A Soldier of the Legion Read online

  CHAPTER XX

  THE BEAUTY DOCTOR

  "If my father were only here!" Sanda said as she went down to the greatroom of state where the ladies of the Agha's harem received their fewvisitors. And then she thought of Maxime St. George, her soldier. Sherecalled the night when she had been afraid of the storm, and he had satby her through the long hours. Somehow, she did not know why, it helpeda little to remember that.

  Ben Raana, graver and sterner than she had seen him, was waiting in theearly dawn which struck out bleak lights from the dangling prisms of thebig French chandeliers--the ugly chandeliers of which Lella Mabrouka wasproud. He asked no questions; and somehow that seemed worse than theordeal for which Sanda had braced herself. The Agha's voice, politelyspeaking French, was studiously gentle, but icy contempt was in his darkeyes when they were not deliberately turned from the trusted guest whohad betrayed him. He said he had summoned her to announce, with regret,that, owing to the illness of the man appointed as conductor of thecaravan, it would not be able to start for some time. At present therewas no other person equally trustworthy who could be spared. "I amresponsible to thy father for thy safety," he added. "And though we poorArabs are behind these modern times in many ways, we would die ratherthan betray a trust."

  That was a stroke well aimed under the roses of courtesy, and Sandacould but receive it in silence. She had supposed when Lella Mabroukaspoke of the caravan not going that it was only a threat. Herexpectation was to be sent out of the house at once, in disgrace, andthough her soul yearned over Ourieda, all that was timid in her pined togo. It was surprising--if anything could surprise her then--to hear thatshe must remain.

  "Almost surely I shan't be allowed to see Ourieda again, and if I can'thelp her any more I might as well beg father to send for me at once,"she told herself, when Ben Raana, formally taking leave of her, withhand on forehead and heart, had gone. She went slowly and miserably toher own room to await developments, and while she waited, hastily wrotethe message to Colonel DeLisle which three days later found him atTouggourt.

  In writing, she feared that her letter might never be allowed to reachher father; but she wronged Ben Raana. He had spoken no more than thetruth (though he spoke to hurt) in saying he would rather die thanbetray a trust. At that time he still kept his calmness, because theplot arranged by the two girls had not succeeded. His daughter was stillsafe under his own roof, and it was not an unexpected blow to him thatshe should have wished to escape from Tahar. He knew in his heart thatOurieda was more to blame than Sanda, and seeing shame on the young,pale face of the Roumia he had no fear of anything George DeLisle'sdaughter might report to her father. Her letter went by the courier, asall her other letters had gone. Mabrouka's advice to keep it back, orat least to steam the envelope open and see what was inside, was scornedby Ben Raana; and to Sanda's astonishment she was actually sent for tovisit Ourieda.

  This was in the afternoon of the day whose dawn had seen the girls'defeat. Ourieda was in bed, and Taous sat by the open door with anembroidery frame. But Taous understood neither French nor English. Inexchange for the lessons Ourieda gave Sanda in Arabic, Sanda had givenlessons in English; therefore, lest Aunt Mabrouka might be listening,and lest she might have picked up more French than she cared to confess,the two girls chose the language of which Ourieda had learned tounderstand more than she could speak.

  "How thankful I am to see you, dearest!" cried Sanda. "Didn't you think,after what your aunt said, that I should be sent away this morning?Would you have dreamed, even if I stayed, that we should be allowed tomeet and talk like this?"

  Ourieda answered, slowly and brokenly, that she had not believed Sandawould be permitted to go. Aunt Mabrouka had not stopped to reflect whenshe had made that threat, or else she had hoped to part them, and tomake Ourieda believe Sanda had gone. "You see," the girl explained inher halting English, "they--my father and my aunt--shall have too muchof the fear to let you go till after all is finished."

  "Finished?"

  "When the marrying has been over thou canst go. Then it too late. Myfather shall be sure, thee and me, we know where M---- is, that our planwas for him. I say no, but he not believe. That is for why they keepthee here, so thou not tell M---- things about me. But my father, heshall not be mean and little in his mind like my aunt. He not listen tothe words she speak when she say not let us meet together. My fatherknow very well now we shall be finded out, it is the end for us. He nothave fear for what we do if some person shall watch to see I not killmyself."

  "What has become of poor Embarka?" Sanda asked.

  Ourieda shook her head, unutterable sadness in her eyes. "I think nevershall I know that in this world."

  Ill, without feigning, as the girl was, the wedding was to be hurriedon. The original idea had been for the week of wedding festivities tobegin on the girl's seventeenth birthday; but now Ben Raana said that,in promising his daughter the delay she asked for, he had alwaysintended to begin the week before and give the bride to the bridegroomon the anniversary of her birth.

  Ourieda no longer pleaded. She had given up hope, and resigned herselfwith the deadly calmness of resignation which only women of theMussulman faith can feel. It was clear that her will was not as Allah'swill. And women came not on earth for happiness. It was not sure thatthey even had souls.

  "Allah has appointed that I marry my cousin Tahar," she said to Sanda,"and I shall marry him, because I have not another stiletto nor anypoison, and I am always watched so that, even if I had the courage, Icould not throw myself down from the roof. But afterward--I am not sureyet what I shall do. All I know is that I shall never be a wife toTahar. Something will happen to one of us. It may be to me, or it maybe to him. But something _must_ happen."

  The Agha himself had caused to be built at Djazerta a _hammam_ copied inminiature after a fine Moorish bath in Algiers, at which he bathed whenhe went north to attend the governor's yearly ball. All Arab brides ofhigh rank or low must go through great ceremonies of the bath in theweek of the wedding feast, and no exception could be made in Ourieda'scase. The privacy of the _hammam_ was secured for the Agha's daughter byhiring it for a day, and no one was to be admitted to the women's partof the bath except the few ladies who had enough social importance toexpect invitations. That Lella Mabrouka and Sanda would be there was amatter of course; and, besides them, there were the wives and daughtersof two or three sheikhs and caids, all of whom Sanda already knew bysight, as they had paid ceremonious visits to the great man's haremsince her arrival at Djazerta.

  The Agha had a carriage, large, old-fashioned, and musty-smelling, butlined with gold-stamped crimson silk from Tunis. It could be used onlybetween his house and the town, or to reach the oasis just beyond, forthere was nowhere else to go; but, drawn by stalwart mules in Spanishharness, for years it had taken the ladies of his household to the bathsand back. Lella Mabrouka and Taous (both veiled, though they had passedthe age of attractiveness when hiding the face is obligatory) chaperonedthe bride and her friend, the coachman and his assistant being fat andelderly eunuchs.

  At the doorway of the domed building, the only new one in Djazerta,there was much stately fuss of screening the ladies as they left theseclusion of the carriage. Then came a long, tiled corridor, whichopened into a room under the dome of the _hammam_, and there the partywas met not only by bowing female attendants, but by the guests, who hadarrived early to welcome them. Ourieda was received with pretty criesand childlike, excited chattering, not only by her girl friends, but theolder women. All were undressed, ready for the bath, or they could nothave followed the bride to the hot rooms; and that was the object andpleasure of the visit. Every one shrieked compliments as the clothing ofthe Agha's daughter was delicately removed by the beaming negresses; andgifts of gold-spangled bonbons, wonderfully iced cakes, crystallizedfruit, flowers, gilded bottles of concentrated perfume, mother-o'-pearland tortoise boxes, gaudy silk handkerchiefs made in Paris for Algerianmarkets, and little silver fetiches were presented to the bride. Shethanked the
givers charmingly, though in a manner so subdued and with aface so grave that the visitors would have been astonished had not LellaMabrouka explained that she had been ill with an attack of fever.

  From hot room to hotter room the women trooped, resting, when they feltinclined, upon mattings spread on marble, while the bride, the queen ofthe occasion, was given a divan. They ate sweets and drank pink sherbetor syrup-sweet coffee, and, instead of being bathed by one of theattendants, Ourieda was waited upon by a great personage who came toDjazerta only for the weddings of the highest. Originally she was fromTunis, where her profession is a fine art; but having been supersededthere she had moved to Algiers, then to Touggourt; and thence the Aghahad summoned her for his daughter. She was Zakia, _la hennena_, askilled beautifier of women; and she had been sent for, some days inadvance of the great occasion, in order (being past her youth) torecover from the fatigue of the journey. None of the young girls hadever seen her, and exclaiming with joy they fingered her scented pastesand powders.

  This bridal bath ceremony, being more intricate than any ordinary bath,took a long time, and when it was over, and Ourieda a perfumed statue ofivory, the cooling-room was entered for the dyeing of the bride's hair.The girl's face showed how she disliked the process; but it being anunwritten law that the hair of an Arab bride must be coloured with_sabgha_, she submitted. After the first shudder she sat with downcasteyes, looking indifferent, for nothing mattered to her now. Since Manoeelwould never see it again, and perhaps it would soon lie deep under earthin a coffin, she cared very little after all that the long hair he hadthought beautiful must lose its lovely sheen for fashion's sake.

  Now and then, as she worked, Zakia stooped over her victim, bringing herold, peering face close to the bowed face of the girl to make sure thedye did not touch it. Sanda, who had been grudgingly granted a thinmuslin robe for the bath because of her strange Roumia ideas of baringthe face and covering the body, noticed these bendings of _la hennena_,but thought nothing of them until she happened to catch a new expressionin Ourieda's eyes. Suddenly the gloom of hopelessness had gone out ofthem: and it could not be that this was the effect of the complimentsrained upon her in chorus by the guests, for until that instant the mostfantastic praise of hair, features, and figure had not extorted a smile.What could the woman have said to give back in an instant the girl'slost bloom and sparkle? Sanda wondered. It was like a miracle. But itlasted only for a moment. Then it seemed that by an effort Ouriedamasked herself once more with tragedy. She turned one of her slow, sadglances toward her aunt; and Sanda was sure she looked relieved onseeing Lella Mabrouka absorbed in talk with the plump wife of a caid.

  According to custom in great houses of the south, _la hennena_ wasescorted, after the women's fete at the _hammam_, to the home of thebride, where she was to spend the remainder of the festive week inheightening the girl's beauty. She was given the guest-room of theharem, second in importance to that occupied by Colonel DeLisle'sdaughter. This, as it happened, was nearer to Ourieda's room thanSanda's or even Lella Mabrouka's; and as, during the two days thatfollowed, Zakia was almost constantly occupied in blanching the bride'sivory skin with almond paste, staining her fingers red as coral with adecoction of henna and cochineal, and saturating her hair and body witha famous permanent perfume, sometimes Lella Mabrouka and Taous venturedto leave the two girls chaperoned only by _la hennena_. That was becauseneither had seen the sudden light in Ourieda's eyes after the face ofZakia had approached hers at the _hammam_.

  For the first day there was no solution of the mystery for Sanda, whohad waited to hear she knew not what. But at last, in a room litteredwith pastes and perfume bottles, and lighted by the traditional longcandles wound with coloured ribbon, Ourieda spoke, in Arabic, that the_hennena_ might not be hurt.

  "Zakia says I may tell thee our secret," she said. "At first she wasafraid, but now she sees that she may trust thee as I do. Didst thouguess there was a secret?"

  "Yes," answered Sanda.

  "I thought so! Well, it is this: At the _hammam_ is employed a cousin ofEmbarka's. I feared never to hear of Embarka again; but my father ismore enlightened than I thought. He might have ordered her death, andthe eunuchs would have obeyed, and no one would ever have known. Yet hedid no more than send her away, giving her no time even to pack thatwhich was hers. He did not care what became of her, being sure that shecould never again enter our house. But he did not know of the cousin inthe _hammam_. And perhaps he did not stop to think that I might havegiven Embarka jewels for helping me. She would have helped withoutpayment, because she loved me. But I wished to reward her. She hid thethings in her clothing; and when she was turned out she still thought ofme, not of herself. She knew I would go to the _hammam_ before mymarriage, and that Zakia had been sent for to bathe me and make mebeautiful. So she gave her cousin there a present, and all the rest ofthe jewels she gave to Zakia, for a promise Zakia made. Nothing hasEmbarka kept of all my gifts. It was like her! The rest is easy now. Ishall never again know happiness, but neither shall I know the shame ofgiving myself to a man I hate when heart and soul belong to one Ilove."

  "Can _la hennena_ help you to escape?" Sanda wanted to know.

  "From Tahar, yes. Here is the way," Ourieda answered. And she held outfor Sanda to see a tiny pearl-studded gold box, one of many quaintornaments on a chain the girl always wore round her neck. She hadexplained the meaning or contents of each fetich long ago, and Sandaknew all about the sacred eye from Egypt, the white coral horn to wardoff evil, the silver and emerald case with a text from the Koran blessedby a great saint or marabout, and the pearl-crusted gold box containinga lock of hair certified to be that of Fatma Zora, the Prophet'sfavourite daughter.

  "I have put the hair with the text," said Ourieda. "Look, in its placethis tiny bottle of white powder. Canst thou guess what it is for?"

  The blood rushed to Sanda's face, then back to her heart. But she didnot answer. She only looked at Ourieda: a wide-eyed, fascinated look.

  "Thou hast guessed," the Agha's daughter said in a very little voicelike a child's. "But I shall not use it if, when I have told him how Ihate him, he consents to let me alone. If he is a fool, why, he bringshis fate on himself. This is for his lips, if they try to touch mine."

  "But," Sanda gasped; "you would be a----"

  "I know the word in thy mind. It is 'murderess.' Yet my conscience wouldbe clear. It would be for the sake of my love--to keep true to mypromise at any cost. And the cost might be my life. They would findout; they would know how he died. This is no coward's act like smilingat a man and giving him each day powdered glass or chopped hair of aleopard in his food, which many of our women do, to kill and leave notrace. If I break, I pay."

  As she spoke the door opened and Lella Mabrouka came swiftly into theroom, fierce-eyed as a tigress whose cub is threatened. She wastight-lipped and silent, but her eyes spoke, and all three knew that shehad listened. Such words as she had missed her quick wit had caught andpatched together. Ourieda's wish to propitiate Zakia by not seeming totalk secrets before her had undone them both. But it was too late forregrets, and even for lies.

  Lella Mabrouka clapped her hands, and Taous came, to be told in a tensevoice that the Agha must be summoned. Then Mabrouka turned to theRoumia.

  "Go, thou! This has nothing to do with thee," was all she said.

  Sanda glanced at her friend, and an answering glance bade her obey. Sherose and went out, along the balcony to the door of her own room. Thisshe left open, thinking with a fast-beating heart that if there were anycry she would run back, no matter what they might do to her. But therewas no cry, no sound of any kind, only the cooing of doves which hadflown down into the fountain court, hoping Ourieda might throw themcorn.

  The custom of the house was for the three ladies to take their mealstogether in a room where occasionally, as a great honour, the Agha dinedwith them. That evening a tray of food was brought to Sanda with politeregrets from Lella Mabrouka because she and her niece were tooindisposed by the hot weather
to forsake the shelter of their rooms.Politeness, always politeness, with these Arabs of high birth andmanners! thought the Irish-French girl in a passionate revolt againstthe curtain of silk velvet softly let down between her and the secretsof Ben Raana's harem. This time it might be, she said to herself, thatpoliteness covered tragedy. But the same night she received anothermessage from Mabrouka. It was merely to say that, the air of Djazertanot being healthful at this time of year, the Agha had decided, for hisdaughter's sake, to finish the week of the wedding feast out in thedesert, at the _douar_.