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The main part of the camp had already gone forward, and must have reached Arba, the first halting stage outside Beni-Mora; tents, the horses for the Roumis, the mules to carry necessary baggage, the cooking utensils and the guard dogs. But the Roumis themselves were to depart from the church on camel-back directly the marriage was accomplished.
"Put him across my saddle, poor wretch, I suppose; the fray must be reported." "Leave that to me," said Cigarette decidedly, and with a certain haughty patronage. "I shot him I will see the thing gets told right. It might be awkward for you; they are growing so squeamish about the Roumis killing the natives. Draw him to one side there, and leave him. The crows will finish his affair."
Suddenly, as she went, she heard a shout on the still night air very still, now that the lights, and the melodies, and the laughter of Chateauroy's villa lay far behind, and the town of Algiers was yet distant, with its lamps glittering down by the sea. The shout was, "A moi, Roumis! Pour la France!"
The warlike Roumis had always had a proud tenderness for their "Bel-a-faire-peur," and a certain wondering respect for him; but they would not have adored him to a man, as they did, unless they had known that they might laugh without restraint before him, and confide any dilemma to him sure of aid, if aid were in his power.
The face pretended not to understand; and having taken in every detail of the strangers' appearance and belongings, including the motor-car, it disappeared. "What's going to happen now?" Stephen wanted to know. Nevill looked puzzled. "The creature isn't too polite. Probably it's afraid of Roumis, and has never been spoken to by one before.
I cannot take her and ride away, as I might with a maiden humbly placed, trusting to make her happy after she was mine. My winning must be done first, as is the way of the Roumis, and she will be hard to win. Already she feels that one of my race has stolen and hidden her sister; for this, in her heart, she fears and half distrusts all Arabs.
Now the Caïd had reached the gate, and was talking to the men in the motor-car. Would he send them away? No, the gate was being opened by a servant. Ben Sliman must have invited the Roumis in. Possibly it was a wise thing to do, yet how dangerous, how terribly dangerous, with Victoria perhaps peeping from one of the tiny windows at the women's corner of the house, which looked on the court!
If any caïds of the south knew that Roumis had a secret reason for questioning them, they would pretend to know nothing, or give misleading answers; but if they were drawn on to describe their own part of the country, and the facilities for travelling through it, news of those who had lately passed that way might be inadvertently given.
They have their palaces outside the town; but most of the best houses have been sold to Europeans, and their Arab owners have gone into the interior where the Roumis don't rub elbows with them quite as offensively as in a big French town like this. Naturally they prefer the country.
Of a surety, the last part Bertie dreamed of playing was that of a teacher to any mortal thing; yet, here in Africa, it might reasonably be questioned if a second Augustine or Francis Xavier would ever have done half the good among the devil-may-care Roumis that was wrought by the dauntless, listless, reckless soldier who followed instinctively the one religion which has no cant in its brave, simple creed, and binds man to man in links that are true as steel the religion of a gallant gentleman's loyalty and honor.
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