Chapter 28

"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 France and everything French. He'd have given his life for revenge, I'm sure. Probably that's why his friends were so anxious to put him in a place of power, for they were men whose watchword was 'Islam for Islam.' Their hope was--and is--to turn France out of North Africa. You wouldn't believe how many there are who hope and band themselves together for that. These friends of Cassim's persuaded and bribed a wretched cripple--who was next of kin to the last marabout, and ought to have inherited--to let Cassim take his place. Secretly, of course. It was a very elaborate plot--it had to be. Three or four rich, important men were in it, and it would have meant ruin if they'd been found out.

"Cassim would really have come next in succession if it hadn't been for the hunchback, who lived in Morocco, just over the border. If he had any conscience, I suppose that thought soothed it. He told me that the real heir--the cripple--had epileptic fits, and couldn't live long, anyhow. The way they worked their plan out was by Cassim's starting for a pilgrimage to Mecca. I had to go away with him, because he was afraid to leave me. I knew too much. And it was simpler to take me than to put me out of the way."

"Saidee--he would never have murdered you?" Victoria whispered.

"He would if necessary--I'm sure of it. But it was safer not. Besides, I'd often told him I wanted to die, so that was an incentive to keep me alive. I didn't go to Mecca. I left the farm-house with Cassim, and he took me to South Oran, where he is now. I had to stay in the care of a marabouta, a terrible old woman, a bigot and a tyrant, a cousin of Cassim's, on his mother's side, and a sister of the man who invented the whole plot. The idea was that Cassim should seem to be drowned in the Bosphorus, while staying at Constantinople with friends, after his pilgrimage to Mecca. But luckily for him there was a big fire in the hotel where he went to stop for the first night, so he just disappeared, and a lot of trouble was saved. He told me about the adventure, when he came to Oran. The next move was to Morocco. And from Morocco he travelled here, in place of the cripple, when the last marabout died, and the heir was called to his inheritance. That was nearly eight years ago."

"And he's never been found out?"

"No. And he never will be. He's far too clever. Outwardly he's hand in glove with the French. High officials and officers come here to consult with him, because he's known to have immense influence all over the South, and in the West, even in Morocco. He's masked, like a Touareg, and the French believe it's because of a vow he made in Mecca. No one but his most intimate friends, or his own people, have ever seen the face of Sidi Mohammed since he inherited the maraboutship, and came to Oued Tolga. He must hate wearing his mask, for he's as handsome as he ever was, and just as vain. But it's worth the sacrifice. Not only is he a great man, with everything--or nearly everything--he wants in the world, but he looks forward to a glorious revenge against the French, whose interests he pretends to serve."

"How can he revenge himself? What power has he to do that?" the girl asked. She had a strange impression that Saidee had forgotten her, that all this talk of the past, and of the marabout, was for some one else of whom her sister was thinking.

"He has tremendous power," Saidee answered, almost angrily, as if she resented the doubt. "All Islam is at his back. The French humour him, and let him do whatever he likes, no matter how eccentric his ways may be, because he's got them to believe he is trying to help the Government in the wildest part of Algeria, the province of Oran--and with the Touaregs in the farthest South; and that he promotes French interests in Morocco. Really, he's at the head of every religious secret society in North Africa, banded together to turn Christians out of Mussulman countries. The French have no idea how many such secret societies exist, and how rich and powerful they are. Their dear friend, the good, wise, polite marabout assures them that rumours of that sort are nonsense. But some day, when everything's ready--when Morocco and Oran and Algeria and Tunisia will obey the signal, all together, then they'll have a surprise--and Cassim ben Halim will be revenged."

"It sounds like the weavings of a brain in a dream," Victoria said.

"It will be a nightmare-dream, no matter how it ends;--maybe a nightmare of blood, and war, and massacre. Haven't you ever heard, or read, how the Mussulman people expect a saviour, the Moul Saa, as they call him--the Man of the Hour, who will preach a Holy War, and lead it himself, to victory?"

"Yes, I've read that----"

"Well, Cassim hopes to be the Moul Saa, and deliver Islam by the sword. I suppose you wonder how I know such secrets, or whether I do really know them at all. But I do. Some things Cassim told me himself, because he was bursting with vanity, and simply had to speak. Other things I've seen in writing--he would kill me if he found out. And still other things I've guessed. Why, the boys here in the Zaouïa are being brought up for the 'great work,' as they call it. Not all of them--but the most important ones among the older boys. They have separate classes. Something secret and mysterious is taught them. There are boys from Morocco and Oran, and sons of Touareg chiefs--all those who most hate Christians. No other zaouïa is like this. The place seethes with hidden treachery and sedition. Now you can see where Si Maïeddine's power over Cassim comes in. The Agha, his father, is one of the few who helped make Cassim what he is, but he's a cautious old man, the kind who wants to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Si Maïeddine's cautious too, Cassim has said. He approves the doctrines of the secret societies, but he's so ambitious that without a very strong incentive to turn against them, in act he'd be true to the French. Well, now he has the incentive. You."

"I don't understand," said Victoria. Yet even as she spoke, she began to understand.

"He'll offer to give himself, and to influence the Agha and the Agha's people--the Ouled-Sirren--if Cassim will grant his wish. And it's no use saying that Cassim can't force you to marry any man. You told me yourself, a little while ago, that if you saw harm coming to me----"

"Oh don't--don't speak of that again, Saidee!" the girl cried, sharply. "I've told you--yes--that I'll do anything--anything on earth to save you pain, or more sorrow. But let's hope--let's pray."

"There is no hope. I've forgotten how to pray," Saidee answered, "and God has forgotten me."

XXXVIII

There was no place for a guest in that part of the marabout's house which had been allotted to Saidee. She had her bedroom and reception-room, her roof terrace, and her garden court. On the ground floor her negresses lived, and cooked for their mistress and themselves. She did not wish to have Victoria with her, night and day, and so she had quietly directed Noura to make up a bed in the room which would have been her boudoir, if she had lived in Europe. When the sisters came down from the roof, the bed was ready.

In the old time Victoria had slept with her sister; and her greatest happiness as a child had been the "bed-talks," when Saidee had whispered her secret joys or troubles, and confided in the little girl as if she had been a "grown-up."

Hardly a night had passed since their parting, that Victoria had not thought of those talks, and imagined herself again lying with her head on Saidee's arm, listening to stories of Saidee's life. She had taken it for granted that she would be put in her sister's room, and seeing the bed made up, and her luggage unpacked in the room adjoining, was a blow. She knew that Saidee must have given orders, or these arrangements would not have been made, and again she felt the dreadful sinking of the heart which had crushed her an hour ago. Saidee did not want her. Saidee was sorry she had come, and meant to keep her as far off as possible. But the girl encouraged herself once more. Saidee might think now that she would rather have been left alone. But she was mistaken. By and by she would find out the truth, and know that they needed each other.

"I thought you'd be more comfortable here, than crowded in with me," Saidee explained, blushing faintly.

"Yes, thank you, dear," said Victoria quietly. She did not show her disappointment, and seemed to take the matter for granted, as if she had expected nothing else; but the talk on the roof had brought back something into Saidee's heart which she could not keep out, though she did not wish to admit it there. She was sorry for Victoria, sorry for herself, and more miserable than ever. Her nerves were rasped by an intolerable irritation as she looked at the girl, and felt that her thoughts were being read. She had a hideous feeling, almost an impression, that her face had been lifted off like a mask, and that the workings of her brain were open to her sister's eyes, like the exposed mechanism of a clock.

"Noura has brought some food for you," she went on hastily. "You must eat a little, before you go to bed--to please me."

"I will," Victoria assured her. "You mustn't worry about me at all."

"You'll go to sleep, won't you?--or would you rather talk--while you're eating, perhaps?"

The girl looked at the woman, and saw that her nerves were racked; that she wanted to go, but did not wish her sister to guess.

"You've talked too much already," Victoria said. "The surprise of my coming gave you a shock. Now you must rest and get over it, so you can be strong for to-morrow. Then we'll make up our minds about everything."

"There's only one way to make up our minds," Saidee insisted, dully.

Victoria did not protest. She kissed her sister good-night, and gently refused help from Noura. Then Saidee went away, followed by the negress, who softly closed the door between the two rooms. Her mistress had not told her to do this, but when it was done, she did not say, "Open the door." Saidee was glad that it was shut, because she felt that she could think more freely. She could not bear the idea that her thoughts and life were open to the criticism of those young, blue eyes, which the years since childhood had not clouded. Nevertheless, when Noura had undressed her, and she was alone, she saw Victoria's eyes looking at her sweetly, sadly, with yearning, yet with no reproach. She saw them as clearly as she had seen a man's face, a few hours earlier; and now his was dim, as Victoria's face had been dim when his was clear.

It was dark in the room, except for the moon-rays which streamed through the lacelike open-work of stucco, above the shuttered windows, making jewelled patterns on the wall--pink, green, and golden, according to the different colours of the glass. There was just enough light to reflect these patterns faintly in the mirrors set in the closed door, opposite which Saidee lay in bed; and to her imagination it was as if she could see through the door, into a lighted place beyond. She wondered if Victoria had gone to bed; if she were sleeping, or if she were crying softly--crying her heart out with bitter grief and disappointment she would never confess.

Victoria had always been like that, even as a little girl. If Saidee did anything to hurt her, she made no moan. Sometimes Saidee had teased her on purpose, or tried to make her jealous, just for fun.

As memories came crowding back, the woman buried her face in the pillow, striving with all her might to shut them out. What was the use of making herself wretched? Victoria ought to have come long, long ago, or not at all.

But the blue eyes would look at her, even when her own were shut; and always there was the faint light in the mirror, which seemed to come through the door.

At last Saidee could not longer lie still. She had to get up and open the door, to see what her sister was really doing. Very softly she turned the handle, for she hoped that by this time Victoria was asleep; but as she pulled the door noiselessly towards her, and peeped into the next room, she saw that one of the lamps was burning. Victoria had not yet gone to bed. She was kneeling beside it, saying her prayers, with her back towards the door.

So absorbed was she in praying, and so little noise had Saidee made, that the girl heard nothing. She remained motionless on her knees, not knowing that Saidee was looking at her.

A sharp pain shot through the woman's heart. How many times had she softly opened their bedroom door, coming home late after a dance, to find her little sister praying, a small, childish form in a long white nightgown, with quantities of curly red hair pouring over its shoulders!

Sometimes Victoria had gone to sleep on her knees, and Saidee had waked her up with a kiss.

Just as she had looked then, so she looked now, except that the form in the long, white nightgown was that of a young girl, not a child. But the thick waves of falling hair made it seem childish.

"She is praying for me," Saidee thought; and dared not close the door tightly, lest Victoria should hear. By and by it could be done, when the light was out, and the girl dropped asleep.

Meanwhile, she tiptoed back to her bed, and sat on the edge of it, to wait. At last the thread of light, fine as a red-gold hair, vanished from the door; but as it disappeared a line of moonlight was drawn in silver along the crack. Victoria must have left her windows wide open, or there would not have been light enough to paint this gleaming streak.

Saidee sat on her bed for nearly half an hour, trying to concentrate her thoughts on the present and future, yet unable to keep them from flying back to the past, the long-ago past, which lately had seemed unreal, as if she had dreamed it; the past when she and Victoria had been all the world to each other.

There was no sound in the next room, and when Saidee was weary of her strained position, she crossed the floor on tiptoe again, to shut the door. But she could not resist a temptation to peep in.

It was as she had expected. Victoria had left the inlaid cedar-wood shutters wide open, and through the lattice of old wrought-iron, moonlight streamed. The room was bright with a silvery twilight, like a mysterious dawn; but because the bed-linen and the embroidered silk coverlet were white, the pale radiance focused round the girl, who lay asleep in a halo of moonbeams.

"She looks like an angel," Saidee thought, and with a curious mingling of reluctance and eagerness, moved softly toward the bed, her little velvet slippers from Tunis making no sound on the thick rugs.

Very well the older woman remembered an engaging trick of the child's, a way of sleeping with her cheek in her hand, and her hair spread out like a golden coverlet for the pillow. Just so she was lying now; and in the moonlight her face was a child's face, the face of the dear, little, loving child of ten years ago. Like this Victoria had lain when her sister crept into their bedroom in the Paris flat, the night before the wedding, and Saidee had waked her by crying on her eyelids. Cassim's unhappy wife recalled the clean, sweet, warm smell of the child's hair when she had buried her face in it that last night together. It had smelled like grape-leaves in the hot sun.

"If you don't come back to me, I'll follow you all across the world," the little girl had said. Now, she had kept her promise. Here she was--and the sister to whom she had come, after a thousand sacrifices, was wishing her back again at the other end of the world, was planning to get rid of her.

Suddenly, it was as if the beating of Saidee's heart broke a tight band of ice which had compressed it. A fountain of tears sprang from her eyes. She fell on her knees beside the bed, crying bitterly.

"Childie, childie, comfort me, forgive me!" she sobbed.

Victoria woke instantly. She opened her eyes, and Saidee's wet face was close to hers. The girl said not a word, but wrapped her arms round her sister, drawing the bowed head on to her breast, and then she crooned lovingly over it, with little foolish mumblings, as she used to do in Paris when Mrs. Ray's unkindness had made Saidee cry.

"Can you forgive me?" the woman faltered, between sobs.

"Darling, as if there were anything to forgive!" The clasp of the girl's arms tightened. "Now we're truly together again. How I love you! How happy I am!"

"Don't--I don't deserve it," Saidee stammered. "Poor little Babe! I was cruel to you. And you'd come so far."

"You weren't cruel!" Victoria contradicted her, almost fiercely.

"I was. I was jealous--jealous of you. You're so young and beautiful--just what I was ten years ago, only better and prettier. You're what I can never be again--what I'd give the next ten years to be. Everything's over with me. I'm old--old!"

"You're not to say such things," cried Victoria, horrified. "You weren't jealous. You----"

"I was. I am now. But I want to confess. You must let me confess, if you're to help me."

"Dearest, tell me anything--everything you choose, but nothing you don't choose. And nothing you say can make me love you less--only more."

"There's a great deal to tell," Saidee said, heavily "And I'm tired--sick at heart. But I can't rest now, till I've told you."

"Wouldn't you come into bed?" pleaded Victoria humbly. "Then we could talk, the way we used to talk."

Saidee staggered up from her knees, and the girl almost lifted her on to the bed. Then she covered her with the thyme-scented linen sheet, and the silk coverlet under which she herself lay. For a moment they were quite still, Saidee lying with her head on Victoria's arm. But at last she said, in a whisper, as if her lips were dry: "Did you know I was sorry you'd come?"

"I knew you thought you were sorry," the girl answered. "Yet I hoped that you'd find out you weren't, really. I prayed for you to find out--soon."

"Did you guess why I was sorry?"

"Not--quite."

"I told you I--that it was for your sake."

"Yes."

"Didn't you believe it?"

"I--felt there was something else, beside."

"There was!" Saidee confessed. "You know now--at least you know part. I was jealous. I am still--but I'm ashamed of myself. I'm sick with shame. And I do love you!"

"Of course--of course you do, darling."

"But--there's somebody else I love. A man. And I couldn't bear to think he might see you, because you're so much younger and fresher than I."

"You mean--Cassim?"

"No. Not Cassim."

Silence fell between the two. Victoria did not speak; and suddenly Saidee was angry with her for not speaking.

"If you're shocked, I won't go on," she said. "You can't help me by preaching."

"I'm not shocked," the girl protested. "Only sorry--so sorry. And even if I wanted to preach, I don't know how."

"There's nothing to be shocked about," Saidee said, her tears dry, her voice hard as it had been at first. "I've seen him three times. I've talked with him just once. But we love each other. It's the first and only real love of my life. I was too young to know, when I met Cassim. That was a fascination. I was in love with romance. He carried me off my feet, in spite of myself."

"Then, dearest Saidee, don't let yourself be carried off your feet a second time."

"Why not?" Saidee asked, sharply. "What incentive have I to be true to Cassim?"

"I'm not thinking about Cassim. I'm thinking of you. All one's world goes to pieces so, if one isn't true to oneself."

"_He_ says I can't be true to myself if I stay here. He doesn't consider that I'm Cassim's wife. I _thought_ myself married, but was I, when he had a wife already? Would any lawyer, or even clergyman, say it was a legal marriage?"

"Perhaps not," Victoria admitted. "But----"

"Just wait, before you go on arguing," Saidee broke in hotly, "until I've told you something you haven't heard yet. Cassim has another wife now--a lawful wife, according to his views, and the views of his people. He's had her for a year. She's a girl of the Ouled Naïl tribe, brought up to be a dancer. But Cassim saw her at Touggourt, where he'd gone on one of his mysterious visits. He doesn't dream that I know the whole history of the affair, but I do, and have known, since a few days after the creature was brought here as his bride. She's as ignorant and silly as a kitten, and only a child in years. She told her 'love story' to one of her negresses, who told Noura--who repeated it to me. Perhaps I oughtn't to have listened, but why not?"

Victoria did not answer. The clouds round Saidee and herself were dark, but she was trying to see the blue beyond, and find the way into it, with her sister.

"She's barely sixteen now, and she's been here a year," Saidee went on. "She hadn't begun to dance yet, when Cassim saw her, and took her away from Touggourt. Being a great saint is very convenient. A marabout can do what he likes, you know. Mussulmans are forbidden to touch alcohol, but if a marabout drinks wine, it turns to milk in his throat. He can fly, if he wants to. He can even make French cannon useless, and withdraw the bullets from French guns, in case of war, if the spirit of Allah is with him. So by marrying a girl brought up for a dancer, daughter of generations of dancing women, he washes all disgrace from her blood, and makes her a female saint, worthy to live eternally. The beautiful Miluda's a marabouta, if you please, and when her baby is taken out by the negress who nurses it, silly, bigoted people kneel and kiss its clothing."

"She has a baby!" murmured Victoria.

"Yes, only a girl, but better than nothing--and she hopes to be more fortunate next time. She isn't jealous of me, because I've no children, not even a girl, and because for that reason Cassim could repudiate me if he chose. She little knows how desperately I wish he would. She believes--Noura says--that he keeps me here only because I have no people to go to, and he's too kind-hearted to turn me out alone in the world, when my youth's past. You see--she thinks me already old--at twenty-eight! Of course the real reason that Cassim shuts me up and won't let me go, is because he knows I could ruin not only him, but the hopes of his people. Miluda doesn't dream that I'm of so much importance in his eyes. The only thing she's jealous of is the boy, Mohammed, who's at school in the town of Oued Tolga, in charge of an uncle. Cassim guesses how Miluda hates the child, and I believe that's the reason he daren't have him here. He's afraid something might happen, although the excuse he makes is, that he wants his boy to learn French, and know something of French ways. That pleases the Government--and as for the Arabs, no doubt he tells them it's only a trick to keep French eyes shut to what's really going on, and to his secret plans. Now, do you still say I ought to consider myself married to Cassim, and refuse to take any happiness if I can get it?"

"The thing is, what would make you happy?" Victoria said, as if thinking aloud.

"Love, and life. All that women in Europe have, and take for granted," Saidee answered passionately.

"How could it come to you?" the girl asked.