CHAPTER XIV
While the _Lancashire Lass_ was racing down to the Straits of Messinathe _Erinna_ was heading for the same point from the oppositedirection, no longer dawdling along at half-speed, but going her fullsixteen knots, after coaling in Naples, and any navigator who knew thepositions and respective speeds of the two yachts could havecalculated with approximate precision the point at which they wouldprobably sight each other.
Logotheti had given up the idea of taking Baraka to Paris, if he hadever really entertained it at all. He assured her that Naples was agreat city, too, and that there was a first-rate French dressmakingestablishment there, and that the Ville de Lyon would turn her outalmost as smartly as the Rue de la Paix itself. He took Baraka ashoreand placed her for half a day in the hands of Madame Anna, whoundertook to do all that money could do in about a fortnight. He hadthe effrontery to say that Baraka was a niece of his fromConstantinople, whose mother was on board the yacht, but hadunfortunately sprained her ankle in falling down the companion duringa gale, and could therefore not accompany her daughter on shore. Theyoung lady, he said, spoke only Turkish. Madame Anna, grave andmagnificently calm under all circumstances, had a vague recollectionof having seen the handsome Oriental gentleman already with anotherniece, who spoke only French; but that was none of her business. Whenwould the young lady try on the things? On any day Madame Anna choseto name; but in the meantime her uncle would take her down to Sicily,as the weather was so wonderfully fine and it was still so hot. MadameAnna therefore named a day, and promised, moreover, to see the bestlinen-drapers and sempstresses herself, and to provide the young ladywith as complete an outfit as if she were going to be married. Sheshould have all things visible and invisible in the shortest possibletime. Logotheti, who considered himself a stranger, insisted onputting down a thousand-franc note merely as a guarantee of goodfaith. The dressmaker protested almost furiously and took the money,still protesting. So that was settled, and Baraka was to be outwardlychanged into a beautiful Feringhi lady without delay. To tell thetruth, the establishment is really a smart one, and she was favourablyimpressed by the many pretty frocks and gowns that were tried onseveral pretty young women in order that she might make her choice.
Baraka would have liked a blue satin skirt with a yellow train and abright-green silk body, but in her travels she had noticed that thetaste of Feringhi ladies was for very sober or gentle colours,compared with the fashionable standards of Samarkand, Tiflis, andConstantinople, and she meekly acquiesced to everything that Logothetiand Madame Anna proposed, after putting their heads together.Logotheti seemed to know a great deal about it.
He took Baraka for a long drive in the afternoon, out by Pozzuoli toBaia and back. The girl loved the sea; it was the only thing in thewestern world that looked big to her, and she laughed at wretchedlittle mountains only four or five thousand feet high, for she haddwelt at the feet of the lofty Altai and had sojourned in Tiflis underthe mighty peak of Kasbek. But the sea was always the sea, and to hermountain sight it was always a new wonder beyond measure, vast,moving, alive. She gazed out with wide eyes at the purpled bay,streaked by winding currents of silver, and crisped here and there bythe failing summer breeze. Logotheti saw her delight, and musicallines came back to him out of his reading, how the ocean is ever theocean, and the things of the sea are the sea's; but he knew that hecould not turn Greek verse into Turkish, try as he might, much lessinto that primeval, rough-hewn form of it which was Baraka's nativetongue.
It was nearly dark when the naphtha launch took them out to the yacht,which lay under the mole where the big English and German passengersteamers and the men-of-war are moored.
Logotheti had at last received Margaret's telegram asking him to meether at once. It had failed to reach him in Gibraltar, and had beentelegraphed on thence to Naples, and when he read it he wasconsiderably disturbed. He wrote a long message of explanations andexcuses, and sent it to the Primadonna at Bayreuth, tripling thenumber of words she had prepaid for his answer. But no reply came, forMargaret was herself at sea and nothing could reach her. He sent oneof his own men from the yacht to spend the day at the telegraphoffice, with instructions for finding him if any message came. The manfound him three times, and brought three telegrams; and each time ashe tore open the little folded brown paper he felt more uncomfortable,but he was relieved to find each time that the message was only abusiness one from London or Paris, giving him the latest confidentialnews about a Government loan in which he was largely interested. Whenhe reached the yacht he sent another man to wait till midnight at theoffice.
The Diva was angry, he thought; that was clear, and perhaps she hadsome right to be. The tone of her telegram had been peremptory in theextreme, and now that he had answered it after a delay of severaldays, she refused to take any notice of him. It was not possible thatsuch a personage as she was should have left Bayreuth without leavingclear instructions for sending on any telegrams that might come aftershe left. At this time of year, as he knew, she was beset with offersof engagements to sing, and they had to be answered. From eighto'clock in the morning to midnight there were sixteen hours, ampletime for a retransmitted message to reach her anywhere in Europe andto be answered. Logotheti felt a sensation of deep relief when the mancame aboard at a quarter-past midnight and reported himselfempty-handed; but he resolved to wait till the following eveningbefore definitely leaving Naples for the ten days which must elapsebefore Baraka could try on her beautiful Feringhi clothes.
He told her anything he liked, and she believed him, or wasindifferent; for the idea that she must be as well dressed as anyEuropean woman when she met the man she was seeking had appealedstrongly to her, and the sight of the pretty things at Madame Anna'shad made her ashamed of her simple little ready-made serges andblouses. Logotheti assured her that Kralinsky was within easy reach,and showed no inclination to travel far. There was news of him in thetelegrams received that day, the Greek said. Spies were about him andwere watching him for her, and so far he had shown no inclination toadmire any Feringhi beauty.
Baraka accepted all these inventions without doubting their veracity.In her eyes Logotheti was a great man, something like a king, andvastly more than a Tartar chieftain. He could send men to the ends ofthe earth if he chose. Now that he was sure of where Kralinsky was, hecould no doubt have him seized secretly and brought to her, if shedesired it earnestly of him. But she did not wish to see the man, freeor a prisoner, till she had her beautiful new clothes. Then he shouldlook upon her, and judge whether he had done well to despise her love,and to leave her to be done to death by her own people and her bodyleft to the vulture that had waited so long on a jutting point of rockover her head three years ago.
Meanwhile, also, there were good things in life; there were very fatquails and marvellous muscatel grapes, and such fish as she had nevereaten in Europe during her travels, and there was the real coffee ofthe Sheikhs, and an unlimited supply of rose-leaf preserve. Her friendwas a king, and she was treated like a queen on the yacht. Every day,when Gula had rubbed her small feet quite dry after the luxuriousbath, Gula kissed them and said they were like little tame white mice.Saving her one preoccupation, Baraka was in an Eastern paradise, whereall things were perfect, and Kef descended upon her every day afterluncheon. Even the thought of the future was brighter now, for thoughshe never left her cabin without her long bodkin, she was quite surethat she should never need it. In imagination she saw herself evenmore beautifully arrayed in Feringhi clothes than the pretty ladieswith champagne hair whom she had seen driving in the Bois de Boulognenot long ago when she walked there with Spiro. She wondered whyLogotheti and Gula were both so much opposed to her dyeing her hair orwearing a wig. They told her that ladies with champagne hair were notalways good ladies; but what did that matter? She thought them pretty.But she wondered gravely how Gula knew that they were not good. Gulaknew a great many things.
Besides, Baraka was 'good' herself, and was extremely well aware ofthe fact, and of its intrinsic value, if not of
its moral importance.If she had crossed a quarter of the world in spite of dangers andobstacles which no European girl could pass unharmed, if alive at all,it was not to offer a stained flower to the man she sought when shefound him at last.
As for Logotheti, though he was not a Musulman, and not even anAsiatic, she felt herself safe with him, and trusted him as she wouldcertainly not have trusted Van Torp, or any other European she hadchanced to meet in the course of selling precious stones. He was morelike one of her own people than the Greeks and Armenians ofConstantinople or even the Georgians of the Caucasus.
She was not wrong in that, either. Logotheti was beginning to wonderwhat he should do with her, and was vaguely surprised to find that hedid not like the idea of parting with her at all; but beyond that hehad no more thought of harming her than if she had been confided tohis care and keeping by his own mother.
Few Latins, whether Italians, French, or Spanish, could comprehendthat, and most of them would think Logotheti a milksop and asentimental fool. Many northern men, on the other hand, will think hedid right, but would prefer not to be placed in such a tryingposition, for their own part, because beauty is beauty and humannature is weak, and the most exasperating difficulty in which anhonest northern man can find himself where a woman is concerned isthat dilemma of which honour and temptation are the two horns. But thebest sort of Orientals look on these things differently, even whenthey are young, and their own women are safer with them than Europeanwomen generally are among European men. I think that most men whohave really known the East will agree with me in this opinion.
And besides, this is fiction, even though it be founded on facts; andfiction is an art; and the end and aim of art is always to discoverand present some relation between the true and the beautiful--asperhaps the aim of all religions has been to show men the possibleconnexion between earth and heaven. Nothing is so easily misunderstoodand misapplied as bare truth without comment, most especially when itis an ugly truth about the worst side of humanity. We know that allmen are not mere animals; for heaven's sake let us believe that veryfew, if any, must be! Even Demopithekos, the mob-monkey, may have aconscience, when he is not haranguing the people.
Logotheti certainly had one, of its kind, though he seemed to MargaretDonne and Lady Maud to be behaving in such an outrageous manner as tohave forfeited all claim to the Diva's hand; and Baraka, who was anatural young woman, though a remarkably gifted and courageous one,felt instinctively that she was safe with him, and that she would notneed to draw out her sharp bodkin in order to make her position clear,as she had been obliged to do at least twice already during hertravels.
Yet it was a dreamy and sense-compelling life that she led on theyacht, surrounded with every luxury she had ever heard of, andconstantly waited on by the only clever man she had ever really talkedwith, excepting the old Persian merchant in Stamboul. The vision ofthe golden-bearded giant who had left her to her fate after treatingher with stony indifference was still before her, but the reality wasnearer in the shape of a visible 'great man,' who could do anything hechose, who caused her to be treated like a queen, and who wasundeniably handsome.
She wondered whether he had a wife. Judging marriage from her point ofview, there probably had been one put away in that beautiful house inParis. He was an Oriental, she told herself, and he would not paradehis wife as the Feringhis did. But she was one, too, and sheconsidered that it would be an insult to ask him about such things.Spiro knew, no doubt, but she could not demean herself to inquire of aservant. Perhaps Gula had found out already, for the girl had a way offinding out whatever she wanted to know, apparently by explainingthings to the second mate. Possibly Gula could be made to tell whatshe had learned, without being directly questioned. But after all,Baraka decided that it did not matter, since she meant to marry thefair-beard as soon as she had her pretty clothes. Yet she becameconscious that if he had not existed, she would think it verysatisfactory to marry the great man who could do anything he liked,though if he had a wife already, as he probably had, she would refuseto be the second in his house. The Koran allowed a man four, it wassaid, but the idea was hateful to her, and moreover the Persianmerchant's wife had told her that it was old-fashioned to have morethan one, mainly because living had grown so expensive.
Logotheti sat beside her for hours under the awnings, talking or not,as she chose, and always reading when she was silent, though he oftenlooked up to see if she wanted anything. He told her when they leftNaples that he would show her beautiful islands and other sights, andthe great fire-mountains of the South, AEtna and Stromboli, which shehad heard of on her voyage to Marseilles but had not seen because thesteamer had passed them at night. The fire-mountain at Naples had beenquiet, only sending out thin wreaths of smoke, which Baraka insistedcame from fires made by shepherds.
'Moreover,' she said, as they watched Vesuvius receding when they leftNaples, 'your mountains are not mountains, but ant-hills, and I do notcare for them. But your sea has the colours of many sherbets,rose-leaf and violet, and lemon and orange, and sometimes even of paleyellow peach-sherbet, which is good. Let me always see the sea tillthe fine dresses are ready to be tried on.'
'This sea,' answered Logotheti, 'is always most beautiful near landand amongst islands, and the big fire-mountain of Sicily looks as tallas Kasbek, because it rises from the water's edge to the sky.'
'Then take me to it, and I will tell you, for my eyes have looked onthe Altai, and I wish to see a real mountain again. After that we willgo back and get the fine dresses. Will Gula know how to fasten thefine dresses at the back, do you think?'
'You shall have a woman who does, and who can talk with Gula, and thetwo will fasten the fine dresses for you.' Logotheti spoke withbecoming gravity.
'Yes,' Baraka answered. 'Spend money for me, that I may be good tosee. Also, I wish to have many servants. My father has a hundred,perhaps a thousand, but now I have only two, Gula and Spiro. The man Iseek will think I am poor, and that will be a shame. While I wassearching for him, it was different; and besides, you are teaching mehow the rich Franks live in their world. It is not like ours. Youknow, for you are more like us, though you are a king here.'
She spoke slowly and lazily, pausing between her phrases, and turningher eyes to him now and then without moving her head; and her talkamused him much more than that of European women, though it was sovery simple, like that of a gifted child brought suddenly to a newcountry, or to see a fairy pantomime.
'Tell me,' he said after a time, 'if it were the portion of Kralinskyto be gathered to his fathers before you saw him, what would you do?'
Baraka now turned not only her eyes to him but her face.
'Why do you ask me this? Is it because he is dead, and you are afraidto tell me?'
'He was alive this morning,' Logotheti answered, 'and he is a strongman. But the strong die sometimes suddenly, by accident if not of afever.'
'It is emptiness,' said Baraka, still looking at him. 'He will not diebefore I see him.'
'Allah forbid! But if such a thing happened, should you wish to goback to your own people? Or would you learn to speak the Frank andlive in Europe?'
'If he were dead, which may Allah avert,' Baraka answered calmly, 'Ithink I would ask you to find me a husband.'
'Ah!' Logotheti could not repress the little exclamation of surprise.
'Yes. It is a shame for a woman not to be married. Am I an evil sight,or poor, that I should go down to the grave childless? Or is there anyreproach upon me? Therefore I would ask you for a husband, because Ihave no other friend but only you among the Feringhis. But if youwould not, I would go to Constantinople again, and to the Persianmerchant's house, and I would say to his wife: "Get me a husband, forI am not a cripple, nor a monster, nor is there any reproach upon me,and why should I go childless?" Moreover, I would say to themerchant's wife: "Behold, I have great wealth, and I will have a richhusband, and one who is young and pleasing to me, and who will nottake another wife; and if you bring me such a man, for what
soever hisriches may be, I will pay you five per cent."'
Having made this remarkable statement of her intentions, Baraka wassilent, expecting Logotheti to say something. What struck him was notthe concluding sentence, for Asiatic match-makers and peace-makers aregenerally paid on some such basis, and the slim Tartar girl had provedlong ago that she was a woman of business. What impressed Logothetimuch more was what seemed the cool cynicism of her point of view. Itwas evidently not a romantic passion for Kralinsky that had broughther from beyond Turkestan to London and Paris; her view had beensimpler and more practical; she had seen the man who suited her, shehad told him so, and had given him the secret of great wealth, and inreturn she expected him to marry her, if she found him alive. But ifnot, she would immediately take steps to obtain another to fill hisplace and be her husband, and she was willing to pay a high price toany one who could find one for her.
Logotheti had half expected some such thing, but was not prepared forher extreme directness; still less had he thought of becoming thematrimonial agent who was to find a match worthy of her hand andfortune. She was sitting beside him in a little ready-made Frenchdress, open at the throat, and only a bit of veil twisted round herhair, as any European woman might wear it; possibly it was her dressthat made what she said sound strangely in his ears, though it wouldhave struck him as natural enough if she had been muffled in a yashmakand ferajeh, on the deck of a Bosphorus ferry-boat.
He said nothing in answer, and sat thinking the matter over.
'I could not offer to pay you five per cent,' she said after a time,'because you are a king, but I could give you one of the fine rubies Ihave left, and you would look at it sometimes and rejoice because youhad found Baraka a good husband.'
Logotheti laughed low. She amused him exceedingly, and there weremoments when he felt a new charm he had never known before.
'Why do you laugh?' Baraka asked, a little disturbed. 'I would giveyou a good ruby. A king may receive a good ruby as a gift, and notdespise it. Why do you laugh at me? There came two German merchants tome in Paris to see my rubies, and when they had looked, they bought agood one, but not better than the one I would give you, and Spiroheard them say to each other in their own language that it was fortheir King, for Spiro understands all tongues. Then do you think thattheir King would not have been glad if I had given him the ruby as agift? You cannot mock Baraka. Baraka knows what rubies are worth, andhas some still.'
'I do not mock you,' Logotheti answered with perfect gravity. 'Ilaughed at my own thoughts. I said in my heart, "If Baraka asks me fora husband, what will she say if I answer, Behold, I am the man, if youare satisfied!" This was my thought.'
She was appeased at once, for she saw nothing extraordinary in hissuggestion. She looked at him quietly and smiled, for she saw herchance.
'It is emptiness,' she said. 'I will have a man who has no otherwife.'
'Precisely,' Logotheti answered, smiling. 'I never had one.'
'Now you are indeed mocking me!' she said, bending her sharp-drawneyebrows.
'No. Every one knows it who knows me. In Europe, men do not alwaysmarry very young. It is not a fixed custom.'
'I have heard so,' Baraka answered, her anger subsiding, 'but it isvery strange. If it be so, and if all things should happen as we said,which Allah avert, and if you desired me for your wife, I would marryyou without doubt. You are a great man, and rich, and you are good tolook at, as Saaed was. Also you are kind, but Saaed would probably havebeaten me, for he beat every one, every day, and I should have goneback to my father's house. Truly,' she added, in a thoughtful tone,'you would make a desirable husband for Baraka. But the man I seekmust marry me if I find him alive, for I gave him the riches of theearth and he gave me nothing and departed, leaving me to die. I havetold you, and you understand. Therefore let us not jest about thesethings any more. What will be, will be, and if he must die, it is hisportion, and mine also, though it is a pity.'
Thereupon the noble little features became very grave, and she leanedback in her chair and folded her hands in her lap, looking out at theviolet light on the distant volcano. After that, at dinner and in theevening, they talked pleasantly. She told him tales of her own land,and of her childhood, with legends of the Altai, of genii andenchanted princesses; and he, in return, told her about the greatworld in which he lived; but of the two, she talked the more, no doubtbecause he was not speaking his own language. Yet there was a bond ofsympathy between them more natural and instinctive than any that hadever drawn him and Margaret together.
When the sun was up the next morning and Logotheti came on deck todrink his coffee alone, he saw the magic Straits not many miles ahead,in an opalescent haze that sent up a vapour of pure gold to the paleblue enamel of the sky. He had been just where he was now more thanonce before, and few sights of nature had ever given him keenerdelight. On the left, the beautiful outline of the Calabrian hillsdescended softly into the still sea, on the right the mountains ofSicily reared their lofty crests; and far above them all, twice ashigh as the highest, and nobler in form than the greatest, AEtnatowered to the very sky, and a vast cloud of smoke rose from thesummit, and unfolded itself like a standard, in flowing draperies thatstreamed westward as far as the eye could reach.
'Let her go half-speed, Captain,' said Logotheti, as hissailing-master came up to bid him good-morning. 'I should like myguest to see the Straits.'
'Very good, sir. We shall not go through very fast in any case, forthe tide is just turning against us.'
'Never mind,' Logotheti answered. 'The slower the better to-day, tillwe have AEtna well astern.'
Now the tide in the Straits of Messina is as regular and easy tocalculate as the tide in the Ocean, and at full and change of the moonthe current runs six knots an hour, flowing or ebbing; it turns sosuddenly that small freight steamers sometimes get into difficulties,and no sailing vessel I have ever seen has a chance of gettingthrough against it unless the wind is both fresh and free.
Furthermore, for the benefit of landsmen, it is well to explain herethat when a steamer has the current ahead, her speed is the differencebetween her speed in slack water and that of the current or tide,whereas, if the latter is with her, its speed increases her own.
Consequently, though the _Erinna_ could run sixteen knots, she wouldonly be able to make ten against the tide; for it chanced that it wasa spring tide, the moon being new on that very day. Similarly the_Lancashire Lass_, running her twenty-three knots like a torpedo boat,would only do seventeen under the same conditions.
The Diva's Ruby Page 14
