'- j\. ^ a-*-v -vt.' fAjcrUz-A,
"^.v ^y^J^-J: V ^J-Ju^ LoVC
THE TENTS OF SHEM
Jl 'Shovel
BY
GRANT ALLEN
AUTHOR OF
' BAByLON,' 'the UEVIL's DIE,' ' THIS MORTAL COIL,' ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I.
tContion
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1889
?9
V.
TO
M. M. S.,
IN MEMORY OF MANY HAPPY DAYS
AT SIDI SALAH.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
<I1APTEU I'AtiE
I. IN THE DAHK CONTINENT - - 1
II. HONOURS . - - - 20
III. BY MOORISH MOUNTAINS- - - 35
IV. ENTER A HEROINE - - - 54
V. PROBLEMS - - - - 68
VI. MISS KNYVETT EXPLAINS HERSELF - 85
VIL ART AND NATURE - - - 105
VIII. NO SOUL - - - - 124
IX. STRIKING A CLUE - - - 146
X. RIVAL CLAIMS - - - 163
XL GOOD NEWS FROM AIX - - - 181
xiL rejected! - - - - 193
XIIL IRIS STRIKES - - - - 210
XIV. FOLLOWING UP THE CLUE - - 227
XV. AN OASIS OF CIVILIZATION - - 241
XVL TRTd: WHITE FATHERS- - - 253
THE TENTS OF SHEM.
CHAPTER I.
IN THE DARK CONTINENT.
Two young men of most Britannic aspect
sat lounging together in long wicker chairs
on the balcony of the English club at Algiers.
They had much reason. It was one of
those glorious days, by no means rare,
when the sky and climate of the city on
the Sahel reach absolute perfection. The
wistaria was draping the parapet of the
l)alcony with its profuse tresses of rich
amethyst blossom ; the long and sweepin<>-
semicircle of the bay gleamed like a pea-
cock's neck in hue, or a brilliant opal with
its changeful iridescence ; and the snow-
VOL. I. I
2 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
clad peaks of the Djurjura in the back-
ground rose higli in the air, glisteninor
white and pink in the reflected glory of
the afternoon ^un. P^ut the two young
men of Britannie aspect, gazing grimly
in front of them, made no comment to
one another on the beauty and variety
of that basking scene. How could they,
indeed ? They had not been introduced
to one another ! To admire nature, how-
ever obtrusive, in company with a man to
whom you have not been introduced is a
social solecism. So they sat and lounged,
and stroked their moustaches reflectively,
and looked at the palm-trees, and the
orano-e-groves, and the white Moorish villas
that stud the steep, smiling slopes of Mus-
tapha Superieur, in the solemn silence of
the true-born Englishman.
They might have sat there for ever and
said nothing (in which case the world must
certainly have lost the present narrative)
had not the felt presence of a Common Want
IN THE DARK CONTINENT. 3
impelled them at last spasmodically to a
conversational effort.
' I beg your pardon, but do you ha])pen
to have a light about you ?' the elder of the
two said, in an apologetic voice, drawing a
cigar, as he spoke, from the neat little
morocco case in his pocket.
'Curious, but I was just going to ask
you the very same thing,' his younger com-
panion answered, with a bashful smile.
' I've finished my last vesuvian. Suppose
we go into the smoking-room and look for a
match. Can you tell me where, in this abode
of luxury, the smoking-room finds itself ?'
'Why, I haven't yet investigated the
question,' the other replied, rising from his
seat as he spoke; ' but I'm open to convic-
tion. Let's go and see. My trade's ex-
ploring. '
' Then 1 take it for granted you're a new-
comer, like myself, as you don't know your
way about the club-rooms yet ?'
' You put your finger plump on the very
1—2
4 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
point,' the elder answered, opening a door
on the left in search of the common need.
' The fact is, I arrived in Algiers only
yesterday evening.'
' Another coincidence ! Precisely my
case. I crossed by last night's boat from
Marseilles. Ah, here's the smoking-room!
May I offer you a light? P'f, pf, p'f
Thanks, that'll do very well, I think. . . .
And how do you feel to-day, after that
terrible journey ?'
The elder Briton smiled a somewhat grim
and restrained smile. He was tall and fair,
but much bronzed with the sun.
' Never had such a tossing in all my life
before,' he answered quietly. ' A horrid
voyage. Swaying to and fro from side
to side till I thought I should fall off, and
be lost to humanity. Talk of the good ship
plunging on the sea, indeed, as Theo
Marzials does in that rollicking song of
his ; any other ship I ever sailed on's the
merest trifle to it.'
IN THE DARK CONTINENT. $
' And when did you leave England ?' his
companion went on, with a polite desire,
commendable in youth, to keep up the suc-
cessfully-inaugurated conversation. * You
weren't on the Ahd-el-Kader with us from
Marseilles, on Tuesday?'
' When did I leave England ?' the new
acquaintance answered, with a faint twinkle
in his eye, amused at the chance of a
momentary mystification. ' I left England
last October, and I've been ever since get-
ting to Algiers. Per varios casus, per tot
discrimina reruni!
' Goodness gracious ! By what route ?'
the youth with the dark moustache inquired,
distrusting the Latin, and vaguely suspect-
ing some wily attempt to practise upon his
tender years and credulity.
' By the land -route from Tunis, back of
the desert, inCi Biskra and Laghouat '
' But I thought you said you'd had such
an awful tossing!'
' So I did. Never felt such a tossing- in
6 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
the world before. But it wasn't the sea ;
it was the ship of the desert. I came here
— as far as Blidah, at least — true Arab-wise,
see-saw, on camel-back.'
The dark young man puffed away at his
weed for a moment vigorously, in deep con-
templation. He was a shy person who
didn't like to be taken in ; and he strongly
suspected his new acquaintance of a desire
to humbug him.
' What were you doing?' he asked, at
last, in a more constrained voice, after a
short pause.
' Picking flowers,' was the curt and un-
expected answer.
' Oh, come now, you know,' the dark
young man expostulated, with a more cer-
tain tone, for he felt he was being hoaxed.
' A fellow doesn't go all the way to the
desert, of all places in the world, just for
nothing else but to pick flowers.'
* Excuse me, a fellow does, if he happens
to be a fellow in the flower and beetle
IN THE DARK CONTINENT. 7
business, which is exactly my own humble
but useful avocation.'
'Why, surely, there aren't any flowers there.
Nothing but sand, and sunset, and skeletons.*
' Pardon me. I've been there to see.
Allow me to show you. I'll just go and
fetch that portfolio over there.' And he
opened it in the sunlight. ' Here are a few
little water-colour sketches of my desert
acquaintances.'
The dark young man glanced at them
with some languid curiosity. An artist by
trade himself, here at least he knew his
ground. He quaked and trembled before
no dawdling amateur. Turning over the
first two or three sheets attentively:
'Well, you can draw,' he said at last,
after a brief scrutiny. ' I don't know
whether flowers like those grow in the
desert or not — I should rather bet on noty
of the two — but I'm a painter myself, and
I know at any rate you can paint them ex-
cellently, as amateurs go.'
8 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
' ^ly one accomplishment,* the explorer
answered, with a pleased expansion of the
corners of his mouth; it is human to receive
approbation gratefully from those who know.
' I couldn't sketch a scene or draw a figure
with tolerable accuracy to save my life; but
I understand the birds, and creeping things,
and flowers ; and sympathy, I suppose, makes
me draw them, at least, sympathetically.'
' Precisely so. That's the very word,'
the artist "vvent on, examining each drawing-
he turned over with more and more care.
* Though your techniques amateurish, of
course, I can see you know^ the flowers, their
tricks and their manners, down to the very
ground. But tell me now: do these things
really grow in the desert?'
' On the oases, yes. The flowers there
are quite brilliant and abundant. Like the
Alpine flora, they seem to grow loveliest
near their furthest limit. Butterfly-fertilized.
But what brings 3-0 u to Algeria so late in
the season? All the rest of the world is
IN THE DARK CONTINENT. 9
turning its back now upon Africa, and
hurrying away to Aix-les-Bains,and Biarritz,
and Switzerland, and England. You and
I will be the only people, bar Arabs and
Frenchmen (who don't count), left here for
the summer.'
' What, are you going to stop the summer
here too?'
' Well, not in Algiers itself,' the explorer
answered, flicking his boot with his cane
for an imaginary dust-spot. ' I've been
baked enough in the desert for the last six
months to cook a turtle, and I'm going over
yonder now, where ices grow free, for cool-
ness and refreshment.'
And he waved his hand with a sweep
across the sapphire semicircle of the glassy
bay, to the great white block of rearing
mountains that rose with their sheet of
virgin snow against the profound azure of
an African sky in the far background.
' What, to Kabvlie!' the artist exclaimed,
with a start of surprise.
10 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
• To Kabylie — yes. The very place.
You've learnt its name and its fame already,
then ?*
' Why, I see in this the finger of Fate,'
the artist answered, with more easy confi-
dence. ' We have here, in fact, a third
coincidence. It's in Kabylie that I, too,
have decided on spending the summer.
Perhaps, as you seem to know the way,
we might manage to start on our tour
together.'
' But what are you going for?' the elder
man continued, with an amused air.
* Oh, just to paint. Nothing more than
that. The country and the people ; new
ground for the exhibitions. Spain's used
up: so some fellows in England who know
the markets advised me to go to Kabylie on
an artistic exploring expedition. From our
point of view, you see, it's unbroken ground,
the}^ say, or almost unbroken; and every-
thing civilized has been so painted up, and
painted down, and painted round about, of
IN THE DARK CONTINENT. ii
late years, by everyone everywhere, that
one's glad to get a hint of the chance of
finding some unhackneyed subject in a
corner of Africa. Besides, they tell me it's
all extremely naive; and I like naivete.
That's my line in art. I'm in quest of the
unsophisticated. I paint simplicity.'
' You'll find your sitter in Kabylie, then :
naivete rampant, and simplicity with a ven-
geance,' the explorer answered. ' It's quite
untouched and unvulgarized as yet by any
taint or tinge of Parisian civilization. The
aboriginal Kabyle hasn't even learnt the
A B C of French culture — to sit at an
e.stammet and play dominoes.'
' So much the better. That's just what
I w^ant. Unvarnished man. The antique
vase in real life. And I'm told the cos-
tumes are almost Greek in their natural-
ness.'
' Quite Greek, or even more so,' the ex-
plorer replied ; ' though, perhaps, consider-
ing its extreme simplicity, we ought rather
12 . THE TENTS OF SHEM.
to say, even less so. But where do you
mean to stop, and how to travel? Accom-
modation in Ancient Greece, you know,
wasn't really luxurious.'
' Oh, I'll just set out from Algiers by
diligence, I suppose, and put up for a
while at some little hotel in the country
villages.'
The explorer's face could not resist a
gentle smile of suppressed merriment.
* An hotel, my dear sir!' he said with
surprise. ' An hotel in Kabylie ! You'll
find it difficult, I'm afraid, to meet with the
article. Except at Fort National, which is
a purely French settlement, where you
could study only the common or French
Zouave engaged in his familiar avocation of
playing bowls and sipping absinthe, there's
«ot such a thing as a cabaret, a lodging, a
wayside inn, in the whole block of mountain
country. Strangers who want to explore
Kabylie may go if they like to the house of
the>illage headman, the ami?ie, as they call
IN THE DARK CONTINENT, 13
hiin, where you may sup off a nasty mess
of pounded koiis-kom, and sleep at night on
a sort of shelf or ledge among the goats and
the cattle. Government compels every
amine to provide one night's board and
entertainment for any European traveller
who cares to demand it. But the enter-
tainment provided is usually so very varied
and so very lively that those who have
tried it once report on it unfavourably.
Verhum sap. It's too entomological. When
you go to Kabylie, doii't do as the Kabyles
do.'
' But how do you mean to manage your-
self?' the artist asked, with the prudence
of youth. He was nettled at having made
so stupid a mistake at the very outset about
the resources of the mountains, and not
quite certain that he grasped the meaning-
of verhum sap. (his Latin being strictly a
negative quantity), so he took refuge in the
safe device of a question that turned the
tables. ' I came to Algiers hoping to pick
14 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
up some informauou as to ways and means
as soon as I got here; and since you seem
to know the ropes so well, perhaps you'll
crive a raw hand the benefit of your riper
experience.'
* Oh, / have my tent,' the traveller
answered, with the quiet air of a man
wdio has made his way alone about the
world. ' It's a first- rate tent for camping-
out in ; it's supplied with the electric light,
a hydraulic lift, hot water laid on, and all
the latest modern improvements — meta-
phorically speaking,' he hastened to add by
an after-thought, for he saw his companion's
large gray eyes opening wider and wider
with astonishment each moment. 'It's
awfully comfortable, you know, as deserts
go ; and I could easily rig up a spare bed ;
so if you really menn to paint in Kabylie,
and will bear a share in the expenses of
carriage, it might suit both our books,
perhaps, if you were to engage my furnished
apartments. For I'm not overburdened with
IN THE DARK CONTINENT. 15
spare cash myself — no naturalist ever is — and
I'm by no means above taking in a lodger,
if any eligible person presents himself at
the tent with good references and an un-
Idemished character. Money not so much
an object as congenial society in a respect-
able famil3^
It was a kind offer, playfully veiled under
the cloak of mutual accommodation, and the
painter took it at once as it was meant.
* How very good of you!' he said. 'I'm
immensely obliged. Nothing on earth
would suit my plans better, if it wouldn't
be trespassing too much on your kind
hospitality.'
' Not at all,' the explorer answered with
a good-humoured nod. ' Don't mention
that. To say the truth, I shall be glad of a
companion. The Arab palls after a month
or two of his polite society. And I love
Art, too, though I don't pretend myself to
understand it. We'll talk the matter over a
little, as to business arrangements, over a
l6 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
cup of coffee, and I dure say, when we've
com])ared notes, we shall manage to hit
things off comfortably together.'
' May we exchange cards ?' the artist
asked, pulling out a silver-bound case from
his breast-pocket, and handing one of its little
regulation i)asteboards to his new friend.
The explorer glanced at it, and read
the name, ' Vernon Blake, Gresholm Road,
Guildford.'
* I've no card of my own,' he made
answer, as he pocketed it ; 'in the desert,
you see, cards were of very little use ;
Bedouins don't drop them on one another.
But my name's Le Marchant — Eustace
Le Marchant, of Jersey, beetle-sticker.'
' Oh, but I know your name,' Blake
cried eagerly, delighted to show himself
not wholly ignorant of a distinguished
naturalist. ' You're an F.R.S., aren't you 1
Ah, yes, I thought so. I've seen notices of
you often in the paper, I'm sure, as having
gone somewhere and found out somethmg.
IN THE DARK CONTINENT.
17
Do you know, if I'd only known that
before, I think I. should have been afraid to
accept your kind offer. I'm an awfully
ignorant sort of a fellow myself— far too
i«,morant to go camping-out with an F.R.8.
in the wilds of Africa.'
'If being an F.R.S. is the worst crime
you can bring to my charge,' Le Marchant
answered with a smile, ' I dare say we shall
pull together all very well. And if you
meet no worse society than F.R.S.'s in the
wilds of Africa, though it's me that says it,
as oughtn't to say it, your luck will have
been very exceptional indeed. IJut I don't
think you need be much afraid of me. I'm
an F.K.S. of the mildest type. I never call
anything by its longest and ugliest Latin
name : I never bore other people with
interesting details of anatomical structure :
I never cut up anything alive (bar oysters),
and I never lecture, publicly or ])rivately,
to anybody, anywhere, on any consideration.
There are two kinds of naturalists, you
VOL. I. 2
l8 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
know : and I'm one of tlie wrong kind.
The superior class live in London or Paris,
examine everything minutely wdtli a great
big microscope, tack on inches of Greek
nomenclature to an insignificant mite or bit
of moss, and split hairs against anybody
with marvellous dexterity. That's science.
It dwells in a museum. For my part, I
detest it. The inferior class live in Europe,
Asia, Africa, or America, as fate or fancy
carries ; and, instead of looking at every-
thing in a dried specimen, go out into the
wild woods with rifle on shoulder, or box in
hand, and observe the birds, and beasts, and
green things of the earth, as God made
them, in their own natural and lovely
surroundings. That's natural history, old-
fashioned, simple, commonplace natural
history ; and I, for my part, am an old-
fashioned naturalist. I've been all winter
watching the sandy-gray creatures on the
sandy-gray desert, preparing for my great
work on " Structure and Function," and
7JV THE DARK CONTINENT. 19
now, through the summer, I want to correct
and correlate my results by observing the
plants and animals and insects of the
mountains in Kabylie. To tell you the
truth, I think 1 shall like you — for I, too,
have a taste for sim2)licity. If you come
with me, I can promise you sport and
healthy fare, and make you comfortable in
my furnished apartments. Let's descend to
details — for this is business — and we must
understand exactly what each of us wants
before either of us binds himself down
formally for five months to the other.
Alphonse, a couple of coffees and two petits
verre.'i at once, here, Avill you ?'
And by the clarifying aid of a cigar and
a chasse-cafe, 11 was finally decided, before
the evening sun flushed the Djurjura purple,
and turned the white Arab walls to pink, that
Vernon Blake should accompany Eustace
Le ^larchant, on almost nominal terms as
to the sharing of expenses, on his summer
trip to the mountains of Grande Kabylie.
9 9
CHAPTER II.
HONOURS.
Somewhere ubout the same time, away over
in England, Iris Knyvett sat one morning-
at lunch, drumming with her fingers on the
table before her that particular tattoo which
the wisdom of our ancestors ascribed to the
author of all evil.
Iris Knyvett herself would, no doubt,
have been very nmch astonished if only she
could have been told by some prescient
visitor that her own fate was in any way
bound up with the proposed expedition of
two unknowui young men, from the English
Club at Algiers, into the wilds of Kabylie.
She had hardly heard (save in the catalogue
of the Institute) the name of Vernon
HONOURS. 21
Blake ; while Eustace Le Marchant's
masterly papers before the Linnean Society,
on the Longicorn Beetles of the Spice Islands,
liad never roused her girlish enthusiasm, or
quickened her soul to a fiery thirst for the
study of eu\ imology. And yet, if she had
but known it, Iris Knyvett's whole future in
life depended utterly, as so often happens
with everyone of us, on the casual en-
counter of those two perfect strangers
among the green recesses of the North
African mountains.
In absolute ignorance of which profound
truth. Iris Knyvett herself went on drum-
ming with her fingers impatiently on the
table, and leaving the filleted sole on her
plate to grow cold, unheeded, in the cool
shade of a fair lady's neglect.
' Iris, my dear,' Mrs. Knyvett said sharply.
Avith a dry cough, ' why don't you eat your
lunch ? Your appetite's frightful. What
makes you go on hammering away at that
dreadful tattoo so ?'
22
THE TENTS OF SHEM.
Iris's eyes came back with a bound from
a point in space lying apparently several
thousand miles behind the eminently con-
ventional Venetian scene that hangs above
the sideboard in every gentleman's dining-
room. ' I can't eat anything, I really think,
mamma,' she said with a slight sigh, ' till
I've had that telegram.'
Mrs. Knyvett helped herself to a second
piece of filleted sole and its due propor-
tion of anchovy sauce with great delibera-
tion, before she answered slowly, * Oh, so
you're expecting a telegram !'
' Yes, mamma,' Iris replied with scarcely
a shade of reasonable vexation on her pretty
face. ' Don't you remember, dear, I told
you my tutor promised to telegraph to me.'
' Your tutor ! oh, did he?' Mrs. Knyvett
went on with polite acquiescence, letting
drop her pince-nez with a dexterous eleva-
tion of her arched eyebrows. The principal
feature of Mrs. Knyvett*s character, indeed,
was a Roman nose of finely-developed
HONOURS. 23
proportions ; but it was one of those insipid
Roman noses which stand for birth alone—
which impart neither dignity, firmness, nor
strength to a face, but serve only to attest
their owner's aristocratic antecedents. Mrs.
Knyvett's was useful mainly to support her
pince-nez, but as her father had been the
Dean of a southern cathedral, it also
managed incidentally to support the credit
of her family. ' Oh, did he,' Mrs. Knyvett
repeated after a pause, during which Iris
continued to tattoo uninterruptedly. ' That
was very kind of him.' Though why on
earth, or concerning what, he should wish
to telegraph, Mrs. Knyvett, who had never
been told more than five hundred times
before, had really not the slightest concep-
tion.
* Not he, mamma. Vou must surely
remember I've reminded you over and over
again that my tutor's name is Emily Van-
renen.'
' Then why does she sign herself " E. Van-
24
THE TENTS OF SHEM.
renen, B.A. and D.Sc," I wonder?' Mrs.
Knyvett went on with dreamy uncertainty.
' A Doctor of Science ought surely to be a
man? And Bachelor of Arts, too—
liachelor of Arts ! Bachelors and spinsters
are getting too mixed, too mixed altogether.'
Iris was just going to answer something
gently, as was her wont, in defence of the
mixture, when a rap at the door mad'; her
jump up hastily. 'That must be the
telegram!' she cried with a tremor, and
darted off to the door in a vigorous dash
that sufficiently showed her Girton training
had at least not quite succeeded in crushing
the life out of her.
' Iris, Iris !' her mother called after her in
horror ; ' let Jane answer the door, my
dear. This unseemly procedure— and at
lunch-time, too— is really quite unpardon-
able. In my time girls '
But Iris was w^ell out of hearing long
since, and Mrs. Knyvett was forced to do
penance vicariously herself on her daughter's
HONOURS. 25
account to the offended fetish of the British
drawing-room.
In another minute the bright young girl
liad come back crestfallen, ushering in before
her a stout and rosy-faced middle-aged
gentleman, also distinguished by a Roman
nose to match, and dressed with the
scrupulous and respectable neatness of the
London barrister.
' It's only Uncle Tom,' she cried, disap-
pointeil.
'It's only Uncle Tom?' the stout, red-
faced gentleman echoed good-humouredly.
' Well, for taking the conceit out of a man,
I'll back the members of one's own family,
and more especially and particularly one's
prettiest and most favourite niece, against
all comers, for a hundred pounds a side,
even money. That's all the thanks I get, is
it. Iris ? for coming out of Court in the
midst of a most important case, and leaving
my junior, a thick-headed Scotchman as
ever was born, to cross-examine the leading
26 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
witness for the otlier side, on purpose to
ask you wlietlier you've got a telegram :
and " Only Uncle Tom " are the very first
words my prettiest niece thinks fit to greet
me with after all my devotion/
And he stooped down as Iris seated her-
self at the table once more, and kissed her
affectionately on her smooth wdiite forehead.
' Oh, uncle !' Iris cried, blushing up to
her pretty blue eyes with ingenuous distress
at having even for a moment appeared to
slight him — ' I didn't mean that. You
know I didn't mean it. I'm always pleased
and delighted to see you. But the fact is I
was expecting the telegram; and I ran to
the door when you rat-tat-tatted, thinking
it was the telegraph boy ; and when I saw it
WaS only you — I mean, when I saw^ it was
you, of course — why, I w^as naturally dis-
appointed not to have got the news about it
all. But did you really come up all the
way from Court on purpose to hear it, you
dear old uncle?'
HONOURS. V
'AH the way from Court, with Cole-
ridge, C.J., smiling cynically at my best
witnesses, I give you my word of honour,
Iris,' the red-faced old gentleman answered,
mollified; 'for nothing on earth except to
hear about a certain pretty little niece of
mine — because I knew the pretty little
niece was so very anxious on the subject.'
' Oh, uncle, that teas kind of you,' Iris
cried aloud, flushing up to her eyes once
more, this time with pleasure. A little
sympathy went a long way with her. ' It's
so good of you to take so much interest in
me.'
' My unfortunate client won't say so,'
Uncle Tom muttered half aloud to him-
self. And, indeed, the misguided persons
who had retained and refreshed Thomas
Kynnersley Whitmarsh, Q.C., the eminent
authority on probate cases, would probably
not have learned with unmixed pleasure
this touching instance of his domestic affec-
tion.
28 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
MUit what's it all about, dear Tom ?'
Mrs. Kiiyvett exclaimed, in a querulous
tone and with a puzzled air. ' What do
Iris and you wani to oet a telegram from
this ambiguous tutor of hers for V
Uncle Tom was just about to enlighten
his sister's darkness (for the five hundred
and tirst time), when poor Iris, unable to
control her feelings any longer, rose from
the table, with tears standing in her pretty
blue eyes, and remarked, in a slightly husky
voice, that she could eat nothing, and would
go and wait for the telegram in the drawing-
room.
Mrs. Knyvett looked after her, bewildered
and amazed. ' This sort of thing makes
girls very strange,' she said sapiently.
-' This sort of thing ' being that idol of
our aire, the Higher Education.
' Well, well, it's done Iw no harm, any-
how,' Uncle Tom answered, with stout
trood-humour, for his niece was a great
favourite of his, in spite of her heresies. ' I
HONOURS. 39
don't approve of all this fal-lal and non-
sense myself, either ; but Iris is a Knyvett,
you see, and the Knyvetts always struck
out a line for themselves; and each Knyvett
strikes out a different one. She's struck
out hers. She didn't get that from m, you
may be sure. Nobody could ever accuse
the Whitmarshes of eccentricity or origin-
ality. We get on, but we get on steadily.
It's dogged that does it with our family,
Amelia. The Knyvetts are different. They
go their own ^vay, and it's no good any-
body else trying to stop them.'
' What would her poor dear fiither say to
it all, 1 wonder ?' Mrs. Knyvett remarked
parenthetically, through a mist of sighs.
' He would say, " Let her go her own
way," ' the eminent Q.C. replied wdth cheer-
ful haste ; ' and if it comes to that, w4iether
he said it or not wouldn't much matter, for
in her own quiet, peaceable, unobtrusive
manner, offending nobody, Iris would go
her own way, in spite of him. Yes, Amelia,
30 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
I say, in ypite of him. After nil, it's not
been at all a bad thing, in some respects,
that our dear girl should have taken u\)
with this liii'her education fad. We don't
{)j)prove of it ; but, if it's done nothing else,
it's kept her at least out of the way of the
fortune-hunters.'
' Iris has great expectations,' ^Irs. Kny-
vett remarked complacently. Slie remarked
it, not because her brother was not already
well aware of the fact, but because the
thought Avas in her own mind, and she
uttered it, as she uttered all other plati-
tudes that happened to occur to her, in the
full expectation that her hearer would find
them as interesting as she did.
' Tris has great expectations !' her brother
echoed. ' No doubt in the world, I think,
about that. B}'- the terms of the old Ad-
miral's will, ridiculous as they are, I hardly
imagine Sir Arthur would venture to leave
the property otherwise. To do so would
be risky, with me against him. And if Iris
HONOURS. 31
liad gone into London Society, and been
thrown into the whirl of London life, in-
stead of reading her " Odyssey " and lier
" Lucretius," and mugging up amusing
works ou conic sections, it's my belief some
penniless beggar — an Irish adventurer, per-
haps, if such a creature survives nowadays
— would have fallen upon her and snapped
her up long ago ; especially before she came
into her fortune. Then it seems to be
almost disinterested. Now, this Cambridge
scheme has saved us from all the trouble
and bother of that sort of thing — it's ferried
us across the most dangerous time — it's
helped us to bridge over the thin ice, till
Iris is a woman, and quite lit to take care
of herself.'
' There's something in that,' Mrs. Kny vett
responded, with a stately nod of the pro-
minent feature. It seemed somehow to
revolve independently on its own axis.
'Something in that!' her brother cried,
amazed, as though his own 'devil' had
32 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
ventured to agree with him. ' 1' here's a
great deal in that, Amelia! There's every-
thing in that! There's workls in that!
It's the " Iliad " in a nutshell. The girl's
done the very best thing on earth for her-
self. She's saved her expectations— her
great expectations— from the greedy maw
of every eavesdropping London fortune-
hunter.'
At that moment another rat-tat at the
door made Uncle Tom start in his chair,
and Iris's voice was heard upon the stairs
as she rushed down from the drawing-room
to the front-door in sudden trepidation.
Endless terrors crowded upon her mind as
she went. She was (juitc safe about her
Latin prose, to be sure, but oh! that un-
speakable, that terrible mistake in the
unseen passage from IMato's 'Republic!'
It would spoil all, that false second aorist !
It wa.^ the telegram this time, sure enough,
without further delay. Iris tore it open in
an agony of suspense. Had the second
HONOURS. 33
aorist betrayed her girlish trust ? Had
Plato repelled her platonic affections ?
Then her heart stopped beating for a
moment, as she read the words :
' Cambridge University, Classical Tripos :
Women. First Class, Iris Knyvett, Girton,
bracketed equal, Third Classic. Sincerest
congratulations. We are all so proud.
' Affectionately yours,
' F Yankenen.'
Oh, cruel century that has put such a
strain upon a growing woman ! Uncle
Tom seized the half-fainting girl tenderly in
his arms, and, wringing her hand a dozen
times over, in spite of his disapproval of the
higher education for women (which his pre-
sent chronicler blushes to share), kissed her
and congratulated her turn about in one
unceasing tide for the next five minutes;
while poor Iris's head, giddy with her
triumph, swam round and round in a wild
delirium of delight and amazement. Third
Classic 1 In her highest mood of hope she
VOL. I. 3
34 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
had never expected anything like this. She
cried to herself silently in her joy and satis-
faction.
' But what does it all mean ?' Mrs. Kny-
vett exclaimed, adjusting the pince-nez on
its pre-ordained stand once more with prac-
tised skill, and gazing vacantly from the
telegram to Iris, and from Iris to the tele-
o-ram. 'Is it— very much worse— much
lower than she expected ?'
' What does it all mean, ma am ?' Uncle
Tom exclaimed, flinging prudence to the
dogs and his cherished convictions to the
four winds of heaven. ' What does it all
mean ? I like your question, indeed I Why
it means just this— God bless my soul, how
the girl trembles I— that your own daughter,
Iris Knyvett, has beaten all the men but
two in Cambridge University into a cocked
hat. Thats what it means, ma'am. That's
what it means ! I don't approve of it ; but,
upon my soul, I'm proud of her ! Your
dauditer Iris is Third Classic'
CHAPTER III.
BY MOORISH MOUNTAINS.
A WEEK later, preparations were complete.
The tent had been arranged for mountain
travelling ; a folding-bed had been set up
for the lodger's accommodation ; stores had
been laid in from that universal provider of
Algerian necessities, Alexander Dunlop, in
the Rue d'Isly ; a Mahonnais Spaniard from
the Balearic Isles had been secured as ser-
vant to guard the camp ; and Blake and
Le Mnrchant, on varying ends intent, had
fairly started off for their tour of inspection
through the peaks and passes of the Kaby-
lian Highlands. The artist's kit included
a large and select assortment of easels,
3—2
36 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
brushes, pigments, canvas, pencils, and
Whatman's paper ; the naturalist's em-
braced a good modern fowling-piece, an
endless array of boxes for skins and sjjeci-
mens, and a fine collection of butterfly-nets,
chloroform bottles, entomological pins, and
materials for preserving birds, animals, and
botanical treasures. Le Marchant, as the
oldei' and more experienced traveller, had
charged himself with all the necessary ar-
rangements as to packing and provisions ;
and when Blake looked on at the masterly
way in which his new friend managed to
make a couple of packing-cases and a cork-
mattress do duty for a bedstead, at the
same time that they contained, in their deep
recesses, the needful creature comforts for a
three months' tour amono^ untrodden waA's,
CD ^
he could not sufficiently congratulate him-
self upon the lucky chance which had
thrown him, on the balcony of the Club at
Algiers that particular afternoon, in com-
pany with so competent and so skilful an
BY MOORISH MOUNTAINS. 37
explorer. He had fallen on his feet, indeed,
without knowing it.
A lovely morning of bright African sun-
shine saw the two set forth in excellent
spirits from the hotel at Tizi-Ouzou, the
furthest French village in the direction of
Kabylie, whither they had come the pre-
vious day by diligence from Algiers, to
attack the mountains of the still barbaric
and half-conquered Kabyles.
' Are the mules ready ?' Le Marchant
asked of the waiter at the little country inn
where they had passed the night, as he
swallowed down the last drop of his morn-
ino^ coffee.
* Monsieur,' the waiter answered, wiping
his mouth with his greasy apron as he
spoke, * the Arabs say the mules Avill be at
the door in half an hour.'
' The Arabs say !' Le Marchant repeated,
with an impatient movement of his bronzed
hand. ' In half an hour, indeed ! The
sloth of the Arab ! I know these fellows.
38 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
That means ten o'clock, at the very earliest.
It's now seven, and unless we get under
way within twenty minutes, the sun '11 be so
hot before we reach a resting-place, that we
shall deliquesce like Miss Carolina Wilhel-
mina Amelia Skeggs in ''The Vicar of
Wakefield." I'll go out and hurry them up,
Blake, with a little gentle moral suasion.'
lUake followed his host curiously to the
door, where half a dozen ragged Orientals,
picturesquely clad in a costume about
equally divided between burnoose and dirt,
were sprawling at their ease on a heap of
soft dust in the full front of the morning
sunshine.
'Get up, my friends,' Le Marchant cried
aloud in excellent Arabic, for he was a born
linguist. 'If the mules are not ready in
five minutes by the watch I hold in my
hand, by the beard of the Prophet, I
solemnly tell you, you may go every man
to his own home without a sou, and I wdl
hire other mules, with the blessing of Allah,
BY MOORISH MOUNTAINS. 39
from better men than you are to take us on
our journey.'
Blake did not entirely understand collo-
quial Arabic when rapidly spoken — in fact,
his own linguistic studies stopped short
suddenly at his mother tongue, and so
much French in the Ollendorffian dialect as
enabled him to state fluently that the
gardener's son had given his apple to the
daughter of the carpenter — but he was
greatly amused to see the instantaneous
effect which this single sonorous sentence,
rolled quietly but very firmly out in dis-
tinct tones, produced upon the nerves of
the sprawling Arabs. They rose from the
dust-heap as if by magic. In a moment all
was bustle, and turmoil, and confusion.
The tent and beds were hastily laden with
infinite shrieks on the patient mules ; boxes
were strapped on — with many strange cords
and loud cries of *Arri!' — to the backs of
donkeys ; arms and legs were flung wildly
about in multitudinous gesticulations of
40
THE TENTS OF SHEM.
despair and inability: and before the five
minutes were fairly over by that inexorable
watch which Le Marchant held with stern
resolve before him, the little cavalcade
started off at a trot in the direction of the
still snow-clad summits of the nearer Djur-
jura.
It was a quaint small caravan, as it
mounted the hillside. The two Englishmen
rode unburdened mules ; the ragged Arabs,
barefoot and melting, ran after them with
shouts of guttural depth, and encouraged
the pack-beasts with loud jerky remon-
strances—' Oh, father of fools, and son of a
jackass, will you not get up and hurry
yourself more quickly ?'
' Where are we going ?' Blake asked at
last, as the highroad that had conducted
them for a mile from Tizi-Ouzou dwindled
down abruptly near a steep slope to a mere
aboriginal Kabyle mule-track, beset with
stones, and overhung by thickets of prickly
cactus.
BY MOORISH MOUNTAINS. 41
* How should I know ?' the naturalist
answered, with a vague wave of the hand.
' We're going to Kabylie. That's enough
for the moment. When we get there, we'll
look about for a suitable spot, and pitch our
tent wherever there's a patch of smooth
enough ground for a man to pitch on.
" Sufficient unto the day " is the explorer's
motto. Your true traveller never decides
anything beforehand. He goes where fate
and fortune lead him. What we both
want is to explore the unknown. We'll
make our headquarters within its border,
wherever we lind a convenient resting-
place.'
' Are the Kabyles black ?' Blake ventured
to ask, with a sidelong look, unburdening
his soul of a secret doubt that had long
possessed it.
' Oh dear no, scarcely even brown,' Le
Marchant answered. ' They're most of them
every bit as white as you and I are. They're
the old aboriginal Romanis>ed population—
42 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
the I'.erbers, in fact— driven up into the
hills by the Arab invasion in the seventh
century. Practically speaking, you know,
Ju^rurtha and Masinissa and Juba were
in
Kabyles/
Blake had never heard oF these gentle-
men's names before ; but he veiled his
ignorance with an acquiescent ' Really 1'
They rode on, talking of many things
and various, for two or three hours, under
the brilliant sunshine. But all the way as
thev rode they were mounting steadily, by
devious native tracks, steep and picturesque,
just broad enough for two mules to mount
abreast, and opening out at every step mag-
nificent views over the surrounding country.
To right and left stood several white villages
perched on spurs of the mountain-tops, with
their olive groves, and tombs, and tiny
domed mosques ; while below lay wooded
<rors-es of torrent streams, overhung and
draped by rich festoons of great African
clematis. Blake had never travelled in the
BY MOORISH MOUNTAINS. 43
South before, and his artist eye was charmed
at each turn by such novel beauties of the
Southern scenery.
' This is glorious I' he cried at last, halting
his mule at a sudden bend of the track. ' 1
shall do wonders here. I feel the surround-
ings exactly suit me. What could be more
lovely than this luxuriant vegetation ? I
understand now those lines of Tennyson's
in the "Daisy." So rich! So luscious I
And look, up there on the mountain-side,
that beautiful little mosque with its round
white dome, embowered in its thicket of
orange- trees and fan-palms I It's a dream
of delight. It almost makes a man drop
into poetry !'
' Yes, it's beautiful, certainly— very, very
beautiful,' Le Marchant replied, in a soberer
voice, glancing up meditatively. ' You
never get mountain masses shaped like these
in the cold North ; those steep scarped
precipices and jagged pinnacles would be
quite impossible in countries ground flat and
44 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
worn into shape by the <^igantic mangle of
the Great Ice Age.'
' The great what ?' Blake asked, with a
faint tingling sense of doubt and shame,
lie was afraid of his life Le Marchant was
going to be horribly scientific.
* The Great Ice Age — the glacial epoch,
you know ; the period of universal glacier
development, which planed and shaved all
the mountain heights in Northern Europe
to a common dead-level.'
' I never heard of it,' i31ake answered,
shaking his head, with a blush, but thinking-
it best at the same time to make a clean
breast of his ignorance at one fell swoop.
' I ... I don't think it was mentioned in
my history of England. I'm such a duffer
at books, you know. To tell you the truth,
I understand very little, except perspective.
I've read nothing but the English poets ;
and those I've got at my finger-ends ; but
I don't remember anything in Milton or
Shelley about the Great Ice Age. My father.
BY MOORISH MOUNTAINS. 45
you see, was a painter before me ; and as 1
began to sbow a— well, a disposition for
painting very early, lie took me away from
school when I Avas quite a little chap, and
put me into his own studio, and let me pick
up what I could by the way ; so I've never
had any general education at all to speak of.
But I admire learning — in other fellows. I
always like to hear clever men talk
together.'
' The best of all educations is the one you
pick up,' Le Marchant answered kindly.
' Those of us who have been to schools and
universities generally look back upon our
wasted time there as the worst- spent part of
all our lives. You're crammed there with
rubbish you have afterwards to discard in
favour of such realities as those you mention
— perspective, for example, and English
literature.'
As he spoke, they turned sharply down
to a rushing brook by a Kabyle village,
where two or three tall and lissome native
46 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
girls, fair as Italians, or even as English-
women, in their simple and picturesque
Oriental costume, were washing clothes at a
tiny ford, and laughing and talking merrily
with one another as they bent over their
work. The scene irresistibly attracted
j^lake. The garb of the girls was, indeed,
most Greek and graceful ; and their supple
limbs and lithe natural attitudes might well
arouse a painter s or a sculptor's interest.
' By Jove !' he cried. ' Le Marchant, I
should like to sketch them. Anything so
picturesque I never saw in my life before.
" Sunburnt mirth," as Keats calls it in " The
Nightingale." Just watch that girl stoop-
ing down to pound a cloth with a big round
stone there. Why Phidias never imagined
anything more graceful, more shapely, more
exquisite !'
' She's splendid, certainly,' the naturalist
answered, surveying the girl's pose with
more measured commendation. ' A fine
tigure, I admit, well propped and vigorous.
BY MOORISH MOUNTAINS. 47
No tight-lacinfi^ there. No deformity of
fashion. The human form divine, in un-
spoiled beauty, as it came straight from the
bands of its Creator.'
' Upon my word, Le Marchant,' the painter
went on enthusiastically, ' I've half a mind
to stop the caravan this very moment, undo
the pack, unroll the papers, and get out my
machinery on the spot to sketch her.'
Maturer years yielded less to the passing
impulse of the moment.
' I wouldn't if I were you/ the naturalist
answered more coolly. ' You'll see lots
more of the same sort, no doubt, all through
Kabylie. The species is probably well
diffused. You can paint them by the score
when we reach our resting-place.'
As Blake paused, irresolute, the girls
looked up and laughed good-humouredly at
the evident admiration of the two well-
dressed and well-equipped young infidels.
They were not veiled like Arab women :
their faces and arms and necks were bare,
48 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
and their feet and ankles naked to the knee ;
for the old Berber population of North
Africa, to whose race the Kabyles of Algeria
belong, retain unchanged to this day their
antique Roman freedom of manners and
intercourse. The girls' features were all of
them pretty, with a certain frank and bar-
baric boldness of outline. Though shy of
strangers, they were clearly amused ; the
one who had attracted tlieir special attention
looked almost coquettishly across at Le
Marchant, as he turned his beast with
sterner resolve up the slope of the mountain.
' They're splendid creatures,' the naturalist
said, looking back a little regretfully, while
they rode up the opi)osite side, and left the
brook and the girls for ever behind them.
' That sort of face certainly lives long in
one's memory. I immensely admire these
free children of nature. Just watch that
irirl cominu' down the hillside yonder now
with her pitcher on her head — how grace-
fully she poses it! how lightly she trips !
BY MOORISH MOUNTAINS. 49
What freedom, what ease, what untrammelled
movement !'
' By George, yes,' l^lake answered, taking
in the scene w^ith his quick artistic glance.
'It's glorious! It's splendid! From the
purely aesthetic point of view, you know,
these women are far better and finer in every
way than the civilized product.'
' And why from the purely aesthetic point
of view alone V his companion asked
(|iiickly, w^ith a sliade of surprise. ' Why
not also viewed as human beings in their
concrete totality ? Surely there's some-
thing extremely attractive to a sympathetic
mind in the simplicity, the naivete, the
frank and unpretentious innate humanity
of the barbaric w^oman.'
' Oh, hang it all, you know, Le Marchant !'
the artist expostulated in a half-amused
tone. * They're all very well as models to
sketch, but you can't expect a civilized man
to be satisfied permanently — on any high
ground — with such creatures as that, now.'
VOL. I. 4
50 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
' I don't exactly see why not,' Le Marchant
answered seriously, gazing down once more
from the zigzag path on the laughing group
of barefooted Kabyle girls, with their smooth
round arms and their well-turned ankles.
' Humanity to me is always human. I've
lived a great deal among many queer people
—Malays and Arabs and Japanese, and so
forth— and I've come in the end to the
modest conclusion ti-dt man, as man, is
everywhere man, and man only. Emotion-
ally, at least, we are all of one blood all the
world over.'
' But you couldn't conceive yourself
marrying a Kabyle girl, could you ?'
' As at present advised, I see no just cause
or impediment to the contrary.'
Blake turned up his eyes to heaven for a
moment in mute amazement.
' Well, I'm not built that way, anyhow,'
he went on, after a pause, with a certahi
subdued sense of inward self- congratula-
tion :
BY MOORISH MOUNTAINS. 51
' " I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious
gains,
Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with
lower pains !"
No, thank you. For my part, 1 agree
with the poet. I count the gray barbarian
lower than the Christian child. None of
your squalid savages for me. If ever I
marry, which I hope I shall be able to do
some of these fine days, the girl I marry
must be at least my equal in intellect and
attainments— and that, bar painting, she
might easily manage in all conscience ; but
for choice, I should prefer her to be highly-
educated— a Princess Ida sort of a woman.'
' Then, I take it, you admire these new-
fashioned over-educated epicene creatures ?'
Le Marchant interposed, smiling.
'Well, not exactly over-educated, per-
haps,' Blake answered apologetically (he
was too much overawed to handle epicene) ;
'but, at any rate, I like them thorough
ladies, and well brought up, and as clever'^as
they make them.'
4—2
52 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
' Clever. Ah, yes ! That's quite another
thing. Cleverness is an underlying natural
endowment ; but crammed ; no, thank you,
not for me, at any rate !'
They paused for a moment, each pursuing
his own line of thought unchecked ; then
the painter began again, in a musing voice :
*Did you happen to see in the English
papers, before we left Algiers, that a Girton
girl had just been made Third Classic at
Cambridge ?'
' I did,' Le Marchant answered, with a
touch of pity in his tone ; ' and I was
heartily sorry for her.'
* Why sorry for her ? It's a very great
honour !'
' Because 1 think the strain of such a
preparation too great to put upon any woman.
Then that's the sort of girl you'd like to
marry, is it ?'
* Well, yes ; other things equal, such as
beauty and position, I'm inclined to think
so. She must be pretty, of course, that goes
BY MOORISH MOUNTAINS. 53
without saying- — pretty, and graceful, and a
lady, and all that sort of thing — one takes
that for granted ; but, given so much, I
should like her also to be really well
educated. You see, I've never had any
education to speak of myself, so I should
prefer my wife to have enough of that com-
modity on hand for both of us.'
' Quite so,' Le Marchant answered, with
a faint smile. ' You'd consent to put up,
in fact, with a perfect paragon, who was
also a Girton girl and a Third Classic ! I
admire your modesty, and I hope you may
get her.'
A fork in the road, with the practical
necessity for deciding which of the two
alternative tracks they should next take,
put a limit for the moment to their con-
versation.
CHAPTER IV.
ENTER A HEROINE.
'Which way shall we go?' Blake asked,
lialting his mule for a second where the
paths divided.
'I leave these questions always to the
divine arbitrament of my patron goddess,'
l.e Marchant answered lightly, tossing a
sou, and little knowing how much his
future fate depended upon the final decision.
'Let chance decide. Heads, right! tails,
left ! The heads have it. Hi, you, Ahmed
or Ali, or whatever your blessed name is,'
he went on in Arabic, to the men behind,
' do you know where this path on the right
leads to ?'
' To the mountain of the Beni-Merzoug,
ENTER A HEROINE. 55
Excellency,' the ragged Arab nearest his
mule made answer respectfully. ' It's a
good village for you to stop at, as Allah
decrees. The Beni-Merzoug are the most
famous makers of jewellery and pottery
among all the Kabyles.'
' That'll just suit our book, I say,' Le
Marchant went on in English, translating
the remark in the vernacular to Blake.
' Chance, as usual, has decided right. A
wonderful goddess. To the Beni-Merzoug
let it be at once, then.' And he pocketed
the sou that had sealed his fortune. Oh,
fateful sou, to be gilt hereafter in purest
gold, and worn round fair lady's neck in a
jewelled locket !
They mounted still, past rocky ledges,
where hardly a goat could find a dubious
foothold, but where Kabyle industry had
nevertheless sown pathetic plots or strips
of corn or cabbages — for is there not patlios
in ineffective labour ? — till they came at
last, late in the afternoon, to a gray old
56 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
villafTc, o;rimly perched on the summit of a
minor mountain. ' These are the Beni-
]\Ierzoug,' the Arabs said, halting tlieir
mules in a line at the entry of the street.
' Here the track stops. We can go no
further.'
' Let's look about for a spot to pitch our
tent upon, then,' Le Marchant exclaimed, as
they unloaded their burden. * No easy job
hereabouts, either, I should say. On the
desert, one had always the embarrassment
of riches in that respect; here, on these
rugged rocky slopes, it would be hard to
find ten square yards of level ground any-
where.'
Nevertheless, after a quarter of an hour's
diligent search, not unembarrassed by the
curioj^ity of the Kabyles as to the new-
comers, a spot was found, close by the
village headman's house, in the shadow of
a pretty little white-domed tomb, overhung
by ash-trees, from whose spreading boughs
the wild vine drooped in graceful tresses.
ENTER A HEROINE. 57
It seemed to Blake the absolute ideal
summer camping - place. Around, great
masses of tumbled mountains swayed and
tossed like the waves of a boisterous sea ;
below, deep ravines hung in mid-air, with
their thick covering of Mediterranean pine
and evergreen oak and Spanish chestnut ;
while above, in the distance, the silent
white peaks of the snowy Djurjura still
gleamed and shimmered, high over the hill-
tops, in the evening sun. The painter
could have stood and gazed at it for hours,
but for the need for action ; it was with an
effort that he turned from that lovely pros-
pect to bear his part in the prosaic work
of tent -pegging and unpacking for the
evening's rest.
By this time a noisy crowd of Kabyles
from the village had gathered round the
spot selected by the visitors, and begun to
canvass in eager terms the motive of their
visit and the nature of their arrangements.
The natives were clearly ill-satistied at their
58 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
choice. Le Marchant, thoagli a tolerable
Arabic scholar, knew not one word as yet
of the Kabyle langiia^^e ; so he was unable
to hold any communication with the men,
who themselves were equally guiltless for
the most part of either French or Arabic.
It Avas evident, however, that the Kabyles
as a whole regarded their proceedings Avith
extreme distaste, and that the headman of
the village, and a girl by his side, who
seemed to be either his wife or daughter,
had considerable trouble in restraining this
feeling from breaking out into acts of
open hostility.
The girl, in particular, at once arrested
both the young Englishmen's passing atten-
tion. It was no wonder if she did. So
glorious a figure they had seldom seen.
Tall and lithe, with strong and well-made
limbs, she seemed scarcely so dark as many
English ladies, but with a face of peculiar
strength and statuesque beauty. In type,
she was not unlike the merry Kabyle
ENTER A HEROINE. 59
maiden who had looked iq) at them and
laughed as they passed the washing-place
by the torrent that morning ; but her style
was in every way nobler and higher. The
features were bold and sculpturesque and
powerful ; serene intelligence shone out
from her big eyes ; she looked, Le Mar-
chant thought, as a Spartan maiden might
have looked in the best days of Sparta — as
free as she was supple, and as strong as she
was beautiful. At first, while the earlier
preparations were being made, she hung
aloof from the new-comers as if in speech-
less awe; but after a short time, as the
crowd around grew less unruly and
boisterous, and the attempts at intercom-
munication began to succeed, she approached
somewhat nearer, and, equally removed from
coquetry or boldness, watched their pro-
ceedings with the utmost interest.
At the outset, while the Spaniard and
the Arabs helped in the work of setting up
camp, conversation between the new-comers
6o THE TENTS OF SHEM.
was carried on almost entirely in pigeon
French. And of French, even in its pigeon
variety, the girl was clearly quite ignorant.
' Voiis ne pavlez pas Francais f Le Mar-
chant asked her tentatively.
But the Kabyle maiden shook her head
with a vigorous dissent, and put her finger
to her mouth in sign of silence. So he
turned away, and went on with his un-
packing, while the girl, poised in a most
picturesque attitude, with her arm on the
ledcre of the little domed tomb, stood by
expectant, with a mutely attentive face, or
made some remark now and again, in a low
voice, to her fellow-countrymen, who stood
aloof in the distance. They seemed to treat
her with unusual respect, as a person of
some distinction. No doubt she must be
the headman's wife, Le Marchant thought,
from the tone of command in which she
spoke to them.
'Hand me that rope there, quick,' the
naturalist called out at last, in English, to
ENTER A HEROINE. 6i
Blake. ' Look sharp, will you ? I want to
fasten it down at once to this peg here.'
The beautiful Kabyle girl started at the
words in the most profound surprise ; but,
to Le Marchant's astonishment, rose up at
once, and handed him the rope, as though
it was her he had asked for it, without a
moment's hesitation.
' Curious how quick these half-barbaric
people are to understand whatever one says
to them in an unknown language,' Le Mar-
chant went on, in a satisfied tone, to his
English companion. 'This girl snapped
up what I meant at once by the inflexion
of my voice, you see, when I asked you for
the rope, though I never even pointed my
hand towards what I wanted.'
'I can talk like that myself,' the girl
answered quietly, in English almost as
good as Le Marchant's own, though with
a very faint flavour of liquid Oriental
accent. ' I heard you ask for the rope, and
I fancied, of course, you were speaking to
62 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
me, and so I gave it to you. But I
thought,' she added, with much natural
dignity, ' you might have asked me a little
more politely.'
If the f^irl was surprised to hear Le Mar-
chant, Le Marchant, in turn, was positively
thunderstruck to hear the girl. He could
hardly believe the direct evidence of his
own ears.
*Do they speak with tongues in these
parts!' he cried, amazed; 'or has much
wandering made me mad, I wonder ? Come
over here, Blake, and explain this mystery.
This lady positively answered me in
English.'
' We speak with our tongues, of course,'
the girl went on, half angrily, misunder-
standing his old-fashioned Scriptural phrase,
'just the same as you and everybody else do.
We're human, I sup])ose; we're not monkeys.
But, perhaps, you think, like all other
Frenchmen, that Kabyles are no better
than dogs and jackals.'
ENTER A HEROINE. 63
She spoke with pride, and fire flashed
from her eyes. She was clearly angry.
Le Marchant thought her pride and anger
became her.
' I beg your pardon,' he went on in haste,
very deferentially raising his hat by pure
instinct, for he saw that without any inten-
tion of his own he had hurt her feelings.
' I really don't think you quite understood
me. I was surprised to find anybody
speaking my own tongue here so far in
Kabylie.'
' Then you aren't French at all ?' the girl
asked eagerly, with a flush of expectation.
' No, not French — English ; and Fm sorry
I seemed, against my will, to annoy you.'
' If you're English we're friends,' the girl
answered, looking up at him wdth a flushed
face, as naturally as if she had met with
stray Englishmen every day of her life.
' It w^as my father who taught me to talk
like this. I loved my father, and he w^as
an Englishman.'
64 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
Lc :Marcluint and r>lukc both opened their
eyes together in mute astonishment.
'And Avhat's your name?' the painter
ventured to ask, half dumb with surprise,
after a moment's pause.
' My name's :Meriem,' the girl replied
simply.
'Meriem! Ah, yes, I dare say; that's
Kabyle. Vmt your father's ?'
' My father's was Yusuf.'
'Yusuf?' Le Marchant cried. 'Why,
A^usuf's not English! The EngUsh for
that, you know, is plain Joseph. Was
your father's name Joseph somebody ?'
'No,' the girl answered, shaking her
head firmly. ' His name was Yusuf.
Only Yusuf. His Kabyle name, I mean.
And mine's Meriem. In English, Yusuf
used always to tell me, it's Mary.*
' But your surname ?' Le Marchant sug-
srested, with a smile at her simplicity.
Meriem shook her head once more, with
a puzzled look.
ENTER A HEROINE. 6$
' I don't understand that, at all,' she said,
with a dubious air. 'I don't know all
English. You say some things I don't
make out. I never heard that word before
— surname.'
' Look here,' Le Marchant went on,
endeavouring to simplify matters to her
vague little mind. ' Have you any other
name at all but Meriem ?'
' Yes, I told you — Mary.'
'Ah, of course. I know. But besides
that, again. Think ; any other ?'
The girl looked down with a bewildered
glance at her pretty bare feet.
' I'm sure I can't say,' she said, shaking
her head. ' I never heard any.*
' But your father had ! Surely he must
have borne an English name ? You must
have heard him say it. He's dead, I sup-
pose. But can't you remember ?'
' Yes, Yusuf's dead, and so's my mother,
and I live with my uncle. My uncle's the
Ami7ie, you know, the head of the village.*
VOL. I. 5
66 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
And she waved her hand toward him with
native gracefulness.
•Well, what was your fathers English
name?' Le Marchant persisted, piqued by
this strange and unexpected mystery, ' and
how did he come to be living here in
Algeria ''^'
* He had an English name, a sort of a
double name,' Meriem answered dreamily,
after a moment's pause, during which it
was clear she had been fishing with small
success in the very depths of her memory.
* It was Somebody Something, I remember
that. He told me that English name of
his, too, one day, and begged me never,
never to forget it. It was to be very useful
to me. But I was not to tell it to anybody
on any account. It was a great secret, and
I was to keep it strictly. You see, it was
so long ago, more than three years now,
and I was so little then. I've never spoken
this way, ever since Yusuf died, before.
And I've quite forgotten what the name
ENTER A HEROINE. 67
was that he told me. I only remember his
Kabyle name, Yusuf, and his French one,
of course— that was Joseph Leboutillier.'
'What! he had a French name, too?'
Le Marchant cried, looking up in fresh
surprise.
' Oh yes, he had a French one,' Meriem
answered quietly, as if everyone might be
expected to know such simple facts. ' And
that, of course, was what they wanted to
shoot him for.'
5—2
CHAPTER V.
PROBLEMS.
At that very moment, before Le Marchant
could gratify his curiosity any further, a
voice from the crowd of Kabyle bystanders
called out sternly, in a commanding tone :
'Meriem! Ho agha!' and the girl, with
a start, hurried oiF at the sound into
the eager group of her fellow-tribesmen.
The crowd gathered round her in hot de-
bate. For awhile, Le Marchant and Blake
observed with dismay that their new friend
was being closely questioned as to what she
herself had said in the unknown tongue to
the infidel strangers, and what the infidel
strangers had said in return with so much
apparent kindliness to her. Angry glances
PROBLEMS. 69
were cast from time to time in their direc-
tion, and voices were raised, and fingers
and hands gesticulated fiercely. But after
awhile the beautiful girl's calm report
seemed somewhat to still the excitement of
the indignant Kabyles. She stood before
them with outstretched arms and open
palms, protesting, as Le Marchant gathered
from her eloquent attitude, that these w^ere
indeed friends, and not enemies. Her pro-
test prevailed. After a few minutes' inter-
val, she returned once more, with a smiling
face, this time accompanied by her uncle,
the Headman, and two other Kabyles of
evident tribal importance, and the three
proceeded to hold an informal palaver with
the strangers from Europe, Meriem acting
the role of interpreter between the two high
contracting parties.
The Headman spoke a few words first
to the girl, who endeavoured, to the best
of her ability, to impart their meaning in
English to the attentive new-comers.
70 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
'My uncle asks,' she said, 'what you
have come for, and why you have brought
all these strange things on the ground here
with you ?'
' My friend is an artist,' Le Marchant
answered simply; ' and I am a naturalist, a
man of science. We've come to see the
mountains and the country, and all that
grows in them.*
Meriem shook her head with a gesture of
deprecation.
'1 don't know^ these words,' she said.
' Yusuf never used them. I don't know
what is an artist and what is a naturalist.
Why do you want to see the country?'
And she added a few sentences rapidly in
Kabyle to the three natives.
Le Marchant saw his mistake at once.
The English w^ords he had used were above
the girl's simple childish level. He must
come down to her platform. He tried over
agam.
' My friend paints pictures,' he said with
PROBLEMS. 71
a smile, holding up a half-finished sketch of
Blake's ; ' and I shoot birds, and pick up
plants and flowers and insects.*
Meriem nodded a satisfied nod of com-
plete comprehension, and reported his
speech in Kabyle to her uncle.
' My people say,' she went on again, after
a brief colloquy with her three compatriots,
' why do you want so much pencils and
paper? Have you come to do good or
harm to Kabylie ? Does not the pulling
out of pencils and paper mean much mis-
chief ?'
' Some of the paper is for my friend to
paint on,' Le Marchant answered, with the
calmness of a man well used to such deal-
ings with suspicious foreigners ; * and part
of it is for myself to dry plants and flowers
in.'
' My uncle says,' Meriem went on once
more, after another short colloquy, * are you
not come to plan out new roads and forts,
and will not the Kabyles be forced to work
73 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
on them, whether they will or whether they
will not? Have not the French, who are
the enemies of my i)eople, sent you to look
if tlie country is good, so that they may
send Frenchmen to take it, and plough it ?
Did they not make roads the same way to
Fort National, and give the land of the
Kabyles over there to be ploughed and used
by their ow \ soldiers ?'
' Explain to your people,' Le Marchant
said gently, in his cool w-ay, ' that we are
English, like your father ; not French, like
the people who live at Fort National. We
are Yusuf s countrymen. AVe have nothing
to do with the Government at all. We
plan no roads, and build no forts. We
have only come for our own amusement, to
l)aint the mountains, and to see what flowers
and birds live in them.'
'And did you know Yusuf?' Meriem
cried excitedly.
' No,' Le Marchant answered, and the
girl's face fell sadly at the answer. ' But
PROBLEMS. 73
we are friends, as he was. We wisli well to
the Kabyles, and all true believers.'
When Meriem had translated and dilated
upon these last remarks with her own com-
ments, the Kabyles seemed <ijreatly mollified
and reassured. The Headman in particular,
with some effusion, seized Le Marchant's
hand, and wrung it hard, murmuring many
times over fervently, as he did so :
* Ingleez good, French bad j Yusuf In-
gleez,' witli considerable entpres.scment.
' He has picked up a few words of
English, you see,' Meriem went on reflec-
tively, 'from hearing me and my father, in
the old days, talk so munh together.'
It was all so simple and natural to herself
that she seemed hardly to realize how
stranue it sounded in the unaccustomed
ears of the two new-comers.
But they had no time j ust then to gratify
their curiosity by making any further in-
vestigations or inquiries into the singular
mystery of Meriem's antecedents. Strange
74 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
as the problem was, they must lay it aside
unsolved for the present. Evening was
coming on, and the practical work of getting
things ship-shape in the tent for the night
inexorably demanded all their immediate
energies. There were the Arabs to be paid,
and the mules to be dismissed. Diego, the
Mahonnais servant, had still to light a iire
of green sticks, and prepare supper ; and
the two young Englishmen had to make
their own beds before they could lie on
them, and prepare their quarters generally
against the chance of rain or hail, or cold
wind, or thunderstorm. Meriem and the
three Kabyles, now passively friendly,
stopped and looked on with profound in-
terest at all these arrangements. The men,
for their part, were too proud to do more
than stand and gaze, with many expressions
of wonder and surprise—' Allah is great !
His works are marvellous!' — at the lamps
and etnas, nd tin biscuit-boxes, that cnme
forth, one after another, in bewildering
PROBLEMS. 75
array, from the magical recesses of Le Mar-
chant's capacious leather travelling-case.
But Meriem, more accustomed to house-
hold work, and even to a certain amount of
something very like what we in England
would call drudgery, lent a willing hand,
with womanly instinct, in picking up sticks,
and blowing the fire, and helping to lay out
the strange metal pans, and plates, and
pipkins.
' My people say they're not afraid now,'
she remarked, with a gracious smile to
Blake, as she looked up, all glowing, from
the fire she was pi (fing with her own pretty
mouth. *If you're really English, they
know you're good, for Yusuf was good, and
he was an Englishman. Besides, I've told
tiiem I'm sure by your talk you're really
English : T know it, because it's just like
Yusuf's. The reason they were afraid at
first was partly because they thought you
were the wicked Frenchmen come to make
a road and plant vines, the same as hap-
76 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
pene<l to our frienck the Beni-Yenni, wliom
thoy turned out to die on the mountains.
And then they were displeased, too, because
you pitched your tent too near the tomb.
They thought that was wrong, because this
ground's sacred. Nobody comes here with
shoes on his feet. It's the tomb of a ^lara-
bout.'
' What's a Marabout?' Blake asked, look-
ing up good-humouredly. He was a hand-
some young fellow, and his teeth, when he
smiled, showed white smd even.
' A holy man— I think you call it a priest
in English— who served Allah, and read
the Koran much ; and now that he's dead,
he's made into a saint, and our people come
to say prayers at his tomb here.'
* But we can shift the tent if you like,'
Le Marchant put in eagerly, for he knew
how desirable it is in dealing with Mahom-
medans to avoid shocking, in any way, their
fierce and fiinatical religious sentiments.
' We thought it w\is only an ordinary tomb;
PROBLEMS. 77
we'd no idea we were trespassing on a
sacred enclosure.'
'Oh no; it doesn't matter now at all/
Meriem answered, with a nod towards the
three observant Kabyles. * Those two men
who are standing beside my uncle are Mara-
bouts too— very holy; and as soon as they
heard you were really English, they were
quite satisfied, for they loved my father and
protected him when the French wanted to
catch him and shoot him. They've looked
in the Koran, and tried the book ; and they
say the bones of the just will sleep none the
worse for two just men sleeping peaceably
beside them.'
' Whoever her father was,' Le Marchant
remarked in a low tone to Blake, ' it's clear,
anyhow, Jiat he's fortunately predisposed
these suripicious Kabyles in favour of his
own fellow-countrymen and successors.
We're lucky, indeed, to have lighted by
accident on probably the only Ka>)yle vil-
laire in Algeria where a single soul can
i^k: lix xx.^.
78 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
speak a word of English. We find an in-
teri)reter ready to our hand. I'm glad I
trusted, as usual, to chance. My patron
troddess has not deserted me.'
' And they say,' Meriem went on, after a
few more words interchanged in a low voice
with her own people, ' that they'll sell you
mlik and eggs and flour, and as long as you
stop, I may come down here at times, and
. . . and explain the things, you know, you
want to say to them.'
'Act as interpreter,' Le Marchant sug-
gested quickly.
Meriem 's face lighted up with a flash of
recognition at the sound.
' Yes, that's the word,' she said. ' I
couldn't remember it. Interpret what you
say to them. I'd forgotten "interpret." I
expect I've forgotten a great many words.
*' Translate's " another. I recollect it now.
You see, it's so long since I've spoken
English.'
' The wonder is that you remember any
PROBLEMS. 79
at all; Le ^^larchant answered, with a polite
little wave. It was impossible to treat that
barefooted Kabyle girl otherwise than as a
lady. ' But it'll soon come back now, if you
often run down and talk with us at the tent
here. We shall want you to help us with
the buying and selling.'
' Yusuf would have liked that,' Meriem
replied, with a faint sigh. ' He was anxious
I should talk often, and shouldn't on any
account forget my English.'
Le Marchant was silent. That naive
expression of her natural affection touched
him to the heart by its quaint simplicity.
At that moment Diego, looking up from
the pan he was holding over the fire with
the omelette for supper, called out sharply,
' Vie7i,s done, Mauresque ! Donne la main
ici ! Vims vite, je te dis. Nous te voidom
pour nous aider /'
In a second Meriem drew herself up
proudly, for though she did not understand
the meaning of the words, or the habitual
m
8o THE TENTS OF SHEM.
insolence to the indhjeneH implied in the
tutoiement, she caught readily enough at the
iuiperiousness of the tone and the rude vul-
<rarity of the gesture that accompanied it.
The Kahvles, too, looked on angrily at this
interference of a mere European with one of
their own women — as who should presume
to use their beast of burden without the
preliminary politeness of asking them for
the loan of it ? But Le Marchant intervened
with a conciliatory and deferential wave of
his hand toward the offended Meriem.
' Overlook it,' he said softly, ' and forgive
the fellow's rudeness. He knows no better;
he's only a boor ; I shall take care to teach
him politer manners. Diego,' he went on
in French to the :\Idhonnais, ' if you dare to
speak so to this young lady again, remem-
ber, you go back that moment to Algiers
without your wages. We depend here
entirely on the goodwill of the indujenes.
Treat her as you would treat a European
lady.'
jaam
PROBLEMS. 8i
l)ie<^o could hardly believe his senses.
Ccffe (kinolseHi'-ci, for.sooth, of a mere
i,ii(/f(/cnc! He turned hack to the perusal
of his peninsular cookery, full of muttered
discontent.
• Piii's of natives,' he murmured, half
aloud to himself, shredding in some garlic.
' Like a European lady ! Things have
come to a pretty pass in Algeria, indeed,
if we must say Ma'amzelle to a canaille of a
Mauresque!*
But the Kabyles nodded their hooded
heads with a comical air of sagacious
triumph.
' They are English, indeed,' the Head-
man exclaimed aloud in his own tongue to
his friends. ' By the staff of the Prophet
they are indeed English ! Allah be praised
that we have seen this day ! These are
good words I They take the part of a
Kabyle girl against a dog of an infidel.'
* AYe go now,' Meriem said, moving back
to her tribesmen, and waving an adieu to
VOL. T. G
83 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
the Englishmen with her delicate small
hand. " We know you are friends. Fear
no disturhance; this place is yours. We
will send you a coiis-cous.'
'A coi^^-com! What's that?' Blake
asked, turning round to bis more experi-
enced companion.
' Oh, just the ordinary native dish, a sort
of porridge or macaroni,' Le Marchant
answered .^otto voce. ' It's the customary
mark of politeness and recognition to a
stranger, like paying a first call, among
the Arabs and Kabyles. To send you a
cous-com is to make a friend of you. We
needn't eat it, you know. It's a sloppy,
soppy, pappy mess, even when made by a
European, and the native cookery isn't
likely to improve it.'
' From her hands,' Blake answered, with
unpremeditated enthusiasm, 'I could eat
anything, even a dog-biscuit. What luck
we're in, Le Marchant ! She's a splendid
creature-a model of ten thousand! I
PROBLEMS. 83
could hardly take my eyes off her as lono^
as she sto])ped here.'
Le Marchant gazed round at him with a
sharp and hasty glance of inquiry.
' So you've altered your opinion, have
you,' he asked wonderingly, 'about the
merits and potentialities of these natural
Kabyle women?'
' Oh, viewed as a model only, I mean,'
Blake corrected in haste. ' I should love
to paint her, of course; she's so splendid as
an exam})le of the pure unadulterated human
figure. I don't go back one Avord of what
I said otherwise. For wives, I prefer them
civilized and educated. But if it comes to
that, you must remember, Le Marchant,
the girl's at least one half an English-
woman.'
As he spoke, Meriem, tripping lightly
and gracefully up the rocky path above
that led by zigzag gradients to her uncle's
hut — for it w^as hardly more — turned round
again and waved them a last farewell with
6—2
84 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
tliat faultless arm of hers. Both youn^
men raised their hats by some inner im-
pulse, as to an En<^lish lady. Then the
Kabyles turned round a sharp ledge of
rock, and left them undisturbed to their
supper and their conjectures. Le Marchant,
gazing' after her, saw a vision of glory.
Jilake saw but the picture of a Greek
goddess, waving her arm, as on some
antique vase, to Paris or Endymion.
CHAPTER VI.
MISS KNYVETT EXPLAINS llEUSKLF.
That same afternoon, in London town,
where the atmosphere was perhaps a trifle
less clear than on the mountains of Kabylie,
Thomas Kynnersley Whitmarsh, Q.C., the
eminent authority upon probate and divorce
cases, Avas somewhat surprised at receivinf^
an unexpected visit at his own chambers in
Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, from his pretty
little niece, Iris Knyvett. The Third
Classic had by this time got over the first
flush and whirl of congratulations and
flattery. Her fame had almost begun to
pall upon her. The Times had had a
leader in her honour, of course, and the
illustrated papers had engraved her portrait,
86 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
from which a captious world rejoiced to
learn she did not wear blue spectacles.
Fogeys, of whom the present writer is
one, had croaked in letters to the public
press about the danger of the precedent to
all her sex; and enthusiastic speakers on
ladies' platforms had hailed her success
with jubilant whoops as the first dawn of
a new era for emancipated womanhood. The
Third Classic, in short, had been the talk
of the town — a nine days' wonder. But
owing to the opportune intervention of a
small boy who could play the violin, and a
new design for blowing up the Czar in
the Summer Palace, the hubbub was begin-
ning to die away a little now, and Iris
Knyvett was able to face a trifle more
calmly the momentous question of her
own future career and place in the uni-
verse.
It is a characteristic of the present age
that even women have begun at last to
develop the rudiments of a social conscience.
MISS KNYVETT EXPLAINS HERSELF. 87
No longer content to feed like drones at
the world's table, giving nothing in return
towards the making of the feast save the
ornamental effect of their own gracious
smiles and pretty faces, they have awoke
with a start in the.se latter days to the sense
of a felt need in life — to a consciousness of
the want of a definite mission. It was a
mission that Iris was now in search of, and
it was on the subject of the choice or nature
of that proposed mission that she came down
dutifully to Old Square that fine afternoon
to consult her uncle. This was nice of her;
for, believe me, the higher education has not
wholly succeeded in unsexing a woman if
she still pretends, in the decorous old fashion,
to pay a certain amount of ostensible ex-
ternal deference to the opinions and experi-
ence of her male relations.
The eminent Q.C. looked up with surprise
from his devil's short notes on a fresh brief,
which he was just that moment enffaffed in
skimming. It was a slack afternoon in Old
88 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
Square, as it happened, and b}^ a sort of
minor miracle or special providence Uncle
Tom had really half an hour to spare upon
his pretty and now distinguished niece; but,
even had it been otherwise, some client's
case would surely have fared but scurvily
at his hands at such a moment; for Uncle
Tom was fond and proud of Iris, in spite
of her heresies, and would have neglected
Coleridge, C.J., himself to attend to her
slightest whim or fancy.
' God bless my soul, my dear,' he ex-
claimed, in surprise, rising up from his
desk, and pushing his niece with a hearty
kiss and a vigorous shove into the one arm-
chair (so dusty in the back that Iris, being
still, though Third Classic, a woman for all
that, trembled inwardly in silence for her
nice new best afternoon frock) ; ' what on
earth brings a learned lady like you down
to Lincoln's Inn at this time of day, eh?'
* Well, uncle,' Iris answered, with modest
eyes, ' to tell you the truth, if I may venture
MISS KNYVETT EXPLAINS HERSELF. 89
to bother you, I've come down to ask your
advice this afternoon about a private matter
that greatly concerns me.'
The old barrister rubbed his fat hands
together with a distinct glow of inward
satisfaction.
' That's right, my dear,' he answered
warmly. ' That's the right spirit. The
good old spirit. I'm glad to see it, Iris;
I'm very glad to see it. I was afraid you'd
be too puffed up now even to look at me in
the light of an adviser.'
Iris glanced down demurely and smiled.
' Uncle dear,' she said, with womanly
softness, * I hope I shall never be too puffed
up to consult you about anything and every-
thing on earth that concerns me. Since
dear papa died, I feel you've always been as
good as a father to me. You know that as
well as I do; only you like to make me tell
you again. But are you quite sure, you
dear, that I'm not interrupting you?'
The old man's eyes had a gentle glisten
90 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
in them as he took his pretty niece's hand
in his tenderly.
' Iris/ he answered, raising it with old-
fashioned chivahy to his pursed-up lips (for,
short and fat as he was, the eminent Q.C.
was an old gentleman of much unsuspected
sentiment), ' you never mterrupt me, and
you never shall. My most litigious client
must wait your pleasure. I'm always glad
at any time to see you here or elsewhere.
My dear, I, who never had a daughter of
my own, love you as dearly as if you were
my own daughter. I'm only too glad to be
of any help to you. I don't think I shall
come down here much longer, Iris. The
fact is, I'm getting tired of the Bar — its
dulness and its hollo wness. My boys are
well enough provided for now, and I shall
never be a judge — I've been far too honest
for that — done no dirty work for either
party. So there's nothing to keep me with
my nose at the grindstone here much longer.
I've feathered my nest in spite of 'em, and
MISS KNYVETT EXPLAINS HERSELF. 91
I shall soon retire; and then I shall have
nothing to do in life but to pose as your
guardian, guide, philosopher, and friend,
Miss Third Classic'
And he eyed her admiringly. It was
very wrong, but he liked his prett}^ niece
all the better for having achieved those
academical honours he, nevertheless, felt
bound to deprecate.
Iris's eves fell down once more.
' You're too good, uncle — and you're a
darling!' she answered. 'Well, what I
wanted to consult you about to-day is
just this. Now that I've finished my
education '
Uncle Tom shook his head in vigorous
dissent.
' Bad phrase, my dear,' he said, ' bad
phrase — very. Too youthful altogether.
Betrays inexperience. Xobody ever finished
his education yet. Mine goes on still. It's
in progress daily. Each new case teaches
me something. And the judges teach
92 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
me, if nothing else, contempt of Court
daily.'
Iris accepted the correction in good part.
' Well, then,' she went on, witli a pretty
smile, 'now that I've completed my Uni-
versity course '
ft/
* Much better,' the old man muttered:
'much better; much better. Though not
feminine.'
' I want to begin some work in life— some-
thing that will do good in some way to others
— something that will make me feel I'm being
of use to the world in my generation.'
Uncle Tom sniffed high.
' In short,' he said, with a pitying smile,
' a mission.'
Iris smiled in return, in spite of herself
'Well, yes/ she good-humouredly mur-
mured, 'if you choose to put it so, just
that — a mission.'
Uncle Tom rose and went over without a
word to a small tin box on a shelf opposite,
conspicuously labelled, in large white letters,
MISS KNYVETT EXPLAINS HERSELF. 93
* Estate of the late Rev. Reginald Knyvett.'
From the box he took out a few papers and
parchments, and from among them he soon
seh3cted one, tied round with a neat little
tag of red tape, and marked on the back in
a round legal hand, ' Descendants of the late
Rear- Admiral William Clarence Knyvett,
C.B.' He handed this formidable document
over with a little silent bow to Iris, and
seating himself then at his own desk, pro-
ceeded with uplifted pen in hand to address
her, as jury, on the question at issue.
' My dear,' he said, in so forensic a tone
that Iris half expected ' My Lud, I mean,'
to follow, ' you must remember that you
have already a mission cut out for you, and
a mission for which it is your bounden duty
as a citizen and a Christian most strenuously
to prepare yourself. I know, of course, the
sort of thing you had in your head. Come,
now,' and he assumed his cross-examining
tone, with a dig of his quill in the direction
of the unwilling witness ; ' confess you
g4 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
were thinking of being a nurse in a
hos])ital.'
Iris blushed a guilty acquiescence.
' Well, either that,' she answered grudg-
ingly, 'or a tutorship, or lectureship at
some ladies' college.'
' Precisely so,' Uncle Tom responded,
with a crushing triumph. 'I knew as
much. I was morally certain of it. It's
always so. Young women in search of a
mission nowadays have two ideas, and two
ideas only— nursing or teaching. They
want to turn the world into one vast
hospital, or one vast boarding - school.
They'd like us all to break our legs, or
o-o into the Fourth Form again, that they
miffht exercise their vocation by bandaging
US up Avith ambulance shreds and list, or
crivino- us lectures at great length on politi-
cal economy. Now the fact is, Iris, that's
all very well for plain young women of
limited means, whom nobody's ever likely
to think of marrying. Let them exercise
MISS KNYVETT LXPLAINS HERSELF. 95
their vocation by all means, if they like it,
provided always they don't expect me to
break my leg to please them, or listen to
their lectures on political economy. I draw
a line there; no Mill or Ricardo. . . . But
you, my dear, will have a great fortune.
Somebody worthy of you will some day
marry you — if anybody worthy of you
exists anywhere. Now, to dispense that
great fortune aright, to use it for the best
good of humanity, you ought to be other-
wise engaged than in bandaging, I think.
Your main work in life will be, not to
bandage, but to fulfil the part of a good
wife and a good mother. I may be old-
fashioned in thinking thus, perhaps; I may
even be indelicate, since women nowadays
are too delicate to face the facts of life — but,
at any rate, I'm practical. These views are
not the views in vogue at Girton, I'm aware,
but they're common-sense — they're common-
sense, for all that. The species won't die
out because you've got the higher education.
96 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
What then? Vou ouoht to be trying to
prepare yourself for your duties in life — the
duties in life that will naturally devolve
upon you as the mistress, dispenser, and
transmitter of a Great I/roperty.'
The last two words Uncle Tom pro-
nounced with peculiar unction, for nroperty
in his e3^es was something almost sacred in
its profound importance.
' But how do I knowl' Iris objected
faintly, 'that Uncle Arthur will leave his
money to me at all ? Let alone the odious
idea of waiting and watching till you come
into somebody else's fortune.'
' How do you know ?' Uncle Tom
repeated, with a sudden explosion of
virtuous indignation. ' Just look at that
paper you hold in your hand, and I'll explain
the whole thing to you, as clear as mud, in
half a second. He'd hardly dare to leave it
otherwise, I tell you, Avith me against him.
I'd like to see him try, that's all. Iris.
Just cast your eye on the paper in your
MISS KNYVETT EXPLAINS HERSELF. 97
hand, and recollect that your ^i^n-andfather,
the Admiral— like a green bay-tree—had
five sons— his quiver full of them. Five
sons. Alexander, the squire, never married ;
Clarence, the scapegrace — the less said
about Clarence the better ; Sir Arthur,
the general, whose wife pre-deceased him;
Reginald, the parson, your father, my dear,
and a better man never breathed, though he
married my sister ; and, lastly, Charles, that
rascally lawyer, who has issue your cousin
Harold. Well, your grandfather was ill-
advised enough, though not a lawyer, to
draw up his own will himself— a thing even
I would hardly venture to do, with all my
knowledge; "but fools rush in," etc., etc.
As always happens in such cases, he drew it
up badly, very badly— the Nemesis of the
amateur— used technical terms he didn't
understand, and omitted to explain his
intentions clearly. Now he left the property
in the first instance, for life only, to your
uncle Alexander, the eldest son, as you see
VOL. I. J
98 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
by that paper — but you're not looking at it.
Alexander, you observe, is there set down
as d. s. p. — decessit sine prole — which I need
hardly say to a Third Classic means that he
died without lawful issue.'
' I see,' Iris answered, endeavouring to
assume an inteiested expression, for the
technicalities of the law failed to arouse in
her the same enthusiasm as in the eminent
authority on probate and divorce cases.
' Well, by the terms of the will in that
case made and provided,' Uncle Tom went
on, with demonstrative forefinger, ' the
propert}^ was next to go for life to your
uncle Clarence, provided he outlived your
uncle Alexander. Clarence, who was to
have power of appointment if he died with
issue, was, as you will remember, an officer
of Hussnrs, and, not to put too fine a point
upon it, he disappeared under a cloud,
getting killed abroad in the French service,
in which he had enlisted, before^ mark you,
before the death of your uncle Alexander,
MISS KNYVETT EXPLAINS HERSELF. 99
who deceased at Bath on April 4, 1883
without lawful issue. So that, so far as
this present question is concerned, we may
safely leave Clarence out of consideration.
Mortuus est sine prole— he died without law-
ful issue of his body begotten, killed in action
in foreign parts, on or about June 20, armo
ilomini 1868, and has no further interest in
this present inquiry.'
'I see,' Iris once more made answer,
dutifully stifling a yawn.
* AVell, then, and in that case/ Uncle Tom
went on, with forensic quill pointed firmly
towards her, ' the property was to devolve
on the third brother, your uncle Arthur—
you see him down there, Major^General Sir
Arthur Wellesley Knyvett, K.C.B.-no
doubt, as your grandfather fondly expected,
on the same terms as his elder brothers!
And Sir Arthur, in fact, as you well know,
is now and at present the actual holder'
But then, and this is highly important, your
grandfather omitted, in Arthur's case, to
7—2
loo THE TENTS OF SHEM.
insert the limiting clause he had elsewhere
used for his other children, and left, by
implication, your uncle Arthur (purely by
accident, I don't for a moment doubt) full
power to bequeath it to whomever he chose,
whether he had issue living or otherwise.
And that power,' Uncle Tom continued, with
a vicious snap of his jaw, * your uncle
Arthur now and always lays claim to
exercise.'
' Then how am I to know ?' Iris asked
with a shudder, scarcely overcoming her
natural objection to ask such a question,
' that Uncle Arthur means to exercise it in
my favour ?'
' Because,' Uncle Tom answered, with a
wise air of exclusive knowledge, ' I have
let him know privately, through a safe
medium, that he daren't do otherwise. The
terms of the will, in the latter part, are
so vague and contradictory that nobody but
I can understand them, and T can make
them mean anything I like, or everything.
MISS KNYVETT EXPLAINS HERSELF. loi
or nothing. Your grandfather then goes
on to provide, after allowing your uncle
Arthur to do as he will — so far as I can
read his ungrammatical sentences — that in
case your uncle Arthur dies without issue,
the money shall go to the fourth son, the
Rev. Keginald Knyvett, deceased, who
married my sister, Amelia Whitmarsh ; or,
in case of his pre-decease, to his lawful
issue, who, as you will see from the paper
before you, and are, indeed, perhaps already
aware, is Iris Knyvett, of Girton College,
Cambridge, spinster, here present.'
'I suspected as much already,' Iris
answered, smiling.
' Last of all on that paper, you will
observe,' Uncle Tom remarked, growing
suddenly severe and red in flice, as was his
wont in dealing with a specially awkward
and damaging witness, ' comes the name of
the fifth and youngest son, that rascally
lawyer, Charles Wilberforce Knyvett. Now,
your late uncle, Charles Wilberforce Knyvett,
I02 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
for some unknown reason, was never in
any way a favourite with his father. In
fact, the Admiral profoundly disliked him.
People say the old gentleman in his latter
days thought his youngest son a sneak and
a cur (which was unhappily true), and
harboured a peculiar grudge against him.
At any rate, he is conspicuously omitted
from any benefit under the will, or, rather,
it is provided in so many words that after
all these lives have run out, the property
shall 7iot descend to Charles Wilberforce
Knyvett, his heirs, executors, or assigns^ but
shall be diverted to another branch of the
family, to the total exclusion of your uncle
Charles and his sole issue, your cousin
Harold.'
' Then Uncle Arthur couldn't leave the
property to Harold, even if he wanted to ?'
Iris asked, somewhat languidly, but with a
resolute desire, since her uncle wished it,
to master the intricacies of this difficult
problem in the law of inheritance.
\
■M
MISS KNYVETT EXPLAINS HERSELF. 105
' He says he can, but / say he can't/ Uncle
Tom answered, with a glow of righteous
triumph. ' I've tried the will by all the
precedents, and all I've got to say is this —
I'd just like to see him try it.' And Uncle
Tom unconsciously assumed the attitude of
defence familiar to the patrons of the British
prize-ring.
' That's a pity,' Iris answered, looking
him straight in the flice ; ' and it seems
somehow awfully unfair ; for Uncle Arthur's
so fond of Harold, you know; and he's
never seen me since I was a baby in
swaddling-clothes.'
Uncle Tom laid down his glasses on his
desk with a bounce. ' God bless my soul !'
he cried, in a paroxysm of astonishment.
' Is the girl cracked ? Has much learning
made her mad at Girton ? Going to play
into your enemy's hand, eh, and chuck up
a fortune of six thousand a year, all for
the sake of a piece of sentiment ! No, no :
thank heaven I know the law; and not a
,o4 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
single penny of the Admiral's property
shall that scoundrel Harold ever touch or
handle. Not a doit, not a cent, not a sou,
not a stiver. He won't, and he shan't, so
that's all about it !'
CHAPTER VII.
. ART AND NATURE.
In a very few days Eustace Le Marchant
and Vernon Blake had settled down com-
fortably to their respective pursuits on
the wind-swept summit of the mountain of
the Beni-Merzoug. The simiole-hearted
Kabyles, as soon as they were quite con-
vinced that the new-comers were neither
French spies nor agricultural pioneers sent
out to spread the concomitant blessings
of civilization and confiscation of land,
welcomed the young Englishmen with most
cordial hospitality to their lonely hill-tops.
Their courtesy, in fact, seemed likely at first
to prove, if anything, a trifle too pressing ;
io6 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
for almost every family in the villaire
insisted on sending a cous-cous in turn,
in polite recognition of the new visitors.
Now, Meriem's cous-coiis, much to the
Englishmen's ingenuous surprise, prepared
as it was by those dainty and dexterous
fingers, had turned out upon tasting a
triumphant success ; but the cous - causes
which succeeded it, and all of which polite-
ness compelled the inhabitants of the cam])
to devour in public to the uttermost morsel
before their entertainers' eyes, were far from
attaining the same high level of primitive
cookery. Deft fingers count for much even in
the smallest matters. Meriem herself, indeed ,
was of infinite use to them in arranging
supplies; and her uncle the Headman, with
his friends the Marabouts, gave them every
facility for shooting and sketching, and
hunting specimens throughout the whole
country-side for miles in either direction.
On the first morning after their arrival in
the hills, Blake strolled out by himself, with
ART AND NATURE. 107
sketch-book in hand, for a walk through the
village, while Le Marchant was busy un-
packing and arranging his bird- stuffing and
beetle-preservint^ apparatus. To Vernon
Blake, the village was indeed a fresh world
of untold enjoyment. The rough -built
houses, with their big stone walls and tile-
covered roofs ; the broad eaves projecting
over the open courtyard, and supported by
rude wooden Ionic columns ; the tall lithe
men with their simple but picturesque and
effective garb, their bronzed features, and
their long oval faces ; the women at the
fountain wdth water -jars on their heads,
walking stately and erect, with exquisite
busts and rounded limbs, just peeping
through the graceful folds of their hang-
ing chiton — each and all of these suof^ested
to his soul endless subjects for innumerable
pictures, where girls of this exquisite Italian
type might form the figures in the fore-
ground, exactly suited to his sympathetic
pencil. He had come to the very right
io8 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
place for liis art. Models crowded upon
him s})ontarieously at every corner.
A turn of the road near the Headman's
cottage brought him suddenly, with a start,
face to face with Meriem herself, engaged
on a little flat platform, with a group of
Kabyle girls of her own age, in moulding
coarse vases of hand-made pottery. Blake,
with his soft-soled white-linen shoes, came
upon them so noiselessly and unexpectedly
that for half a minute the girls themselves,
intent upon their work, never so much as
perceived the presence of a stranger. The
artist, drawing back, for fear he might
disturb them, drank in the whole group
with unspoken delight. He paused on the
path a little above where they stood, and
looked down, all interest, upon that un-
studied picture. The graceful Kabyle
maidens in their bimple loose dress, with
feet bare to the ankle, were stooping
picturesquely over the jars they were mould-
ing, in unconscious attitudes of grace and
ART AND NATURE. 109
beauty. Some of tliem were bareheaderl,
others wore on tlieir hair a sort of pointed
fez, or l^hrygian kaftan, wliich half confined,
half let loose to the wind, tlieir raven -black
locks. The jars, in shape like an old
Roman amphora, were poised upon the
ground by means of a little round mud
base ; the naive young potters, each full of
her own task, and unmindful of the others,
built up the big vessels stage after stage by
adding on loose handfuls of moist and
flattened clay to the half-finished outline.
They were evidently ignorant of the use of
the wheel — so remote and unsophisticated
are these wild mountain -people — yet the
shapes which grew slowly under their
moulding fingers ^vere each almost perfect
of their own simple kind, and bore each the
distinct and unmistakable impress of an
individual fancy. It was pretty to see them
stooping, thus unconscious, over the wet
vases of yellow clay, with one hand inside
supporting and modelling the freshly-
I lo THE TENTS OF SHEM.
jidded portion, while the otlier without was
employed in smoothing it, and shai)ing the
whole, by dexterous side-pressure, to the
required roundness.
lilake Avould have pulled out his pencil
on the spot, and sketched them roughly in
their attitudes, all unwitting as they stood,
had not one little fiiir- haired and blue-eyed
maiden, of that almost Scandinavian type
so common here and there in Kabyle
villages, looked laughingly up from her two-
handled jar, and caught his eye on a sudden
with a frightened little scream of shyness
and astonishment. An infidel was standing
there, gazing upon them unseen. ' A
stranger! A stranger!' At the sound, all
the others started up in concert, and in a
moment all was giggling and blushing con-
fusion. So strange a visitor never before
had disturbed their peace. Some of the
girls held their hands to their faces like way-
ward children to hide their blushes ; others
fell back a pace or two in startled haste
ART AND NATURE. m
under the overhanging eiives of the Head-
man's cottage. Who could say wliat designs
the infidel migdit harbour ? Merieni alone
raised herself erect, and gazed the painter
fairly in the face with the frank self-posses-
sion of a European lady.
Blake lifted his hat as instinctively as
before, for he felt her presence ; and Meriem,
in reply, raised her hand, with a wave, to
the level of her face, in an easy and graceful
natural salutation.
' Good-inorning, mademoiselle,' the artist
said gaily, in high spirits at the scene and
its pictorial capabilities.
' Good-morning, friend,' Meriem answered
quickly, a slight shade passing, as she spoke,
over her open countenance. ' But why do
you call me mademoiselle, if you please ?
I'm not a Frenchwoman, as you seem to
think me.'
Blake saw she was evidently annoyed at
the politely-meant title.
' I called you mademoiselle,' he said
112 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
apologetically. ' because I wanted to call you
something, and, as I suppose you're a French
citizen, I didn't know what else on earth to
call you.'
' Why not call me by my name, as every-
one el^e does ?' the beautiful barbarian
answered simply. ' I'm just Meriem to all
the village.'
l^lake was a little taken aback at the
startling proposal. So much familiarity
fairly took his breath away. This was indeed
to rush i?i mediae res with undue preci])i-
tancy.
' Am I to say Meriem, then ?' he inquired
rather low, with natural bashfulness.
' What else should you say ?' Meriem
answered naively. ' Don't people call one
another by their names everywhere ?'
* Why, yes,' Blake ans^^^ wered, with some
little hesitation, ' but not by their Christian
names, you know — at least, in England —
except as a mark of special favour and close
intimacv.'
ART AND NATURE. 113
' Meriem is /lot a Christian name,' the o-irl
answered hastily, almost indignantly, ' and
I'm not a Christian ; I'm a true believer.'
* But your father was a Christian,' Blake
ventured to reply, astonished at the unwonted
tone of her disclaimer ; * and you told us
yesterday your Eno-lish name at least was
Mary/
'My father was no Christian!' Meriem
cried aloud, with flashing eyes and fiery
indignation. ' People in the village accused
him of that sometimes, I know, but it was
never true ; I'm sure it was never true, for
Yusuf was kinder and better than anyone —
no infidel could ever be as kind as that.
He was a good Moslem, and he read the
Koran, and prayed rt the tombs, and went
to mosque like the rest on Fridays regularly.
He was a true man, and everyone loved
him. No one shall say a word before me
against my father. As to my name, why,
Mary and Meriem 's all the same, of course ;
and I was called, so the women in the
VOL. I. 8
114 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
village say, after the name of the mother of
Aissa-ben-Meriem. But Moslems, too,
honour him as a very great prophet, you
know, though not so great, naturally, as our
own Prophet Mahommed.'
Blake hardly understood her meaning to
the full, for his acquaintance with her creed
was strictly confined to ' The Arabian
lights ' and ' The Revolt of Islam ;' but it
gave him a little shock of surprise and horror
to hear anyone, and especially a Avoman, so
indignantly repel the imputation of Chris-
tianity. Yet a moment's reflection served
to show him, though by no means a philo-
sophically-minded or cosmopolitan young
man, that in such surroundings nothing else
would have been natural, or even possible.
Meriem, no doubt, had never heard Chris-
tians spoken of before except with the
profoundest scorn and detestation of the
Faithful. It hardly even occurred to her
simple mind that her hearer himself, infidel
as he was, could think seriously well of
ART AND NATURE. 115
them, or regard them as the equals of true
believers.
He turned the conversation, accordingly,
of set purpose. ' You all looked so pretty,'
he said, ' as I came along the path, bending
over your jars and modelling your pottery,
that I was longing in my heart to stand still
and study you. I wanted to sketch you all
just as you stood there.'
'To what?' Meriem cried, with a little
start of dismay ; an unknown word encloses
for a woman such infinite possibilities.
' To sketch you, you know,' Blake re-
peated reassuringly. ' To put you in my
book like this, you see. To make a little
picture of you.'
Meriem laughed, a sweet, frank laugh, as
she turned the pages of his book with
wondering eyes. ' That would be nice,' she
said. ' They're pretty things, these. But
would it be right, I wonder ? All ffood
Moslems are forbidden, you know, by the
Prophet's law, to make a picture or image
8—2
ii6 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
of anything in heaven or earth or the water
under them. There are no pictures any-
where in any of the mosques. Would the
Marabouts think it was right for us to be
painted ?'
' But I'm not a Moslem, you see,' Blake
replied, smiling, with ready professional
casuistry. ' And all that you've got to do
yourselves, you know, is just to stand lean-
ing as you were over your pottery, and allow
me to commit the sin of sketching you on
my own account. It won't hurt me : I'm
a hardened offender. Ask the other girls,
there's a good soul, whether they'll come
back as they were and let me sketch them.'
* And are the other girls to be put in the
picture, too ?' Meriem asked, looking up,
with a faint undertone of disapprobation.
* Certainly,' Blake replied, without per-
ceiving the slight inflection of disappointment
in her voice. ' Now go, there's a good girl,
and make them come back and stand nicely
as I tell them.'
ART AND NATURE. 117
' My father used to say that, " Now go,
there's a good girl," ' Meriem answered, with
a faint rising flush of pleasure ; and, pleased
at the word, she went off at once to do as he
directed her. He had stirred an old chord
in her simple nature.
In half a dozen minutes Blake had got
two sitters, with a little coaxing and manual
posing, which they seemed to resent far less
than European girls would have done under
the circumstances, into tolerable order for
his proposed study. At first, to be sure, he
had no little difficulty in getting them to
keep for five seconds together to one posture
or attitude. They seemed to think it a
matter of supreme indifference whether a
face begun at one angle should be continued
at the same or a totally unlike one. But
with some small trouble, by Meriem's aid,
and with the magnificent promise; of untold
wealth in the shape of a silver half-franc a-
piece visibly dangled before their astonished
eyes, he succeeded at last in inducing eacli
ii8 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
girl to maintain something like a consis-
tent attitude ; at least, while he was engaged
upon his first rough sketch of her own
particular face and figure. The guileless
damsels, dazzled at the prospect of such un-
expected wealth, would have sat there all
day as still as mice for so magnificent a pay-
ment ; but at the end of an hour or two
Blake dismissed them all with mutual satis-
faction to their various homes, and pre-
pared himself to return in excellent sjiirits
to the tent ^\iih his prize for luncheon.
* That ought to fetch them,' he murmured
to himself, as he surveyed his own dainty
and unaffected sketch with parental partiality.
* Now, Meriem, you've done more for me
to-day than all the rest of them put together.
You must have a whole franc yourself for
your share in the proceedings.' And he
held that vast store of potential enjoyment,
proffered in a single shining coin, between his
delicate thumb and opposing fore-finger.
Meriem had never possessed so much
ART AND NATURE. 119
money in her life before ; but she drew her
hand back from him with a startled gesture,
and held it like a child behind her back with
an unsophisticated expression of offended
dignity. ' Oh no,' she answered, blushing
crimson to the neck ; ' I could never take
that. Please don't ask me again. I'm glad
if I was able to help you wdth your picture.
Though, of course, it was wrong of us to let
you draw us.'
Blake saw at a glance that she really
meant it, and with the innate courtesy of a
gentleman refrained at once from pressing
the obnoxious coin any further upon the
girl's unwilling notice. He replaced the
franc quietly in his waistcoat pocket, and
!!-aid as he did so, in an unconcerned voice,
to turn the current of both their thoughts,
' I suppose the other girls will go off with
their money to get themselves something at
the shops in the village '
* At the what ?' Meriem asked, with a
look of bewilderment.
I20 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
* At the shops,' Blake answered, in a
jaunty tone. ' I suppose you've got shops
of some sort or other in this benighted
country.'
* I don't know what you mean,' Meriem
answered, shaking her head vigorously. * I
never heard of them. Shops, did you say ?
I don't think we've got any — unless it's
cakes ; but if I only knew exactly what you
meant, and could say it in Kabyle, I'd ask
irjy uncle.'
Blake laughed a laugh of unaffected
amusement. It seemed so odd to be talk-
ing to somebody in his own tongue — and so
familiarly, too — who hnd never even so
much as heard what sort of thing a shop
was. * Why, where do you buy things ?'
he asked curiously. ' Where do you get
the food and utensils, and so on, that you're
in want of?'
' We make them, or grow them mostly,
of course,' Meriem answered quickly (every-
thing, it seemed, was ' of course ' to Meriem,
ART AND NATURE. 121
because her experience had all been so
limited, and so uncontradicted) ; 'but when
we want to buy things from other tribes,
we go down and get them with money at
the markets. Or sometimes we exchange a
iroat or a chicken. There's a market one
day of the week, but I don't remember its
English name— the day after Friday — here
with us at Beni-Merzoug ; and there are
others on other days at neighbouring villages,
sometimes one and sometimes another. And
that's where we always go to buy things.'
Blake smiled to himself a smile of amused
superiority. To think that Le Marchant
should have talked seriously, from amarrying
point of view, about a girl Avho had never
even heard of shopping ! And yet in more
civilized European climes many a good man
would be heartily glad to find himself a wife
on whose innocent mind — but on second
thoughts I refrain from making any nasty
reflections.
He shut up his sketch-book, and rose to
1 22
THE TENTS OF SHEM.
leave. Meriem looked after him with a look
of regret. How wonderful that a man should
be able to make pictures like that I They
seemed to live and breathe, she fancied. She
had hardly ever seen a picture at all before,
except a few coarse French lithographs
bought by the villagers at Tizi-Ouzou. But
she had never been as far as Tizi-Ouzou
even, herself. Her narrow little experience
was bounded hard and fast by her own
mountain peak and its adjacent valleys.
And how beautiful he looked when he
turned and smiled at her !
But Blake went away and thought of
nothing. He showed his sketch to Le
Marchant in high spirits when he reached
the tent. Le Marchant's face fell as he
looked at it.
' So you've been drawing Meriem !' he
said. ' You've found her out already ! A
very pretty picture. You ought to work
it up into something very good ! It's life-
like, and therefore of course it's beautiful.
ART AND NATURE. 123
But you've been with Meriem all
the morning, while I've been unpacking my
ffoocls and chattels. I wondered she hadn't
been up here before to visit us/
CHAPTER YIII.
NO SOUL.
For the next week or so the two young
Englishmen were busy enougli hunting and
sketching all day long among the fresh
ground they had thus successfully broken
for themselves in the North African High-
lands. Le Marchant spent much of his
time up among the jagged peaks and bare
rocks of the mountains, happy enough if
he returned at night with a specimen of
* that rare and local l)ird, the Algerian
titmouse/ or wnth a snail as big as a pin*s
head, 'a perfect treasure, you know, my
dear fellow, hitherto only known to science
in the mountains of Calabria and in the
Albanian Highlands.' Zeal for his great
NO SOUL. 125
work on ' Structure and Function ' had
swallowed him up, and gave zest and
importance to the minutest find in beetles
or gadflies.
Blake, on the other hand, loitered much
more around the precincts of the village
itself and the cultivated plots that hung
along the narrow ledges of the hillside ; for
his quarry was man, and he loved to drink
his fill of that idyllic life, so purely Arcadian
in its surviving simplicity, that displayed
itself with such charming frankness and
unconcern before his observant eyes each
sunny morning. It was the artist's Greece
revived for his behoof; the Italy of the
Georgics in real life again. The labourer
leaning hard on his wooden plough, the
yoke of mountain oxen that tugged it
through the ground, the women at the
well with their coarse, hand-made jars, the
old men chatting under the shade of the
ash-trees beside the tiny mosque, all afforded
him subjects for innumerable studies. He
126 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
beheld before his face a Virgilian eclogue
for ever renewing itself ; and the young
painter, who had never read his Eclogues
in the Latin at all, could appreciate what-
ever was most vivid and picturesque in the
life of these simple idyllic mountaineers
with an eye as keen in its way as Virgil's
own had been.
^leriem, too, often came up in the evenings
to the tent in her capacity as interjireter :
and Le Marchant, who could see and admire
strong traits of character wherever he found
them, soon learnt to read in the Kabvle-
bred girl, with her open mind and serene
intelligence, many marks of fine and sterling
qualities. But he could gather little furtlier
by all his inquiries about the mystery of her
origin. All that Meriem herself could tell
him of her parentage was simply this —
Yusuf had a French name as w^ell as an
En owlish and a Kabvle one : and if his
French name had ever leaked out, the
people at Fort National would have taken
NO SOUL. 127
him and shot him. Le Marchant, indeed,
was just at first inclined to consider the
beautiful f^irl's father was a runaway
convict !
Inquiries directed through Meriem's
mouth to her uncle the Amine were met
in a distinctly reserved spirit. It seemed
as though the old Kabyle was afraid even
now of betraying the dead man's secret — if,
indeed, he had one, or if '':he Amine knew
it. Perhaps these English might be in
league with the infidel French, after all, and
might be plotting harm against himself
and his tribesmen — else why should they
thus minutely inquire about the girrs ante-
cedents ? A mere girl; why bother their
heads Avith her ? Yusuf was dead ; let him
sleep in peace where good Moslems had
laid him. All that the Amine could or
would tell them amounted in the end simply
to this — that Meriem's father had come to
them as a guest after a great battle in a
local insurrection (one of those petty risings,
128 THE TENTS OF SHEM,
no doubt, in which the tribes of Kabylie are
for ever striving to reassert their independ-
ence oL French authority) ; that he was a
good man, who loved the Kabyles ; that he
wore the native dress, and lived as the
tribe lived; that he was a faithful Moslem
and a clever hunter — considerations appar-
ently of equal importance in the eyes of the
villaofers ; that he had married the Amine's
sister, Meriem's mother, long since dead,
according to the rites and ceremonies of the
Kabyle people ; and that he had died by
falling over a ledge of rock three years back,
while wandering by himself under unex-
plained circumstances among the high
mountains. So much the Amine, bit by
bit, suspiciously admitted. With that
scanty information, no more being forth-
coming, Le Marchant for the present was
forced to content himself.
Blake, on the other hand, with his more
easy - going and pleasure - loving artistic
temperament, troubled himself little about
NO SOUL. 129
all these things. Gallic that he was, it
sufficed him to sit in the shade of the
chestnuts and paint Meriem as the fore-
ground figure in almost all his pictures
rather than to indulge in otiose specula-
tions as to her possible ancestry and pro-
blematical parentage. ' She's a first-rate
mode],' he said, 'whoever her father may
be. King Cophetua's beggar -maid could
never have been lovelier.' And that con-
tented him. He wanted only to find
physical beauty. So he got to work soon
on studies for a large canvas, with Meriem
in the centre, her water-jar poised with
queenly grace upon her stately head; and
he was well satisfied to sketch in her
shapely chin and throat without any
remote genealogical inquiries to distract
his mind from the exquisite curve on her
neck and shoulders.
' But if you're going to give me regular
sittings, Meriem,' he said to her seriously
one morning under the chestnuts, venturing
VOL. I. 9
I30 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
to broach once more the tabooed subject,
* you must really let me pay you so much
a day, because I shall want you, of course,
for so many hours every morning regularly,
and it'll take you away altogether at ilmes
from your household duties.'
' My aunt can do those,' Meriem answered
quietly, shaking her head. ' I like to sit
for you ; it gives me pleasure. I like to
see these beautiful pictures growing up so
curiously under your hands. It's almost
like magic*
' Thank you,' the Englishman answered,
' That's very kind of you. Praise from
your lips, Meriem, is worth a great deal
to me.'
He said it lightly, with a smile and a
bow, as a commonplace of politeness, for to
him the words meant very little. But to
Meriem, who had never heard women
treated with ordinary Western chivalry
before, they were full of profound and
delicious meaning; they struck some un-
NO SOUL. 131
known beart-string deep down in her being.
She blushed up to her eyes (a good moment
for a painter; Blake seized it gratefully),
and then relapsed for awhile into joyful
silence.
'Yes, yes! just so/' Blake cried, stop-
ping her on a sudden, with both his hands
uplifted in warning, as she fell naturally
into one of her easy, graceful Hellenic
attitudes. ' That's just how I want you ;
don't move a muscle— you're beautiful that
way. It shows off your arm and head and
the pose of your neck to such absolute
perfection. You're prettier than ever like
that, I declare, Meriem.'
Meriem, all conscious of herself for the
first time in her life, stood as he directed
her, without moving a line. She could
have stood there for ever, indeed, with
Blake to paint her.
The artist went on Avithout noticing her
emotion.
' Don't let my uncle know,' she said, after
9—2
132 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
a short paase, with some slight embarrass-
ment, and hesitating as she spoke, 'that
you offered— that you wanted— to give me
money for sitting.'
' I won't; Blake answered, laughing ; ' I
can promise you that. With my present
knowledge of his language, indeed, I should
find it difficult.' He played with his brush
—dab, dab, on the canvas. * But why not,
Meriem ?'
The girl blushed again.
' Because— he would take it,' she answered
simply.
Blake smiled and nodded, but said
nothing.
They were standing outside the village
on the open space in front of the tiny
whitewashed mosque, and men and women
came past frequently, and paused to look,
with clicks of surprise or interest or appro-
bation, at the portrait on the easel, as Blake
sat and painted it. Presently, a young
Kabyle of handsome form and well-made
NO SOUL. 133
features came up in his turn, and looked,
like the others ; then he turned round
sharply, and spoke for awhile, with a
somewhat earnest air, to Meriem ; and, as
Blake imagined, there was audible in his
tone some undercurrent of imperious and
angry expostulation.
'Who's that?' the EngHshman asked,
looking up with a quick glance from his
seat on the rock as the Kabyle turned on
his heel and retired, half haughtily.
'That's Ahmed,' Meriem answered, in the
same ' of course ' style of conversation as
usual, as if everybody must needs know^ all
her fellow^- villagers.
'And who's Ahmed.?' the painter went
on, still working steadily at the flesh-tints
of the shoulder.
' The man who's going to marry me,*
Meriem answ^ered, in just as quiet and
matter-of-fact a voice as that in which she
would have told him the price of spring
chickens.
,34 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
IMake started back in almost speechless
surprise,
' That man marry you !' he cried, with a
toss of his handsome head. 'Why, he's
nothing but a common Kabyle mule-driver.
What impudence! What presumption!
And do you love him, Meriem ?'
' No,' ]^leriem answered, in the same
calm and downright voice, without the
slightest attempt at concealing her feelings
in that particular.
'Then why on earth are you going to
marry him ?' Blake asked, astonished.
' Because my uncle has agreed to sell me
to him,' Meriem said simply. * As soon as
Ahmed's earned money enough to buy me,
my uncle's going to let him have me cheap.
Perhaps Ahmed '11 have saved enough by
the next olive harvest. He's offered my
uncle a very fair price : he's going to give
him a patch of land and two hundred francs
for me.'
Blake was genuinely shocked and sur-
NO SOUL. 135
prised at this painful disclosure. In spite
of his contempt for barbaric women, he felt
instinctively already that Meriem was far
too much of an English girl at heart to be
bought and sold like a sheep or a chattel.
He explained to her, briefly, in simple
words, that in England such means of
arranging marriages were not openly
countenanced by either law or custom ;
indeed, with a generous disregard of plain
facts — allowable, perhaps, under the peculiar
circumstances — he avoided all reference to
settlements or jointures, and boldly averred,
with pardonable poetic license, that English-
women alwavs bestowed their hearts and
hands on the man of their choice who
seemed to them most worthy of their young
affections.
' That's a beautiful way,' Meriem mur-
mured reflectively, after the handsome
painter had dilated with enthusiasm for a
few minutes on the purity and nobility of
our English marriage system. * That's a
136 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
lovely way. I should like that ever so
much. I wish for some things I had been
born in England. Although you're all
infidels, you have some good ways there.
Uut here, in Kabyhe, of course, I must
follow in all things the Kabyle custom.'
* So you mean to obey, and to marry
Ahmed?' Blake asked, half shocked, but
continuing to work at the elbow and
forearm.
' What else can I do ?' Meriem asked,
looking up with a quiet sigh. ' I can't
refuse to go where my uncle bids me.'
* But how can you find it in your soul?'
Blake began, half indignantly.
' I've got no soul,' Meriem interrupted, in
a perfectly serious voice. ' We Mussulman
women are born without any.'
' Well, doul or no soul, wouldn't you
much prefer,' Blake went on with fire,
warming up to his subject, ' instead of
marrying that fellow with the mules, who'll
probably abuse you, and overwork you, and
NO SOUL. 137
beat you, and ill-treat you, to marry some
Englishman with a heart and a head, who'd
love you well, and be proud of your beauty,
and delight in decking you out in becoming
dress, and be to you a friend, and a shield,
and a lover, and a protector ?'
A bright light burned for a moment like
flame in Meriem's eyes ; then she cast them
down to the ground, and her bosom heaved,
as she answered slowly, in a very low voice,
'No Kabyle ever spoke to a woman like
that. They don't know how. It's not in
their language. But Yusuf used to speak
to me often that way. And he loved my
mother, and w\as, oh ! so kind to her, till the
day she died. I think you English, infidels
as you are, must be in some ways a blessed
people; so different from the French— the
French are wicked. It's a pity the English
aren't true believers.'
Her heart was beating visibly through
her robe now. Blake felt he had said a
little too much, perhaps, for he meant
138 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
nothing!: more than the merest flirtation ; so
lie turned the subject with a careless smile
to the get-up of the })icture. * I'm going
on to your hand and wrist next, Meriem,'
he said, with a wave, rising up to pose her
fingers exactly as he wanted them. ' Look
here, this locket round your neck's in the
way. Couldn't you take it off ? It spoils
the natural folds of your drapery, and in-
commodes the hand so.'
It was a small square charm, in shape
like a tiny box or book, made of coarse
silver work, inlaid with enamel, and re-
lieved by bosses of lapus-lazuli, and other
cheap stones, such as all Kabyle women
wear, as an amulet hung round their necks
to protect them from the evil eye, and other
misfortunes.
' " With coral clasps and amber studs," '
Blake murmured to himself, as he looked at
it closely. He laid his hand upon it with a
gesture of apology, and a ' Will you permit
me, Meriem ?' — meaning to remove it by
NO SOUL. 139 X
passing the chain over her head and kaftan.
]]i\t the girl, witli a sudden convulsive
effort of hoth her hands, clasped it hard and
tiii^ht to her bosom.
' Oh no,' she cried, 'not that ; not that,
please I You must never take thai. I
couldn't possibly allow you. You mustn't
even touch it. It's very precious. You
must keej) your hands off it.'
' Is it something, then, so absolutely
sacred ?' Blake asked, half laughingly,
and suspecting some curious Mahommedan
superstition.
' Yes, more than sacred,' Meriem answered,
low. ' It was Yusuf who hung it there
when he was going away, and he told me
often, with tears in his eyes, never to let
anybody lay hands upon it anywhere. And
nobody ever shall, till I die with it on my
neck. For Yusuf's sake it shall always
hang there. When I've Dome a son ' — she
said it so simply that Blake hardly noticed
the unconventional phrase — ' the Kabyle
140 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
custom is to wear the charm, for an honour,
on the forehead. J3ut I shall never move
mine from my neck at all, though the
women may laugh at me. I shall wear it
for ever where my father hung it.'
The painter, abashed, held his peace at
once, and asked her no more. He saw slie
felt too deeply on the subject to make it
either wise or kind for him to interfere with
her feeling.
That evening at the tent, as he sat with
Le Marchant, stuffing birds and pinning
out butterfiipG, Meriem came up with a
message from the Amine about some do-
mestic trifle of milk-sup])ly or goat-mutton.
Le Marchant was glad to see her, too, for
he wanted to ask her a favour for himself
Perhaps he was jealous that his handsome
lodger should monopolize so large a portion
of the beautiful Kabjde girl's time and at-
tention ; ])erhaps, being by nature of a
studious turn, he was genuinely anxious to
make the best of his linguistic opportuni-
NO SOUL. 141
ties. At any rare, he wanted to inquire of
Meriem whether she would give him lessons
in the evening in the Kabyle language.
Meriem laughed. She ^vas perfectly ready
to do her best, she said, provided always
the lessons were given with all publicity
on the platform outside the Amine's
cottage.
* For our Kabyle men,' she added, with
her transparent simplicity, ' are very jealous,
you know — very, very jealous. They would
never allow me to come here to teach you.
If I came without leave, they would stick
knives into me.'
* And may I learn, too ?' the painter
asked, with his sunny smile.
' Yes, Blake, certainly,' Meriem answered
at once, with natural politeness.
Both the men laughed. From that
stately and beautiful girl's lips the mannish
colloquialism sounded irresistibly funny.
' You mustn't say " P>lake," ' the painter
exclaimed, in answer to Meriem's startled
142 THE lENTS OF SHEM.
look of mute inquiry at their unexpected
merriment.
' But Le Marchant always calls you
Blake/ Meriem objected, much puzzled.
* In England, don't people think it right for
women to call men by their own names,
then ?'
' Well, not by their surnames alone ; it
doesn't sound nice. They generally put a
Mr. before them. But if you like,' Blake
went on with audacious ease, for he was far
from shy before the poor Kabyle girl, ' you
may call me Yernon. That's my Christian
name ; and that's how Englishwomen al-
ways call a man they know well, and really
care for.'
' I really care for you, Yernon ; I like
you very much,' Meriem said straightfor-
wardly.
* In that case, I, too, shall claim the same
privilege of friendship, and ask you to call
me plain Eustace,' Le Marchant put in,
with gentle solicitude.
NO SOUL. 143
* Very well, Plain Eustace,' Meriem an-
swered, in her innocence taking the name
in good faith as a single compound one.
The laughter that met this unintentional
sally was so very contagious, that Meriem
herself joined in it heartily, though it was
some minutes before she could be made fully
to understand the intricate mysteries of
European nomenclature.
When she had left the tent that night,
her errand finished, Le Marchant turned
round to his easy-going travelling com-
panion with much earnestness in his quiet
eye.
' Blake,' he said seriously, ' I hope you're
not trying to make that poor girl fall in
love with you.'
' I'm not doing anything to make her fall
in love,' Blake answered evasively ; * but
she's never met anybody who treated her
decently in her life before, and I suppose
she can't help perceiving the . . . well you
know, the difference between you or me,
144 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
for example, and these ignorant Kabyle
fellows.'
* Blake, you must surely see for yourself
that in feeling and in intellect the girl's
more than half an Englishwoman. If you
win her heart, and then go away and leave
her without a word to this man you say
her uncle sold her to, you'll murder her as
truly as if, like the Kaby^ .s, you stuck a
knife into her.'
Blake shuffled about uneasily on his
campstool.
* She can't be such a fool as to think I
should ever dream of marrying her,' he re-
plied, with a half-averted face.
Le Marchant looked across at him with
mild eyes of wonder.
' At any rate, Blake,' he said, in a very
solemn, warning voice, ' don't engage her
affections and then desert her. She may be
a Kabyle in outward dress ; but to do that
would be as cruel a deed as ever you could
do to one of those educated English ladies
NO SOUL. 14^
you think so much about. Of one blood-
all the nations of the earth. Hearts are
hearts the whole world over.'
Blake was silent, and threw back his
head carelessly to inspect the sketch he was
l)usily cooking.
VOL. I. IQ
CHAPTER IX.
STRIKING A CLUE.
It was a glorious hot day in an Algerian
July. The mountains stood clear from
cloud in every direction, with their peaks
etched out distinctly against the gray back-
ground of the hazy- white sky; and Le
Marchant made up his mind early in the
morning to attempt the upper slopes of the
Lalla Rhadidja dome, one of the highest
among the surging giants of the Djurjura,
covered thick with snow for nine months of
the year, but now just frte at last, under
the influence of a burning hot spell of
sirocco, from the white cap it had Avorn
since the beginning of winter. Blake, ever
eager in the quest of the picturesque, was
STRIKING A CLUE.
147
ready enough to join him in his moun-
taineering expedition; while Meriem, who
had once or twice made her way on foot as
a pilgrim to the tiny Mahommedan shrine
of the Lady Khadidja, which lies nestled
amid snowdrifts just below the summit, had
after some hesitation agreed to accompany
them, with two other of the village <nrh as
guide and interpreter. N"othing could have
been nicer or more satisfactory— to the
painter. Just at the last moment, however,
as the party was on the very point of start-
ing, that formidable Ahmed came lounging
up, with his full-fed air of Oriental inso"^
lence, to interpose his prospective veto. It
made Blake's blo(.d boil to see how the
fellow treated that beautiful model. For
some minutes he spoke in a hectoring voice
with Meriem ; and it was clear frmn the
gestures and tones of the pair that Meriem
for her part was by no means measured in
the terms of her answers.
'What does the man say.?' Blake asked
10—2
148 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
at last, unable to restrain his disgust and
anger.
'He says,' the girl answered, with a
flushed face, ' he'll never let me go moun-
tain - climbing with the infidels. But I
don't care a pin. He's a bad man. He's
jealous— jealous ; that's what he means by
it'
' And what did you tell him ?'
' I told him,' Meriem replied, with a little
stamp of her shoeless foot on the bare rock,
<• he might order me about when he'd bought
me and paid for me ; but at present I'm
free, and my own mistress. I shall go
where I choose— till I'm bought and paid
for.'
As she spoke, the young Kabyle's hand
played ominously on the hilt of the short
steel knife that every mountaineer of the
Alixerian hills carries always in his girdle
as a weapon of offence. For a straw, he
would have drawn it and stabbed her to the
heart.
• i
STRIKING A CLUE. 149
Le Marchant observed the gesture with
his quick eye, and suggested hastily :
' Ask him if he'll go himself instead, and
guide us ? We'll pay him well — give him
two francs for conducting us to the sum-
mit.'
Your Kabyle never refuses money.
Ahmed assented with delio^ht to the
modified proposal, and his lingers ceased
toying at once with the handle of his
dagger. Le Marchant had done a double
stroke of business — appeased his jealousy
and gratified his innate love of gain — the
two universal mainsprings of action in the
poor and passionate Kabyle nature.
They started on their way, the three men
alone ; and Meriem gazed long and wist-
fully after them with a surging sense of
unrest and disappointment. Something
within her stirred her deeply — something
she could never venture to confide to Mouni
or to Yamina, her closest inmates. How
handsome he looked, in his rough tourist
I50 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
suit, that delicate youn<^ painter with the
s])C'akiiig eyes, beside Ahmed, her betrothed,
in his dirty bernouse and his ragged under-
shirt ! How beautifully he talked, and how
beautifully he painied, and what strangely
divine things he knew how to say to her !
Echoes of some unknown world, those sweet
fresh words of his ! She gazed and gazed,
and tears lilled her eyes. Her soul revolted
with a shock against Ahmed.
Could she really be falling in love — with
an infidel ?
And then a sudden terror began to seize
her heart when they were well on their way,
and past hope of overtaking. Should she
run after them and warn them of the pos-
sible danger? Lalla Khadidja is a steep
and precipitous mountain, full of rearing
crags and crevasses and gullies. Suppose
Ahmed, whom she knew to be jealous of
the two young Englishmen, were to push
them over on some dangerous ledge, and
])retend they had fallen by accident while
STRIKING A CLUE. 151
climbing ! To a Ivabyle such treatment of
the infidel would seem positively merito-
rious. The idea turned her sick with alarm
and anxiety. She could hardly hold the
threads at the upright frame where she sat
all day, in the Amine's hut, weaving a
many coloured native haik for herself, a
mighty labour of the loom, to wear — when
she was married to Ahmed. Married to
Ahmed! The thought of it sickened her.
Till lately it had seemed so natural — and
now ! She longed for the evening, and the
travellers' return. Allah in His goodness
])rotect the Englishmen !
But the two young men, meanwhile, all
ignorant of her fears, toiled up the craggy
slopes towards the bold summit of the great
shadowy mountain. As soon as Meriem
was fairly out of hearing, Blake turned
round to his companion, and asked in a
tone half angry, half disappointed :
* What on earth made you bring this
fellow along with us at all? We could
152 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
have found our own way to the top very
well without liim.'
' Why, I was afraid to leave him behind
with Meriem,' T.e ^larchant answered, with
a quick glance at the sinister face of their
scowling guide. * In the fellow's present
temper, with his blood up, it would take
very little to make him stick a knife into
her. I know these people; they're quick,
and they're revengeful. A word and a stab
is the rule with the tribes, eF])Ccially with
women. They kill a womnn with far less
compunction than you or I would show in
treading on a scorpioii.'
' He's a brute.' Blake answered, striking
the rock with his stick, ' and I'm glad she
hates him.'
For some hours they continued their
toilsome march, ever up and up, with the
wide view opening wider each step before
them.
Towards the summit of the mountain,
where the rocks were liardest, they came
STRIKING A CLUE. 153
suddenly on a rearing crai^ of porphyry,
as red as blood, and as hard as <^ranite. It
was a beautiful mass, and a beautiful pros-
pect spread out in front of it. Le Marchant
sat down at its base in the shade (for, high
as they stood, the sun's rays still scorched
fiercely), and refreshed himself with a pull
at his pocket-flask of whisky and water.
On its north side, a cave or rock-shelter ran
far into its face. Something on the pre-
cipitous wall of the crag within this cave
caught Blake's quick eyes as he glanced up
at the ferns in the crannied rock with a
painter's interest.
' Surely,' he cried, in immense surprise,
pointing up with his stick, 'that's an in-
scription written or carved on the cliff in
English letters !'
Le Marchant jumped up and looked at
the object hard. It was indeed an inscrip-
tion, covered thick with moss and lichen,
which gather so rapidly in these southern
climates, and overgrown by masses of
154 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
maidenhair and ceterach; but, by scraping
it with a knife, it soon became legible. The
letters were firm, and boldly incised, and
the legend ran thus, as Le Marchant read it
out aloud, in Roman capitals:
'CLAKENCE KNYVETT,
SUA IPSIUS MANU FECIT :
ANNO IIEJIR.E
MCCLXIV.'
' What does it all mean?' Blake asked,
somewhat timidly, for he hated to display
his ignorance of the learned languages before
his scientific companion, who seemed to
know everything.
' It means,' Le Marchant answered,
' " Clarence Knyvett wrote this with his
own hand, in the year of the Hejira
1264.' "
' What the dickens is the Hejira?' Blake
asked again.
* The year of Mahommed's flight to
Medina,' Le Marchant answered, with a
politely- stifled smile at such ingenuous
STRIKING A CLUE. 155
ignorance. ' It stands in the East for a.d.
with us. It's the date from which the
Mnssuhnans reckon their era/
'And how long ago was 1264 by this
precious date?' Blake asked once more, sus-
pecting it, vaguely, to be somewhere about
the days of the Crusaders.
'I don't know exactly — I'm not up in
my calendar — but quite recently, I should
be inclined to say. Somewhere within the
last twenty years or so, at most. The
Hejira, you know, was early in the seventh
century.'
' Then I'll tell you Avhat,' Blake cried,
with a start of surprise, * Meriem's father
must have written that up there!'
'Great wits jump. The very same
thought had just occurred to me at the
very same moment.*
' I'll copy it in my sketch-book, exactly
as it stands,' \Make cried, sitting down again,
and pulling out that faithful companion of
his wanderings.
k.
156 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
And ill ten minutes he had produced on
])aper a rough facsimile of the inscription in
its own letters, with an outline of the mass
of rock on which it was cut, and the wall-
flowers and stocks and maidenhair ferns that
sprang out of the crannies in the crag all
around it.
' If Meriem's father really wrote it,' he
said, as he shut up the book again, 'it'll be
a pleasant souvenir to carry away with us
of the girl; and, in any case, it's interesting
as the record of a previous European visit
in such a spot. I thought we were the
first who ever burst into that silent cave.
Besides, it makes quite a pretty little
picture.'
As he spoke, Ahmed signified, with a
wave of his hand, that it was time for
them to go if they wished to rise and
descend again before sunset: and in a
few minutes they were fairly at the sum-
mit.
It was with a beating heart that Meriem
STRIKING A CLUE. 157
waited for them to come back again that
evening, safe and sound, from the terrors of
the treacherous mountain. She watched for
them on the path some way out, whither she
had gone to meet them, ostensibly for the
purpose of driving the goats home to the
milking, but really to relieve her own inner
anxiety. As she saw them, her bosom gave
one ijreat bound, l^lake raised his hat with
jaunty gallantry, and, opening his book,
handed her over the sketch, on purpose
to see if the name on the rock roused any
latent chord in her uncertain memory. But
she looked at it blanklv.
' It's pretty,' she said, ' though not so
pretty as most of your sketches' — for her
stock of English was rapidly increasing
under her new teachers. ' I don't see
much in it — only a piece of rock and a
few small scratches. Are those letters, I
wonder ? They look like letters ; yet
they're not tlie same as one reads in the
Koran.'
158 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
'What! Can't you read English?' Blake
cried in surprise.
It seemed strange to him that one who
could speak so well, with the accent and
manner of an educated lady, should be
unable to sj)ell out one word of our
language.
' No,' Meriem answered, with a shake of
her head. ' I can't read it. Yusuf meant
I should learn to read it in time; but we
had no books, and he died so suddenly;
and then, of course, it was all forgotten.'
' Well,' Le Marchant inter] )osed, with a
fresh test — for he, too, was anxious to try
experiments — 'the first word — this one
here on the face of the rock, }'ou see — is
Clarence.'
Meriem's brow gathered suddenly. One
moment her memory seemed to strike at
last a long-forgotten track. Next instant
she cried with a brioht flash of recoo^ni-
tioa :
' Yes, yes ; that's it ! He wrote it ! He
STRIKING A CLUE. 159
wrote it! I remember now. I remember
it well. My father's English name was
. . . Clarence Kny vett !*
' Right !' Le Marchant answered, with a
gleam of triumph. ' That's just what's
written there : Clarence Kny vett, with his
own hand, in the j^ear 1264 of the
Hejira.*
The girl seized the book rapturously in
her hand, and kissed the picture three or
four times over.
' It's his !' she cried again, in an ecstasy
of joy. ' He wrote it! He wrote it! How
good of you to bring it. It was Yusuf !
Yusuf !'
He was the only soul on eartli she
had ever known — save one, perhaps —
who fulfilled to the utmost the yearn-
ings of her profound European emotional
nature.
As the two men sat alone in their tent
that night, while Diego was engaged in
pressing the Alpine flowers from Le Mar-
i6o THE TENTS OF SHEM.
chant's collecting-case, the artist looked up,
and said to his friend suddenly:
* Wasn't Kny vett the name of that Girton
girl, you remember, who was made Third
Classic or something of the sort the other
day at Cambridge?'
'Yes,' Li Marchant answered — 'a Miss
Iris Knyvett. She's a niece, I believe, of
Sir Arthur, the rich old General. I thought
of that myself, as soon as I saw it. The
name's an uncommon one. It's a curious
coincidence.'
* How queer it would be,' J31ake went on
reflectively, ' if this girl were to turn out a
member of the same family I'
* It Avouldn't at all surprise me,' his friend
replied, with profounder meaning. * Who-
ever her father was, he must at least have
been an educated man. Her English, as
far as it goes, you must surely have noticed,
is the pure English of ladies and gentle-
men.'
' But what a gulf between them !' Blake
STRIKING A CLUE. i6i
exclaimed, with emphasis. ' A girl who
can't even read or write — and a Third
Classic !'
' She can read the Koran/ Le Marchant
answered quickly. * One language is always
the key of another. And, indeed, I think I
can see in her something of the same earnest
and vigorous qualities that imply, to one
who looks below externals, the stuff for
making many Third Classics.'
' My dear Le Marchant, you carry things
toe far! Upon my word, I really believe
you're half in love with her!'
lie Marchant paused for a moment before
replying.
' It' 3 more to the point to remember,' he
said at lust, a little constrainedly, * that
she's very much better than half in love
with i/oii, Blake, and that you've got no
right, thinking as you do, to encourage the
feeling.'
Blake laughed gaily.
' Oh, it's all right,' he answered, in an
VOL. I. 11
l62 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
unconcerned tone. ' In the autumn, you
know, she's to marry Ahmed.'
To say the truth, the implied imputation
of being a lady-killer, even in the case of a
mere Kabyle peasant-girl, rather flattered
his sensitive artist's soul than otherwise.
CHAPTER X.
RIVAL CLAIMS.
Harold Knyvett, Esquire, of the Board of
Trade, and late of Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, lounged lazily back in a leather-
covered arm - chair in the comfortable
smoking-room of the Cheyne Row Club,
Piccadilly.
' Well, yes, my dear fellow,' he remarked
with a languid sigh to the sympathetic
friend (last left in town) who stood com-
placently, cigarette in hand, with his back
to the empty carved marble fireplace, ' T
ought to come in for it, there's no doubt at
all in the world about that; and I expect I
shall too, for I've laid my plans deep, and
Pve played my cards warily. Sir Arthur's
11—2
1 64 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
a (lifticult person to deal with, I admit —
between you and me and the club clock, as
selfish an old pig as ever walked this earth,
and pig-headed to match, into the bargain.
But allowing for all that — and I've allowed
liberally — I've made things modestly certain
in the end, I flatter myself; so that one way
or the other I'm tolerabl}^ sure to turn up
trumps, unless the cards miscarry.'
' That's well,' the sympathetic friend
responded cheerfully. ' I believe the only
o ther person who has any claim to the
estate is your famous cousin, that uns])eak-
able Girton girl, who licked all the men
but two in the 'Varsity into a cocked hat
— isn't she?'
' Exactly so. The only other person ;
and to make things doubly sure, I've kept
my hand well in meanwhile with he?\ too;
so that if the worst should ever come to the
worst, I shall simply marry her, you see,
and take the property that way — with an
encumbrance, unfortunately. For I con-
RIVAL CLAIMS. 165
fess, bein<>' by nature a lover of freedom, I
should prefer it for my own part wholly
unburdened.'
'And suppose she won't have you?' his
friend su<>*o:ested, with a faint smile of
doubt.
' Won't have me ? ^ly dear sir, at the
present day any man on earth may have
any g'irl he choof^es if he only takes the
trouble to set about the preliminaries
properly. Women at present are a drug in
the market. Girls without money you may
have for the asking; girls with money, or
with expectations of money, you may have
by approaching them in a projier spirit from
the side of the emotions, fl faut I ear /aire
la coiir, bien entendu — and that, I admit, is
a deii^radinir mode of exercise — but when
the money can be had on no other condi-
tion, the wise man will not disdain even
that last unpleasant one. He will stoop to
conquer; and then, having once secured
what are popularly known as the girl's
i66 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
affections, he'll take care that the settle-
ments, ^vhich form the kernel of the whole
transaction, should not be drawn up too
stringently in the lady's favour. Those are
my sentiments on the matrimonial position/
And Harold Knyvett, having thus delivered
himself of his social views, rose from his
chair with the resolute manner of a man
who knows his own mind to the bottom,
and buried his hands deep in his trousers-
pockets.
' However,' he went on, after a brief
pause, during part of which he had been
engaged in selecting a really good cigar
wdth deliberate care from the box a club-
servant had brought in to his order, * I
don't anticipate any such misfortune as
that, I'm happy to say. I've very little
doubt Sir Arthur, selfish pig though he is,
will do the right thing in the end before he
kicks the bucket. I rejoice to say he's a
man with a conscience. You see, when he
first came into the property, he made a w411,
RIVAL CLAIMS. 167
a most disgusting will, which he left with
his solicitors, and the contents of which are
perfectly well known to me, through the
kind intervention of Sir Arthur's valet — as
a principle in life, always cultivate your rich
uncle's valet ; it can do you no harm, and
may be of infinite use to you ; a guinea or
two bestowed in judicious tips, in that
particular quarter, may be regarded in the
light of a lucrative long investment.'
' A quid pro quo,' his friend suggested
jocosely, emphasising the ' quid ' with a
facetious stress, after the manner of that
most objectionable animal, the common
punster.
Harold Knvvett winced, but he smiled
for all that, or pretended to smile. Always
smile when you see it's expected of you. As
a man of taste, he detested puns, especially
old ones ; but native politeness, of which
he possessed a large stock — the servile
politeness of all mean natures — made him
careful to laugh at them, however out-
i68 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
rageous or however tantiquated. ' Preci:?ely
so,' he made answer. ' A quid pro quo^'
without the einphusis. * Well, by this
beastly will, he gives and becjueaths his
landed estate and his entire fortune, save
and except his own paltry savings from his
military pay, to my cousin, the root-grul)ber,
the Greek root-grubber, on no better ground,
if you j)lease, than just because my grand-
father the Admiral, out of the pure vindic-
tiveness of his nasty temj^er, desired him,
by implication, so to leave it. My grand-
father, you know — a most unnatural person
— had a grudge against my father, his own
youngest son, and expressly excluded him,
by the terms of his will, from all rever-
sionary interest in the property.'
' Bad-blooded old gentleman !' the sympa-
thetic listener piously ejaculated.
' Extremely,' Harold went on, with a
smile that showed his even row of blue
transparent teetn. ' A worse-blooded old
gentleman, indeed, never lived, for, not
RIVAL CLAIMS. 169
only did lie cut off my father with a
shilling, an act which I could, perhaps,
have endured with equanimity, but he cut
me too out of all benefit of succession — me,
a babe unborn (at the time I am speaking
of), who had never done anything on earth,
good or bad, to offend him. Such mean
vindicti\'cness positively disgusts me. But
the Avill was badly drawn up, it appears,
and so the wicked old man, by his own
mistake, made the grievous error of leaving
Sir Arthur — alone, of all his sons — through
an omitted phrase, +he power of appoint-
ment. Now, Sir Arthur, at the time he
came into the property, had seen practically
nothing of either my cousin Iris, the root-
grubber, or myself — been away in India
half his life, you bee, and knew neither my
good points nor her weak ones. The conse-
quence was, influenced by the bad old man's
expressed wishes, he drew up a will at once
— the ill-advised will I've already described
to you — cutting me off with a few wretched
I70 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
thousands of personal estate, but leaving the
bulk of the landed property absolutely to
ris.
' And that will he means to stick to ?' the
isympathetic listener inquired politely.
' I hope not,' Harold Knyvett replied,
with a glance at his ash. ' You see, the
other side played their cards badly. This
girl Iris has a meddling old busybody of
an uncle : you know him by name — Whit-
marsh, Q.C., the man who muddles all the
famous probate cases. Well, this old fool of
a man Whitmarsh, ignorant of the fact that
Sir Arthur had made such a will already,
began to bully and badger my uncle in his
vulgar fashion, by insinuating to him
privately that he'd better not leave the
property to me, or else he'd find a good
case made out against him on the strength
of the Admiral's express disapprobation.
Naturally, that put Sir Arthur's back up.
Nobody, an I especially not a peppery old
General who's served more than half his
RIVAL CLAIMS, 171
life in India, likes to have it dictated to him
by rank outsiders what disposition he's to
make of his own money. I was wiser than
that. T didn't try bullying; I tried soft
sawder. I approached Sir Arthur, as I
approach the young woman, from the side
of the affections. Tlien Iris herself, again,
instead of assiduously captivating the old
gentleman, as any girl with a grain of
common-sense would, of course, have tried
to do, positively neglected him for some-
thing she calls the higher culture, and,
immersed in her Hellenic agricultural opera-
tions, dug roots exclusively, when she might
rather have been sedulously watering and
nursing her relations with Sir Arthur.'
' Thought more of her Odyssey than of
her uncle, I suppose. That was lucky for
you, Knyvett; for, by Jove! she's a pretty
girl, you know, and agreeable into the
bargain. If she'd chosen to make up to
him, I expect your chances would have
been shaky.'
172 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
' Vou say the truth, my dear boy. It
wa.^ lucky for me. 1 admit it frankly.
Hut I, who always play my cards care-
fully, have taken great pains to eliminate
luck. I've visited the old gentleman every
ble: sed year with recurrent regularity at his
sumnt' r quarters, at Aix-les-Bains, much
to my own personal discomfort, for he's a
seliish old epicure, and I hate selfishness ;
but the end, of course, justifies the means ;
and I think I've made it i)retty safe by this
time that he either has drawn up, or is about
to draw up, a new and more sensible will in
my favour. As a matter of conscience, he's
sure to see to it. 1 shall snap my fingers
then at the man Whitmarsh. And, indeed,
it'd be a })ity, when one comes to think of
it, that a Quixotic, impulsive girl like Iris
should have the sole management of all
that splendid property. She's like all the
learned ladies ; she's quite unpractical. 1
met her last week at a garden - party at
Staines (where I was very attentive to
RIVAL CLAIMS. 173
her, of course, just to keep my hand in) ;
and what do you think the girl actually
told me ? She's "'oinf^ to train as a
hospital nurse. Pier uncle, old Whitmarsh
— who, tliough a meddling old fool, is a
man of the world, one can't deny — did
liis best to dissuade her from it ; but she
woukln't be dissuaded. She wanted to
do some good in her generation ! Utopian,
quite! It'd never do for her to come into
the property !'
' If I were you,' the sympathetic friend
responded suggestively, ' I'd make haste
uil the same to assure myself as a fact
that Sir Arthur had really altered the
will. Testamentary dispositions are ticklish
things. Men put them off so, from day to
day, especially at his time of life, you know.
He might die any morning, out of pure
mischief, and leave you in the lurch and
your cousin in clover.'
' That contingency, unfortunately,' Harold
replied, with a sigh, ' it's impossible for
174 ^^^ TENTS OF SHEM.
the wisest of men to guard against. But
I've hedged, even so ; I've made my book
cautiously. It occurred to me to pay
marked attention beforehand to my cousin
Iris, who's a pretty girl, after all, and not
insensible, I foncy, in spite of her Aristotle,
to a man's advances ; and I mean to get up
an informal engagement with her, of a non-
committing character ; so that if by acci-
dent she should come into the money
(which heaven forbid). I can annex the
property that way, girl and all included ;
and if, on the other hand, all goes well,
I can shuffle out of it quietly by letting
the thing die a natural death, and come
into the estate wholly unencumbered.'
' That's neat and cute of you,' his
hearer responded, a little dubiously ; ' but
perhaps a trifle too sharp for most men's
fancy.'
Harold Knyvett's reply was suddenly cut
short by the entry of a boy in buttons with
a telegram. ' For you, sir/ he said, handing
RIVAL CLAIMS. 17 S
him the flimsy pink paper on a tray. Harold
took it and tore open the envelope care-
lessly. An invitation for a day on the
moors, no doubt; or an urgent request
from the editor of the Piccadilly Review
for a hasty notice of that forthcoming
work of Kekewich's on the ' Slavonic
Element in the Balkan Peninsula.'
As he read it, his face turned white with
mingled disappointment, rage, and impo-
tence.
' What's up*?' his friend asked, scenting
failure on the breeze.
' Why, this,' Harold answered, as he
handed him the trumpery little crumpled
scrap of Government economy. * From
my uncle's valet. The fruit of my invest-
ment.'
The friend read it mechanically aloud :
* Sir Arthur died at two this afternoon,
at his residence at Aix, quite suddenly,
of angina pectoris. I have searched his
papers up and down, but can hnd no
176 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
trace of any otlier will than the one now
in the hands of his solicitors.
' Your obedient .servant,
'Gilbert ^Iontgomkky.'
A crushing blow ! TJie cards had failed
him !
It was a minute or two before Harold
Knyvett recovered his usual presence of
mind after that deadly reverse. Dead, and
with no other will yet made ! Dead, with
no chance of influencino- his decision I Dead,
before he had even proposed to Iris ! To
ask her now would be too open and un-
blushing a confession of fortune-hunting.
Procrastination had lost, him both chances
at once — his uncle's procrastination in the
one case, his own in the other. If only he
had proposed a week since at that garden-
party at Staines ! Fool, fool that he was to
let the opportunity slip idly by him !
It was only for a moment, however. Xext
minute, strategy had resumed the com-
mand. Vain regret was very little in
RIVAL CLAIMS. 177
Harold Knyvett's line. Like a strong
man, he nerved himself after his defeat,
and proceeded to brin^ up his reserves
for action. He looked at his watch. The
hand was on the very nick of five. News
of Sir Arthur's death wouldn't ^i^et into
even the last edition of this evenin<i:'s
pai)ers. Iris would therefore not probably
hear of it till to-morrow morning. No
more procrastination ; no more delay. The
last moment for the forlorn hope had now
arrived. If he took his pretty cousin by
storm to-night, all might yet be well, and
the estate mic^ht be secured, even thoiij^h
burdened with the undesirable encumbrance.
Harold Knvvett was not a marryini]:
man ; but if the worst came to the worst,
he reflected with a sio'h, a man might marrv
a plainer girl than his cousin Iris.
He had an engagement with his superior
in the office at seven, to dine at his club,
worse luck, and he dared not neu^lect it.
Cautious before all thinjrs, Harohl Knvvett
VOL. I, 12
178 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
would never tlirow away the siil)staii(;c for
tbe shadow. The office was a certainty ;
Iris was a chance. No <^anihler lie ; he
would stick to his en<»'a<j^einent. But he
could \fo awav early, thank heaven — say
at D.80, or thereaijouts (pleading an At
Home) — and be up at his aunt's before
the clock struck ten. Filled with the
scheme, he rushed to the door and hailed
in all haste a passing* hansom. Ft took
him to his chambers in less than ten
minutes. There he sat down at his old
oak desk and wrote at full speed two
hurried letters. The first was to the
heiress: 'A most judicious stej),' he said
to himself, with a chuckle.
' My dear Iris,
' I am very particularly anxious to
see you this evening* about ten o'clock on a
matter of some serious importance to both
of us aUke. You are always kindness itself
to me, I know. May 1 ask you, if ])ossible,
as the best and sweetest of cousins, not to
go out at all to-night, or, in case you have
RIVAL CLAIMS. 179
any engagement for the evening, to come
home again early, so that I may manage to
have ten minutes' talk with you alone ? I.
know you'll do this for me, like a dear good
girl. With much love, in breathless haste,
' Your very affectionate cousin,
* Harold/
The second was a hasty note to his
solicitor.
' DioAii Hardy,
' The old man has popped off the
hooks tills afternoon at Aix, and, as far as I
can make out, has neglected to draw up any
other will than the one I told you of. This
is beastly. We must resist all probate of
the existing document to the utmost of our
power, ['11 see you upon the subject to-
morrow morning. Meanwhile, look over
my grandfather's will — you have a copy, I
believe — and take all necessary steps imme-
diately, to prevent a surprise by the other
})arty.
' Yours, in hot haste,
' Harold Knyvett.'
12 — 2
i8o THE TENTS OF SHEM.
Then, being nothing if not a methodical
man, Mr. Harold Knyvett proceeded to put
both letters, out of pure force of habit, to
copy in his copying press — the solicitor's
first, and Iris's afterwards. A copy is
always a handy thing ; you can produce it
when necessary, and suppress it when in-
convenient. That done, he rang the bell for
his servant.
' Send those at once to their addresses by
a commissionaire,' he said abruptly. ' Let
him take a cab. At Miss Kny vett's I should
like him to wait for an answer.'
CHAPTER XL
GOOD NEWS FROM AIX.
About the same time, that identical after-
noon, Uncle Tom arrived by hansom, very
red-faced, at Mrs. Knvvett's house in West
Kensington. Great trepidation possessed
his soul, and an open telegram fluttered
ostentatiously in his left hand. ' Calm
yourself, my dear,' he remarked, with sundry
puffs and blows, to Iris, who, indeed, had
onl}^ just come in from tennis, and seemed
to the outward eye of a mere casual observer
as calm as an}^ Third Classic ought always
to be ; ' don't be too agitated, there's nothing
to alarm you. I've brought you news —
most important news. Your uncle. Sir
i82 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
Arthur, died at Aix-les-Bains at two this
afternoon, of angina pectoris.^
' Well, really, Uncle Tom,' Iris answered,
with a smile, throwing her pretty little arms
caressingly around him, ' I suppose, of
course, I ought to be awfully sorry ; he's
papa's brother, and all that sort of thing ;
but, as a matter of fact, I hardly remember
seeing him when I was quite a baby, and
having always regarded him only as one of
the family portraits, I don't feel as if I could
screw up even a conventional tear now^ to
lament his demise with.'
' Sorry !' Uncle Tom exclaimed, in a
fervour of astonishment. ' Why, you ought
to be delighted ! overjoyed ! irrepressible !
Sorry at coming into six thousand a year,
indeed ! Why, the girl's gone cracked ! I'll
trouble you for her calmness ! Sorry, indeed !
Sorry !'
At the w^ords, Mrs. Knyvett, who was
standing by, fell back in her chair, with her
main aquiline feature pointed straight
GOOD NEWS FROM AIX. 183
towards the rose in the centre of the ceiling,
and indulged parenthetically in a loud fit of
mingled hysterical sobs and laughter. If
Iris was insensible to her own good fortune,
Mrs. Knyvett, at least, as an irreproachable
British mother, felt bound to rise vicariously
on her account to the height of the situation.
But as soon as this little interruption had
been partially composed, according to due
precedent, by the application of sal volatile
and eau de Cologne, Uncle Tom was enabled
to proceed more systematically with his
exposition of the existing crisis.
'Now calm yourself, my dear,' the fat
little old gentleman began again, with much
energy, being, in fact, very far from calm
himself, and therefore, like many other people
in the same circumstances, particularly
anxious to quiet the nerves of other people.
' Here's the telegram I've just received from
Savoy :
"'Sir Arthur died at two this afternoon,
a his residence at Aix, quite suddenly, of
l84 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
angina pectoris. I have searched his papers
up and down, but can find no trace of any
other will than the one now in the hands of
his solicitor.
' " Your obedient servant,
' •' Gilbert MoNTGOMERr." '
It was word for word the self- same tele-
gram that Harold Knvvett had received at
the Cheyne Kow Club ; but of that little
peculiarity in its duplicate form Uncle Tom,
of course, was as yet unaware.
'lie's a treasure, that valet,' he murmured
to himself, with a hug of delight. ' Behaved
most admirably. Never expended ten pounds
in my life to better advantage !'
' But why does he telegraph to you, uncle
dear?' Iris asked, much puzzled.
'Well, the fact is, my child,' the old
barrister answered, with a somewhat shame-
faced look, for he felt he must confess the
one sin of an otherwise blameless life openly,
' in any other case I wouldn't have descended
to obtaining information from any other
GOOD NEWS FROM AIX. 185
man's servants, by fair means or foul ; but
in dealing with a scoundrel of the calibre and
metal of Harold Knyvett '
' Uncle!' Iris cried, firing up, ' jouVe no
right to prejudge him ! You've no right to
speak so of any of my relations ! You've
no right to call my cousin a scoundrel.'
' Exactly so, my dear,' the old man went
on, in a pleased tone. ^ I like you none the
worse for withstanding me to my face, as
Paul did somebody, and sticking up for your
relative, though he does happen to be a
sneak and a cur and a bully ; but, at any
rate, in dealing with a claim like his (if that
phrase will satisfy you), I thought it best to
ensure beforehand prior and exclusive infor-
mation of my own from your uncle's body-
servant ; so that the moment Sir Arthur was
comfortably dead, and past the possibility of
meddling with his last will and testament,
we might secure ourselves at once against
Harold's machinations. That fellow'd stick
at nothing, I can tell you, my child. He*s
i86 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
a bad lot. Why, he'd forge a will, I know,
if he saw no other way of getting what he
wanted, as soon as look at you.'
'Uncle!' Iris exclaimed again severely;
and the old gentleman immediately assumed
a penitent attitude.
' Well, he's dead, anyhow,' Uncle Tom
went on, with professional glee ; ' and it's
pretty sure now he's made no will but the
one we know about. So, Iris, the position
amounts to this : you're the mistress of six
thousand a year — a great fortune, my dear !
A very great fortune!'
' I hope I may be able to spend it wisely
for the good of the world,' Iris answered,
with a sigh.
She was a trifle pale, but otherwise seemed
about as calm as usual. Her calmness
irritated Mrs. Knyvett inexpressibty.
' For goodness' sake, Iris!' she exclaimed,
getting up as though she'd like to shake her,
' do laugh, or cry, or scream, or do some-
thing just to show you understand the
GOOD NEWS FROM AIX. 187
importance of your position. I never in my
life knew such a girl as you are. When
that Cambridge local or something was
going to be announced the other day, you
were as white as death and as agitated as —
as a jelly ; and now that you've come into
six thousand a year you're as calm over your
good fortune as if six thousand a year were
a kind of accident that dropped in upon one
daily !'
' But the examination was so much more
important to me,' Iris answered gently,
stroking her mother's hair, to prevent
another sudden outburst of sobbing and
laughing. ' I did that myself, you see, by
my own exertions ; whereas this is a sort of
adventitious external circumstance. It's not
what one has, so much as what one is, that
matters. . . . Besides, the question's really
this : oughtn't Harold to have at least as
much as I have ?'
*God bless my soul! why?' Uncle Tom
exclaimed, in extreme astonishment.
1 88 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
' Because, you know, we were both equally
related to Sir Arthur by birth ; and I should
have felt it an injustice myself if Sir Arthur
had left everything he had to Harold, and
nothing to me. It would be a manifest
inequality ; and, as Aristotle says, in the
** Nicomachean Ethics," equality is justice.'
' But the law, my child !' Uncle Tom ex-
claimed aghast — * the law of the land — the
law allows it. '• l^erfect freedom of testa-
mentary disposition," Blackstone remarks,
''is the keystone of the English law of
bequest and inheritance." '
' It may be the law,' Iris made answer
unabashed ; *but is it right? is it justice?'
Uncle Tom's hair stood on end with alarm
at the heretical question. A lawyer who
had spent the best part of his life in plead-
ing probate cases to be set such a problem !
' They're the same thing, my dear,' he
made answer, gasping — ' the self- same thing
under two different aspects. The law defines
and expresses clearly what is right and
GCOD NEWS FROM A IX. 189
proper for a man to do in each particular
instance ; it lays down the strict principles
of individual justice.'
' Herbert Spencer thinks,' ^he Third Classic
went on, undismayed by his evident out-
burst of horror, ' that law is merely the
brute expression of the will of a real or
practical majority — generally a dead
majority : often an ignorant and prejudiced
mediaeval majority. He holds, in fact, that
law in its essence '
' Heaven bless the girl !' Uncle Tom ex-
claimed, stopping botli his ears with his
hands vigorously. ' If she isn't going to
lecture me on Political Economy ! Why,
haven't I already explained to you, miss,
that you may do anything on earth with
me, except two things — bandage my legs,
and give me lectures on Political Economy ?
I desire to live and die a humble Christian,
in complete ignorance of that hard-hearted
science. Let's return to our muttons. Let
me see, where were we ?'
190 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
•T was saying,' Iris went on, in herquiet firm
way, 'that I thought I ought to share this for-
tune with Harold, who seems to me to have
quite equal ckiims to it with myself, uncle.'
Uncle Tom's wrath seethed up rapidly to
boiling-point. * With Harold I' he cried
out in an agony of disgust. ' With that
sneak ! with that cur ! with that incarnation
of selfishness ! Upon my soul, my dear, if
you w^ere to do such a quixotic thing as that,
as long as I lived I should never speak
another word to you.'
' I should be very sorry for that,' Iris
answered with a smile — *at least, if I believed
it ; more sorry than for anything else I could
think of on earth ; for I love you dearly ;
but if I thought it right, whether you meant
it or not, I should have to do it.'
'Iris!' her mother exclaimed, with a
severe curve of the principal feature, * how
on earth can you talk in such a way to your
uncle — and after his unremitting kindness
to you always !'
GOOD NEWS FROM AIX. 191
' We must first of all obey our consciences,
mother,' Iris replied ^rravely. ' Fiatjustitia,
you know, mat coelumJ'
What end this discussion of first princi-
ples might have reached between disputants
so utterly without common premisses it
would be hard to say, had not a diversion
been suddenly effected by the entrance of
the maid with a note for Miss Knyvett.
' And the messenger's waiting in an 'ansom
for the answer, miss.*
Iris read it through with some slight
misgiving.
' From Plarold,' she said shortly, and
handed it to her uncle.
The barrister drew a long breath as he
glanced at it angrily.
'Too affectionate by half!' he cried.
' " The best and sweetest of cousins !" " In
breathless haste !" He's hedging, now.
He's got wind of this, too, and he's going
to propose to you. The scamp ! the skunk !
the disgusting vermin !'
192 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
Iris was too charitable to believe it true
without maturer evidence.
' We must wait and see,* she said ; ' I
don't want to prejudge him.'
•It's true,' Uncle Tom went on, with
rising indignation ; ' I see through the cur.
There's been double-dealing here. That
scoundrel of a valet has taken pay from
both of us alike, and sent us both an iden-
tical telegram. Harold knows he's cut off
w^ithout appeal, and he wants to propose to
you before you get the news and know
what he's driving at.'
' I hope not,' Iris cried, flushing up with
shame at the mere suggestion.
Uncle Tom was turning over the letter
curiously.
' Why, God bless my soul !' he exclaimed
with a start, ' what's this upon the fly-leaf?
What extraordinary marks ! They look for
all the world like the reverse of a letter.'
And he sat down to examine them with the
close and patient scrutiny of an old hand in
the Probate and Divorce Division.
CHAPTER XII.
REJECTED !
At ten o'clock, as Iris fingered the piano
in the drawing-room alone (by special ar-
rangement), a rat-tat at the door, loud but
decorous, announced her cousin Harold's
arrival. Iris's heart beat quickly for a
minute ; it was an ordeal to have to see
him on such an errand alone, but she had
made her mind up to learn the whole truth,
cost what it might, and she would go
through with it now to the bitter end at all
hazards. A frail little thing on the bodily
side, she was by no means wanting in moral
courage ; and here w^as an opportunity, a
hateful opportunity, all ready to hand for
testing her self-confidence.
VOL, I. 13
194 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
As for Harold, he came up in evening
dress and in excellent spirits ; after all, it
was only a temporary check ; he would
marry the fortune, if he couldn't inherit it.
Any man nowadays can select his girl, and
make tolerably sure of her, with a little
attention ! It's only a matter of casting
your fly well. He wore a cream-coloured
rose, with a maidenhair, in his button-hole ;
his shirt front was faultless, and his white
tie of the most immaculate neatness. Women
attach some importance to these trifles, you
know, even though they happen to be Third
Classics ; and Harold Knyvett was Avell
aware that his teeth were pearly, and his
eyes cold blue, and his moustache the envy
of the entire Civil Service. He entered
with a look intended to be almost rap-
turous.
* How good of you. Iris 1' he cried, as he
kissed her, though his cousin shrank away
somewhat timidly from that doubtful kiss.
' I see you understood me ! That was ever
REJECTED ! 195
SO nice of you. And alone, too ! This is
more than I could have asked ! What rare
good fortune ! I hardly expected to find
you alone here.'
' Mamma had a headache/ Iris answered
with truth, for the shock and the hysteria
had proved too much for the possessor of
the aristocratic feature ; ' so she went to
bed early. What did you want to see me
about, Harold ? Has anything unusual
turned up since I saw you ?'
' Nothing unusual, dearest,' Harold went
on, leaning forward, and looking profoundly
in the direction of her averted eyes ; ' but a
feeling I have long felt growing within me
has come to a head at last ; and this after-
noon it broke over me suddenly, like a flash
of inspiration, that I could no longer put
off opening my whole heart to you.'
Iris's hand trembled violentl3\ She
hated herself, she was so horribly guilty ;
it was such a wicked duplicity to let him
go on — she, who knew all the facts already.
13—2
196 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
Yet she would play out the comedy to its
natural close, come what might of it, for the
sake of certainty. Harold noted her agita-
tion, and misread its meaning.
' I've nobbled her,' he thought to himself,
with a triumphant smile. 'See how her
hand trembles ! But I'll play her grace-
fully a little longer. It's unsportsmanlike
to gaff your fish too hastily.'
So he went on once more, in a soft, low
tone, taking her hand, half unresisted, in
his own, and playing with it tenderly, while
Iris still kept her face studiously averted.
* Iris, one thing that made me think more
particularly of this to-day is my strong
desire there should be no shadow of mer-
cenary feeling on either side between you
and me, whose interests should be so iden-
tical in all things. Uncle Arthur's still
alive. While he lives, neither of us knows
to which of the two, or in what proportion,
the dear old gentleman will leave his money.
Now, I felt it borne in upon me with a
REJECTED ! 197
sudden impulse this afternoon that it would
be better if, before either of us was thus
put in a position of superiority, so to speak,
in worldly goods over the other, w^e were
to let our hearts' secret out mutually. And
for that I've come to see you to-night. . . .
Iris, I love you — I've always loved you, of
course ; but of late I've learnt what my
love meant. Dare I hope, darling ?' and
he raised her hand tentatively, but with
ardour, towards his thin lips, and was
about to print upon it w^hat seemed to
him the appropriate warm kiss of a devoted
lover.
Iris, however, could stand the strain of
this false position no longer. Withdrawing
her hand suddenly from his with a violent
start, she took slowly from her pocket a
note in his hand, and began to read some
pencilled words, interspersed with ink, on
the fly-leaf of the letter. She spoke them
out with a trembling voice, but with great
clearness, to this unexpected purport :
198 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
' Dear Hahdy,
' The old man has popped off the
hooks this afternoon at Aix, and, as far as
I can make out '
She had got no further when Harold, red
as fire, with a sudden dart forward, tried to
seize the compromising document from her
hand ; but Iris was too quick for him, and
too relentless as well. She dashed the
letter with one hand behind her back, then
advancing to the gas, and facing him full,
she held it up before him, and read o the
very last line his note to his solicitor. She
would let him see she understood to the
full the whole depth and breadth of his
unmanly baseness.
Harold Knyvett, well-bred sneak as he
was, stood and listened shamefaced, now
white as a curd. What could all this
mean ? What error had he committed ?
He knew he hadn't blundered the elemen-
tary blunder of putting the wrong letter by
mistake into Iris's envelope. His good
REJECTED ! 199
business habits and his clock-work accuracy
sufficed to save him from such a puerile
scholar's mate from a woman as that ; for
he always subscribed each letter to its re-
cipient at the bottom of the pnge with
antique punctiliousness, and always took
care to look, as he folded them, that sub-
scription and superscription tallied exactly.
All the more, therefore, was he nonplussed
to understand how Iris had got hold of his
note to Hardy. Could the fellow have
betrayed him ? Impossible ! Impossible !
But he stood there, with his face all livid
to behold, and his eyes fixed hard upon the
pattern of the carpet, till Iris had completed
to the very last word her righteous torture.
' What does this mean, Iris ?' he asked
angrily, as she folded it up with a smile,
and replaced it in the envelope.
^ It means,' Iris answered, handing him
over the note, now she had quite finished it,
with ironical courtesy, ' . . . that you use
too thick and too black a copying ink. I
200 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
advise you in future, Harold, to employ
some thinner kind if you wish to prevent a
recurrence of this unfortunate exposure.'
She was white as a sheet herself, but
righteous indit^nation bore her through.
The man should know he was detected and
unmasked ; he should wTithe for his mean-
ness, whatever it cost her.
Harold took the note from her hand and
gazed at it mechanically. He saw now at a
glance the source of all these woes. The
flyleaf of Iris's letter, laid downward in the
copying-book, had taken a faint and half-
illegible impression of his note to Hardy
from the wet page opposite. In any other
hands than Thomas Kynnersley Whit-
marsh's, those loose, sprawling daubs on
the blank sheet would no doubt have meant
rather less than nothing. But the distin-
guished Q.C. and great authority on probate
cases had seen too many strange documents
and forgeries in his time not to have become
an adept in handwriting and all that apper-
REJECTED
201
N
.X,
tained to it. No expert was sharper on a
stroke or a dot than he ; the crossing of a
*t' was enough to convict a man of sin
before his scrutinizing spectacles. By hold-
ing up the page to the light of the gas, he
had been able to supply with dexterous
pencil-strokes the missing portions of each
word or letter, and to reconstruct, entire,
the compromising epistle to Mr. Harold's
solicitor. So skilfully had he built it all
up, indeed, that even Iris herself could no
longer doubt her cousin's meanness, nor
could Harold, when confronted with his
own handiwork, thus unexpectedly repro-
duced, venture to deny or explain away to
her face his authorship of the letter.
The baffled schemer looked at Iris with
cynical coldness. He had played his cards
altogether too well.
' Then it's all up,' he said— for he knew
when he was beaten ; ' it's all up, I suppose,
between us ?'
*Yes, it's all up,' Iris answered coldly;
V
V
V.
202 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
'and so far as I am concerned, Harold
Knyvett, I do not any further desire the
honour of your acquaintance. I tried to
believe in you as long as I could, though I
never liked you, and I never cared for you ;
I can believe in you no longer, and I wish
to see no more of you.'
Harold looked across at her with a curl
on his lip.
* Your new-come fortune has made you
proud in a hurry,' he sneered out angrily.
"* But don't be too sure about it yet, my
lady. Remember, Sir Arthur's title had a
flaw in it from the first. What he be-
queathed to you was, perhaps, from the
very beginning, not his to bequeath
you.'
' I'm not concerned at present about Sir
Arthur's title,' Iris answered, cold as ice,
and trembling violently, but still self-pos-
sessed ; ' I'm concerned only about your
own shameful and cynical duplicity.'
* Ah, that's all very well for you to say
REJECTED ! 203
just now,' Harold went on, taunting her,
'while you're angry at a slight to your
personal pretensions ; but you won't think
so by-and-by, you know, when you come
to look into it. There is a flaw, and,
whether you like it or not, you've got to
face it. Sir Arthur knew it, and you'd
better know it, too, if you're really and
truly Sir Arthur's inheritor. The old
gentleman came into the property himself
on the strength of affidavits to the effect
that his second brother, Clarence, had pre-
deceased his eldest brother Alexander,
having been killed in action in crushing a
native insurrection in Algeria, in or about
the year 18()8, if I remember rightly. The
Courts would have accepted the affidavits,
perhaps, if the claim had been opposed, and
perhaps they wouldn't. But as no opposi-
tion was raised, administration was granted,
and Sir Arthur was allowed to succeed
quietly. However, there was a flaw in the
evidence for all that. And I'll tell you the
204 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
flaw, to let you see how little I'm afraid of
you. Clarence Knyvett's body was never
recovered, or never identified. He was only
missing, not certainly killed. And as he
had run away from England to avoid
serious unpleasantness in the matter of a
criminal charge preferred against him by
his own father, and as he was serving in
the French army, under an assumed name,
to avoid detection, the question of identifi-
cation was by no means an easy one. Sir
Arthur went over to Algiers to settle it, to
be sure, and satisfied himself (as, indeed, he
had every reason to be easily satisfied) that
Clarence Knyvett had died, in fact, at the
date assigned. But many soldiers of his
old regiment did not believe it. They
thought he'd sneaked off, and hidden among
the natives. And if Clarence Knyvett's
now alive, he's the owner of the property ;
and if he's dead, dying at a later date than
Alexander, his children, if any, and not you,
are the inheritors of his estate !'
REJECTED ! 205
As he spoke, Iris faced him with cold
contempt in every line of her face.
'Is that all you have to tell me?' she
asked severely, as soon as he had finished.
'No,' Harold answered, losing his head
with rage, ' that's not all. I've something
more to tell you. You won't like to hear
it, but I'll tell you for all that. One bad
turn deserves another. Unless a later will
of Sir Arthur's turns up, leaving the
property in a more equitable manner — as
it may do any day— I shall never rest
satisfied till I've hunted up Clarence
Knvvett, his heirs and representatives, and
turned you out of the doubtful inheritance
to which you've probably no real title. So
now you know what you've got to reckon
with.'
' And if another wnll does turn up,' Iris
rejoined quietly, though with ashy lips,
' leaving the property entirely to you, you'll
accept Sir Arthur's claims without hesita-
tion, and let Uncle Clarence's heirs, if he
2o6 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
ever had any, go without the inheritance to
which they have probably the best title !
.... Is that what you mean ? . . . .
Harold, you may go !' And, rising to her
full height, she pointed to the door. * You
had only one friend in your own family/
she said, ' and you've succeeded to-night in
turning her against you.'
Harold took up his hat, and went. On
the landing he paused.
' Remember,' he called back, with a
parting shot, * I'll not rest till I've brought
the rightful heirs to light against you.'
Then he walked down the stairs, and
emerged, all on fire, into the gaslit streets
of fog-bound Kensington.
As soon as he felt the fresh air on his
brow, however, he recognised w^ith a rush
how serious a mistake he had committed in
his anger. Another wdll miiilit turn up any
day — a sensible will in his own favour —
and then they would have this handle of
the flaw in the title to use ao:ainst him. Or
REJECTED ! 207
if another will did not turn up — well, it
was absurd to think that a man of educa-
tion and technical skill like himself — a man
of resource and energy and wit — a man,
above all, possessed of the precious and
invaluable quality of unscrupulousness —
should let himself be diddled out of a
splendid estate by a pack of women, for
no better reason than just because a piece
of dirty paper with a few names scratched
upon it was not duly forthcoming from
Sir Arthur's davenport. It's easy enough,
of course, to copy a signature : any fool can
do that. Sir Arthur ought to have altered
that will; he meant to alter it; he all but
did alter it. How perfectly simple to —
well, t( alter it posthumously for the
dilatory old man, in accordance with his
own obvious and expressed intentions !
Forgery, they call it, in the coarse, blunt
dialect of the Probate and Divorce Division.
But in that case, as things stood, he had
put a weapon into Iris's hands which she
2o8 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
might possibly be inclined to use against
him. Well, now that the matter had gone
so far wrong, the best way in the end
would perhaps be to let them prove the
existing will, w^hich would commit them
to acceptance of Sir Arthur's claim; and
after that, whenever the— the new hypo-
thetical will turned up (and it should turn
up; on that he was decided), they woul
find it less easy to fight the matter against
him. Meanwhile, to annoy them, he'd hunt
up his uncle Clarence's business, too. The
man very likely was still alive. Any
weapon's good enough to use against an
enemy.
An enemy ! And yet, what a splendid
creature that girl was, after all ! He had
never admired her so much in his life before
as when she confronted him like a wild-cat
in her anger to-night. That righteous
indignation became her magnificently. By
Jove, she was grand I What a fool he'd
been not to marry her long ago ! Why,
REJECTED ! 209
let alone the fortune, she was a girl any
man might be proud to marry for her own
sake any day — if he meant marrying. She
was so pretty, so clever, and had such
funds of character ! And he'd noticed the
other afternoon, as they drove back from
Staines in a friend's open carriage, she was
the only woman that ever lived who held
her parasol of deliberate purpose at such an
angle as not entirely to shut out the view
of all surrounding objects from her male
companion.
A splendid creature, and a most un-
doubted heiress. But, as a woman alone,
well worth the sacrifice.
He wished to goodness, now, indeed, he'd
married her off-hand a couple of years since.
Nay, more, in his own cold, selfish way, he
awoke with a start to the solemn fact that
he wanted that woman. As far as was
possible to such a nature as his, he was
in love with Iris — and he had only just
that very evening discovered it.
VOL. I. 14
CHAPTER XIII.
IRIS STRIKES.
' Uncle,' Iris said, when she talked it over
with the old barrister in the dining-room
next morning, ' after all that happened last
night, do you know, I'm not perhaps quite
so anxious as I was to share Uncle Arthur's
fortune with Harold.'
' God bless the girl !' Uncle Tom cried,
in mock horror. ' What on earth does she
mean now ? You were both equally related
to Sir Arthur by birth, weren't you? and, as
Aristotle says, equalit}^ is justice.'
Iris blushed slightly. It was too cruel
of him thus to bring up her own words in
judgment against her.
'But he behaved so disgracefully, so
IRIS STRIKES. 211
abominably, last night,' she said apolo-
getically. ' He doesn't deserve it.'
'It's a great comfort to me to see,' Uncle
Tom responded, with a cheerful blink, ' that
going to Girton and coming out Third
Classic still leaves a girl essentially a
woman at heart for all that. No woman
that ever lived, whether she'd read Aristotle
or not, cares or ever cared one farthing yet
about abstract justice. What women care
about is the satisfaction of their own
personal emotions and feelings. I'm glad
to see, my dear, that in this respect you're
no better than the rest. " He ought by
rights to have half this property, of course,"
you say in effect ; " but as I see he's a sneak
and a mean-sjiirited cur, I don't think I'll
bother about giving him his fair share of
it." Very womanly and very right. That,
I take it, my child, is about the long and
the short of your argument.'
Iris laughed.
' Perhaps so,' she replied. ' But anyhow,
14 — 2
212 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
Uncle Tom, after what he did and said last
night, I find my desire to do him strict
justice has considerably abated.'
So, Aristotle to the contrary notwith-
standing. Uncle Tom was permitted vicari-
ously to prove Sir Arthur's will in due
course — Iris herself being named sole
executrix — and to take all necessary steps
for her succession to the landed property.
As soon as all the legal arrangements were
finally completed, Iris once more had a
great consultation to make with her
guardian, guide, philosopher, and friend.
She had given up the hospital nurse fad,
of course, for the present, as inconsistent
with her existing position as a great heiress ;
but she had another mine to explode upon
poor Uncle Tom now, and once more a
mine due to an acute attack of that most
undesirable and inconvenient mental disease,
conscience.
' Now I want to know. Uncle Tom,' the
heiress and Third Classic said persuasively,
IRIS STRIKES. 213
cornering him at bay in an easy-chair in
Mrs. Knyvett's little drawing-room at
Kensington (for they had not yet taken
possession of the projected mansion in
Lowndes Square), 'is there any truth, or
is there not, in that story of Harold's about
Uncle Clarence's supposed disappearance ?'
The distinguished Q.C. shuffled awk-
wardly in his seat. For the first time in
his life he began faintly to realize the
feelings of an unwilling witness under his
own searching cross-examination.
' A cock-and-bull story !' he said at last
evasively. * Just said to frighten you. If I
were you, Iris, I'd think no more about it.'
'But is there any truth in it, uncle?'
Iris persisted, with quiet emphasis, as the
distinguished Q.C. himself would have done
in the same case, if only he had got his
own double safely lodged in front of him in
that amateur witness-box.
'Bless my soul!' Uncle Tom replied,
stroking her hair gently to create a diver-
214 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
sion, ' what a persistent cross-examiner the
girl is, to be sure I If I tell you no, you 11
not believe me, and if I tell you yes, you'll
want to go running over Europe, Asia,
Africa, and America, not to speak of the
islands of the Pacific Ocean, in search of
Clarence Knyvett, his heirs, or executors.'
' Then there is some truth in it,' Iris went
on, with one hand laid persuasively on her
uncle's arm.
* As much truth as a man like your
cousin Harold can speak, I suppose,' the
old man answered, with a gasp, as who
should at last resolve to have an aching
tooth drawn, for he felt sure she must get
it all out of him now. ' The fact is, my
dear, your uncle Clarence's death, like
Jeames De la Pluche's birth, is " wrop in
mystery." He left England under a cloud.
He was a gay young soldier, always getting
into scrapes, and always spending more
than he'd got, and skulking in disgrace,
and compounding with his creditors. It's
IRIS STRIKES. 215
supposed, though I don't know anything
about it for certain, that he forged, or tried
to forge, your grandfather's name to sundry
acceptances. It's further supposed that this
came at last to your grandfather's know-
ledge, and that your grandfather, being, like
Moses, an austere man, threatened to expose
the whole business. So Clarence, it is
believed, like the great Orion, went sloping
slowly to the West. A^nyhow, one fine
morning the news got wind that your
uncle was missing ; and from that day to
this he has been consistently missed, and
never turned up again.'
* But what was that about his enlisting
in the French army?' Iris asked, with a
caress, as the old man paused.
•Well, nothing was known about that,
my dear, during your uncle Alexander's
life,' Uncle Tom went on, like a man from
whom evidence is extorted by rack and
thumb-screw; 'we thought, indeed, he'd
gone to America. But as soon as Sir
2i6 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
Arthur inherited the property, it became
necessary to find proof of Clarence's death,
whether Clarence was dead or living; so
Sir Arthur, tracking him gradually from
France, went over to Algiers in the end to
find it. It was through that, in fact, that
he settled down first at Sidi Aia. Well,
this was the result of Sir Arthur s investiga-
tion.' And here Uncle Tom refreshed his
memory by a pull at his note-book. ' He
found that Clarence, on leaving England,
had enlisted in the Third Chasseurs at
Toulon, under the assumed name of —
what was it ? let me see. Ah, yes !
Joseph Leboutillier ; that he had been sent
over to Algeria to join his regiment ; that
he took part for some time in operations in
the interior ; and that during the partial
insurrection of 1868 he was employed in a
column sent to reduce the mountaineers of
some outlandish place they call Grande
Kabylie. A certain battle took place in
this remote quarter against the insurgents
IRIS STRIKES. 217
on the 20th of June in that year, and after
it, Mr. Joseph LeboutiUier was reported
missinfr. His name was struck off the roll
of the regiment, and though his body
happened to be never identified, the French
authorities were perfectly convinced that he
died in the skirmish, and was lost on the
field — an accident which, as Beau Brummel
said about a rent, may happen to any
gentleman any day. Our own Courts
admitted the papers Sir Arthur produced
as proof of death, and were satisfied of
the identity of Joseph LeboutiUier wdth
Clarence Knyvett. In short, the question's
really as good as settled ; a judge in camera
has dQcidiQdi pro forma that Clarence Knyvett
died on the 20th of June, 1868 ; so die he
did, then, legally and officially, and there's
nothing more to be said about it.'
Iris smiled.
' I wish, uncle dear,' she said good-
humouredly, ' I could share your supreme
faith in the absolute wisdom and abstract
2i8 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
justice of tlie law of England. But John
Stuart Mill says Oh dear me ! I
fornrot ' — for Uncle Tom was stopping up
his ears already, lest they should be pro-
faned by fresh assaults of that dangerous
and detestable political economy. ' To
return to the question now before the
House : what did Harold mean ? or did
he mean anything, by saying that many
soldiers of Uncle Clarence's regiment didn't
believe he was really dead, but thought he'd
sneaked off and hidden himself somewhere
among the natives?*
Uncle Tom started.
' God bless my soul !' he exclaimed, with
a gesture of horror. ' So this is what
comes, then, of sending girls to Cam-
bridge. Who says women have no legal
instincts? Why, the girl ought to have
gone to the Old Bailey Bar ! With the
acumen of a judge — if judges have any,
which I very much doubt — she puts her
finger plump down at once on the one weak
IRIS STRIKES. 219
point of the entire contention. Remarkable ;
re-rnarkable ! Well, the fact's this: an
ancient French military in retreat— that's
just how he signed himself— anonymous,
practically — once wrote a letter to Sir
Arthur at Sidi Aia (shortly after your
uncle Alexander's decease), telling him
he didn't believe this man Leboutillier
was dead at all ; but that he'd run away,
and gone off absurdly on his own account
to join the natives. The ancient French
military in retreat didn't give his name, of
course, so we couldn't cross-examine him;
but your uncle sent me a copy of the letter
from Aix-les-Bains, and also another to
your cousin Harold. The ancient French
soldier, in this precious communication,
declared he had been a chasseur with Mr.
Joseph Leboutillier, and had known him
well ; that Joseph Leboutillier was an eccen-
tric person, holding exaggerated notions
about justice to the indighies ; that he speci-
ally objected to this particular war, waged
220 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
against some people called Kabyles, if I
recollect aright, who inhabit the trackless
mountains of the interior; that he often ex-
pressed the deepest regret at being employed
to crush out the liberty and independence
of "these unfortunate people;" and that
he almost refused on one occasion to obey
his superior officer, when that gentleman
ordered him to join in burning down the
huts and villages of the insurgent tribesmen.'
* Very like a Knyvett,' Iris murmured
parenthetically.
' Very. The Knyvetts were always
quixotic,' Uncle Tom continued, with a
faintly-compassionate inflexion of his forensic
voice. ' But, at any rate, the ancient French
military in retreat was firmly convinced
that Joseph Leboutillier had deserted in
the battle, to avoid bearing arms against
the Kabyles any longer; and he said that
many other ancient militaries of the same
regiment entirely agreed with him in this
supposition.'
IRIS STRIKES. 221
* And then ?'
' Why, then Sir Arthur sent up a French
detective who understood Arabic, into the
mountains to make full inquiries, just to
satisfy his conscience; for though he was a
selfish, pig-headed old man. Sir Arthur,
and as cross as two sticks, he, too, had a
conscience, like all the Knyvetts — bar that
singular exception, your uncle Charles,
with his son Harold. Your father and
you, to be sure, inherited the family con-
science in its most virulent form; but it was
strongly-enough developed even in poor old
Sir Arthur. That's why he left his fortune
to you, my dear, instead of to Harold; he
thought it was his duty, and duty to a
Kny vett's a perfect will-o'-the-wisp, leading
you all into every Utopian quagmire you
happen to come across — though, in this case,
of course, he was perfectly right in obeying
its dictates.*
' And what did Sir Arthur find out at
last?' Iris asked gently, stroking her uncle's
222 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
hand with her own, as if to deprecate his
wrath at her possession of anything so
inconvenient as a sense of right towards
others.
' Most fortunately, my child, he found
out exactly nothing. The natives fought
shy of his detective to a man, and energeti-
cally disclaimed knowledge of any sort about
Joseph Leboutillier. They'd never even
heard the name, they swore. So Sir Arthur
came back empty-handed from his quest,
and enjoyed his property in peace and
quietness. Quite right, too. People ought
never to pay any attention at all to
anonymous letters. Particularly not in
matters affecting the Probate and Divorce
Division.'
Iris was silent for a minute or two more.
Then she said slowly, much terrified lest
she should rouse the dormant lion of Uncle
Tom's wrath:
' Sir Arthur may have been satisfied with
that, Uncle Tom, but I'm not. I suppose.
IRIS STRIKES. 223
as you say, I've got the family conscience
in an aggravated form; but, whatever it
says, I must obey it. I must find out
exactly what became of Uncle Clarence.'
The distinguished Q.C. flared up like
petroleum.
' You're a fool if you do, my dear,' he
answered, losing his temper.
' " But, children, you should never let
your angry passions rise," ' Iris quoted
gently. ' That shows you think there's
still some chance Uncle Clarence is really
alive, or has children living. In Jevons's
" Inductive Logic," I remember '—but Uncle
Tom's ears, stopped tight with either thumb,
turned once more as deaf as the adder's. He
Hstened not to Iris's Girtonian charms,
charmed she never so learnedly, that stony-
hearted barrister.
' I might be using somebody else's money,
you see,' his niece went on quietly, as soon
as Uncle Tom gave signs of having re-
covered the free use of his auditory nerve,
224 ^^^ TENTS OF SHEM.
' and that, you must admit, would be sheer
robbery.'
Uncle Tom had too much respect for the
law of England not to allow, with obvious
regret, the justice of that last patent
truism.
'Well, what do you propose to do?' he
responded sulkily.
' For the present, advertise in the English,
French, and Algerian papers,' Iris answered,
with calm persistence, ' for any information
as to the whereabouts or death of Clarence
Knyvett or Joseph Leboutilller.'
' And raise up for yourself a score or so
of imitation Tichborne Claimants,' Uncle
Tom cried, with concentrated scorn in his
voice.
* What is a Tichborne Claimant?' Iris
asked, in all innocence, imagining the
animal to be some peculiar species of legal
technicality— a nolle prosequi, for example,
or an oyer and terminer. The shadowy
forms of John Doe and Richard Roe
IRIS STRIKES. 225
floated lambent on the air before her vague
mental vision.
' Bless the child!' Uncle Tom exclaimed
fervently, raising his hands to heaven.
'What happy innocence! What golden
ignorance! You may thank your stars
you don't even know the creature by name.
Why, when I was young, my dear, some
twenty years ago or so, we all of us wasted
three good twelvemonths of our lives with
feverish anxiety in following the fortunes
and final exposure of a wretched impostor,
a claimant to the Tichborne estates in
Hampshire, who was inflicted upon a long-
suffering world solely as the result of in-
judicious advertising in colonial papers by
an ill-advised woman. And you're young
enough and lucky enough never even to
have heard of him ! If you weren't, he'd
have taught you a severe lesson. Well, so
much for the present, you say — so far, bad ;
and how about the future?'
' In the second place,' Iris went on firmly,
VOL. T. I^
226 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
' as soon as ever the weather's cool enough
to allow it, I'll go over to Algeria, and hunt
up all I can find out about Uncle Clarence
on the spot, in person.'
'Well, that's not so bad,' the eminent
Q.C. responded, mollified, 'for it'll enable
you, at any rate, to take possession your-
self of the house and belongings at Sidi
Aia.'
CHAPTER XIV.
FOLLOWING UP THE CLUE.
It was evening, and Le Marchant lay out-
side the tent, in the shade of the old gnarled
olive-tree that overhung the tomb, taking
his lessons in Kabyle on an outstretched
rug from his pretty teacher, Meriem. He
had made considerable progress in the
language by this time, having a natural
taste for picking up strange tongues, as
often happens with people of bilingual
origin, and Le Marchant, as a Jersey
man, had been born bilingual, if the ex-
pression may pass muster in this age of
heredities. The painter, like Pliable, had
turned back disheartened at that first Slough
of Despond, the irregular verbs, and given
15 — 2
228 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
up the vain attempt in despair; he sat idly
by now, drawing lazy sketches in his pocket-
book of Merieui in her didactic attitude,
with her forefinger uplifted, and her pupil
before her. Hard by, two young Kabyles,
just returned from their fields, stood gossip-
ing opposite them, with hoes in their hands.
One was Ahmed, Meriem's future purchaser;
the other was a taller and better-robed young
man of more unpleasing aspect, whom they
had often seen before hanging about the
village.
Suddenly, as Meriem was in the very act
of saying, ' Now, Eustace, remember, f^v/i/i
— a dress,' and Le Marchant was obediently
re])eating the word after her in due form,
one of the young men, for no apparent
reason, raised his voice loudly, and, rushing
forward with a yell, flew like a dog in blind
rage and wrath at the throat of the other.
Before they could clearly see what was
happening, the second flung him off, bat
with some little difficulty. In a moment,
FOLLOWING UP THE CLUE. 229
the tussle had assumed a savage form; they
were fiofhtinfj tooth and nail in one confused
mass, and Ahmed's knife, drawn like light-
ning from its scabbard, gleamed bright in
the air, just ready to descend on the bare
breast of his taller antagonist. With a
sharp cry Meriem and Le Marchant sprang
forward together with one accord, and
separated the two combatants by main
force, after a short, sharp struggle. The
whole thing" was over in a second or two
at most, and the two angry men stood
glaring at one another across five yards
of distance, like bull-dogs whose masters
hold them apart forcibly by the collar. A
few angry words, a few hasty explanations,
a deprecating speech from poor trembling
Meriem, whose face was scarlet with shame
or excitement, and forthwith Ahmed's knife
was quietly sheathed once more, and the
men, smiling now with all their even white
teeth in perfect good-humour, embraced like
brothers, as if nothing at all had happened
230 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
between them. That is the way with these
simple children of Nature. One moment
they'll stick a knife into you without the
slightest compunction ; the next, for no
reason a European can fathom, they'll give
up their very hearts to please you.
'What was it all about?' Blake asked,
with interest, as Meriem returned, flushed
and panting, to the rug.
' It was about me, Vernon,' Meriem
answered, unabashed, with perfect sim-
plicity-. ' This is how it happened. Ahmed
wanted to marry me, you know, and had
bargained with my uncle, and got a price
named for me; but now, the other man,
Hussein, has offered my uncle a little more, and
so the Amine has made a new arrangement,
and I'm to be sold to Hussein, who's offered
the best price, and is so much the richer.'
She said it as she would have said the
day was fine. It was matter of course to
her that she should be thus passively and
unresistingly disposed of
FOLLOWING UP THE CLUE. 231
'Do you like him?' Blake asked. 'Or,
at least, do you dislike him any less than
Ahmed ?'
Meriem raised her stately head with proud
unconcern.
• What does it matter to me ?' she
answered haughtily. * I like none of them
either better or worse than another. They're
only Kabyles.'
• You don't care for Kabyles, then?' Blake
went on, with culpable carelessness.
' Not since I've seen Englishmen,' Meriem
replied, with the same perfectly pellucid
sincerity as ever.
It was to her a simple statement of
mental experience. She had no idea of
flirting, in the English sense. Her feelings
were so. She must marry, naturally, who-
ever purchased her.
When she was gone away that evening,
and they sat alone in the tent, Le Mar-
chant turned round after a long pause,
232 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
and said earnestly to I>lake, ' It comes
home to me more and more every day I
stop here that we ought to hunt up some-
thing about this poor girl's English rela-
tions.'
' Why so !' the painter answered. ' You
think she oughtn't to be allowed to marry
Ahmed or Hussein ?'
' Certainly not. It's terrible to me even
to contemplate such a thing as possible.
She must never marry anybody but a
European, her natural equal.'
' Then why don't you marry her your-
self, my dear fellow? You seem to be
awfully gone on her, always.'
LeMarchant hesitated. ' Because,' he said,
at last, in a very serious tone, ' she wouldn't
take me.'
' Not take you ! Just you ask her !
What an absurd ideal Why, my dear
fellow, she'd take Ahmed or Hussein, or
any other man her uncle chose for her.
Not take you, indeed! Not take an
FOLLOWING UP THE CLUE. 333
Englishman! Why, she\l just jump at
you.'
•I think not; Le Marchant answered,
much more earnestly. ' She might take
Ahmed or Hussein, as you say, no doubt,
because she couldn't help herself; but not
me — of that I'm certain.'
' And why not, Le Marchant ?'
* Because, my dear fellow, if you ask me
the plain truth, her heart's already other-
wise engaged— and to a man who doesn't
really care twopence about her.
There was a long pause; then Blake
remarked again, withdrawing his cigarette
in a pensive way, ' Do you really mean
to tell me, Le Marchant, you'd marry that
girl— that barbarian— that savage, if you
thought she'd take you ?'
' It's a terrible thing to think of her
being made over, bound hand and foot, to
Ahmed or Hussein,' the naturalist answ^ered
evasively. ' They'd treat her no better than
they treat their donkeys.'
234 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
* And to prevent that, you'd throw your-
self away upon her, a mere Kabyle girl !
You, with all your cleverness and know-
ledge and education ! A man like you, the
heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of
tinie — why, the thing's ridiculous ! Le
Marchant, I haven't half your brains or
your learning, I know; I'm nothing but
a landscape painter, the least among the
wielders of camel's hair, but sooner than
tie myself for lif3 to such a creature as that,
I'd blow my brains out, such as they are,
and be done with it for ever. To toy with,
to flirt with, to amuse one for a day— very
well, if you will; but to marry— impossible.
Never, never, never!'
' Tastes differ,' Le Marchant answered
drily; 'especially in these matters. Some
people insist upon accomplishments and
high-heeled boots ; others care rather for
marked character and native energy. You
may judge men largely by what they admire.
Strong natures like strong natures ; and,
FOLLOWING UP THE CLUE. 235
given strength, they despise externals.
Other minds think more of mere culture,
perhaps ; it's not the diamond they admire,
but its cutting. Diamonds in the rough
are to them mere pebbles. For my part,
it's the stone itself that takes my fancy.
You don't care for her ; I don't ask you to
care for her ; but don't break her heart any
more than's absolutely necessary. For I see
she can't help falling in love with you.'
Next morning, when Meriem came round
to the tent, as was her daily wont, Avith the
milk from the cows she tended herself for
the two young Englishmen, Le ^Marchant
met her with a sadder and more anxious
face than usual. ' Meriem,' he said, 'T want
to speak to you seriously about your own
future. Whatever comes, you must never
marry either Ahmed or Hussein.'
' Does Vernon say not ?' Meriem asked,
all fluttering.
'No,' Le Marchant answered, crushing
236 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
down her poor heart at once of deliberate
purpose, for he knew no possible good
would come to her of that painful illusion.
' I say so mys^elf, because I take a friendly
interest — a very friend lyinl.:"est — in your life
and happiness. Meriem, I want to look up
your English friends. If I found them out,
would you care to go and live in England?'
' Not alone,' Meriem answered, with a
promptitude which clearly showed she had
already asked herself that leading question.
* When Yusuf used to take me on his knee,
and tell me about Eno^land lon^f ao-o, I
always thought I should like to go there, if
only he could go with me. And since I've
seen you and Vernon, Eustace, and heard
all about it, I've often fancied I should like
to go there if only — if only I had anyone
to take care of me and take me there. But
it's so far across the sea, and the people over
yonder are all infidels — not that I'm quite
so afraid of infidels now, either, since I've
seen so much more of you and Vernon.'
FOLLOWING UP THE CLUE. 237
'Why wouldn't your father take you
there, Meriem ?'
Meriem opened her large brown eyes
very wide with astonishment.
* They would have put him in prison, of
course,' she said, with decision. *It was
for fear of that that he ran away and
became a Kabyle. None of tlie infidels
seemed to like him. The French would
have shot him, and the English would have
imprisoned him. I think there must have
been feuds between the tribes in England,
and that his tribe must have been angry
Avith him, and cast him off, for he told me
his family would have nothing to say to
him. But I like the English very much
for those three things : that Yusuf was
English, and that the English were kinder
to my father than the French, and that —
that you and Vernon are Englishmen,
Eustace.*
Le Marchant looked at her with profound
pity. He couldn't bear to think this strong
238 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
and guileless nature should be cast away as
a beast of burden for some wretched Kabyle
like Ahmed or Hassein.
' Is there nobody, Meriem,' he said at
last, ' who can tell me anything more
about your father ?'
Meriem reflected for a moment in silence.
Then she answered somewhat doubtfully :
* If anybody rould tell you, it's the Pore
Baba.'
' And who's the Pere Baba ?' Le Mar-
chant went on eagerly.
' He's a priest, a Christian, a missionary
they call him, down at St. Cloud, in the
valley there. St. Cloud, you know, is
w^here the colonists are. It's a wicked
place, all full of Frenchmen. Yusuf would
never go down to the village, for fear the
people who live there should learn his
French name, and then they'd have shot
him. But the Pere Baba and the Pere
I-^ternoster used sometimes to come up
to see Yusuf, and my father was fond of
FOLLOWING UP THE CLUE. 239
the Pere Paternoster, and told him many
things. Our people were angry at this
often, and used to say to him : " Yusuf,
you're a Christian still at heart, and you
confess to the priest and say prayers with
him;" but Yusuf always answered: "No,
not so bad as that ; I only see the Pere
Paternoster as a friend, and on matters of
business." And once, before the Pere
Paternoster was dead, my father fastened
this charm round my neck, and told me
the Pere Paternoster had given it to him,
and to be very careful that I never lost it.'
' What's in it ? May I see ?' Le Mar-
chant went on, laying hold of it eagerly.
But Meriem drew back and started almost
as if she'd been shot.
' Oh no,' she cried ; ' not that, not that !
Anything but that ! Why, I wouldn't let
even Vernon open it.'
' And what makes you like Vernon so
much better than me ?' Le Marchant aisked,
half hurt by her innocent frankness.
240 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
Meriem made no attempt to parry the
charge. ' Who knov/s ?' she answered, with
both graceful arms and hands spread open
before her. ' Wlio can tell what makes
one's heart go so? Who can give any
reason for all these things ? ... He paints,
and he talks, and he's beautiful, and I like
him. . . . I like you, too, Eustace; oh, ever
so much ; I never liked anybody else so much
before, except Yusuf; but I like Vernon
differently; quite, quite differently. . . .
You know how I mean. You must have
felt it yourself. . . . But I can't stop now.
I must go on with my milk. The other
people in the village will be w^aiting for
their cous-cous. Don't be angry, like the
Kabyles, because I like Vernon best. This
evening again we shall learn Kabyle
together.'
CHAPTER XV.
AN OASIS OF CIVILIZATION.
' Vernon,' Le Marchant called out with a
sudden resolve, ' I'm off to St. Cloud. I've
a reason for going to-day. Will you come
along with me ?'
' All right, Eustace, if you'll just wait
till I've finished washing out my sky,' the
painter answered briskly. They had picked
up the trick of calling one another by their
Christian names from Meriem's example,
and it had now grown with them almost
habitual.
Hitherto, the two new-comers had inten-
tionally avoided the dissipations of St.
Cloud, not being anxious to study life in
its peculiar outlying Algerian development,
VOL. I. 16
242 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
among the remote corners where a few
ardent pioneers of civiUzation diffuse the
blessings of European culture over a
benighted land by congregating together
to drink bad absinthe under the eye of
the sun before the l)are mud platform of
a fourth-rate estaminet But now that the
chance of finding out something definite
about Meriem's parentage drew Le Mar-
chant on, he was ready to face even the
wooden houses and malodorous streets of
the dirty new village in search of trust-
worthy news as to their strange acquaint-
ance.
It was a long weary tramp, over hill and
dale, among wooded ravines, and across
rocky ledges ; but before twelve o'clock the
two young men had reached the military
track from Fort National to St. Cloud, and
found themselves at once, to their great sur-
prise, in a fine and splendidly-engineered
French highway. They had scarcely struck
upon it, however, when, to their still greater
AN OASIS OF CIVILIZATION. 243
astonishment and no little amusement, they
came full face upon a mincing little French-
woman, attired after the very latest Paris
fashion, in a frivolous frock, a jaunty
jacket, and a volatile hat of wondrous
architecture. She was thirty - five and
skittish, with high - heeled boots and an
attenuated waist, utterly unadapted to the
practical necessities of a bare and dusty
Algerian highroad. On either side of her,
with clanking spurs, paced a military
gentleman of youthful years but portly
dimensions ; while madame, in the midst,
with her graceful parasol held coquettishly,
now on this side, now on that, chatted
affably to both in intermittent gurgles with
alternate flows of most Parisian liveliness.
' C'est Madame V Administratrices' the
dirty-robed Kabyle, who had come wdth
them to show them the wav, murmured
softly in their ears, with a low bend of
his body, as the lady approached them.
He had lived at St. Cloud, and knew
16 — 2
244 '^^^ TENTS OF SHEM.
some words of French. Le Marchant and
Blake raised their hats as the lady passed,
after the French fashion in country places,
and would have gone on without stopping,
half abashed at their dusty and way-worn
condition, had not madame brought them
to with a lively broadside across their bows,
so to speak, of ' Bonjour^ 7nessieur,s.'
' Bonjour^madiime,' Le Marchant answered,
saluting again, and still anxious to pass on;
but still the lady stopped him.
' You are the English artists, mes.4eurs,
of Avhom our indufeneH told us, who have
pitched a camp on the hills of the Beni-
"^iQvzowg^nest-cepasf she asked condescend-
ingly.
'My friend is a painter,' Le Marchant
answered w^ith a wave of his hand towards
his blushing companion ; ' I myself am a
naturalist; and we are certainly camping
out — but with one tent only, madame — at
the Beni-Merzoug village.'
The lady pouted, or, rather, which is quite
AN OASIS OF CIVILIZATION. 245
another thing, elle faimit la moue, an accom-
plishment as indescribable as unknown in
English. ' Can you be unaware, messieurs,'
she said with a smile of mingled reproach
and gentle forgiveness ' that it is the custom
in the colony for all new-comers in the
arrondissement of St. Cloud to pay their
respects the first to M. I'Administrateur and
to myself at the Fort ? We have long been
expecting you to do us the honour of
making us a formal visit. D'aiUeuvs, we
are not so well off for agrements in these
trackless w^ilds '—she gazed straight ahead
along the bare and well-made French road
before her with a vacant air—' that we can
afford to lose the agreeable society of an
English painter and an English savant'
She looked up and smiled. ' I adore art,
and I reverence science — at a distance.
'Not trackless, quite, madame, however
wild,' one of her escort murmured with
gentle reproof, looking in front, in his turn,
at the magnificent gradients of the sloping
246 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
road, witli paternal pride. He was an
officer of the (ycnie, and he felt his depart-
ment unduly depreciated by madame's re-
flection.
' Forgive us, madame,' Le Marchant
answered, somewhat abashed by this open
attack upon his character for politeness.
' We are strangers in the land, and to say
the truth, we scarcely expected at St. Cloud
the charm of female society. Besides, you
do us far too much honour. We are simple
students, each in his own art, and we have
scarcely brought with us in our rough-and-
ready camp the necessary costume for ap-
pearing in fitting dress at European func-
tions. We could hardly venture to present
ourselves thus before you.'
As for Blake, all awe- struck at the high-
heeled boots and the Parisian hat, he left
the conversation entirely in the competent
hands of the naturalist. His French, such
as it was, forsook him forthwith. Indeed,
the common r»laces of the Ollendorfiian dialect
AN OASIS OF CIVILIZATION. 247
would here have stood him in very poor
stead. He felt he could not insult so grand
a lady as Madame I'Administratrice by ad-
dressing to her casual and fortuitous remarks
about la femme du jardinier or le fiL^ du
menuisier.
Madame bowed a condescending little
bow.
' In consideration of your contrition,' she
said, ' and your implied promise of future
amendment, monsieur, absolution is granted
you. You see my generosity. You were
coming to visit us, of course? Well, then,
M. le Lieutenant/ to the elder of her com-
panions, ' we will turn round and accompany
these gentlemen back to the Fort.
Le Marchant hesitated. He didn't wish
to be rude, but it went against the grain of
his honest nature to pretend a call was
meant where none had been intended. A
happy thought struck him, by way of a
compromise.
^Not in this tenue, madame,' he said.
248 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
' Even in Algeria, we must respect the
convenances; we couldn't think of calling
upon any lady in such a costume. En effet,
we were ffoing^ to visit the Pere Baba.'
The lady sighed.
' Helas,' she answered, ' this is not Paris.
We are glad to get callers in any teime.
But you will at least permit us to accompany
you on your way as far as the village?'
' Thank you, madame. * You are very
good. This is a charming situation. So
wild, so picturesque '
' And so w^holly unendurable !'
' But surely, madame, the scenery is
lovely. It's a beautiful country.'
* Beautiful I Je vous Vaccorde : mais vu dc
loin. For a painter, possibly ; but for a
woman, mon Dieii / it's too far from Paris.'
' Still,' Blake ventured to remark, inspired
to a sudden OUendorfRan outburst in de-
fence of the scener}^, ' there are many worse
places than this in the world.'
' Perhaps so,' the little woman replied,
AN OASIS OF CIVILIZATION. 249
with a crushing smile, ' but faute de pire,
I'm quite satisfied in that way with this
one.
Blake retired in disorder from the unequal
contest. Even had he possessed the rudi-
ments of her language, the little French-
woman was clearly too much for him at the
game of repartee. But Le Marchant, a
bolder spirit, tried once more.
' You have lived here long, madame?' he
asked, with his perfect accent.
' Long enough almost to have forgotten
the boulevards. Fifteen years, monsieur ;
figure that to yourself ; etjeregrette encore
la cuisine Parisienne: She spoke with
pathos.
' That is indeed constancy !' Le Marchant
replied, with appropriate emotion.
'Monsieur,' the lady retorted, with a
little mock curtsey and an ironical smile,
'it is \jour sex, remember, that has the
monopoly of fickleness.'
They walked on towards the village, along
250 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
the dusty rond, all five abreast, Madame
rAdministratrice chatting away gaily all the
time in the same flighty strain about the
discomforts of her situation, the distance
from a really good milliner, the difficulty of
getting endurable cofi^ee, and, above all,
the vices and shortcomings of ces cochons
d'indiijmes. Upon this last pet sul)ject — a
colonial substitute for the great servant
question — madame, after the wont of
Algerian ladies, waxed very warm, and
nodded the volatile little hat most impres-
sively, till the stability of its feathers was
almost compromised.
' Believe me, monsieur,' she said at last,
with much energy, stamping her neat small
foot on the dusty trottoir, ' we shall never
have peace and security in Algeria till the
French soldiers join hands across the country
in a long line, and, walking over hill and
dale together, sweep the indigenes before
them into the Mediterranean.'
' Cest vrai,' the officer of the Genie
AN OASIS OF CIVILIZATION. 251
assented with a profoundly convinced
nod.
' Strong measures, indeed,' Le Marchant
answered, laughing.
' It is thus, monsieur, that France must
fulfil her civilizing mission,' the lady repeated
stoutly. ' Join hands in line, and march
across the country, and sweep every Arab
into the Mediterranean. Le bon Dieu never
made the world, you may be sure, for those
pigs of Arabs.'
'But the Kabyles?' Blake asked, with
another gasping etfort.
'Do I distinguish between them, mon-
sieur?' madame answered scornfully, turning
upon him with a suddenness that fairly
frightened the painter. ^ Every cochon cUn-
dighie is an Arab for me. I make no fine
discriminations between Arab and Arab.
Un indigene c'est un indigene. Que voidez-
vous, monsieur T
At the e-itrance of the little colony,
madame paused and pointed.
252 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
* Down that road, messieurs,' she said,
with her bland, small smile, ' in the large
house to the left, you will find the Pere
Baba. Du reste, I am charmed to have
made your acquaintance so happily. It is
pleasant to hear our beautiful language so
well spoken. We shall meet again. Au
revoi)\ memeurs. I receive, recollect, on
Wednesdays and Saturdays. You can no
longer plead ignorance. We shall expect to
see you at my next reception.'
And with a coquettish inclination of the
volatile hat, and a curious side wriggle of
the frivolous frock, the spoiled child of the
boulevards, accompanied by her military
bowing escort, disappeared down the one
long white street of the timber-built village.
Le Marchant and Blake, left alone by
themselves, looked at one another in silence,
and smiled a broad smile at this unexpected
apparition among the wilds of Africa.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE WHITE FATHERS.
' You are the Pere Baba, monsieur ?' Le
Marchant asked, with some misgiving in his
tone, of the white-frocked old gentleman in
a plain Arab burnouse who opened the door
of the mission to receive them.
' My name in religion is Brother Geronimo,
my son/ the old ])riest answered, with a
courteous bow ; ' but the indigenes among
whom I labour — to little avail, I fear, for
the Propagation of the Faith is slow in
Africa — know me better as the Pere Baba.
Will you step inside and refresh yourselves
awhile ? We are glad to receive you.'
In the bare white salon, with its little
bright -coloured religious chromo-litho-
254 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
graphs, into whicli he ushered them, Le
Marchant briefly explained to the good
father the object of their visit, and asked
with many apologies for such information as
the priest could give him with regard to a
person who seemed to be equally well known
either as Yusuf, a Kabyle, or as Joseph
Leboutillier.
The gray- bearded father sighed and tapped
his forehead. 'Ah, k nomme Ytmif,' he
said, with a compassionate face. * Yes, yes,
I knew him ; I knew him, of course, cc
paiivre miserable ct Ynmf. I>ut you come
too late ; my brother Antoine was the man
to have asked — him whom the indicienes
called the Pere Paternoster. Unhappily,
Brother Antoine died last year, and much of
what Yusuf had told him died with him,
being given, of course, under the seal of
religion. For Yusuf, though he lived
among the Kabyles as a Kabyle, and bowed
the knee, iiour ainsi dire^ in the temple of
Rimmon, to save his life, remained at heart
.,1'fe.,
THE WHITE FATHERS. 255
a Christian to the end, and confided many
things to my poor brother, the Pere Pater-
noster. He had a good heart, our brother
Antoine, and he was kind to Yusuf, and
went often to see him in his lonely hut on
the mountains of the Beni-Merzoug.'
' But tell us at least as much as you know,
mon pere: Le Marchant insisted, ' whatever
was not said to you or your brother under
the seal of religion.'
' You come as friends?' the father asked
suspiciously, ' or for some ulterior object?'
Le Marchant explained in a very few
words, with transparent frankness, that they
came in the interest of Yusuf s daughter.
They knew she had English blood in her
veins, and they wished, if possible, to restore
her to her relations, and to the bosom of
Christendom.
That last touch told with Pere Baba visibly.
' It's a sad story, mon fiU; he went on,
closing his eyes, and turning his face towards
the bare white ceiling, as he stroked the
256 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
beard which all missionary priests are uer-
mitted to wear in virtue of their calling ; ' a
sad story, and I'm afraid I hardly know
enough about it to tell you accurately any-
thing that will be of serious use to this girl
Meriem. She calls herself Meriem, I believe ;
ah yes, I thought so. I recollect the cir-
cumstances. Well, Yusuf's story, so far as
1 can recall what Pcre Antoine told me, was
something like this. He was an Enghsh-
man by birth, though I forget his name-
let us agree that your guttural English
names are impossible to remember. lie
came of a family, a very good family ; but
he was spendthrift and foolish, though never,
I believe, wicked— ja/wais jamais coiqMble,
He told me so, and I always believed him.
Eh Men, according to his own account, which
you must remember is the only one I have
heard, his younger brother, sharing his
embarrassments, forged their father's name
to certain acceptances, which ce pauvre
Yusuf, in a weak moment, not knowing
THE WHITE FATHERS. 257
their nature, agreed to get cashed for hi in.
Yusuf declared to his dying day he had
never the slightest idea that they were
forired, and that his brother deceived him.
For that, I know nothing ; but, monsieur
—and the old priest's voice had a womanly
note of compassion as he spoke—' I verily
believe he was truthful, this unhappy exile.'
'To judge by his daughter, I believe he
must have been,' Le Marchant interposed,
with perfect sincerity.
The Father nodded.
' Well, the fraud came to light,' he con-
tinued, ' and the brother shuffled out of it ;
he was im niaiwais mjet, thh brother, Yusuf
ahvays assured us. The evidence all pointed
to Yusuf alone ; the law was in search of
him; Y^usuf lost courage, and fled the
country. He took passage to America as a
mere blind, but, as a matter of fiict, he fled
to France, under an assumed name, and
never again dared to communicate with his
relations.'
17
VOL. I.
258 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
' He might have done so at least before
he died,' Le Marchant cried warmly. * The
danger would then have been all past. For
his daughter's sake, he ought surely, on his
dying bed, to have written.'
' Monsieur,' the Father answered, with
his eyes still closed, recalling slowly the
half-forgotten facts, ' he never lay upon his
dying bed at all. Had he died thus, these
things might all have turned out differently.
But le bon Dieu willed it otherwise. You
shall hear in due time ; for this was what
happened. Ce pauvre Yusuf enlisted in the
Third Chasseurs at Toulon, and was sent
across here, under the assumed name of
Joseph Leboutillier, to put down the in-
surrection among the M'zabites and the
Kabyles. But as soon as he saw the sort
of warfare in which he was to be engaged,
his heart smote him ; for he was a just
man, Yusuf, though he had many failings ;
and let us admit, monsieur, that we other
French have not always made war very
THE WHITE FATHERS. 259
honourably or very justifiably against these
poor indigenes;'
' 1 fear as much from their disposition
towards you,' Le Marchant said shortly.
* Well, when Yusuf came up to Grande
Kabylie, en ejfet, he found his work was to
be nothing less than exterminating the
natives and expropriating their territory.
That was what Yusuf, with his high ideas,
could never endure. He hated to be made
an instrument of what seemed to him
tyranny. So, in a skirmish one day with
the Beni-Yenni people, he found himself,
by chance, alone behind a cactus hedge,
with the body of a dead Kabyle in the
ditch beside him. This he told Brother
Antoine,' the old man said, looking round
with a dubious air, ' and I don't know
whether I ought to repeat it, for I am not
sure that he didn't tell it under the seal of
religion.'
* Continue,' Le Marchant said, with evi-
dent earnestness. ' It is for no bad purpose
17—2
t
f
26o THE TENTS OF SHEM.
that we ask you to confide in us. What
you sfiy only interests me more profoundly
than ever in this poor girl, Meriem.'
' So he took the dead Kahyle's hurnouse,'
the priest went on, seizing his hearer's arm
for further emphasis, 'and stole away
slowly, all unperceived, into the Kabyle
cam]) as an honest deserter. He made
sigi s to the indigcmes that he had come as
a friend. One of them, a former Spahis,
who had served in France, and understood
our language, interpreted for him ; and the
Kal)yles, glad to avail themselves of his
superior skill and military knowledge, re-
ceived him with open arms and made him
as one of them. It was thus he came to
find himself proscribed by two nations at
once— by the English as a forger, and by the
French as a deserter.'
* It's a touching story !' Le ^larchant
cried, with emotion.
' Touching, indeed, for the poor man
himself,' the Father went on, 'for, hunted
THE WHITE FATHERS. 261
down and terrified for his life ivs he was,
Yusuf dared not return to civilization on
any side ; lie had no money even to go to
Italy or America, where, perhaps, he might
have been free ; and, a gentleman born and
bred as he was, he became as a Kabyle,
earning his bread by gathering olives or
cutting corn with his own hands, and seeing
no Christian face anywhere save my own
and the Pere Paternoster's, who alone had
the keeping of his terrible secrets. The
Amine of the Beni-Merzoug gave him his
sister Halima, this Meriem's mother, as a
Kabyle wife ; and that one girl was their
only child.'
' They were married ?' Le Marchant
asked.
' After the Kabyle fashion, yes. So far
as I know, there was no other rite. But
Yusuf lived with her fliithfully as a husband,
and loved her truly — in this, as in all
things, accepting to the full his altered
situation. He was a lovable soul, and in
262 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
spite of everything, one couldn't help loving
him ; there was a silent heroism about the
man's endurance that extorted at las^. one's
highest admiration.'
' And what became of him at last ?' Le
Marchant asked, as the Father paused.
' He died suddenly,' Pere Baba answered,
' without being able to give Pere Pater-
noster his dying directions, or perhaps I
might be able to tell you something more
about his family in Engl raid. His death
was brought about by most unhapj)y cir-
cu^nstances. A few years since, a French
detective came up into the mountains, and
began to make inquiries about Joseph
Leboutillier. The Kabyles heard of it, and
warned Yusuf ; they felt sure the authori-
ties had somehow learned a deserter in
open war on active service was skulking
among their mountains, and had deter-
mined to make a stern example of him.
Sc poor Yusuf fled to a cave on the
Djuijura.'
THE WHITE FATHERS. 263
* Just below the summit of Lalla Kha-
didja ?' Le ^Nlarchant asked eagerly.
The Father nodded.
' You know it, then ?' he said. ' Yes, it
was there, the place. He remained in that
cave in hiding for more than a week, while
the French detective, an inquisitive fellow,
went everywhere about, peering and prying,
and asking for news of him, under the pre-
tence that he wanted it for a friendly pur-
pose. But the Kabyles were too cunning
to be taken in like that ; they denied having
ever heard of any such deserter. So in the
end tlie detective went back again to Algiers
empty-handed, and poor Yusuf, who had
been supplied with food meanwhile by the
Kabyles, ventured to come down again one
dark night to visit his dead wife's village.'
' And then ?' Le Marchant inquired.
'Why, then, the weather being very
stormy, and the rocks wet, the poor fellow,
weak with exposure, slipped and fell on a
precipice of the Djurjura, and was taken up
264 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
stone-dead by his friends, nnd buried in the
cemetery on the side of the mountain. So
that was how he never came to give final
directions about his daughter to anybody ;
and as Pere I^aternoster knew all these
particulars under the seal of religion, he
could not divulge them or claim the girl
for a Christian, as he would have wished to
do ; so she has been brought up ever since
by the Amine, her uncle.'
The simi)le story touched Le Marchant
profoundly. There was something so
pathetic in this roughly-drawn picture of
that double outcast flying from the offended
law^ of two great countries, one after the
other, and taking refuge at last in a miser-
able rock -shelter on the summit of a Avild
and snow-clad mountain, that his imagina-
tion w^as deeply stirred by the plaintive
incidents. He tried to find out more from
the old priest by questioning ; but he soon
discovered that the substance of his tale
had all been told, and that the Father had
THE WHITE FATHERS. 265
little more than comment and conjecture to
add to this, his first hasty summary. Pere
Paternoster could have told more, he was
sure ; but Pere Paternoster was dead and
buried, and nobody else knew much, if any-
thing, about the whole matter.
They would have risen to leave when the
interview was finished, but the Father, with
old-fashioned religious hospitality, begged
them to stop and share his dejeuner.
' It is not much,' he said, with an apolo-
getic shrug and a depreciatory gesture of
his open palms-' an omelette— for it's
F^iaay-and a morsel of dried fish, washed
down with a little blue wine of the country ;
but such as it is, messieurs, I trust you will
do me the honour to partake of it.'
'We shall be only too charmed, man
phe.; Le Marchant replied truthfully. ' We
haven't sat down at a civilized table, or
eaten bread, or tasted wine, since we came
to Kabylie. It will be a welcome relief to
us from that eternal cous-cous'
266 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
In five minutes tlie breakfast duly
appeared on the table— an omelette which
might have made even Madame TAdminis-
tratrice herself less poignantly regret the
Parisian cuisine, some croquettes of dry cod,
most daintily flavoured, and a bottle of
good red wine from the White Fathers'
own rich vineyards at the Maison Carree—
to all which the two young Englishmen,
lono- stranfjers to such luxury, and inured
to Diego's rough-and-ready methods of
out-door cookery, did ample justice. The
bread, in particular, was highly commended
—nice white little petit pains that would
have done honour to the Viennese bakeries
in Paris. Vernon Blake [)raised it so
loudly, to the disparagement of cous-cous,
that when they left the mission-house the
good Father must needs press upon them
the entire remainder of that day's batch to
take back with them to the village.
' rU roll the loaves up in paper,' he said,
* and your Kabyle can carry them. Let me
THE WHITE FATHERS. 267
see ; what have I got in the way of a news-
paper? Ah, here's yesterday's Bepkhes
Al<ieri<'imcs.'
' Itetter still,' Le ilarchant sai.l, ' for to
tell you the truth, though we get letters
occasionally when the villagers are gouig
down to market at Tizi-Ou/.ou, wc haven't
seen a newspai^er of any sort for the last
six weeks.'
So they returned to l^.eni-:Merzoug with
their bread and their paper, Le Marchant
at least not a little saddened by the painful
history of Meriem's father.
Meriem herself was woitino; at the tent to
meet them as they returned.
'I want you to see what I can do,
Eustace,' she cried to Le Marchant, with
almost childish delight. ' Vernon has lent
me one of his books to try on, and 1 think
now I can read English.'
Le Marchant took the book from her
hand incredulously ; it was a paper-covered
edition of a popular novel. The girl
268 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
glanced over his shoulder, and, to his
great surprise, spelt out several lines, one
after the other, with tolerable correctness.
She made a hash of the proper names, to
be sure, and of the long words that did
not yet enter into her now daily widening
English vocabulary; but as to words that
she knew, she read them at sight with an
ease and rapidity that fairly took Le Mar-
chant's breath away.
'How on earth did you learn to do
this, Meriem?' he cried, astonished. 'It's
wonderful ! wonderful !'
Meriem looked up at him with not un-
becoming conscious pride.
* 1 was so ashamed of myself,' she said,
' that da 7 when I couldn't read my father's
English name in Vernon's picture, tliat I
made up my mind I wouldn't wait another
day or another minute without beginning
to learn the letters of my father's language.
So I borrowed one of Vernon's books,
without telling you about it, and found a
THE WHITE FATHERS. 269
girl of our people who coul.l teach me the
names of all the letters, because, yon see,
she'd been taught by the i.riests at the
school of St. Cloud, and they're the same
as the French ones, though they sound a
little different. I could read Kabyle already,
of course, in Arabic letters, that I learnt for
the Koran, and I think when you know how
to read one language it must always be
easy to read any other one. P.esides, I
thought T should be ashamed not to know
if ever— well, if ever T should happen to go
to England.'
Le Marchant smiled a pitying smile, and
answered nothing. ^
' Besides, the book itself is so interesting,
Meriem went on, in an ecstasy. ' It tells
you about how people live in England.
And now that I've read it, do you know,
Eustace, I think I should like to live in
England; the people seem all so Faceable
and good there.'
' Why didn't you tell Vernon favst ( Le
270 THE TENTS OF SHEM.
Murchant asked, with a sideloiifr crlance at
' DO
the beautiful girl.
Meriem hesitated.
' Hecause ... I don't know wliy . . .
I can't explain it . . . but somehow I was
shy of telling Vernon.'
There was a long pause, during which
neither of them said anything to one another.
Then Le Marchant, raising his eyes un-
steadily from the ground with a stifled sigh,
said suddenly :
' Was your father a good man, Meriem V
Meriem started. ' He was the very best
man that ever lived,' she answered earnestly,
with the full fervour of confirmed con-
viction.
' And yet,' Le Marchant mused, half to
himself, ' the English wanted to imprison
him for forgery, and the French would have
liked to shoot him for desertion.'
* Perhaps that was because he was so
very good,' Meriem answered simply. ' Don't
you think, Eustace, good people are always
THE WHITE FATHERS. 271
least understood and the most persecuted ?
Why, even the blessed Prophet hhnself had
to fly from Mecca to avoid being killed by
the wickedness of the people.'
Le Marchant could not resist an amused
smile. The incongruity of the words on
such English lips seemed so grotesque as to
be almost ridiculous.
END OF VOL. I.
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, UUILDFORD.