CHAPTER XXIX.
THE PASHA CLAPS HIS HANDS.
Wycherley has not been able to hear the conversation inside the booth, but he catches the martial music from the streets, and is just about to inform the Canadian that they mustdelay no longer when he sees Aleck coming out.
“It is Miss Dorothy, Claude, and she knows who is in yonder building. She desires to see the fortune teller. It would be useless to argue the matter. We must take her with us. Surely, in company with such a walking arsenal as yourself, she need not fear.”
What can Wycherley say? He has been completely disarmed after hearing this compliment to his prowess.
“Then let us be going, my dear boy. Miss Cereal, have no fears. This is not exactly according to contract, but we must accept the situation as we find it. Hark! the wedding march; Lohengrin not in it. Straight across the street to the door. See how that stout herald swings his sword—what fierceness—what scowls—now a benign smile comes over his face. Bah! it is all mere show, like so many of their exhibitions. I turn my back on it. Here we are. What! the door closed in our faces; not if Claude Wycherley knows it.”
The boy at the door does indeed attempt to shut it, but a foot thrust forward prevents him, and before he can gather his wits to givean alarm, Wycherley has flung wide the door and seized him.
For half a minute he indulges in some of his former pyrotechnics, a combination of quick gestures and scowls, and the Turkish lad, as if in mortal fear, tries to slink away; but as the others have already entered, Claude gives the boy a sudden whirl that lands him, a dazed heap, outside the door, which is immediately closed upon him.
Thus they can call their first assault upon the enemy’s castle a victory. If it is a sample of what awaits them just beyond, they can congratulate themselves.
They are under the roof of the fortune teller. The space beyond the door forms a small hallway. Further on, through a winding passage they will find Saidee’s reception chamber, where the veiled seeress from the Orient has received those who seek her occult aid, and reads the future from the lines of their hands.
Aleck has a grave sensation steal over him. It is as though someone he loves is about to meet peril. It may be Dorothy! What cruel fate has brought her here at this dread hour when the vengeance that has slumberedthese twenty years is about to break forth; when the Turk who was outwitted on his own ground by Samson Cereal now figures on making the score even?
Craig fears the worst, and in his desire to stand between Dorothy and harm, he draws her hand through his left arm, while his right fist is clenched. Woe betide the luckless Turk who feels the weight of the young athlete’s hand on this particular night, for he is aroused to send a blow that would do John L. Sullivan credit!
And Wycherley?
That strange rover has seen many queer things in his life, and, heavily armed with the weapons he carries, might be looked upon as a dangerous customer. After ejecting the youth in such an unceremonious manner, and closing the door, to which there is no bolt or lock, his next act is to unfasten his coat, so that the terrible weapon in his belt may be disclosed, and strike fear to the enemy’s heart. Then he raises his hand to his neck.
“For Heaven’s sake, don’t draw that terrible blade yet,” whispers Aleck, watching the motion.
“The appeal is carried, but it’s only a question of time,” answers the other,sotto voce.
“Come, we must advance. Lead the way, my dear fellow,” announces Craig, for the thunder of Turkish music in the narrow street deadens the sound of voices so thoroughly that they need have little fear of being overheard.
Thus they move along the erratic passage. Wycherley serves as the picket line, stealing on tiptoe, his whole demeanor that of a person upon whom the success or failure of the play depends.
Beyond them hang heavy curtains. Here they will find the room of the fortune teller. Having passed these portals on a former occasion, both Claude and the Canadian know what to expect, so they have no hesitation about drawing them aside and looking beyond.
Instead of doing this in the middle, Wycherley goes to one side while Aleck draws his lovely companion to the other.
“Courage,” he whispers in her ear, for as the sound of voices reaches their ears, coming from the interior, she begins to tremble.
It so happens, whether intentionally or not,that in thus finding a means of gazing beyond the passage, both the men clutch the heavy draperies and in a measure conceal their forms from the view of anyone who might come after. They do not forget they are in the house of enemies—that a dark plot has been formed against Dorothy’s father, and until the old speculator has a chance of showing his hand, they would do well to remain unseen.
It is, perhaps, a wise plan.
When Aleck takes a peep into the apartment beyond, he sees a stirring spectacle, and yet it does not differ a particle from what he expected.
The first figure his eyes light upon is that of Samson Cereal. Standing there the man has assumed a dramatic pose that must fill Wycherley’s heart with delight as he thinks of him as his “first walking old gentleman.”
Not five feet away stands Saidee.
The indications of her former beauty are still apparent upon her face, upon every line of it intense emotion is expressed. Tears course down her cheeks, her long hair sweeps over her shoulders, both hands are stretched out beseechingly.
That is the picture Aleck sees, and he can feel his companion quiver with suppressed excitement as she, too, gazes upon it, and, for the first time since her babyhood, sees the face of her mother.
He fears lest she may faint, nor thinks it strange under the peculiar circumstances that he should slip an arm around her waist. She does not resent it—at such a time the strong arm of an honest man is not to be despised.
Saidee is pleading her cause. She is not in the plot of the cunning pasha, and believes Samson Cereal has come here to upbraid her because her heart yearned for her child. She speaks good English, though in her eagerness and emotion she sometimes trips in her speech as though the words were too weak to express her meaning. This is what they hear, and the words sink deeply into one heart at least:
“You have had her love all these years; can you deny me one look, one kiss, and my heart so hungry for it? Ah! Samson Cereal, you believe me bad, but it is not so. I was only crazy to again see my home; I believed I should die in this cold Chicago. Then I laida plan. My brother came, you knew it not. We meant to take my little one and fly to our home, but at the last a move of yours ruined my hopes, and I had to leave my Dorothy behind.
“Alas! those years. I wrote to you, but my letters came back unopened. Then I went to England, where my brother had charge of a great work. I labored with him for years. We are known and honored in London. All this while I hungered to see my child, yet dared not come. At last the Fair—I conceived a plan, and behold you see me! Twice have I looked upon her, but she did not know it. Ah! so fair, so sweet; it almost drove me wild to think I could not take her in my arms and say, 'I am thy mother.’
“Unable to longer endure it, I wrote her a note. Perhaps I did wrong: the God to whom you taught me to pray shall judge. Instead of my child, the stern father comes to judge, to condemn.
“Well, what can I say? My only fault was that, homesick and weak, I left you in this cold city and fled with my brother. When I repented and would have returned—on my knees begging your forgiveness—you scornedme, never even reading my plea. We women of Georgia are proud; it is our nature. I could not seek you again. Now you know all. Once you loved me—is that feeling utterly dead in your heart? If I could bring you overwhelming proof that I have ever been true as the needle to the pole, that my only fault was in giving way to this terrible home sickness, would you, oh, Samson Cereal, hate me, scorn me still?”
He lets his head fall on his breast and groans; surely such a scene as this was not in the contract when he planned to meet and defeat Aroun Scutari. He has expected that this woman is in sympathy with the Turk, that she will gloat over his capture, and laugh in derision while he fumes. Instead, she appeals to his heart, batters down the walls of his prejudice, and awakens feelings that have lain dormant, frozen, almost a score of years.
“I do not ask,” she goes on, choking back her sobs, “to be your wife again—that I know is impossible; but, in the name of mercy, allow me only once to hear her lips call me 'mother,’ and then welcome death. This is my prayer. See, I am at your feet—I beseech, entreat younot to say me nay. By all the love you once bore me, by the affection you felt toward your own angel mother, grant me this!”
He may be made of ice, this man. Her wild entreaty thaws him out.
“It shall be as you say, woman.”
“God be praised!”
“When your brother comes, I will investigate this claim you make. If you can prove its truth—well, I can say nothing more, only that, never having been divorced, you are still my wife in the eye of the law.”
“It is very, very sad!” interrupts a voice, and turning, they behold the spider who has spun his web across Cairo Street—the sneering Turk who has never forgotten what happened twenty years ago.
The woman shudders and trembles, but not so Samson Cereal, who stands there like the rock that has breasted many a storm in the panic days on 'Change.
The wily Turk shrugs his shoulders and rubs his brown hands together, just as might an ideal miser contemplating his store of gold.
“Yes, it is too very sad. It makes me think of ze play I gaze upon one night in She-cago.All ze years two loving hearts are wide apart. I myself bring them together, I am ze magician who plan ze meeting. For what? In order zat zay may continue to love as before, and build a bridge across ze dark chasm over which to walk again into life—into love? Bah! not much. By ze beard of ze Prophet, I am Aroun Scutari, a pasha—my hate lives forever! I do not forget that she belonged to me—my gold bought her—you stole her away, dog of an American! No longer it is night—day comes, and with it sweet vengeance. For this I have waited—for this I have lived. It pleased me to leave all and come here as a merchant, that I might repay my debt. That hour is here. It is my time to laugh. You shall see!” With which sarcastic words the Turkish plotter claps his hands loudly together.