Travelling Thirds — Chapter XXV

XXV

The moon hung directly over the tower of Comares.

In the arcade beside the Room of the Two Sisters was a mass of bright cushions and an Oriental carpet.

Here Mrs. Rothe enthroned herself, and the melancholy and disgusted prince kept her company.

The musicians fiddled and strummed in the pavilion at the top of the court.

Wind was rising in the trees on the steep hill-side above the Darro, and the nightingales sang.

The great rooms around the court, the low chambers above, were black with shadow, but the open spaces about the lions were lively with whirling figures and the chatter of women.

The original party, which was too rich in men, had been reinforced by several American girls from another pension, and all had entered into the gay spirit of the night except Catalina, who stood alone in the pavilion opposite the musicians, frankly miserable, and furious with herself for daring to suffer.

Over had danced no less than six times with Miss Holmes, whose dancing would throw a Hebe out of court.

She was the triumphant belle of the evening—no sultana in her little hour had ever held prouder sway in these halls of the Moors; and where they, indeed, had been glad of one doubtfully devoted heart she was lightly spurning half a dozen.

The men importuned her between dances, the foreigners extravagant in their admiration, Over consoling himself with manifest discontent when she gave her hand to another.

He had just completed his sixth waltz with her when Catalina had her inspiration.

He had not looked at her since the dancing began.

There was only one way in which she could compel his attention, and although her shyness rose to arms, her knees shook, and her breath came short, she set her teeth and glided down the arcade to the pavilion of the musicians.

It had been understood that after the first hour and a half there was to be an interval for lemonade and sweets and rest, during which they would sit on the cushions and admire the opposite arcade and the airy grace of the pavilions under the light of the moon.

“It must have been here that Muley Aben Hassan and Boabdil used to sit with their courts while the minstrels—or whatever they were in those days—tried to amuse them, and the nautch-girls danced, and the captives above envied the captives below,” Miss Holmes was beginning as they arranged the cushions, when several of the party gave a low cry, and the hostess paused with her mouth open.

A figure had risen before them in the moonlight, slim, young, veiled, the very eidola of those forgotten women the number of whose heart-beats had depended upon the nod of a tyrannical voluptuary.

Only her eyes, long, dark, expressionless, were revealed above the gold tissue of her veil, and Over alone recognized her instantly.

He had missed her as they assembled, and was about to go in search of her when she appeared.

He held his breath, and the others, one or two of the girls giggling hysterically, hardly knew whether to be frightened or not.

Then the low, soft, dreaming strains of music crept over to them and she began to dance.

She had known the old Spanish dances all her life and loved them with all the wild blood in her, despising the more the conventional whirl of the drawing-room.

She danced none of these to-night, however, but an improvisation, born of her knowledge of Moorish traditions, the place, and the hour.

As Over realized what she purposed he stepped forward with the intention of stopping the performance, enraged that other men should be in the audience, but arrested by his distaste of a scene.

In a moment he sank down on his cushions, wondering that he had doubted her, for it was apparent even in the first few moments that in spite of the graceful abandon of her dancing there was to be nothing to suggest the coarseness of the women that had danced on that spot before her.

But if the swinging and swaying and bending and whirling of her body were without suggestiveness they were the very poetry of beauty.

The scarf was bound about her head and over her face below the eyes, but she held a point in either hand, her arms sometimes extended, at others describing curves that made the delicate tissue flutter like the many wings of tiny birds.

The spangles on her dress, the diamond buckles on her slippers were 1000 points of light, for the moon was poised directly overhead and flooding the court.

The perfume of the scarf stole into the senses of the staring company and completed the illusion, delicately brushing with sensuousness what was otherwise an expression of the rhythm of life, the dreaming of an ardent but virginal soul.

So a nautch-girl may have danced for the first time before a king, ignorant then of what was expected of her, dissolving in the joy of rhythmical motion, of innocent pride in her own young beauty.

The arches between the company and the dancer, the fountain above the lions rising in a silver veil behind her, and beyond it the white, shining arches with their moving shadows, the distant warbling of the nightingales rising above the swooning music, the Oriental mystery in the eyes above the veil—not one of her audience but surrendered himself, although, in superficial fashion, all had recognized her.

And then, while their senses were locked, while they were hardly conscious whether they slept or waked, a strange and terrible thing happened.

From the Room of the Two Sisters beside them the figure of a man leaped like a sword from its scabbard, caught the dancer in his arms, and disappeared whence it had come.

There was a fatal moment of incredulity; then Over leaped to his feet and ran into the dark room.

But he had no idea which way to turn, and had lost himself in the Sala de los Ajimeces beyond when he heard Miss Holmes cry, sharply: “He mustn’t go alone, and at least I know every foot of the palace.

The man will make for the underground rooms or climb out of one of the windows and down the hill to the Albaicin.

” The word completed Over’s horror, but as he hastily rejoined the party, now voluble in the Room of the Two Sisters, he despatched Rothe and the Spanish artist for the police, and then with little ceremony ordered Miss Holmes to lead the way.

Catalina, in that leap from the dark room to her swaying form, dreamy with its own motion, had recognized Jesus Maria; but in the swift flight that followed her face was pressed so hard against his shoulder that she could neither see nor cry out.

Her feet struck against narrow walls, but her arms were pinioned in that strong, deft embrace, and rage inwardly as she might, he controlled her as easily as if she were bound with cords.

It was only when she felt him lift her slightly as he vaulted over a window-ledge that she found her opportunity.

With a swift writhe of her body she freed her hands and beat upon his face with all her strength, which was not inconsiderable.

He was stumbling down the steep declivity below the Comares Tower, and he paused a moment to take breath.

“What do you want?

” she cried, furiously.

“Money?

” He pressed his left hand over her mouth and dexterously caught both her hands in his right.

“Yes,” he said, grimly.

“The señor your uncle can bring that with the golden señorita.

It is you or she and the money, too.

Keep quiet!

” he said, violently.

“If you cry out I will run a nail through your tongue.

” Catalina knew there was no time for any such ceremony at the moment, and the moment was all she had.

With another sharp wrench she freed her head and hands, struggled to press her knee against his chest, and clawed his face with her sharp nails.

The cliff was but little off the perpendicular, irregular of surface, and a wilderness of high shrubs, rocks, and trees.

For a man to make the descent in daylight and unencumbered was no mean feat; but to endeavor to accomplish this at night, the moon hidden more often than not by the trees and Comares, with a struggling woman in his arms, tried even the superb strength and skill of the Catalan.

He set her down and attempted to wind the long scarf more tightly about her mouth and throat and to bind her hands.

But she was too quick for him.

She made no attempt to run away, knowing the futility, but she braced herself against a rock and fought him.

She felt not a spasm of fear, but she thrilled with the consciousness that she fought for more than her liberty undefiled; she fought for freedom to fly back to Over and have an end of subterfuge and delusion.

In those moments, as she fought and kicked and scratched like a wild-cat, she had a vivid and serene vision of herself as Over’s wife.

She knew it to be writ as clearly as if the hand of destiny traced it on the silver disk above, and while her body obeyed its primal instincts her soul sang.

The Catalan was desperate.

He cursed his folly in not stationing his confederate on the Darro instead of in the hovel in the Albaicin; but he had feared confusion and felt contemptuously sure of his ability to manage a mere girl.

But he had had no experience of girls whom ranch life had made vigorous and fearless, and whose fathers had taught them the principles of boxing.

Catalina parried his attempts to give her a stunning blow as deftly as she filled her nails with his skin and hair, and she was so well braced he could not trip her.

Once he made a sudden dive for her feet with his hands, but she leaped aside and his nose came in contact with the rock.

Suddenly he turned his head.

Far above, in the windows of the Hall of the Ambassadors, from which he had made his escape, he heard the sound of voices.

That moment was his undoing.

With the leap of a panther Catalina was on his back.

She pressed her knees into his sides, dragged his head back with one arm, while with the other she pounded his unprotected face.

He gave a mighty shake, but he might as well have attempted to throw off a wild-cat of her own forests.

He might exhaust her in time, but so long as she had strength she would hang on, and with a low roar, that portended hideous vengeance, he started once more down the bluff.

As Edith Holmes led the race through the many corridors and apartments that lay between the court and the Hall of the Ambassadors she knew that the game was hers if she chose to play it.

There was but one place in Granada where an outlaw would be secure, and that was in the Albaicin, and she knew the Alhambra too well not to be sure of the route Catalina’s abductor would take.

But it was simple enough to persuade Over that the man would be more likely to take an underground route, escaping at the favorable moment by some opening known only to his kind.

The descent to the baths was on the way to the Hall of the Ambassadors, and as she ran down the long corridor her brain whirled with the obsession of the place, and she fancied herself for a moment one of the favorites who had reigned here in the days of Moorish splendor until a fairer captive threatened her own youth and beauty and love of life with a silken cord and a brief struggle in one of the chambers above.

Over’s apparent devotion during the first part of the night had roused in her all the passion of which she was capable, and she could feel his hot, short breath on her neck as they ran.

She had watched his surrender to Catalina’s beautiful dancing and his wild, instinctive leap to her rescue with bitter jealousy and fear.

In a flash she had seen Catalina for what she was—a girl to rouse all the romantic passion in a man; and in all her loveliness, her ideal womanhood, and her changing moods, she had been his constant companion for three weeks in Spain!

But thrust out of sight—the creature of a gypsy—internationally besmirched—Her feet turned to the threshold leading down to the old Moorish bath, where ten minutes could be wasted.

But the American girl in her suddenly revolted.

Another American girl was in hideous peril, and she shuddered with disgust even more than with pity.

She whirled about.

“Prince,” she whispered, “you and Helmholtz go down there and search, but I feel sure he has gone out one of the windows.

” And she ran on to the Hall of the Ambassadors.

They searched it at last and hung out of the windows.

Far below a faint sound came to their ears, but they could not determine its nature.

An instant later they heard a short but infuriated roar, followed by the sharp call of a woman.

Over was already on the other side of the window when Miss Holmes caught his arm.

“Don’t!

” she cried, hysterically.

“It is almost certain death.

He is sure to have confederates!

” Over gave her a look of haughty surprise and shook her off.

The Frenchman thrust a pistol into his hand.

“I never go without one here.

Don’t hesitate to shoot.

” Over groped and stumbled down the hill, but with far more agility than the encumbered Catalan.

There was no path, the thick brush and rocks were everywhere, and the moon made the shadows under the trees the heavier.

But when a thin Englishman has spent the greater part of his life on his feet and out-of-doors he is little likely to lose his balance or skill even on a steep wilderness designed by the cunning Moor as a pitfall for the enemy.

He was half-way down when the way cleared and he saw, several yards beneath him, a curious, stumbling figure, half black, half white.

In an instant he suspected its meaning, and although he was obliged to laugh he paused and gave a sharp halloo.

Catalina answered him with what breath was left in her, and he heard the glad note in her broken cry.

He ran on, but in a moment the man stopped abruptly and endeavored once more to shake off his burden.

Catalina leaped from his back and ran to one side, bracing herself once more.

Over aimed his pistol and fired.

The man gave a wild scream of pain, tumbled to his knees, regained his feet, and fled.

Catalina ran up the hill a few steps, then, suddenly exhausted, leaned against a tree.

But Over bore down upon her, and when she saw his eyes she opened her arms.

THE END

Transcriber’s Note There were a small number of issues with the text which can be attributed to printer’s errors.

The following table summarizes any corrections.

p. 171 permitted Catalin[a/e] to commit him Corrected.

p. 195 marr[l/i]ed Corrected.

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