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diff --git a/23418.txt b/23418.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bae6af7 --- /dev/null +++ b/23418.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1026 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Desert Air, by Robert Hichens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Desert Air + 1905 + +Author: Robert Hichens + +Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23418] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESERT AIR *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +DESERT AIR + +By Robert Hichens + +Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers + +Copyright, 1905 + + + + +I + +On an evening of last summer I was dining in London at the Carlton with +two men. One of them was an excellent type of young England, strong, +healthy, athletic, and straightforward. The other was a clever London +doctor who was building up a great practice in the West End. At dessert +the conversation turned upon a then recent tragedy in which a great +reputation had gone down, and young England spoke rather contemptuously +of the victim, with the superior surprise human beings generally express +about the sin which does not happen to be theirs. + +"I can't understand it!" was his conclusion. "It's beyond me." + +"Climate," said the doctor quietly. + +"What?" + +"Climate. Air." + +Young England looked inexpressively astonished. + +"But hang it all!" he exclaimed, "you don't mean to say change of air +means change of nature?" + +"Not to everyone. Not to you, perhaps. Have you travelled much?" + +"Well, I've been to Paris for the Grand Prix, and to Monte----" + +"For the gambling. That's hardly travelling. Now, I've studied this +subject a little, quietly in Harley Street. I'm no traveller myself, +but I have dozens of patients who are. And I'm convinced that the modern +facilities for travel, besides giving an infinity of pleasure, bring +about innumerable tragedies." + +He turned to me. + +"You go abroad a great deal. What do you say?" + +"That you're perfectly right. And I'm prepared to affirm that, in +highly-strung, imaginative, or over-worked people change of climate does +sometimes actually cause, or seem to cause, change of nature." + +Young England, who was by no means highly-strung or imaginative, looked +politely dubious, but the doctor was evidently pleased. + +"An ally!" he cried. + +He glanced at me for an instant, then added: + +"You've got a case that proves it, at any rate to you, in your mind." + +"Quite true." + +"Can you give it us?" + +"Jove! let's have it!" exclaimed young England. + +"Certainly, if you like," I said. "I don't know whether you ever heard +of the Marnier affair?" + +Young England shook his head, but the doctor replied at once. + +"Three years ago, wasn't it?" + +"Four." + +"And it happened in some remote place in the Sahara Desert?" + +"In Beni-Kouidar. I was with Henry Marnier in Beni-Kouidar at the time." + +"Go ahead!" said young England more eagerly. + +"Poor Marnier was not an old friend of mine, but an acquaintance whom I +had met casually at Beni-Mora, which is known as a health resort." + +"I send patients there sometimes," said the doctor. + +"The railway stops at Beni-Mora. To reach Beni-Kouidar one must go on +horse or camel back over between three and four hundred kilometres of +desert, sleeping on the way at Travellers' Houses--Bordjs as they are +called there. Beni-Kouidar lies in the midst of immeasurable sands, +and the air that blows through its palm gardens, and round its mosque +towers, and down its alleys under the arcades, is startling: dry as the +finest champagne, almost fiercely pure and fresh, exhilarating--well, +too exhilarating for certain people." + +The doctor nodded. + +"Champagne goes very quickly to some heads," he interjected. + +"Beni-Kouidar has nothing to say to modern civilisation. It is a wild +and turbulent city, divided into quarters--the Arab quarter, the Jews' +quarter, the freed negroes' quarter, and so on--and furthermore, is +infested at certain seasons by the Sahara nomads, who camp in filthy +tents on the huge sand dunes round about, and sell rugs, burnouses, and +Touareg work to the inhabitants, buying in return the dates for which +the palms of Beni-Kouidar are celebrated. + +"I wanted to see a real Sahara city to which the Cook's tourist had not +as yet penetrated, and I resolved to ride there from Beni-Mora. When +Henry Marnier heard of it he asked if he might accompany me. + +"Marnier was a young man who had recently left Oxford, and who had come +out to Beni-Mora only a week before to see his mother, who was +going through the sulphur cure. He was what is generally called a +'serious-minded young man'; intellectual, inclined to grave reading and +high thinking, totally devoid of frivolity, a little cold in manner and +temperament, one would have sworn; in fact, a type of a very well-known +kind of Oxford undergraduate, the kind that takes a good tutorship for a +year or so after leaving the University, and then becomes a schoolmaster +or a clergyman. Marnier, by the way, intended to take orders. + +"Now, this sort of young man is not precisely my sort, and especially +not my sort in the Sahara Desert. But I did not want to be rude to +Marnier, who was friendly and agreeable, and obviously anxious to +increase his already considerable store of knowledge. So I put my +inclinations in my pocket, and, with inward reluctance, I agreed. + +"We set off with Safti, my faithful one-eyed Arab guide, and after three +long days of riding and talking--as I had feared--Maeterlink and +Tolstoy, Henley and Verlaine (this last being utterly condemned by +Marnier as a man of weak character and degraded life) we saw the towers +of Beni-Kouidar aspiring above the shifting sands, the tufted summits of +the thousands of palm-trees, and heard the dull beating of drums and the +cries of people borne to us over the spaces of which silence is the +steady guardian. + +"We were all pretty tired, but Marnier was, especially done up. He had +recently been working very hard for the 'first' with which he had left +Oxford, and was not in good condition. We were, therefore, glad enough +when we rode through the wide street thronged with natives, turned the +corner into the great camel market, and finally dismounted before +the door of the one inn, the 'Rendezvous des Amis,' a mean, dusty, +one-storey building, on whose dirty white wall was a crude painting of a +preposterous harridan in a purple empire gown, pouring wine for a Zouave +who was evidently afflicted with elephantiasis. Yet, tired as I was, +I stepped out into the camel market for a moment before going into the +house, emptied my lungs, and slowly filled them. + +"'What air!' I said to Marnier, who had followed me. + +"'It is extraordinary,' he answered in his rather dry tenor voice. +'I should say like the best champagne, if I did not happen to be a +teetotaller.' + +"(The market, I must explain, was not at that moment in active +operation.) + +"After a _bain de siege_--we both longed for total immersion--and some +weak tea, in which I mingled a spoonful of rum, we felt better, but +we reposed till dinner, and once again Marnier, in his habitually +restrained and critical manner, discussed contemporary literature, and +what Plato and Aristotle, judging by; their writings, would have been +likely to think of it. And once again I felt as if I were in the 'High' +at Oxford, and was almost inclined to wish that Marnier was the rowdy +type of undergrad, who ducks people in water troughs and makes bonfires +in quads." + +"H'm!" said the doctor gravely. "Better, perhaps, if he had been." + +"Much better," I answered. "At seven o'clock we ate a rather tough +dinner in the small, bare _salle-a-manger_, on the red brick floor of +which sand grains were lying. Our only companion was a bearded priest in +a dirty soutane, the aumonier of Beni-Kouidar, who sat at a little table +apart, and greeted our entrance with a polite bow, but did not then +speak to us. + +"When the meal was ended, however, he joined us as we stood at the inn +door looking out into the night. A moon was rising above the palms, and +gilding the cupolas of the Bureau Arabe on the far side of the Market +Square. A distant noise of tomtoms and African pipes was audible. +And all down the hill to our left--for the land rose to where the inn +stood--fires gleamed, and we could see half-naked figures passing and +repassing them, and others squatting beside, looking like monks in their +hooped burnouses. + +"'You are going out, messieurs?' said the aumonier politely. + +"I looked at Marnier. + +"'You're too done up, I expect?' I said to him. + +"His face was pale, and he certainly had the demeanour of a tired man. + +"'No,' he answered. 'I should like to stroll in this wonderful air.' + +"I turned to the priest. + +"'Yes, monsieur,' I said. + +"'I come here to take my meals, but I live at the edge of the town. +Perhaps you will permit me to accompany you for a little way.' + +"'We shall be delighted, and we know nothing of Beni-Kouidar.' + +"As we stepped out into the market Marnier paused to light his pipe. But +suddenly he threw away the match he had struck. + +"'No, it's a sin to smoke in this air,' he said. + +"And he drew a deep breath, looking at the round moon. + +"The priest smiled. + +"'I have lived here for four years,' he said, 'and cannot resist my +cigar. But you are right. The air of Beni-Kouidar is extraordinary. When +first I came here it used to mount to my head like wine.' + +"'Bad for you, Marnier!' I said, laughing. + +"Then I added, to the aumonier: + +"'My friend never drinks wine, and so ought to be peculiarly susceptible +to such an influence.'" + + + + +II + +"Opposite to the aumonier's dwelling was the great dancing-house of the +town, and when we had bade him good-night, and turned to go back to the +inn, I rather tentatively suggested to Marnier that, perhaps, it would +be interesting to look in there for a moment. + +"'All right,' he responded, with his most donnish manner. 'But I expect +it will be rather an unwashed crowd.' + +"A quantity of native soldiers--the sort that used to be called +Turcos--were gathered round the door. We pushed our way through them, +and entered. The cafe was large, with big white pillars and a double row +of divans in the middle, and divans rising in tiers all round. On the +left was a large doorway, in which gorgeously-dressed painted women, +with gold crowns on their heads, were standing, smoking cigarettes, +and laughing with the Arabs; and at the end farthest from the street +entrance was a raised platform, on which sat three musicians--a +wild-looking demon of a man blowing into an instrument with an immense +funnel, and two men beating tomtoms. The noise they made was terrific. +The piper wore a voluminous burnouse, and as the dancers came in in +pairs from the big doorway, which led into the court where they all live +together, each in her separate little room with her own front door, they +threw their door keys into the hood that was attached to it. As soon as +they had finished dancing they went to the hood, and rummaged violently +for them again. And all the time the piper blew frantically into his +instrument, and rocked himself about like a man in a convulsion. + +"We sat on one of the raised divans, with coffee before us on a +wooden stool, and Marnier observed it all with a slightly supercilious +coldness. The women, who were dressed in different shades of red, and +were the most amazing trollops I ever set eyes on, came and went in +pairs, fluttered their painted fingers, twittered like startled birds, +jumped and twirled, wriggled and revolved, and inclined their greasy +foreheads to the impenetrable spectators, who stuck silver coins on +to the perspiring flesh. And Marnier sat and gazed at them with the +aloofness of one who watches the creatures in puddle water through a +microscope. I could scarcely help laughing at him, but I wished him +away. For to me there was excitement, there was even a sort of ecstasy, +in the utter barbarity of this spectacle, in the moving scarlet figures +with their golden crowns and tufts of ostrich plumes, in the serried +masses of turbaned and hooded spectators, in the rocking forms of the +musicians, in the strident and ceaseless uproar that they made. + +"And through the doorway where the Tur-cos--I like the old name--crowded +I saw the sand filtering in from the desert, and against the black +leaves of a solitary palm-tree, with leaves like giant Fatma hands, I +saw the silver disc of the moon. + +"'I vote we go,' said Marnier's light tenor voice in my ear. 'The +atmosphere's awful in here.' "'Very well,' I said. + +"I got up; but just then a girl, dressed in midnight purple embroidered +with silver, came in from the doorway, and began to dance alone. She was +very young--fourteen, I found out afterwards--and, in contrast to the +other women, extremely beautiful. There were grace, seduction, mystery, +and coquetry in her face and in all her movements. Her long black eyes +held fire and dreams. Her fluttering hands seemed beckoning us to the +realms of the thousand and one nights. I stood where I had got up, and +watched her. + +"'I say, aren't we going?' said Marnier's voice in my ear. + +"I cursed the day when I had agreed to take him with me, leaped down +to the earth, and struggled towards the door. As we neared it the girl +sidled down the room till she was exactly in front of Marnier. Then +she danced before him, smiling with her immense eyes, which she fixed +steadily upon him, and bending forward her pretty head, covered with a +cloth of silver handkerchief. + +"'Give her something,' I said to him, laughing, as he stared back at her +grimly. + +"He thrust his hand into his pocket, found a franc, stuck it awkwardly +against her oval forehead, and followed me out. + +"When we were in the sandy street he walked a few steps in silence, then +stood still, and, to my surprise, stared back at the dancing-house. Then +he put his hand to his head. + +"'Is the air having its alcoholic effect?' I asked in joke. + +"As I spoke a handsome Arab, splendidly dressed in a pale blue robe, +red gaiters and boots, and a turban of fine muslin, spangled with gold, +passed us slowly, going towards the dancing-house. He cast a glance full +of suspicion and malice at Marnier. + +"'What's up with that fellow?' I said, startled. + +"The Arab went on, and at that moment the faithful Safti joined us. He +never left me long out of his sight in these outlandish places. + +"'That is the Batouch Sidi, the brother of the Caid of Beni-Kouidar,' he +said. 'Algia, the dancer to whom Monsieur Henri has just given money, +is his _chere amie_. But as the government has just made him a sheik, he +dares not have her in his house for fear of the scandal. So he has put +her with the dancers. That is why she dances, to deceive everyone, not +to make money. She is not as the other dancers. But everyone knows, for +Batouch is mad with jealousy. He cannot bear that Algia should dance +before strangers, but what can he do? A sheik must not have a scandal in +his dwelling.' + +"We walked on slowly. When we got to the door of the 'Rendezvous des +Amis' Marnier stood still again, and looked down the deserted, moonlit +camel market. + +"'I never knew air like this,' he said in a low voice. + +"And once more he expelled the air from his lungs, and drew in a long, +slow breath, as a man does when he has finished his dumbbell exercise in +the morning. + +"'Don't drink too much of it,' I said. 'Remember what the aumonier told +us!' + +"Marnier looked at me. I thought there was something apprehensive in his +eyes. But he said nothing, and we turned in. + +"The next day I rode out with Safti into the desert to visit a sacred +personage of great note in the Sahara, Sidi El Ahmed Ben Daoud +Abderahmann. To my relief Marnier declined to come. He said he was +tired, and would stroll about the city. When we got back at sundown the +innkeeper handed me a note. I opened it, and found it was from the +aumonier, saying that he would be greatly obliged if I would call and +see him on my return, as he had various little curiosities which he +would be glad to show me. Marnier was not in the inn, and, as I had +nothing particular to do, I walked at once to the aumonier's house. As I +have said, it was the last in the town. The dancing-house was on the +opposite side of the way; but the aumonier's dwelling jutted out a +little farther into the desert, and looked full on a deep depression of +soft sand bounded by a big dune, which loomed up like a couchant beast +in the fading yellow light. + +"The aumonier met me at his door, and escorted me into a pleasant room, +where his collection of Arab weapons, coins, and old vases, cups, and +various utensils, dug up, he told me, at Tlemcen, was arranged. But to +my surprise he scarcely took time to show it to me before he said: + +"'Though a stranger, may I venture to speak rather intimately to you, +monsieur?' + +"'Certainly,' I replied, in some astonishment. + +"'Your friend is young.' + +"'Marnier?' + +"'Is that his name? Well, I would not leave him to stroll about too much +alone, if I were you.' + +"'Why, monsieur?' + +"'He is likely to get into trouble. The people here are a wild and +violent race. He would do well to bear in mind the saying of a traveller +who knew the desert men better than most people: + +"If you want to be friendly with them, and safe among them, give +cigarettes to the men, and leave the women alone. + +"'I see a good deal, monsieur, owing to the situation of my little +house.' + +"I looked at him in silence. Then I said: + +"'What have you seen?' + +"He led me to the door, and pointed towards the great dune beyond the +dancing-house. + +"I saw your friend this afternoon talking there with one whom it is +especially unsafe to be seen with in Beni-Koujtlar.' + +"'With whom?' + +"'A dancer called Algia.' + +"'Talking, monsieur! Marnier knows no Arabic.' + +"The aumonier pursed his lips in his black beard. + +"'The conversation appeared to be carried on by signs,' he responded. +'That did not make it less but more dangerous.' + +"I'm afraid I was rude, and whistled softly. + +"'Monsieur l'Aumonier,' I said, 'you must forgive me, but this air is +certainly the very devil.' + +"He smiled, not without irony. + +"'I became aware of that myself, monsieur, when first I came to live in +Beni-Kouidar. But I am a priest, and--well, monsieur, I was given the +strength to say: "Get thee behind me, Satan."' + +"A softer look came into his sunburnt, wrinkled face. + +"'Better take your friend away as soon as possible,' he added, 'or there +will be trouble.'" + + + + +III + +"That night I found myself confronted by a Marnier whom I had never seen +before. The desert wine had gone to the lad's brain. That was certain. +No intonations of the Oxford don lurked in the voice. No reminiscences +of the Oxford 'High' clung about the manner. A man sober and the same +man drunk are scarcely more different than the Marnier who had ridden +with me up the sandy street of Beni-Kouidar the previous day and the +man who sat opposite to me at dinner in the 'Rendezvous des Amis' that +night. I knew in a moment that the aumonier was right, and that I must +get the lad away at once from the intoxicant which nature poured out +over this far-away city. His eyes were shining feverishly, and when I +mentioned Mr. Ruskin in a casual way he looked unutterably bored. + +"'Ruskin and all those fellows seem awfully slow and out of place here,' +he exclaimed. 'One doesn't want to bother about them in the Sahara.' + +"I changed the subject. + +"'There doesn't seem very much to see here,' I said carelessly. 'We +might get away the day after to-morrow, don't you think?' + +"He drew his brows down. + +"'The horses won't be sufficiently rested,' he said curtly. + +"'Oh yes; I fancy they will.' + +"'Well, I don't fancy I shall. The long ride took it out of me.' + +"'Turn in to-night, then, directly after dinner.' + +"He looked at me with sharp suspicion. I met his gaze blandly. + +"'I mean to,' he said after a short pause. + +"I knew he was telling me a lie, but I only said: 'That's right!' and +resolved to keep an eye on him. + +"Directly dinner was over he sprang up from the table. + +"'Good-night,' he said. + +"And before I could reply he was out of the _salle-a-manger_, and I +heard him tramp along the brick floor of the passage, go into his room, +and bang the door. + +"The aumonier was getting up from his little table, and shaking the +crumbs from his soutane. + +"'You are quite right, monsieur,' I said to him. 'I must get my friend +away.' + +"'I shall be sorry to lose you,' replied the good priest. 'But--desert +air, desert air!' + +"He shook his head, half wistfully, half laughingly, bowed, put on his +broad-brimmed black hat, and went out. + +"After a moment I followed him. I stood in the doorway of the inn, and +lit a cigar. I knew Marnier was not going to bed, and meant to catch him +when he came out, and join him. In common politeness he could scarcely +refuse my company, since he had asked me as a favour to let him come +with me to Beni-Kouidar. I waited, watching the moon rise, till my cigar +was smoked out. Then I lit another. Still he did not come. I heard the +distant throb of tomtoms beyond the Bureau Arabe in the quarter of the +freed negroes. They were having a fantasia. I began to think that I must +have been mistaken, and that Marnier had really turned in. So much the +better. The ash dropped from the stump of my second cigar, and the +deserted camel market was flooded with silver from the moon-rays. I knew +there was only one door to the inn. Slowly I lit a third cigar. + +"A large cloud went over the face of the moon. A gust of wind struck my +face. Suddenly the night had changed. The moon looked forth again, and +was again obscured. A second gust struck me like a blow, and my face +was stung by a multitude of sand grains. I heard steps behind me in the +brick passage, turned swiftly, and saw the landlord. + +"'I must shut the door, m'sieu,' he said. 'There's a bad sandstorm +coming up.' + +"As he spoke the wind roared, and over the camel market a thick fog +seemed to fall abruptly. It was a sheet of sand from the surrounding +dunes. I threw away my cigar, stepped into the passage, and the landlord +banged the door, and drove home the heavy bolts. + +"Then I went to Marnier's room, and knocked. I felt sure, but I thought +I would make sure before going to my room. + +"No answer. + +"I knocked again loudly. + +"Again no answer. + +"Then I turned the handle, and entered. + +"The room was empty. I glanced round quickly. The small window was open. +All the windows of the inn were barred, but, as I learned later, a bar +in Marnier's had been broken, and was not yet replaced when we arrived +at Beni-Kouidar. In consequence of this it was possible to squeeze +through into the arcade outside. This was what Marnier had done. +My precise, gentlemanly, reserved, and methodical acquaintance had +deliberately given me the slip by sneaking out of a window like a +schoolboy, and creeping round the edge of the inn to the _fosse_ that +lay in the shadow of the sand dimes. As I realised this I realised his +danger. + +"I ran to my room, fetched my revolver, slipped it into my pocket, and +hurried to the front door. The landlord heard me trying to undo the +bolts, and came out protesting. + +"'M'sieu cannot go out into the storm.' + +"'I must.' + +"'But m'sieu does not know what Beni-Kouidar is like when the sand +is blown on the wind. It is _enfer_. Besides, it is not safe. In the +darkness m'sieu may receive a _mauvais coup_.' + +"'Make haste, please, and open the door. I am going to fetch my friend.' + +"He pulled the bolts, grumbling and swearing, and I went out into +_enfer_. For he was right. A sandstorm at night in Beni-Kouidar is hell. + +"Luckily, Safti joined me mysteriously from the deuce knows where, and +we staggered to the dancing-house somehow, and struggled in, blinded, +our faces scored, our clothes heavy with sand, our pockets, our very +boots, weighed down with it. + +"The tomtoms were roaring, the pipe was yelling, blown by the frantic +demon with his hood full of latch keys, the impassible, bearded faces +were watching the painted women who, in their red garments and their +golden crowns, promenaded down the earthen floor, between the divans, +fluttering their dyed fingers, smiling grotesquely like idols, bending +forward their greasy foreheads to receive the tribute of their admirers. + +"I ran my eyes swiftly over the mob. Marnier was not in it. I pushed my +way towards the doorway on the left which gave on to the court of the +dancers. + +"Safti caught hold of my arm. + +"'It is not safe to go in there on such a night, Sidi. There are no +lamps. It is black as a tomb. And no one can tell who may be there. +Nomads, perhaps, men of evil from the south. Many murders have been done +in the court on black nights, and no one can say who has done them. For +all the time men go in and out to the rooms of the dancers.' + +"'Nevertheless, Safti, I must----' + +"I stopped speaking, for at this moment Batouch, the brother of the Caid +of Beni-Kouidar, came slowly in through the doorway from the blackness +of the sand-swept court. There was a strange smile on his handsome face, +and he was caressing his black beard gently with one delicate hand. He +saw me, smiled more till I caught the gleam of his white teeth, passed +on into the dancing-house, sat down on a divan, and called for coffee. +I could not take my eyes from him. Every movement he made fascinated me. +He drew from his pale blue robe a silver box, opened it, lifted out a +pinch of tobacco, and began carefully to roll a cigarette. And all the +time he smiled. + +"A glacial cold crept over my body. As he lit his cigarette I caught +hold of Safti, and hurried through the doorway into the blackness of the +whirling sand." + +***** + +Here I stopped. + +"Well?" said young England. "Well?" + +The doctor did not speak. + +"Well," I answered. "Algia danced that night. While she was dancing +we found a dead body in the court. It was Marnier's. A knife had been +thrust into him from behind!" + +"Ah!" said the doctor. + +"But--" exclaimed young England, "it was that fellow? It was Batouch?" + +I shrugged my shoulders. + +"Nobody ever found out who did it." + +"Well, but of course----" + +He checked himself, and an expression of admiration dawned slowly over +his healthy, handsome face. + +"I say," he said, "to be able to roll a cigarette directly afterwards! +What infernal cheek!" + +"Desert air!" I replied. "My dear chap--desert air!" + +The doctor nodded. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Desert Air, by Robert Hichens + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESERT AIR *** + +***** This file should be named 23418.txt or 23418.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/4/1/23418/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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