The Veiled Lady, and Other Men and Women Part 2

The next instant the young man stood by my side.

"The people are only curious, monsieur," he said in French. "If they disturb you I will have them sent away. So few painters come--you are the first I have seen in many years. If it will not annoy you, I'd like to watch you a while."

"Annoy me, my dear sir!" I was on my feet now, hat in hand. (If he had been my long-lost brother, stolen by the Indians or left on a desert island to starve--or any or all of those picturesque and dramatic things--I could not have been more glad to see him. I fairly hugged myself--it seemed too good to be true.) "I will be more than delighted if you will take my dragoman's stool. Get up, Joe, and give--"

The request had already been forestalled. Joe was not only up, but was bowing with the regularity and precision of the arms of a windmill, his fingers, with every rise, fluttering between his s.h.i.+rt-stud and his eyebrows. On his second upsweep the young prince got a view of his face--then his hand went out.

"Why, it is Hornstog! We know each other. We met in Damascus. You could not, monsieur, find a better dragoman in all Constantinople."

Only three pairs of eyes now followed the movements of my brush, the crowd having fallen back out of respect for the young man's rank, Yusuf having communicated that fact to those who had not recognized him.

When the light changed--and it changed unusually early that morning, about two hours ahead of time (I helped)--I said to the prince:

"It may interest you to see me finish a sketch in color. Come with me as far as Suleiman. We can sit quite out of the sun up a little back street under a wall, and away from everybody. I began the drawing yesterday. See!" and I uncovered the canvas.

"Ah, Suleimanyeh! The most beautiful of all our mosques. Yes, certainly I'll go."

Joe dug his knuckles into my thigh, under pretence of steadying himself--he was squatting beside me like a frog, helping with the water-cups--and gasped: "No; don't take him--please, effendi! No--no--"

I brushed Joe aside and continued: "We can send for coffee and spend the afternoon. I'll have some chairs brought from the cafe. Pick up everything, Joe, and come along."

On the way to the crooked, break-neck street my thoughts went racing through my head. On one side, perhaps, a tap on the shoulder in the middle of the night; half a yard of catgut in the hands of a Bas.h.i.+-Bazouk; an appeal to our consul, with the consciousness of having meddled with something that did not concern me. On the other a pair of tear-stained, pleading eyes. Not my eyes--not the eyes of anybody that I knew--but the kind that raise the devil even in the heart of a staid old painter like myself.

Joe followed, with downcast gaze. He, too, was scheming. He could not protest before the prince, nor before Yusuf. That would imply previous knowledge of the danger lurking in the vicinity of the old wall. His was the devil and the deep sea. Not to tell the prince of Yuleima's whereabouts, after their combined search for her, and the fees the prince had paid him, would be as cruel as it was disloyal. To a.s.sist in Mahmoud's finding her would bring down upon his own head--if it was still on his shoulders--the wrath of the chief of police, as well as the power behind him.

Once under the shadow of the wall, the trap unpacked, easel and umbrella up, and water-bottle filled, Joe started his windmill, paused at the third kotow, looked me straight in the eye, and, with a tone in his voice, as if he had at last come to some conclusion, made this request:

"I have no eat breakfast, effendi--very hungry--you please permit Joe go cafe with Yusuf--we stay ONE hour, no more. Then I bring coffee. You see me when I come--I bring the coffee myselluf."

He could not have pleased me more. How to get rid of them both was what had been bothering me.

I painted on, both of us backed into the low gate with the sliding panel, my eyes on the mosque, my ears open for the slightest sound. We talked of the wonderful architecture of the East, of the taper of the minarets, of the grace and dignity of the priests, of the social life of the people, I leading and he following, until I had brought the conversation down to the question:

"And when you young men decide to marry are you free to choose, as we Europeans are?" I was feeling about, wondering how much of his confidence he would give me.

"No; that's why, sometimes, I wish I was like one of the white gulls that fly over the water."

"I don't understand."

"I would be out at sea with my mate--that's what I mean."

"Have you a mate?"

"I had. She is lost."

"Dead?"

"Worse."

I kept at work. White clouds sailed over the mosque; a flurry of pigeons swept by; the air blew fresh. With the exception of my companion and myself the street was deserted. I dared not go any further in my inquiries. If I betrayed any more interest or previous knowledge he might think I was in league against him.

"The girl, then, suffers equally with the man?" I said, tightening one of the legs of my easel.

"More. He can keep his body clean; she must often barter hers in exchange for her life. A woman doesn't count much in Turkey. This is one of the things we young men who have seen something of the outside world--I lived a year in Paris--will improve when we get the power,"

and his eyes flashed.

"And yet it is dangerous to help one of them to escape, is it not?"

"Yes."

The hour was nearly up. Joe, I knew, had fixed it, consulting his watch and comparing it with mine so that I might know the coast was clear during that brief period should anything happen.

"I was tempted to help one yesterday," I answered. "I saw a woman's face that has haunted me ever since. She may not have been in trouble, but she looked so." Then quietly, and as if it was only one of the many incidents that cross a painter's path, I described in minute detail the gate, the sliding panel, the veiled face and wondrous eyes, the approach of the officer, the smothered cry of terror, the black finger and thumb that reached out, and the noiseless closing of the panel.

What I omitted was all reference to Joe or his knowledge of the girl.

Mahmoud was staring into my eyes now.

"Where was this?"

"Just behind you. Lift your head--that seam marks the sliding panel.

She may come again when she sees the top of my umbrella over the wall.

Listen! That's her step. She has some one with her--crouch down close.

There's only room for her head. You may see her then without her attendant knowing you are here. Quick! she is sliding the panel!"

Outside of Paris, overlooking the Seine, high up on a hill, stands the Bellevue--a restaurant known to half the world. Sweeping down from the perfectly appointed tables lining the rail of the broad piazza; skimming the tree-tops, the plain below, the twisting river, rose-gold in the twilight, the dots of parks and villas, the eye is lost in the distant city and the haze beyond--the whole a-twinkle with myriads of electric lights.

There, one night, from my seat against the opposite wall (I was dining alone), I was amusing myself watching a table being set with more than usual care; some rich American, perhaps, with the world in a sling, or some young Russian running the gauntlet of the dressing-rooms. Staid old painters like myself take an interest in these things. They serve to fill his note-book, and sometimes help to keep him young.

When I looked again the waiter was drawing out a chair for a woman with her back to me. In the half-light, her figure, in silhouette against the cl.u.s.ter of candles lighting the table, I could see that she was young and, from the way she took her seat, wonderfully graceful.

Opposite her, drawing out his own chair, stood a young man in evening dress, his head outlined against the low, twilight sky. It was Mahmoud!

I sprang from my seat and walked straight toward them. There came a low cry of joy, and then four outstretched arms--two of them tight-locked about my neck.

"Tell me," I asked, when we had seated ourselves, Yuleima's hands still clinging to mine. "After I left you that last night in the garden, was the boat where we hid it?"

"Yes."

"Who rowed you to the steamer?"

"My old caique-ji."

"And who got the tickets and pa.s.sports?"

"Hornstog."

LORETTA OF THE s.h.i.+PYARDS