CHAPTER XIV
Julie was entering again the Arabian Nights’ city. It lay emblazoned in the light of a blood red torrid sun fast sinking behind a towering mountain that uprose out of wide stretching plains already shadowy under the first sprinkling of dusk. Through the streets of the City, the many races of the earth were moving in slow crooked currents. Back in the charmed City to stay! Back in the midst of the Empire-builders and the destiny of the enigmatic East!
Julie expected to go to one of the hostelries of the City. There were a number of them, of which the Oriente was by far the best known and most brilliant. It harbored under its palmy roof people from all corners of the world, and was the stage for a great deal of the drama of the East. There were Australians and New Zealanders, come up to see what the Americans were making of things and to have a bit of fun nearer than Europe; Hindoo rajahs with their trains, who had unaccountably found their way here; Chinese and Japanese officials bound, in silence, on their inconjectural errands. Manila was glitteringly cosmopolitan. It was just now attracting the eye of all the East, and picturesque people coursed in and out of it like a strange spice. Almost all of this throng found refuge in the Oriente. Not foreigners alone made lively this resort. There was the City’s own strange population; and exiles from the bosque were there seeking nepenthe for their souls in the dancing and music of its plaza, in its life and love. No old colonial of to-day can pass the still gates of this closed pavilion of pleasure without a pang for the vivid era of the past.
But this glittering khan Julie would be forced to pass by. Aside from the prices, high in those prodigal days of the Empire, the great hostelry, while respectable, held a much too vivid representation of Anglo-Asian life for a solitary girl.
The ship was wharfing. Julie perceived a conspicuous equipage waiting on the pier. Beside its white-liveried coachman sat an unbelievably small figure which was turning its strange miniature individuality about on the box. Isabel’s queer dwarf! He must have seen Julie, for in an instant he was burrowing his way through the travelers. Soon he was standing before her, extending a letter and nodding his uncanny little face up at her.
The note was from Isabel. She had written it just before setting out on some enterprise, and as she had intimated before would not be at home to receive Julie; but she had made all arrangements for Julie to remain in her house.
The dwarf gesticulated towards the carriage with one of his elfin hands. Delphine looking about him at all the wonder uttered an exclamation. The dwarf, glancing at him quickly, spoke to him in the same dialect. They began to chatter to each other.
The mannikin, Delphine excitedly informed Julie, had been born on the Island of Nahal.
The village of Guindulman—did they know it? the dwarf asked. Julie told him that she had lived there for some time. It was from there that he had been stolen as a child, and made a slave.