Part 18 (1/2)
”Does he come past here often?”
”Yes, yes, Zan. Every day.”
”Does he stop and look into the court like that, every time?”
”Yes, Zan. Every time,” she smiled.
”Do you know whom he's looking for?”
”Yes, Zan. For me.”
Campbell's hand shot out suddenly and caught her wrist.
”Fenzile,” his voice was cold. ”You aren't carrying on with, encouraging this--Ahmet Ali?”
”Zan Cam'el,” her child's eyes flashed unexpectedly. ”I am no cheap Cairene woman. I am a Druse girl. The daughter of a Druse Bey.”
”I am sorry, Fenzile.”
She looked at him steadily with her great green eyes, green of the sea, and as he looked at her sweet roundish face, her little mouth half open in sincerity, her calm brow, her brown arch of eyebrow, she seemed to him no more than a beautiful proud child. There was no guile in her.
”You mustn't be foolish, you know, Fenzile.”
”_Severim Seni._ I love only you, Zan. But it is so funny to see him go by, I must always smile. Don't you think it funny, Zan?”
”No, I don't think it at all funny.”
”Oh, but it is funny, Zan. A big strong wrestler like that to be foolish over a very little woman. And for a cheap showman of the market-place to be lifting his eyes to a daughter of the Druse emirs. It is funny.”
”It isn't funny. And he isn't much of a wrestler anyway.”
”Oh, but he is, Zan. He is a very great wrestler. They say he threw and killed a bear.”
”O kooltooluk. h.e.l.l! I could throw him myself.”
She said nothing, turning her head, and reaching for her embroidery.
”Don't you believe me, Fenzile? I tell you I could make mince-meat of him.”
”Of course, Zan. Of course you could.” And she smiled. But this time it wasn't the delighted smile of a child. It was the grave patient smile of a wise woman. And Shane knew it. Past that barrier he could not break.
And on her belief he could make no impress. There was no use arguing, talking. She would just smile and agree. And her ideal of strength and power would be the muscle-bound hulk of the Aleppo man, with the girl's face and the girl's eyes, and the rose in his hand. And Shane, all his life inured to sport, hard as iron, supple as a whip, with his science picked up from Swedish quartermasters and j.a.panese gendarmes, from mates and crimps in all parts of the world, would always be in her eyes an infant compared to the monstrous Syrian! Not that it mattered a tinker's curse, but--
Oh, d.a.m.n the wrestler from Aleppo!
-- 3
He had thought, when he left Liverpool on a gusty February day, of all the peace and quiet, of the color and life there would be on the Asian sh.o.r.e ... Europe had somehow particularly sickened him on this last voyage.... All its repose was sordid, all its pa.s.sion was calculated.
England and its queen mourned the sudden death of the prince consort, but it mourned him with a sort of middle-cla.s.s domesticity, and no majesty. So a grocer's family might have mourned, remembering how well papa cut the mutton.... He was so d.a.m.ned good at everything, Albert was, and he approved of art and science--within reason.... There was a contest for a human ideal in America, and in the ports of England privateers were being fitted out, to help the South, as the Greeks might, for a price.... And Napoleon, that solemn comedian, was making ready his expedition to Mexico, with fine words and a tradesman's cunning.... And the drums of Ulster roared for Garibaldi, rejoicing in the downfall of the harlot on seven hills, as Ulster pleasantly considered the papal states, while Victor Emmanuel, sly Latin that he was, thought little of liberty and much about Rome.... Aye, kings!
And so a great nostalgia had come over Shane Campbell on this voyage for the Syrian port and the wife he had married there. He wanted suns.h.i.+ne.