The Complete Simon Iff (49 page)

“O Protector of thy People, it is written that the All-Knower bestoweth knowledge according to His will, for He is the Merciful, the Compassionate, and pitieth the ignorance of His creatures.”

“I will give a camel load of ivory to the man who discovereth this shame,” groaned the negro, whose emotion seemed to become more violent every moment.

“Bestow it upon her, then, for my wedding gift; for I will make this door open, by the favour of Allah, and the help of our Lord the Sheikh Abd-el-Kabir.”

“I shall help, as I may, far-seeing one!” said the Sheikh. “But thy way is hidden from me.”

“Let Fatima be given much coffee, and made to walk seven times around the village, and then taken to thy house, and put under guard. Then in the morning do thou assemble together all that are in the village, both men and women, everyone with his cookingpot, and I will shew thee the magick of my country.”

“According unto thy word so shall it be.”

Fatima was now almost able to walk, and the Sheikh, summoning two men, had them support her. They started away at a brisk walk. “That,” said Simon to Lord Juventius, “will sweat the rest of the stuff out of her. She will be well in the morning.” Then he turned to Muley Husein: “Our ways lie together, if it be thy pleasure to return to thy tents; for I am going into the desert that I may pray Allah for wisdom in this matter.”

The negro gladly consented. When they were outside the last houses, Simon Iff put a hand upon the man’s huge shoulder.

“I will instruct thee, o chief of warriors, as a father to his son, for I am old and well stricken in years. I have saved the life of thy gazelle, and I shall give into thy hands the chastisement of the poisoner. This is the justice of the desert, where Allah dwelleth with open eye. See thou to it that thou play the part that I assign to thee, seeking secretly afterwards for the thought concealed in my speech.”

The big man assented with a child’s gratitude and a child’s trust. “Swear it unto me!” And he sware solemnly. They parted after Simon Iff had drunk his share of a bottle of champagne in the chief’s tent.

Lord Juventius Mellor had slipped away to follow Fatima. He knew without being told that his master was apprehensive of a further attempt upon her life. He was consequently prowling around the Sheikh’s house when the old magician returned to the village.

“Not a mouse stirring,” he reported. “I’ve been thinking—trying to what I call think you would say, perhaps—and I can’t imagine for the life of me how you proposed to spot the criminal. As old Abd-al-Kabir justly said, it’s open to the whole village to have done it. Anybody can go to her room, whether she’s there or not, and poison her food.”

“No,” said the other, “this is your first journey in these parts, so I can excuse you, but it’s almost impossible to poison food. They’re always on the lookout for it; they cook it themselves, or have it done by trusty people who know well that an indigestion means suspicion and a beating, and serious illness quick detection, and bitter retribution.”

“I should not have said food. Abd-al-Kabir mentioned that a week since a seller of dawamesk, a son of Eblis, accursed, a father of calamities, passed through. It would be easy to change her dawamesk without detection. But the man is gone, no one knows where; and if we had him, he would deny selling the poison; much less would he say to whom he sold it.”

“Good as far as it goes, Ju, but as a matter of fact we have a very good line on the culprit. What, let me ask you, was the nature of the poison?”

“Symptoms suggested opium.”

“They did, but you couldn’t mix opium in poisonous doses with dawamesk without changing its appearance. Hashish and opium are more or less physiological incompatibles. Mix ‘em, and you get that very gorgeous jag in which she so enthralled us. But for the opium to bide its time, to conquer the hashish, to knock her out, oh a very big does, boy!”

“Well, one could mix morphia with the hashish.”

“One could.”

“But morphia isn’t known in the desert.”

“Exactly, and that is our clue. We have to find a person with a guilty conscience and a knowledge of European medicine—some small knowledge at least.”

The lad laughed. “It points to that Baptist scoundrel. He was here yesterday. He may be a connoisseur in murder, or he may be trying to work up a market in morphine—a little preliminary practice before he gets busy with China’s perishing millions.”

“Unfortunately, Ju, he was not here yesterday, or any day. His horse and his camels had crossed the Chott; I saw the mire on their hoofs. And the Sheikh had heard nothing of them. No, it’s someone in the village.”

“With a guilty conscience and some modern science—well, I’d love to see you get him!”

“Let us fortify nature by repose.” And they went off to the hotel together, and to bed.

III

At sunrise the next day the Sheikh had duly gathered the whole village in the square. Each had his cookingpot, squatting behind it. Simon Iff asked the Sheikh to inform the people officially of what had occurred, and to propound an oath of innocence. They took it as one man; not a face there betrayed the slightest interest in the proceedings.

“Now,” said Abd-el-Kabir, “the Father of Justice will determine by his magick which of you is forsworn to Allah, as well as an assassin.”

Simon asked for a supply of camel’s milk, which was at once forthcoming.

“Now,” said he, “a little milk shall be placed in each pot, and the pot sealed. Then let all go about their business, bringing the pots here at sunset; and it may be that he who is guilty shall find the milk sour, while that of the innocent shall be sweet.”

This sounded good, something like magick! For milk in Ouled Djellal turns in a couple of hours. The people went about all day in suppressed excitement; nearly everybody felt guilty and nervous. It was a very critical moment when they re-assembled in the square.

The Sheikh himself was to inspect the milk. What a sigh of relief went up from all hearts but one when the very first pot proved to be sour! The man was on his feet, leaping and protesting. “Shut up!” cried Simon Iff, cowing the man with a fierce glance. Then to the Sheikh: “Go on.” The old man looked at the magician in mild surprise. “There may have been an accomplice,” he explained. And the second pot was sour, and so were the third, and the fourth, and the fifth; the people began to laugh.

Abd-el-Kabir wanted to create a diversion. “My Father, the magick has failed. I am putting shame upon you.”

“I can bear it,” said Simon, “but I will pray a little harder. In the meanwhile, pray go on!”

Simon Iff began to recite the Chapter of the Unity aloud, with many bows, and the people halted in opinion, thinking that there might be something else coming. Eventually he stopped.

“And what is the report, o great Sheikh?” he asked.

“Alas, all the milk is sour, save that which was in the pot of Fatima’s own mother.”

“Ah, madame Desda,” said Iff lightly, “the effect of mother love. Is that how you explain it?”

“These are all savages,” replied the pallid piece of salt pork, “they have all murder in their hearts. I am not of them; I am also a Christian.”

“Also!” said Iff; “ah yes, also.”

“And thus our Lord Issa protecteth us from even the shadow of evil.”

“Doth he, really? I should go into that again, if I were you. How did you find the Light?”

“I am not a common woman. I was in the American Baptist Mission in Tunis.”

“Infant Baptism, by the dates,” murmured Iff.

“I teach in Sunday School.”

“Ah, that’s where they taught you to sterilize milk?”

“No, no, no, I don’t know how,” cried the trapped woman.

“Nonsense,” said Simon, “everybody here knows enough to boil milk; but all the others trusted in my magick and their own innocence to keep the milk fresh; which did you doubt, Desda?”

“It is foolish, it is nonsense; it is my habit to boil milk; I did it without thinking.”

“Without thinking enough,” corrected the magician. “Fatima was poisoned with morphia, which nobody here has; I was merely looking for a person with European knowledge and a guilty conscience.”

“I am satisfied,” put in the Sheikh; “Surely this woman shall be put to death.”

“You can’t touch me,” she screamed; “you can’t prove I had morphia; you can’t prove I gave it. I appeal to the Commandant of the District.”

“She has you there,” said Simon cheerfully: “you can’t prove a thing. But this is all child’s talk. Let me rather explain to you the Law. It is written: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. And again: Love is the law, love under will. From this we learn that every one of us is justified in doing what he will. Woman, neither do I condemn thee. But—your will has been thwarted, since your daughter is not dead. Do you then wish to kill her, now, before us all? You are safe from the law which punishes—tell us, what was your will in poisoning Fatima? Had you no object beyond that?”

Desda saw that things were going her way. It was all very unexpected, but no doubt Christians must stand together. Her colleague was fooling these savages.

“I wish to be the wife of Muley Husein,” she said boldly; “and Fatima was in my way.”

“See how simple and beautiful it all is,” said Simon Iff with enthusiasm, and a ferocious glance at the big negro, who could hardly contain himself. Lord Juventius went over to Muley, and stood ready to check any move, in case that glance failed of effect.

“Love! What a passion is love! How prove a great love better than by willingness to commit crime, to risk detection and the guillotine in order to satisfy it? Most certainly, Desda, you have deserved to win! Muley Husein, on your oath I charge you to receive this woman in your harem!” His voice rang out like a trumpet. The people did not understand, but they saw the joke on the negro, and roared with laughter. Lord Juventius gripped the man’s arm with slender fingers, strong and brown. The magician threw a veil over Desda, and led her to him.

“Remember your oath to the man who saved Fatima,” murmured the disciple. Muley was shaking like a leaf with rage and shame. He turned furiously and stalked away to his tents, the old woman smirking and smiling and tossing her head, wallowing in his wake.

The Sheikh protested. “Muley Husein is the guest of the village,” quoth he; “and you have put him to open shame.”

“Then I am no more Father of Justice—the Father of the Desert?”

“My father, forgive me. I have been blind in this matter; it may be I am yet blind.”

“At sunrise to-morrow—may Allah grant thee sight!” And at that hour the magician called upon the Sheikh. Muley Husein’s caravan was crossing the square on its way to his home in the South. As the last of the camels passed, it was noticed that a short cord was attached to its near hind leg; the other end of the cord was tied to a very heavy iron ring, and that ring was soldered through the nose of Desda. Behind her, a carefree boy was trying his skill with a long lash of hippopotamus hide, and from the stately litter of the negro Fatima’s laughing face peeped out, until her husband drew it to him, and glued his mouth to hers.

The village was again in laughter, and the Sheikh in passionate admiration for his friend.

“It seems that substantial justice has been done,” drawled Lord Juventius Mellor.

“To me not so,” retorted Simon Iff, with cold fury; “But if we could get the American Baptist Mission here, and some stakes and cord and molasses and red ants, we might make a beginning.”

The belly of the swamp was black. Thick stagnant pools of slime sweltered. Even the firm ground was but a mass of rotten trees and rotten undergrowth. Nothing lived here but things both obscene and deadly. A tangle of giant trees extending over thousands of square miles shut off the sun eternally from the earth. The rain falling in torrents upon this roof was caught and deflected by the vegetation so that it reached the ground in streams, as if spouted from countless myriads of gargoyles. It was impossible to see for any distance, not only because of the thickness of the forest and its abiding gloom, but because the air was misty with miasma, a foul hot sweat. Here and there it was made darker still by swarms of gnats, mosquitos and flying ants. The pools were hideous with reptile life. Malignant serpents and greedy crocodiles were masters of land and water, while the trees owned no lordship but that of the most obscene and savage gorillas.

Through this abominable morass, a path had been cut, or rather tunnelled. It was barely large enough for a man to pass his fellow. It wound inextricably among the trees, constantly seeking higher and dryer ground, and finding it not. Across the depressions it was only possible to go by taking the path to where some giant tree had fallen, and crawling across its slippery and infested trunk. Where one of the sluggish streams cut off the way from its general direction, ladders of twisted osier made a dangerous passage through the air.

In this jungle, even so simple a matter as the lighting of a fire is a serious operation. One keeps one’s matches as dry as possible by enclosing them in a specially constructed air-tight receptacle. But even when you’ve got your flame, it is only a beginning. You must cut some wood which is not hopelessly rain-sodden, from a tree. Then you must split it into the thinnest chips, and when you have got a little heap of these alight, you must dry other wood above your tiny fire, constantly increasing the size of the pieces, until after about an hour’s work, you can begin to think of cooking dinner. A big fire is necessary at night, partly on account of our First Cousin, but principally because, though the heat may be stifling, the thermometer above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, there is yet a deadly chill in the very marrow of your bones. There is also the minor consideration that it is nice to feel dry, even if one is not dry, for an hour or so in every twenty four.

By such a fire, which smoked lazily upon a small plateau which had been cleared sufficiently to allow a glimpse of sky here and there, stood a man. A man so thin and worn, that he might have sat to Rodin for a statue of Death. But of Death on a hot scent! His arms were shaking with malarial ague, so that the rifle which he held shuddered passionately in his grasp. His teeth were clenched, his eyes fiercely glinting, his ear, so to speak, cocked. The silence of the forest is the silence of an ambush. Its noises are as the sounding of the charge. Whatever noise he had heard, it stopped very suddenly. The man with the rifle did not relax his vigilance on that account. Whatever it was might have got away. But on the other hand, the sudden stillness might mean that it saw the fire, and was preparing to attack. The man turned and signalled to his servants, sixteen immense negroes hardly less simian than the gorillas he had come to hunt; to throw more wood on the fire from the great stack which they had prepared, both to dry the wood and to serve as a rough barricade. A shower of sparks roared heavenward defying the rain. The man and his servants leapt into the darkness beyond the bulwark, and crouched there in grim silence. As active as any of them was the white man’s intombizann, a young woman, half Dutch, half Zulu, from the Zambezi, who travelled with her husband (as marriage laws go in Africa). She was a sturdy muscular type with a flat face, a broad grim, pig’s eyes, a turned-up nose, and a shock of gold brown hair. She was slightly pitted with the small-pox, and had a scar across her forehead from the great uprising.