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Golden Silence, The

<h2>XLIII</h2> Since the day when Victoria had called Stephen to her help, always she had expected him. She had great faith, for, in her favourite way, she had "made a picture of him," riding up and down among the dunes, with the "knightly" look on his face which had first drawn her thoughts to him. Always her pictures had materialized sooner or later, since she was a little girl, and had first begun painting them with her mind, on a golden background. She spent hours on the roof, with Saidee or alone, looking out over the desert, through the field-glasses which Maïeddine had sent to her. Very often Saidee would remain below, for Victoria's prayers were not her prayers, nor were Victoria's wishes her wishes. But invariably the older woman would come up to the roof just before sunset, to feed the doves that lived in the minaret. At first Victoria had not known that her sister had any special reason for liking to feed the doves, but she was an observant, though not a sophisticated girl; and when she had lived with Saidee for a few days, she saw birds of a different colour among the doves. It was to those birds, she could not help noticing, that Saidee devoted herself. The first that appeared, arrived suddenly, while Victoria looked in another direction. But when the girl saw one alight, she guessed it had come from a distance. It fluttered down heavily on the roof, as if tired, and Saidee hid it from Victoria by spreading out her skirt as she scattered its food. Then it was easy to understand how Saidee and Captain Sabine had managed to exchange letters; but she could not bear to let her sister know by word or even look that she suspected the secret. If Saidee wished to hide something from her she had a right to hide it. Only—it was very sad. For days neither of the sisters spoke of the pigeons, though they came often, and the girl could not tell what plans might be in the making, unknown to her. She feared that, if she had not come to Oued Tolga, by this time Saidee would have gone away, or tried to go away, with Captain Sabine; and though, since the night of her arrival, when Saidee had opened her heart, they had been on terms of closest affection, there was a dreadful doubt in Victoria's mind that the confidences were half repented. But when the girl had been rather more than a week in the Zaouïa, Saidee spoke out. "I suppose you've guessed why I come up on the roof at sunset," she said. "Yes," Victoria answered. "I thought so, by your face. Babe, if you'd accused me of anything, or reproached me, I'd have brazened it out with you. But you've never said a word, and your eyes—I don't know what they've been like, unless violets after rain. They made me feel a beast—a thousand times worse than I would if you'd put on an injured air. Last night I dreamed that you died of grief, and I buried you under the sand. But I was sorry, and tore all the sand away with my fingers till I found you again—and you were alive after all. It seemed like an allegory. I'm going to dig you up again, you little loving thing!" "That means you'll give me back your confidence, doesn't it?" Victoria asked, smiling in a way that would have bewitched a man who loved her. "Yes; and something else. I'm going to tell you a thing you'll like to hear. I've written to him about you—our cypher's ready now—and said that you'd had the most curious effect on me. I'd tried to resist you, but I couldn't, not even to please him—or myself. I told him I'd promised to wait for you to help me; and though I didn't see what you could possibly do, still, your faith was contagious. I said that in spite of myself I felt some vague stirrings of hope now and then. There! does that please you?" "Oh Saidee, I am so happy!" cried the girl, flinging both arms round her sister. "Then I did come at the right time, after all." "The right time to keep me from happiness in this world, perhaps. That's the way I feel about it sometimes. But I can't be sorry you're here, Babe, as I was at first. You're too sweet—too like the child who used to be my one comfort." "I could almost die of happiness, when you say that!" Victoria answered, with tears in her voice. "What a baby you are! I'm sure you haven't much more than I have, to be happy about. Cassim has promised Maïeddine that you shall marry him, whether you say 'yes' or 'no'. And it's horrible when an Arab girl won't consent to marry the man to whom her people have promised her. I know what they do. She——" "Don't tell me about it. I'd hate to hear!" Victoria broke in, and covered her ears with her hands. So Saidee said no more. But in black hours of the night, when the girl could not sleep, dreadful imaginings crept into her mind, and it was almost more than she could do to chase them away by making her "good pictures." "I won't be afraid—I won't, I won't!" she would repeat to herself. "I've called him, and my thoughts are stronger than the carrier pigeons. They fly faster and farther. They travel like the light, so they must have got to him long ago; and he said he'd come, no matter when or where. By this time he is on the way." So she looked for Stephen, searching the desert; and at last, one afternoon long before sunset, she saw a man riding toward the Zaouïa from the direction of the city, far away. She could not see his face, but he seemed to be tall and slim; and his clothes were European. "Thank God!" she said to herself. For she did not doubt that it was Stephen Knight. Soon she would call Saidee; but she must have a little time to herself, for silent rejoicing, before she tried to explain. There was no great hurry. He was far off, still. She kept her eyes to Maïeddine's glasses, and felt it a strange thing that they should have come to her from him. It was almost as if he gave her to Stephen, against his will. She was so happy that she seemed to hear the world singing. "I knew—I knew, through it all!" she told herself, with a sob of joy in her throat. "It had to come right." And she thought that she could hear a voice saying: "It is love that has brought him. He loves you, as much as you love him." To her mind, especially in this mood, it was not extraordinary that each should love the other after so short an acquaintance. She was even ready to believe of herself that, unconsciously, she had fallen in love with Stephen the first time she met him on the Channel boat. He had interested her. She had remembered his face, and had been sorry to think that she would never see it again. On the ship, going out from Marseilles, she had been so glad when he came on deck that her heart had begun to beat quickly. She had scolded herself at the time, for being silly, and school-girlishly romantic; but now she realized that her soul had known its mate. It could scarcely be real love, she fancied, that was not born in the first moment, when spirit spoke to spirit. And her love could not have drawn a man hundreds of miles across the desert, if it had not met and clasped hands with his love for her. "Oh, how happy I am!" she thought. "And the glory of it is, that it's not strange—only wonderful. The most wonderful thing that ever happened or could happen." Then she remembered the sand-divining, and how M'Barka had said that "her wish was far from her, but that Allah would send a strong man, young and dark, of another country than her own; a man whose brain, and heart, and arm would be at her service, and in whom she might trust." Victoria recalled these words, and did not try to bring back to her mind what remained of the prophecy. Almost, she had been foolish enough to be superstitious, and afraid of Maïeddine's influence upon her life, since that night; and of course she had known that it was of Maïeddine M'Barka had thought, whether she sincerely believed in her own predictions or no. Now, it pleased Victoria to feel that, not only had she been foolish, but stupid. She might have been happy in her childish superstition, instead of unhappy, because the description of the man applied to Stephen as well as to Maïeddine. For the moment, she did not ask herself how Stephen Knight was going to take her and Saidee away from Maïeddine and Cassim, for she was so sure he had not come across miles of desert in vain, that she took the rest for granted in her first joy. She was certain that Saidee's troubles and hers were over, and that by and by, like the prince and princess in the fairy stories, she and Stephen would be married and "live happily ever after." In these magic moments of rapture, while his face and figure grew more clear to her eyes, it seemed to the girl that love and happiness were one, and that all obstacles had fallen down in the path of her lover, like the walls of Jericho that crumbled at the blast of the trumpet. When she had looked through the glass until she could distinctly see Stephen, and an Arab who rode at a short distance behind him, she called her sister. Saidee came up to the roof, almost at once, for there was a thrill of excitement in Victoria's voice that roused her curiosity. She thought of Captain Sabine, and wondered if he were riding toward the Zaouïa. He had come, before his first encounter with her, to pay his respects to the marabout. That was long ago now, yet there might be a reason, connected with her, for a second visit. But the moment she saw Victoria's face, even before she took the glasses the girl held out, she guessed that, though there was news, it was not of Captain Sabine. "You might have been to heaven and back since I saw you; you're so radiant!" she said. "I have been to heaven. But I haven't come back. I'm there now," Victoria answered. "Look—and tell me what you see." Saidee put the glasses to her eyes. "I see a man in European clothes," she said. "I can see that he's young. I should think he's a gentleman, and good looking——" "Oh, he is!" broke in Victoria, childishly. "Do you know him?" "I've been praying and longing for him to find me, and save us. He's an Englishman. His name is Stephen Knight. He promised to come if I called, and I have. Oh, how I've called, day and night, night and day!" "You never told me." "I waited. Somehow I—couldn't speak of him, even to you." "I've told you everything." "But I had nothing to tell, really—nothing I could have put into words. And you might only have laughed if I'd said 'There's a man I know in Algiers who hasn't any idea where I am, but I think he'll come here, and take us both away.'" "Are you engaged to each other?" Saidee asked, curiously, even enviously. "Oh no! But—but——" "But what? Do you mean you will be—if you ever get away from this place?" "I hope so," the girl answered bravely, with a deep blush. "He has never asked me. We haven't known each other long—a very little while, only since the night I left London for Paris. Yet he's the first man I ever cared about, and I think of him all the time. Perhaps he thinks of me in the same way." "Of course he must, Babe, if he's really come to search for you," Saidee said, looking at her young sister affectionately. "Thank you a hundred times for saying that, dearest! I do hope so!" Victoria exclaimed, hugging the elder woman impulsively, as she used when she was a little child. But Saidee's joy, caught from her sister's, died down suddenly, like a flame quenched with salt. "What good will it do you—or us—that he is coming?" she asked bitterly. "He can ask for the marabout, and perhaps see him. Any traveller can do that. But he will be no nearer to us, than if we were dead and in our graves. Does Maïeddine know about him?" "They saw each other on the ship, coming to Algiers—and again just as we landed." "But has Maïeddine any idea that you care about each other?" "I had to tell him one day in the desert (the day Si Maïeddine said he loved me, and I promised to consent if you put my hand in his) that—that there was a man I loved. But I didn't say who. Perhaps he suspects, though I don't see why he should. I might have meant some one in America." "You may be pretty sure he suspects. People of the old, old races, like the Arabs, have the most wonderful intuitions. They seem to know things without being told. I suppose they've kept nearer nature than more civilized peoples." "If he does suspect, I can't help it." "No. Only it's still more sure that your Englishman won't be able to do us any good. Not that he could, anyhow." "But Si Maïeddine's been very ill since he came back, M'Barka says. Mr. Knight will ask for the marabout." "Maïeddine will hear of him. Not five Europeans in five years come to Oued Tolga. If only Maïeddine hadn't got back! This man may have been following him, from Algiers. It looks like it, as Maïeddine arrived only yesterday. Now, here's this Englishman! Could he have found out in any way, that you were acquainted with Maïeddine?" "I don't know, but he might have guessed," said Victoria. "I wonder——" "What? Have you thought of something?" "It's just an idea. You know, I told you that on the journey, when Si Maïeddine was being very kind to me—before I knew he cared—I made him a present of the African brooch you gave me in Paris. I hated to take so many favours of him, and give nothing in return; so I thought, as I was on my way to you and would soon see you, I might part with that brooch, which he admired. If Si Maïeddine wore it in Algiers, and Mr. Knight saw——" "Would he be likely to recognize it, do you think?" "He noticed it on the boat, and I told him you gave it to me." "If he would come all the way from Algiers on the strength of a brooch which might have been yours, and you might have given to Maïeddine, then he's a man who knows what he wants, and deserves to get it," Saidee said. "If he could help us! I should feel rewarded for telling Honoré I wouldn't go with him; because some day I may be free, and then perhaps I shall be glad I waited——" "You will be glad. Whatever happens, you'll be glad," Victoria insisted. "Maybe. But now—what are we to do? We can see him, and you can recognize him with the field-glass, but unless he has a glass too, he can't see who you are—he can't see at all, because by the time he rides near enough, the ground dips down so that even our heads will be hidden from him by the wall round the roof. And he'll be hidden from us, too. If he asks for you, he'll be answered only by stares of surprise. Cassim will pretend not to know what he's talking about. And presently he'll have to go away without finding out anything." "He'll come back," said Victoria, firmly. But her eyes were not as bright with the certainty of happiness as they had been. "What if he does? Or it may be that he'll try to come back, and an accident will happen to him. I hate to frighten you. But Arabs are jealous—and Maïeddine's a true Arab. He looks upon you almost as his wife now. In a week or two you will be, unless——" "Yes. Unless—unless!" echoed Victoria. "Don't lose hope, Saidee, for I shan't. Let's think of something to do. He's near enough now, maybe, to notice if we wave our handkerchiefs." "Many women on roofs in Africa wave to men who will never see their faces. He won't know who waves." "He will feel. Besides, he's searching for me. At this very minute, perhaps, he's thinking of the golden silence I talked about, and looking up to the white roofs." Instantly they began to wave their handkerchiefs of embroidered silk, such as Arab ladies use. But there came no answering signal. Evidently, if the rider were looking at a white roof, he had chosen one which was not theirs. And soon he would be descending the slope of the Zaouïa hill. After that they would lose sight of each other, more and more surely, the closer he came to the gates. "If only you had something to throw him!" Saidee sighed. "What a pity you gave the brooch to Maïeddine. He might have recognized that." "It isn't a pity if he traced me by it," said Victoria. "But wait. I'll think of something." "He's riding down the dip. In a minute it will be too late," Saidee warned her. The girl lifted over her head the long string of amber beads she had bought in the curiosity shop of Jeanne Soubise. Wrapping it in her handkerchief, she began to tie the silken ends together. Stephen was so close to the Zaouïa now that they could no longer see him. "Throw—throw! He'll be at the gates." Victoria threw the small but heavy parcel over the wall which hid the dwellers on the roof. Where it fell, they could not see, and no sound came up from the sand-dune far below. Some beggar or servant of the Zaouïa might have found and snatched the packet, for all that they could tell. For a time which seemed long, they waited, hoping that something would happen. They did not speak at all. Each heard her own heart beating, and imagined that she could hear the heart of the other. At last there were steps on the stairs which led from Saidee's rooms to the roof. Noura came up. "O twin stars, forgive me for darkening the brightness of thy sky," she said, "but I have here a letter, given to me to put into the hands of Lella Saïda." She held out a folded bit of paper, that had no envelope. Saidee, pale and large-eyed, took it in silence. She read, and then handed the paper to Victoria. A few lines were scrawled on it in English, in a very foreign handwriting. The language, known to none in this house except the marabout, Maïeddine, Saidee and Victoria, was as safe as a cypher, therefore no envelope had been needed. "Descend into thy garden immediately, and bring with thee thy sister," the letter said. And it was signed "Thy husband, Mohammed." "What can it mean?" asked Victoria, giving back the paper to Saidee. "I don't know. But we shall soon see—for we must obey. If we didn't go down of our own accord, we'd soon be forced to go." "Perhaps Cassim will let me talk to Mr. Knight," said the girl. "He is more likely to throw you to his lion, in the court," Saidee answered, with a laugh. They went down into the garden, and remained there alone. Nothing happened except that, after a while, they heard a noise of pounding. It seemed to come from above, in Saidee's rooms. Listening intently, her eyes flashed, and a bright colour rushed to her cheeks. "Now I know why we were told to come into the garden!" she exclaimed, her voice quivering with anger. "They're nailing up the door of my room that leads to the roof!" "Saidee!" To Victoria the thing seemed too monstrous to believe. "Cassim threatened to do it once before—a long time ago—but he didn't. Now he has. That's his answer to your Mr. Knight." "Perhaps you're wrong. How could any one have got into your rooms without our seeing them pass through the garden?" "I've always thought there was a sliding door at the back of one of my wall cupboards. There generally is one leading into the harem rooms in old houses like this. Thank goodness I've hidden my diaries in a new place lately!" "Let's go up and make sure," whispered Victoria. Still the pounding went on. "They'll have locked us out." "We can try." Victoria went ahead, running quickly up the steep, narrow flight of steps that led to the upper rooms which she and Saidee shared. Saidee had been right. The door of the outer room was locked. Standing at the top of the stairs, the pounding sounded much louder than before. Saidee laughed faintly and bitterly. "They're determined to make a good job of it," she said. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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