Miranda of the Balcony: A Story

by A. E. W. Mason

The door was set in a wall perhaps sixty feet high. Charnock could not see the top for the narrowness of the street. Blank, and menacing in the sinister light, the wall towered up before his eyes, and reached out to the right and to the left. And at the foot of the wall was the door--a door of walnut wood, studded with copper nails, and the nails were intricately ordered in a geometrical figure, impossible for the eye to unravel.

That Charnock already knew; he had made trial before now to unravel those geometrical figures, once, very long ago, and very far away in the white sunlit street of a Spanish town. Charnock stood and stared at the door, and the Spanish town loomed larger before his vision, drew nearer, moved towards him, first slowly, then quickly, then in a rush. Ronda! Ronda! The town, as it were, swept over him. He seemed to wake; he seemed to stand again in the street. To his right was the chasm of the Tajo, and the bridge, and the boiling torrent; behind that door lived--and these two years slipped from him like a cloak. With an unconscious movement of his hands he pushed the hood back from his forehead, and stood bare-headed and alert. He was again one of the hurrying, strenuous, curious folk who live beyond the Straits.

He gazed at the door. Behind that door's fellow Miranda lived and waited. Even as the thought burned through his mind, the door opened. For a moment Charnock imagined that Miranda herself would step out; but only a Moor came forth from an interview with the Basha, and a ragged, decrepit greybeard of a servant attended on the Moor and made his path. Charnock was in an instant aware of a grey light filtering between the squalid roof-tops, of the filth of the streets, of the tottering walls of Mulai Ismail. He was in Mequinez.

And at Mequinez the long two years should end, and in ending bear their fruit. That door, on which his eyes were set, augured as much, nay promised it. "Not a sparrow shall fall...." Just for this reason, centuries ago, a Moorish conqueror had taken these slabs of walnut wood in Spain, and brought them back upon the shoulders of his slaves and made his door from them and set it in his wall at Mequinez; just that Charnock coming to this spot centuries afterwards might be quickened in his service towards a woman, and gird himself about with the memory of things which were growing dim, and be assured the service should not fail! Charnock was uplifted to believe it.

He drew the hood again about his head, and the voice of the Mueddin called the world to prayer. Through the open doors of the mosques, from the white walls glimmering in the dimness within those doors, from the streets, from the houses, the high-pitched tremulous prayer rose and declined in an arc of sound.

Charnock felt his whole being throb exultantly. At Mequinez, yes, and to-night, his search would end. Surely to-night! For the hour after the evening prayer was the hour for the selling of slaves.

Charnock walked to the market and sat himself down in the first dim corner. He did not choose a place prominent and visible, inviting whosoever had wares to sell; he took the first seat which offered--certain that wherever he sat Ralph Warriner would be brought to him. He sat down and looked about him.

Some half a dozen men were grouped about the market talking; a young negress from the Soudan, a white Moorish girl, a young negro from Timbuctoo, were brought to them in turn. They examined their teeth, their arms, their feet. The Moorish girl was bought; the others passed on, each with the owner. They were followed by the Moor whom Charnock had seen step from the Basha's door. He wished to sell his decrepit greybeard, and was met with laughter wheresoever he turned. These were all the slaves in the market.

Charnock did not lose heart. At any moment within the next few minutes the narrow entrance to the market might darken, and Ralph Warriner's owner thrust Ralph Warriner in--at some moment that would happen.

Did Warriner still shuffle in the Moorish slippers as he walked? Charnock found himself asking the question with a curious light-heartedness. The negress was offered to him, and then the negro; he refused them with a gesture. He lent an ear to the rustling whispering traffic of the streets outside. He listened patiently, confidently, for the sound of a shuffling footstep to emerge, and grow distinct and more distinct. The Moor brought his greybeard to Charnock's corner. Charnock held his head aside and listened for the loose slap-slap of the slipper upon the mud. The Moor spoke, was importunate; Charnock waved him aside impatiently.