The Carpet from Bagdad

"Jones, for God's sake, wake up and suggest something! You know lots of decent people. Can't you think of some one?"

But for this call George might have continued to grope in darkness. Instantly he saw a way. He jumped to his feet and seized her by the hands, boyishly.

"Fortune, Ryanne is right. I've found a way. Mr. Mortimer, the president of my firm, is an old man, kindly and lovable. He and his wife are childless. They'll take you. Why, it's as easy as talking."

She leaned back against the drawing of his hands. She was afraid that in his eagerness he was going to take her in his arms. She wondered why, of a sudden, she had become so weak. Slowly she withdrew her hands from his.

"I'll cable the moment we reach port," he said, as if reaching port under the existing conditions was a thing quite possible. "Will you go to them? Why, they will give you every care in the world. And they will love you as … as you ought to be loved!"

Ryanne turned away his head.

Fortune was too deeply absorbed by her misery to note how near George had come to committing himself. "Thank you, Mr. Jones; thank you. I am going to the tent. I am tired. And I am not so brave as you think I am."

"But will you?"

"I shall tell you when we reach port." And with that she fled to the tent.

Ryanne folded his arms and stared at the sand. George sat down and aimlessly hunted for the stub of the cigar he had dropped; a kind of reflex action.

The two men were all alone. The camel-boys were asleep. Mahomed had now ceased to bother about a guard.

"I can't see where she gets this ridiculous sense of honesty," said Ryanne gloomily.

George leaned over and laid his hand upon Ryanne's knee. "She gets it the same way I do, Ryanne – from here," touching his heart; "and she is right."

"I believe I've missed everything worth while, Percival. Till I met you I always had a sneaking idea that money made a man evil. The boot seems to be upon the other foot."

"Ryanne, you spoke about becoming honest, once you get out of this. Did you mean it?"

"I did, and still do."

"It may be that I can give you a lift. You worked in your father's bank. You know something about figures. I own two large fruit-farms in California. What do you say to a hundred and fifty a month to start with, and begin life over again?"

Ryanne got up and restlessly paced. Nonchalance had been beaten out of him; the mercurial humor which had once been so pleasant to excite, which had once given him foothold in such moments, was gone. He had only one feeling, a keen, biting, bitter shame. At length he stopped in front of George, who smiled and looked up expectantly.

"Jones, when you stick your finger into water and withdraw it, what happens? Nothing. Well, the man who gives me a benefit is sticking his finger into water. I'm just as unstable. How many promises have I made and broken! I mean, promises to myself. I don't know. This moment I swear to be good, and along comes a pack of cards or a bottle of wine, and back I slip. Would it be worth while to trust a man so damned weak as that? Look at me. I am six-foot two, normally a hundred and eighty pounds, no fat. I am as sound as a cocoanut. There isn't a boxer in the States I'm afraid of. I can ride, shoot, fence, fight; there isn't a game I can't take a creditable hand in. So much for that. There's the other side. Morally, I'm putty. When it's soft you can mold it any which way; when it's hard, it crumbles. Will you trust a man like that?"

"Yes. Out there you'll be away from temptation."

"Perhaps. Well, I accept. And if one day I'm missing, think kindly of the poor devil of an outcast who wanted to be good and couldn't be. I'm fagged. I'm going to turn in. Good night."

He picked up his blanket and saddle-bags and made his bed a dozen yards away.

George set his gaze at the fire, now falling in places and showing incandescent holes. A month ago, in the rut of commonplace, moving round in the oiled grooves of mediocrity. Bang! like a rocket. Why, never had those liars in the smoke-rooms recounted anything half so wild and strange as this adventure. Smugglers, card-sharps, an ancient rug, a caravan in the desert! He turned his head and looked long and earnestly at the little tent. Love, too; love that had put into his diffident heart the thrill and courage of a Bayard. Love! He saw her again as she stepped down from the carriage; in the dining-room at his side, leaning over the parapet; ineffably sweet, hauntingly sad. Would she accept the refuge he had offered? He knew that old Mortimer would take her without question. Would she accept the shelter of that kindly roof? She must! If she refused and went her own way into the world, he would lose her for ever. She must accept! He would plead with all the eloquence of his soul, for his own happiness, and mayhap hers. He rose, faced the tent, and, with a gesture not unlike that of the pagan in prayer, registered a vow that never should she want for protection, never should she want for the comforts of life. How he was going to keep such a vow was a question that did not enter his head. Somehow he was going to accomplish the feat.

What mattered the ragged beard upon his face, the ragged clothes upon his body, the tattered cloths upon his feet, the grotesque attitude and ensemble? The Lord of Life saw into his heart and understood. And who might say with what joy Pandora gazed upon this her work, knowing as she did what still remained within her casket?

From these heights, good occasionally for any man's soul, George came down abruptly and humanly to the prosaic question of where would he make his bed that night? To lie down at the north side of the fire meant a chill in the morning; the south side, the intermittent, acrid breath of the fire itself; so he threw down his blanket and bags east of the fire, wrapped himself up, and sank into slumber, light but dreamless.

What was that? He sat up, alert, straining his ears. How long had he been asleep? An hour by his watch. What had awakened him? Not a sound anywhere, yet something had startled him out of his sleep. He glanced over the camp. That bundle was Ryanne. He waited. Not a movement there. No sign of life among the camel-boys; and the flaps of the two tents were closed. Bah! Nerves, probably; and he would have lain down again had his gaze not roved out toward the desert. Something moved out there, upon the misty, moonlit space. He shaded his eyes from the fire, now but a heap of glowing embers. He got up, and shiver after shiver wrinkled his spine. Oh, no; it could not be a dream; he was awake. It was a living thing, that long, bobbing camel-train, coming directly toward the oasis, no doubt attracted by the firelight. Fascinated, incapable of movement, he watched the approach. Three white dots; and these grew and grew and at length became … pith-helmets! Pith-helmets! Who but white men wore pith-helmets in the desert? White men! The temporary paralysis left him. Crouching, he ran over to Ryanne and shook him.

"What…"

But George smothered the question with his hand. "Hush! For God's sake, make no noise! Get up and stand guard over Fortune's tent. There's a caravan outside, and I'm going out to meet it. Ryanne, Ryanne, there's a white man out there!"

George ran as fast as he could toward the incoming caravan. He met it two or three hundred yards away. The broken line of camels bobbed up and down oddly.

"Are you white men?" he called.

"Yes," said a deep, resonant voice. "And stop where you are; there's no hurry."

"Thank God!" cried George, at the verge of a breakdown.

"What the devil… Flanagan, here's a white man in a dress-suit! God save us!" The speaker laughed.

"Yes, a white man; and there's a white woman in the camp back there, a white woman! Great God, don't you understand? A white woman!" George clutched the man by the foot desperately. "A white woman!"

The man kicked George's hand away and slashed at his camel. "Flanagan, and you, Williams, get your guns in shape. This doesn't look good to me, twenty miles from the main gamelieh. I told you it was odd, that fire. Lively, now!"

George ran after them, staggering. Twice he fell headlong. But he laughed as he got up; and it wasn't exactly human laughter, either. When he reached camp he saw Mahomed and the three strangers, the latter with their rifles held menacingly. Fortune stood before the flap of her tent, bewildered at the turn in their affairs. Behind the leader of the new-comers was Ryanne, and he was talking rapidly.

"Well," the leader demanded of Mahomed, "what have you to say for yourself?"

"Nothing!"

"Take care! It wouldn't come hard to put a bullet into your ugly hide. You can't abduct white women these days, you beggar! Well, what have you to say?"

Mahomed folded his arms; his expression was calm and unafraid. But down in his heart the fires of hell were raging. If only he had brought his rifle from the tent; even a knife; and one mad moment if he died for it! And he had been gentle to the girl; he had withheld the lash from the men; he had not put into action a single plan arranged for their misery and humiliation! Truly his blood had turned to water, and he was worthy of death. The white man, always and ever the white man won in the end. To have come this far, and then to be cheated out of his revenge by chance! Kismet! There was but one thing left for him to do, and he did it. He spoke hurriedly to his head-boy. The boy without hesitation obeyed him. He ran to the racing-camel, applied a kick, flung on the saddle-bags, stuffed dates and dried fish and two water-bottles into them, and waited. Mahomed walked over to the animal and mounted.

"Stop!" The white man leveled his rifle. "Get down from there!"

Mahomed, as if he had not heard, kicked the camel with his heels. The beast lurched to its feet resentfully. Mahomed picked up the guiding-rope which served as a bridle, and struck the camel across the neck.

Click! went the hammer of the rifle, and Mahomed was at that moment very near death. He gave no heed.

"No, no!" cried Fortune, pushing up the barrel. "Let him go. He was kind to me, after his fashion."

Mahomed smiled. He had expected this, and that was why he had gone about the business unconcernedly.

"What do you say?" demanded the stranger of Ryanne.

Ryanne, having no love whatever for Mahomed, shrugged.

"Humph! And you?" to George.

"Oh, let him go."

"All right. Two to one. Off with you, then," to Mahomed. "But wait! What about these beggars of yours? What are you going to do with them?"

"They have been paid. They can go back."

The moment the camel felt the sand under his pads, he struck his gait eastward. And when the mists and shadows crept in behind him and his rider, that was the last any of them ever saw of Mahomed-El-Gebel, keeper of the Holy Yhiordes in the Pasha's palace at Bagdad.

"Now then," said the leader of the strange caravan, "my name is Ackermann, and mine is a carpet-caravan, in from Khuzistan, bound for Smyrna. How may I help you?"

"Take us as far as Damascus," answered Ryanne. "We can get on from there well enough."

"What's your name?" directly.

"Ryanne."

"And yours?"

"Fortune Chedsoye."

"Next?"

"Jones."

The humorous bruskness put a kind of spirit into them all, and they answered smilingly.

"Ryanne and Jones are familiar enough, but Chedsoye is a new one. Here, you!" whirling suddenly upon the boys who were pressing about. He volleyed some Arabic at them, and they dropped back. "Well, I've heard some strange yarns myself in my time, but this one beats them all. Shanghaied from Cairo! Humph! If some one had told me this, anywhere else but here, I'd have called him a liar. And you, Mr. Ryanne, went into Bagdad alone and got away with that Yhiordes! It must have been the devil's own of a job."

"It was," replied Ryanne laconically. He did not know this man Ackermann; he had never heard of him; but he recognized a born leader of men when he saw him. Gray-haired, lean, bearded, sharp of word, quick of action, rude; he saw in this carpet-hunter the same indomitable qualities of the ivory-seeker. "You did not stop at Bagdad?" he asked, after the swift inventory.

"No. I came direct. I always do," grimly. "Better turn in and sleep; we'll be on the way at dawn, sharp."

"Sleep?" Ryanne laughed.

"Sleep?" echoed George.

Fortune shook her head.

"Well, an hour to let the reaction wear away," said Ackermann. "But you've got to sleep. I'm boss now, and you won't find me an easy one," with a humorous glance at the girl.

"We are all very happy to be bossed by you," she said.

"Twenty days," Ackermann mused. "You're a plucky young woman. No hysterics?"

"Not even a sigh of discontent," put in George. "If it hadn't been for her pluck, we'd have gone to pieces just from worry. Are you Henry Ackermann, of the Oriental Company in Smyrna?"

"Yes; why?"

"I'm George P. A. Jones, of Mortimer & Jones, New York. I've heard of you; and God bless you for this night's work!"

"Mortimer & Jones? You don't say! Well, if this doesn't beat the Dutch! Why, if you're Robert E. Jones's boy, I'll sell you every carpet in the pack at cost." He laughed; and it was laughter good to hear, dry and harsh though it was. "Your dad was a fine gentleman, and one of the best judges of his time. You couldn't fool him a knot. He wrote me when you came into this world of sin and tribulation. Didn't they call you Percival Algernon, or something like that?"

"They did!" And George laughed, too.

"You're a sight. Any one sick? Got a medicine-chest aboard."

"No, only banged up and discouraged. I say, Mr. Ackermann, got an extra pipe or two and some 'baccy?"

"Flanagan, see what's in the chest."

Shortly Flanagan returned. He had half a dozen fresh corn-cob pipes and a thick bag of tobacco. George and Ryanne lighted up, about as near contentment as two men in their condition could possibly be.

Said Flanagan to Fortune: "Do you chew?"

Fortune looked horrified.

"Oh, I mean gum!" roared Flanagan.

No, Fortune did not possess that dubious accomplishment.

"Mighty handy when you're thirsty," Flanagan advised.

They built up the fire and sat round it cosily. They were all more or less happy, all except Fortune. So long as she had been a captive of Mahomed, she had forced the thought from her mind; but now it came back with a full measure of misery. Never, never would she return to Mentone, not even for the things that were rightfully hers. Where would she go and what would she do? She was without money, and the only thing she possessed of value was the Soudanese trinket Ryanne had forced upon her that day in the bazaars. She heard the men talking and laughing, but without sensing. No, she could not accept charity. She must fight out her battle all alone… The child of a thief: for never would her clear mind accept smuggling as other than thieving… Neither could she accept pity; and she stole a glance at George, as he blew clouds of smoke luxuriantly from his mouth and nose, his eyes half closed in ecstasy. How little it took to comfort a man!

Ryanne suddenly lowered his pipe and smote his thigh. "Hell!" he muttered.

"What's up?" asked George.

"I want you to look at me, Percival; I want you to take a good look at this thing I've been carrying round as a head."

"It looks all right," observed George, puzzled.

"Empty as a dried cocoanut! I never thought of it till this moment. I wondered why he was in such a hurry to get out. I've let that copper-hided devil get away with that nine hundred pounds!"

CHAPTER XVII

MRS. CHEDSOYE HAS HER DOUBTS

Mrs. Chedsoye retired to her room early that memorable December night. Her brother could await the return of Horace. She hadn't the least doubt as to the result; a green young man pitted against a seasoned veteran's duplicity. She wished Jones no harm physically; in fact, she had put down the law against it. Still, much depended upon chance. But for all her confidence of the outcome, a quality of restlessness pervaded her. She tried to analyze it, ineffectually at first. Perhaps she did not look deep enough; perhaps she did not care thoroughly to examine the source of it. Insistently, however, it recurred; and by repeated assaults it at length conquered her. It was the child.

Did she possess, after all, a latent sense of motherhood, and was it stirring to establish itself? She really did not know. Was it not fear and doubt rather than motherly instinct? She paused in front of the mirror, but the glass solved only externals. She could not see her soul there in the reflection; she saw only the abundant gifts of nature, splendid, double-handed, prodigal. And in contemplating that reflection, she forgot for a space what she was seeking. But that child! From whom did she inherit her peculiar ideas of life? From some Puritan ancestor of her father's; certainly not from her side. She had never bothered her head about Fortune, save to house and clothe her, till the past forty-eight hours. And now it was too late to pick up the thread she had cast aside as not worth considering. To no one is given perfect wisdom; and she recognized the flaw in hers that had led her to ignore the mental attitude of the girl. She had not even made a friend of her; a mistake, a bit of stupidity absolutely foreign to her usual keenness. The child lacked little of being beautiful, and in three or four years she would be. Mrs. Chedsoye was without jealousy; she accepted beauty in all things unreservedly. Possessing as she did an incomparable beauty of her own, she could well afford to be generous. Perhaps the true cause of this disturbance lay in the knowledge that there was one thing her daughter had inherited from her directly, almost identically; indeed, of this pattern the younger possessed the wider margin of the two: courage. Mrs. Chedsoye was afraid of nothing except wrinkles, and Fortune was too young to know this fear. So then, the mother slowly began to comprehend the spirit which had given life to this singular perturbation. Fortune had declared that she would run away; and she had the courage to carry out the threat.

Resolutely Mrs. Chedsoye rang for her maid Celeste. Thoughts like these only served to disturb the marble smoothness of her forehead.

The two began to pack. That is to say, Celeste began; Mrs. Chedsoye generally took charge of these manœuvers from the heights, as became the officer in command. Bending was likely to enlarge the vein in the neck; and all those beautiful gowns would not be worth a soldi without the added perfection of her lineless throat and neck. She was getting along in years, too, a fact which was assuming the proportions of a cross; and more and more she must husband these lingering (not to say beguiling) evidences of youthfulness.

"We might as well get Fortune's things out of the way, too, Celeste."

"Yes, Madame."

"And bring my chocolate at half after eight in the morning. It is quite possible that we shall sail to-morrow night from Port Saïd. If not from there, from Alexandria. It all depends upon the booking, which can not be very heavy going west this time of year."

"As madame knows!" came from the depth of the cavernous trunk. Celeste was no longer surprised; at least she never evinced this emotion. For twelve years now she had gone from one end of the globe to the other, upon the shortest notice. While surprise was lost to her or under such control as to render it negligible, she still shivered with pleasurable excitement at the thought of entering a port. Madame was so clever, so transcendently clever! If she, Celeste, had not been loyal, she might have retired long ago, and owned a shop of her own in the busy Rue de Rivoli. But that would have meant a humdrum existence; and besides, she would have grown fat, which, of the seven horrors confronting woman, so madame said, was first in number.

"Be very careful how you handle that blue ball-gown."

"Oh, Madame!" reproachfully.

"It is the silver braid. Do not press the rosettes too harshly."

Celeste looked up. Mrs. Chedsoye answered her inquiring gaze with a thin smile.

"You are wonderful, Madame!"

"And so are you, Celeste, in your way."

At ten o'clock Mrs. Chedsoye was ready for her pillow. She slept fitfully; awoke at eleven and again at twelve. After that she knew nothing more till the maid roused her with the cup of chocolate. She sat up and sipped slowly. Celeste waited at the bedside with the tray. Her admiration for her mistress never waned. Mrs. Chedsoye was just as beautiful in dishabille as in a ball-gown. She drained the cup, and as she turned to replace it upon the tray, dropped it with a clatter, a startled cry coming from her lips.

"Madame?"

"Fortune's bed!"

It had not been slept in. The steamer-cloak lay across the counterpane exactly where Celeste herself had laid it the night before. Mrs. Chedsoye sprang out of her bed and ran barefoot to the other. Fortune had not been in the room since dinner-time.

"Celeste, dress me as quickly as possible. Hurry! Something has happened to Fortune."

Never, in all her years of service, could she recollect such a toilet as madame made that morning. And never before had she shown such concern over her daughter. It was amazing!

"The little fool! The little fool!" Mrs. Chedsoye repeatedly murmured as the nimble fingers of the maid flew over her. "The silly little fool; and at a time like this!" Not that remorse of any kind stirred Mrs. Chedsoye's conscience; she was simply extremely annoyed.

She hastened out into the corridor and knocked at the door of her brother's room. No answer. She flew down-stairs, and there she saw him coming in from the street. He greeted her cheerily.

"It's all right, Kate; plenty of room on the Ludwig. We shall take the afternoon train for Port Saïd. She sails at dawn to-morrow instead of to-night… What's up?" suddenly noting his sister's face.

"Fortune did not return to her room last night."

"What? Where do you suppose the little fool went, then?"

They both seemed to look upon Fortune as a little fool.

"Yesterday she threatened to run away."

"Run away? Kate, be sensible. How the deuce could she run away? She hasn't a penny. It takes money to go anywhere over here. She has probably found some girl friend, and has spent the night with her. We'll soon find out where she is." The Major wasn't worried.

"Have you seen Horace?" with discernible anxiety.

"No. I didn't wait up for him. He's sleeping off a night of it. You know his failing."

"Find out if he is in his room. Go to the porter's bureau and inquire for both him and Jones."

The Major, perceiving that his sister was genuinely alarmed, rushed over to the bureau. No, neither Mr. Ryanne nor Mr. Jones had been in the hotel since yesterday. Would the porter send some one up to the rooms of those gentlemen to make sure? Certainly. No; there was no one in the rooms. The Major was now himself perturbed. He went back to Mrs. Chedsoye.

"Kate, neither has been in his room since yesterday. If you want my opinion, it is this: Hoddy has sequestered Jones all right, and is somewhere in town, sleeping off the effects of a night of it."

"He has run away with Fortune!" she cried. Her expression was tragic. She couldn't have told whether it was due to her daughter's disappearance or to Horace's defection. "Did he not threaten?"

"Sh! not so loud, Kate."

"The little simpleton defied me yesterday, and declared she would leave me."

"Oho!" The Major fingered his imperial. "That puts a new face to the subject. But Jones! He has not turned up. We can not move till we find out what has become of him. I know. I'll jump into a carriage and see if he got as far as the English-Bar."

Mrs. Chedsoye did not go up-stairs, but paced the lounging-room, lithe and pantherish. Frequently she paused, as if examining the patterns in the huge carpets. She entered the reception-room, came back, wandered off into the ball-room, stopped to inspect the announcement hanging upon the bulletin-board, returned to the windows and watched the feluccas sail past as the great bridge opened; and during all these aimless occupations but a single thought busied her mind: what could a man like Horace see in a chit like Fortune?

It was an hour and a half before the Major put in an appearance. He was out of breath and temper.