The Desert Healer

The slanting rays of the afternoon sun, unusually powerful for the time of year, lay warmly on the southern slopes of a tiny spur of the Little Atlas Mountains, glowing redly on the patches of bare earth and naked rock cropping out between the scrubby undergrowth that straggled sparsely up the hill-side, and flickering through the leaves of a clump of olive trees huddled at its base where three horses stood tethered, lazily switching at the troublesome flies with their long tails and shifting their feet uneasily from time to time.

Ten miles away to the westward lay Blidah, Europeanised and noisy, but here was the deep stillness and solitude—though not the arid desolation—of the open desert. The silence was broken only by the monotonous cooing of pigeons and the low murmur of voices.

At a little distance from the picketed horses, out in the full sunshine, a man lay on his back on the soft ground apparently asleep, his hands clasped under his head, his face almost hidden by a sun helmet beneath the brim of which protruded grotesquely a disreputable age-black pipe which even in sleep his teeth held firmly. There were amongst William Chalmers’ patients and intimate acquaintances those who affirmed positively that that foul old meerschaum—treasured relic of his hospital days—ranked second in his affections only to the adored wife who was sitting now near his recumbent figure. Alert and youthful looking in spite of her grey hairs, she lounged comfortably against a sun warmed rock talking animatedly yet softly to the third member of the party, a well set up man of soldierly appearance who sprawled full length at her feet. There was a certain definite resemblance between the two, a similarity of speech and gesture, that proclaimed a near relationship.

Mrs. Chalmers broke off in the middle of a sentence to flap her gauntlet gloves at a swarm of persistent flies. “All the same, I think it’s perfectly disgraceful that you are still a bachelor, Micky,” she said, with emphatic cousinly candour, resuming an argument which had raged for the last half hour. Major Meredith grinned with perfect good humour.

“Haven’t time for matrimony,” he answered lazily, “too busy watching our wily brothers over the Border. And besides,” with a provocative sidelong glance, “marriage is a lottery. We can’t all expect to have Bill’s luck.”

Mrs. Chalmers wrinkled her nose at him disgustedly. “That’s a cliché,” she said with fine scorn, ignoring the implied compliment, “it merely means that you haven’t yet met the right woman. However—” she laughed mischievously—“there’s still hope for you. A year at home after nearly ten years of exile will probably make you change your mind. It’s a pity you didn’t take your leave sooner, there were some charming girls here last winter. Unfortunately this year’s sample is not recommendable, there is scarcely a really nice girl in the place—always excepting Marny Geradine, and she’s married already—poor child.”

“Why ‘poor child?’ ” asked the soldier, his cousin’s sudden change of tone seeming to call for some comment. “Because—” Mrs. Chalmers paused frowningly, “oh, well, you haven’t seen Lord Geradine or you wouldn’t ask,” she went on soberly, “he’s been away on a shooting trip since you’ve been here—and the air of Algiers has been consequently cleaner,” she added with a little shiver.

Major Meredith hoisted his long limbs up into a sitting position. “A case of a misfit marriage?” he suggested.