THE NOVELIST

Otago Witness, Issue 3954, 24 December 1929, Page 70

THE NOVELIST

THE NECKLACE OF EL-HOYA.

By

DULCE CARMAN.

( Special for the

Otago Witness.)

CHAPTER X.—THE AMBER ROSE. There is a destiny which makes us brothers, None goes on his way alone ; - AU that we send into the lives of others. Comes back into our own. -r—Edwin Markham. “The moonlight is gorgeous tonight!” said Terence Maitland, glancing nervously at his companion, as they paced side by side down the long drive. “ It promises a perfect day for our shore expedition to-morrow —it is a wonderful spell of weather.” His hand strayed into his coat pocket, lingering there for a moment, and came out again. Marie Luxford smiled a little as she walked by his side, idly fingering the amber roses of her long chain. “Won't you smoke, Mr Maitland?” she said teasingly. “ I know you are simply dying to. I’m rather fond of the scent of your cigarettes, they are very like cigaas. No, thanks ” as he offered a worn silver case —“ it is a habit that I very seldom indulge in, and I don’t feel the least bit inclined that way just at present. I have been wondering how best to tell you what I never dreamed of telling anyone. I think I should find it easier to speak if you were smoking. Silly of me, of course, but there it is!” “You are a brick!” the young man said gratefully. “ I’m rather a cigarette fiend, I know, but I find it impossible to break myself of the habit.” He selected a cigarette with care, and was soon puffing contentedly as he walked by his companion’s side. “This is such a pretty place!” she said suddenly, breaking a rather long spell of silence. “ There should be nothing but peace and happiness possible in an atmosphere like this, and yet, there is an oppressive sense of something evil brooding over everything. Do vou feel it?”

“Too true I do! If only I knew rightly what was the matter, and how to put things right ” he paused abruptly. “Look at the hillside there!” Marie continued. “ All that spread of manuka bloom, like drifted snow on the bushes. Manuka has a fascination for me—it reminds me always of fairy snow.” “ It is pretty,” Terence said absently. “ But wait until you see the flame of the pohutukawas on the beach.” “ I’m rather fond of blazing things, too!” Marie confessed. “This is more difficult than I had thought it would lx;—can’t you give me a helping hand? I don’t see yet quite where you and I touch in this mystery, do you? “Not quite, I confess! There isn't anything really that I can tell you, either, except that in our latest discovery—a medal that could work wonders in the world to-day, Lion and I seem to have come into contact with unknown forces of evil. It sounds ridiculous, I know—in fact we refused to believe it ourselves as long as we could, until the knowledge was absolutely forced upon us. Until we discovered this Metal—by accident—the valley was the lovely, peaceful spot that it ought to be. Since then, as our researches have progressed (so smoothly that at times it seems uncanny) so the feeling of fear and evil have deepened over the valley. It is only Mona who is very much distressed by this unexplainable shadow—Mona—and Dickie too is in danger, as we have seen to-day. Why? I have puzzled over the reason, and finally have come to the conclusion that it is l>ecause Dick and Mona share Lion’s life with his researches, and—they are wanted out of the way.” The girl uttered a swift little cry of dismay. “But that is dreadful.” she said. “I couldn’t believe that!” “ Well—l hope it is not true—only I don’t see what other construction we can put upon recent happenings, do you ? ” “Still, I don’t see where I come in!” Marie said in a puzzled way. “ And yet I must be connected In some -way, or why should I feel so safe, while my twin is in danger? *How does the influence surrounding me place me beyond danger ?” “That is for you to tell me!” Terence said gravely. The girl gazed silently into the inky blackness of the moon-shadows, and the young man smoked impassively as he awaited the explanation that affected him so vitally. “ I don’t really half understand things myself, you know!” Marie said at last, hesitatingly. “ Mona and I used to be almost exactly alike, once—but we are not any longer.” She paused so long, that Terence felt mpelled to answer: “Oh, well, you know she’s married!” he said lamely. “Married, and a

mother! Iler outlook on life would lie sure to have widened and deepened.” “Oh! I don’t mean that kind of difference!” the girl replied scornfully. “In fact, it’s impossible to tell you what I mean. I don't think I was ever meant to be born a twin. I’ll tell you why! Before Lionel’s love came between Mona and I, we were absolutely inseparable, and shared every thought. Afterwards, of course, when she was living in a new world of her own, much of the joy went out of mine, that was inevitable. I experienced the loneliness that only a twin could ever know. I don’t know really how time passed when Mona was first married—everything, for me, began when I received my enchanted necklace.” Terence drew in his breath with a little hiss, and the girl smiled in the moonlight. “It sounds absurd, doesn’t it?” she said. “ But, if you’ve read books, you must have seen many instances of mesmeric jewels. I remember one of a mesmerised coral bracelet, and it is certain that my beautiful chain of crystal and amber roses was mesmerised long ages ago by my love —my love!” A tone of ineffable tenderness that made the young man wince, crept into the musical voice, and Marie turned to him suddenly. “To you, I am merely Marie Luxford—a very prosaic and commonplace twentieth century maiden of no particular interest. To him, I am an Eastern Princess who has slept for a thousand years. It will be quite a relief to tell someone of all the things that have happened to me since first my great-aunt, MTs Devenish, sent me my wonderful necklace. Something in the very air of this place seems to be antagonistic to me, or me to it—or both! And I mistrust this green metal of yours of which you have told me, and have said so little. A woman’s instinct is worth trusting at most times, and here I am backed by my love! ” “I spent my childhood in the East!” said Terence simply. “ Therefore many things which other men would scoff at, I accept as possibilities. The East is full of wonders, and magic still lives there. If you do not speak to me as Marie Luxford, what name do you bear?”

“ He christened me the Amber Rose —ages ago when the world was young. I was known by that name, and remember no other, though of course I must have had one. It seems that I was an Eastern maiden of very high degree —my memory of that time is but fragmentary; and he—El-Hoya—one of their most learned men—was my lover then. The necklace I now possess, he had made for me then, and we knew nothing of the Marie Luxford who was to come centuries after. “Well, to use his words—‘ln the fullness of time, we fell asleep!’ “ After that my necklace was lost, or stolen, or sold—at all events it disappeared for centuries, and never did I in all my reincarnations, possess the symbol which alone could call my. love to my side from the shadows. “ At last I became Marie Luxford— Monica Luxford’s twin—and old Mrs Devenish sent me my long-lost talisman. Dear old lady, it was a love-gift from her, and I knew as little as she of that other greater love which had blessed the amber roses. “ It was not until I wore the shimmering chain of crystal and imprisoned sunlight, that memory awoke, and he came to my side from the silence; he and his Arab stallion, Grey Dawn! “ I remember that the first thing he said was ‘AI ’hamdu lillah daki lakom!’ and although to my knowledge I had never heard the language before, yet somehow I knew quite well that the words meant ‘ Praise be unto Allah, praying for thee!’ and it seemed quite a familiar greeting, and sweeter by far than the curt ‘ Good day! ’ of modern western civilisation. “ He was so handsome too—young and dark, with tender, fathomless dusky eyes. His robe was of spotless white—don't they call it a burnouse or something? In details like this, my memory still sleeps.” “ I know what you mean—the name varies according to the tribe.” Marie nodded. ‘'The horse!” she said eagerly. “The horse was Arabian—a satin-skinned beauty, with arched neck and friendly flashing eyes—a creature with tenselystretched muscles, and speed written upon every limb. He w^as —Grey Dawn! He might have been made for the name. “ They did not stay with me long, that first time, because grannie kept calling out to me to hurry in to dress —it was time we went out, and I should be late. For we were going out

to a big dinner party on thp first occasion when, as Marie Luxford, I wore the necklace which had been mine for centuries.

“Grannie came, and he—they—(l must count Grey Dawn as a friend, for I have a feeling that once, in the dawn of time, he stood between me and death —though here, again, my" memory sleeps.) They went when grannie came. It seemed quite natural that he should not lie seen by anyone but me—his Amber Rose. “ For some time after this I did not wear my necklace —I had not really realised how much it meant to me, and so I saw no more of my Eastern wooer. Nor did he always come when I did wear the chain of crystal and amber. If I were alone, I knew that I should presently look up to see him beside me—if anyone else was with me, he never came.

“It was some months after my first interview' with El-Hoya that——having a severe headache, I went early to bed, and quickly fell asleep. I shall never know whether I only dreamed what followed, or whether the incidents which I am about to relate really took place. “ I seemed to be on a sandy plain outside a great city of white, flat-roofed houses, with here and there the minaret of a mosque cleaving the cloudless blue of a mid-day sky. The plain stretched away and away until it met and mingled with the blue haze distance lends. “ Near a small lake, close beside me, date-palms rose in graceful clusters. The sun blazed down mercilessly—indeed, although a vast number of people were gathered together in the welcome shade cast by the great alleluba trees, all outside was sun-baked sand and silence. The very shores of the lake had been transformed into a sweet-smelling bower of myrtle and almond fully-flowering. “ I, myself, was clad in Eastern dress of pink and palest amarinth silk and velvet, embroidered with seed pearls—my hair was crowned by a jaunty little velvet chachia (where do I get those names?) and for all jewellery, I wore my chain of amber roses. Y’et I knew myself to be as fully adorned as any of the gaily-clad women around me, who wore jingling gem-set bangles, and many necklets of gold and silver sequins. “In the midst of that great throng of people I sat enthroned—apart—and yet it did not seem at all strange to me —rather as an accustomed privilege, I think.

“I remember dimly wondering vliy all these women were unveiled. Then it dawned upon me, quite as a shock, that these were Englishwomen who had once been Eastern, and who had now come back across the ages to be with their loves of long ago. And Mona was not amongst them. That is the difference between us, Mr Maitland. It was an old experience to me, relived; else how did I know the names of the trees, and of the dresses ? I have never, as Marie Luxford, been in the East at all. Whatever my old-world experiences may have been, they were unshared by *Mona. That is why I said that I thought I was not meant to be born a twin. It is a mystery to me because, on the one occasion when, out of curiosity, I made Mona wear my necklace, she came partly under its influence straight away.” “By jove! Mona did, too? M’ell, at least that proves there is something in it!” “Of course there is”—scornfully. “I can understand your doubting attitude, but I’m really not qualifying for an asylum. Let me finish my story. I wondersd what influence had called a!l these women from the shadows, and what was the reason for this great gathering of people. And then, like a flash of light, so swiftly did they come, a dozen men rode up through the sun-scorched silence. They were all fine men, superbly mounted, but foremost amongst them w-ere El-Hoya and Grey Dawn. As the rider was the handsomest man amongst that multitude, so the mount outstripped the other horses for both speed and beauty, and as they dashed forward, firing their long rifles from every con ceivable position, it suddenly dawned upon me that this was a Powder Play. “It seemed utterly ridiculous that I, Marie Luxford, should be sitting there in the desert of an unknown country, an interested beholder of perhaps the most wonderful exhibition of horsemanship which the world has ever known. “ Then the vision—if such indeed it was slowly faded, and it seemed ns though a shroud of sunlit mist rose from the desert itself, hiding first the riders, and finally the watching crowd from my gaze. Closer and still closer about me the warm mist wrapped itself until, when at last I could see again, I was only Marie Luxford in my own little white room at home. “ After that, El-Hoya often came to me. and I spent so much time alone, waiting and longing for him, that my health suffered, and I—essentially an out-of-doors girl—began to grow ’ thin and white-faced.

“It was then that grandmother, whose eyes are at times most inconveniently sharp, proposed that I should pay my many-times-proposed visit to Mona, and here I am. That is the story of my necklace, Mr Maitland, and you know now just how it came to me. and all that it means to me. But still the mystery remains. Where do we touch in the matter of this valley, and howdoes my necklace protect me from this green metal that is casting such an evil spell over all the rest of you? ”

(To be continued.)

lhe colour had faded from the young man s face, and his mouth was grimly set, as he faced the girl’s troubled gaze in the moonlight. “If we touched, you would be in danger too! ” he said tensely. “ That we do not, is your salvation, and my despair. I will tell you what I think.”