As for Craig, he is undecided whether to call Sir Lionel a fool or a knave, and is rapidly drifting to a belief that the Briton may be a composite of both.
They have much to see in Algiers. Mosques, bazaars, and the remarkable features that cluster about this famous resort. A thousand and one things unite to charm a traveler who strikes Algiers in the winter time, and they usually go hence with many regrets, and memories that will never fade.
John watches his chance to speak to the girl at his side. He feels that the time has come when he must tell her what he has in his heart—that he loves her.
If she gives him his conge, he will go his way and try to forget; but he has hopes of a different answer; eye speaks to eye, and there is a language of the heart that needs not lips to proclaim it, a secret telegraphy that brings together those who love. The touch of a hand thrills as no other touch can, and the sound of a voice heard unexpectedly causes the heart to almost cease beating.
At length he makes an opportunity, as only a bold and determined lover can. They have gone in the street-cars to the terraced heights of Mustapha Superieur, to visit a house which most tourists see—a house with a remarkable history—and in departing, John and Lady Ruth somehow are separated from the rest. The fault lies with him, because at the last moment he proposed a final view of the wonderful scene spread out below, to which Lady Ruth consented, and as the others boarded the tram-car that would take them back to the city, John called out their intention, and that they would join them later.
There is nothing singular about this, and yet Lady Ruth's cheeks turn rosy as she hears Aunt Gwen's laugh, and stealing a glance over her shoulder discovers that quaint individual shaking her finger out of the car-window.
Upon a rustic seat the two rest. The grand panorama spread before them charms the eye, and they feast upon the glorious scene. How blue the sea appears, and the numerous sails are like splashes of white against the deep background.
There lies Algiers in all her glory, modern structures almost side by side with Mohammedan mosques, whose domes shine like great balls of gold and whose minarets guard the sacred edifice like sentries thrown out in the nature of defenses.
Who could gaze upon such a vision and not feel his heart stirred, must indeed be dead to everything that appeals to the better senses.
John Craig, M.D., might ordinarily be set down as an enthusiastic lover of nature, and such a scene when he first gazed upon it aroused the deepest emotions in his artist heart; but strange to say he pays little heed to what is before him now. It is what occupies the rustic seat in common with John Craig that takes his whole attention.