“I’ve lost The Caid, Tanner,” she said, bluntly. For a moment his coolness forsook him. “My Gawd!” he breathed and stared at her in frank dismay. Then he recovered himself quickly. “Did you take a toss, m’lady, did ’e ’arm you, the vicious devil—begging your ladyship’s pardon. Mrs. Ann and me, we’ve been cruel anxious,” he added with the suspicion of a shake in his rasping voice. Marny smiled at him and shook her head.
“I’m not hurt, thank you, Tanner. The chestnut was stolen. I ought not to have taken him so far from Algiers. I forgot that he might be known, might be a temptation to any Arab who knew his value—there are a lot of desert men coming into the town just now. Anyhow he’s gone. I couldn’t do anything alone. But I—I’ve given information about it and I’m almost certain that he will be sent back. So you needn’t worry, Tanner. I’m sure it will be all right. It was my fault entirely, it probably wouldn’t have happened if I had taken you with me. But there is no good in going back to that. I’ll explain to his lordship and—and please keep near the stables, Tanner, in case the horse comes back today,” she added, hastily, struggling to keep her voice steady. For a moment the man hesitated, then with a quiet, “Very good, m’lady,” he jerked his hand to his forehead and tip-toed from the room. Outside in the hall he looked back over his shoulder at the closed door, his face working oddly. “You’ll explain to ’is blooming lordship, will you m’lady? Gawd almighty, we all know what that’ll mean! I’d a deal rather take the blame meself—blast ’im!” he muttered, and strode off very far from sharing his mistress’s optimism with regard to the stolen horse.
In the bedroom, Marny leant back wearily in the deep armchair, too tired to move, wondering at her own confidence in the promise that had been made to her, wondering at the man himself and at the strange feeling of security she had felt in his presence.
Ann’s anxious voice roused her and rising with an effort she submitted without further protest to the ministrations of her old nurse who stripped the tattered clothing from her with exclamations of horror at the sight of the bruises marring the whiteness of the delicate body she worshipped.
She had seen, with almost murder in her heart, similar bruises before on those slim young arms and knew them for what they were, the marks of a man’s merciless fingers. But she made no comment while she bathed the aching limbs, and brushed the tangled mop of curly hair, and finally tucked up her charge in bed as if she were a child again. And until the last drop of strong soup she brought was finished, and she had drawn the jalousies over the open window, she refrained from asking the questions that kept rising to her lips. But when everything she could think of for her mistress’s comfort was done she slipped on to her knees by the bedside and caught the girl’s hands in hers.
“Tell me, Miss Marny dear,” she pleaded, tremulously, “you can’t go bottling things up inside of you forever. It will ease your mind to speak—for once. There’s a lot more than you let out to Tanner, you that came home in rags and bruised fit to break my heart. What did they do to you, my precious? Where have you been all these weary hours that I’ve been nearly out of my senses with fright—thinking you dead, or worse, and dreading his lordship’d come back and find you gone, and all.”
And thankful for the opportunity of confiding fully once more in the faithful old nurse who, until five years ago, had shared her every secret, Marny told her. And Ann listened, as she had listened long ago to the frank recital of childish escapades, in silence. Only the trembling of her thin lips, the occasional tightening of her worn old hand, betrayed the agitation she would not allow herself to voice. Miss Marny had been through enough, had suffered enough for one day, she wouldn’t want any more “scenes” now it was all safely over. She brushed the hair tenderly from the damp white forehead and rose to her feet with a long drawn breath. “It was bad enough—God be thanked it wasn’t worse,” she said, softly. “I’d never have believed the day would come when I’d feel a particle of gratitude toward an Arab—nasty, slinking, treacherous creatures I’ve always thought them. That man of his lordship’s—Malec—fair gives me the creeps. But I suppose there’s good as well as bad amongst them, there must be by what you’ve told me. A Christian gentleman couldn’t have done more, and there’s many who’d have done less. What did you say his name was, Miss Marny?”
Marny turned drowsily, settling more comfortably into the pillows.
“He didn’t tell me his name,” she said, sleepily, “he said he was called El Hakim.”
“And what might that mean?”