'I came here because it is my business to be here. I went to town this
morning. When I got back they told me that you were away and that the
madama was up here, alone. So I came. Is this a place for a woman to be
alone in--a young woman, with men working all about, and I don't know
who, and a thousand ways of getting in and out from the hills, and ten
thousand hiding-places in the woods?'
The Pasha made a gesture of impatience, and turned away. But after all,
what could one do with old Zuembuel? He had been brought up in his
tradition. The Pasha lighted another cigarette to help himself think.
'Well, I came up here,' continued the eunuch, 'and as I came I heard
madama singing. You know how she sings the songs of the Franks.'
The Pasha knew. But he did not say anything. As he walked up and down,
smoking and thinking, his eye caught in the pool a reflection from the
other side of the room, where the door of the latticed room was, and
where the cypress-wood chest stood as the servants had left it in the
middle of the floor. Was that what Helene had stood looking at so long?
he asked himself. He wondered that he could have sat beside it so
quietly. It seemed now like something dark and dangerous crouching there
in the shadow of the little room.
'I sat down, under the terrace,' he heard the eunuch go on, 'where no
one could see me, and I listened. And after she had stopped I heard--'
'Never mind what you heard,' broke in the Pasha. 'I have heard enough.'
He was ashamed--ashamed and resolved. He felt as if he had been playing
the spy with Zuembuel Agha. And after all, there was a simple way to
answer his question for himself. He threw away his cigarette, went into
the little room, bent over the chest, and fitted the key into the lock.
Just then a nightingale burst out singing, but so near and so loud that
he started and looked over his shoulder. In an instant he collected
himself, feeling the black man's eyes upon his. Yet he could not
suppress the train of association started by the impassioned trilling of
the bird, even as he began to turn the key of the chest where his mother
used to keep her quaint old furs and embroideries. The irony of the
contrast paralyzed his hand for a strange moment, and of the difference
between this spring night and other spring nights when nightingales had
sung. And what if, after all, only calamity were to come out of the
chest, and he were to lose his last gift of hope? Ah! He knew at last
what he would do! He quickly withdrew the key from the lock, stood up
straight again, and looked at Zuembuel Agha.
'Go down and get Shaban,' he ordered, 'and don't come back.'
The eunuch stared. But if he had anything to say, he concluded not to
say it. He saluted silently and went away.
V
The Pasha sat down on the divan and lighted a cigarette. Almost
immediately the nightingale stopped singing. For a few moments Zuembuel
Agha's steps could be heard outside. Then it became very still. The
Pasha did not like it. Look which way he would, he could not help seeing
the chest--or listening. He got up and went into the big room, where he
turned on the water of the fountain. The falling drops made company for
him, and kept him from looking for lost reflections. But they presently
made him think of what Helene had said about them. He went out to the
porch and sat down on the steps. In front of him the pines lifted their
great dark canopies against the stars. Other stars twinkled between the
trunks, far below, where the shore lights of the Bosphorus were.
It was so still that water sounds came faintly up to him, and every now
and then he could even hear nightingales on the European side. Another
nightingale began singing in his own woods--the same one that had told
him what to do, he said to himself. What other things the nightingales
had sung to him, years ago! And how long the pines had listened there,
still strong and green and rugged and alive, while he, and how many
before him, sat under them for a little while and then went away!
Presently he heard steps on the drive and Shaban came, carrying
something dark in his hand.
'What is that?' asked the Pasha, as Shaban held it out.
'A revolver, my Pasha. Zuembuel Agha told me you wanted it.'
The Pasha laughed curtly.
'Zuembuel made a mistake. What I want is a shovel, or a couple of them.
Can you find such a thing without asking any one?'
'Yes, my Pasha,' replied the Albanian promptly, laying the revolver on
the steps and disappearing again. And it was not long before he was back
with the desired implements.
'We must dig a hole, somewhere, Shaban,' said his master in a low voice.
'It must be in a place where people are not likely to go, but not too
far from the kiosque.'
Shaban immediately started toward the trees at the back of the house.
The Pasha followed him silently into a path that wound through the wood.
A nightingale began to sing again, very near them--_the_ nightingale,
thought the Pasha.
'He is telling us where to go,' he said.
Shaban permitted himself a low laugh.
'I think he is telling his mistress where to go. However, we will go
too.'
And they did, bearing away to one side of the path till they came to the
foot of the tall cypress.
'This will do,' said the Pasha, 'if the roots are not in the way.'
Without a word Shaban began to dig. The Pasha took the other spade. To
the simple Albanian it was nothing out of the ordinary. What was
extraordinary was that his master was able to keep it up, soft as the
loam was under the trees. The most difficult thing about it was that
they could not see what they were doing, except by the light of an
occasional match. But at last the Pasha judged the ragged excavation of
sufficient depth. Then he led the way back to the kiosque.
They found Zuembuel Agha in the little room, sitting on the sofa with a
revolver in either hand.
'I thought I told you not to come back!' exclaimed the Pasha sternly.
'Yes,' faltered the old eunuch, 'but I was afraid something might happen
to you. So I waited below the pines. And when you went away into the
woods with Shaban, I came here to watch.' He lifted a revolver
significantly. 'I found the other one on the steps.'
'Very well,' said the Pasha at length, more kindly. He even found it in
him at that moment to be amused at the picture the black man made, in
his sedate frock coat, with his two weapons. And Zuembuel Agha found no
less to look at, in the appearance of his master's clothes. 'But now
there is no need for you to watch any longer,' added the latter. 'If you
want to watch, do it at the bottom of the hill. Don't let any one come
up here.'
'On my head,' said the eunuch.
He saw that Shaban, as usual, was trusted more than he. But it was not
for him to protest against the ingratitude of masters. He salaamed and
backed out of the room.
When he was gone the Pasha turned to Shaban.
'This box, Shaban--you see this box? It has become a trouble to us, and
I am going to take it out there.'
The Albanian nodded gravely. He took hold of one of the handles, to
judge the weight of the chest. He lifted his eyebrows.
'Can you help me put it on my back?' he asked.
'Don't try to do that, Shaban. We will carry it together.'
The Pasha took hold of the other handle. When they got as far as the
outer door he let down his end. It was not light.
'Wait a minute, Shaban. Let us shut up the kiosque, so that no one will
notice anything.'
He went back to blow out the candles. Then he thought of the fountain.
He caught a last play of broken images in the pool as he turned off the
water. When he had put out the lights and groped his way to the door,
he found that Shaban was already gone with the chest. A drop of water
made a strange echo behind him in the kiosque. He locked the door and
hurried after Shaban, who had succeeded in getting the chest on his
back. Nor would Shaban let the Pasha help him till they came to the edge
of the wood. There, carrying the chest between them, they stumbled
through the trees to the place that was ready.
'Now we must be careful,' said the Pasha. 'It might slip or get stuck.'
'But are you going to bury the box too?' demanded Shaban, for the first
time showing surprise.
'Yes,' answered the Pasha. And he added, 'It is the box I want to get
rid of.'
'It is a pity,' remarked Shaban regretfully. 'It is a very good box.
However, you know. Now then!'
There was a scraping and a muffled thud, followed by a fall of earth and
small stones on wood. The Pasha wondered if he would hear anything else.
But first one and then another nightingale began to fill the night with
their April madness.
'Ah, there are two of them,' remarked Shaban. 'She will take the one
that says the sweetest things to her.'
The Pasha's reply was to throw a spadeful of earth on the chest. Shaban
joined him with such vigor that the hole was soon very full.
'We are old, my Pasha, but we are good for something yet,' said Shaban.
'I will hide the shovels here in the bushes,' he added, 'and early in
the morning I will come again, before any of those lazy gardeners are
up, and fix it so that no one will ever know.'
There at least was a person of whom one could be sure! The Pasha
realized that gratefully, as they walked back through the park. He did
not feel like talking, but at least he felt the satisfaction of having
done what he had decided to do. He remembered Zuembuel Agha as they neared
the bottom of the hill. The eunuch had taken his commission more
seriously than it had been given, however, or he preferred not to be
seen. Perhaps he wanted to reconnoitre again on top of the hill.
'I don't think I will go in just yet,' said the Pasha as they crossed
the bridge into the lower garden. 'I am rather dirty. And I would like
to rest a little under the chestnut trees. Would you get me an overcoat
please, Shaban, and a brush of some kind? And you might bring me a
coffee, too.'
How tired he was! And what a short time it was, yet what an eternity,
since he last dropped into one of the wicker chairs! He felt for his
cigarettes. As he did so he discovered something else in his pocket,
something small and hard that at first he did not recognize. Then he
remembered the key--the key.--He suddenly tossed it into the pool beside
him. It made a sharp little splash, which was reechoed by the dripping
basins. He got up and felt in the ivy for the handle that shut off the
water. At the end of the garden the Bosphorus lapped softly in the dark.
Far away, up in the wood, the nightingales were singing.