Chapter VIII: Part 8

I did not mean to sleep that night. Tired though I was my brain was so excited that I felt I should not. I blew out the candle without even the thought that it would be necessary to struggle against sleep. And in the darkness I heard for an instant the roar of the wind outside, the heavy breathing of my two strange companions within. For an instant—then it seemed as if a shutter was drawn suddenly over the light in my brain. Blackness filled the room where the thoughts develop, crowd, stir in endless activities. Slumber fell upon me like a great stone that strikes a man down to dumbness, to unconsciousness.

* * * * *

Far in the night I had a dream. I cannot recall it accurately now. I could not recall it even the next morning when I awoke. But in this dream, it seemed to me that fingers felt softly about my heart. I was conscious of their fluttering touch. It was as if I were dead, and as if the doctor laid for a moment his hand upon my heart to convince himself that the pulse of life no longer beat. And this action wove itself naturally into the dream I had. The fingers so soft, so surreptitious, were lifted from my breast, and I sank deeper into the gulf of sleep, below the place of dreams. For I was a tired man that night. At the first breath of dawn I stirred and woke. It was cold. I put out one hand and drew up my quilt. Then I lay still. The wind had sunk. I no longer heard it roaring over the desert. For a moment I hardly remembered where I was, then memory came back and I listened for the deep breathing of the Spahi and the murderer. Even when the wind blew I had heard it. I did not hear it now. I lay there under my quilt for some minutes listening. The silence was intense. Had they gone already, started on their way to El Arba? The Bordj was in darkness, for the windows were very small, and dawn had scarcely begun to break outside and had not yet filtered in through the wooden shutters which barred them. I disliked this complete silence, and felt about for the matches I had laid beside the candle before turning in. I could not find them. Someone had moved them, then. The heaviness of sleep had quite left me now, and I remembered clearly all the incidents of the previous evening. The roll of the desert drum sounded again in my ears. I threw off my quilt, got up, and moved softly over the stone floor towards the corner where the murderer had lain down to sleep. I bent down to touch him and touched the stone. They had gone, then! It was strange that I had not been waked by their departure. Besides, I had the key of the door. I thrust my hand into the breast-pocket of my coat which I had worn while I slept. The key was no longer there. Then I remembered my dream and the fingers fluttering round my heart. Stumbling in the blackness I came to the place where the Spahi had lain, stretched out my hands and felt naked flesh. My hands recoiled from it, for it was very cold.

Half-an-hour later the one-eyed Arab who kept the Bordj, roused by my beating upon the door with the butt end of my revolver, came with D’oud to ask what was the matter. The door had to be broken in. This took some time. Long before I could escape, the light of the sun, entering through the little arched windows, had illumined the nude corpse of the Spahi, the gaping red wound in his throat, the heap of murderer’s rags that lay across his feet.

M’hammed Bouaziz, in the red cloak, the red boots, sword at his side, musket slung over his shoulder, was galloping over the desert on his way to freedom.

* * * * *

But six months later he was taken at night outside a café by the lake at Tunis. He was gazing through the doorway at a girl who was posturing to the sound of pipes between two rows of Arabs. The light from the café fell upon his face, the dancer uttered a cry.

“M’hammed Bouaziz!”

“Aïchouch!”

The law avenged the Spahi, and this time it was not to prison they led my friend of Sidi-Massarli, but to an open space before a squad of soldiers just when the dawn was breaking.

_THE PRINCESS AND THE JEWEL DOCTOR_

In St. Petersburg society there may be met at the present time a certain Russian Princess, who is noted for her beauty, for an ugly defect—she has lost the forefinger of her left hand—and for her extraordinary attachment to the city of Tunis, where she has spent at least three months of each year since 1890—the year in which she suffered the accident that deprived her of a finger. What that accident was, and why she is so passionately attached to Tunis, nobody in Russia seems to know, not even her doting husband, who bows to all her caprices. But two persons could explain the matter—a Tunisian guide named Abdul, and a rather mysterious individual who follows a humble calling in the Rue Ben-Ziad, close to the Tunis bazaars. This latter is the Princess’s personal attendant during her yearly visit to Tunis. He accompanies her everywhere, may be seen in the hall of her hotel when she is at home, on the box of her carriage when she drives out, close behind her when she is walking. He is her shadow in Africa. Only when she goes back to Russia does he return to his profession in the Rue Ben-Ziad.

This is the exact history of the accident which befell the Princess in 1890. In the spring of that year she arrived one night at Tunis. She had not long been married to an honourable man whom she adored. She was rich, pretty, and popular. Yet her life was clouded by a great fear that sometimes made the darkness of night almost intolerable to her. She dreaded lest the darkness of blindness should come upon her. Both her mother, now dead, and her grandfather had laboured under this defect. They had been born with sight, and had become totally blind ere they reached the age of forty. Princess Danischeff—as we may call her for the purpose of this story—trembled when she thought of their fate, and that it might be hers. Certain books that she read, certain conversations on the subject of heredity that she heard in Petersburg society fed her terror. Occasionally, too, when she stood under a strong light she felt a slight pain in her eyes. She never spoke of her fear, but she fell into a condition of nervous exhaustion that alarmed her husband and her physician. The latter recommended foreign travel as a tonic. The former, who was detained in the capital by political affairs, reluctantly agreed to a separation from his wife. And thus it came about, that, late one night of spring, the Princess and her companion, the elderly Countess de Rosnikoff, arrived in Tunis at the close of a tour in Algeria, and put up at the Hotel Royal.

The bazaars of Tunis are among the best that exist in the world of bazaars, and, on the morning after her arrival, the Princess was anxious to explore them with her companion. But Madame de Rosnikoff was fatigued by her journey from Constantine. She begged the Princess to go without her, desiring earnestly to be left in her bedroom with a cup of weak tea and a French novel. The Princess, therefore, ordered a guide and set forth to the bazaars.

The guide’s name was Abdul. He was a talkative young Eastern, and as he turned with the Princess into the network of tiny alleys that spreads from the Bab-el-bahar to the bazaars, he poured forth a flood of information about the marvels of his native city. The Princess listened idly. That morning she was cruelly pre-occupied. As she stepped out of the hotel into the bright sunshine she had felt a sharp pain in her eyes, and now, though she held over her head a large green parasol, the pain continued. She looked at the light and thought of the darkness that might be coming upon her, and the chatter of Abdul sounded vague in her ears. Presently, however, she was forced to attend to him, for he asked her a direct question.

“To-day they sell jewels by auction near the Mosquée Djama-ez-Zitouna,” he said. “Would the gracious Princess like to see the market of the jewels?”

The Princess put her hand to her eyes and assented in a low voice. Abdul turned out of the sunshine into a narrow alley covered with a wooden roof. It was full of shadows and of squatting men, who held out brown hands to the Princess as she passed. But she was staring at the shadows and did not see the merchants of Goblin Market. Leaving this alley Abdul led her abruptly into a dense crowd of Arabs, who were all talking, gesticulating, and moving hither and thither, apparently under the influence of extreme excitement. Many of them held rings, bracelets, or brooches between their fingers, and some extended palms upon which lay quantities of uncut jewels—turquoises, sapphires, and emeralds. At a little distance a grave man was noting down something in a book. But the Princess scarcely observed the progress of the jewel auction. Her attention had been attracted by an extraordinary figure that stood near her. This was an immensely tall Arab, dressed in a dingy brown robe, and wearing upon his shaven head, which narrowed almost to a point at the back, a red fez with a large black tassel. His claw-like hands were covered with rings and his bony wrists with bracelets. But the attention of the Princess was riveted by his eyes. They were small and bright, and squinted horribly—so horribly, that it was impossible to tell at what he was looking. These eyes gave to his face an expression of diabolic and ruthless vigilance and cunning. He seemed at the same time to be seeing everything and to be gazing definitely at nothing.

“That is Safti, the jewel doctor,” murmured Abdul in the ear of the Princess.

“A jewel doctor! What is that?” asked the Princess.

“When you are sick he cures you with jewels.”

“And what can he cure?” said the Princess, still looking at Safti, who was now bargaining vociferously with a fat Arab for a piece of milk-white jade.

“All things. I was sick of a fever that comes with the summer. He gave me a stone crushed to a powder, and I was well. He saved from death one of the Bey’s sons, who was dying from hijada. And then, too, he has a stone in a ring which can preserve sight to him who is going blind.”

The Princess started violently.

“Impossible!” she cried.

“It is true,” said Abdul. “It is a green stone—like that.”

He pointed to an emerald which an Arab was holding up to the light.

The Princess put her hand to her eyes. They still ached, and her temples were throbbing furiously.

“I cannot stay here,” she said. “It is too hot. But—tell the jewel doctor that I wish to visit him. Where does he live?”

“In a little street, Rue Ben-Ziad, in a little house. But he is rich.” Abdul spread his arms abroad. “When will the gracious Princess⸺?”

“This afternoon. At—at four o’clock you will take me.”

Abdul spoke to Safti, who turned, squinted horribly at the Princess, and salaamed to her with a curious and contradictory dignity, turning his fingers, covered with jewels, towards the earth.

That afternoon, at four, when the venerable Madame de Rosnikoff was still drinking her weak tea and reading her French novel, the Princess and Abdul stood before the low wooden door of the jewel doctor’s house. Abdul struck upon it, and the terrible physician appeared in the dark aperture, looking all ways with his deformed eyes, which fascinated the Princess. Having ascertained that he could speak a little broken French, like many of the Tunisian Arabs, she bade Abdul wait outside, and entered the hovel of the jewel doctor, who shut close the door behind her.

The room in which she found herself was dark and scented. Faint light from the street filtered in through an aperture in the wall, across which was partially drawn a wooden shutter. Round the room ran a divan covered with straw matting, and Safti now conducted the Princess ceremoniously to this, and handed her a cup of thick coffee, which he took from a brass tray that was placed upon a stand. As she sipped the coffee and looked at the pointed head and twisted gaze of Safti, the Princess heard some distant Arab at a street corner singing monotonously a tuneless song, and the scent, the darkness, the reiterated song, and the tall, strange creature standing silently before her gave to her, in their combination, the atmosphere of a dream. She found it difficult to speak, to explain her errand.

At length she said: “You are a doctor? You can cure the sick?”

Safti salaamed.

“With jewels? Is that possible?”

“Jewels are the only medicine,” Safti replied, speaking with sudden volubility. “With the ruby I cure madness, with the white jade the disease of the hijada, and with the bloodstone hæmorrhage. I have made a man who was ill of fever wear a topaz, and he arose from bed and walked happily in the street.”

“And with an emerald,” interrupted the Princess; “have you not preserved sight with an emerald? They told me so.”

Safti’s expression suddenly became grim and suspicious.

“Who said that?” he asked sharply.

“Abdul. Is it true? Can it be true?”

Her cheeks were flushed. She spoke almost with violence, laying her hand upon his arm. Safti seemed to stare hard into the corners of the little room. Perhaps he was really looking at the Princess. At length he said: “It is true.”

“I will give any price you ask for it,” said the Princess.

“You!” said Safti. “But you⸺”

Suddenly he lifted his lean hands, took the face of the Princess between them quite gently, and turned it towards the small window. She had begun to tremble. Holding her soft cheeks with his brown fingers, Safti remained motionless for a long time, during which it seemed to the Princess that he was looking away from her at some distant object. She watched his frightful and surreptitious eyes, that never told the truth, she heard the distant Arab’s everlasting song, and her dream became a nightmare. At last Safti dropped his hands and said:

“It may be that some day you will need my emerald.”

The Princess felt as if at that moment a bullet entered her heart.

“Give it me—give it me!” she cried. “I am rich. I⸺”

“I do not sell my medicines,” Safti answered. “Those who use them must live near me, here in Tunis. When they are healed they give back to me the jewel that has saved them. But you—you live far off.”

With the swiftness of a woman the Princess saw that persuasion would be useless. Safti’s face looked hard as brown wood. She seemed to recover from her emotion, and said quietly:

“At least you will let me see the emerald?”

Safti went to a small bureau that stood at the back of the room, opened one of its drawers with a key which he drew from beneath his dingy robe, lifted a small silver box carefully out, returned to the Princess, and put the box into her hand.

“Open it,” he said.

She obeyed, and took out a very small and antique gold ring, in which was set a rather dull emerald. Safti drew it gently from her, and put it upon the forefinger of her left hand. It was so tiny that it would not pass beyond the joint of the finger, and it looked ugly and odd upon the Princess, who wore many beautiful rings. Now that she saw it she felt the superstition that had sprung from her terror dying within her. Safti, with his crooked eyes, must have read her thought in her face, for he said:

“The Princess is wrong. That medicine could cure her. The one who wears it for three months in each year can never be blind.”

Taking the emerald from her finger, he touched her two eyes with it, and it seemed to the Princess that, as he did so, the pain she felt in them withdrew. Her desire for the jewel instantly returned.

“Let me wear it,” she said, putting forth all her charm to soften the jewel doctor. “Let me take it with me to Russia. I will make you rich.”

Safti shook his head.

“The Princess may wear it here, in Tunis,” he replied. “Not elsewhere.”

She began to temporise, hoping to conquer his resistance later.

“I may take it with me now?” she asked.

“At a fee.”

“I will pay it.”

The jewel doctor went to the door, and called in Abdul. Five minutes later the Princess passed the singing Arab at the corner of the street, Rue Ben-Ziad. She had signed a paper pledging herself to return the emerald to Safti at the end of forty-eight hours, and to pay 125 francs for her possession of it during that time. And she wore the emerald on the forefinger of her left hand.

On the following morning Madame de Rosnikoff said to the Princess:

“I hate Tunis. It has an evil climate. The tea here is too strong, and I feel sure the drains are bad. Last night I was feverish. I am always feverish when I am near bad drains.”

The Princess, who had slept well, and had waked with no pain in her eyes, answered these complaints cheerily, made the Countess some tea that was really weak, and drove her out in the sunshine to see Carthage. The Countess did not see it, because there is no longer a Carthage. She went to bed that night in a bad humour, and again complained of drains the next morning. This time the Princess did not heed her, for she was thinking of the hour when she must return the emerald to Safti.

“What an ugly ring that is,” said the old Countess. “Where did you get it? It is too small. Why do you wear it?”

“I—I bought it in the bazaars,” answered the Princess.

“My dear, you wasted your money,” said the companion; and she went to bed with another French novel.

That afternoon the Princess implored Safti to sell her the emerald, and as he persistently declined she renewed her lease of it for another forty-eight hours. As she left the jewel doctor’s home she did not notice that he spoke some words in a low and eager voice to Abdul, pointing towards her as he did so. Nor did she see the strange bustle of varied life in the street as she walked slowly under the great Moorish arch of the Porte de France. She was deeply thoughtful.

Since she had worn the ugly ring of Safti she had suffered no pain from her eyes, and a strange certainty had gradually come upon her that, while the emerald was in her possession, she would be safe from the terrible disease of which she had so long lived in terror. Yet Safti would not let her have the ring. And she could not live for ever in Tunis. Already she had prolonged her stay abroad, and was due in Russia, where her anxious husband awaited her. She knew not what to do. Suddenly an idea occurred to her. It made her flush red and tingle with shame. She glanced up, and saw the lustrous eyes of Abdul fixed intently upon her. As he left her at the door of the hotel he said,

“The Princess will stay long in Tunis?”

“Another week at least, Abdul,” she answered carelessly. “You can go home now. I shall not want you any more to-day.”

And she walked into the hotel without looking at him again. When she was in her room she sent for a list of the steamers sailing daily from Tunis for the different ports of Africa and Europe. Presently she came to the bedside of Madame de Rosnikoff.

“Countess,” she said, “you are no better?”

“How can I be? The drains are bad, and the tea here is too strong.”

“There is a boat that leaves for Sicily at midnight—for Marsala. Shall we go in her?”

The old lady bounded on her pillow.

“Straight on by Italy to Russia?” she cried joyfully.

The Princess nodded. A fierce excitement shone in her pretty eyes, and her little hands were trembling as she looked down at the dull emerald of Safti.

* * * * *

At eleven o’clock that night the Princess and the Countess got into a carriage, drove to the edge of the huge salt lake by which Tunis lies, and went on board the _Stella d’Italia_. The sky was starless. The winds were still, and it was very dark. As the ship glided out from the shore the old Countess hurried below. But the Princess remained on deck, leaning upon the bulwark, and gazing at the fading lights of the city where Safti dwelt. Two flames seemed burning in her heart, a fierce flame of joy, a fierce flame of contempt—of contempt for herself. For was she not a common thief? She looked at Safti’s ring on her finger, and flushed scarlet in the darkness. Yet she was joyful, triumphant, as she heard the beating of the ship’s heart, and saw the lights of Tunis growing fainter in the distance, and felt the onward movement of the _Stella d’Italia_ through the night. She felt herself nearer to Russia with each throb of the machinery. And from Russia she would expiate her sin. From Russia she would compensate Safti for his loss. The lights of Tunis grew fainter. She thought of the open sea.

But suddenly she felt that the ship was slowing down. The engines beat more feebly, then ceased to beat. The ship glided on for a moment in silence, and stopped. A cold fear ran over the Princess. She called to a sailor.

“Why,” she said, “why do we stop? Is anything wrong?”

He pointed to some lights on the port side.

“We are off Hammam-Lif, madame,” he said. “We are going to lie to for half-an-hour to take in cargo.”

To the Princess that half-hour seemed all eternity. She remained upon deck, and whenever she heard the splash of oars as a boat drew near, or the guttural sound of an Arab voice, she trembled, and, staring into the blackness, fancied that she saw the tall figure, the pointed head, and the deformed eyes of the jewel doctor. But the minutes passed. The cargo was all got on board. The boats drew off. And once again the ship shuddered as the heart of her began to beat, and the ebon water ran backward from her prow.

Then the Princess was glad. She laid the hand on which shone Safti’s emerald upon the bulwark, and gazed towards the sea, turning her back upon the lights of Hammam-Lif. She thought of safety, of Russia. She did not hear a soft step drawing near upon the deck behind her. She did not see the flash of steel descending to the bulwark on which her hand was laid.

But suddenly the horrible cry of a woman in agony rang through the night. It was instantly succeeded by a splash in the water, as a tall figure dived over the vessel’s side.

When the sun rose on the following day over the minarets of Tunis the _Stella d’Italia_, with the Princess on board, was far out at sea.

The emerald of Safti was once more in the little house in the Rue Ben-Ziad.

It was still upon the Princess’s finger.

_THE FIGURE IN THE MIRAGE_

On a windy night of Spring I sat by a great fire that had been built by Moors on a plain of Morocco under the shadow of a white city, and talked with a fellow-countryman, stranger to me till that day. We had met in the morning in a filthy alley of the town, and had forgathered. He was a wanderer for pleasure like myself, and, learning that he was staying in a dreary hostelry haunted by fever, I invited him to dine in my camp, and to pass the night in one of the small peaked tents that served me and my Moorish attendants as home. He consented gladly. Dinner was over—no bad one, for Moors can cook, can even make delicious caramel pudding in desert places—and Mohammed, my stalwart _valet de chambre_, had given us most excellent coffee. Now we smoked by the great fire, looked up at the marvellously bright stars, and told, as is the way of travellers, tales of our wanderings. My companion, whom I took at first to be a rather ironic, sceptical, and by nature unimaginative globe-trotter—he was a hard-looking, iron-grey man of middle-age—related the usual tiger story, the time-honoured elephant anecdote, and a couple of snake yarns of no special value, and I was beginning to fear that I should get little entertainment from so prosaic a sportsman, when I chanced to mention the desert.

“Ah!” said my guest, taking his pipe from his mouth, “the desert is the strangest thing in nature, as woman is the strangest thing in human nature. And when you get them together—desert and woman—by Jove!”

He paused, then he shot a keen glance at me.

“Ever been in the Sahara?” he said.

I replied in the affirmative, but added that I had as yet only seen the fringe of it.

“Biskra, I suppose,” he rejoined, “and the nearest oasis, Sidi-Okba, and so on?”

I nodded. I saw I was in for another tale, and anticipated some history of shooting exploits under the salt mountain of El Outaya.

“Well,” he continued, “I know the Sahara pretty fairly, and about the oddest thing I ever could believe in I heard of and believed in there.”

“Something about gazelle?” I queried.

“Gazelle? No—a woman!” he replied.

As he spoke a Moor glided out of the windy darkness, and threw an armful of dry reeds on the fire. The flames flared up vehemently, and I saw that the face of my companion had changed. The hardness of it was smoothed away. Some memory, that held its romance, sat with him.

“A woman,” he repeated, knocking the ashes out of his pipe almost sentimentally—“more than that, a French woman of Paris, with the nameless charm, the _chic_, the⸺But I’ll tell you. Some years ago three Parisians—a man, his wife, and her unmarried sister, a girl of eighteen, with an angel and a devil in her dark beauty—came to a great resolve. They decided that they were tired of the Francais, sick of the Bois, bored to death with the boulevards, that they wanted to see for themselves the famous French colonies which were for ever being talked about in the Chamber. They determined to travel. No sooner was the determination come to than they were off. Hôtel des Colonies, Marseilles; steamboat, _Le Général Chanzy_; five o’clock on a splendid, sunny afternoon—Algiers, with its terraces, its white villas, its palms, trees, and its Spahis!”

“But⸺” I began.

He foresaw my objection.

“There were Spahis, and that’s a point of my story. Some fête was on in the town while our Parisians were there. All the African troops were out—Zouaves, chasseurs, tirailleurs. The Governor went in procession to perform some ceremony, and in front of his carriage rode sixteen Spahis—probably got in from that desert camp of theirs near El Outaya. All this was long before the Tsar visited Paris, and our Parisians had never before seen the dashing Spahis, had only heard of them, of their magnificent horses, their turbans and flowing Arab robes, their gorgeous figures, lustrous eyes, and diabolic horsemanship. You know how they ride? No cavalry to touch them—not even the Cossacks! Well, our French friends were struck. The unmarried sister, more especially, was _bouleversée_ by these glorious demons. As they caracoled beneath the balcony on which she was leaning she clapped her little hands, in their white kid gloves, and threw down a shower of roses. The falling flowers frightened the horses. They pranced, bucked, reared. One Spahi—a great fellow, eyes like a desert eagle, grand aquiline profile—on whom three roses had dropped, looked up, saw mademoiselle—call her Valérie—gazing down with her great, bright eyes—they were deuced fine eyes, by Jove!⸺”

“You’ve seen her?” I asked.

“—and flashed a smile at her with his white teeth. It was his last day in the service. He was in grand spirits. ‘_Mon Dieu! Mais quelles dents!_’ she sang out. Her people laughed at her. The Spahi looked at her again—not smiling. She shrank back on the balcony. Then his place was taken by the Governor—small imperial, _chapeau de forme_, evening dress, landau and pair. Mademoiselle was _désolée_. Why couldn’t civilised men look like Spahis? Why were all Parisians commonplace? Why—why? Her sister and brother-in-law called her the savage worshipper, and took her down to the café on the terrace to dine. And all through dinner mademoiselle talked of the _beaux_ Spahis—in the plural, with a secret reservation in her heart. After Algiers our Parisians went by way of Constantine to Biskra. Now they saw desert for the first time—the curious iron-grey, velvety-brown, and rose-pink mountains; the nomadic Arabs camping in their earth-coloured tents patched with rags; the camels against the skyline; the everlasting sands, broken here and there by the deep green shadows of distant oases, where the close-growing palms, seen from far off, give to the desert almost the effect that clouds give to Cornish waters. At Biskra mademoiselle—oh! what she must have looked like under the mimosa-trees before the Hôtel de l’Oasis!⸺”

“Then you’ve seen her,” I began.

“—mademoiselle became enthusiastic again, and, almost before they knew it, her sister and brother-in-law were committed to a desert expedition, were fitted out with a dragoman, tents, mules—the whole show, in fact—and one blazing hot day found themselves out in that sunshine—you know it—with Biskra a green shadow on that sea, the mountains behind the sulphur springs turning from bronze to black-brown in the distance, and the table flatness of the desert stretching ahead of them to the limits of the world and the judgment day.”

My companion paused, took a flaming reed from the fire, put it to his pipe bowl, pulled hard at his pipe—all the time staring straight before him, as if, among the glowing logs, he saw the caravan of the Parisians winding onward across the desert sands. Then he turned to me, sighed, and said:

“You’ve seen mirage?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Have you noticed that in mirage the things one fancies one sees generally appear in large numbers—buildings crowded as in towns, trees growing together as in woods, men shoulder to shoulder in large companies?”

My experience of mirage in the desert was so, and I acknowledged it.

“Have you ever seen in a mirage a solitary figure?” he continued.

I thought for a moment. Then I replied in the negative.

“No more have I,” he said. “And I believe it’s a very rare occurrence. Now mark the mirage that showed itself to mademoiselle on the first day of the desert journey of the Parisians. She saw it on the northern verge of the oasis of Sidi-Okba, late in the afternoon. As they journeyed Tahar, their dragoman—he had applied for the post, and got it by the desire of mademoiselle, who admired his lithe bearing and gorgeous aplomb—Tahar suddenly pulled up his mule, pointed with his brown hand to the horizon, and said in French:

“‘There is mirage! Look! There is the mirage of the great desert!’

“Our Parisians, filled with excitement, gazed above the pointed ears of their beasts, over the shimmering waste. There, beyond the palms of the oasis, wrapped in a mysterious haze, lay the mirage. They looked at it in silence. Then Mademoiselle cried, in her little bird’s clear voice:

“‘Mirage! But surely he’s real?’

“‘What does mademoiselle see?’ asked Tahar quickly.

“‘Why, a sort of faint landscape, through which a man—an Arab, I suppose—is riding, towards Sidi—what is it?—Sidi-Okba! He’s got something in front of him, hanging across his saddle.’

“Her relations looked at her in amazement.

“‘I only see houses standing on the edge of water,’ said her sister.

“‘And I!’ cried the husband.

“‘Houses and water,’ assented Tahar. ‘It is always so in the mirage of Sidi-Okba.’

“‘I see no houses, no water,’ cried mademoiselle, straining her eyes. ‘The Arab rides fast, like the wind. He is in a hurry. One would think he was being pursued. Why, now he’s gone!’

“She turned to her companions. They saw still the fairy houses of the mirage standing in the haze on the edge of the fairy water.

“‘But,’ mademoiselle said impatiently, ‘there’s nothing at all now—only sand.’

“‘Mademoiselle dreams,’ said Tahar. ‘The mirage is always there.’

“They rode forward. That night they camped near Sidi-Okba. At dinner, while the stars came out, they talked of the mirage, and mademoiselle still insisted that it was a mirage of a horseman bearing something before him on his saddle-bow, and riding as if for life. And Tahar said again:

“‘Mademoiselle dreams!’

“As he spoke he looked at her with a mysterious intentness, which she noticed. That night, in her little camp-bed, round which the desert winds blew mildly, she did indeed dream. And her dream was of the magic forms that ride on magic horses through mirage.

“The next day, at dawn, the caravan of the Parisians went on its way, winding farther into the desert. In leaving Sidi-Okba they left behind them the last traces of civilisation—the French man and woman who keep the auberge in the orange garden there. To-day, as they journeyed, a sense of deep mystery flowed upon the heart of mademoiselle. She felt that she was a little cockle-shell of a boat which, accustomed hitherto only to the Seine, now set sail upon a mighty ocean. The fear of the Sahara came upon her.”

My companion paused. His face was grave, almost stern.

“And her relations?” I asked. “Did they feel⸺”

“Haven’t an idea what they felt,” he answered curtly.

“But how do you know that mademoiselle⸺”

“You’ll understand at the end of the story. As they journeyed in the sun across the endless flats—for the mountains had vanished now, and nothing broke the level of the sand—mademoiselle’s gaiety went from her. Silent was the lively, chattering tongue that knew the jargon of cities, the gossip of the Plage. She was oppressed. Tahar rode close at her side. He seemed to have taken her under his special protection. Far before them rode the attendants, chanting deep love songs in the sun. The sound of those songs seemed like the sound of the great desert singing of its wild and savage love to the heart of mademoiselle. At first her brother-in-law and sister bantered her on her silence, but Tahar stopped them, with a curious authority.

“‘The desert speaks to mademoiselle,’ he said in her hearing. ‘Let her listen.’

“He watched her continually with his huge eyes, and she did not mind his glance, though she began to feel irritated and restless under the observation of her relations.

“Towards noon Tahar again described mirage. As he pointed it out he stared fixedly at mademoiselle.

“The two other Parisians exclaimed that they saw forest trees, a running stream, a veritable oasis, where they longed to rest and eat their _déjeuner_.

“‘And mademoiselle?’ said Tahar. ‘What does she see?’

“She was gazing into the distance. Her face was very pale, and for a moment she did not answer. Then she said:

“‘I see again the Arab bearing the burden before him on the saddle. He is much clearer than yesterday. I can almost see his face⸺’

“She paused. She was trembling.

“‘But I cannot see what he carries. It seems to float on the wind, like a robe, or a woman’s dress. Ah! _mon Dieu!_ how fast he rides!’

“She stared before her as if fascinated, and following with her eyes some rapidly-moving object. Suddenly she shut her eyes.

“‘He’s gone!’ she said.

“‘And now—mademoiselle sees?’ said Tahar.

“She opened her eyes.

“‘Nothing.’

“‘Yet the mirage is still there,’ he said.

“‘Valérie,’ cried her sister, ‘are you mad that you see what no one else can see, and cannot see what all else see?’

“‘Am I mad, Tahar?’ she said gravely, almost timidly, to the dragoman.

“And the fear of the Sahara came again upon her.

“‘Mademoiselle sees what she must,’ he answered. ‘The desert speaks to the heart of mademoiselle.’

“That night there was moon. Mademoiselle could not sleep. She lay in her narrow bed and thought of the figure in the mirage, while the moonbeams stole in between the tent pegs to keep her company. She thought of second sight, of phantoms, and of wraiths. Was this riding Arab, whom she alone could see, a phantom of the Sahara, mysteriously accompanying the caravan, and revealing himself to her through the medium of the mirage as if in a magic mirror? She turned restlessly upon her pillow, saw the naughty moonbeams, got up, and went softly to the tent door. All the desert was bathed in light. She gazed out as a mariner gazes out over the sea. She heard jackals yelping in the distance, peevish in their insomnia, and fancied their voices were the voices of desert demons. As she stood there she thought of the figure in the mirage, and wondered if mirage ever rises at night—if, by chance, she might see it now. And, while she stood wondering, far away across the sand there floated up a silvery haze, like a veil of spangled tissue—exquisite for a ball robe, she said long after!—and in this haze she saw again the phantom Arab galloping upon his horse. But now he was clear in the moon. Furiously he rode, like a thing demented in a dream, and as he rode he looked back over his shoulder, as if he feared pursuit. Mademoiselle could see his fierce eyes, like the eyes of a desert eagle that stares unwinking at the glaring African sun. He urged on his fleet horse. She could hear now the ceaseless thud of its hoofs upon the hard sand as it drew nearer and nearer. She could see the white foam upon its steaming flanks, and now at last she knew that the burden which the Arab bore across his saddle and supported with his arms was a woman. Her robe flew out upon the wind; her dark, loose hair streamed over the breast of the horseman; her face was hidden against his heart; but mademoiselle saw his face, uttered a cry, and shrank back against the canvas of the tent.

“For it was the face of the Spahi who had ridden in the procession of the Governor—of the Spahi to whom she had thrown the roses from the balcony of Algiers.

“As she cried out the mirage faded, the Arab vanished, the thud of the horse’s hoofs died in her ears, and Tahar, the dragoman, glided round the tent, and stood before her. His eyes gleamed in the moonlight like ebon jewels.

“‘Hush!’ he whispered, ‘mademoiselle sees the mirage?’

“Mademoiselle could not speak. She stared into the eyes of Tahar, and hers were dilated with wonder.

“He drew nearer to her.

“‘Mademoiselle has seen again the horseman and his burden.’

“She bowed her head. All things seemed dream-like to her. Tahar’s voice was low and monotonous, and sounded far away.

“‘It is fate,’ he said. He paused, gazing upon her.

“‘In the tents they all sleep,’ he murmured. ‘Even the watchman sleeps, for I have given him a powder of hashish, and hashish gives long dreams—long dreams.’

“From beneath his robe he drew a small box, opened it, and showed to mademoiselle a dark brown powder, which he shook into a tiny cup of water.

“‘Mademoiselle shall drink, as the watchman has drunk,’ he said—‘shall drink and dream.’

“He held the cup to her lips, and she, fascinated by his eyes, as by the eyes of a mesmerist, could not disobey him. She swallowed the hashish, swayed, and fell forward into his arms.

“A moment later, across the spaces of the desert, whitened by the moon, rode the figure mademoiselle had seen in the mirage. Upon his saddle he bore a dreaming woman. And in the ears of the woman through all the night beat the thunderous music of a horse’s hoofs spurning the desert sand. Mademoiselle had taken her place in the vision which she no longer saw.”

My companion paused. His pipe had gone out. He did not relight it, but sat looking at me in silence.

“The Spahi?” I asked.

“Had claimed the giver of the roses.”

“And Tahar?”

“The shots he fired after the Spahi missed fire. Yet Tahar was a notable shot.”

“A strange tale,” I said. “How did you come to hear it?”

“A year ago I penetrated very far into the Sahara on a sporting expedition. One day I came upon an encampment of nomads. The story was told me by one of them as we sat in the low doorway of an earth-coloured tent and watched the sun go down.”

“Told you by an Arab?”

He shook his head.

“By whom, then?”

“By a woman with a clear little bird’s voice, with an angel and a devil in her dark beauty, a woman with the gesture of Paris—the grace, the _diablerie_ of Paris.”

Light broke on me.

“By mademoiselle!” I exclaimed.

“Pardon,” he answered; “by madame.”

“She was married?”

“To the figure in the mirage; and she was content.”

“Content!” I cried.

“Content with her two little dark children dancing before her in the twilight, content when the figure of the mirage galloped at evening across the plain, shouting an Eastern love song, with a gazelle—instead of a woman—slung across his saddle-bow. Did I not say that, as the desert is the strangest thing in nature, so a woman is the strangest thing in human nature? Which heart is most mysterious?”

“Its heart?” I said.

“Or the heart of mademoiselle?”

“I give the palm to the latter.”

“And I,” he answered, taking off his wide-brimmed hat—“I gave it when I saluted her as madame before the tent door, out there in the great desert.”

_SAFTI’S SUMMER DAY_

Safti is a respectable, one-eyed married man who lives in a brown earth house in the Sahara Desert. He has a wife and five children, and in winter he works for his living and theirs. When the morning dawns, and the great red sun rises above the rim of the wide and wonderful land which is the only land that Safti knows, he wraps his white burnous around him, pulls his hood up over his closely-shaven head, rolls and lights his cigarette, and sets forth to his equivalent of an office. This is the white arcade of a hotel where unbelieving dogs of travellers come in winter. I am an unbelieving dog of a traveller, and I come there in winter, and Safti comes there for me. I, in fact, am Safti’s profession. By me, and others like me, he lives. For a consideration he shows me round the market, which I knew by heart six years ago, and takes me up the mosque tower, from which I gazed over the flying pigeons and the swaying palms when Safti was comparatively young and frisky. Together we visit the gazelles in their pretty garden, and the Caïd’s Mill, from which one sees the pink and purple mountains of the Aures. We ride to the Sulphur Baths, we drive to Sidi-Okba. We take our _déjeuner_ out to the yellow sand dunes, and we sip our coffee among the keef smokers in Hadj’s painted café. We listen to the songs of the negro troubadour, and we smile at Algia’s dancing when the silver moon comes up and the Kabyle dogs round the nomads’ tents begin their serenades. And then I give Safti five francs and my blessing, and he bids me “_Bonne nuit!_” and his ghostly figure is lost in the black shadows of the palm-trees.

Oh, Safti works hard, very hard in winter. The other day I asked him: “Don’t you get exhausted, Safti, with all this exertion to keep the Sahara home together? You are getting on in years now.”

“Ah yes, Sidi; I am already thirty-two, alas!”

He was thirty-five when I first met him; but he is as clever at subtraction as a London beauty.

“Good heavens! So much! But, then, how can you keep up the wear and tear of this tumultuous life? You must have an iron strength. Such work as you do would break down an American millionaire.”

Safti raised his one dark eye piously towards Allah’s dwelling.

“Sidi, I must labour for my children. But in the summer, when you and all the travellers are gone from the Sahara to your fogs and the darkness of your days, I take my little holiday.”

“Your holiday! But is it long enough?”

“It lasts for only five months, Sidi; but it is enough for me. I am strong as the lion.”

I gazed at him with an admiration I could not repress. There was, indeed, something of the hero about this simple-minded Saharaman. We were at the edge of the oasis, in a remote place looking towards the quivering mirage which guards dead Okba’s tomb. A tiny earthen house, with a flat terrace ending in the jagged bank of the Oued Biskra, was crouched here in the shade. From it emerged a pleasant scent of coffee. Suddenly Safti’s bare legs began to “give.” I felt it would be cruel to push on farther. We entered the house, seated ourselves luxuriously upon a baked divan of mud, set our slippers on a reed mat, rolled our cigarettes, and commanded our coffee. When a Kabyle boy with a rosebud stuck under his turban had brought it languidly, I said to Safti:

“And now, Safti, tell me how you pass your little holiday.”

Safti smiled gently in his beard. He was glad to have this moment of repose.

“Each day is like its brother, Sidi,” he responded, gazing out through the low doorway to the shimmering Sahara.

“Then tell me how you pass a summer day.”

The coffee nerved him to this stubborn exertion, and he spoke.

“_Sahah_, Sidi.”

“_Merci._”

We sipped.

“A day in summer, Sidi, when the great heats begin in June? Well, at five in the morning I get up⸺”

“And light the fire,” I murmured mechanically.

The one eye stared in blank amazement.

“Proceed, Safti. You get up at five. That is very early.”

“The sun rises at a quarter to five.”

“To call you. Well?”

“I eat three fresh figs, and sometimes four. I then mount upon my mule, and I ride very quietly into Biskra to take coffee with my friends.”

“That is half-an-hour’s exercise?”

“About half-an-hour. After taking coffee with my friends we play at dominoes. It is forbidden for the Arabs to play at cards in Biskra. I remain in the café at the corner⸺”

“I know—by the Garden of the Gazelles!”

“—till eleven o’clock, at which time I again mount upon my mule, and return quietly to my home. When I reach there I eat with my wife and children sour milk, bread, and dates from my palm-trees which I have kept from the autumn. At twelve we all go to bed together in a black room.”

“A black room?”

“We fear the flies.”

“I see.”

“Till four in the afternoon I, my wife, and my children sleep in the black room. At that hour I rise once more, and go quietly to the Café Maure in old Biskra, near my house. I play cards there for five coffees till seven o’clock. At seven the mosquitoes arrive, and prevent us from playing any more.”

“How intrusive! Always at seven?”

“Always at seven. I then walk very quietly with my friends to the end of the oasis.”

“To the Tombuctou road?”

“Yes, Sidi; to get the air. We come back by the same road quietly, and I go to my house, and eat a cold kous-kous with my wife and children. After this I return to the café and play ronda till one o’clock.”

“One o’clock at night?”

“Yes. At one o’clock I go with my friends very quietly to bathe in the stream beneath the wall near the mosque. We stay in the water for, perhaps, an hour, and when we come out we drink lagmi.”

“What’s lagmi?”

“Palm wine. Then at three o’clock I go to my home, mount upon the roof quietly with my wife and children, and sleep till dawn.”

“And you do this for five months?”

“For five months, Sidi.”

“And—and your wife, Safti?”

I felt that I was very indiscreet; but Safti is good-natured, and has bought quite a number of palm-trees out of his savings when with me.

“My wife, Sidi?”

“What does she do all the time?”

“She remains quietly in my house.”

“She never goes out?”

“Never, except upon the roof to take a little air.”

“Doesn’t she get rather bor⸺”

The one eye began to look remarkably vague.

“And you find five months of this life a sufficient rest in the course of the year?”

Safti smiled at me with resignation.

“I cannot take more, Sidi; I am not a rich Englishman.”

“Well, Safti, you must make the best of your fate. It is the will of Allah that you should toil.”

“_Shal-làh!_ I will take another coffee, Sidi.”

“Larbi!”

I called the Kabyle boy.

_SMAÏN_

“When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe.”

+Sahara Saying+.

Far away in the desert I heard the sound of a flute, pure sound in the pure air, delicate, sometimes almost comic with the comicality of a child who bends women to kisses and to nonsense-words. We had passed through the sandstorm, Safti and I, over the wastes of saltpetre, and come into a land of palm gardens where there was almost breathless calm. The feet of the camels paddled over the soft brown earth of the narrow alleys between the brown earth walls, and we looked down to right and left into the shady enclosed spaces, seamed with water rills, dotted with little pools of pale yellow water, and saw always giant palms, with wrinkled trunks and tufted, deep green foliage, brooding in their squadrons over the dimness they had made. The activity of man might be discerned here in the regularity of the artificial rills, the ordered placing of the trees, each of which, too, stood on its oval hump. But no man was seen; no flat-roofed huts appeared; no robe, pale blue or white, fluttered among the shadows; no dog blinked in the golden patches of the sun—only the sound of the flute came to us from some hidden place ceaselessly, wild and romantic, full of an odd coquetry, and of an absurdity that was both uncivilised and touching.

I stopped to listen, and looked round, searching the vistas between the palms.

“Where does it come from?” I asked of Safti.

His one eye blinked languidly.

“From some gardener among the trees. All who dwell in Sidi-Matou are gardeners.”

The persistent flute gave forth a shower of notes that were like drops of water flung softly in our faces.

“He is in love,” added Safti with a slight yawn.

“How do you know?”

“When the African is in love he plays upon the pipe. That is what they say in the Sahara.”

“And you think he is alone under some palm-tree playing for himself?”

“Yes; he is quite alone. If he is much in love he will play all day, and, perhaps, all night too.”

“But she cannot hear him.”

“That does not matter. He plays for his own heart, and his own heart can hear.”

I listened. Since Safti had spoken the music meant more to me. I tried to read the player’s heart in the endless song it made. Trills, twitterings, grace notes, little runs upward ending in the air—surely it was a boy’s heart, and not unhappy.

“It is coming nearer,” I said.

“Yes. Ah, it is Smaïn!”

Safti’s one eye is sharp. I had seen no one. But as he spoke a tall youth in a single white garment glided into my view, his eyes bent down, his brown fingers fluttering on a long reed flute covered with red arabesques. His feet were bare, and he moved slowly.

Safti hailed him with the accented violence peculiar to the Arabs. He stopped playing, looked, and smiled all over his young face. In a moment he was on our side of the earth wall, and talking busily, staring at me the while with unabashed curiosity. For few strangers come to Sidi-Amrane, and Smaïn had never wandered far.

“What does he say?” I asked of Safti.