Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  ‘This also is delicious,’ she said, ‘but in Stamboul even a poor man may have it for a few paras.’

  ‘And good water from the fountain for nothing,’ returned Logotheti.

  There was silence again as she leaned back, sufficiently satisfied to wait another hour for the fat quails, the Italian rice, and the fig-paste, to which she was looking forward. And the yacht moved on at her leisurely twelve-knot speed, through the flat calm of the late summer sea, while an atmosphere of bodily peace and comfort gathered round Baraka like a delicate mist that hid the future and softened the past.

  By and by, when she had eaten the fat quail and the Italian rice, and then the fig-paste, and had drunk more sherbet of rose leaves, and more coffee, but none of these things in any excess, that perfect peace came upon her which none but Asiatics can feel, and which we cannot understand; and they call it Kêf, and desire it more than any other condition of their inner and outer selves; but there is no translating of that word.

  It is the inexplicable state of the cat when it folds its fore-paw in, and is so quiet and happy that it can hardly purr, but only blinks mildly once in two or three minutes. Logotheti knew the signs of it, though he had never really felt it himself, and he knew very well that its presence has the power to deaden all purpose and active will in those who enjoy it. The sole object of taking opium is to produce it artificially, which is never quite possible, for with most opium-smokers or opium-eaters the state of peace turns into stupor at the very moment when it is about to become consciously beatific.

  He understood that this wonderful barbarian girl, who had shown such courage, such irresistible energy, such unchanging determination in the search that had lasted more than two years, was temporarily paralysed for any purpose of action by the atmosphere with which he was surrounding her. She would come to herself again, and be as much awake, as determined, and as brave as ever, but she was quiescent now, and the mere thought of effort would be really painful. Perhaps no one who has not lived in Asia can quite understand that.

  Logotheti took out his notebook, which had a small calendar with a few lines for each day in the year, and he began to count days and calculate dates; for when he had expected to go to Bayreuth with the Primadonna he had found out all about the performances, and he knew how long she meant to stay.

  His calendar told him that this was the off-day, between the second and third representations of Parsifal, and that Margaret had her rooms at the hotel for another week. He would allow two days more for her to reach Versailles and rest from the journey before she would wish to see him; and as he thought she had treated him rather badly in not letting him go with her, because he was not enough of a Wagnerian, he intended to keep her waiting even a day or two longer, on the sometimes mistaken theory that it is better to make a woman impatient than to forestall her wishes before she has had time to change her mind.

  Besides, Van Torp’s telegram showed that he was in Bayreuth, and Logotheti flattered himself that the more Margaret saw of the American, the more anxious she would be to see her accepted adorer. It was her own fault, since Logotheti might have been with her instead.

  The result of his calculations was that he had at least ten days before him, and that as he was not at all bored by the little Tartar lady in blue serge, it was quite useless to put her ashore at Carterets and take her to Paris by that way. The idea of spending eight or nine hours alone in a hot and dirty railway carriage, while she and her maid passed the night in another compartment, was extremely dreary; and besides, he had not at all made up his mind what to do with her, and it would probably end in his taking her to his own house. Margaret would have some right to resent that; but as for the trip in the yacht, she need never know anything about it. The girl was really as safe with him as any girl could be with her own brother, and so long as no one knew that she was with him, nothing else mattered. Furthermore, he was good enough to be convinced that if she were let loose in Europe by herself, with plenty of money, boundless courage, and such a clever courier as Spiro seemed to be, she would certainly find Kralinsky at last and murder him, regardless of having sworn by the inviolable water of the Styx. Lastly, he saw that she was at present in that state of Asiatic peace in which it was perfectly indifferent to her what happened, provided that she were not disturbed.

  He rose quietly and went aft. Though she was awake she scarcely noticed that he had left her, and merely opened and shut her eyes twice, like the happy cat already spoken of. She was not aware that the yacht changed her course again, though it was pleasant not to have the reflexion from the sea in her eyes any longer; if Logotheti had told her that he was heading to seaward of Ushant instead of for Jersey and Carterets, she would not have understood, nor cared if she had, and would have been annoyed at being disturbed by the sound of his voice.

  It was pure bliss to lie there without a want, a thought, or a memory. An imaginative European might fancy that she had waking dreams and visions in the summer air; that she saw again the small white town, the foot-hills, the broad pastures below, the vastness of Altai above, the uncounted flocks, the distant moving herds, the evening sunlight on the walls of her father’s house; or that she lived over again those mortal hours of imprisonment in the rocky hollow, and looked into the steel-bright eyes of the man who would not love her and saw the tall figure of Saäd already dead, bending forward from the ledge and pitching headlong to the sand.

  Not at all. She saw none of these things. She was quiescently blissful; the mysterious Kêf was on her, and the world stood still in the lazy enchantment — the yacht was not moving, the sun was not sinking westwards, her pulse was not beating, she was scarcely breathing, in her own self she was the very self of peace, motionless in an immeasurable stillness.

  When the sky reddened at evening Logotheti was again in his chair, reading. She heard six bells struck softly, the first sound she had noticed in four hours, and she did not know what they meant; perhaps it was six o’clock alla Franca, as she would have called it; no one could understand European time, which was one in Constantinople, another in Paris, and another in England. Besides, it made no difference what time it was; but Kêf was departing from her — was gone already, and the world was moving again — not at all in an unpleasant or disturbing way, but moving nevertheless.

  ‘When shall we reach that place?’ she asked lazily, and she turned her face to Logotheti.

  ‘Allah knows,’ he answered gravely, and he laid his book on his knees.

  She had been so well used to hearing that answer to all sorts of questions since she had been a child that she thought nothing of it, and waited awhile before speaking again. Her eyes studied the man’s face almost unconsciously. He now wore a fez instead of a yachting cap, and it changed his expression. He no longer looked in the least like a European. The handsome red felt glowed like blood in the evening light, and the long black silk tassel hung backwards with a dashing air. There was something about him that reminded Baraka of Saäd, and Saäd had been a handsome man, even in her eyes, until the traveller had come to her father’s house with his blue eyes and golden beard. But Saäd had only seen her unveiled face once, and that was the last thing he saw when the ball from the Mauser went through his forehead.

  ‘I mean,’ she asked after some time, ‘shall we be there to-morrow? or the next day? I see no land on this side; is there any on the other?’

  ‘No,’ Logotheti answered, ‘there is no land near. Perhaps, far off, we might see a small island.’

  ‘Is that the place?’ Baraka began to be interested at last.

  ‘The place is far away. You must have patience. All hurry comes from Satan.’

  ‘I am not impatient,’ the girl answered mildly. ‘I am glad to rest in your ship, for I was very tired, more tired than I ever was when I was a child, and used to climb up the foot-hills to see Altai better. It is good to be in your ship for a while, and after that, what shall be, will be. It is Allah that knows.’

  ‘That is the truth,’ respond
ed the Greek. ‘Allah knows. I said so just now. But I will tell you what I have decided, if you will listen.’

  ‘I listen.’

  ‘It is better that you should rest several days after all your weariness, and the man you seek will not run away, for he does not know you are so near.’

  ‘But he may take another woman,’ Baraka objected, growing earnest at once. ‘Perhaps he has already! Then there will be two instead of one.’

  ‘Spiro,’ said Logotheti, with perfect truth, ‘would as soon kill two as one, I am sure, for he is a good servant. It will be the same to him. You call me a great man and a king; I am not a king, for I have no kingdom, though some kingdoms would like to have as much ready-money as I. But here, on the ship, I am the master, not only because it is mine, and because I choose to command, but because the men are bound by English law to obey me; and if they should refuse and overpower me, and take my ship where I did not wish to go, the laws of all nations would give me the right to put them all into prison at once, for a long time. Therefore when I say, “Go to a certain place,” they take the ship there, according to their knowledge, for they are trained to that business and can guide the vessel towards any place in the world, though they cannot see land till they reach it. Do you understand all these things?’

  ‘I understand,’ Baraka answered, smiling. ‘But I am not bound to obey you, and at least I can beg you to do what I ask, and I think you will do it.’

  Her voice grew suddenly soft, and almost tender, for though she was only a Tartar girl, and very young and slim, she was a woman. Eve had not had long experience of talking when she explained to Adam the properties of apples.

  Logotheti answered her smile and her tone.

  ‘I shall do what you ask of me, but I shall do it slowly rather than quickly, because that will be better for you in the end. If we had gone on as we were going, we should have got to land to-night, but to a wretched little town from which we should have had to take a night train, hot and dirty and dusty, all the way to Paris. That would not help you to rest, would it?’

  ‘Oh, no! I wish to sleep again in your ship, once, twice, till I cannot sleep any more. Then you will take me to the place.’

  ‘That is what you shall do. To that end I gave orders this afternoon.’

  ‘You are wise, as well as great,’ Baraka said.

  She let her feet slip down to the deck, and she sat on the side of the chair towards Logotheti, looking at her small white tennis-shoes, which had turned a golden pink in the evening reflexions, and she thoughtfully settled her serge skirt over her slim yellow silk ankles, almost as a good many European girls would always do if they did not so often forget it.

  She rose at last, and went and looked over the rail at the violet sea. It is not often that the Atlantic Ocean is in such a heavenly temper so near the Bay of Biscay. Logotheti got out of his chair and came and stood beside her.

  ‘Is this sea always so still?’ she asked.

  She was gazing at the melting colours, from the dark blue, spattered with white foam, under the yacht’s side, to the deep violet beyond, and further to the wine-purple and the heliotrope and the horizon melting up to the eastern sky.

  Logotheti told her that such days came very rarely, even in summer, and that Allah had doubtless sent this one for her especial benefit. But she only laughed.

  ‘Allah is great, but he does nothing where there are English people,’ she observed, and Logotheti laughed in his turn.

  They left the rail and walked slowly forward, side by side, without speaking; and Logotheti told himself how utterly happy he should be if Baraka could turn into Margaret and be walking with him there; yet something answered him that since she was not by his side he was not to be pitied for the company of a lovely Tartar girl whose language he could understand and even speak tolerably; and when the first voice observed rather drily that Margaret would surely think that he ought to feel very miserable, the second voice told him to take the goods the gods sent him and be grateful; and this little antiphone of Ormuzd and Ahriman went on for some time, till it occurred to him to stop the duo by explaining to Baraka how a European girl would probably slip her arm, or at least her hand, through the arm of the man with whom she was walking on the deck of a yacht, because there was generally a little motion at sea, and she would like to steady herself; and when there was none, there ought to be, and she would do the same thing by force of habit. But Baraka looked at such behaviour quite differently.

  ‘That would be a sort of dance,’ she said. ‘I am not a dancing girl! I have seen men and women dancing together, both Russians in Samarkand and other people in France. It is disgusting. I would rather go unveiled among my own people!’

  ‘Which may Allah forbid!’ answered Logotheti devoutly. ‘But, as you say, where there are Englishmen, Allah does nothing; the women go without veils, and the boys and girls dance together.’

  ‘I have done worse,’ said Baraka, ‘for I have dressed as a man, and if a woman did that among my people she would be stoned to death and not buried. My people will never know what I have done since I got away from them alive. But he thought he was leaving me there to die!’

  ‘Surely. I cannot see why you wish to marry a man who robbed you and tried to compass your death! I can understand that you should dream of killing him, and he deserves to be burnt alive, but why you should wish to marry him is known to the wisdom of the blessed ones!’

  ‘You never saw him,’ Baraka answered with perfect simplicity. ‘He is a beautiful man; his beard is like the rays of the morning sun on a ripe cornfield. His eyes are bright as an eagle’s, but blue as sapphires. He is much taller and bigger and stronger than you are. Do you not see why I want him for a husband? Why did he not desire me for his wife? Am I crooked, am I blinded by the smallpox, or have I six fingers on both hands and a hump on my shoulder like the Witch of Altai? Was my portion a cotton shift, one brass bangle and a horn comb for my hair? I gave him the riches of the world to take me, and he would not! I do not understand. Am I an evil sight in a man’s eyes? Tell me the truth, for you are a friend!’

  ‘You are good to see,’ Logotheti answered, stopping and pretending to examine her face critically as she stood still and faced him. ‘I was telling you what I thought of you before luncheon, I think, but you said I spoke “emptiness,” so I stopped.’

  ‘I do not desire you to speak for yourself,’ returned Baraka. ‘I wish you to speak for any man, since I go about unveiled and any man may see me. What would they say in the street if they saw me now, as a woman? That is what I must know, for he is a Frank, and he will judge me as the Franks judge when he sees me! What will he say?’

  ‘Shall I speak as a Frank? Or as they speak in Constantinople?’

  ‘Speak as he would speak, I pray. But speak the truth.’

  ‘I take Allah to witness that I speak the truth,’ Logotheti answered. ‘If I had never seen you, and if I were walking in the Great Garden in London and I met you by the bank of the river, I should say that you were the prettiest dark girl in England, but that I should like to see you in a beautiful Feringhi hat and the best frock that could be made in Paris.’

  Baraka’s face was troubled, and she looked into his eyes anxiously.

  ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘Before I meet him I must have more clothes, many beautiful new dresses. It was shameless, but it was easy to dress as a man, after I had learned, for it was always the same — the difference was three buttons — or four buttons, or a high hat or a little hat; not much. Also the Feringhi men button their garments as the Musulmans do, the left over the right, but I often see their women’s coats buttoned like a Hindu’s. Why is this? Have the women another religion than the men? It is very strange!’

  Logotheti laughed, for he had really never noticed the rather singular fact which had struck the born Asiatic at once.

  ‘But this woman’s dressing is very difficult to learn,’ Baraka went on, leaning back upon the rail with both elbows, and sticking out her
little white shoes close together. ‘Without the girl Maggy whom you have found for me — but her real name is Gula, and she is a good Musulman — without her, Allah knows what I should do! I could not put on these things for myself; alone, I cannot take them off. When I was like a man, buttons! Two, three, four, twenty — what did it matter? All the same way and soon done! But now, I cannot tell what I am made of. Allah knows and sees what I am made of. Hooks, eyes, strings, little bits one way, little bits the other way, like the rigging of ships — those Turkish ships with many small sails that go up the Bosphorus, you remember? And it is all behind, as if one had no front! Gula knows how it is done. But if I were alone, without her help, Allah is my witness, I would tie the things all round me decently and sit very still for fear they should come off! That is what I should do!

  The Greek thought her extremely amusing. She punctuated her explanations with small gestures indicative of her ignorance and helplessness.

  ‘You will soon grow used to it,’ he said. ‘But you must get some pretty things in Paris before you go to meet the man. It would also be better to let your hair grow long before meeting him, for it is hard to wear the hats of the Feringhi ladies without hair.’

  ‘I cannot wait so long as that. Only to get pretty dresses, only so long! I will spend a thousand pounds or two — is that enough? I have much money in Paris; I can give more.’

  ‘You can get a good many things for a thousand pounds, even in Paris,’ Logotheti answered.

  Baraka laughed.

  ‘It will not be what I paid for the first clothes after I ran away,’ she said. ‘I did not know then what the stones were worth! A little ruby to one woman for a shift and an over-tunic, a little ruby to another for a pair of shoes, a little ruby for a veil and a head-blanket, all little rubies! For each thing one! I did not know; the women did not know. But at Samarkand I sold one for money to a good Persian merchant, and what he gave me was enough for the journey, for me and the old woman servant I hired there, till we got to Tiflis; for the Persian merchants everywhere gave me letters from one to another, and their wives took me in, or I should have been robbed. That is how I reached Stamboul after many, many months, more than a year. The Persian merchants are good men. All fear them, because they are wise in their dealings, but they are honest men. They do not lie, but they are silent and shake their heads, and you must guess what they mean; and if you do not guess right, that is your fault, not theirs. Why should they speak when they can hold their peace? But this is all emptiness! We must talk of the fine dresses I must buy in Paris, and of what I must put on my head. The barbers in Paris sell wigs. I have seen them in the windows, very well made, of all colours, even of the Khenna colour. I shall wear a wig, so that the beautiful Feringhi hat will stay on. I shall perhaps wear a Khenna-coloured wig.’