Carmelita

“ Carmelita waited in trepidation.
Another rift of light in answer to a current of air. One of the prostrate figures was slowly moving toward her, as a fish floats through water without apparent movement or propulsion. Never it hastened, yet never it ceased to come, always nearer, without effort, without pausing.
She shut her teeth and clenched her hands. There was a wild desire to scream, to call for help, to fly out into the open. She did none of these things. The courage of her warrior forbears stood her in stead. ”

“ Carmelita did not like Turcos in general, and detested this one in particular. He was too fond of coming when he knew the Café to be empty of Légionnaires.
An old Spanish Jew paused in his shuffle to ask for a cigarette.
"Varda!" replied Carmelita calmly, with the curious thumb-jerking gesture of negation, distinctive of the uneducated Italian.
A most cosmopolitan young woman, and able to give a little of his own tongue to any dweller in Europe and to most of those in Northern Africa. Not in the least a refined young woman, however, and her many accomplishments not of the drawing-room. ”

“ She is as innocent as--as innocent as you are, Carmelita."
"I hate her," hissed Carmelita.... "Did Luigi kiss her? What happened? Did he...?"
The Englishman put his hand over Carmelita's little clenched fist as it lay on the bar.
"Listen, little one," he said. "You are one of the best, kindest and bravest women I have known. I am certain you are going to be worthy of yourself now. So is Rupert, so is Monsieur Bronco. He has been blaming us bitterly when we have even for a moment wondered whether you would save this girl. ”

“ The girl raised her impassioned tear-stained face to Carmelita's.
"Will nothing persuade you, little fool?" she cried, "that that Italian beast no more loves you than--than Jean Boule loves me--that he is playing with you, that he is battening on you, and that, the moment the fat Canteen woman accepts him, he will marry her and you will see him no more? Why should Jean Boule lie to you? Why should the American? Why should I?--Ask any Legionary in Sidi."
Carmelita clenched her little fist and appeared to be about to strike the Russian girl. ”

“ It was a sadder-looking, thinner, somewhat older-looking Carmelita than she who had welcomed Rupert and his fellow bleus on the occasion of their first visit to her café. Carmelita's little doubt had grown, and worry was bordering upon anxiety—for Luigi Rivoli was Carmelita's life, and Carmelita was not only a woman, but an Italian woman, and a Neapolitan at that. Far better than life she loved Luigi Rivoli, and only next to him did she love her own self-respect and virtue. As has been said before, Carmelita considered herself a married woman. ”

“ For Carmelita, the days following that on which her Luigi won the great World's Championship match, were a glorious time of expensive dinners, fine apartments, and beautiful clothes; a time of being café and music-hall patrons instead of performers; of being entertained instead of entertaining. The joy of Carmelita's life while the five hundred pounds lasted was to sit in a stage-box, proud and happy, beside her noble Luigi, and criticise the various "turns" upon the stage. ”

“ Carmelita had been useful there, and had delivered him from a very real danger, positively from the fangs of a mad dog. Very useful. What a pity it was that he could not marry Madame, and run Carmelita. Might she not be brought to consent to some such arrangement? Not even when she found she could have him in no other way? ... Never!
Absolutamente ... Curse her.... Well, anyhow, there were a few more francs, dinners, and bottles of Chianti. One must take what one can, while one can--and after all the Canteen was worth ten Cafés. ”

“ Nature at length asserted herself and Carmelita collapsed. She slept, and awoke in the middle of the next day as sane as a person can be, every fibre of whose being yearns and tingles with one fierce obsession. Even to the experienced Russian girl, the wildness of the Neapolitan revenge-passion was an alarming revelation. ”

“ She is no trouble to me at all,” Carmelita would exclaim, and clap her hands at the baby. But the baby only grew rounder eyed as it stared unsmilingly at its mother’s pretty plumpness, and laughing red lips, and big black eyes, whenever she stopped to talk to the little one.
Carmelita—pretty, shallow-pated Carmelita—never stayed long with the tiny ’Stacia, for the baby was so good left alone; and there was always Anton or Luciano and Monico to drop in for a laugh with the young wife of stupid old Lucas; or Josefa coming in for a game of “coyote y gallos.” ”

“ Carmelita was not insensible to her charm.
"You have a place in the hearts of many, señora. Surely you could never doubt it."
"Well, perhaps not. Still, one wishes outward expression of inward regard. Otherwise, how can one be sure it exists?"
Señorita Mendoza said nothing.
"Then, too, we wish, naturally, to know just how a certain very few stand toward us—sometimes just how a certain one person feels toward us. Now, there are some who are very good to all. Their hearts are kind naturally, and they give generous words and deeds to anyone who needs them. ”

“ On returning to her Café, Carmelita found the Bucking Bronco, John Bull, Reginald Rupert, 'Erbiggins, and several other Légionnaires awaiting admittance. Having opened her bar and mechanically ministered to her customers' needs, the unsmiling, broken-looking Carmelita, all of whose vitality and energy seemed concentrated in her burning eyes beckoned to the American and led him into her room Gripping his wrist with her cold hand, and almost shaking him in her too-long suppressed frenzy:
"Have you told Jean Boule?" she asked. "When will he kill him? Where? Quick, tell me! I must be there. ”

“ I kiss his boots in humility and apology, and if he will kill this Rivoli for me I will be his slave for life."
"Let me kill him fer yew, Carmelita," begged the American as he turned to go, and then paused as his face lit up with the brightness of an idea. "No," he said. "Almighty God! I got another think come. I'll come an' see yew to-morrow, Carmelita--and make yew a proposal about Mounseer Loojey as'll do yew good." At the door he beckoned to the Russian girl.
"Look at hyar, Miss Mikhail," he whispered. "Stand by her like a man to-night. Nuss her, and coddle her and soothe her. ”

“ Carmelita has a heart of gold...."
The girl half sat up. "She may be a kind girl--but she's Luigi Rivoli's mistress," she said. "She would do anything he ordered."
"Carmelita considers herself Rivoli's wife," replied the Englishman, "and so she would be, if he were not the biggest blackguard unhung. Very well, he can hardly go to the woman who is practically his wife and say, 'Hand over the woman you are hiding.'"
"When a woman loves a man she obeys him," said the girl, and added with innocent naïveté, "And I will obey you, Monsieur Jean Boule.... ”

“ Carmelita came to the courtyard gate. The uncanny movements of the frantic men and women were dizzying, but she steadied herself.
"Hear me," she called. "Listen!"
She waited a moment, then began: "Amigos, Stanislaus and his men have come in from their fastnesses, and have taken away from the Mission many girls. These girls are daughters of our friends, and we desire to see them married to men of this valley, the honest men who tend herds and till the soil, and who will provide food in plenty for their families. ”

“ Since she made such a splendid boy, you ought to be able to become a fairly convincing girl. Légionnaire Mikhail Kyrilovitch will be looked for as a man—probably in uniform. By the time the hue and cry is over, and he is forgotten, everything will be ready for both of you, then one night you slip into Carmelita's café and, next day, two café-chantant girls who have been visiting Carmelita, walk coolly to the station and take train for Oran.... Rivoli can't tell on them and still keep in with Carmelita. ”

“ Curse the witches anyway!" could be heard on all sides.
"They are going to kill us! to kill us!" pierced the air laden with smoke of battle and the odor of blood. "O, save us! Save us! Have pity on us! Take us home! Mother in Heaven! O, save us!"
Goaded to frenzy by these cries, Carmelita's peons flooded across the intervening space and fell on Stanislaus, who abandoned to their fate the sortie detail he had thrown forward. With such men as he could muster he sped, with the peonas, out of the cañon into the broken country edging Calaveras Valley. ”

“ But he must get even with this Russian she-devil who had thwarted him in the lavatory, struck him across the face, humiliated him before the Englishman, ruined his prestige with his comrades and Madame, and brought him to the brink of an abyss of danger.... He had an idea.... When Carmelita came into the room again from the bar, she should have the shock of her life, and the Russian puttana, another. Also the over-clever Jean Boule should learn that the race is not always to the slow, nor the battle to the weak.... Carmelita entered. ”

“ How should I know where le Légionnaire Rivoli may be?" fenced the soi-disant Belgian, who desired nothing better than to win the woman from the man--and toward himself. Failing Madame la Cantinière and the Legion's Canteen, what better than Carmelita and the Café de la Légion for a poor hungry and thirsty soldier? If the great Luigi must win the greater prize let the little Malvin win the lesser. To which end let him curry favour with La Belle Carmelita--just as far as such a course of action did not become premature, and lead to a painful interview with an incensed Luigi Rivoli. ”

“ Good-bye."
"Nuthin' doin', John," was the answer.
"Hurry him off, Carmelita, we've wasted quite time enough," said John Bull, turning to the girl. "If he doesn't go now and do his best for himself, he doesn't love you. Do clear him out. It's death or penal servitude if he's caught. He struck Legros before Legros even threatened him--and Legros is dead."
"You hear what Signor Jean Boule says. Are you going?" said Carmelita, turning to the American.
"No, my gal. I ain't," was the prompt reply. "How can I, Carmelita? ... I'm his pal.... Hev' I got ter choose between yew an' him?" ”

“ Haven't the faintest idea," replied John Bull. "If only Carmelita turns up trumps...."
"Seenyoreena Carmelita is the whitest little woman as ever lived," growled the American. "She's a blowed-in-the-glass heart-o'-gold. Yew can put yure shirt on Carmelita.... Yew know what I mean--yure bottom dollar.... Ef it wasn't fer that filthy Eye-talian sarpint, she'd jump at the chance of giving this Roosian gal her last crust.... I don't care John whether you shoot him up or nit. I'm gwine ter slug him till Hell pops. ”

“ Any man in the Legion might speak to Carmelita provided he spoke as a gentleman should speak to a lady--and did not want to be pinned to her bar by the ears, and the bayonets of his indignant brothers-in-arms--any man who might speak to no other woman in the world outside the Legion. ”

“ The Discalced Carmelites spread rapidly all over Catholic Europe, and then to Spanish America and the East, especially India and Persia, in which lands they have carried on to this day extensive missionary undertakings. Both observances suffered severely from the various revolutions, but they both still exist, the Discalced being by far the most numerous and thriving. There are in all some 2000 Carmelite friars, and the nuns are much more numerous. In England and Ireland there are houses, both of men and of women, belonging to each observance. ”

“ A kingdom needs a [295] queen as well as a king, Carmel! The Chase would simply be an empty casket without you! You're the very heart and soul of it all. I will let you go now, dear, for I see you're quite determined, but Carmel! Carmel! some day in the far future, if you think I have grown into anything like what you wish me to be, then I shall tell you that your throne is waiting for you here in Old England—the land of primroses and sweetbriar and true hearts, Carmel! And I shall ask you to leave your Sicilian flowers and scented orange groves, and come back to claim your kingdom! ”

“ The historical origin of the Carmelites must be placed at the middle of the 12th century, when a crusader from Calabria, named Berthold, and ten companions established themselves as hermits near the cave of Elias on Mount Carmel. A Greek monk, Phocas, who visited the Holy Land in 1185, gives an account of them, and says that the ruins of an ancient building existed on Mount Carmel; but though it is likely enough that there had previously been Christian monks and hermits on the spot, it is impossible to place the beginning of the Carmelite institute before Berthold. ”

“ A common sight enough, but it worked a revolution in Carmel’s darkened mind. The light of youthful joyousness fled from her face; and the cheek, just pulsing softly with new life, blanched to the death-like hue of mortal suffering. Dropping her eyes from the women, who saw nothing and continued to sip their wine in happy ignorance of the soul-tragedy going on within ten feet of them, she looked down at her dress, then up at the walls about her; and then slowly, anxiously, and with unmistakable terror, at the woman in whose arms she felt herself supported. ”

“ The younger servants asserted that the slight pink tint on the tidy little woman's cheeks was artificial. However that may have been, Carmela, as she stood, was the personification of trimness and activity. Untiring and energetic, she was a wonderful worker; Miss Senter, who had been much in Italy, appreciated her good-fortune in having secured for her Venetian house-keeping such a coadjutor as this. Carmela was scrupulously neat, and she was even more scrupulously honest, never abstracting so much as a pin; she economized for her mistress with her whole soul, and kept watch over every detail ”