The Message

He eyed it resentfully, but yielded.

“So you mean to stick to me!” he growled. “You mesmerized that sleepy scoundrel into carrying you downstairs and depositing you on the roof of my cab. Very well. Let us see the adventure through in company.”

He was chatting with the skipper of the Water Witch one day while the ship’s position was being pricked off on the chart.

“You are keeping close in to the Spanish coast, Captain,” said the passenger.

“Not particularly, Mr. Williams,” was the reply.

“But I have always been under the impression that vessels bound for the West Coast headed for the Canaries?”

“So they do, if they’re logged for a straight run. It happens this time, however, that my ole tub has to call in at Rabat and Mogador.”

“At Rabat!” repeated Mr. Williams, seemingly staggered at the mere mention of the place.

“Yes, funny little hole. Ever bin there?”

“No.”

“Well, p’raps you’ll go ashore. If you do you’ll see the queerest collection of humans you’ve ever set eyes on.”

Mr. Williams turned and gazed at the horizon.

“I think I’m bewitched,” he muttered.

“Wot’s that?”

“Odd thing. I’ve been dreaming of Rabat!”

The captain grinned.

“When you’ve seen it you’ll fancy it’s a nightmare,” he said.

CHAPTER X

HASSAN’S TOWER – AND THE COLONIAL OFFICE

Warden did not find Rabat so intolerable as the captain of the Water Witch led him to believe. Its streets were more regular and cleaner, or less dirty, than those of the average Moorish town. Its people seemed to be devoted to commerce – probably because they are not pure–blooded Moors, but of Jewish descent. That, at least, is the argument advanced by a man from Fez or Tafilat when he wants a heavier dowry with a Rabati bride.

From the roadstead, once the troublesome bar was crossed, the town looked attractive. Its white houses were enshrined in pretty gardens. Orchards, vineyards, and olive–groves brightened the landscape. To the north, on the opposite bank of a swift river, cultivated slopes stretched their green and gold to the far–off Zemmur mountains. A picturesque citadel, built by a renegade Englishman in the bad old days, commanded the harbor, and a spacious landing–place showed that the Rabatis opposed no difficulties to the export of their Morocco leather, carpets, Moorish slippers, and pottery.

The Water Witch entered the river soon after dawn, and Warden was assured that she would not be able to clear her shipments until next forenoon at the earliest. He went ashore and was agreeably surprised at finding quite a large number of British and other European merchants’ offices near the quay, while the shields of several Vice–Consuls and Consular Agents bespoke some semblance of law and order.

In a word, Rabat looked settled and prosperous. It was utterly out of keeping with the picture conjured up by the tattoo marks made by Domenico Garcia on the skin of Tommaso Rodriguez. Still the Hassan Tower was no myth. It was pointed out to him by an Englishman who had walked to the wharf to watch the landing of the ship’s boat.

Pausing only to buy a strong chisel in a native shop, Warden strolled at once in the direction of the tomb. He would neither delay his search for the ruby, nor give much time to it. If he failed to identify the exact spot described in the parchment, or was unable to discover anything after a speedy examination, assuredly he would not spend several hours in tearing ancient masonry to pieces. Since leaving England, Warden had become a different man. Always a good–humored cynic, he was now perilously near the less tolerable condition of cynicism without good humor. Intellect began to govern impulse. Though his brain was wearied with endeavor to find a reasonable explanation of events, he was almost convinced that Evelyn must at least have committed the indiscretion of gossiping about her adventures in the Isle of Wight. If only she had written! His heart kept harping on that! Why had she flown away with her employers without ever a sign that her thoughts were with the man she loved?

He wondered if Peter Evans had found her. If so, there would be news at Cape Coast Castle, for he had given his bankers explicit directions, and a member of the firm was a personal friend who would attend to cablegrams and letters.

The Hassan Tower stood on a height not far beyond the outermost city wall, Rabat being dignified with two lines of fortifications, built by Christian slaves centuries ago. Indeed, when Warden climbed the hill of which it formed the pinnacle, he realized that it was a landmark shown on a chart he had examined the previous evening. Square and strong, built to defy destruction, and rearing its one hundred and fifty feet of exquisitely fretted stonework from a tangled undergrowth of stunted vegetation, it seemed, in some proud and curiously subtle way, to promise the fulfilment of Domenico Garcia’s bequest.

Great marble columns, many erect, but the majority overthrown, indicated the quadrangle of what was meant to be a gigantic mosque. Warden passed quickly through these and other ruins; he caught a hint of an aqueduct, looked into a deep excavation evidently designed as a cistern, and then, with somewhat more rapid pulse–beat, and a certain awed wonderment dominating his mind, made straight for the causeway that led to the “door three cubits from the ground.”

To his chagrin, though the inclined plane itself might be ridden by a man on horseback, the arched door was solidly built up.

Here was an unforeseen check. It was one thing to be conscious of a cooling of the ardor that vowed the adornment of Evelyn’s fair hand with a “gem of great price,” but it was none the less baffling and exasperating to be at the foot of the tower and meet an apparently insuperable obstacle of this nature. Was he brought to Rabat by the most extraordinary series of events that could well have befallen him, only to find blind fate smiling maliciously? The thought was not to be borne. Somehow, anyhow, that tower must be entered, or the spirit of the hapless Garcia would haunt him for ever.

He looked around, thinking his Arabic would serve him in good stead were there a goat–herder or other tender of flocks near at hand. But he was quite alone on the tiny plateau. A couple of great storks which had built their nest on top of the tower looked down at him with wise eyes. Hundreds of pigeons fluttered about the summit or clung to the ridges of fretted stone, while the only window visible above the doorway was a hundred feet from the base.

But a soldier knows that every position, however impregnable in front, may be turned from the flanks. Before formulating any method of attack, he decided to survey the stronghold from all points of view, and, because Garcia mentioned the “third window on the left,” he went to the left. On that side there were only two windows, each twenty feet or more above his head, and Warden was nearly six feet in height. Then he reflected that the Portuguese, writing his sorrowful legend “to pleasure that loathly barbarian, M’Wanga, King of Benin,” would surely count from the inside of the tower.

On he went, noting each cranny and fissure in the weather–beaten mass, until he reached the opposite side. Here were three windows, and, most gratifying of discoveries, he saw that the Arabs had contrived a means of entry and egress through the center window by scooping away the mortar between the huge blocks of granite used for the foundation story. Débris had accumulated close to the wall in such quantity that the window–sill was not more than fourteen feet from his eyes. To an active, barefooted Moor, with toes and fingers like the talons of a vulture, the climb would present no difficulty whatever. To a man whose nails were well kept, and whose toes would speedily be lacerated if not protected by boots, the scaling of the rough wall was no child’s play. But Warden began to crawl upwards without a moment’s hesitation.

He knew that the ascent would be easy compared with the return, while a fall meant the risk of a bad sprain, so he memorized each suitable foothold as he mounted, and often paused to make sure of the deepest niches. It must be confessed that no thought of other danger entered into his calculations. His military training should have made him more wary, but what had either experience or text–book to do with this quest of a jewel, hidden for safety in a Moorish tomb so many years ago?

And he was armed, too, quite sufficiently to account for any prowling thieves who might be tempted to attack a stranger. A service revolver reposed in one pocket, and the chisel in another – but there did not seem to be the remotest probability of human interference; he had not seen a living thing save the birds since he breasted the hill.

When his hands rested on the broken stonework of the window he was naturally elated. Soon his eyes drew level with it, and he could peer into the interior. It was all one great apartment, not lofty, though an arched roof gave an impression of height. A staircase led to the upper stories, but it was broken. Desolation reigned supreme. Some startled pigeons flew out with loud clutter of wings at the sight of him. Then he raised himself steadily up, and leaped inside, while the walls echoed the noise of his spring with the hollow sound of sheer emptiness.

There was plenty of light, but, after a first hasty glance, he gave no further scrutiny to his surroundings. Were he spying out the land in an enemy’s country, he would have looked at the littered floor to find traces of any recent visitor. Most certainly he would not have begun operations in Garcia’s hiding–place without first visiting the upper rooms. But he was too eager and excited to be prudent. Evelyn seemed to be very near him at that moment. He remembered how her impetuous attempt to throw the calabash into the Solent had led to the discovery of Garcia’s amazing manuscript, and there was the spice of true romance in the fact that now, little more than two months later, he should actually be standing in “the tomb of the infidel buried outside the wall” of Rabat. His fingers itched to be at work. He was spurred by an intense curiosity. He felt that the finding of the ruby would lend credence to an otherwise unbelievable story. It connected Oku and the wild Benuë of two and a half centuries ago with Cowes and the Solent in Regatta Week. It made real the personality of a long–forgotten tyrant, who perchance lived again to–day in one of those three negroes he had seen in Figuero’s company. No wonder, then, that Warden was impatient. Ten seconds after he had reached the interior of the building, he was bent over the “deep crack between the center stones” of the window described by Garcia.

There could be no doubting now which window the scribe meant. It stood next to that by which Warden had entered, and, sure enough, just in that place the stones were more than ordinarily wide apart. The word “crack” was ambiguous. It might be applied more accurately to a break in one particular stone, but Warden was no adept in the Portuguese tongue, and the dictionary–maker might be translating “interstice,” or “crevice,” or “division,” when he wrote “crack.” At any rate, the “center stones” were sound, but the mortar between them was partly eaten away, and Warden saw at once that in order to make good his search one of the stones must be prised out bodily. A crowbar would have ended the job in a minute when once the chisel had cut a leverage, but, in the absence of a crowbar, he set to work with the chisel.

The mortar became flint–like when the deodorizing influence of the weather ceased to make itself felt. Nevertheless, the amateur house–breaker labored manfully. Half an hour’s persistent chipping and twisting of the tool was rewarded by a sullen loosening of the stone.

Then he lifted it out of its bed, and there, nestling between it and its fellow, hidden beneath a layer of dust and feathers, lay a ring!

Now, Domenico Garcia spoke of a “ruby,” not of a ring, but it needed no skilled eye to detect the cause of that seeming discrepancy. The ring was a crude affair, made of gold, it is true, but fashioned with rough strength merely to provide a safe means of carrying the great, dark stone held in its claws. Garcia did not waste words. To him the ring was naught, so why mention it?

The gold was discolored, of course, and the ruby did not reveal its red splendor until Warden had cleansed it with his handkerchief and breathed on it repeatedly to soften the dirt deposited on its bright facets by thousands of rainstorms. Then it was born again before his eyes. With a thrill of pity rather than gratification he gazed on its new and glowing life. “Friend, I am many marches from Rabat but few from death!” said the man who placed it there, thinking that perchance he “might escape.” Now his very bones were as the dust which had shrouded it during all those years, yet the wondrous fire in its heart shone forth as though it had left the lapidary’s bench but yesterday. Warden even smiled sadly when he realized that, no matter how his wooing fared, such a huge gem could never shine on Evelyn Dane’s slim finger. It was large enough to form the centerpiece of some stately necklace or tiara. He knew little about the value of precious stones, but this ruby was the size of a large marble. He had once seen a diamond that weighed twenty–four carats, and the ruby was much the larger of the two. He fancied he had read somewhere that a flawless ruby was of considerably higher intrinsic worth than a diamond of the same dimensions. The diamond he had in mind was priced at three thousand pounds. If, then, this ruby were flawless, its appearance in England would create something of a sensation.

And Garcia’s story was true – that was the most astounding part of the business. The magnificent jewel winked and blinked in the sunlight. It might almost be alive, and telling him in plain language that the gods do not lead men into strange paths without just cause.

Suddenly he caught a blood–red flash that reminded him of the uncanny gleam in the eyes of the face on the gourd. The thought was disquieting, but he laughed.

“I am becoming a mere bundle of nerves,” he said aloud. “The sooner I get soaked with quinine the fitter I shall be. It must be the malaria in my system that makes me see things. Really, the proper thing to do now is to give that beastly mask to the head ju–ju man at Oku. Then it will be off my hands, and he will own the boss fetish of the whole West Coast.”

He was about to pocket the ring when the question of its subsequent disposal occurred to him. It was such a remarkable object that any one who saw it could not fail to question him as to its history. Under existing circumstances, he did not court inquiry in that shape, and the queer notion came that, in all likelihood, its prior owner carried it slung round his neck.

“Yes, by Jove, and the cord strangled him,” murmured Warden. Nevertheless, not being in the least superstitious, he might have adopted that plan of concealing it if he possessed a stout piece of cord or strong ribbon. But his pockets contained neither one nor the other, and a sharp pang came with the recollection that, in a case of similar need not so long ago, Evelyn’s hussif held a neat coil of tape that would have suited his purpose exactly.

Inside his waistcoat, however, was a secret pocket for carrying paper money. It was provided with a flap and a button, and would serve admirably as a hiding–place until he was able to entrust the ruby to a bank for transference to London. So there it went, making a little lump over his heart, and reminding him constantly that Domenico Garcia had not deceived him.

He was about to climb down again when his glance fell on the displaced stone. As a tribute to poor Garcia’s memory, he put it back in its bed, and even took the trouble to pour a few handfuls of dust and loose mortar into the joints, so that none might know it had ever been removed. While thus occupied, his attention was momentarily drawn to a pair of storks circling lazily above the tower. He wondered if they were the same placid couple that had watched him earlier. No bird is more wide–awake than the stork, despite its habitual air of sleepy indifference, and Warden fancied that the noise he made must have disturbed the two sentinels on the top of the building.

The hill–side was absolutely deserted. Far below nestled the white mass of the town, its long, low, whitewashed rectangles broken only by clumps of trees and an occasional dome or minaret. Near the quay lay the Water Witch. Her cranes were busy, two strings of coolies were rushing back and forth across a broad gangway, and the first mate was directing operations from the bridge. Warden smiled. He had heard the flow of language at the “Chief’s” command when some incident on ship–board demanded the reading of the Riot Act, and he could well imagine the way in which those scampering Arabs were being incited to strenuous effort.

It was peaceful up here in the tower – so cool and remote from the noisy life of the port that he was tempted to linger. But if he would regain the shelter of some café in the town ere the sun became unbearably hot, he must be on the move. So, with a sigh for the unhappy Garcia’s fate, and a farewell glance at the vaulted room which had witnessed that by–gone tragedy, and perhaps many another, he began the descent. Thanks to the precautions taken during the climb, he found no great difficulty in placing his toes in the right niches. He was already below the level of the window, and was halting with both feet wedged into a broader crevice than usual while he changed his hand hold, when something, whether mere intuition or a slight sound, he never afterward knew, caused him to look straight up.