The Desert Healer

by E. M. Hull

CHAPTER II

For a few moments after the train that was carrying Major Meredith back to Algiers had pulled jerkily out of the station, Carew lingered on the deserted ill-lit platform. Then, acknowledging with a curt nod the half-caste stationmaster’s obsequious greeting, he strode leisurely to where the horses were waiting in the care of a Kabyle lad he had picked out from among the heterogeneous collection of loafers lounging before the station entrance. He signed to the boy to follow him with Captain André’s horse and trotted Suliman slowly towards the town. Entering by the Es-Sebt Gate he turned in the direction of the cavalry barracks. Despite the late hour the numberless cafés with their flaring gas lamps and tawdry garishness were at their busiest. The pavements were thronged, a ceaseless stream of cosmopolitan humanity; slow-moving, dignified Arabs, servile and furtive-eyed Jews meekly giving place to all who elbowed them, and eager, chattering Frenchmen—all jostling, indiscriminately. Even the roadway was invaded, and bands of Zouaves with interlocked arms reeled along regardless of the traffic, roaring out the latest musical song with unmelodious vigour and shouting questionable jibes at the passers by.

Tonight Blidah seemed to be en fête, noisier and more blatant than usual. And to Carew, fresh from nearly a year in the desert, the scene was distasteful. It was not new to him, years spent in Algeria had familiarised him with the nightly aspect of the garrison towns, and he was in no mood to be either interested or amused by what he saw. He had no love for Blidah at the best of times and he had already been there once before that day.

At the cavalry barracks he handed over Captain André’s grey to the sleepy groom who was waiting and, dismissing the Kabyle lad, turned with a sigh of relief in the direction of the Bab-el-Rabah. Passing through the gateway he headed towards the east, intending to return by the same route by which he had brought Major Meredith. Once clear of the town Suliman broke of his own accord into the long, swinging gallop to which he was accustomed and for a time Carew let him take his own pace. But soon he checked him, drawing him into a reluctant walk. And as the bay sidled and reared, snorting impatiently, his master bent forward in the saddle and ran his hand caressingly over the glossy arched neck. “Gently, gently, core of my heart,” he murmured in the language that came more readily to his lips than his own, “there is no need for haste. Tomorrow is also a day.” And pacing slowly forward through the quiet night he set himself at last to face the torturing recollections of the past that for years he had put resolutely out of his mind but which had been cruelly awakened by the wholly unexpected advent of his old friend. Inscrutable as the Arabs amongst whom he lived, he exhibited no outward sign of agitation, but under the passivity that had become second nature with him there was raging a bitter storm of anger and revolt against fate that had thrown Micky Meredith across his path to shatter the hard-won peace that had come to him in the desert. Meredith was bound up with all he wished to forget, was the living reminder of the home and happiness he had lost. His coming had reopened the wound that Carew had thought healed forever. Memories, like stabs of actual pain, crowded in upon him. The old struggle, the old bitterness he had conquered once was overwhelming him again, shaking him to the very depths of his being. The past he had resolved to forget rose up anew with terrible distinctness. Royal Carew—and the woman he had loved! With the sweat of agony thick on his forehead he lived again through the horror of that ghastly homecoming. He saw again, clearly as though they stood before him, the pitying, terrified faces of the old servants from whom he learned the sordid story of his betrayal. He passed once more through the hours of anguish when he had knelt in dumb, helpless misery beside the tiny cot in the luxurious nursery and watched the death struggle of the child whom, worse than motherless, he loved so passionately. The dark waters of despair had closed over his head that night. Weak from the terrible wound that had brought him back to England, crushed by the double tragedy, he had longed and prayed for death. And when he had at last found courage to go forward with what remained to him of life, it was as a changed man, embittered out of any semblance to his former self. He had divorced his wife that she might marry the man for whom she had left him, and with grim justice, because she had been the mother of his son, he had settled upon her an adequate fortune. But for the woman herself he had no feeling left but loathing and contempt. She had deceived him, lied to him. She had destroyed his faith, his trust. She had opened his eyes at last to the unworthiness that had been patent to all but the husband who worshipped her. She had killed his love—and with it had died esteem and belief in the sex she represented. With her his ideal of womanhood, pinnacled high with chivalrous regard, had shattered into nothingness. Because of her he had become the cynical misogynist he was, seeing in all women the one woman whose falseness had poisoned his life. The thought of her stirred him now to nothing but a sense of cold disgust.

But the memory of the little son who had died was a living force within him. It had gone with him through all the years of loneliness and disillusion, a grief as bitter now as on that first night of his bereavement. Not for the woman, but for the child his starved heart still yearned with passionate intensity. The tiny face was present with him always, even yet he could remember the clinging touch of the fragile baby fingers closing convulsively on his in that last moment of terrible struggle. It was to try and deaden the pain of memory, to ease the burden of his solitude, that he had kept the little waif of the desert. And the blind boy in his helplessness and dependence had in some measure filled the blank in his life. But tonight the remembrance of his loss was heavy upon him. Even with the child Meredith was connected, for his visit to Royal Carew had been made a few months after the birth of the heir who had been born to such high hopes. Together the two men had discussed in all solemnity the probable career of the sleepy scrap of pink humanity who at that time had shown no sign of the delicacy which had developed later.

And Royal Carew! For the first time in years he let his thoughts turn to the beautiful property he had voluntarily surrendered and a wave of intense home sickness passed over him. He crushed it down with a feeling of contempt for his own weakness. Once it had seemed to him the fairest place on God’s earth, he had loved every stick and stone of it. He loved it still, but with his love was the remembrance of bitter pain that made him shrink from ever seeing it again. Childless, it was for him purposeless. If the child had lived—but the child was dead, and things were better as they were. Regrets were useless. There was nothing to be gained by harking back to what might have been. Carew’s lips tightened and he forced his mind into another channel of thought. After all, it had been no fault of Meredith’s. Carew had guessed the reason of the soldier’s restrained manner at the moment of meeting and the knowledge had added warmth to his own greeting. Pride had stirred him, that and a vague idea of testing his own command over himself. Naturally long-sighted he had seen and known Meredith even before Doctor Chalmers had hailed him. Almost he had been tempted to pass by with no sign of recognition. Then he had cursed himself for a coward and had reined in Suliman with that sudden jerk that had made Mrs. Chalmers’ heart stand still. And now was he glad or sorry for Meredith’s coming? It was a question that in his present mood he found himself unable to answer. He had no wish to further analyse his feelings. He had become unaccustomed to self-consideration. For once he had relaxed the rigid control he exercised over his own thoughts—and once was enough. During the years of strenuous work in the desert he had succeeded in suppressing self, and in that work he would endeavour to regain the contentment that was all he had to hope for.

With a powerful effort of will he put away all thoughts of Meredith and the memories he had awakened and, touching Suliman with his heel, concentrated on the results of the difficult mission from which he was now returning to Algiers.

It had been a delicate business, attended with considerable danger that had not disturbed him, and subtle oriental intrigue, in dealing with which Hosein’s help had been invaluable. The man had been Carew’s body-servant and faithful companion for all the years he had lived in Algeria. The son of his father’s old dragoman, Carew remembered him as a singularly intelligent urchin, a year or two older than himself, employed about the villa on Mustapha Superieur where the winters of his own boyhood had been spent, and he had sought him out on his first return to the country. He had never regretted it. Devoted and singleminded in his service the Arab had been friend as well as servant and a loyal cooperator in Carew’s chosen work. A wanderer by instinct, it was not only in Algeria that Hosein had travelled and the green band of the Mecca pilgrim that he wore gave him a prestige which had carried his master and himself through some sufficiently awkward situations. Carew had owed his life to him not once nor twice, and he knew that but for Hosein’s watchfulness he would never have returned alive from this last dangerous undertaking. The report he was carrying back to the Governor in Algiers was due as much to Hosein as to himself. And the Arab should not be the loser if he could help it, he thought with a sudden rare smile.

Immersed in his thoughts he had taken little notice of his surroundings and had not realised how far he had come on his homeward journey. A whistling snort from Suliman and a sudden wild swerve that would have unseated a less practised horseman brought him back abruptly to the immediate present, and looking round sharply he saw that they had arrived at the outskirts of the deserted village. Dragging his horse to a standstill he looked keenly about him, but in spite of the brilliant moonlight, he could see nothing moving. Yet Suliman was accustomed to night work and it was unlike him to shy at shadows. The deserted village had a bad reputation in the neighbourhood but Carew had never avoided it on that account, he had a reputation himself that was sufficiently widely known.

He glanced perfunctorily to right and left as he rode through the winding, grass-grown street, but to all appearances, the place seemed empty as it had been when he passed through it earlier in the evening. He was nearing the last group of tumbled-down huts when the sound of a piercing shriek breaking weirdly on the silence of the night sent Suliman high on his heels in furious protest. Hauling him down, Carew twisted in the saddle, listening intently. It came again, echoing from a little lane that straggled from the main street, the wail of a woman’s voice crying wildly in French for help. A woman—in such a place and at such an hour! Carew’s compressed lips parted in a mirthless grin and he relaxed his strained attention. What was a woman doing at midnight in that village of ill repute? Some little fool, doubtless, who had tempted providence too highly, paying the price of her folly! Well, let her pay. In all probability she had brought it on herself—she could abide by the consequences. It was no business of his, anyhow. Why should he, of all men, interfere to help a woman in her need—what was a woman’s suffering to him? His face was set and grimly hard as he soothed his plunging horse and prepared to ride on. But as Suliman started forward the cry was repeated with words that made Carew check him with an iron hand and bring him, quivering to his haunches. Clear and distinct they came to him—words of frenzied entreaty to a higher power than his, words in a language he least expected to hear.