The Golden Silence

Victoria had not been out of her sister's rooms and garden, except to visit M'Barka in the women's guest-house, since the night when Maïeddine brought her to the Zaouïa; and whe...

Five days' journeying from Ghardaia brought the travellers to a desert world full of movement and interest. There were many caravans going northward. Pretty girls smiled at them...

"Well, an idea has come into my head. There may be something in it--if you can help us work it. We couldn't do it without you. Do you know the child and his uncle so well that i...

The old lady took this as a compliment. "I haven't lived among Arabs, goodness knows how many years, for nothing," she retorted. "I telegraphed for her about five minutes after...

"Yes. His name was Cassim ben Halim el Cheikh el Arab. Before he had known Saidee two weeks, he proposed. She took a little while to think it over, and I begged her to say 'no'-...

Always before, when she danced, Victoria had called up the face of her sister, to keep before her eyes as an inspiration. But now, as she bent and swayed to catch the spirit's w...

Victoria tried to think only of M'Barka, and to wait with patience for the supreme moment--if it were to come. Even if she had wished it, she could not have asked questions now.

"Probably some officer was going on military business, and Maïeddine's asked for a lift," Nevill said to Lady MacGregor. "Well, it's too late for us to get away now; but we'll b...

"It's just an idea. You know, I told you that on the journey, when Si Maïeddine was being very kind to me--before I knew he cared--I made him a present of the African brooch you...

Forgetting the flag of truce in his fury at the insult, Maïeddine lifted his rifle and fired; then, remembering that he had sinned against a code of honour he respected, he stoo...

"Not in my own strength, but in that which Allah will give me, I shall be strong," the sick woman answered with controlled passion. "Ever since I knew that I could not hope to r...

"I would go to it, and find it with the man who's ready to risk his life to save me from this hateful prison, and carry me far away. Now, I've told you everything, exactly as it...

"Not impatient. I am happy. Yet I should like to count the days, and say each night, 'So many more times must the sun rise and set before I see my sister.'"

"_Hang_ the world! England's my world. I've always looked forward to England, ever since I was a little thing, before mamma died, and I used to hear father repeating the romanti...

"That too, perhaps--but I don't think a fortune would induce you to leave the stage yet a while. You'd want to go on, not for the money perhaps, but for the fun."

Nevill made his climax by opening the velvet case, and the brown eyes of the Kabyle boy flashed with uncontrollable admiration, though his face remained immobile. He answered th...

Stephen was no longer in doubt about his feelings for Victoria. He knew that he had loved her ever since the day when she came to Nevill's house, and they talked together in the...

He did not see the girl getting into the train at Calais, though he looked for her, feeling some curiosity as to the stepmother and the sister whom he had imagined prostrate in...

"Flan-ben-Flan," laughed Jeanne Soubise. "That means," she explained, turning to Stephen, "So and So, son of So and So. It is strange, a young lady came inquiring about Ben Hali...

Far away, eighteen miles distant across the sands, she could see the twenty thousand domes of Oued Tolga, the desert city which had taken its name from the older Zaouïa, and the...

"Don't begin by accusing the landlord of anything," Nevill advised, at the hotel door. "He's got too much Arab blood in him to stand that. You'd only make him tell you lies. We...

In the tower, Stephen heard a woman's cry and thought the voice was Victoria's. His work was done. He had signalled for help, and, though this apparatus was a battered stable la...

"Very well, I accept," said the Arab. "Thou mayest send a message to the lady, inviting her to leave my house with thee; and I assure thee, that in any case I would have no wish...

Then another thought flashed into Stephen's brain. He asked himself whether it would be possible to climb up into the broken tower. If he could reach the top, he might be able t...

When they had passed the strange rock-shape known as the Chapeau de Gendarme, and the line of mountains which is like the great wall of China, Maïeddine defied the danger he had...

"Hit upon them, indeed!" she echoed indignantly, making her knitting needles click, a movement which displayed her pretty, miniature hands, half hidden in lace ruffles. "As if t...

As he spoke, the brown men were scuttling about, one unfastening the door of a little tower, which stuck as if it had not been opened for a long time, another darting into the h...

Hung with a tapestry of roses, immense brown walls lay crumbling--ruined gateways, and shattered traces of the triple fortifications which defended Tlemcen when the Almohades we...

"Indirectly. That was one reason it appealed to Cassim. He'd been proud of his position in the army, and being turned out, or forced to go--much the same thing--made him hate Fr...

Nevill admired her promptness and energy, and said so. He shared Stephen's chivalrous wish to do something for the girl, so alone, so courageous, working against difficulties sh...

For some moments he did not look at the Arabs. Then, glancing quickly at the group, he saw that the head man sent by the marabout was talking emphatically to the guide from Oued...

The gates, or doors, of iron were thrown wide open, and the little procession entered a huge open court. On one side was accommodation for many animals, as in a caravanserai, wi...

"My poor child, when Cassim ben Halim died--at a very convenient time for himself--Sidi El Hadj Mohammed ben Abd-el-Kadr appeared to claim this maraboutship, left vacant by the...

Again the words came singing into his head. She was white--white as this lacelike foam that silvered the Mediterranean blue; but she had not gone forever, as he had thought when...

The Hotel de la Kasbah, which Victoria frankly admitted she had chosen because of its low prices, was, as its name indicated, close to the mounting of the town, near the corner...

"He _does_ know something about Cassim," she said, half aloud, and searching her instinct, she still thought that she could trust him to keep faith with her. He was not playing....

Fafann laughed. "My mistress no longer spends time in thinking of her skin. She prays much instead; and the Sidi has given her an amulet which touched the sacred Black Stone at...

THE MOTOR MAID LORD LOVELAND DISCOVERS AMERICA SET IN SILVER THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR THE PRINCESS PASSES MY FRIEND THE CHAUFFEUR LADY BETTY ACROSS THE WATER ROSEMARY IN SEARCH O...

After a while, she dropped into a doze, and was surprised when she waked up, to find that it was nearly nine o'clock. Fafann had roused her by moving about, collecting bundles....

It was a land of legends and dreams round about Tlemcen, the "Key of the West," city of beautiful mosques. The mountains were honeycombed with onyx mines; and rising out of wide...

Stephen caught the hand that half unconsciously the girl held out to him, and pressed it hard. "If you will go back to your hotel now," he said to Margot, in a quiet voice, "I w...