Читать книгу Sarah of the Sahara - George S. Chappell - Страница 3

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“Allah! Allah! Bishmillah. El Traprock, Dhub ak Moplah!... Wullahy! Wullahy!”

Long, long after their echoes have died away the cries of my desert men ring on my ears. Still do I see myself as, in a cloud of dust, at the head of my band of picked nomads, my burnous floating above me so that I looked like a covered wagon, with the drumming thunder of a hundred hoofs and the wild yells of my followers, I swept like a cyclone to the rescue of one of the fairest creatures of my favorite sex.

O Sarah! my desert mate, whom I have hymned in terms of pomegranates, peacock’s-eyes and alabaster columns, lovely lady for whom I trained my tongue to the notes of the nightingale and my fingers to the intricacies of the lute, elusive creature, startled doe that ever fled before my bent bow and keen-edged arrows only to be struck down at last by agonizing love, light of my spirit, breath of my soul, warmth of my body, why, O all-of-these-and-much-more, did’st thou flee from El Sheik Traprock, Dhub of the Moplah Tribe?... Wullahy!

Alas! She may not answer, my fair bride of the silences, for she has been plucked from me, she has passed beyond my ken. Let me then speak for her, my sweet bird, my tower of gold-and-ivory, my tall building agleam with rubies, my ... but first let me descend from the heaven of her memory and cease from singing of the musical Moplahs.

In other words let me get back to earth and, in regular language, try to describe her as I first saw her.

It was on the pier-head at Cannes: the time, sunset. She stood, outlined against the flaming sky, a tall, angular figure. In the fading light I took no note of details but there was that in the woman’s silhouette which gripped me. My heart stopped ... missed a beat ... and hurried on.

Strange and mysterious, the influence of human personalities! Her mere presence was a challenge at which I bristled. Through my nerve-centers flashed deep messages of interest, attraction ... animosity. Here, plainly, was no easy quarry.

As tense and alert as a setter on-the-point I stood watching the lean figure. At the back of my head I felt a light tickling sensation as if a hand had passed upward over my hair; my nostrils, I dare say, dilated.

Her back was toward me and she was gazing at the luminous waters of the “Baie des Anges.” Caught in her close-cropped, reddish-brown hair the last sun’s rays shone in a golden aureole so that in this respect she might have been one of the angels for whom the bay is named. But the angelic suggestion ended there. In all else she was warm, vital, human, a vibrant personality with a hint of almost masculine strength beneath the folds of her tan silk jacket and short walking skirt. One arm was akimbo and through the triangle thus formed I could see, by odd coincidence, the distant shape of my yawl, the Kawa, from which I had just landed.

LADY SARAH WIMPOLE

“Her mere presence was a challenge at which I bristled. Here was no easy quarry.”

Lady Sarah Wimpole

My arrival in Cannes had been meaningless, the chance debarkation of a wanderer in search of rest after arduous voyaging in the far North, the aimless pursuit of warmth, comfort and sunshine. I had intended, as far as my formless plans had any intention, stopping over the night at Cannes, then pushing on to the various Mediterranean ports, through Suez to the great East. My vague objective was the Nicobars, off Sumatra, where I had promised to call on a devoted old Andamanian when the opportunity offered.

Now, in an instant all that was changed. Vanished my Andamanian friend, my vague intentions. Here, within a few feet of me, in the person of this unknown woman was adventure, mystery, romance, an immediate objective, a citadel to be stormed, a problem to be solved, an adversary to be overcome, a mate to be ... who knows what lies in wait for him around the corner? I only know that in a twinkling life had become purposeful, fascinating, electric.

She seemed to feel something of this riotous zip which I was projecting toward her for she turned suddenly and with a quick, awkward gesture, pulled on a soft straw hat and began walking in my direction. I immediately withdrew among a maze of packing-cases, orange boxes and other freight with which the pier was cumbered. Instinct told me it was not the time for our meeting. I had come ashore only for a few necessary supplies and I was very much in fatigue uniform. Also I was bare-footed in which condition a man can never look his best.

A moment later she strode unsuspectingly past the pile of orange boxes which screened me. I caught the impression of a distinctly patrician type with rigidly drawn features in which an aquiline nose predominated. I had only a glimpse but, as in the wink of a camera shutter, a clear image of that austere profile was imprinted upon the sensitive plate of my soul. Developing and printing were to come later. One thing was certain; she was a personage, not a mere person.

At the end of the pier she vanished. Vaulting from my fruit crate I made toward the string-piece where my dingy was gently bumping. I must make ship and haul my evening clothes from stowage. Once more I was on the trail.

Fate does not cheat those who trust her. Without arrangement on my part I saw my lady again within three days. It was bound to happen.

Though changed entirely as to costume, I knew her instantly. She was at the roulette table in the glittering salle-de-jeu at Monte Carlo. From afar I saw the tip of a blue ostrich plume, the nodding feathers of which seemed to brush against my consciousness. They could belong to none other.

Again the imperious call and challenge flashed between us as I took a seat opposite hers where I could study her features while I tossed my chips on the table. She looked up at once and I held her with my gaze. For the first time our glances met. I was oblivious of my surroundings. The brilliant room, the gay crowd, the alert croupier, all sank into nothingness as I focussed my eyes on hers, resolved that in this first interchange I should not yield. Her eyes, amazingly blue, looked into mine for a long instant, then dropped to the Cross of St. Botolphe which glittered on my shirt-bosom. I wore no other jewels save the agate-and-iron signet ring which his Britannic majesty—but that is neither here nor there. A faint smile played at the corners of my lady’s lips. It was enough. She had taken note of my presence.

She was plainly a great lady of the type which England alone can produce, one of those rangy, imperial, dominating creatures in whom seem to be compacted innumerable generations of conquering invaders, Derby-winners, stalwart cricketers and astute statesmen. The prevailing color of her person was red, or, to be more accurate, sandy, the short hair being without any tinge of the pink or henna which reeks of the coiffeurs’ art. Her complexion was of a salmon or apricot shade, made almost golden by the overtone of pale, downy fuzz which so often accompanies it. Crowning the crisply curled locks was a regal tiara of large emeralds into which the blue ostrich feather was stuck at a jaunty angle. Never before had I seen a tiara on bobbed hair and the effect coupled with the red and green color scheme was extremely diverting. One felt at once that here was a woman who would dare anything.

Being black myself the aureate color of her skin struck on my heart like a gong. Her brows and lashes were so pale as to be almost albinesque. Above and below a generous, full-lipped mouth her dominant nose contended for supremacy with an obstinate chin. Tanned cheeks spoke plainly of life in the open as did her strong but well-kept hands upon which shone several important emeralds. But what stirred me most were her arms.

Costume makes little or no impression on me. The general effect of what she wore was hard and steely, but gorgeous. The color was mainly white with a great slash of sky-blue introduced somewhere. I had the feeling of being in the presence of a lady-mayor or an important ambassadress. In any case, her arms were exposed beyond the elbow and to my delight they were generously freckled, not with coarse, country-style, ginger-bread mottlings, but with fine, detached discs no bigger than pin heads and pure gold in color. Over these pale paillettes grew the silky fur of which I have spoken. For some reason freckles always excite me, probably because I can never hope to have any except vicariously.

She was playing for high stakes, using only hundred-franc chips and winning with a consistency that attracted the inevitable cortege about her chair, the jackals who try to follow a winner or steal a system by peering over one’s shoulder.

I could but admire the coolness with which she turned and pushed away the face of an ornamental Russian woman, the Princess Sonia Subikoff, notorious adventuress and parasite, whose covetous features kept thrusting themselves under the player’s elbow. Done by one less sure of herself the action would have provoked a terrific scene. As it was, the outraged Princess, soi-disant, struck savagely at the blonde back of the English woman. The blow resounded as if she had hit a packing-case, producing no more effect than a shrug and a cheerful grin as la Subikoff made off, nursing a lame hand and hissing spiteful comment on the animal anglaise. Coolly, superbly, the Anglo-Saxon continued her play, placing her chips with a nonchalant sweep of her great arms. In every movement was the same underlying hint of powerful bony sub-structure.

“Elle est dure,” said a voice at my side.

“Qui ça?”

“La belle laide, en face.”

I turned with an instinctive hostility toward the speaker, his voice, manner ... everything. To discuss a woman, openly, in a public place.... La belle laide! ... and yet, was she not just that? There is a merciless precision in the Latin tongue.

My neighbors were a type I detest,—Peruvians, I judged by the barbarous Spanish clang of their French; sleek, oily, anointed with perfume from their lacquered hair to their equally shining boots, tailored, corsetted, manicured and with that fawning look so unpleasantly suggestive of the oriental. One was playing for small stakes while his companion looked on, but I noticed that both were narrowly watching the English woman and exchanging whispered comments.

Something was in the wind and my submerged sense of suspicion began to stir.

“Flute!” cried one of the South-Americans, which is a strong imprecation in French, “She wins like a fiend.”

“Zut,” replied the other as his last chip passed under the rake.

I turned to my own play, a system which I picked up in Buenos Ayres, a sure winner of small amounts. After two hours I was four and a half francs ahead and the pastime was beginning to bore me. Rising, I saw that the Peruvians had separated, one having crossed to the other side of the table directly back of the English woman while the other loitered near the croupier’s desk.

In a flash I divined their plan just in time to act. As the man near the croupier engaged him in conversation I saw the other’s hand shoot out and seize a large pile of bank-notes weighted down with a stack of golden louis. I could not possibly reach the fellow or the louis, but I could and did reach the door.

As our paths converged I saw that in his left hand he held an automatic. Acting entirely on instinct I threw in his face a handful of small change, keys, pen-knife, etc., from my trouser pocket. At the same instant I dove. His bullet roared, harmless, over my head and together we crashed to the marble floor. The thief had never seen a foot-ball game and expected something entirely different.

As we struggled he attempted to turn the weapon on me but my grip was like steel. The room was in an uproar. Hither and yon we threshed about over the polished pavement. In one of our gyrations my foot caught under the teak-wood base of a huge Japanese jar. Fascinated I watched it tremble, totter ... and fall into a thousand fragments about us. Then the confusion was punctuated by a sharp report and my adversary lay suddenly still. He had shot himself during the struggle, whether by accident or design I can not say.

Rising I looked about and tendered a handful of golden coins and billets-de-banque to the tall, masterful woman who stood near me.

“Top-hole,” she said, quite simply. “You must come to see me.”

She handed me her card, which I accepted, bowing. There were some tedious formalities necessary at the local poste de police and it was after midnight when I reached my room and took the card from my pocket. “Lady Sarah Wimpole,” I read beneath a simple crest, a swan volant holding a snake in its beak and the device “Nunc pro tunc.”

Our paths had crossed. Matters were coming on apace.