The Moonlit Way: A Novel Read online

  PROLOGUE

  CLAIRE-DE-LUNE

  There was a big moon over the Bosphorus; the limpid waters offSeraglio Point glimmered; the Golden Horn was like a sheet of beatensilver inset with topaz and ruby where lanterns on rusting Turkishwarships dyed the tarnished argent of the flood. Except for these, andthe fixed lights on the foreign guard-ships and on a big Americansteam yacht, only a pale and nebulous shoreward glow betrayed themonster city.

  Over Pera the full moon's lustre fell, silvering palace, villa, seaand coast; its rays glimmered on bridge and wharf, bastion, towerarsenal, and minarette, transforming those big, sprawling, ramshackleblotches of architecture called Constantinople into that shadowy,magnificent enchantment of the East, which all believe in, but whichexists only in a poet's heart and mind.

  Night veiled the squalour of Balat, and its filth, its meanness, itsflimsy sham. Moonlight made of Galata a marvel, ennobling everybastard dome, every starved facade, every unlovely and attenuatedminarette, and invested with added charm each really lovely ruin, eachtower, palace, mosque, garden wall and balcony, and every crenelatedbattlement, where the bronze bulk of ancient cannon slanted, outlinedin silver under the Prophet's moon.

  Tiny moving lights twinkled on the Galata Bridge; pale points ofradiance dotted Scutari; but the group of amazing cities calledConstantinople lay almost blotted out under the moon.

  Darker at night than any capital in the world, its huge, solid andancient shapes bulking gigantic in the night, its noble ruins cloaked,its cheap filth hidden, its flimsy Coney Island aspect transfiguredand the stylographic-pen architecture of a hundred minarettes softenedinto slender elegance, Constantinople lay dreaming its immemorialdreams under the black shadow of the Prussian eagle.

  * * * * *

  The German Embassy was lighted up like a Pera cafe; the drawing-roomscrowded with a brilliant throng where sashes, orders, epaulettes andsabre-tache glittered, and jewels blazed and aigrettes waved under thecrystal chandeliers, accenting and isolating sombre civilian eveningdress, which seemed mournful, rusty, and out of the picture, even whenplastered over with jewelled stars.

  Few Turkish officials and officers were present, but the disquietingsight of German officers in Turkish uniforms was not uncommon. And theCount d'Eblis, Senator of France, noted this phenomenon with livelycuriosity, and mentioned it to his companion, Ferez Bey.

  Ferez Bey, lounging in a corner with Adolf Gerhardt, for whom he hadprocured an invitation, and flanked by the Count d'Eblis, likewise aguest aboard the rich German-American banker's yacht, was very much inhis element as friend and mentor.

  For Ferez Bey knew everybody in the Orient--knew when to cringe, whento be patronising, when to fawn, when to assert himself, when to beservile, when impudent.

  He was as impudent to Adolf Gerhardt as he dared be, the banker notknowing the subtler shades and differences; he was on an equality withthe French senator, Monsieur le Comte d'Eblis because he knew thatd'Eblis dared not resent his familiarity.

  Otherwise, in that brilliant company, Ferez Bey was a jackal--and heknew it perfectly--but a valuable jackal; and he also knew that.

  So when the German Ambassador spoke pleasantly to him, his attitudewas just sufficiently servile, but not overdone; and when Von-der-HohePasha, in the uniform of a Turkish General of Division, graciouslyexchanged a polite word with him during a moment's easy gossip withthe Count d'Eblis, Ferez Bey writhed moderately under the honour, butdid not exactly squirm.

  To Conrad von Heimholz he ventured to present his German-Americanpatron, Adolf Gerhardt, and the thin young military attachecondescended in his Prussian way to notice the introduction.

  "Saw your yacht in the harbour," he admitted stiffly. "It isastonishing how you Americans permit no bounds to your somewhatnoticeable magnificence."

  "She's a good boat, the _Mirage_," rumbled Gerhardt, in his bushy redbeard, "but there are plenty in America finer than mine."

  "Not many, Adolf," insisted Ferez, in his flat, Eurasian voice--"notver' many anyw'ere so fine like your _Mirage_."

  "I saw none finer at Kiel," said the attache, staring at Gerhardtthrough his monocle, with the habitual insolence and disapproval ofthe Prussian junker. "To me it exhibits bad taste"--he turned to theCount d'Eblis--"particularly when the _Meteor_ is there."

  "Where?" asked the Count.

  "At Kiel. I speak of Kiel and the ostentation of certain foreign yachtowners at the recent regatta."

  Gerhardt, redder than ever, was still German enough to swallow themeaningless insolence. He was not getting on very well at the Embassyof his fellow countrymen. Americans, properly presented, they enduredwithout too open resentment; for German-Americans, even whenmillionaires, their contempt and bad manners were often undisguised.

  "I'm going to get out of this," growled Gerhardt, who held a goodposition socially in New York and in the fashionable colony atNorthbrook. "I've seen enough puffed up Germans and over-embroideredTurks to last me. Come on, d'Eblis----"

  Ferez detained them both:

  "Surely," he protested, "you would not miss Nihla!"

  "Nihla?" repeated d'Eblis, who had passed his arm through Gerhardt's."Is that the girl who set St. Petersburg by the ears?"

  "Nihla Quellen," rumbled Gerhardt. "I've heard of her. She's a dancer,isn't she?"

  Ferez, of course, knew all about her, and he drew the two men into theembrasure of a long window.

  It was not happening just exactly as he and the German Ambassador hadplanned it together; they had intended to let Nihla burst like aflaming jewel on the vision of d'Eblis and blind him then and there.

  Perhaps, after all, it was better drama to prepare her entrance. Andwho but Ferez was qualified to prepare that entree, or to speak withauthority concerning the history of this strange and beautiful younggirl who had suddenly appeared like a burning star in the East, hadpassed like a meteor through St. Petersburg, leaving severalsusceptible young men--notably the Grand Duke Cyril--mentally unhingedand hopelessly dissatisfied with fate.

  "It is ver' fonny, d'Eblis--une histoire chic, vous savez! Figurezvous----"

  "Talk English," growled Gerhardt, eyeing the serene progress of apretty Highness, Austrian, of course, surrounded by gorgeous uniformsand empressement.

  "Who's that?" he added.

  Ferez turned; the gorgeous lady snubbed him, but bowed to d'Eblis.

  "The Archduchess Zilka," he said, not a whit abashed. "She is a ver'great frien' of mine."

  "Can't you present me?" enquired Gerhardt, restlessly; "--or you,d'Eblis--can't you ask permission?"

  The Count d'Eblis nodded inattentively, then turned his heavy andrather vulgar face to Ferez, plainly interested in the "histoire" ofthe girl, Nihla.

  "What were you going to say about that dancer?" he demanded.

  Ferez pretended to forget, then, apparently recollecting:

  "Ah! Apropos of Nihla? It is a ver' piquant storee--the storee ofNihla Quellen. Zat is not 'er name. No! Her name is Dunois--ThessalieDunois."

  "French," nodded d'Eblis.

  "Alsatian," replied Ferez slyly. "Her fathaire was captain--AchilleDunois?--you know----?"

  "What!" exclaimed d'Eblis. "Do you mean that notorious fellow, theGrand Duke Cyril's hunting cheetah?"

  "The same, dear frien'. Dunois is dead--his bullet head was crackopen, doubtless by som' ladee's angree husban'. There are a fewthousan' roubles--not more--to stan' between some kind gentleman andthe prettee Nihla. You see?" he added to Gerhardt, who was listeningwithout interest, "--Dunois, if he was the Gran' Duke's cheetah, keptall such merry gentlemen from his charming daughtaire."

  Gerhardt, whose aspirations lay higher, socially, than a dancing girl,merely grunted. But d'Eblis, whose aspirations were always below evenhis own level, listened with visibly increasing curiosity. And thiswas according to the programme of Ferez Bey and Excellenz. As the Hunhas it, "according to plan."

  "Well," enquired d'Eblis heavily, "did Cyril get her?"

&nbsp
; "All St. Petersburg is still laughing at heem," replied the volubleEurasian. "Cyril indeed launched her. And that was sufficient--yet,that first night she storm St. Petersburg. And Cyril's reward? Listen,d'Eblis, they say she slapped his sillee face. For me, I don't know.That is the storee. And he was ver' angree, Cyril. You know? And, byGod, it was what Gerhardt calls a 'raw deal.' Yess? Figurezvous!--this girl, deja lancee--and her fathaire the Grand Duke'shunting cheetah, and her mothaire, what? Yes, mon ami, a 'andsomeGeorgianne, caught quite wild, they say, by Prince Haledine! For me, Ibelieve it. Why not?... And then the beautiful Georgianne, she fell toDunois--on a bet?--a service rendered?--gratitude of Cyril?----Whoknows? Only that Dunois must marry her. And Nihla is their daughtaire.Voila!"

  "Then why," demanded d'Eblis, "does she make such a fuss about beinggrateful? I hate ingratitude, Ferez. And how can she last, anyway? Todance for the German Ambassador in Constantinople is all very well,but unless somebody launches her properly--in Paris--she'll end in aPera cafe."

  Ferez held his peace and listened with all his might.

  "I could do that," added d'Eblis.

  "Please?" inquired Ferez suavely.

  "Launch her in Paris."

  The programme of Excellenz and Ferez Bey was certainly proceeding asplanned.

  But Gerhardt was becoming restless and dully irritated as he began torealise more and more what caste meant to Prussians and howinsignificant to these people was a German-American multimillionaire.And Ferez realised that he must do something.

  There was a Bavarian Baroness there, uglier than the usual run ofBavarian baronesses; and to her Ferez nailed Gerhardt, and wriggledfree himself, making his way amid the gorgeous throngs to the Countd'Eblis once more.

  "I left Gerhardt planted," he remarked with satisfaction; "by God, sheis uglee like camels--the Baroness von Schaunitz! Nev' mind. It isnobility; it is the same to Adolf Gerhardt."

  "A homely woman makes me sick!" remarked d'Eblis. "Eh, mon Dieu!--onehas merely to look at these ladies to guess their nationality! Only inGermany can one gather together such a collection of horrors. The onlypretty ones are Austrian."

  Perhaps even the cynicism of Excellenz had not realised the perfectionof this setting, but Ferez, the nimble witted, had foreseen it.

  Already the glittering crowds in the drawing rooms were drawing asidelike jewelled curtains; already the stringed orchestra had become mutealoft in its gilded gallery.

  The gay tumult softened; laughter, voices, the rustle of silks andfans, the metallic murmur of drawing-room equipment died away. Throughthe increasing stillness, from the gilded gallery a Thessalonian reedbegan skirling like a thrush in the underbrush.

  Suddenly a sand-coloured curtain at the end of the east room twitchedopen, and a great desert ostrich trotted in. And, astride of the big,excited, bridled bird, sat a young girl, controlling her restlessmount with disdainful indifference.

  "Nihla!" whispered Ferez, in the large, fat ear of the Count d'Eblis.The latter's pallid jowl reddened and his pendulous lips tightened toa deep-bitten crease across his face.

  To the weird skirling of the Thessalonian pipe the girl, Nihla, puther feathered steed through its absurd paces, aping the haute-ecole.

  There is little humour in your Teuton; they were too amazed to laugh;too fascinated, possibly by the girl herself, to follow the panickygambols of the reptile-headed bird.

  The girl wore absolutely nothing except a Yashmak and a zone of bluejewels across her breasts and hips.

  Her childish throat, her limbs, her slim, snowy body, her little nakedfeet were lovely beyond words. Her thick dark hair flew loose, nowframing, now veiling an oval face from which, above the gauzyYashmak's edge, two dark eyes coolly swept her breathless audience.

  But under the frail wisp of cobweb, her cheeks glowed pink, and twofull red lips parted deliciously in the half-checked laughter ofconfident, reckless youth.

  NIHLA PUT HER FEATHERED STEED THROUGH ITS ABSURD PACES]

  Over hurdle after hurdle she lifted her powerful, half-terrifiedmount; she backed it, pirouetted, made it squat, leap, pace, trot,run with wings half spread and neck stretched level.

  She rode sideways, then kneeling, standing, then poised on one foot;she threw somersaults, faced to the rear, mounted and dismounted atfull speed. And through the frail, transparent Yashmak her parted redlips revealed the glimmer of teeth and her childishly engaginglaughter rang delightfully.

  Then, abruptly, she had enough of her bird; she wheeled, sprang to thepolished parquet, and sent her feathered steed scampering away throughthe sand-coloured curtains, which switched into place againimmediately.

  Breathless, laughing that frank, youthful, irresistible laugh whichwas to become so celebrated in Europe, Nihla Quellen strolledleisurely around the circle of her applauding audience, carelesslyblowing a kiss or two from her slim finger-tips, evidently quiteunspoiled by her success and equally delighted to please and to bepleased.

  Then, in the gilded gallery the strings began; and quite naturally,without any trace of preparation or self-consciousness, Nihlabegan to sing, dancing when the fascinating, irresponsible measurecalled for it, singing again as the sequence occurred. And theenchantment of it all lay in its accidental and detached allure--asthough it all were quite spontaneous--the song a passing whim, thedance a capricious after-thought, and the whole thing done entirely toplease herself and give vent to the sheer delight of a young girl, inher own overwhelming energy and youthful spirits.

  Even the Teuton comprehended that, and the applause grew to a roarwith that odd undertone of animal menace always to be detected whenthe German herd is gratified and expresses pleasure en masse.

  But she wouldn't stay, wouldn't return. Like one of those beautifulPersian cats, she had lingered long enough to arouse delight. Then shewent, deaf to recall, to persuasion, to caress--indifferent to praise,to blandishment, to entreaty. Cat and dancer were similar; Nihla, likethe Persian puss, knew when she had had enough. That was sufficientfor her: nothing could stop her, nothing lure her to return.

  Beads of sweat were glistening upon the heavy features of the Countd'Eblis. Von-der-Goltz Pasha, strolling near, did him the honour toremember him, but d'Eblis seemed dazed and unresponsive; and the oldPasha understood, perhaps, when he caught the beady and expressiveeyes of Ferez fixed on him in exultation.

  "Whose is she?" demanded d'Eblis abruptly. His voice was hoarse andevidently out of control, for he spoke too loudly to please Ferez, whotook him by the arm and led him out to the moonlit terrace.

  "Mon pauvere ami," he said soothingly, "she is actually the properteeof nobodee at present. Cyril, they say, is following her--quite readyfor anything--marriage----"

  "What!"

  Ferez shrugged:

  "That is the gosseep. No doubt som' man of wealth, more acceptable toher----"

  "I wish to meet her!" said d'Eblis.

  "Ah! That is, of course, not easee----"

  "Why?"

  Ferez laughed:

  "Ask yo'self the question again! Excellenz and his guests have gonequite mad ovaire Nihla----"

  "I care nothing for them," retorted d'Eblis thickly; "I wish to knowher.... I wish to know her!... _Do you understand?_"

  After a silence, Ferez turned in the moonlight and looked at the Countd'Eblis.

  "And your newspapaire--_Le Mot d'Ordre_?"

  "Yes.... If you get her for me."

  "You sell to me for two million francs the control stock in _Le Motd'Ordre_?"

  "Yes."

  "An' the two million, eh?"

  "I shall use my influence with Gerhardt. That is all I can do. If yourEmperor chooses to decorate him--something--the Red Eagle, thirdclass, perhaps----"

  "I attend to those," smiled Ferez. "Hit's ver' fonny, d'Eblis, how Iam thinking about those Red Eagles all time since I know Gerhardt. Ispik to Von-der-Goltz de votre part, si vous le voulez? Oui?Alors----"

  "Ask her to supper aboard the yacht."

  "God knows----"

  T
he Count d'Eblis said through closed teeth:

  "There is the first woman I ever really wanted in all my life!... I amstanding here now waiting for her--waiting to be presented to hernow."

  "I spik to Von-der-Goltz Pasha," said Ferez; and he slipped throughthe palms and orange trees and vanished.

  For half an hour the Count d'Eblis stood there, motionless in themoonlight.

  She came about that time, on the arm of Ferez Bey, her father's friendof many years.

  And Ferez left her there in the creamy Turkish moonlight on theflowering terrace, alone with the Count d'Eblis.

  When Ferez came again, long after midnight, with Excellenz on one armand the proud and happy Adolf Gerhardt on the other, the whole cycleof a little drama had been played to a conclusion between those twoshadowy figures under the flowering almonds on the terrace--betweenthis slender, dark-eyed girl and this big, bulky, heavy-visaged man ofthe world.

  And the man had been beaten and the girl had laid down every term. Andthe compact was this: that she was to be launched in Paris; she wasmerely to borrow any sum needed, with privilege to acquit the debtwithin the year; that, if she ever came to care for this mansufficiently, she was to become only one species of masculineproperty--a legal wife.

  And to every condition--and finally even to the last, the man hadbowed his heavy, burning head.

  "D'Eblis!" began Gerhardt, almost stammering in his joy and pride."His highness tells me that I am to have an order--an Imperiald-decoration----"

  D'Eblis stared at him out of unseeing eyes; Nihla laughed outright,alas, too early wise and not even troubling her lovely head to wonderwhy a decoration had been asked for this burly, bushy-bearded man fromnowhere.

  But within his sinuous, twisted soul Ferez writhed exultingly, andpatted Gerhardt on the arm, and patted d'Eblis, too--dared even tosquirm visibly closer to Excellenz, like a fawning dog that fears toomuch to venture contact in his wriggling demonstrations.

  "You take with you our pretty wonder-child to Paris to be launched, Ihear," remarked Excellenz, most affably, to d'Eblis. And to Nihla:"And upon a yacht fit for an emperor, I understand. Ach! Such a goingforth is only heard of in the Arabian Nights. Eh bien, ma petite, goWest, conquer, and reign! It is a prophecy!"

  And Nihla threw back her head and laughed her full-throated laughterunder the Turkish moon.

  * * * * *

  Later, Ferez, walking with the Ambassador, replied humbly to the curtquestion:

  "Yes, I have become his jackal. But always at the orders ofExcellenz."

  * * * * *

  Later still, aboard the _Mirage_, Ferez stood alone by the after-rail,staring with ratty eyes at the blackness beyond the New Bridge.

  "Oh, God, be merciful!" he whispered. He had often said it on theeve of crime. Even an Eurasian rat has emotions. And Ferez hadbeen in love with Nihla many years, and was selling her now at aprice--selling her and Adolf Gerhardt and the Count d'Eblis andFrance--all he had to barter--for he had sold his soul too longago to remember even what he got for it.

  The silence seemed more intense for the sounds that made it audible.From, the unlighted cities on the seven hills came an unbroken howlingof dogs; transparent waves of the limpid Bosphorus slapped thevessel's sides, making a mellow and ceaseless clatter. Far away beyondGalata Quay, in the inner reek of unseen Stamboul, the notes of aTurkish flute stole out across the darkness, where some Tzigane--someunseen wretch in rags--was playing the melancholy song of Mourad. And,mournfully responsive to the reedy complaint of a homeless wandererfrom a nation without a home, the homeless dogs of Islam wailed theirmiserere under the Prophet's moon.

  The tragic wolf-song wavered from hill to hill; from the Fields of theDead to the Seven Towers, from Kassim to Tophane, seeming to swellinto one dreadful, endless plaint:

  "My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"

  "And me!" muttered Ferez, shivering in the windy vapours from theBlack Sea, which already dampened his face with their creeping summerchill.

  "Ferez!"

  He turned slowly. Swathed in a white wool bernous, Nihla stood therein the foggy moonlight.

  "Why?" she enquired, without preliminaries and with the unfeignedcuriosity of a child.

  He did not pretend to misunderstand her in French:

  "Thou knowest, Nihla. I have never touched thy heart. I could donothing for thee----"

  "Except to sell me," she smiled, interrupting him in English, withoutthe slightest trace of accent.

  But Ferez preferred the refuge of French:

  "Except to launch thee and make possible thy career," he corrected hervery gently.

  "I thought you were in love with me?"

  "I have loved thee, Nihla, since thy childhood."

  "Is there anything on earth or in paradise, Ferez, that you would notsell for a price?"

  "I tell thee----"

  "Zut! I know thee, Ferez!" she mocked him, slipping easily intoFrench. "What was my price? Who pays thee, Colonel Ferez? This big,shambling, world-wearied Count, who is, nevertheless, afraid of me?Did he pay thee? Or was it this rich American, Gerhardt? Or was itVon-der-Goltz? Or Excellenz?"

  "Nihla! Thou knowest me----"

  Her clear, untroubled laughter checked him:

  "I know you, Ferez. That is why I ask. That is why I shall have noreply from you. Only my wits can ever answer me any questions."

  She stood laughing at him, swathed in her white wool, looming likesome mocking spectre in the misty moonlight of the after-deck.

  "Oh, Ferez," she said in her sweet, malicious voice, "there was acurse on Midas, too! You play at high finance; you sell what you neverhad to sell, and you are paid for it. All your life you have been busyselling, re-selling, bargaining, betraying, seeking always gain whereonly loss is possible--loss of all that justifies a man in daring tostand alive before the God that made him!... And yet--that which youcall love--that shadowy emotion which you have also sold to-night--Ithink you really feel for me.... Yes, I believe it.... But it, too,has its price.... _What_ was that price, Ferez?"

  "Believe me, Nihla----"

  "Oh, Ferez, you ask too much! No! Let _me_ tell _you_, then. The pricewas paid by that American, who is not one but a German."

  "That is absurd!"

  "Why the Red Eagle, then? And the friendship of Excellenz? What ishe then, this Gerhardt, but a millionaire? Why is nobility sogracious then? What does Gerhardt give for his Red Eagle?--for thepoliteness of Excellenz?--for the crooked smile of a BavarianBaroness and the lifted lorgnette of Austria? What does he give for_me_? Who buys me after all? Enver? Talaat? Hilmi? Who sells me?Excellenz? Von-der-Goltz? You? And who pays for me? Gerhardt, whotakes his profit in Red Eagles and offers me to d'Eblis forsomething in exchange to please Excellenz--and you? And what, at theend of the bargaining, does d'Eblis pay for me--pay through Gerhardtto you, and through you to Excellenz, and through Excellenz to theKaiser Wilhelm II----"

  Ferez, showing his teeth, came close to her and spoke very softly:

  "See how white is the moonlight off Seraglio Point, my Nihla!... It isno whiter than those loveliest ones who lie fathoms deep below theselittle silver waves.... Each with her bowstring snug about her snowyneck.... As fair and young, as warm and fresh and sweet as thou, myNihla."

  He smiled at her; and if the smile stiffened an instant on her lips,the next instant her light, dauntless laughter mocked him.

  "For a price," she said, "you would sell even Life to that old miser,Death! Then listen what you have done, little smiling, whining jackalof his Excellency! I go to Paris and to my career, certain of my happydestiny, sure of myself! For my opportunity I pay if I choose--pay_what_ I choose--when and where it suits me to pay!----"

  She slipped into French with a little laugh:

  "Now go and lick thy fingers of whatever crumbs have stuck there. TheCount d'Eblis is doubtless licking his. Good appetite, my Ferez! Lickaway lustily, for God does not temper the jackal's appetite to hisopp
ortunities!"

  Ferez let his level gaze rest on her in silence.

  "Well, trafficker in Eagles, dealer in love, vendor of youth, merchantof souls, what strikes you silent?"

  But he was thinking of something sharper than her tongue and lesssubtle, which one day might strike her silent if she laughed too muchat Fate.

  And, thinking, he showed his teeth again in that noiseless snickerwhich was his smile and laughter too.

  The girl regarded him for a moment, then deliberately mimicked hissmile:

  "The dogs of Stamboul laugh that way, too," she said, baring herpretty teeth. "What amuses you? Did the silly old Von-der-Goltz Pashapromise you, also, a dish of Eagle?--old Von-der-Goltz with hisspectacles an inch thick and nothing living within what he carriesabout on his two doddering old legs! There's a German!--who diedtwenty years ago and still walks like a damned man--jingling his ironcrosses and mumbling his gums! Is it a resurrection from 1870 come toforetell another war? And why are these Prussian vultures gatheringhere in Stamboul? Can you tell me, Ferez?--these Prussians in Turkishuniforms! Is there anything dying or dead here, that these buzzardsappear from the sky and alight? Why do they crowd and huddle in acircle around Constantinople? Is there something dead in Persia? Isthe Bagdad railroad dying? Is Enver Bey at his last gasp? Is Talaat?Or perhaps the savoury odour comes from the Yildiz----"

  "Nihla! Is there nothing sacred--nothing thou fearest on earth?"

  "Only old age--and thy smile, my Ferez. Neither agrees with me." Shestretched her arms lazily.

  "Allons," she said, stifling a pleasant yawn with one slim hand,"--mymaid will wake below and miss me; and then the dogs of Stamboul yonderwill hear a solo such as they never heard before.... Tell me, Ferez,do you know when we are to weigh anchor?"

  "At sunrise."

  "It is the same to me,"--she yawned again--"my maid is aboard and allmy luggage. And my Ferez, also.... Mon dieu! And what will Cyril haveto say when he arrives to find me vanished! It is, perhaps, well forus that we shall be at sea!"

  Her quick laughter pealed; she turned with a careless gesture ofsalute, friendly and contemptuous; and her white bernous faded away inthe moonlit fog.

  And Ferez Bey stood staring after her out of his near-set, beady eyes,loving her, desiring her, fearing her, unrepentant that he had soldher, wondering whether the day might dawn when he would find it bestto kill her for the prosperity and peace of mind of the only livingbeing in whose service he never tired--himself.