The Desert Healer

by E. M. Hull

Pessimistically inclined, Derar, as always, prepared for the worst. And Carew, by this time writing cheques and orders at his desk, found himself constrained to smile more than once at the gloomy anticipations that were pronounced with melancholy fervour and interlarded with lengthy passages from the Koran. He listened quietly to the old man’s garrulous outpourings in which lamentations on his departure and pious invocations for his welfare were inextricably jumbled with household needs and requirements.

But the strain on his already overstrained nerves was greater than he expected and when at last Derar, still somewhat tearful but armed with plenary powers that made him swell with pride, finally salaamed himself out of the room, Carew scribbled a few lines to General Sanois and then leant back in his chair with a feeling of mental exhaustion. His mind made up to leave Algiers the time that must elapse before his actual departure hung heavily upon him. He glanced at the clock on his desk. It would be half-an-hour or more before his men would be ready and, depressed and restless as he was, the minutes seemed to drag with maddening slowness.

To relieve the tedium of waiting he went out into the garden. Some little distance from the house, amongst a grove of orange trees, he found Saba. Squatting on the ground, his nervous little body clad only in a gay striped gandhera, a fez perched rakishly on his small sleek head, the boy was chattering eagerly to a tiny monkey that was clinging to his shoulder. He was too absorbed in his newly acquired pet to notice Carew’s almost noiseless approach and it was the monkey that twittering shrilly with alarm made him realise he was no longer alone. He scrambled to his feet, his blind eyes turning uncertainly from side to side until Carew called to him when he darted forward, loosening his hold on the monkey which fled dismayed up into the branches of the nearest tree.

The confidant of all the servants, Saba was already in full possession of the new orders given to the household, and before Carew could speak he was assailed with a torrent of excited questions that were hurled at him to an accompaniment of joyous squeaks and prancings. The child’s pleasure was so obvious that Carew almost wavered in his decision to leave him at the villa with Hosein who was remaining a few days longer in Algiers to finish the preparations for the journey into the desert. But his crying need for solitude made the thought of even Saba’s companionship unendurable, and very gently he explained his wishes. The boy’s radiant little face clouded as he listened, but trained to obedience he did not voice his disappointment and very soon he was laughing again, childishly eager at the prospect of the journey and speculating on the probable number of days Hosein would require to complete his arrangements. And at the end of half-an-hour Carew left him playing contentedly with his recovered monkey and happy in the assurance that the separation should be a brief one.

The score of men who had come into Algiers from the camp were already collected when Carew returned to the house, and the narrow road that ran past the villa was blocked with horses whose riders, still dismounted, were exchanging raucous and voluble badinage with the small army of household servants assembled to watch the departure. Standing a little apart from the noisy throng, reserved and taciturn as was his wont, Hosein was holding Suliman, restraining with difficulty the spirited animal’s manifest impatience.

Carew’s appearance occasioned a sudden silence among his followers and the escort leapt to their horses while he himself mounted with less haste and lingered for a few moments to give Hosein some final directions. The actual moment come he would have given all he possessed to be able to remain in the town he had been longing weeks to leave. It took all his resolution to persevere in the course he had determined and give the men the signal for which they were waiting. At the head of his little troop he rode away with unaccustomed slowness and with a feeling of reluctance that grew momentarily greater as each stride of the big bay carried him further from the villa. He knew now what the house wanted, why it had seemed so empty and desolate, and the knowledge was an added pang to the bitterness that filled him. If his dream had been possible; if he could have seen her in reality, as he visualised her in his mind, the mistress of his home bringing life and happiness to the chill and formal rooms her presence would enrich and beautify; if the end of the journey he contemplated could have meant a return to her—Was it strength or weakness that was driving him from her now? Again he wrestled with the temptation of a few hours ago, a temptation that was fiercer, more gripping even that it had been before. Her pitiful helplessness seemed to make his flight the act of a craven. Of what use were the physical powers with which he was endowed if his strength could not save her from the life of misery to which she was condemned. Geradine’s lack of control, the almost demoniacal rages that resulted from his intemperance, was common talk. Thick drops of moisture gathered on his face as he remembered the man’s huge bulk and pictured her in the grip of those coarse, ape-like hands. To what lengths had he gone in the past—what devilish torture would he yet inflict on the tender little body Carew yearned to hold in his arms. His face was drawn with agony as he swept the cold sweat from his forehead.

The road he was following led past de Granier’s villa and ran parallel with the densely wooded hillside that shadowed its grounds. A sudden impulse came to him to look on the house that held the woman he loved—an impulse that was a species of subtle self-torture which even to himself seemed incomprehensible and to which tie yielded with a feeling of contempt. Pulling Suliman up sharply he swung to the ground and flinging the reins to the Arab he beckoned forward bade his escort ride on and wait for him beyond the villa. Standing where he had dismounted he watched them pass, and the last couple were some distance from him before he turned to the hillside where a tiny path wound upward between the close growing trees. A few minutes’ stiff climb and then the path curved abruptly to the left from whence it extended more or less levelly in the same direction as the road that lay some fifty or sixty feet below. His pace slackened as he neared the crossway track that led down to the garden entrance of the Villa des Ombres, and in a revulsion of feeling he cursed the weakness that had brought him there. But having come thus far he was unwilling to retrace his steps and, jerking his shoulders back with a characteristic gesture of impatience, he moved slowly forward with noiseless tread along the winding path that curved and twisted round the boles of the big trees. Their great girth obstructed anything but a limited view beyond them and made only a few yards of the way visible at a time.

It was still very early. Save for the birds twittering amongst the trees and the long strings of woolly caterpillars joined one behind the other pursuing their patient and meandering course over the rough ground, the hillside appeared to be deserted. But as Carew rounded the trunk of an exceptionally large tree, the jutting roots of which made necessary a more than usually wide detour, he came to a sudden halt with a quick intake of the breath that was almost a groan. With clenching hands and madly racing heart he stared at the girlish figure lying huddled amongst the undergrowth almost at his feet. Her face was hidden and she lay very still, so still that a terrible thought came to him parching his mouth and blanching his face under the deep tan. He tried to whisper her name but no sound issued from his stiff lips and unable to speak, unable to move, time was a thing forgotten while he struggled with the paralysing fear that held him motionless.

He never knew how long it was before she stirred, before the faint echo of a smothered sob allayed the dread that had taken hold of him and lessened the strangling grip that seemed clutching at his throat. But still he did not move. He would not go. He had tried to play the game—and the game had turned against him. He had wrestled with himself to no purpose. Fate had played into his hand and the meeting he had sought to escape was now unavoidable. The sight of her prostrate in an abandonment of grief had shattered all his strength—he could not leave her like this. Not trusting himself to touch her he waited with an almost bursting heart for her to realise his presence—and as once before in the opera house, so now did she seem gradually to become aware of the steady stare fixed on her. With a shuddering sigh she sat up slowly, turning her head towards him. And the deathly pallor of her face, the look of frozen misery in her tragic black-rimmed eyes sent a rush of savage rage through him that almost choked him. God, what must she have suffered to look like that! He sought for words but his own suffering held him speechless.

It was she who spoke first. She had looked at him almost unknowingly, then a wave of colour rushed into her pale cheeks to recede as quickly leaving them whiter than before. Stumbling to her feet she stood before him, swaying like a reed, struggling to regain her composure, striving to formulate the conventional greeting her trembling lips could scarcely utter. “Sir Gervas—” He guessed rather than heard the fluttering whisper. But before he could answer, before he could wrench his gaze from the pain-filled eyes that were wavering under his, he saw her stiffen suddenly and shrink from him with a backward glance of fearful apprehension. “What—who—” she muttered hoarsely. And, listening, he too heard the sound that had startled her—the deep murmur of men’s voices raised in heated altercation that came echoing up the hillside from the roadway beneath them. The voices of his own men, as he knew. But what did she think? And the anger and hatred that was seething within him flamed anew into all but uncontrollable fury as he watched her leaning white-lipped and shivering against the trunk of the giant cork tree and wondered how long it would be before that delicate organism and highly strung nervous system finally succumbed to the brutal treatment that was slowly but steadily reducing her to a physical and mental wreck. His hands clenched with the horrible pain of his own helplessness. But with a supreme effort he mastered himself, stifling the words that sprang to his lips and forcing his voice to naturalness as he answered her reassuringly. “It’s only my men—arguing as usual, the noisy devils.”