The Carpet from Bagdad

CHAPTER XVIII
THE MAN WHO DIDN'T CARE

It was the first of February when Ackermann's caravan drew into the ancient city of Damascus. That part of the caravan deserted by Mahomed put out for Cairo immediately they struck the regular camel-way. Fortune, George and Ryanne were in a pitiable condition, heart and body weary, in rags and tatters. George, now that the haven was assured, dropped his forced buoyancy, his prattle, his jests. He had done all a mortal man could do to keep up the spirits of his co-unfortunates; and he saw that, most of the time, he had wasted his talents. Ryanne, sullen and morose, often told him to "shut up"; which wasn't exhilarating. And Fortune viewed his attempts without sensing them and frequently looked at him without seeing him.

Now, all this was not particularly comforting to the man who loved her and was doing what he could to lighten the dreariness of the journey. He made allowances, however; besides suffering unusual privations, Fortune had had a frightful mental shock. A girl of her depth of character could not be expected to rise immediately to the old level. Sometimes, while gathered about the evening fire, he would look up to find her sad eyes staring at him, and it mattered not if he stared in return; a kind of clairvoyance blurred visibilities, for she was generally looking into her garden at Mentone and wondering when this horrible dream would pass. Subjects for conversation were exhausted in no time. Dig as he might, George could find nothing new; and often he recounted the same tale twice of an evening. Sardonic laughter from Ryanne.

Ackermann had given them up as hopeless. He was a strong, vain, domineering man, kindly at heart, however, but impatient. When he told a story, he demanded the attention of all; so, when Ryanne yawned before his eyes, and George drew pictures in the sand, and the girl fell asleep with her head upon her knees, he drew off abruptly and left them to their own devices. He had crossed and recrossed the silences so often that he was no longer capable of judging accurately another man's mental processes. That they had had a strange and numbing experience he readily understood; but now that they were out of duress and headed for the coast, he saw no reason why they should not act like human beings.

They still put up the small tent for Fortune, but the rest of them slept upon the sand, under the stars. Once, George awoke as the dawn was gilding the east. Silhouetted against the sky he saw Fortune. She was standing straight, her hands pressed at her sides, her head tilted back – a tense attitude. He did not know it, but she was asking God why these things should be. He threw off his blanket and ran to her.

"Fortune, you mustn't do that. You will catch cold."

"I can not sleep," she replied simply.

He took her by the hand and led her to the tent. "Try," he said. Then he did something he had never done before to any woman save his mother. He kissed her hand, turned quickly, and went over to his blanket. She remained motionless before the tent. The hand fascinated her. From the hand her gaze traveled to the man settling himself comfortably under his blanket… Pity, pity; that was ever to be her portion; pity!

In Damascus the trio presented themselves at the one decent hotel, and but for Ackermann's charges upon the manager, it is doubtful if he would have accepted them as guests; for a more suspicious-looking trio he had never set eyes upon. (A hotel man weighs a person by the quality of his clothes.) Moreover, they carried no luggage. Ackermann went sponsor; and knowing something of the integrity of the rug-hunter, the manager surrendered. And when George presented his letter of credit at the Imperial Ottoman Bank, again it was Ackermann who vouched for him. It had been agreed to say nothing of the character of their adventure. None of them wanted to be followed by curious eyes.

With a handful of British gold in his pocket, George faced the future hopefully. He took his companions in and about town, hunting the shops for clothing, which after various difficulties they succeeded in finding. It was ill-fitting and cheap, but it would serve till they reached either Alexandria or Naples.

"How are you fixed?" asked Ryanne, gloomily surveying George's shoddy cotton-wool suit.

"Cash in hand?"

"Yes."

"About four-hundred pounds. At Naples I can cable. Do you want any?"

"Would you mind advancing me two months' salary?"

"Ryanne, do you really mean to stick to that proposition?"

"It's on my mind just now."

"Well, we'll go back to the bank and I'll draw a hundred pounds for you. You can pay your own expenses as we go. But what are we going to do in regard to Fortune?"

"See that she gets safely back to Mentone."

"Suppose she will not go there?"

"It's up to you, Percival; it's all up to you. You're the gay Lochinvar from the west. I'm not sure – no one ever is regarding a woman – but I think she'll listen to you. She wouldn't give an ear to a scallawag like me. This caravan business has put me outside the pale. I've lost caste."

"You're only desperate and discouraged; you can pull up straight."

"Much obliged!"

"You haven't looked at life normally; that's what the matter is."

"Solon, you're right. There's that poor devil back in Bagdad. I've killed a man, Percival. It doesn't mix well with my dreams."

"You said that it was in self-defense."

"And God knows it was. But if I hadn't gone after that damned rug, he'd have been alive to-day. Oh, damn it all; let's go back to the hotel and order that club-steak, or the best imitation they have. I'm going to have a pint of wine. I'm as dull as a ditch in a paddy-field."

"A bottle or two will not hurt any of us. We'll ask Ackermann. For God knows where we'd have been to-day but for him. And let him do all the yarning. It will please him."

"And while he gabs, we'll get the best of the steak and the wine!" For the first time in days Ryanne's laughter had a bit of the erstwhile rollicking tone.

The dinner was an event. No delicacy (mostly canned) was overlooked. The manager, as he heard the guineas jingle in George's pocket, was filled with shame; not over his original doubts, but relative to his lack of perception. The tourists who sat at the other tables were scandalized at the popping of champagne-corks. Sanctimonious faces glared reproof. A jovial spirit in the Holy Land was an anacronism, not to be tolerated. And wine! Horrible! Doubtless, when they retired to their native back-porches, they retold with never-ending horror of having witnessed such a scene and having heard such laughter upon the sacred soil.

Even Fortune laughed, though Ryanne's ear, keenest then, detected the vague note of hysteria. If the meat was tough, the potatoes greasy, the vegetables flavorless, the wine flat, none of them appeared to be aware of it. If Ackermann could talk he could also eat; and the clatter of forks and knives was the theme rather than the variation to the symphony.

George felt himself drawn deeper and deeper into those magic waters from which, as in death, there is no return. She was so lonely, so sad and forlorn, that there was as much brother as lover in his sympathy. How patient she had been during all those inconceivable hardships! How brave and steady; and never a murmur! The single glass of wine had brought the color back to her cheek and the sparkle into her eye; yet he was sure that behind this apparent liveliness lay the pitiful desperation of the helpless. He had not spoken again about old Mortimer. He would wait till after he had sent a long cable. Then he would speak and show her the answer, of which he had not a particle of doubt. As matters now stood, he could not tell her that he loved her; his quixotic sense of chivalry was too strong to permit this step, urge as his heart might upon it. She might misinterpret his love as born of pity, and that would be the end of everything. He was confident now that Ryanne meant nothing to her. Her lack of enthusiasm, whenever Ryanne spoke to her in these days; the peculiar horizontality of her lips and brows, whenever Ryanne offered a trifling courtesy – all pointed to distrust. George felt a guilty gladness. After all, why shouldn't she distrust Ryanne?

George concluded that he must acquire patience. She was far too loyal to run away without first giving him warning. In the event of her refusing Mortimer's roof and protection, he knew what his plans would be. Some one else could do the buying for Mortimer & Jones; his business would be to revolve round this lonely girl, to watch and guard her without her being aware of it. Of what use were riches if he could not put them to whatever use he chose? So he would wait near her, to see that she came and went unmolested, till against that time when she would recognize how futile her efforts were and how wide and high the wall of the world was.

That mother of hers! To his mind it was positively unreal that one so charming and lovely should be at heart strong as the wind and merciless as the sea. His mother had been everything; hers, worse than none, an eternal question. What a drama she had moved about in, without understanding!

George did not possess that easy and adjustable sophistry which made Ryanne look upon smuggling as a clever game between two cheats. His point of view coincided with Fortune's; it was thievery, more or less condoned, but the ethics covering it were soundly established. He had come very near being culpable himself. True, he would not have been guilty of smuggling for profit; but none the less he would have tried to cheat the government. His sin had found him out; he had now neither the rug nor his thousand pounds.

All these cogitations passed through his mind, disjointedly, as the dinner progressed toward its end. They bade Ackermann good-by and God-speed, as he was to leave early for Beirut, upon his way to Smyrna. Fortune went to bed; Ryanne sought the billiard-room and knocked about the balls; while George asked the manager if he could send a cable from the hotel. Certainly he could. It took some time to compose the cable to Mortimer; and it required some gold besides. Mortimer must have a fair view of the case; and George presented it, requesting a reply to be sent to Cook's in Naples, where they expected to be within ten days.

"How much will this be?"

The porter got out his telegraph-book and studied the rates carefully.

"Twelve pounds and six, sir."

The porter greeted each sovereign with a genuflection, the lowest being the twelfth. George pocketed the receipt and went in search of Ryanne.

But that gentleman was no longer in the billiard-room. Indeed, he had gone quietly to the other hotel and written a cable himself, the code of which was not to be found in any book. For a long time he seemed to be in doubt, for he folded and refolded his message half a dozen times before his actions became decisive. He tore it up and threw the scraps upon the floor and hastened into the street, as if away from temptation. He walked fast and indirectly, smoking innumerable cigarettes. He was fighting, and fighting hard, the evil in him against the good, the chances of the future against the irreclaimable past. At the end of an hour he returned to the strange hotel. His lips were puffed and bleeding. He had smoked so many cigarettes and had pulled them so impatiently from his mouth, that the dry paper had cracked the delicate skin.

He rewrote his cable and paid for the sending of it. Then he poked about the unfamiliar corridors till he found the dingy bar. He sat down before a peg of whisky, which was followed by many more, each a bit stiffer than its predecessor. At last, when he had had enough to put a normal man's head upon the table or to cover his face with the mask of inanity, Ryanne fell into the old habit of talking aloud.

"Horace, old top, what's the use? We'd just like to be good if we could; eh? But they won't let us. We'd grow raving mad in a monastery. We were honest at the time, but we couldn't stand the monotony of watching green olives turn purple upon the silvery bough. Nay, nay!"

He pushed the glass away from him and studied the air-bubbles as they formed, rose to the surface, and were dissipated.

"No matter what the game has been, somehow or other, they've bashed us, and we've lost out."

He emptied the glass and ordered another. He and the bartender were alone.

"After all, love is like money. It's better to live frugally upon the interest than to squander the capital and go bankrupt. And who cares, anyhow?"

He drank once more, dropped a half-sovereign upon the table, and pushed back his chair. His eyes were bloodshot now, and the brown of his skin had become a slaty tint; but he walked steadily enough into the reading-room, where he wrote a short letter. It was not without a perverted sense of humor, for a smile twisted his lips till he had sealed the letter and addressed the envelope to George Percival Algernon Jones. He stuffed it into a pocket and went out whistling The Heavy Dragoons from the opera Patience.

Before the lighted window of a shop he paused. He swayed a little. From a pocket of his new coat he pulled out a glove. It was gray and small and much wrinkled. From time to time he drew it through his fingers, staring the while at the tawdry trinkets in the shop-window. Finally he looked down at the token. He became very still. A moment passed; then he flung the glove into the gutter, and proceeded to his own hotel. He left the letter with the porter, paid his bill, and went out again into the dark, chill night.

He was now what he had been two months ago, the man who didn't care.

CHAPTER XIX
FORTUNE DECIDES

George and Fortune were seated at breakfast. It was early morning. At ten they were to depart for Jaffa, to take the tubby French packet there to Alexandria. They could just about make it, and any delay meant a week or ten days longer upon this ragged and inhospitable coast.

"Ryanne has probably overslept. After breakfast I'll go up and rout him out. The one thing that really tickles me," George continued, as he pared the tough rind from the skinny bacon, "is, we shan't have any luggage. Think of the blessing of traveling without a trunk or a valise or a steamer-roll!"

"Without even a comb or a hairbrush!"

"It's great fun." George broke his toast.

And Fortune wondered how she should tell him. She was without any toilet articles. She hadn't even a tooth-brush; and it was quite out of the question for her to bother him about such trifles, much as she needed them. She would have to live in the clothes she wore, and trust that the ship's stewardess might help her out in the absolute necessities.

Here the head-waiter brought George a letter. The address was enough for George. No one but Ryanne could have written it. Without excusing himself, he ripped off the envelope and read the contents. Fortune could not resist watching him, for she grasped quickly that only Ryanne could have written a letter here in Damascus. At first the tan upon George's cheeks darkened – the sudden suffusion of blood; then it became lighter, and the mouth and eyes and nose became stern.

"Is it bad news?"

"It all depends upon how you look at it. For my part, good riddance to bad rubbish. Here, read it yourself."

She read:

"My Dear Percival:

"After all, I find that I can not reconcile myself to the dullness of your olive-groves. I shall send the five-hundred to you when I reach New York. With me it is as it was with the devil. When he was sick, he vowed he would be a saint; but when he got well, devil a saint was he. There used to be a rhyme about it, but I have forgotten that. Anyhow, there you are. I feel that I am conceding a point in regard to the money. It is contrary to the laws and by-laws of the United Romance and Adventure Company to refund. Still, I intend to hold myself to it.

"With hale affection,

"Ryanne."

"What do you think of that?" demanded George hotly. "I never did a good action in my life that wasn't served ill. I'm a soft duffer, if there ever was one."

"I shall never be ungrateful for your kindness to me."

"Oh, hang it! You're different; you're not like any other woman in the world," he blurted; and immediately was seized with a mild species of fright.

Fortune stirred her coffee and delicately scooped up the swirling circles of foam.

"Old maids call that money," he said understandingly, eager to cover up his boldness. "My mother used to tell me that there were lots of wonders in a tea-cup."

"Tell me about your mother."

To him it was a theme never lacking in new expressions. When he spoke of his mother, it altered the clear and boyish note in his voice; it became subdued, reverent. He would never be aught than guileless; it was not in his nature to divine anything save his own impulses. While he thought he was pleasing her, each tender recollection, each praise, was in fact a nail added to her crucifixion, self-imposed. However, she never lowered her eyes, but kept them bravely directed into his. In the midst of one of his panegyrics he caught sight of his watch which he had placed at the side of his plate.

"By Jove! quarter to nine. I've got an errand or two to do, and there's no need of your running your feet off on my account. I'll be back quarter after." He dug into his pocket and counted out fifty pounds in paper and gold. "You keep this till I get back."

She pushed it aside, half rising from her chair.

"Fortune, listen. Hereafter I am George, your brother George; and I do not want you ever to question any action of mine. I am leaving this money in case some accident befell me. You never can tell." He took her hand and firmly pressed it down upon the money. "In half an hour, sister, I'll be back. You did not think that I was going to run away?"

"No."

"Do you understand me now?"

"Yes."

While he was gone she remained seated at the table. She made little pyramids of the gold, divided the even dates from the odd, arranged Maltese crosses and circles and stars… Pity, pity! Well, why should she rebel against it? Was it not more than she had had hitherto? What should she do? She closed her eyes. She would trouble her tired brain no more about the future till they reached Naples. She would let this one week drift her how it would.

George came in under the time-limit of his adventure. He had been upon the most difficult errand imaginable, at least from a bachelor's point of view. He carried two hand-bags. One of these he deposited in Fortune's lap.

"Shall I open it?"

"If you wish."

She noted his embarrassment, and her immediate curiosity was not to be denied. She slipped the catch and looked inside. There were combs and brushes, soap and tooth-powder and talc, a manicure-set, a pair of soft woolen slippers, and… She glanced up quickly. The faintest rose stole under her cheeks. It was droll; it was pathetically funny. She would have given worlds to have seen him making the purchases.

"You are not offended?" he stammered.

"Why should I be? I am human; I have slept and lived for days in a dress, and worn my hair down my back for lack of hair-pins and combs. I am sure that it is a very nice nightgown."

Laughter overcame her. He laughed, too; not because the situation appealed to him as laughable, but because there was something, an indefinable something, in that laughter of hers that made him wonderfully happy.

"Mr. Jones…"

"George," he interrupted determinedly.

"Brother George, it was very kind and thoughtful of you. Not one man in a thousand would have thought of – of … hair-pins!" More laughter.

"I didn't think of them; it was the clerk."

"He…"

"She."

"Well, then, she will achieve great things," lightly, though her heart was full.

Tactfully he reached over and swept up the money.

"Shall I ever be able to repay you?" she said.

"Yes, by letting me be your brother; by not deciding the future till we land in Naples; by letting me keep in touch with you, whatever your ultimate decision may be. That isn't much. Will you promise that?"

"Yes."

They spoke no more of Ryanne. It was as though he had dropped out of their lives completely. To a certain extent he had. They were to meet him once again, however, in the last act of this whimsical drama, which had drawn them both out of the commonplace and dropped them for a full spin upon the whirligig of life.

In due time they arrived at Alexandria. There they found the great transatlantic liner, homeward bound.

Ryanne would beat them into New York by ten days. He had picked up a boat of the P. & O. line at Port Saïd, sailing without stop to Marseilles. From there to Cherbourg was a trifling journey.

George knew the captain, and the captain not only knew George, but had known George's father before him. The young man went to the heart of the matter at once; and when he had finished his remarkable tale, the captain lowered his cigar. It had gone out.

"And all this happened in the year 1909-1910! If any one but you, Mr. Jones, had told me this, I'd have sent him ashore as a lunatic. You have reported it?"

"What good would it do? We are out of it, and that's enough. More, we do not want any one to know what we've been through. If the newspapers got hold of it, there would be no living."

"You leave it to me," said the big-hearted German. "From here to Naples she shall be as mine own daughter. You have not told me all?"

"No; only what I had of necessity to tell."

"Well, you know best I shall do my share to make her feel at home. She is as pretty as a flower."

To this George agreed, but not verbally.

The steamer weighed anchor at six o'clock that evening, with only a handful of passengers for the trip to Naples. George had wired from Damascus to Cairo to have his luggage sent on, and he saw it put aboard himself. Without letting Fortune know, he had also telegraphed the hotel to forward whatever she had left; but the return wire informed him that Mrs. Chedsoye had taken everything.

They were leaning against the starboard-rail, watching the slowly converging lights of the harbor. Fortune had borrowed a cloak from her stewardess and George wore the mufti of the first-officer. The captain had offered his, but George had declined. He would have been lost in its ample folds.

"I can not understand why they made no effort to find you," he mused. "It doesn't seem quite human."

"Don't you understand? It is simple. My mother believes that Horace and I ran away together. If not that, I ran away myself, as I that day threatened to do. In either case, she saw nothing could be done in trying to find out where I had gone. Perhaps she knows exactly what did happen. Doubtless she has sent on my things to Mentone, which, of course, I shall never see again. No, no! I can not go back there. I have known the misery of suspense long enough." She lowered her head to the rail.

He came quite near to her. His arms went out toward her, only to drop down. He must wait. It was very hard. But nothing prevented his putting forth a hand to press hers reassuringly, and saying: "Don't do that, Fortune. It makes my heart ache to see a woman cry."

"I am not crying," came in muffled tones. "I am only sad, and tired, tired."

"Everything will come out all right in the end," he encouraged. "Of course you are tired. What woman wouldn't be, having gone through what you have? Here; let's sit in the steamer-chairs till the bugle blows for dinner. I'm a bit fagged out myself."

They lay back in the chairs, and no longer cared to talk. The lights twinkled, but fainter and fainter, till at last only the pale line between the sky and the sea remained. She turned her head and looked sharply at him. He was sound asleep. "Poor boy!" she murmured softly. "How careworn!" There was something grotesque in the mask of desert tan and shaven skin. How patient he had been through it all, and how kind and gentle to her! She remembered now of seeing him that night in Cairo, and of remarking how young and fresh he seemed in comparison to the men she knew and had met. And she must leave him, to go into the world and fight her own battles. If God had but given to her a brother like this! But brother he never could be, no, not even in the pleasant sense of adoption. She did not want pity… To think of his getting those things for her in Damascus!.. Pity suggested that she was weak and helpless, whereas she knew that she was both patient and strong… What did she want? She glanced up and down the deck. It was totally deserted save for them. Then, "clad in the beauty of a thousand stars," she leaned over and down and brushed his hand with her lips.

And George slept on. Only the blare of the bugle brought him back to mundane affairs. He was hungry, and he announced the fact with gusto. They would dine well that night. The captain placed Fortune at his right and George at his left, and broached a bottle of fine old Johannisberger. And the three of them had coffee in the smoke-room. If the other passengers had any curiosity, they did not manifest it openly.

Upon finding that they had no real need of staying over in Naples, the captain urged that they take the return voyage with him. He saw more than either of the young people, with those blue Teutonic eyes of his. George promised to let him know within a dozen hours of the sailing. Certainly Fortune would decide one way or the other within that time.

Both had seen the Vesuvian bay many times, with never-failing love and interest. They sailed across the bay in the bright clearness of the morning.

"You are going back with me," George announced in a tone which inferred that nothing more was to be said upon the subject. But, for all his confidence, there was a great and heavy fear upon his heart as he asked for mail at the little inclosure at Cook's, in the Galleria Vittoria. There was a cable; nothing more.

"Now, Fortune…"

"Have I ever given you permission to call me by that name?"

"Why…"

"Have I?"

"No."

"Then I give you that permission now."

"What do you frighten a man like that for?" he cried. "What I was going to say…"

"Fortune."

"What I was going to say, Fortune, was this: here is the cable from Mortimer. I'm not going to open it till after dinner to-night. We'll go up to the Bertolini to dine. You'll stay there for the night, while I put up at the Bristol, which is only a little ways up the Corso. I'm not going to ask you a question till coffee. Then we'll thrash out the subject till there isn't a grain left."

She made no protest. Secretly she was pleased to be bullied like this. It proved that among all these swarming peoples there was one interested in her welfare. But she knew in her heart what she was going to say when the proper time came. She did not wish to spoil his dinner. She was also going to put her courage to its supreme test: borrow a hundred pounds, and bravely promise to pay him back. If she failed to pay it, it would be because she was dead! For she could not survive a comparison between herself and her mother. Here in Naples she might find something, an opportunity. She spoke French and Italian fluently; and in this crowded season of the year it would not be difficult to find a situation as a maid or companion. So long as she could earn a little honestly, she was not afraid. She was desperately resolved.

Such a dinner! Long would she remember it; and longer still, how little either of them ate of it! She knew enough about these things to appreciate it. It must have cost a pretty penny. She smiled, she laughed, she jested; and always a battle to dam the uprising tears.

The dining-room was filled; women in beautiful evening gowns and men in sober black. But the two young people were oblivious. Their fellow-diners, however, bent more than one glance in their direction. Ill-fitting clothes, to be sure, but it was observed that they ate to the manner born. The girl was beautiful in a melancholy way, and the young man was well-bred and pleasant of feature, though oddly burned.

Coffee. George produced the cable. It was still sealed.

"You read it first," he said, passing it across the table.

Her hands shook as she ripped the sealed flap and opened the message. She read. Her eyes gathered dangerously.

"Be careful!" he warned. "You've been brave so long; be brave a little longer."

"I did not know that there lived such good and kindly men. Oh, thank him, thank him a thousand times for me. Read it." And she no longer cared if any saw her tears.

"Bring her home, and God bless you both.

"Mortimer."

"I knew it!" he cried exultantly. "He and my father were the finest two men in the world. The sky is all clear now."

"Is it?" sadly. "Oh, I do not wish to pain you, but it is charity; and I am too proud."

"You refuse?" He could not believe it.

"Yes. But when things grow dark, and the day turns bitter, I shall always remember those words. I can see no other way. I must fight it out alone."

Love makes a man dumb or eloquent; and as George saw all his treasured dreams fading swiftly, eloquence became his buckler in this battle of love unspoken and pride in arms. Each time he paused for breath, she shook her head slowly.

The diners were leaving in twos and fours, and presently they were all alone. Servants were clearing up the tables; there was a clatter of dishes and a tread of hurrying feet. They noted it not.

"Well, one more plea!" And he swept aside his self-imposed restrictions. "Will you come for my sake? Because I am lonely and want you? Will you come for my sake?"

This time her head did not move.

"Is it pity?" she whispered.

"Pity!" His hands gripped the linen and the coffee-cups rattled. "No! It is not pity. Because you were lonely, because you had no one to turn to, I could not in honor tell you. But now I do. Fortune, will you come for my sake, because I love you and want you always and always?"

"I shall come."