Loe raamatut: «Zoraida: A Romance of the Harem and the Great Sahara», lehekülg 24

Chapter Forty One.
Through Rose Mists

Mounted on a méheri, and alone, I toiled with all speed onward over the glaring, sun-baked Desert, towards the spot indicated by the man from whom I had, at the eleventh hour, wrung the key of the Great Secret.

Had he fooled me? Were not his instructions remarkable; did they not bear suspicion of some ulterior object? Even as I rode along, with face set sternly towards the sunrise, the thought that the dead man had sent me on a bootless errand caused me considerable anxiety. Reviewing his words and actions, I saw how ineffectually he had striven to conceal the bitter prejudice he entertained for unbelievers, how intensely he hated all Christians, and with what eagerness he contemplated the eventual triumph of the Senousya. Such being the case, I reflected, what more natural than he should resolve to retain Zoraida in the ranks of the conspirators, in order that she might lead them to the contemplated victory; what more natural than he should refuse to impart to me the knowledge whereby I might rescue the Daughter of the Sun from the dangers that were fast closing in upon her? Again, by the Ennitra, and in all possibility by the Senousya also, the Wonderful Crescent was believed to be a talisman that gave triumph to its possessor. Was it probable that he would, even though Zoraida had commanded, reveal to me, a Christian, the elucidation of the problem that he had denied to all True Believers?

No. In both word and action the old imam had betrayed a firm disinclination to assist me to elucidate the Great Secret, and as I journeyed on day after day, lonely and friendless, in that barren, unfamiliar country, the conviction within me grew stronger that the revelation he had gasped with his last breath was merely a base device to part me from the woman I worshipped.

Yet it was a relief to get away from that doomed city, with its flood of fiendish exultation; to escape from the revolting ebullition of barbarism, and the fiendish glee of my treacherous friends, who were no doubt overwhelming their Daughter of the Sun with attentions that she loathed, like caresses from the ghouls of hell. Even the dead silence of the wilderness was preferable to the din of the hard-fought conflict, with its sickening sequel.

The camel I rode I had found straying at some distance from Agadez, when on the eventful dawn I fled from the city on foot. It was handsomely caparisoned, and, to my delight, I had found that its provision-bags, ornamented in a manner that showed its owner to be a cadi, were packed with necessaries for a long march. In all probability its hapless owner had prepared to fly at the approach of the bandits, but had been murdered when on the point of starting. After a hurried inspection of the bags, satisfying myself that there was a supply of comparatively fresh water in the skin, I concealed the Crescent of Glorious Wonders within a bag of fodder, and, mounting, had started off, without map or plan, upon what, from various appearances, I judged was the caravan route to the well of Tin-dâouen. This surmise fortunately proved correct, for in three days I reached it; then, after halting the night, I discovered a valley full of luxuriant vegetation, with high doum and talha trees and great patches of camomile flowers growing in rich profusion. Continuing through this verdant glen, where antelopes and giraffes disported themselves, I ascended over the rough, rocky ground to a high, barren plateau, and, with my face always to the east, plunged, with a reckless disregard for the consequences, into the great unexplored desert which forms an effectual barrier between the country of the Ahír and that of the Kanouri.

I pushed on with all haste, so that if it proved, as I feared, a fool’s errand, I might, by almost ceaseless travel, be enabled to return again to Agadez before the moon had run her course. Armed with a rifle, powder-horn, and crooked dagger that I had taken from the body of an unfortunate janissary, I sped onward through the great lone country. From sundown until dawn I journeyed, resting through the day in what little shade I could devise, then setting forth again, always leaving the setting sun behind, always remembering that each stride of the faithful animal beneath me took me further and further from the woman whose life lay in my hands.

Gradually and irresistibly had I been drawn into a vortex of mystery and treachery, from which I was struggling to extricate myself. Zoraida’s piteous appeal rang in my ears; the very thought of her as the wife of that villainous archrebel caused me to grind my teeth. Feeling convinced that the errand I had undertaken must be futile, I was, in my more gloomy moments, sorely tempted to disobey Mohammed ben Ishak’s injunctions, and try the effect produced by placing the Crescent of Glorious Wonders upon my brow. Each time, however, the intensely earnest, agonised face of the aged prayer-reciter, as he implored me not to try to fathom the Great Mystery before arrival at the spot indicated, came vividly before me, causing me to stay my impatient hand.

The fatigue of those long anxious nights and blazing days was so terrible, that, on more than one occasion, faintness seized me, and I had a recurrence of those strange hallucinations from which I suffered after Labakan had dealt me the cowardly blow. I seemed at times light-headed, eager and jubilant one hour, despondent and contemplative of suicide the next. But the recollection of the deadly peril of Zoraida, whom I loved with a true and fervent devotion, spurred me onward over shifting sands and treacherous rocks, onward to the place where the dead man had promised the Great Secret should be revealed.

On the seventh day after leaving Agadez, I slept under the palms of the Agram Oasis, filled my water-skin at the well, and, representing myself as a straggler from a trading caravan, begged some food from the camp of the Bedouins of the peaceful Kanouri. It has always struck me as curious how rapidly news travels in the Desert. Already these men had heard rumours of desperate fighting in the city of the Ahír, although it must have been conveyed by way of Tin-Telloust and Bir-ed-Doum, the circuitous route by which caravans travel on account of the wells, and fully one hundred miles further than the straight journey I had accomplished. For several reasons I had deemed it best to feign ignorance, therefore to all my anxious inquirers I represented I had travelled direct from Akoukou without touching Agadez.

Spending one day only with these tent-dwellers, tall, bronzed, handsome, good-natured fellows, I gave them peace, and, with the brilliant sunset once more behind me, rode away through great patches of a poisonous plant my friends called “karugu,” and out again upon the plain towards the remote little Arab town of Dibbela, where I arrived two days later, after a somewhat perilous journey across some almost inaccessible rocks which the Arabs call the Tefraska. At dawn on the second day after leaving this place, having travelled due south under the direction of the leader of a caravan conveying ivory and rose oil from the Tsâd to exchange for cotton goods, razors, sword-blades, and pieces of paper with the sign of the three moons, I came upon the Oasis of Tjigrin, rich in herbage, date palms, and clusters of tangled bushes, among which ostriches and gazelles were moving. Here, wearied out, I tethered my méheri to a palm tree, and, reflecting that in two days I should know the truth, flung myself down and slept soundly in a dream of quiet ecstasy.

My awakening, however, was sudden, for, feeling myself grasped roughly by the shoulder, my hand instinctively sought my knife, but a loud, hearty laugh caused me to rub my eyes and look up into the sun-tanned, bearded face which shadowed the glare from my eyes.

“Que diabe!” cried a voice in surprise. “Then I’m not mistaken. It is you!”

“Eh bien! eh bien! old fellow!” I cried, amazed, jumping to my feet and grasping the rough brown hand that shot from between the folds of the burnouse. “This is indeed a pleasant meeting!”

The man who stood holding the bridle of his milk-white horse was none other than Octave Uzanne, the Spahi who, when we had met on the fatal Meskam Oasis, had told me his life’s romance!

“Really, I can scarce believe my eyes,” I continued, speaking in French. “I was at Tuggurt when a messenger arrived with the news that Paul Deschanel’s column had been cut up and massacred at the Well of Dhaya, near Aïn Souf, by the Ouled Ba’ Hammou. I naturally concluded you had also fallen.”

“Sapristi! Je suis un veinard,” he answered in the slang of the Army of Africa, still holding my hand in his hearty grip. Then, with a sigh, he added, with seriousness, “It is, alas! true that our column was enticed into an ambush by the Ennitra, assisted by the Ouled Ba’ Hammou, and slaughtered, myself with eight others being the sole survivors. For two months we were held prisoners by Hadj Absalam, until at length I managed to escape and travel back alone to Tuggurt to relate the terrible story. Poor Deschanel! his was indeed a sad end – very sad!”

For a moment he seemed overcome by thoughts of his dead comrades, but in a few seconds he had reassumed his old buoyancy, and, offering me a cigarette, took one himself, and, having lit up, we squatted side by side in the shadow to talk.

“Well, what brings you here, so far from Biskra?” I asked presently, after he had related to me his adventures at the mountain stronghold of the Ennitra, which were almost as exciting as my own.

“Duty,” he answered briefly, with a hard look upon his handsome face quite unusual to him.

“You are not alone?” I queried.

“No – not exactly alone,” he answered abruptly, without apparently intending to tell me the object for which he had penetrated so far south, for he suddenly exclaimed, “You have not yet told me what sort of life you have been leading among the Bedouins – or why you are here alone.”

Briefly I related the story of my capture, my slavery, and my escape, without, however, telling him the real object for which I was working, or mentioning the assault on Agadez.

“You are a born adventurer; I am one by circumstance,” he exclaimed, with a good-humoured laugh, when I had concluded. Then he added, “Although my life with the Ennitra was one of terrible drudgery, yet, after all, I would rather have remained with them – had I but known;” and he sighed regretfully.

“Why?” I asked, surprised.

“She is here!” he answered meaningly.

“Do you mean Madame de Largentière?” I asked, remembering in that moment how dearly he loved the woman who had been so cruelly snatched from him, and with what self-sacrifice he had buried himself beneath the scarlet drapery of a homard of the Desert. “Is she in Algeria?” I inquired.

For answer he blew a cloud of smoke slowly from his lips, then from beneath the folds of his burnouse he drew forth a worn but carefully folded copy of the Algiers newspaper, L’Akhbar, which he handed to me, saying, “Read the first column.”

Opening the limp paper, I noticed it was dated two months before, and on glancing at the column indicated, my eyes fell upon the heading in large type: “The New Governor-General of Algeria: Arrival of Monsieur de Largentière.”

Eagerly I read on. The report described the landing and enthusiastic reception of Monsieur de Largentière, who had been appointed Governor-General. The streets had been gaily decorated with Venetian masts and strings of flags, salutes had been fired from the warships in the harbour and from the Kasbah, as the vessel conveying his Excellency from Marseilles had cast anchor, and as the party stepped on shore, the little daughter of the General of Division had presented a bouquet of choice flowers to Madame de Largentière, who, the journal incidentally mentioned, was “well known as one of the most beautiful women in Paris, and a leader of fashion.” Algerian society, continued L’Akhbar, welcomed her as its queen. No doubt, during the coming season the Governor’s palace would be the scene of many a brilliant festivity, and the colony owed a debt of gratitude to the Government for appointing as its representative an official so upright, so experienced, and so genuinely popular. All Algeria, it concluded, extended to the new Governor and his beautiful wife a boundless and heartfelt welcome.

“Well?” I exclaimed, handing back the paper. “You will have an opportunity of seeing her very soon, I suppose?”

“See her? Never!” he answered, with poignant bitterness. “Already I have discovered that she is instituting inquiries about me; that is the reason why I have not sought to return to Biskra. I do not desire the past disinterred;” and he thoughtfully watched the ascending rings of smoke.

“Fate plays us some sorry tricks sometimes. Most probably you will meet her just when you least expect – ”

“What?” he cried, interrupting. “Face her? To hold her hand as before – to tell her that her husband, the man whose ring she wears, and over whom the journalists gush and drivel, is – is a murderer! No! No! I never will!”

“But, my dear fellow, is it not your duty to denounce him if you possess absolute proof of his guilt?” I argued.

“My duty? Bien” he answered reflectively. “But the denunciation would bring no satisfaction to me – on the contrary, it would kill her.”

“You are right,” I conceded reluctantly, after a pause. “Your silence and self-denial is the greatest kindness you could show towards her. Indeed, your affection must be very deep-rooted, or your patience would long ago have been exhausted amid this hard life and social ostracism.”

“Ah! Heaven knows how well I love her,” he said, turning to me with a deep, wistful look. “She loves me too, and the fact that she has sought to find out where I am shows that she thinks sometimes of me. But I mean to keep the resolve I made long ago, for under an assumed name and in the Spahis she will never discover me.”

“Now that De Largentière is Governor, he is all-powerful,” I observed. “I wonder what he would do if he discovered you, and found out that you held absolute proof of his guilt?”

“Cr-r-r!” he exclaimed, as with a sad smile he drew his finger across his throat. “If he dared not commit the crime himself, he would hire one of the many obliging Arab desperadoes who hang about the fringe of the Desert.”

“Yes,” I said. “He would, no doubt, make some serious attempt to seal your lips.”

“I shall give him no opportunity. As far as I am concerned, he will, for Violet’s sake, enjoy his reputation for honesty and uprightness,” he declared. Then he added quickly, “But why should we drift to a subject that is to me so painful? The romance of my life has ended. I am a derelict, a piece of human wreckage drifting helplessly upon the sea of despair.”

“So am I,” I said gloomily. “Only I am struggling to reach a landmark that will direct me to a harbour of refuge.”

“I scarcely follow you,” he observed, suddenly interested. “That you have some very strong motive for spending your days in these uncivilised regions seems certain, but as you have never exchanged confidences with me, I remain in ignorance. Is it in your case also a woman?”

I nodded an affirmative.

“Tell me about her. Who is she?” he inquired, looking straight into my eyes.

For a few moments I remained silent. Then, returning his steadfast gaze, I answered —

“I love Zoraida!”

“Zoraida!” he cried, starting up. “Surely you don’t mean the woman of the Ennitra, known as Daughter of the Sun?”

“The same,” I replied. “You may laugh, sneer, tell me I am a dreamer, dazzled by the glitter and splendour of an Eastern court, fascinated by a pair of kohl-darkened eyes and a forehead hung with sequins, but, nevertheless, the fact remains that she and I love each another.”

“It seems impossible,” he said. “You have actually looked upon her unveiled, and spoken with her, then?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because it is death to an Infidel to either look upon her countenance or seek to address her. While a prisoner in Hadj Absalam’s palace, I heard most extraordinary things regarding her. The terrible story was told me how, on one occasion, three Chasseurs, held captive by the old robber, had, by the purest accident, discovered her passing unveiled from the court of the palace guards into the harem. Amazed at her extraordinary beauty, they stood gazing at her, but those looks of admiration cost them their lives. Their gaze, it was alleged, had polluted her, and within an hour their heads were smote off and their bodies thrown to the dogs.”

“Then you have never seen her?”

“No. During the time I was in the hands of the Ennitra, she was absent. Many were the strange rumours I heard about her, however: how she was possessed of almost supernatural power, how she had planned most of the raiding expeditions of Hadj Absalam, how she ruled the fierce band as their Queen, and, attired as a youth, had actually led them successfully against our forces! I can scarcely believe it all, but the palace guards assured me that all they told me was the unexaggerated truth. Six months ago the Government issued a proclamation, offering two rewards of ten thousand francs each for the capture of Hadj Absalam and Zoraida.”

“I know what you have heard is the truth, from personal observation,” I said quietly. His statement about the reward was, however, startling, and caused me increased uneasiness.

“Tell me all about her,” he urged. “How a Christian could succeed in approaching her, judging from all I have heard as to the rigorous manner in which she is guarded, seems absolutely incomprehensible.”

“It forms a strange story,” I admitted, and then, while he consumed a fresh cigarette, I proceeded to briefly relate the manner in which we became acquainted, and the weird and startling events that followed, suppressing only the fact that Agadez had been occupied by the outlaws. I hesitated to tell him this, because I feared that if a large body of Spahis were in the district, they would at once proceed there, and in all probability capture both the robber Sheikh and Zoraida, to secure the reward. Nevertheless, I explained how I became possessed of the Crescent of Glorious Wonders, of which he had heard rumours, and which he examined with intense interest when I produced it from my forage-bag. Then, after I had replaced it in its hiding-place, I told him of the extraordinary directions the dead imam had given me, and that I was on my way to test the truth of his strange statement.

“In two days you will arrive at the spot he has indicated,” he observed, after listening to my story with breathless interest. “The mystery is so remarkable, and has so excited my curiosity, that I wish I might be permitted to accompany you in this search for an explanation. Do you object?”

“Not in the least,” I answered, laughing. “There is something so uncanny about the whole affair, that your companionship will be most acceptable. When shall we set out?”

“To start now would be unwise,” he said, gazing round with practised eye at the Desert, already aglow in the brilliant sunshine, and observing, at a glance, its atmospheric conditions. “Let us eat and idle now, and leave at sunset.”

To this arrangement I acquiesced. Then he told me how the Spahis had encamped four hours’ march away, that he had strayed from a reconnoitring party, and, having regard to the fact that they were remaining there at least a week and that we should be only four or five days absent, he did not consider it necessary to undertake an eight hours’ ride to ask permission of his captain before starting.

“Military regulations are sometimes relaxed in this out-of-the-world spot,” he added, laughing. “When they find I’m missing, they will probably search for me; but having now lost myself, why should I return just at present, especially as they are not likely to move on before they find traces of me.”

“In what direction are you marching? Towards Agadez?” I inquired anxiously.

“Scarcely,” he replied, with a smile. “We have no desire to be annihilated by the Sultan of the Ahír. No. We are travelling due south to Lake Tsâd.”

His answer reassured me, and, having prepared and eaten a rather primitive meal, we sought under a tree that dreamy, peaceful repose that desert travellers find so refreshing in an oasis.

An hour before the sun had sunk in its fiery glory of gold and crimson, there was a beautiful mirage of water, rocks, and feathery palms upon the sky, but, as we prepared to depart, it faded from our gaze as rapidly as it had appeared. With the brilliant glow of the dying day behind us, we set forth into an unknown country, Uzanne upon his white Arab stallion, I upon my handsomely-caparisoned camel. Riding down the eastern side of the wooded hill we almost imperceptibly entered the plain, the slope being so gradual. After travelling for some time in the darkening hours along the level ground, we found it was by no means flat, although it usually appeared so in our immediate neighbourhood; yet it had an upward trend, and some distance beyond it rose and fell in long, wavelike swells of sufficient height to hide, at times, even such an object as the range of Gueisiger mountains on our left. On all sides we scanned the fertile plain for any signs of life. A herd of gazelles scampered along in front, but no other living thing seemed near.

When we had been riding about five hours, we detected straight before us, rising from the level of the plain, now sandy and desolate, a long black line, jagged and irregular, which gradually developed, on nearer view in the brilliant moonbeams, into something like a mass of ruins resembling a deserted town.

Evidently we were on the right path, as indicated by Mohammed ben Ishak. In this he certainly had not deceived me. On the outskirts of this desolate pile, lying so far from civilisation, we saw first an old reservoir, edged in with rough-faced blocks of granite. No wall or gate marked the city boundary, nor were the ruined buildings, half buried in drifting sand, conspicuous by their architectural beauty, for square black stones, piled on one another without mortar, formed houses that for size were larger than those in Agadez, but the stony desolation was not relieved by a piece of either wood or metal. Many of the houses seemed in an excellent state of preservation, and all seemed as if the inhabitants had left through a pestilence rather than the ravages of war; time alone, assisted by the wind and tempest, appeared to have dismantled others. There were three mosques, but all were however, in a confused mass of ruins, the cupola of one alone remaining intact, though its crescent that had pointed skyward had rotted and fallen. It was strangely weird riding through that deserted city in the brilliant moonlight, amid grotesque and ghostly shadows. Upon the last-mentioned mosque we discovered a stone, rudely inscribed, in Arabic, with the words, “The building of this holy place was ordered by the Khalîf Othman.” This gave us a clue to the age of this half-effaced city, for the Khalîf was all-powerful in Northern Africa in the twenty-seventh year of the Hedjira (A.D. 647), and lived at Sbeitla, once a great city, but now, like this forgotten place, a mere heap of crumbling ruins.

Continuing our weary way, we journeyed straight on between a parallel range of sand dunes, until we came to the open plain again. More stony the country grew, as we proceeded, hour after hour, guided only by the stars, through the barren, desolate land, until we halted at sunrise in the midst of a vast wilderness, where no rising ground relieved the monotony of the rocky level. Eating, resting, and sleeping, we resumed the journey again at sunset, and, throughout the night, pushed onward in eager search of the single clump of palms beneath the shadow of which I was to seek to elucidate the Great Secret.

At last, however, the ground ascended gently, and we saw, away to the south-east, hills rising, peak after peak, as far as the eye could reach. The outlook of rounded hill-tops was varied occasionally by a small plateau, but the landscape was terribly arid and dispiriting. Nevertheless, we plodded still onward in the direction the dead man had indicated, until at length our eager, impatient eyes were rewarded by the sight of a low hill, surmounted by a single dump of about half a dozen palms, their feathery tops looming darkly against the horizon already flushed by the delicate rose-tints of dawn.

We both detected our goal at the same moment, and, with ejaculations of satisfaction, spurred forward excitedly at redoubled pace, breathlessly impatient to put the Crescent of Glorious Wonders to the crucial test.

The spot was actually within sight!

Swiftly we rode over the soft, treacherous sand and great patches of rough stones, our adventurous spirits suddenly stimulated by the anticipation that probably within an hour, the Great Mystery – the secret preserved through so many ages, the knowledge by which alone I could effect Zoraida’s rescue – would at last be revealed.