The Golden Silence Part 51

She fumbled in the tawny folds of the tiger-skin on which she lay, and presently held out a bracelet, made of flexible squares of gold, like scales, jewelled with different stones.

"It is thy wedding present from me," she said. "I wish to give it, because it is not long since I myself was married, and because we are both young. Besides, Si Maeddine is a good friend of the marabout. I have heard that he is brave and handsome, all that a young girl can most desire in a husband."

"I am not going to marry Si Maeddine," said Victoria. "I thank thee; but thou must keep thy gift for his bride when he finds one."

"He has found her in thee. The marriage will be a week from to-morrow, if Allah wills, and he will take thee away to his home. The marabout himself has told me this, though he does not know that I have sent for thee, and that thou art with me now."

"Allah does not will," said the girl.

"Perhaps not, since thy bridegroom-to-be lies ill with marsh fever, so Hadda has told me. He came back from Algiers with the sickness heavy upon him, caught in the saltpetre marshes that stretch between Biskra and Touggourt. I know those marshes, for I was in Biskra with my mother when she danced there; but she was careful, and we did not lie at night in the dangerous regions where the great mosquitoes are. Men are never careful, though they do not like to be ill, and thy bridegroom is fretting. But he will be better in a few days if he takes the draughts which the marabout has blessed for him; and if the wedding is not in a week, it will be a few days later. It is in Allah's hands."

"I tell thee, it will be never," Victoria persisted. "And I believe thou but sayest these things to torture me."

"Dost thou not love Si Maeddine?" Miluda asked innocently.

"Not at all."

"Then it must be that thou lovest some other man. Dost thou, Roumia?"

"Thou hast no right to ask such questions."

"Be not angry, Roumia, for we are coming now to the great reason why I sent for thee. It is to help thee. I wish to know whether there is a man of thine own people thou preferest to Si Maeddine."

"Why shouldst thou wish to help me? Thou hast never seen me till now."

"I will speak the truth with thee," said Miluda, "because thy face pleases me, though I prefer my own. Thine is pure and good, like the face of the white angel that is ever at our right hand; and even if I should speak falsely, I think thou wouldst not be deceived. Before I saw thee, I did not care whether thou wert happy or sad. It was nothing to me; but I saw a way of getting thee and thy sister out of my husband's house, and for a long time I have wished thy sister gone. Not that I am jealous of her. I have not seen her face, but I know she is already old, and if she were not friendless in our land, the Sidi would have put her away at the time of my marriage to him, since long ago he has ceased to care whether she lives or dies. But his heart is great, and he has kept her under his roof for kindness' sake, though she has given him no child, and is no longer a wife to him. I alone fill his life."

She paused, hoping perhaps that Victoria would answer; but the girl was silent, biting her lip, her eyes cast down. So Miluda talked on, more quietly.

"There is a wise woman in the city, who brings me perfumes and silks which have come to Oued Tolga by caravan from Tunis. She has told me that thy sister has ill-wished me, and that I shall never have a boy--a real child--while Lella Sada breathes the same air with me. That is the reason I want her to be gone. I will not help thee to go, unless thou takest her with thee."

"I will never, never leave this place unless we go together," Victoria answered, deeply interested and excited now.

"That is well. And if she loves thee also, she would not go alone; so my wish is to do what I can for both."

"What canst thou do?" the girl asked.

"I will tell thee. But first there is something to make clear. I was on my roof to-day, when a young Roumi rode up to the Zaoua on the road from Oued Tolga. He looked towards the roofs, and I wondered. From mine, I cannot see much of thy sister's roof, but I watched, and I saw an arm outstretched, to throw a packet. Then I said to myself that he had come for thee. And later I was sure, because my women told me that while he talked with the marabout, the door which leads to thy sister's roof was nailed up hastily, by command of the master. Some order must have gone from him, unknown to the Roumi, while the two men were together. I could coax nothing of the story from the Sidi when he came to me, but he was vexed, and his brows drew together over eyes which for the first time did not seem to look at me with pleasure."

"Thou hast guessed aright," Victoria admitted, thankful that Miluda's suspicions concerned her affairs only, and not Saidee's. "The man who came here was my friend. I care for him more than for any one in the world, except my sister; and if I cannot marry him, I will die rather than marry Si Maeddine or any other."

"Then, unless I help thee, thou wilt have to die, for nothing which thou alone, or thy sister can do, will open the gates for thee to go out, except as Si Maeddine's wife."

"Then help me," said Victoria, boldly, "and thou wilt be rid of us both forever."

"It is with our wits we must work, not with our hands," replied the Ouled Nal. "The power of the marabout is great. He has many men to serve him, and the gates are strong, while women are very, very weak.

Yet I have seen into the master's heart, and I can give thee a key which will unlock the gates. Only it had better be done soon, for when Si Maeddine is well, he will fight for thee; and if thou goest forth free, he will follow, and take thee in the dunes."

Victoria shivered, for the picture was vivid before her eyes, as Miluda painted it. "Give me the key," she said in a low voice.

"The key of the master's heart is his son," the other answered, in a tone that kept down anger and humiliation. "Even me he would sacrifice to his boy. I know it well, and I hate the child. I pray for one of my own, for because the Sidi loves me, and did not love the boy's mother, he would care ten thousand times more for a child of mine. The wise woman says so, and I believe it. When thy sister is gone, I shall have a boy, and nothing left to wish for on earth. Send a message to thy lover, saying that the marabout's only son is at school in Oued Tolga, the city. Tell him to steal the child and hide it, making a bargain with the marabout that he shall have it safely back, if he will let thee and thy sister go; otherwise he shall never see it again."

"That would be a cruel thing to do, and my sister could not consent,"

said Victoria, "even if we were able to send a message."

"Hadda would send the message. A friend from the village is coming to see her, and the master has no suspicion of me at present, as he has of thee. We could send a letter, and Hadda would manage everything. But there is not much time, for now while my husband is with Si Maeddine, treating him for his fever, is our only chance, to-night. We have perhaps an hour in which to decide and arrange everything. After that, his coming may be announced to me. And no harm would happen to the child. The master would suffer in his mind for a short time, till he decided to make terms, that is all. As for me, have no fear of my betraying thee. Thou needst but revenge thyself by letting the master know how I plotted for the stealing of his boy, for him to put me out of his heart and house forever. Then I should have to kill myself with a knife, or with poison; and I am young and happy, and do not desire to die yet. Go now, and tell thy sister what I have said. Let her answer for thee, for she knows this land and the people of it, and she is wiser than thou."

Without another word or look at the beautiful pagan face, Victoria went out of the room, and found Hadda waiting to hurry her away.

XLVI

It was after one o'clock when Stephen and Nevill bade each other good night, after a stroll out of the town into the desert. They had built up plans and torn them down again, and no satisfactory decision had been reached, for both feared that, if they attempted to threaten the marabout with their knowledge of his past, he would defy them to do their worst. Without Saidee and Victoria, they could bring forward no definite and visible proof that the great marabout, Sidi El Hadj Mohammed Abd el Kadr, and the disgraced Captain Ca.s.sim ben Halim were one. And the supreme difficulty was to produce Saidee and Victoria as witnesses. It was not even certain, if the marabout were threatened and thought himself in danger, that he might not cause the sisters to disappear. That thought prevented the two men from coming easily to any decision. Sabine had not told them that he knew Saidee, or that he had actually heard of the girl's arrival in the Zaoua. He longed to tell and join with them in their quest; but it would have seemed a disloyalty to the woman he loved. It needed a still greater incentive to make him speak out; while as for the Englishmen, though they would gladly have taken his advice, they hesitated to give away the secret of Saidee Ray's husband to a representative of Ben Halim's stern judge, France.

Various plans for action had been discussed, yet Stephen and Nevill both felt that all were subject to modification. Each had the hope that the silent hours would bring inspiration, and so they parted at last. But Stephen had not been in his room ten minutes when there came a gentle tap at his door. He thought that it must be Nevill, returning to announce the birth of a new idea; but in the dark corridor stood a shadowy Arab, he who did most of the work in the hotel outside the kitchen.

"A person has come with a letter for Monsieur," the man mumbled in bad French, his voice so sleepy as to be almost inarticulate. "He would not give it to me, the foolish one. He insists on putting it into the hand of Monsieur. No doubt it is a pourboire he wants. He has followed me to the head of the stairs, and he has no French."

"Where does he come from?" asked Stephen.

"He will not say. But he is a Negro whom I have never seen in the city."

"Call him," Stephen said. And in a moment a thin young Negro, dusted all over with sand, came into the square of light made by the open door. His legs were bare, and over his body he appeared to have no other garment but a ragged, striped gandourah. In a purple-black hand he held a folded piece of paper, and Stephen's heart jumped at sight of his own name written in a clear handwriting. It was not unlike Victoria's but it was not hers.

"The man says he cannot take a letter back," explained the Arab servant.

"But if Monsieur will choose a word to answer, he will repeat it over and over until he has it by heart. Then he will pa.s.s it on in the same way."

Stephen was reading his letter and scarcely heard. It was Victoria's sister who wrote. She signed herself at the bottom of the bit of paper--a leaf torn from a copy book--"Saidee Ray," as though she had never been married. She had evidently written in great haste, but the thing she proposed was clearly set forth, as if in desperation. Victoria did not approve, she said, and hoped some other plan might be found; but in Saidee's opinion there was no other plan which offered any real chance of success. In their situation, they could not afford to stick at trifles, and neither could Mr. Knight, if he wished to save Victoria from being married against her will to an Arab. There was no time to lose if anything were to be done; and if Mr. Knight were willing to take the way suggested, would he say the word "yes," very distinctly, to the messenger, as it would not be safe to try and smuggle a letter into the Zaoua.

It was a strange, even a detestable plot, which Saidee suggested; yet when Stephen had turned it over in his mind for a moment he said the word "yes" with the utmost distinctness. The sand-covered Negro imitated him several times, and having achieved success, was given more money than he had ever seen in his life. He would not tell the Arab, who escorted him downstairs again, whence he had come, but it was a long distance and he had walked. He must return on foot, and if he were to be back by early morning, he ought to get off at once. Stephen made no effort to keep him, though he would have liked Saidee's messenger to be seen by Caird.

Nevill had not begun to undress, when Stephen knocked at his door. He was about to begin one of his occasional letters to Josette, with his writing materials arranged abjectly round one tallow candle, on a washhand stand.

"That beast of a Ca.s.sim! He's going to try and marry the poor child off to his friend Maeddine!" Nevill growled, reading the letter. "Stick at trifles indeed! I should think not. This is Providential--just when we couldn't quite make up our minds what to do next."

"You're not complimentary to Providence," said Stephen. "Seems to me a horrid sort of thing to do, though I'm not prepared to say I won't do it. _She_ doesn't approve, her sister says, you see----"

"Who knows the man better, his wife or the girl?"

"That goes without saying. Well, I'm swallowing my scruples as fast as I can get them down, though they're a lump in my throat. However, we wouldn't hurt the little chap, and if the father adores him, as she says, we'd have Ben Halim pretty well under our thumbs, to squeeze him as we chose. Knowing his secret as we do, he wouldn't dare apply to the French for help, for fear we'd give him away. We must make it clear that we well know who he is, and that if he squeals, the fat's in the fire!"

"That's the right spirit. We'll make him shake in his boots for fear we give not only the secret, but the boy, over to the tender mercies of the authorities. For it's perfectly true that if the Government knew what a trick had been played on them, they'd oust the false marabout in favour of the rightful man, whoever he may be, clap the usurper into prison, and make the child a kind of--er--ward in chancery, or whatever the equivalent is in France. Oh, I can tell you, my boy, this idea is the inspiration of a genius! The man will see we're making no idle threat, that we can't carry out. He'll have to hand over the ladies, or he'll spend some of his best years in prison, and never see his beloved boy again."

"First we've got to catch our hare. But there Sabine could help us, if we called him in."

"Yes. And we couldn't do better than have him with us, I think, Legs, now we've come to this turn in the road."