The Punishment of a Vixen Read online

  “I would like that above all things,” she replied almost breathlessly.

  Tyrone Strome turned towards the door and as he did so a servant came hurrying into the room.

  He salaamed, but it was obvious that he was agitated and he started to talk very quickly in a high-pitched excited voice.

  Nevada listened, but she could not understand what was being said.

  She was trying to learn a little of the language by making her maid repeat the name of every object in her bedroom and she could now say a few sentences such as, ‘Thank you very much’, ‘May I have some more?’ and ‘Goodnight’.

  Whatever the servant had to report, he was extremely verbose about it and she realised that Tyrone Strome was listening intently with a serious expression on his face.

  Finally the man ceased speaking and, because she was anxious and felt instinctively that something was wrong, Nevada asked quickly,

  “What is the matter? What has he told you?”

  “There has been an earthquake.”

  “An earthquake!”

  “Yes, at a village called Sakjena. I must go there at once and see if there is anything I can do to help.”

  “Let me come with you.”

  The words were spoken almost before Nevada realised she had said them.

  He looked at her, she thought, in surprise.

  “Please,” she begged.

  “Very well,” he answered, “the horses are waiting outside.”

  A few minutes later they were riding away from the valley and out into the bare stony desert.

  The horses were moving quickly and Nevada had to raise her voice to ask,

  “How far is Sakjena?”

  “About four to five miles.” “Surely it is unusual for there to be an earthquake?”

  “They happen frequently in this part of the world,” he explained, “but they often pass unnoticed when nobody is injured.”

  There were a hundred things Nevada wanted to ask, but it was difficult to talk at the speed they were riding and she also had to concentrate on keeping herself on her horse’s back.

  It was quite hard to ride side-saddle without a pommel and, although the saddle, built something like a child’s highchair, afforded her some support, a great deal of horsemanship was also necessary.

  They rode on and now they were back in the country of bare rocky heights of harsh mountain canyons and arid valleys, interspersed with a dry wasteland strewn with boulders.

  Then, emerging from a defile, they saw ahead of them houses built against the side of a high rocky cliff and Tyrone Strome shouted,

  “Sakjena!”

  There was a thick pall of dust hanging above the place and only as they drew nearer was Nevada able to see that what in the distance had appeared to be houses were now nothing but a huge broken scattered pile of meaningless rubble.

  There were pieces of roofs as well as walls and doors lying in confusion, rocks fallen from the heights above were balanced at strange angles and moving amongst the whole untidy mess were the figures of men and women screaming aloud in despair or calling out the names of those who were lost.

  The noise was ear-shattering and, as they rode right up to what had once been a village, they could distinguish patches of colour from torn clothing, a brass bowl glittering in the sunshine and small household treasures broken and dusty.

  But the full horror of the disaster became apparent when they saw lifeless bodies lying outstretched among the debris.

  As Tyrone Strome swung himself down from the saddle of his horse, Nevada noticed a man climbing over the broken ground towards them and perceived with surprise that he was in European dress.

  It was, as he reached them, that she saw round his neck he wore a white clerical collar with a patch of black cloth beneath it.

  Tyrone Strome had been giving his horse into the charge of a young boy, instructing him where to take it, then, as he turned round, he exclaimed,

  “Reverend! By all that’s marvellous! I did not expect to find you here!”

  “Nor I you, Mr. Strome.”

  They spoke in English, the clergyman with a strong Scottish accent.

  “I came as soon as I heard of the disaster,” Tyrone Strome said. “Are there many people buried?”

  “Quite a number.”

  “We shall have to do something about it.”

  As he spoke, he lifted Nevada down from her horse and another Arab boy took the bridle to lead it into the shade of some palm trees.

  “Nevada, let me introduce the Reverend Andrew Frazer,” Tyrone Strome said. “He is a talented doctor as well as being a much respected missionary.”

  “You flatter me, Mr. Strome!”

  The clergyman shook Nevada’s hand and did not seem at all surprised at her appearance.

  “Miss van Arden is an American visitor to Morocco,” Tyrone Strome explained. “Find a place to set up your hospital and she will help you.”

  As he spoke, a woman came towards them carrying a little boy in her arms.

  She was covered in dirt and dust and was wailing loudly. The child, who appeared to be either unconscious or dead, was bleeding from a cut on the forehead and blood was also pouring from a place on one leg where the skin had been torn away.

  Tyrone Strome moved forward and, as the woman seemed almost incapable of holding the child, he took it from her.

  He looked down at the boy for a moment, then holding him out towards Nevada said,

  “He is still alive! The mother will be quite useless in attending to him. Go with Mr. Frazer. He will tell you what to do.”

  Almost automatically, too surprised to say anything, Nevada took the child in her arms, pushing back the enveloping haik to do so.

  “Please come with me, Miss van Arden,” Andrew Frazer said.

  Tyrone had already walked away and there was nothing she could do but obey.

  For the next few hours Nevada had no time to think of anything but the children who were brought to her one after another.

  If they were too damaged for her to bandage them and their wounds required stitching, she took them to Andrew Frazer.

  But he had his hands full with the men and women who seemed to have suffered more serious injuries in the earthquake than the children.

  With an efficiency that came from previous experience, the clergyman had found a portion of a house where he could attend to his patients.

  There was part of the roof left to protect them from the sun and the remains of a back room in what had once been a fairly prosperous house was allotted to Nevada for the children.

  A dozen of them were lying on the floor, one or two on mattresses that had been salvaged from the rubble, the rest with nothing better than a cloak or a pile of palm-leaves to keep them from the dust.

  The dust was worse than anything else, Nevada thought. It got into her eyes and throat and had seeped into the wounds of the children so that it was difficult to make them clean before she bandaged them.

  The noise of their crying because they were frightened and in pain was not so deafening as the row made by their parents wailing for the loss of their possessions and what they feared was the death of their relatives.

  Nevada thought it would be easy to persuade some of the women to help her, but she soon realised that they were so completely demoralised and shocked by the catastrophe that they were useless.

  Their tears and hysterics made the children even more upset so with the help of Andrew Frazer, who spoke to them in their own language, they were told to stay outside the improvised hospital.

  Mercifully after a time they grew tired of making so much noise or the dust choked them and they relapsed into a sniffling silence.

  When Nevada had time to think of him, she knew that Tyrone Strome was working at getting out the bodies that had been crushed by the collapse of the houses and the fall of rocks from the granite cliff against which they had been built.

  There was an increasing number of those who were past help laid
out in the shadow of the palm trees and covered with any piece of cloth that came to hand.

  But there were also quite a number who, though unconscious could, by the skill of Andrew Frazer, be resuscitated.

  It grew hotter and hotter as midday passed, but the men, who were working under Tyrone Strome’s orders to excavate those who were still buried, laboured on.

  Nevada could not help thinking that they might easily have lapsed into inactivity had not Tyrone Strome kept driving them into making further efforts.

  Late in the afternoon there was still no help from other places in the vicinity.

  “I have sent someone to Tiznet with a long list of my requirements,” Mr. Frazer told Nevada when she asked him for more bandages. “I only had the small amount of medical supplies which I always carry, but it is not enough for a disaster such as this.”

  “The children I bandaged earlier need their dressings changed,” Nevada said.

  The Scotsman smiled at her.

  “I am afraid they’ll have to wait, lassie, but you’ve done well. You must be awful tired.”

  “I am very thirsty,” Nevada admitted.

  He gave her a drink of water from a goatskin that tasted even more brackish than the water she had drunk first at the oasis.

  “I daresay Mr. Strome will find you something to eat later,” he said.

  “I am not hungry,” Nevada answered. “I only wish there was more I could do. When you have a moment, I would like you to see if I have made the bandages too tight. I am afraid I am not very experienced at this sort of thing.”

  “You’ve done fine,” Andrew Frazer replied, and she smiled at him, thinking that she could not have had a nicer compliment.

  A small boy came running up to them to say something in a breathless voice.

  “What is it?” Nevada asked.

  “Mr. Strome has sent a message to say that they have discovered another dozen people. Several are dead, but the rest will be brought to us in a few minutes.”

  “What can we do without bandages?” Nevada asked. Then she had an idea.

  “My haik is rather thick, but at least it is fairly clean. We could tear it into strips.”

  “That’s a good idea, Miss Van Arden,” Andrew Frazer replied, “but I think you will find it easier if you use scissors.”

  He handed her a pair and Nevada sat down on the dusty ground and started cutting.

  *

  The sun was sinking in a blaze of glory when Tyrone Strome came from the pile of rubble and stones to walk slowly and wearily to where the wounded were being tended.

  The clergyman was just covering the face of an elderly man, who had died despite efforts to keep him alive.

  As he rose to his feet, Tyrone Strome said,

  “I don’t think we will find any more and, if there are any poor devils left, they will be dead by now.”

  As he spoke, he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving streaks in the grey dust which covered his whole face.

  He looked tired and Andrew Frazer, knowing he was thirsty, held out the goatskin to him, saying,

  “I don’t know what we’d have done without you, Mr. Strome.”

  “I think the people of Sakjena were fortunate we were both here,” Tyrone Strome answered.

  He glanced down at the wounded lying on the floor and added,

  “Most of the injured would certainly have died without you.”

  “Aye, it was lucky I was in the neighbourhood,” the Scotsman said. “’T’was God’s guidance that brought me here.”

  “I will say ‘amen’ to that,” Tyrone Strome said with a twinkle in his eye. “Have you let them know in Tiznet what you require?”

  “Aye, there’ll be enough and to spare by the morning. You get home while there is still enough light to find the way. I can manage now, thanks to Miss van Arden.”

  Tyrone Strome looked around.

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s with the children, and she’s done fine – really fine. I don’t know where I would have been without her.”

  Tyrone Strome walked to the back of the ruined house.

  On the floor lying beside the children were a number of their mothers, who had calmed down sufficiently to be allowed to stay with them.

  At the far end of what had once been a room, Tyrone Strome found Nevada.

  She was lying on the bare floor with her head on what appeared to be bundle of rags.

  Her once white caftan was covered in dust and dirt interspersed with smears of blood.

  In the left arm cuddled against her breast was a small baby with its head bandaged and her other hand rested on the shoulders of a little girl of about six who was snuggled against her.

  They were all three asleep and Tyrone Strome looking down at them saw that the dust on Nevada’s face was streaked with tearstains and yet at the same time there was a faint smile on her lips.

  He looked at her for some time. Then, taking the baby from her arms, he laid it carefully down, still sleeping, on a mattress beside another child who was also asleep.

  As he tried to move the little girl, Nevada awoke.

  “What – is it?” she asked.

  “There is no more you can do,” Tyrone Strome replied, “I am taking you home.”

  “I – fell – asleep.”

  “It’s not surprising. You have worked very hard and you must be extremely hungry.”

  She smiled at him a little vaguely as if she was not quite sure what he was saying. He lifted the little girl from her side and put her down gently with her cheek on the bundle against which Nevada had been lying.

  The child never even stirred.

  Nevada was standing waiting for him and he put an arm around her shoulders to lead her to where Andrew Frazer was waiting for them.

  “I will be over again in the morning,” Tyrone Strome said, “and both Miss van Arden and myself would like to give something towards the restoration of the village. Will you convey that information to whom it most concerns?”

  “I’m always thanking you for something, Mr. Strome,” Andrew Frazer replied, “so I’ve no more words left, but you know I’m grateful.”

  “It is really in the nature of a thank offering,” Tyrone Strome smiled. “Miss van Arden and I escaped from a different sort of danger a short while ago and this is the best way we can express our gratitude.”

  “You know I’ll not refuse anything you have to give,” the clergyman replied. “Take the lassie home, she’s earned her rest.”

  Tyrone Strome with his arm round Nevada, realised that she was almost too sleepy to know what was happening.

  The horses were still in the charge of the boys. Tyrone Strome spoke to the eldest of them and learnt that he could ride.

  The second boy was rewarded with a coin that left him ecstatic with delight. Then, holding Nevada in his arms on the front of his saddle as he had done when they rode ahead of the caravan, Tyrone Strome set off towards Tafraout.

  It was dark before they got there, but the stars were gradually shining brilliantly in the sky and he knew the way.

  The lights of Tafraout were a guide for the last two miles and only as they rode up to the very door of the Kasbah did Nevada open her eyes and realise that she had slept the whole time they were riding home.

  She knew again that sense of protection and security that Tyrone Strome had given her when she had been afraid of being overtaken by the Sheik’s horsemen.

  ‘How could I have slept when I was in his arms and my head was on his shoulder?’ she asked herself.

  She had longed for him to hold her closely against him again and now she could almost have wept with frustration to think that it had happened and she had not been aware of it.

  She heard the shouts of welcome as the servants from the Kasbah greeted them and she knew it was their noise that had awoken her.

  Tyrone Strome rode in through the gate and a moment later they had reached the inner door which led to his house. “We are –
home!” she murmured.

  “Yes, home,” he answered.

  He steadied her on the saddle as he dismounted, then, when he lifted her down, he carried her into the house and through the sitting room into her own bedroom.

  “You are not to go to sleep again until you have had something to eat,” he ordered, “but I expect you would like to wash first.”

  Having set her down on the side of the bed, he went from the room and a maid came hurrying in with hot water and clean towels.

  Wearily, feeling every movement was a superhuman effort, Nevada got to her feet and, as she did, caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and gave an exclamation of horror!

  The only thing that could have brought her back to wakefulness was the sight of herself with her grey dusty face and her hair tied back with a rag she had found blowing in the wind.

  Her gown was so stained and dirty as to be unrecognisable.

  It was nearly an hour later before she joined Tyrone Strome in the courtyard with her hair still wet because she had washed the dust from it. The caftan she now wore bore no relation to the filthy bloodstained garment she had told the maid to throw away.

  He rose as she came towards him and without speaking put a glass of wine into her hand.

  “If I drink this without eating, I shall be drunk,” she said. “Never mind,” he answered, “if you are, I will carry you to bed.”

  She laughed and there was a little flush on her cheeks as she sipped the wine.

  Then, almost immediately dinner was brought to them and, as she ate, Nevada felt her fatigue slipping away from her. Though she was tired, she was no longer exhausted to the point of collapse.

  They both ate almost in silence and only when the servants had withdrawn did Tyrone Strome say,

  “You must go to bed, but, before you do so, I wish to tell you how wonderful you were.”

  There was a note in his voice that made Nevada look at him in surprise. Then when her eyes met his, she felt shy and looked away.

  “I was – frightened,” she said, “very frightened of doing the – wrong thing and yet Mr. Frazer was pleased with me.”

  “Very pleased. He said he could not have done without you.”