Zoraida: A Romance of the Harem and the Great Sahara

The bright blue sea was like glass, the sky cloudless, and the whole world seemed at peace; yet I was the least peaceful. Carrying the casket containing the horrible souvenir, I stumbled onward, toiling aimlessly and in vain up through the gloomy, crooked passages. Feelings I had never before experienced assailed me with a force that first perplexed and then astounded me. I was afraid; and what rather heightened than diminished the unwonted sensation, was the fact that I was not afraid of anything tangible either in the present or the future, but of something mysterious and peculiar. Every sound jarred upon my nerves, causing the faintest murmur to seem like the utterance of a great dread, as awful as it was inexplicable.

Time after time, finding myself at the boundary of the Kasbah, I again turned and plunged into the narrow, crooked thoroughfares, hoping by wandering in this manner to discover the house to which I had been conducted. Alas! it was a forlorn hope. Messoudia had taken precautions in order that I should not be able to retrace my steps; besides, there were hundreds of houses with similar entrances, and though I strove to decide which was the mysterious residence I sought, I could detect absolutely nothing by which to identify it.

Terror shackled my steps. During those hot, anxious hours I several times traversed the streets from the winding Rue Rovigo to the Boulevard Valée on the opposite side of the town, exploring each of the narrow, ancient lanes lying between the Rue Bab Azzoun and the grim old citadel. Every effort to discover the house where I had spent such eventful hours failed, and at last entering a kahoua, and having given the lounging Arabs “peace,” I sank upon a bench, and, placing the box beside me, called for coffee.

While the old Arab was brewing it on his tiled stove, a man in a ragged and rather soiled burnouse entered, and, after grunting a greeting, squatted near me, idly smoking his long haschish pipe. He was of rather forbidding countenance, with a thin black beard, and eyes that seemed to flame like torches.

Noticing that I had uttered a salutation in Arabic, one of the customers, a very old man, who was half reclining on a bench opposite me, gravely observed —

“It is not often that the Roumi speaketh our tongue.”

“No,” I replied, smiling. “But I have lived for many moons among thy clansmen, and have wandered far and wide in this thy Land of the Sun.”

My remark interested them, and was received with muttered satisfaction. As I wore European dress, I knew they viewed me with considerable suspicion.

“Hast thou travelled in the Great Desert?” the old man asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “With the caravans I have been over the Areg and the Sahara, and,” laughing, I added, “I have managed to escape from the clutches of Hadj Absalam – ”

“Cursed be his name! May Allah never show him mercy!” interrupted the dark-faced man, who was smoking quietly beside me. I turned, surprised at such a vehement denunciation.

“I heard a rumour at Constantine the other day,” remarked my interrogator, “that his men have recently raided the caravan of Ali Ben Hafiz, and massacred the whole party.”

“That is quite correct,” I replied. “I was with them, and because of my Faith my life was spared so that I might be tortured. But I escaped, and returned hence.”

“Praise be unto the Prophet who hast preserved thee!” he said devoutly. “Indeed, Absalam’s people are a terror to all. Our brother Ali Ben Hafiz – may Allah show him mercy – was very well known here.”

“Yes. Very well known,” echoed half a dozen guttural voices.

“He often played damma here,” continued the old Arab, “and no man was more respected in the Kasbah than he.” Then, raising himself and pointing to the end of the low-roofed café, where on the walls hung grotesquely-executed texts from the Korân and gaudily-coloured pictures of the city of Mecca, he added, “See there! once while he was smoking in this kahoua, a Roumi who chanced to come in drew that portrait. Dost thou recognise him?”

Interested, I rose and walked to where the little pencil sketch was hanging. Notwithstanding the dim light, I could see that the features of my dead friend were lifelike, and I deciphered in the corner the signature of one of our greatest living English artists.

“It is excellent. The expression on the features is exact,” I agreed, and, taking the coffee from the hand of the kahouaji, I sipped it, and gave him the ten centimes demanded.

Returning to my bench, I suddenly noticed that while my back had been turned to inspect the portrait, the dark-faced man who had entered after me had risen and quietly departed.

Next second I made a discovery.

“My box!” I gasped. “See! it has gone! It has been stolen!”

The Arabs, startled from their lethargy, exchanged black looks of disapproval, some of them muttering that True Believers would never pollute themselves by handling the treasure of Infidels.

“My box has been taken by that man who has just left!” I cried, rushing headlong out into the street, and glancing quickly up and down. But he had vanished like a shadow! No human being was in sight. Frantically I rushed about, peering eagerly into dark corners and gloomy archways in the vicinity, but the man, who had apparently been watching for an opportunity to obtain possession of the box, had disappeared in that bewildering maze of streets and left no trace behind!

At last re-entering the kahoua, the customers of which had now risen and were holding a very animated discussion over the dexterously accomplished robbery, I demanded if anyone present knew the man. Everyone, however, disclaimed acquaintance with him.

“He is an utter stranger,” said the old man who had been conversing with me. “To judge from his face, he cometh from the Areg.”

“Evidently he hath no friendship for Hadj Absalam,” observed one of the Arabs grimly, as in the midst of an exciting argument he stopped to light a cigarette, carefully extinguishing the match with his fingers.

“But my loss is irreparable. That box contained” – I hesitated. Then I added, “It contained great treasure.”

“May Allah consign the thief to Hâwiyat for ever!” exclaimed one of the men calmly.

“May the Prophet send thee consolation!” added another. “Against Fate thou canst not arm thyself,” observed a third. “May the entrails of the thief be burned!”

To such remarks I returned thanks, and, heedless of the questions they asked concerning the value of the contents of the stolen box, I stood deep in thought. Though the circumstances were somewhat suspicious that my attention should have been diverted in the manner it had, still there was no mistake that the portrait was actually that of my murdered friend; and, further, the thief had not, as far as I had noticed, spoken to any of those around him. Expert pilferers as the Arabs mostly are, I could not in this instance bring myself to believe that I had been the victim of a plot. Again, it was not a pleasant reflection that the thief might have stolen it thinking it contained valuables, and then, finding the hideous object inside, would in such a case most likely give information which would lead to my arrest for murder! My guilt would be assumed, and to prove my innocence I should experience considerable difficulty.

On the other hand, however, the circumstances pointed strongly to the theory that the ragged ruffian had dogged my footsteps in order to obtain possession of the casket. But for what reason? The box had been wrapped in brown paper, there being nothing whatever in its exterior to excite undue curiosity. Was it possible that the thief might have been aware of its contents? Was the possession of this startling evidence of a gruesome tragedy of imperative necessity? If so, why?

None of these questions could I answer. I felt that the robbery was not an ordinary one. It was an enigma that I could not solve. The hand, with its rings, had been stolen from me by one who was evidently an expert thief, and, recognising that any attempt to recover it was useless, I thanked the Arabs in the kahoua for their condolences, and left, turning my steps slowly towards the European quarter.

I recollected that I had promised Zoraida to set out that night on my journey into the distant Desert. Again and again her earnest words in her own musical tongue rang in my ears: “Thou wilt go for my sake,” she had said. “Remember the instructions I have given thee; and, above all, promise to seek no explanation of what thou mayest hear or see regarding me until thou hast returned from Agadez. Thou wilt undertake this mission in order to save my life, to rescue me from a horrible fate that threateneth to overwhelm me!”

Had she already succumbed to the fate she dreaded?

Utterly powerless to obtain any information that might lead to the elucidation of the extraordinary mystery, I at length, after calmly reviewing the situation over a cigarette under the palms in the Place Bresson, resolved to keep my promise to her, and before midnight I left the City of the Corsairs on the first stage of my long, tedious journey southward towards the sun.

The temptation to return to England and leave the mystery unsolved had indeed been great, yet I could not forget that I had pledged my word to a woman I loved better than life. She had declared that I alone could save her, and trusted me. These thoughts caused my decision to attempt the perilous journey. Is it not, indeed, true that sometimes beauty draws us with a single hair towards our doom?

Why, I wondered, had she been so intensely anxious that I should refrain from seeking any explanation of these strange, ever-deepening and perplexing mysteries? Her words and actions were those of a woman apprehensive of some terrible tragedy that she was powerless to avert; and even though I started that night from Algiers fully determined to learn the secret of the Crescent of Glorious Wonders I carried, and its bearing upon her welfare, yet that shrill, despairing cry I had heard after leaving her presence still sounded distinctly in my ears, the dolorous, agonised wail of the hapless victim of a hidden crime.

Chapter Twenty.

After the Fâtiha

Again I found myself alone in the vast, sun-baked wilderness, where all is silent, and the pulse of life stands still.

Twenty-eight hours over one of the most execrable railways in the world had taken me back to Biskra, where I remained a day, writing letters home to England, and otherwise making preparations for a lengthened absence from civilisation. Then, mounted on Zoraida’s fleet horse, I set forth for Tuggurt.

Though the sun’s rays were scarcely as powerful as when I had travelled over the same ground three months before, yet the inconveniences and perils of the Desert were legion. In order that the Arabs I met should not deem me worth robbing, I cultivated a ragged appearance; my gandoura was of the coarsest quality worn by the Kabyles, my haick was soiled and torn, and my burnouse old and darned. I had purchased the clothing second-hand in the market-place at Biskra, and now wore a most woe-begone aspect, my only possession of value perceptible being a new magazine-rifle of British pattern. Yet stored away in my saddle-bags I had food, a fair sum of money, a more presentable burnouse, and, what was more precious than all, there reposed in its rotting, worm-eaten leather case that mysterious object, the Crescent of Glorious Wonders. Zoraida’s letter to the imam, however, I carried in my wallet in the pocket on the breast of my gandoura.

Terribly wearying and monotonous that journey proved. Only those who have experienced the appalling silence and gigantic immensity of the Great Sahara can have any idea of the utter loneliness experienced by a man journeying without companions. In that dreary waste one is completely isolated from the world amid the most desolate and inhospitable surroundings, with the whitening bones of man and beast lying here and there, ever reminding him with gruesome vividness of the uncertainty of his own existence. Knowing, however, that I should be unlikely to fall in with a caravan travelling south until I reached El Biodh, I pushed onward, and after five days reached Tuggurt, where I was the welcome guest of Captain Carmier, the only European there, his Parisian lieutenant having gone into the Sidi Rachid Oasis in charge of some native recruits.

As the captain and I sat together smoking and sipping our absinthe under the cool arcade with its horse-shoe arches that runs across the now deserted harem-garden of the Kasbah, I retailed to him the latest news I had picked up in Algiers.

“We know nothing here in this uncivilised oven,” the officer said, laughing, and at the same time flicking some dust from off his braided coat-sleeve. “The Paris papers are always a fortnight to three weeks old, and, there being no postal service, I have to send to Biskra for them.”

“But you have very comfortable quarters here,” I said.

“Comfortable! Oh yes,” he replied; “but the life is abominably monotonous. I would rather be in command of an advanced post down in the south. There one leads a wild, free life and has plenty of enjoyment. Take Deschanel’s squadron of Spahis as an instance. You have already had some experience with them, so I need not describe the rollicking life they lead, scouring the plains in search of that daring old pirate, Hadj Absalam.”

“Have you heard anything of the old chieftain lately?” I asked eagerly.

“No. Since the sharp brush with Deschanel’s detachment he seems to have mysteriously disappeared. After the defeat of his band we did our best to capture him, feeling that with his power broken he would fall an easy prey. I at once organised detachments of Spahis, Chasseurs, and Turcos, who for nearly a month patrolled the Desert, made inquiries of all the neighbouring tribes, and did their utmost to discover the direction in which the fugitive had gone. But, as usual, all was in vain.”

“Then he has again escaped you?”

Carmier nodded, blowing a cloud of smoke upward from his lips. “He seems to move from one place to another imperceptibly, for when he flies he leaves not a clue by which he can be traced. Only last week the Sheikh of the Ourlana, who had just returned from Algiers, told me positively that he saw him, dressed as a Jew merchant, enjoying himself at one of the cafés on the Boulevard de la République. That, of course, is un conte en l’air. The old rascal may be daring, but he would never risk arrest by going to Algiers.”

I remained silent. Was it not most likely that while Zoraida sojourned beside the sea, the Pirate of the Desert would be there also? I did not, however, tell him of my enchantress, but agreed with him that such an assertion was incredible. When presently my friend had invited me to remain with him a couple of days, and I had accepted, he suddenly asked me —

“Where are you going when you leave here?”

“To Agadez.”

“To Agadez?” he echoed in concern. “You are not going alone? It is not safe. Surely the mere love of adventure has not induced you to set out on such a perilous ride?”

“I am fulfilling an urgent mission,” I answered vaguely.

“Bien! and one fraught with more dangers than you imagine. What possible object can you have in risking your life in journeying to the City of the Sorcerers, which, if all reports are true, is extremely unsafe for Christians on account of the fanatical character of the inhabitants?”

“The object of my journey is a secret,” I said. “I have promised to attempt it, and must accomplish it at all hazards.”

“And the person you have promised is a woman – eh?” he hazarded, laughing.

“Who told you?” I asked, starting in surprise.

“Oh, I merely guessed,” he answered. “But, speaking candidly, I would urge you most strongly to abandon the idea.”

“I cannot,” I said. “All my happiness – my whole future depends upon whether I accomplish the journey successfully. Besides, I have not hesitated before to cross the Desert, why should I now?”

“Because many of the regions through which you must pass to get to Assiou to join the route to Agadez are peopled by tribes intensely hostile. Their prejudice against Europeans is even greater than in Morocco, therefore it will require considerable courage to face such insurmountable barriers.”

“It is not a question of courage,” I said; “it’s a matter of duty.”

Scarcely had these words fallen from my lips when the quick clatter of horse’s hoofs sounded in the outer courtyard, and a few minutes later a Spahi orderly came towards us, saluting his officer, saying —

“An Arab has arrived in haste from Es-Safla bearing important news.”

“Bring him in,” Cannier replied.

In a few moments a tall, thin, aquiline-featured Bedouin, dirty, stained by long travel, and wearing a very ragged burnouse, stalked in, and, wishing us peace, handed the captain a letter, which he tore open and immediately read.

“Dieu!” he gasped, starting up. “A reverse! The Ennitra, with the Arabs of the Ouled Ba’ Hammou, have risen, and, attacking the Spahis and Chasseurs near Aïn Souf, massacred the whole of them! As far as is known, not a single man has survived, Paul Deschanel himself succumbing to his wounds a few hours after writing this report, which has been forwarded to me by the Sheikh of the Kel-Ahamellen, our friends. The slaughter must have been awful, for, according to the Sheikh’s letter, the enemy treated the wounded and prisoners with the most fiendish barbarity.”

“Horrible!” I said. “Poor Deschanel! He was an excellent friend to me.”

“He was good to everybody; one of the best soldiers serving under the Tricolour, poor fellow.” Then, turning to the Arab, who was unconcernedly rolling a cigarette, he thanked him for delivering his Sheikh’s message, and told the orderly to look after him. Again and again Carmier eagerly perused the report, penned in a shaky, uncertain hand by the dead officer, and, much affected, he read me extracts from the black record of treachery and brutal butchery, a record which spoke in the highest terms of the fearlessness of his men and the cool bravery they displayed, even though in face of the overwhelming hordes death was a foregone conclusion from the outset of the fight. The massacre had taken place at the well of Dhaya, where the Spahis had halted on their way to In Salah, and as they had been surrounded at night and cut up, it was evident that my friend Octave Uzanne, the man who had so nobly sacrificed everything in order that the woman he loved should live happily with her husband, had, alas! fallen.

Indeed, I was filled with a grief no less poignant than that experienced by Carmier, when I remembered that those valiant comrades with whom I had fought side by side when we defeated Hadj Absalam’s piratical cut-throats in the Meskam had now been treacherously attacked and ruthlessly butchered. The captain, however, gave himself little time for reflection over the sad incident. Calling for writing materials, he sat down and penned an explanatory note to the General of Division, who happened to be at Biskra making his inspection. He recommended that a punitive expedition should be immediately dispatched into the hostile district, and stated, that if the War Department in Paris sanctioned it, he himself could furnish half the men.

In an hour, a smart Spahi, with his rifle slung at his back over his scarlet burnouse, mounted his horse under the great arched gate of the Kasbah, and into his hands the captain gave the dispatch, ordering him to ride with all speed to Biskra, where, by travelling incessantly and changing his horse at five Arab villages he named, he could arrive within three days.

The man, placing the letter in his capacious breast pocket, saluted, and, setting spurs in his horse, sped rapidly away; after which Carmier, pleading that he had some further dispatches to attend to, left me to wander at will through the great courts of the ancient fortress. Presently I came across the Arab who had brought the sad news from his Sheikh, and who, after his meal was now squatting under a shady arcade lazily smoking. Leaning against one of the twisted columns, I questioned him further upon the reverse, but he apparently knew very few of the actual facts. He told me that he intended to return to In Salah on the following day, and it at once occurred to me that we might be travelling companions as far as El Biodh. Knowing that this man, whose name I learnt was Gajére, was trustworthy, otherwise he would not have been sent by the friendly Sheikh, I suggested that we should perform the journey together, an arrangement which met with his heartiest approval.

When the mueddin called from the tall minaret of the great white mosque at sundown, I watched the man of the Kel-Ahamellen wash his feet and hands in the courtyard and enter to recite his Fâtiha, and to ask Allah to give us peace upon our journey over the great barren plain where death is ever-present.

Strangely enough, however, I chanced to be lounging with the captain near the gate of the Kasbah, when, an hour later, the devout Moslems came trooping out, and as I looked across to the narrow doorway, I saw Gajére emerge, accompanied by an unkempt-looking Arab whose face struck me as strangely familiar. The pair stood for a few moments hand in hand, engaged in excited conversation, until suddenly they detected my presence. Then, exchanging quick, significant looks and uttering slaamas, Gajére and his friend parted, the latter striding quickly away in an opposite direction, and, turning a corner, was soon lost to view. Notwithstanding the dim twilight, however, I had made an astounding discovery, for I recognised the man who had fled so quickly as the Arab who had sat next to me in the little kahoua in Algiers – the man who had stolen the cut-off hand!

Had he followed me? If so, with what purpose? I felt convinced that his presence and his friendship with the man from the Desert boded evil, and throughout that night grimly-apprehensive thoughts caused me the most intense anxiety.

By no mere coincidence was it that we should thus meet. The unkempt, fierce-looking ruffian had some sinister design in dogging my footsteps, and the nature of this object I was determined at all costs to ascertain. Therefore, I did not hesitate to adhere to previous arrangements, and, regardless of the consequences, I set out with Gajére.

Chapter Twenty One.

A Startling Revelation

Day after day for a whole fortnight Gajére and I rode onward together, passing through Temacin, El Hadjira, and the arid Chambâas region. Now and then we halted at Arab villages in the oases, but the greater part of our time was spent in the dry, waterless wilderness. He was an intelligent fellow, full of anecdote and bonhomie, a splendid horseman, and in every sense a typical Bedouin. Yet, somehow, I could not get rid of a strange feeling of insecurity such as I had scarcely ever before experienced.

These vague apprehensions of impending evil were increased by an incident which occurred one night while we were sleeping under the little lean-to awning which served as a tent. We had halted at a small fertile oasis after we had been on our journey eight days, and under the cool waving palms had stretched ourselves for the night. I suppose I must have been asleep nearly two hours, my head pillowed upon the saddle-bag containing the Crescent of Glorious Wonders, when suddenly I was awakened by my companion stirring. In a moment I became filled with suspicion, and with bated breath lay – determined not to betray my watchfulness. Gajére at first sat up listening intently; then, as he bent over and found my eyes closed and my breathing heavy and regular, became apparently reassured. The little awning did not admit of one standing upright, but my treacherous fellow-traveller, moving slowly and noiselessly in order not to disturb me, bent once again to make certain that I had no knowledge of things about me.

Those were anxious, exciting moments. With closed eyes I lay prostrate and helpless, well knowing the futility of a struggle with that sinewy son of the Desert, in whose grasp I should quickly be as helpless as a child. I was unable to draw my revolver without attracting his attention, and knew myself to be in a position of extreme peril. Unaware of his designs, I breathed heavily, and waited. Seconds seemed hours, for the terrible thought occurred to me that he was in league with the sinister-looking thief, and his object was murder. I felt assured that I was to fall the victim of a foul conspiracy.