SIROCCO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13491, 18 May 1907, Page 3 (Supplement)

SIROCCO.

[PUBLISHED' BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.] !

■ ___. —♦ . ."*•". BY KENNETH BROWN - [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] [COPYRIGHT.? CHAPTER I _ THK WINDOW OF THIS SULTAN'S HAREM. 4 bit of paper fluttered down in front of Duncan, American trader, as he walked ' slowly along the only street in Kub-hub-iiol that could be said to have width, as well as depth of dust and refuse. He glanc'ed at the paper, as it rested in the hot clUie .hine, and noticed that it was folded three-corner-wise. Obviously, no one was fluttering notes at him, in this broiling midday capital ■' of - Sirocco—most, uncivilised of North African despotisms—which ■ he had entered only two hours before: vet Duncan would not have been of woman born had he not stooped and picked , up this note, fallen at his feet from the skies- ■.';.:',.*■■ ■■• / Duncan had been in the East long enough to know'that Heaven-sent notes were", dangerous. '-The pious arrangement by which was assured to as many women. as possible the happiness of acknowledging a- lord and master, or part of , one, did not in the least prevent their falling in love with passers-by whom they might chance to fancy through their lattices. "A not* dropped from a high window to a man probably meant that some good Mussulman's wife was making love to him ; and the position of the recipient of the note was delicate. If he reciprocated—as man is likely to do to the wooing of woman, particularly if she is behind tall walls and bars—then in. due course of 4 time the husband was apt to engage someone, with a bent that way, to murder him. And if lie did not reciprocate, the chances were that the slighted lady—Shakespere tells us what kind of a person the woman scornis—would find means, in spite of walls and bars, to do the same tiling. Duncan knew all this; but he was not a man in whom caution was unduly developed, and, besides, he knew that in twenty.-lour hours he should be far from Kub-hub-nol,"its Mussulmans, and their wives. ._ The curiosity with which the American, stooped for the note received a large admixture of surprise when he turned the • paper over in his hand and read the superscription : " To any Englishman—!" Well might a note with such an address have fallen from the skies, : here, where -' civilisation has only begun to corrode the edge of the Darkest Continent. Duncan looked up. Above him rose a building of height and length, plainly .one of impor- ■ tance, unpierced to its overhanging eaves, except by a row of small, latticed windows, , far above the ground. Across the street lay the- Great Bazaar, a money-alloyed conglomeration, resting in noonday lethargy. , Duncan slipped the note into his pocket without opening it. Sirocco is a land whew strange things may happen, and bring or consequences.." It is also one where tin straightforward way is Aot employed. When men wish to gain the north, the; start south-east, or west-north-west and the nearer they are brought to tin Sultan of Sirocco, the more deviously the] walk, and the more cautiously. Duncai . Limseli: had no reason for not going straight He was on a little trading trip, and having conformed to the customs of the country . i in the matter of petty blackmail, his path V bad been easy. Yet insensibly the moral . ■ atmosphere of .Sirocco had worked upon - ''Van; so that now, finding ail unsealed note directed to ' Any Englishman'*— ' English and Americans are commonly differentiated only in England and America —he hid it in his pocket, instead of opening and reading it. The blind-wall above him and the lethargy of the sleeping bazaar opposite did not lessen his caution, and he glanced about him furtively, as if he were • party to some clandestine, transaction. Before moving on, however, he tried to note some landmark by which he could find again . the exact spot where the letter had fallen. Seeing nothing in the long wall, he. backed up to it casually, as it were, and his hands behind him,, made a scratch with , the fer- ■ rule of the whangee riding-cane he carried. He stepped oft and surveyed the ■ scratch, to make sure he should be able to find ; t again, and then walked quickly back to the; caravansary wuere he was stopping with his four camels and their _ driver.: ■;,■ CHAPTER 11. THE TIIHhE COIIXKKJSI) NOTE. "I am Dalme'ra Graname— father was English', the Surtan carried me oil a year •ago. Help me! But be careiul; lor the Suitan would ki.. me if he iouncl out about this letter. 1 have never been able to write before. Why nave my friends deserted me? *yhy has the admiral done nothing '. Is Percy Cunningham dead—or- are they cowards-—afraid of the Sultan?" This was what Duncan had read when. he was alone in his room. He examined the note carefully. It was written in pencil, an unmistakably English handwriting, on a blank page torn apparently from the back of a cheap novel, and smelied faintly of attar of roses. "H'm!" Duncan commented, "the Sultan's stationery doesn't do him credit." • Duncan sat lost in thought for a long time. *xe did not move, and was unmindful of the passage of time. The sun yank towards the west, and the city first stirred, and then came to life, as it was touched by the cool breeze from "the distant sea-coast. " He raiseo the sheet to his. nose and smelled its perfume again; then he read it over and over, as if some hidden meaning might be forced from it. He was - net? one fitted to carry on a Bacon-Shake-spere controversy, ; he did some fair analysing, for a, trader, during the long, hot' afternoon. . "She is'somebody," he argued to himself. "'I am Dalmera Grahame'—if she hadn't been anybody she'd have said: I am an English girl— name is Dalmera Grahame.'" ... He continued quoting: '"Why has the admiral done nothing 1 really don't know, my dear young lady, I haven't the honour of the admiral's ac- , . quaintance. -■- . . ' Percy Cunningham?' Ciieer up'. Maybe he isn't dead ; only in gaol for drunk-and-dborderiy." Duncan was not as flippant as his language. It was against his method of working out his' problems. When he came against a serious proposition he first neutralised its gravity, as ,it were, by translating it into terms of a joke. This did not UK-ail, however, ■ that he took it lightly; and it did not occur to him, in all his pon- • dering, to avoid the difficulties of the sit . nation into which he was on the verge ol 7 ■ - tumbling, by going about his business, am! leaving other folks to attend to theirs. Tin methods of keeping me "streets of Jerusalem clean is admirable, but it does not of ■ fer much excitement to those that practise it. All men work to live, ..whether they pursue the fleeing antelope, killing it foi their sustenance, or engage in the mon wearing occupation of killing time. Only roen's definitions differ as to the -meaning ' of living. Duncan was ■ of the kind that must wander about the earth seeing things 5, iivery new land to him was an invitation; "/,.: "very new adventure, another drop of-the precious fluid, life, which flows in so mam channels, is caught in such different ves ;>, wis. Duncan knew that advantage did not ?' accrue to .him who crossed the Sultan's i u. Yet die thing he pondered now, not* '» band, was not whether advantage shoulc prevail, but in what manner he should- g<

about climbing this thorny path. -;To avoid the hedge guarding V this garden ! of mystery did not cross his mind. The situation was a larger one than Duncan nad ever tackled before. He had once had a queen in love with . him, but she i had been Queen of the Anabazis, an In-1 , dian tribe in South America. And he had J . known potentates familiarly, but they had i been chiefs of the Boomwallahs in Central! Africa, or kings of a valley a-piece in the Himalayas. There had been no walls to j surmount , that reached to the ■ skies, nor : ; armies to be encountered that; even world-: powers reckoned with. A man. with a magazine rifle could stand off : the whole lot of Boomwallahs; with a good pair of Ilegs one might outrun the Anabazis. But " when men crowd the earth, without civi- [ ligation, and with the will of. a despot-for law, it is a-» : when vermin infest a bed— . and the open is- better. Duncan with his four baggage camels ' had intended leaving Kub-hub-nol the next ' morning.- His trading he preferred to I. carry on amongst the wandering tribes on i! the edge of the desert. But an early deJ parture was now impossible, unless * he dis : ' j regarded the letter that Fate, had brought him:" and he went down to his eamel--1 i driver and told , him that lie should stay■'*where he was for a week or more. The - camel-driver, Ben—he had a string of I 'names, of which Ben was the- most easily > grasped by his toaster—grunted acquies- ' ' cence with* the stolidity of a man to whom p ,one place is as good as another. ' '- It ..was late in the afternoon, the time '"'when the city awoke after the heat of the 'day. Duncan went out and walked through the bazaar, now thronged with its bargain - ing life.. From the safety of its teeming 'humanity he observed carefully the build- ' : ing, whence had fallen the note. .It was ! i a blank wall of thirty feet; then high up "under its eaves was a row of tiny latticed i ' windows, through which, ' if • eyes looked at rail—and from, what had occurred that -noon, 'he judged they did—they looked unperceived J'by those outside. The slats of the blinds ! seemed built into the walls. • ''' The American having observed what he 1 could, bought some fruit of an itinerant ,; vendor, and asked him what the building i: opposite was. ■ ; -i " That is the seraglio of the Sultan, the J man answered importantly. "And never c have splendours been seen on earth 1 such as exist there. ■ On. the other ■ side of the building . are gardens si containing: trees, - leathered ..with .-leaves from the very bottom, not with just , la bunch on top as are the palms; and the -1 gardens are filled with flaming birds that 3 1 exist nowhere else in the world; and they 1 1 sing by day and by night, that there may , be happiness and contentment in tins about s i of the fortunate. And the wives of the ci Sultan— most beautiful from every mi-ction-walk in the garden when it is cool, and come back into the palace When the "■tsiin shines warm, and rest there, lulled by -the murmur from the striving street below. b 1 thinking only of how they can make them.l selves yet more beautiful for the coming o] -their lord." I • The man was of the class of story-tellers, s 'and dwelt vet longer and more eloquently on the Sultan and his glories, raising ins e- voice and following Duncan when he triec alto move awav,-until the American stillec Ibis clamour, with a small com, or rathei I changed it into a nseau of praise for the '"[munificence of the stranger. ij i -Duncan had learned,what he wished abom >, the building opposite, and to get his money: 5 •t worth from the fruit vendor he also m d quired : his wav to the English Consulate 'and again had to pay for being piloted there '"jsince ..alone the industrious Siroccan woulc jnot letdiim go. ~•«•' * I The English Consul was in his office, very ■e ; drunk, and playing solitaire with,a. succes: . that a masterful overriding of ordinary i usage alone rendered possible. • 1 he Xonsu . e ; looked up yetdiis first words, star '• i tied Duncan not a little. - . yj "M-m-m'name 'sh Pershy C-C-Cunning ,: ham," he stammered. " To whash owe honoi ielof vish-vishit?" . • ■■!■■■ Duncan stood open-mouthed at the name " 'coming thus unexpectedly even as themys n I tsrious letter . itself. Percy Cunmnghan t- i would have looked a better class young. Eng g! lishman had he not been sodden with drink v He was of the tall, clean-limbed, yellow * haired variety, that. England breeds ,m abun i dance" to go out and conquer the world, oi .-{to die of fever in outlandish ; places » . ".Jl-ni-m'- i ,>buishnes.s.". .Cunningi ham announced with'(gravity, returning tc i the cards, and beeomhifi rapt in the occu ; nation of laving a : red pine : on, a black ten, " a- nine which - he arbitrarily . extracted from * the middle of the three cards he turned. up. -Uvith a decision of character which robbed the game of its terrors. », , . . . '!• v Duncan was amused, in spite of his imitation at finding the one man that .-might have helped. in this condition— conedition which ma appearance plainly showed "to be habitual. The American turned heipsjlessly to the servant who had\ ushered oim llin. . ■'' ..''• ■ : '/- ]-, ■: :; .:.. • '-~ . . ' " When docs your master attend to ; his j business?" he. asked. ; .-- V 1 He is best when he has . nob been too 3 i long awake." the servant answered -,unper- ■ Iturbably. " When three times he, has drunk. -lin the morning, his mind is clearest.. Be , I fore that he trembles much, ,and will throw I [things.''at the head of nothing. After that 5 he graduallv forgets all things." , ' ,- 7 1. "Is there an American : Consul in tins -.town?" ; ■■ : , ■-' : , : -;■'■ "There was one till a month ago, when he died of fever. ;Now there are only four Consuls left." X \ ': Duncan went awav especially disgusted with Cunningham, because he was the .one man who mhiht have urd"'rstoqd the situa- : tion and known how to handle it, n he had i been sober. Still it was encouraging to haw j come upon "Percv Cunningham" so- soon. silt was something to work on at least He I I would try again.in the morning if haplv he i 'might find him at that flood in the tide of I : his drinks, -which, seized, might lead on to .' fortune, in this matter rightly concerning ,- [him more than it did Duncan. ; i 'In the morning Duncan, ; in his energetic J way, called too early. Cunningham, in, his I ! pyjamas, was drinking his coffee • with a shaking hand. - He slopped in his chair, , land his eyes looked bleary.. - ; - a " Gug-glad to meet anyone th-'that tutn talks English in this wretched h-h-h-hole," Cunningham said shakily. ; • ( .; -1 " Mighty glad myself," Duncan replied. cordially. "God-forsaken kind of country ritbis is"," he went on conversationally; '.."pretty near anything might happen here, He was trying to size up bis man before entrusting him with the news he had. si " Have a cuck-cup of coffee?" Cunningham tj invited, pouring out another cup. He spillec si half of it into the saucer with his shaking si hand. " Sus-sorry," he stammered, i '. " D-deuced bad cli-cli—, decuced bad cli—. s'bad weather, v'know. Racks your nerves - to pup-pieces. Have to dud-drink all the I time to keep 'em sus-steady." , ,'. Evidently he did not drink enough, then ; jbiit if that was so he immediately did his '. ibest to repair the omission. Duncan, try|ing to size up his man, lost him before he a'ventured to approach the topic that hue -jbrought, him there. Cunningham becairn : 'hilariously, patriotically, Anglo-Saxonb drunk in.an incredibly short time, and firs) - wanted to whip Duncan because of the sligh; :- I put upon George the Third by George Wash >'' ington, then wished to join forces with Dun n! can, -, and with him wipe out the Sultan o. 'Sirocco and every "- nigger" in Africa. ~ j """Drunken fool!" Duncan said to himself .after : cordially bidding his host good-by e j and promising soon to see him again: "th;i; [. j bov will be in his grave inside six month: Jif he keeps on the way he is going." it I The American carried a very poor impres ;ision awav with him of the possibilities o i-1 Cunningham as an ally in a desperate tin idertiiking. Nevertheless, he had laid him If'self out to win the Englishman's friendship: d for he was still a possible aid. and Duncai e could not afford to neglect any such, i- : '' '- '■ '■' "" • "■■ ■■" ; * CHAPTER 111. y - ' '. THE ANVIL MESSAGE. > r Duncan was a l-esourceful man, and Cun '° ninghiim appearing but a broken reed, h< >'! cast about for other means. For a day in two j he scouted around the blank walls 6: the Sultan's palace and gardens without re 3- ceiving much inspiration. The bribing o ; i some official naturally presented itself to hi; eimind,'.but did not commend itself to him, yJThis would be putting himself and Dal mensi Grahame absolutely in the power of some >t! Siroccan with a proved lack of moral prin s ciples; .and the, probability was that aftei e ! having bled them as much as they ,* coulc dj stand, he would betray them to- the Sultar I for still further rewards. It might become

necessary to take this risk if every other way was exhausted, but for the present Duncan exercised his ingenuity to think of .some other, cheaper method. For while : I Duncan had mad considerable money, as the result of an adventure among the Anabazis in South America, he had not brought i much with him, trusting as'be did to sub- t . sisting on the lands he passed through. ! Various plans came to Duncan's mind, all '■ |of, them risky and impracticable. He 'thought of tying a note to an arrow, and ; "shooting it at night over the; building, into ■ the garden bevond, on the very minute ■chance that the English girl and no other j M would pick it up. Or of leaving a basket •! of fruit with her name on it at the palace j 'jo-ate,' with, a letter inserted in an apple, ] [which plan had, among numerous other ob- ( ' lections. : the one that it would probably| alarm the Sultan by showing him that some j friend; of the girl's* was in Kub-liub-nol try- 1 i ing to communicate .with her. ' ■jt i Finallv. after discarding these and other i >' schemes" Duncan evolved fine which at least j if had the merit of venturing little. Out in J , -New Mexico, several years before in Dun- . ■ can's : cowboy days, luck had once been i! against him so long that he -had even left •his saddle lying in the desert, from sheer I •inability to carry it away from the horse I JI that had died under him on the : South-west h i Trail. Staggering on, half-starved, Duncan \, 'had come upon a blacksmith's shop contain-1 -ing two dead men. Opposite was a store, i Untied. The ashes of ■ a third house were, 1 blowing awav in the dry wind, and revealing , e a number of half-burned bones I Ins was J c all. that was left of Gimlet Well, stopping-, ti place on the South-west Trail. The Greasers -had come across, the border and wiped it 5 ; cut shortly before Duncan had staggered ,-Unto it.. -. ■ . s ' Duncan rooted around in the gutted store i p! until. he found a few cans of potted ham, of ■ -I 'an order of cheapness that outdoor lite, tj alone rendered digestible, and' some boxes , •of crackers, overlooked sby the Greasers . djlle buried the two bodies, and then decided s| to grow up with the country. Any posi-, ition in town was open to him. He would I eihave preferred to be storekeeper nad there; t ; been « little more stock to begin with. ; As; 'lit was, he chose the vocation of blacksmith,. ' (because of the forge and the anvil and the! e tools in the shop. j vl -In Gimlet -Well Duncan stayed, four, hi months and three weeks. He obtained pror. visions from the passing waggon-trains; land he was hardly ever alone more than a ii few days at a time. The South-west irailj it!was then much travelled, and his trace *'proved profitable The first few horses he, it shod'perhaps looked down at their feet and; y I wondered': but Duncan was a handy man,! viand soon acquired proficiency through ex-j iciperienca. '; '1 ! e!; Since leaving Gimlet Well Duncan bad ; l -['never- practised ■ blacksmithing profession- j l-lallv, although the knowledge he had gained ie ihad 'often been of service to him hi his >' iwanderiues: Now, however. Duncan ; bought out a email shop on the outskirts; - jof Kub-hub-nol, and moved it to a booth he' )f -irented hi the bazaar just opposite the wm- • dow whence had fluttered the note from the '■, -Sultan's harem. ~ For a few-hours the v | strange sight of a Ferenghi working as a is!blacksmith caused the crowd around his d. booth to be denser than elsewhere; then ; d -the busy life of the bazaar flowed on, and ir i Duncan "sank inconspicuously into it.. .-.-,- e ! . Trade did not overwhelm Duncan on his I firs* day in the bazaar, yet he did not idle it'when unemployed. Procuring a piece of 's cardboard, some two feet square, he drew i-ion it, with charcoal, a large plain-featured e> letter A. such as could be seen a long way off bv one". normal eyesight, and hung it id'over* the entrance to his booth. Then at I intervals of about a minute he gave his an : J" ; vil a hard blow 'on the nose that made it iS |ring like a bell. Some of his fellow bazaar--71 dwellers .looked at him curiously a few ulj times, but they did not try . to understand r-[ an Englishman: life was too strenuous for [them to waste any of it in. probing the g-jfoolish; and they let him keep' up his regun'lt'ij", minute-strokes without nue«tion, till ihe .was interrupted bv Techryk, capUiin of the! Royal Guard, riding by on his white s_ stallion. . , -~.:.. ,: m ! ■ Techryk was a man out of the common, 5"lor he would not have risen to the position K - •he ■ held; and one of his traits, very unusual *"'!in an.Oriental, was the desire.to" try new n ' things,-, to see if they were better than those" he - -was accustomed - to. It went with I a daring of id's nature, that had proved of >' use to the Sultan in the past.' "■• Sis tlivs o '| inquiring turn of mind which 'led'.,him to 'j try the Ferenghi blacksmith. He reined in '-ibefore Duncan's booth ; and commanded the II j American to replace a shoe his stallion had cast. '. d ! "Shoe him well," he said haughtily, "for .he is dear to dearer than you and l your life." '; ' *_ : '- . IL . "The word- were not reassuring to Dunl,"|cau," Techryk watched the 'shoeing, with •' [the jealous eye with which a mother watches 'Tithe barber clipping the curls of her firstn' the stallion had been taught to . .'•■ bear handling only from his master. .- ' Dun-is-i can's hands were unused to the trick he ' 'was called on to turn, and a botched job _° ] would mean at least i a broken head , for '"*iDuncan, here where they had never dreamt • jof a Union. Yet, taking in- ! ! finite pains! and recalling all that he had r i been wont to practise at Gimlet Well, he ,: | elicited from Teehrvk-a grunt of Half-satis--1 faction when the job war T'o?npVed. S ! After the captain, in the tall daring boots ! and ■'cTan'kinc; spurs, 'the liov.-i, Ounrd — "! which ride." not as light as the ordinary viSiroccan—lusd passed out of sight. Duncan j I turned '-over, his piece of '..cardboard, and ■J executed a hie Bon its hjicV : v ,r with this . 1 hanging where, the A had hung, he rhythj jmically tapped the anvil with his, hammer . again, but thi' time gave two strokes and then an interval, instead of the single stroke " that had accompanied the A. '(The noonday quiet had now descended c upon the bazaar,"'and presently Duncan stop- ' ped his anvil-tapping to produce, on a fresh „. piece cardboard, a C-: and for the next ° I hour.',iu the sleeping bazaar: the only isoimd was Duncan's hammer on his anvil, 0 1 monotonously sounding its- triple strokes F ito match his letter C. As he tapped., and 1 jas lie waited, he kept watching the blank ' j wall, opposite. Would not another note flutter down into the hot Siroccan sunshine •-! from one of the little latticed windows up "i under the eaves? Couldn't Dalmera Gra- - name see him. as she probably had before I. she had dropped down her first note? Seveyjra! times, oblivious of the heat pulsating : 'down from above and reflected back from "below, Duncan walked the length of the i-] building, hunting for a note which might | have escaped his notice, alert as that had n ! been; but no scrap of paper, no sign of any dikind, rewarded Him. • ■■'■■'' gj By that hour in the afternoon when life l. j began to reappear- in the bazaar, Duncan -, | was pretty well fagged out.. In Sirocco one must do as the Siroccans do. to enie;dure the climate: and thev hold that the "1 middle of the day, even more than the mid- . idle* of the night!' is meant for sleep. Dun[gican had not rested, and he was now sitin front of his booth, smoking at ease, , e \and wondering if his well-la-d plan was to djcome to nothing. He had just played his last*, card in the particular hand he held, [ v !.and it was more risky than the first. Over! at f his booth, as if it were a sign, he had : "iffplaced the inscription on. a long piece of I!.!board: "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?". | 'He had hoped that the 'English girl, see-; iff ing him. in the booth. might.associate the; i. !single taps of his hammer with the letter; f A. the double taps with the letter B. and' r e[ the triple tap? with the; letter C. ■If she: ','t once -understood that, it would be easy fori is him to spell: out to her anything he had to 1 'si'v.; .and if she were able to drou notes . 'to him. either at the npenday stillness, or S at night, they might, be able to plan some I method of escape. But be was po.werlpss II jur.lc-s -she from the inside aided him, He; had -been across the .street and convinced! • 'himself; that his m°s«age could be read"! \ 111 ! a distance, eoual to that of the window. j land now he saw. nothing more to do until! j she gave some sign. V ' As. the rest and the pipe influenced Dun- 1 , jean he became more and more plewedwitK! himself. His scheme was a good one. It , might not work, but it was a «>oo one, ; (l-ljust the 'same. He regretted mildly that. Ie he had "ever learned the Morse code since; >r'it would have simplified his tapping so; if'much, but then, he reflected, the chances! s-jwere a thousand to one that Dalmera Gra-. jfjhame, whoever she might be. was not a| is!telegraph operator, and his momentary rci. gret vanished. ■; ; ! •a *- (To. bo continued.) I ie ;." - ; ■:.-,■"''■'''. ]' v [Another instalment of this very interest d ing story will be given in these .columns non Monday next: and continued : daily ie until its completion.]