Zebel. A novel

Chapter I

It was a miserable night — a bitter night. The familiar London mud and filth lay in the roads in perfect heaps ; the pavements were greasy with the partially thawed snow which had fallen during the day ; while down the streets in pitiless fury swept a keen, biting wind.. No one, save, indeed, those poor souls who had not where to lay their heads, lingered on the way that night. All, or nearly all, passed on as though they were merely figures in a kaleidoscope ; some oppressed, perhaps, by the mood of nature, with the pain and weariness of their lives pressing more heavily than usual upon them ; others, again, more happily fated, with visions of tender faces and cosy firesides soon to be reached. Could anyone have thought about anything save himself and his own home, and his own B ZEBEL. people, as he chanced to cross Westminster Bridge on that particular night, he would have thought, and "thought with some curiosity, about a tall, thiu shadow (in deed, it was little else) which met him on the foot-way.

Without doubt there was a strange strange ness about this thing — this shadow of a man. The figure was so gaunt, so frail, and seemed so unfit to hold its own amid that jostling, hurrying crowd. The face, too, looked sadly out of place. Thin and pale, with delicate, refined features, carrying indelible marks of ill-health, it was just one of those faces which now and then come home with us from our wanderings abroad, and, lingering for awhile beside our firesides, make us look with feelings akin to fear upon the roses blooming now so brightly upon our own dear one's cheeks. The people who had gone a portion of the way across the bridge side by side almost with this man passed on ; but he paused midway, and leaning against the parapet, gazed dreamily into the water which was splashing monotonously about the piers below.

Did he fancy, as he thus gazed, that the river had taken to itself an intelligible voice, and was sighing out a requiem for some poor soul which it had lured to death by vain pro mises of forgetfulness and peace? Likely enough he did, for there had been moments ZEBEL 3 in this man's life when, grimly fascinated by that lulling sound, he, too, had thought that it might be well for him to lie down in those dark waters and let all things pass away for ever. Well, although not nobly born, his early associations had been far removed from any thing like discomfort or pain. Unfortunately, however, for him, his parents had been careless, worldly people, and had troubled themselves little about their child, beyond the fact of indulging it in every childish whim that arose. Naturally enough the boy grew to early manhood with a character utterly devoid of that stability without which a man can make but a poor thing of this life.

Aud as a fair, frail pleasure boat leaves the shore, with no thought of what that cloud means rising slowly up out of the sea yonder, so that young man had bidden a careless adieu to his home and gone forth into the great world. For some few years, indeed, all had gone well. A lieutenant in a crack regiment, gay, handsome, and courted on all sides, it was no wonder that this young fellow, all unpre pared as he was by early judicious training, should have fancied that life was destined to be one long, happy holiday. But just as that little cloud grows and grows, until at length it blackens the whole sky and brings distress upon that frail pleasure craft, so cares, unfelt at first, grew day by day in strength and ZEBEL, number until they pressed ever so sorely upon this young man's daily life.

With many a promise to avoid extravagant companions and to do better in the future, he had appealed to his father ; and more than once that appeal had been generously responded to ; but somehow the money thus obtained had never been enough to free the recipient from anything beyond his most pressing embarrassments. Yet there came a day when even this temporary aid could be had no more — a dark day, when that father lay cold and stiff, with the blinds drawn to shut out the sunlight which never more might look into his kind, laughing eyes ; while that awful presence we all one day must know had lifted the veil from the life it had just claimed, and shown that for years the man had lived beyond his means, and that, instead of a fortune, as was reasonably expected, he had left even some debts of his own, as a portion for his wife and child.

Happily for her, that wife, indulged and spoiled and pampered into delicate health, faded away under the heavy afflic tions which had fallen upon her, and soon found a resting-place beside the man who had been at once her blessing and her curse. But the child — a child no more, but a man in the first flush of his man hood — well, perhaps, for him had he been able to join his parents; but that could not be. Youth can feel, and feel intensely. ZEBEL, 5 Youth can wish for death, but death does not come quite so easily in the summer time of life, when the blood is hot and the pulses beat strongly within us. And grateful, perhaps, as death would have been to that young man, he, like many another, found that he could not lay down his life at will. Changed, ruined as it was, that life had to be taken up, and made the best or the worst of.

Having ascertained, or rather having had the fact forced upon him, that for the future he would have nothing but what he himself could earn, and pressed on all sides for debts incurred when he imagined himself the son of a rich man, he sold his commission ; and without asking aid or counsel, or even uttering a single farewell to any of the friends by whom he had once been surrounded, the un fortunate young man left England, as he then thought for ever. With no definite purpose in his mind ; with no hope of being able to maintain him self in the position of a gentleman, chance threw him one day, in a cafe, in the French capital, across a party of soldiers, whose conversation soon revealed the fact that they would be leaving their country in a few days to take part in the desultory war fare then raging between the Arabs in Algeria and their European conquerors.

On the spur of the moment the man's ZEBEL 6 resolution was taken. He joined those soldiers. When men are wanted to slake the lust of war few questions are asked. Health and youth are the only passports worth having ; so, foreigner as he was, the Englishman found little difficulty in enrolling himself under the banner of Imperial France. His tall, straight, soldierly figure spoke volumes in his favour, and what cared the great ones in authority whether the man was fitted to bear the heat and the privations in the desert yonder ? Men were needed, lives were needed to keep a proud, conquered race in subjec tion ; and so among a host of reckless, dare-devil comrades, the Englishman found himself, before many more suns had risen and set, beneath the burning skies of Africa. And what a life it was which met him there !

Coarse, hard fare, from which, when the first pangs of hunger had been appeased, he often turned in disgust. And days and nights alternating between scenes of ribald mirth in which his companions seemed to find a fierce sort of consolation, but at which his soul secretly sickened, and des perate hand-to-band conflicts with dusky skinned warriors. What a life, truly, it was for a man reared in the lap of luxury and refinement ! He might well indeed have often wished himself dead. But when the night is darkest dawn is nearest ; so in the very darkest hour of ZEBEL 7 this man's life there came to him a thing like light. Just as the shades of one night were fall ing upon the great, hot desert, there took place one of those fierce struggles with a party of rebel Arabs; and it was amid the din and tumult of that fray that the Euglish man met this thing which, to him, was like light.

Almost unconsciously, with the innate chivalry of a gentleman, when fire aud smoke, the clashing of swords, and curses and cries of horror were all around, he had resolutely stood over and shielded a woman who had madly rushed, at the hottest moment, into the midst of the fight, and fallen prostrate across the body of a dead Arab. The conflict was over ; the smoke mounted upwards ; the sounds of blasphemy sank into low moans of pain, and down upou a pitiful sight streamed the rays of an African moon. The young soldier, lingering behind his comrades, stooped and raised the woman he had shielded so well. And as he held her in his arms, with her face — very pale in that light — turned towards him, there entered into his heart that all mysterious some thing which in days of old kept the hearts of our first parents from breaking, when the glories of Eden were no more.

From that night the Englishman loved this girl, daughter of an alien race as she was. Yes, he loved her ; and, man-like, his mind knew no peace until he had taught the ZEBEL clear olive cheeks to blush at his approach ; and forced the lids to droop over the dark eyes to screen the wistful, tender light which was gathering there. Soon — too soon, indeed, for many a brave young Arab who would gladly have taken this creature to his own tent — kindred, home, and country were all forgotten ; and a wild desert-born maiden put her hand bravely, fearlessly within that of a stranger, and bade him do with her as he would. And well and honestly the soldier repaid that childlike trust. He gave the girl his name; he gave her his heart's best worship — more than these he could not But she was content. Hardships many and great followed that strangely assorted pair ; but never a murmur passed the lips of the Arab-wife.

Ignorant as she was in most things, she comprehended what many a more gifted woman never can — namely, the unspeakable beauty of a pure love. Some women exact love as a right in lieu of their beauty ; but such was not the case with this woman. She received it gratefully as a gift from Heaven, and returned it with that tender humility which rarely fails to doubly endear the woman to the man. Yet, in spite of all that captivating softness of manner, there was a strength and passion in that girl's love which was almost wonderful. It was her voice which often cheered the ZEBEL 9 husband's flagging spirits ; her voice which, over and over again, whispered of a better time to come. It was her hand which cooled by its touch the burning, throbbing brow ; her eyes that never wearied of watching until sleep folded her wings around the man's harassed mind and gave his poor heart perfect peace.

Never, indeed, did woman deal more loyally by man than did that desert-reared girl. And never did man lose a truer friend than did John Mortimer when two young arms loosened their hold of a tiny 'form, fresh from God, and two large dark eyes, heavy with the shades of another world, looked their last farewell to him. It was a bitter trial, and the soldier's patience was sorely taxed ; yet after the first outbursts of grief had subsided, one thing roused the poor fellow's flagging spirits, and that was the frail life which had had so heavy a toll paid for it. He could not choose but love this little stranger that looked at him with its mother's eyes; he could not choose but bury his sore heart and rise and struggle with the world anew ; though Heaven knows, had he too died, the babe's soft, frail life, powerless to help itself, might have been borne, by its very inability to resist, to some safer, happier shore ; just as a young tree bowing its every branch before the storm will often live to feel the warmth of another summer, while the grandly spread- ZEBEL. ing oak, wdiich for years has resisted the winds so bravely, lies severed from its mighty hold.

But John Mortimer was a father, and the idea of leaving his child helpless and alone in the world would have been abhorrent to him ; so bravely enough he had struggled on, in spite of his sorrow. And all praise it was .to him, poor fellow ; for gentle, tender, sensitive almost as a woman, nature seemed to have formed him for a fairer fate. But all things must have an end, and that hard African life ended at last for John Mortimer. And this was how it came about. Years ago, in the old college days, Mortimer had formed a friendship which, even in those happy, careless times, had in it something more than the good-fellowship usually exist ing between young men companions, with a youth by the name of Francis Stanmore. Just, however, when those college days were over for both, the father of Mortimer's friend died, and the deceased having been a man of some considerable standing in his county, and a baronet, certain ties and responsibili ties, uuthought of a few weeks before, suddenly fell upon the young man, who was the only son.

Still, novel and full of new interests as was the position the young baronet soon found himself to be in, the old friendship between John Mortimer and himself had been to a considerable extent maintained ; and ZEBEL 11 had young Mortimer sought counsel aud aid from his friend, things might have gone less hardly with him than they had done. But pride, and a morbid sense of shame, had kept him back, in those first unhappy days of his troubles, from the one man who would gladly have helped him. Many a time since then he had thought of writing to him, but here again something had always come in the way. Sometimes it was a sudden rush of the old sensitive pride; sometimes a fear that the world might have so. changed his friend, that he would no longer care to know one who had sunk so low in the social scale ; sometimes even it was sheer weariness of spirit which had caused the pen to fall from his hand before a few lines could be traced, and had plunged his mind back into one of the dull, purposeless reveries which so ofteu took possession of him.

And so, from one cause or another, that letter was never written ; and twelve long years had crept over the heads of the friends, without word or sign having passed between them, when fate, or chance, suddenly brought them face to face in a narrow street in Algiers. In spite of the years which had passed, in spite of how sadly the one man was changed, the recognition had been mutual. The thin, worn face of John Mortimer had flushed with joy, as his friend — a grand, noble looking man — grasped his hand without a moment's hesitation ; but a moment later, that look of ZEBEL joy had been replaced by one of unmistakable pain and shame. With a strange tightening about his own throat, as he watched that tell-tale face, Sir Francis Stanmore drew the arm of his friend beneath his own, and pulled the poor fellow gently away from a little knot of Arab children that had gathered quickly around them, and before the sun went down on the day of that meeting, Sir Francis had learned all that had befallen his friend since leaving his native land ; and having done so, he was not the man to pass again on his own more fortunate way and leave that friend to poverty and neglect.

It was a difficult task which lay before him, and one that required tact and delicacy of feeling ; for he was not long in discovering that the proud, gentlemanly nature of the man he desired to befriend was unchanged by hardships and common surroundings, and that help must come by some other means than by bestowing money. But having put his shoulder, as it were, to the wheel, Sir Francis was not to be baffled, and before very long he had succeeded in putting aside every scruple put forth by Mortimer, and had made him accept a small government appointment, which, after various letters to influential friends in England, he had obtained for him in London. After that there had been little to wait for. All necessary arrangements, especially those ZEBEL, 13 relating to the military obligations of his friend, were made by Sir Francis Stanmore ; and so, with little or no trouble to himself, John Mortimer found himself and his eight year-old child carried off from that burning land, where he had suffered so many hardships, but where, too, the loyal, tender love of a woman had come to him, and shed for awhile a glory over all that had been so coarse, so hard, and so bitter.

Chapter II

Eight years had rolled away since the day that John Mortimer had quitted Algiers and the night upon which the reader is introduced to that gaunt shape on Westminster Bridge eight years, in which the old, wild life, with its tender love-tale, had had time to pass away into a calm, if never-to-be-forgotten memory. Twice every day, Sundays ex cepted, during those eight years, this tall, thin man, who was none other than John Mortimer, might have been met on the same spot, at the same hour. And now, the reader willing, having thus met him, we will follow wheresoever he leads us. Leaving the bridge and the dark river behind, he passed straight down the busy road on the Surrey side of the water — some times rudely jostled — sometimes laughed at by impudent little street arabs ; but whether it was one or the other seemed a matter of equal indifference to Mortimer.

He was ZEBEL. 15 wet, and cold, and weary, aud having once lost sight of the river, with its haunting memories, his mind grew occupied with the one idea of reaching his home — that home where he knew full well he was being watched for by two soft dark eyes — eyes so wondrously like those which he had left with their light quenched for ever beneath the shade of the palm-trees, that oftentimes, when their gaze met his, he could have wept partly with joy, partly with sorrow. And so, heedless of all that was passing around him, he pressed on until he had reached a house with a somewhat melancholy aspect iu the Old Kent Road. There he paused an instant to scrape the mud from his boots. Then flinging open an iron gate, he wralked up the strip of ground which it would be a mockery to call a garden, and let himself into a narrow passage by means of a latch-key.

A few minutes later, and John Mortimer was seated by the side of a cheerful looking fire, in a room on the first floor. No second glance was needed to learn that he had been expected and was welcome, for there inside the fender were his slippers, there on the fire was the kettle hissing out the welcome which the million love so well. And, above all, there was the sweet sound of a young voice, the smile of a fair young face — the voice, the face of the man's child, the child of his dead love — the one bright spot in his faded life. ZEBEL Everyone, save the man whose god is self, has, locked away perhaps far out of sight, his dream of a woman's fair face. A chance scene, a chance w7ord, may bring that dream vividly back to his memory, and he will take the picture out of the shadowy chamber where he had hung it so loug ago, and gaze once more with a tender and, maybe, regretful heart upon the beautiful, familiar features.

Fair, indeed, as any man's dream might be, never could it be fairer than was the face of Zebel Mortimer. It was not that it was formed as by a sculptor's hand, for the features were hardly faultless enough for that, but it was because the whole was lovely — simply lovely. No one could stand for two minutes and coldly criticise that face ; for somehow, before even that time could elapse, he or she would find all criticism baffled by the changing light of the large dark eyes, by the wondrous curves and dimples which kept appearing just where and when they were least expected, and by the varying colour which seemed to come and go with every passing thought. It was, in truth, just one of those faces which finds its way into a man's innermost heart, closing, as if by magic, on its journey thither, some, secret door which can never again, perhaps to that man's sorrow, be unfastened.

" Father," exclaimed the young girl, after she had made some tea and arranged the table, " do you remember that to-day is* my ZEBEL 17 birthday ? Just fancy, dear, I am sixteeu ! " and the speaker laughed one of those joyous, ringing laughs which tell so plainly of a heart unshadowed by personal sorrow. At the sound of Zebel's voice, John Morti mer looked up, and as his eyes fell upon the graceful figure, already rounding to the beauty of early womanhood, a sudden ex pression of pain crossed his face. " Why, my little one," said he, presently, with an effort at cheerfulness, " you are nearly a woman. How like your mother you grow ; and then to think, too, that you are sixteen — almost as old as she was when first I saw her." And back, even as he ceased speaking, went the man's thoughts into that wild past.

His hands fell listlessly upon his knees, and his eyes turned from the girl's fair, living face to gaze wearily, wistfully into the heart of the blazing fire. Knowing, by the instinctive sympathy of a tender heart, whither her parent's thoughts had wandered, Zebel allowed a few moments to elapse in silence; then, with an evident intention of changing their sorrowful channel, she wound her arm around the poor fellow's neck and said, coaxiugly — " Do you remember promising me that you would teach me Italian when I should be sixteen ? I am longing to begin." " You are longing to begin," repeated Mr. Mortimer, endeavouring to rouse himself from o ZEBEL his reverie. " Why, dearest, I did not know that you were in such a hurry." " Oh, yes, I am in a desperate hurry," returned Zebel, laughing, " I want to know something of that exquisite language.

Be sides, dear," continued the girl, her voice sinking to a tone that was almost tender, " do you remember that when Sir Francis went away his last words to me were that I must learn all I possibly could, so that I should grow up into a clever woman. And so, when he returns, I would like to show him that I have not forgotten what he said. You will help me to do this, will you not, dear?" " That I will," said Mr. Mortimer, earnestly. " And so," added he, lightly, " you want to become a learned little person, and, above all, you want to win the praises of Sir Francis Stanmore. Well, dearest, you do right to think well of him. He has been a good and true friend to us." " Have you really heard nothing of him lately?" asked the girl, musingly. "Does no one ever tell you anything about his movements ?

" "No," replied the other, knowing well Zebel referred to Sir Francis ; "Ihave not heard a word about him since he wrote that letter twelve months ago. I would dearly like to know where he is, and how he is, but " — here the colour mounted to the worn cheeks — " I cannot bear to go near his ZEBEL 19 people : the people who knew me years ago, when I was not as I am now." The changing countenance, the proud, sad tone of her father's voice, which told but too plainly how keenly alive to pain the man still was, were not lost upon Zebel, and once more she wound her arm around the poor fellow's neck, and, kissing him gently, ex claimed — " Never mind, dear. Do not worry your self about him. He is safe. I know he is." And, strange enough, though the girl spoke chiefly to cheer her father, she believed her own words.

In spite of having heard nothing of Sir Francis Stanmore for twelve months ; in spite of that one letter, written in a comparatively unknown part of South America, having hinted at difficulties and even dangers neces sarily attending travels in so wild a region, she, in the glorious faith of her sixteen summers, believed that no harm had come to the writer, and that as sure as the sun would rise on the morrow, so sure would he one day return in perfect safety.

Chapter III

On the morning following this conversation, just as the great bell at Westminster slowly tolled the hour of nine, John Mortimer once more passed down the narrow garden path of the house in the Old Kent Road, and turned his steps towards the city. The sun, which half-an-hour ago had forced his way through a leaden sky, shone upon the gaunt figure — the shabby clothes ; yet even beneath his searching glance the man looked as he had looked the night before, a gentleman. Perhaps many a man, starting that morning on his daily struggle with the world, carried a sadder heart than Mortimer; for about him, as he went on his way, there lingered the sound of a tender young voice, which rarely failed to cheer his weary, dis pirited heart. During the last few years of her life Zebel had acquired a strange power over her ZEBEL 21 father, more perhaps through the great love she bore him than through any particular strength of character.

And as the common affairs of life widened, and day by day the girl became more able to understand them, and contend with them, the man had grown more of a child. So gradually it had come about, without either of them exactly per ceiving how, that the two had exchanged places — he, with the exception of earning the money, being the one to accept passively ; she, the one to think of and arrange every thing pertaining to their simple wants. In this every-day life of Zebel there was something very serene, very good, very tender. The girl loved her father dearly, and never did she neglect a single household duty which could possibly add to his comfort ; she would, without a moment's hesitation, rise from the perusal of a most enchanting poem or tale to perform the most trivial service. So exact was she in all the small cares of existence, that it seemed as though two different natures were blended into one, or that two lives, the real and the ideal, ran for ever side by side, and that she was con stantly stepping out of one into the other, for in heart, in soul the child was a dreamer — unconsciously perhaps to herself — but still a dreamer.

No school routine had been her lot. All that she knew of book-lore her father had taught her, or she had puzzled out for herself. ZEBEL, Without doubt the knowledge thus acquired was somewhat desultory, and in it there was, as might be supposed, a powerful admixture of poetry and romance; but such wisdom did no harm to Zebel. It never made her restless, unhappy, or vainly ambitious; on the contrary, it brightened her quiet life, and made sweeter than nature had already done her sweet disposition. Many people would perhaps say that in stead of isolating, or partially isolating such a girl as Zebel in that house in the Old Kent Road, it would have been wiser to send her among other girls, for at least awhile. Such a proceeding would indeed have stolen some thing from the charm of her unconscious manner, something, too, from the purity of her mind, but in the sequel those people Would be right ; for had this girl been less alone in her thoughtful, brooding childhood, she would doubtless have suffered less in the days to come.

Quick, tender, passionate in feeling ; beautiful with that beauty which moves one so strangely because in it the imagination recognizes something far beyond the fair sur face, there seemed much to fear for this girl's future. She could never develop into that model woman who marries the man of her parents' choice, and sits beside his hearth with lukewarm feelings, and teaches his children to grow up honest, amiable, and common- ZEBEL. 23 place. No, happen what may, Zebel could never become this woman, however good, commendable, and prudent such an one may be. Rather would she develop into one of those women who know what it is to love, and what it is to suffer. But the love that brings intense joy or intense pain had not yet come. The lovely face was warm, unclouded, and happy; in the eyes, indeed, as they followed her father's gaunt figure down the garden path just now, there had been a sad, thoughtful expression, but in a few minutes that had passed away, and the girl was busily em ployed in dusting and arranging the well worn furniture.