WHAT HAPPENED AT DAWN

Sanda DeLisle's short life had not been brilliantly happy. She had known the ache of feeling herself unwanted by the only two human beings of paramount importance in her world: her almost unknown father, and her adored "Sir Knight" and hero Richard Stanton. But never for more than a few hours of concentrated pain, like those at Algiers, had she suffered for herself as she suffered for OurÏeda.

The "Little Rose," defenceless against the men who had power over her fate (as all Arab women are defenceless, unless they choose death instead of life), appealed to the latent motherhood that slept in the heart of Sanda, as in the heart of every normal girl: appealed to the romance in her: appealed to the sympathy born of her own love for Stanton, which seemed as hopeless as OurÏeda's love for ManÖel Valdez. Would ManÖel come in answer to one of those secretly sent letters? Would anything happen to save OurÏeda from Tahar? The girl brought up to be a Roman Catholic prayed to the Blessed Virgin. The girl brought up to be a Mohammedan prayed to Allah. And the prayers of both, ascending from different altars, like smoke of incense in a Christian church and in a mosque, rose toward the same heaven. Yet no help came; and the summer days slipped by, until at last it was September, the month fixed for the wedding.

With the subtlety and soft cowardice of Mussulman women, young or old, OurÏeda said no word to her father of her loathing for Tahar. When Sanda begged her to tell him at least so much of the truth and trust to his love, the girl replied always dully and hopelessly in the same way: it would be useless. He was very fond of her, for her dead mother's sake and her own. But the fire of youth had died down in his heart. He had forgotten how he felt when love was the greatest thing on earth. Besides, his own wife had been the exception to all womanhood, in his eyes. The child she had left had been his dear plaything, his consolation. Now he counted upon her to fulfil the ambitions of his life, thwarted so far, because she had been a daughter. To have his nephew, his heir by law, become the father of his grandsons, was his best hope now, and nothing except OurÏeda's death or Tahar's death would make him give it up.

"My dear nurse Embarka would kill Tahar for me if she could get at him," the "Little Rose" said one day, calmly. "That would end my trouble, but she cannot reach him, and there is no one she can trust among those who cook or serve food in the men's part of our house."

Sanda was struck with horror, but OurÏeda could not at first even understand why she was shocked. "If a viper were ready to strike you or one you loved, would you think harm of killing it?" she asked. "Tahar is venomous as a viper. I should give thanks to Allah if he were dead, no matter how he died. But since Allah does not will his death, I must pray for courage to die myself rather than be false to ManÖel, who has perhaps himself gone to Paradise, since he does not answer when I call; and if a woman can have a soul, I may belong to him there."

Sanda had forgiven her, realizing if not understanding fully the difference between a heart of the East and a heart of the West, and loving the Arab girl with unabated love. Up to the hour when Ben RÂana came into the garden of the harem and bade his daughter praise Allah because her wedding day was at hand, Sanda hoped, and begged OurÏeda to hope, that "something might happen." But even to her that seemed the end, for the girl listened with meekness and offered no objection except that the hot weather had stolen her strength: she was not well.

"Let the excitement of being a bride bring back thy health, like wine in thy veins, Little Rose," said the Agha, speaking in French out of compliment to the guest, and to show her that there was no family secret under discussion which she might not share.

"It is not exciting to marry my cousin Tahar," OurÏeda sighed rather than protested. "He is an ugly man, dreadful for a girl to look upon as her husband."

"Thou makest me feel that thine aunt is right when she tells me I was wrong ever to let thee look upon him or any man except thy father," the Agha answered quickly, with a sudden light behind the darkness of his eyes like the flash of a sword in the night. Sanda, knowing what she knew, guessed at a hidden meaning in the words. He was remembering ManÖel, and wishing his daughter to see that he had never for a moment forgotten the thing that had passed. The Agha, despite his eagle face, had been invariably so gentle when with the women of his household, and had seemed so cultured, so instructed in all the tenets of the twentieth century, that Sanda had sometimes wondered if his daughter were not needlessly afraid of him. But the unsheathing of that sword of light convinced her of OurÏeda's wisdom. The girl knew her father. If she dared to urge any further her dislike of Tahar he would believe it was because of ManÖel, and hurry rather than delay the wedding. Illness was the only possible plea, and even to that Ben RÂana seemed to attach little importance. Marriage meant change and new interests. It should be a tonic for a Rose drooping in the garden of her father's harem.

"Thou seest for thyself that it is no use to plead," whispered OurÏeda when her father had gone, and Leila Mabrouka and her woman, Taous, on the overhanging balcony, were loudly discussing details of the feast. "Now, at last, is the time to tell the thing I waited to tell, till the worst should come: the thing thou couldst do for me, which would be even harder to do, and take more courage—oh! far more courage!—than leaving the letters open."

The look in OurÏeda's eyes of topaz brown was more tragic, more strangely fatal than Sanda had ever seen it yet, even on the roof in the sunset when the story of ManÖel had been told. The heart of her friend felt like a clock that is running down. She was afraid to know the thing which OurÏeda wanted her to do; yet she must know—and make up her mind. It seemed as if there were nothing she could refuse, still——

"What is it you mean?" she whispered back, the two heads leaning together over a frame of bright embroidery in OurÏeda's lap, and the tinkle of the fountain drowning the soft voices, even if the chatter at the door of Leila Mabrouka's room above had not covered the secret words.

"When I said there was a thing I would ask, if the worst came," OurÏeda repeated, "I meant one of two things. If thou wilt do either, they are for thee to choose between. But thou wilt think them both terrible, and my only hope is that thou lovest me."

"You know I do," Sanda breathed.

"Enough to do what I am too poor a coward to do for myself, and Embarka has refused to do?"

"Not—oh, no, no, you can't mean——"

"Yes, thou hast guessed. No one need ever suspect. I would think of a way. I've thought of one already. There'd be no pain for me. And yet—I suppose because I am young and my blood runs hot in my veins, I fear—I am sure—I couldn't, when the moment came, do it myself."

"Even for you, I can't be a murderess," Sanda said miserably, almost apologetically.

"It is thy strange Christian superstition which makes thee call it that. It would be our fate; and thou couldst go away and be happy, feeling thou hadst saved me from life which is worse than death sometimes. Still, if thou wilt not, there is the other thing. Will thou help me to escape?"

"Oh, yes!" cried Sanda.

"Wait till thou hast heard my plan. Maybe thou wilt change thy mind."

"I feel sure I shan't change it."

"But the plan may make thee hate me, and think I am cruel and selfish, caring for no one except myself. Besides, there will be lies to tell; and I know thou dost not like lies, though to me they seem no harm if they are to do good in the end."

"Tell me the plan."

OurÏeda told it, while overhead on the balcony her Aunt Mabrouka—Tahar's mother—chatted of the merchants in Djazerta who sold silks from Tunis and perfumes from Algiers.

The plan was very hateful, very dangerous and treacherous. But—it was to save OurÏeda. The Arab girl proposed to Sanda that she should pretend to have a letter from Colonel DeLisle calling her back at once to Sidi-bel-AbbÉs, not giving her even time to wait for the wedding. Ben RÂana would reluctantly consent to her going: he would give her an escort—not Tahar, because Tahar must stay for his marriage—but some trustworthy men of his goum, and good camels. On the camel prepared for her would be of course a bassourah with heavy curtains: probably the one in which she had already travelled. It went also without saying that Sanda would make the journey in Arab dress, such as she had worn during her visit. OurÏeda would pretend to be ill with grief because her friend must leave her at such a time; already she had prepared the Agha's mind by complaining of weakness. She would take to her bed and refuse to see any one but her nurse, Embarka. Lella Mabrouka, glad to be rid of the Roumia girl (of whom, beneath her politeness, she had always disapproved), and hating illness, would gladly keep out of the way for two or three days, while the wedding preparations went on. It would be easy, or almost easy, if no accident happened, OurÏeda argued, for her to go away veiled and swathed in the bassourah, while Sanda lay in bed in a darkened room. At Touggourt the veiled lady would be met by that Captain Amaranthe and his wife of whom Sanda had spoken: they must be written to immediately and told to expect Mademoiselle DeLisle. Then trouble might come, if they suspected, but perhaps they would not, if Sanda wrote that she had been ill with influenza and had nearly lost her voice. They might send her off by train, guessing nothing, or, if they did guess, she must throw herself on Madame Amaranthe's mercy. No woman with a heart would give her up! And if the plan succeeded, instead of going to Sidi-bel-AbbÉs she would go to Oran where she could find a ship that would take her to Marseilles. Her jewels (some which had been her mother's, and many new ones given by her father) would pay the expenses and keep her in France, hidden from Ben RÂana and beyond his power, until perhaps ManÖel found her through advertisements she would put into all the French papers.

As for Sanda, the result for her when the trick was discovered (as it ought not to be until OurÏeda had got out of Algeria) would be simple. She was the daughter of Ben RÂana's friend, a soldier of importance in the eyes of France. Colonel DeLisle had entrusted her to the Agha's care, and she could not be punished as though she were an Arab woman. If Embarka or any member of Ben RÂana's household so betrayed him and his dearest hopes the right revenge would be death, and no one outside would ever hear what had been done, for tragedies of the harem are sacred. To Mademoiselle DeLisle, however, her host could do nothing, except send her with a safe escort out of his home. And that would be her one desire.

At first it seemed to Sanda that she could not do what OurÏeda asked. With tears she said no, they must think of some other way. And the Little Rose did not argue or plead. She answered only that she had thought, and there was no other way but the one which Sanda had refused. Then she was silent, and the light died out of her eyes, leaving them dull, almost glazed, as if her soul, that had been gazing through the windows, had gone to some dark sepulchre of hope.

It was because of this silence and this look that Sanda changed her mind, after one day and night, all of which she spent—vainly—in trying to find another plan. A letter did come from her father, as she and OurÏeda had hoped it might (Colonel DeLisle, while still at Sidi-bel-AbbÉs, found time to scribble off a few lines to his girl for each camel post that travelled through the dunes from Touggourt to Djazerta), and in sickness of heart Sanda pretended that she was wanted "at home." The Agha was grieved and astonished, but, great Arab gentleman that he was, would have cut out his tongue rather than question his guest when no information was volunteered. He asked only if she had been in all ways kindly treated in his house; and when with swimming eyes she answered "yes," it was enough. The caravan was prepared to take her to Touggourt, where she would be met by her former travelling companions, Captain Amaranthe and his wife; and the Agha assured her that only the marriage—an event unlucky to postpone—prevented him from sending his nephew as before, or going himself as her escort.

The start was to be made very early in the morning, before dawn, in order that the caravan might rest during the two hours of greatest heat without shortening the day's march; and this was in the girl's favour. Sanda had said farewell to Lella Mabrouka the night before, that the lady need not wake before her usual hour: but not only did she wake; she rose, very quietly, and saw Embarka tiptoeing along the balcony from Sanda's room to OurÏeda's with the new gandourah and extra thick veil she herself had given the guest to travel in. When Embarka was out of the way Lella Mabrouka, in her night robe, pattered softly to Sanda's closed door and knocked. No answer. She peeped in and saw the room empty.

Sanda might have gone to bid OurÏeda good-bye at the last minute: that would be natural; and it was the last minute, because the sky was changing its night purple for the gray of dawn, and from the distant courtyard Lella Mabrouka had heard some time ago the grunting of the camels. (She was a light sleeper always: and afterward she told Ben RÂana and Tahar that Allah had doubtless sent some messenger to touch her shoulder at this hour of fate.) She had had no definite suspicions until that moment, except that she was always vaguely suspicious of the girls' confidences; but suddenly an idea leaped into her mind, the suggestion of just such a trick as she herself would have been subtle enough to play. If the Roumia went to the room of her friend to disturb her (though OurÏeda had been ailing for days), why did she not go already dressed, by Embarka's help, for the start, since it was time to set out, and the Agha must be waiting in the courtyard to bid Allah speed his guest? There might be a simple and innocent reason for what struck Lella Mabrouka as mysterious, but she determined to find out. With suddenness she flung open the door of OurÏeda's room (which Embarka, believing Lella Mabrouka safely asleep, had not locked), and by the light of a French lamp she saw the old nurse draping OurÏeda in the Roumia's veil. In OurÏeda's green and gold bed from Tunis lay Sanda in a nightdress of OurÏeda's with her head wrapped up as OurÏeda's was often wrapped by Embarka as a cure for headache.

Instantly the whole plot was clear to the mother of Tahar. She saw how OurÏeda had meant to go, and how Sanda would have kept her place, guarded from intrusion by the old nurse, until the fugitive was safely out of reach.

OurÏeda, quick of mind as the older and more experienced woman, explained without waiting to be asked that she and her dearest Sanda had exchanged clothing, just for a moment, according to the old Arab superstition that garments changed between those who love have the power of giving some quality of the owner to the friend. Sanda said nothing at all, knowing that she would but make matters worse by speaking. When she understood what the story was to be (she had given hours of each day during the past months to learning Arabic) she sat up in bed and begun unwrapping her head as if to prepare for the journey, now that time pressed, and she must again put on her own things. But if she had had the slightest hope that Lella Mabrouka might be deceived by OurÏeda's plausible excuse, the cold glint of black eyes staring at her in the lamplight would have stabbed it to death.

A woman of Europe, burning with rage like Mabrouka's, might have blurted out fierce reproaches or insults; but the woman of the harem did not even put her discovery into words. She looked at OurÏeda and the Roumia, and said quietly: "It was a charming idea to wear each other's clothes so that each might have something of the other in her heart forever. Already I can see a likeness. But do not hurry to change now. I came to say that for a reason, to be explained later, the caravan cannot start to-day. Our Little White Moon will light our sky for a time longer. Come with me, Embarka, I have work for thee. These dear children may have the pleasure of dressing each other."

Ashy pale under her bronze skin, Embarka obeyed without protest, throwing one look at her beloved mistress as she followed Lella Mabrouka to her fate. Her great, dilated eyes said: "Good-bye forever, oh, thou whom I love, and for whom I have given myself without regret."

When they were left alone the girls fell into each other's arms as if for protection against some terrible fate coming swiftly to destroy them. Though the September dawn had in it the warmth of summer, they shivered as they clung together.

"It is all over!" OurÏeda said. "Allah is against me."

"What will happen?" asked Sanda, a horror of the unknown upon her.

"Nothing to thee. Do not be afraid."

"I'm not afraid for myself. I am thinking of you."

"For me this is the end."

"You don't mean—surely your father will not——"

"He will not take my life. He will take from me his love. And I shall be watched every instant till I have been given to Tahar. I shall not even have a chance to kill myself—unless I do it now."

"OurÏeda! No—there's hope still. Who can tell——"

But OurÏeda did not hear. Suddenly she tore herself free from Sanda's arms, and running to one of the carved cedarwood doors in the white wall of the bedroom, opened a little cupboard. There, fumbling among perfumed parcels, rolled as Arab women roll their garments, she snatched from a bundle of silk a small stiletto with a jewelled handle. Sanda had seen it before, and had been bidden to admire its rough, square emeralds and queerly shaped pearls. The thing had belonged to OurÏeda's mother, and had been given to the daughter by the Agha on her sixteenth birthday, nearly a year ago. Ben RÂana's Spanish wife had worn it in her dark hair; but Ben RÂana's daughter, even from the first, had thought of it for another purpose. Last night, when Embarka had packed the jewels among Sanda's things for the secret journey, OurÏeda had kept out the stiletto in case of failure. Now it was ready to her hand, and before Sanda could reach her the point of its thin blade pressed the flesh over the heart. But the pin prick of pain as the skin broke was too sharp a prophecy of anguish for the petted child who knew herself physically a coward. She gave a cry, dropped the stiletto as if the handle had burnt her, and, stumbling against the girl who tried to hold her up, fell in a limp heap on the floor.

There was no time to hide the stiletto, even if Sanda had thought to do so, before Taous, Lella Mabrouka's woman, came quietly into the room. No doubt Mabrouka had meant to send her, but had not told the girls, because she wished her servant to surprise them. Gathering up OurÏeda, who had fainted, or seemed to faint, the negress's bright eyes spied the dagger. Freeing one hand as easily as if OurÏeda's weight had been that of a baby, she took the weapon and slipped it into her dress. Whether she meant to show the dagger to her mistress, or to keep it for herself, who could say?

Sanda would not leave OurÏeda when the girl had been laid on the bed by Taous, but presently, after half an hour's absence, Lella Mabrouka returned. "Thou mayest go now," said the formidable woman. "We who love and understand her will restore our Rose with her name's perfume, which has the power of bringing back lost senses. Have no fear for her health, Little Moon. All will be well with our sweet bride. Dress thyself, not for a journey, but for a visit from my brother, the Agha, who will do himself the honour of calling upon thee when thou art ready to descend to our reception-room. Thou being a Roumia, with customs different to ours, may receive him alone, otherwise I would leave our Little Rose to Taous, and go with thee."

Despite the unbroken courtesy of Mabrouka's manner, or all the more because of its frozen calm, Sanda was sick with a deadly fear. She was not afraid that the Agha would do her bodily harm, but the whole world seemed to have come to an end because of her treachery. She did not know how she could meet his eyes, those eyes of an eagle, after what she had tried to do. She was afraid he would question her about what she knew of OurÏeda's secrets, and though she resolved that nothing should make her speak, her heart seemed turning to water.