by M. M. Kaye
It was a point that had not even occurred to Hero. She had been conscious only of a desire to postpone the wedding day until it was possible to think more clearly, and to rid herself of this unnatural mental and physical inertia which she felt sure was the result of the damp heat and the long hours of idleness. At the moment she did not feel capable of deciding anything. Which was in itself surprising enough, since she had always prided herself on knowing her own mind.
She began to wonder if perhaps the climate of a country was something that should be taken into account when one judged its inhabitants, since it could not fail to have an effect upon them. As it was having, after so short a time, upon herself! And on Cressy too, who was visibly wilting: though Hero was not entirely sure that it was only the humidity that was responsible for her cousin’s pale cheeks and listless manner. But then most of the other European women looked equally wan, and even her own flawless complexion was beginning to suffer from the heat and the pouring rain and the enforced inactivity.
They seldom saw Thérèse these days, but Olivia continued to be a constant visitor, and it was she who brought them the news that the lonely little Princess Salmé had taken to meeting young Wilhelm Ruete after dark, and that they had fallen in love.
“Isn’t it romantic?” breathed Olivia rapturously. “We’ve all been so sorry for her, poor little thing, because of course none of the Royal Family will speak to her now, and even Cholé has quarrelled with her because she said that she thought after all that they had been wrong over Bargash and…But she has been going up to the roof of Beit-el-Tani every evening, and Mr Ruete has been going up to his, and they’ve been able to talk to each other because the roofs are so close. He’s been teaching her German, and now they are in love and he wants to marry her. Don’t you think it’s wonderful?”
“Oh, yes,” said Cressy, unaccountably shedding tears.
“Oh no!” said Hero, distressed, “for how can he possibly marry her? It would never be allowed. He must know that.”
“Well he does, of course, and so does she, and it’s making her dreadfully unhappy. They’ve managed to meet sometimes…in our house you know. But Hubert says it’s exceedingly dangerous and he doesn’t at all like them taking such a risk, because if it ever came out that they were seeing each other they’d probably both be…Well, I don’t suppose they’d be killed, but…”
“That’s just what I mean,” said Hero. “You ought not to encourage it, Olivia.”
“Oh, but I’m sure something can be done. Love will find a way,” declared Olivia, with a sentimental confidence that had not been misplaced, for a way was found a week later.
A British ship had put into harbour, and Salmé took advantage of a holy day to go down to the sea with her maids to make the ritual ablutions proper to the occasion. She was seized and carried on board by British seamen, together with a hysterical maid (‘Lord how she screeched!’ recalled an enthralled sailor, writing home), and a few minutes later the ship had sailed for Aden where Salmé was to meet and marry her lover, and to be baptized a Christian.
The city had not taken it quietly.
Anti-European feeling rose so high that it became dangerous for a white face to be seen on the streets, and a furious mob of Arabs milled about the German Consulate, shouting insults and demanding vengeance, while the alarmed Europeans kept prudently to their houses, locking their doors and keeping their shutters closed. But though the majority of the Sultan’s subjects considered that the behaviour of the Seyyida Salmé had brought a greater shame upon the Royal House than her support of Bargash, Majid himself had not been able to find it in his heart to condemn her.
“There must be a great deal of good in him after all,” reported Olivia: “Which is a thing I never suspected. I know that his advisers wanted him to punish her over the Bargash affair, and he wouldn’t, but Hubert says that this is really far worse from the Arabs’ point of view, and that they are all terribly shocked. But it seems Majid has actually helped Wilhelm to leave the island safely and sent him off to Aden to join her. And he is going to send her dowry and a lot of jewels and things to Germany—which of course he needn’t do—and Hubert says the whole family are furious!”
“Perhaps we were all wrong about him, after all,” whispered dressy, dabbing her eyes. “We must have been, if he can be so noble and forgiving.”
“Yes, indeed,” agreed Olivia warmly. “And I am so happy for poor little Salmé! It must seem like a fairy-tale to her…they are so much in love. And only think how wonderful it will be for her. Living in a comfortable modern European house in a rich and civilized country, after this—!”
She waved a disparaging hand in the general direction of the city, and Cressy and Aunt Abby nodded their agreement But it occurred to Hero that they might all be wrong, and she wondered if Germany would really seem so wonderful to the little Arabian Princess whose father had been Seyyid Saïd-bin-Sultan, the Lion of Oman?
Would the cold climate of the West, the grey, brick-and-stucco houses, the gas-lamps, greasy streets and drab Western clothing hold much allure for a girl who had been born and brought up in an Eastern palace, where the windows looked out across green and scented gardens to a wide sea full of coral islands and the white wings of ships? Somehow Hero did not think so, and for the first time it occurred to her that there were aspects of Western cities and Western civilization that might appear as ugly, crude and appalling to Eastern eyes as Zanzibar and some of its customs had appeared to her. She herself had been profoundly shocked by so many things in the Island. But what would Salmé think of the rows of mean streets that were an accepted part of every European or American city?—the sordid slums and overcrowded tenements, the cheap saloon bars, the brothels and the street beggars? Were the well-fed black slaves of the Zanzibar Arabs so much worse off than the wizened children of “free’ whites, who worked in factories and mines? And would Salmé think that a grimy, fog-filled and smoke-blackened market in some industrial town was so much to be preferred above the hot, teeming, colourful bazaars of her native Island?
It had never before seemed possible to Hero that there could be any comparison between life in the East and the West that was not greatly to the West’s advantage. But now she found herself thinking about it from the standpoint of a girl who had been born in Zanzibar and known no other country, and who would soon be exchanging her bright silks and exotic jewellery for sober dresses of heavy, dark-coloured woollen cloth, and landing at the teeming, industrial port of Hamburg, where the docks would be full of merchant ships and the sky heavy with smoke from factory chimneys, and where there would be poverty, drunkenness and crime as well as gas-lamps and opera-houses and the opulent mansions of the rich.
“Poor Salmé!” said Hero softly. “I hope she will not be too homesick, and that her husband will be good to her and make up to her for all that she has given up for him.”
“Given up? exclaimed Olivia in surprise. “I can’t see that she has given up anything. I think she’s done very well for herself running off with that nice young German, and I expect they’ll make a great fuss of her in Germany because she’s a Princess, and she’ll be wildly happy and only too glad to escape from this horrid, hot, tuppenny-ha’penny little island. I’m beginning to look forward to leaving it myself, though once I used to think that it was quite charming and romantic…except for the dirt of course. And the smell. But one cannot trust these people. All these riots and disturbances and everything. I confess I shall be thankful to leave.”
Aunt Abby said soothingly: “But it is all over now, and everything has calmed down.”
“Until the pirates come,” said Olivia with a grimace.
“Oh, dear heavens!” gasped Aunt Abby, her face paling and her plump shoulders quivering in alarm: “If I hadn’t clean forgotten about those varmints! Yes, I guess they’ll be here soon. But then maybe they won’t come this year. And in any case, they never harm us, do they? Though of course they behave abominably to the poor townspeople. But the first
year we were here the Sultan gave them a substantial sum of money to go away again, and though I know a heap of people seemed to think that he should not have done so, I myself think it was mighty sensible of him.”
“Perhaps he’ll do it again,” said Olivia hopefully. “I used to think that it was very craven of him, but now…Well after all that fuss over Salmé—and before that, Bargash—and not being able to go out for two whole days because of anti-European feeling, one really begins to feel that if peace can be bought for money then it is what Hubert calls a ‘good buy.’ Or is that very poor-spirited of me?”
“Not at all, dear,” said Aunt Abby warmly.’ I am sure that any sensible woman would agree with you, and we must hope that His Highness will pay these nasty creatures to go away again. That is, if they come.”
But there was no ‘if’ about it, thought Hero with a faint shiver of disquiet The news that they were on their way must already have reached the Island, because only that morning she and Clayton, snatching the opportunity offered by a break in the rains to take an early ride, had passed anxious groups of people leaving the city: the children and the more valuable slaves, and in some cases the wives and concubines, of well-to-do merchants and rich Arabs of Zanzibar, on their way to safe hiding places in the interior where they would remain until the raiders left.
She had watched the panic-stricken exodus with a certain amount of scorn, for in spite of all that she had heard of the pirates and their ways, it still seemed to her quite preposterous that the Sultan and his subjects should tamely submit to this annual infliction as though it was some inevitable visitation of nature, like the heat or the monsoon rains, that no one could do anything to prevent This was, after all, the nineteenth century, and it was high time that such medieval institutions as piracy were put a stop to! All that was needed was a little firmness and resolution. But there had been no indication of either quality in the anxious, hurrying groups of people who were seeking safety in the interior of the island, and it was only too obvious that they had no intention of making a stand against the raiders.
Her aunt was saying:”…as for any further ill-feeling towards the consulates, Colonel Edwards assured me only yesterday that there was no longer any danger of anti-white demonstrations, and that we could all go about quite freely again. Why, Clay took dear Hero out riding only this morning, which he would never have done had there been the least likelihood of trouble. Mr Hollis always says that these people are really just like children; they get excited and worked up, and then it all blows over and they forget about it and are once more as good-tempered and cheerful as though nothing had happened. And he is right, of course. One sees it so clearly.”
Aunt Abby appeared to derive considerable comfort from this sage observation, but Hero could recall nothing in the least child-like in the harsh, hawk-faces of the Arab seamen whom she had seen in the streets that morning. Or, for that matter, in the frightened and apprehensive ones of the Banyans, Somalis, negroes and Arabs whom she and Clay had passed on the unmade roads beyond the city. But there was no point in upsetting her aunt by saying so; and in any case, the pirates had never yet molested any member of the small white community on Zanzibar, so they themselves had nothing to fear.
A month or two ago such a reflection would not have occurred to Hero; or if it had, would have been indignantly dismissed as being both selfish and callous. But the same apathy that she blamed on the climate would seem to have been slyly at work undermining her capacity for indignation, because she discovered with an odd sense of surprise that she could not feel over-much anxiety on behalf of the Sultan’s subjects, who greatly outnumbered the pirates and ought to have enough gumption not to put up with such nonsense. She had been far more anxious over the fate of the unmentionable Captain Frost’s small daughter, Amrah; though why she should have troubled herself over the little creature she would have been at a loss to explain.
Fattûma had brought her some garbled story about the child’s mother dying suddenly and under suspicious circumstances, and Hero knew that the Virago was not in port. It was no concern of hers, and every instinct revolted against having anything further to do with that house or with anyone in it. But somehow she could not get the thought of the lonely child out of her head. With its mother dead and its father absent, and no one but the servants to look after it, its situation seemed to her a tragic one, and though she knew that Clay would never have permitted such a thing had he known, she had paid another visit to The Dolphins’ House.
Her conscience had troubled her a little, for she did not like having secrets from Clay. But she had at least satisfied herself that the child was being well cared for; and she had not repeated the visit, for though Amrah had greeted her appearance with delight, the servants had been markedly uncommunicative and had professed not to understand her when she had asked questions about the death of the child’s mother. Hero hoped that this did not mean that the woman had died of some infectious disease, because if so Amrah ought to be removed at once, and she herself might well endanger everyone in her aunt’s house by carrying the contagion back with her; but Fattûma had assured her that it had been an accident. All the same, thought Hero, someone really should take charge of that child, and it was too bad that…
“Hero, you are not listening!” said Olivia with mock severity. “It is your wedding gown we are discussing!”
“I’m sorry,” said Hero hastily, waking with a start to the fact that the pirates had been abandoned in favour of the more interesting topic of fashion.
During the next twenty minutes she did her best to take a proper interest in the question of pearl clusters and pagoda sleeves, but only to discover, with an uneasy sense of guilt, that such things as the cut and style of her wedding-dress, and what colours would best suit Cressy as her bridesmaid and Olivia as Matron-of-Honour, seemed of much greater interest to others than they were to herself, though she knew that by rights she should be enthralled by them. The fact that she could not feel anything more than a vague indifference, and that it did not seem to matter in the least to her whether she wore silk or muslin for the occasion, or decided in favour of a veil or a bonnet, did not mean, she hastened to assure herself, that she did not wish to marry Clay, because of course she did! But there was plenty of time—days, weeks, months of time—before the “Long Rains’ and the end of the hot weather would bring her to her wedding day, and she did not have to think too much about it yet. For the moment it was enough to sit back and relax, and to enjoy Clay’s devotion, and endure the heat.
It was sometimes difficult to do the latter; but as for Clay she could not, she decided, have made a better choice of a husband, for although he was unfailingly attentive and charming, she was relieved to find that he did not consider that their betrothal entitled him to indulge in embarrassing displays of affection, for she knew that she could not have borne to be kissed and embraced as a matter of right—if at all. She had always had an instinctive shrinking from such demonstrations, and it was both comforting and reassuring to find that her future husband shared her tastes and was not one of those romantic gentlemen (so frequently met with between the covers of novels), who were for ever clasping their sweethearts to their manly chests and smothering them with passionate kisses.
Clay’s occasional kisses savoured more of affection and respect than of passion, and he confined himself, correctly, to bestowing them on her hand or her cheek rather than her lips. Which augured well for their future happiness, and Hero was thankful that both she and Clayton were rational, level-headed and thoughtful people who put first things first. Not like poor silly little Cressy, who provided a sad illustration of the unwisdom of permitting emotion to take precedence over good sense!
Cressy had obviously been foolish enough to fall in love with Daniel Larrimore, without pausing to consider that once the first flush of romance had faded, she would be certain to discover that an English naval officer not only had little in common with her, but was unlikely to be able to offer her anything bu
t an unsettled and uncomfortable life, full of separations and temporary lodgings in outlandish ports. Hero was sincerely Sony for her young cousin, but looking at her now as she sat listening to Olivia’s chatter, she could not help thinking it an excellent thing that the romance had not prospered. And that it would be an even better thing if the Daffodil were not to return to Zanzibar until after the Hollises had left!
She was not to know that less than twenty-four hours later she would have given much to see the Daffodil riding at anchor in the harbour, and Dan Larrimore and his bluejackets marching through the town. For dawn had brought the dhows. The dark, high-prowed ships that were little different from those that sailed along the coasts of Africa seven centuries before the birth of Christ, to trade in slaves and ivory and gold from fabled Ophir.
They swooped down upon the Island, their sails curved like the crescent moon that is the emblem of Islam, and their savage crews beating drums and flying the green flag of a Faith that was younger than their ships: sweeping in on the wind like a great flock of carrion birds; fierce, predatory and ruthless, hungry for flesh. Filling the harbour with a tossing forest of masts, and the streets with swaggering, hawk-nosed men who brandished swords and carried sharp-edged daggers in the folds of their waistcloths.
“They won’t do us any harm,” said Nathaniel Hollis, repeating his wife’s words of the previous day. “They know better than to molest any white folk.”