Part 10 (2/2)
I must confess that the surprise of finding myself in such a place was very great. I had gone with the Moors to recover a thousand pounds'
worth of property, but how the visit brought me nearer to that, or to any purpose whatever, I could not see. I knew that I was the only European in the company, and all tradition as well as common-sense told me of my danger. Yet I had gone of my own will, and the Moor Sidi had encouraged me to the risk, which after all, I thought, was worth bartering for the sight of so strange an entertainment. Indeed, it is not in accord with my fatalistic creed to conjure up terrors of the mind in moments of comparative tranquillity; and when I realized that the question of wisdom, or want of wisdom, was no longer under discussion, I fell in with the spirit of this singular festivity--and waited for enlightenment.
The feast of performance was now going briskly. A conjurer trod upon the heels of the dervish, and performed a few palpable feats which deceived no one but himself; and after that we had the expected dancing girls, and the Ouled-Nals. Nor were the latter the central piece, as it were, of our host's program; for presently the Moors about me ceased their babbling; there was a restless chatter in the gallery above, the old host whispered something to his attendant, and new musicians, who had relieved the others, struck up a hideous banging of tom-toms, flageolets, and guitars. At that very moment, when I had come to the conclusion that Sidi ben Ahmed had made a fool of me, and that my errand was to end idly, one of my guides spoke for the first time, putting his mouth close to my ear, and using very pa.s.sable English.
”Now,” said he, ”be ready;” but whether he meant me to prepare for some saltatory display, or for action, he did not condescend to say; and before I could ask him a great applause greeted the advent of a dancing girl, who bounded into the arena with a conventional run, and at once began her amazing gyrations.
She was a beautiful girl, not more than eighteen years of age, I should think, and probably a Circa.s.sian. She had clear-cut features, a complexion bright with the freshness of youth, a figure of fine balance and maturity; but the most striking thing about her was her hair. More abundant or glossier tresses I have never seen. In color, a deep golden-red, this magnificent silky gift was bunched upon her head in a great coil at the back, and fell thence almost to her feet. It covered her when she chose as the burnouses covered the Moors who watched her; and she used it in her dancing with a _chic_ and skill unimaginable. In one moment coiling it about her body so that she seemed wrapped in a sheen of gold; in the next cast like an outspread fan behind her, she presented a picture ravis.h.i.+ng beyond description, and one which drew shouts of ”Zorah, Zorah!” even from the women in the galleries above. I sat under the spell, enraptured like the rest; and as the girl floated with a dreamy lightness, or pirouetted with amazing agility, or swept past me with a motion that was the very essence of grace, I was ready to declare that the dance was unrivaled by anything I had seen in any of the capitals.
Now, the girl must have been dancing for a couple of minutes, and the audience was thoroughly held by her prodigious cleverness, when I, engrossed as the others, was suddenly interrupted in my contemplation of her by the action of the Moors, my guides. To my utter surprise they all of a sudden stood up on either side of me, and one of them crying to me in English as before to be ready, the other seemed to wait for the girl Zorah, who, with streaming hair and body thrown well back, was dancing down towards us.
A few of the company near to us turned their heads, and cried out at the interruption; but the girl came on with quick steps, and when she was just upon us, the Moor who waited seized her by her hair, and putting his hands in the great coil upon her head, he unrolled it with a strong grasp, and the missing scimitar, to my unutterable surprise, rolled out upon the pavement.
I am willing to confess that for one moment the whole action dazed me so completely that I stood like a fool gaping at the jewel, and at the girl, who had begun to cling to the Moor and to scream. The thing was so unlooked for, so strange, so incredible, that I could do nothing but ask myself if it were really my bauble that lay upon the floor, or was I the victim of an incomprehensible trick? Yet there was the jewel, and there at my elbow were the two Moors, now all ready for the action aftermath.
Scarce, in fact, had one of them picked up my property and crammed it into my hand before the uproar began, the whole roomful of erstwhile sedate-looking men springing to their feet and turning upon us. For an instant, the Moor who had s.n.a.t.c.hed the jewel for me kept them back with an harangue in Arabic of which I did not understand one word; but his best and only card failed him at the first playing, and it remained to face the danger and to fight it.
Of the extraordinary scene that followed I remember but little. It seemed to me that I was surrounded in an instant by hungry, gleaming hawk-like eyes which glowed with mischief; that women screamed, that lamps were overturned; that I saw knives flas.h.i.+ng on every side of me.
Had Sidi's men then failed him or displayed any craven cunning, I take it that my body might have been hurled from the Kasbah within a minute of the recovery of the jewel; but they showed quite an uncommon fidelity and courage. Standing on either side of me so that my body was almost wedged between theirs, they suddenly flashed long knives in the air, and cut and parried with wondrous dexterity. For myself, I had only my fists, and these I used with a generous freedom, thinking even in the danger that a Moor's face is a substantial one to hit; and that a little boxing goes a long way with him. Yet I could not help but realize that the minute was a supreme one, and as the crowd of demoniacal and shouting figures pressed nearer and nearer, threatening to bear us down in the _melee_, I heard my heart thumping, and began to grow giddy.
As the press became more furious, the two men who had done so well were gradually carried away from me. I found myself at last in the lower corner of the room, surrounded by four burly fellows (the main body of the company swarming round the Moors, my guides); and of these but one had a knife in his hand. With this, taking the aggressive, he made a prodigious cut at me, which slit my left arm from the shoulder almost to the elbow; but I had no pain from the wound in the excitement of the moment; and I sent him howling like a dervish with a heavy blow low down upon the chest. Of the others, one I hit on the chin, whereupon he cried like a woman; but the remaining two sprang upon me with altogether an unlooked-for activity; and bore me down with a heavy crash upon the pavement. I thought then that the end had come; for not only was I half stunned with the blow, but the man who knelt upon my chest gripped my throat with grim ferocity and threatened to squeeze the life out of me as I lay. In that supreme moment I recollect that the lights of the room danced before my eyes in surprising shapes; that I saw a vision of dark-eyed but screaming women in the gallery above; that the jewel in my vest cut my skin under the pressure of the Moor's knee; and that I fell to wondering if I would live one minute or five. Then, as a new and violent shouting reached me, even above the singing in my ears, the Moor suddenly let go his hold, the light of the scene gave way to utter impenetrable darkness, and I fainted.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Buying the scimitar.
--_Page 152_]
Next day I took _dejeuner_ at the Cafe Apollon with my arm in a sling, and Cha.s.saigne's talk to whet my appet.i.te. He had occupied himself during the morning in cross-examining Sidi, from whom he had wormed the whole secret of the robbery.
”It is as clear as the sun,” said he, ”the porter Mohammed was advised to steal the jewel by the man I unfortunately recommended to you.
Mohammed, knowing that the police would search his house and watch him, hid the jewel in his wife's hair.”
”His wife!” said I. ”Was this dancing girl married to a scamp like that?”
”Certainly; these Circa.s.sians don't make great matches, if they make a good many of them. Their husbands are generally loafers about the cafes; and this girl was no more fortunate in that way than most of her sisters. You see, the fun of the business is that Sidi got two thousand francs from this man for telling him how to steal your jewels, and another two thousand from you for stealing them back again. That's why he did not go with you himself last night. Luckily, I went into your hotel at ten o'clock, and learning from the man where you had gone, I followed you with a dozen of my fellows.”
”You came at a happy time, my dear fellow,” said I, ”in another five minutes I should have needed only an executor.”
”That's true; you were nearly dead when I had the pleasure of kicking the man who sat on your head. But it was your own fault, you must admit.”
”Any way,” said I, ”I got the stones, and that's something.”
He agreed to this, and when I had thanked him for the great service he had done me, we parted. That night I left Algiers, carrying with me the pacific benediction of the admirable Moor, Sidi, who, despite the fact that I had kicked him down the steps of the hotel in the morning, came with me to the steamer, and patronized me to the end of it. I can hear to this day his last and final salutation:--
”Blessed be Allah, the jewel is found!”
THE SEVEN EMERALDS.
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