Mathias Sandorf/Page 33

by Jules Verne

CHAPTER XXIV.
THE HOUSE OF SIDI HAZAM.

It was about nine o'clock. Musketry, music, shouting, all had suddenly ceased. The crowd had begun to disperse; some went back to Tripoli, others regained oasis of Menchie and the neighboring villages. In an hour the plain of Soung-Ettelate would be silent and empty. Tents would be folded up, camps would be raised, negroes and Berbers were already on the road to the different Tripolitan districts, while the Senousists were off toward the Cyrenaic, and more especially toward the vilayet of Ben Ghazi to join the concentration of the Caliph s forces.

The doctor, Pierre, and Luigi were the only people that did not leave the place during the night. Ready for all that might happen since the disappearance of Point Pescade, each of them had chosen his post of observation at the base of the walls of Sidi Hazam's house.

Point Pescade had given a tremendous leap, as Matifou held the pole up at arm's length, and fallen on the parapet of one of the terraces at the foot of the minaret which commanded the different court-yards of the house.

On that dark night no one within or without had noticed him. He was not even observed from the skifa in the court-yard, and in which there were a few Khouans, some of whom were asleep and some on the watch by order of the moquaddem.

Point Pescade, be it understood, had really no definite plan. The interior arrangement of the house was unknown to him and he did not know in what part the girl was detained, if she was alone or kept out of sight, or if he had sufficient strength to help her escape? Hence he must act a little at a venture, and this is what he thought:

“Anyhow by force of stratagem, I must reach Sava Sandorf. If she can not come with me immediately, if I can not get her away to-night, she must be told that Pierre Bathory is alive; that be is here at the foot of these walls; that Doctor Antekirtt and his companions are ready to help her and that if her escape must be delayed she must not yield to any threats! I may, of course, be found out before I reach her! But then I must take care of that.”

Pescade's first care was to unwind a slender, knotted cord that he had hidden under his clown's dress. Then he tied one end of this around the angle of one of the battlements, and then over the other, so that it hung down to the ground. This was only a measure of precaution, a good one nevertheless. That done, Pescade, before going far, then lay down on his stomach. In this attitude, which prudence demanded, he waited without moving. If he had been seen, the terrace would soon be invaded by Sidi Hazam's people, and then he would have to use the cord on his own account, instead of that of Sava Sandorf, as he intended.

Complete silence reigned in the moquaddem's house. As neither Sidi Hazam, nor Sarcany, nor any of their people, had taken part in the Feast of the Storks, the door of the zaouiya had not been opened since sunrise.

After waiting some minutes, Point Pescade moved toward the angle from which arose the minaret. The staircase which led to the upper part of this minaret evidently ran down to the ground in the first court-yard. In fact, a door opening on to the terrace gave admission to the stairs leading to the rooms below.

This door was shut from the inside, not with a key, but with a bolt that it would be impossible to slip back from the outside unless a hole were made through the wood. This labor Point Pescade would have attempted, for he had in his pocket a many-bladed knife, a precious present from the doctor, of which he could make good use. But that would be a long and perhaps noisy task.

It was unnecessary. Three feet above the terrace a window in the form of a loop-hole opened in the minaret wall. If the window was small, Point Pescade was not large. Besides, was he not like a cat who can elongate herself to pass through where there seems to be no passage? And so he tried, and after some squeezing of the shoulders he found himself in the minaret.

“Cape Matifou could not have done that!” he thought.

Then feeling his way around, he returned to the door and unbolted it, so that it remained unfastened in case he had to return by the same road.

As he went down the winding stairs of the minaret, Point Pescade glided rather than stepped, so that his Weight would not cause the wooden stairs to creak. At the bottom he found a second door. It was shut, but he had only to push it for it to open.

The door opened on to a gallery of little columns, by which access was given to a certain number of rooms. After the complete darkness of the minaret the gallery seemed light to Pescade; but there was no light in the interior, and not a sound.

In the center of the court-yard was a basin of running water surrounded by large pots of shrubs, pepper-trees, palms, laurel roses, and cacti, the thick foliage forming a clump of verdure round the edge.

Point Pescade stole round this gallery like a wolf, stopping before each room. It seemed they were inhabited. Not all of them, however; but behind one of the doors he distinctly heard the murmur of a voice he knew.

He stepped back. It was Sarcany's voice! The voice he had often heard at Ragusa; but, although he kept his ear to the door, he could near nothing of what was going on.

At this moment there suddenly came a loud noise, and Point Pescade had only just time to slip behind one of the flower pots round the water.

Sarcany came out of the room. An Arab of tall stature accompanied him. They continued their conversation, walking up and down the gallery of the court-yard.

Unfortunately Point Pescade could not understand what Sarcany and his companion were saying, for they were talking in that Arab tongue which he did not know. Two words he frequently heard, or rather two names. One of these was Sidi Hazam, for it was the moquaddem himself who was talking with Sarcany; the other was Antekirtta, which was mentioned several times during the conversation.

“That is strange,” thought Pescade. “Why are they talking about Antekirtta? Are Sidi Hazam, Sarcany, and all the pirates of Tripoli thinking of a campaign against an island? Confound it! And not to know the lingo these two rascals are using.”

And Point Pescade tried hard to catch another suspicious word, keeping himself well hid behind the flower-pots when Sarcany and Sidi Hazam came near. But the night was too dark for them to see him.

“And yet,” said he to himself “if Sarcany were alone in this court-yard I might have jumped at his throat, and put it out of his power to damage us. But that would not help Sava Sandorf, and it was for her I made that risky jump! Patience! Sarcany's turn will come some day.”

The conversation between Sidi Hazam and Sarcany lasted about twenty minutes. The name of Sava was mentioned several times, with the qualification “arronee,” and Point Pescade remembered that, he had already heard the word, and that it meant betrothed in Arabic. Evidently the moquaddem knew of Sarcany's projects, and was assisting him.

Then the two men retired through one of the doors in the angle of the court-yard which put this gallery in communication with the other parts of the house.

As soon as they had disappeared, Point Pescade glided along the gallery and stopped at this door. He had only to push it to find himself in a narrow corridor whose wall he felt his way along. At its end was a double arcade supported by a central column, and giving access to the second court-yard. A few bright lights from between the bays by which the skifa obtained its light from the court-yard were thrown in luminous sections on the earth, and at the moment it would not be prudent to cross them, for a noise of many voices was heard behind the door of this room.

Point Pescade hesitated a moment. What he sought was the room in which Sava was living, and he could only trust to chance to find it.

Suddenly a light appeared in the other end of the court-yard. A woman carrying an Arab lantern had just come out of the room in the far angle of the court-yard and turned along the gallery on to which the door of the skifa opened.

Point Pescade recognized her as Namir.

As it was possible that the Moor was going to the girl's room, it was necessary to find the means of following her, and, in order to follow her, let her go by without her seeing him. The moment was decisive of the audacious attempt of Point Pescade and the fate of Sava Sandorf.

Namir came on. Her lantern swinging almost on the ground left the upper part of the gallery in as deep a gloom as the lower part was brightly lighted. And as she passed along the arcade Point Pescade did not know what to do.

A ray from the lantern, however, showed him that the upper part of the arcade was ornamented with open arabesques, in Moorish fashion.

To climb the central column, seize hold of one of these arabesques, draw himself up by main force, and crouch in the central oval, where he remained as motionless as a saint in a niche, was the work of a second.

Namir passed along the arcade without seeing him, and crossed to the opposite side of the gallery. Then, when she reached the door of the skifa, she opened it. A bright light shot across the court-yard, and was instantly extinguished as soon as the door was shut.

Point Pescade set himself to reflect, and where could he find a better position for reflection?

“That is Namir who has just gone into that room,” he said to himself. “It is evident she is not going to Sava Sandorf! But perhaps she came from her, and, in that case, her room will be that one in the angle over there—I will go and see!”

He waited a few minutes before he left his post. The light inside the skifa seemed to grow less, and the voices died out to a faint murmur. Doubtless the hour had come when Sidi Hazam's household retired to rest. The circumstances were, therefore, more favorable for him, for that part of the habitation would be plunged in silence when the last light had gone out. And that was exactly what happened.

Pescade glided along the columns of the arcade, crept across the flags of the gallery, passed the door of the skifa, went round the end of the court-yard, and reached the angle near the room from which Namir had come. He opened the door, which was unlocked, and then, by the light of an Arab lamp, placed like a night-light beneath its shade, he gave a rapid glance round the room.

A few hangings suspended from the walls here and there, a stool of Moorish pattern, cushions piled in the angles, a double carpet on the mosaic floor, a low table, with the fragments of a meal, a divan covered with linen cloth—that was what he first saw.

He entered, and shut the door.

A woman, dozing rather than sleeping, was reclining on the divan, half covered in one of those burnouses with which the Arabs wrap themselves from head to foot.

It was Sava Sandorf.

Point Pescade had no difficulty in recognizing the young lady he had met so many times in the streets of Ragusa. How changed she seemed to be. Pale as she had been when in her wedding-carriage she had met the funeral procession of Pierre Bathory, her attitude and the expression of her face all told she had had to suffer.

There was not an instant to lose.

And in fact, as the door had not been locked, was not Namir coming back? Perhaps the Moor guarded her night and day! And if the girl could leave her room, how could she escape without help from the outside? Sidi Hazam's house was walled like a prison.

Point Pescade bent over the divan. What was his astonishment at a resemblance which had never struck him before—the resemblance between Sava Sandorf and Dr. Antekirtt!

The girl opened her eyes.

In seeing a stranger standing near her in that fantastic dress of the acrobat, with his finger on his lips, and an appealing look in his eyes, she was at first bewildered rather than frightened. But she arose, and had sufficient coolness to make no sound.

“Silence!” said Point Pescade. “You have nothing to fear from me! I have come here to save you! Behind those walls your friends are waiting for you, friends who will give their lives to get you out of Sarcany's hands! Pierre Bathory is alive—”

“Pierre—alive?” exclaimed Sava, restraining the beatings of her heart.

“Read!”

And Point Pescade gave the girl a letter, which contained these words—

“Sava, trust him who has risked his life to reach you! I am alive! I am here!

Pierre Bathory.”

Pierre was alive! He was at the foot of these walls! By what miracle? Sava would know later on! But Pierre was there.

“Let us escape!” she said.

“Yes! Let us escape,” answered Pescade. “But let us have all the chances on our side! One question, Is Namir accustomed to spend the night in this room?”

“No,” answered Sava.

“Does she take the precaution of locking you in when she is away?”

“Yes.”

“Then she will come back?”

“Yes! Let us go!”

“Now,” answered Pescade.

And first they must reach the staircase of the minaret to gain the terrace. Once they got there the rope that hung down outside would render escape easy.

“Come!” said Point Pescade, taking Sava's hand.

And he was going to open the door when he heard steps coming along the gallery. At the same time a few words were pronounced in an imperious tone. Point Pescade recognized Sarcany's voice. He stopped at the threshold.

“It is he!” whispered the girl. “You are lost if he finds you here!”

“He will not find me,” answered Pescade.

And throwing himself to the ground he then, by one of those acrobatic contortions he had often performed in sight of an audience, wrapped himself up in one of the carpets on the floor and rolled himself into the darkest corner of the room.

At the same moment the door opened to admit Sarcany and Namir, who shut it behind them.

Sava resumed her seat on the divan. Why had Sarcany come to her at that hour? Was this a new attempt to overcome her refusal? But Sava was strong now! She knew that Pierre Bathory was alive, that he was waiting outside.

Beneath the carpet which covered him Point Pescade, although he could not see, could hear everything.

“Sava,” said Sarcany, “to-morrow morning we are going to leave this for another residence. But I do not wish to leave here until you have consented to our marriage, until it has been celebrated. All is ready, and it is necessary that now—”

“Neither now nor later!” replied the girl, in a voice as cold as it was resolute.

“Sava,” continued Sarcany, as though he had not heard this reply, “in the interest of both of us, it is necessary that your consent should be free. In the interest of both of us; you understand?”

“We have not, and we never shall have, any interest in common.”

“Take care! I may remind you that you gave your consent at Ragusa.”

“For reasons which no longer exist.”

“Listen to me, Sava,” said Sarcany, whose apparent calm hid the most violent irritation; “this is the last time I shall ask you for your consent.”

“And I shall refuse it as long as I have strength to do so.”

“Well, that strength we will take away from you,” exclaimed Sarcany. “Do not drive me to extremes! Yes! the strength which you use against me Namir will take from you, and in spite of you if necessary. Do not resist me, Sava. The woman is here, ready to celebrate our marriage according to the custom of my own country. Follow me then!”

Sarcany advanced toward the girl, who quickly rose and stepped back to the end of the room.

“Scoundrel!” she exclaimed.

“You will come with me! You will come with me!” exclaimed Sarcany.

“Never!”

“Ah! Take care!”

And Sarcany, having seized the girl's arm, was violently dragging her toward the skifa, with Namir's help, where Sidi Hazam and the imam were waiting.

“Help! Help!” screamed Sava. “Help me—Pierre Bathory!”

“Pierre Bathory!” exclaimed Sarcany. “You are calling a dead man to your help!”

“No! He is alive! Help me—Pierre!”

The answer was so unexpected by Sarcany that he could not have been more frightened had he seen Pierre's ghost. But he was himself again soon. Pierre alive! Pierre, whom he had stabbed with his own hand, and seen buried in the cemetery at Ragusa! In truth, it could only be the idea of a mad woman, and it was possible that Sava, in the excess of her despair, had lost her reason!

Point Pescade had heard all that passed. In telling Sarcany that Pierre was alive, Sava had staked her life, that was certain. And in case the scoundrel offered any violence, he so disposed his carpet as to be ready to appear on the scene instantly, knife in hand, and those who thought he would hesitate to strike did not know Point Pescade.

There was no necessity for him to do so. Sarcany abruptly dragged Namir out of the room. Then the key was turned in the lock while the girl's fate was being decided.

At a bound Pescade had thrown off the carpet and was by her side.

“Come!” said he.

As the lock was inside the room, to unscrew it by means of his knife was neither a long, a difficult, nor a noisy job.

As soon as the door was opened, and then shut behind them, Pescade led the way along the gallery around the court-yard wall.

It was about half past eleven. A few beams of light filtered through the skifa's bays. Pescade avoided crossing them on his way to the passage that led to the first court-yard.

They reached the passage and went along it; but when they were only a few yards from the minaret staircase Pescade suddenly stopped, and held back Sava, whose hand his had never left.

Three men were talking in this first court-yard by the side of the water. One of them—it was Sidi Hazam—was giving orders to the others. Almost immediately they disappeared up the minaret staircase, while the moquaddem went into one of the lateral chambers. Pescade perceived that Sidi Hazam had sent the men to watch the neighborhood, and that when he and the girl appeared on the terrace, it would be occupied and guarded.

“We must risk it, however,” said Point Pescade.

“Yes. Everything!” replied Sava.

Then they crossed the gallery and reached the staircase, which they mounted with extreme care. Then when Point Pescade had reached the upper landing he stopped.

No sound on the terrace, not even a sentinel's step!

Point Pescade quietly opened the door, and followed by Sava he glided along the battlements.

Suddenly a shout came from the minaret above from one of the men on guard. At the same moment the other jumped on Pescade, while Namir rushed on to the terrace, and the whole household came hurrying across the court-yard.

Would Sava allow herself to be retaken? No! To be retaken by Sarcany was to be lost! A hundred times would she prefer death!

With a prayer to God the brave girl ran to the parapet, and, without hesitation, leaped from the terrace.

Pescade had not even time to interfere; but throwing off the man that held him, he caught hold of the rope and in a second was at the foot of the wall.

“Sava! Sava!” he shouted.

“Here is the young lady!” said a familiar voice, “and no bones broken! I was just in the way—”

A shout of fury, followed by a heavy thud, cut short Cape Matifou's speech.

Namir, in a moment of rage, unwilling to abandon the prey that was escaping her, would have been smashed to pieces if two strong arms had not caught her as she fell.

Dr. Antekirtt, Pierre and Luigi had rejoined Cape Matifou and Point Pescade, who were running toward the shore. Although Sava had fainted, she weighed almost nothing in the arms of her rescuer.

A few minutes afterward Sarcany, with a score of armed men, came out in pursuit of the fugitives.

When he reached the creek where the “Electric” had been waiting, the doctor and his companions were already on board, and in a few turns of the screw the swift vessel Was out of range.

Sava, alone with the doctor and Pierre, soon regained her consciousness. She learned that she was the daughter of Count Mathias Sandorf! She was in her father's arms!