A letter from Jack Glover arrived the next morning. He had had an easy
journey, was glad to have had the opportunity of seeing Lydia, and hoped
she would think over the will. Lydia was not thinking of wills, but of
an excuse to get back to London. Of a sudden the loveliness of Monte
Carlo had palled upon her, and she had almost forgotten the
circumstances which had made the change of scene and climate so welcome.
"Go back to London, my dear?" said Mrs. Cole-Mortimer, shocked. "What
a--a rash notion! Why it is _freezing_ in town and foggy and ... and I
really can't let you go back!"
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer was agitated at the very thought. Her own good time
on the Riviera depended upon Lydia staying. Jean had made that point
very clear. She, herself, she explained to her discomforted hostess, was
ready to go back at once, and the prolongation of Mrs. Cole-Mortimer's
stay depended upon Lydia's plans. A startling switch of cause and
effect, for Mrs. Cole-Mortimer had understood that Jean's will
controlled the plans of the party.
Lydia might have insisted, had she really known the reason for her
sudden longing for the grimy metropolis. But she could not even convince
herself that the charms of Monte Carlo were contingent upon the presence
there of a man who had aroused her furious indignation and with whom she
had spent most of the time quarrelling. She mentioned her unrest to
Jean, and Jean as usual seemed to understand.
"The Riviera is rather like Turkish Delight--very sweet, but
unsatisfying," she said. "Stay another week and then if you feel that
way we'll all go home together."
"This means breaking up your holiday," said Lydia in self-reproach.
"Not a bit," denied the girl, "perhaps I shall feel as you do in a
week's time."
A week! Jean thought that much might happen in a week. In truth events
began to move quickly from that night, but in a way she had not
anticipated.
Mr. Briggerland, who had been reading the newspaper through the
conversation, looked up.
"They are making a great fuss of this Moor in Nice," he said, "but if I
remember rightly, Nice invariably has some weird lion to adore."
"Muley Hafiz," said Lydia. "Yes, I saw him the day I went to lunch with
Mr. Stepney, a fine-looking man."
"I'm not greatly interested in natives," said Jean carelessly. "What is
he, a negro?"
"Oh, no, he's fairer than--" Lydia was about to say "your father," but
thought it discreet to find another comparison. "He's fairer than most
of the people in the south of France," she said, "but then all very
highly-bred Moors are, aren't they?"
Jean shook her head.
"Ethnology means nothing to me," she said humorously. "I've got my idea
of Moors from Shakespeare, and I thought they were mostly black. What is
he then? I haven't read the papers."
"He is the Pretender to the Moorish throne," said Lydia, "and there has
been a lot of trouble in the French Senate about him. France supports
his claims, and the Spaniards have offered a reward for his body, dead
or alive, and that has brought about a strained relationship between
Spain and France."
Jean regarded her with an amused smile.
"Fancy taking an interest in international politics. I suppose that is
due to your working on a newspaper, Lydia."
Jean discovered that she was to take a greater interest in Muley Hafiz
than she could have thought was possible. She had to go into Monte Carlo
to do some shopping. Mentone was nearer, but she preferred the drive
into the principality.
The Rooms had no great call for her, and whilst Mordon went to a garage
to have a faulty cylinder examined, she strolled on to the terrace of
the Casino, down the broad steps towards the sea. The bathing huts were
closed at this season, but the little road down to the beach is secluded
and had been a favourite walk of hers in earlier visits.
Near the huts she passed a group of dark-looking men in long white
jellabs, and wondered which of these was the famous Muley. One she
noticed with a particularly negro type of face, wore on his flowing robe
the scarlet ribbon of the Legion of Honour. Somehow or other he did not
seem interesting enough to be Muley, she thought as she went on to a
strip of beach.
A man was standing on the sea shore, a tall, commanding man, gazing out
it seemed across the sunlit ocean as though he were in search of
something. He could not have heard her footfall because she was walking
on the sand, and yet he must have realised her presence, for he turned,
and she almost stopped at the sight of his face. He might have been a
European; his complexion was fair, though his eyebrows and eyes were jet
black, as also was the tiny beard and moustache he wore. Beneath the
conventional jellab he wore a dark green jacket, and she had a glimpse
of glittering decorations before he pulled over his cloak so that they
were hidden. But it was his eyes which held her. They were large and as
black as night, and they were set in a face of such strength and
dignity that Jean knew instinctively that she was looking upon the
Moorish Pretender.
They stood for a second staring at one another, and then the Moor
stepped aside.
"Pardon," he said in French, "I am afraid I startled you."
Jean was breathing a little quicker. She could not remember in her life
any man who had created so immediate and favourable an impression. She
forgot her contempt for native people, forgot his race, his religion
(and religion was a big thing to Jean), forgot everything except that
behind those eyes she recognised something which was kin to her.
"You are English, of course," he said in that language.
"Scottish," smiled Jean.
"It is almost the same, isn't it?" He spoke without any trace of an
accent, without an error of grammar, and his voice was the voice of a
college man.
He had left the way open for her to pass on, but she lingered.
"You are Muley Hafiz, aren't you?" she asked, and he turned his head.
"I've read a great deal about you," she added, though in truth she had
read nothing.
He laughed, showing two rows of perfect white teeth. It was only by
contrast with their whiteness that she noticed the golden brown of his
complexion.
"I am of international interest," he said lightly and glanced round
toward his attendants.
She thought he was going and would have moved on, but he stopped her.
"You are the first English speaking person I have talked to since I've
been in France," he said, "except the American Ambassador." He smiled as
at a pleasant recollection.
"You talk almost like an Englishman yourself."
"I was at Oxford," he said. "My brother was at Harvard. My father, the
brother of the late Sultan, was a very progressive man and believed in
the Western education for his children. Won't you sit down?" he asked,
pointing to the sand.
She hesitated a second, and then sank to the ground, and crossing his
legs he sat by her side.
"I was in France for four years," he carried on, evidently anxious to
hold her in conversation, "so I speak both languages fairly well. Do you
speak Arabic?" He asked the question solemnly, but his eyes were bright
with laughter.
"Not very well," she answered gravely. "Are you staying very long?" It
was a conventional question and she was unprepared for the reply.
"I leave to-night," he said, "though very few people know it. You have
surprised a State secret," he smiled again.
And then he began to talk of Morocco and its history, and with
extraordinary ease he traced the story of the families which had ruled
that troubled State.
He touched lightly on his own share in the rebellion which had almost
brought about a European war.
"My uncle seized the throne, you know," he said, taking up a handful of
sand and tossing it up in the air. "He defeated my father and killed
him, and then we caught his two sons."
"What happened to them?" asked Jean curiously.
"Oh, we killed them," he said carelessly. "I had them hanged in front of
my tent. You're shocked?"
She shook her head.
"Do you believe in killing your enemies?"
She nodded.
"Why not? It is the only logical thing to do."
"My brother joined forces with the present Sultan, and if I ever catch
him I shall hang him too," he smiled.
"And if he catches you?" she asked.
"Why, he'll hang me," he laughed. "That is the rule of the game."
"How strange!" she said, half to herself.
"Do you think so? I suppose from the European standpoint----"
"No, no," she stopped him. "I wasn't thinking of that. You are logical
and you do the logical thing. That is how I would treat my enemies."
"If you had any," he suggested.
She nodded.
"If I had any," she repeated with a hard little smile. "Will you tell me
this--do I call you Mr. Muley or Lord Muley?"
"You may call me Wazeer, if you're so hard up for a title," he said, and
the little idiom sounded queer from him.
"Well, Wazeer, will you tell me: Suppose somebody who had something that
you wanted very badly and they wouldn't give it to you, and you had the
power to destroy them, what would you do?"
"I should certainly destroy them," said Muley Hafiz. "It is unnecessary
to ask. 'The common rule, the simple plan'" he quoted.
Her eyes were fixed on his face, and she was frowning, though this she
did not know.
"I am glad I met you this afternoon," she said. "It must be wonderful
living in that atmosphere, the atmosphere of might and power, where men
and women aren't governed by the finicking rules which vitiate the
Western world."
He laughed.
"Then you are tired of your Western civilisation," he said as he rose
and helped her to her feet (his hands were long and delicate, and she
grew breathless at the touch of them). "You must come along to my little
city in the hills where the law is the sword of Muley Hafiz."
She looked at him for a moment.
"I almost wish I could," she said and held out her hand.
He took it in the European fashion and bowed over it. She seemed so tiny
a thing by the side of him, her head did not reach his shoulder.
"Good-bye," she said hurriedly and turning, walked back the way she had
come, and he stood watching her until she was out of sight.