Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories by Rex Beach (ebook smartphone .TXT) 📗

Accordingly, the Moor tested Fray Joseph, as he had tested the Abbot and the others, but to no avail, and he was in despair, until one day the secret of his failure was unexpectedly revealed.

Being busied with his accounts, he had repaired to the shade of a pomegranate grove near the cliff, the better to escape the heat; while so engaged up the path from the monastery came the good brother. Just abreast of Abul Malek's point of vantage Joseph paused to listen. A songbird was trilling wondrously and the monk's face, raised toward the pomegranate trees, became transfigured. He changed as if by magic; his lips parted in a tender smile, his figure grew tense with listening; not until the last note had died away did he move. Then a great breath stirred his lungs, and with shining eyes and rapt countenance he went on into the fields.

Abul Malek rose, his white teeth gleaming through his beard.

"Allah be praised!" he exclaimed. "It is music!" And rolling up his papers, he went into the house.

Early on the following morning another cavalcade filed down past the monastery of San Sebastian; but this procession was in great contrast to the one that had gone by five years before. Instead of gaily caparisoned warriors, it was composed mainly of women and slaves, with a mere handful of guards to lead the way. There were bondmaidens and seamstresses, an ancient nurse and a tutor of languages; while astride of a palfrey at her father's side rode the youthful lady of the castle. Her veil was wet upon her cheeks, her eyes were filled with shadows; yet she rode proudly, like a princess.

Once more the train moved past the sun-baked walls of the monastery, across the plain to the mountain road that led to the land of bounty and of culture. Late that afternoon Brother Joseph learned from the lips of a herdsman that the beauteous Zahra, flower of all the Moorish race, had gone to Cordova to study music.

Abul Malek once more rode home alone to his castle; but this time as he dismounted at his door he smiled at the monastery below.

Four years crept by, during which the Saracen lord brooded over the valley and the monk Joseph went his simple way, rendering service where he could, preaching, by the example of his daily life and his unselfish devotion, a sermon more powerful than his lips could utter. Through it all the Moor watched him carefully, safeguarding him as a provident farmer fattens a sheep for the slaughter. Once a year the father rode southward to Cordova, bringing news with his return that delighted the countryside, news that penetrated even the walls of San Sebastian and filled the good men therein with gladness. It seemed that the maiden Zahra was becoming a great musician. She pursued her studies in the famous school of Ali-Zeriab, and not even Moussali himself, that most gifted of Arabian singers, could bring more tender notes from the lute than could this fair daughter of Catalonia. Her skill transcended that of Al Farabi, for the harp, the tabor, and the mandolin were wedded to her dancing fingers; and, most marvelous of all, her soul was so filled with poetry that her verses were sung from Valencia to Cadiz. It was said that she could move men to laughter, to tears, to deeds of heroism—that she could even lull them to sleep by the potency of her magic. She had once played before the Caliph under amazing circumstances.

The Prince of True Believers, so ran the story, had quarreled with his favorite wife, and in consequence had fallen into a state of melancholy so deep as to threaten his health and to alarm his ministers. Do what they would, he still declined, until in despair the Hadjeb sent for Zahra, daughter of Abul Malek. She came, surrounded by her servants, and sang before El Hakkam. So cunningly did she contrive her verses, so tender were her airs, so potent were her fluttering fingers, that those within hearing were moved to tears, and the unhappy lover himself became so softened that he sped to the arms of his offended beauty and a reconciliation occurred. In token of his gratitude he had despatched a present of forty thousand drachmas of gold to the singer, and her renown went broadcast like a flame.

When Abul Malek heard of this he praised his God, and, gathering his horsemen, he set out to bring his daughter home, for the time was ripe.

One evening in early spring, that magic season when nature is most charming, Fray Joseph, returning to his cell, heard from behind a screen of verdure alongside his path a woman singing. But was this singing? he asked himself. Could mortal lips give birth to melody like this? It was the sighing of summer winds through rustling leaves, the music of crystal brooks on stony courses, the full-throated worship of birds. Joseph listened, enthralled, like a famished pilgrim in the desert. His simple soul, attuned to harmonies of the woodland, leaped in answer; his fancy, starved by years of churchly rigor, quickened like a prisoner at the light of day. Not until the singer had ceased did he resume his way, and through his dreams that night ran the song of birds, the play of zephyrs, the laughter of bubbling springs.

A few evenings later he heard the voice again, and paused with lips apart, with heart consumed by eagerness. It was some slave girl busied among the vines of Abul Malek, he decided, for she translated all the fragmentary airs that float through summer evenings—the songs of sweethearts, the tender airs of motherhood, the croon of distant waterfalls, the voice of sleepy locusts—and yet she wove them into an air that carried words. It was most wonderful.

Joseph felt a strong desire to mingle his voice with the singer's, but he knew his throat to be harsh and stiff from chanting Latin phrases. He knew not whither the tune would lead, and yet, when she sang, he followed, realizing gladly that she voiced the familiar music of his soul. He was moved to seek her out and to talk with her, until he remembered with a start that she was a woman and he a priest.

Each night he shaped his course so as to bring him past the spot where the mysterious singer labored, and in time he began to feel the stirring of a very earthly curiosity, the which he manfully fought down. Through the long, heated hours of the day he hummed her airs and repeated her verses, longing for the twilight hour which would bring the angel voice from out the vineyard. Eventually the girl began to sing of love, and Joseph echoed the songs in solitude, his voice as rasping and untrue as that of a frog.

Then, one evening, he heard that which froze him in his tracks. The singer accompanied herself upon some instrument the like of which he had never imagined. The music filled the air with heavenly harmony, and it set him to vibrating like a tautened string; it rippled forth, softer than the breeze, more haunting than the perfume of the frangipani. Joseph stood like a man in a trance, forgetful of all things save these honeyed sounds, half minded to believe himself favored by the music of the seraphim.

Never had he dreamed of such an intoxication. And then, as if to intensify his wild exultation, the maiden sang a yearning strain of passion and desire.

The priest began to tremble. His heart-beats quickened, his senses became unbridled; something new and mighty awoke within him, and he was filled with fever. His huge thews tightened, his muscles swelled as if for battle, yet miracle of miracles, he was melting like a child in tears! With his breath tugging at his throat, he turned off the path and parted the verdure, going as soundlessly as an animal; and all the while his head was whirling, his eyes took note of nothing. He was drawn as by a thousand invisible strings, which wound him toward the hidden singer.

But suddenly the music ended in a peal of rippling laughter and there came the rustle of silken garments. Fray Joseph found himself in a little open glade, so recently vacated that a faint perfume still lingered to aggravate his nostrils. Beyond stretched the vineyard of the Moor, a tangle of purpling vines into the baffling mazes of which the singer had evidently fled.

So she had known of his presence all along, the monk reflected, dizzily. It followed, therefore, that she must have waited every evening for his coming, and that her songs had been sung for him. An ecstasy swept over him. Regaining the path, he went downward to the monastery, his brain afire, his body tingling.

Joseph was far too simple for self-analysis, and he was too enchanted by those liquid strains to know what all this soul confusion foretold; he merely realized that he had made the most amazing of discoveries, that the music of the spheres had been translated for his privileged ears, that a door had opened allowing him to glimpse a glory hidden from other mortals. It was not the existence of the singer, but of the music, that excited him to adoration. He longed to possess it, to take it with him, and to cherish it like a thing of substance, to worship it in his solitude.

The song had been of love; but, after all, love was the burden of his religion. Love filled the universe, it kept the worlds a-swinging, it was the thing that dominated all nature and made sweet even the rigid life of an anchorite. It was doubtless love which awoke this fierce yet tender yearning in him now, this ecstasy that threatened to smother him. Love was a holy and an impersonal thing, nevertheless it blazed and melted in his every vein, and it made him very human.

Through all that night Fray Joseph lay upon his couch, rapt, thankful, wondering. But in the morning he had changed. His thoughts became unruly, and he recalled again that tantalizing perfume, the shy tones of that mischief laughter. He began to long intensely to behold the author of this music-magic, to behold her just once, for imagination graced her with a thousand witching forms. He wished ardently, also, to speak with her about this miracle, this hidden thing called melody, for the which he had starved his life, unknowingly.

As the afternoon aged he began to fear that he had frightened her, and therefore when he came to tread his homeward path it was with a strange commingling of eagerness and of dread. But while still at a distance, he heard her singing as usual, and, nearing the spot, he stopped to drink in her message. Again the maiden sang of love; again the monk felt his spirit leaping as she fed his starving soul even more adroitly than she fingered the vibrant strings. At last her wild, romantic verses became more unrestrained; the music quickened until, regardless of all things, Fray Joseph burst the thicket asunder and stood before her, huge, exalted, palpitant.

"I, too, have sung those songs," he panted, hoarsely. "That melody has lived in me since time began; but I am mute. And you? Who are you? What miracle bestowed this gift—?"

He paused, for with the ending of the song his frenzy was dying and his eyes were clearing. There, casting back his curious gaze, was a bewitching Moorish maid whose physical perfection seemed to cause the very place to glow. The slanting sunbeams shimmered upon her silken garments; from her careless hand drooped an instrument of gold and of tortoise-shell, an instrument strange to the eyes of the monk. Her feet were cased in tiny slippers of soft Moroccan leather; her limbs, rounded and supple and smooth as ivory, were outlined beneath wide flowing trousers which were gathered at the ankles. A tunic of finest fabric was flung back, displaying a figure of delicate proportions, half recumbent now upon the sward.

The loveliness of Moorish women has been heralded to the world; it is not strange that this maid, renowned even among her own people, should have struck the rustic priest to dumbness. He stood transfixed; and yet he wondered not, for it was seemly that such heavenly music should have sprung from the rarest of mortals. He saw that her hair, blacker than the night, rippled in a glorious cascade below her waist, and that her teeth embellished with the whiteness of alabaster the vermilion lips which smiled at him.

That same intoxicating scent, sweeter than the musk of Hadramaut, enveloped her; her fingers were jeweled with nails which flashed