Part 42 (1/2)
”The mule was taken from me some days ago in the Ait Yussi country.”
And Warrisden upon that said--
”You had trouble, then, upon the way--great trouble.”
Again Tony was slow in the reply. He looked out across the city. It was a night of moonlight, so bright that the stars were pale and small, as though they were withdrawn; there was no cloud anywhere about the sky; and on such a night, in that clear, translucent air, the city, with its upstanding minarets, had a grace and beauty denied to it by day. There was something of enchantment in its aspect, Tony smoked his pipe in silence for a little while. Then he said--
”Let us not talk about it! I never thought that I would be sitting here in Fez to-night. Tell me rather when we start!”
”Early to-morrow,” replied Warrisden. ”We must reach Roquebrune in the South of France by the thirty-first.”
Stretton suddenly sat back in his chair.
”Roquebrune! France!” he exclaimed. ”We must go there? Why?”
”I do not know,” Warrisden answered. ”A telegram reached me at Tangier. I kept it.”
He took the telegram from his pocket and handed it to Stretton, who read it and sat thinking.
”We have time,” said Warrisden, ”just time enough, I think, if we travel fast.”
”Good,” said Stretton, as he returned the telegram. ”But I was not thinking of the time.”
He did not explain what had caused him to start at the mention of Roquebrune; but after sitting for a little while longer in silence, he betook himself to bed.
Early the next morning they rode out of the Bab Sagma upon the thronged highway over the plain to Mequinez.
The caravans diminished, striking off into this or that track. Very soon there remained with them only one party of five Jews mounted on small donkeys. They began to ride through high shrubs and bushes of fennel over rolling ground. Stretton talked very little, and as the track twisted and circled across the plain he was constantly standing up in his stirrups and searching the horizon.
”There does not seem to be one straight path in Morocco,” he exclaimed impatiently. ”Look at this one. There's no reason why it should not run straight. Yet it never does.”
Indeed, the track lay across that open plain like some brown, monstrous serpent of a legend.
”I do not believe,” replied Warrisden, ”that there is a straight path anywhere in the world, unless it is one which has been surveyed and made, or else it runs from gate to gate, and both gates are visible.
One might think the animals made this track, turning and twisting to avoid the bushes. Only the tracks are no straighter in the desert, where there are no bushes at all.”
They halted for half an hour at eleven, beside a bridge which crossed a stream, broken and ruinous, but still serviceable. And while they sat on the ground under the shadow they suddenly heard a great clatter of hoofs upon the broken cobbles; and looking up saw a body of men ride across the bridge. There were about forty of them, young and old; all were mounted, and in appearance as wild and ragged a set of bandits as could be imagined. As they rode over the bridge they saw Warrisden and Stretton seated on the ground beneath them; and without a word or a shout they halted as one man. Their very silence was an intimidating thing.
”Z'mur,” whispered Ibrahim. He was shaking with fear. Warrisden noticed that the two soldiers who accompanied them on this journey to Mequinez quietly mounted their horses. Stretton and Warrisden rose to do likewise. And as they rose a dozen of the mounted Z'mur quietly rode round from the end of the bridge and stood between them and the stream. Then the leader, a big man with a black beard turning grey, began to talk in a quiet and pleasant voice to the soldiers.
”You are bringing Europeans into our country. Now, why are you doing that? We do not like Europeans.”
The soldiers no less pleasantly replied--
”Your country? The Europeans are travelling with a letter from your master and mine, my Lord the Sultan, to the Governor of Mequinez.”
”You will show us then the letter?”
”I will do nothing of the kind,” the soldier replied, with a smile.
The Z'mur did not move; the two soldiers sat upon their horses smiling--it seemed that matters had come to a deadlock. Meanwhile Warrisden and Stretton got into their saddles. Then the leader of the Z'mur spoke again--