two days later the force struck camp, leaving the town behind them a shell of blackened ruins, bearing on lances before them the heads of thirty prominent citizens as a sign that c?sar is not lightly denied his tribute.
they streamed northeast through the defiles, a tattered rabble, a swarm of locusts, eating up the land as they went. the wounded were jostled along in rough litters, at the mercy of camp barbers and renegade quacks; the majority died on the way and were thankful to die. the infantry straggled for miles (half rode donkeys) and drove before them cattle, sheep, goats and a few women prisoners. what with stopping to requisition and pillage they progressed at an average of twelve miles a day. only among the negroes and the cavalry was there any semblance of march discipline, and then only because the general kept them close about him as protection against his other troops.
beside ortho rode the arab girl, her feet strapped under the mule’s belly. twice she tried to escape—once by a blind bolt into the foothills, once by a surer, sharper road. she had wriggled across the tent and pulled a knife out of its sheath with her teeth. osman had caught her just as she was on the point of rolling on it. ortho had to tie her up at night and watch her all day long. never had he encountered such implacable resolve. she was determined to foil him one way or the other at no matter what cost to herself. he had always had his own way with women and this failure irritated him. he would stick it as long as she, he swore—and longer.
osman baki was entertained. he watched the contest with twinkling china blue eyes—his mother had been a georgian slave and he was as fair as a swede.
“she will leave you—somehow,” he warned.
“for whom? for what?” ortho exclaimed. “if she slips past me the infantry will catch her, or some farmer who will beat her life out. why does she object to me? i have treated her kindly—as kindly as she will allow.”
osman twirled his little yellow mustache. “truly, but these people have no reason, only a mad pride. one cannot reason with madness, kaid. oh, i know them. when i was in the service of the deys . . .”
he delivered an anecdote from his unexampled repertoire proving the futility of arguing with a certain class of arab with anything more subtle than a bullet.
“sell her in morocco,” he advised. “she is pretty, will fetch a good sum.”
“no, i’m going to try my hand first,” said ortho stubbornly.
“you’ll get it bitten,” said the turk, eying the telltale marks on ortho’s face with amusement. “for my part i prefer a quiet life—in the home.”
they straggled into morocco city ten days later to find the sultan in residence for the winter, building sanctuaries and schools with immense energy.
ortho hoped for the governorship of an outlying post where he would be more or less his own master, get some pig-hunting and extort backsheesh from the country folk under his protection; but it was not to be. he was ordered to quarter his stalwarts in the kasba and join the imperial guard. having been in the guard before at mequinez, having influence in the household and getting a wind-fall in the way of eight months’ back pay, he contrived to bribe himself into possession of a small house overlooking the aguedal gardens, close to the ahmar gate.
there he installed the arab girl and a huge old negress to look after her.
then he set to and gave his unfortunate men the stiffening of their lives.
he formed his famous black horses into one troop, graded the others by colors and drilled the whole all day long.
furthermore, he instituted a system of grooming and arm-cleaning hitherto unknown in the moroccan forces—all on the fleischmann recipe. did his men show sulks, he immediately up-ended and bastinadoed them. this did not make him popular, but osman baki supported him with bewildered loyalty and he kept the mokadem and the more desperate rascals on his side by a judicious distribution of favors and money. nevertheless he did not stroll abroad much after dark and then never unattended.
they drilled in the aguedal, on the bare ground opposite the powder house, and acquired added precision from day to day. ortho kept his eye on the roof of the powder house.
for two months this continued and ortho grew anxious. what with household expenses and continued douceurs to the mokadem his money was running out and he was sailing too close to the wind to try tricks with his men’s rations and pay at present.
just when things were beginning to look desperate a party appeared on the roof of the powder house, which served the parade ground as a grand-stand.
ortho, ever watchful, saw them the moment they arrived, brought his command into squadron column, black troop to the fore, and marched past underneath.
they made a gallant show and ortho knew it. thanks to the grooming, his horses were looking fifty per cent better than any other animals in the shereefian army; the uniformity added another fifty. the men knew as well as he did who was looking down on them, and went by, sitting stiff, every eye fixed ahead.
the lusty sun set the polished hides aglow, the burnished lance-heads a-glitter. the horses, fretted by sharp stirrups, tossed their silky manes, whisked their streaming tails. the wind got into the burnooses and set them flapping and billowing in creamy clouds; everything was in his favor. ortho wheeled the head of his column left about, formed squadron line on the right and thundered past the magazine, his shop-window troop nearest the spectators, shouting the imperial salute, “allah y barek amer sidi!” a good line too, he congratulated himself, as good as any makhzen cavalry would achieve in this world. if that didn’t work nothing would. it worked.
a slave came panting across the parade ground summoning him to the powder house at once.
the sultan was leaning against the parapet, sucking a pomegranate and spitting the pips at his grand vizier, who pretended to enjoy it. the fringes of the royal jellab were rusty with brick dust from the ruins of bel abbas, which mahomet was restoring. ortho did obeisance and got a playful kick in the face; his sublimity was in good humor.
he recognized ortho immediately. “ha! the lancer who alone defied the bou khari, still alive! young man, you must indeed be of allah beloved!” he looked the soldier up and down with eyes humorous and restless. “what is your rank?”
“kaid mia, sidi.”
“hum!—thou art kaid rahal now, then.” he turned on the vizier. “tell el mechouar to let him take what horses he chooses; he knows how to keep them. go!”
he flung the fruit rind at ortho by way of dismissal.
ortho gave his long-suffering men a feast that night with the last ready money in his possession. they voted him a right good fellow—soldiers have short memories.
he was on his feet now. as kaid rahal, with nominally a thousand cut-throats at his beck and nod, he would be a fool indeed if he couldn’t blackmail the civilians to some order. also there was a handsome sum to be made by crafty manipulation of his men’s pay and rations. el mechouar would expect his commission out of this, naturally, and sundry humbler folk—“big fleas have little fleas . . .”—but there would be plenty left. he was clear of the financial thicket. he went prancing home to his little house, laid aside his arms and burnoose, took the key from the negress, ran upstairs and unlocked the room in which the arab girl, ourida, was imprisoned. it was a pleasant prison with a window overlooking the aguedal, its miles of pomegranate, orange, and olive trees. it was the best room in the house and he had furnished it as well as his thin purse would afford, but to the desert girl it might have been a tomb.
she sat all day staring out of the barred window, looking beyond the wide haouz plain to where the snow peaks of the high atlas rose, a sheer wall of sun-lit silver—and beyond them even. she never smiled, she never spoke, she hardly touched her food. ortho in all his experience had encountered nothing like her. he did his utmost to win her over, brought sweetmeats, laughed, joked, retailed the gossip of the palace and the souks, told her stories of romance and adventure which would have kept any other harem toy in shivers of bliss, took his gounibri and sang romany songs, moorish songs, english ballads, flowery ottoman kasidas, ghazels and g?listans, learned from osman baki, cursed her, adored her.
all to no avail; he might have been dumb, she deaf. driven desperate, he seized her in his arms; he had as well embraced so much ice. it was maddening. osman baki, who watched him in the lines of a morning, raving at the men over trifles, twisted his yellow mustache and smiled. this evening, however, ortho was too full of elation to be easily repulsed. he had worked hard and intrigued steadily for this promotion. three years before he had landed in morocco a chained slave, now he was the youngest of his rank in the first arm of the service. another few years at this pace and what might he not achieve? he bounded upstairs like a lad home with a coveted prize, told the girl of his triumph, striding up and down the room, flushed, laughing, smacking his hands together, boyish to a degree. he looked his handsomest, a tall, picturesque figure in the plum-colored breeches, soft riding boots, blue kaftan and scarlet tarboosh tilted rakishly on his black curls. the girl stole a glance at him from under her long lashes, but when he looked at her she was staring out of the window at the snow wall of the atlas rose-flushed with sunset, and when he spoke to her she made no answer; he might as well have been talking to himself. but he was too full of his success to notice, and he rattled on and on, pacing the little room up and down, four strides each way. he dropped beside her, put his arm about her shoulders, drew her cold cheek to his flushed one.
“listen, my pearl,” he rhapsodized. “i have money now and you shall have dresses like rainbows, a gold tiara and slave girls to wait on you, and when we move garrison you shall ride a white ambling mule with red trappings and lodge in a striped tent like the royal women. i am a kaid rahal now, do you hear? the youngest of any, and in the sultan’s favor. i will contrive and scheme, and in a few years . . . the standard!—eschkoun-i-araf? and then, my honey-sweet, you shall have a palace with a garden and fountains. hey, look!”
he scooped in his voluminous breeches’ pockets, brought out a handful of trinkets and tossed them into her lap. the girl stared at him, then at the treasures, and drew a sharp breath. they were her own, the jewelry he had wrenched from her on that wild night of carnage three months before.
“you thought i had sold them—eh?” he laughed. “no, no, my dear; it very nearly came to it, but not quite. they are safe now and yours again—see?”
he seized her wrists and worked the bangles on, snapped the crude black necklace round her neck and hung the elaborate gold one over it, kissed her full on the quivering mouth. “yours again, for always.”
she ran the plump black beads through her fingers, her breathing quickened. she glanced at him sideways, shyly; there was an odd light in her eyes. she swayed a little towards him, then the corners of her mouth twitched and curved upwards in an adorable bow; she was smiling, smiling! he held out his arms to her and she toppled into them, burying her face in his bosom.
“my lord!” said she.
the proud lady had surrendered at last!
“osman, osman baki, what now?” thought ortho and crushed her to him.
the girl made a faint, pained exclamation and put her hand to her throat.
“did i hurt you, my own?” said ortho, contrite.
“no, my lord, but you have snapped my necklace,” she laughed. “it is nothing.”
he picked up the black beads, wondering how he could have done it, and she put them down on the rug beside her.
“it is a poor thing, but a great saint has blessed it. my king, take me in your arms again.”
they sat close together while the rosy peaks faded out and the swift winter dusk filled the room, and he told her of the great things he would do. elation swept him up. everything seemed possible now with this slim, clinging beauty to solace and inspire him. he would trample on and on, scattering opposition like straw, carving his own road, a captain of destiny. she believed in his bravest boasts. her lord had but to will a thing and it was done. who could withstand her lord? “not i, not i,” said she. “hearken, tall one. i said to my heart night and day, ‘hate this roumi askar, hate him, hate him!’—but my heart would not listen, it was wiser than i.”
she nestled luxuriously in his arms, crooning endearments, melting and passionate, sweeter than honey in the honey-comb. it grew dark and cold. he went to the door and called for the brazier.
“and tea,” ourida added. “i would serve you with tea, my heart’s joy.”
the negress brought both.
ourida rubbed her head against his shoulder. “sweetmeats?” she cooed.
he jerked his last blanquils to the slave with the order.
ourida squatted cross-legged on a pile of cushions and poured out the sweet mint tea, handed him his cup with a mock salaam. he did obeisance as before a sultana, and she rippled with delight. they made long complimentary speeches to each other after the manner of the court, played with each other’s hands, were very childish and merry.
ourida pressed a second cup of tea on him. he drank it off at a gulp and lay down at her side.
“rest here and be comfortable,” said she, drawing his head to her.
“tell me again about that battle with the bou khari.”
he told her in detail, omitting the salient fact that his horse had bolted with him, though, in truth, he had almost forgotten it himself by now.
“all alone you faced them! small wonder sidi mahomet holds thee in high honor, my hero. and the fight in the rif?”
he told her all about the guerrilla campaign among the rock fastnesses of the djebel tiziren, of a single mountaineer with a knife crawling through the troop-lines at night and sixty ham-strung horses in the morning.
ourida was entranced. “go on, my lord, go on.”
ortho went on. he didn’t want to talk. he was most comfortable lying out on the cushions, his head on the girl’s soft lap. moreover, his heavy day in the sun and wind had made him extraordinarily drowsy—but he went on. he told her of massacres and burnt villages, of ambushes and escapes, of three hundred rebels rising out of a patch of cactus no bigger than a sheep pen and rushing in among the astonished lancers, screaming and slashing. the survivors of that affair had fled up the opposite hillside flat on their horses’ necks and himself among the foremost, but he did not put it that way; he said he “organized the retreat.”
“more,” breathed ourida.
he began to tell her of five fanatics with several muskets and quantities of ammunition shut up in a saint’s shrine and defying the entire shereefian forces for two days, but before he had got halfway his voice tailed off into silence.
“you do not speak, light of my life?”
“i am sleepy—and comfortable, dearest.”
ourida smoothed his cheek. “sleep then with thy slave for pillow.”
he felt her lips touch his forehead, her slim fingers running through his curls, through and through . . . through . . . and . . . through . . .
“my lord sleeps?” came ourida’s voice from miles away, thrilling strangely.
“um . . . ah! . . . almost,” ortho mumbled. “where . . . you . . . going?” she had slipped from under him; he had an impulse to grasp her hand, then felt it was too much trouble.
“listen, sa?d el ingliz,” said ourida in his ear, enunciating with great clarity. “you are going to sleep forever, you swine!”
he forced his weighted lids apart. she was bending right over him. he could see her face by the glow of the brazier, transformed, exultant; her teeth were locked together and showing; her eyes glittered.
“forever,” she hissed. “do you hear me?”
“drugged, by god!” thought ortho. “drugged, poisoned, fooled like a fat palace eunuch!”
fury came upon him. he fought the drowse with all the power that was in him, sat up, fell back again.
the girl laughed shrilly.
he tried to shout for help, for the negress, achieved a whisper.
“she has gone for sweetmeats and will loiter hours,” mocked the girl. “call louder; call up your thousand fine lancers. oh, great kaid rahal, standard bearer to be!”
“osman—they will crush you . . . between . . . stones . . . for this,” he mumbled.
she shook her head. “no, great one, they will not catch me. i have three more poisoned beads.” she held up the remnant of her black necklace.
so that was how it was done. in the tea. by restoring her the trinkets he had compassed his own end. his eyelids drooped, he was away, adrift again in that old dream he had had, rocking in the smuggler’s boat under black carn, floating through star-trembling space, among somber continents of cloud, a wraith borne onwards, downwards on streaming air-ways into everlasting darkness.
“great lord of lances,” came a whisper out of nowhere. “when thou art in gehenna thou wilt remember me, thy slave.”
he fought back to consciousness, battled with smothering wraps of swansdown, through fogs of choking gray and yellow, through pouring waters of oblivion, came out sweating into the light, saw through a haze a shadow girl bending over him, the red glimmer of the brazier.
with an immense effort he lifted his foot into the coals, bit hard into his under-lip. “not yet, not yet!”
the girl displayed amusement. “wouldst burn before thy time? burn on. thou wilt take no more women of my race against their wish, kaid—or any other women—though methinks thy lesson is learned overlate.
“why fight the sleep, roumi? it will come, it will come. the rif herb never fails.” on she went with her bitter raillery, on and on.
but ortho was holding his own. he was his mother’s son and had inherited all her marvelous vitality. the pain in his burnt foot was counteracting the drowse, sweat was pouring out of him. the crisis was past. could he but crawl to the door? not yet; in a minute or two. that negress must be back soon. he bit into his bleeding lip again, closed his eyes. the girl bent forward eagerly.
“it is death, kaid. thou art dying, dying!”
“no, nor shall i,” he muttered, and instantly realized his mistake.
she drew back, startled, and swooped at him again.
“open your eyes!” she forced his lids up.
“failed!”
“failed!” ortho repeated.
“bah! there are other means,” she snarled, jumped up, flitted round the room, stood transfixed in thought in the center, both hands to her cheeks, laughed, tore off her orange scarf and dropped on her knees beside him.
“other means, kaid.” she slipped the silk loop round his neck, knotted it and twisted.
she was going to strangle him, the time-hallowed practice of the east. he tried to stop her, lifted his heavy hands, but they were powerless, like so much dead wood. he swelled his neck muscles, but it was useless; the silk was cutting in all round, a red-hot wire. he had a flash picture of osman baki standing over his body, wagging his head regretfully and saying, “i said so,” osman baki with the owls’ house for background. it was all over; the girl had waited and got him in the end. even at that moment he admired her for it. she had spirit; never had he seen such spirit. came a pang of intolerable pain, his eyeballs were starting out, his head was bursting open—and then the tension at his throat inexplicably relaxed.
ortho rolled over, panting and retching, and as he did so heard footsteps on the stairs.
a fist thumped on the door, a voice cried, “kaid! kaid!” and there was osman baki.
he peered into the room, holding a lantern before him. “kaid, are you there? where are you? there is a riot of draouia in the djeema el fna; two troops to go out. oh, there you are—bismillah! what is this?”
he sprang across to where ortho lay and bent over him.
“what is the matter? are you ill? what is it?”
“nothing,” ortho croaked. “trying hasheesh . . . took too much . . . nothing at all. see to troops yourself . . . go now.” he coughed and coughed.
“hasheesh!” the turk sniffed, stared at him suspiciously, glanced round the room, caught sight of the girl and held up the lantern.
“ha-ha!”
the two stood rigid eye to eye, the soldier with chin stuck forward, every hair bristling, like a mastiff about to spring, the girl unflinching, three beads of her black necklace in her teeth.
“ha-ha!” osman put the lantern deliberately on the ground beside him and stepped forward, crouched double, his hands outstretched like claws. “you snake,” he muttered. “you arab viper, i’ll . . . i’ll . . .”
ortho hoisted himself on his elbow. the girl was superb! so slight and yet so defiant. “osman,” he rasped, “osman, friend, go! the riot! go, it is an order!”
the turk stopped, stood up, relaxed, turned slowly about and picked up the lantern. he looked at ortho, walked to the door, hesitated, shot a blazing glance at the girl, gave his mustache a vicious tug and went out.
silence but for the sputter of the brazier and the squeak of a mouse in the wall.
then ortho heard the soft plud-plud of bare feet crossing the room and he knew the girl was standing over him.
“well, sweet,” he sighed, “come to complete your work? i am still in your hands.”
she tumbled on her knees beside him, clasped his head to her breast and sobbed, sobbed, sobbed as though she would never stop.
