At the close of a hot afternoon, about three weeks after his return to Algiers, Carew was sitting in the Governor General’s private room at the Winter Palace.
Staring out of the window, a neglected cigarette drooping between his lips, he was listening without attending to the faint strains of the Zouave band echoing from the Place du Gouvernement, drumming absently with his fingers on the table before him which was littered with maps and plans and scattered typewritten sheets. For the best part of two hours he had been repeating the story of his last journey, and the hardly won concession for the benefit of an interested and detail-loving representative of the Ministry of the Interior who was returning the next day to Paris after an extensive and carefully shepherded tour through the northern provinces of Algeria.
Carew’s mission successfully terminated and his report duly handed in to headquarters, he had had no wish to be further identified with the enterprise. He was glad to be of use to the Administration; anxious always, when opportunity offered, to assist in promoting a better understanding between the rulers of the country and its native part of his life’s work. He was not inclined to magnify the importance of what he did and he was actuated by no desire for personal gain or advantage. He was content to give his help when it was required and let others take the kudos. He worked solely for love of the country and admiration of its administrators. The Governor General and the Commander-in-Chief, both hard-working conscientious men who governed a difficult country with tact and discretion, were his personal friends, and he considered himself amply rewarded if his own endeavors in any way eased the burden of their responsibilities.
But today, for the first time, he had yielded to the often expressed wish of General Sanois—who administered the particular part of the Sahara under discussion—that his really valuable aid should be more intimately known to the home authorities.
The interview had passed off successfully. The illustrious visitor had shown a wide knowledge of and a deep personal interest in the affairs of the country which had gone far to lessen the instinctive feeling of hostility with which the two men primarily responsible for its well-being, had viewed his advent. He had listened carefully to Carew’s story, gripping the major points of importance sanely and intelligently, and had been loud in his approval of the work done. With Gallic courtesy and enthusiasm he had congratulated all concerned, expressing his own and his country’s indebtedness to the three men he addressed in a felicitous little speech that hinted at much he did not say outright, and, with a final interchange of compliments, had at last betaken himself to his waiting carriage whither the Governor and General Sanois had accompanied him.
And Carew, left for a few moments alone in the cool pleasant room, had fallen into a profound reverie that was in no way connected with the events of the afternoon.
The sound of approaching voices roused him and he turned reluctantly from the window as the stout, smiling little Governor bustled in, followed by his tall, grave-faced army colleague, and a slim, delicate-looking youth who went silently to a desk in a far corner.
The Governor dropped into a chair with a little grunt, mopped his heated forehead vigorously and beamed with evident satisfaction on his companions.
“That’s over,” he remarked in a tone of relief. “I usually have acrise de nerfsafter these visits. But this one was better than most,Dieu merci!Some of them—oh, la! la!” He broke off with a comical grimace, flourishing his handkerchief expressively. Then with a shrug and a gay laugh he tapped Carew’s knee confidentially with a podgy forefinger.
“Everything goesà merveille, my dear Carew. Our friend is charmed with all he has seen, has been pleased to compliment me on the state of the country, and has swallowed all the extravagant demands of our good Sanois here without turning a hair. Providing he remembers all he has promised, providing his interest is as great as he represents, there should be speedily allowed to us some alterations in administration we have long asked for in vain. Our hands have been tied too tightly,voyez-vous. He sees the necessity for loosening them somewhat. I am not expecting the millennium—I have lived too long to expect anything very much, particularly of politicians—but I am hopeful, decidedly hopeful. If it were not so exhausting I might even allow myself to become enthusiastic. But I gave up enthusiasms when I came to Algeria—so very detrimental to the nerves.” Again he demonstrated languidly with his handkerchief, and then patted his chest significantly. “And some little decorations will probably follow,hein? We need not attach too much importance to them, perhaps, but they are pleasant to receive, oh, yes, decidedly very pleasant to receive.”
“For me, I would rather receive the extra battery I asked for,” growled the General.
The little Governor looked up at him with an expression of pained protest. “Ah, you soldiers—you and your guns! Brute force, brute force—that’s all you think of,” he murmured reprovingly. Then he smiled again, waving his hands as though dismissing the unpleasant idea his colleague’s words suggested.
“You will dine with me tonight,” he said genially, “both of you? We must celebrate the occasion. And afterwards, perhaps, for an hour or two, the opera? Not very amusing but—” he shrugged whimsically and offered Carew his cigarette case.
For a few minutes longer they talked of the possibilities of the new régime in prospect, and then the General rose to go with a vague reference to a mass of correspondence awaiting his attention.
“Are you coming my way?” he asked, turning to the Englishman. But Carew shook his head.
“I’ve an appointment in the Casbar this evening,” he said, shuffling some papers together and slipping them into his breast pocket.
Sanois laughed grimly and looked up from the sword-belt he was buckling with a suspicion of eagerness in his keen eyes. “It would be indiscreet to ask with whom, I presume? You know more about the Casbar than I do,” he said, almost grudgingly. “You’ve friends everywhere, Carew. Some of them I’d like to lay my hands on,” he added meaningly.
Carew smiled faintly. “Possibly,” he said coolly, “but my ‘friends’ are useful. And until they let me down I can’t very well help you to any information you may want concerning them. That was agreed,” he added, his voice hardening slightly.
“Word of an Englishman, eh?” said the General with another grim laugh, and stalked off.
The Governor looked at the closing door with his smiling features puckered up disapprovingly. “An excellent fellow, but blood thirsty—very blood thirsty,” he murmured, with the least little touch of regret in his voice as if he deprecated an attitude with which in reality he thoroughly concurred.
But Carew’s thoughts were not concerned with the man who had just left the room.
Crossing to the open window he stood for some time without speaking, his hands plunged deep in his jacket pockets, scowling at the palms in the garden beneath. And accustomed to his frequent and protracted silences his host, pleasantly somnolent with the beat and tired with the excitement of the day, made no attempt to force conversation. Stretched comfortably in a capacious armchair he toyed idly with a cigarette and sipped the vermouth his guest had declined, thoroughly content with himself and the world at large, until Carew’s voice broke in suddenly on thoughts that were lightly alternating between the happy results of the afternoon’s interview and the gastronomic delights of the coming dinner.
“There is a compatriot of mine, a certain Viscount Geradine, who has de Granier’s villa this winter—can you tell me anything about him?”
The cherubic little Governor looked vaguely embarrassed. “Nothing of very much good, I am afraid,” he said slowly, “he is not, unfortunately, an ornament to your usually so distinguished aristocracy. I personally know very little of him. But one hears things—one hears things,” he repeated uncomfortably.
For a moment Carew hesitated, then:
“As—what?” he asked bluntly. Surprised at the question, the Frenchman shot him a look of undisguised astonishment. It was unlike Carew to be curious about anybody, and in all the years he had known him he had never heard him even refer to a member of the English community.
“Patrice knows more about these things than I do,” he fenced, lighting a fresh cigarette with delicate precision. And turning to the pale youth in the corner who seemed absorbed in his secretarial duties, he raised his voice slightly.
“My good Patrice, can you tell us anything about the Englishman, Lord Geradine, who is living at the Villa des Ombres?”
The young man looked up quickly with a laugh which showed that his attention was not so wholly centered on his work as it appeared to be.
“I can tell you what happenedchez Fatimalast night,mon oncle,” he replied promptly, with a boyish grin that was faintly malicious. But the Governor raised a plump white hand in horrified protest. “I beg of you—no,” he said hurriedly. “Spare us the disgusting details,mon cher. Generalities will be amply sufficient, amply sufficient.”
His nephew shrugged acquiescence. “As you will,” he said complacently, “but it was amusing—oh, yes, distinctly amusing,” he mimicked, with the assurance of a highly privileged individual. And for five minutes he sketched with racy frankness the character and failings of the man who had won for himself an unenviable reputation even in a not too straight-laced society. It was an unsavoury revelation that provoked little exclamations of disgust from the visibly distressed Governor, but Carew listened with apparent indifference to the delinquencies of his fellow-countryman. “—a drunkard and a bully,” concluded the attaché, ticking off the final accusations on his fingers as if he were tabulating them for a formal process. “And married,” he added with a burst of indignation, “married,imaginez-vous, to a beautiful young girl with the face of an angel—”
“Yes, yes, quite so,” interrupted his uncle dryly, “they usually are married,ces gens là, to a beautiful young girl with the face of an angel! But we are not discussing Lady Geradine, my good Patrice. Not a pleasant character, I fear,” he added, turning deprecatingly to Carew as if apologising for his nephew’s outspoken comments, “but rich, immensely rich, I understand. If it is the question of a horse, perhaps—” he suggested tentatively, as a probable reason for Carew’s inquiry suddenly occurred to him. But Carew shook his head with a curt gesture of disdain.
“I value my horses too highly to sell them to a man of that type,” he said shortly, and took leave without vouchsafing any explanation of his curiosity.
Outside in the Place du Gouvernement he glanced at his watch as he turned his steps toward the native quarter. It was later than he had imagined. He would have to hurry to keep his appointment and get back to his own villa in time to dress for the dinner the Governor had planned so gleefully. Heedless of the traffic, too familiar with the varied types to even glance at the jostling crowd of cosmopolitan humanity about him, he strode through the busy streets with a heavy scowl on his face, immersed in his own thoughts. What on earth had made him ask the Governor that idiotic question? What on earth did the fellow matter to him! If the voluble young attaché’s story was true—and Patrice Lemaire was a social butterfly who knew everybody and everything in Algiers—he must be a pretty average blackguard. And if he were—what business was it of his? It mattered not one particle to him if the tenant of de Granier’s villa was a devil from hell or a saint from heaven. If the girl had married a scoundrel it was her own look-out. It was of no moment to him. He had no interest in either her or her husband. He had been forced to help her in her exigency, but the affair was over and done with—thank heaven.
Finished as far as he was concerned when he had been fortunate enough to get her horse back, which he had done far sooner than he had expected. It had been a stroke of luck, that second chance meeting with Abdul el Dhib. Carew smiled despite himself as he remembered the wily horse stealer’s discomforted curses when he reluctantly surrendered the stolen stallion which he had already mentally disposed of at considerable profit to a Sheik in the south who paid well and asked no questions. But it had been touch and go, half-an-hour later and he would have missed him. With what result? Quite suddenly he seemed to be looking into a pair of wide, blue eyes, strained and dark with agonised terror, and he flung his shoulders back angrily, cursing the trick of memory that had brought the girl’s white face before him with vivid distinctness. For years he had never consciously looked at a woman. Why did this woman’s face haunt him so persistently? He had no wish to remember her, he hoped never to see her again, but for the last three weeks the remembrance of her had been a nightmare. The tranquillity of mind he had won after years of mental struggle had been torn from him, first by the coming of Micky Meredith and then by the circumstance that had flung this unfortunate girl across his path. The quiet villa that for so long had been his haven of rest seemed now neither restful nor solitary. It was peopled by shadowy figures that crowded day and night upon his thoughts, breaking habits that had become second nature and stirring him painfully to the recollection of emotions he had long since deliberately cut out of his life. He was in the grip of a tremendous revolt that acted equally on mind and body. He seemed, for the second time in his forty years, to be facing a crisis that was overwhelming. He tried to analyse dispassionately the agitation of mind that had taken so strong a hold on him, to probe honestly for the reason of the strange unrest that filled him. But self-analysis brought him no nearer to an understanding of his feelings, brought him no kind of alleviation.
And yet, in reality, there was only one solution, he argued doggedly as he made his way through the narrow streets, a solution that was simple enough, ample enough in all conscience—if he had only sense enough to leave it at that. It was, it could only be, reaction from the sudden awakening of the old pain, the old memories he had thought done with forever. There was no other possible construction to put upon his state of mind—he would allow no other construction. And yet, the humiliation of it! That the chance meeting with an old friend should move him so strongly; that he should be fool enough, weak enough to permit himself to brood over the past he had buried so many years before. Had he not even yet conquered the moral cowardice that in the early days of his sorrow had driven him from England and made him avoid association with his fellow countrymen rather than face the scandal that would always be connected with his name. It had been rank cowardice. And he was a coward still, it appeared, too cowardly even to be honest with himself.
His face hardened as a wave of self-disgust passed over him. And wrenching his thoughts resolutely from the morbid introspection to which he had given way he forced his attention to the immediate matter in hand.
And as he plunged deeper into the heart of the Casbar he thought with a slight feeling of amusement of General Sanois’ parting words for the astute old Arab who awaited his coming was distinctly one of those “friends” the General yearned to lay his hands on.
Turning from the steep street he was ascending, he entered a gloomy alley of squalid, sinister-looking houses and walked slowly along the narrow footway, counting the closed doors carefully as he went.
The house before which he eventually halted was, if possible, more sinister, more wretched-looking than the rest, the cracked walls bulging ominously in places and stained with leperous-like patches where the plaster had fallen off, the twisted iron balcony that projected a few feet above his head clinging by what seemed a miracle to the crumbling fabric from which it threatened momentarily to detach itself. There was no knocker on the nail-studded door, and the tiny grille was closed, but Carew had not expected an open welcome and he was too well versed in the ways of the Casbar to advertise his presence by any noisy demonstration. Though apparently deserted, he knew that life was teeming behind the seemingly empty walls. The whole street bore the same abandoned tenantless appearance, but he was well aware that unseen peeping eyes had followed his leisurely progress from the moment he had set foot on the filthy cobble stones that were damp and reeking with undrained refuse. He knew that he was expected, but it was not his custom to make visits of ceremony to the Casbar in European dress, and, an unfamiliar figure, in all likelihood, some minutes would elapse before the door opened to receive him. It was probable that his coming was watched for from behind the close lattice-work of the forlornly drooping little balcony and he moved further out into the street that he might be more plainly seen, lighting a cigarette as he set himself to wait until the hidden watcher should satisfy himself of the visitor’s identity. And the cigarette was smoked through before he heard the dull clank of heavy bars being removed. Still with no show of haste he sauntered to the door that opened narrowly to admit him and passed into gloom that became absolute blackness as the faint light, filtering in from without, was shut off by the closing of the entrance. Again he heard the rattle of formidable bolts, then a hand touched his sleeve and he was led along an interminable passage that curved and twisted tortuously. It was impossible in the darkness to form any idea of the way he was being conducted and with the frequent turnings he speedily lost all sense of bearing. He only knew that the house he had entered was certainly not the one in which he would eventually find himself. That the passage occasionally widened into rooms was apparent for he could feel the difference in the atmosphere, and his hand outstretched to the dank wall beside him met from time to time with only space. But his silent guide moved forward unhesitatingly with a sure step that made Carew wonder suddenly if he was blind.
Dumb also, it would appear, for he made no answer to the one remark addressed to him.
A doorkeeper who was a deaf mute and blind, a mysterious building which was approached by devious ways and secret passages—Carew’s lips twitched with amusement. To him the situation was sufficiently ludicrous, though to one less sure of his welcome, less acquainted with the way of the people, there might have been more than a suggestion of unpleasantness in this curious reception. It was all so typically eastern, so fraught with childish intrigue and suspicion. The wily old Arab who, after years of absence, had ventured into Algiers again for cogent reasons of his own was evidently taking no chances of a surprise visit from the authorities who were presumably unaware of his return. That he had come himself directly from the Palace and from the company of General Sanois was a humorous coincidence that made Carew smile again.
His eyes were just beginning to become accustomed to the darkness when the guide’s fingers pressing on his arm brought him to a sudden stop and he waited without moving while more bolts were removed and a tiny door swung inward revealing a narrow winding staircase which was lit by a solitary earthenware lamp placed in a niche in the wall. Seen by the dim light his conductor proved to be a powerful negro of gigantic height, blind as he had thought. And feeling more than ever that he had stepped into an episode from the Arabian Nights, Carew followed him up the staircase to a door that was covered with a curtain of matchless embroidery. He was ushered into a room which, for sumptuousness of furnishing and barbaric splendour, he had never seen equalled. The rugs and hangings were priceless, the divans and mats gorgeous with vivid colourings, and the many lamps of beaten silver, lit already, for the daylight was excluded by thick curtains, were finer even than those which hung in the mauresque hall of his own villa. The atmosphere was stifling and heavy with the sweet pungent scent of incense.
Blinking at the sudden light he hesitated on the threshold for an instant and then went forward to meet the superbly-dressed Arab who rose quickly from a heap of cushions to greet him with unusually demonstrative expressions of pleasure.
Their last meeting had been under very different circumstances, circumstances attendant on the intertribal warfare that waged perpetually between the belligerent Arabs of the far south. Travelling in a district that was new to him, Carew had become involved in a bid for supremacy between two powerful chiefs which had ended in victory for the one who was now greeting him with such wealth of flowery hyperbole—a victory that at the time it had seemed impossible he could live to enjoy. In the course of his wanderings, Carew had seen many appalling sights and had attended to wounds that appeared well-nigh incurable, but never in the whole of his experience had he attempted to restore a body so horribly mangled and broken. For weeks he had wrestled to save the chief’s life and it had been mainly owing to his care, though helped by a magnificent constitution and a passionate desire to live, that the Sheik had eventually recovered to swear eternal friendship with the man who had literally snatched him from the jaws of death.
The mutual interchange of formal compliments and good-will was followed by the customary coffee and sweet-meats, and cigarettes that were the Sheik’s one lapse from strict orthodoxy and which he proffered with a grave smile and a jest at his own expense. The conversation ranged over many topics, and used though he was to the circumambient methods of the oriental when any particular point is in view, Carew began to wonder when the special subject which he understood was the main reason of his visit would be approached. But when the Sheik at length abandoned generalities and came with unexpected directness to the heart of the matter he had dallied with so long, Carew listened to information that coming from such a quarter, filled him with amazement. The man was no friend to France, and out of favour with the Government, but he was calmly imparting intelligence that would be very useful to the Administration and for the moment Carew was nonplussed. Was the surprising confidence for his ears alone or was he being used as an intermediary to bring about a rapprochement between a refractory chief and the rulers of the country? He put the question with his usual bluntness.
“Is it thy wish that the Government should learn of this?”
The Sheik’s gem-laden fingers touched lightly first his forehead then his breast.
“It is my wish that throughtheethe Government should learn that which they are too blind to see. Thus do I, in part, pay my debt,” he answered, with a sudden gleam in his fierce old eyes. Carew nodded and studied the glowing end of his cigarette thoughtfully for a few moments.
“And thou, O Sheik,” he said at last, “do I speak for thee to the Government? The day is fortunate. Tonight I dine with His Excellency and General Sanois—”
“May Allah burn them!” interposed the Sheik fervently, and spat frankly and conclusively on to the priceless carpet. Carew laughed.
“And thy news?” he asked, rising to his feet after a glance at the watch on his wrist and pulling his waistcoat down with a jerk.
“Use it—or withhold it, but speak no word of me. Am I their dog?” replied the Sheik, with a flash of anger, as he prepared to take leave of his guest.
But there was a constraint in his manner, a hint of something left unsaid, that made him appear preoccupied as he accompanied Carew to the head of the little winding staircase where the negro was still waiting. And it was not until the elaborate farewells had been spoken and Carew had started to descend that the old Arab gave utterance to what was in his mind. Leaning forward he spoke in a swift undertone. “There was a dweller in the wilderness who had a garden filled with rare flowers—culled from the gardens of better men than he—a garden overflowing with sweetness and delight. Yet was he not satisfied, for his questioning eyes had glimpsed the beauty of a stranger blossom brought from a far-off land, and he burned with desire to gather it for his own. Chance gave him the prize he longed for—and chance wrested it from him again. And now the fire of desire is quenched in the greater fire of hatred and revenge. Take heed for that same gardener, my friend,” he added meaningly, and turned away with a parting salaam.
Carew went on down the stairs with a faint smile at the oriental ambiguity with which the veiled warning had been conveyed to him. Though no name had been mentioned it was perfectly obvious who threatened him. He had thwarted the desire of no other Arab. But as he followed the negro again through the blackness of the winding passage he turned from the thought of that particular Arab with a shrug of annoyance. Abdul el Dhib was too intimately connected with what he wished to forget to allow him to dwell on the possible results of the horse-thief’s threats. Threatened men live long, and Abdul was in some ways wise in his generation. There seemed no need to take the warning too seriously and, besides, he was too deeply imbued with the fatalism he had learned in the desert to dread death that was always more or less imminent in the hazardous life he led. He had always held his life cheaply, there was no reason now to go out of his way to take precautions that would probably be unnecessary. He lived or he died as Allah willed—a comfortable creed he found amply sufficient.
Dismissing Abdul from his mind his thoughts reverted to the other as plausible but more clean-handed Arab he had just quitted. The intelligence the Sheik had imparted ought, without question, to be passed on to headquarters, and that as speedily as possible. Perhaps tonight he would find opportunity to approach the General on the subject—and Sanois; certain demands for the source of his information were going to be the very devil to parry.
The return journey through the dismal cellars seemed shorter than the first and Carew was not surprised when he was ushered into the outer world again to find himself, as he had expected, in a totally different street from that in which he had waited to gain admittance to the sinister-looking house. But the locality was known to him and very soon he was back in the rue Annibal, swinging quickly down the unusually empty street. Preoccupied he rounded a sharp corner without noticing the noisy clamour that ordinarily would have warned him of some special excitement in progress and came suddenly upon a yelling crowd of ragged youths and boys who fought and screamed and tore at each other as they surged round some central object that was hidden from him. The noise was deafening, the narrow roadway completely blocked, and Carew glanced at his watch with a gathering frown. He was late enough already, he had no mind to be further delayed by a band of young savages employed probably in their usual amusement of torturing some unfortunate dumb animal that had fallen into their clutches.
He was familiar with the callous cruelty of the Arabs, but familiarity had not lessened the abhorrence with which he viewed this particular pastime of the native youth. And the scowl on his face deepened as he sought to find some way of passing the squalid rabble who had taken possession of the footway. Argument was impossible, his voice would be drowned in the shrill cries that filled the air. Action, prompt and decisive, was the only expedient. Selecting a spot where the throng seemed less dense he gripped two of the taller lads, who were engaged in a private sparring match on the fringe of the crowd, and dashing their heads together drove them before him a living wedge into the heart of the press.
The unexpectedness of his attack made his task an easy one, and in the sudden silence that ensued he cursed them fluently and with picturesque attention to detail that left nothing to the imagination.
There were some who knew him by sight—he heard his Arab title uttered warningly—for the rest he was a representative of law and order whose coming put a period to their amusement. Before he had finished speaking they had begun to slink away and in a few moments he was alone in the again deserted street, looking down with a variety of feelings on the slim girlish figure crouched on the filthy cobblestones at his feet. Hatless, her white dress stained and crumpled, she seemed oblivious of everything but the pitiful little cur whose mangled bloodstained head lay on her knee. She was crooning to it softly, brushing the matted hair from its fast glazing eyes and stroking the broken palpitating limbs with tender caressing fingers. And when the tortured creature’s agony was over and she had laid the little dead body gently aside she still sat on motionless, shivering from time to time as she tried to wipe the crimson stickiness from her fingers with a scrap of lawn that was already a soaked red rag.
With a gesture of impatience Carew dropped his own larger and more adequate handkerchief into her lap.
“It is unwise to meddle with these Arabgamins, Lady Geradine.” He spoke curtly, his tone patiently disapproving, and at the sound of his voice she started violently. For a moment she scarcely seemed to breathe, then she stumbled to her feet looking up at him quickly and he saw the sudden bewilderment that leaped into her eyes as they travelled slowly over the length of his tall figure and then sought his face again to linger on the tell-tale scar across his cheek that gave her the clue to his identity.
“You are English,” she stammered, the colour rushing into her white cheeks. “I thought—that night—you were an Arab.” Then she flung her hands out to him with a little choking cry. “Oh, why didn’t you come sooner,” she wailed, “it was horrible! That poor wee beastie—thosedevils! You don’t know what they did—it nearly drove me mad—I can’t bear to see an animal suffer—” she broke off with a shudder and for a moment he thought she was going to faint and caught at her arm instinctively. But she pulled herself together, moving away from him slightly with a fleeting smile of acknowledgment.
“I’m all right, thanks, only it makes one—just a little bit—sick,” she said jerkily, her hands busy with her loosened hair, and looking about for her hat which had been torn from her in the scuffle. She spied it at last wedged in the grating of a window and rescued it with a rueful laugh that ended shakily. Brushing the dust marks from her tumbled dress she turned again to Carew. He was waiting with the detached air of aloofness she remembered so well and which sent a little chill through her, making her feel that again he had been constrained to render a service that was totally against his inclination.
“I seem to be fated to give you trouble,” she murmured shyly. But he did not choose to notice her tentative reference to their first meeting.
“Are you alone?” he asked bluntly. “It is too late in the evening for you to be in the Casbar without an escort.”
She flushed deeply at the undisguised reproof in his tone, and found herself eagerly defending her imprudence as if she admitted his right to censure and could not bear that he should put a wrong construction on her actions.
“I know—but I didn’t realize how late it was. I was shopping, and after I had sent my man home with the parcels I remembered a piece of embroidery I wanted. I thought I could find it easily but I had to hunt for it a long time. Then I forgot all about the time in watching the people, and I wandered on until, finally, I lost myself. I was trying to make my way back when—when I saw the dog. I suppose it was stupid of me to attempt to do anything—but I just had to,” she concluded, with sudden vehemence. A curious look she was unable to read flashed across his face as he glanced from her to the wretched little body stiffening on the cobbles, but he made no comment as he moved forward with an almost imperceptible shrug. “I can find you afiacrein the rue Randon,” he said coldly, as if his sole desire was to be rid of her society at the earliest moment possible.
And chilled again by his brusque manner she walked beside him silently. She was more shaken by the incident than she had realised, and for the first time she began to wonder what would have happened if he had not come. But he had come, and once again she was his debtor for a service he rendered unwillingly. By no stretch of imagination could she deceive herself into believing that, he was even interested, much less glad, at seeing her again. Why did he so grudge the help he voluntarily offered? And why had he let her think that he was an Arab? She looked at him covertly, but after the first shy glance she had no hesitation in continuing her scrutiny for he seemed as unaware of her regard as he was negligent of her company. She realised it with a curiously bitter little feeling of pain. Yet why should he be other than he was? She was only a stranger, forced upon his notice by what he must consider as deliberate acts of folly on her part. And yet it was not so. She had been thoughtless, but on neither occasion had she willfully gone out of her way to court either excitement or danger. The morning when she had ridden alone it was an imperative desire for solitude that had made her leave Tanner behind. And today the sight of the tortured dog had driven all thoughts of herself out of her head. She had not stopped to think of the possible consequences that might ensue when, carried away by horror and pity, she had endeavoured to restrain the most fiendish cruelty she had ever witnessed.
She stifled a sigh as she looked at him again, sure of his preoccupation.
The change of dress seemed to alter him completely. In the well-fitting blue serge suit that clung closely to his muscular figure he appeared taller, slenderer than she had supposed; but he looked older, too, and the gravity of face and demeanour that had seemed natural in an Arab struck her even more forcibly now that she knew his true nationality. The soft felt hat, pulled far forward over his eyes, shaded features that to her looked sterner and more rigidly set than when she had first seen them. It was a strong face, she decided, too strong, too hard perhaps for absolute beauty but, clean cut, and bronzed as a native’s, lean and healthy looking, it was a face that arrested and compelled attention. Strength seemed the key note of his composition. His spare frame appeared to be made up of only bone and muscle, his long slow stride was springy and elastic, and he carried himself magnificently. Again she found herself wondering who he was, wishing she might ask him, but fearing the same rebuff she had met with before. And yet, if she only knew his name! It would be something to remember, something to cling to. And as the thought came she turned her head away hastily with a feeling of acute and miserable shame, realising how completely he had filled her mind during what had seemed to her the longest and most unhappy weeks she had ever experienced. She had wrestled with herself, striving to forget him, hoping that time would obliterate the image that seemed to possess her every conscious moment. But this second meeting had shattered the resolutions she had formed so bravely. She would always remember, always care. The memory of him would go with her through life—the memory of a man who was indifferent to her, whom honour demanded that she should root out of her heart. Did love always come like that, so suddenly, so irresistible, so unsought? Could she have conquered it if she had really tried to do so from the first moment of realization? She had tried. She had fought against it, shuddering from what seemed to her a sin, praying desperately for strength to put it from her. But her prayers had been unavailing and daily, hourly, the love she could not deny had grown stronger and more insistent. Only in the last three weeks had she come to know how starved her heart had been. Love had entered very little into her life. Her father had loved her but she was a child when he died, and since his death she had had no outlet for the affection lying dormant in her. She had lived in the open, a boy’s life rather than a girl’s, finding abundant happiness and contentment in sport and outdoor pursuits. She had had no girlish dreams of the possible lover who might some day come to win her heart, no opportunity of filling her imagination with tales of sentiment and romance. During the long winter evenings in the lonely house in Ireland she had read much but the books that formed her father’s library were books of travel and the histories of many countries. She had been singularly innocent, singularly young. Then she had married, and marriage had brought her not the joy and wonder of a man’s devotion but the loathing of a man’s possession. All that was brutal, all that was sordid and degrading in such a union she had learned with horror and amazement. Forced to hide the revulsion that filled her, forced into a mode of life that shocked her every sense of decency, she had steeled herself to endure until she had come to look upon herself as a thing of stone, a heartless, lifeless automaton. The hope of a child, that might have been another woman’s salvation, had never touched her. She shrank with abhorrence from the thought of possible motherhood. It would have been the last drop in her cup of bitterness. In spite of the disappointment and anger of her husband, who never ceased to reproach her for failing to give him the heir he desired, she prayed God passionately to spare her the shame of bringing into the world the offspring of such a man. That through her his vices might be perpetuated was a fear that never left her, a fear that year by year as she learned more thoroughly her husband’s character and innate viciousness had grown into an obsession. And now the dread that filled her continually had become a thousand times more poignant, a thousand times more horrible for the strange overwhelming emotion that had leaped into being that awful night three weeks ago. Love she had never thought to know had come to her—and come too late. Free, she could have loved him though he had never turned to her; bound, to even think of him was disloyalty to the man who had the right to claim her affection. The right to claim—but when had he ever claimed it! When had he ever shown by look or word that he even desired it? Her feelings were nothing to him, obedience was all he demanded—slavish submission to his domination, absolute surrender to his will, his caprices, and his inordinate passion. The pride he displayed in her beauty was the same he exhibited for any animal his wealth enabled him to acquire. The pride merely of arrogant ownership. And as he treated his animals so did he treat her. And as they flinched from him so did her whole soul recoil from his proximity. The last three weeks had been purgatory. He had been more intolerant, more hard to please, more insistent in his selfish demands than he had ever been. He had also been drinking more heavily than usual with disastrous results to his temper which had been felt by all the household. Malec, the Arab valet, the scarcely healed cut across his face a burning, throbbing reminder of his master’s heavy hand, went sullenly about his duties with hatred in his half-veiled eyes, and Tanner was in open rebellion.
This evening for the first time since his return he had allowed her out of his sight, and had given reluctant permission for the shopping expedition to the Casbar. For two hours she had been free, free of the suspicious eyes that watched her every movement, free of the hated caresses that in his maudlin humour he showered on her. She shivered at the thought of going back to him. With an unconscious movement she drew nearer to the man who walked beside her, marvelling anew at the strange feeling of security his presence brought her, marvelling that she should feel so little astonishment at seeing him again.
It seemed perfectly natural that he should once more come to her aid. If it had been Clyde instead—a spasm of pain crossed her face. Clyde would only have been amused! She clenched her hands as she strove to stem the tide of bitterness that rushed over her. Why must she torture herself with making comparisons. The contrast between them was sufficiently hideous without allowing herself to dwell on it. And she had no right to dwell on it, no right to make comparisons. She was Clyde’s wife—Clyde’s wife. The clenched hands tightened until the nails bit deeper into the soft palms. Silence became impossible. She must speak, if only to turn the current of her thoughts.
“I haven’t thanked you for sending back The Caid,” she said nervously, forcing her voice to steadiness. They were passing down a narrow street where grave-faced Arabs, lost apparently in contemplation, sat smoking in the open doorways of their shops regarding the passers-by with unconcerned aloofness, ostensibly disdainful of possible sales, yet quick to notice all who came and went, for, watching them, Marny saw with growing astonishment the frequent and profound salaams which greeted her companion. As she spoke he had stopped to acknowledge the salute of a venerable greybeard who lounged indolently amongst the fine carpets and heterogeneous collection of brasswork and antique firearms that formed his stock in trade. For a moment Carew paused to handle the keen-edged Moorish dagger proffered to him with an accompanying murmur that was barely audible, then shook his head smilingly as he returned the weapon with a shrug of careless indifference and an equally low-voiced rejoinder.
With complete unconcern the Arab tossed the knife aside and resumed his pipe, and Carew turned again to Marny with a slight gesture of apology.
“I can recommend old Ibraheim, if you are interested in embroideries, Lady Geradine. Most of his things are genuine, and he has seen you with me—he won’t rob you too unmercifully,” he said, with the first smile he had yet given her. “I was fortunate in finding your horse,” he continued, raising his hand to fend from her the swaying head of a heavily laden camel that lurched past with a snarling grunt of ill-humour, “but, if you will permit me to say so, I strongly advise you not to ride him again unattended. His worth and pedigree are well known, and there are a number of Arabs in and about Algiers who are very averse to valuable stallions being sold out of the country. It is only natural when you come to think of it! I should hold the same view myself—were I an Arab.”
“You are very like one.” The words escaped her involuntarily and she glanced at him quickly, fearful that he would think her impertinent. But he did not appear to resent the comparison and taking courage she yielded to the longing that came over her to learn more of the man who had come so strangely into her life.
“You have lived much amongst them?” she suggested diffidently. His curt assent was not conducive to further questioning but her wistful interest overcame her shyness.
“In the desert—therealdesert?” she asked eagerly.
“Yes, in the real desert,” he answered shortly, a slight frown gathering on his face. And as if regretting the slight lapse from his former rigidity of manner he seemed to draw once more into himself, cold and unapproachable as he had been at first. And, flushing sensitively, Marny relapsed into silence that lasted until they reached the rue Randon. A passing victoria plying for hire rattled up in response to Carew’s signal, and he had placed her in it almost before she realized that they were clear of the Casbar.
For a moment she leant forward without speaking, looking at him as he stood bareheaded on the pavement beside her. Then she thrust her hand out to him with a brusque boyish gesture.
“Thank you—for all you’ve done,” she said shakily, her lips trembling despite her efforts to keep them steady.
For the fraction of a second he hesitated, staring gloomily at the little outstretched hand, then his tall figure stiffened suddenly and, drawing back with a deep un-English bow, he signed to the Arab coachman to drive on.
Without bestowing a second glance on either the carriage or its occupant Carew jammed his hat down savagely over his eyes and leaped into another cab that had drawn up expectantly beside him.
He leant back against the dusty cushions, his arms folded tightly across his chest, scowling wrathfully at the busy streets. He had not seen the look of hurt disappointment that flashed into the girl’s eyes when he ignored her outstretched hand, nor heard the sharp sob that burst from her trembling lips. He had been conscious only of the raging tumult of his own feelings, of the intolerant anger that this second wholly undesired meeting had provoked. It had been an effort to be even civil—if indeed he had been civil at all, which he very much doubted. How like a woman to forget one peril so readily and court further danger without a moment’s consideration. Had the lesson of three weeks ago made so little impression on her? The little fool—did she imagine that Algiers was teeming with knights-errant seeking beauty in distress! His fine lips curved contemptuously as he lit a cigarette and looked at his watch with a deeper scowl. Though indifferent to his own meals he disliked causing annoyance to others and the cheery little Governor was a gourmet to whom a retarded dinner was a catastrophe. By now he should have been starting for the Palace instead of toiling up the road to Mustapha behind two extremely tired half-starved Arab hacks. It was useless to urge the driver, the hill was steep and the miserable little beasts were doing their best.
Stretching his long legs out more comfortably and pulling his hat further over his eyes he settled himself to wait, his mind wandering back to the desert he had so recently left but towards which his thoughts were already turning eagerly. Time to complete his arrangements for another protracted trip, to restock his depleted medical equipment, and he could leave this confounded town again for the life he loved best. A life of hardship and danger, but to him a life eminently worth living. And in the end—far out amongst the sandy wastes, he hoped, where the fierce sun would beat down scorchingly on the whispering particles that would hold him in their shifting embrace, where the jackals would wail their nightly chorus under the marvel of the eastern stars—the requiem of the desert.
The desert! He drew a deep breath of heart-felt anticipation. It was calling him more compellingly than it had ever done, bringing memories of long hot rides beneath the burning sun, of the silver radiance of the peaceful moonlit nights and the never failing glory of the dawn. He smiled a little at his own enthusiasm. It was not all peace and beauty and marvellous silence. There was battle and murder and sudden death, cruelty that was inconceivable and suffering that made him set his teeth as he thought of the needless agony he had witnessed more times than he cared to remember. But despite its savagery he loved it. It was his life. It was there he had found his chosen work, it was there he hoped to die. Even the thought of it was soothing to him in his present mood, and dreaming of it, he forgot the annoyance of the afternoon, forgot everything but the irresistible charm it had for him.
The villa was reached at length, the sweating horses expending their remaining reserve of strength in a final spurt of activity rushing the last fifty yards of level ground under a storm of abuse from the Arab driver who drew up at the nail-studded door, set in the enclosing wall, with a self-satisfied grin that widened broadly as he caught the liberal fee tossed to him. At the sound of the approaching wheels the door had opened silently and Carew passed through and went swiftly along the flower bordered pathway to the house. The single storied building was the most beautiful in Mustapha Superieur. Built forty years before for Carew’s delicate mother it was a miniature palace and stood in a garden that rivalled even that of the Villa des Ombres. But, preoccupied, Carew had tonight no eye for the beauty of either house or garden and he did not linger as was his wont before entering the spacious mauresque hall where Hosein was waiting for him in a state of visible agitation that was foreign to his usual impassive demeanour.
“Praise be to Allah, my lord has returned,” he murmured, his gloomy eyes lightening with evident relief. Carew stared at him for a moment in puzzled astonishment, then he smiled a trifle grimly. Hosein too! This was becoming monotonous. He was fully conversant with the rapidity with which reports spread in a land of rumour and intrigue, but Abdul, who had unorthodox proclivities, must have been drunk indeed to boast so openly of his intentions.
“To Allah the praise,” he returned conventionally. Then he laughed and shrugged indifferently. “ ‘The jackal howls where he dare not slay,’ ” he quoted, adding over his shoulder as he moved away, “Telephone to the Palace that I have been detained, that I beg His Excellency will not wait for me. I will join him as quickly as possible.”
He crossed the open courtyard round which the house was built and entered his bedroom, passing through to the dressing room beyond. There he found the blind boy sitting on the floor, his hands folded in his lap, his face turned towards the door with a look of strained attention. As it opened he sprang to his feet and bounded forward impetuously. With a word of warning Carew caught him and swung him high in his arms. “What mischief to confess, O son of wickedness?” he teased, as he felt the slender limbs trembling against him. But the time-honoured jest did not provoke the peal of laughter he expected. Instead the little face was grave and strangely set and Carew put him down with a quick caress.
“Who has troubled thee, Saba?” he asked quietly, moving across the room to empty his pockets before changing. The boy followed him with outstretched fumbling hands. “No man has troubled me,” he answered slowly, “but, lord, my heart is sick within me. I dreamt a dream—an evil dream. And, waking, the dream is with me still. There is danger, lord, that threatens thee. In my dreams I saw clearly, but now I cannot see—I cannot see—” he broke off with a sharp little wail of anguish. A queer look crossed Carew’s face as his hands closed firmly over the tiny fluttering fingers. It was not the first time that Saba had shown himself to be possessed of an almost uncanny sensitiveness where the safety of the man he worshipped was concerned. Ordinarily a happy, healthy-minded child there was in him an odd streak of mysticism that cropped up at rare intervals with curious results. On two previous occasions he had had a presage of danger menacing his protector that subsequent events had fully justified. Too familiar with the occultism of the east to be sceptical Carew was not disposed to minimise the importance of a warning that was identical with the plainer, more substantial hints he had received that afternoon, but he was in no mind to treat it with undue seriousness or show too great a credulity to the nervous boy whose upturned sightless eyes were wet with tears. He soothed him with the tenderness that marked his every dealing with him. “Thou hast dreamt before,” he said gently, “and the danger has passed. So will this danger pass—”
“If Allah wills.” The childish treble broke on a quivering sob and Carew accepted the qualification of his assurance with a little smile. “All things are with Allah,” he answered, “and it is written ‘seek not to discover that which is hidden, for behold, when the day cometh all things shall be revealed.’ And again, ‘no accident happeneth in the earth, nor in your persons, but the same was entered in the book of our decrees.’ ”
A deep sigh escaped the boy and he pressed his lips on the strong brown hands clasped on his.
“So it is written—yet if thou die, I die,” he exclaimed passionately.
With wonderful gentleness Carew disengaged himself.
“Time to think of that when I die,” he said lightly. “Meanwhile I live—and the French lord’s dinner grows cold while I chatter with a dreamer of dreams,” he added, turning away to the dressing table.
He changed quickly, and flinging a black cloak over his evening clothes paused irresolutely with his hand over a revolver that lay on the table. He was not in the habit of carrying firearms in the town of Algiers but tonight there seemed justification for so doing. He might have doubts as to the truth of the warnings he had received but he would be a fool to utterly ignore them.
Slipping the weapon into his hip pocket he left the room with a cheery word to Saba, who was sitting mournfully amidst the discarded clothing that littered the floor, and went out to his waiting carriage.
And as the spirited black horses drew him swiftly through the night his thoughts were busy with the pathetic little figure left disconsolate in the dressing room. If anything happened to him what would be the fate of the blind boy whose whole life was bound up in his? It was a problem that had often troubled him. He had made full provision for his protege’s future and Hosein, while he lived, would serve him faithfully. But Saba in his blindness and with his highly-strung mystical temperament needed more than bodily comfort and faithful service. He needed what apparently only Carew could give him. Without Carew he would pine and droop like a delicate plant torn from the parent root from which it draws its strength. For Saba’s sake, then it behooved him to take precautions he would otherwise have neglected.
The town was quieter than it had been earlier in the evening and Carew’s coachman, who was a noted whip, took full advantage of the empty streets, driving with customary Arab recklessness but handling the excited horses magnificently until, with a fine flourish, he drew them foam-flecked to a standstill before the Palace.
The Governor, as Carew hoped, had taken him at his word. Dinner was in full swing when he entered with apologies for his lateness and slipped into the place reserved for him.
It was, in compliment to his known peculiarity, a strictly bachelor entertainment, enlivened by the presence of Patrice Lemaire and another equally light-hearted attache.
The Governor, hospitable to his finger tips and still pleasantly excited with the success of the day’s work, was overflowing with good humour. Even General Sanois had relaxed somewhat of his usual gravity and condescended to occasional bursts of heavy pleasantry. But he was obviously distrait and his spasmodic attempts at conversation were punctuated by lengthy silences during which his eyes wandered frequently to Carew who was sitting opposite to him. And towards the close of dinner, when the Arab servants had left the room, he leaned forward with a sudden remark that was fraught with more meaning than the actual words implied.
“Your friends in the Casbar were exigent, it seems.”
But Carew, who knew him, was not to be drawn. General Sanois was usually possessed of more knowledge than he was willing to admit, and his seemingly inocuous questions were often actuated by a deliberate policy and were rarely as guileless as they appeared. And tonight his thinly veiled curiosity met with scant success. Carew had no intention of being trapped into saying more than he wished to say, or of imparting what he preferred to withhold. He met the General’s intent gaze with a tolerant smile.
“Don’t jibe at my friends,mon général,” he replied. “As I said this afternoon, they are useful. They serve you through me and they know it—most of them. But I picked up one piece of information this evening that will interest you—”
“Tomorrow,” interrupted the Governor hastily, “tomorrow, my dear Carew. Business tonight is taboo. If our good Sanois once starts talking of his eternal affairs he will talk all through the opera, and I shall behave badly. Yes, badly, I warn you. I—” The remainder of his protest was lost in the shout of laughter that burst from his irrepressible nephew.
“Latest news from Algeria,” chanted Lemaire in the shrill nasal tones of the street newsvendor. “Regrettable scene witnessed last night at the opera. Fracas in the Governor General’s box. His Excellency and the Commander-in-Chief engaged in mortal combat in the presence of an excited audience. The Governor not expected to recover. General Sanois has fled to the desert and proclaimed himself ‘Emperor of the Sahara’—My dear General, I offer my service as Aide-de-Camp. I’m bored to extinction with writing Uncle Henri’s despatches,” he added with an ironical bow, dodging the dinner napkin the Governor flung at his head. And in the general laugh that followed they rose from the table.
They were late in reaching the opera house and the first act was in progress when the Governor, a music lover at heart, tiptoed silently into his box and settled himself attentively to listen to a work he had already heard a score of times.
Carew, sitting on his left, drew his chair into the shadow of the heavy side curtain and leant back to pursue his own thoughts which the mediocre company on the stage failed to distract. The house was full, one box only—that directly facing the Governor’s—being empty. Carew’s gaze turned to the crowded seats with indifferent interest. It was more than two years since he had last visited the garish little theatre; it would probably be another two years before he was in it again, he reflected, as his mind ranged back to the all absorbing topic of the new expedition he was scheming. And now it seemed possible that his schemes might meet with an unexpected check. The information he had promised General Sanois at dinner, which he had gleaned that afternoon during his interview with the old chief in the Casbar, had in a measure upset his original calculations. It might mean a total change of plan. The needs of the Government had not been included in his forthcoming trip. He had purposed a tour that should be wholly devoted to his own work, and he viewed with some dismay the possibility of further political activity. He was a free lance, of course. He could take or reject any work offered him, but the mere fact of his freedom seemed to make the sense of his moral obligation more binding. He would have to go if it became really necessary—devoutly he hoped that the necessity would not arise. He was tired of intrigue and the endless palavers of political negotiations. He was anxious to pursue his own vocation unhindered, and to travel where inclination took him rather than follow a definite route in furtherance of Government schemes. There was a district, far away in the southwest, he had long wanted to visit. A district inhabited by a tribe he had heard of but with whom he had never yet come in contact. His plans of the last three weeks had centered more and more round this unknown locality that seemed to promise everything he demanded in the way of work and adventure. A strange and hostile people who guarded the secret of their desert fastness with jealous activity, fiercely resenting not only the advent of foreigners but also the encroachment of contiguous tribes. The tales he had heard of the impregnable walled-in city—a medieval survival if all the extraordinary stories anent it were true—had fired him with a desire to penetrate its hidden mysteries, to gain a footing amongst its prejudiced population. His calling had proved a passport to other inhospitable tribes, he counted on it confidently to win his admission to the secret City of Stones—the name by which it was known to the nomads who avoided its vicinity. The thought of it moved him deeply. Surely there was work for him within that rocky fortress could he but once pass its closely guarded gateway. The call seemed imperative, the call of suffering ignorant humanity whose misery he longed to alleviate. The need must be great, and alone he could do so little. Still even the little was worth his utmost endeavour, was worth the hazardous experiment. He could but try, and trying, succeed or fail.
And as he meditated on the chances of the success he earnestly hoped for, the little theatre with its crowded seats seemed to fade before his eyes. He saw instead an endless stretch of undulating waste, sun scorched and shimmering in the burning heat, and a caravan that wound its tortuous length across the wavy ripples of the wind-whipped sand labouring towards the mirage-like battlements of the secret city towering grimly against the radiance of the western sky. The imagery was strangely clear, singularly real. The gloomy pile stood out against his mental vision with almost photographic distinctness, and as he gazed at it wonderingly he seemed to feel between his knees the easy movements of the big bay stallion, to hear the voices of the men who rode behind him, the grunting protests of the lurching camels, the creak of sweat-drenched saddles and the whispering murmur of the shifting sand.
The desert smell was pungent in his nostrils, his eyeballs ached with the blinding glare . . . .
The burst of applause that greeted the fall of the curtain woke him abruptly from his abstraction and he turned with a momentary feeling of confusion to join in the general conversation that ensued. Would he ever in reality come so near to the mysterious city as he had seemed to be in imagination five minutes ago, he wondered, as he declined the Governor’s invitation to smoke a cigarette in the corridor. He was still pondering it when, left alone, he rose to stretch his legs, cramped with the confined space. He made a noticeable figure standing in the front of the box, a figure that attracted universal attention. But with the complete unselfconsciousness that was so markedly a trait in his character he was unaware of the interest he aroused. Incurious himself with regard to others, and reserved even with his intimate friends, he had no knowledge of the extravagant reports that for years had circulated about him, or of the excitement caused tonight by his appearance at the opera. That he was the subject of endless speculation, that he was the most discussed personage in Algiers, had never entered his head. And now, absorbed in his own thoughts, he was totally oblivious of the opera glasses and lorgnettes turned in his direction.
But his wandering attention was caught at last by the arrival of late comers in the opposite box—a man who stopped in the doorway to argue noisily with the theatre attendant, and a slim white-robed girl who moved slowly to the front of the box without heeding the stormy altercation behind her. She stood looking down on the crowded seats with a curious little air of detachment as if her thoughts were far away, toying nervously with the long curling feathers of a huge ostrich fan, her heavy sable cloak slipping from her shoulders. And with the same strange irritation, the same wholly unreasonable anger he had felt before Carew found himself staring at the pale sensitive face of the woman from whom he had parted only a few hours ago. Was he never to be free of her, never to be free of the haunting eyes he had striven for three weeks to banish from his thoughts? Was the remainder of his peace of mind to be wrecked by the continual remembrance of a woman he had no desire to remember? Surely her very womanhood was sufficient reason for forgetting her. He hated women. And in the intolerant antagonism that filled him he felt that above all others he hated this particular woman whose need had forced him to lay aside his prejudice and break the oath he had sworn so many years ago. Young and beautiful, she was the incarnation of all he distrusted and despised. His face darkened and he made a movement to return to his seat. But something that was stronger than his hatred stayed him. Despite himself his gaze lingered on the slight girlish figure. And presently, as if drawn by some subtle telepathic influence, she seemed to become aware of the compelling stare fixed on her and slowly raised her head. For a second, across the width of the theatre, her eyes met his. But though the quick blood flamed into her face she gave no sign of recognition and turned, as from the unwarrantable scrutiny of a total stranger, to the man who was with her—the husband, Carew presumed, to whom she had alluded so briefly and with such evident constraint on that first night of meeting. The husband who doubtless knew nothing of the hours she had spent in his camp; who, probably, also knew nothing of this evening’s incident in the rue Annibal. His lips curled in a sneering smile and he turned with cynical amusement to look at the heavy figure lounging beside her. But the smile faded swiftly and his amusement gave place to a rush of feeling he did not at the moment understand as his eyes ranged over Geradine’s massive almost ape-like limbs and coarse sullen features. An odd look swept across his face and he drew his breath in sharply. For the first time in twelve years he felt pity for a woman. But he had no time to ponder it. All thought of the girl was swamped in the wave of strange and terrible emotion that was pouring over him, shaking him with a force he had never before experienced—a sudden overwhelming sense of hostility that had sprung into violent life within him at the sight of the man in the opposite box, a fierce instinctive hatred such as he had never conceived. The realisation of it staggered him. There was no reason for it, he told himself angrily. It was preposterous, absurd. He had heard of hatred at first sight, and laughed at it. But he did not laugh now as he dragged his eyes from the face of the man he felt he hated from the bottom of his soul. He was very far from laughter. He was conscious instead of a feeling of fear—fear of himself, fear of the consequences of the appalling forces which seemed suddenly let loose within him. He had thought himself to be possessed of a perfect self-understanding. He wondered now did he know anything about himself at all. Nothing, it seemed. Nothing that had ever led him to imagine that some day, for no apparent cause or reason, he would contemplate the destruction of an utter stranger. For that was what it amounted to—the violent impulse that was actuating him was a passionate desire to kill. God in heaven, what had happened to him! Had his whole nature undergone some sudden and horrible metamorphosis—had the wild life he had led in the desert been influencing him unconsciously until at last he had himself succumbed to the savagery and lawlessness of the people amongst whom he lived? What devil was prompting him? His mission was to save life, not to destroy it. True that during the course of his wanderings there had been occasions when he had been forced to take life, but that was different. He had killed in self-defence or in the defence of others, as he would unhesitatingly kill again if need be, as he would without compunction have killed Abdul el Dhib if it had proved necessary in the deserted village three weeks ago. But there was a wide gulf between justifiable homicide and murder. Murder! Perspiration gathered in icy drops on his forehead as his rigid lips framed the word. Was he going mad! He knew that he had never felt saner in his life. It was not madness that possessed him but an inexplicable feeling of deadly enmity that was almost overmastering in its intensity.
The atmosphere of the theatre seemed suddenly stifling. The blood beat in his ears and with a sense of suffocation he brushed his hand before his eyes trying to clear the bewildering mist that had risen before them, blurring the crowded seats and the rapidly refilling orchestra. To sit out the remainder of the opera seemed an impossibility, but to surrender weakly to the impulse of the moment and leave the building was equally impossible. Gripping himself he turned to go back to his seat. But as he moved a hand was thrust through his arm and Patrice Lemaire’s eager voice sounded close beside him, murmuring in his ear.
“Look,monsieur, in the opposite box. The compatriot of whom you spoke—Lord Geradine, and his wife. Beauty and the beast,hein?La! la! quelle brute!”
For a moment Carew stood motionless, then, with a tremendous effort he forced himself to glance naturally in the direction indicated by the interested attache. A glance of the briefest possible duration. Freeing himself from the nervous clasp of the impressionable young Frenchman who he knew would have had a great deal more to say had his auditor been other than himself, Carew drew back with a shrug of assumed indifference.
“As you say—a brute,” he said coldly, “for the rest, you are more competent to judge than I.”
Lemaire accepted the retort with a little laugh of perfect good temper.
“Each to his taste,monsieur. For you—horses, and for me—the ladies,” he replied gaily, and continued to stare with undisguised admiration at the fair occupant of the opposite box until the entrance of his uncle and General Sanois drove him to his own seat there to evolve schemes, with his more sympathetic fellow attache, for obtaining an introduction to the beautiful Englishwoman who reigned, for the moment, supreme in his susceptible and fickle heart.
To Carew the time dragged out with maddening slowness. He envied Sanois who, screened by the curtains as he was himself, was frankly nodding. His whole body was still throbbing from the rush of extraordinary rage that had swept him, his head was aching with the effort to understand his own feelings, to find some sane and logical reason for the mental disturbance that had seized upon him with such cataclysmic suddenness. The whole thing was inexplicable, as inexplicable as the agitation of mind that had possessed him for the last three weeks. Was there any connection between them—was the one a corollary of the other? The startling thought almost forced an exclamation from his lips and he clenched his teeth as his eyes leaped involuntarily to the opposite box. What possible connection could there be—what had he to do with either of the strangely assorted couple who had each in their turn stirred him so powerfully? Towards what was fate pushing him! He was conscious all at once of a feeling of helplessness. Since the day that Micky Meredith had come so unexpectedly, reviving memories of the bitter past, everything seemed to be changed. He appeared to be no longer master of himself. He seemed to have been plunged into a vortex of circumstances over which he had no control, the end of which he could not see. The sense of impotence was galling, and he repudiated it angrily. He was damned if he was going to submit to any force of circumstance that ran counter to his own inclination. And he was damned if he would take the easy way out of the difficulty. Once before in his life he had played the coward’s part and run away from a situation he was not morally strong enough to meet. He could never, if he hoped to retain the least shred of self-respect, do it again. And what, after all, was it he was trying to evade? The problematical results of an extraordinary hatred suddenly conceived for a total stranger, and the haunting recollection of a woman’s face with which he had become obsessed—he, who hated woman. Good Lord, what a fool! And reduced to the level of dispassionate reasoning how futile it all seemed! It was time he got back to the desert if this was the effect that civilization had on him. With a shrug of self-contempt he turned for distraction to the stage he had hitherto ignored. And until the close of the act he forced his attention to a representation that appeared to him to be hardly more fantastic and unreal than his own extravagant thoughts.
He welcomed the Governor’s decision to leave during the following interval and followed him out of the box with a sigh of relief.
In the foyer, where His Excellency lingered for a few moments chatting with his habitual courtesy to the director of the opera house, General Sanois, whose policy was to strike while the iron was hot, seized on the opportunity to draw Carew aside and ask point blank for the information that had been promised during dinner. They were still talking when they went out to the waiting carriages. The Governor paused with his foot on the step of his victoria and beamed affectionately at the two tall men towering beside him.