“Fleurette.”
“But Fleurette what?”
“Fleurette nothing. Just Fleurette.”
“But, Mahdi Bey——”
I suppose my thoughts were conveyed without further words, for:
“Mahdi Bey,” Fleurette replied, “is——”
And then she ceased abruptly. Her glance strayed away somewhere over my shoulder. I had a distinct impression that she was listening—listening intently for some distant sound.
“Mahdi Bey,” I prompted.
Fleurette glanced at me swiftly.
“Really, Mr. Sterling,” she said, “I must run. I mustn’t be caught talking to you.”
“Why?” I exclaimed. “I was hoping you would show me over Ste Claire.”
She shook her head almost angrily.
“As you came out of the sea, please go back again. You can’t come with me.”
“I don’t understand why-
“Because it would be dangerous.”
Composedly she tucked a comb back into a bag which lay upon the sand beside her, picked up a bathing cap, and stood up.
“You don’t seem to bother about the possibility of my being drowned!”
“You have a motorboat just around the headland,” she replied, glancing at me over one golden shoulder. “I heard your engine.”
This was a revelation.
“No wonder you weren’t frightened when I came ashore.”
“I am never frightened. In fact, I am rather inhuman, in all sorts of ways. Did you ever hear of Derceto?”
Her abrupt changes of topics, as of moods, were bewildering, but:
“Vaguely,” I answered. “Wasn’t she a sort of fish goddess?”
“Yes. Think of me, not as Fleurette, but as Derceto. Then you may understand.”
The words conveyed nothing at the time, although I was destined often to think about them, later. And what I should have said next I don’t know. But the whole of my thoughts, which were chaotic, became suddenly focused...upon a sound.
To this day I find myself unable to describe it, although, as will presently appear, before a very long time had elapsed I was called upon to do so. It more closely resembled the note of a bell than anything else—yet it was not the note of a bell. It was incredibly high. It seemed at once to come from everywhere and from nowhere. A tiny sound it was, but of almost unendurable sweetness: it might be likened to a fairy trumpet blown close beside one’s ear.
I started violently, looking all around me. And as I did so, Fleurette, giving me no parting word, no glance, darted away!
Amazed beyond words, I watched her slim brown figure bounding up a rocky path, until, at a bend high above, Fleurette became invisible. She never once looked back.
And then—the desire to get away, and as soon as possible, from the beach of Ste Claire de la Roche claimed me again, urgently....
chapter second
A PURPLE CLOUD
when presently I climbed on board the motorboat and pushed off, I found myself to be in a state of nervous excitement. But as I headed back for the landing place below Petrie’s tiny villa, I grew more and more irritated by my memories.
Fleurette was not only the most delightful but also the most mysterious creature who had ever crossed my path; and the more I thought about her, reviewing that odd conversation, the nearer I drew to what seemed to be an unavoidable conclusion. Of course, she had been lying to me—acting the whole time. A beautiful girl in the household of a wealthy Egyptian—in what capacity was she there?
Common sense supplied the answer. It was one I hated to accept—but I could see no alternative. The queer sound which had terminated that stolen interview, I preferred not to think about. It didn’t seem to fit in....
As I secured the boat to the ring and started a long, hot climb up to the Villa Jasmin, I found myself wondering if I should ever see Fleurette again, and, more particularly, if she wanted to see
I supposed Mme Dubonnet had gone into the village to do her midday shopping, which included an
Mixing myself a cool drink, I sat down on the flower-draped verandah and allowed my glance to stray over the well stocked little kitchen garden. Beyond and below were more flower-covered walls and red roofs breaking through the green of palm and vine, and still beyond was a distant prospect of the jewel-like Mediterranean.
I reflected that this was a very pleasant spot in which to recuperate. And then I began to think about Fleurette....
No doubt my swim had overtired me, but stretched out there in a deck-chair, the hot sun making my skin tingle agreeably, I presently fell asleep. And almost immediately, as I suppose, I began to dream.
I dreamed that I lay in just such a deck chair, under an equally hot sun, on a balcony or platform of an incredibly high building. I have since decided that it was the Empire State Building in New York. I was endowed with telescopic vision. Other great buildings there were, with mile after mile of straight avenues stretching away to the distant sea.
The sky was sapphire blue, and a heat haze danced over the great city which lay at my feet.
Then there came a curious, high sound. It reminded me of something I had heard before—but of something which in my dream I could not place. A cloud appeared, no larger than my hand, on the horizon, miles and miles away—over that- blue ocean. It was a purple cloud; and it spread out, fan-wise, and the sections of the fan grew ever larger. So that presently half of the sky was shadowed.
And then a tiny glittering point, corresponding, I thought, to the spot where the hinge of this purple shadow- fan should have been, I saw a strange jewel. The fan continued to open, to obscure more and more the sky.
It was advancing towards me, this shadowy thing; and now the jewel took shape.
I saw that it was a dragon, or sea serpent, moving at incredible speed towards me. Upon its awful crested head a man rode. He wore a yellow robe which, in the light focused upon him, for the sun was away to my left as I dreamed, became a golden robe.
His yellow face glittered also, like gold, and he wore a cap surmounted by some kind of gleaming bead. He was, I saw a Chinaman.
And I thought that his face had the majesty of Satan—that this was the Emperor of the Underworld come to claim a doomed city.
So much I saw, and then I realized that the dragon carried a second rider: a woman, robed in queenly white and wearing a jewelled diadem. Her beauty dazzled me, seeming more than human. But I knew her....
It was Fleurette.
The purple shadow-fan obscured all the sky, and complete darkness came. The darkness reached me, and where there had been sunshine was shadow, t shuddered and opened my eyes, staring up, rather wildly, I suppose.
Dr. Petrie had just stepped onto the verandah. His shadow touched me where I lay.
“Hullo, Sterling,” he said briskly “What’s wrong? been overdoing it again?”
I struggled upright. Then, in a moment, I became fully awake. And as I looked up at Petrie, seated on the low wall beside a big wine jar which had been converted into a flower pot, I realized that this was a very sick man.
He wore no hat, and his dark hair, liberally streaked with grey, was untidy—which I knew to be unusual. He was smoking a cigarette and staring at me in that penetrating way which medical men cultivate. But his eyes were unnaturally bright, although deep shadows lay beneath them.
