The Pilgrim's Shell or Fergan the Quarryman Part 14

Hardly had the serf uttered these words of despair when he found himself enveloped by a sand cloud as fine as ashes, and dense as a fog. The mobile soil, hollowed, thrown up and up-turned by the irresistible force of the sand-spout, opened at the feet of Fergan, who, with wife and child, disappeared under a sand wave. The gale furrowed, beat about and tossed up the sands of the desert as a tempest furrows, beats about, and tosses up the waters of the ocean.

CHAPTER III.

THE EMIR'S PALACE.

The city of Marhala, like all others in the Orient, was crossed by narrow and sinuous streets, bordered with whitewashed houses, bearing narrow windows. Here and there the dome of a mosque or the top of a palm tree, planted in the middle of an interior court-yard, broke the uniformity of the straight lines formed by the terraces, that surmounted all the houses. Since about fifteen days, and after a murderous siege, the city of Marhala had fallen into the power of the army of the Crusaders, commanded by Bohemond, Prince of Taranto. The ramparts of the city, half torn down by the engines of war, presented at several places only a heap of ruins, from which a pestilential odor escaped, due to the decomposition of the Saracen bodies that were buried under the debris of the walls. The gate of Agra was one of the points most violently attacked by a column of Crusaders under the order of William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, and also most stubbornly defended by the garrison. Not far from the spot rose the palace of the Emir of Marhala, killed at the siege. According to the manner of the Crusaders, William had his standard raised over the door of the palace, of which he took possession.

Night was falling. Maria, a large wrinkled old woman, with a beaked nose, protruding chin, and clad in a long Saracen pelisse, sat crouched upon a kind of divan, furnished with cus.h.i.+ons, in one of the lower halls of the Emir's palace. She had just issued the order to some invisible person: "Let the creature come in, I wish to examine her!"

The creature that came in was Perrette the Ribald, the mistress of Corentin the Gibbet-cheater. The young woman's complexion, now tanned by the sun, rendered still more striking the whiteness of her teeth, the coral tint of her lips and the fire of her eyes. The expression of her pretty face preserved its blithe effrontery. Her tattered costume was of both s.e.xes. A turban of an old yellow-and-red material partially covered her thick and curly hair; a waistcoat or caftan of pale green and open embroidery, the spoils of a Saracen and twice too large for her, served her for a robe. Held at the waist by a strip of cloth, the robe exposed the naked legs of the Ribald, together with her dusty feet, shod in shoddy sandals. She carried at the end of a cane a small bundle of clothes. Upon entering the hall, Perrette said to the old woman deliberately: "I happened on the market place when an auction sale of booty was being conducted. An old woman, after eying me a long time, said to me: 'You seem to be the right kind of a girl. Would you like to exchange your rags for pretty clothes, and lead a merry life at the palace? Come with me.' I answered the old woman: 'March, I follow!

Feastings and palaces are quite to my taste.'"

"You look to me to be a wide-awake customer."

"I'm eighteen years old. My name is Perrette the Ribald. That's what I am."

"Your name is written on your brazen brow. But are you good company? Not quarrelsome and not jealous?"

"The more I look upon you, honest matron, the surer I am of having seen you before. Did you not keep at Antioch the famous tavern of the Cross of Salvation?"

"You do not deceive yourself, my child."

"Ah, you must have made many a bag of gold besans in your holy brothel."

"What were you doing in Antioch, my pretty child?"

"I was in love ... with the King!"

"You are bantering, my friend, there was no king in the Crusade."

"You forget the King of the Vagabonds."

"What! The chief of those bandits, of those skinners, of those eaters of human flesh?"

"Before he became the king of the bandits, I loved him under the modest name of Corentin the Gibbet-cheater. Oh, what has become of him?"

"You must have left him?"

"One day I made a slip. I committed an infidelity towards him. I do not plume myself upon my constancy. I left the King of the Vagabonds for a duke."

"A duke of beggars?"

"No, no! A real duke. The handsomest of all the Crusaders, William IX."

"You were the mistress of the Duke of Aquitaine?"

"That was in Antioch, after the siege. William IX was crossing the market-place on horseback. He smiled, and reached his hand out to me. I placed my foot on the tip of his boot, with one jump I landed in front of his saddle, and he took me to his palace," and seeming to recall some droll incident, Perrette laughed out aloud.

"Are you laughing at some of your tricks?" asked the old shrew.

"On that same day when the Duke of Aquitaine took me on his horse, a very beautiful woman went by in a litter. At the sight of her he turned his horse and followed the litter. I, fearing he would drop me for the other woman, said to him: 'What a treasure of beauty is that Rebecca the Jewess, that has just gone by in a litter.' Ha! ha! ha! old lady,"

Perrette added, breaking out anew into roars of laughter. "Thanks to that lucky slander, my debauche turned about and galloped off to his own palace, fleeing from the litter no less frightened than if he had seen the devil. And so it happened that, at least for that one day, I kept my duke, and we spent the night together."

"I see. And what became of your king?"

"On the same evening of that adventure, he left Antioch with his vagabonds on an expedition. I have not seen him since."

"Well, my little one, in default of your king, you will find your duke back. You are here in the house of William."

"Of the Duke of Aquitaine?"

"After the siege of the city, William took possession of the Emir's palace. He gives to-night a feast to several seigneurs, the flower of the Crusade. Almost all old customers of my tavern in Antioch: Robert Courte-Heuse, Duke of Normandy; Heracle, seigneur of Polignac; Bohemond, Prince of Taranto; Gerhard, Count of Roussillon; Burchard, seigneur of Montmorency; William, sire of Sabran; Radulf, seigneur of Haut-Poul, and many more merry blades, without counting the gentlemen of the cloth, and the tonsured lovers of pretty girls, of Cyprus wine and of dice."

"Is it for this one feast, you old mackerel, that you are engaging me?"

"You will remain in the palace until the departure of the army for Jerusalem, my gentle pupil and pearl of gay girls."

The entrance of a third woman interrupted the conversation between Maria and Perrette, who, uttering a short cry, ran to a miserably dressed young girl, just let in. "You here, Yolande?"

Yolande preserved her beauty, but her face had lost the charm of candor, that rendered her so touching when she and her mother implored Neroweg VI not to deprive them of their patrimony. The face of Yolande, alternately bold and gloomy, according as she brazened out or blushed at her degradation, at least gave token that she was conscious of her infamy. At sight of Perrette, who ran towards her with friendly eagerness, Yolande stepped back ashamed of meeting with the queen of the wenches. Perrette, reading on the countenance of the n.o.ble girl a mixture of embarra.s.sment and disdain, said to her reproachfully: "You were not quite so proud when, ten leagues from Antioch, I kept you from dying of thirst and hunger! Oh, you put on airs! You have become haughty!"

"Why did I leave Gaul?" muttered Yolande with sorrowful contrition.

"Though reduced to misery, at least I would not have known ignominy. I would not have become a courtezan! A curse upon you, Neroweg! By depriving me of the inheritance of my father, you caused my misfortune and shame!"

The girl, unable to repress her tears, hid her face in her hands, while Maria, who had attentively examined her, said to Perrette in an undertone: "Oh, the pretty legs of that girl! Do you know Yolande?"

"We left Gaul together, I on the arm of the Gibbet-cheater, Yolande at the crupper of her lover, Eucher. In Bohemia, Eucher was killed by the Bohemians who resisted us. Yolande, now a widow and alone, could not continue so long a journey without protection. From one protector to another, Yolande fell under the eyes of the handsome Duke of Aquitaine at Bairut in Syria. Later I found her riding on the road to Tripoli dying of hunger, thirst and fatigue----"

"And you came to my aid, Perrette," fell in Yolande, who, having dried her tears, overheard the words of the queen of the wenches. "You gave me bread and water to appease my hunger and thirst, and you saved my life."

"Come, my children, let's not have tears," remarked the matron. "Tears make old faces. You shall be taken to the baths of the Emir, where are a.s.sembled some of the most beautiful Saracen female slaves of that infidel dog."

At that moment an old woman, the same who had introduced Perrette and Yolande to the hall, came in roaring with laughter, and said to the other shrew: "Oh, Maria, what a find! A diamond in your brothel!"

"What makes you laugh that way?"

"A minute ago, coming back from casting my hook on the market-place,"--and she broke out laughing anew. Presently she proceeded: "And I found there--I found there--a diamond!"

"Finish your story!"

But the second old hag, instead of answering, disappeared for an instant behind the curtain that masked the door, and immediately re-appeared conducting Joan the Hunchback, who led by the hand the little Colombaik, no less exhausted than herself from privations and fatigue.

To all cruel hearts the poor woman, indeed, was a laughable sight. Her long, tangled hair, half tumbling over her face, fell upon her bare shoulders, dusty like her breast, arms and legs. Her clothing consisted of shreds, fastened around her waist with a band of plaited reeds, so that her sad deformity was exposed in all its nudity. Joan had stripped herself of the rags that const.i.tuted the bodice of her robe in order to wrap the feet of Colombaik, flayed to the quick by his long tramp across the burning sands. The quarryman's wife, sad and broken down, quietly followed the shrew, and daring not to raise her eyes, while the latter did not cease laughing.

"What sort of thing is that you bring me there?" cried out the coupler.

"What do you want to do with that monster?"