In The Tail Of The Peacock Part 16

Two more narrow lanes, a last winding alley, and the welcome door of the tabiba's--never more welcome.

I called to Miss Z---- as I led Tahara into the courtyard. Her answering voice was all I would have prayed for at that moment. She was just starting with S'lam. Leading Tahara to the door, we found him on the threshold, with his old mother, whom he must have gone first to fetch--Maman, whom R. and I had ever distrusted: feeling that she was after no good the first time she came to the house, we had limited her visits.

I told S'lam to stay outside. He did not seem astonished at seeing his wife and myself, asking not a single question of either. Miss Z---- took Tahara upstairs into her bedroom, and I followed, explaining that Tahara did not want any one else to come in. For a moment or two, after we got her up into the room, all her old terror seemed to return; she was unable to speak, and collapsed upon the floor--a ghastly colour. Briefly explaining to Miss Z---- that Tahara believed herself to be poisoned, we knelt down on the floor and examined her. There were no apparent symptoms of poisoning--none; she was only cold and terrified beyond words. Miss Z---- did her best to calm her, and laughed away her fears, hoping to get rid of the state of panic which her condition suggested more than any poisoning.

The next thing to be done was to persuade Tahara to explain matters to Miss Z----. This might have been easy enough at Jinan Dolero with S'lam out of the way; but here, feeling that he and Maman were under the very windows, her terror was abject, and I almost gave up hope of getting a syllable out of her.

We shut every window, we shut the door, we pulled down the blinds, to satisfy her; we even stopped up the ventilation-holes; and then she still hesitated and trembled.

At last, crouched on the floor, Miss Z---- kneeling by her, Tahara, with her mouth at Miss Z----'s ear, murmured her tale in Arabic, while I wished I could understand. _S'lam had given her poison. People in the city had spoken against her and said evil things about her. S'lam was jealous. He had been very angry. They had quarrelled, and he had poisoned her. But he must never, never, on any account, know that she had been to the tabiba's to tell the tale. If S'lam suspected that Tahara knew he had tried to poison her, and had told us of it--well, her life was not worth a flus._ Even I knew that. Then in a fresh agony of terror she crouched on the floor. I told her to show Miss Z---- the bottle. Now to part with the bottle, or to run the faintest risk of S'lam's seeing it, was evidently a nightmare to the poor girl. If he ever found out that she had taken it and brought it to Miss Z---- . . .

We wasted many precious moments in trying to persuade Tahara to take it out of her belt, where it lay concealed, and show it to Miss Z----. She looked at the curtains, at the door. Could S'lam possibly see? At last, more or less by force, I got possession of it, handed it to Miss Z---- with one hand, and kept Tahara still on the floor with the other.

The stopper of the bottle, Miss Z---- thought, had a suspicious smell, but she gave it as her verdict that the bottle itself contained nothing but water. She recognized it at once as having belonged to S'lam's late master, who always kept drugs in his house, and the name of whose English chemist was on the label.

Miss Z---- poured a teaspoonful into a tumbler, and returned the bottle to Tahara, who was getting rabid at the delay. The teaspoonful we decided should be given to one of Miss Z----'s little chickens which she was rearing. I said I would come in the morning and hear her report.

Meanwhile, Tahara had refolded and hidden the precious bottle as it was before, and Miss Z---- had managed more or less to rea.s.sure her, promising her that she was not poisoned this time, and laughing at her panic. The pain of which she had complained had no doubt a natural cause: giddiness might come on through bending over the charcoal fire cooking dinner, Miss Z---- told her. Now Tahara's only terror was that S'lam should ever find out what had happened. The bottle must be taken home--must be replaced exactly where it had been found.

Unsatisfactory as such a course was, there was some risk in pursuing any other. S'lam, if he found out that his wife had betrayed him or had suspected him and come to us, might shoot her like a dog, in a pa.s.sion, and be inside the borders of the Riff in a few hours. And who would blame him, if he gave as his reason for his whole line of conduct that his wife had been unfaithful to him, false though such a statement might be?

A girl in Tetuan a few years ago was _suspected_ of having been seduced.

Her father took her and her mother out to the Mussulman cemetery, within sight and hearing of the city--the girl was sixteen: he shot her on the road, and he and the mother dug a grave and buried her by the roadside.

They went home, and no one said a word. The man still lives in Tetuan.

Miss Z---- evidently shared Tahara's fears, and was anxious to allay any suspicions which S'lam might begin to entertain. First, however, she found out from Tahara that S'lam had no intention of poisoning the signoritas (_us_)--that was _quite_ a mistake--at least so the girl a.s.sured her. Then, having once more rea.s.sured Tahara about her own health, Miss Z---- led her downstairs; there she explained to S'lam and to his old mother that the girl was very nervous, that she had not felt well, was to take a pill that night (one had been given her), and was to keep quiet to-morrow, in which case she ought soon to be quite right.

Miss Z---- wanted to walk out with me and to sleep at Jinan Dolero, evidently not liking our pa.s.sing a night alone under such suspicious circ.u.mstances; but I was convinced there was no cause for fear, and I think we both knew that the less we made of what had happened the better; so, borrowing a lantern, I started back for Jinan Dolero, Tahara clinging to my arm, S'lam lighting the way, and the old mother following.

Arrived at the city gate, it was shut. I had a strange wait alone with Tahara and Maman, while S'lam fetched a soldier to unbar the gate. The basha's leave had to be got, and the basha sent to the English Vice-Consul to ask if it was his will that the gate should be opened for a British subject. Eventually we got through, all except Maman, who said good-night and went home.

It was a cheering sight to see at last a little light far away in the valley where our house lay--the only light visible. R. had left the curtains undrawn. In good time we reached the garden-house. I took Tahara straight into the bedroom, S'lam going to the kitchen to prepare dinner.

The little bottle in its wrappings was immediately replaced in its niche, and Tahara ate some food which we brought her. S'lam, as usual, waited on us: he was oddly obsequious and deprecating in his manner, and I could not quite understand it.

The night pa.s.sed quietly. Early next morning Maman appeared, which neither of us liked, but she had come ostensibly to ask after Tahara, who had quite recovered. I walked into the city, and went to the Mission House to see Miss Z----. The chicken was quite as well as Tahara, and the liquid which at least one of them had taken was probably water. Even so, the mystery was not cleared up. If it was water, why did S'lam keep it wrapped up, and why did Tahara think it was poison? It was half empty. If Tahara had ever seen it full, somebody must have drunk a dose. Of course S'lam's old master had not left a bottle of prussic acid about, and then not missed it. He probably emptied the bottle and then threw it away; it might have had a drop or two left in it, and the bottle may have been filled up with water; but that was pure conjecture.

The poisons Moors so easily get, and which S'lam or his mother could supply themselves with, are generally in a powder form. I do not know how they would mix with water: they are generally slow in working, sometimes weeks in taking effect. There was no reason why Tahara should not be poisoned by such a drug, and yet feel no ill effects for the present.

Thus we argued. Poisoning in Morocco is such an every-day occurrence that it was a most ordinary suspicion on Tahara's part. After all, there might be nothing in it, but merely a fear grounded on all sorts of reasons and a.s.sumptions. It is only a matter of sitting down and thinking to conjure up plenty of fears in Morocco.

Feeling that it was not pleasant to have a bottle marked "Poison" in the house, and not to be positive as to its contents, I resolved to empty and wash it out, sending the so-called "water" to an a.n.a.lyst at Tangier, and refilling the bottle with _bona-fide_ water before replacing it. The chicken test was not thoroughly satisfactory. As matters stood, Miss Z---- decided to come out that afternoon to our house, while S'lam should be sent away on an errand, in order that Tahara might be interrogated and the thing ended.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARMING SNAKES.

[_To face p. 214._]

Arrived home, I found that S'lam had been dispatched to the city to market, and that Maman had gone with him. Alas! the little bottle had disappeared; it was no longer in the niche which could be seen every time the door was pa.s.sed. Miss Z---- arrived in the afternoon. By that time some other occult influence had come to work in Tahara's mind, and directly Miss Z---- spoke to her it was evident that she was hedging. As long as she was terrified and had lost her head she blurted out the truth; but given time to think the matter over, a thousand side-issues weighed with her, and she was no more inclined to trust us than she would have been to trust a Moorish woman, who is brought up to lies, intrigue, and diplomacy, and fed upon such axioms as "When you have nothing else to tell, tell the truth." _The bottle_, she said, _had been taken away by S'lam and his mother. It belonged to his mother. It was poison to poison people in the Riff._ A little later on she said _it had nothing whatever to do with S'lam, and that it had only water in it--that S'lam had told her so. That she had never seen him put anything into her food. That he was "good." That she only had a bad pain last night. That she did not know why the bottle had been brought there._ And so on. Her one prayer was that the signoritas would forget all that had happened. But for days she would not let us: by creeping up when S'lam was out of the way and putting her finger on her lips, by anxious questionings and gesticulations, the thing was never allowed to rest. She felt, probably, that she was past one danger--there was no more to fear in that direction for the present; but that if her Riffi husband ever suspected she had "given him away," he would soon dispose of so troublesome an incubus.

And so we found the matter had come to a deadlock: more we shall not know. It was typical of the Moors and their ways. It was, I cannot help thinking, rather a shady business. Taking into consideration S'lam's manner towards us for days after, added to those intuitions which one has and cannot put into words, it struck us that S'lam himself did not think the bottle had only water in it.

Ask no questions in this strange land. Lies are the portion meted out to the inquirer: it is not well to know too much. "Knowledge and virtue and a horse's mouth should not pa.s.s through too many hands," and "If you question knowledge, it falls from its estate"--thus the Moors.

I shall hear from Miss Z---- of Tahara's future welfare, unless she is moved from Tetuan. If she comes to an untimely end within the next year or so, our suspicions were not groundless. For the present we "forget,"

of course. For the whole affair--

Oh no, we never mention it; Its feet are never heard!

CHAPTER VIII

MISSIONARIES AT TETUAN--POISONING IN MOROCCO--FATIMA'S RECEPTION--DIVORCE--AN EXPEDITION INTO THE ANJERAS--AN EMERALD OASIS.

CHAPTER VIII

"_The friendship of man is like the shade of the acacia. Yet while the friendship lives, it lives. When G.o.d wills it to die, it dies!_" mused d.i.c.ky, with a significant smile. "Friendship walks on thin ice in the East."

THREE times a week, from ten o'clock to twelve o'clock in the morning, the lady missionaries opened their dispensary, which, as there was no man missionary in Tetuan, was in women's hands alone, Miss Banks at the head.

Though, unfortunately, she was not an M.D. nor a qualified surgeon, the good which she and her staff did was incalculable. The first day on which the dispensary was open after Ramadhan over sixty Moors came to be doctored. The day I went, there were forty-four; and the two rooms--one for men, one for women--were as full as they would hold, while a large surplus stood waiting their turn outside. Most of them were of the lower cla.s.s of Moors: the better cla.s.s of women would ask Miss Banks to visit them in their own houses; the better cla.s.s of men would not go to lady missionaries.

The patients sat round the rooms in a circle. Miss Banks went to each in turn, and made a note of the case in a book. This over, she retired to an inner room; and, among scales, and gla.s.s measures, and drugs, and tins, and bottles by the score, proceeded to make up all the various medicines.

Meanwhile, two others of the staff took up positions in the middle of the circles of men and women, and read the Bible to them in Arabic and talked to them. They seemed to listen attentively, and one or two nodded occasionally in agreement with what was said.

Thus, though everybody was doctored and provided with medicine gratis, they had to sit and listen for a certain time to Christian views, _nolens volens_; and this is the chief opportunity which missionaries have of preaching to the Mohammedan world.

Many of the patients who had been before brought medicine-bottles and ointment-boxes to be refilled. If not, the bottles had to be paid for. In the first instance they were given in with the medicine; but bottles are things of great value to the labouring Moor, and it was found that the people came purely for the sake of getting them--once outside the house, the medicine was thrown away.

One woman paid for her bottle in kind--four eggs. Some of the bottles were absurdly small; others the reverse, for one woman appeared carrying a great earthenware water-pot standing three feet high.

"My daughter," she said to Miss Banks, "I want medicine."

"Yes, but I cannot give you medicine in such a huge pot."

"My daughter, I have been three days on the road, and I want _much_ medicine."

Another woman, who looked old and decrepit, begged and prayed that a bottle might be given her. Miss Banks was adamant. The woman whined and entreated from ten till half-past eleven: "I am too poor to buy one. Look at me; I am ill," and so on--until at last one of the other missionaries begged Miss Banks to give her a bottle and send her away. Still she refused to break her rule. The last patient got up to go. It was twelve o'clock. The old woman thrust her hand into the rag round her waist, pulled out a bottle, and handed it to Miss Banks to be filled.

The cases we saw were numerous. A mother with two little boys whose heads had to be examined: they were dispatched with a box of ointment (sulphur and oil) and a bottle of medicine. A boy with swelled glands had them painted. A woman had her chest painted, a man various parts of him.

Pills, ointment, powders, etc., were distributed, with manifold instructions, repeated again and again, until the patient's clod-like brain had been penetrated and set in motion. Even then one would turn round at the door and say, "Then I am to eat this ointment?"

A woman was given some salts wrapped in paper, to be mixed with water and taken the next morning fasting. She did not come again for a month, and she brought with her a large earthen pot half full of water and paper.

She had mixed the salts in this with their wrapping, and had been drinking a mouthful daily, but felt no better.

Miss Banks gave a woman in good circ.u.mstances a bottle of medicine which was to last her eight days, and be taken after food; also some liniment for external use. An urgent summons came two days later: the woman was dying. "I thought it did me so much good that last night I took all the rest, and then I drank the liniment," she said. She recovered.