The Veiled Man

Just as the sun was rising I was inside the ancient citadel so recently the infidel stronghold, and was exploring its many courts with their old blue-tiled fountains and cool, handsome colonnades, when suddenly as I passed beneath an archway in the thickness of the wall a noise startled me. My companions in arms were regaling themselves in an open square before the great white mosque, therefore I was alone. Around me lay many bodies of Touaregs, Spahis, and Beni-Mzabs, while some of the wounded were still groaning, dying slowly, for there had been no attempt to succour the disabled. To fall in a holy war is not a misfortune, but the reverse. The noise, a loud knock, again sounded, and turning I saw a bolted door, which I at once opened, and was confronted by a pretty dark-haired French girl, who, glancing at me in terror for an instant, screamed and fled down a flight of stone stairs into an impenetrable darkness.

In a moment I dashed after her. Already the Kasbah had been set on fire, and to save her life instant escape was necessary. Below, in the small foul stone chamber, used long ago as a prison, I discovered her crouching. She screamed loudly at my approach, fearing me, perhaps, because of the mysterious black veil across my face, and knowing that the Veiled Men were of evil repute.

“Thou art Mademoiselle Gabrielle, daughter of our friend Colonel Bonnemain,” I exclaimed in the best French I could articulate. “Fear not, but fly at once with me, or we may both lose our lives.”

“How knowest thou my name?” she gasped in amazement. By the glimmer of light that came from the open court above I saw that her face was beautiful but deathly pale. “True, I am daughter of Colonel Bonnemain, but thou art a Touareg. Assuredly thou art our enemy, not our friend. Why, it was thine hosts who attacked us!”

Briefly I explained the promise of our Sheikh, assuring her of our friendship. At first she was inclined to doubt my sincerity, but at length I prevailed upon her to accompany me in our race for life from the burning ruins. Quickly we sought Tamahu, and as there were no women with us she was at once placed under my protection. I was to be her guardian and her champion during the remainder of hostilities. Long and earnestly we both searched and enquired for her father, the Colonel, but could discover no trace of him. Some of his Spahis who survived declared that he had been struck down in the earlier hours of the conflict, while others maintained that they had seen him fighting uninjured up to the very last. From our enquiries it appeared evident that, on receiving unexpected reinforcements from the north, he had determined upon holding out against us, and overlooking our agreement with the Beni-Mzabs, was ill-advised enough to decline our good offices. Then, when he found an attack in force being made, he locked Gabrielle in a place of safety until the fight should end.

Full of excitement were those days that followed. I must, however, here confess that within twenty-four hours I found myself deeply attached to this bright-eyed fragile girl whoso gallant father had disappeared so mysteriously. We, of the Azjars, leaving the prosperous town of Metlili a mere pile of smoking ruins, encamped for a few days in the vicinity where there was an excellent well, then together with the fierce horsemen of the Beni-Mzab set our heads towards Wargla, another French outpost. At first Gabrielle felt the fatigue of travel terribly. Fortunately she could ride well, and as her inseparable companion, I endeavoured to render her journey as comfortable as possible. At my suggestion she had exchanged her European clothes for the serroual and haick of the Arab women, finding that mode of dress more comfortable and less conspicuous than her own; and so light-hearted she grew that not unfrequently she would join me in a cigarette. Her grace and manner charmed us all. The fierce horsemen of the Azjar and the Beni-Mzab are scarcely chivalrous where women are concerned, but ere we had been on the march three days there was not a single tribesman who would not execute her slightest wish.

Riding day by day over the breathless solitudes of sand, no single word of complaint ever escaped her. Whenever we halted, before she ate she would busy herself in attending to our wounded; sometimes bandaging an arm or a leg, at others pouring out water and handing it to a thirsty man with a pleasing smile that quickened his pulse. Then, after we had eaten and turned our faces to the Holy Ca’aba, she would take an old Spanish mandoline which one of my companions had picked up cheap long ago in Oran, and play and sing to us in a sweet contralto songs from her own far-off Paris. They were mostly gay chansons, such as one hears in the cafés in Algiers, and those with refrains were sung lustily in chorus by the whole of the great assembly.

One night after she had given us several songs I persuaded her to dance. To those unaccustomed to life in the desert the scene would have appeared a strange one. The bright moonlight shining full upon her, tipped also with silver the keen heads of a couple of thousand spears upon which her audience leaned. She had fascinated them. Unanimously it had been declared that she was an enchantress. Only one fact remained to mar her happiness: her uncertainty regarding her father’s fate.

“I will dance on one condition, Ahamadou,” she answered in French, throwing back her pretty head and showing her white teeth as she laughed.

“What is that?”

“I will dance if thou wilt take off that hideous black veil. Thou hast been my friend all this time, yet, strangely enough, I have never beheld thy face.”

I hesitated. Such a demand was unusual, for a Touareg never removes his veil.

My companions overhearing, and noticing my disinclination to acquiesce, with one accord urged me to accede, and at last, amid much good humour, I unwound my black litham.

Long and earnestly she looked into my eyes. Her gaze lingered upon me strangely, I thought; then suddenly clapping her hands, she raised her long white arms above her head, and to the thumping of four derboukas, one of which I held, she commenced a slow graceful dance. Never tired of exerting herself to comfort the wounded or amuse those who were her father’s bitterest foes, she danced on until she sank completely out of breath. Then she reclined upon the soft rugs spread for her, and, with Tamahu and myself, smoked a cigarette in silence. From her full red lips she blew clouds of smoke, and watched it curl upward in the still night air. I glanced at her furtively, and saw that she had grown unusually thoughtful. Her brilliant eyes were fixed upon the stars.

At last, pillowing her handsome head upon a leopard’s skin I rolled and placed for her, she wished me “Peace,” and presently closed her eyes in sleep.

Silence, dead and complete, had fallen upon the camp. The stillness was only broken by the uneasy groaning of a camel or the soft footfall of a sentry whose spear gleamed afar in the white moonbeams. Gabrielle’s heart slowly heaved and fell as she slept. Through that calm night I sat, hugging my knees and thinking deeply. Try how I would, I could not get rid of the one thought that for days had possessed me, the thought of her. That she had entranced me; that she held me in her toils irrevocably, I could not deny. Never before had I looked upon any woman with affection until now. But I loved with all my heart and soul this delicate Roumi, whose fair face the sun had never kissed.

Was it not in order to behold my countenance she had that evening requested me to remove my litham? Her every word, her every action, now that I recalled them, showed plainly that she did not regard me with disfavour. The moon waned, the stars paled, and dawn was nigh ere I cast myself upon the warm sand near her, and snatched a brief hour’s repose, not, however, before I had carefully placed a rug about her, fearing lest the morning dew, so deadly to Europeans, should chill her.

One bright balmy night we reached El Okaz, and halted. It was a large oasis with running water, luxuriant vegetation, and many palms. When the maghrib had been said, the evening meal eaten, and the sun was slowly sinking, I went forth among the trees to search for camel-grass, and invited Gabrielle to accompany me. She walked by my side, and when we were out of hearing I took her tiny hand in mine, and, raising it reverently to my lips, declared my love.

Slowly, but resolutely, she drew her hand away. The last ray of sunlight tipped her hair with molten gold as we stood together beneath a great high palm. Her brilliant eyes glistened with unshed tears.

“Alas! no, Ahamadou,” she answered huskily. “We must not love each other, it would wreck both our lives.”

“Why not?” I cried passionately, my arm around her waist, her slim white hand raised again to my lips. “I adore you. To me thou art my life, my love, my everything.”

“Ah! yes,” she sighed sadly. “To you I owe my life. You have all been so good to me, although I am a woman of the Franks, that I can scarce believe that you are actually the Azjars, the dreaded Breath of the Wind, reports of whose exploits have times without number caused me to shudder.”

“An Azjar never forgets a favour nor forgives a false friend,” I answered. “To our enemies we are brutal and relentless; yet those who eat our salt need never fear. Already hast thou had experience of the treatment the stranger receiveth within our tents.”

“True,” she answered, her hand closing tightly over mine. “I have had experience of thine own tender care of me, Ahamadou, yet – ”

“Yet thou hast already grown tired of our life?” I hazarded reproachfully.

“Ah! no,” she said quickly, fixing her brilliant eyes upon mine. “Thou hast asked if I could ever love thee. I tell thee that I do love thee, yet there is between us a barrier of blood, and such love can only bring unhappiness unto us both.”

“Thou lovest me!” I cried, delighted, and taking her soft cheeks between my hard, sun-browned hands, our lips met for the first time in a long passionate caress. Again, she put me from her, saying – “No, it can never be. We are of different races, different creeds. What is right in thine eyes is sin in mine; what is worship to thee is, to me, idolatry. No, Ahamadou. It must not be. We must not love, for we can never marry.”

I was silent. Her argument seemed utterly unassailable. Never before had I faced the situation until now. She had, indeed, spoken the truth.

“But we love each other!” I cried, dolefully.

“Yes,” she sighed, shaking her head. “I confess that I love thee,” and her fingers again gripped my hand. “But it is the very fact that we love one another that should cause us to part and forget.”

“Why? Until the war is ended thou must, of necessity, remain in our camp,” I observed.

“And after?”

“Then we could return to Algiers, or to Oran, and marry.”

She remained silent for a few moments, nervously toying with the single ring of emeralds upon her finger.

“No,” she answered at length. “This love between us is but a passing fancy. When the war is at an end, thou wilt have become convinced of the truth of my words.”

“Never,” I answered. “I love thee now; I shall love thee always.”

“Alas!” she said, laying her hand softly upon my shoulder, and looking earnestly into my face. “Now that we have both made confession we must endeavour to forget. We love each other, but the wide difference in our races renders happiness impossible. Thou wilt find for wife some good woman of thine own people, and I – perhaps I shall find some man of mine own nationality to become my husband. From to-night, Ahamadou, if thou lovest me, thou wilt make no further sign.”

I bit my lip to the blood. Although she had uttered these words, I saw that she nevertheless loved me with a mad, passionate love, for soon down her pink cheeks tears were coursing.

“Thou art all to me – everything, Gabrielle,” I cried. “Allah knoweth how deeply and honestly I adore thee, I – ”

The sound of a rifle-shot startled us. With bated breath we both strained our ears. The evening gloom had crept on unperceived, and it was almost dark. In rapid succession other shots sounded, followed by the fierce fiendish war-cry of the Beni-Mzabs. Instantly the truth flashed upon me. We had been surprised by the French!

By the route we had come we sped back to the encampment, where we found all confusion. A large body of Spahis had made a sudden and determined attack, but it had been repulsed. My first thought was of Gabrielle’s safety. I found cover for her behind a huge boulder, and telling her to seat herself, and not attempt to watch the progress of the fight, returned, spear in hand, to bear my part against our enemies.

The cessation of the fighting was only for a few minutes. We heard the sudden sound of a bugle, and from among the trees there dashed a formidable troop of red-burnoused horsemen, led by a young European officer, who sat his horse as if he were part of it. Even in that moment of excitement I admired the way he rode. The charge was, however, an ill-fated one. Not half those who dashed forward lived to retreat. The Arabs of the Mechefer, who had recently joined us, possessed guns, and the flashing of these, in combination with those of our enemies, illumined the darkness, while the still air was full of dense, stifling smoke. More desperate each moment the conflict grew. Undismayed by loss or misfortune, we thrice returned their attack, each time with increasing force, until our bullets and keen spears commenced to work havoc among the infidel ranks. East and furious became the fight, but gradually the attack upon us grew weaker, and at last, determined upon reprisals, Tamahu ordered a dash forward. With one accord we charged, and then before us the remnant of the ill-fated troop fell back and fled to save their lives.

When I returned I found Gabrielle kneeling beside the officer whose riding had been so conspicuous, tenderly bandaging an ugly spear-wound he had received in the left shoulder. She had improvised a torch, and beneath its fitful light was pursuing her task unconscious of my approach. Upon the clammy brow of the unconscious man she placed her cool, soft hand; then, having felt his pulse, she seemed satisfied, and taking her flambeau went forward to one of my own tribesmen who had been injured in the breast. From the deep shadow wherein I stood I watched her, white-robed and fair like one of the good genii of whom the Korân tells us, passing from one to another, alleviating their sufferings as best she could, uttering cheering words, or giving water to the dying. I did not approach her, for my heart seemed too full. It was best, I thought, to leave her alone to her merciful work.

Before the sun rose many of those whom she had so carefully tended and watched had drawn their last breath, but the young officer, whose name I afterwards learned was André de Freyville, lieutenant of Spahis, had recovered consciousness sufficiently to thank his nurse, and learn from her lips the curious circumstances which had led her to accept the hospitality of our tents. He proved a pleasant fellow, and during his convalescence we all three had frequent chats together. Although he was our prisoner-of-war, he soon became on excellent terms with Tamahu, and his time passed happily enough. Colonel Bonnemain had, he told us, escaped when Metlili fell, and had reached Algiers unharmed.

Soon, in order to join forces with another large body of horsemen moving from the great Hammada, or stony tableland, in Tripoli, we advanced to the oasis of Medagin, two days’ march from El Aghouat, then held in such force by the French that we dared not attack it.

Reaching Medagin at noon, we encamped. When the stars shone both Gabrielle and De Freyville sang us some French chansons, the one accompanying the other upon the mandoline. Before we scooped out our hollows in the sand to form our couches I borrowed a gun from one of the Arabs, intending to go out at dawn to shoot some desert-partridges in which the oasis abounds. Ere day broke I rose, and leaving the whole camp in slumber, strolled away to a rocky spot I had on the previous day noted as a likely place to find the birds. It was on the edge of the oasis, at some distance from the well where we had encamped. When I arrived there the sun had not risen, and the birds were still roosting. Therefore, with my rifle loaded with a bullet (for I had no small shot), I sat down to wait.

For perhaps half-an-hour I had remained when my quick ear detected the sounds of horses’ hoofs. Believing the newcomer to be a French vedette I drew back behind a large boulder, with the barrel of my rifle placed upon the top of the rock in readiness to pick him off as he passed. On came the horseman, until suddenly he emerged from among the mimosas and euphorbias. An ejaculation of dismay involuntarily left my lips. There was not one horse, but two. The riders were fugitives. They were our prisoner-of-war, Lieutenant de Freyville, and Gabrielle Bonnemain, the woman I loved.

Mounted upon horses they had secured, they spurred forward together at headlong speed. Their way on to the desert lay down a narrow stony ravine, to traverse which they would be compelled to pass close by the spot where I was lying in ambush. On they came swiftly, without a word. Inwardly I gloated over my revenge.

This man was stealing from me the woman I loved dearer than life. And she – she had declared that she loved me! Yet her words were foul lies. She should die!

I fingered the trigger, and held my gun to my shoulder in readiness as the pair pressed forward, unconscious of their approaching doom. If ever the spirit of murder entered my soul, it was at that moment.

When within a leopard’s leap of the muzzle of my rifle she turned back towards her companion, uttered some gay words to him, threw back her head and laughed lightly, displaying her white teeth.

I raised my rifle and took deliberate aim at her panting breast. My hands trembled. Next second a flood of bitter recollections surged through my brain. I remembered those solemn words she had uttered: “We are of different races; different creeds. What is right in thine eyes is sin in mine; what is worship to thee is, to me, idolatry. It is the very fact that we love one another that should cause us to part and forget.”

Yes, my enchantress had spoken the truth.

My hands were nerveless. I dropped my gun, the weapon with which I had so nearly taken her young life, and through a mist of gathering tears watched her ride rapidly away beside her newly-discovered lover, and disappear over the dune towards El Aghouat.

When she had gone, my head sank upon my breast and my teeth were set, for full well I knew that never again could I love any woman as truly as I had loved her. My pole-star, the light of my life, had for ever been extinguished.

Chapter Three

The Secret of Sâ

Through the very heart of the barren, naked Saharan country, that boundless sea of red-brown arid sands, which, like the ocean itself, is subject to fitful moods of calm and storm, there runs a deep rocky ravine which has ever been a mystery to geographers. It commences near the shore of Lake Tsâd, and extending for nearly eight hundred miles due north to Lake Melghir, is known as the Igharghar, and is the dried-up bed of a river, which, with its tributaries, once rendered this bare wilderness one of the most fertile spots on earth, but which, for upwards of two thousand years, has ceased to flow. Strangely enough, the country traversed by this great stony ravine is to-day the most arid and inhospitable in the world. The river, which, according to the legendary stories told in the market-places of the desert towns, must have been as mighty as the Nile, dried-up suddenly from some cause which has always puzzled geographers. A portion of its course, about two hundred miles, half filled with sand, has for ages been used as the caravan route between the city of Agades, the capital of the Aïr country, and Temasinin, at the foot of the Tinghert Plateau; but the remainder is of such a rocky character as to be impassable, and has on many occasions served us as ambush when fighting the Ouled Slimân marauders, our hereditary foes.

On one of these expeditions we were encamped in the shadow of some great rocks, which had once been covered by the giant flood. Around us on every hand was the sandy, waterless waste, known by the ominous name of Ur-immandess, “He (Allah) heareth not,” that is, is deaf to the cry of the way-laid traveller. It is a dismal tract, one of the most hot and arid in the whole of Northern Africa. The poison-wind blows almost continually, and the general appearance of the sand dunes is altered almost hour by hour. We were six days’ march off an interesting little walled town I had once visited, called Azaka ’n Ahkar, where stands the curious tomb of a chieftain who fell during the Arab invasion over a thousand years ago, and to the west, within sight, was the low dark hill known to us as Mount Hikena, a spot feared universally throughout the desert as the abode of the jinns.

Already had we engaged the fierce host of the Ouled Slimân in deadly conflict at the well of Agnar, but finding our opponents armed with rifles procured from European traders, we had drawn off in an endeavour to entice them into the Wady Igharghar, where our superior knowledge of the ground would give us distinct advantage. Our losses three days before had been very serious, and our Sheikh Tamahu had despatched messengers in all haste to the oasis of Noum-en-Nas, six marches distant, to urge forward reinforcements. That night, when the moon had risen, I accompanied Hamoud, one of my companions, as scout, to travel northward along the dried-up watercourse, to make a reconnaissance, and to ascertain if the enemy were in the vicinity. To ride up that valley, choked by its myriad boulders, was impossible, therefore we were compelled to journey on foot.

Had we ascended to the desert we should have imperilled our camp, for our enemies in search of us would undoubtedly detect our presence. We had pitched our tents at a secluded inaccessible spot, where the dried-up river had taken a sudden bend, in the heart of a country scarcely ever traversed. Through the long brilliant night with my companion I pressed forward, sometimes clambering over rough rocks, split by the heat of noon and chills of night, and at others sinking knee-deep in soft sand-drifts. When dawn spread we now and then clambered up the steep sides of the valley and cautiously took observations. In that region, the surface of the desert being perfectly flat, any object can be seen at great distances, therefore we at all times were careful not to stand upright, but remained crouched upon our faces. So dry also is the atmosphere that any sudden movement, such as the flapping of a burnouse or the swish of a horse’s tail, will cause sparks to be emitted.

Beneath the milk-white sky of noon, when the fiery sun shone like a disc of burnished copper, we threw ourselves down beneath the shadow of a huge boulder to eat and rest. Hamoud, older than myself, was a typical nomad, bearded, bronzed, and a veritable giant in stature. His physical strength and power of endurance was greater than that of any other of our tribesmen, and he was always amiable and light-hearted. While he lit his keef-pipe and chatted, I gazed about me, noticing how, by the action of the eddying waters of this dried-up river, the very name of which is lost to us, the hard, grey rock above had been worn smooth and hollow. The mystery of the Igharghar had always attracted me since my earliest boyhood. Why this mighty stream, in some places nearly six miles wide, should have suddenly ceased to flow, fertilise, and give life to the great tract it traversed was a problem which the wise men of all ages had failed to solve. True, the One Merciful heard not in that wild, unfrequented region. It was the country accursed and forgotten of Allah.

When, in the cooler hours, we resumed our journey, ever-watchful for the presence of the Ouled Slimân, on every side we noticed unmistakable traces of the enormous width and depth of the giant waterway. About noon on the second day I had ascended to the desert to scan the horizon, when I discovered some ruined masonry, half-buried beneath its winding-sheet of sand. On the keystone of an arch I found an inscription in Roman characters, and here and there stood broken columns and portions of grey time-worn walls.