Chapter 54
Mrs. Gainsborough sat up and looked at the rowboats filled with Moors, negroes, and Jews.
"But they're nearly all of them black," she gasped.
"Of course they are. What color did you expect them to be? Green like yourself?"
"But do you mean to say you've brought me to a place inhabited by blacks? Well, I never did. It's to be hoped we sha'n't be eaten alive.
Mrs. Marsham! Mrs. Ewings! Mrs. Beardmore! Well, I don't say they haven't told me some good stories now and again, but--"
Mrs. Gainsborough shook her head to express the depths of insignificance to which henceforth the best stories of her friends would have to sink when she should tell about herself in Morocco.
"Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves," said Mrs. Gainsborough, when they stood upon the quay. "I feel like the widow Tw.a.n.kay myself."
Sylvia remembered her ambition to visit the East, when she herself wore a yashmak in Open Sesame: here it was fulfilling perfectly her most daring hopes.
Mrs. Gainsborough was relieved to find a comparatively European hotel, and next morning after a long sleep she was ready for any adventure.
"Sylvia!" she suddenly screamed when they were being jostled in the crowded bazaar. "Look, there's a camel coming toward us! Did you ever hear such a hollering and jabbering in all your life? I'm sure I never did. Mrs. Marsham and her camel at the Zoo. Tut-tut-tut! Do you suppose Mrs. Marsham ever saw a camel coming toward her in the street like a cab-horse might? Certainly not. Why, after this there's nothing _in_ her story. It's a mere anecdote."
They wandered up to the outskirts of the prison, and saw a fat Jewess being pushed along under arrest for giving false weight. She made some resistance in the narrow entrance, and the guard planted his foot in the small of her back, so that she seemed suddenly to crumple up and fall inside.
"Well, I've often said lightly 'what a heathen' or 'there's a young heathen,' but that brings it home to one," said Mrs. Gainsborough, gravely.
Sylvia paid no attention to her companion's outraged sympathy. She was in the East where elderly obese Jewesses who gave false weight were well treated thus. She was living with every moment of rapturous reality the dreams of wonder that the _Arabian Nights_ had brought her in youth. Yet Tangier was only a gateway to enchantments a hundredfold more powerful.
She turned suddenly to Mrs. Gainsborough and asked her if she could stay here while she rode into the interior.
"Stay here alone?" Mrs. Gainsborough exclaimed. "Not if I know it."
This plan of Sylvia's to explore the interior of Morocco was narrowed down ultimately into riding to Tetuan, which was apparently just feasible for Mrs. Gainsborough, though likely to be rather fatiguing.
A dragoman was found, a certain Don Alfonso reported to be comparatively honest. He was an undersized man rather like the stump of a tallow candle into which the wick has been pressed down by the snuffer, for he was bald and cream-colored, with a thin, uneven black mustache and two nodules on his forehead. His clothes, too, were crinkled like a candlestick. He spoke French well, but preferred to speak English, of which he only knew two words, "all right"; this often made his advice unduly optimistic. In addition to Don Alfonso they were accompanied by a Moorish trooper and a native called Mohammed.
"A soldier, is he?" said Mrs. Gainsborough, regarding the grave bearded man to whose care they were intrusted. "He looks more like the outside of an ironmonger's shop. Swords, pistols, guns, spears. It's to be hoped he won't get aggravated with us on the way. I should look very funny lying in the road with a pistol through my heart."
They rode out of Tangier before a single star had paled in the east, and when dawn broke they were in a wide valley fertile and bright with flowers; green
"I wish you'd tell that Mahomet not to irritate my poor mule by egging it on all the time," Mrs. Gainsborough said to Don Alfonso, who, realizing by her gestures that she wanted something done to her mount, and supposing by her smile that the elation of adventure had seized her, replied "All right," and said something in Moorish to Mohammed. He at once caught the mule a terrific whack on the crupper, causing the animal to leap forward and leave Mrs. Gainsborough and the saddle in the path.
"Now there's a nice game to play!" said Mrs. Gainsborough, indignantly.
"'All right,' he says, and 'boomph'! What's he think I'm made of? Well, of course here we shall have to sit now until some one comes along with a step-ladder. If you'd have let me ride on a camel," she added, reproachfully, to Sylvia, "this wouldn't have occurred. I'm not sitting on myself any more; I'm sitting on b.u.mps like eggs. I feel like a hen.
It's all very fine for Mr. Alfonso to go on gabbling, 'All right,' but it's all wrong, and if you'll have the goodness to tell him so in his own unnatural language I'll be highly obliged."
The Moorish soldier sat regarding the scene from his horse with immutable gravity.
"I reckon he'd like nothing better than to get a good jab at me now,"
said Mrs. Gainsborough. "Yes, I dare say I look very inviting sitting here on the ground. Well, it's to be hoped they'll have the 'Forty Thieves' or 'Aladdin' for the next pantomime at Drury Lane. I shall certainly invite Mrs. Marsham and Mrs. Beardmore to come with me into the upper boxes so as I can explain what it's all about. Mrs. Ewings doesn't like panto, or I'd have taken her too. She likes a good cry when she goes to the theater."
Mrs. Gainsborough was settling down to spend the rest of the morning in amiable reminiscence and planning, but she was at last persuaded to get up and mount her mule again after the strictest a.s.surances had been given to her of Mohammed's good behavior for the rest of the journey.
"He's not to bellow in the poor animal's ear," she stipulated.
Sylvia promised.
"And he's not to go screeching, '_Arra.s.sy_,' or whatever it is, behind, so as the poor animal thinks it's a lion galloping after him."
Mrs. Gainsborough was transferring all consideration for herself to the mule.
"And he's to throw away that stick."
This clause was only accepted by the other side with a good deal of protestation.
"And he's to keep his hands and feet to himself, and not to throw stones or nothing at the poor beast, who's got quite enough to do to carry me."
"And Ali Baba's to ride in front." She indicated the trooper. "It gets me on the blink when he's behind me, as if I was in a shooting-gallery.
If he's going to be any use to us, _which_ I doubt, he'll be more useful in front than hiding behind me."
"All right," said Don Alfonso, who was anxious to get on, because they had a long way to go.
"And that's enough of 'all right' from him," said Mrs. Gainsborough. "I don't want to hear any more 'all rights.'"
At midday they reached a khan, where they ate lunch and rested for two hours in the shade.
Soon after they had started again, they met a small caravan with veiled women and mules loaded with oranges.
"Quite pleasant-looking people," Mrs. Gainsborough beamed. "I should have waved my hand if I could have been sure of not falling off again.
Funny trick, wearing that stuff round their faces. I suppose they're ashamed of being so black."
Mrs. Gainsborough's progress, which grew more and more leisurely as the afternoon advanced, became a source of real anxiety to Don Alfonso; he confided to Sylvia that he was afraid the gates of Tetuan would be shut.
When Mrs. Gainsborough was told of his alarm she was extremely scornful.
"He's having you on, Sylvia, so as to give Mohamet the chance of slos.h.i.+ng my poor mule again. Whoever heard of a town having gates? He'll tell us next that we've got to pay sixpence at the turnstile to pa.s.s in."
They came to a high place where a white stone by the path recorded a battle between Spaniards and Moors. Far below were the domes and rose-dyed minarets of Tetuan and a s.h.i.+ning river winding to the sea.
They heard the sound of a distant gun.
"Sunset," cried Don Alfonso, much perturbed. "In half an hour the gates will be shut."
He told tales of brigands and of Riffs, of travelers found with their throats cut outside the city walls, and suddenly, as if to give point to his fears, a figure leaning on a long musket appeared in silhouette upon the edge of the hill above them. It really seemed advisable to hurry, and, notwithstanding Mrs. Gainsborough's expostulations, the speed of the party was doubled down a rocky descent to a dried-up watercourse with high banks. Twilight came on rapidly and the soldier prepared one of his numerous weapons for immediate use in an emergency. Mrs.
Gainsborough was much too nervous about falling off to bother about brigands, and at last without any mishap they reached the great castellated gate of Tetuan. It was shut.
"Well, I never saw the like," said Mrs. Gainsborough. "It's true, then.
We must ring the bell, that's all."
The soldier, Mohammed, and Don Alfonso raised their voices in a loud hail, but n.o.body paid any attention, and the twilight deepened. Mrs.
Gainsborough alighted from her mule and thumped at the iron-studded door. Silence answered her.
"Do you mean to tell me seriously that they're going to keep us outside here all night? Why, it's laughable!" Suddenly she lifted her voice and cried, "Milk-ho!" Whether the unusual sound aroused the curiosity or the alarm of the porter within was uncertain, but he leaned his head out of a small window above the gate and shouted something at the belated party below. Immediately the dispute for which Mohammed and Don Alfonso had been waiting like terriers on a leash was begun; it lasted for ten minutes without any of the three partic.i.p.ants drawing breath.
In the end Don Alfonso announced that the porter declined to open for less than two francs, although he had offered him as much as one franc fifty. With a determination not to be beaten that was renewed by the pause for breath, Don Alfonso flung himself into the argument again, splendidly a.s.sisted by Mohammed, who seemed to be tearing out his hair in baffled fury.