AT MELILLA
About the aspect of the port of Melilla there is only one thing wholly
admirable. That is the curving bay which sweeps eastward from the town
towards the frontier blockhouse. This last is an eyesore; the untethered
camels which pasture in herds beside it have little attractiveness; the
wide plateau which stretches up to the distant hills is desolate and
often arid. But the bay is a perpetual delight. Curved like a scimitar,
it shines in the sunlight as a tempered blade shines, ringed by white
tresses of foam, banked by its parapets of sand.
Two men sat in the shadow cast by a stranded boat and watched half a
dozen Moors and Spaniards who bent their shoulders and swelled out their
muscles to haul at a couple of ropes. The ropes slanted down to and were
lost in the rush of the breakers. Those who dragged at them panted, the
perspiration raining off their faces. The men who sat and watched seemed
to find a whet to the enjoyment of their siesta in reviewing so much
energy. One of them sighed--a contented little sigh, drew a cigarette
from the breast of his _djelab_, lit it, and began to smoke with stolid
satisfaction.
A child who was sitting between the two rose suddenly and ran down the
sand. The men at the ropes had come to a halt. They stood gasping,
wiping their faces. Impulsively the child laid his little hands upon the
rope and stood in an attitude of tension, ready to use his tiny
strength when operations were resumed. The men welcomed him with a
glance of good-humored toleration.
The cigarette smoker laughed.
"The restlessness of youth, Sidi. Repose? They have no knowledge of the
meaning of the word, these children. Now I? The last three weeks have
brimmed with such toil that I could sit here and contentedly drowse a
week, a month, nay, a whole year, if Allah willed."
The other nodded and stretched his limbs. The movement expressed the
lethargy which is earned by fatigue.
"To-night we shall eat real food," he murmured. "We shall sleep in beds
of sorts. We can even be amused, if we find the _cafes chantants_ which
attract these poor devils of Andalusian conscripts amusing. It's all a
matter of contrasts--life. After the experiences we have endured among
our friends the M'Geel, this doghole appears alluring. This!"
He waved his hand with a significant gesture towards the town, in which
the mean houses appear to hustle the citadel and the citadel the houses,
without either the one or the other gaining advantage.
The smoker blew out a cloud and spat towards the flagstaff which
dominates the sea bastion.
"May Allah relegate it and its inhabitants shortly to the Abyss!" he
aspired devoutly. "Is it permitted to ask how long, Sidi, you purpose
using its hospitalities?"
"It is always permitted to ask, my friend. The answer is another matter.
Bluntly, till the Gibraltar boat arrives."
The other lifted his shoulders into a tiny shrug.
"For the Sidi Jan this is a place not to be recommended. There is a
smell, do you notice, especially at night--murk which rises from the
fort ditch. And the vermin! His little skin is pitted with them!"
Landon moved irritably. He looked at his son. The men at the ropes were
hauling again by now, and the small back was bent and the little arms
tautened with efforts to emulate them. The first few meshes of a laden
net appeared above the surface of the breakers.
Little John gave a squeal of delight, promptly deserted the toilers, and
capered joyously down the beach. Scales began to shine silvern in the
sun as the tangle of the nets rose slowly, but higher and yet higher.
His voice rose in shrill outcry; he clapped his hands.
As the great bag of the net was hauled little by little up the shelving
beach, he flung himself into the hurtle round the wriggling catch. The
mackerel were there in their hundreds--in their thousands. He tripped
and fell into the center of the heap of fishes, wriggling as they
wriggled, and to little more purpose.
Muhammed rose, paced slowly forward, and plucked him into safety. But
the child met his good offices with scorn.
"I wish to help; I wish to gather them up!" he cried petulantly. "I am
going to be a fisherman. I shall take the yacht to the fishing grounds
and catch millions--millions!"
"There must be a catching of a yacht first," said Muhammed, amiably.
"Where wilt thou obtain it, little lord?"
Little John Aylmer turned puzzled eyes up to his questioner. Then he
wheeled and pointed eastward towards the anchorage below the headland.
"It is there!" he explained. "Did he," he pointed towards his father,
who still lay comfortably reclined in the shadow of the boat, "not send
for it?"
Muhammed's eyes followed the direction of the child's hand. He stared,
gave a sudden startled exclamation, and stared again, incredulously. The
next moment he was back at his employer's side, twitching excitedly at
the folds of his bournous.
"Sidi--Sidi!" he exclaimed. "While we drowse we are betrayed. Look!
Look!"
Landon scrambled to his feet and saw what the timbers of the shadowing
boat had hidden before. A white vessel, drifting slowly in from the
headland abreast the market quay. As he watched, a white spout of foam
and the rattle of the hawse-pipes told that the anchor had been dropped.
She rounded to, the American flag waving lazily from her stern, the
burgee of the New York Yacht Club from her peak. They could not read her
name across two miles of water, but they did not need to. It was _The
Morning Star_.
Landon went white beneath his tan. He swore.
"We have been here three days--three days, by God! Not a soul in the
place knows me or knows that I am not what I profess to be--a Moor from
El Dibh. And yet--this! It can't be a coincidence. They know--somehow!"
He looked at Muhammed in sudden fierce suspicion.
"That infernal Jew of yours has sold us!" he cried.
The Moor made a tolerant gesture, the sort of motion a nurse offers a
wilful child.
"Sidi! You do not understand. A Jew to sell me! Not this side of the
Mediterranean. It means death! Yakoob knows it; it is knowledge that he
has sucked in with his mother's milk, chewed with his daily bread, seen
written in letters of blood in a score of towns between this and
Mequinez. No, Yakoob Ihudi is not in this business. Some other is the
instrument of--fate!"
He stooped, lifted little John carefully in his arms, and nodded towards
the town gate.
"We must use haste, Sidi," he said calmly, avoiding the protests the
child was making with his closed fists. "Show wisdom, little lord. Why
do you not wish to return to the town, wherein are special delights for
the eye in the booths of the market-place?"
Landon hesitated. Then he joined the Moor, running. And the other was
covering the ground with huge strides which forced his companion to
continue the run to keep pace with him. He panted out a question.
"My plan, Sidi?" returned the Moor. "It lies in the hands of Allah. Here
when inquiry begins to be made, we are the mark of a hundred eyes. In
Yakoob's hovel a means of escape may be found."
The two reached the dusty road which leads from the drill ground,
followed it into the shadows of the town gate, mounted the steep on
which the citadel stands, and gained a row of squalid wooden hovels
which fringed the rampart above the fort ditch. Into one of these they
disappeared.
A man looked up as they entered, a dark-skinned, low-browed Israelite,
who greeted them with an obsequiously furtive air. He sat cross-legged
upon a turned-up chest and plied his needle upon an exceedingly ragged
pair of trousers. A heap of other garments lay at his elbow. His trade
was evidently that of mending tailor.
"This deposit for contraband of which you spoke last night?" asked
Muhammed, without preamble. "Where is it?"
The look of furtive expectancy in the tailor's eyes became active alarm.
"What do you fear?" he asked shrilly. "A search? There are fifteen
thousand cartridges awaiting transport."
"The search will not be for those, but for these," said the Moor,
pointing to Landon and his son. "And there is as great a ruin attached
to the finding of the one as the other. You must prevent that."
The Jew rose quickly and barred the door. With alert movements he
gathered up the smoking ashes from the hearth and emptied them into a
shallow pan. He covered his hand with a cloth, seized the pothook which
hung from the entrance of the chimney, and moved it laboriously aside.
As he did so the hearthstone moved slowly downwards as if on a hinge. A
flight of steps led into the darkness.
Muhammed indicated the opening with a shrug.
"The best we can do, Sidi," he deprecated. "Till matters adjust
themselves you must keep company with Yakoob's contraband."
Landon shrugged his shoulders.
"Air?" he questioned laconically. "It is supplied--how?"
Muhammed passed on the question. The Jew pointed to the bosom of his
bournous, which rose and fell in the draught which rose from below.
"There are innumerable crevices which open through the wall of the fort
ditch," he said. "For this reason the Sidi must not use a light--at
night."
Landon shrugged his shoulders pessimistically, and took his son by the
hand. "Come, my boy," he said. "We are going to play that childhood's
favorite and most successful comedy--the Robbers in the Cave. You and I
are to be the leaders of the gang."
Little John peered doubtfully into the darkness.
"And Muhammed?" he asked, looking at the Moor with expectant, trusting
eyes.
There was a queer intensity in the Moor's glance as he bent over the
small figure hesitating at the head of the steps. His smile was kindly
and reassuring.
"I am the robber who goes abroad, prowling to find wicked rich men who
deserve robbing," he said. "I return shortly, little lord. Have no
fear."
Little John nodded gravely and took his father's hand. The two paced
solemnly down into the cellar. The hearthstone was replaced, the cinders
set smoking upon it again. With a sigh Yakoob took up another deplorable
pair of trousers and bit off a length of thread. Muhammed passed out
into the street.
Five minutes later he stood on the quayside, watching the motor launch
which slid out of the shadow cast on the still waters by _The Morning
Star_.
Three figures sat upon the cushions at the stern, and Muhammed, as he
watched them from under the hood of his _haik_, examined one of them
with startled intensity. Miss Van Arlen he recognized. Aylmer, whose
face was partially disguised by bandages, he debated over for a moment.
But this third? This gray-clad elder? This was not the owner of _The
Morning Star_. It was--whom?
Surprise as much as relief erased the wrinkles from the watcher's face
as the unknown stepped ashore, turned to assist his companion, and
disclosed the features of the Moor's former employer, Mr. Miller.
Muhammed emphasized his amazement with an oath. "One God!" he swore, and
for a moment hesitated. Then, as the gray-clad man strolled past him,
talking, the Moor pushed back the _haik_ which shadowed his face and met
the other's glance squarely.
Mr. Miller made no sign.
Muhammed dropped back into the shadow of the quayside booths, and
sauntered carelessly up the citadel ramp. The three preceded him. At the
top of the ramp a causeway leads to the drawbridge which spans the fort
ditch. Mr. Miller had apparently eyes for nothing but his fair
companion. He failed to notice, at any rate, the dilapidated state of
the iron rails which fence the bridge. The dust cloak he was carrying
caught in a jagged piece of iron and was most unfortunately torn. A
sudden appreciative gleam burned in Muhammed's eyes as he noted the
incident. The _haik_ hood concealed a smile.
He could not hear, but he could see the expressive pantomime which was
accompanying Mr. Miller's apologies. He motioned his companions forward
towards the bridge and the dark entrance through the casemate into the
citadel. As for himself, his finger explained, he would return to the
town and get the damage repaired. After a minute's discussion, matters
followed the course indicated. Aylmer and Miss Van Arlen passed on--to
seek the government offices, as Muhammed told himself, to interview the
head, no doubt, of the military police.
The Moor slid forward deferentially as the gray figure turned.
"I can direct the Sidi to a _sastre_ of incredible skill," he explained.
"The Sidi has no need to return to the town if he desires such an one.
He is to be found within a hundred paces, if the Sidi so will."
Mr. Miller made an affable gesture of acquiescence.
"You are certainly quick to seize a business opportunity, my friend," he
said amiably. "Lead on."
Two minutes later the two stood behind Yakoob's well-barred door, and
the hearthstone had been raised. Landon offered his visitor a tribute of
surprise tinged with humor.
"I understood, my friend," he said, as he took the other's hand, "that
the mail came in from Gibraltar to-morrow. For you, it seems, the age of
miracles is not past?"
"I hope I am an alert servant of opportunity," said Miller. "I got your
letter yesterday morning."
"That does not entirely explain your presence in Melilla to-day."
Miller nodded.
"Your father-in-law has been anchored in Gibraltar Bay for the last
fortnight. He has had information of your movements, my friend--good
information, and I have not been able to determine the source of it. I
made it my business to get introduced to him at the house of mutual
friends. A humble client of mine, a ship's chandler, acquainted me with
the fact that _The Morning Star's_ anchor and steam were being raised,
and with the name of her port of destination. A couple of good boatmen
and a little tact did the rest. I told Mr. Van Arlen that I had an
urgent business necessity to visit these possessions of the King of
Spain. Result--a warm invitation to anticipate the mail boat by a day."
"Excellent!" commended Landon. "And the business necessity? You have
brought the means of relieving it?"
Mr. Miller dilated his nostrils. Perhaps the reek of the fort ditch
reached him. Very carefully and methodically he lit a cigarette.
"Yes--and no," he answered at last, and with deliberation. "I have money
with me, my dear Lord Landon. But my employers give me no commission to
apply it to--charity."
Landon's eyes grew suddenly ominous.
"The price of that book was to be five hundred pounds," he said. "I have
received one hundred so far."
Miller made a gesture of assent.
"You obtained for me a certain book. Subsequent investigations proved it
to be a mere dummy--a book made, in fact, to be stolen. You remain in my
debt to the extent of that score of five-pound notes which I gave you."
Landon laughed a dry little laugh.
"Then I concede that I shall remain in your debt--permanently. The
bungling is yours, not mine. I demand the balance of my fee. For
suppose, my dear Miller, that I gave your game in Gibraltar away?"
"Suppose you did," said Miller, placidly. "It would be a question of
your word against mine, would it not?"
There was nothing sneering in his tone, but its bald self-assurance
seemed to whip Landon's temper into fury. He swore wickedly.
Miller watched him as the weasel might be expected to watch the trapped
rat. And the dark, unpleasant little room had, indeed, many of the
attributes of a cage.
And then there was an energetic gesture from the gray-clad arm.
"You bungled the matter--not in stealing the wrong book," said Miller,
"but in the manner of your escape. It was then that you lost your value
to my employers. You are liable to be arrested in any of the British
dominions. Till that matter is settled, you are a weapon without an
edge, for us. That error must be repaired."
Landon stared up at him curiously.
"How?" he asked.
Miller made a significant gesture towards the child. There was no
intention of menace in it, but the child shrank back, turning, not
towards his father, but with a sudden instinctive outstretching of his
hand to Muhammed. The Moor grasped the little fingers silently and
smiled--a smile which faded as he turned his keen, watchful eyes again
upon the visitor.
"You must renounce your detention of your son," said Miller. "You must
bargain with his grandfather. Your price must be a certain competency,
if you will, but above all the right to return unquestioned into your
proper place in society. In this way alone can you continue to be of
use--to me."
There was a silence. Landon, still a-squat upon the floor, his elbow on
his knee, the heel of his fist supporting his hand, stared up at his
mentor with impassive eyes. In the shadow on his right Muhammed stood,
still holding the child's hand, his glance hovering over Miller with a
speculation which was almost distrust. Behind him the tailor stitched
apathetically at his dilapidated wares.
Suddenly Landon turned to the Moor.
"You have heard?" he questioned sharply.
"I have heard, oh, Sidi."
"And understood?"
The man hesitated.
"There is a purpose of surrendering the Sidi Jan?" he murmured, and his
voice conveyed not so much protest as incredulity.
Landon nodded.
"This month of toil, all our leagues of weariness and pain among the men
of the M'Geel are things lost, then," went on the Moor impassively. "An
order has come and we must leap to obey it. The Sidi Jan, too? His voice
is not to be heard in the matter." He shrugged his shoulders
apathetically. "Only a child," he added, and touched the golden curls
with a caressing hand. "Only a bale of merchandise, a thing to be bought
and sold."
Miller turned and looked at him keenly. The Moor met the glance with a
droop of the head which spoke eloquently of submission. But a queer
smile began to harden Landon's lips. He rose slowly to his feet.
"A bale of merchandise," he repeated slowly. "And, as I am reminded, we
toiled to bring it uninjured across the wilds of the Beni M'Geel. Will
that be reckoned in the value of it?" he asked, and wheeled suddenly
towards Miller with a savage, cat-like motion. "Will they pay me for my
sweat and thirst and pain?"
The gray man was silent for a moment. There was something electric in
the atmosphere, something menacing, something--and this was perhaps what
his machine-like mind shrank from most--something human and passionate.
These were not among the goods which Mr. Miller sought to purchase.
"You will do your own bargaining," he said, in a level, dispassionate
tone. "But the child must be delivered. The price? There you are master
of your own affairs."
For the second time Landon's eyes dwelled on Muhammed's face.
"I shall answer him--how?" he asked quietly.
"Thus!" said the Moor, and flung his arms round Miller's elbows and
smothered his lips upon his breast, while Landon, laughing a queer,
excited laugh, snatched up a garment from the dismal heap on the floor,
tore off a liberal patch, and deftly wound it in gag-wise between the
prisoner's teeth. Shackled with ragged waist-cloths at ankle and wrist,
the gray figure was lowered down the steps into the darkness. Muhammed
spoke rapidly and incisively for the space of a minute to the Jew, who
listened in impassive silence. Then, with a last commanding gesture, the
Moor opened the door and went out again alone into the swiftly falling
dusk.