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Lella Mabrouka, being of an older generation, had not troubled to learn French, and could understand only a few words which her naturally quick mind had assorted in hearing the Agha talk with his daughter. Ourïeda acted as interpreter for the politeness of her aunt and guest, but Sanda could not help realizing that all was not well between the two.
Her large luggage could be stored at the hotel until she returned or sent, and as Lella M'Barka intended to offer her an outfit suitable to a young Arab girl of noble birth, she need take from the hotel only her toilet things. So it was that Victoria wrote to Stephen Knight, and was ready for the second stage of what seemed the one great adventure to which her whole life had been leading up.
She would have unfastened the long drapery, but Hsina put down Victoria's luggage, and pushing away the two brown hands, tattooed with blue mittens, she herself unfastened the veil. "No, this is my lady, and my work, Fafann," she objected. "But it is my duty to take her in," replied the Bedouin woman, jealously. "It is the wish of Lella M'Barka. Go thou and make ready the room of the guest."
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.
Lella M'Barka had invited her guest to sit on cushions beside the divan where she lay, and the interest in her feverish eyes, which seldom left Victoria's face, was so intense as to embarrass the girl. "Thou hast wondrous hair," she said, "and when it is unbound it must be a fountain of living gold. Is it some kind of henna grown in thy country, which dyes it that beautiful colour?"
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.
She has told me that thy sister has ill-wished me, and that I shall never have a boy a real child while Lella Saïda breathes the same air with me. That is the reason I want her to be gone. I will not help thee to go, unless thou takest her with thee." "I will never, never leave this place unless we go together," Victoria answered, deeply interested and excited now. "That is well.
"O twin stars, forgive me for darkening the brightness of thy sky," she said, "but I have here a letter, given to me to put into the hands of Lella Saïda." She held out a folded bit of paper, that had no envelope. Saidee, pale and large-eyed, took it in silence. She read, and then handed the paper to Victoria. A few lines were scrawled on it in English, in a very foreign handwriting.
Maïeddine knew what he could offer the marabout, and knew that the marabout would willingly pay even a higher price than he meant to ask. He lived in the guest-house, and had news sometimes from his cousin Lella M'Barka in her distant quarters. She was tired, but not ill, and the two sisters were very kind to her.
Being a near relation, Si Maïeddine was allowed to see Lella M'Barka unveiled; and even in the pink and gold light of the hanging lamps, she was ghastly under her paint. The young man was struck with her martyred look, and pitied her; but stronger than his pity was the fear that she might fail him if not to-day, before the journey's end.
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