RHODA FAIR: The Classic Novel of a Woman at the Crossroads

by Clarence Budingtion Kelland

  "Where did the young woman go?" he asked of the man whose duty it had been to keep Rhoda under his eye.

  "In a motor car, with the dragoman Saffoury. To visit the tents of the Sheik El-Ssimairi."

  "Where is she now?"

  "In that place, Efendi. Mohammud, the brother of my wife's father, waited for two hours, watching from the shelter of the rocks, and she remained."

  "And the man—the American?"

  "Him I have not seen. He is not in Nazareth."

  "Not in the hotel?"

  "No, Effendi. He did not sleep there. None saw him depart, for it was in the night."

  "Ah!" This was clear to the policeman. Paul Dare went in the night, the night preceding the depredation—doubtless, certainly, to assist in carrying it out. . . . Also Hana Effendi recalled how Paul Dare had been on the spot when the policeman met death by rifle bullet. . . . Evervthing was taking shape nicely.

  "How many men in Nazareth?" he asked.

  "Myself and two others, Effendi."

  "Let one search the house of Josef where this young woman lived; let another search the belongings of the American in the hotel."

  In addition to intelligence and training which go to make your efficient guardian of the peace there is such a thing as police instinct. It bears some relation figuratively to the scent of the bloodhound. Hana Effendi possessed this to a high degree; it was his nature, and it moved in all that he did. Your born policeman can read on the blackboard a sum which to the normal man is two plus two; to a mind such as Hana's the sum may be five or three; at any rate, he reaches conclusions more quickly; and acts upon them more suddenly because of this instinct—and he himself does not realize the processes by which he arrives at his result. Yet, strangely enough, this same instinct, when applied to the ordinary affairs of life, often results in absurdities. Its business is with the abnormal; the normal baffles and misleads it, and hence the not infrequent enmeshing of the innocent. . . . Hana Effendi knew what he was going to do, and inexorably he set about to do it.

  In an hour's time his preparations were made, a sufficient detachment of men collected, and he descended to take horse. At the door a tall gentleman, elderly, of splendid bearing, accosted him.

  "Mr. Hana, is it not?"

  "It is," said the policeman, curtly.

  "I have come," said El Ghafir, "to inquire if there is any news of the American traveler, Reuben Friend."

  "No news," said Hana, succinctly.

  "Ah. . . . You go now to search for him?"

  "You ask questions," said Hana, forbiddingly.

  "Which you will answer." The voice in which this was spoken was mild, courteous—but compelling to the attention. Hana regarded his inquisitor sharply.

  "Who are you?" he demanded.

  "My name is Ghafir."

  "So! . . . You are that man. There is much whispering in the bazaars. Both Arab and Jew speak your name, and there are wild talkings. It comes to my ears. . . . What are you up to? . . ."

  "No harm," said El Ghafir, gently as to a child who cannot comprehend. "I am not a subject for police investigations. . . . Again I ask, do you go to search for Mr. Friend?"

  Hana Effendi answered, in spite of himself. "We do."

  "I will ride with you," said El Ghafir.

  The policeman shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "Look there. See, upon the backs of my men are guns. They do not go to shoot at a mark. . . . And others may shoot back again."

  "No bullet will touch me," said El Ghafir, and Hana Effendi, remembering the rumors of the bazaar, was not at ease, for he was not immune to superstition. No bullet would touch this man, and he affirmed it with perfect confidence. . . . It was said he was a jinn—not mortal. It was whispered that he had lived when the world was young, and that he could not die! . . ."

  "I am asking little,' said El Ghafir, "only to ride with you in search of my friend—'and I may be useful. Who knows?"

  Hana Effendi wanted to refuse. Other considerations aside, he did not care to rid knee to knee with a being who might be supernatural, but, with this man's eyes upon him, he could not refuse; his will declined to function. He drew his heavy shoulders together as if a chill wind had touched him, and then, characteristically attempted to carry it off flippantly.

  "The road is free," he said. "Tag along if you want to."

  "Thank you," said El Ghafir, gravely.

  They mounted and rode away in silence; Hana Effendi and El Ghafir in the lead, the men clustered in the rear, close to one another, eying this strange being who had imposed himself upon them and speaking to one another in low whispers. . . . As for their leader, he frowned, and asked questions of himself which he could not answer. What had happened to him? Why had he permitted this man to accompany him—in defiance of regulations and of ordinary good judgment? What had compelled him, for he knew he had been compelled. . . . Magic! . . . For Hana Effendi, when he was alone and nakedly himself, believed in magic, in the evil eye, in jinns. . . . It is no pleasant thing for such a man to ride, even in the broad light of day, with a being who cannot die, who may, for all one knows, hold communications with spirits and demons, and have at his command the powers of the air and darkness. . . .

  So they rode from the village, while children hid behind their mothers' skirts at the doorways to peer out with wide, black eyes brimming with terror and with curiosity; while men kicked their donkeys well to the roadside, glancing to make certain the beads—insurance against the evil eye—were secured to the bridles. . . . Harness clanked, rifles pounded accustomed backs, hoofs spurned the hard road. Then El Ghafir said a strange thing and one which did not decrease Hana Effendi's unease.

  "Last night," he said, "I sat upon the housetop looking for a star. . . . A great, bright star! But the heavens were as they have been these long, lonely years. . . ."

  "You know the stars," said Hana Effendi, and speculating upon the advisability of asking such a man to strike his horoscope.

  "I know that star!" said El Ghafir, speaking now to himself and forgetful of his companion. "Well I know that wonder of the skies, though I have not seen it these—" His voice ceased and he did not utter the words which arose to his lips—words which would have fallen awesomely upon his companion's ears. "I have not seen it these nineteen hundred years," was the thought whose conclusion he did not utter. . . . What depth of grief and longing and disappointment lay in his heart none could plumb but himself—this watcher for the star! . . . And Easter was at hand! If the star did not move across the heavens now—he lifted his face to the sky. When, oh, when would it appear, that token of the event for which he had waited and prayed since that remote day when Herod sat upon the throne of David. . . .

  So they rode, each upon his different errand, following the road back into the hills into the shadow of Jebel el-Tôr—into a shadow denser than that of any mountain rearing its bulk against the sun. It was into the shadow of the future, the shadow of the destiny which was upon them, that they rode; Hana Effendi to destroy mercilessly those whose hands he had touched in friendship because it was his business so to do; El Ghafir to save, if Heaven permitted, the girl to whom his heart had turned as turns the heart of a father to his child. . . .

  Chapter Twenty-two

  PAUL DARE lay with bandaged head and tightly bound leg outstretched upon the cushions; his eyes were shut and he suffered more from self-accusation than from physical pain. Again he had demonstrated his futility; again—and this time in a high emergency—he had demonstrated his ineptitude. He had failed of his object, and by reason of an impulse incomprehensible to him; now he was a prisoner of Jaunty Bailey, was out of the game, and Rhoda Fair stood friendless and guilty. To save from death a child better dead he had allowed the crime to go forward and her guilt to become an accomplished fact.

  It was at the moment, perhaps the bitterest of his life, that Rhoda Fair entered unannounced.

  "Mr. Dare!" she cried, and swiftly knelt at his side.

  He raised himself upon his elbow
and opened his eyes. "You! Here!" But, he thought, where else should she be? "Are you hurt—badly hurt?"

  He shook his head and replied, bitterly: "No, worse luck. This world is no place for a bungler."

  "Bungler! . . . Jaunty has told me about it, Mr. Dare, and—it was a splendid thing to do! And I—I must be ashamed for thinking of you as I have. . . . It was fine! It was all fine and brave—and so different from what you made me believe you were."

  He snorted—there is no other word for it. "Oh, I was noble," he said. "I was a hero! . . ." He paused and then went on, savagely, "I was a bungler—and look at the result of it. Here you are—guilty. Here are these people—prisoners. Here am I—knocked on the head and powerless. . . . When I might have prevented it all. The whole thing was in my hands, and then I tossed it away. . . . What difference if I cannot understand why? I was there, ready. Nothing was to prevent me from warning those travelers and preventing the whole thing—and what did I do? . . . I saw a native child messing in the filthy road—a filthy child playing in filth. It was only half a child, blind, deformed, better dead. . . . But—I'm not trying to excuse myself—I couldn't prevent myself. Somehow, in that instant of time, the miserable child seemed the only important thing in the world. . . . And that instant of idiocy— "

  She interrupted: "If all men could be guilty of such idiocy!"

  He scowled, fumbling with the bandage across his forehead. "You weren't guilty till the thing was done. I could have prevented it. It is I who made you guilty."

  She bent forward, scrutinizing him wide-eyed. Guilty! . . . She was guilty, an accessory. It was true. She had obeyed that note of Jaunty's to keep occupied Hana Effendi so he could not interfere. But this is not what seized upon her perceptions and her emotions—it was the sudden realization that Paul Dare had acted for her. In some manner unknown he had discovered the project, had believed her to be concerned in it, and had gone forth to save her. That she was not really concerned made no difference; the intention was there. This man whom she had believed to be utterly selfish, egoistic, had done this for her. He had risked his life—for to intervene in such a matter was to risk life. She wanted to cry.

  "You—you did it for me?" she asked.

  "Of course," he said, fiercely. "For whom else?"

  "And afterward," she said. "You were hurt, suffering. Jaunty thought you unconscious . . . but you kept on. In pain, with your injuries, you tried to reach Mr. Friend—and almost succeeded. . . . That took courage, Mr. Dare, a fine courage and a splendid resolution. . . . Jaunty Bailey is not the sort to admire anyone for a slight reason. He says it was only luck that Bedouin who ran you down in the road didn't kill you. . . . I—I can never thank you."

  "For failure?" he asked, bitterly.

  "For trying gallantly! For daring! For persisting when a man of less courage would have paused. . . . "

  His laugh was unpleasant. "And now what?" he demanded.

  Her eyes clouded. "I don't know," she said. "I have come to the end of my wavering. . . . Maybe it is best. It may be Jaunty was right and I was destined from the beginning for such things. . . . I am to marry Mr. Bailey."

  He lifted himself higher, forced himself toward her, and his eyes glowed with sudden fierce fire. "By God! you shan't!" he said.

  "I've promised."

  "Why?"

  His eyes demanded the truth. "It was the only thing I could do. I owed it to Mr. Friend. Jaunty has promised to release him."

  "In return for—you!"

  "Yes."

  He sank back and turned his face away from her, "And this is what I've done," he muttered. Rhoda bent over him and rested her hand upon his shoulder. . . . She searched her heart for words, but before they arose to her lips the dragoman Saffoury thrust his face into the tent.

  "You must come," he said. "Queek! . . . Queek! . . "

  One who is to have traffic with the Arabs does well to take into account the ramifications of family, of tribe, and even of the loyalty of the dweller to his village. The Ssimairi, in the encampment of whose chief Reuben Friend was held prisoner, were a numerous clan, with dependents, friends, beneficiaries not easy to trace. Also, in the state of affairs existent in Palestine the sheiks were laying aside ancient enmities to draw close together against the English, who were destroying their time-honored means of enriching themselves by baksheesh. . . . Therefore it is not to be wondered at that a rider left Nazareth privately to carry the news that Hana Effendi had returned and was in process of launching some sort of expedition against a near-by point. This indicated that the herring trail into Trans-Jordania had not deceived the inspector, as Bailey was so confident it had done.

  Jaunty Bailey was ignorant of the coming of such disquieting news until the Sheik El-Ssimairi, with Abdullah at his heels, somewhat in the background but none the less dangerous for that, confronted him. The Sheik was in a rage; Abdullah grimaced and showed his rat teeth.

  "And now what?" Jaunty asked shortly, for the events of the afternoon had not been soothing.

  "Now what, eh?" It was Abdullah who spoke, mouthpiece for the Bedouin. "You have boss thees whol' theeng. You—nobody but jus' you could give the order. Nobody is so good as you. . . . And what comes? Hana Effendi comes, that ees what! You fool heem! Hah. You American that have more brain than all other folks put together. He is in Nazareth, and nex' he will be here."

  "Little friend," said Jaunty, with contemptuous jocosity, "take a tuck in your manners or I'll have to rub some of the grease off you on these prickers. Now, speaking respectfully, as a squealing little rat like you ought always to speak, tell me what's on your mind."

  "It is on my mind, and it is on his mind," said Abdullah, edging yet farther away and indicating the sheik. "Instead of the good safe plan—to take thees ol' man across the Jordan, you make us to breeng heem here. It ees your fault, eh? Now Hana Effendi comes weeth policeman, and what? Eh, what?"

  "Well what?" Jaunty said, with a shrug. "If you go thinking up puzzles like that on a hot day you'll have to answer them yourself."

  "It ees no puzzle. It ees true. He gathers policeman in Nazareth. Maybe by thees time they ride. How soon they come to thees place who can say! . . . Are we to go all to thees English prison?"

  "You really ought to," said Jaunty, judicially. "Are you shadow-boxing or is somebody really in the ring with you? What's the story? A little less criticism of me—you're really too biased in your own favor, Abdullah, to be allowed to criticize anything—and give me facts. Is Hana in Nazareth?"

  "He ees."

  "Getting men together?"

  "Three already. More to come."

  Jaunty shut one eye and stared at Abdullah with the other, while he clucked as one does who, of a sudden, is required to take stock of events.

  "Didn't think it of Hana," he said. "You've an idea he smells a rat, eh? Come to think of it, it does look so, and that puts it up to us, my friend. Picks it up and drops it right in our laps to play with. If he comes rampaging in here with his men and finds you and me and Mr. Friend and what not, it isn't going to be so good. No, indeed. That was your general idea, wasn't it?"

  "The sheik he ees' ver' angry and also frighten'."

  "And well he may be. Well he may be. . . . Of course you and he have talked it over. Got your minds made up and what you're going to do?"

  "From now we boss. You boss plenty. You have got all through."

  "I- Now I don't believe so, Abdullah. No, I think you're wrong about that. I'm going to do a lot of bossing. In fact, I'm going to do all that's done. But, just for the sake of hearing how your brains work in a pinch, what was your general idea?"

  Abdullah's white, sharp teeth gleamed; his heavy-lidded eyes gleamed with a hatred which he had felt at necessity to conceal through weeks of co-operation. "We take to the hills. There ees yet the time. But not you. Weeth you we are all finish. It ees the sheik's word that you go to the devil—so."

  "Naturally. I'm counted out. You boys are to go right ahead with the show and send Hamle
t off to pick olives. And of course you take the prisoners with you."

  "All of them," said Abdullah, and he spoke with relish. "Eh? All of them. Meaning what?"

  "The sheik look with favor upon the so-young lady." Jaunty, remaining seated, drummed on his knee with his fingers. His face did not alter, not even as he turned to glance casually at the Bedouin as if made conscious of his presence for the first time.

  "Now what do you think of that? Whiskers going on a rampage, eh. Let's follow your idea along a bit farther. Suppose the pursuit gets too close, eh? What's the procedure then? The normal thing in these degenerate parts I suppose: When you're caught and if you're caught there won't be any prisoners and there won't ever have been any. Is that a fair working drawing of it?"

  "In the mountains are many places where bodies is never found," said Abdullah, with perceptible enjoyment in that outcome to the affair.

  "One thing I forgot to ask: What do I get out of it? I've taken a whole lot of pains to bring off this deal, Abdullah. Expenses, too." Jaunty was talking, talking against time while his devious mind grappled the situation. There was danger; it was imminent, and he was alone to front it. No hope was save in himself. And, criminal though he was, his solicitude was not for himself, nor primarily for Rhoda. This was curious, nevertheless he felt a sort of responsibility for Reuben Friend and his wife, for he had brought them there—they were his in a sense, as his hat and coat were his. It was not what practitioners of Christianity would dignify by the name of altruism. Jaunty could never be made to think of it as altruism; nevertheless, he knew, even without asking himself the question, that unless he could win free with his prisoners he had come to the end of his playlet. He would fight for them until the gray curtain was dropped upon him forever. No, altruism was a word which never would present itself to him. In his vocabulary he would merely be giving the old man a "square deal." But it may be that in the casting up of final accounts it is net results which count.