"Tell me about her. Who is she?" he inquired, looking straight into my
eyes.
For a few moments I remained silent. Then, returning his steadfast
gaze, I answered--
"I love Zoraida!"
"Zoraida!" he cried, starting up. "Surely you don't mean the woman of
the Ennitra, known as Daughter of the Sun?"
"The same," I replied. "You may laugh, sneer, tell me I am a dreamer,
dazzled by the glitter and splendour of an Eastern court, fascinated by
a pair of kohl-darkened eyes and a forehead hung with sequins, but,
nevertheless, the fact remains that she and I love each another."
"It seems impossible," he said. "You have actually looked upon her
unveiled, and spoken with her, then?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Because it is death to an Infidel to either look upon her countenance
or seek to address her. While a prisoner in Hadj Absalam's palace, I
heard most extraordinary things regarding her. The terrible story was
told me how, on one occasion, three Chasseurs, held captive by the old
robber, had, by the purest accident, discovered her passing unveiled
from the court of the palace guards into the harem. Amazed at her
extraordinary beauty, they stood gazing at her, but those looks of
admiration cost them their lives. Their gaze, it was alleged, had
polluted her, and within an hour their heads were smote off and their
bodies thrown to the dogs."
"Then you have never seen her?"
"No. During the time I was in the hands of the Ennitra, she was absent.
Many were the strange rumours I heard about her, however: how she was
possessed of almost supernatural power, how she had planned most of the
raiding expeditions of Hadj Absalam, how she ruled the fierce band as
their Queen, and, attired as a youth, had actually led them successfully
against our forces! I can scarcely believe it all, but the palace
guards assured me that all they told me was the unexaggerated truth.
Six months ago the Government issued a proclamation, offering two
rewards of ten thousand francs each for the capture of Hadj Absalam and
Zoraida."
"I know what you have heard is the truth, from personal observation," I
said quietly. His statement about the reward was, however, startling,
and caused me increased uneasiness.
"Tell me all about her," he urged. "How a Christian could succeed in
approaching her, judging from all I have heard as to the rigorous manner
in which she is guarded, seems absolutely incomprehensible."
"It forms a strange story," I admitted, and then, while he consumed a
fresh cigarette, I proceeded to briefly relate the manner in which we
became acquainted, and the weird and startling events that followed,
suppressing only the fact that Agadez had been occupied by the outlaws.
I hesitated to tell him this, because I feared that if a large body of
Spahis were in the district, they would at once proceed there, and in
all probability capture both the robber Sheikh and Zoraida, to secure
the reward. Nevertheless, I explained how I became possessed of the
Crescent of Glorious Wonders, of which he had heard rumours, and which
he examined with intense interest when I produced it from my forage-bag.
Then, after I had replaced it in its hiding-place, I told him of the
extraordinary directions the dead _imam_ had given me, and that I was on
my way to test the truth of his strange statement.
"In two days you will arrive at the spot he has indicated," he observed,
after listening to my story with breathless interest. "The mystery is
so remarkable, and has so excited my curiosity, that I wish I might be
permitted to accompany you in this search for an explanation. Do you
object?"
"Not in the least," I answered, laughing. "There is something so
uncanny about the whole affair, that your companionship will be most
acceptable. When shall we set out?"
"To start now would be unwise," he said, gazing round with practised eye
at the Desert, already aglow in the brilliant sunshine, and observing,
at a glance, its atmospheric conditions. "Let us eat and idle now, and
leave at sunset."
To this arrangement I acquiesced. Then he told me how the Spahis had
encamped four hours' march away, that he had strayed from a
reconnoitring party, and, having regard to the fact that they were
remaining there at least a week and that we should be only four or five
days absent, he did not consider it necessary to undertake an eight
hours' ride to ask permission of his captain before starting.
"Military regulations are sometimes relaxed in this out-of-the-world
spot," he added, laughing. "When they find I'm missing, they will
probably search for me; but having now lost myself, why should I return
just at present, especially as they are not likely to move on before
they find traces of me."
"In what direction are you marching? Towards Agadez?" I inquired
anxiously.
"Scarcely," he replied, with a smile. "We have no desire to be
annihilated by the Sultan of the Ahir. No. We are travelling due south
to Lake Tsad."
His answer reassured me, and, having prepared and eaten a rather
primitive meal, we sought under a tree that dreamy, peaceful repose that
desert travellers find so refreshing in an oasis.
An hour before the sun had sunk in its fiery glory of gold and crimson,
there was a beautiful mirage of water, rocks, and feathery palms upon
the sky, but, as we prepared to depart, it faded from our gaze as
rapidly as it had appeared. With the brilliant glow of the dying day
behind us, we set forth into an unknown country, Uzanne upon his white
Arab stallion, I upon my handsomely-caparisoned camel. Riding down the
eastern side of the wooded hill we almost imperceptibly entered the
plain, the slope being so gradual. After travelling for some time in
the darkening hours along the level ground, we found it was by no means
flat, although it usually appeared so in our immediate neighbourhood;
yet it had an upward trend, and some distance beyond it rose and fell in
long, wavelike swells of sufficient height to hide, at times, even such
an object as the range of Gueisiger mountains on our left. On all sides
we scanned the fertile plain for any signs of life. A herd of gazelles
scampered along in front, but no other living thing seemed near.
When we had been riding about five hours, we detected straight before
us, rising from the level of the plain, now sandy and desolate, a long
black line, jagged and irregular, which gradually developed, on nearer
view in the brilliant moonbeams, into something like a mass of ruins
resembling a deserted town.
Evidently we were on the right path, as indicated by Mohammed ben Ishak.
In this he certainly had not deceived me. On the outskirts of this
desolate pile, lying so far from civilisation, we saw first an old
reservoir, edged in with rough-faced blocks of granite. No wall or gate
marked the city boundary, nor were the ruined buildings, half buried in
drifting sand, conspicuous by their architectural beauty, for square
black stones, piled on one another without mortar, formed houses that
for size were larger than those in Agadez, but the stony desolation was
not relieved by a piece of either wood or metal. Many of the houses
seemed in an excellent state of preservation, and all seemed as if the
inhabitants had left through a pestilence rather than the ravages of
war; time alone, assisted by the wind and tempest, appeared to have
dismantled others. There were three mosques, but all were however, in a
confused mass of ruins, the cupola of one alone remaining intact, though
its crescent that had pointed skyward had rotted and fallen. It was
strangely weird riding through that deserted city in the brilliant
moonlight, amid grotesque and ghostly shadows. Upon the last-mentioned
mosque we discovered a stone, rudely inscribed, in Arabic, with the
words, "The building of this holy place was ordered by the Khalif
Othman." This gave us a clue to the age of this half-effaced city, for
the Khalif was all-powerful in Northern Africa in the twenty-seventh
year of the Hedjira (A.D. 647), and lived at Sbeitla, once a great city,
but now, like this forgotten place, a mere heap of crumbling ruins.
Continuing our weary way, we journeyed straight on between a parallel
range of sand dunes, until we came to the open plain again. More stony
the country grew, as we proceeded, hour after hour, guided only by the
stars, through the barren, desolate land, until we halted at sunrise in
the midst of a vast wilderness, where no rising ground relieved the
monotony of the rocky level. Eating, resting, and sleeping, we resumed
the journey again at sunset, and, throughout the night, pushed onward in
eager search of the single clump of palms beneath the shadow of which I
was to seek to elucidate the Great Secret.
At last, however, the ground ascended gently, and we saw, away to the
south-east, hills rising, peak after peak, as far as the eye could
reach. The outlook of rounded hill-tops was varied occasionally by a
small plateau, but the landscape was terribly arid and dispiriting.
Nevertheless, we plodded still onward in the direction the dead man had
indicated, until at length our eager, impatient eyes were rewarded by
the sight of a low hill, surmounted by a single dump of about half a
dozen palms, their feathery tops looming darkly against the horizon
already flushed by the delicate rose-tints of dawn.
We both detected our goal at the same moment, and, with ejaculations of
satisfaction, spurred forward excitedly at redoubled pace, breathlessly
impatient to put the Crescent of Glorious Wonders to the crucial test.
The spot was actually within sight!
Swiftly we rode over the soft, treacherous sand and great patches of
rough stones, our adventurous spirits suddenly stimulated by the
anticipation that probably within an hour, the Great Mystery--the secret
preserved through so many ages, the knowledge by which alone I could
effect Zoraida's rescue--would at last be revealed.