by Ouida
One day, however, it chanced that a detachment of Chasseurs, of which Cecil was one, was cut to pieces by such an overwhelming mass of Arabs that scarce a dozen of them could force their way through the Bedouins with life; he was among those few, and a flight at full speed was the sole chance of regaining their encampment. Just as he had shaken his bridle free of the Arab’s clutch, and had mowed himself a clear path through their ranks, he caught sight of his young enemy, Picpon, on the ground, with a lance broken off in his ribs; guarding his head, with bleeding hands, as the horses trampled over him. To make a dash at the boy, though to linger a moment was to risk certain death; to send his steel through an Arab who came in his way; to lean down and catch hold of the lad’s sash; to swing him up into his saddle and throw him across it in front of him, and to charge afresh through the storm of musket-balls, and ride on thus burdened, was the work of ten seconds with “Bel-a-faire-peur.” And he brought the boy safe over a stretch of six leagues in a flight for life, though the imp no more deserved the compassion than a scorpion that has spent all its noxious day stinging at every point of uncovered flesh would merit tenderness from the hand it had poisoned.
When he was swung down from the saddle and laid in front of a fire, sheltered from the bitter north wind that was then blowing cruelly, the bright, black, ape-like eyes of the Parisian diablotin opened with a strange gleam in them.
“Picpon s’en souviendra,” he murmured.
And Picpon had kept his word; he had remembered often, he remembered now; standing on his head and thinking of his hundred Napoleons surrendered because thieving and lying in the regiment gave pain to that oddly prejudiced “ci-devant.” This was the sort of loyalty that the Franco-Arabs rendered; this was the sort of influence that the English Guardsman exercised among his Roumis.
Meantime, while Picpon made a human cone of himself, to the admiration of the polyglot crowd of the Algerine street, Cecil himself, having watered, fed, and littered down his tired horse, made his way to a little cafe he commonly frequented, and spent the few sous he could afford on an iced draught of lemon-flavored drink. Eat he could not; overfatigue had given him a nausea for food, and the last hour, motionless in the intense glow of the afternoon sun, had brought that racking pain through his temples which assailed him rarely now, but which in his first years in Africa had given him many hours of agony. He could not stay in the cafe; it was the hour of dinner for many, and the odors, joined with the noise, were insupportable to him.
A few doors farther in the street, which was chiefly of Jewish and Moslem shops, there was a quaint place kept by an old Moor, who had some of the rarest and most beautiful treasures of Algerian workmanship in his long, dark, silent chambers. With this old man Cecil had something of a friendship; he had protected him one day from the mockery and outrage of some drunken Indigenes, and the Moor, warmly grateful, was ever ready to give him a cup of coffee in the stillness of his dwelling. Its resort was sometimes welcome to him as the one spot, quiet and noiseless, to which he could escape out of the continuous turmoil of street and of barrack, and he went thither now. He found the old man sitting cross-legged behind the counter; a noble-looking, aged Mussulman, with a long beard like white silk, with cashmeres and broidered stuffs of peerless texture hanging above his head, and all around him things of silver, of gold, of ivory, of amber, of feathers, of bronze, of emeralds, of ruby, of beryl, whose rich colors glowed through the darkness.
“No coffee, no sherbet; thanks, good father,” said Cecil, in answer to the Moor’s hospitable entreaties. “Give me only license to sit in the quiet here. I am very tired.”
“Sit and be welcome, my son,” said Ben Arsli. “Whom should this roof shelter in honor, if not thee? Musjid shall bring thee the supreme solace.”
The supreme solace was a nargile, and its great bowl of rose-water was soon set down by the little Moorish lad at Cecil’s side. Whether fatigue really weighted his eyes with slumber, or whether the soothing sedative of the pipe had its influence, he had not sat long in the perfect stillness of the Moor’s shop before the narrow view of the street under the awning without was lost to him, the luster and confusion of shadowy hues swam a while before his eyes, the throbbing pain in his temples grew duller, and he slept — the heavy, dreamless sleep of intense exhaustion.
Ben Arsli glanced at him, and bade Musjid be very quiet. Half an hour or more passed; none had entered the place. The grave old Moslem was half slumbering himself, when there came a delicate odor of perfumed laces, a delicate rustle of silk swept the floor; a lady’s voice asked the price of an ostrich-egg, superbly mounted in gold. Ben Arsli opened his eyes — the Chasseur slept on; the newcomer was one of those great ladies who now and then winter in Algeria.
Her carriage waited without; she was alone, making purchase of those innumerable splendid trifles with which Algiers is rife, while she drove through the town in the cooler hour before the sun sank into the western sea.
The Moor rose instantly, with profound salaams, before her, and began to spread before her the richest treasures of his stock. Under plea of the light, he remained near the entrance with her; money was dear to him, and must not be lost, but he would make it, if he could, without awakening the tired soldier. Marvelous caskets of mother-of-pearl; carpets soft as down with every brilliant hue melting one within another; coffee equipages, of inimitable metal work; silver statuettes, exquisitely chased and wrought; feather-fans, and screens of every beauty of device, were spread before her, and many of them were bought by her with that unerring grace of taste and lavishness of expenditure which were her characteristics, but which are far from always found in unison; and throughout her survey Ben Arsli kept her near the entrance, and Cecil had slept on, unaroused by the low tones of their voices.
A roll of notes had passed from her hand to the Moslem’s and she was about to glide out to her carriage, when a lamp which hung at the farther end caught her fancy. It was very singular; a mingling of colored glass, silver, gold, and ivory being wrought in much beauty in its formation.
“Is that for sale?” she inquired.
As he answered in the affirmative, she moved up the shop, and, her eyes being lifted to the lamp, had drawn close to Cecil before she saw him. When she did so, she paused near in astonishment.
“Is that soldier asleep?”
“He is, madame,” softly answered the old man, in his slow, studied French. “He comes here to rest sometimes out of the noise; he was very tired to-day, and I think ill, would he have confessed it.”
“Indeed!” Her eyes fell on him with compassion; he had fallen into an attitude of much grace and of utter exhaustion; his head was uncovered and rested on one arm, so that the face was turned upward. With a woman’s rapid, comprehensive glance, she saw that dark shadow, like a bruise, under his closed, aching eyes; she saw the weary pain upon his forehead; she saw the whiteness of his hands, the slenderness of his wrists, the softness of his hair; she saw, as she had seen before, that whatever he might be now, in some past time he had been a man of gentle blood, of courtly bearing.
“He is a Chasseur d’Afrique?” she asked the Moslem.
“Yes, madame. I think — he must have been something very different some day.”
She did not answer; she stood with her thoughtful eyes gazing on the worn-out soldier.
“He saved me once, madame, at much risk to himself, from the savagery of some Turcos,” the old man went on. “Of course, he is always welcome under my roof. The companionship he has must be bitter to him, I fancy; they do say he would have had his officer’s grade, and the cross, too, long before now, if it were not for his Colonel’s hatred.”
“Ah! I have seen him before now; he carves in ivory. I suppose he has a good side for those things with you?”
The Moor looked up in amazement.
“In ivory, madame? — he? Allah — il-Allah! I never heard of it. It is strange — —”
“Very strange. Doubtless you would have given him a good price for them?�
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“Surely I would; any price he should have wished. Do I not owe him my life?”
At that moment little Musjid let fall a valuable coffee-tray, inlaid with amber; his master, with muttered apology, hastened to the scene of the accident; the noise startled Cecil, and his eyes unclosed to all the dreamy, fantastic colors of the place, and met those bent on him in musing pity — saw that lustrous, haughty, delicate head bending slightly down through the many-colored shadows.
He thought he was dreaming, yet on instinct he rose, staggering slightly, for sharp pain was still darting through his head and temples.
“Madame! Pardon me! Was I sleeping?”
“You were, and rest again. You look ill,” she said gently, and there was, for a moment, less of that accent in her voice, which the night before had marked so distinctly, so pointedly, the line of demarcation between a Princess of Spain and a soldier of Africa.
“I thank you; I ail nothing.”
He had no sense that he did, in the presence of that face which had the beauty of his old life; under the charm of that voice which had the music of his buried years.
“I fear that is scarcely true!” she answered him. “You look in pain; though as a soldier, perhaps, you will not own it?”
“A headache from the sun — no more, madame.”
He was careful not again to forget the social gulf which yawned between them.
“That is quite bad enough! Your service must be severe?”
“In Africa, Milady, one cannot expect indulgence.”
“I suppose not. You have served long?”
“Twelve years, madame.”
“And your name?”
“Louis Victor.” She fancied there was a slight abruptness in the reply, as though he were about to add some other name, and checked himself.
She entered it in the little book from which she had taken her banknotes.
“I may be able to serve you,” she said, as she wrote. “I will speak of you to the Marshal; and when I return to Paris, I may have an opportunity to bring your name before the Emperor. He is as rapid as his uncle to reward military merit; but he has not his uncle’s opportunities for personal observation of his soldiers.”
The color flushed his forehead.
“You do me much honor,” he said rapidly, “but if you would gratify me, madame, do not seek to do anything of the kind.”
“And why? Do you not even desire the cross?”
“I desire nothing, except to be forgotten.”
“You seek what others dread then?”
“It may be so. At any rate, if you would serve me, madame, never say what can bring me into notice.”
She regarded him with much surprise, with some slight sense of annoyance; she had bent far in tendering her influence at the French court to a private soldier, and his rejection of it seemed as ungracious as it was inexplicable.
At that moment the Moor joined them.
“Milady has told me, M. Victor, that you are a first-rate carver of ivories. How is it that you have never let me benefit by your art?”
“My things are not worth a sou,” muttered Cecil hurriedly.
“You do them great injustice, and yourself also,” said the grande dame, more coldly than she had before spoken. “Your carvings are singularly perfect, and should bring you considerable returns.”
“Why have you never shown them to me at least?” pursued Ben Arsli— “why not have given me my option?”
The blood flushed Cecil’s face again; he turned to the Princess.
“I withheld them, madame, not because he would have underpriced, but overpriced them. He rates a trifling act of mine, of long ago, so unduly.”
She bent her head in silence; yet a more graceful comprehension of his motive she could not have given than her glance alone gave.
Ben Arsli stroked his great beard; more moved than his Moslem dignity would show.
“Always so!” he muttered, “always so! My son, in some life before this, was not generosity your ruin?”
“Milady was about to purchase the lamp?” asked Cecil, avoiding the question. “Her Highness will not find anything like it in all Algiers.”
The lamp was taken down, and the conversation turned from himself.
“May I bear it to your carriage, madame?” he asked, as she moved to leave, having made it her own, while her footman carried out the smaller articles she had bought to the equipage. She bowed in silence; she was very exclusive, she was not wholly satisfied with herself for having conversed thus with a Chasseur d’Afrique in a Moor’s bazaar. Still, she vaguely felt pity for this man; she equally vaguely desired to serve him.
“Wait, M. Victor!” she said, as he closed the door of her carriage. “I accepted your chessmen last night, but you are very certain that it is impossible I can retain them on such terms.”
A shadow darkened his face.
“Let your dogs break them then, madame. They shall not come back to me.”
“You mistake — I did not mean that I would send them back. I simply desire to offer you some equivalent for them. There must be something that you wish for? — something which would be acceptable to you in the life you lead?”
“I have already named the only thing I desire.”
He had been solicitous to remember and sustain the enormous difference in their social degrees; but at the offer of her gifts, of her patronage, of her recompense, the pride of his old life rose up to meet her own.
“To be forgotten? A sad wish! Nay, surely life in a regiment of Africa cannot be so cloudless that it can create in you no other?”
“It is not. I have another.”
“Then tell it to me; it shall be gratified.”
“It is to enjoy a luxury long ago lost forever. It is — to be allowed to give the slight courtesy of a gentleman without being tendered the wage of a servant.”
She understood him; she was moved, too, by the inflexion of his voice. She was not so cold, not so negligent, as the world called her.
“I had passed my word to grant it; I cannot retract,” she answered him, after a pause. “I will press nothing more on you. But — as an obligation to me — can you find no way in which a rouleau of gold would benefit your men?”
“No way that I can take it for them. But, if you care indeed to do them a charity, a little wine, a little fruit, a few flowers (for there are those among them who love flowers), sent to the hospital, will bring many benedictions on your name, madame. They lie in infinite misery there!”
“I will remember,” she said simply, while a thoughtful sadness passed over her brilliant face. “Adieu, M. le Caporal; and if you should think better of your choice, and will allow your name to be mentioned by me to his Majesty, send me word through my people. There is my card.”
The carriage whirled away down the crooked street. He stood under the tawny awning of the Moorish house, with the thin, glazed card in his hand. On it was printed:
“Mme. la Princesse Corona d’Amague,
“Hotel Corona, Paris.”
In the corner was written, “Villa Aiaussa, Algiers.” He thrust it in the folds of his sash, and turned within.
“Do you know her?” he asked Ben Arsli.
The old man shook his head.
“She is the most beautiful of thy many fair Frankish women. I never saw her till to-day. But listen here. Touching these ivory toys — if thou does not bring henceforth to me all the work in them that thou doest, thou shalt never come here more to meet the light of her eyes.”
Cecil smiled and pressed the Moslem’s hand.
“I kept them away because you would have given me a hundred piasters for what had not been worth one. As for her eyes, they are stars that shine on another world than an African trooper’s. So best!”
Yet they were stars of which he thought more, as he wended his way back to the barracks, than of the splendid constellations of the Algerian evening that shone with all the luster of the day, but with the soft, enchanted li
ght which transfigured sea, and earth, and sky as never did the day’s full glow, as he returned to the mechanical duties, to the thankless services, to the distasteful meal, to the riotous mirth, to the coarse comradeship, which seemed to him to-night more bitter than they had ever done since his very identity, his very existence, had been killed and buried past recall, past resurrection, under the kepi d’ordonnance of a Chasseur d’Afrique.
Meanwhile the Princess Corona drove homeward — homeward to where a temporary home had been made by her in the most elegant of the many snow-white villas that stud the sides of the Sahel and face the bright bow of the sunlit bay; a villa with balconies, and awnings, and cool, silent chambers, and rich, glowing gardens, and a broad, low roof, half hidden in bay and orange and myrtle and basilica, and the liquid sound of waters bubbling beneath a riotous luxuriance of blossom.
Mme. la Princesse passed from her carriage to her own morning room and sank down on a couch, a little listless and weary with her search among the treasures of the Algerine bazaars. It was purposeless work, after all. Had she not bronzes, and porcelains, and bric-a-brac, and objets d’art in profusion in her Roman villa, her Parisian hotel, her great, grim palace in Estremadura.
“Not one of those things do I want — not one shall I look at twice. The money would have been better at the soldiers’ hospital,” she thought, while her eyes dwelt on a chess-table near her — a table on which the mimic hosts of Chasseurs and Arabs were ranged in opposite squadrons.
She took the White King in her hand and gazed at it with a certain interest.
“That man has been noble once,” she thought. “What a fate — what a cruel fate!”