seldom taught, in order that I may
have something of her cleverness that held his love, as her beauty won
it. Yet, if he had married a second wife when my mother died, and she
had given him a son, my life would be happier now."
"How can that be?" asked Sanda. "I couldn't love my father in the way I
do if he had put somebody else in my mother's place, and spoiled all the
beautiful romance."
"My father's romance with my mother was like a strange poem, for she was
the daughter of Catholic Spanish people, who had an orange plantation
near Blida, and wished her to enter a convent. But my father rode by
with some French officers and saw her on her way to church. That one
look decided their whole lives. Yes, it would have been a pity to spoil
their romance; yet, keeping its poetry is spoiling mine."
"You mean your Aunt Mabrouka. But a stepmother might be worse."
"No, it isn't only Aunt Mabrouka I am thinking of. It is her son, who is
my father's heir because he has no son of his own. My father is very
enlightened in many ways, but in others he is as narrow and hard as the
rest of our people, who hold to their old customs more firmly than they
hold to life. My father intends me for the wife of Si Tahar, who met and
brought you to our house."
Sanda could not keep back a little gasp of dismay. "Oh, no! it's not
possible!" she cried. "You're so beautiful, and so fair. He's
so--so----"
"Hideous. Don't be afraid to say the word to me. I love you for it. But
because Tahar's not deformed from birth, and the strength and beauty of
the line isn't threatened, his looks make no difference to my father. To
him it seems far more important that I should be the wife of the heir,
so that money and land need not be divided after his death, than that I
should love my husband before my marriage. You see, that can hardly
ever happen to a girl of our race and religion. If Tahar were not my
cousin I should never even have seen him, nor he me. And if I had not
seen him, it would perhaps be a little better, for there would be the
excitement and mystery of the unknown. We are brought up to expect that;
and if already I hadn't learned to dislike Tahar for his own sake and
his mother's, I should be no worse off than other girls--except for one
thing: _the great thing of my life_."
Her voice fell lower than before, and her companion on the wall had to
bend close to catch the whisper. "What is that thing?" Sanda dropped the
words into a frightened pause, while Ourïeda's glance went quickly to
the well of the staircase.
"It is what I came here to tell you about," the Arab girl answered. "I
forced myself to wait, but now I am sure of you as if you were my own
sister. We are going to open our hearts to each other. Do you know what
it is to have a man in your life--a man who is not father or brother,
and yet is of great importance to you; so great that you think of him by
day and dream of him by night?"
"Yes, there are two such men in my life," Sanda replied; and was
surprised at herself that she should have said two. More truly there was
only one man, not counting her father, who had a place in her thoughts.
"Two men!" Ourïeda echoed, looking shocked. "But how can there be two?"
Sanda felt herself blushing and ashamed before the woman of another
race. She tried to explain, though it was difficult, because she had
given the answer without stopping to think: indeed, it had almost
spoken itself. "I fancy I said that because you asked me about dreams,"
she apologized. "The man who has been my hero all my life--and always
will be, I suppose, though he doesn't care for me and thinks of me as a
child--I can't dream of, for some strange reason. He's seldom out of my
thoughts by day for very long, I believe; but the other--I hardly know
why I mentioned him!--is only a friend, and quite a new friend. He's
nothing to me at all, really, though I'm interested in him because of
the strange way we met and were thrown together. But the odd thing is, I
dream of him--often."
"The women of my people say it is the man you dream of who has touched
your soul," Ourïeda said thoughtfully.
"That's a very poetical idea, but I'm sure it isn't true!" Sanda
exclaimed. "Now tell me about yourself, because if Lella Mabrouka should
send----"
"Yes, I am, oh, so anxious to tell you! But what you said about the man
of your thoughts and the man of your dreams was very queer, and made me
forget for an instant. I am glad you love some one, for that will help
you to understand me, and by and by you will tell me more. Already I can
see that you must be almost as unhappy as I am, because you say the one
you care for doesn't care for you. That must be terrible, but you are
free, and perhaps some day you can make him care. As for me, if I am not
saved soon, I shall be married to Tahar and lost forever."
"But surely your father, who loves you so dearly, won't actually force
you to marry against your will?"
"He will expect me to obey, and I shall have to obey or--kill myself.
Rather that, only--oh, Sanda, I am a coward! At the last minute my
courage might fail. The one thing my father would promise was that I
should be left as I am till my seventeenth birthday. That very day is
fixed for the beginning of the marriage feast. We shall have a whole
week of rejoicing. Think of the horror of it for me! I had a year of
hope when he made the promise. Now I have less than six months. And in
all that time nothing has happened."
Sanda saw by the girl's look and guessed by the quiver of her voice that
she was not speaking vaguely. There was something in particular which
she had been praying for, counting upon from day to day. And that thing
had not happened.