“Hum!” he grunted.
Then he proceeded to interrogate me regarding my ride from El Biodh. My replies, however, did not apparently remove his suspicions, and he smiled sarcastically now and then, at the same time watching contemplatively the thin columns of blue smoke that rose from his pipe. Suddenly he turned, and, addressing the men who had ridden out to meet me, gave orders that I should be searched.
I stood silently by, watching the men turn out and examine closely the contents of my saddlebags, and the food I was carrying. Then they proceeded to search my pockets, compelling me to raise my arms above my head.
Peste! Fate was again unpropitious!
As I raised my hands, my loose burnouse fell from my arms, leaving them bare, and disclosing that they were white!
“Ah!” cried the Sheikh, his bright eyes flashing with anger. “So thou art a spy! Thou, son of a dog, seekest the overthrow of Allah’s chosen!”
“My father,” I cried, “I – I am not a spy. Behold! I have neither knife nor gun. Is it not written that the One Worthy of Praise showeth mercy only to the merciful?”
“Seize the dog! Take him away, and let him be shot at dawn, as soon as there is sufficient light to distinguish a black thread from a white,” the old rebel commanded with a wave of his sun-tanned hand.
Then, rising, he cast aside his pipe impatiently, and was about to enter his tent, when his passage was barred by a veiled girl in rich silks and gauzes, who stood for a moment gazing at me. Her adjar, although concealing her face, left visible a fine pair of sparkling black eyes, and a forehead that had been plentifully bedaubed with powder in the manner of Eastern women. Rows of golden sequins hung upon her brow, and upon her wrists and bare ankles were jingling bangles.
“Hold!” she cried in a commanding tone, raising her bare arm and addressing the Sheikh. “Though innocent of any crime, thou hast condemned him to die. Is it not written in the Book of Everlasting Will that mercy should be shown unto the weak?”
“He is a Roumi, and his tribe will be consumed by the unquenchable fire in Al-Hâwiyat,” answered the chief of the rebels.
“Of a verity thou speakest the truth,” she said. “But is it not also written that thou shalt not transgress by attacking the infidel first, for Allah loveth not the transgressors.”
“I have spoken!” roared the Sheikh in anger. “Seek not to argue, but return unto thy divan. The son of a dog shall die!” and, pushing her roughly aside, he strode into his tent amid the murmured approbation of the crowd of dark-visaged horsemen who had assembled.
“Brothers,” she cried in a voice that betrayed her agitation, “the Roumi now before thee hath fallen into our hands, therefore we should show him mercy. I, Halima Fathma, daughter of thy Sheikh, – upon whom may the One Merciful pour abundant blessing – appeal unto thee on his behalf. Wilt thou not release him, and lift from my heart the weight which oppresseth it?”
In the silence that followed, she gazed appealingly around.
“No,” they answered, when they had whispered among themselves. “Our Sheikh hath condemned the spy. He seeketh to betray us, and must die.”
“I am hungry,” I cried, as, after further vain argument, the Sheikh’s daughter was turning away. “It is permissible, I suppose, to have a last meal?”
Saying this, I stopped, and, picking up the small loaf which the Arabs had taken from my saddle-bag, commenced to eat it with a coolness which apparently astonished the group of freebooters of the plains.
Through that balmy moonlit night I remained where my captors had left me, bound to a palm tree in the vicinity of the settlement. Hour after hour I waited alone, watching the beauty of the Oriental sky, and longing for the end. I knew I should receive no quarter – that ere the sun rose I should be shot down, and my body left to the vultures. My thoughts reverted to my boyhood, to my gay, reckless career in Paris, and most of all to Valerie.
The moon was fast disappearing, and I was calmly watching for the steely-grey light which in the desert is precursory of dawn, when suddenly I heard a footstep. The person was concealed behind some huge boulders, and I concluded that it was one of my captors who had mounted guard over me.
Yet, as I listened, the steps sounded too stealthy, like those of a light-footed thief. I stood breathless in wonderment, when suddenly a slim, white-robed figure crept from behind the rocks, and advanced towards me.
It was an Arab youth. He placed his finger upon his lips, indicative of silence.
As he came up to me, I gazed at him in surprise, for his haick concealed his face.
“Hush!” he whispered in Arabic; “make no noise, or we may be discovered. It is cruel that a brave officer like thyself should be murdered,” he added. “I have come to save thee.”
“How didst thou know I was an officer?”
“Ask no questions,” he replied. And drawing a keen knife from beneath his burnouse, he severed the cords that bound me.
“Thou art free,” he said. “Come, follow me.”
Picking up the bread I had not eaten, I thrust it into my pocket, and followed my unknown friend up a stony path that led into a narrow mountain pass. When some distance from the settlement, we came to a clump of trees, to one of which was tethered my camel.
“Quick! Mount and ride away,” he urged. “Keep straight through the pass, and when thou gainest the desert, turn at once towards the north. A day’s journey from here will bring thee unto the encampment of thy comrades.”
“Only a day’s journey!” I cried. “To what do I owe the sudden interest that the daughter of the Sheikh hath taken in my welfare?” I asked, laughing.
“I know not. Women have such strange caprices sometimes. But get away quickly,” he urged. “Lose not a moment, or thou wilt be overtaken. Slamá. Alah iselemeck!”
Turning from me, he hurried away; not, however, before I had discerned in the faint grey light that the face, half hidden by the spotless haick surrounding it, was beardless, evidently that of a woman. Was it Halima herself?
At first I was prompted to follow and ascertain; but next second I saw the grave risks we both were running, and, mounting my swift méheri, started off at a gallop over the rough stones and dunes of loose, treacherous sand.
Suddenly the crack of a rifle startled me. Then, as I glanced back, I saw, to my amazement and dismay, the slim, burnoused figure lying in a heap upon the stones; while three yelling, gesticulating Arabs were standing over it, cursing, brandishing their knives and shaking their fists. Evidently they had shot my rescuer!
To linger, however, would mean death. Therefore, on emerging from the pass, I took the route described by the mysterious person who had given me my freedom; galloping over the trackless desert in a northerly direction, with eyes eager to discern the encampment of Spahis and Zouaves.
Before nightfall I was safe within the French lines, relating to General Le Pelletier the events of my journey, and explaining the perilous position of the 39th Regiment.
“But you mentioned something of dispatches, and a plan of the country?” he said.
“Yes; I have them here,” I replied.
Then, taking from my pocket the half-eaten roll of bread, I broke it, and took therefrom two small pieces of paper.
One was a map in miniature, showing the route he was to travel, and the other the dispatch.
“We are close upon them now,” I remarked to an officer riding by my side on the next night. “They’ll fight like demons.”
Hardly had the words passed my lips, before wild yells of rage rent the air on every side; and ere we could realise it, we had surprised the encampment of the Kel-Ahamellen, and rifles flashed on every side.
I need not describe the desperate hand-to-hand conflict in the darkness. Suffice it to say, that we punished the tribe for their temerity in sentencing me to death.
When in the early morning, after a severe engagement, we walked among the ruins of the tents and heaps of dead, I searched diligently for Halima, being aided by a dozen other officers and men. But we did not discover her; and I became convinced that my worst fears were realised, and that she had fallen a victim to the relentless vengeance of her people.
Nearly two years elapsed before I again trod the asphalte of my beloved Paris.
A few weeks after my return to civilisation, I attended a ball at the German Embassy. I had been dancing, and was taking my partner, a rather skittish widow, into the supper-room, when I accidentally stepped upon and rent the dress-train of a dark-haired girl, who, leaning upon the arm of an elderly man, was walking before me.
She turned, and I bowed my apologies. The words died from my lips.
The woman, whose flower-trimmed dress I had torn, was Valerie! It was a mutual recognition; but neither of us spoke.
Half an hour later, however, I was sitting alone with her. To my fierce demands for an explanation of the sudden breaking off of her communications, she replied boldly, and with such an air of veracity that I hated myself for having spoken so harshly.
Judge my joy when she told me she was still unmarried, that the paragraph in the Figaro was unauthorised, and that it had been inserted by some unknown enemy, during her absence from Paris.
“Then you are not Madame Delbet?” I cried, with ill-concealed delight.
“Certainly not; M’sieur Delbet is an old friend of our family, that is all,” she replied, laughing. “After you left Oran, I could not write, as you were away in the desert. I read of your adventures and your bravery in the newspapers, but did not know where a letter would find you; therefore, I left all explanations of my enforced silence until your return.”
“And – you still love me?” I asked, with trepidation, placing my arm tenderly around her slim waist, and drawing her towards me.
“Of course. But, mon cher, you have never doubted me, have you?”
“No,” I replied, after an awkward pause, gazing fondly into her eyes. “But now I have gained my promotion, will you become my wife?”
Her answer was affirmative, and we sealed our compact with a kiss.
Would that I could omit this last and terrible chapter of my biography. But no! The hideous story must be related to its bitter end, to serve as warning to others.
Through closed windows and drawn curtains was borne the solemn clang of a bell in a church tower in the Avenue de Villiers, recording the death of to-day and the birth of to-morrow. A simple canary in its gilded cage, mistaking for morning sunshine the soft glow of electricity, as it filtered through its shade of orange silk, chirped a matin song in shrill staccato. A tiny slippered foot nervously patted the sleek fur of the tiger rug beneath it, a strong arm girt a slender waist; and, between the solemn strokes of the church bell, and the cheery passages of the bird-song, quick, passionate kisses alone stirred the scented air.
The man spoke. It was René Delbet!
“I must go now, darling,” he said. “We have both braved too much already. He may return at any moment.”
“And if he did?” Valerie asked defiantly.
“He might at least – suspect.”
“Suspect?” and she laughed a chorus to the canary. “He doesn’t know what suspicion means. He would trust me with Mephistopheles himself. Should he find you here, he would only thank you for entertaining me. He’s the most easy-going fellow in the world.”
The man smiled, released his companion from his embrace, and rose from the settee, upon which the two had been seated.
“I’m afraid, my dear,” he said, “that you presume too much upon his confidence. There is no cord so elastic that it will not snap.”
I waited for no more, but burst into the room, having, in my frenzy of madness, drawn a revolver from my pocket.
“Diable! You?” cried Delbet, starting up in alarm.
“Ah, my husband!” gasped Valerie, covering her blanched face with her hands.
“Sacré! You shall die!” I shouted.
The tolling bell throbbed once again, and then – a short, sharp, loud report and a flash together. A little puff of blue-grey smoke floated ceilingward, a man’s frightened cry pierced the night, and upon the harmonious colours of the flower-strewn carpet Valerie lay dead.
Rushing to my wife’s boudoir, I broke open her escritoire, bent upon ascertaining the nature of any letters she might have concealed there.
There were many. Ah, Dieu! When I think of the passionate love-missives penned by the man whom I had implicitly trusted, and admitted to my home as a friend, my brain is lashed to frenzy.
One discovery I made was startling. Several of the letters bore the stamp of twenty-five centimes, and their envelopes were addressed to “Mademoiselle Halima Fathma, care of Hadj Hassan, Douéra Algérie.”
Searching further, I discovered a full-length cabinet photograph, taken in Algiers. It was of Valerie dressed as the Sheikh’s daughter, with the exception that the adjar, which had hidden the Arab girl’s face, had been removed.
In my surprise I almost forgot the terrible tragedy.
Continuing the investigation of the odds and ends in her private drawer, I found an Arab head ornament and several bracelets. The pattern of the crescent-shaped sequins I recognised as the same as those worn by the mysterious Halima.
These discoveries, combined with the contents of the letters which I hastily scanned, left no doubt that Halima and Valerie were the same person; and, further, that Hassan, the wealthy Sheikh of the Ahamellen, who had a house at Douéra, was really her father; and that Monsieur de Noirville had brought her up, and educated her to the ways of civilised society.
When I had left for Algeria, it had been her caprice to follow me, and rejoin her people.
She had saved my life, yet I had killed her.
But though so fair, she was false —false!
Bah! How infernally bitter this cognac is!
One more gulp, and my body and soul will have parted. I shall be at rest.
Ah, well! Here’s health to the cursed scoundrel who has wrecked my life. The glass is drained. The sediment was like gall.
How it burns!
I – I go. I trouble no one longer. Au revoir. Adieu!