THE GREEN TURBANS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 9291, 19 July 1901, Page 6

THE GREEN TURBANS.

CHAPTER XXV. Molly and Alula were both present at that scene in the background. Alula, when she heard Ali's passionate addresn to De Courcel, uttered a scream, but clapped her hand upon it when halfemitted. Molly made no sound, but she turned deathly white. Too well did she remember that occasion in the Highlands of Scotland when, fearing what De Courcel might say to Ali, she subtly suggested that the Frenchman himself was probably the betrayer of Mohammed. Now she felt—she foresaw—that the treacherous suggestion she had let loose would turn for her own destruction.

'I aak nothing better, my Prince,' said De Courcel in English. He spoke with spirit, for whatever his defects he was no coward. ' With pleasure I will tell you who is the person that sold your brother's life. Your Highness cannot forget that once I offered to give what' you now demand. But your Highness then would not listen ; you commanded me not to speak. I said : 'Well, I wait, and am silent until I give my proofs, my evidences, my pieces of justification.' I am ready, my Prince. But, you will excuse me, this courtyard, open to all the world, is not a proper place for the hearing. Let me be heard in your coun-cil-hall, if you please, my Prince.' That was said carelessly, almost sarcastically, and the Prince's sole reply was to turn and lead the way in. So they passed from the open court with its splashing fountain to the hall of audience and council. Ali was in an unusual state of excitement and solemnity at the prospect of discovering at last what he had so long desired to know. He marched in with his head erect and his eyes forward, and he seated hims°lf on the divan that was along one side of the room, in his usual place of audience and judgment. He did not note who else was in the room, but kept his eye fixed upon the Frenchman. De Courcel looked around him. He saw only the two stalwart Berber guards that stood at his elbows* and the reassembled household of Shereefs and notables, who counted it their privilege and their duty to attend upon their Grand Shereef and Prince.

Dr. Neale still lingered without to uree a last desperate word of counsel upon Molly. 4 You must see what is coming,' he said. ' Don't go in ; keep away. Hide anywhere out of his sight. He will be at the first like a madman. We may bring him round later.'

Molly knew too well that by ' he' the doctor meant her husband. :

' I won't go away,' she said, as she had said before. ' fie may kill me, but I will keep near him. Fear, the weakness of nature, dragged her feet back; but resolution, the strength of the mind, pushed her forward. She entered the hall, and the doctor followed in a turmoil of uncertainty and horror. * Bien !' murmured De Courcel, when he saw Molly appear. Molly boldly went forward and took her seat by the Prince as his consort. The Shereefs scowled at such forwardness, but Molly, even in her desperation, would not abandon an Englishwoman's right to be regarded ai her husband's equal. Alula stood a long way off, and dared hardly peep in at the arched doorway. •Let the taptain De Courcel now speak,'said Ali. 'I listen.' 'If the Basha El Helba is in the castle, my prince, ai I h-iv'e heard he is,' said the Frenchman, ' let him be called in if it please you.' There was an anxious pause till the B.sha appeared, guarded by two big negro sUves with drawn swords. He looked anxious and furtive like a trapped thief, but he had more of the goat's appearance than ever —of a goat that has had a beating and whose lip trembles half in fear, half in derision. He appeared surprised and then troubled to see De Courcel there, and it was plain he wondered what was afoot —his own trial or the Frenchman's.

' The Basha El Helba,' said De Courcel, beginuing to speak in Moorish ' knows this matter as well as I. I will make my statement,' he continued, very much in the manner 'of a French Public Prosecutor, ' and the Basha will contradict me if I am wrong.' 'Let the truth only be spoken,'said Ali, severely, ' and beware of all false accusations.' ' The truih otdy shall be spoken, sidi,' said De Courcel. ' In Fez,' be began, ' on a certain dey six months »go a womnn rode through the dust and heat of the city to the palace of his Bhereefian Highness the Sultan. Many men saw her and knew who she was, for she was unveiled. She was un English woman.' Ali began to give a more rigid attention. •She inquired the way—l heard her—to the house 6f the Sid'ElHelba, who was then at the head of the sultan's domistic affair?, and with whom I had the honor of being friendly. She was admitted into the house of the Sid' El Helba. I was still standing in-the same place, thinking of the singular coming of the Englishwoman at that hour of the day, when a messenger came to me from the Sid' El Helba asking me to go and have a word with him. I appeal to the Basha. Is not that true.' «It is true,' said the Basha, ' as the words of childhood. I did send for you and you came.' ' The Sid' ElrTelba,' continued De Courcel, ' received mo in his private closet and spoke quickly. He told me that there had come to him a daughter of the English with a nioet important secret to sell, but she would not impart it until she saw before her the promised sum in English or French bank-notes and gold. He begged me to take an order on the Sultan's Treasury to the Jewish banker Aaron, who is a French protected subject, and get English or French money from him, and to use my liuro-p-an eyes to ensure that the money was true. Is that not so ?' asked De Courcel, turning to the Basba. ' It is as the Cap am has stated, said the Basha. , 'Proceed, proceed,' said All, and come to the matter. All this is uot to the purpose.' ' . ' I went to Aaron and returned with the money, and counselled the Bid El Helba to demand the signature of the woman to a. document acknowledging the receipt of the money. He to«<k ! counsel with me as to. the form of that, and revealed to me that the woman had promised that the arch-rebel, Mohammed, the Grand Shereef and Prince qt Tetuan, should be in the Sultan's hands that night.' 'Proceed.' said Ali, with one hand pluckjne at hissed _ ;Who wap. ■the'wonianj?'':' .% *■"''.' , -%., v£.. 'Permit me,* my Prince,' said JJe Coureal, «to tell you what happened in its order. At the request of the bid' El Helba 1 drew up a receipt in the Arabic language. It was set before the woman ' De Courcel paused. Plainly his nerve had gone. Ali had not taken his eyes frotfi him for an instant since he had begun to speak. He had assumed more and ignore a forward crouching and

threatening position, as of a beast preparing to spring.

'And she set her name to it, you would say V he cried, when the Frenchman paused. 'What name?' he yelled; leaning to his feet and brandishing his fists.

The Frenchman was speechless. He stoqd amazed and terror-stricken as if he conceived that Ali had gone mad. 'What name.?', he cried again. He sudd enly leaped forward and seized De Courcel with both hand's and shook him. "Dog! Liar! Lying son of a lying people! Thou torturest me with thy words, and now thou wouldst torture me with thy silence ! What name ?' ' Mary Neale !'

,But De Courcel did not utter it. He could not have uttered it so.clearly as it sounded. It was not evident who had uttered it. It seemed as if the name suddenly lived in the empty air and that was all. But the name provoked Ali to a frenzy; He still maintained his hold of the Frenchman, who was as a rag doll in his hands.

' Traitor ! Torturer !' he cried. " Thou shalt prove it! Thou snalt show me the paper ! Show me the name, or I will tear you all to pieces !' He flung the Frpnchman on the tiled floor, and he would have stamped on him in his fury had not Dr. Neale and some of the Shereefs dashed forward, restrained Ali, and borne the Frenchman out unconscious.

' Let all go forth,' said a clear vo'*ce, ' and leave Prince Ali with me.'

It was Molly who spoke. She stooa erect and rigid by the dais, and waited till the ball was clear and she was alone with her husband. When they were alone, but several paces apart, they gazedfor some seconds each in the' face of the other, then Molly's eyes dropped and her head hung. ' Why dost thou veil thy bright eyes and hang thy fair head ?' asked Ali, in a mournful and desolate voice. ' Art thou that woman the French spy spoke of? Art thou the wicked woman that sold my dear brother to his cruel enemies?'

She made a gesture of entreaty and of desire to go near him.

' Stand away !' he cried, holding up hia hands and violently motioning her back. ' Come not near ! Thou are to a loathsome toad, a poisonous I have for some months my bosom if thou art that me !' he cried, with a thou the woman ?' hung her head. ' (Soßlession is ih that,' he said. ' Allah be my witness, hut I must believe confession is in that.'

' I have long, long bitterly repented, ' said' Molly. ' Caust thou not forgive me, Ali ?' ■> Forgive ?' he cried. * When Allah shall forgive the demons of Gehenna, then may I forgive thee, the betrayer ot innocent blood !' ' Then,' said she, as if her last hope were going, ' you love me no more ?' * Love thee!' he cried. ''I loathe thee ! And if I loved thee, is the common love of thee —a woman—to be set against the sacred love of my brother, who was to me more beautiful than all women ?' • Enough !' said she, looking on him with deadly calm. 'If you love me not there is no more for me.' ' Ask me not for pity !' he cried. ' Pity !' she cried, with stung pride. ' Thou art a barbarian to speak of pity ! Pity is for animale. lam thy wife, thy equal. If there is no hope that thou mayeat forgive—l have sinned terribly, monstrously ! 1 repent bitterly, with tears that sear my heart, but if there can be no forgiveness with thee I have finished. My life is nothing to me without thy love, Ali. Kill me, bub do not rail,'

She glanced at him and abandoned hope ; the fever of hatred and vengeance was burning iv his eyes and trembling in his fingers.

He clenched his hands toaether. ' True,' said he. ' Railing ia of no avail. A man does not scold a beast that must be destroyed. I cannot lay hands on thee to take thy life because—because I have embraced thee in love. Thou shalt die by other hands than mine. Thou shalt be driven forth. Ha !'

He paused and sniffed the air, which flowed freely in from the courtyard from the open valley. The breeze as it wandered in brought a strange odor, and a droning or humming sound, with intermittent yells. ' The Aissowie !' murmured Ali, with a kind of awe, and strode to the door, leaving his wife standing. (TO BE CONTINUED.)