The Way of Ambition Part 60

As soon as they were gone Mrs. Shiffney put on a fur coat, summoned an Arab called Amor, who had already spoken to her at the door of the hotel, and said to him:

"You know the tall Englishman who is staying here?"

"The one who takes Aloui as guide?"

"Perhaps. I don't know. But he is fond of music; he--"

"It is Aloui's Englishman," interrupted Amor, calmly.

"Where does he go at night? He's a friend of mine. I should like to meet him."

"He might be with Said Hitani."

"Where is that?"

"If madame does not mind a little walk--"

"Take me there. Is it far?"

"It is on the edge of the town, close to the wall. When Said Hitani plays he likes to go there. He is growing old. He does not want to play where everybody can hear. Madame has a family in England?"

Mrs. Shiffney satisfied Amor's curiosity as they walked through the crowded streets till they came to the outskirts of the city. The stars were out, but there was no moon. The road ran by the city wall. Far down below, in the arms of the darkness, lay the gorge, from which rose faintly the sound of water; lay the immense stretches of yellow-brown and red-brown country darkened here and there with splashes of green; the dim plantations, the cascades which fall to the valley of Sidi Imcin; the long roads, like flung-out ribands, winding into the great distances which suggest eternal things. From the darkness, as from the mouth of a mighty cavern, rose a wind, not strong, very pure, very keen, which seemed dashed with the spray of water. Now and then an Arab pa.s.sed m.u.f.fled in burnous and hood, a fold of linen held to his mouth.

The noise of the city was hushed.

Presently Amor stood still.

"_Voila_ Said Hitani!"

Mrs. Shiffney heard in the distance a sound of music. Several instruments combined to make it, but the voice of a flute was dominant among them. Light, sweet, delicate, it came to her in the night like a personality full of odd magic, full of small and subtle surprises, intricate, gay, and sad.

"Said Hitani!" she said. "He's delicious! Take me to him, Amor."

She knew at once that he was the flute-player.

They walked on, and soon came to a patch of light on the empty road.

This was shed by the lamps of the cafe from which the music issued.

Under the two windows, which were protected by wire and by iron bars, five Arabs were squatting, immersed in a sea of garments in which their figures and even their features were lost. Only their black eyes looked out, gazing steadily into the darkness. A big man, with bare legs and a spotted turban, came to the door of the cafe to invite them to go in; but Mrs. Shiffney refused by a gesture.

"In a minute!" she said to Amor.

Amor spoke in Arabic to the attendant, who at once returned to the coffee niche. Within the music never ceased, and now singing voices alternated with the instruments. Mrs. Shiffney kept away from the door and looked into the room through the window s.p.a.ce next to it.

She saw a long and rather narrow chamber, with a paved floor, strewn with clean straw mats, blue-green walls, and an orange-colored ceiling.

Close to the door was the coffee niche. At the opposite end of the room five musicians were squatting, four in a semicircle facing the coffee niche, the fifth alone, almost facing them. This fifth was Said Hitani, the famous flute-player of Constantine--a man at this time sixty-three years old. In front of him was a flat board, on which lay two freshly rolled cigarettes and several cigarette ends. Now and then he took his flute from his lips, replaced it with a lighted cigarette, smoked for a moment, then swiftly renewed his strange love-song, playing with a virile vigor as well as with airy daintiness and elaborate grace. Of his companions, one played a violin, held upright by the left hand, with its end resting on his stockinged foot; the second a species of large guitar; the third a derbouka; and the fourth a tarah, or native tambourine, ornamented with ten little discs of bra.s.s, which made a soft clashing sound when shaken. On the left of the room, down one side, squatted a row of Arabs with coffee-cups and cigarettes. By the door two more were playing a game of draughts. And opposite to the windows, on an Oriental rug, the long figure of Claude Heath was stretched out. He lay with his hat tilted to the left over one temple, his cheek on his left hand, listening intently to the music. On a wooden board beside him was some music paper, and now and then with a stylograph he jotted down some notes. He looked both emotional and thoughtful. Often his imaginative eyes rested on the small and hunched-up figure of Said Hitani, dressed in white, black, and gold, with a hood drawn over the head. Now and then he looked toward the window, and it seemed to Mrs. Shiffney then that his eyes met hers. But he saw nothing, except perhaps some Eastern vision summoned up by his lit imagination.

The music very gradually quickened and grew louder, became steadily more masculine, powerful, and fierce, till it sounded violent. The volume of tone produced by the players astonished Mrs. Shiffney. The wild vagaries of the flute seemed presently to be taking place in her brain. She drew close to the window, put her hands on the bars. At her feet the crouching Arabs never stirred. Behind her the cold wind came up from the gorge and the great open country with the sound of the rushing water.

At that moment she had the thing that she believed she lived for--a really keen sensation.

Suddenly, when the music had become almost intolerably exciting, when the players seemed possessed, and noise and swiftness to rush together like foes to the attack, the flute wavered, ran up to a height, cried out like a thing martyred; the violin gave forth a thin scream; on the derbouka the brown fingers of the player pattered with abrupt feebleness; the guitar died away; the little bra.s.s discs shivered and fell together. Another thin cry from the flute upon some unknown height, and there was silence, while Claude wrote furiously, and the musicians began to smoke.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AT HER FEET THE CROUCHING ARABS NEVER STIRRED"--_Page 258_]

"Now I'll go in!" said Mrs. Shiffney to Amor.

He led the way and she followed. Claude glanced up, stared for a moment, then sprang up.

"Mrs. Shiffney!"

His voice was almost stern.

"Mrs. Shiffney!" he repeated.

"Come to hear your music, for I know they are all playing only for you and the opera."

Her strong, almost masculine hand lingered in his, and how could he let it go without impoliteness?

"Aren't they?"

"I suppose so."

"It's wonderful the way they play. Said Hitani is an artist."

"You know his name?"

"And I must know him. May I stay a little?"

"Of course."

He looked round for a seat.

"No, the rug!" she said.

And, despite her bulk, she sank down with a swift ease that was almost Oriental.

"Now please introduce me to Said Hitani!"

Till late in the night she stayed between the blue-green walls, listening to the vehement voices and to the instruments, following all the strange journeys of Said Hitani's flute. She was genuinely fascinated, and this fact made her fascinating. As she had caught at Max Elliot that day when he asked her, against his intention, to meet Claude Heath, so now she caught at Claude Heath himself. She had come to the cafe with a purpose, and, as she forgot it, she carried it out. Never before had Claude understood completely why she had gained her position in London and Paris, realized fully her fascination. Her delightful naturalness, her pleasure, her almost boyish gaiety, her simplicity, her humor took him captive for the moment. She explained that she had left her companions and stolen away to enjoy Constantine alone.

"And now I'm interrupting you. But you must forgive me just for this one night!"

Through Amor, who acted as interpreter, she carried on a lively intercourse with Said Hitani. The other musicians smiled, but seldom spoke, and only among themselves. But Said Hitani, the great artist of his native city, a man famous far and wide among the Arabs, was infinitely diverting and descriptive in talk even as when he gave himself to the flute. With an animation that was youthful he described the meaning of each new song. He had two flutes on which he played alternately--"Mousou et Madame," he called them. And he knew, so he declared, over a hundred songs. Mrs. Shiffney, speaking to him always through Amor, told him of London, and what a sensation he and his companions would make there in the _decor_ of a Moorish cafe. Said Hitani pulled his little gray beard with his delicate hands, swayed to and fro, and smiled. Then sharply he uttered a torrent of words which seemed almost to fight their way out of some chamber in his narrow throat.

"Said Hitani says you have only to send money and the address and they are all coming whenever you like. They are very pleased to come."

At this point one of the musicians, a fair man with pale eyes who played the tarah, interposed a remark which was uttered with great seriousness.

"Can they go to London on camels, he wishes to know," observed Amor gently.