Ziska: The Problem of a Wicked Soul Part 19

And while she wept to herself in solitude, and her brother Denzil wandered about in the gardens of the hotel, encouraging within himself hopes of winning the bewitching Ziska for a wife, Armand Gervase, shut up in his room under plea of slight indisposition, reviewed the emotions of the past night and tired to a.n.a.lyze them. Some men are born self-a.n.a.lysts, and are able to dissect their feelings by some peculiar form of mental surgery which finally leads them to cut out tenderness as though it were a cancer, love as a disease, and romantic aspirations as mere uncomfortable growths injurious to self-interest, but Gervase was not one of these. Outwardly he a.s.sumed more or less the composed and careless demeanor of the modern French cynic, but inwardly the man was a raging fire of fierce pa.s.sions which were sometimes too strong to be held in check. At the present moment he was prepared to sacrifice everything, even life itself, to obtain possession of the woman he coveted, and he made no attempt whatever to resist the tempest of desire that was urging him on with an invincible force in a direction which, for some strange and altogether inexplicable reason, he dreaded.

Yes, there was a dim sense of terror lurking behind all the wild pa.s.sion that filled his soul--a haunting, vague idea that this sudden love, with its glowing ardor and intoxicating delirium, was like the brilliant red sunset which frequently prognosticates a night of storm, ruin and death. Yet, though he felt this presentiment like a creeping shudder of cold through his blood, it did not hold him back, or for a moment impress him with the idea that it might be better to yield no further to this desperate love-madness which enthralled him.

Once only, he thought, "What if I left Egypt now--at once--and saw her no more?" And then he laughed scornfully at the impossibility proposed.

"Leave Egypt!" he muttered, "I might as well leave the world altogether! She would draw me back with those sweet wild eyes of hers,--she would drag me from the uttermost parts of the earth to fall at her feet in a very agony of love. My G.o.d! She must have her way and do with me as she will, for I feel that she holds my life in her hands!"

As he spoke these last words half aloud, he sprang up from the chair in which he had been reclining, and stood for a moment lost in frowning meditation.

"My life in her hands!" he repeated musingly. "Yes, it has come to that! My life!" A great sigh broke from him. "My life--my art--my work--my name! In all these things I have taken pride, and she--she can trample them under her feet and make of me nothing more than man clamoring for woman's love! What a wild world it is! What a strange Force must that be which created it!--the Force that some men call G.o.d and others Devil! A strange, blind, brute Force!--for it makes us aspire only to fall; it gives a man dreams of ambition and splendid attainment only to fling him like a mad fool on a woman's breast, and bid him find there, and there only, the bewildering sweetness which makes everything else in existence poor and tame in comparison. Well, well--my life! What is it? A mere grain of sand dropped in the sea; let her do with it as she will. G.o.d! How I felt her power upon me last night,--last night when her lithe figure swaying in the dance reminded me ..."

He paused, startled at the turn his own thoughts were taking.

"Of what? Let me try and express to myself now what I could not express or realize last night. She--Ziska--I thought was mine,--mine from her dimpled feet to her dusky hair,--and she danced for me alone. It seemed that the jewels she wore upon her rounded arms and slender ankles were all love-gifts from me--every circlet of gold, every starry, shining gem on her fair body was the symbol of some secret joy between us--joy so keen as to be almost pain. And as she danced, I thought I was in a vast hall of a majestic palace, where open colonnades revealed wide glimpses of a burning desert and deep blue sky. I heard the distant sound of rolling drums, and not far off I saw the Sphinx--a creature not old but new--resting upon a giant pedestal and guarding the sculptured gate of some great temple which contained, as I then thought, all the treasures of the world. I could paint the picture as I saw it then! It was a fleeting impression merely, conjured up by the dance that dizzied my brain. And that song of the Lotus-lily! That was strange--very strange, for I thought I had heard it often before,--and I saw myself in the vague dream, a prince, a warrior, almost a king, and far more famous in the world than I am now!"

He looked about him uneasily, with a kind of nervous terror, and his eyes rested for a moment on the easel where the picture he had painted of the Princess was placed, covered from view by a fold of dark cloth.

"Bah!" he exclaimed at last with a forced laugh, "What stupid fancies fool me! It is all the vague talk of that would-be learned a.s.s, Dr.

Dean, with his ridiculous theories about life and death. I shall be imagining I am his fad, Araxes, next! This sort of thing will never do.

Let me reason out the matter calmly. I love this woman,--love her to absolute madness. It is not the best kind of love, maybe, but it is the only kind I am capable of, and such as it is, she possesses it all.

What then? Well! We go to-morrow to the Pyramids, and we join her at the Mena House, I and the poor boy Denzil. He will try his chance--I mine. If he wins, I shall kill him as surely as I myself live,--yes, even though he is Helen's brother. No man shall s.n.a.t.c.h Ziska from my arms and continue to breathe. If I win, it is possible he may kill me, and I shall respect him for trying to do it. But I shall satisfy my love first; Ziska will be mine--mine in every sense of possession,--before I die. Yes, that must be--that will have to be. And afterwards,--why let Denzil do his worst; a man can but die once."

He drew the cloth off his easel and stared at the strange picture of the Princess, which seemed almost sentient in its half-watchful, half-mocking expression.

"There is a dead face and a living one on this canvas," he said, "and the dead face seems to enthral me as much as the living. Both have the same cruel smile,--both the same compelling magnetism of eye. Only it is a singular thing that I should know the dead face even more intimately than the living--that the tortured look upon it should be a kind of haunting memory--horrible--ghastly. ..."

He flung the cloth over the easel again impatiently, and tried to laugh at his own morbid imagination.

"I know who is responsible for all this nonsense," he said. "It is that ridiculous little half-mad faddist, Dr. Dean. He is going to the Mena House, too. Well!--he will be the witness of a comedy or a tragedy there,--and Heaven alone knows which it will be!"

And to distract his thoughts from dwelling any longer on the haunting ideas that perplexed him, he took up one of the latest and frothiest of French novels and began to read. Some one in a room not far off was singing a French song,--a man with a rich baritone voice,--and unconsciously to himself Gervase caught the words as they rang out full and clearly on the quiet, heated air--

O toi que j'ai tant aimee Songes-tu que je t'aime encor?

Et dans ton ame alarmee, Ne sens-tu pas quelque remord?

Viens avec moi, si tu m'aimes, Habiter dans ces deserts; Nous y vivrons pour nous memes, Oublies de tout l'univers!

And something like a mist of tears clouded his aching eyes as he repeated, half mechanically and dreamily--

O toi que j'ai tant aimee, Songes-tu que je t'aime encor?

CHAPTER XIII.

For the benefit of those among the untravelled English who have not yet broken a soda-water bottle against the Sphinx, or eaten sandwiches to the immortal memory of Cheops, it may be as well to explain that the Mena House Hotel is a long, rambling, roomy building, situated within five minutes' walk of the Great Pyramid, and happily possessed of a golfing-ground and a marble swimming-bath. That ubiquitous nuisance, the "amateur photographer," can there have his "dark room" for the development of his more or less imperfect "plates"; and there is a resident chaplain for the piously inclined. With a chaplain and a "dark room," what more can the aspiring soul of the modern tourist desire?

Some of the rooms at the Mena House are small and stuffy; others large and furnished with sufficient elegance: and the Princess Ziska had secured a "suite" of the best that could be obtained, and was soon installed there with befitting luxury. She left Cairo quite suddenly, and without any visible preparation, the morning after the reception in which she had astonished her guests by her dancing: and she did not call at the Gezireh Palace Hotel to say good-bye to any of her acquaintances there. She was perhaps conscious that her somewhat "free"

behavior had startled several worthy and sanctimonious persons; and possibly she also thought that to take rooms in an hotel which was only an hour's distance from Cairo, could scarcely be considered as absenting herself from Cairene society. She was followed to her desert retreat by Dr. Dean, Armand Gervase, and Denzil Murray, who drove to the Mena House together in one carriage, and were more or less all three in a sober and meditative frame of mind. They arrived in time to see the Sphinx bathed in the fierce glow of an ardent sunset, which turned the golden sands to crimson, and made the granite monster look like a cruel idol surrounded by a sea of blood. The brilliant red of the heavens flamed in its stony eyes, and gave them a sentient look as of contemplated murder,--and the same radiance fitfully playing on the half-scornful, half-sensual lips caused them to smile with a seeming voluptuous mockery. Dr. Dean stood transfixed for a while at the strange splendor of the spectacle, and turning to his two silent companions, said suddenly:

"There is something, after all, in the unguessed riddle of the Sphinx.

It is not a fable; it is a truth. There is a problem to be solved, and that monstrous creature knows it! The woman's face, the brute's body--Spiritualism and Materialism in one! It is life, and more than life; it is love. Forever and forever it teaches the same wonderful, terrible mystery. We aspire, yet we fall; love would fain give us wings wherewith to fly; but the wretched body lies p.r.o.ne--supine; it cannot soar to the Light Eternal."

"What IS the Light Eternal?" queried Gervase, moodily. "How do we know it exists? We cannot prove it. This world is what we see; we have to do with it and ourselves. Soul without body could not exist. ..."

"Could it not?" said the Doctor. "How, then, does body exist without soul?"

This was an unexpected but fair question, and Gervase found himself curiously perplexed by it. He offered no reply, neither did Denzil, and they all three slowly entered the Mena House Hotel, there to be met with deferential salutations by the urbane and affable landlord, and to be a.s.sured that they would find their rooms comfortable, and also that "Madame la Princesse Ziska" expected them to dine with her that evening. At this message, Denzil Murray made a sign to Gervase that he wished to speak to him alone. Gervase move aside with him.

"Give me my chance!" said Denzil, fiercely.

"Take it!" replied Gervase listlessly. "Let to-night witness the interchange of hearts between you and the Princess; I shall not interfere."

Denzil stared at him in sullen astonishment.

"You will not interfere? Your fancy for her is at an end?"

Gervase raised his dark, glowing eyes and fixed them on his would-be rival with a strange and sombre expression.

"My 'fancy' for her? My good boy, take care what you say! Don't rouse me too far, for I am dangerous! My 'fancy' for her! What do you know of it? You are hot-blooded and young; but the chill of the North controls you in a fashion, while I--a man in the prime of manhood--am of the South, and the Southern fire brooks no control. Have you seen a quiet ocean, smooth as gla.s.s, with only a dimple in the deep blue to show that perhaps, should occasion serve, there might arise a little wave?

And have you seen the wild storm breaking from a black cloud and suddenly making that quiet expanse nothing but a tourbillon of furious elements, in which the very sea-gull's cry is whelmed and lost in the thunder of the billows? Such a storm as that may be compared to the 'fancy' you suppose I feel for the woman who has dragged us both here to die at her feet--for that, I believe, is what it will come to. Life is not possible under the strain of emotion with which we two are living it. ..."

He broke off, then resumed in quieter tones:

"I say to you: Use your opportunities while you have them. After dinner I will leave you alone with the Princess. I will go out for a stroll with Dr. Dean. Take your chance, Denzil, for, as I live, it is your last! It will be my turn next! Give me credit for to-night's patience!"

He turned quickly away, and in a moment was gone. Denzil Murray stood still for a while, thinking deeply, and trying to review the position in which he found himself. He was madly in love with a woman for whom his only sister had the most violent antipathy; and that sister, who had once been all in all to him, had now become almost less than nothing in the headstrong pa.s.sion which consumed him. No consideration for her peace and ultimate happiness affected him, though he was sensible of a certain remorseful pity when thinking of her gentle ways and docile yielding to his often impatient and impetuous humors; but, after all, she was only his sister,--she could not understand his present condition of mind. Then there was Gervase, whom he had for some years looked upon as one of his most admired and intimate friends; now he was nothing more or less than a rival and an enemy, notwithstanding his seeming courtesy and civil self-restraint. As a matter of fact, he, Denzil, was left alone to face his fate: to dare the brilliant seduction of the witching eyes of Ziska,--to win her or to lose her forever! And consider every point as he would, the weary conviction was borne in upon him that, whether he met with victory or defeat, the result would bring more misery than joy.

When he entered the Princess's salon that evening, he found Dr. Dean and Gervase already there. The Princess herself, attired in a dinner-dress made with quite a modern Parisian elegance, received him in her usual graceful manner, and expressed with much sweetness her hope that the air of the desert would prove beneficial to him after the great heats that had prevailed in Cairo. Nothing but conventionalities were spoken. Oh, those conventionalities! What a world of repressed emotions they sometimes cover! How difficult it is to conceive that the man and woman who are greeting each other with calm courtesy in a crowded drawing-room are the very two, who, standing face to face in the moonlit silence of some lonely grove of trees or shaded garden, once in their lives suddenly realized the wild pa.s.sion that neither dared confess! Tragedies lie deepest under conventionalities--such secrets are buried beneath them as sometimes might make the angels weep! They are safeguards, however, against stronger emotions; and the strange bathos of two human creatures talking politely about the weather when the soul of each is clamoring for the other, has sometimes, despite its absurdity, saved the situation.

At dinner, the Princess Ziska devoted herself almost entirely to the entertainment of Dr. Dean, and awakened his interest very keenly on the subject of the Great Pyramid.

"It has never really been explored," she said. "The excavators who imagine they have fathomed its secrets are completely in error. The upper chambers are mere deceits to the investigator; they were built and planned purposely to mislead, and the secrets they hide have never even been guessed at, much less discovered."

"Are you sure of that?" inquired the Doctor, eagerly. "If so, would you not give your information. ..."

"I neither give my information nor sell it," interrupted the Princess, smiling coldly. "I am only a woman--and women are supposed to know nothing. With the rest of my s.e.x, I am judged illogical and imaginative; you wise men would call my knowledge of history deficient, my facts not proven. But, if you like, I will tell you the story of the construction of the Great Pyramid, and why it is unlikely that anyone will ever find the treasures that are buried within it. You can receive the narrative with the usual incredulity common to men; I shall not attempt to argue the pros and cons with you, because I never argue.

Treat it as a fairy-tale--no woman is ever supposed to know anything for a fact,--she is too stupid. Only men are wise!"

Her dark, disdainful glance flashed on Gervase and Denzil; anon she smiled bewitchingly, and added:

"Is it not so?"

"Wisdom is nothing compared to beauty," said Gervase. "A beautiful woman can turn the wisest man into a fool."

The Princess laughed lightly.

"Yes, and a moment afterwards he regrets his folly," she said. "He clamors for the beautiful woman as a child might cry for the moon, and when he at last possesses her, he tires. Satisfied with having compa.s.sed her degradation, he exclaims: 'What shall I do with this beauty, which, because it is mine, now palls upon me? Let me kill it and forget it; I am aweary of love, and the world is full of women!'

That is the way of your s.e.x, Monsieur Gervase; it is a brutal way, but it is the one most of you follow."