XXI
Stephen and Nevill Caird returned from Tlemcen to Algiers, hoping for news of Victoria, but there was none; and after two days they left for Grand Kabylia.
The prophetic birds at Mansourah had flown in a south-easterly direction, but when Stephen and Nevill started in search of Josette's maid Mouni, they turned full east, their faces looking towards the dark heights of Kabylia. It was not Victoria they hoped to find there, however, or Saidee her sister, but only a hint as to their next move. Nevertheless, Nevill was superstitious about the birds, and said to Stephen when the car had run them out of Algiers, past Maison Carré, into open country: "Isn't it queer how the birds follow us? I never saw so many before. They're always with us. It's just as if they'd passed on word, the way chupatties are passed on in India, eh? Or maybe Josette has told her protegées to look after us."
And Stephen smiled, for Nevill's superstitions were engaging, rather than repulsive; and his quaintnesses were endearing him more and more to the man who had just taken up the dropped thread of friendship after eight or nine years. What an odd fellow Nevill was! Stephen thought, indulgently. No wonder he was worshipped by his servants, and even his chauffeur. No wonder Lady MacGregor adored her nephew, though treating him as if he were a little boy!
One of Nevill's idiosyncrasies, after arranging everything to fit a certain plan, was to rush off at the last minute and do something entirely different. Last night—the night before starting for Grand Kabylia—he had begged Stephen to be ready by eight, at which time the car was ordered. At nine—having sat up till three o'clock writing letters, and then having visited a lately imported gazelle in its quarters—Nevill was still in his bath. At length he arrived on the scene, beaming, with a sulky chameleon in his pocket, and flew about giving last directions, until he suddenly discovered that there was a violent hurry, whereupon he began to be boyishly peevish with the chauffeur for not getting off an hour ago. No sooner had the car started, however, than he fell into a serious mood, telling Stephen of many things which he had thought out in the night—things which might be helpful in finding Victoria. He had been lying awake, it seemed, brooding on this subject, and it had occurred to him that, if Mouni should prove a disappointment, they might later discover something really useful by going to the annual ball at the Governor's palace. This festivity had been put off, on account of illness in the chief official's family; but it would take place in a fortnight or so now. All the great Aghas and Caïds of the south would be there, and as Nevill knew many of them, he might be able to get definite information concerning Ben Halim. As for Saidee—to hear of Ben Halim was to hear of her. And then it was, in the midst of describing the ball, and the important men who would attend, that Nevill suddenly broke off to be superstitious about birds.
It was true that the birds were everywhere! little greenish birds flitting among the trees; larger grey-brown birds flying low; fairy-like blue and yellow birds that circled round the car as it ran east towards the far, looming mountains of the Djurdjura; larks that spouted music like a fountain of jewels as they soared into the quivering blue; and great, stately storks, sitting in their nests on tall trees or tops of poles, silhouetted against the sky as they gazed indifferently down at the automobile.
"Josette would tell us it's splendid luck to see storks on their nests," said Nevill. "Arabs think they bring good fortune to places. That's why people cut off the tops of the trees and make nests for them, so they can bless the neighbourhood and do good to the crops. Storks have no such menial work here as bringing babies. Arab babies have to come as best they can—sent into the world anyhow; for storks are men who didn't do their religious duties in the most approved style, so they have to revisit the world next time in the form of beneficent birds."
But Nevill did not want to answer questions about storks and their habits. He had tired of them in a moment, and was passionately interested in mules. "There ought to be an epic written about the mules of North Africa!" he exclaimed. "I tell you, it's a great subject. Look at those poor brave chaps struggling to pull carts piled up with casks of beastly Algerian wine, through that sea of mud, which probably goes all the way through to China. Aren't they splendid? Wait till you've been in this country as long as I have, and you'll respect mules as I do, from army mules down to the lowest dregs of the mule kingdom. I don't ask you to love them—and neither do they. But how they work here in Africa—and never a groan! They go on till they drop. And I don't believe half of them ever get anything to eat. Some day I'm going to start a Rest Farm for tired mules. I shall pay well for them. A man I know did write a pæan of praise for mules. I believe I'll have it translated into Arabic, and handed about as a leaflet. These natives are good to their horses, because they believe they have souls, but they treat their mules like the dirt under their feet." And Nevill began quoting here and there a verse or a line he remembered of the "mule music," chanting in time to the throbbing of the motor.
"Key A minor, measure common,
One and two and three and four and—
Every hoof-beat half a second
Every hoof-beat linked with heart-beat,
Every heart-beat nearer bursting.
Andantino sostenuto:
In the downpour or the dryness,
Hottest summer, coldest winter;
Sick and sore and old and feeble,
Hourly, hourly; daily, daily,
From the sunrise to the setting;
From the setting to the sunrise
Scarce a break in all the circle
For the rough and scanty eating,
For the scant and muddy drinking,
For the fitful, fearful resting,
For the master haunted-sleeping.
Dreams in dark of God's far heaven
Tempo primo; tempo sempre."
And so, through pools of wild flowers and the blood of poppies, their road led to wild mountain scenery, then into the embrace of the Djurdjura mountains themselves—evil, snow-splashed, sterile-seeming mountains, until the car had passed the fortified town of Tizi Ouzou, an overgrown village, whose name Stephen thought like a drunken term of endearment. It was market-day there, and the long street was so full of Kabyles dressed apparently in low-necked woollen bags, of soldiers in uniform, of bold-eyed, scantily-clad children, and of dyed sheep and goats, that the car had to pass at a walk. Nevill bought a good deal of Kabyle jewellery, necklaces and long earrings, or boxes enamelled in crude greens and reds, blues and yellows. Not that he had not already more than he knew what to do with; but he could not resist the handsome unveiled girls, the wretched old women, or pretty, half-naked children who offered the work of the neighbouring hill villages, or family heirlooms. Sometimes he saw eyes which made him think of Josette's; but then, all beautiful things that he saw reminded him of her. She was an obsession. But, for a wonder, he had taken Stephen's advice in Tlemcen and had not proposed again. He was still marvelling at his own strength of mind, and asking himself if, after all, he had been wise.