Chapter XXV

“_In lieu of flowers from your fair land--_ _Take wild growths of dreamland or starland._”

The early morning breeze came whispering through the shady little courtyard that lay in the midst of the palace. It brought a shower of white petals fluttering down in the golden sunshine, mingling with the silver rain of fountains. Some fell like snowflakes on a shady stone seat where Leslie was sitting.

She had been a week in Kallu, and with each passing day she seemed to grow smaller, whiter and more wraith-like.

The girl had taken the burden of her father’s sins upon herself. A way of compensation had been shown to her, and she had accepted it, although the weight was crushing all life out of her. In another week’s time she was going to marry her cousin according to heathen rites. Then he was taking her over the border, to a secluded Mission, where they would be united in the European manner.

Now Leslie had no desire to return to civilization. Her father’s sins had cut her off from all her own color. The white world was no place for her, the daughter of a man guilty of depths of treachery she once would have deemed impossible. She was branded--as much an outcast and pariah as the big, strange cousin whose crimes her father was morally responsible for.

The sound of some one coming through one of the horseshoe arches roused her. Now she knew that footfall very well. And it made her look round with a smile, pathetic in its wistfulness.

Lebrassa crossed to her side. He noticed her forced air of welcome. And he noticed also that daily the girl grew thinner. She was visibly wasting away, and only too well he knew the reason. Half-kneeling on the seat beside her, he drew a branch of orange blossom down until it touched her head.

Every morning brought Leslie some gift from her cousin, the Sultan. His presents varied considerably, from heavy, barbaric jewels, rich and rare and gaudy, to a tiny specimen of a deer, so small that it had been sent in a foot-square hamper, so tame that it now lay at her feet.

His dark, tainted eyes were quick to see this morsel of life found more favor in her sight than all the costly jewels he heaped upon her.

That morning, with her early breakfast, had come a tiny cage, not more than four inches square, made of fine gold wire and studded with gems. In it was a mite of a bird, little bigger than a bumble bee, bright-eyed and very much alive.

On seeing it, for the first time since reaching Kallu, Leslie had laughed. It was such an absurd morsel, such a complete cage with feeding troughs, perches and a swing, everything a bird needed. And the servant who had brought the present had glided silently away to tell his royal master how much the gift had pleased.

As Leslie had sipped her coffee, talking to her new pet, pinhead, beady eyes had watched her, as if trying to explain that, in spite of its minuteness, it was a bird, and there was one thing the golden, jeweled cage lacked. It had chirped so loudly about its missing privilege that, the moment breakfast was over, she had taken the cage out into the courtyard. Now it stood empty on the seat beside her.

This Lebrassa noticed the moment his gaze came from his cousin’s face.

“Why, you’ve let it go!” he exclaimed. “And I was told you liked it.”

She laid a thin, apologetic hand on his sleeve.

“I’m sorry, Essel, but it didn’t like being shut up, so I had to let it out.”

His given name on her lips always brought a look of pleasure to his face. But on this occasion the look had died away by the time her sentence was finished.

Moving the tiny cage, he seated himself beside her, and stayed there in thoughtful silence.

“You’re making me very much the son of my father, Leslie,” he volunteered presently. “When you’re about I seem to have no connection with the savages on my mother’s side.”

She glanced at him, wondering what he was leading up to.

His gaze, however, was on the empty, golden cage.

“If I said you needn’t marry me and sent you back to England, do you think you’d get quite well and happy again?”

“I’d much rather stay here--now.”

He realized that the fact of her father’s crimes made her wish to avoid all people of her own color.

“I was a brute to tell you,” he said in a voice choked with feeling. “I was a fool not to have known it would crush the life out of you.”

Leslie said nothing.

A light wind breathed through the garden, bringing the scent of roses, the cooing of doves, and the ceaseless drip of fountains.

“Then it isn’t just the thought of me and all I wish that makes you look so tired and worn?” he asked anxiously.

“I’m only too glad to be able to make some return.”

He got to his feet, watching her tenderly. Then he took one of her listless hands into his, holding it carefully.

“You’re just a rose, Leslie, and crushing brings out all your sweetness. Do try and think of me only as my father’s son. Try not to dwell on my mother’s side,” he begged.

“I never think of you now except as my cousin,” she answered. “I know you would have been very different but for--my father,” she finished, in a voice that trembled.

He raised her hand to his lips.

“Why did I ever tell you?” he cried, his voice full of pain.

Kissing her hand he turned quickly away, and disappeared through one of the arches.

Leslie spent a long, listless morning, then lunch-time came--a solitary meal set in the coolest corner of the marble room. It was followed by a silent afternoon, hot and breathless, when everything, even the insects, seemed to sleep.

Sometimes Leslie wondered where her cousin was. She never saw him except for a few minutes in the morning and again in the evening when, with the cool of approaching sunset, he came to take her for a walk.

When the rising night wind woke up the sleeping trees, Lebrassa’s step roused Leslie as she sat reading on the terrace of the marble room.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

With a weary air, she picked up and pulled on a large hat lying on a chair near. As she walked by his side she saw nothing unless it was pointed out to her. A cloud of black and red had risen between her and earth’s beauties, shutting out the world, leaving her alone with a man who was her cousin, yet half a negro.

She watched him as he leant over a bed of violets gathering a bunch for her. Blacker than her father’s crimes loomed her own future. She felt crushed between the two, with no escape from either.

“Let me pin them on, darling?” he asked as he straightened himself.

“Why not, if you wish to,” she answered, smiling wistfully at him.

Then she watched his brown fingers that looked so dark against her white frock. So dark that only with an effort could she keep herself from shivering. Just then, when he was so close, the negro in him seemed so terrible, more insurmountable than all the crimes of his own doing.

Leaving the garden they passed through the village, and on into the cool depths of the forest. The night shadows were lengthening, and the relics of the forgotten city stood like white ghosts in the green gloom.

Leslie went on, thinking of Captain Fletcher, knowing her father’s infamy shut her out from all such as he.

Lebrassa’s voice broke the silence that had enveloped them since entering the forest.

“Who knows, Leslie,” he began, his gaze on the ancient ruins, “perhaps the black people were the first on earth. There was darkness before light, and night before day. We know there have been civilizations which time has buried. Perhaps the Sphinx itself is a monument of a past negro civilization, for it has a very negroid cast of features. The negroes may not be what the world thinks, a race just getting light from the whites, but the descendants of an ancient civilization, now forgotten. Perhaps, if one only knew it, it’s not such a disgrace to be a nigger.”

Leslie listened, not minding what subject he talked on now, so long as it was not love.

“Are you the last of your race?” she asked.

“There’s you, little cousin.”

“I meant----”

Abruptly she stopped.

Her remark and pause brought a dreary smile to his lips. It told him just what he was in her estimation.

“You mean my mother’s race? I’ve two cousins, children of my mother’s younger sister. Is that the only side you can see of me? I want to be all white with you, yet you can only see the nigger. You’re very sweet to me now, but I know it’s only to pay a debt. Don’t think I don’t know it. And appreciate it, too. I’m thankful for so little where I’d once dared to hope for so much.”

In silence the walk continued. And away in the forest, a prowling hyena laughed, loud and long and with wild mockery.