CHAPTER XXII
Two days later the force struck camp, leaving the town behind them a shell of blackened ruins, bearing on lances before them the heads of thirty prominent citizens as a sign that Cæsar is not lightly denied his tribute.
They streamed northeast through the defiles, a tattered rabble, a swarm of locusts, eating up the land as they went. The wounded were jostled along in rough litters, at the mercy of camp barbers and renegade quacks; the majority died on the way and were thankful to die. The infantry straggled for miles (half rode donkeys) and drove before them cattle, sheep, goats and a few women prisoners. What with stopping to requisition and pillage they progressed at an average of twelve miles a day. Only among the negroes and the cavalry was there any semblance of march discipline, and then only because the general kept them close about him as protection against his other troops.
Beside Ortho rode the Arab girl, her feet strapped under the mule’s belly. Twice she tried to escape—once by a blind bolt into the foothills, once by a surer, sharper road. She had wriggled across the tent and pulled a knife out of its sheath with her teeth. Osman had caught her just as she was on the point of rolling on it. Ortho had to tie her up at night and watch her all day long. Never had he encountered such implacable resolve. She was determined to foil him one way or the other at no matter what cost to herself. He had always had his own way with women and this failure irritated him. He would stick it as long as she, he swore—and longer.
Osman Bâki was entertained. He watched the contest with twinkling china blue eyes—his mother had been a Georgian slave and he was as fair as a Swede.
“She will leave you—somehow,” he warned.
“For whom? For what?” Ortho exclaimed. “If she slips past me the infantry will catch her, or some farmer who will beat her life out. Why does she object to me? I have treated her kindly—as kindly as she will allow.”
Osman twirled his little yellow mustache. “Truly, but these people have no reason, only a mad pride. One cannot reason with madness, Kaid. Oh, I know them. When I was in the service of the deys . . .”
He delivered an anecdote from his unexampled repertoire proving the futility of arguing with a certain class of Arab with anything more subtle than a bullet.
“Sell her in Morocco,” he advised. “She is pretty, will fetch a good sum.”
“No, I’m going to try my hand first,” said Ortho stubbornly.
“You’ll get it bitten,” said the Turk, eying the telltale marks on Ortho’s face with amusement. “For my part I prefer a quiet life—in the home.”
They straggled into Morocco City ten days later to find the Sultan in residence for the winter, building sanctuaries and schools with immense energy.
Ortho hoped for the governorship of an outlying post where he would be more or less his own master, get some pig-hunting and extort backsheesh from the country folk under his protection; but it was not to be. He was ordered to quarter his stalwarts in the kasba and join the Imperial Guard. Having been in the Guard before at Mequinez, having influence in the household and getting a wind-fall in the way of eight months’ back pay, he contrived to bribe himself into possession of a small house overlooking the Aguedal Gardens, close to the Ahmar Gate.
There he installed the Arab girl and a huge old negress to look after her.
Then he set to and gave his unfortunate men the stiffening of their lives.
He formed his famous black horses into one troop, graded the others by colors and drilled the whole all day long.
Furthermore, he instituted a system of grooming and arm-cleaning hitherto unknown in the Moroccan forces—all on the Fleischmann recipe. Did his men show sulks, he immediately up-ended and bastinadoed them. This did not make him popular, but Osman Bâki supported him with bewildered loyalty and he kept themokademand the more desperate rascals on his side by a judicious distribution of favors and money. Nevertheless he did not stroll abroad much after dark and then never unattended.
They drilled in the Aguedal, on the bare ground opposite the powder house, and acquired added precision from day to day. Ortho kept his eye on the roof of the powder house.
For two months this continued and Ortho grew anxious. What with household expenses and continueddouceursto themokademhis money was running out and he was sailing too close to the wind to try tricks with his men’s rations and pay at present.
Just when things were beginning to look desperate a party appeared on the roof of the powder house, which served the parade ground as a grand-stand.
Ortho, ever watchful, saw them the moment they arrived, brought his command into squadron column, black troop to the fore, and marched past underneath.
They made a gallant show and Ortho knew it. Thanks to the grooming, his horses were looking fifty per cent better than any other animals in the Shereefian Army; the uniformity added another fifty. The men knew as well as he did who was looking down on them, and went by, sitting stiff, every eye fixed ahead.
The lusty sun set the polished hides aglow, the burnished lance-heads a-glitter. The horses, fretted by sharp stirrups, tossed their silky manes, whisked their streaming tails. The wind got into the burnooses and set them flapping and billowing in creamy clouds; everything was in his favor. Ortho wheeled the head of his column left about, formed squadron line on the right and thundered past the Magazine, his shop-window troop nearest the spectators, shouting the imperial salute, “Allah y barek Amer Sidi!” A good line too, he congratulated himself, as good as any Makhzen cavalry would achieve in this world. If that didn’t work nothing would. It worked.
A slave came panting across the parade ground summoning him to the powder house at once.
The Sultan was leaning against the parapet, sucking a pomegranate and spitting the pips at his Grand Vizier, who pretended to enjoy it. The fringes of the royal jellab were rusty with brick dust from the ruins of Bel Abbas, which Mahomet was restoring. Ortho did obeisance and got a playful kick in the face; His Sublimity was in good humor.
He recognized Ortho immediately. “Ha! The lancer who alone defied the Bou Khari, still alive! Young man, you must indeed be of Allah beloved!” He looked the soldier up and down with eyes humorous and restless. “What is your rank?”
“Kaid Mia, Sidi.”
“Hum!—thou art Kaid Rahal now, then.” He turned on the Vizier. “Tell El Mechouar to let him take what horses he chooses; he knows how to keep them. Go!”
He flung the fruit rind at Ortho by way of dismissal.
Ortho gave his long-suffering men a feast that night with the last ready money in his possession. They voted him a right good fellow—soldiers have short memories.
He was on his feet now. As Kaid Rahal, with nominally a thousand cut-throats at his beck and nod, he would be a fool indeed if he couldn’t blackmail the civilians to some order. Also there was a handsome sum to be made by crafty manipulation of his men’s pay and rations. El Mechouar would expect his commission out of this, naturally, and sundry humbler folk—“big fleas have little fleas . . .”—but there would be plenty left. He was clear of the financial thicket. He went prancing home to his little house, laid aside his arms and burnoose, took the key from the negress, ran upstairs and unlocked the room in which the Arab girl, Ourida, was imprisoned. It was a pleasant prison with a window overlooking the Aguedal, its miles of pomegranate, orange, and olive trees. It was the best room in the house and he had furnished it as well as his thin purse would afford, but to the desert girl it might have been a tomb.
She sat all day staring out of the barred window, looking beyond the wide Haouz plain to where the snow peaks of the High Atlas rose, a sheer wall of sun-lit silver—and beyond them even. She never smiled, she never spoke, she hardly touched her food. Ortho in all his experience had encountered nothing like her. He did his utmost to win her over, brought sweetmeats, laughed, joked, retailed the gossip of the palace and the souks, told her stories of romance and adventure which would have kept any other harem toy in shivers of bliss, took his gounibri and sang Romany songs, Moorish songs, English ballads, flowery Ottomankasidas,ghazelsandgûlistâns, learned from Osman Bâki, cursed her, adored her.
All to no avail; he might have been dumb, she deaf. Driven desperate, he seized her in his arms; he had as well embraced so much ice. It was maddening. Osman Bâki, who watched him in the lines of a morning, raving at the men over trifles, twisted his yellow mustache and smiled. This evening, however, Ortho was too full of elation to be easily repulsed. He had worked hard and intrigued steadily for this promotion. Three years before he had landed in Morocco a chained slave, now he was the youngest of his rank in the first arm of the service. Another few years at this pace and what might he not achieve? He bounded upstairs like a lad home with a coveted prize, told the girl of his triumph, striding up and down the room, flushed, laughing, smacking his hands together, boyish to a degree. He looked his handsomest, a tall, picturesque figure in the plum-colored breeches, soft riding boots, blue kaftan and scarlet tarboosh tilted rakishly on his black curls. The girl stole a glance at him from under her long lashes, but when he looked at her she was staring out of the window at the snow wall of the Atlas rose-flushed with sunset, and when he spoke to her she made no answer; he might as well have been talking to himself. But he was too full of his success to notice, and he rattled on and on, pacing the little room up and down, four strides each way. He dropped beside her, put his arm about her shoulders, drew her cold cheek to his flushed one.
“Listen, my pearl,” he rhapsodized. “I have money now and you shall have dresses like rainbows, a gold tiara and slave girls to wait on you, and when we move garrison you shall ride a white ambling mule with red trappings and lodge in a striped tent like the royal women. I am a Kaid Rahal now, do you hear? The youngest of any, and in the Sultan’s favor. I will contrive and scheme, and in a few years . . . the Standard!—eschkoun-i-araf? And then, my honey-sweet, you shall have a palace with a garden and fountains. Hey, look!”
He scooped in his voluminous breeches’ pockets, brought out a handful of trinkets and tossed them into her lap. The girl stared at him, then at the treasures, and drew a sharp breath. They were her own, the jewelry he had wrenched from her on that wild night of carnage three months before.
“You thought I had sold them—eh?” he laughed. “No, no, my dear; it very nearly came to it, but not quite. They are safe now and yours again—see?”
He seized her wrists and worked the bangles on, snapped the crude black necklace round her neck and hung the elaborate gold one over it, kissed her full on the quivering mouth. “Yours again, for always.”
She ran the plump black beads through her fingers, her breathing quickened. She glanced at him sideways, shyly; there was an odd light in her eyes. She swayed a little towards him, then the corners of her mouth twitched and curved upwards in an adorable bow; she was smiling, smiling! He held out his arms to her and she toppled into them, burying her face in his bosom.
“My lord!” said she.
The proud lady had surrendered at last!
“Osman, Osman Bâki, what now?” thought Ortho and crushed her to him.
The girl made a faint, pained exclamation and put her hand to her throat.
“Did I hurt you, my own?” said Ortho, contrite.
“No, my lord, but you have snapped my necklace,” she laughed. “It is nothing.”
He picked up the black beads, wondering how he could have done it, and she put them down on the rug beside her.
“It is a poor thing, but a great saint has blessed it. My king, take me in your arms again.”
They sat close together while the rosy peaks faded out and the swift winter dusk filled the room, and he told her of the great things he would do. Elation swept him up. Everything seemed possible now with this slim, clinging beauty to solace and inspire him. He would trample on and on, scattering opposition like straw, carving his own road, a captain of destiny. She believed in his bravest boasts. Her lord had but to will a thing and it was done. Who could withstand her lord? “Not I, not I,” said she. “Hearken, tall one. I said to my heart night and day, ‘Hate this Roumi askar, hate him, hate him!’—but my heart would not listen, it was wiser than I.”
She nestled luxuriously in his arms, crooning endearments, melting and passionate, sweeter than honey in the honey-comb. It grew dark and cold. He went to the door and called for the brazier.
“And tea,” Ourida added. “I would serve you with tea, my heart’s joy.”
The negress brought both.
Ourida rubbed her head against his shoulder. “Sweetmeats?” she cooed.
He jerked his last blanquils to the slave with the order.
Ourida squatted cross-legged on a pile of cushions and poured out the sweet mint tea, handed him his cup with a mock salaam. He did obeisance as before a Sultana, and she rippled with delight. They made long complimentary speeches to each other after the manner of the court, played with each other’s hands, were very childish and merry.
Ourida pressed a second cup of tea on him. He drank it off at a gulp and lay down at her side.
“Rest here and be comfortable,” said she, drawing his head to her.
“Tell me again about that battle with the Bou Khari.”
He told her in detail, omitting the salient fact that his horse had bolted with him, though, in truth, he had almost forgotten it himself by now.
“All alone you faced them! Small wonder Sidi Mahomet holds thee in high honor, my hero. And the fight in the Rif?”
He told her all about the guerrilla campaign among the rock fastnesses of the Djebel Tiziren, of a single mountaineer with a knife crawling through the troop-lines at night and sixty ham-strung horses in the morning.
Ourida was entranced. “Go on, my lord, go on.”
Ortho went on. He didn’t want to talk. He was most comfortable lying out on the cushions, his head on the girl’s soft lap. Moreover, his heavy day in the sun and wind had made him extraordinarily drowsy—but he went on. He told her of massacres and burnt villages, of ambushes and escapes, of three hundred rebels rising out of a patch of cactus no bigger than a sheep pen and rushing in among the astonished lancers, screaming and slashing. The survivors of that affair had fled up the opposite hillside flat on their horses’ necks and himself among the foremost, but he did not put it that way; he said he “organized the retreat.”
“More,” breathed Ourida.
He began to tell her of five fanatics with several muskets and quantities of ammunition shut up in a saint’s shrine and defying the entire Shereefian forces for two days, but before he had got halfway his voice tailed off into silence.
“You do not speak, light of my life?”
“I am sleepy—and comfortable, dearest.”
Ourida smoothed his cheek. “Sleep then with thy slave for pillow.”
He felt her lips touch his forehead, her slim fingers running through his curls, through and through . . . through . . . and . . . through . . .
“My lord sleeps?” came Ourida’s voice from miles away, thrilling strangely.
“Um . . . ah! . . . almost,” Ortho mumbled. “Where . . . you . . . going?” She had slipped from under him; he had an impulse to grasp her hand, then felt it was too much trouble.
“Listen, Saïd el Ingliz,” said Ourida in his ear, enunciating with great clarity. “You are going to sleep forever, you swine!”
He forced his weighted lids apart. She was bending right over him. He could see her face by the glow of the brazier, transformed, exultant; her teeth were locked together and showing; her eyes glittered.
“Forever,” she hissed. “Do you hear me?”
“Drugged, by God!” thought Ortho. “Drugged, poisoned, fooled like a fat palace eunuch!”
Fury came upon him. He fought the drowse with all the power that was in him, sat up, fell back again.
The girl laughed shrilly.
He tried to shout for help, for the negress, achieved a whisper.
“She has gone for sweetmeats and will loiter hours,” mocked the girl. “Call louder; call up your thousand fine lancers. Oh, great Kaid Rahal, Standard Bearer to be!”
“Osman—they will crush you . . . between . . . stones . . . for this,” he mumbled.
She shook her head. “No, great one, they will not catch me. I have three more poisoned beads.” She held up the remnant of her black necklace.
So that was how it was done. In the tea. By restoring her the trinkets he had compassed his own end. His eyelids drooped, he was away, adrift again in that old dream he had had, rocking in the smuggler’s boat under Black Carn, floating through star-trembling space, among somber continents of cloud, a wraith borne onwards, downwards on streaming air-ways into everlasting darkness.
“Great Lord of lances,” came a whisper out of nowhere. “When thou art in Gehenna thou wilt remember me, thy slave.”
He fought back to consciousness, battled with smothering wraps of swansdown, through fogs of choking gray and yellow, through pouring waters of oblivion, came out sweating into the light, saw through a haze a shadow girl bending over him, the red glimmer of the brazier.
With an immense effort he lifted his foot into the coals, bit hard into his under-lip. “Not yet, not yet!”
The girl displayed amusement. “Wouldst burn before thy time? Burn on. Thou wilt take no more women of my race against their wish, Kaid—or any other women—though methinks thy lesson is learned overlate.
“Why fight the sleep,Roumi? It will come, it will come. The Rif herb never fails.” On she went with her bitter raillery, on and on.
But Ortho was holding his own. He was his mother’s son and had inherited all her marvelous vitality. The pain in his burnt foot was counteracting the drowse, sweat was pouring out of him. The crisis was past. Could he but crawl to the door? Not yet; in a minute or two. That negress must be back soon. He bit into his bleeding lip again, closed his eyes. The girl bent forward eagerly.
“It is death, Kaid. Thou art dying, dying!”
“No, nor shall I,” he muttered, and instantly realized his mistake.
She drew back, startled, and swooped at him again.
“Open your eyes!” She forced his lids up.
“Failed!”
“Failed!” Ortho repeated.
“Bah! there are other means,” she snarled, jumped up, flitted round the room, stood transfixed in thought in the center, both hands to her cheeks, laughed, tore off her orange scarf and dropped on her knees beside him.
“Other means, Kaid.” She slipped the silk loop round his neck, knotted it and twisted.
She was going to strangle him, the time-hallowed practice of the East. He tried to stop her, lifted his heavy hands, but they were powerless, like so much dead wood. He swelled his neck muscles, but it was useless; the silk was cutting in all round, a red-hot wire. He had a flash picture of Osman Bâki standing over his body, wagging his head regretfully and saying, “I said so,” Osman Bâki with the Owls’ House for background. It was all over; the girl had waited and got him in the end. Even at that moment he admired her for it. She had spirit; never had he seen such spirit. Came a pang of intolerable pain, his eyeballs were starting out, his head was bursting open—and then the tension at his throat inexplicably relaxed.
Ortho rolled over, panting and retching, and as he did so heard footsteps on the stairs.
A fist thumped on the door, a voice cried, “Kaid! Kaid!” and there was Osman Bâki.
He peered into the room, holding a lantern before him. “Kaid, are you there? Where are you? There is a riot of Draouia in the Djeema El Fna; two troops to go out. Oh, there you are—Bismillah! What is this?”
He sprang across to where Ortho lay and bent over him.
“What is the matter? Are you ill? What is it?”
“Nothing,” Ortho croaked. “Trying hasheesh . . . took too much . . . nothing at all. See to troops yourself . . . go now.” He coughed and coughed.
“Hasheesh!” The Turk sniffed, stared at him suspiciously, glanced round the room, caught sight of the girl and held up the lantern.
“Ha-ha!”
The two stood rigid eye to eye, the soldier with chin stuck forward, every hair bristling, like a mastiff about to spring, the girl unflinching, three beads of her black necklace in her teeth.
“Ha-ha!” Osman put the lantern deliberately on the ground beside him and stepped forward, crouched double, his hands outstretched like claws. “You snake,” he muttered. “You Arab viper, I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”
Ortho hoisted himself on his elbow. The girl was superb! So slight and yet so defiant. “Osman,” he rasped, “Osman, friend, go! The riot! Go, it is an order!”
The Turk stopped, stood up, relaxed, turned slowly about and picked up the lantern. He looked at Ortho, walked to the door, hesitated, shot a blazing glance at the girl, gave his mustache a vicious tug and went out.
Silence but for the sputter of the brazier and the squeak of a mouse in the wall.
Then Ortho heard the soft plud-plud of bare feet crossing the room and he knew the girl was standing over him.
“Well, sweet,” he sighed, “come to complete your work? I am still in your hands.”
She tumbled on her knees beside him, clasped his head to her breast and sobbed, sobbed, sobbed as though she would never stop.
CHAPTER XXIII
Ortho spent that winter in Morocco City, but in the spring was sent out with a force against the Zoua Arabs south of the Figvig Oasis, which had been taken by Muley Ismail and was precariously held by his descendants. They spent a lot of time and trouble dragging cannon up, to find them utterly useless when they got there. The enemy did not rely on strong places—they had none—but on mobility. They played a game of sting and run very exasperating to their opponents. It was like fighting a cloud of deadly mosquitoes. The wastage among the Crown forces was alarming; two generals were recalled and strangled, and when Ortho again saw the Koutoubia minaret rising like a spear-shaft from the green palms of Morocco it was after an absence of ten months.
Ourida met him in transports of joy, a two-month baby in her arms. It was a son, the exact spit and image of him, she declared, a person of already incredible sagacity and ferocious strength. A few years and he too would be riding at the head of massed squadrons, bearing the green banner of the Prophet.
Ortho, burned black with Saharan suns, weak with privation, sick of the reek of festering battlefields, contemplated the tiny pink creature he had brought into the world and swore in his heart that this boy of his should follow peaceful ways.
Fighting men were, as a class, the salt of the earth, simple-hearted, courageous, dog-loyal, dupes of the cunning and the cowardly. But apart from the companionship he had no illusions concerning the profession of arms as practiced in the Shereefian empire; it was one big bully maintaining himself in the name of God against a horde of lesser bullies (also invoking the Deity) by methods that would be deemed undignified in a pot-house brawl. He was in it for the good reason that he could not get out; but no son of his should be caught in the trap if he could help it. However, he said nothing of this to Ourida. He kissed her over and over and said the boy was magnificent and would doubtless make a fine soldier—but there was time to think about that.
He saw winter and summer through in Morocco, with the exception of a short trip on the Sultan’s bodyguard to Mogador, which port Mahomet had established to offset fractious Agadir and taken under his special favor.
The sand-blown white town was built on the plans of an Avignon engineer named Cornut, with fortifications after the style of Vauban. This gave it a pronounced European flavor which was emphasized by the number of foreign traders in its streets, drawn thither by the absence of custom. Also there was the Atlantic pounding on the Island, a tang of brine in the air and a sea wind blowing. Ortho had not seen the Atlantic since he left Sallee; homesickness gnawed at him.
He climbed the Skala tower, and, sitting on a cannon cast for the third Philippe in 1595, watched the sun westering in gold and crimson and dreamed of the Owls’ House, the old Owls’ House lapped in its secret valley, where a man could live his life out in fullness and peace—and his sons after him.
Walking back through the town, he met with a Bristol trader and turned into a wine shop. The Englishman treated him to a bottle of Jerez and the news of the world. Black bad it was. The tight little island had her back to the wall, fighting for bare life against three powerful nations at once. The American colonists were in full rebellion to boot, India was a cock-pit, Ireland sharpening pikes. General Burgoyne had surrendered at Saratoga. Eliott was besieged in Gibraltar. French, American and Spanish warships were thick as herring in the Channel; the Bristolian had only slipped through them by sheer luck and would only get back by a miracle.
Taxation at home was crippling, and every mother’s son who had one leg to go upon and one arm to haul with was being pressed for service; they were even emptying the jails into the navy. He congratulated Ortho on being out of the country and harm’s way. Ortho had had a wild idea of getting a letter written and taken home to Eli by this man, but as he listened he reflected that it was no time now. Also, if he wanted to be bought out he would have to give minute instructions as to where the smuggling money was hidden. Letters were not inviolate; the bearer, and not Eli, might find that hidden money. And then there was Ourida and Saïd II. Saïd would become acclimatized, but England and Ourida were incompatible. He could not picture the ardent Bedouin girl—her bangles, silks and exotic finery—in the gray north; she would shrivel up like a frost-bitten lotus, pine and die.
No, he was firmly anchored now. One couldn’t have everything; he had much. He drank up his wine, wished the Bristolian luck with his venture and rode back to the Diabat Palace.
A week later he was home again in Morocco.
Added means had enabled him to furnish the Bab Ahmar house very comfortably, Moorish fashion, with embroideredhaitison the walls, inlaid tables and plenty of well-cushioned lounges. The walls were thick; the rooms, though small, were high and airy; the oppressive heat of a Haouz summer did not unduly penetrate. Ourida bloomed, Saïd the younger progressed from strength to strength, waxing daily in fat and audacity. He was the idol of the odd-job boy and the two slave women (the household had increased with its master’s rank), of Osman Bâki and Ortho’s men. The latter brought him presents from time to time: fruit stolen from the Aguedal, camels, lions and horses (chiefly horses) crudely carved and highly colored, and, when he was a year old, a small, shy monkey caught in the Rif, and later an old eagle with clipped wings and talons which, the donor explained, would defend the little lord from snakes and such-like. Concerning these living toys, Saïd II. displayed a devouring curiosity and no fear at all. When the monkey clicked her teeth at him he gurgled and pulled her tail till she escaped up the wistaria. He pursued the eagle on all fours, caught it sleeping one afternoon, and hung doggedly on till he had pulled a tail feather out. The bird looked dangerous, Saïd II. bubbled delightedly and grabbed for another feather, whereat the eagle retreated hastily to sulk among the orange shrubs. Was the door left open for a minute, Saïd II. was out of it on voyages of high adventure.
Once he was arrested by the guard at the Ahmar Gate, plodding cheerfully on all fours for open country, and returned, kicking and raging, in the arms of a laughing petty officer.
Ortho himself caught the youngster emerging through the postern onto the Royal parade ground.
“He fears nothing,” Ourida exulted. “He will be a great warrior and slay a thousand infidels—the sword of Allah!—um-yum, my jewel.”
That battered soldier and turncoat infidel, his father, rubbed his chin uneasily. “M’yes . . . perhaps. Time enough yet.”
But there was no gainsaying the fierce spirit of the Arab mother, daughter of a hundred fightingsheiks; her will was stronger than his. The baby’s military education began at once. In the cool of the morning she brought Saïd II. to the parade ground, perched him on the parapet of the Dar-el-Heni and taught him to clap his hands when the Horse went by.
Once she hoisted him to his father’s saddle bow. The fat creature twisted both hands in the black stallion’s mane and kicked the glossy neck with his heels, gurgling with joy.
“See, see,” said Ourida, her eyes like stars for radiance. “He grips, he rides. He will carry the standard in his dayzahrit.” The soldiers laughed and lifted their lances. “Hail to the young Kaid!”
Ortho, gripping his infant son by the slack of his miniature jellab, felt sick. Ourida and these other simple-minded fanatics would beat him yet with their fool ideas of glory, urge this crowing baby of his into hardship, terror, pain, possibly agonizing death.
Parenthood was making a thoughtful man of him. He was no longer the restless adventurer of two years ago, looking on any change as better than none. He grudged every moment away from the Bab Ahmar, dreaded the spring campaign, the separation it would entail, the chance bullet that might make it eternal.
His ambition dimmed. He no longer wanted power and vast wealth, only enough to live comfortably on with Ourida and young Saïd just as he was. Promotion meant endless back-stair intrigues; he had no taste left for them and had other uses for the money and so fell out of the running.
A Spanish woman in the royal harem, taking advantage of her temporary popularity with Mahomet, worked her wretched little son into position over Penhale’s head and over him went a fat Moor, Yakoub Ben Ahmed by name, advanced by the offices of a fair sister, also in the seraglio. Neither of these heroes had more than a smattering of military lore and no battle experience whatever, but Ortho did not greatly care. Promotion might be rapid in the Shereefian army, but degradation was apt to be instantaneous—the matter of a sword flash. He had risen as far as he could rise with moderate safety and there he would stop. Security was his aim nowadays, a continuance of things as they were.
For life went by very happily in the little house by the Bab Ahmar, pivoting on Saïd II. But in the evening, when that potential conqueror had ceased the pursuit of the monkey and eagle and lay locked in sleep, Ourida would veil herself, wind her haik about her and go roaming into the city with Ortho. She loved the latticedsoukswith their displays of silks, jewelry and leather work; the artificers with their long muskets, curved daggers, velvet scabbarded swords and pear-shaped powder flasks; the gorgeous horse-trappings at the saddlers’, but these could be best seen in broad daylight; in the evening there were other attractions.
It was the Djeema-el-Fna that drew her, that great, dusty, clamorous fair-ground of Morocco where gather the story-tellers, acrobats and clowns; where feverish drums beat the sun down, assisted by the pipes of Aissawa snake charmers and the jinglingoudsand cymbals of the Berber dancing boys; where the Sultan hung out the heads of transgressors that they might grin sardonically upon the revels. Ourida adored the Djeema-el-Fna. To the girl from the tent hamlet in the Sahara it was Life. She wept at the sad love stories, trembled at the snake charmers, shrieked at the crude buffoons, swayed in sympathy with the Berber dancers, besought Ortho for coin, and more coin, to reward the charming entertainers. She loved the varied crowds, the movement, the excitement, the din, but most of all she liked the heads. No evening on the Djeema was complete unless she had inspected these grisly trophies of imperial power.
She said no word to Ortho, but nevertheless he knew perfectly well what was in her mind; in her mind she saw young Saïd twenty years on, spattered with infidel blood, riding like a tornado, serving his enemies even as these.
Ferocious—she was the ultimate expression of ferocity—but knowing no mean she was also ferocious in her love and loyalty; she would have given her life for husband or son gladly, rejoicing. Such people are difficult to deal with. Ortho sighed, but let her have her way.
Often of an evening Osman Bâki came to the house and they would sit in the court drinking Malaga wine and yarning about old campaigns, while Ourida played with the little ape and the old eagle watched for mice, pretending to be asleep.
Osman talked well. He told of his boyhood’s home beside the Bosporus, of Constantinople, Bagdad and Damascus with its pearly domes bubbling out of vivid greenery. Jerusalem, Tunis and Algiers he had seen also and now the Moghreb, the “Sunset land” of the first Saracen invaders. One thing more he wanted to see and that was the Himalayas. He had heard old soldiers talk of them—propping the heavens. He would fill his eyes with the Himalayas and then go home to his garden in Rumeli Hissar and brood over his memories.
Sometimes he would take thegounibriand sing the love lyrics of his namesake, or of Nêdim, or “rose garden” songs he had picked up in Persia which Ourida thought delicious. And sometimes Ortho trolled his green English ballads, also favorably received by her, simply because he sang them, for she did not understand their rhythm in the least. But more often they lounged, talking lazily, three very good friends together, Osman sucking at the hookah, punctuating the long silences with shrewd comments on men and matters, Ortho lying at his ease watching the brilliant African stars, drawing breaths of blossom-scented air wafted from the Aguedal, Ourida nestling at his side, curled up like a sleepy kitten.
Summer passed and winter; came spring and with it, to Ortho’s joy, no prospect of a campaign for him. A desert marabout, all rags, filth and fervor, preached a holy war in the Tissant country, gathering a few malcontents about him, and Yakoub Ben Ahmed was dispatched with a small force to put a stop to it. There were the usual rumors of unrest in the south, but nothing definite, merely young bucks talking big. Ortho looked forward to another year of peace.
He went in the Sultan’s train to Mogador for a fortnight in May, and at the end of June was sent to Taroudant, due east of Agadir. A trifling affair of dispatches. He told Ourida he would be back in no time and rode off cheerfully.
His business in Taroudant done, he was on the point of turning home when he was joined by a kaid mia and ten picked men from Morocco bearing orders that he was to take them on to Tenduf, a further two hundred miles south, and collect overdue tribute.
Ortho well knew what that meant. Tenduf was on the verge of outbreak, the first signal of which would be his, the tax collector’s head, on a charger. Had he been single he would not have gone to Tenduf—he would have made a dash for freedom—but now he had a wife in Morocco, a hostage for his fidelity.
Seeking a public scribe, he dictated a letter to Ourida and another to Osman Bâki, commending her to his care should the worst befall, and rode on.
The Basha of Tenduf received the Sultan’s envoy with the elaborate courtesy that is inherent in a Moor and signifieth nothing. He was desolated that the tribute was behindhand, enlarged on the difficulty of collecting it in a land impoverished by drought (which it was not), but promised to set to work immediately. In the meantime Ortho lodged in the kasba, ostensibly an honored guest, actually a prisoner, aware that the Basha was the ringleader of the offenders and that his own head might be removed at any moment. Hawk-faced sheiks, armed to the teeth, galloped in, conferred with the Basha, galloped away again. If they brought any tribute it was well concealed. Time went by; Ortho bit his lip, fuming inwardly, but outwardly his demeanor was of polite indifference. Whenever he could get hold of the Basha he regaled him with instances of Imperial wrath, of villages burned to the ground, towns taken and put to the sword, men, women and children; lingering picturesquely on the tortures inflicted on unruly governors.
“But why did Sidi do that?” the Basha would exclaim, turning a shade paler at the thought of his peer of Khenifra having all his nails drawn out and then being slowly sawn in half.
“Why?” Ortho would scratch his head and look puzzled. “Why? Bless me if I know! Oh, yes, I believe there was some little hitch with the taxes.”
“These walls make me laugh,” he remarked, walking on the Tenduf fortifications.
The Governor was annoyed. “Why so? They are very good walls.”
“As walls go,” Ortho admitted. “But what are walls nowadays? They take so long to build, so short a time to destroy. Why, our Turk gunners breached the Derunat walls in five places in an hour. The sole use for walls is to contain the defenders in a small space, then every bomb we throw inside does its work.”
“Hum!” The Basha stroked his brindled beard. “Hum—but supposing the enemy harass you in the open?”
Ortho shrugged his shoulders. “Then we kill them in the open, that is all. It takes longer, but they suffer more.”
“It took you a long time at Figvig,” the Basha observed maliciously.
“Not after we learned the way.”
“And what is the way?”
“We take possession of the wells and they die of thirst in the sands and save us powder. At Figvig there were many wells; it took time. Here—” He swept his hand over the burning champagne and snapped his fingers. “Just that.”
“Hum,” said the Basha and walked away deep in thought. Day after day came and went and Ortho was not dead yet. He had an idea that he was getting the better of the bluffing match, that the Basha’s nerve was shaking and he was passing it on.
There came a morning when the trails were hazy with the dust of horsemen hastening in to Tenduf, and the envoy on the kasba tower knew that the crisis had arrived.
It was over by evening. The tribute began to come in next day and continued to roll in for a week more.
The Basha accompanied Ortho ten miles on his return journey, regretting any slight misconstruction that might have arisen and protesting his imperishable loyalty. He trusted that his dear friend Saïd el Inglez would speak well of him to the Sultan and presented him with two richly caparisoned horses and a bag of ducats as a souvenir of their charming relations.
Slowly went the train; the horses were heavy laden and the heat terrific. Ortho dozed in the saddle, impatient at the pace, powerless to mend it. He beguiled the tedious days, mentally converting the Basha’s ducats into silks and jewelry for Ourida. It was the end of August before he reached Taroudant. There he got word that the court had moved to Rabat and he was to report there. Other news he got also, news that sent him riding alone to Morocco City, night and day, as fast as driven horseflesh would carry him.
He went through the High Atlas passes to Goundafa, then north across the plains by Tagadirt and Aguergour. From Aguergour on the road was crawling with refugees—men, women, children, horses, donkeys, camels loaded with household goods staggering up the mifis valley, anywhere out of the pestilent city. They shouted warnings at the urgent horseman: “The sickness, the sickness! Thou art riding to thy death, lord!”
Ortho nodded; he knew. It was late afternoon when he passed through Tameslouht and saw the Koutoubia minaret in the distance, standing serene, though all humanity rotted.
He was not desperately alarmed. Plagues bred in the beggars’ kennels, not in palace gardens. It would have reached his end of the city last of all, giving his little family ample time to run. Osman Bâki would see to it that Ourida had every convenience. They were probably down at Dar el Beida reveling in the clean sea breezes, or at Rabat with the Court. He told himself he was not really frightened; nevertheless he did the last six miles at a gallop, passed straight through the Bab Ksiba into the kasba. There were a couple of indolent Sudanese on guard at the gate and a few more sprawling in the shadow of the Drum Barracks, but the big Standard Square was empty and so were the two further courts.
He jumped off his horse at the postern and walked on. From the houses around came not a sound, not a move; in the street he was the only living thing. He knocked at his own door; no answer. Good! They had gone!
The door swung open to his push and he stepped in, half relieved, half fearful, went from room to room to find them stripped bare. Ourida had managed to take all her belongings with her then. He wondered how she had found the transport. Osman Bâki contrived it, doubtless. A picture flashed before him of his famous black horse squadron trekking for the coast burdened with Ourida’s furniture—a roll of haitis to this man, a cushion to that, a cauldron to another—and he laughed merrily.
Where had they gone, he wondered—Safi, Dar el Beida, Mogador, Rabat? The blacks at the barracks might know; Osman should have left a message. He stepped out of the kitchen into the court and saw a man rooting the little orange trees out of their tubs.
“Hey!”
The man swung about, sought to escape, saw it was impossible and flung himself upon the ground writhing and sobbing for mercy.
It was a beggar who sat at the Ahmar Gate with his head hidden in the hood of his haik (he was popularly supposed to have no face), a supplicating claw protruding from a bundle of foul rags and a muffled voice wailing for largesse. Ortho hated the loathly beast, but Ourida gave him money—“in the name of God.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Great lord, have mercy in the name of Sidi Ben Youssef the Blest, of Abd el Moumen and Muley Idriss,” he slobbered. “I did nothing, lord, nothing. I thought you had gone to the south and would not return to . . . to . . . this house. Spare me, O amiable prince.”
“And why should I not return to this house?” said Ortho.
The beggar hesitated. “Muley, I made sure . . . I thought . . . it was not customary . . . young men do not linger in the places of lost love.”
“Dog,” said Ortho, suddenly cold about the heart, “what do you mean?”
“Surely the Kaid knows?” There was a note of surprise in the mendicant’s voice.
“I know nothing; I have been away . . . the lalla Ourida?”
The beggar locked both hands over his head and squirmed in the dust. “Kaid, Kaid . . . the will of Allah.”
The little court reeled under Ortho’s feet, a film like a heat wave rose up before his eyes, everything went blurred for a minute. Then he spoke quite calmly:
“Why did she not go away?”
“She had no time, lord. The little one, thy son, took the sickness first; she stayed to nurse him and herself was taken. But she was buried with honor, Kaid; the Turkish officer buried her with honor in a gay bier with tholbas chanting. I, miserable that I am, I followed also—afar. She was kind to the poor, the lalla Ourida.”
“But why, why didn’t Osman get them both away before the plague struck the palace?” Ortho muttered fiercely, more to himself than otherwise, but the writhing rag heap heard him and answered:
“He had no time, Muley. The kasba was the first infected.”
“The first! How?”
“Yakoub Ben Ahmed brought many rebel heads from Tissant thinking to please Sidi. They stank and many soldiers fell sick, but Yakoub would not throw the heads away—it was his first command. They marched into the kasba with drums beating, sick soldiers carrying offal.”
Ortho laughed mirthlessly. So the dead had their revenge.
“Where is the Turk officer now?” he asked presently. “Rabat?”
“No, Muley—he too took the sickness tending thy lancers.”
Ortho walked away. All over, all gone—wife, boy, faithful friend. Ourida would not see her son go by at the proud head of a regiment, nor Osman review his memories in his vineyard by the Bosporus. All over, all gone, the best and truest.
Turning, he flung a coin at the beggar. “Go . . . leave me.”
Dusk was flooding the little court, powder blue tinged with the rose-dust of sunset. A pair of gray pigeons perched on the parapet made their love cooings and fluttered away again. From the kasba minaret came the boom of the muezzin. High in the summer night drifted a white petal of a moon.
Ortho leaned against a pillar listening. The chink of anklets, the plud, plud of small bare feet.
“Saïd, my beloved, is it you? Tired, my heart’s dear? Rest your head here, lord; take thy ease. Thy fierce son is asleep at last; he has four teeth now and the strength of a lion. He will be a great captain of lances and do us honor when we are old. Your arm around me thus, tall one . . . äie, now am I content beyond all women . . .”
From twilight places came the voice of Osman Bâki and the subdued tinkle of the gounibri. “Allah has been good to me. I have seen many wonders—rivers, seas, cities and plains, fair women, brave men and stout fighting, but I would yet see the Himalayas. After that I will go home where I was a boy. Listen while I sing you a song of my own country such as shepherds sing . . .”
Ortho’s head sank in his hands. All over now, all gone. . . . Something flapped in the shadows by the orange trees, flapped and hopped out into the central moonlight and posed there stretching its crippled wings.
It was the old eagle disgustingly bloated.
That alone remained, that and the loathly beggar, left alone in the dead city to their carrion orgy. A shock of revulsion shook Ortho. Ugh!
He sprang up and, without looking round, strode out of the house and down the street to where his horse was standing.
A puff of hot wind followed him, a furnace blast, foul with the stench of half-buried corpses in the big Mussulman cemetery outside the walls. Ugh!
He kicked sharp stirrups into his horse and rode through the Ksiba Gate.
“Fleeing from the sickness—eh?” sneered a mokaddem of Sudanese who could not fly.
“No—ghosts,” said Ortho and turned his beast onto the western road.
“The sea! The sea!”