The Middy and the Moors Part 11

"I hope you love more of me than my smooth face, Peter," returned the middy, "otherwise your love won't continue, for there are certain indications on my upper lip which a.s.sure me that the smoothness won't last long."

"Hol' your tongue, sar! What you go on jabberin' so to me when you's got work to do, sar!" said Peter fiercely, with a threatening motion of his fist. "Go to work at once, you white slabe!"

Our hero was taken aback for a moment by this sudden explosion, but the presence of a negro girl, who had entered softly by a door at his back, at once revealed to him the truth that Peter the Great had donned the garb of the hypocrite. Although unused and very much averse to such costume, he felt compelled in some degree to adopt it, and, bowing his head, not only humbly, but in humiliation, he went silently towards his drawing materials, while the girl placed a tumbler of water on a small table and retired.

Turning round, he found that Peter had also disappeared from the scene.

At first he imagined that the water was meant for his refreshment, but on examining the materials on the ottoman he found a box of water-colour paints, which accounted for its being sent.

Although George Foster had never been instructed in painting, he possessed considerable natural talent, and was intensely fond of the art. It was, therefore, with feelings of delight which he had not experienced for many a day that he began to arrange his materials and set about this new and congenial work.

Among other things he found a small easel, which had a very Anglican aspect about it. Wondering how it had got there, he set it up, with a sheet of paper on it, tried various parts of the room, in order to find out the best position for a picture, and went through that interesting series of steppings back and puttings of the head on one side which seem to be inseparably connected with true art.

While thus engaged in the profound silence of that luxurious apartment, with its "dim religious light," now glancing at the rich ceiling, anon at the fair sheet of paper, he chanced to look below the margin of the latter and observed, through the legs of the easel, that the gorgeous eyes of the gazelle were fixed on him in apparent wonder.

He advanced to it at once, holding out a hand coaxingly. The pretty creature allowed him to approach within a few inches, and then bounded from its cus.h.i.+on like a thing of india-rubber to the other end of the room, where it faced about and gazed again.

"You gaze well, pretty creature," thought the embryo artist. "Perhaps that's the origin of your name! Humph! you won't come to me?"

The latter part of his thoughts he expressed aloud, but the animal made no response. It evidently threw the responsibility of taking the initiative on the man.

Our middy was naturally persevering in character. Laying aside his pencil, he sat down on the marble floor, put on his most seductive expression, held out his hand gently, and muttered soft encouragements-- such as, "Now then, s.p.u.n.kie, come here, an' don't be silly--" and the like. But "s.p.u.n.kie" still stood immovable and gazed.

Then the middy took to advancing in a sitting posture--after a manner known to infants--at the same time intensifying the urbanity of his look and the wheedlement of his tone. The gazelle suffered him to approach until his fingers were within an inch of its nose. There the middy stopped. He had studied animal nature. He was aware that it takes two to love as well as to quarrel. He resolved to wait. Seeing this, the gazelle timidly advanced its little nose and touched his finger. He scratched gently! s.p.u.n.kie seemed to like it. He scratched progressively up its forehead. s.p.u.n.kie evidently enjoyed it. He scratched behind its ear, and--the victory was gained! The gazelle, dismissing all fear, advanced and rubbed its graceful head on his shoulder.

"Well, you _are_ a nice little beast," said Foster, as he fondled it; "whoever owns you must be very kind to you, but I can't afford to waste more time with you. Must get to work."

He rose and returned to his easel while the gazelle trotted to its cus.h.i.+on and lay down--to sleep? perchance to dream?--no, to gaze, as before, but in mitigated wonder.

The amateur painter-slave now applied himself diligently to his work with ever-increasing interest; yet not altogether without an uncomfortable and humiliating conviction that if he did not do it with reasonable rapidity, and give moderate satisfaction, he ran the chance of being "whacked" if not worse!

Let not the reader imagine that we are drawing the longbow here, and making these Moors to be more cruel than they really were. Though Ben-Ahmed was an amiable specimen, he was not a typical Algerine, for cruelty of the most dreadful kind was often perpetrated by these monsters in the punishment of trivial offences in those days. At the present hour there stands in the great square of Algiers an imposing mosque, which was designed by a Christian slave--an architect--whose head was cut off because he had built it--whether intentionally or accidentally we know not--in the form of a cross!

For some hours Foster worked uninterruptedly with his pencil, for he believed, like our great Turner in his earlier days, (though Turner's sun had not yet arisen!) that the preliminary drawing for a picture cannot be too carefully or elaborately done.

After having b.u.mped himself against the wall twice, and tripped over an ottoman once--to the gazelle's intense surprise--in his efforts to take an artistic view of his work, Foster at last laid down his pencil, stretched himself to his full height, with his hands in the air by way of relaxation, and was beginning to remember that midday meals were not unknown to man, when the negress before mentioned entered with a small round bra.s.s tray, on which were two covered dishes. The middy lowered his hands in prompt confusion, for he had not attained to the Moors'

sublime indifference to the opinion or thought of slaves.

He was about to speak, but checked the impulse. It was wiser to hold his tongue! A kindliness of disposition, however, induced him to smile and nod--attentions which impelled the negress, as she retired, to display her teeth and gums to an extent that no one would believe if we were to describe it.

On examination it was found that one of the dishes contained a savoury compound of rice and chicken, with plenty of b.u.t.ter and other substances--some of which were sweet.

The other dish contained little rolls of bread. Both dishes appeared to Foster to be made of embossed gold--or bra.s.s, but he knew and cared not which. Coffee in a cup about the size and shape of an egg was his beverage. While engaged with the savoury and altogether unexpected meal, our hero felt his elbow touched. Looking round he saw the gazelle looking at him with an expression in its beautiful eyes that said plainly, "Give me my share."

"You shall have it, my dear," said the artist, handing the creature a roll, with which it retired contentedly to its cus.h.i.+on.

"Perhaps," thought the youth, as he pensively sipped his coffee, "this room may be sometimes used by Hester! It obviously forms part of the seraglio."

Strange old fellow, Ben-Ahmed, to allow men like me to invade such a place.

The thought of the ladies of the harem somehow suggested his mother and sister, and when poor George got upon this pair of rails he was apt to be run away with, and to forget time and place. The reverie into which he wandered was interrupted, however, by the gazelle asking for more.

As there was no more, it was fain to content itself with a pat on the head as the painter rose to resume his work.

The drawing was by this time all pencilled in most elaborately, and the middy opened the water-colour box to examine the paints. As he did so, he again remarked on the familiar English look of the materials, and was about to begin rubbing down a little of one of the cakes--moist colours had not been invented--when he observed some writing in red paint on the back of the palette. He started and flushed, while his heart beat faster, for the writing was, "_Expect me. Rub this out. H.S_."

What could this mean? H.S? Hester Sommers of course. It was simple-- too simple. He wished for more--like the gazelle. Like it, too, he got no more. After gazing at the writing, until every letter was burnt into his memory, he obeyed the order and rubbed it out. Then, in a disturbed and anxious frame of mind, he tried to paint, casting many a glance, not only at his subject, but at the two doors which opened into the room.

At last one of the doors opened--not the one he happened to be looking at, however. He started up, overturned his stool, and all but knocked down the easel, as the negress re-entered to remove the refreshment-tray. She called to the gazelle as she went out. It bounded lightly after her, and the young painter was left alone to recover his composure.

"a.s.s that I am!" he said, knitting his brows, clenching his teeth, and putting a heavy dab of crimson-lake on the ceiling!

At that moment the other door opened, yet so gently and slightly that he would not have observed it but for the sharp line of light which it let through. Determined not to be again taken by surprise, he became absorbed in putting little unmeaning lines round the dab of lake--not so busily, however, as to prevent his casting rapid furtive glances at the opening door.

Gradually something white appeared in the aperture--it was a veil.

Something blue--it was an eye. Something quite beyond description lovely--it was Hester herself, looking--if such be conceivable--like a scared angel!

"Oh, Mr Foster!" she exclaimed, in a half-whisper, running lightly in, and holding up a finger by way of caution, "I have so longed to see you--"

"So have I," interrupted the delighted middy. "Dear H---ah--Miss Sommers, I mean, I felt sure that--that--this _must_ be your room--no, what's its name? boudoir; and the gazelle--"

"Yes, yes--oh! never mind that," interrupted the girl impatiently. "My father--darling father!--any news of _him_."

Blus.h.i.+ng with shame that he should have thought of his own feelings before her anxieties, Foster dropped the little hand which he had already grasped, and hastened to tell of the meeting with her father in the Kasba--the ease with which he had recognised him from her description, and the few hurried words of comfort he had been able to convey before the slave-driver interfered.

Tears were coursing each other rapidly down Hester's cheeks while he was speaking; yet they were not tears of unmingled grief.

"Oh, Mr Foster!" she said, seizing the middy's hand, and kissing it, "how shall I _ever_ thank you?"

Before she could add another word, an unlucky touch of Foster's heel laid the easel, with an amazing clatter, flat on the marble floor!

Hester bounded through the doorway more swiftly than her own gazelle, slammed the door behind her, and vanished like a vision.

Poor Foster! Although young and enthusiastic, he was not a c.o.xcomb.

The thrill in the hand that had been kissed told him plainly that he was hopelessly in love! But a dull weight on his heart told him, he thought as plainly, that Hester was _not_ in the same condition.

"Dear child!" he said, as he slowly gathered up the drawing materials, "if that innocent, transparent, almost infantine creature had been old enough to fall in love she would sooner have hit me on the nose with her lovely fist than have kissed my great ugly paw--even though she _was_ overwhelmed with joy at hearing about her father."

Having replaced the easel and drawing, he seated himself on an ottoman, put his elbows on his knees, laid his forehead in his hands, and began to meditate aloud.

"Yes," he said, with a profound sigh, "I love her--that's as clear as daylight; and she does not love me--that's clearer than daylight.

Unrequited love! That's what I've come to! Nevertheless, I'm not in wild despair. How's that? I don't want to shoot or drown myself.

How's that? On the contrary, I want to live and rescue her. I could serve or die for that child with pleasure--without even the reward of a smile! There must be something peculiar here. Is it--can it be Platonic love? Of course that must be it. Yes, I've often heard and read of that sort of love before. I _know_ it now, and--and--I rather like it!"

"You don't look as if you did, Geo'ge," said a deep voice beside him.

George started up with a face of scarlet.

"Peter!" he exclaimed fiercely, "did you hear me speak? _What_ did you hear?"