Lord John in New York Part 22

The landlord shrugged his shoulders; and when we had pa.s.sed into the courtyard, he left the gate standing open. A moment later the white camel walked in, and instead of joining my animals, or another which was squatting on the ground to munch a pile of green alfalfa, it moved with a queer air of purposeful certainty to a window of the inn. The shutters of this window were closed, but the camel pressed its face against them as if it were trying to peer in.

"Ah, that is what the brute always does!" exclaimed the landlord in his _patois_ of Arabic and the worst _Ma.r.s.eillais_ French. "One would say his master was there. But the room is empty."

"Tell me about this animal and what is the matter with it?" I said, when I had got off my mount and it had been led away with the others by my Arab.

"All I know I will tell willingly," replied the man. "This white camel was one of a caravan that stopped here perhaps ten days ago. There was no other _mehari_. The rest were of the ordinary sort. I noticed this one and wondered, for such fine animals are rare among my clients. But soon I saw it was not right in its head. It was not mad in the dangerous way, which kills; but it was restless and strange. As we say, it had been looked on by the Evil Eye. Perhaps the leader of the caravan had got the brute cheap for that reason. Unless he wished some misfortune to fall upon the person who rode the white camel."

"What sort of person rode it?" I asked.

The man shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot remember which one rode it, coming here. There were several men and several ladies, the family of the leader. They stopped here for the night--a night of simoom."

"One of the ladies may have ridden the _mehari_?" I suggested.

"May have: yes, monsieur."

"And did one of the ladies occupy that room with the closed shutters?"

I persisted.

"I do not know," said the landlord. "It was one of the rooms taken by the party. We do not pry into the arrangements of a family when they are clients for a night."

I divined from his manner, despite an a.s.sumed carelessness, that on the night in question something had happened to set that night apart from other nights: so I carried on my catechism. I learned that the travelling company had consisted of two Egyptian women, one possibly a maid, under the protection of an elderly, bearded man who was in bearing and speech a gentleman though his costume was that of a well-to-do Bedouin; a long cloak and hood such as Arab camel-leaders wear. His face had hardly been visible. Food had been sent to his room, also to the women, one of whom seemed to be weak and ill. They were both veiled and cloaked. She who was ill had not spoken. She had been helped into the house by her companion. There had been a scream, and some commotion in the night caused no doubt by the illness of this lady. The landlord had been out attending to a sick camel in the _fondouk_, and returning he saw the shutters of a window thrown back.

The window itself was open, and this mad _mehari_ was staring in. Then the window had been suddenly closed, in the camel's face. The creature had seemed frightened, and had galloped wildly about the courtyard, refusing to rest in the _fondouk_ with its fellows, even when food was offered as an inducement. It had returned again and again to the same window, as if determined to look through the shutters. Early in the morning, the travellers had made ready to start. The sick lady had been worse. The old gentleman and his servants, of whom there were several, all negroes, had to make a kind of couch for her on the _mehari's_ back, but the brute kept jumping up and refusing to be touched. At last the old gentleman grew angry and struck the animal on the head and face. It "went for" him furiously, and had to be caught and chastised by the negroes. No further attempt was made to use it after that. The leader of the caravan bought a good, steady pack-camel from the landlord, and left the white aristocrat at the borg. At first the proprietor thought that he was in luck to come into possession of such a fine creature, but it soon proved worse than useless. It refused food: it would not sit down. It was constantly at the window into which it had previously stared, or else at the gate trying to escape. After a day or two the Arabs employed about the _fondouk_ said it was accursed, and asked the _patron_ to get rid of the brute, lest misfortune fall upon the place. Accordingly the once valuable _mehari_ was driven out into the desert, disappearing in the distance. But apparently it had not gone far. Since then it had returned several times with caravans, entering the courtyard with them, and walking at once to the window in which it was so strangely interested. "That is why," explained the landlord, "I now keep the shutters closed. I fear this accursed animal may break the gla.s.s before we have time to drive it away. There is not much travel at this time of year, and we have plenty of other rooms."

"All the same I should like to be put into that room to-night," I said.

"And as you tell me the white _mehari_ is not wicked, there can be no danger in your letting it stay in the courtyard till morning. I'm curious about the creature, and should like to see what it will do."

The man tried to persuade me that there was nothing in the seeming mystery. He had rooms more comfortable than the one with the closed shutters. That had not been properly cleaned since the last occupation. As for the white camel, it would probably roar and make a disturbance in the night. I silenced these objections, however, in the one effectual and cla.s.sic way: and I refused to wait for the room to be swept and dusted. I wished to go in immediately, I said, and later the bed could be got ready while I dined. Reluctantly the landlord gave his consent to this arrangement, and himself escorted me to the room in question, bringing my bag and a lighted lamp. I watched him as we entered, and noticed that he glanced about anxiously as if he feared I might see something which it would be better for me not to see. But, either he found nothing conspicuously wrong, or else he decided that it was a case of "kismet."

When he had gone, I didn't open the shutters at once. I wanted to have a look round, un.o.bserved. Indeed, I took the precaution of stuffing paper into the keyholes of the two doors: one which opened into the corridor; another which communicated with the next room.

I knew it would be useless to ask the fellow whether the room had been occupied since the departure of the caravan which first brought the white camel. He would lie if it suited him to lie: and if there were anything to find out, I must find it out for myself. Never in my life, however, had I felt so strong an impression as I felt now that Maida's wish, Maida's prayers, had brought me to this place. I was certain that she had at last suspected treachery in the woman she had wors.h.i.+pped: that she had prayed I might follow and search for her: that she had made friends with the white camel in order to add a souvenir of herself to his neck-adornment: that she had some reason to hope he might be left behind at this desert borg when she continued her journey: that she had been in this room (where I seemed distinctly to feel her presence) and that something had happened there which the landlord either knew or suspected. Anyhow, the white camel knew, and I said to myself that I would give all I had in the world if the animal's half-crazyed intelligence could communicate its knowledge to me.

This borg, like most crude desert halting-places for men and beasts, was a one storey building which enclosed a large courtyard on three sides. The fourth side of the yard was composed of an ordinary wall nearly as high as the roof of the house. One wing of the latter contained a row of bedrooms for travellers, each room having a window that looked on the court. The middle part, or main building, consisted of dining-room and kitchens: the remaining wing was the dwelling-place of the landlord's family, and at the end had a large open shed for camels and horses. My room, therefore, was on the ground floor. It was roughly paved with broken tiles, and had in front of the bed a strip of torn Spanish matting with a pattern of flowers splashed on it in black and red. There was very little furniture: a tin wash-hand stand: a deal table: an iron bedstead: and two chairs; but what there was had been left in a state of disorder since the flitting of the last occupant. Both chairs had fallen: the table, which had evidently stood in the middle of the room, was pushed askew, its cotton covering on the floor, its legs twisted up in a torn woollen rug: and--significant sign of a struggle--a curtain of pink mosquito netting had been wrenched from its fastenings and hung, a limp rag, at the side of the window.

The wretched paraffin lamp served only to make darkness visible; but taking it in my hand I walked round, examining everything: and my heart missed a beat as I saw that, among the scarlet flowers on the matting, were spots of brownish red--that tell-tale red which cannot be mistaken. They were few and small, and therefore had pa.s.sed unnoticed, perhaps, by the landlord: yet to me they cried aloud. I tried to tell myself that the stains might be old: that I had no reason to connect them with danger for Maida: that as she had been brought so far, doubtless there was a further destination to which it was intended to take her. But as I finished my examination of the disordered room, turned out the light, and threw open the shutters my soul was sick.

"What happened here?" I asked myself for the twentieth time; and as if in answer to my question the white camel came glimmering towards me through the dusk. It stopped at my window, and thrusting its neck through the opening, stared into the room. The faint light gleamed in its yellow eyes, and gave the illusion that they moved as if following with emotion _something they saw_. The creature paid no attention to me, though it could have seen me standing near the window. Even when I spoke, coaxingly, it did not turn its head; and when I walked back and forth, it remained indifferent. Its gaze concentrated on that part of the room nearest the door leading to the corridor; and a s.h.i.+ver ran through my nerves to see the white head float from right to left on its long neck, as though eagerly watching a scene to me invisible. I felt the impulse to chase the beast away, but I checked myself. I had a queer conviction that what it could see I ought to see also: that if it remained it might _make_ me see.

I turned up the wick of the lamp, and walked slowly towards the door, glancing back to see what the camel would do. Its head was poked far into the room. It looked like a queer white ghost, with glinting eyes.

For the first time they seemed to meet mine, and I felt that the animal had become conscious of my presence in the picture its memory constructed. Close to the door, in a crack between red tiles, I saw something round and white which I took for a b.u.t.ton; but picking it up, it proved to be an American ten cent piece. Not far off lay an Egyptian piastre, but it was the "dime" which thrilled me. The tiny silver coin proved that an occupant of this room had lately come from the United States. A little farther away I discovered broken bits of a small bottle, with a torn label. Matching sc.r.a.ps of paper together I made out part of a word which told its own sinister story. "Morph": the missing syllable was not needed. And the label had the name--or part of the name--of a New York druggist:

"C. Sarge----"

"Broadw----"

Already I began to visualise what the scene near the door might have been. I went out hastily and questioned the landlord again as to the destination of the white camel's caravan. I offered him so big a bribe for information that, if he had known anything definite, he could hardly have resisted the temptation to tell. But he had only vague suggestions to make. Perhaps the party might have been bound for Hathor Set, a small oasis-town with one or two country houses of rich men on its outskirts. It was twenty miles distant, and he could think of no other place within a day's march where persons of importance lived. Farther away, however, there were oases where merchants and officials owned houses which they occupied now and then, and where their families sometimes stayed for months.

If it had been possible I would have travelled on that night, but to do so would have been madness. I must wait till dawn: and though I did not expect to sleep I went back to my room when I had eaten some vile food, and arranged for the start at five o'clock.

"Weather permitting," added the landlord, with an ear for the moan of the sickly south wind.

"Weather must permit," I answered.

My side of the house was somewhat sheltered from the blowing sand; still, on such a night most desert dwellers would have shut their windows. I kept my window open, however; and lying on the bed, the lamp burning dimly, I faced it. The head of the white camel, on its long, swaying neck, was always framed in the aperture. I had brought from the dining-room a plateful of dates to tempt the animal, but it refused to touch them; and the landlord had told me that, so far as he knew, the _mehari_ had eaten no food for ten days, since it first appeared at the borg. This accounted in a normal way for its thinness and the wild look of its eyes; but according to the man and his servants the "mysterious curse" upon the beast was destroying it. "A camel accursed can live twice as long as others with nothing to eat, and even with no water," the landlord had announced gravely, as if stating a well-known fact. "Then, suddenly, when the evil spirit is ready to leave its body, the creature will fall dead."

I was anxious that the _mehari_ should not fall dead until I had finished making use of it: therefore I was glad to see it staring bleakly through the window, hour after hour. I hoped that, in the morning, it might lead me along the way its lost caravan had gone, and whereever it went I intended to follow. It was making me superst.i.tious.

Now and then I dozed for a few minutes, to wake with a start and look for the watching face at the window, but at last I fell heavily asleep; and I dreamed.

I dreamed of the camel: and it seemed as if I dreamed _into_ it. My intense wish to see what it had seen, no doubt accounted for this impression, but it could not account entirely for what followed. It was as though the light of the lamp burned down, and blazed suddenly up in the brain of the animal. I saw through its eyes, as by two searchlights illuminating the sordid room.

Maida Odell was led in by a taller woman. Both wore Arab costumes, with cloaks and veils, as if they had been travelling. Maida moved languidly. She let her companion take off her wraps. Her face was white, her eyes dazed. I knew, in the dream, that she had been drugged, and I hated the woman who touched her. The girl walked unsteadily to the window and threw it open, drawing in long breaths; and then the white camel came. I felt that it had been waiting for this moment: that it loved and was grateful to the girl for kindness, as no camel save a _mehari_ ever can be. She took lumps of sugar from her pocket and fed it. The animal accepted them daintily. The woman ordered it away, closed the shutters, and drew the ragged mosquito curtain across the window. Darkness fell between me and the two figures. I saw no more; but after an interval of blankness I was conscious that Maida, left alone in the room, had opened the shutters, leaving only the mosquito-netting between her and the night. The camel, which had refused to rest with its fellows in the _fondouk_, came sliding towards the girl and let her caress it. Apparently they were the best of friends. She slipped a bangle from her arm, and tied it to the _mehari's_ collar. She patted the white head, and whispered in the flat ear. The animal was in an ecstasy. At last Maida pushed it away gently, and leaning out of the window searched the courtyard.

I had the impression, in my dream, that she thought of climbing out and attempting to escape on the _mehari_ whose confidence she had gained for that very purpose. But at this moment a tall, bent figure in a hooded cloak walked slowly past, and turning his head, looked at Maida.

His face was so deeply shadowed by the hood that I could not see the features. There was a glimpse of venerable whitish beard tucked into the cloak; but I knew, in my dream, that the man was Rameses posing as the leader of the caravan. I tried to speak, to call Maida's name, to ask her how it was that she had trusted these people: but I was powerless to make the girl feel my presence. "I must wait," I said to myself. "Some day she will explain why she consented to sail for Naples, and why she went on to Egypt."

"Some day!" the words echoed in my brain. Would the day come in this world, or must I solve the greatest secret of all before I solved Maida's?

The dream went on, but I saw nothing when the girl closed the shutters.

Soon, however, she flung them wide again; and though she had put out the light, the moon was s.h.i.+ning in. I could see her moving about. She listened at the door, as if she heard something in the corridor. She had fastened the bolt, but now she discovered that it was broken. The door could be opened from the outside. She placed a chair against it, with the back caught under the handle. Then she went and sat down close to the window. The camel was there, and she spoke to it, as if she were comforted by its nearness. For a time she was very still.

Her head drooped; but it was impossible to sleep for long in the high, uncomfortable chair. Now and then the girl started awake, always turning to glance at the door: but at last she fell into a deeper doze.

Slowly the door opened, almost without noise. Maida remained motionless: but the watching _mehari_ uttered a snarl. The girl sprang to her feet, not knowing what to do. A cloaked figure which had slipped in attempted to hide behind the open door, but was too late.

Maida saw the gliding shadow, shrieked, and would have run into the corridor, but the man in the Arab cloak caught her on the threshold, and m.u.f.fled her head in his mantle. She struggled in his grasp, and almost escaped. Chairs were overturned: the rug under the table was twisted round the man's feet: I thought that he would trip and fall, but he saved himself. Holding Maida with one hand, with the other he drew a bottle from some pocket, and pulled out the cork with his teeth.

The girl freed an arm, but before she could push the bottle away the man emptied a quant.i.ty of the liquid over the cloth that covered her face. A sickly scent of chloroform filled the air. Still she fought bravely, her freed hand seized the bottle, and dashed it on the floor, where it broke with a crash. At this instant a woman in Arab dress came swiftly into the room. She was very tall, as tall as the man, and I noticed a likeness between their figures, a remarkable breadth of shoulder, something peculiar in their bearing. The woman's face was unveiled, but in the darkness I could not make out its features.

She shut the door hastily. The two spoke to each other in a language I could not understand. Maida struggled no more. The chloroform had taken effect. In my dream I felt that the two did not wish her to die: the time had not come. There was a climax towards which they were working, had been working for a long time. Now it was close at hand.

The woman held a much smaller bottle than the one which lay broken.

She had also a gla.s.s with a little water, and a spoon. These she placed on the wash-hand stand, and went swiftly to the window. Driving away the camel with a threatening gesture, she closed the shutters. It seemed as if they slammed in my face. I waked with a great start, and found myself sitting up in bed, my face damp with sweat.

The shutters, which I'd kept wide open, had banged together in the rising wind. I bounded off the bed to the window, and flung them apart again. Sand stung my face and eyelids. The white camel had disappeared, but there was a wild snarling in the _fondouk_.

"My wish has been granted," I said to myself, "I have seen what the watching eye saw in this room. But what did it see after that? Which way did the caravan go?"

I must have slept soundly, and longer than I thought, for behind the cloud of sand dawn was grey in the sky. Half an hour later I was out of the room, in the courtyard, where the Arab servants had begun to stir. From his own part of the building the landlord appeared. I told him that I had sent to have my man roused, and that I would start in spite of the storm.

"What has become of the white _mehari_?" I asked. "Is he in the _fondouk_ after all?"

The man called one of his Arabs, asked a question, got an answer, and turned to me. "The beast snarled so wickedly it waked my fellows," he explained, "and they, not knowing of my promise to you, drove it into the desert. That must have been two hours ago."

I was furious, but scolding was vain. I had hoped superst.i.tiously for the guidance of the watcher, till the end; but this was not to be. I must trust to my own instinct.

Despite the arguments of the landlord and my own man that it was dangerous to set out in the face of a simoom, we started, taking the route towards Hathor Set.

The blown sand had obliterated the tracks of men and camels. The desert, so far as we could see, was a vast ocean of rippling waves. I had brought no compa.s.s, trusting to the sun: but the sun was hidden behind the copper veil of sand. "We shall be lost, sir," said my man.

"Shall we not be wise while there is time, and go back before our own tracks are blotted out? See, there ahead is a lesson for us: a camel that has fallen and been choked to death by the sand. Before night we and our animals may lie as it lies now, with the shroud that the desert gives, wrapped round our heads."

"A camel that has fallen!" I echoed. And striking my beast I rode forward till I reached the low mound to which the brown hand pointed.

The white _mehari_ lay on its side, the head and half the body buried, the bead collar faintly blue under a coating of yellow sand. The watching eye was closed for ever: but I had the needed clue.