It was a song I had heard and loved in many lands and many dialects,
but that night it stirred me deeply, and brought to mind your image,
ever dear. I sat and dreamed of you till the farrago about me became
unbearable; and whispering a word to my father, I rose and strode away,
with a yearning truly mastering. I could have had no thought that you
were near, for when we stood far closer I was still unconscious of your
presence. But if not an intuition, I ask what could it be?
Wandering through the narrow streets without purpose or goal, I
presently saw looming above me the great hill on which stands the
Alcassaba. Climbing in the brilliant moonlight up the steep and
ill-conditioned road, and passing that jumble of buildings upon which
so many races and generations have left their impress, I strolled along
the wall to a ruined embrasure at the corner overlooking the sea. How
long I stood there leaning upon the parapet I do not know. Not till you
were close upon me was I conscious that my solitude was ended.
I heard footsteps, but was too incurious to turn and glance at the
intruders. Nay, more, when that harsh, strident, American voice
demanded, “There, isn’t that great?” I felt so irritated by both tone
and words that but for the seeming rudeness I should have moved away at
once. You spoke so low I could not hear your reply, and I wonder what
you said,—for his “great” applied to such beauty must have rasped much
more on your artistic sense than it did on mine.
“And this black fellow in the turban standing here,” continued the
strident voice, “he fits, too, like the paper on the wall, though
probably he’s a sentry taking forty winks on the sly. It makes an
American mad to see how slack things are run over here.”
I heard a gentle “Hush,” and then a murmur as you went on speaking.
“None of these black fellows speak English,” came the self-assured
voice again. Then, though I could have heard his natural tone full
fifty feet away, the man called much louder: “Hey! what’s the name of
that point out there?”
I should have chosen to make no answer; but remembering the courtesy
and dignity of the race I was impersonating, I replied without turning,
“Cape Spartel.”
You must have said something, for a moment later he laughed, saying,
“Not a bit of it. Now see me jolly him up.” I heard footsteps, and then
some one leaned against the parapet, close beside me. “Backsheesh,” he
intimated, and jingled some coins in his pocket.
I stood silent, so he tapped me on the shoulder and asked, “Are you one
of the palace guards?” Unsuppressed by my monosyllabic “No,” he
persisted by saying, “What’s your business, then?” jingling his coins
again. “Stop pulling me, Mai,” he added, as an aside.
“I am a stranger in Tangier,” I answered quietly.
“From whereabouts?” he questioned.
“The East.”
“Oh, you’re one of the wise men, are you?” he observed jocosely. “Are
you a Jew or a Mohammedan?”
“Not the latter, fortunately for you.”
“And why fortunately?” he nagged.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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