Read Ebook: The Moonlit Way: A Novel by Chambers Robert W Robert William Keller Arthur Ignatius Illustrator

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Ebook has 3678 lines and 105548 words, and 74 pages

"You take with you our pretty wonder-child to Paris to be launched, I hear," remarked Excellenz, most affably, to d'Eblis. And to Nihla: "And upon a yacht fit for an emperor, I understand. Ach! Such a going forth is only heard of in the Arabian Nights. Eh bien, ma petite, go West, conquer, and reign! It is a prophecy!"

And Nihla threw back her head and laughed her full-throated laughter under the Turkish moon.

Later, Ferez, walking with the Ambassador, replied humbly to the curt question:

"Yes, I have become his jackal. But always at the orders of Excellenz."

"Oh, God, be merciful!" he whispered. He had often said it on the eve of crime. Even an Eurasian rat has emotions. And Ferez had been in love with Nihla many years, and was selling her now at a price--selling her and Adolf Gerhardt and the Count d'Eblis and France--all he had to barter--for he had sold his soul too long ago to remember even what he got for it.

The silence seemed more intense for the sounds that made it audible. From, the unlighted cities on the seven hills came an unbroken howling of dogs; transparent waves of the limpid Bosphorus slapped the vessel's sides, making a mellow and ceaseless clatter. Far away beyond Galata Quay, in the inner reek of unseen Stamboul, the notes of a Turkish flute stole out across the darkness, where some Tzigane--some unseen wretch in rags--was playing the melancholy song of Mourad. And, mournfully responsive to the reedy complaint of a homeless wanderer from a nation without a home, the homeless dogs of Islam wailed their miserere under the Prophet's moon.

The tragic wolf-song wavered from hill to hill; from the Fields of the Dead to the Seven Towers, from Kassim to Tophane, seeming to swell into one dreadful, endless plaint:

"My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"

"And me!" muttered Ferez, shivering in the windy vapours from the Black Sea, which already dampened his face with their creeping summer chill.

"Ferez!"

He turned slowly. Swathed in a white wool bernous, Nihla stood there in the foggy moonlight.

"Why?" she enquired, without preliminaries and with the unfeigned curiosity of a child.

He did not pretend to misunderstand her in French:

"Except to sell me," she smiled, interrupting him in English, without the slightest trace of accent.

But Ferez preferred the refuge of French:

"Except to launch thee and make possible thy career," he corrected her very gently.

"I thought you were in love with me?"

"I have loved thee, Nihla, since thy childhood."

"Is there anything on earth or in paradise, Ferez, that you would not sell for a price?"

"Zut! I know thee, Ferez!" she mocked him, slipping easily into French. "What was my price? Who pays thee, Colonel Ferez? This big, shambling, world-wearied Count, who is, nevertheless, afraid of me? Did he pay thee? Or was it this rich American, Gerhardt? Or was it Von-der-Goltz? Or Excellenz?"

Her clear, untroubled laughter checked him:

"I know you, Ferez. That is why I ask. That is why I shall have no reply from you. Only my wits can ever answer me any questions."

She stood laughing at him, swathed in her white wool, looming like some mocking spectre in the misty moonlight of the after-deck.

"That is absurd!"

Ferez, showing his teeth, came close to her and spoke very softly:

"See how white is the moonlight off Seraglio Point, my Nihla!... It is no whiter than those loveliest ones who lie fathoms deep below these little silver waves.... Each with her bowstring snug about her snowy neck.... As fair and young, as warm and fresh and sweet as thou, my Nihla."

He smiled at her; and if the smile stiffened an instant on her lips, the next instant her light, dauntless laughter mocked him.

She slipped into French with a little laugh:

"Now go and lick thy fingers of whatever crumbs have stuck there. The Count d'Eblis is doubtless licking his. Good appetite, my Ferez! Lick away lustily, for God does not temper the jackal's appetite to his opportunities!"

Ferez let his level gaze rest on her in silence.

"Well, trafficker in Eagles, dealer in love, vendor of youth, merchant of souls, what strikes you silent?"

But he was thinking of something sharper than her tongue and less subtle, which one day might strike her silent if she laughed too much at Fate.

And, thinking, he showed his teeth again in that noiseless snicker which was his smile and laughter too.

The girl regarded him for a moment, then deliberately mimicked his smile:

"Nihla! Is there nothing sacred--nothing thou fearest on earth?"

"Only old age--and thy smile, my Ferez. Neither agrees with me." She stretched her arms lazily.

"Allons," she said, stifling a pleasant yawn with one slim hand,"--my maid will wake below and miss me; and then the dogs of Stamboul yonder will hear a solo such as they never heard before.... Tell me, Ferez, do you know when we are to weigh anchor?"

"At sunrise."

"It is the same to me,"--she yawned again--"my maid is aboard and all my luggage. And my Ferez, also.... Mon dieu! And what will Cyril have to say when he arrives to find me vanished! It is, perhaps, well for us that we shall be at sea!"

Her quick laughter pealed; she turned with a careless gesture of salute, friendly and contemptuous; and her white bernous faded away in the moonlit fog.

And Ferez Bey stood staring after her out of his near-set, beady eyes, loving her, desiring her, fearing her, unrepentant that he had sold her, wondering whether the day might dawn when he would find it best to kill her for the prosperity and peace of mind of the only living being in whose service he never tired--himself.

A SHADOW DANCE

Three years later Destiny still wore a rosy face for Nihla Quellen. And, for a young American of whom Nihla had never even heard, Destiny still remained the laughing jade he had always known, beckoning him ever nearer, with the coquettish promise of her curved forefinger, to fame and wealth immeasurable.

Seated now on a moonlit lawn, before his sketching easel, this optimistic young man, whose name was Barres, continued to observe the movements of a dim white figure which had emerged from the villa opposite, and was now stealing toward him across the dew-drenched grass.

When the white figure was quite near it halted, holding up filmy skirts and peering intently at him.

"May one look?" she inquired, in that now celebrated voice of hers, through which ever seemed to sound a hint of hidden laughter.

"Certainly," he replied, rising from his folding camp stool.

She tiptoed over the wet grass, came up beside him, gazed down at the canvas on his easel.

"Can you really see to paint? Is the moon bright enough?" she asked.

"Yes. But one has to be familiar with one's palette."

"Oh. You seem to know yours quite perfectly, monsieur."

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