Lifornia 
 onal 
 
 lity 
 
 V-fl'
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE TENTS OF SHEM 
 
 ^ "glotJel 
 
 BY 
 
 GRANT ALLEN 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 'BABYLON,' 'the DEVIL's DIE,' 'THIS MORTAL COIL,' ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. 1. 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1889
 
 
 TO 
 
 M. M. S., 
 
 IN MEMORY OF MANY HAPPY DAYS 
 AT SIDI SALAH. 
 
 951289
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 <.'HAPTF.R PAGE 
 
 I. IN THE DARK CONTINENT - - 1 
 
 II. HONOURS ... - -JO 
 
 III. BY MOORISH MOUNTAINS- - - 3.5 
 
 IV. ENTER A HEROINE - - - 54 
 V. PROBLEMS - - - - 68 
 
 VI. MISS KNYVETT EXPLAINS HERSELF - 85 
 
 Vn. ART AND NATURE - - - 105 
 
 VIIL NO SOUL - - - - 124 
 
 IX. STRIKING A CI,UE - - - 146 
 
 X. RIVAL CLAIMS - - - 16.3 
 
 XL GOOD NEWS FROM AIX - - - 181 
 
 xn. rejected! - - - - 193 
 
 Xin. IRIS STRIKES - - - - 210 
 
 XIV. FOLLOWING UP THE CLUE - - 227 
 
 XV. AN OASIS OF CIVILIZATION - - 241 
 
 XVL THE WHITE FATHERS- - - 253 
 
 \W"^.
 
 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN THE DAKK CONTINENT. 
 
 Two young men of most Britannic aspect 
 sat lounoino' toiiether in lono- wicker chairs 
 on the balcony of the English club at Algiers. 
 Thev had much reason. It was one of 
 those oiorious davs, 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 
 balcony with its profuse tresses of rich 
 amethyst blossom ; the long and sweeping- 
 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. 1
 
 2 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 clad peaks of the Djurjura in the back- 
 "Tound rose liiu'li in the air, fj:listenmof 
 wliite and pink in the reflected g'lory of 
 the afternoon sun. lUit the two young 
 men of Uritannic 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 vou 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 
 orange-groves, and the white Moorish villas 
 that stud the steep, smiling slopes of Mus- 
 tapha JSuperieur, in the solenui silence of 
 the true-born Eni-lishman. 
 
 They might have sat there for ever and 
 said nothing (in which case the world nuist 
 certainly have lost the present iKirrative) 
 had not the lelt presence of a Common \\";nit
 
 IN THE DARK CONTINENT. 3 
 
 impelled them at last spasmodically to a 
 conversational effort. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon, but do you happen 
 to have a liirht about vou ?' the elder of the 
 two said, in an apologetic voice, drawing a 
 cigar, as he sjDoke, from the neat little 
 morocco case in his pocket. 
 
 ' Curious, but I was j ust going to ask 
 you the very same thing,' his younger com- 
 panion answered, with a bashful smile. 
 ' Tve finished my last vesuvian. SupjDOse 
 we o-o into the smokinir-room and look for a 
 match. Can you tell me where, in this abode 
 of luxury, the smoking-room finds itself ?' 
 
 ' AYhv, I haven't yet investio-ated 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. 
 
 j)oiiit,' tlu' elder answered, <)])enin_i>" a door 
 on the left in search of the common need. 
 ' The fact is, I arrived in Algiers only 
 yesterday evening.' 
 
 ' Another coincidence ! l^recisely my 
 case. I crossed by last night's boat from 
 Marseilles. Ah, here's the smokins^-room ! 
 May I offer you a light? P'f, ])'f, ])'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 gfrim 
 and restrained smile. lie was tall and fair, 
 but much bronzed with the sun. 
 
 ' Never had such a tossini*' in all mv life 
 before,' he answereil quietly. ' A horrid 
 voyage. Swaying to and fro from side 
 to side till 1 thought 1 should lull off, and 
 be lost to humanity. Talk of the good ship 
 j)lunging on the sea, indeed, as Theo 
 Marzials does in that rollickiii''- sonij- of 
 his ; any other shi]) I ever sailed on's the 
 merest triHe to it.'
 
 IN THE DARK CONTINENT. 5 
 
 ' 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 eve, 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 
 discrimvna reruniJ 
 
 ' 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 creduUty. 
 
 ' I5y the land -route from Tunis, l)ack of 
 the desert, via Biskra and Laghouat ' 
 
 ' But I thought you said you'd had such 
 an awful tossing!' 
 
 ' So I did. Never felt such a tossinof in
 
 6 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 the w orKl bclure. But it wasn't the sea ; 
 ir was tlie ship of tlie desert. I came here 
 — as far as l)li(iali,at least — true Arab-wise, 
 see-saw, on camel-back.' 
 
 The dark yoiinn; inaii puffed away at his 
 weed for a moment vigorously, in deep con- 
 templation, lie was a sh}' person wlio 
 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,' tlie dark 
 young man ex[)ostulated, 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 exactl}^ 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 o-row in the 
 desert or not — I should rather bet on 7iot, 
 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. 
 
 ' ^[y one acconi])lislmi('nt,' tlio cxjiloror 
 answered, -vvitli a pleased expansion of the 
 corners of his moutli; it is hiiiii.in to receive 
 approbation gTatefiiUy from those who know. 
 ' I couldn't sketch a scene or draw a fiuiire 
 with tolerable accuracy to save mv life; l)ut 
 I understand the Ijirds, and cree])in<^ thin<2;s, 
 and flowers ; and sympathy, I suppose, makes 
 me draw them, at least, sympathetically.' 
 
 ' Precisely so. That's the very word.' 
 the artist went on, examinino- each drawin<>' 
 he turned over with more and more care. 
 ' Though your fcchniqiie's amateurish, of 
 course, I can see you know the flowers, their 
 tricks and their manners, down to the very 
 izTOund. But tell me now: dc; these thinu-s 
 really grow in tlie 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. l)Utterfly-fertilized. 
 P)Ut what brink's you to Aliiferia so late in 
 the season? All the rest of the world is
 
 IN THE DARK CONTINENT. g 
 
 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 enouo-h 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.
 
 lo THE TEAM'S OF SHEM. 
 
 ' To Kabylie — yes. The very place. 
 You've learnt its name and its fame already, 
 tlien?' 
 
 ' \Miv, I see in tliis the finger of Fate,' 
 the artist answered, with more easy confi- 
 dence. • We have here, in fact, a tliird 
 coincidence. It's in Kabylie that 1, too, 
 have decided on spending the summer. 
 Perhaps, as you seem to know tlie way, 
 we mi<^ht manai>e to start on our tour 
 together.' 
 
 'But what are you going for?' the elder 
 man continued, with an amused air. 
 
 ' Oh, just to paint. Xothing more than 
 that. The country and tlie peo})k' ; 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, 
 they sa}', or almost unljroken; and every- 
 thing civilized has been so painted n]i, 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 
 estaminet and play dominoes.' 
 
 ' So much the better. That's just what 
 I want. 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 TEXTS OF SHEM. 
 
 to sav, 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 sujjpose, and put u]) for a 
 while at some little hotel in the country 
 villao'es.' 
 
 The explorer's face could not resist a 
 gentle smile of suppressed merriment. 
 
 'An hotel, my dear sir I' he said with 
 sur])rise, 'An hotel in Kabylie! You'll 
 lind it difficult, I'm afraid, to meet with the 
 article. Except at Fort National, which is 
 a purely French settlement, wliere you 
 could studv only the common or French 
 Zouave eno'ao-ed in his familiar avocation of 
 playing bowls and sij)ping absinthe, there's 
 not such a thing as a cabaret, a lodging, a 
 wayside iini. in the whole block of mountain 
 country. Strangers wlio want to explore 
 Kabvlie mav ii'o if thev like to the house of 
 the village iieadman, the amine, as they call
 
 IN THE DARK CONTINENT. 13 
 
 him, where you iiiay sup off a nasty mess 
 of pounded koiis-kons, and sleep at night on 
 a sort of shelf or ledg'e amonof the ffoats 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. 
 Verbum sap. It's too entomological. AVhen 
 you go to Kabylie, dim't do as the Kabyles 
 do.' 
 
 ' But how do you mean to manaofe 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 verbum sap. (his Latin I)eing strictl}' a 
 negative quantity), so he took refuge in the 
 safe device of a question that turned the 
 tables. • I came to Algiers "iioping to pick
 
 14 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 Up some iiiloriiKuioii as to ways ami means 
 as soon as I g-ot have; and since you seem 
 to know tlie ropes so well, perlia[)s you'll 
 give a raw hand the henefit of youi- i-iper 
 experience.' 
 
 ' Oh, / have my tent/ the traveller 
 answered, with the quiet air of a man 
 who has made his way alone about the 
 world. ' It's a first-rate tent for cam])in(r- 
 out in ; it's supplied with the electric li.<>-ht, 
 a hydraulic lift, hot water laid on, and all 
 the latest modern improvements — meta- 
 phorically spcakino-,' 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 1 could easily rig up a spare bed ; 
 so if you really mean to ])aint in Kal)ylie, 
 and v-ill bear a share in the expenses of 
 carriage, it might suit both our books, 
 perhaps, if you were to engage my furnished 
 apartments. Tor Tm 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- 
 blemished character. Money not so much 
 an object as congenial society in a respect- 
 able family. 
 
 It was a kind offer, playfully veiled under 
 the cloak of mutual accommodation, and the 
 painter took it at once as it wa=? meant. 
 ' How very good of you !' he said. ' I'm 
 immensely obliofed. 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 "ood-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
 
 i6 THE TEXTS OF SHEM. 
 
 cup of coffee, and T dare say, wlieii we've 
 coiiiparcd notes, we shall manai-'e to hit 
 t]iin«»-s off cr)mfortaljlv tofrether.' 
 
 ' ^lay we exchange cards V the artist 
 asked, pulling out a silver-bound case from 
 his breast-pocket, and handing one of its little 
 regulation ])asteb.oards to his new friend. 
 
 The explorer glanced at it, and read 
 the name, ' Vernon IMake, 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. 
 l)Ut my name's Le Marchant — Eustace 
 Le Marchant, of Jersey, beetle-sticker.' 
 
 ' Oh, l)ut I know your name,' lilake 
 cried eagerlv, deliu-hted to show himself 
 not wholly ignorant of a distinguished 
 naturalist. ' You're an F.R.S., aren't you'? 
 Ah, yes, I thought so. I've seen notices of 
 you often in the ])aper. I'm sure, as having 
 lione somewhere and found out somethin<»\
 
 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 
 ignorant to go camping-out with an F. li.S. 
 in the wilds of Africa.' 
 
 ' If beino- an F.R.S. is the worst crime 
 you can bring to my charge,' Le ^larchant 
 answered with a smile, ' I dare say we shall 
 pull together all very well. And if you 
 meet no worse society than F.K. S.'s in the 
 v>dlds of Africa, though it's me that says it, 
 as ou""htn't to sav it, your luck will have 
 been very exceptional indeed. But I don't 
 think you need be much afraid of me. I'm 
 an F.K.S. of the mildest type. I never call 
 anvthini'' by its lono-est and uirliest Latin 
 name : I never bore other people witli 
 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 ci^nsideration. 
 There are two kinds of naturalists, you 
 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 1 8 Tin: TEXTS OF S^E^r. 
 
 know : and I'm one of tlie wroni;' kind. 
 The su])crior class live in LondtMi or Paris, 
 examine everything' minutely Avith a great 
 big microscope, tack on inches of Greek 
 nomenclature to an insignificant mite or bit 
 of moss, and s])lit hairs against anybody 
 with marvellous dexterity. That's science. 
 It dwells in a museum. For my ]iart, 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 rifie 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
 
 IN 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 simplicity. 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 exactlv what each of us wants 
 before either of us binds himself down 
 formally for live months to the other. 
 Alphonse, a couple of coffees and two petits 
 verves at once, here, will you ?' 
 
 And b}^ the clarifying aid of a cigar and 
 a chame-cafe^ it was iinally decided, before 
 the evening sun flushed the Djurjura purple, 
 and turned the white Arab walls to pink, that 
 Vernon Blake should accompany Eustace 
 Le ^[archant, on almost nominal terms as 
 to the sharing of expenses, on his summer 
 trip to the mountains of Grande Kabylie.
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 HONOURS. 
 
 Somewhere about the same time, awav over 
 in Enfjland, Iris Knvvett sat one morninii- 
 at lunch, drumminii" with her finoers on tlie 
 table before her that })articular tattoo which 
 the wisdom of our ancestors ascribed to tlic 
 author of all evil. 
 
 Iris Knyvett herself would, no doubt, 
 have been very much astonished if only she 
 could have been told l)y some j)rescient 
 visitor that her own fate was in any wav 
 bound u]) with th(! proposed ex})edition of 
 two unknown vouni'- men, from the English 
 Club at Algiers, into the wilds of Kabylic 
 She had hardly heard (save in the catalogue 
 of the Institute) the name of Vernon
 
 HONOURS. 21 
 
 Blake ; Avhile 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 entomology. 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 
 a mono* the e-reen recesses of the North 
 iVfrican 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 
 ^hade of a fair lady's neglect. 
 
 'Iris, my dear,' Mrs. Knyvett said sharply, 
 with 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 TEKTS OF SHEM. 
 
 Iris's eves came back witli a hound from 
 a point in s]iaco lying a])]iar('ntly several 
 thoiisand miles behind the eminently con- 
 ventional Venetian scene that hani^s above 
 the sideboard in everv "'entleman's dinini'- 
 room. ' I can't eat anything-, I really think, 
 mamma,' she said Avith a slioht siiih, ' till 
 I've had that teleirram.' 
 
 Mrs. Knyvett hel])ed herself to a second 
 piece of filleted sole and its due propor- 
 tion of anchovy sauce with great delibera- 
 tion, before she answered sloAvly, ' Oh, so 
 you're expecting a telegram !' 
 
 ' Yes, mamma,' Iris rej)lied with scarcely 
 a shade of reasonable vexation on her pretty 
 face. ' Don't you remend)er, dear, I told 
 you my tutor ])romised to telegra[)h to me.' 
 
 ' Your tutor ! oh, did he?' Mrs. Knyvett 
 went on with polite acquiescence, letting 
 drop her p{nce-?7ec with a dexterous eleva- 
 tion of lier arched eyebrows. The ]>rinci])al 
 feature of ^Irs. Knyvett's character, indeed, 
 was a Ivomau 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 
 jnnce-nez, but as her father had been the 
 Dean of a southern cathedral, it also 
 managed incidentally to support the credit 
 of her familv. ' Oh, did he,' Mrs. Knvvett 
 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. 
 
 ' jSTot he, mamma. You must surely 
 remember I've reminded you over and over 
 again that my tutor's name is Emily Yan- 
 renen.' 
 
 ' Then why does she sign herself " E. Yan-
 
 24 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 rcnen, 1*),A. and D.Sc.,'' F wonder?' ^Irs. 
 Knyvett went, on witli dreamy uncertainty. 
 ' A Doctor of Science ouulit surely to l)e a 
 man? And IJaclielor of Arts, too — 
 bachelor of Arts! Bachelors and s])insters 
 are fi:ettini'- too mixed, too mixed altofi^etiier.' 
 
 Iris was just ^oing- to answer somethinf^ 
 o'ently. as Avas lier wont, in defence of tlie 
 mixture, wlien a rap at tlie door made her 
 jum]) u]) liastilv. 'That must be the 
 telegram I' she cried with a tremor, and 
 darted off to the door in a vig'orous 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 
 <lear. This unseemly procedure — and at 
 lunch-time, too — is really quite unpardon- 
 able. In my time girls ' 
 
 l>ut Iris was well out of lieai'ing long 
 since, and ]\Irs. Knyvett was forced to do 
 penance vicariously herself on her daughter's
 
 HONOURS. 25 
 
 account to the ofFended fetish of the British 
 drawinof-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- 
 pointed. 
 
 '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 o^Yn family, 
 nnd 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 TEXTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 witness for the other side, on ])urpose to 
 ask voii whether youvc ij-ot a teleiiram : 
 and '• Only L'nele Tom " are tlie very first 
 words my ])rettiest niece tliinks tit to <^reet 
 me with after all my devotion.' 
 
 And lie stooped down as Iris seated her- 
 self at the table once more, and kissed her 
 affectionately on her smooth white forehead. 
 
 ' Oh, uncle !' Tris cried, blushini>; up to 
 her pretty 1)1 ue eyes with ingenuous distress 
 at having even for a moment ap2)eared to 
 sliii'lit him — ' I di(bi't mean that. Voii 
 know I didn't mean it. I'm always pleased 
 and delighted to see you. lUit the fact is I 
 was expecting the telegram; and T ran to 
 the door when you rat-tat-tatted, thinking 
 it was the telegra])h l)oy ; and when T saw it 
 was onl)- you — I. mean, wlien 1 saw it was 
 you, of course — whv, T was naturally dis- 
 a])pointed not to have got the news about it 
 all. Ihit did voii really come up all the 
 way from Court on pur])ose to hear it, you 
 dear old uncle?'
 
 HONOURS. 37 
 
 ' All 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, vmcle, that icas 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 SIIEM. 
 
 'But wluit's it all about, dear Tom?' 
 Mrs. Kiiyvett exclaimcrl, in a querulous 
 tone and with a puzzled air. ' What do 
 Tris and vou want to oet a telea'i'c'ini from 
 this ambi_ij;'uous tutor of hers for?' 
 
 Uncle Tom was just about to enliu-hten 
 his sister's darkness (for the five hundred 
 and first time), when poor Iris, unable co 
 control her feeling's any lonirer, rose from 
 the table, with tears standini^ 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. Knvvett 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 age, the llii'lier Education. 
 
 ' Well, well, it's done her no harm, any- 
 how,' Uncle Tom answered, with stout 
 good-humour, for his niece was a great 
 favourite of liis, in spite of her heresies. ' I
 
 H ox OURS. 29 
 
 don't approve of all this fal-lal and non- 
 sense myself, either ; but Iris is a Knyvett, 
 you see, and the Knj^vetts always struck 
 out a line for themselves: and each Knvvett 
 strikes out a different one. bhe's struck 
 out hers. She didn't get that from us, you 
 may be sure. Xobodv could ever accuse 
 the Whitmarshes of eccentricit}' or origin- 
 ality. AVe ii'et on, but we get on steadily. 
 It's doofo-ed that does it with our family, 
 iVmelia. The Knyvetts are different. TJiey 
 o'o their own way. and it's no o-ood any- 
 body else trying to stop them.' 
 
 ' What Avould her poor dear father say to 
 it all. I wonder ?' Mrs. Knyvett remarked 
 parenthetically, through a mist of sighs. 
 
 ' He Avould say, " Let her go her own 
 way," ' the eminent Q.C. replied with cheer- 
 ful haste ; ' and if it comes to that, whether 
 he said it or not wouldn't much matter, for 
 in her own quiet, peaceable, unobtrusive 
 manner, offendino' nobody, Iris would fj-o 
 her own way, in spite of him. Yes, Amelia,
 
 30 THE TEi\TS OF SHEM. 
 
 I say, in spite of biin. After all, it's not 
 been at all a bad tliini;-, in sonic respects, 
 that our dear girl sbould have taken up 
 with this liigber education fad. We don't 
 iH)prove of it ; but, if it's done notbinu" else, 
 it's kei)t her at least out of tbe way of the 
 fortune-bunters.' 
 
 * Iris bas great expectations," Mrs. Jvny- 
 vett remarked complacently. Sbe remarked 
 it, not because her brother was not already 
 well aware of the fact, but because the 
 tbouoht was in her own mind, and she 
 uttered it, as she uttered all other [)lati- 
 tudes that happened to occur to her, in the 
 full expectation that her hearer would tind 
 them as interesting as she did. 
 
 ' Iris has great ex})ectations !' her brother 
 echoed. ' No doubt in the world, i think, 
 about that. By the terms of the old Ad- 
 miral's will, ridiculous as they are, I hardly 
 imaiiine Sir Arthur would venture to leave 
 tlie property otherwise. To do so would 
 be risky, \vith me against him. And if Iris
 
 HONOURS. 31 
 
 had gone into London Society, and been 
 thrown into the whirl of London life, in- 
 stead of reading her " Odyssey " and her 
 " Lucretius," and mugging up amusing- 
 works on 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 Cambrido-e 
 scheme has saved us from all the trouble 
 and bother of that sort of thino- — 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 tit to take care 
 of herself.' 
 
 ' There's something in that,' Mrs. Knyvett 
 responded, with a stately nod of the pro- 
 minent feature. It seemed somehow to 
 revolve independently on its ow*n axis. 
 
 'Something in that!' her brother cried, 
 
 amazed, as though his own ' devil ' had
 
 32 THE TESTS OF SHEM. 
 
 ventured to agree with him. * There's a 
 g'reat deal in tliat, Anieha ! Tiiere's every- 
 thing- in that! Tlicre's woHds in that! 
 It's the '' Iliad "' in a nutshell. The uirl's 
 done the very best thing on earth for her- 
 self. She's saved her ex|)ectations — 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 <j/iite safe about her 
 Latin prose, to be sure, but oh! that un- 
 speakable, that terrible mistake in the 
 unseen passage from Plato's ' l\ej)ublic I' 
 It would s])()i] all. tliat ra]>e second aorist ! 
 It teas the telegram this time, sure enough, 
 without further delay. Iris tore it o])en 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, 
 
 ' E. Yaxkexen.' 
 
 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 
 miceasing tide for the next live minutes ; 
 while poor Iris's head, giddy with her 
 triumph, swam round and round in a wild 
 delirium of deliu'ht and amazement. Third 
 Classic ! In her highest mood of hope she 
 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 had never expected anything like tliis. She 
 cried to herself silently in her joy and satis- 
 faction. 
 
 ' But wliat does it all ni(!an ?' Mi-s. Kny- 
 vett exclaimed, adjusting the pince-nez on 
 its pre-ordained stand once more with prac- 
 tised skill, and gazing vacantly from the 
 teleoTam to Iris, and from Iris to the tele- 
 gram. ' Is it — very much worse — much 
 lower than she expected ?' 
 
 * What does it all mean, ma'am ?' Uncle 
 Tom exclaimed, flinging prudence to the 
 doers 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 hlcss my soul, how 
 the girl trembles 1 — that your own daughter. 
 Iris Knyvett, has beaten all the men l)ut 
 two in Cambridge University into a cocked 
 hat. That's what it means, ma'am. '1 hat's 
 what it means! I don't a])prov"e of it ; liut. 
 upon my soul. I'm proud of her I Your 
 daughter Iris is Third Classic.'
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 BV 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 Dunloj), in 
 the Rue dTsly; a Mahonnais Spaniard from 
 the IJalearic Isles had been secured as ser- 
 vant to guard the camp ; and Blake and 
 Le ^larchant, on varving 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. 
 
 hrushes, pig'ments, canvas, ])cncils, and 
 Whatman's ]mper ; the naturalist's em- 
 braced a good modern low lini^-piece, an 
 endless array of boxes for skins and speci- 
 mens, and a fine collection of butterfiy-nets, 
 chloroform bottles, entomological })ins, and 
 materials for preserving birds, animals, and 
 botanical treasures. Le Marchant, as the 
 older and more experienced traveller, had 
 charged himself Avith all the necessar}- ar- 
 rangements as to packing and provisions ; 
 and when Blake looked on at the masterly 
 wav in which his new friend manaii'ed to 
 make a coa})le of packing-cases and a cork- 
 mattress do dntv for a bedstead, at the 
 same time that they contained, in their deep 
 recesses, the needful creature comforts for a 
 three months* tour among untrodden wa\'t;. 
 he could not sufficiently congratulate him- 
 self upon the lucky chance which ha<l 
 thrown him, on the balcony of the Club at 
 Alo'iers 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, 
 Avitliout knowino; it. 
 
 A lovely mornino- of brio'ht 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- 
 ing coffee. 
 
 ' Monsieur,' the waiter answered, wiping 
 his mouth with his greasy apron as he 
 spoke, ' the Arabs say the mules will 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 I know these fellows.
 
 38 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 That means ten o'clock, at the very earliest. 
 It's now seven, and unless we get uiidei" 
 way within twenty niinntes, the sun '11 \k' so 
 hot before we reach a resting-place, that we 
 shall deliquesce like ^liss Carolina W'ilhel- 
 niina Amelia Skei^'ii's in '' The Mcar of 
 Wakefield." I'll go out and hurr}- thcni up, 
 lilake, with a little gentle moral suasion.' 
 
 lilake 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 spra^vling at their ease on a heap of 
 soft dust in the full front of the mornini'- 
 sunshine. 
 
 'Get up, my friends,' Le Marchant cried 
 aloud in excellent Arabic, for he was a Ijorn 
 linguist. 'If the mules are not ready in 
 five minutes by the watch I hold in my 
 hand, by the beard of the Pro])het, I 
 solemnly tell you, you may go every man 
 to liis own home without a sou, and I will 
 hire other mules, with the blessing of Allah,
 
 BY MOORISH MOUXTAIXS. 39 
 
 from better men than you are to take us on 
 our journey.' 
 
 Blake did not entirely understand coUo- 
 quial Arabic when rapidly spoken — in fact, 
 his o\yn linguistic studies stopped short 
 suddenly at his mother tono'ue, and so 
 much French in the Ollendorffian dialect as 
 enabled him to state fluently that the 
 gardener's son had giyen his apple to the 
 daughter of the carpenter — but he was 
 greatly amused to see the instantaneous 
 effect which this sino-le sonorous sentence, 
 rolled quiet]}' but yery firmly out in dis- 
 tinct tones, produced upon the neryes 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 TEXTS OE SHEM. 
 
 despair and inability: and before the five 
 minutes were fairly over ])y tliat inexorable 
 watch which l^e Marchant held with stern 
 resolve before liim, the little cavalcade 
 started off at a trot in the direction of the 
 still snow-clad sunnnils of the nearer Djur- 
 jura. 
 
 It was a qnaint small caravan, as it 
 mounted the hillside. The two Englishmen 
 rode unburdened mules : the ra2:o-cd Arabs, 
 barefoot and melting, ran after them with 
 shouts of guttural de})th, 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 ?' I)lake asked at 
 last, as the highroad that had conducted 
 them for a mile from Tizi-Ouzou dwindled 
 down al)ru])tly near a steep slope ro 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 vaoue 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 find 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 Romanised population —
 
 42 THE TEXTS OF SHEM. 
 
 the l>crl)er8, in fiu-t — driven np into the 
 liills l)y the Arab invasion in the seventh 
 centiay. Practically speakinii-, y()ii know, 
 Jugurtha and Masinissa and 'Iid)a were 
 Kahyles.' 
 
 Blake had never heard of these o-entle- 
 men's names before ; but he veiled his 
 ignorance with an acquiescent ' Really 1' 
 
 They rode on. talkiniif of many things 
 and various, for two or three hours, under 
 the brilliant sunshine. ]^)ut all the way as 
 they rode they were mounting steadily, by 
 devious native tracks, steep and jucturesque, 
 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 
 gorges of torrent streams, overhung and 
 dra})ed 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!' he cried at last, halting 
 his mule at a sudden bend of the track. ' I 
 shall do wonders here. I feel the surround- 
 ings exactly suit me. What could be more 
 lovely than this luxuriant vesfetation ? I 
 understand now those lines of Tennyson's 
 in the "Daisy." So rich! So luscious! 
 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 ! It's a dream 
 of dehght. 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 sbape l\y the gigantic mangle of 
 the Great Ice Ao;e.' 
 
 ' The great wliat ?' Blake asked, with a 
 iaint tingling sense of doubt and shame. 
 He was afraid of his life T.o Alarrliant 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 Xorthern Euro])e 
 to a common dead-level,' 
 
 ' I never heard of it,' J31ake 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. Tni such a duller 
 at books, you know. To tell you the truth, 
 I understand very little, except perspective. 
 I've read nothing but the English ])oets ; 
 and those I've got at my finger-ends ; but 
 I don't remember anything in ]\lilton or 
 Shelley about the Great Ice Age. My father,
 
 BY MOORISH MOUNTAINS. 45 
 
 you see, was a painter before me ; and as I 
 began to show a — well, a disposition for 
 painting very early, he took me away from 
 school when I was 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 vou 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 SIIEM. 
 
 ^irls, fair as Italians, or even as Eni^'Ush- 
 wornen, in their simple and pieturesque 
 Oriental eustuine, were washing- eluthes at a 
 tinv ford, and lauiiliinii' and talkinii' int'rrilv 
 with one another as they bent over their 
 work. The scene irrcsistil)ly attracted 
 JUake. The <»arb of the <»'irls was, indeed, 
 most Greek and g^raeeful ; and their sap])le 
 limbs and lithe natiu'al attitudes might well 
 arouse a painter's or a sculptor's interest. 
 
 ' By Jove !' he cried. ' Le Marchant. T 
 should like to sketch them. Anything so 
 picturesque I never saw in my life before. 
 " Sunburnt mirth," as Keats calls it in " The 
 Xightiiigale." Just watcli that girl stcx^p- 
 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 s])lendi(l, certainly,' the naturalist 
 answered, surveying the girl's pose with 
 more measured commendation. ' A hue 
 figure, 1 admit, well prop[)ed and vigorous.
 
 BY MOORISH MOUNTAINS. A7 
 
 No tight-lacing there. Ko deformity of 
 fashion. The human form divine, in un- 
 spoiled beauty, as it came straight from the 
 hands 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.' 
 
 IMaturer 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 w^ell 
 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. 
 Thev were not veiled like Arab women : 
 their faces and arms and necks were bare.
 
 48 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 and tlicirfeot and ankle>^nakod to tlie knee; 
 for the old Tn'i-ber population of North 
 Africa, to whose race the Kabyles of Algeria 
 belong, retain unchanu'ed to this day their 
 antique lloman freedom ol' manners and 
 intercourse. The girls' features were all of 
 them pretty, with a certain frank and bar- 
 baric boldness of outline. Though shv of 
 strangers, they were clearly amused ; the 
 one who had attracted their s])ecial attention 
 looked almost coquettishly across at Le 
 Marchant, as he turned his beast with 
 sterner resolve up the slope of the mountain. 
 ' They're s])lendid creatures,' the naturalist 
 said, looking back a little regretfully, while 
 they rode up the opposite side, and left the 
 brook and the girls for ever behind thorn. 
 ' That sort of face certainly lives long* in 
 one's memory. I immensely admire these 
 free children of nature. fJusc Avatch that 
 girl coming down the hillside vonder now 
 with her i)itclier on her head — how ii-race- 
 fully she poses it I how lightly she trips !
 
 BY MOORISH MOUXTAIXS. 49 
 
 What freedom, what ease, what untrammelled 
 movement !' 
 
 ' By George, yes,' Blake answered, taking 
 in the scene with his quick artistic glance. 
 'It's glorious! It's splendid! From the 
 purely a3sthetic point of view, you know, 
 these women are far better and finer in every 
 way than the civilized product.' 
 
 ' And whv from tlie purely a3sthetic point 
 of view alone V his companion asked 
 quickly, with 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 ]\Iarcliant 
 answered seriously, iiazing- down once more 
 I'rom the zigzag path on the laughing group 
 of barefooted Kabyle girls, witli tlieir 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 flapanese, and so 
 forth — and I've come in the end to the 
 modest conclusion that man, as man, is 
 everywhere man, and man only. Emotion- 
 ally, at least, we are all of one blood all the 
 world over.' 
 
 ' Rut you couldn't conceive yourself 
 marrying a Kabyle girl, could you ?' 
 
 ' As at present advised, T see no just cause 
 or impediment to the contrary.' 
 
 Blake turned u}) his eyes to heaven for a 
 moment in mute amazement. 
 
 ' Well, I'm not built tliat way, anyhow,' 
 he went on, after a })ause, with a certain 
 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 !" 
 
 Xo, thank you. For mj part, 1 agree 
 with the poet. I count the gray barbarian 
 lower than the Cliristian child. None of 
 your squahd 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 
 miffht easily manao'e 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. 
 
 ' AVell, 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 SIIEM. 
 
 'Clever. Ah, yes ! That's quite another 
 thm«^\ Cleverness is an underlying natural 
 endowment ; but crammed ; no, tliank yoii, 
 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 A'oice : 
 ' 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 ?' 
 
 ' 1 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 ]\[archant answered, with 
 a faint smile. ' You'd consent to put up, 
 in fact, with a perfect paragon, who was 
 also a Girton o-irl and a Third Classic ! 1 
 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 lY. 
 
 ENTER A HEROINE. 
 
 'Which way shall we go?' Blake asked, 
 halting his mule for a second where the 
 ])aths divided. 
 
 ' I leave these questions always to the 
 divine arbitrament of my patron goddess,' 
 Le 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 l)lessed name is,' 
 he went on in Arabic, to the men behind, 
 ' do you know where this j)ath on the right 
 
 leads to ?' 
 
 ' To the mountain of the Ikni-jMerzoug,
 
 ENTER A HEROINE. 55 
 
 • 
 
 P]xcellency,' 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 
 Avonderful 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 pathos 
 in ineffective labour ? — till they came at 
 last, late in the afternoon, to a gray old
 
 56 THE TEXTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 \illnti(', .ai"iinly ])crcbccl on the summit of a 
 minor mountain. ' Tliese arc the Beni- 
 i\[orzou<»',' the Arabs said, lialting- tlicir 
 mules in a line at the entrv of the street. 
 ' Here the track stops. We can go no 
 further.' 
 
 ' Let's look abuiit for a .sj)ut to pitch our 
 tent u]ion,then,' Le ^larcliant 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 tliat respect; here, on these 
 rugged rocky slopes, it would be hard to 
 find ten square yards of level ground any- 
 where.' 
 
 Nevertheless, after a cpiarter of an hour's 
 diligent search, not unembarrassed by the 
 curiosity of the Kabyles as t') the new- 
 comers, a s])ot was fmmd. dose 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 nction ; 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 
 evenino^'s rest. 
 
 By this time a noisy crowd of Kabyles 
 from the villafje had o-athered round the 
 spot selected by the visitors, and begun to 
 canvass in eager terms the motive of their 
 visit and the nature of their arrano-ements. 
 The natives were clearly ill-satisiied at their
 
 58 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 choice. Le ^Marcliant, tlioiigli a tolerable 
 Arabic scholar, knew not one word as yet 
 of the Kabyle language; so he was unable 
 to hold any communication witli tlio men, 
 who themselves were equally «^uiltless for 
 the most part of either French or Arabic. 
 It was evident, however, that the Kabyles 
 as a whole regarded their proceedings witli 
 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 
 feelinii" 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 !?eldum 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 
 haughed as they passed the washing-place 
 by the torrent that morning ; but her st3de 
 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 entirelv in i)i<xeon 
 French. And ot" French, even in its pii^'eon 
 variety, the girl was clearl}' (juite ignorant. 
 
 ' Vous nc parlez pa.^ Franmis f Le Mar- 
 chant asked her tentatively. 
 
 ]>iit the Kabyle 'maiden shook her liead 
 with a vigorous dissent, and put lier finger 
 to her mouth in sign of silence. So he 
 turned away, and went on with his un- 
 packing, Avliile the girl, poised in a most 
 picturesque attitude, with her arm on the 
 ledge 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 ^larchant 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 ro2:)e, and 
 I fancied, of course, you w^ere speaking to
 
 62 THE TEXTS OE SIIEM. 
 
 mc, and so I <j;ave it to you. But I 
 thought,' Srhe added, with much natural 
 diijfnitv, ' you mio-lit have asked me a little 
 more politely.' 
 
 If the girl was surjjrised to hear Le ^lar- 
 cliant^ Le ^larchant, in turn, was positively 
 thunderstruck to hear the "'irl. lie could 
 hardlv believe the direct evidence of hi< 
 own ears. 
 
 ' Do they speak with tongues in these 
 parts !' he cried, amazed ; ' or has much 
 wanderino: made me mad, I wonder ? Come 
 over here, Blake, and exphiin tliis mystery. 
 This lady positively answered me in 
 English.' 
 
 ' We speak with our tongues, of course,' 
 the ii'irl went on, half aniifrilv. misunder- 
 standing his old-fashioned Scriptural phrase, 
 'just the same as you and everybody else do. 
 We're human, I supi)Ose; we're not monkeys. 
 But, perhaps, you think, like all other 
 Frenchmen, that Kabvles are no better 
 than dugs ;iud 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. 
 
 ' Xo, not French — English ; and Fm sorry 
 I seemed, aij^ainst my will, to annoy you.' 
 
 ' If you're English we're friends,' the girl 
 answered, looking up at him with a flushed 
 face, as naturally as if she had met with 
 stray Englishmen every day of her life. 
 " It was my father who taught me to talk 
 like this. I loved my father, and he was 
 an Eni'dishman.'
 
 64 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 Le Marchtint and lUake both opened their 
 eyes togcthci* in mute astonislunent. 
 
 'And Avhat's your name?' tlie ])ainter 
 ventured to ask, hall" dumb with surj)rise, 
 after a moment's pause. 
 
 ' My name's ]\Ieriem,' tlie girl replied 
 simply. 
 
 'Meriem! Ah, yes, I dare say; that's 
 Kabyle. But your father's ?' 
 
 ' My father's was Yusuf.' 
 
 'Yusuf?' Le Marchant cried. ' ^Vhy, 
 Yusuf's not English ! The English for 
 that, you know, is plain Joseph. Was 
 your lather's name Joseph somebody ?' 
 
 ' No,' tlie girl answered, shaking her 
 head lirndy. ' His name was Yusuf. 
 Only Yusui". His Kabyle name, I mean. 
 And mine's ^leriem. In English, Yusuf 
 used always to tell me, it's ^lary.' 
 
 ' But your surname ?' Le ]\[archant sug- 
 gested, with a smile at her sim])licity. 
 
 Meriem ^hook her head once more, with 
 a puzzled look.
 
 ENTER A HEROINE. 65 
 
 ' 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 sav,' she said, shakino- 
 her head. ' I never heard an3^' 
 
 ' But your father had ! Surely he must 
 have borne an Eno-Ush 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 
 Am{?ie, you know, the head of the village.' 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 THE TENTS UF SIIEM. 
 
 And she waved lier hand toward liiiu with 
 native irracefulness. 
 
 'Weil, wliat was your father's l^n,uii>li 
 name?' Le Marchant persisted, ])i(jued by 
 this strange ami unexpeeted mystery, 'and 
 how did he come to l)e living' here in 
 Alg'eria ?' 
 
 * He /uid an English name, a sort of a 
 double name,' Meriem nnsworod dreamily, 
 after a moment's pause, during which it 
 was clear she had been fishing with small 
 success in the very de])ths of her memory. 
 ' It was Somebody Something, 1 remember 
 tliat. He told me that English name of 
 his, too, one (Ui}', and begged me never, 
 never to forget it. It was to be very useful 
 to me. J>ut I was not to tell it to anybody 
 on any account. It was a great secret, and 
 T 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 s])oken 
 this way, ever since Yusuf died, before. 
 And I've quite forgotten wliat 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.' 
 
 -2
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 PROBLEMS, 
 
 At tliat very moment, before Lc ]\Iarcbant 
 could jrratify his curiosity any fui'tber, a 
 voice from the crowd of Kabyle bystanders 
 called out sternly, in a connnandinii' tone : 
 'Meriem! Ho agha!' and the girl, with 
 a start, hurried off at the sound into 
 the eager group of her fellow-tribosmen. 
 The crowd gathered round her in hot de- 
 bate. For awhile, Le ]\Iarcbant and lilake 
 observed with dismay that their new friend 
 was being closely questioned as to wliat she 
 herself had said in tbe uidvuown tongue to 
 tbe infidel stran<>'ers, and wliat tlic intidel 
 stranirers had said in return ^\itll so nmch 
 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 bands gesticulated fiercely. But after- 
 awhile the beautiful girl's calm report 
 seemed somewhat to still the excitement of 
 the indio-nant Kabvles. She stood before 
 them with outstretched arms and open 
 palms, protesting, as Le Marchant gathered 
 from her eloquent attitude, that these were 
 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 hist 
 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 SIIEM. 
 
 'My uncle asks,''slie said, 'what you 
 have come for, and why you have hronii-ht 
 all these strange things on the ground liere 
 with you ?' 
 
 ' My friend is an artist,' Le Alarchant 
 answered simply; ' an<l T am a naturalist, a 
 man of science. We've come to see the 
 mountains and the country, and all that 
 iiTOWs in them.' 
 
 Meriem shook her head with a gesture of 
 de})recation. 
 
 ' I don't know these words,' she said. 
 ' Vusuf never used them. 1 don't know 
 what is an artist and what is a naturalist. 
 Why do 3^on want to see the counti-y ?' 
 And slie added a few sentences rapidly in 
 Kabyle to the three natives. 
 
 Le Marchant saw his mistake at once. 
 The En"-lish words he had used were above 
 the girl's simple childish level. He must 
 come down to her platform. He tried over 
 again. 
 
 ' My friend paints pictures,' he said with
 
 PROBLEMS. 7\ 
 
 a smile, holding up a half-finished sketch of 
 Blake's ; ' and I shoot birds, and pick np 
 plants and flowers and insects.' 
 
 Meriem nodded a satisfied nod of com- 
 plete comprehension, and reported his 
 speech in Kabyle to her uncle. 
 
 ' ^[y people say,' she went on again, after 
 a l)rief 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.' 
 
 ' Mv uncle savs,' 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
 
 72 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 on them, whether they will or whether they 
 will not? Have not the Freneli, who are 
 the enemies of my people, sent you to look 
 if the country is g'ood, so that they may 
 send Frenchmen to take it, and plou<;h it ? 
 Did thev not make roads the same wav to 
 Fort National, and give the land of the 
 Kabyles over there to be ploughed and used 
 by their own soldiers ?' 
 
 ' Explain to your people,' Le ^larehant 
 said gently, in his cool way, '■ that we are 
 English, like your father ; not French, like 
 the peo])le who live at Fort National. We 
 are Vusuf s countrymen. We have nothing 
 to do with the Government at all. We 
 plan no roads, :ind build no forts. We 
 have only come for our own amusement, to 
 paint tlie mountains, and to see what flowers 
 and birds live in them.' 
 
 ' .Vnd did \"ou know Vusuf?' Mi-riem 
 cried excitedly. 
 
 ' No,' Le Marchant answered, and the 
 girl's face fell sadly at the answer. ' Uut
 
 PROBLEMS. 73 
 
 we are friends, as he was. We wish well to 
 the Kabyles, and all true believers.' 
 
 When ^leriem had translated and dilated 
 upon these last remarks with her own com- 
 ments, the Kabyles seemed greatly mollified 
 and reassured. The Headman in particular, 
 with some effusion, seized Le ]\Iarchant's 
 hand, and wrung it hard, murmuring many 
 times over fervently, as he did so : 
 
 ' Ingleez good, French bad ; Yusuf In- 
 gleez,' with considerable empres.'<emeiit. 
 
 ' He has picked up a few words of 
 English, you see,' ]\Ieriem went on reflec- 
 tively, 'from hearing me and my father, in 
 the old days, talk so much together.' 
 
 It was all so simple and natural to herself 
 that she seemed hardly to realize how 
 strange it sounded in the unaccustomed 
 ears of the two new-comers. 
 
 But they had no time just 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 prnbleni was, they must lay it aside 
 unsolved for the ])resent. Eveninii; was 
 coming" on, and the practieal work of '^•ettin;^ 
 thing's ship-sha])e in the tent for the ni<^ht 
 inexorably demanded all their immediate 
 energies. There were the Arabs to be paid, 
 and the mules to be dismissed. l)ie_i^o, the 
 Mahonnais servant, had still to liiidit a fire 
 of green sticks, and prepare su])])er ; and 
 the two youno' Enulishmen 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 ami the 
 three Ivabyles, now passively friendly, 
 stopped and looked on with profound in- 
 terest at all these arranii'ements. 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, and tin biscuit-boxes, that came 
 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 druds^erv, lent a willinii; 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 puffing 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 
 them I'm sure by your talk you're really 
 English : I 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. 
 
 pened to our friends the l>cni-Yeiini, wliom 
 they turned out to die on tlie mountains. 
 And then they were displeased, too, because 
 you pitched your tent too near tlie tomh. 
 Tiiey thouii'ht tliat was wrong, because tiiis 
 ground's sacred. Nobody conies here with 
 shoes on his feet. It's the tomb of a Mara- 
 bout.' 
 
 ' What's a Marabout ?' lihike asked, look- 
 ing up good-humouredly. He was a hand- 
 some young fellow, and his teetli, when he 
 smiled, s] lowed white .'ind even. 
 
 ' A holy man — I think you call it a [)riest 
 in Eni>lish — who served Allah, and read 
 the Koran muoli ; and now tliat he's dead, 
 he's made into a saint, and our people come 
 to say prayers at his tomb liere.' 
 
 ' IJut we can shift tiie tent if vou like,' 
 Le Marchaiit [)ut in eagerly, for he knew 
 how desirable it is in dealing with ]\Iahom- 
 medans to avoid shocking, in any way, their 
 fierce and fanatical n^liuious sentiments. 
 ' We thought it was 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 standins; beside mv uncle are Mara- 
 bouts too — very holy; and as soon as they 
 heard you were really Eno'lish, 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 ^larchant 
 remarked in a low tone to Blake, ' it's clear, 
 anyhow, that he's fortunately predisposed 
 these suspicious Kabyles in favour of his 
 own fellow-countrymen and successors. 
 We're luck}-, indeed, to have lighted by 
 accident on probably the only Kabyle vil- 
 lage in Algeria where a single soul can
 
 78 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 Speak n wocd of I']nglisli. We find an in- 
 terpreter ready to our band. I'm <^lad I 
 trusted, a.s usual, to chance. My patron 
 o'oddc^ss Ikw not deserted me.' 
 
 ' And they say,' Meriem Avent on, after a 
 few more words interchani>"ed in a low voice 
 witli her own people, ' that they'll sell you 
 milk 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 ]\Iarchant sug- 
 gested quickly. 
 
 Meriem's face lighted up with a Hash of 
 recoirnition 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 J 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 Marchant 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, 
 ' Vie'/is done, Mauresque ! Donne la main 
 ici ! Viens viie, je te dis. Nous te voulons 
 pour nous aider I' 
 
 In a second Meriem drew herself up 
 proudly, for though she did not understand 
 the meaning of the words, or the habitual
 
 So THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 insolence to the induicnes implied in the 
 fiftoiemoit, she caught rciulily enuugh at the 
 iiiiI)eriousness of the tone and the rude vul- 
 garity of the gesture that accompanied it. 
 The Kahvlt's, too, looked on anfj-rily at this 
 interference of a mere European with one of 
 their own women — as who should presume 
 to use their beast of hurden without, the 
 preliiiiinary 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 Mahonnais, ' 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 //it//(/enes. 
 Treat her as you would treat a European 
 lady.'
 
 PROBLEMS. 8l 
 
 Dieo'o could hardlv believe his senses. 
 Cette demoiseUe-d, for:>ootli, of a mere 
 indiifjiic ! He turned back to the perusal 
 of his peninsular cookery, full of muttered 
 discontent. 
 
 * Pio-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 ^la'amzelle to a canaille of a 
 Mauresque !' 
 
 But the Kabyles nodded their hooded 
 heads with a comical air of sagacious 
 triumph. 
 
 ' Thev are Eno-lish, 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 inhdel.' 
 
 ' We go now,' Meriem said, moving back 
 to her tribesmen, and waving an adieu to 
 
 VOL, I. G
 
 82 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 the Enolislimen with her delicate small 
 hand. 'We know von ;irc friends. Fear 
 no disturbance; this place is yours, Vs e 
 will s(Mid vou a emifi-rotis-.' 
 
 ' A coii.'<-cims ! What's that ?' Blake 
 asked, turnini^ round to his more experi- 
 enced com]ianion. 
 
 ' Uh, just the ordinary native dish, a sort 
 of ])orridge or macaroni,' Le Marchant 
 answered sotto voce. ' It's the customary 
 mark of politeness and recognition to a 
 stranger, like paying a first call, among 
 the Arabs and Kabjdes. To send you a 
 cous-cous is to make a friend of you. We 
 needn't eat it, you know. It's a sloppy, 
 s^PPJ' P^'^PPy '"'^Gss, even when made by a 
 European, and the native cooker}* isn't 
 likel}' tu improve it.' 
 
 'From hor liands,' P)lake answered, with 
 uni)remeditated 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 long 
 as she stopped here.' 
 
 Le Marchant o'azed round at hmi 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 example of the pure unadulterated human 
 ficrure. I don't eo back one word 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- 
 w^oman.' 
 
 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 was hardly more — turned round 
 ao-ain and waved them a last farewell with 
 
 6 — 2
 
 84 THE TEXTS OF SllEM. 
 
 that faultless arm of hers. Both youn^ 
 men raised their hats by some inner im- 
 pulse, as to an Eniilish lady. Then the 
 Kabyles turned round a sharp ledge of 
 rock, and left them undisturbed to their 
 su])perand their conjectures. Le ^larchant, 
 gazing' after her, saw a vision of glory. 
 Blake saw but the picture of a Greek 
 goddess, waving her arm, as on some 
 antique vase, to l*aris or Endymion.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MISS IvNYVETT EXPLAINS HERSELF. 
 
 That same afternoon, in London town, 
 where the atmosphere was perhaps a trifle 
 less clear than on the mountains of Kabylie, 
 Thomas Kynnersley AVhitmarsh, Q.C., the 
 eminent authority upon probate and divorce 
 cases, Avas somewhat surprised at receiving 
 an unexpected visit at his own chambers in 
 Old Square, Lincoln's Lm, from his pretty 
 little niece, Iris Knvvett. The Third 
 Classic had by this time got over the first 
 flu.-h and whirl of congratulations and. 
 flattery. Her fame had. almost begun to 
 pall u])on her. The Times had had a 
 leader in her honour, of course, and the 
 illustrated, papers had engraved her portrait,
 
 86 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 iWjiu whicli ;i c;i[)Li(jus world rejoiced to 
 learn she did not wear 1)1 ue R])ectaoles. 
 Fogeys, of whom the present writer is 
 one, had croakcMl in letters to the |)iil»lic 
 press about the danger of the ])recedent 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. P)ut 
 owing to the opportune intervention of a 
 small boy who could play tlio 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 trilie 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, o-ivino; nothino; 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 these 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 tliat 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 engaged in 
 skimming. It was a slack afternoon in Old
 
 88 THE TEXTS OF SHEM. 
 
 Square, as it liaiipened, and ])y a sort of 
 minor miracle or s])0('ial providence Uncle 
 Tom liad reall\- half an liour to spare npon 
 his pretty and imw di>liiiL;iiished niece; hut, 
 even had it hceii otherwise, some client's 
 case would sui-ely have fared hut scur\il\ 
 at his hands at such a moment; for Cnclr 
 Tom was fond and proud of Iris, in spite 
 of her heresies, and would have nea'lected 
 Coleridge, CJ., himself to attend to lier 
 slio'htest Avliim or fancy. 
 
 'God bless my soul, iii\' dein-,' he ex- 
 claimed, in surprise, rising uj) from his 
 desk, and ])nshing 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 Thii-d 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 hin at this time of day, eh?' 
 
 ' Well, uncle,' Tris answered, with modest 
 eyes, 'to tell you tlie truih, if I m;iy venture
 
 MISS KNYVETT EXPLAINS HERSELF. 89 
 
 to bother you, I've come down to ask your 
 advice this afternoon al;)Out a private matter 
 that greatly concerns me.' 
 
 The old barrister rubbed his fat hands 
 together with a distinct glow of inward 
 satisfaction. 
 
 ' That's rioht, mv 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 u}) now even to look at me in 
 the light of im 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- 
 thino- 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 OE SIIEM. 
 
 in tliem as lie took his jn-etty niece's hand 
 in his tenderly. 
 
 ' Iris,' he answered, raising it with old- 
 fashioned chivalry to his pursed-up lips (lor, 
 short and fat as he was, the eminent C^.C. 
 was an old gentleman of much misuspected 
 sentiment), ' you never interrupt 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 }ou as dearly as if you were 
 my own daughter. I'm only too glad to he 
 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 hollowuess. My hoys are 
 well enough provided for now, and I shall 
 never he a judge — I've been far too honest 
 for that — done no dirty work for either 
 party. !So tlicre's nothing to keep me witii 
 my nose at the grindstone here much longer. 
 I've lieathered my nest in sj)ite 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 pretty niece 
 all the better for having achieved those 
 academical honours he, nevertheless, felt 
 bound to deprecate. 
 
 Iris's eyes fell down once more. 
 
 ' You're too orood, uncle — and vou're a 
 darlino-!' 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. Nobody 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. 
 
 1110, if iiotliin<i,- else, contempt of Court 
 daily.' 
 
 Iris acceptf'il flic correction in o-ood ])art. 
 
 ' Well, then,' slie went on, with a pretty 
 smile, ' now that I've completed niv Uni- 
 versity course ' 
 
 ' Much better,' the old man muttered: 
 ' much hetter; much better. Tliouuli not 
 feminine.' 
 
 ' I want to bemn some work in life — some- 
 thini»- that will do iiood in some wav to others 
 — something- that will make me feel I'm beinsc 
 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 nuu'- 
 mured, ' if vou choose to put it so. just 
 that — a mission.' 
 
 Uncle Tom rose and went over without a 
 word to a small tin l)ox on a shelf opposite, 
 conspicuously labelletl, in large white letters,
 
 MISS KNYVETT EXPLAINS HERSELF. 93 
 
 ' Estate of the late Eev. Reginald Knyvett.' 
 From the box he took out a few papers and 
 parchments, and from among them he soon 
 selected 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 Knj^vett, 
 C.B.' He handed this formidable document 
 over with a little silent bow to Iris, and 
 seatino- 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 thino- 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
 
 94 THE TEXTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 were thiiikiii"' of beino; a nurse in a 
 hospital.' 
 
 Iris blushed a guilty acquiescence. 
 
 ' Well, either that,' she answered "Tud*?- 
 ing'ly, ' or a tutorship, or lectureship at 
 some ladies' college.' 
 
 ' Precisely so/ Uncle Tom responded, 
 with a crusliing triumph. ' T 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 
 go into the Fourth Form again, that they 
 miii'ht exercise their vocation bv bandaii^inii' 
 us up with ambulance .^hreds and list, or 
 a'ivin"- us lectures at "Teat leno-th on 7')nliti- 
 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 ol' marrying. Let them exercise
 
 MISS KXYl'ETT EXPLAIXS HERSELF. 95 
 
 their vocation by all means, if they like it, 
 provided always they don't expect me to 
 break m}^ leg to please them, or listen to 
 their lectures on political economy. I draw 
 a line there; no ]\Iill or Kicardo. . . . 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. Xow. to dispense that 
 great fortune aright, to use it for the best 
 jTOod of humanitv, vou ou^-ht to be other- 
 wise eno-at^ed than in bandagino- 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 voiiTie at Girton, I'm aware, 
 but they're common-sense — they're common- 
 sense, for all that. The sjjecies won't die 
 out because you've got the higher education.
 
 96 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 What then? Vou ouiiht to he trviii<>- to 
 prepare yourself for your I'luties in life — the 
 duties in lile that will naliu-allv ile\olve 
 upon you as the mistress, (Hs|)enser, and 
 transmitter of a Great Property.' 
 
 The last two words Uncle Tom j)ro- 
 nounced with peculiar unction, for i)ro])erty 
 in his eyes was something' almost sacred in 
 its profound imporiance. 
 
 ' I>ut how do I know?' Tris objected 
 faintly, ' that Uncle Arthur will leave his 
 mone}'^ to me at ;ill ? Let alone the odious 
 idea of waiting' and watchin*^* till you come 
 into somebody else's fortune.' 
 
 ' How do vou know ?' Uncle Tom 
 repeated, with a sudden explosion of 
 virtuous indiiifnation. ' Just look at that 
 ])aper you hold in your hand, and I'll ex])lain 
 the whole thing to you, as clear as mud, in 
 half a second. ?Te'd hardly dare to leave it 
 otherwise, I tell you, with uie 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 jour grandfather, 
 the Admiral — like a green bay-tree — had 
 five sons — his quiver full of them. Five 
 sons, Alexander, tlie 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 
 ra'=;cally lawyer, who has issue your cousin 
 Harold. Well, your grandfather was ill- 
 advised enouo'h, thouo'h 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 yoin* 
 uncle Alexander, the eldest son, as you see 
 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 98 THE TESTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 by tliat paper — but you're not looking at it. 
 Alexander, you observe, is there set down 
 as d. -9. p. — deceasit . 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 interested expression, \\)y the 
 technicalities oi' the law failed to aruiise 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 
 property 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 dieil with 
 issue, was, as you will remember, an ofhcer 
 of Hussars, and, not to put too line a [)oint 
 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 frole — he died without law- 
 ful issue of his body begotten, killed in action 
 in foreio-n narts. on or about June 20, anno 
 (loniini 1868, and has no further interest in 
 this present inquiry.' 
 
 ' I see,' Iris once more made answer, 
 dutifully stifling a yawn, 
 
 ' Well, 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, ]\laj or -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 liujldy important, your 
 grandfather omitted, in Arthur's case, to 
 
 7—2
 
 loo THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 insert the limitiiiu' clause he had el^^ewliere 
 used Inf liis othci- <'hil(h'eii. and left, by 
 implication, your uiiclc Arthur (])iii-('ly hy 
 accident, I don't for a moment doidjt) full 
 power to bequeath it to whomever he chose, 
 whether he liad 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 ?' Tris 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 ])rivately, through a safe 
 medium, that lie 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, ami 1 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. Reginald 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 damauiniJ- witness, ' comes the name of 
 the fifth and youngest son, that rascally 
 lawyer, Charles Wilberforce Knyvett. Now, 
 your late uncle, Charles \Yilberforce Knyvett,
 
 102 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 i'ov some unknown reason, was n(!ver in 
 any way a favourite with liis iatlicr. In 
 iact, tlie Admiral ])rof()nn(]ly dislikcil liim. 
 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 itcciiliar lirndiie au'ainst 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 7i(it descend to Charles Wilberforce 
 Knyvett, his heirs, executoi-s. 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 diilicult 
 jjroblem in the law of inheritance.
 
 MISS KNYVETT EXPLAINS HERSELF. 105 
 
 ' Ee 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 face ; ' 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
 
 I04 THE TEXTS OF SHEM. 
 
 single penny of the Aclmiral's j)roperty 
 shall that scoundrel Harold ever touch or 
 liandle. Not a doit, not a cent, not a sou, 
 not a stiver. He won't, and lie shan't, so 
 that's all about it !'
 
 CHAPTER A 11. 
 
 ART AND NATURE. 
 
 In a very few clays Eustace Le Marcbant 
 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 simple-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 SIIEM. 
 
 for almost every family in tlio villaire 
 insisted on scndinij; a cous-cous in tnrn, 
 in polite reco2:nition of the new visitors. 
 Now, Meriem's cous-coiu^, much to the 
 Englishmen's inLi'onnous surprise, ])re]")are(l 
 as it was hy those dainty and dexterous 
 fingers, had turned out upon tasting a 
 triumphant success ; but the cous - coiifies 
 which succeeded it, and all of which polite- 
 ness compelled the inhabitants of the cam]i 
 to devour in public to tlie uttermost morsel 
 before their entertainers' eyes, were fir 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 nrrnno;infj: 
 supplies; and her uncle the Headman, with 
 his friends the Marabouts, gave them every 
 facility for shooting and sketching, and 
 hunting specimens throughout the whok; 
 country-side for miles in either direction. 
 
 On the first mornini>' after their arrival in 
 the hills, Blake strolled out by himself, with
 
 ART AND NATURE. 107 
 
 sketch-book in hand, for a walk throua'h the 
 village, while Le Marchant was busy un- 
 packing and arranging his bird- stuffing and 
 beetle-preserving apparatus. To A'^ernon 
 Blake, the villao-e 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 with water-jars on their heads, 
 walking stately and erect, with exquisite 
 Inists and rounded limbs, just peeping 
 through the graceful folds of their hang- 
 ing chiton — each and all of these suggested 
 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. 
 
 ])hice for liis art. Models crowded upon 
 liiin si)()nraneoiislv at ever\ corner. 
 
 A iiirn of the road near the lleachnaii's 
 cottage brought liini suddenly, with a start, 
 lace to face with ^lerieni herself, enaaii^c-'d 
 on a little flat j^latforin, with a grouj) of 
 Kahyle 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 u])on 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 Avhole group 
 with unspoken delight. He paused, on the 
 path a little above where they htood, and 
 looked down, all interest, upon that un- 
 studied ])icture. The graceful Kabyle 
 maidens in their >iinpl(! loose dress, with 
 feet bare to the ankle, were stooping 
 ])icturesquely over the jars they were mould- 
 ing, in unconscious attitudes of grace and
 
 ART AND NATURE. 109 
 
 beauty. Some of them were bareheaded, 
 others wore on their hair a sort of pointed 
 fez, or Phrygian kaftan, which half confined, 
 half let loose to the wind, their 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 
 addimx on loose handfuls of moist and 
 flattened clay to the half-finished outline. 
 Thev were evidentlv iii'norant 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-
 
 no THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 added portion, wliile tbe other without was 
 employed in smoothing it, and shapini*- tlie 
 whole, by dexterous side-pressure, to the 
 required roundness. 
 
 lilake would have ])nlled out his pencil 
 on the spot, and sketched them roughly in 
 their attitudes, all unwitting as they stood, 
 had not out' little fair-haired and blue-eyed 
 maiden, of that almost Scandinavian type 
 so common here and there in Ivabyle 
 villaa'es, looked lauo hino-ly up from her two- 
 bandied jar, and caught his eye on a sudden 
 with a frightened little scream of shyness 
 and astonishment. An inHdel 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. ill 
 
 under the overhanoino^ eaves of the Head- 
 man's cottage. Who could say what designs 
 the infidel niio-ht harbour ? Meriem 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 iace, in an easy and graceful 
 natural salutation. 
 
 ' Good-morning, 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
 
 ,12 Tin-: TEXTS OF SllEM. 
 
 apologetically. ' bocause I wanted to call you 
 sometbing, and. as T snppose yon're a Frencb 
 citizen. T didn't know wliat else on eartb to 
 call you.' 
 
 ' Wby not call me by my name, as every- 
 one else does ?' tbe beantifid barbarian 
 answered simply. ' I'm just ^leriem to all 
 tbe village.' 
 
 IJlake was a little taken aback at tbe 
 startling proposal. So mucb lamiliarity 
 fnirlv took bis breatb away. Tbis was indeed 
 to rusb in wediaf< re-^ with undue precii)i- 
 tancy. 
 
 ' Am 1 to say ^leriem, tben ?' be inquired 
 ratber low, witb natural basbfulness. 
 
 ' Wbat else sbould you say ?' ^leriem 
 answered naively. ' Don't peo])le call one 
 anotber by tbeir names everywbere ?' 
 
 ' Wby, yes,' lilake answered, witb some 
 little besitation, ' but not by tbeir Tbristian 
 names, you know — at least, in England — 
 exce])t as a mark of special favour and close 
 intimacy.'
 
 ART AND NATURE. 113 
 
 ' Meriem is 'not a Christian name,' the girl 
 answered hastily, almost indignantly, ' and 
 I'm not a Christian ; I'm a true believer.' 
 
 ' But your flither was a Christian,' Blake 
 ventured to reply, astonished at the unwonted 
 tone of her disclaimer ; * and you told us 
 yesterday your English name at least was 
 Marv.' 
 
 '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 ; Fm 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 at 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. 
 
 N'illafTfe say, after the name of the motlier of 
 Aissa-ben-Meriein. But ^loslems, too, 
 honour him as a very great propliet, you 
 know, tliougli not so great, naturally, as our 
 own Prophet MalioiimuMl.' 
 
 lUake hardly niidci'stood her uieanini;- to 
 the full, for his acquaintance with her creed 
 was strictly confined to ' The Arabian 
 Xights ' and ' The Revolt of Islam ;' hut it 
 gave him a little shock of surprise and horror 
 to hear anj^one, and especiall}' a woman, so 
 indignantly repel the imputation of Chris- 
 tianity. Yet a moment's reflection served 
 to show him, though \)\ no means a ])hilo- 
 sophically-minded or cosmopolitan young 
 man, that in such surroundinii's nothing" else 
 would have been natural, or even possible. 
 Meriem, no doul)t, had never heard Chris- 
 tians spoken of before except Avith the 
 profoundest scorn and detestation of the 
 Faithful. Tt hardly even occurred to her 
 simple mint] that her hearer himself", infidel 
 as he was, could think seriously well of
 
 ART AND X ATI' RE. 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 
 iust as YOU stood there,' 
 
 'To ichatf Meriem cried, with a little 
 start of dismay ; an unknown word encloses 
 for a woman such inlinite possibilities. 
 
 ' To sketch you, you know,' Blake re- 
 peated reassuringly. ' To put you in my 
 book like this, vou see. To make a little 
 picture of you,' 
 
 Meriem lauo-hed, a sweet, frank lauo-h, as 
 she tiu'ned the pages of his book with 
 wonderino- eyes. ' That would be nice,' she 
 said. ' They're pretty things, these. But 
 would it be rights I wonder ? All good 
 Moslems are forbidden, you know, by the 
 Prophet's law, to make a picture or image 
 
 8—2
 
 ii6 THE TENTS OF SlIEM. 
 
 of anything in heaven or earth or the water 
 under them. There are no ])ictiires any- 
 wliere in any of the mosques. Would the 
 ^larabouts think it was riglit f()r us to he 
 painted ?' 
 
 ' But I'm not a ^loslem, you see,' I>lake 
 repUed. 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 ?' ^leriem asked, looking up, 
 with a faint undertone of disa})]n-obation. 
 
 * Certainly,' Blake replied, without per- 
 ceiving the slight inflection of disappointment 
 ill 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 g-o, 
 there's a good girl," ' Meriera 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 difiiculty 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 be2:un 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 each
 
 ii8 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 uirl to maintain sonietbini!; like a consis- 
 U'nl attitude; at least, while lie was en<^-a<4-ed 
 ii]ion his first ronufh sketch of her own 
 particular face and ti^-ure. 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 thorn all with mutual satis- 
 faction to their various homes, and pre- 
 pared himself to return in excellent s])irits 
 to the tent with his prize for luncheon. 
 ' That ouiilit to fetch llieni,' he niurnuu-ed 
 to himself, as he surveyed his own dainty 
 and unaffected sketclnvith parental ])artiality. 
 
 ' 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 
 vour share in the proceedings.' And he 
 held that vast store of potential enjoyment, 
 proffered in a single shining coin, between his 
 delicate thumb and o])posing fore-finger. 
 
 Meriem had never possessed so nuich
 
 ART AND NATURE. 119 
 
 money in her life before ; but she drew her 
 liand 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 aoain. I'm odad 
 if I was able to help you with 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 
 said 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 slioi)s,' lUake answered, in a 
 janntv tone. ' T sui)pose yon'vo o'ot sIk^jis 
 of some sort or otlier in tliis ])eniii,liteci 
 country.' 
 
 ' I don't know what vou moan,' ]\Iericm 
 answered, shaking her liead vigorously. ' T 
 never heard of them. Shops, did yon sav ? 
 I don't think we've got any — unless it's 
 cukes ; hut if I only knew exactly what you 
 meant, and could sav it in Kabvle, I'd ask 
 my uncle.' 
 
 l^lake lauiihed u lauizh of iinaftected 
 anm.-emcnt. Tt seemed so odd ro be talk- 
 ino- to somebodv in his own tongue — and so 
 
 O J CD 
 
 familiarly, too — who had never even so 
 nmch as heard what sort of thing a shoj) 
 was. ' Wh}', \vheie do you buy things ?' 
 he asked curi' n.>Iv. 'Where do vou lifet 
 the food and utensils, and so on, that vou're 
 in want of?' 
 
 ' AVe make them, or i>tow tliem mostlv, 
 of f(Airse,' Meriem answered quickly (every- 
 thini!;, 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 exchano;e a 
 goat 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 
 Avith 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 a marrying 
 point of view, about a girl who had never 
 even heard of shop])ing ! And yet in more 
 civiHzed 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
 
 122 THE TEXTS OF SHEM. 
 
 leave. Meriem looked after him with a look 
 of rei-ret. How wonderful that a man should 
 be able to make pictures like that ! They 
 seemed to live and breathe, she ftxncied. She 
 had hardly ever seen a picture at all before, 
 exce})t a irw coarse French litho^ii,raphs 
 bouo-ht bv the viUauers at Tizi-Ouzou. But 
 she had never been as far as Tizi-Ouzou 
 even, herself. Her narrow Uttle experience 
 was bounded hard and fast by her own 
 mountain peak and its adjacent valleys. 
 
 And how beaunful lie looked when he 
 turned and smiled at her ! 
 
 Hut Blake went away and thought of 
 nothing. He showed his sketch to Le 
 Marchant in high spirits when he reached 
 the tent. Be ^larchant'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 ])icture. Ynn ought to work 
 it up into something very good ! It's life- 
 like, and therefore of course it's beautifid.
 
 ART AND NATURE. 123 
 
 .... But you've been ^Yitll Meriem all 
 the morning, while I've been unpacking my 
 goods and chattels. I wondered she hadn't 
 been up here before to visit us.'
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 NO SOUL. 
 
 For the next week or so the two young 
 Eno'lishmen were busy enouofh liuntinir and 
 sketching all day long among the fresh 
 ground they had thus successfully broken 
 for themselves in the North African Hi2:h- 
 lands. Le Marchant spent nnich of his 
 time up among the jagged peaks and bare 
 rocks of the mountains, happy enougli if 
 he returned at night witli a specimen of 
 'that rare and local liird, the Als^erian 
 titmouse,' or with 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 tlie 
 Albanian Hiirhlands.' Zeal for his c^rear
 
 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 
 alono' the narrow ledo-es of the hillside ; for 
 his quarry was man, and he loved to drink 
 his fill of that idjdlic 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 
 Georo'ics in real life ag-ain. The labourer 
 leaning hard on his wooden plough, the 
 yoke of mountain oxen that tugged it 
 throuo'h the o-round, the women at the 
 well with their coarse, hand-made jars, the 
 old men chattino- under the shade of the 
 ash-trees beside the tiny mosque, all afforded 
 him subjects for innumerable studies. He
 
 126 THE TEXTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 beheld before his face a Yiririli:ni ecloufuc 
 for ever renewing itself; untl the voun<j;' 
 painter, wlio liad never read liis Eclo£rues 
 in the Latin at all, could aj)})reciate 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, 
 
 Meriem, too, often came up in the evenings 
 to the tent in her capacity as interpreter; 
 and Le Marchant, who could see and admire 
 strono- traits of character wherever he found 
 them, soon learnt to read in the Kabyle- 
 bred girl, with her open mind and sorone 
 intelligence, many marks of fine and sterling- 
 qualities. But he could gather little further 
 by all his inquiries about the mystery of her 
 oriiiin. All tluit Meriem herself couhl tell 
 him of her ])arentnge was sim])lv this — 
 Yusuf had a French name as well as an 
 Eni'-lish and a Kabvle one; and if his 
 French name had ever leaked out, the 
 people at Tort National wouhl have taken
 
 NO SOUL. 127 
 
 him and shot him, Le Marchant, indeed, 
 was just at lirst indined to consider the 
 beautiful girl'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 
 leao'ue with the infidel French, after all, and 
 miofht be plottino- harm ao'ainst himself 
 and his tribesmen — else why should they 
 thus minutely inquire about the gh-l's ante- 
 cedents ? A mere girl ; why bother their 
 heads with 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 ^leriem'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 wliicli the tribes of Kubylie are 
 for ever strivinf^' to reassert their iiidejiend- 
 cnce of French uuthority) ; that he was a 
 good man, wlio loved the Kabyles ; that he 
 wore the native dress, and lived as the 
 tribe lived ; that he was a faithful ^losleni 
 and a clever hunter — considerations appar- 
 ently of equal iiii[)ortance in the eyes of the 
 villao'ers : 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 ^larchant for the present was 
 forced to content himself 
 
 Blake, on the other hand, witli his more 
 easy - going and pleasure - loving artistic 
 temperament, troubled himself little about
 
 NO SOUL. 129 
 
 all these things. GaUio that he was, it 
 sufficed him to sit in the shade of the 
 chestnuts and paint ]\[eriem 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 
 model,' 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 beaut3^ 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 joiner to f^ive me resfular 
 sittings, Meriem,' he said to her seriously 
 one morning under the chestnuts, venturino- 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 I30 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 to broacli once more the tabooed subject, 
 'yoii imist 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 times 
 from your household duties.' 
 
 ' My aunt can do those,' Meriem answered 
 quietly, shaking her head. ' 1 like to sit 
 for you ; it gives me i)leasure, I like to 
 see these beautiful })ictures growing up so 
 curiously under your hands. It's almost 
 like maofic' 
 
 ' Thank you,' the Englishman answered. 
 ' That's very kind of 3'ou. Praise from 
 your lips, ]\Ieriem. 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. lUit to 
 Meriem, who had never heard women 
 treated with ordinary Western chivalry 
 before, they were full (jf profound and 
 delicious meaning; they struck some un-
 
 NO SOUL. 131 
 
 known heart-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 without noticing her 
 emotion. 
 
 ' Don't let niv uncle know,' she said, after 
 
 9—2
 
 132 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 a short pause, with some slight embarrass- 
 ment, and hesitatin*^ as she s])oke, 'that 
 you offered — that you wanted — to give me 
 money for sitting.' 
 
 ' I won't,' IMake answered, lauuliinir ; ' I 
 can promise you that. With my present 
 knowlediz-e of liis hmguao-e, indeed, I should 
 find it difficult.' He played with his brush 
 — dab, dab, on the canvas. * But why not, 
 Meriem ?' 
 
 The 2:irl blushed aii'ain. 
 
 ' Because — he would take it,' she answered 
 simply. 
 
 Blake smiled and nodded, but said 
 nothin<2\ 
 
 They were standing outside the village 
 on the open space in front ot" the tiny 
 wl lite washed mosque, and men and women 
 came past frequently, and paused to look, 
 with clicks of surprise or interest or appro- 
 bation, at the ])ortrait on the easel, as Blake 
 sat and painted it. I'resently, 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. 
 
 ' AYho's that ?' the Englishman asked, 
 looking up with a cjuick 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 answered, in just as quiet and 
 matter-of-fact a voice as that in which she 
 would have told him the price of spring 
 chickens.
 
 134 THE TEXTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 r»lake started back in almost speechless 
 sLirprise. 
 
 ' T/iaf man marry you !' he cried, with a 
 toi^s of liis handsome head. ' ^Vhy, he's 
 nothing- but a common Kabyle mule-driver. 
 Wliat imj)udence ! What presumption ! 
 And (k) you love him, .Meriem ?' 
 
 ' No,' Meriem answered, in the f^ame 
 calm and downriii'lit voice, without the 
 slig'htest attem})t at concealing her feelings 
 in that particular. 
 
 ' Then \vh\' on earth are you iroinu' to 
 marry him ?' lUake asked, astonished. 
 
 ' Because my uncle has agreed to sell me 
 to him,' ^leriem 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. lie's offered my 
 uii.le a very fair price : he's going to give 
 him a patch of land and two hundred francs 
 for me.' 
 
 IJlake was genuinely shocked and sur-
 
 NO SOUL. 135 
 
 prised at this painlul disclosure. In spite 
 of his contempt for barbaric women, he felt 
 instinctively already that ]\[eriem was far 
 too much of an Eno-lish j^irl at heart to be 
 bought and sold like a sheep or a chattel. 
 He explained to her, briefly, in simple 
 words, that in Enoland such means of 
 arrangino- 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 
 afl'ections. 
 
 ■ That's a Ijeautiful way,' Meriem mur- 
 mured reflectively, after the handsome 
 painter had dihated with enthusiasm for a 
 few minutes on the purity and nobility of 
 our English marriage system. ' That's a
 
 136 THE TENTS OF SI I EM. 
 
 lovely way. T sliould like that ever so 
 mucli. T wisli for some thinii's I had been 
 born in Eiii^lani]. Altliouuii j^ou'rc all 
 infidels, you have some o-ood wa\s there. 
 lUit here, in Kabylie. of course, I must 
 follow in all things the Kabyle custom.' 
 
 ' So you mean to obey, and to marry 
 Ahmed?' lUake asked, half shocked, l)ut 
 continuing to work at the elbow and 
 forearm. 
 
 ' "What else can \ do ?' ^leriem asked, 
 looking up with a quiet sigh. ' I can't 
 refuse to go where mv undo bids me.' 
 
 'Vmt how can }ou find it in your soul?' 
 Blake began, half indignantly. 
 
 ' I've got no soul,' Meriem interrupted, in 
 a perfectly serious voice. 'We ^lussulman 
 women are born without any.' 
 
 ' Well, doul or no soul, wouldn't you 
 much prefer.' Blake went on with fire, 
 wanning 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 
 Eng'lishman 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 brio'ht lio-ht 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 was, 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 w^as beating visibly through 
 her robe now. Blake felt he had said a 
 little too much, perhaps, for he meant
 
 138 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 nothinjr more than the merest flirtation ; so 
 lie turned tlie subject with a careless smile 
 to the get-up of the ])icture. ' Fni i^oin<^ 
 on to vour hand ;uul wrist next, Meriem,' 
 he said, with a wave, risinii' u\) to pose her 
 lingers exactly as he wanted them. ' T^ook 
 here, this locket round your neck's in the 
 way. Couldn't you. take it off ? It s])oils 
 the natural folds of your drajjery, 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 \\ith enamel, and re- 
 lieved by bosses of lapus-lazuli, and other 
 cheap stones, such as all Kabyle Avomen 
 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, lie laid his hand upon it with a 
 gesture of a})ology, and a ' Will you ])ermit 
 me, Meriem ?' — meaning to remove it by
 
 NO SOUL. 139 
 
 passing the chain over her head and kaftan. 
 But the girl, with a sudden convulsive 
 effort of both her hands, clasped it hard and 
 tight to her bosom. 
 
 ' Oh no,' she cried, ' not that ; not that, 
 please ! You must never take that. I 
 couldn't possibly allow you. You mustn't 
 even touch it. It's very precious. You 
 must keep 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 liuno* 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 borne a son ' — she 
 said it so simply that Blake hardly noticed 
 the unconventional phrase — ' the Kabyle
 
 I40 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 custom is to weiir tlic charm, for an honour, 
 on the forehead. Hut I shall never move 
 mine from my neck at all, thous^li the 
 women may laui^ii at me. 1 shall wear it 
 for ever where my father hung it.' 
 
 The painter, abashed, held liis 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 feelino;. 
 
 That evening at the tent, as he sat wirh 
 Le Marchant, stuffing birds and ]:)inning 
 out butterflies, Meriem came up with a 
 message from the Amine about some do- 
 mestic trifle of milk-supply 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 liis handsome 
 lodger should monopolize so large a portion 
 of the beautiful l\.al)yle girl's time and at- 
 tention ; ]»erhaps, being by nature of a 
 studious turn, lie was genuinely anxious to 
 make the best of his linguistic opportuni-
 
 NO SOUL. 141 
 
 ties. At any rate, he "wanted to inquire of 
 ]\Ieriem whether she would give him lessons 
 in the evening in the Kabyle language. 
 Meriem laughed. She was 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 lauo-hed. From that 
 stately and beautiful girl's lips the mannish 
 colloquialism sounded irresistibly funny. 
 
 ' You mustn't say " Blake,"' the painter 
 exclaimed, in answ^er to Meriem's startled
 
 \42 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 look of inute inquiry at tlicir unexpecterl 
 merriment. 
 
 ' But Le Marchant always calls you 
 Hlake,' Meriem objected, nuicli ])nzzle(l. 
 ' In England, don't pecjple tliink it right lor 
 women to call men bv their mvn names, 
 then ?' 
 
 ' Well, not by their surnames alone ; it 
 doesn't sound nice. They generally put a 
 Mr. before them. I>ut if you like,' lilake 
 went on Avith audacious ease, for he was far 
 from shy before the poor Kabyle girl, ' you 
 may call me Vernon. That's my Christian 
 name ; and that's lio\v Englishwonicii al- 
 ways call a man the> know well, and reall\' 
 care for.' 
 
 ' I really care for you, Vernon ; I like 
 you very nuicb,' ]\Ieriem said straightfor- 
 ward 1 v. 
 
 ' In that case, I, too, shall claim the same 
 privilege of friend shij), and ask ycju to call 
 me plain Eustace,' Le Marchant ]iut in, 
 with gentle solicitude.
 
 NO SOUL. 143 
 
 ' Very well, Plain Eustace,' Meriem an- 
 swered, in her innocence takino- 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 Avas 
 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 j^ourself 
 that in feeling" and in intellect the girl's 
 more than half an Englishwoman. Tf you 
 win lier heart, and then go away and leave 
 her without a word to this man you say 
 her uncle sold her to, you'll nuu-der her as 
 truly as if, like the Kabyles, you stuck a 
 knife into her.' 
 
 lilake shuflled 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 Xabyle 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. 145 
 
 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 
 busily cooking. 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 CHAPTEIJ rx. 
 
 STRIKING A CLIE. 
 
 It was a i>lorious liot day in an Alii'erian 
 'luly. Tlie inoLintains stood clear from 
 cloud in every direction, with their peaks 
 etched out distinctly against the g'ray back- 
 ground of tlie hazy- white sky; and Le 
 Marchant made up his mind early in the 
 morning to attempt the n])per slo})es of tlio 
 Lalla Khadidja dome, one of the higliest 
 among the surging giants of the ])jnrjura, 
 covered thick with snow for nine months of 
 the year, but now just free at last, under 
 the influence of a burning hot spell of 
 sirocco, from the wliite cn\) it liad worn 
 since the beginning of winter. JMake, 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 Mahomraedan 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 airls, as 
 guide and interpreter. Nothing 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 lounoincr 
 up, with his full-fed air of Oriental inso- 
 lence, to interpose his prospective veto. It 
 made Blake's blood boil to see how the 
 fellow treated that lieautiful model. For 
 some minutes he spoke in a hectoring voice 
 with Meriem ; and it was clear from the 
 gestures and tones of the pair that Meriem 
 for her part was by no means measured in 
 tlie terms of her answers. 
 
 ' AY hat does the man say?' Blake asked 
 
 10 — 2
 
 148 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 ut last, lUKiljlc to restrain liis (lisg'ust and 
 an^er. 
 
 ' He s>ays,' the girl answered, with ii 
 llii>hed face, ' he'll never let me izo moun- 
 tain - climbing \vith the infidels. lUit I 
 don't care a pin. He's a bad man. He's 
 jealous — jealous ; that's Avhat he means by 
 
 it; 
 
 ' And what did vou tell him ?' 
 
 ' I told him,' ]\Ieriem replied, with a little 
 stamp of her shoeless foot on the bare rock, 
 ' he miiiht order me about when he'd bouirht 
 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 
 l)layed ominously on the hilt of the short 
 steel knife that every mountaineer of the 
 Algerian 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.
 
 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 delight to the 
 modified proposal, and his fingers ceased 
 toying at once with the handle of his 
 dao-o-er. Le Marchant had done a double 
 stroke of business — appeased his jealousy 
 and D-ratitied 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 SIIEM. 
 
 suit, that delicate yoiini;- painter with the 
 .speaking eyes, beside Ahmed, her betrothed, 
 ill Ills dirty bernouse and his raii\ii'ed under- 
 sliirt ! How beautirully he talked, and how 
 hcaiitirully he painied, and what strano'ely 
 (hvine things he knew how to say to her ! 
 Echoes of some unknown world, those sweet 
 fresh words of his ! She gazed and gazed, 
 ami tears filled her eyes. Her soul revolted 
 with a shock against Ahmed, 
 
 Couhl she really be foiling 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. IShould she 
 i-iiu after them and warn them of tlio ])ns- 
 sible danger? Lalla Khadidja is a steep 
 and preci])itous mountain, hill of rearing 
 crags and crevasses and gullies. Su])pose 
 Ahmed, whom she knew to be jeahjus of 
 tlie two young Englishmen, were to ]Mish 
 them over on some dangerous ledge, and 
 })retend they had fallen by accident wliile
 
 STRIKING A CLUE. 151 
 
 climbing ! To a Kabyle 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 
 jjrotect 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, lUake 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 hiui.' 
 
 " Why, I ^vas afraid to leave him behind 
 with ^lerieni,' Le ^larchant answered, with 
 ;i quick glance at the sinister face of their 
 scowlino- o-uide. ' In the fellow's present 
 temper, with his hlood uj), it would rake 
 very little to make him stick a knife into 
 her. 1 know these people; they're quick, 
 and they're revengeful. A word and a stab 
 is the rule with the tribes, es])ecially with 
 women. Thev kill a woman with far less 
 compunction than you or I would shoAv in 
 treading on a scor]iion.' 
 
 ' He's a l)rute.' IJlake answered, striking 
 the rock with his stick, ' and I'm glad she 
 hates him.' 
 
 For some hours they continued their 
 toilsome march, ever uj) and n\\ with the 
 wide view opening wider each stej) before 
 
 them. 
 
 Towards the summit of the mountain, 
 where the rocks were hardest, they came
 
 STRIKING A CLUE. 153 
 
 suddenly on a rearing crag of porphyry, 
 as red as blood, and as hard as o-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 cliif 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. 
 
 iiiaidenhair and ceteracli; l)iit, hy scrapin<T 
 it with a kniic, it soon Ijccame legible. The 
 letters were firm, and l)oldly incised, and 
 the legend ran thus, as Le Marehant read it 
 out aloud, in l^oinan ca])itals: 
 
 'CLARENCE KNYVETT, 
 
 SUA IPSIUS JIANU KIXIT : 
 
 ANNO IIK.UK.K 
 
 MCCJ.XIV.' 
 
 * What does it all mean?' lUake 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 wi-ote this with his 
 own hand, in the year of the Jlejira 
 12G4.'" 
 
 ' What the dickens is the liejira?' 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 
 
 io'norance. ' It stands in the East for a.d. 
 with us. It's the date fi-om which the 
 ^[nssuhnans 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 davs 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 what,' Blake cried, 
 with a start of surprise, ' Meriem's father 
 must have written that up there!' 
 
 ' Great w^its jump. The very same 
 thouofht had iust occurred to me at the 
 verv same moment.' 
 
 ' I'll copy it in my sketch-book, exactly 
 as it stands,' Blake cried, sitting down again, 
 and pulling out that faithful companion of 
 his wanderings.
 
 iS6 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 And in Umi iniiiutcs he had produced on 
 paper 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 ierns that 
 sprang' out of the crannies in the crag" all 
 around it. 
 
 ' If ]\Ieriem'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 i!"o if t\\v.\ 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 ^leriem
 
 STRIKING A CLUE. 157 
 
 waited for them to come back ao-ain 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 great bound. Blake 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 the same as one reads in the 
 Koran. '
 
 158 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 'Wliat! Can't Yoa road I^ii-Tisli?' lilako 
 cried in surprise. 
 
 It seemed stranii:e to him tliat one wlio 
 could speak so well, with the accent and 
 manner of an educated lady, should be 
 vmable to spell out one word of our 
 laniicuafre. 
 
 ' No,' Meriem answered, with a sliake of 
 her head. ' I can't read it. Yusuf meant 
 I should learn to read it in time; Ijut 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 tr}- 
 experiments — 'the Krst word — this one 
 here on the face of the rock, you see — is 
 Clarence.' 
 
 ^[eriem's brow gathered suddenly. One 
 moment her memory seemed to strike at 
 last a lonii'-for<i;-otten track. Next instant 
 she cried with a bright Hash of recogni- 
 tion : 
 
 ' Yes, yes; that's it I lie wrote it! He
 
 STRIKING A CLUE. 159 
 
 wrote it ! I remember now. I remember 
 it well. ]\Iy father's Enoiish name was 
 . . . Clarence Kny vett !' 
 
 'Right!' Le Marchant answered, with a 
 gleam of triumph. ' That's just what's 
 written there : Clarence Knyvett, with his 
 own hand, in the year 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 earth 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 nio'ht, while Dieo-o was eno'aa'ed in 
 pressing the Alpine flowers from Le Mar-
 
 i6o THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 chant's collectin<^--ct\se, the artist looked uj), 
 and said to his friend suddenly: 
 
 ' Wasn't Kny vett the name of that Girton 
 girl, yon renieniher, who was made Third 
 Classic or somethinii- ol' the sort the otiier 
 day at Cambridg-e?' 
 
 ' Yes,' Le Marchant answered — ' a ]\IisR 
 Iris Knyvett. She's a niece, I believe, of 
 Sir Arthur, the rich old General. I thouuht 
 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,' JUake went on 
 reflectively, ' if this girl w ere to turn out a 
 member of the same family I' 
 
 ' It wouldn't at all surprise me,' his friend 
 replied, with profounder meaning. ' \Mio- 
 ever her father was, he nuist at least have 
 been an educated man. Her English, as 
 far as it goes, you must stu-ely have noticed, 
 is the pure English of ladies and gentle- 
 
 men.' 
 
 ' lUit what a gulf between them!' I>lake
 
 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.' 
 
 ' ]\Iv dear Le Marchant, vou carry thino;s 
 too far ! Upon my word, I really believe 
 you're half in love with her!' 
 
 Le ]\Iarchant paused for a moment before 
 replying. 
 
 ' It's more to the point to remember,' he 
 said at last, a little constrainedly, ' that 
 she's very nuich better than half in love 
 with ijou, Blake, and that you've got no 
 right, thinking as you do, to encourage the 
 feelinii-.' 
 
 Blake laughed gaily. 
 
 ' Oh, it's all right,' he answered, in an 
 
 VOL. I. 11
 
 i62 THE TEXTS OE SHEM. 
 
 unconccnicd tone. ' In the autunui, voii 
 know, she's to marrv Ahmed.' 
 
 To say the triitli, the implied imputation 
 of beinf^ a hidy-killer, even in the case of a 
 mere Kabyle peasant-<2;irl, rather flattered 
 his sensitive artist's soul tlian otherwise.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS. 
 
 Harold Knyvett, Esquire, of the Bocard 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, ' I 
 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 
 I've played my cards warily. Sir Arthur's 
 
 11—2
 
 1 64 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 a (litHciilt person to deal witli. 1 admit — 
 between yon and me and tlie (dub clock, as 
 selfish an old ])ig as ever walked this earth, 
 and |)ig-heade(l to mat(di, into the bargain. 
 But allowino- ibr all tliat — and I've allowed 
 liberally — I've made things modestly certain 
 in the end, I flatter myself ; so that oneway 
 or the other I'm tolerably sure to turn up 
 trumps, unless the cards miscarry.' 
 
 ' That's well,' the sympathetic friend 
 responded cheerfully. • 1 believe the only 
 other person who has any claim to the 
 estate is your famous cousin, that unspeak- 
 able Girton girl, who licked all the men 
 l)ut two in the 'Varsity into a cocked hat 
 — isn't she?' 
 
 ' Exactly so. The only other person ; 
 and to make thin2;s doubly sure, I've kept 
 my hand well in meanwhile with //(■/; 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, being" by nature a lover of freedom, I 
 should prefer it for my own part wholh^ 
 unburdened.' 
 
 ' And suppose she won't have you?' his 
 friend suo-rrested. with a faint smile of 
 doubt. 
 
 ' Won't have me ? ^ly dear sir, at the 
 present day any man on earth may have 
 any girl he chooses 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 proper spirit from 
 the side of the emotions. II faut leur faire 
 .la cour, bien entendu — and that, I admit, is 
 a deiri'adino; 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
 
 1 66 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 aftectioiis. lic'll take cart' that the settle- 
 ments, uliich fori 11 tlie kernel ot" the whole 
 transaction, should not be drawn n]) too 
 stringently in the lady's favour. Those are 
 niv sentiments on the matrimonial position.' 
 And Harold Knvvett, havini-- thus delivered 
 himself of his social views, rose from his 
 chair witli the resolute manner of a man 
 wdio 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 ])art of which he had been 
 engaged in selecting a really good cigar 
 with 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 hai)py 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 
 f[T^t came into the property, lie made a will,
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS. 167 
 
 a most diso'ustino; 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 
 lio'ht of a lucrative lono; 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 Knyvett 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 antiquated. ' Precisely 
 so,' he made answer. ' A quid pro quo,' 
 without the emphasis. ' Well, hy this 
 beastly will, he nives and bequeaths his 
 landed estate and his entire fortune, save 
 and except his own paltry savings from his 
 military pay, to my cousin, the root-gruljber, 
 the Greek root-grubber, on no better ground, 
 if you please, than just because my grand- 
 father the Admiral, out of the pure vindic- 
 tiveness of his nasty temper, 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 teeth. ' A worse-blooded old 
 gentleman, indeed, never lived, for, not
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS. 169 
 
 only did he cut off 1113^ 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 
 vindictiveness positively disgusts me. But 
 the will was badl}^ 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, the 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 m^'self — been away in India 
 half liis life, you see, and knew neither mi/ 
 good points nor he?' w'eak ones. The conse- 
 quence w'as, 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 TEXTS OF SHEM. 
 
 thousands of personal estate, but leavini;' the 
 bulk oi" llie landed property absolutely to 
 Iris.' 
 
 ' And that will he means to stick to ?' the 
 sym})athetic listener in(piired politely. 
 
 ' I hope not,' Harold Knyvett replied, 
 with a ii'lance at his ash, ' You see, the 
 
 CD ' 
 
 Other side 2)luyed their cards batlly. This 
 girl Iris has a meddling old busybody of 
 an uncle: you know him by name — Whit- 
 marsh. (,).C'., the man Avho muddles all the 
 famous ])robate cases. Well, this old fool of 
 a ]iian W'hitmarsh, 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 tind a good 
 case made out ai>'ainst liini on the stren^'th 
 of the Admiral's express disapprobation. 
 Naturally, that put Sir Arthur's back up. 
 Nobody, and especially not a jiepjierv old 
 General who's served more than hall' 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. I didn't try buUvino; ; I tried soft 
 sawder. I approached Sir Arthm*, as I 
 approach the young woman, from the side 
 of the affections. Then 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 ancle, 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 TESTS OE SIIE.M. 
 
 ' ^'(^11 say the trutli. my dear boy. It 
 was hick\' for me. 1 admit it fVaiiklv. 
 r»iit I, who always ])lay my cards care- 
 luUy, liave taken -.jreat ])aiiis to eliminate 
 luck. I've visitcfl the old gentleman every 
 blessed year with recurrent regularity at his 
 summer quarters, at Aix-les-Hains, much 
 to my own personal discomfort, for he's a 
 selfish old epicure, and I hate selfishness ; 
 but the end, of course, justifies the means ; 
 and I think I've made it pretty safe h\- rliis 
 time that he either has drawn up, or is about 
 to draw up, a new and more sensible will in 
 mv favour. As a matter of conscience, he's 
 sure to see to it. I shall snap my fingers 
 then at the man Whitmarsh. And, indeed, 
 it'd be a pity, when one comes to think of 
 it, that a (Quixotic, im])ulsive girl like Jris 
 should have the sole management of all 
 that splendid ])ro])erty. She's like all the 
 learned ladies ; she's quite unpractical, i 
 met her last week at a garden - J^arty at 
 Staines (where I was very attentive to
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS. 173 
 
 her, of course, just to keep my hand in) ; 
 and what do you thmk the girl actually 
 told me ? She's o-oino; to train as a 
 hospital nurse. Her uncle, old Whitmarsh 
 — "who, though a meddling old fool, is a 
 man of the world, one can't deny — did 
 liis best to dissuade her from it ; but she 
 wouldn'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 
 all the same to assure myself as a &ct 
 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, oat 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 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 the wisest of men to guard against. I'ut 
 I've hedged, even so ; I've made my ])ook 
 cautiously. It occurred to me to pa}- 
 marked attention beforeliand to my cousin 
 Iris, who's a pretty girl, after all, and not 
 insensible, I fmcy, 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 
 perhai)s 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 witli 
 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 
 fi'om 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 iind no
 
 176 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 trace of any other will tlian the one now 
 in the hands of his sohcitors. 
 
 ' Your obedient servant, 
 
 ' GiLlJEUT ^loNTGOMKHY.' 
 
 A cnisliin^- blow I 'Die cards bad failed 
 him ! 
 
 It was a minute or two before Harold 
 Knyvett recovered his usual presence of 
 mind after that deadly reverse. Dead, and 
 ^ylth no other will yet made ! Dead, with 
 no chance of influencing his decision ! Dead, 
 before he had even proposed to Iris ! To 
 ask her now wouhl be too o])en and un- 
 blushinfr a confession of furtune-huntinir. 
 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 pro})osed a week since at that garden- 
 party at Staines! Fool, fool that he was to 
 let the o})portunity slip idl}- by him ! 
 
 It was oidv for a moment, however. Next 
 minute, strategy had resumed the com- 
 mand. Yam regret was very little in
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS. I77 
 
 Harold Knyvett's line. Like a strong 
 man, he nerved himself after his defeat, 
 and proceeded to bring 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 get into 
 even the last edition of this evening's 
 papers. 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-nio-ht, all migdit \et be well, and 
 the estate might be secured, even though 
 burdened with the undesirable encumbrance. 
 
 Harold Knwett was not a marrving 
 man ; but if the worst came to the worst, 
 he reflected with a sigh, a man might marry 
 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 neglect it. 
 Cautious before all things, Harold Knyvett 
 
 VOL. I. 12
 
 178 THE TEXTS OF SflEM. 
 
 would never tlirow away the substance for 
 the sluuloNv. The office was a certainty ; 
 Iris was a chance. Xo i^'amhler lie ; he 
 would stick to his en<j;-af;-enient. l>ut he 
 couhl ii'o awav early, thank heaven — say 
 at y.l^O, or thereabouts (iileadini!; an At 
 Home) — and be up at his aunt's l)efore 
 the clock struck ten. Filled with the 
 scheme, he rushed to the door and hailed 
 in all haste ii passing hansom. It took 
 him to his chambers in less than ten 
 minutes. There he sat down at iiis old 
 oak desk and wrote at full speed two 
 hurried letters. The iirst Avas to the 
 heiress: 'A most judicious stej),' he said 
 to himself, with a chuckle. 
 
 ' My dear liiis, 
 
 ' 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 alike. You are always kindness itself 
 to me, I know. May 1 ask you, if possible, 
 as the best and sweetest of cousins, not to 
 go out at all to-night, or, in ( ase you have
 
 RIVAL CLAIMS. i79 
 
 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. 
 
 ' Dear Hardy, 
 
 ' The old man has popped off the 
 hooks this 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. I'll 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 
 party. 
 
 ' Yours, in hot haste, 
 
 ' Harold Knyvett.' 
 12 — 2
 
 i8o THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 Then, bcinji; notliinti- if not a methodical 
 uian, Mr. Harold Knyvett proceeded to put 
 both letters, out of ])ure force of liahit, to 
 copy in his copyino; ])ress — the solicitor's 
 first, and Iris's afterwards. A co])y is 
 always a handy thing ; you can ])roduce it 
 wdien 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 abru])tl}-. ' Let 
 him take a cab. At Miss Knjvett's I should 
 like h*im to wait for an answer.'
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 GOOD NEWS FROM AIX. 
 
 About the same time, that identical after- 
 noon, Uncle Tom arrived by hansom, very 
 red-faced, at Mrs. Knyvett's house in AVest 
 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 
 onh^ just come in from tennis, and seemed 
 to the outward eye of a niere casual observer 
 as calm as an}^ Third Classic ought always 
 to I )e ; ' 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-l>ains at two this 
 afternoon, of iukjIiik in'ctorls.'' 
 
 ' Well, really. Uncle Tom,' Iris answered, 
 with a smile, throwing' lici- pretty little arms 
 caressing'ly around him. • I su])])()se, of 
 course, I ought to be awfullv sorry ; he's 
 papa's brotlier, an<l all that sort of thing ; 
 but, as a matter of fact, I hardly rememl)er 
 seeing him when 1 was quite a hal)y., 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 !' T^ncle Tom exclaimed, in a 
 fervour of astonishment. ' Why, you ought 
 to be delighted! overjoyed I irrej)ressible ! 
 Sorry at coming into six thousand a year, 
 indeed ! Wh}-, the girl's gone cracked ! I'll 
 trouble you for her calmness ! Sorry, indeed ! 
 Sorry !' 
 
 At the words, ]\Irs. Knyvett, who was 
 standing by, fell back in her chair, with her 
 main aquiline feature pointed straight
 
 GOOD NEWS FROM A IX. 183 
 
 toAvards 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 vourself 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 qaiet 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
 
 1 84 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 anii'uia pectoris. I liave searcbed his papers 
 up and down, luil can liml no trace of any 
 other will than the one now in the hands of 
 his solicitor. 
 
 ' " Your obedient servant, 
 
 ■ * " Gilbert Montgomerv." ' 
 
 It was word for word the self- same tele- 
 irram that Harold Kn\vett liad received at 
 the Cheyne Row Clul) ; i)iit of that little 
 peculiarity in its duplicate form L'ncle Tom, 
 of course, was as yet unaware. 
 
 'He's a treasure, that valet,' he murmured 
 to himself, with a hug of deliglit. * lichaved 
 most admirably. Never ex{)ended ten pounds 
 in my lilii to better advantasfe!' 
 
 ' But whv docs he telegra})h to you, uncle 
 dear?' Iris asked, much puzzled. 
 
 'Well, the foct is, my child,' the old 
 barrister answered, with a somewhat sliame- 
 faced look, Ibr he felt he must confess the 
 one sin of an otherwise blameless lilc o})cnly, 
 ' in any other case I wouldn't have descended 
 to obtaining information from any other
 
 GOOD NEWS FROM A IX. 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, hring up, 'you've no 
 right to prejudge him ! You've no right to 
 speak so of any of my relations ! You've 
 no rio-ht to call mv cousin a scoundrel.' 
 
 ' Exactly so, my dear,' the old man went 
 on, in a pleased tone. ' I like you none the 
 worse for withstandino- me to mv face, as 
 Paul did somebody, and sticking up for your 
 relative, tliough he does happen to be a 
 sneak and a cur and a IjuUy ; 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 iiifor- 
 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, 1 can tell you, my child. He's
 
 1 86 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 a bad lot. Why, he'd forge a will, \ know, 
 if he saw no other way of getting what he 
 wanted, as soon as look at you.' 
 
 'Uncle!' Iris oxclaiTnod again severely; 
 and the old gentleman innnediately 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 ])osition 
 amounts to this : you're the mistress of six 
 thousand a year — a great fortune, my dear ! 
 A very great fortune!' 
 
 ' I hope 1 may be able to s])end it wisely 
 for the good of the world,' Tris answered, 
 with a sigh. 
 
 She was a trifle pale, but otherwise seemed 
 about as calm as usual. llcr calmness 
 irritated Mrs. Knyvett inexj)ressibly. 
 
 ' For goodness' sake, Iris!' she exclaimed, 
 getting u]) as though she'd like to shake her, 
 ' do laugh, or cry, or scream, or do some- 
 thing just to show vou understand the
 
 GOOD NEWS FROM A IX. 187 
 
 importance of your position. I never in my 
 life knew such a sirl as vou are. When 
 that Cambrido;e local or something- was 
 goin^^ to be announced the other day, you 
 were as white as death and as as^itated as — • 
 as a jelly ; and now that you've come into 
 six thousand a vear 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 sobbins; and 
 laughing. ' I did that myself, you see, by 
 my own exertions : Avhereas 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 : ouo'htn't Harold to have at least as 
 much as I have ?' 
 
 * God bless my soul ! why ?' Uncle Tom 
 exclaimed, in extreme astonishment.
 
 1 88 Tin: TESTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 ' Because, you know, we were both equally 
 related to Sir Arthur by birth ; and 1 should 
 have felt it an injustice m3\self if Sir Arthur 
 had left everything- he had to Harold, and 
 nothiuL'' to me. It would be a manifest 
 inequality ; and, as Aristotle says, in the 
 '* Xicomachean Ethics," equality is justice.' 
 
 ' But the law. my child !' Uncle Tom ex- 
 claimed ao-hast — ' the law of the land — the 
 law allows it. '' Perfect freedom of testa- 
 mentary disposition," lilackstone 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 ditferent aspect^. The law defines 
 and expresses clearl}- what is right and
 
 GOOD 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, 'the 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 I' Uncle Tom ex- 
 claimed, stopping both 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 onr muttons. Let 
 me see, where were we ?'
 
 I90 THE TENTS OF SHE.M. 
 
 ' I wns sayin£»;,' Iris went on, in herquiet firm 
 way, "that L tiiou^lit i ought to share this for- 
 tune with Harold, wlio seems to me to liave 
 quite equal chiims to it witli myself, uncle.' 
 
 Uncle Tom's wrath seethed uj) rapid 1\- to 
 boilini;-])oint. ' With Harold 1' he cried 
 out in an ag(jny of disgust. ' With that 
 sneak! with tliat rur ! with that incarnation 
 of selfishness! Upon my soul, my dear, if 
 you were to do such a quixotic thing as that, 
 as long as 1 lived I should never speak 
 another word to vou.' 
 
 ' I should be very sorry for that,' Iris 
 answered with a smile — *at least, if I believed 
 it ; more sorry than for anything else 1 could 
 think of on earth ; for 1 love you dearly ; 
 but if I thought it right, wdiether you meant 
 it or not, I should have to do it.' 
 
 ' Iris!' her mother exclaimed, with a 
 severe curve of theju'incipal feature, ' how 
 on earth can you talk in such a way to vour 
 uncle — and after his unremitting kindness 
 to you always !'
 
 GOOD NEWS FROM A IX. 191 
 
 ' We must first of all obey our consciences, 
 mother,' Iris replied gravely. ' Fiat justitia, 
 you know, mat caelum.' 
 
 What end this discussion of lirst princi- 
 ples might have reached between disputants 
 so utterly Avithout 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 throuo-h with some sliMit 
 missivino;. 
 
 * From Harold,' she said shortly, and 
 handed it to her uncle. 
 
 The barrister drew a lono" 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 TESTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 Iris was too charitable to believe it true 
 without maturer evidence. 
 
 ' We must wait and see,' she said ; ' T 
 don't want to projudg-e him.' 
 
 * It's true,' Uncle Tom went on, with 
 risin"' indii-nation ; ' I see throuii'li tlie cur. 
 
 CD CD ~ 
 
 There's been double-dealing- here. That 
 scoundrel of a valet has taken ]iay fn^in 
 both of us alike, and sent us both an iden- 
 tical telegram. Harold knows he's cut off 
 without a])peal, and he wants to ])ropose 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 sus'ii'estion. 
 
 Uncle Tom was turning over the letter 
 curiously. 
 
 ' AVhy, God bless my soul !' he exclaimed 
 with a start, ' what's this upon the fly-leaf? 
 What extraordinary marks! rhey look for 
 all the world like the reverse of a letter.' 
 And he sat down to examine them with the 
 close and ])atient scrutiny of an old hand in 
 the Probate and Divorce Division.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 KEJECTED ! 
 
 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 mio'ht, and she would q-q 
 throuoii 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 was an opportunity, a 
 hateful opportunity, all ready to hand for 
 testino- her self-confidence. 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 As for Ilurol'l. lie came up in eveniiii; 
 dress an<l in excellent spirits; after all, it 
 was only a temporary check ; he would 
 marry the fortune, if he couhhi't inherit it. 
 Any man nowadays can select his girl, and 
 make tolerably sure of her, witli a little 
 attention ! It's only a matter of castinji' 
 your 11 \- well. He wore a cream-coloured 
 rose, with a maidenhair, in liis huttondiole ; 
 his shirt front was foultless, 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 well 
 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 I' 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 ! I95 
 
 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.' 
 
 ' ^lamma 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 earlv. What did vou want to see me 
 about, Harold ? Has anything unusual 
 turned up since I saw 3'ou ?' 
 
 ' Nothing unusual, dearest,' Harold went 
 on, leaning forward, and looking profoundly 
 in the direction of her averted eyes ; ' but a 
 feelino- I have lono- felt orrowino- 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 violently. She 
 hated herself, she was so horribly o'uiltv ; 
 i". was such a wicked duplicity to let him 
 go on — she, who knew all the facts already. 
 
 13 — 2
 
 196 THE TESTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 Yet she would play out the comedy to its 
 natural close, come what might oi' it, for the 
 sake of certainty. Harold noted her agita- 
 tion, and misread its meaninii'. 
 
 • I've nobbled her,' he thought to himself, 
 witli a triumphant smile. ' See how her 
 hand trembles! liut 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 tenderlw while 
 iris still kept her face studiously averted. 
 
 * Iris, one tliini]: 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, ^\'llile he lives, neither of us knows 
 to which of the two, or in what })r()p()rtion, 
 the dear old gentleman will leave his money. 
 Xow, 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, we 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 what 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 tremliling voice, but with great 
 clearness, to this unexpected purport :
 
 1 98 THE TESTS OF SI I EM. 
 
 ' 1)eai{ IIahdv. 
 
 ' The old man lia.s po])])ed off the 
 hooks this afternoon at Aix, and, as far as 
 I can make out ' 
 
 She had i^ot no I'lii-tlicr when Harold, red 
 as fire, with a sudden dart forward, tried to 
 seize the com]n'oniisinu' document from her 
 hand ; but Lris .was too quick for him, and 
 too relentless as well. She dashed the 
 letter with one hand behind her back, then 
 advancinii' to the gas, and facing him full, 
 she held it up before him, and read to the 
 very last line his note to his solicitor. She 
 would let liiiii 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 ? AVhat error had he connnitted ? 
 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 page 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 4t, 
 with ironical courtesy, ' . . . that you use 
 too thick and too black a copying ink. I
 
 20O THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 advise you in future, Harold, to employ 
 some thinner kind it' you wish to prevent a 
 recurrence of this unfortunate ox])osure.' 
 
 She was white as a sheet herself, but 
 riiihteous indiji-nation bore her throui;h. 
 The man should know he was detected and 
 unmasked ; he should writhe for his me:ui- 
 ness, whatever it cost her. 
 
 Harold took the note froni 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 api)er-
 
 REJECTED ! 201 
 
 tained to it, Xo expert was sharper on a 
 stroke or a dot than he : the crossing of a 
 ' t ' was enouo'h to convict a man of sin 
 before his scrutinizing spectacles. By hokl- 
 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 
 Ion O'er 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;
 
 202 THE TEXTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 'and so f'ai- as { am concerned, Harold 
 Knyvett, 1 do not any further desire tlie 
 lionour of yonr acqnnintance. I tried to 
 believe in you as loni;- 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. AVhat he be- 
 queathed to you was, perha])s, from the 
 very Ijcginning, not his to bequeath 
 you.' 
 
 ' I'm not concerned at present about Sir 
 Arthur's title,' Iris answered, cold as ice, 
 and trembling violently, 1)ut still self-pos- 
 sessed ; ' I'm concerned only about your 
 own shameful and cynical du])licity.' 
 
 ' Ah, that's all very well ibr you to say
 
 REJECTED ! 203 
 
 just now,' Harold went on, tauntino- 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 vou like it or not, you've oot to 
 face it. Sir Arthur knew it, and you'd 
 better know it, too, if you're really and 
 truly Sir iVrthur'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 1808, 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 xYrthur 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 SIIEM. 
 
 Haw, 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 awav from Enirland to avoid 
 serious unpleasantness in the matter of a 
 criminal charge preferred against liiiii by 
 his own father, and as he was servino- 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. lUit many soldiers of his 
 old regiment did not believe it. They 
 thought he'd sneaked off, and hidden among 
 the natives. And if Clarence Knvvett's 
 now alive, he's the owner of the jiroperty ; 
 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. 
 
 ' Xo,' 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 
 Knyvett, 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 will 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 TESTS OF SHEM. 
 
 ever had any, u;o without the inheritance to 
 which they have probably tlie best title ! 
 .... Is that what you mean ? . . . . 
 Harold, you may <^'o !' And, risin;^' to her 
 full height, she pointed to the door. ' You 
 had only one friend in your own liiniily,' 
 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 ri<)fhttul heirs to liulit aii^ainst you.' 
 
 Then he walked down the stairs, and 
 emerged, all on fire, into the gaslit streets 
 of foii"-bound Kensino^ton. 
 
 As soon as he felt the fresh air on his 
 brow, however, he recognised with a rush 
 how serious a mistake ho had committed in 
 his anger. Another will ////;//// turn up any 
 day — a sensible will in his own favour — 
 and then thcv would have this handle of 
 the liaw in the title to use auainst him. Or
 
 REJECTED ! 207 
 
 if another will did 7iot 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 owjltt to have altered 
 that will ; he meant to alter it ; he all but 
 did alter it. How perfectly simple to — 
 well, to 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 SlIEM. 
 
 mi^i^-lit possibly be inclined to use a,^-ainst 
 him. Well, now that the matter had <rone 
 so far wrong, the best way in the end 
 woLihl })erliaps be to let them prove the 
 existing will, which would commit them 
 to acceptance of Sir Arthur's claim; and 
 after that, whenever the — the new hypo- 
 thetical will tiu-ned up (and it slundd turn 
 up; on that he was decided), they would 
 find it less easy to light the matter against 
 him. j\lean while, to annoy them, he'd hunt 
 u]) 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 magnilicently. !)y 
 Jove, she was grand 1 Wdiat 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 clay — 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 Avas 
 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
 
 CllAPTEU XIll. 
 
 IRIS STKIKES. 
 
 * Uncle,' Iris said, when she talked it over 
 with the old barrister in the dinin<»'-room 
 next morning, ' after all that ha})pened 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. ' AVhat on earth does she 
 mean now ? You were both equally related 
 to ISir Arthur by birth, weren't you? and, as 
 Aristotle says, equality 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-spirited 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. afrcr what lie did ami said last 
 niii'lit, 1 tiud inv doirc to do hiin strict 
 justice has considorahly ahatcd.' 
 
 So, Aristotle to the contrar}- notwith- 
 standing-, Uncle Tom was permitted vicari- 
 ously to prove Sir Arthur's will in due 
 course — Iris herself hcini; named sole 
 executrix — and to take all necessary steps 
 for her succession to the landed ])ro])erty. 
 As soon as all the legal arrangements were 
 finally comj)leted, Iris once more had a 
 great consultatioii to make with her 
 guardian, guide, phih)sopher. and friend. 
 She had given up tlic 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 
 ])Oor 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 
 feelino^s of an unwillino; 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 Avitness-box, 
 
 ' Bless my soul !' Uncle Tom replied, 
 stroking her hair gently to create a diver-
 
 214 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 sion, ' wliat a i)crsistent cross-examiner the 
 girl is, to be sure! Tf T toll you no, you'll 
 not believe me. and il" 1 tell vou ves, you'll 
 want to o'o running over Europe, Asia, 
 Africa, and America, not to s])eak 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 vour 
 cousin Harold can s])eak, I suppose,' the 
 old man answered, with a gas]), 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 farther 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. Anyhow, 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 enlistins;' 
 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 SIIEM. 
 
 Arthur inherited the property, it l)ecaine 
 necessary to find proof of Chirence'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 I'act. 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 ])ull 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 i)artial 
 insurrection of 18G8 he was employed in a 
 column sent to reduce the mountaineers of 
 some outlandish place they call Grande 
 Kabylie. A certain battle took })lace in 
 this remote quarter against the insurgents
 
 IRIS STRIKES. 217 
 
 on the 20th of June in that year, and after 
 it, Mr. Joseph Leboutillier was reported 
 missing'. 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 Leboutillier with 
 Clarence Knyvett. In short, the question's 
 really as good as settled ; a judge in camera 
 has decided pi'o forma that Chirence 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 tlic law of l-^iio-laiid. liut fFolin 
 
 Stuart Mill suvs Oh dear me I I 
 
 forirot ' — for Undo Tom was stn]ipiiiii- up 
 his ears already, lest they should he pro- 
 faned hy fresh assaults of that daui^erous 
 and detestahle 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 sendinii' e^irls to Cam- 
 bridge. Who says women liave no legal 
 instincts? Why, the girl ought to have 
 gone to the Old llailey Bar ! With the 
 acumen of a judge — if judges have any, 
 which I very nmch doubt — she ]nits her 
 finger plump down at once on the one weak
 
 IRIS STRIKES. 219 
 
 point of the entire contention. Remarkable; 
 re-markable ! 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 indigenes ; 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 l;eing employed 
 to crush out the liberty and independence 
 of ''these unfortunate 23eo])le;" and that 
 he almost refused on one occasion to obey 
 his superior officer, Avhen that gentleman 
 ordered him to join in burning down the 
 huts and villaii'es of theinsuro'ent tribesmen.' 
 
 ' Very like a Knyvett,' Iris murmured 
 parentheticall3\ 
 
 ' 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 
 Knyvett'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 gentl}^, stroking her uncle's
 
 222 THE TENTS OF SHE^[. 
 
 hand witli her own, as if to deprecate his 
 wratli at lier ])OSsesyion of anythinii' so 
 inconvenient as a sense of right towards 
 others. 
 
 ' Most fortunately, mv cliild. ]ic found 
 out exactly nothin*^. The natives fought 
 shy of his detective to a man, and energeti- 
 cally disclaimed knoAvledge of any sort about 
 Jose{)h Leboutillier. They'd never even 
 heard the name, they swore. So Sir Artliur 
 came back empty-handed from his quest, 
 and enjoyed his property in peace and 
 quietness, (^uite right, too. Peo])le ought 
 never to pay any attention at all to 
 anonymous letters. Particularly not in 
 matters affectinii' 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 
 listened 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 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 ' and that, you must admit, would be f^lieer 
 robbery. ' 
 
 Uncle Tom had too much respect for the 
 law of England not to allow, with obvious 
 regret, the justice of that last ])atent 
 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 Jose})h Leboutillier.' 
 
 ' 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 terr)iincr. Tlic shadowy 
 forms of John Doe and liichard Roe
 
 IRIS STRIKES. 225 
 
 floated lambent on the air before her vague 
 mental vision. 
 
 ' Bless the child!' Uncle Tom exclaimerd 
 ferventl}', 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 oood 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 w^as 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 I If you weren't, he'd 
 have taught you a severe lesson. AVell, so 
 much for the present, you say — so far, bad ; 
 and how about the future?' 
 
 ' In the second place,' Iris went on firmly, 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 ' as soon as ever tlie weatlier's cool enough 
 to allow it, I'll go over to Algeria, and hunt 
 up all I can liml out about Uncle Clarence 
 on the spot, in person.' 
 
 ' Well, that's not so l)n(l.' the eminent 
 Q.C. responded, nioUitied, '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 ohi gnarled 
 olive-tree that overhuno- the tomb, taking- 
 his lessons in Kabyle on an outstretched 
 rug from his pretty teacher, ]\Ieriem. He 
 had made considerable progress in the 
 lano;uao:e bv this time, havini'- 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 Slouo-h 
 of Despond, the irregular verbs, and given 
 
 15 — 2
 
 228 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 Up tlu' vain attempt in dcspaii-; he sat i<11y 
 by now, drawiiii;- lazv sketclies in his ])orket- 
 })Ook of ]\[erieiii in liur didactie attitude, 
 with her forefino-er uplifted, and lier pupil 
 before her. Hard by, two youno- Kal)yle>5, 
 just returned from their fields, stood nossip- 
 ing opposite them, with hoes in their hands. 
 One was Ahmed. ^leriem's I'uture j)Ln-ehaser; 
 the other was a taller and better-robed voun^ 
 man of more unpleasing aspect, whom they 
 had often seen before hanging about the 
 villaufe. 
 
 Suddenly, as Meriem \vas in the very act 
 of saying, ' Now, Eustace, remendjer, asfi^/i 
 — a dress.' and Le Marchant was obediently 
 rei)eating the word after her in due form, 
 one of the young men, for no ap])arent 
 reason, raised his voice loudlw and. i-ushinn- 
 forward with a \ell Hew like a do<'- in bhnd 
 rage and wrath at the throat of the other. 
 Before they could clearly see wliat was 
 happening, the second flung him off, but 
 with some little dilliculty. In a moment,
 
 FOLLOWING UP THE CLUE. 229 
 
 the tussle had assumed a savage form; they 
 were fio-htino; tooth and nail in one confused 
 mass, and Ahmed's knife, drawn like light- 
 ning from its scahbard, 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 too-ether with one accord, and 
 separated the two coml)atants b}' 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, smilino- 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. 
 
 hotwoon them. That is tlic way witli tliese 
 simple children of Nature. One moment 
 they'll stick a knife into you without the 
 slio-htest compunction ; the next, for no 
 reason a European can tathom, they'll give 
 up their very hearts to please you. 
 
 'What was it all about?' Blake asked, 
 with interest, as Meriem returned, flusluid 
 and panting, to the rug. 
 
 ' It was about n/e, Vernon,' Meriem 
 answered, unabashed, with perfect sim- 
 plicit}-. ' This is how it l)apj)ened. Ahmed 
 wanted to marry me, you know, and had 
 bargained with my uncle, and got a price 
 named for me; but ]i(»w, the other man, 
 Hussein, has offered myunclealittlemore.and 
 so the Amine has made a new arranii-ement, 
 and I'm to l)e 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 ])assively 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 liaughtily. ' 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,' ^leriem 
 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 aw^ay that evening, 
 and they sat alone in the tent, Le ]\[ar- 
 chant turned round after a long pause.
 
 232 THE TEXTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 and said earnestly to Uluke, 'It conies 
 home to nie more and more every dav I 
 stop here tliat we ouglit to limit u[) some- 
 thini;- about this poor girl's English rela- 
 tions.' 
 
 ' Why so I' the painter answered. ' ^'oii 
 think she oughtn't to be allowed to marry 
 Ahmed or Ihisscin ?' 
 
 ' Certainly not. It's terrible to me even 
 to contemplate such a thing as possible. 
 She must never marry anj-body ])ut a 
 European, her natural equal.' 
 
 ' Then wliv don't \ou m;irr\- her your- 
 self, my dear fellow ? You seem to ha 
 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 I dust vou ask her! 
 What an absurd idea ! Why, my dear 
 fellow, she'd take Ahmed or Hussein, or 
 any other man her uncle chose for her. 
 Xot take you, indeed I Xot take an
 
 FOLLOWING UP THE CLUE. 233 
 
 Eno-lisliman ! ^Vby, she'd 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 eno-ag-ed — and to a man who doesn't 
 really care twopence about her.' 
 
 There was a long pause ; then Blake 
 remarked ao-ain, withdrawino- his cio-arette 
 in a pensive waj', * Do you really mean 
 to tell me, Le Marchant, 3"0u'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 
 thev treat their donkeys.'
 
 234 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 ' And to prevent that, vouM throw your- 
 self away upon hor, 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 
 time — why, the thing's ridiculous ! Le 
 Marchant, I haven't half your brains or 
 your learning, \ know ; I'm nothing l)ut 
 a landscape painter, the least among the 
 wielders of camel's hair, but sooner than 
 tie myself for life 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 — imjiossible. 
 Never, never, never!' 
 
 ' Tastes differ,' Le ]\[archant answered 
 drily ; 'especially in these matters. Some 
 people insist upon accomplishments and 
 high-heeled boots ; otliers 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 streni^tb, they despise externals. 
 Other minds think more of mere culture, 
 perhaps ; it's not the diamond they admire, 
 but its cuttino-. Diamonds in the rouo-h 
 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 tban's absolutely necessary. For I see 
 she can't help falling in love with you.' 
 
 Next morning, when ^leriem came round 
 to the tent, as was her daily wont, with the 
 milk from the cows she tended herself for 
 the two young Englishmen, Le ^larchant 
 met her with a sadder and more anxious 
 face than usual. ' Meriem,' he said, 'I want 
 to speak to you seriously about your own 
 future. Whatever comes, you must never 
 marry either Ahmed or Hussein.' 
 
 ' Does Yernon sa}^ not ?' Meriem asked, 
 all fluttering. 
 
 ' No,' Le ^larchant answered, crushing
 
 236 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 down lier ]->oor hoai-t at once of deli derate 
 purpose, lor lie kiK.-w no possihle liood 
 would coine to licr of that ]>ainful illusion. 
 ' 1 say so myself", because I take a friendly 
 interest — a very friendly interest — in your life 
 and lia}){)iness. ^[erieni, I want to look u]> 
 your English Iriends. It' 1 found them out, 
 would you care to a'o and live in Knu'land'?' 
 'Not alone,' Meriem answered, with a 
 promptitude Avhicli clearly showed she had 
 already asked herself that leading- question. 
 ' When Vusuf used to take me on his knee, 
 and tell me about EntJ^land Ion"' ac^o, I 
 always thought I should like to go there, if 
 only he could go with me. And since I've 
 seen you and A'ernon, Eustace, and heard 
 all about it, I've often fancied I should like 
 to ii'o 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 peo])le over 
 yonder are all infidels — not that I'm (piite 
 so afraid of infidels now, either, since I've 
 seen so much more of vou and A'ernon.'
 
 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 the 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 m}' 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 SIIEM. 
 
 and ouileless nature sliould be cast awav as 
 a beast of burden for some wretched Kabyle 
 like Ahmed or liassein. 
 
 ' Is tliere nobody, Merieni,' he said at 
 last, ' who can tell me anything- more 
 about your father ?' 
 
 ]\Ieriem reflected for a moment in silence. 
 Then she answered somewhat doubtfully : 
 ' If anybody could tell you, it's the Pere 
 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 
 where the colonists are. It's a wicked 
 place, all full of Frenchmen. Yusuf would 
 never go down to the village, for fear the 
 people wlio live there should learn his 
 French name, and then they'd have shot 
 him. But the Prre Baba and the Pere 
 Paternoster used sometimes to come u]) 
 to see Yusufj and my father was i'ond of
 
 FOLLOWING UP THE CLUE. 239. 
 
 the Pere Paternoster, and told liim 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 tliat, 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 asked, 
 half hurt by her innocent frankness.
 
 240 THE TENTS UF SIIEM. 
 
 Merieiii made no attempt to parrx- the 
 cliaro-e. ' Who knows?' she answered, with 
 both ^raeeliil arms and hand< sjiread open 
 before lier. ■ Who ean tcdl wliat makes 
 one's heart ^o so? Who can give anv 
 reason for all tliese tilings ? . . . lie paints, 
 and he talks, and he's lieautiful, and I like 
 him, , . . i like you, too, Eustace; oh, ever 
 so much ; 1 never liked anybody else so much 
 before, except Yusuf; but I like Vernon 
 differently ; quite, quite diiierently. . . . 
 You know how 1 mean. You must have 
 felt it yourself . . . I>ut 1 can't stop noAv. 
 1 must go on with my milk. The other 
 people in the village will be waiting for 
 their cous-cous. Don't be angrj-, like the 
 ivabyles, because I like Vernon best. This 
 evening again we shall learn Kabyle 
 together.'
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AN OASIS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 ' Yerxon,' Le Alarcliaiit called out with a 
 sudden resolve, • I'm off to St. Cloud. I've 
 a reason for going to-day. Will you come 
 alonof \yith me ?' 
 
 ' All right, Eustace, if you'll just ^Yait 
 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 TESTS OF SHEM. 
 
 among the remote corners where a few 
 ardent pioneers of eixUization dillusu tlie 
 blessings of European culture over a 
 benighted land by congregating together 
 to drink bad absinthe under the eye of 
 the sun before the I)are mud ))latform of 
 a fourth-rate cstaminct. lUil now that the 
 chance of finding out somethinn- definite 
 about ]\Ieriem's parentage drew Le ^lar- 
 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 T^ational to St. Cloud, and 
 found themselves at once, to their great sur- 
 prise, in a line 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 his^h - 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 3^outhful 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 Administratrice,' the 
 dirt3^-robed Kabyle, who had come with 
 them to show them the way, 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 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 some words of French. I^e Marelumt and 
 Blake raised llicir hats as the lady passed, 
 after the French flishion in country j)laces, 
 and woidd have gone on without stopping', 
 half abaslied ;ir their (histv and way-worn 
 condition, had in a niachune i)r()ught them 
 to with a lively broadside across their bows, 
 so to speak, of * lio/ijoui', mc-s-'^icw.s.^ 
 
 ^ B(mjour,ii-iiida\ne,' Le ]\Iarchant answered, 
 saluting again, and still anxious to pass on; 
 but still the lady stopped him. 
 
 ' You are the lOnglish artists, messieurs, 
 of whom our i/idii/enes told us, who have 
 pitched a cam]) on tlie hills of the Ueni- 
 ^ierzoug^ n' est-ce pas f she asked condescend- 
 ingly. 
 
 ' My friend is a painter,' Le Marcliant 
 answered with a wave of his hand towards 
 his bin-filing companion ; ' T myself am a 
 naturalist; and we are certainly camping 
 out — but with one tent only, madame — at 
 the lieni-Merzoug village,' 
 
 The lady puuted, uv, rather, wliich is (|uite
 
 AN OASIS OF CIVILIZATION. 245 
 
 another thing, elle faisaitla moue, an accom- 
 plishment as indescribable as unknown in 
 English. ' Can yon be unaware, messieurs,' 
 she said with a smile of mingled reproach 
 and o-entle foroiveness, ' that it is the custom 
 in the colony for all new-comers in the 
 arrondissement of St. Cloud to pay their 
 respects the tirst to M. I'Administrateur and 
 to myself at the Fort ? We have lono; l^een 
 expecting you to do us the honour of 
 makino; us a formal visit. D\iiUeurs, we 
 are not so well off for agrements in these 
 trackless wilds ' — she gazed straight ahead 
 along the bare and well-made French road 
 before her wdth a vacant air — ' that we can 
 afford to lose the agTeeable society of an 
 English painter and an English savant.' 
 She looked up and smiled. ' I adore art, 
 and I reverence science — at a distance.' 
 
 ' ^ot 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 OE SIIEM. 
 
 road, wiili paternal ])i'iil('. IIo was an 
 officer ul the (Jenie, and lie lelt Iiis depart- 
 ment undnly depreciated l)y madame's re- 
 flection, 
 
 ' Forgive us, madanie,' Le ]\fai-cliant 
 answered, somewliat abashed b}- tliis open 
 attack upon his ciiaracter lor poHteness. 
 ' We are strangers in the land, nnd to say 
 the truth, we scarcely expected at 8t. 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 lor ap- 
 pearing in fitting dress at Euroj)ean func- 
 tions, AVe could hardly venture to present 
 ourselves thus before you,' 
 
 As for lilake, all awe-struck at the hii!"h- 
 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 commonplaces of the Ollendorilian dialect
 
 AN OASIS OF CIVILIZATION. 247 
 
 would here have stood him in very poor 
 stead. He felt he could imt insult so grand 
 a lady as Madame I'Administratrice by ad- 
 dressing- to her casual and fortuitous remarks 
 about la femnie du jardinier or le fils du 
 menidsier. 
 
 Madame bowed a condescending little 
 bow. 
 
 ' In consideration of your contrition,' she 
 said, ' and your implied promise of future 
 amendment, monsieur, absolution is granted 
 yoQ. 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. 
 
 • N^ot in this tenue, madame,' he said.
 
 248 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 ' Even in Ali;t'ri;i. we must resjxict the 
 convenances ; we couldn't tliink of callini:; 
 upun any lady in such a costume. JJn ejf'et, 
 Ave Avere "•oina' to visit tlio Prrc ])al)a.' 
 
 The lady sighed. 
 
 ' rielas.' she answered, 'this is not Paris. 
 We are i;]ad to o'et callers in any tenne. 
 But you Avill at least permit us to accompany 
 you on your way as far as the village?' 
 
 ' Thaid< you, 'niadame. 'You are very 
 good. This is a charming situation. So 
 wild, so picturesque ' 
 
 ' And so A\liollv unendurable !' 
 
 ' But sure!}', madame, the scenery is 
 lovely. It's a beautiful country.' 
 
 'Beautiful! JevousVaccorcle : waisviide 
 loin. For a painter, possibly ; but for a 
 woman, mon Dieii ! it's too far from Paris.' 
 
 ' Still.' Blake ventured to remark. ins])ired 
 to a sudden OlU'iidorffian outburst in de- 
 fence of the scenery, ' there are many worse 
 ])laces than this in the world.' 
 
 ' Perhaps so,' the little woman rej)lied,
 
 ^A^ OASIS OF CIVILIZATION. 249 
 
 with a crushing smile, ' but fcmte 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 lonu'. madame?' he 
 asked, Avith his perfect accent. 
 
 * Long; enough almost to have forgfotten 
 the boulevards. Fifteen years, monsieur ; 
 figure that to yourself; et je regrette encore 
 la cumne 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 your sex, remember, that has the 
 monopoly of fickleness.' 
 
 They w^alked on towards the village, along
 
 250 THE TENTS OF SHEM. 
 
 the (lusty rond, all five aln-east. ]\ra<laine 
 I'Administrati-ice cliattiii*^- away gaily all the 
 time ill the same fliuhty strain ahoiit the 
 discomforts of her situation, tiie distance 
 from a really good milliner, the difficulty of 
 getting endurable coffee, and. above all, 
 the vices and shortcomings of ccs cochons 
 iVindhjenes. Ujion this last ]iet subject — a 
 colonial substitute for tlie 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 j^ecurity in Algeria till the 
 French soldiers join hands across the country 
 in a long line, and, walking over hill and 
 dale together, sweep the indvfenes before 
 them into the ^lediterranean.' 
 
 ' Cest vrai^ the officer of the Gmie
 
 AN OASIS OF CIVILIZATION. 251 
 
 assented with a profoundly convinced 
 nod. 
 
 ' Strong measures, indeed,' Le Marchant 
 answered, lauo-hino;. 
 
 ' 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 ban Dieu never 
 made the world, you may be sure, for those 
 pigs of Arabs.' 
 
 ' But the Kabyles?' Blake asked, with 
 another gasping effort. 
 
 'Do I distinguish between them, mon- 
 sieur?' madame answ^ered scornfully, turning 
 upon him with n suddenness that fairly 
 frightened the painter. " Every cochon d'in- 
 digene is an Arab for' me. I make no fine 
 discriminations between Arab and Arab. 
 Un indighie cest un indigene. Que voulez- 
 vous, monsieur T 
 
 At the entrance of the little colony, 
 madame paused and pointed.
 
 252 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 ' Down that road, messieurs,' she said, 
 with her l)hmd, small smile, • in the laro-e 
 house to the left, you will find the I^tg 
 Baha. D/f reste, T am charmed to have 
 made your ae(|uaintance so haj)i)il\. It is 
 pleasant to hear uui- heautiful lano-ua<'-e so 
 well spoken. We shall meet a<rain. Au 
 rerair, messieurs. 1 receive, recollect, on 
 Wednesdays and Saturdays. You can no 
 longer plead ignorance. AVe shall expect to 
 see you at my next reception.' 
 
 And with a coquettish inclination of the 
 volatile hat, and a curious side wrio-ade of 
 the frivolous frock, the spoiled child of the 
 boulevards, accompanied hy lier military 
 bowing escort, disappeared down the one 
 long white street of the timber-built villa«>e. 
 Le Marchant and 1 J lake, left alone by 
 themselves, looked at one another in silence, 
 and smiled a broad smile at tliis unexpected 
 apparition among the wilds of Africa.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE WHITE FATHEES. 
 
 ' 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. 
 
 graplis, into which he ushered them, Le 
 ]\lar('liaiit briefly ex])laiiied to tlie g-ood 
 father the object of their \i.sit, an<l asked 
 witli many apologies forsiicli 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, le nomme Yusuf,' he 
 said, with a compassionate face. ' Yes, yes, 
 I knew liim ; I knew him, of course, ce 
 pauvre miserable iC Yvsvf. r>ut you come 
 too late ; my brother Antoine was the man 
 to liave asked — him whom the ind'nihiex 
 called the Pere Paternoster. Unliaj)pily, 
 Brother Antoine died last year, and nuich of 
 what Yusuf had told him died witli him, 
 being given, of course, under the seal of 
 religion. For ^'usuf, though he Hved 
 among the Kabyles as a Ka])yle. and bowed 
 the knee, pour ainsi dire, in the temple of 
 Himmon, to save his life, remained at heart
 
 THE WHITE FATHERS. 255 
 
 a Christian to the end, and confided many 
 things to my poor brother, the Pere Pater- 
 noster. Pie had a good heart, our brotlier 
 Antoine, and he was kind to Yusuf. and 
 went often to see him in his lonely hut on 
 the momitains 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 relioion.' 
 
 ' 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 dau"'hter. 
 They knew she had Eno-lish 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 jils,' 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 wliirli all iiiissionarv priests are por- 
 niitted to wear in virtue of their calling ; ' a 
 sad story, ;iiid I'm afraiil I liardl}' know 
 enough about it to tell you accurately any- 
 thing that will be of serious use to this iiirl 
 Meriem. kShe calls herself ^[eriein, 1 l)elieve ; 
 ah ves, I thouiiht so. I recollect the cir- 
 cumstances. Well, Vusuf's story, so far as 
 I can recall what Pere Antoine told me, was 
 somethini;' like this. lie was an En<>-lish- 
 man bv birth, thouu'h 1 forget his name — 
 let us agree that your guttural English 
 names are imi;ossible to remember. He 
 came of a family, a very good family ; but 
 he was spendthrift and foolish, though never, 
 i believe, wicked — -jaimiis, jainais coupable. 
 He told me so, and T always believed him. 
 Ell />/(?/^, according to his own account, which 
 you must remember is the only one I have 
 heard, his younger brother, sharing his 
 embarrassments, forged their fiither's name 
 to certain acceptances, which cc panvre 
 Yusuf, in a weak moment, not knowing
 
 THE WHITE FATHERS. 257 
 
 their nature, agreed to get cashed for him. 
 Yiisuf declared to his dying day he had 
 never the slightest idea that they were 
 foro-ed, 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 iudue bv his dauo'hter, 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 un niauvais ,sujet, this brother, Yusuf 
 always assured us. The evidence all pointed 
 to Yusuf alone; the law was in search of 
 him : Yusuf lost couratre, and fled the 
 country. He took passage to America as a 
 mere blind, but, as a matter of flxct, he fled 
 to France, under an assumed name, and 
 never a^'ain dared to communicate with his 
 relations.' 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 ' He nii<j;lit have done so at least before 
 he died.' Le ^larchant cried warmly. ' The 
 danger would then have been all [)ast. For 
 his dauo'hter's sake, ho nnnht siirclv, on his 
 dying bed, to have written.' 
 
 ' ^lonsieur,' the Father answered, with 
 his eyes still closed, recalling slowly the 
 half-forgotten facts, ' he never la\ upon his 
 dyintr 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 ; foi- he was a just 
 man, Yusuf, though he had many lailiiigs ; 
 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.' 
 
 ' I fear as much from their disposition 
 towards you,' Le Marchant said shortly. 
 
 ' Well, when Yusuf came up to Grande 
 Kabylie, en efet, 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
 
 26o THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 tliat we ask you to confide in us. Wliat 
 you sa\- onl\ interests me more profoundly 
 tlian ever in this ])oor uii-1, Mcricni.' 
 
 ' iSo lie took the dead J\al»\ Ic's hui'nouse,' 
 the ])riest went on. seizing- his hearer's ai-in 
 for further ein})hasis, ' and stole away 
 slowly, all nil perceived, into the Kabyle 
 camp as an honi^st deserter. He made 
 signs to the indujune-s that he had come as 
 a friend. One of them, a former S])ahis, 
 who had served in 1- ranee, and nnderstood 
 our language, interpreted for him ; and the 
 Kal)yles, glad to avail themselves f)f 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 hv the 
 French as a deserter.' 
 
 * It's a touching story !' Le .Marchant 
 cried, with emotion. 
 
 ' Tou'.'hing, indeed, for the jxjor man 
 himself,' the Father went on, 'for, hunted
 
 THE WHITE FATHERS. 261 
 
 down and terrified for his life as he was, 
 Yusuf dared not return to civilization on 
 any side ; he 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 
 cuttino^ corn with his own hands, and seeinsf 
 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 faithfully as a husband, 
 and loved her trulv — 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 coiil(]n't help loving 
 him ; there was a sih^nt hei'oism ahout the 
 man's endurance that extorted at \n^t one's 
 highest admiration.' 
 
 'And what hecame of liiiii at hist?' Le 
 Marchant asked, as the Father paused 
 
 'tie died su(hlenly,' Pere I>al)a answered, 
 ' without beini;- able to give Pere Pater- 
 noster his dying directions, or perhaps I 
 mio'ht be able to tell vou somethinir more 
 about his familv in l'.ni>land. His death 
 was brought al)out by most unhap])y cir- 
 cumstances. A few 3^ears since, a French 
 detective came up into the mountains, and 
 began to make inrpiiries al)0ut Joseph 
 Leboutillier. Tiie 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. 
 ISo poor Yusuf fled to a cave on the 
 iJjurjura.'
 
 THE WHITE FATHERS. 263 
 
 'Just below the summit of Lalla Kha- 
 didja ?' Le Marcliant 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 the detective went back affain to Als-iers 
 empty-handed, and poor Yu^uf, who had 
 been supplied with food meanwhile by the 
 Kabvles, ventured to come down ag-ain one 
 dark nioht to visit his dead wife's villao-e.' 
 
 ' And then ?' Le Marchant inquired. 
 
 ' Wli}', 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 TEXTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 stoiie-dead hy his IriciiiLs, and buried in llie 
 cemetery on t]i{> side of tlie mountain. So 
 that was how lie never came to give final 
 directions aljout his daugliter to anybody; 
 and as Vive Paternoster knew all these 
 particulars uiidcr ihc seal of religion, he 
 could not divulge them or chiim the girl 
 for a Christian, as he would have wished to 
 do ; so she has heen brought u[) ever since 
 by the Amine, her uncle.' 
 
 Tlie sim])le story touched Le Marchant 
 profoundly. There was something so 
 pathetic in this roughly-fb-awn ])ictiu'o of 
 that double outcast flying from the offended 
 laws of two great countries, one after the 
 other, and taking refuge at last in a miser- 
 able rock-shelter on the summit of a wild 
 and snow-clad mountain, that his imagina- 
 tion was deeply stirred by the plaintive 
 incidents. He tried to find out more from 
 the old priest by cpiestioning ; 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 dej3reciatory gesture of 
 his open palms — ' an omelette — for it's 
 Friday — 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, men 
 pere^' 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 TEXTS OF SHEM. 
 
 In five minutes the breakfast duly 
 appeared on tlie taMe — an omelette wliich 
 might have made even Madame I'Adminis- 
 tratrice herself less ])oignantly regret the 
 Parisian cuisine, some croquettes of dry cod, 
 most daintily flavoured, and a bottle of 
 good red wine from the W hite Fathers' 
 own rich vineyards at the Maison Carree — 
 to all which the two young Englishmen, 
 lono^ strani^ers to such luxur\', and inured 
 to Diego's rough - and - ready methods of 
 out-door cookery, did ample justice. The 
 bread, in ]~»articular, was highly commended 
 — nice white little petit pains that would 
 have done honour to the Viennese bakeries 
 in Paris. A^ernon IJlake praised it so 
 loudly, to the disparagement of cous-coua, 
 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. 
 
 ' ril roll the loaves uj) in paper,' he said, 
 'and your Kab^le can carry them. Let me
 
 THE WHITE FATHERS. 267 
 
 see ; what have I got in the way of a news- 
 paper ? Ah, here's yesterda}''s Depeches 
 Algeriennes.' 
 
 ' Better still,' Le ^larchant said, ' for to 
 tell you the truth, though we get letters 
 occasionally when the villagers are going 
 down to market at Tizi-Ouzou, we haven't 
 seen a newspaper of any sort for the last 
 six weeks.' 
 
 So they returned to Beni-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 waiting 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 I 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 liis shoulder, and, to his 
 great surprise, spelt nut several lines, one 
 after the other, with tolerable correctness. 
 She made a hash ot" the ])ropcr names, to 
 be sure, and of the lon^- words that did 
 not yet enter into her now daily-widening 
 English vocai)ulary; but as to words tliat 
 she knew, she read them at sight Avith an 
 ease and rapidity that fairly took Le ^lar- 
 chant's l)reath aw^ay. 
 
 * How on earth did 3'ou 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 my sell",' she said, 
 ' that day when T couldn't read my father's 
 English name in \'ernon's picture, that I 
 made up my mind I wouhhi'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 l)Ooks, 
 without telling you about it, and found a
 
 THE WHITE FATHERS. 269. 
 
 girl of our people who could teach me the 
 names of all the letters, because, yon see, 
 she'd been taught by the priests 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 xlrabic 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. Besides, I 
 thought I should be ashamed not to know 
 if ever — well, if ever I should haj^pen to go 
 to England.' 
 
 Le Marchant smiled a pitying smile, nnd 
 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 peaceable 
 and good there.' 
 
 ' Why didn't you tell Vernon first ?' Le
 
 270 THE TENTS OF SIIEM. 
 
 Mai'cliant asked, with a siclelon<>' liiaiice at 
 the hcaulii'iil ii-irl. 
 
 Mcricm liositated. 
 
 ' Hecause ... I don't know wliy . . , 
 I can't explain it . . . hut somehow 1 was 
 shy of telHng Vernon.' 
 
 There was a long pause, during which 
 neither of them said anything to one another. 
 Then Le AFarchant, 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 hnnself had 
 to fly from Mecca to avoid bemg 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. 
 
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