Monsieur Maurice | Page 8

Monsieur Maurice," I whispered. "I am so
glad he loved you dearly."
"He loved me very dearly," said Monsieur Maurice "so dearly that he
gave his life for me."
"But is Ali dead?"
"Ay--Ali is dead. Nay, his story is brief enough, petite. I bought him in
the slave market at Cairo--a poor, sickly, soulless lad, half stupid from
ill-treatment. I gave him good food, good clothes, and liberty. I taught
him to read. I made him my own servant; and his soul and his strength
came back to him as if by a miracle. He became stalwart and intelligent,
and so faithful that he was ten times more my slave than if I had held
him to his bondage. I took him with me through all my Eastern
pilgrimage. He was my body-guard; my cook; my dragoman;
everything. He slept on a mat at the foot of my bed every night, like a

dog. So he lived with me for nearly four years--till I lost him."
He paused.
I did not dare to ask, "what more?" but waited breathlessly.
"The rest is soon told," he said presently; but in an altered voice. "It
happened in Ceylon. Our way lay along a bridle-path overhanging a
steep gorge on the one hand and skirting the jungle on the other. Do
you know what the jungle is, little Gretchen? Fancy an untrodden
wilderness where huge trees, matted together by trailing creepers of
gigantic size, shut out the sun and make a green roof of inextricable
shade--where the very grass grows taller than the tallest man--where
apes chatter, and parrots scream, and deadly reptiles swarm; and where
nature has run wild since ever the world began. Well, so we went--I on
my horse; Ali at my bridle; two porters following with food and
baggage; the precipice below; the forest above; the morning sun just
risen over all. On a sudden, Ali held his breath and listened. His
practised ear had caught a sound that mine could not detect. He seized
my rein--forced my horse back upon his haunches--drew his hunting
knife, and ran forward to reconnoitre. The turn of the road hid him for a
moment from my sight. The next instant, I had sprung from the saddle,
pistol in hand, and run after him to share the sport or the danger. My
little Gretchen--he was gone."
"Gone!" I echoed.
Monsieur Maurice shook his head, and turned his face away.
"I heard a crashing and crackling of the underwood," he said; "a faint
moan dying on the sultry air. I saw a space of dusty road trampled over
with prints of an enormous paw--a tiny trail of blood--a shred of silken
fringe--and nothing more. He was gone."
"What was it?" I asked presently, in an awestruck whisper.
Monsieur Maurice, instead of answering my question, opened the
sketch-book at a page full of little outlines of animals and birds, and
laid his finger silently on the figure of a sleeping tiger.
I shuddered.
"Pauvre petite!" he said, shutting up the book, "it is too terrible a story.
I ought not to have told it to you. Try to forget it."
"Ah, no!" I said. "I shall never forget it, Monsieur Maurice. Poor Ali!
Have you still the piece of fringe you found lying in the road?"
He unlocked his desk and touched a secret spring; whereupon a small

drawer flew out from a recess just under the lock.
"Here it is," he said, taking out a piece of folded paper.
It contained the thing he had described--a scrap of fringe composed of
crimson and yellow twist, about two inches in length.
"And those other things?" I said, peering into the secret drawer with a
child's inquisitiveness. "Have they a history, too?"
Monsieur Maurice hesitated--took them out--sighed--and said,
somewhat reluctantly:--
"You may see them, little Gretchen, if you will. Yes; they, too, have
their history--but let it be. We have had enough sad stories for to-day."
Those other things, as I had called them, were a withered rose in a little
cardboard box, and a miniature of a lady in a purple morocco case.

5
It so happened that the Winter this year was unusually severe, not only
at Brühl and the parts about Cologne, but throughout all the Rhine
country. Heavy snows fell at Christmas and lay unmelted for weeks
upon the ground. Long forgotten sleighs were dragged out from their
hiding places and put upon the road, not only for the transport of goods,
but for the conveyance of passengers. The ponds in every direction and
all the smaller streams were fast frozen. Great masses of dirty ice, too,
came floating down the Rhine, and there were rumours of the great
river being quite frozen over somewhere up in Switzerland, many
hundred miles nearer