Abdullah crossed the court, and, passing through an archway, walked rapidly along the garden path towards that wing of the house where his own rooms were. Here all was still and peaceful. The light of the half-moon, low down over the sea, came softly through, the orange-trees. As he neared the door, he became aware of a peaked, shadowy heap on the pavement against the tiled wall. “Ya Mustapha!” he cried.
The heap moved and rose. It was his faithful servant, a youth four or five years older than himself, a native of the southern desert. Mustapha, who had been waiting thus motionless for over an hour, grinned in silence, his white teeth gleaming in the moonlight.
He opened the door, and Abdullah went in, also in silence. They passed along a cold stone passage, up one staircase and down another, then up again, Mustapha going in front with a lamp. At last, they came out on the house-top, and, walking half round it in the moonlight, arrived at Abdullah’s private rooms.
There were two of them, and they were connected by an archway covered with a striped woolen curtain. Mustapha expected that his master would settle down to his books in the outer room, which he used as a study; instead, however, he went straight into the tiny bedroom, and, taking the lamp from the servant, “Leave me now, O Mustapha,” he said, “I wish to sleep.”
Mustapha looked at him anxiously. “Ill?” he queried.
“Not ill,” replied Abdullah, with a face paler than the moonlight should have made it.
“Not ill,” repeated Mustapha, with satisfaction and a grin of relief. “Do you wish coffee, O Sidi?”
“I do not wish it.” And, as the servant withdrew, Abdullah flung himself down on the richly-covered mattress which formed his bed.
Meanwhile, Saleh, who had been lurking in one of the rooms opening off the oust-de-dar, had joined the old Abdullah whom he found leaning back upon his cushions, white, and exhausted from his fit of passion.
“Do not trouble yourself,” said Saleh, as he poured out a glass of water, which the old man drank trembling. “Leave me to deal with the boy. Where is he now?”
Saleh had heard from his hiding-place almost all that had passed between the father and son. When he learned that Abdullah had probably gone to his room, “Let him stay there,” said he, “till his head cools.” Whereupon, Saleh followed Abdullah across the garden and upstairs finding Mustapha seated at the outer door, his knees up to his chin, wrapped in his burnous, and listening for the slightest sound from without.
“Dog, son of a dog,” he whispered, shaking him cautiously, “is your master within?”
“Within, O Sidi!”
Whereupon, Saleh crept on tiptoe-he had already taken off his shoes-to the door of Abdullah’s room, locked it, and took out the key.
“Infidel, son of an infidel!” he commanded under his breath, “come away with me!”
Mustapha began to whimper. “I want to stay with my master!” he said, struggling under the hands of Saleh, who had seized hold of him by the burnous.
“Walk behind me, and say nothing, or, by Allah-”
Mustapha followed him down the stairs, still whimpering childishly.
But under his burnous, drawn closely across his face, he hid perhaps the broadest grin he had ever indulged in. For he knew that Abdullah had already escaped, and was now well on his way to the House of the English.
It was a strange hour, almost midnight, when Abdullah arrived at the House of the English. What would the neighbors think to hear such a knocking at that quiet place at such a time? He did not have to wait long, for Lalla Christabel, unlike the rest of the household, had not yet retired to rest. Putting her head out of a window, which from a great height overlooked the street, she was relieved, if surprised, to hear Abdullah’s voice.
“It is I, Abdullah,” he said in a low tone, which yet was clearly heard in the silence of the night.
“Wait a moment, O Abdullah, I will come,” and, taking a lighted lantern from a recess, and, without waking anyone, she went downstairs, and, as quietly as she could, opened the heavy street door.
“I have run away,” the boy said quietly. They went into the white-domed lower room which had once been a private mosque, and sat down in the circle of light made by the little lantern.
Abdullah’s eyes were bright and brave, and Lalla Christabel read their secret. “You have confessed Christ, Abdullah!” she exclaimed. “Thank God!”
“It is finished,” said the boy. “I have broken with my father, and he will never change his mind. I cannot become a doctor, for he will give me nothing now. All I wish is to be baptized at once into the name of the Messiah, and find some work to make my own living.”
“We can get you work,” said Lalla Christabel, “and I feel sure that M. le Cure will baptize you without further delay. But, O Abdullah, Have you counted all the cost? Will your father be content to cast you off, and let you make your own way, or-will he follow you?”
“I don’t know,” the boy replied. “I only want to be baptized at once. When I have passed beneath the waters, I will feel that I have really cut myself off from the old life. My father will feel it too.”
“Thank God, Abdullah!” she repeated. “Thank God for His wonderful grace! But we can do nothing tonight. As soon as the house is astir, I will send for M. le Cure. Meanwhile, I think it will be wise for you to pass the rest of the night next door, in the douira, (little house, annex) with the biskri (water-carrier from Biskra). He is a faithful old fellow, and will ask no questions.”
When Abdullah was safe in the douira, Lalla Christabel returned to her room, but not to sleep. On the eve of baptism, when the enemy is mustering his forces about the soul that was forever lost to him, it behooves the Christian to gather an opposing strength at the throne of grace. Abdullah, too, prayed.
As soon as it was light, Lalla Christabel sent for M. le Curé. She was fully aware of the danger of Abdullah’s father, or someone else belonging to him, appearing at the last moment to prevent the baptism. When the messenger had started, she wakened Lalla Dorothy and the rest of the household, and, briefly explaining the circumstances, asked them to help in making the necessary arrangements.
It was possible, by a system of pipes connected with the well under the central court, to flood a portion of the boys’ classroom, where the floor was a little lower, to a depth of nearly three feet. This the ladies, with Abdullah’s help, succeeded in doing in about an hour’s time; and, just as they had finished, M. le Curé arrived together with an Arab helper, himself a baptized Christian.
This man had brought a set of garments, made in native fashion but entirely in white; and, after embracing the new candidate with real emotion, he invited him into an adjoining room. Meanwhile, a few minutes conversation with Lalla Christabel assured him that Abdullah was ready to be baptized.
Lalla Dorothy stood in the passage by the street door. “Do not open if anyone comes,” Lalla Christabel had said to her, “but call me first, as there may be trouble.”
Suddenly, there was a loud knocking at the door. Lalla Christabel, exchanging a look with M. le Curé, came out of the baptismal room, letting fall the heavy curtain behind her.
“Who is there?” she asked.
“It is I, Sidi Saleh, brother to the stepmother of Abdullah ben Abdullah. For the love of Allah, let me in quickly!” Saleh’s voice sounded choked with emotion.
“It is early, O Sidi,” Lalla Christabel replied. “Perhaps it would suit your convenience to return at a later hour, say eight o’clock. We are not accustomed to receive visitors at sunrise.”
“Nothing but great trouble and necessity,” Saleh replied, and his voice seemed ready to break, would have caused me to come thus early. My sister’s husband, alas, is at the point of death!”
The curtain was pushed aside, and Abdullah, his face blanched, appeared in the archway“What is that I hear?” he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper.
Lalla Christabel signed to him to be silent.
“He has sent for his son, who is the apple of his eye,” Saleh went on, in the same grief-stricken tones.
“I am very sorry,” said Lalla Christabel. She looked doubtfully at Abdullah. Was this tale true?
Saleh’s quick ear had caught Abdullah’s footstep. “O, my son,” he almost sobbed. “Open the door and come! Your poor father may have already breathed his last!”
“Alas!” cried Abdullah. “I am the cause of all this! The grief and anger which I made him suffer last night has brought on this illness;” And he rushed to the door and threw it open.
Lalla Christabel stood aside, watching the scene intently. As soon as Saleh saw Abdullah, he fell on his neck, and embraced him with tears and cries.
“O my son, my poor son!” he sobbed. “It is to me you will have to look, when your dear father is no more!”
Lalla Dorothy could not bear the sight of Saleh’s apparent grief. Her lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears. But Lalla Christabel, usually so sympathetic, stood immovable. The expression on her face did not change. She simply watched.
“And now, my poor son,” said Saleh, “there is, as you know, not a moment to be lost. A car is waiting at the foot of the steps.”
“But the clothes!” cried the boy.
“No matter about that!” And Saleh threw a burnous over him, which he had brought on his arm.
Abdullah turned a white, distressed face to Lalla Christabel.
“Remain in peace!” he said.
“Remember,” she replied, “that whatever happens, you are His alone.”
Saleh looked up, surprised.
“Yes,” he said, “that is true. He belongs to his father, O lady, remain in peace!” But Abdullah understood.
“He will keep you,” said his friend, as she grasped his hand in parting. “But be careful, Abdullah.”
As they went up the steps, Saleh began to rearrange his burnous. “Just see my state!” he said to Abdullah. “I am indeed overwhelmed with grief! Here is the car. I will tell you all as we drive along.”
To Abdullah’s surprise, after a few minutes the car stopped at the foot of a native street. “Come with me a moment,” said Saleh, dismounting. “I have a message to the sheikh who lives in this second house.”
Abdullah felt a misgiving. But something, he could not tell what, made him get out of the car and follow Saleh.
The door of the house was closed, but it opened without Saleh having knocked.
They entered an almost dark passage. There was a slight scuffle, a smothered exclamation. Then the heavy door banged behind them.