“But my loss is irreparable. That box contained” — I hesitated. Then I added, “It contained great treasure.”
“May Allah consign the thief to Hâwiyat for ever!” exclaimed one of the men calmly.
“May the Prophet send thee consolation!” added another. “Against Fate thou canst not arm thyself,” observed a third. “May the entrails of the thief be burned!”
To such remarks I returned thanks, and, heedless of the questions they asked concerning the value of the contents of the stolen box, I stood deep in thought. Though the circumstances were somewhat suspicious that my attention should have been diverted in the manner it had, still there was no mistake that the portrait was actually that of my murdered friend; and, further, the thief had not, as far as I had noticed, spoken to any of those around him. Expert pilferers as the Arabs mostly are, I could not in this instance bring myself to believe that I had been the victim of a plot. Again, it was not a pleasant reflection that the thief might have stolen it thinking it contained valuables, and then, finding the hideous object inside, would in such a case most likely give information which would lead to my arrest for murder! My guilt would be assumed, and to prove my innocence I should experience considerable difficulty.
On the other hand, however, the circumstances pointed strongly to the theory that the ragged ruffian had dogged my footsteps in order to obtain possession of the casket. But for what reason? The box had been wrapped in brown paper, there being nothing whatever in its exterior to excite undue curiosity. Was it possible that the thief might have been aware of its contents? Was the possession of this startling evidence of a gruesome tragedy of imperative necessity? If so, why?
None of these questions could I answer. I felt that the robbery was not an ordinary one. It was an enigma that I could not solve. The hand, with its rings, had been stolen from me by one who was evidently an expert thief, and, recognising that any attempt to recover it was useless, I thanked the Arabs in the kahoua for their condolences, and left, turning my steps slowly towards the European quarter.
I recollected that I had promised Zoraida to set out that night on my journey into the distant Desert. Again and again her earnest words in her own musical tongue rang in my ears: “Thou wilt go for my sake,” she had said. “Remember the instructions I have given thee; and, above all, promise to seek no explanation of what thou mayest hear or see regarding me until thou hast returned from Agadez. Thou wilt undertake this mission in order to save my life, to rescue me from a horrible fate that threateneth to overwhelm me!”
Had she already succumbed to the fate she dreaded?
Utterly powerless to obtain any information that might lead to the elucidation of the extraordinary mystery, I at length, after calmly reviewing the situation over a cigarette under the palms in the Place Bresson, resolved to keep my promise to her, and before midnight I left the City of the Corsairs on the first stage of my long, tedious journey southward towards the sun.
The temptation to return to England and leave the mystery unsolved had indeed been great, yet I could not forget that I had pledged my word to a woman I loved better than life. She had declared that I alone could save her, and trusted me. These thoughts caused my decision to attempt the perilous journey. Is it not, indeed, true that sometimes beauty draws us with a single hair towards our doom?
Why, I wondered, had she been so intensely anxious that I should refrain from seeking any explanation of these strange, ever-deepening and perplexing mysteries? Her words and actions were those of a woman apprehensive of some terrible tragedy that she was powerless to avert; and even though I started that night from Algiers fully determined to learn the secret of the Crescent of Glorious Wonders I carried, and its bearing upon her welfare, yet that shrill, despairing cry I had heard after leaving her presence still sounded distinctly in my ears, the dolorous, agonised wail of the hapless victim of a hidden crime.
Chapter Twenty
After the Fâtiha
Again I found myself alone in the vast, sun-baked wilderness, where all is silent, and the pulse of life stands still.
Twenty-eight hours over one of the most execrable railways in the world had taken me back to Biskra, where I remained a day, writing letters home to England, and otherwise making preparations for a lengthened absence from civilisation. Then, mounted on Zoraida’s fleet horse, I set forth for Tuggurt.
Though the sun’s rays were scarcely as powerful as when I had travelled over the same ground three months before, yet the inconveniences and perils of the Desert were legion. In order that the Arabs I met should not deem me worth robbing, I cultivated a ragged appearance; my gandoura was of the coarsest quality worn by the Kabyles, my haick was soiled and torn, and my burnouse old and darned. I had purchased the clothing second-hand in the market-place at Biskra, and now wore a most woe-begone aspect, my only possession of value perceptible being a new magazine-rifle of British pattern. Yet stored away in my saddle-bags I had food, a fair sum of money, a more presentable burnouse, and, what was more precious than all, there reposed in its rotting, worm-eaten leather case that mysterious object, the Crescent of Glorious Wonders. Zoraida’s letter to the imam, however, I carried in my wallet in the pocket on the breast of my gandoura.
Terribly wearying and monotonous that journey proved. Only those who have experienced the appalling silence and gigantic immensity of the Great Sahara can have any idea of the utter loneliness experienced by a man journeying without companions. In that dreary waste one is completely isolated from the world amid the most desolate and inhospitable surroundings, with the whitening bones of man and beast lying here and there, ever reminding him with gruesome vividness of the uncertainty of his own existence. Knowing, however, that I should be unlikely to fall in with a caravan travelling south until I reached El Biodh, I pushed onward, and after five days reached Tuggurt, where I was the welcome guest of Captain Carmier, the only European there, his Parisian lieutenant having gone into the Sidi Rachid Oasis in charge of some native recruits.
As the captain and I sat together smoking and sipping our absinthe under the cool arcade with its horse-shoe arches that runs across the now deserted harem-garden of the Kasbah, I retailed to him the latest news I had picked up in Algiers.
“We know nothing here in this uncivilised oven,” the officer said, laughing, and at the same time flicking some dust from off his braided coat-sleeve. “The Paris papers are always a fortnight to three weeks old, and, there being no postal service, I have to send to Biskra for them.”
“But you have very comfortable quarters here,” I said.
“Comfortable! Oh yes,” he replied; “but the life is abominably monotonous. I would rather be in command of an advanced post down in the south. There one leads a wild, free life and has plenty of enjoyment. Take Deschanel’s squadron of Spahis as an instance. You have already had some experience with them, so I need not describe the rollicking life they lead, scouring the plains in search of that daring old pirate, Hadj Absalam.”
“Have you heard anything of the old chieftain lately?” I asked eagerly.
“No. Since the sharp brush with Deschanel’s detachment he seems to have mysteriously disappeared. After the defeat of his band we did our best to capture him, feeling that with his power broken he would fall an easy prey. I at once organised detachments of Spahis, Chasseurs, and Turcos, who for nearly a month patrolled the Desert, made inquiries of all the neighbouring tribes, and did their utmost to discover the direction in which the fugitive had gone. But, as usual, all was in vain.”
“Then he has again escaped you?”
Carmier nodded, blowing a cloud of smoke upward from his lips. “He seems to move from one place to another imperceptibly, for when he flies he leaves not a clue by which he can be traced. Only