Of one blood: or, The hidden self

by Pauline E. Hopkins

The expedition with which Reuel Briggs found himself connected was made up of artists, savants and several men—capitalists—who represented the business interests of the venture. Before the white cliffs of the English coast were entirely lost to view, Reuel’s natural propensities for leadership were being fully recognized by the students about him. There was an immediate demand for his professional services and he was kept busy for many days. And it was the best panacea for a nature like his—deep and silent and self-suppressing. He had abandoned happiness for duty; he had stifled all those ominous voices which rose from the depth of his heart, and said to him: “Will you ever return? and if you return will you find your dear one? and, if you find her, will she not have changed? will she have preserved your memory as faithfully as you will preserve hers?”

A thousand times a day while he performed his duties mechanically, his fate haunted him—the renunciation which called on him to give up happiness, to open to mishap the fatal door absence. All the men of the party were more or less silent and distrait, even Charlie Vance was subdued and thoughtful. But Briggs suffered more than any of them, although he succeeded in affecting a certain air of indifference. As he gradually calmed down and peace returned to his mind, he was surprised to feel the resignation that possessed him. Some unseen presence spoke to his inner being words of consolation and hope. He was shown very clearly his own inability to control events, and that his fate was no longer in his own hands but ordered by a being of infinite pity and love. After hours spent in soul-communion with the spirit of Dianthe, he would sink into refreshing slumber and away in peace. Her letters were bright spots, very entertaining and describing minutely her life and daily occupation since his departure. He lived upon them during the voyage to Tripoli, sustained by the hope of finding one upon arriving at that city.

One fine evening when the sun was setting, they arrived at Tripoli. Their course lay toward the southward, and standing on deck, Reuel watched the scene—a landscape strange in form, which would have delighted him and filled him with transports of joy; now he felt something akin to indifference.

The ripples that flit the burnished surface of the long undulating billows tinkled continually on the sides of the vessel. He was aware of a low-lying spectral-pale band of shore. That portion of Africa whose nudity is only covered by the fallow mantle of the desert gave a most sad impression to the gazer. The Moors call it “Bled el Ateusch,” the Country of Thirst; and, as there is an intimate relation between the character of a country and that of its people, Reuel realized vividly that the race who dwelt here must be different from those of the rest of the world.

“Ah! that is our first glimpse of Africa, is it?” said Adonis’s voice, full of delight, beside him.

He turned to see his friend offering him a telescope. “At last we are here. In the morning we shall set our feet on the enchanted ground.”

In the distance one could indeed make out upon the deep blue of the sky the profile of Djema el Gomgi, the great mosque on the shores of the Mediterranean. At a few cable lengths away the city smiles at them with all the fascination of a modern Cleopatra, circled with an oasis of palms studded with hundreds of domes and minarets. Against a sky of amethyst the city stands forth with a penetrating charm. It is the eternal enchantment of the cities of the Orient seen at a distance; but, alas! set foot within them, the illusion vanishes and disgust seizes you. Like beautiful bodies they have the appearance of life, but within the worm of decay and death eats ceaselessly.

At twilight in this atmosphere the city outlines itself faintly, then disappears in dusky haze. One by one the stars came into the sky until the heavens were a twinkling blaze; the sea murmured even her soft refrain and slept with the transparency of a mirror, flecked here and there with fugitive traces of phosphorescence.

The two young men stood a long time on the deck gazing toward the shore.

“Great night!” exclaimed Adonis at length with a long-drawn sigh of satisfaction. “It promises to be better than anything Barnum has ever given us even at a dollar extra reserved seat.”