Complete weird tales of.., p.1009
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1009
He turned slowly. Swathed in a white wool bernous, Nihla stood there in the foggy moonlight.
“Why?” she enquired, without preliminaries and with the unfeigned curiosity of a child.
He did not pretend to misunderstand her in French:
“Thou knowest, Nihla. I have never touched thy heart. I could do nothing for thee — —”
“Except to sell me,” she smiled, interrupting him in English, without the slightest trace of accent.
But Ferez preferred the refuge of French:
“Except to launch thee and make possible thy career,” he corrected her very 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 not sell for a price?”
“I tell thee — —”
“Zut! I know thee, Ferez!” she mocked him, slipping easily into French. “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 it Von-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 no reply from you. Only my wits can ever answer me any questions.”
She stood laughing at him, swathed in her white wool, looming like some mocking spectre in the misty moonlight of the after-deck.
“Oh, Ferez,” she said in her sweet, malicious voice, “there was a curse on Midas, too! You play at high finance; you sell what you never had to sell, and you are paid for it. All your life you have been busy selling, re-selling, bargaining, betraying, seeking always gain where only loss is possible — loss of all that justifies a man in daring to stand alive before the God that made him!... And yet — that which you call love — that shadowy emotion which you have also sold to-night — I think 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 price was 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 is he then, this Gerhardt, but a millionaire? Why is nobility so gracious then? What does Gerhardt give for his Red Eagle? — for the politeness of Excellenz? — for the crooked smile of a Bavarian Baroness 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, who takes his profit in Red Eagles and offers me to d’Eblis for something in exchange to please Excellenz — and you? And what, at the end of the bargaining, does d’Eblis pay for me — pay through Gerhardt to you, and through you to Excellenz, and through Excellenz to the Kaiser 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 is no whiter than those loveliest ones who lie fathoms deep below these little silver waves.... Each with her bowstring snug about her snowy neck.... As fair and young, as warm and fresh and sweet as thou, my Nihla.”
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 jackal of his Excellency! I go to Paris and to my career, certain of my happy destiny, 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. The Count d’Eblis is doubtless licking his. Good appetite, my Ferez! Lick away lustily, for God does not temper the jackal’s appetite to his opportunities!”
Ferez let his level gaze rest on her in silence.
“Well, trafficker in Eagles, dealer in love, vendor of youth, merchant of souls, what strikes you silent?”
But he was thinking of something sharper than her tongue and less subtle, which one day might strike her silent if she laughed too much at Fate.
And, thinking, he showed his teeth again in that noiseless snicker which was his smile and laughter too.
The girl regarded him for a moment, then deliberately mimicked his smile:
“The dogs of Stamboul laugh that way, too,” she said, baring her pretty teeth. “What amuses you? Did the silly old Von-der-Goltz Pasha promise you, also, a dish of Eagle? — old Von-der-Goltz with his spectacles an inch thick and nothing living within what he carries about on his two doddering old legs! There’s a German! — who died twenty years ago and still walks like a damned man — jingling his iron crosses and mumbling his gums! Is it a resurrection from 1870 come to foretell another war? And why are these Prussian vultures gathering here in Stamboul? Can you tell me, Ferez? — these Prussians in Turkish uniforms! Is there anything dying or dead here, that these buzzards appear from the sky and alight? Why do they crowd and huddle in a circle around Constantinople? Is there something dead in Persia? Is the 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.” She stretched her arms lazily.
“Allons,” she said, stifling a pleasant yawn with one slim hand,” — my maid will wake below and miss me; and then the dogs of Stamboul yonder will 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 all my luggage. And my Ferez, also.... Mon dieu! And what will Cyril have to say when he arrives to find me vanished! It is, perhaps, well for us that we shall be at sea!”
Her quick laughter pealed; she turned with a careless gesture of salute, friendly and contemptuous; and her white bernous faded away in the 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 sold her, wondering whether the day might dawn when he would find it best to kill her for the prosperity and peace of mind of the only living being in whose service he never tired — himself.
CHAPTER I
A SHADOW DANCE
THREE YEARS LATER Destiny still wore a rosy face for Nihla Quellen. And, for a young American of whom Nihla had never even heard, Destiny still remained the laughing jade he had always known, beckoning him ever nearer, with the coquettish promise of her curved forefinger, to fame and wealth immeasurable.
* * * * *
Seated now on a moonlit lawn, before his sketching easel, this optimistic young man, whose name was Barres, continued to observe the movements of a dim white figure which had emerged from the villa opposite, and was now stealing toward him across the dew-drenched grass.
When the white figure was quite near it halted, holding up filmy skirts and peering intently at him.
“May one look?” she inquired, in that now celebrated voice of hers, through which ever seemed to sound a hint of hidden laughter.
“Certainly,” he replied, rising from his folding camp stool.
She tiptoed over the wet grass, came up beside him, gazed down at the canvas on his easel.
“Can you really see to paint? Is the moon bright enough?” she asked.
“Yes. But one has to be familiar with one’s palette.”
“Oh. You seem to know yours quite perfectly, monsieur.”
“Enough to mix colours properly.”
“I didn’t realise that painters ever actually painted pictures by moonlight.”
“It’s a sort of hit or miss business, but the notes made are interesting,” he explained.
“What do you do with these moonlight studies?”
“Use them as notes in the studio when a moonlight picture is to be painted.”
“Are you then a realist, monsieur?”
“As much of a realist as anybody with imagination can be,” he replied, smiling at her charming, moonlit face.
“I understand. Realism is merely honesty plus the imagination of the individual.”
“A delightful mot, madam — —”
“Mademoiselle,” she corrected him demurely. “Are you English?”
“American.”
“Oh. Then may I venture to converse with you in English?” She said it in exquisite English, entirely without accent.
“You are English!” he exclaimed under his breath.
“No ... I don’t know what I am.... Isn’t it charming out here? What particular view are you painting?”
“The Seine, yonder.”
She bent daintily over his sketch, holding up the skirts of her ball-gown.
“Your sketch isn’t very far advanced, is it?” she inquired seriously.
“Not very,” he smiled.
They stood there together in silence for a while, looking out over the moonlit river to the misty, tree-covered heights.
Through lighted rows of open windows in the elaborate little villa across the lawn came lively music and the distant noise of animated voices.
“Do you know,” he ventured smilingly, “that your skirts and slippers are soaking wet?”
“I don’t care. Isn’t this June night heavenly?”
She glanced across at the lighted house. “It’s so hot and noisy in there; one dances only with discomfort. A distaste for it all sent me out on the terrace. Then I walked on the lawn. Then I beheld you!... Am I interrupting your work, monsieur? I suppose I am.” She looked up at him naïvely.
He said something polite. An odd sense of having seen her somewhere possessed him now. From the distant house came the noisy American music of a two-step. With charming grace, still inspecting him out of her dark eyes, the girl began to move her pretty feet in rhythm with the music.
“Shall we?” she inquired mischievously.... “Unless you are too busy — —”
The next moment they were dancing together there on the wet lawn, under the high lustre of the moon, her fresh young face and fragrant figure close to his.
During their second dance she said serenely:
“They’ll raise the dickens if I stay here any longer. Do you know the Comte d’Eblis?”
“The Senator? The numismatist?”
“Yes.”
“No, I don’t know him. I am only a Latin Quarter student.”
“Well, he is giving that party. He is giving it for me — in my honour. That is his villa. And I” — she laughed— “am going to marry him — perhaps! Isn’t this a delightful escapade of mine?”
“Isn’t it rather an indiscreet one?” he asked smilingly.
“Frightfully. But I like it. How did you happen to pitch your easel on his lawn?”
“The river and the hills — their composition appealed to me from here. It is the best view of the Seine.”
“Are you glad you came?”
They both laughed at the mischievous question.
* * * * *
During their third dance she became a little apprehensive and kept looking over her shoulder toward the house.
“There’s a man expected there,” she whispered, “Ferez Bey. He’s as soft-footed as a cat and he always prowls in my vicinity. At times it almost seems to me as though he were slyly watching me — as though he were employed to keep an eye on me.”
“A Turk?”
“Eurasian.... I wonder what they think of my absence? Alexandre — the Comte d’Eblis — won’t like it.”
“Had you better go?”
“Yes; I ought to, but I won’t.... Wait a moment!” She disengaged herself from his arms. “Hide your easel and colour-box in the shrubbery, in case anybody comes to look for me.”
She helped him strap up and fasten the telescope-easel; they placed the paraphernalia behind the blossoming screen of syringa. Then, coming together, she gave herself to him again, nestling between his arms with a little laugh; and they fell into step once more with the distant dance-music. Over the grass their united shadows glided, swaying, gracefully interlocked — moon-born phantoms which dogged their light young feet....
* * * * *
A man came out on the stone terrace under the Chinese lanterns. When they saw him they hastily backed into the obscurity of the shrubbery.
“Nihla!” he called, and his heavy voice was vibrant with irritation and impatience.
He was a big man. He walked with a bulky, awkward gait — a few paces only, out across the terrace.
“Nihla!” he bawled hoarsely.
Then two other men and a woman appeared on the terrace where the lanterns were strung. The woman called aloud in the darkness:
“Nihla! Nihla! Where are you, little devil?” Then she and the two men with her went indoors, laughing and skylarking, leaving the bulky man there alone.
The young fellow in the shrubbery felt the girl’s hand tighten on his coat sleeve, felt her slender body quiver with stifled laughter. The desire to laugh seized him, too; and they clung there together, choking back their mirth while the big man who had first appeared waddled out across the lawn toward the shrubbery, shouting:
“Nihla! Where are you then?” He came quite close to where they stood, then turned, shouted once or twice and presently disappeared across the lawn toward a walled garden. Later, several other people came out on the terrace, calling, “Nihla, Nihla,” and then went indoors, laughing boisterously.
The young fellow and the girl beside him were now quite weak and trembling with suppressed mirth.
* * * * *
They had not dared venture out on the lawn, although dance music had begun again.
“Is it your name they called?” he asked, his eyes very intent upon her face.
“Yes, Nihla.”
“I recognise you now,” he said, with a little thrill of wonder.
“I suppose so,” she replied with amiable indifference. “Everybody knows me.”
She did not ask his name; he did not offer to enlighten her. What difference, after all, could the name of an American student make to the idol of Europe, Nihla Quellen?
“I’m in a mess,” she remarked presently. “He will be quite furious with me. It is going to be most disagreeable for me to go back into that house. He has really an atrocious temper when made ridiculous.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” he said, sobered by her seriousness.
She laughed:
“Oh, pouf! I really don’t care. But perhaps you had better leave me now. I’ve spoiled your moonlight picture, haven’t I?”
“But think what you have given me to make amends!” he replied.
She turned and caught his hands in hers with adorable impulsiveness:
“You’re a sweet boy — do you know it! We’ve had a heavenly time, haven’t we? Do you really think you ought to go — so soon?”
“Don’t you think so, Nihla?”
“I don’t want you to go. Anyway, there’s a train every two hours — —”
“I’ve a canoe down by the landing. I shall paddle back as I came — —”
“A canoe!” she exclaimed, enchanted. “Will you take me with you?”
“To Paris?”
“Of course! Will you?”
“In your ball-gown?”
“I’d adore it! Will you?”
“That is an absolutely crazy suggestion,” he said.
“I know it. The world is only a big asylum. There’s a path to the river behind these bushes. Quick — pick up your painting traps — —”
“But, Nihla, dear — —”
“Oh, please! I’m dying to run away with you!”
“To Paris?” he demanded, still incredulous that the girl really meant it.
“Of course! You can get a taxi at the Pont-au-Change and take me home. Will you?”
“It would be wonderful, of course — —”
“It will be paradise!” she exclaimed, slipping her hand into his. “Now, let us run like the dickens!”
In the uncertain moonlight, filtering through the shrubbery, they found a hidden path to the river; and they took it together, lightly, swiftly, speeding down the slope, all breathless with laughter, along the moonlit way.
* * * * *
In the suburban villa of the Comte d’Eblis a wine-flushed and very noisy company danced on, supped at midnight, continued the revel into the starlit morning hours. The place was a jungle of confetti.
Their host, restless, mortified, angry, perplexed by turns, was becoming obsessed at length with dull premonitions and vaguer alarms.
He waddled out to the lawn several times, still wearing his fancy gilt and tissue cap, and called:
“Nihla! Damnation! Answer me, you little fool!”
He went down to the river, where the gaily painted row-boats and punts lay, and scanned the silvered flood, tortured by indefinite apprehensions. About dawn he started toward the weed-grown, slippery river-stairs for the last time, still crowned with his tinsel cap; and there in the darkness he found his aged boat-man, fishing for gudgeon with a four-cornered net suspended to the end of a bamboo pole.
“Have you see anything of Mademoiselle Nihla?” he demanded, in a heavy, unsteady voice, tremulous with indefinable fears.
“Monsieur le Comte, Mademoiselle Quellen went out in a canoe with a young gentleman.”
“W-what is that you tell me!” faltered the Comte d’Eblis, turning grey in the face.
“Last night, about ten o’clock, M’sieu le Comte. I was out in the moonlight fishing for eels. She came down to the shore — took a canoe yonder by the willows. The young man had a double-bladed paddle. They were singing.”
“They — they have not returned?”
“No, M’sieu le Comte — —”
“Who was the — man?”
