El Reshid, a novel

Contents

PAGE.

POEM — " THE FACE" 3

PREFACE 7

Chapter I. Who Am I ?

It was in Stamboul; rain had fallen, and washed the minarets and domes of the mosques, but the streets seemed filthier than ever. Alas! there is dirt that water exaggerates, and Stamboul, the vilest, yet fairest of cities, presented its dual aspect on this rainy morning, when Aleppo tried to disen tangle his troublesome locks of hair, after a sound night's sleep. Had it been Edmund Sallus Smith junior, we should have said a night's debauch ; but it was only Aleppo, and he had slept well from sunset till dawn. His hair bothered him; it was thick, long and beautiful, and knew little of the barber; for he never visited the tonsorial adept, unless driven by snarls and despair. The room where the young man was so dexterously busy, was bare, and quite out of order; in fact, a young woman of his age would have rejected it in toto. Gloomy, damp, upheaved, with but one thing of beauty in it, and that was the boy himself. He was neither small nor large, and his suppleness was , evident in every movement of his arm as he criti cally arranged the parting of his black hair a little to one side of the right brow. The eyes that looked back at him from the mirror, were tender yet bold ; there are some people whose eyes so draw you that you forget to make discoveries elsewhere; but Aleppo was universally distinguished. His smile revealed perfect teeth; and his nose told a tale of pedigree, which he had thus far failed to trace.

Suddenly he dropped his comb and paused to listen.

" I believe that's Smith ; it will be the same old thing over again," and he threw open the door with a commanding air, to let in Edmund Sallus,Jr.

"Drunk are you?" said Aleppo fiercely; but Sal (this was his pet name) was too far gone to speak. A look of ineffable scorn spread over Aleppo's face; he threw his companion with no gentle hand on the bed, and began to tug away at his boots. The task was a hard one, but even tually he had him undressed, and undercover ; then he sighed heavily and tossed back his hair which had fallen over his brow; a habit of his.

" This room is polluted; it is sacrilege to write to her here; but where else can I go; it is raining, Sallus calls them ' great guns,' outside."

He stopped a moment, and looked puzzled.

" I have it; I'll open the window and sit with my back to the bed; 'tis the best I can do."

To think was to act. He arranged the furniture of the room with considerable noise, wheeling up a lame desk to the window, which he had thrown open to the storm; then casting another look on Smith junior, who snored away unconscious of the fine distinction in ethics drawn by his room mate, he threw himself into a chair with his back to the bed, and sighed again.

" I haven't had my breakfast yet, have I ? But what of it; it will keep. I would rather write to her than eat."

He opened the desk; it was in a terrible state. Evidently this young man had brought himself up; but he found somewhere in the medley a pen, paper and an envelope; then, uncorking his bottle of ink, he tossed back his hair again and looked out pathetically into the rain. It dashed in every now and then over his face and eyes, giving him the appearance of a weeping Romeo, hopeless of his love. Suddenly, as if struck by a lightning inspiration, he began to write; and his pen made the queerest, most unreadable scrawls imaginable. The letters, or hieroglyphics, or whatever they were, would be utterly untranslatable to one unac customed to the tongue in which he wrote; so we will transcribe them in English.

STAMBOUL, Thursday.

My Dear Miss Somebody;

I will write you to-day in spite of everything —

lack of breakfast, a rain storm, and a drunken

, chum. Nothing can come between you and me,

sweetheart, not even a bed fellow who snores. I hear him, and yet I do not; instead I listen to the trees sighing in Arcadia, and your singing. Ah ! love, how you sing ! Where are you this minute ? Who is so happy as to hear you ? I am jealous of somebody, somewhere. But I must keep my promise to tell you more about myself of whom I know nothing. This is literally true ; I am with out parents or country. Whether I am oriental or occidental, of the south or north, I cannot tell. I have studied myself in the glass, I have asked others, but nobody knows. My eyes and hair are so black that I seem to have hailed from the east, but my skin being white the west can in no way deny me. Who am J, sweetheart ? Even my age is unknown ? How can anybody tell ? I was left, a child, on the steps of a hospital; I might have been five, I might have been seven. All my early years in an asylum ; later, adopted by Aunt Serena (so she was called), who died and left me in Italy, in an artist's studio ; where, having studied a few years, I came into her property, and have been traveling ever since. Who knows my exact age ? I don't.

Aunt Serena never had a lover, never in all her life; sol heard. She was wofully plain; she found me in the asylum, and thought me beautiful. That was years ago, remember, before I had grown coarse and into a man. She adopted me, and made me her heir. As I told you, yesterday, she was not over rich, but I have enough. She taught me to be frugal, and put me to work in a studio, as a sort of apprentice pupil. I loved Aunt Serena, but not as I love you, dear one. I can quite under stand why she never had a lover; but I will tell you of that another day. How it rains ! Who am I, sweetheart? If I could but find you, I am sure I should read my history in your eyes. Yes terday I met some American girls; one of them, I thought, for a moment, was you. How pretty she was! but when she spoke I was disillusioned. No dearest; she is Estelle; but where, are you? That fellow on tha bed is talking in his sleep; it is raining harder than ever, and the drops are drip ping from my eyelashes like tears; besides, I am hungry. To-morrow I will write again. Can you not answer me in some way ? Shove a letter under the door, will you ? Toss it into the window; or mail it and send by post. It's so dreadfully one sided you see. If it were not for your singing, which I am forever hearing, I should despair, lyook for another to-morrow.

Your true, true love, ALEPPO.

This pleasant task over, he kissed the missive many times; then enclosing it in an envelope, he addressed it thus :

" Miss Juliet Somebody,

Somewhere."

He found a box in his desk where he dropped the letter, among hundreds of others, all addressed in the same way, with the exception of a change in the first name ; which seemed to vary periodi cally, like the seasons of the year. On some it was " Miss Helen," on others '' Jeannette ; " again, "Viola" and "Kate," but the surname was always "Somebody," sacredly cherished, and never altered.

Having locked his desk, and deposited the key in his inner vest pocket, he began the most beau tiful whistling that a boy of twenty or thereabout is capable of ; imitating every bird in Italy, to say nothing of the stray singers in Stamboul. He tor tured his debauched chum, by whistling into his ears; he rolled him over and over on the bed, and whistled at the back of his head ; in fact so inun dated him with a rain of notes, that Sallus sat up, and rubbed his eyes.

"Come on, get out of this! Here, wait till I give you a douse."

Aleppo brought the pitcher of water, and poured a quart or more on Sallus' disheveled head, regard less of consequences. This seemed to wake him and to clear his liquor-soaked brain to the fighting point. He sprang out of bed in a fit of rage, and the two had a hand to hand tussel, worthy of a better cause, but Aleppo pinned him at last, after the room had been turned into bedlam, and brought him to terms. A half hour later they went arm in arm to breakfast, where Aleppo drank water and filled Sallus with coffee, strong and hot.

The sun came out and re-gilded the mosques of Stamboul. On the shores of the Bosporus the beautiful villa cities, new- washed, appeared from the distance like the seraglios of a Mohammedan heaven, while through the forests of masts and rigging on the Golden Horn, were caught glimpses of towers and turreted minarets ; with great and little domes, intermingled in incongruous prox imity, that tantalized the charmed eye. East, on the promontory of Asia, lay Scutari, whose pink houses, half buried in gardens and trees, would indicate, were it not for the cypress groves, that the homes of the dead were even more cheerful than those of the living. On the heights, one finds Asia and Europe at his feet ; the sinuous Bosporus rolling between ; and far off in Bithynia the hoary head of Olympus, white with eternal snows. Back again from grandeur to the glittering water, where the caique glides in and out among the larger craft, with all the grace of a Venetian gondola, and up afterward to the sky, where the eyes are lifted naturally to seek relief in simple azure from a sur plus of beauty, that turns pleasure into pain. But this is the veiled Byzantium, draped with the mist which distance brings. Asiatic Rome on her seven hills, is the breeder of everything, from the pests, vermin, and horror of dirt, to the paradise of the Hareem. Here the Ottoman and the occidental races shake hands ; extremes meet, and hell and heaven have naught between but a metaphorical Bosporus, where they blend at last in the craftladen Golden Horn.

Out from the narrow streets Aleppo dragged his half dazed companion, and settled him at last with his back against a grave stone in the cemetery of Scutari. The millions of dead under the great cypress trees made no sound, unless, in their upward trend toward life, their souls had entered the moaning trees, that sighed and whispered mys teriously, as the wind stole in and out. " Every where were sculptured tomb-stones with their arabesque carvings. Aleppo saw none of them, however, but stared in a puzzled, affectionate way at Sallus. The latter had thrown off his hat, half closed his eyes, and looked, as he leaned against the marble, like one dead. Aleppo planted himself firmly on his two feet in front of him, ran his hands down into his pockets, tossed back his hair, with a jerk of his head, and began:

" Now it seems to me that you are a sight better oft than I am ; you know who you are, and I don't ; that's one thing in your favor ; then you are the most deucedly handsome cur, that I ever set eyes on."

Sallus winced a little at this, and straightened himself a bit.

"You are a downright beauty ; that's why I stay by you so close ; I'd chase beauty across Siberia, or Hell for a glimpse, you know ; and here you are right in my hands — a veritable Apollo; by jingo ! I believe you are prettier drunk than sober."

Here Sal sat upright and opened his blue eyes.

" I^ook here Lep, for heaven's sake leave go that slang — " he was thoroughly roused — " it's all right in me, but it's horrid in you ; you got it in pretty straight this morning, but as a rule you can't do it, it's worse than an old woman singing."

Here be sank back in a sort of stupor again, and closed his eyes. Aleppo was right, Sal was beauti ful, with yellow hair, blue eyes, and a girl's cheeks. He might as well have been a young woman ; save that for all round dissipation, and reckless immor ality, few girls, even of the dance houses of Con stantinople could compete with him. Aleppo had fallen in love with Sallus a year before, and begged him of his distracted father, promising to make him into an angel in a given time, provided they were allowed to travel together. After investigation, Mr. Smith, Sr., having ascertained that Aleppo was strictly abstemious and correct, turned over to him his poor baggage of a son, with a forlorn hope, that the young man's influence would eventually be beneficial. The boys had wandered about together for six months, or more, and on this par ticular day they _found themselves under the cypresses at Scutari, the preacher delivering his afternoon sermon, and the audience dozing off into drunken dreams.

' ' You see, ' ' said Aleppo, ' ' I can 't make head uor feet out of you. " Here Sal roused himself again ; " Let up on that slang, I tell you, you are going wrong already."

"Well then, head and something — it isn't any fun, I want you to understand, not a bit."

" I know better," growled Sal.

"Well, in the first place, you get that con founded headache on you, that makes you see snakes."

" Nonsense ! you make me tired. Should think I would see snakes ; for you everlastingly take this opportunity, when you know I am not myself, to drag me into the grave-yard and sermonize. You did it in Paris, you did it in Vienna, and here we are again."

Having said this with as much venom as was in him, he spat at the tomb-stone behind him, and dragging himself clear of the sacred dust, collapsed into the grass near by.

"There's nothing like a cemetery to point a moral — " and Aleppo showed his beautiful teeth in one of the rarest smiles, that the human face is capable of — " for my part, I like it. Here am I in Asia with the dead ; I feel wonderfully at home ; don't you Sal ? "

"Y-e-s," drawled Sal, who had reached the pathetic stage. He rolled and lighted a cigarette with trembling fingers, then lying flat on his back, blew clouds of smoke at the patches of sky, which he saw between the interlaced trees. His eyes were as blue as heaven ; and two tears gathered in them which he immediately became ashamed of, and attributed to the smoke.

"Now look here Sal" — Aleppo had seen the tears, though he made no sign ; for he loved this bad boy to the point of sacrifice — " I'll tell you what I'll do " — the words came out with difficulty, for he felt that he was choking — " you go a week without touching the stuff, or lighting yourself up, and I'll promise you on the Koran and the Bible, that I'll go on one of the most hell-inspiring sprees with you, at the end of that time, that the devil ever dreamed of. You will find yourself nowhere ; I'll drink more and sin more in one day than you can in a month ; upon my word and honor I will ; that is, if you say so. " Look here Sal " — and he gave him a punch on the shoulder that made him wince — " will you do it " ? Sal sat up — he was as sober as a desert owl, and as solemn — "I'll be d dif I do! "

" What of that? two of us in hell are better than one. Let's be sober together for a week, pious and everything, then go to the other place."

' ' Now you just shut up on this." Sal got on his feet and shook himself, somewhat after the manner of a dog that scents danger.

" I'm one of the devil's own, any how ; but as for you talking slang, and wallowing, you shan't; that's just all there is of it, do you see ? "

He pulled off his coat ; and any delusion one might have harbored about his feminine incapacity and like stuff, must have vanished at sight of his muscle and brawn. American, pretty and dudish in face, herculean in form, he was about as fine an animal as one often gets a chance to gaze at.

"Now it don't make one straw's difference whether you are in earnest or not, (the man had woke up in him) you shan't carry it out, that's all ; but I'll tell you what I will do," — here he took in a long breath, as if to wash his soul clean — "I'll let you see that I can go a week in spite of the painted faces of Constantinople ; but on one con dition — you listen now, the tables are turned, you see. You've just got to quit that slang business; it grates on my nerves, worse than Oriental music. Promise me, that you will give me back the slang dictionary and the concert songs, and I'll swear on this tombstone, that I'll go sober for a week."

Aleppo squeezed the tears that were welling up, back into his eyes, delicately arranged his hair, in fact made great show of hesitancy, but at last con descended to speak.

"Well I suppose I'll have to, for a week."

•' Not much, for a week, but forever."

" Forever" ?

" Yes, forever; do you suppose, if / had a Miss Somebody to whom I wrote love letters every day, as you do, do you suppose, that instead of absolutely knowing that I was the son of an

American stock-raiser, that, on the contrary, I had the chance of surmising that I might be a wander ing prince in disguise, do you suppose that if I were you, I would foul my tongue with swear words and slang !"

To be preached to by Sal, gave Aleppo a thrill that was almost intoxicating ; besides his allusion to Miss Somebody held him to the cypress tree against which he was leaning, as though he had been welded there. Sal was king, and he a mortified, Constantinople cur. But this passed off: he pulled himself together, and looking the blonde beauty straight in the eyes, said smiling, " It's agreed ; now for dinner."

"Wait a bit. ; you don't expect that I'm going around with this stuff in my pocket do you ? "

He pulled a brandy flask from the depths and laid it with some dignity on the adjacent grave ; then a dozen or more cigarettes, and a package of tobacco.

" There, if that corpse gets dry and nervous, it has its chance. Remember L,ep, it's only for a week, sabe ? ' '

" Yes, I s — - understand."

"There, you saved yourself this time but your promise is eternal. See ? ' '

" Yes, Is comprehend."

" Come on then."

Sal led the way and Aleppo followed in a strange frame of mind ; the kingly American bad got in his work ; and the man without country or name, went after him, as the great St. Bernard follows its master.

Chapter II. A Strange Meeting

A woman, whose age it would be impossible to determine, but about whose beauty there was no shadow of doubt, came out of the Vienna Opera House, and made her way rapidly toward the car riage in waiting at the entrance. She stopped sud denly, as if transfixed, and stared wildly into a pair of eyes, that answered her's with a similar look; then the heads of the two were bowed with con ventional courtesy, and the apparent strangers passed each other as though they had never met before. The man (for the eyes that brought the widow — Madame Cressey — to a sudden halt, were masculine and stern) turned rapidly on his heel and proceeded in an opposite direction from that in which he had been going, plunging into a side street, and thence into the dark. She, however, cold as ice, climbed somehow into her carriage, and fell back among the cushions in a dead faint. When the coachman stopped at the entrance to her hotel, she made no attempt to alight, in fact knew nothing, and had to be lifted out and taken to her room. It was late at night, under the ministrations of her physician, before she understood who she was and where. On the contrary, Hen rique Romanes seemed to be fired with the strongest cordial that the grape could produce; for, having found his room, and locked his door, he walked the floor till morning in a fury of excite ment, utterly inconsistent with his correct conven tional dress and hotel surroundings. His face spoke power, even in its frenzy, and the very wildness of the storm now blowing over him, implied an oncoming calm, which must later be formid able. At daylight he threw himself upon the bed, and fell into a sound sleep, which lasted until late in the afternoon ; when he awoke he was obliged to make some effort to collect himself. As the memories of the preceding evening thrust them selves upon him, a spasm of pain knit his brow into a fierce scowl ; but it passed, and a fixed look took its place, which set his features, as though in marble. It was not, however, the repose of inde cision ; it spoke determination and power. Dress ing hastily, without aid of a valet, he seated him self before the window, where the afternoon light flooded his stern countenance, and took, from a concealed pocket over his heart, a worn and faded letter. His face grew a shade whiter, and his eyes more intense, if that could be, as he touched it ; otherwise he showed no emotion. It ran thus:

"Farewell! If misery can be condensed, it is included in this word; if sorrow can be told, it is spoken now. Farewell! O, tell me, can it be, that we who have loved for love's own sake, that we who have defied the world, and even God, that we must part. I could not have dreamed it; I could not have believed it ; but the bitter fact stands. Fate forced us together, and wrenches us asunder. Fate! We are masters of nothing; the wind blew the pollen to the flower, and tore it to pieces.

' ' I care for naught in the universe but you. Alas ! the one out of the innumerable, that I love, is sent adrift. I neither drown myself in illusions, nor drug my heart with hopeless dreams; boldly I face the fact. I love you, I love you! May the sin in which I glory be mine forever. I shed no tears on my rebellious heart, nor do I wring my hands and supplicate an unseen God. On the black night of myself, one star gleams fiercely, eternally — the star of Love. Forever, fare you well ! "

To this scrap of paper, from which age had failed to tear the passion, there was signed no name. It was written in a bold, almost masculine hand, interspersed with dashes; and had been read and folded so often that it was cracked and worn. The date took it back many years to a former generation, though Henrique Romanes looked scarcely thirty-five. His chin was powerful and firm; his eyes keen, mysterious, dark; his face clean shaven-, his hair black, and his frame slight, but well knit. Altogether, he would seem to have

A STRANGK MEETING 25

scarcely reached his prime, were it not for a certain air that betrayed a depth of experience, undiscoverable in youth. Age is betrayed by a certain flabbiness of the tissue and skin. Romanes had hard flesh, tense muscles, and the erect carriage of a man of thirty, while the depths of shade that lay under his eyes, spoke of feeling, rather than years. There was one thing quite out of the ordi nary about this man, and which stamped him as of different coin from the jingling mass. He made you feel his personality. To pass him in a crowd was to turn your head ; to touch his hand was to receive an electric shock; to glance in his eye was to wilt as does the morning glory in the sun; to enter a room where he had been, was to realize his presence still. To some he brought pain, to others pleasure, but to all a consciousness of himself. In plain speech, he looked like a fallen eagle, that had dragged its wings in the dust.

He was a long time reading the letter ; save his eyes, he showed no sign of especial interest; but they, as he pierced the very paper with their glance, took on a new fire, and flashed with the glow of self-illuminating stars. He folded it at last, and laid it again over his heart, then, after striding the room once or twice, rang for coffee, which he took, black and hot, with a crust of bread. Consulting his watch, he ordered a car riage, and shortly after left the house. He directed the driver in a positive way, addressing him in the German tongue.

Several hours later, at about nine in the evening, he alighted at a certain well known hotel in Vienna, and demanded audience with Madame Cressey. He was informed that the lady was ill and could see no one. Romanes, not the least perturbed, turned his back a moment, and drawing a pack of playing cards from his pocket, from which he extracted the ace of hearts, inclosed it in a small envelope, and ordered it delivered to her at once. In a short time the messenger returned, with a similar missive, on which was written the word, "Aleppo." "Conduct me immediately," said Romanes. The boy rushed off in the direction of the Madame 's apartments, as if his life hung on their quick arrival, and Romanes followed with a digni fied speed, that savored as much of indifference as of haste. The door of Helene Cressey 's salon swung back noiselessly at his approach, and was closed again after his entrance, as though muffled in felt. The two stood face to face beneath the shaded light of the chandelier, and looked once more with a half startled, half defiant expression into each other's eyes.

" You have broken your vow, Romanes." " Pardon, Helene, it was not I, but that which you term fate. We had promised never to meet again, but our childish vows were scorned, our word of honor broken, for us last night."

" Are we in truth such puppets? " said she, with a sneer.

In reply, he held her letter before her blazing eyes.

" Fate forced us together and wrenches us asun der — fate !

" We are masters of nothing."

As she read, she grew whiter, if possible, and colder.

"Read," he said sternly, "every word."

She became more rigid, as her eyes turned the words into symbols of fire. At last, she hissed between her teeth, while steadying herself by the table, "Cruel! "

' ' No, nor kind, " said Romanes. " It is twentyfive years since this letter was written. You are as young in feeling as when- you penned it, and so am I. You have known me to some purpose, Helene Cressey ; she who weds an Olympian is endowed with eternal youth."

" Words are but will-o'-the-wisps, when the heart speaks," she answered, then burst into a storm of sobs, and sank into a chair, completely mastered by the frenzy of her sorrow.

With the alteration of mood, his changed also. He sank at her feet, and, taking her hand, held it caressingly to his lips. In time she grew calm, for he dried her tears. Then mixing a drug, which he discovered upon the table, he brought her the "glass and ordered her to drink. A very child in his hands, she obeyed, when, drawing a long sigh, as though with it she had thrown off the incubus of a score of years, she leaned back upon the cush ions and looked trustfully into his eyes. He drew a chair to her side, and spoke, as would a man of the world. " Helene, we will drop tragedy now and talk with calmness. The subject which demands our utmost attention is vital. First, let me say, that neither of us would have broken our vow, which we signed jointly, years ago, had not Fate pushed us, like two wandering meteors, together, and mingled us once more into one ; and by Fate, you know that I mean the Powers that are. Well then, you see," and he tossed his hair back in a peculiar way, " there can be but one sub ject between us now, and that is Aleppo."