Part 9 (2/2)
”Men,” he said, ”if you catch that boat, I'll give you two hundred and fifty pounds!” and later on their lethargy moved him to such disjointed exclamations as ”For the love of heaven, get on to it!” ”Now, then, a little stronger--fine fellows, all of you--a marriage depends upon this.” ”I'll give you a gold watch apiece, as I'm alive.” ”By----, she's moving--no, she isn't, there's time yet, if you'll put your backs on to it--time, time--oh, Lord, what a crawl, what a cursed crawl!”
If one had peered into the faces of the yachtsmen critically, one might have detected the ripples of smirks about their lips; but Maclaren could not take his eyes away from the steamer, and the import of the suppressed amus.e.m.e.nt was lost upon him. The little town of Crotoy, with the garish _etabliss.e.m.e.nt des bains_, the picturesque church, and the time-wrecked ramparts escarped by the ceaseless play of currents, was then not half a mile away; but a bell was ringing on the pier, and there was all the hurry and the press known in ”one packet” or ”one train”
towns. Those who had much to do did it slowly, that they might enjoy leisure to blow whistles or to shout; those who had little atoned by great displays of ineffective activity. Some ran wildly to and fro near the steamer; others bawled incomprehensible e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, and incited, both those who were to leave by the s.h.i.+p, and those who were not, to hurry, or they would be late. Presently the little pa.s.senger steamer whistled with a hoa.r.s.e and lowing shriek, and cast foam behind her wheels. Maclaren observed the motion, and cried out as a man in pain, waving his arms wildly. Those on sh.o.r.e mistook as much as they could see of his surprising signals for a parting salute to the vessel; and she left ten minutes after her time--without him.
He was hot from the battle of excitement, rivulets of perspiration trickling upon his face; but he had breath to curse the crew of the yacht's boat for five minutes when he stepped ash.o.r.e; and the request of the c.o.xswain to drink his health stirred up uncounted gifts for oath-making within him. In a quarter of an hour he was raving about the town of Crotoy, threatening to do himself injury if a boat were not forthcoming to carry him to St. Valery, whence he could get train to Boulogne. But the day was nigh gone, and the local seamen were at their homes. Few cared for his commission, and the man who took it ultimately set him down just twenty minutes after the last train had left.
The accounts given in the society papers for the abandonment of the wedding between Lord Maclaren and the Hon. Christine King were many. The true one is found in the simple statement that his lords.h.i.+p did not reach England until the evening of the day which had been fixed for the ceremony. So the presents were returned--and I kept the pearls which were to have made the famous anchor bracelet. And when I think the matter over, I cannot wonder at Maclaren's hatred of them, or of his wish that I should burn them.
”Sutton,” he said, ”I was more than a fool. I ought to have remembered that Evelyn Lenox was with me when I saw the piece of stuff similar to that I wanted you to make. Why, I got the very notion of it from her, and it was only when one of your idiots let a society journalist know what you were doing for me that she heard of the marriage, and of my being at Ramsgate.”
But the rest of his remarks were purely personal.
THE WATCH AND THE SCIMITAR.
THE WATCH AND THE SCIMITAR.
The city of Algiers, the beautiful El Djzar, as the guide-book maker calls it, has long ceased to charm the true son of the East, _blase_ with the nomadic fulness of the ultimate Levant, or charged with those imaginary Oriental splendors which are nowhere writ so large as in the catalogues and advertis.e.m.e.nts of the later day upholsterer. This is not the fault of the new Icosium, as any student of the Moorish town knows well; nor is it to be laid to the account of the French usurpation, and that strange juncture of Frank and Fatma, which has brought the boulevard to the city of the Corsairs and banished Mohammed to the shadow of the Kasbah. Rather, it is the outcome of coupons and of co-operative enthusiasm, which sends the roamer to many lands, of which he learns the names, and amongst many people with whose customs he claims familiarity.
To know Algiers, something more than a three days' _pension_ in the Hotel de la Regence is necessary; though that is the temporal limit for many who return to Kensington or Mayfair to protest that ”it is so French, you know.” I can recollect well the monitions and advice which I received two years gone when I ventured a voyage to Burmah--in the matter of the ruby interest--and determined to see Cairo, Tunis, and the City of Mosques on my return westward. Many told me that I would do better to reach Jaffa and Jerusalem, others advised the seven churches of Asia; many spoke well of Rhodes; all agreed, whether they had been there or whether they had not, that Algiers was eaten up with Chauvinism, and scarce worthy a pa.s.sing call. Barisbroke at the club, who is always vigorous in persuading other people not to do things, summed it up in one of his characteristically inane jokes. ”It's had its Dey,” said he, and buried himself in his paper as though the project ended then and there upon his own _ipse dixit_. This marked and decided consensus of opinion could have had but one result--it sent me to the town of Hercules at the first opportunity.
If the truth is to be told, the visit was in some part one of pleasure, but in the more part a question of sequins. I had done well in the remoter East, and had sent some fine parcels of rubies, sapphires, and pearls to Bond Street; but a side-wind of curiosity casting me up upon the sh.o.r.es of Tunis, I had bought there, in the house of a very remarkable Jew, a bauble whose rival in strange workmans.h.i.+p and splendor of effect I have not yet met with. It was, to describe it simply, the model of a Moorish scimitar perhaps four inches long, the sheath exquisitely formed of superb brilliants, the blade itself of platinum, and in the haft not only a strange medley of stones, but a little watch with a thin sheet of very fine pearl for a face, and a superb diamond as the cup of the hands. Although the jewels in this were worth perhaps five hundred pounds, the workmans.h.i.+p was so fine, and the whole bauble had such an original look, that I paid eight hundred pounds for it cheerfully, and thought myself lucky to get it at that. What is more to the point, however, is the fact that the hazard which gave me the possession of the scimitar sent me also to Algiers to hunt there for like curiosities--and in the end brought me a large knowledge of the Moorish town, and nearly cost me my life.
I had intended to stay in the town for three days, but on the very evening of my coming to the Hotel d'Orleans in the Boulevard de la Republique, I met a French lieutenant of artillery, a man by name Eugene Cha.s.saigne; an exceedingly pleasant fellow, and one who had some Arabic, but small appreciation of anything beyond the ”to-day” of life. He laughed at my notion of buying anything in the upper city, and urged me not to waste time plodding in dirty bazaars and amongst still dirtier dealers. For himself his one idea was to be _dans le mouvement_; but he brought me to know, on the second day of my visit, a singularly docile Moor, Sidi ben Ahmed by name; and told me that if I still persisted in my intention, the fellow would serve well for courier, valet, or in any office I chose to place him. And in this he spoke no more than the truth, as I was very soon to prove.
I have always thought when recalling this sheep-like Moor to my recollection, that the Prophet had done him a very poor turn in locating him so far away from the blessings of company-promotion and rickety building societies. His face would have been his fortune at any public meeting; and as for thoroughness, his love of detail was amazing. Before I had been in his hands for twenty-four hours he knew me; being able to tell you precisely how much linen I carried, the number of gold pieces in my purse, my taste in fish and fruits, my object in coming to his country. And this was vexatious; for all the vendors of Benares ware fas.h.i.+oned in Birmingham, all the sellers of gaudy burnouses, the hucksters of the tawdriest carpets and the most flimsy scimitars, held concert on the steps of the hotel every time I showed my face within twenty paces of the door. Sidi alone was immobile, stolid ”_Nom d'un chien_--they are _blagueurs_ all,” said he; and I agreed with him.
If these things troubled my man, the jewel I had purchased in Tunis troubled him still more. How he learned that I had it heaven alone could tell; but he did not fail to come to me at _dejeuner_ each morning and to repeat with unfailing regularity the monition, ”If Allah wills, the jewel is stolen.” I used to tolerate this at first; but in the end he exasperated me; and upon the seventh morning I showed him the model and said emphatically, ”Sidi, you will please to observe that Allah does not will the loss of the jewel--let us change the subject.” He gave me no answer, but on the next morning I had from him the customary greeting--and the laugh was all upon his side, for the scimitar was gone.
I say that the laugh was with Sidi, but in very truth I do not believe that this worthy fellow ever laughed in his life. He possessed a stolid immobility of countenance that would have remained in repose even at the sound of the last trumpet. The intelligence which I conveyed to him, I doubt not with pathetic anger, and much bad language, moved him no more than the soft south wind moved the statue of the first Governor-General out by the mosque there. He examined my ravished bag with a provoking silence; muttered a few pessimistic sentences in Arabic; and then fell back upon the Koran and the plat.i.tudes of his prophet. If he had been an Englishman, I should have suspected him without hesitation; but he bore such a character, he had been so long a servant of the hotel, he was by his very stolidity so much above doubt, that this course was impossible; and being unable to accuse him, I bade him take me to the nearest bureau of police, that I might satisfy my conscience with the necessary farce.
This he did without a protest, but I saw that he looked upon me with a pitying gaze, as one looks upon a child that is talking nonsense.
Although I flatter myself that I concealed my annoyance under a placid exterior, this loss affected me more than I cared to tell. For one thing, the jewel was very valuable (I was certain that I could have obtained a thousand pounds for it in Bond Street); I was convinced, moreover, that I should hardly discover its fellow if I searched Europe through. During my stay at the Hotel d'Orleans I had kept it locked in a well-contrived leather pouch in my traveling trunk; and as this pouch had been opened with my own keys it was evident that the thief had access to my bedroom during the night--a conclusion which led me to think again of this stolid Moor, and to declare that the case against him was singularly convincing. So strong, in fact, were my suspicions that I made it my first care to go to the _maitre_ of the hotel and to demand satisfaction from him with all the justifiable indignation which fitted the case. When he heard my tale, his face would have given Rembrandt a study.
”How?” said he. ”Monsieur is robbed, and _chez-moi_?”
I repeated that I was, and told him that if he did not recover the bauble in twenty-four hours, consequences would follow which would be disastrous to his establishment. Then I asked him frankly about the Moor Sidi; but he protested with tears in his eyes that he would as soon accuse his own mother. He did not deny that some one in his house might know something about it; and presently he had marshaled the whole of his servants in the central court, addressing them with the fierce accusation of a _juge d'instruction_. It is superfluous to add that we made no headway, and that all his ”desolation” left me as far from the jewels I had lost as I was at the beginning of it.
From the hotel to the bureau of the police was an easy transition, but a very hopeless one. A number of extremely polite, and elaborately braided, officials heard me with interest and pity; and having covered some folios of paper with notes declared that nothing could be done. For themselves, their theory was that the Moor Sidi had been talking about my treasure, and that some other domestic in the Hotel de la Regence had opened my door while I slept and got possession of the ornament with little risk. But that any one should recover the property was in their idea a preposterous a.s.sumption.
”It is on its way to Paris,” said one of them as he closed his note-book with a snap, ”and there's an end of it. We shall, without doubt, watch the servants of the hotel closely for some time, but that should not encourage you. It is possible that the man Mohammed, the porter of the place, may know something of the affair. We shall have his house searched to-day, but, my friend, _ne vous montez pas la tete_, we are not in Paris, and the upper town is worse than a beehive. I am afraid that your hope of seeing the thing again is small.”
I was afraid so, too; but being accustomed to strange losses and to strange recoveries, I determined to venture something in the hazard, and to remain in Algiers for a few weeks, at any rate. The most difficult part of my work lay in my ignorance of the city, and in that matter Sidi alone could help me. Every day we went with measured and expectant tread through that labyrinth of fantastic and half-dark streets, where repulsive hags grin at the wickets below, and dark eyes coquette at the gratings above; every day we delved in booths and bazaars, we haggled with the jewel sellers, we bartered with the gold workers, but to no purpose. I had come to think at last that the loss was not worth further trouble; and had made up my mind to return to London, when I recollected with some self-reproach that I had as yet neglected one of the very simplest means to grapple with the occasion--that I had, in fact, offered no reward for the recovery of the jeweled scimitar, and to this omission owed, I did not doubt, the utter absence of clue or conviction.
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