Читать книгу The Story of an Untold Love - Ford Paul Leicester - Страница 6

February 25. It was thought of you which led to our meeting. After the evening meal of dried salt fish, pancakes, dates, and coffee, my father and I wandered out to the Sok, and, as was our wont, sat down among the people. Refusing the hasheesh water and sweetmeats which the venders urged upon us, "to make you dream of your love joyfully," we listened to the story-tellers and the singers. Some one with a fine natural voice sang presently an Arabic love-song: —

It was a song I had heard and loved in many lands and many dialects, but that night it stirred me deeply, and brought to mind your image, ever dear. I sat and dreamed of you till the farrago about me became unbearable; and whispering a word to my father, I rose and strode away, with a yearning truly mastering. I could have had no thought that you were near, for when we stood far closer I was still unconscious of your presence. But if not an intuition, I ask what could it be?

Wandering through the narrow streets without purpose or goal, I presently saw looming above me the great hill on which stands the Alcassaba. Climbing in the brilliant moonlight up the steep and ill-conditioned road, and passing that jumble of buildings upon which so many races and generations have left their impress, I strolled along the wall to a ruined embrasure at the corner overlooking the sea. How long I stood there leaning upon the parapet I do not know. Not till you were close upon me was I conscious that my solitude was ended.

I heard footsteps, but was too incurious to turn and glance at the intruders. Nay, more, when that harsh, strident, American voice demanded, "There, isn't that great?" I felt so irritated by both tone and words that but for the seeming rudeness I should have moved away at once. You spoke so low I could not hear your reply, and I wonder what you said, – for his "great" applied to such beauty must have rasped much more on your artistic sense than it did on mine.

"And this black fellow in the turban standing here," continued the strident voice, "he fits, too, like the paper on the wall, though probably he's a sentry taking forty winks on the sly. It makes an American mad to see how slack things are run over here."

I heard a gentle "Hush," and then a murmur as you went on speaking.

"None of these black fellows speak English," came the self-assured voice again. Then, though I could have heard his natural tone full fifty feet away, the man called much louder: "Hey! what's the name of that point out there?"

I should have chosen to make no answer; but remembering the courtesy and dignity of the race I was impersonating, I replied without turning, "Cape Spartel."

You must have said something, for a moment later he laughed, saying, "Not a bit of it. Now see me jolly him up." I heard footsteps, and then some one leaned against the parapet, close beside me. "Backsheesh," he intimated, and jingled some coins in his pocket.

I stood silent, so he tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "Are you one of the palace guards?" Unsuppressed by my monosyllabic "No," he persisted by saying, "What's your business, then?" jingling his coins again. "Stop pulling me, Mai," he added, as an aside.

"I am a stranger in Tangier," I answered quietly.

"From whereabouts?" he questioned.

"The East."

"Oh, you're one of the wise men, are you?" he observed jocosely. "Are you a Jew or a Mohammedan?"

"Not the latter, fortunately for you."

"And why fortunately?" he nagged.

"Because a true believer would have taken the question as a deadly insult."

"They'd be welcome," he laughed, "though it is rather irritating to be mistaken for a Jew. I shouldn't like it myself."

I thought of the dignified Jew traders who had made part of our caravan in the journey from Bagdad to Damascus, and answered, "There is little danger of that."

"I guess not," he assented. "But if you aren't a Jew or a Mohammedan, what are you?"

He had spoiled my mood, and since it was gone I thought I would amuse myself with the man. "A seeker of knowledge from the Altai Mountains," I responded.

"Never heard of them," he announced; "or is it your Choctaw for those?" he added, pointing towards the dark masses of the Atlas Mountains.

I smiled and answered, "They are many moons' travel from here."

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "How did you happen to come?"

"To follow after those gone before."

"I see," he said. "Relatives, I suppose? Hope you found them well?"

"No," I replied, carrying on the humor, "dying."

He jingled his coins, and asked, "Anything to be done for them?"

"Nothing."

"What's the complaint?"

"Civilization in the abstract, repeating rifles and rapid-firing guns in the concrete."

"Eh!" he ejaculated.

Then the lowest and sweetest of voices said, "Won't you tell us what you mean?"

Was it my irritation that the man before me, rather than the subtler-passioned people I knew so well, was the dominant type of the moment, or was it the sympathy your voice stirred within me, which made me speak? In a moment I was sketching broadly the inhumanity of this thing we call Christian civilization, which, more grasping than the Inquisition, has overrun the world, tearing the lands from their owners, and, not content with this spoliation, demands of its victims that they shall give up the customs of many centuries' evolution, and conform to habits, governments, and religions which their very instincts make impossible; and because they cannot change, but break out, these believers in the golden rule shoot them down. I protested at the mockery of calling civilized a world held at peace by constant slaughter, or of styling the national Jack Ketches of humanity Christian nations! I protested against the right of one man to hold another barbaric because he will not welcome his master, greet with joy the bands of steel we call railroads, and crush his nature within the walls of vast factories, to make himself the threefold slave of society, government, and employer. And finally, I gloried in the fact that though the white races had found a weapon against the black and yellow ones which enabled them to overrun and subjugate, yet nature had provided nature's people with the defense of climate, – a death-line to the whites; and behind that line the colored races are unconquerable in the sense of conquest being extinction. I knew the other side, that altruistic tenet of political economy defined in brief as "the greatest good of the greatest number," and in my mind held the even balance of the historian between the two; but to this utilitarian, modern, self-satisfied American I had to urge the rights of races thousands of years our senior, and far in advance of us in the knowledge and amenities that make life worth the most.

You both were silent till I ended; but I had best left unspoken what your companion could not understand, for when I finished he inquired, "What mountains did you say you came from?" And when I told him, he added laughingly, "You must have some pretty good stump speaking in your elections."

"We are very grateful for your explanation," you thanked me gently.

"Never been in America?" he surmised; and except for you I should have told him that I was his countryman, it would have been so adequate a retort to his inference. But your voice and manner had made me so ashamed of my earlier mood that I merely answered, "Yes."

"Humph!" he grunted in surprise; and as if to prove his incorrigibility he continued, "Thought your ideas were too back-number for that."

I could not help laughing, and the moment my laugh became articulate yours too overflowed your lips, as a spring breaks past its edges and falls rippling over pebbles.

That laugh, so well remembered, revealed your presence to me. My heart beat quickly and my head whirled dizzily, and in my bewilderment I took a step backward, quite forgetting the embrasure, till a stone gave way and I felt that I was falling. Then my consciousness went from me, and when thought came surging backward I lay a moment quiet, thinking it must have been a dream.

"He's coming round all right," I heard, and at the sound I opened my eyes. You were leaning over me with the moonlight shining on your face, and I caught my breath, you were so beautiful.

"You've given us a scare," continued the man, on whose knee my head was resting. "You want to keep your wits about you better. Pretty poor business tumbling off walls, but that's what comes of having ruins. You won't be quite so cocky in the future about your run-out races."

I felt his laughter justified, but hardly heeded it, my thoughts were so engaged. You were wetting my forehead with brandy, and I lay there too happy to speak.

"Now let me raise you a bit higher," the man offered kindly, "so you can get your addled senses back." He lifted me, and I groaned at the sudden terrible pain that shot up my leg.

"Hello!" he cried, laying me gently down. "Something wrong, after all? What is it?"

"My leg," I moaned.

"Here, Maizie, hold his head, while I appoint an investigating committee," he ordered, and in another moment I felt your arms about me, and in my joy at your touch I almost forgot my torture.

"Well, you've broken one of your walking-sticks," the man informed me, after a gentler touching of it than I thought possible to his nature. "Now, Maizie, if you'll sit and hold his head, I'll get a litter. You won't mind staying here alone, will you?"

"It is my wish," you acceded calmly.

"O. K.," he said, rising, and even in his kindness he could not help but seize the opportunity to glorify his country. "If this had happened in New York, Mr. Altai, we'd have had an ambulance here five minutes ago! Civilization isn't all bad, I tell you, as you'd find out if you'd give it a chance."

The moment he was gone I tried to speak, and murmured "Maizie;" but you let me get no further, saying "Hush," and putting your hand softly over my lips. I suppose you thought me merely repeating the name he had called you, while I loved your touch too deeply to resist the hand I longed to kiss. Now I am glad I did not speak, for if I had it would have robbed me of my last sweet moment with you.

Long before I thought it possible, and far too soon, indeed, despite my suffering, we heard men approaching. When the torch-bearers came climbing over the rocks, my first desire was to see how much of your beauty was owing to the moonlight, and my heart leaped with exultation to find that you were beautiful even in the livid glare of the torches.

"Now, Mr. Altai," your companion remarked, "where shall we take you?" and I gave him the name of the hotel. A moment later, as they lifted me, I again fainted, but not till I had kissed your hand. You snatched it away, and did not hear my weakly whispered "Good-night, Maizie."