Terence O'Rourke/Part 2/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
THE CONSUL-GENERAL
Billy Senet's observations were always illuminating and sometimes very instructive. For instance, shortly after his installation in the Tangiers consulate, he wrote home to his sister:
This is a great place. You ought to see it. The city itself is the most beautiful spot on the footstool, I bet a red apple. It looks like a week's washing spread out to dry on a green, grassy bank—white and dazzling, you know; and it smells the worst ever; and it's as full as it can stick of the very purest, old-vatted Original Sin. It gets me, both going and coming. Tell the truth, I'd have trouble morning, noon and night, if it wasn't for a queer chap I've run across at the Hôtel d'Angleterre.
His name is O'Rourke—Colonel Terence O'Rourke—and he's the goods for mine. He's six foot or more of lean strength, straight as an Indian, brown as a berry, minds his own business, and, if half the yarns they spin about him are true, fears neither God, man, nor devil. I've taken the biggest kind of a shine to him, and he tolerates me, and helps me along with advice. Inasmuch as he's been all over, he's qualified to dispense the same to yours truly,
William Everett Senet, C.-G.
Senet was the very latest specimen of a Consul-General sent by the United States of America to Morocco, and he was young—excessively so—for a consul-general: a well-built man, with steady, brown eyes, an open-air look, and a faith in his fellow man that had been badly shaken since his arrival at Tangiers.
For Senet was born honest—which, though he himself had no suspicion of the fact, was the precise reason why he had been chosen for the post he then filled. His immediate predecessor had been a man of placid instincts, untroubled by any manner of scruples whatsoever, and had grown rich by selling protection papers to any one who came along with cash-on-the-nail purchase money.
All of which, of course, had been exceedingly detrimental to the moral tone of the United States Consular Service in Morocco.
And so a paternal government had selected Mr. William Everett Senet to adorn the vacant consulship at Tangiers, and to prove to the honest Moor that there really were honest Americans, after all.
Senet had accepted with considerable relief; he happened to be wanting to get away from home for reasons of his very own, and he fancied that a residence in a strange, semi-barbaric land like Morocco would fill his life with new interests, and help him to forget certain matters which he earnestly desired to forget.
Item: One American girl, who had married a German title. Item: Her eyes, which haunted the young man. Item: A nasty rumor which he had heard from some gossipy Americans returning from a residence in Berlin, and which had been confirmed by discreetly vague paragraphs in the New York papers. And there were other items, all disturbing.
But once in Morocco, Senet found work sufficiently engrossing to send him to bed at bedtime so tired that he went promptly and sweetly to sleep and forgot to he awake and watch for the coming of the eyes, with their distractingly beautiful, serious, and troubled expression that so nearly maddened the young American.
But then, too, he found a great many things to bother him—little reminiscences of his predecessor's reign that just naturally cropped up in the day's work—and sickened Senet.
He voiced his resentment of such a state of affairs one night on the terrace of the Hôtel d'Angleterre, where he sat enjoying the coolness, and the view, and a Scotch whiskey-and-soda, with Colonel Terence O'Rourke.
O'Rourke himself was sojourning in Tangiers under protest, and, by that token, not enjoying his stay to any overwhelming extent. For which reason, if for no other, he had interested himself in the fledgling Consul-General, who seemed to be trying so hard to do the decent thing in a land where everybody else seemed to be striving equally as hard with a totally contrary end in view.
And the Irishman was by way of liking young Senet rather thoroughly, both because the American was distinctly likable, and because we are always inclined to like those whom it has cost us some effort to favor.
When Senet had maintained a meditative silence unbroken for several minutes, O'Rourke turned to him, grinning in friendly wise.
"What's troubling ye now?" he inquired, with emphasis on the "now." "That is," he stipulated, "if 'tis ntot poking the nose of me into your private affairs."
"Oh, not at all, sir," replied Senet respectfully, sitting up. "It's nothing new—same old story. About a week ago," he added with a queer little laugh, "I granted protection papers to a fellow who had a right to them—a petty leather merchant over Ceuta-way. To his infinite surprise, I wouldn't take a cent, although he assured me that it was customary, and all that.
"Now, to-day stalks into the consulate this chap's caid—really a very impressive and distinguished-looking old Moor—and offers me one hundred pounds if I'll remove the protection. I explained that I wasn't doing business on that basis; and he gradually bid me up to five hundred pounds—finally flung out in a towering rage because I wouldn't do t'other chap dirt. Said that my predecessor would have jumped at one hundred pounds. As near as I can figure it out, the caid and the bashaw between them have a grouch against my leather merchant, and want to chuck him into prison, bastinado him, and confiscate his property. They don't dare touch him while he has my protection, and it's worth twenty-five hundred dollars to them to have it removed. I told the caid that sort of thing was what lost the other consul his job, but he didn't or couldn't understand, and was pleased to take it as a personal affront."
Again Senet laughed—compassionately and wonderingly. "Now, what are you going to do with people that behave that way?" he asked.
O'Rourke chuckled grimly. "Ye've a lot to learn, me boy," he told him; and sat quiet for a space, looking rather wistfully out to sea.
From the terrace of the Hôtel d'Angleterre, pretty much all Tangiers slopes down steeply to the harbor. In the moonlight the low, white houses shone brightly in a way resembling a glacier seamed with narrow purple rifts, and crevasses, and ravines—which are the streets of Tangiers.
Down on the harbor front the electric arcs were blazing fitfully; by the wharves and at anchor in the roadstead, slant lateen sails of feluccas gleamed weirdly in the moon's soft radiance, and a mail steamer just in from Gibraltar looked like some monstrous crawling white bug studded with many-colored eyes.
The Straits were very calm that night; they seemed a sheet of clear, black glass, star strewn; far out rested a blur of faintly luminous haze, behind which Gibraltar itself loomed dark and menacing. The night was bland and silky, very warm and still with a sort of a sibilant silence, disturbed only by the long soughing of the surf, or by the distant tinkling of mule bells as some belated caravan approached along the Tetuan road, or, again, by the rattle of chips and the busy whirr of the roulette wheels in the salon of the Hôtel d'Angleterre.
It was all very mysterious—Oriental and fascinating; and especially so to O'Rourke, who was never really content unless in a tropic land. He sat there and drank in the atmosphere with appreciation before he answered Senet. And when he did again open his lips, it was to sigh before he paraphrased himself.
"'Tis the divvle of a deal ye have to learn, lad," he said, with some envy in his tone. "One of these days ye'll wake up to the fact that ye have acquired the least suspicion of an insight into Moorish character. But 'tis a far day from this, now I'm telling ye. … I know ye'll not be taking this amiss, me son, but," he pronounced, authoritatively, "at present ye are as innocent as—as—well, more innocent than anything I call to mind this side of Gibraltar. Be thankful 'tis so; innocence is a gloss that too soon wears off."
Young Senet bagan to wag his head argumentatively. "Well," he began, "of course, I know I'm new—"
"Ye are," O'Rourke affirmed solemnly, his twinkling eyes robbing his words of all suspicion of offensiveness. "Green—that's the word. Me boy, ye're no better than a salad. 'Tis truth for ye—and all for no reason in the world but that ye're dacint and a gentleman. Now, I mean ye no harm by saying this; but what ye know about the Moors and the rest of us here in Tangiers I could put in me eye without so much as winking. Um-m, now, don't be getting wrathy with me; 'tis for your own good that I'm putting ye wise. Observe."
He waved a hand gracefully toward the Rock, that seemed a low-lying, threatening thunder cloud on the horizon.
"That," he laid down the law, "is the home of the nearest respectable white man I call to mind, barring the two of us, Mr. Senet. This side of the Straits we're all tarred with the same feather, speaking generally; every last one of us is a swindler, or otherwise déclassé, according to the sex. 'Tis not for the beautiful climate and the outrageous smells of Tangiers that we're squatting here, but because Morocco has neglected—very thoughtfully—to make extradition treaties with other countries. So we can't be haled away to suffer for our naughtiness. Take meself, even—I'm bold enough to hold meself a little better than the general run, but I'd hate to meet up with certain persons on European soil, just now."
"I don't believe it!" cried Senet, promptly loyal to his new-found friend.
"'Tis so. Not that 'twas me own fault, I admit. I was dragged, in a way of speaking, into a little shindy in Cairo. A herd of one-horse conspirators were planning to indulge Egypt in a second edition of the Indian Mutiny, a while back. I refused to mix with them, and wan of them jumped me. 'Twas his life or mine, and—I plugged him. Misfortunafely, he happened to be a prince of the Khedival household. So 'tis meself that's wanted; and 'tis here I must be waiting till I have a chance to sneak through Suez, quietlike and unbeknownst to the Cairenes that are thirsting for me blood."
Senet sat up, his face shining. "You don't mean to say," he cried excitedly, "that you're the man who defeated the Egyptian conspiracy"?
"The same," placidly affirmed O'Rourke.
"But England should be grateful—"
"Perhaps England is," allowed O'Rourke with caution. "But faith, Egypt is not! In Cairo or Alexandria, sure and me life would not be worth the ice in me glass here."
"I'm glad I know you, sir," said Senet warmly; adding, after a moment: "But why did you not go east, in the first place, when you had to fly?"
O'Rourke looked away—out to sea again. He answered in a tone more sober, from which the raillery was gone.
"There was a woman in the case, Senet," he explained softly. "She—well, she took passage on the Eastern-bound steamer. So, faith, the O'Rourke came west!"
He shook his head and called to the waiter to replenish their glasses. "But," he added, "I'm not the only one. Far be it from me to say wrong of any woman, Senet; but there's not one in Tangiers that I care to see ye dancing attendance upon, as ye did on that handsome Mrs. Challoner at the hop night before last. Did ye know that she's wanted in England for blackmail, lad?"
"I did not," said Senet gravely.
"'Tis true. Steer clear of them all. I mind—" He paused and ran his hand across his eyes, as though collecting his thoughts. "Ye were not down to the landing when the steamer came in, this afternoon?"
"No; I had to go over towards Ceuta, and got back just in time for dinner."
"Then ye did not see her. Faith, boy, a woman came in on that boat whose beauty would pay any man for his hereafter—as young and fresh and innocent-looking as a rosebud, Senet, and the fear of God-knows-what so tight about her heart she could scarcely breathe."
"How do you know that?" demanded Senet contentiously. "I'm not questioning your word about these others, Colonel O'Rourke, but it seems to me you're going out of your way to condemn a woman you've never laid eyes on before."
"But I have, sir," O'Rourke told him, with a tolerant chuckle. "I saw her year before last, in Berlin. Now, she's here under an alias. Does that speak well for her?"
"An assumed name?"
"Just that. She's registered—" O'Rourke broke off motioning quietly toward the piazza of the hotel, whereon a woman's figure stood clearly silhouetted against the lights of the main entrance. "If I mistake not, there she is now," he said.
Senet looked. The woman's features were indistinguishable, because of the obscurity; but there was that about her form and the carriage of her head, instinct with a supreme grace, that set the younger man's heart to going like a trip-hammer.
He put his hand across the table and clutched O'Rourke's imperatively. His glass fell over and spilled its contents unheeded.
"What name?" Senet demanded hoarsely. "Under what name did she register? And who is she?"
O'Rourke elevated his brows in surprise. "Faith, what's this?" he wondered. "She's on the register," he proceeded, watching Senet's face narrowly, "as Mrs. Ellen Dean and maid, U. S. A."
O'Rourke sat without remonstrance while the younger man's finger nails dug into his hand. "I've touched a live nerve," he commented to himself.
"But—but her title?"
"Did I mention a title, lad? 'Tis true—she owns one. She is the Countess of Seyn-Altberg."
His words fell upon unheeding ears, for the woman had taken a forward step, and now stood in the full glare of the moonlight; her head was held high, so that every perfect feature was clearly outlined in the mellow light—and the youthful consul-general needed no other identification.
He sat very still, almost holding his breath, for a little while; then, abruptly, as though he had just recollected, he took his hand from O'Rourke's and sat bolt upright, breathing hard and trembling in every muscle.
The woman turned her profile to those whom she had not noticed; she seemed to be waiting, listening as if for some dreaded footstep. Senet got to his feet, somehow, and stumbled toward her. O'Rourke heard him grind a word or two between his teeth, chokingly.
"Oh, my God!" cried Senet.
And O'Rourke, listening, nodded his head in sage sympathy. "There," he muttered to his cigar, "goes a man whose heart has been broken—and 'tis not be way of being mended, I'm thinking."
The adventurer shifted uneasily in his seat, watching the retreating form of the consul-general as he almost haltingly progressed across the lawn to the hotel steps whereon stood the Countess of Seyn-Altberg.
Senet had come up to the steps and put a hand for support on one of the newel posts ere the woman relaxed from her expectant attitude and turned toward him; so that his coming was entirely without warning, so far as she was concerned.
"Nellie!" said Senet pleadingly.
She started and seemed to shrink away from him. Because of the stillness of the night their voices came very clearly to O'Rourke, who squirmed because he was unintentionally eavesdropping, and could see no way to withdraw without attracting attention to himself.
"Nellie!" said young Senet again; he stretched forth his arms toward her, forgetting the time and place—forgetting everything in the gladness of his heart because this woman stood before him.
The woman stepped back into the shadow; which, however, might not hide the lines that dismay and some emotion nearly akin to terror had graven upon her face. Her eyes stared at the young man as though he had been an apparition—as, indeed, each was to the other—a ghost risen out of the dead days of their youth.
And then, suddenly, and still without speaking, she came forward and clasped Senet's extended hand in both her own.
"Oh!" she cried in a tone that was half a sob. "You—you startled me so, Will—Mr. Senet!"
"Will," Senet insisted gravely.
"But—but," she floundered on, desperately, "it's—it's such a time since we have seen each other—isn't it, Will? You—you must come and see me, some other time. I—I shall be awfully glad, you know, to talk over the old times—the good times we used to have together, Will—"
"Nellie," interrupted the consul-general gently, "you're in some trouble, dear—"
"Bless the boy!" thought O'Rourke. "He'd have choked if he'd kept that 'dear' down another minute!"
"Oh, no—no, not at all, Will. I'm simply not very well—I'm here for my health, you know—and your appearing so suddenly startled me."
"Tell me what it is," persisted Senet, "and if I can do anything—anything in all the world, Nellie—you know I'll do it."
"I know—I know, Will." The woman glanced around apprehensively, as though she feared a listener. O'Rourke slouched in his chair, motionless and very miserable because he couldn't get away decently.
"I know; but there is no trouble, Will—really, there isn't. You'll come to-morrow—call to-morrow afternoon, won't you, and we can have a nice, long, comfortable talk, Will?"
"Why, yes; but you're not expecting anybody now?"
"No—no—but I'm very tired, and—and I must go to bed, now. You'll come to-morrow? Yes? And you'll go now, won't you, like a dear boy?"
Senet gazed full in her face.
"I'll go—yes," he conceded, "because you want to get rid of me, Nellie. I—I haven't any right to resent it, I suppose. Good night."
He wheeled abruptly and went directly down the walk to the street, without once looking back or even casting a sidelong glance at O'Rourke. The woman stood swaying for a moment, then darted into the hotel.
O'Rourke turned his eyes to the seas again; the mist was spreading, he observed—spreading and rising in silvery coils; Gibraltar was no longer visible. Only the footsteps of a man scrambing along the narrow street at the foot of the terrace broke the silence.
"There," said the Irishman to himself, "is a woman whose pardon I should ask. She is suffering, yes—but for another's sin, not her own. She's a good woman, if ever I knew one."
He swallowed the drink at his elbow. "Poor Senet!" he muttered, rising and going into the gambling salon of the Hôtel d'Angleterre.