Produced by Al Haines
DESERT LOVE
BY
JOAN CONQUEST
Author of "Leonie of the Jungle"
NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
Copyright, 1920
By THE MACAULAY COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
TO M. F.
CONTENTS
PART I
THE SEED
PART II
THE FLOWER
PART III
THE FRUIT
PART I
THE SEED
DESERT LOVE
CHAPTER I
Jill looked at the East!
At her feet sat huddled groups of women, just bundles of black robes,
some with discs about their necks, some with chains or golden crescents
upon the forehead, all wearing the _burko_ [yashmak or face veil]
covering the entire face with the exception of the eyes, and held in
position between the eyebrows by the quaint tube-shaped _selva_,
fastening it to the _tarhah_, the flowing black veil which nearly
touches the ground behind, covers the head, and pulled down to the
eyebrows leaves just the beautiful dark eyes to be seen, glancing up
timidly--in this case--at the golden-haired, blue-eyed girl above them.
Men of different classes stood around, or squatted on their heels upon
the ground, all in flowing robes of different colouring and various
stages of cleanliness, some with heads covered in turbans, some with
the tarboosh, others with the kahleelyah or head handkerchief, all
chattering with the exception of the higher classes and the Bedouins,
the latter clothed in white, with the distinctive thong of camel's hair
wound about the head covering, arms folded and face passively serene,
looking as though they had stepped right out of the Old Testament on to
the fly-ridden, sunbaked station of Ismailiah; whilst vendors of cakes,
sticky, melting sweets, and small oranges, wandered in and out of the
crowd screaming their wares. Shouts of laughter drew Jill's attention
to the other side of the station, where, with terms of endearment mixed
with blood-curdling threats, a detachment of British soldiers getting
ready to start en route for Suez were urging, coaxing, striving to make
that most obstinate of animals, the camel, get to its feet some time
before midnight.
From them she looked at a group of native dwellings made of sunbaked
clay. Small square buildings, looking in the distance like out-houses,
with scarcely perceptible windows, and flat roofs given over to
poultry. Near them the patient bullock did its monotonous round,
drawing the precious water from the well with which to moisten the arid
little patch of earth from which the fellah extracts the so very little
necessary to him in his life.
A clump of slender palms, like forgotten scaffolding, stood out clear
against the intense blue of the sky; the desert, that wonderful
magnetic plain, stretched away in mile upon mile of yellow nothingness,
until as minute as flies on a yellow floor, growing more distinct at
every step, with solemn and exceeding great dignity stalked a string of
camels, each animal fastened by a rope to the saddle of the one in
front, each apparently unconscious of its seemingly overwhelming
burden, as with heads swaying slightly from side to side with that air
of disdain which the dame of Belgravia unsuccessfully tries to imitate
when essaying to crush the inhabitant of Suburbia by means of
long-handled lorgnettes resting on the shiny arch of her aristocratic
nose, they responded without fail to the soft musical voice of the Arab
seated cross-legged on the leader.
Then her eyes turned to the West.
To the mixed mob which had rushed from the _Norddeutscher Lloyd_ at
Suez, leaving the great liner to the wise few, while perspiring and
querulous, and altogether unpleasant, they had filled the little train
which chuffs its way along the edge of the canal to Ismailiah, and
through the dust and fly-laden miles to Cairo, where it turns its
burden out to clamour and argue vociferously with the wily dragoman who
would take a herd of elephants to "do" the Pyramids in one hour if the
backsheesh proved substantial enough.
With absolute loathing she gazed at those with whom she had passed so
many weary days on the return journey from Australia.
There were of a certain type of English women not a few, sunburnt, loud
of voice, lean of breast and narrow of hip.
Their sisters, wiser and better endowed by nature, had remained on the
liner, taking advantage of the empty conditions of the boat to repair
the ravage done to complexion and wardrobe by the sizzling, salt-laden
wind which had tortured them since Colombo had been left behind.
Two daughters and a mother stood aloofly in the shade thrown by the
indescribable waiting-room; the mother still labouring under the
delusion that if you can't afford to send your girls properly wardrobed
on a visit to relations in India, the next best method of annexing
husbands for them is to take them hacking on a long sea voyage. For
has it not been known that many a man driven to the verge of madness by
the everlasting sight of flying fish, and the as enduring sound of the
soft plop of the little bull-board sandbag, has become engaged to "a
perfectly im-_poss_-ible person in the second class, you know," so as
to break the deadly monotony of his surroundings.
They did not want to see Cairo or any other part of Egypt, for the East
said nothing to them, even a rush view of the Pyramids failing to stir
their shallow hearts; but they knew to a shade the effect on their less
fortunate friends when in course of time they should murmur, "You
remember, dear, the winter we were in Cairo."
Added to these there were raucous Australians, clumsily built guttural
Germans, in fact the usual omnium gatherum, unavoidable, alas! on a sea
voyage, clothed in short skirts, shirt waists, squash hats, and thick
boots as "they were going tramping about the sands," and each, of
_course_, loaded with the inevitable camera which gives dire offence to
many an eastern of higher rank, who hates being photographed
willy-nilly along with all the other "only a native" habits of the
westerner, who with the one word "nigger" describes the Rajah of India,
the Sheik of Arabia, the Hottentot and the Christy Minstrel.
Free for one day from the restraining manners of those others who at
that very moment were doubtless returning thanks on deck to Allah for
his manifold blessings in the shape of some few hours of perfect peace,
a few men of different nationalities were either boisterously chaffing
the less plain of their companions, or ogling the shrinking Eastern
women, crouching on the edge of the platform. Mr. Billings in fact, in
unclean canvas shoes and a frantic endeavour to find favour in the
bistre enlarged eyes of a certain slim black figure, was executing the
very double shuffle which had "brought down" the second class dining
saloon honoured for the nonce by the presence of the first class, on
the occasion of one of the purgatorial concerts habitual to sea life as
known on board a liner.
CHAPTER II
Jill stood by herself!
Personally I consider as infinitely boring those descriptions written
at length anent the past lives of the characters, male and female,
which go to the building of a novel, so in as few words as possible
will try to outline the years which had brought Jill Carden to the
dreary task of waiting hand and foot upon the whimsies of a neurotic
German woman of great wealth, and still greater disinclination to part
with the smallest coin of any realm she might be travelling through.
Jill, an only child and motherless, had led a glorious care-free
existence.
Adored by her father and her two friends, Moll, otherwise the
Honourable Mary Bingham pronounced Beam, of the neighbouring estate,
and Jack, otherwise Sir John Wetherbourne, Baronet, of the next county,
big brother to Jill and worshipper at the shrine of Moll. Jill was
also loved by all who waited on her, and sought after by not a few on
account of her great wealth, and had laughed her way through seventeen
years of life, to find herself suddenly minus father and money, with
nothing left in fact but an estate mortgaged to the smallest pebble,
and a heart-whole proposition from her chum Moll to "just come over the
wall" and restart laughing her way as her adopted sister through the
bit of life which might stretch from the moment of disaster to such
time that she should find a life companion with whom she could settle
down and live happily ever after!
But although Jill's head was outwardly covered with great plaits of
auburn hair, through which broke riotous, frivolous curls, the inside
held a distinctly active and developed brain, which had acquired the
habit of thinking deeply upon such subjects as woman, wife and
motherhood.
Added to this, which is already quite enough to put out of gear the
life of any girl brought up in convention bound England, she had a
heart as big as her outrageous longing for, and love of adventure,
neither of which bignesses she had so far been able to satisfy.
As I have said this was quite bad enough, but through and above all,
her whole rather exceptional being was desirous of love. Not the shape
which clothes its diseased body in soiled robes of imitation something
at one and elevenpence three farthings per yard, and under ferns in
conservatories, in punts up back-waters, in stifling tea-rooms, hotels,
theatres and night-clubs, exchanges sly look for sly look and soiled
mouth for soiled kisses, in its endeavours to pass itself off as that
wonder figure which, radiant of brow and humorous of mouth, deep of
breast and profound of thought, stands motionless in high and by-ways
with hands outstretched to those futile figures, blindly hurrying past
the Love they fondly imagine is to be found in the front row of the
chorus, the last row of the cinema, or the unrestrained licence of the
country house.
Jill had never flirted and therefore had known no kiss excepting her
father's matutinal and nocturnal peck. She looked upon her beautiful
body as some jewel to be placed in the hands of the man she loved upon
her wedding-night, so it was as unsoiled and as untainted as her mind,
although she knew that once she loved she would go down before that
mighty force as a tree before a storm. Dull, you will say all this.
May be! but mighty refreshing in these days when amourette follows
amourette as surely as Monday follows Sunday, the only difference in
the stock being the trade mark, which stamps the one with the outline
of a perfect limousine, and the other with the front seat on the top of
an omnibus; though believe me the Mondays and Sundays differ not at all.
Jill's ideas on franchise and suffrage, and a "good time" as seen from
the standpoint of the average society girl or woman were absolutely nil.
She wanted first of all a master, then a home, and then children, many
of them.
Her idea of love was utter submission to the man she should love. Her
ideal of happiness his happiness, and although she had no fixed idea of
her home, she was positively certain she did not want lodge gates and
forelock-pulling peasantry, nor tame deer inside elaborate palings, nor
the white-capped nurse stiff with starch trundling a perambulator with
a fat, ordinary, rosy heir to the palings, deer, and pullers of locks.
So she sweetly but very definitely said no to a certain millionaire,
who had earned his banking account and the thanks of many thousands by
his invention of a non-popping champagne cork, and who, adoring the
girl, had hastened the very day the news of the smash had spread
through the country, like fire on a windy day, to lay his portly self
and all that thereunto adhered at her beautiful feet. The disgust of
her relatives upon her want of common sense was outspoken; for having
overstocked their respective quivers with commonplace female arrows,
they quite naturally looked with dismay upon an almost beautiful and
_quite_ penniless and homeless girl about whom, _after_ having read the
will they referred to as "poor Jill, for whom I _suppose_ we _must_ do
_something_ don't you know?" with a quavering inflection at the end of
the phrase.
But Jill did not stop on refusing the eligible owner of an unmortgaged
estate. No! she set out to look for work off her own bat, and actually
found it in that occupation which, far less paid than more, opens up a
perfect vista of possible adventures under the guise of a travelling
companion.
She spoke French, German, and Italian like natives, which was all to
the good. She danced like a Vernon Castle, knew almost as much about
fencing as a Saviolo, shot like a George V., and rode like a cowboy,
all of which qualifications she erased from her list on the termination
of the freezing half-hour of her first interview with her first
would-be employer, who, until the enumeration of the above sporting
qualifications, had seemed desirous of taking her along with a
bronchitic pug to winter in Bath.
Since then she had done Europe and Africa pretty well with never the
suspicion of an adventure, and, when you meet her on the station of
Ismailiah, where you change for Port Said, she was returning from
Australia, with a wardrobe at last beginning to fret about the hem, and
shine around the seams, a condition accounted for by the emaciated
condition of her purse; a memory of good things and hours worn thin by
the constant nerve-wracking routine of capsules, hot drinks, hot water
bottles, moods and shawls; and a fully developed rebellion in her whole
being against the never-ending vista which stretched far into the
future, of other such hours, days, months, yea! even years!
But everything was capped by a still more fully developed decision to
brave it out, and out, and out, rather than return to ask the help of
those whose hand-clasp had weakened in ratio to the dwindling of the
gold in her coffers.
CHAPTER III
And why did she stand by herself?
This is no riddle, the answer being too easy. Men would have answered,
"Guessed in once, she was pretty!" And the women would guess in once
too, but would keep silent, the pretty ones merely smiling, having
sampled the Coventry-sending powers of plain women in the majority on
board, and the plain ones from that unwillingness inborn or inherited
in every woman to admit good looks, or good anything for that matter,
in a member of her own sex.
And she _was_ pretty, with the prettiness of youth allied to genuine
red-gold hair, and the bluest of blue eyes, which looked at you in
disconcertingly straight manner from between the longest black lashes
you ever saw.
She sounds very much like a "Dainty Novel heroine," but I have met her
and I know, and she also had a mouth turned up at the corners, and the
loveliest teeth, a nose which also turned up, not unduly, and a skin on
which lay the merest suspicion of powder like dust on a butterfly's
wings, also two jet black _grains de beauté_, one at the corner of her
mouth and the other on top of the left cheek, just under the outside
corner of the eye.
_Ravissante_! Her beauty was nature's own, and she had the loveliest,
longest, narrowest feet ever shod and silken hosed by Audet, and as
lovely out of the silken hose as in.
But all that, though it pleased the eye, did not really constitute her
real charm. It was more the idea of strength, and buoyancy, and the
love of humanity she gave out, that attracted young and old, rich and
poor, dogs, children, and the sick of soul and body to her.
The type of woman who owns the husband of a roaming disposition and has
not got accustomed to the disposition, or the woman eager to acquire a
husband of any disposition whatever, liked her not at all, failing to
see that she was genuinely uninterested in other people's male
belongings.
Those who think to lure men by the mystery of a tobacco cloud
permanently around the head, or to stimulate by the sight of a glass
which looks like lemonade but isn't, nestling among the everlasting
cards and cigarette debris, disliked her _intensely_, not so much
because she did not ally herself _with_ them, as for the fact that she
did not range herself _against_ them, having even been heard to remark
that the world would be a deadly dull place is everyone enjoyed the
same pleasure and the same wickedness. Just three more items to add to
the long list against her on this particular voyage.
Firstly, had she not one sizzling Red Sea day appeared with her hair
hanging in two great plaits reaching below her knees? Which escapade
might have escaped uncensured if accompanied by the whitish eye-lashes,
forceful freckles, and pungent aroma usually allied to reddish hair,
but as it was, the combination of the red-gold glory with blackest
curling lashes, skin like satin, and the faintest trace of Devonshire
lavender, created a perfect scandal among those whose locks were either
limply curtaining their owner's cheeks or blinding the eye, or câchéd
under some head covering were acquiring a wave which might with luck
last out the dinner and bridge hours.
Secondly, although a penniless companion, she allowed no familiarity
from the men and no condescension from the women; and thirdly, her
shoes gave reason for envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness,
being on the day you met her exquisite champagne coloured things, her
critics little guessing that the reason she wore them was that she had
none thicker, and no money wherewith to buy any.
This last point sounds almost absurd, but those who know will any day
back the woman with dainty ankles, pretty feet, the glimpse of white
lace and a plain face, against the really beautiful countenance up
above the shapeless ankle-calf combine, and the foot that in two days
gives a shoe the shape of the bows of a dinghey.
So because of all these reasons, also because all the nice, wise people
who loved her having stayed behind, she stood alone, her heart
clamouring for life and adventure, which comes to about the same thing,
and which she sensed is to be found so much more easily in the East she
was leaving behind in the space of a few hours. The rest of her
rebelling against the West, the monotonous days on the boat racing her
back to England in November, with nothing to do, too much to eat, and
the trail of medicine glasses, cushions, gouty, dyspeptic, and neurotic
employers lengthening into the drab future.
"Allah! help me!" she whispered, and really meaning it, as she turned
to look again at the camels stalking on into the desert, and finding
herself instead looking straight into the eyes of an Arab standing
behind her.
And here, I hope, endeth the dullest part of the book.
CHAPTER 17
Arabs as a race are tall, most of them having a grave look of nobility,
all without exception, inheriting from their forefathers Ishmail or
Johtan that air of studied calm, that seldom smiling, never restless
attitude, which expresses the height of dignity and gravity. There
were many of them in this motley station crowd, also Bedouins, smaller
of stature, and the members of the many other tribes which go to
populating the great Egyptian desert. But not one of all the men,
magnificent though some of them were, could compare with Hahmed the
Camel King, who, standing alone and motionless with folded arms, let
his eyes rest upon this most fair woman from the West.
Jill was accustomed to being looked at, from the impudent stare of
Frenchmen, the open look of admiration, both male and female, of the
Italian, to the never-to-be-forgotten look of Berlin that had seemed to
undress and leave her naked in the street.
But now under grave scrutiny she felt the colour, which made her even
more lovely, rising from chin to brow, and longed to cover her face or
to run away and hide, though there was nothing but a wondering respect
in the Arab's eyes.
For one moment his eyes met hers, then she slowly lowered the heavy
white lids with their fringe of curling lashes, and, turning, stood
looking out over the desert, where she no longer saw the stretches of
yellow sand, nor the airing of camels stalking away into the distance,
nor the mud houses and patient bullocks. No! nothing of all these, but
instead, just one man's face, oval, lean-featured, eyes brilliantly
black and deep-set under thick eyebrows, an aquiline nose, the lower
part of the face covered in a sharp pointed beard, and the thick virile
hair by a snow-white kahleelyah, bound by a band to the well-shaped
head.
A man was he indeed with a width of shoulder rarely seen in an Arab,
standing well over six foot, in spotless white robes sweeping to his
feet, a cloak of finest black cloth falling over all in swinging folds,
failing, however, to hide that look of tremendous strength which
impresses one so in some of the long-limbed, lean, muscular inhabitants
of the desert.
Jill walked over to the edge of the platform which, as a rule is only
raised a few inches above the rail, and after a few seconds beckoned
her employer's special dragoman, who had annexed himself at Cairo and
presumably would only be shaken off on deck.
He came immediately, all smiles.
All the so-called lower classes smiled upon Jill, from the coster in
Whitechapel to the Kaffir at the Cape. And why? Why, because she
smiled when she asked a service.
"Be more dignified!" she would indignantly reply when remonstrated with
about the native. "They certainly show a varied degree of blackness in
their skin, and have less brains than some of us, but they are human,
so I shall continue to smile if I like," and smile she did, and they
smiled too and ran to do her bidding.
Not that she indulged in the "our dear black brother" views of those
people who, from utter lack of knowledge upon the subject, believe that
with the exception of a certain difference in the pigment which
embellishes the skin, the lowest type of Hottentot has the same ideals,
desires, and outlook on life as the highest born, or, as I think to be
more correct, I should say, the cleanest living individual in the
Western Hemisphere.
She did not approve of the promiscuous mingling of the white and black
as is so often and so unhappily seen in London, where a servant girl
maybe, will ecstatically spend her evening out under the protection of
some ebony hued product of Africa and, labouring under the delusion
that the dusky swain is the direct descendant of Cetewayo, also totally
lacking all knowledge of African history, will fondly imagine herself a
queen in embryo, instead of which she is merely the means to feed the
lustful longing for the white in some Cape boy, who believes he hides
the roll of his native walk under an exaggerated skirt to his
over-padded coat.
And she equally hated to see the social butterfly smile upon the
high-born native of India, angling for his lakhs with the bait of a
fair white skin upon which to fasten a string of priceless pearls,
gathering her fastidious skirts about her at the sign of any feeling
more human than that which she would allow from a respectable bank
manager, recoiling disdainfully from a man whose ancestors were mighty
in the land, when hers were just beginning to break through the crust
of serfdom, as a toad will crack and throw back the caked mud under
which it has blissfully slept.
As a preventative to social and racial mishaps she thoroughly endorsed
the theory that "East is East and West is West, etc." But in her
heart, or rather in her somewhat searching brain, she had often
wondered if there could be no exception to the ruling, if half of the
East and half of West could never combine to make a perfect whole.
All smiles the dragoman ran forward, saluting her with hands to
forehead, mouth, and breast.
"Do you know who that man is?" she asked, indicating with a scarcely
perceptible movement of the head the Arab who had not moved a muscle
since she had turned away from him to look at his homeland, the desert.
"'Im! My lady!" replied the native, eyes and white teeth flashing as
he essayed in his best Anglo-French to please the beautiful foreigner
who so graciously spoke to him. "'Im? Oh, 'im! is Hahmed the Camel
King. 'Im provide the camels for Government 'Camels Corpse,'" pointing
to the Camelry Corps, where perspiring Tommies and a seething mass of
brown beasts were literally raising the dust on the other side of the
railroad. "'Im," he continued, "is ze great man, from far away over ze
Canal from ze greates' and best part of South Arabia. Is rich, oh!
rich! Oh! so very rich--_riche comme le diable, Madame_. Is master of
many villages, many peoples, but is 'ow say, my lady--_est
étrange_--and feared. 'Is word is ze law and 'is arm is ze iron and 'e
can also shoot ze fly on ze top of Cheops!"
The man paused, literally from want of breath.
"He is evidently a very fine man," said Jill, it must be confessed a
little disappointedly, having expected something a little less ordinary
in the way of history, "but I can't say I see anything strange about it
all!"
The dragoman, slightly downcast by the lack of enthusiasm on the part
of his audience, took in a huge quantity of the absolutely stifling air
and started afresh.
"Oh! _mais, Madame_, ze strange zing is zat wiz all 'is rich, all 'is
camel, all 'is 'ouse--ah! I forgot zat is 'is Ismailiah 'ouse,"
pointing a long, brown finger to a huge pink edifice, standing like a
huge pink birthday cake under the blazing sun on the edge of the
town--"'e 'as no woman--no not an one--not wife--not lady--zere is
tales of one wife long ago over zere," pointing vaguely in the
direction he imagined South Arabia might be, "but feared, we say and
ask nozing--no! ze great Hahmed live alone--not zere------" Once more
pointing contemptuously to the pink abode. "Zat but a business
'ouse--ze most beautiful place in one oasis! Ze Flat Oasis! Ah
Madame! _comme c'est 'belle_--I who 'ave been on camel business can
tell, ze 'ouse, ze shade, ze water--but no lady, no children, no son,
no one--'e go and sleep and live all by self alone--_triste_, Madame,
because 'e is ze great, ze just, but go always alone in ze night to 'is
oasis _bien aimée_ and------"
And here the uplifting of an angry guttural voice caused him to turn
and run hurriedly towards a figure vehemently signalling with a huge
fawn-coloured sun-shade lined with green.
And as he ran the soul of the desert, born of the sun, palms, ennui,
flies, the sand, and Allah knows what besides, suddenly sat up in
Jill's eyes and laughed, and as she laughed the words "Go always alone
in ze night to 'is oasis _bien aimée_" rang in the girl's ears, as a
strange and startling idea flashed across her mind.
For and against the idea ranged her thoughts; upheld one moment by the
insistent clamouring of her whole soul for freedom; combated the next
by the inherited deference to convention planted by long dead
generations in the mind soil of almost every British subject.
Why should she not break away and strike out on her own, if only for a
few hours? But would she not be running into positive physical danger
if she did so? Still it would only be for a few hours--a swift ride
into the desert--a glimpse of a desert home--a break anyhow in the
deadly, soul-stifling monotony of her daily round. Yes! but what did
she know of the man outside the eulogies of the dragoman, who for all
she knew might be leagued with him in nefarious schemes.
And yet, no one cared if she lived or died in soul or body. Marry she
would not for years, and years, though of a truth that prospect would
become more and more remote as youth vanished and the waters of her
wealth remained at low tide. But the most irresistible argument in
favour of the mad idea was that so far she had not had one single real
adventure.
"Allah!" she whispered, clasping her hands involuntarily. "Where is my
path? Show me the way out!"
And even as she unclasped her hands, she heard a faint tinkle of coins
in the well-worn little bag hanging from her wrist.
"Allah has heard!" she murmured to herself, as she fished for a coin.
"Heads I speak--tails I go back to England," she continued, placing the
silver coin on her thumb nail, flipping it into the air, and catching
it on the back of her hand. "Heads. Oh!"
And giving herself no time to think, whilst the soul in her eyes first
frowned and then laughed in glee, she turned and crossed the few yards
covered by the sand which for centuries blown hither and hither had
been waiting to make a carpet for her lovely feet to tread when Allah
in his graciousness should show her the path, which would lead her to
the way out.
CHAPTER V
Jill had an entrancing speaking voice. She spoke on a low note, and
having trained the muscles of the throat to relax or tighten at will,
she was able to throw all manner of inflection into the words, and all
shades of tone and melody into the chords of the beautiful musical
instrument which is so terribly neglected the world over.
So that when she spoke, her words sounded like the chiming of distant
bells in the ears of the man, and his heart seemed likely to be
engulfed in the golden stream of a voice through which continuously
rippled a gentle laughter.
"Monsieur will forgive me for speaking in this abrupt way, but the
moments are few in which to make my request. I hear that in the desert
is a beautiful oasis, and many beautiful Arabian horses. I have never
seen an oasis, for you see I know nothing of Egypt, but I once had an
Arab mare. She was wonderful and white. Perhaps Monsieur has some of
her brothers or sisters? And just for once I should like to see the
desert stars at night, and the desert sun at dawn. Could Monsieur take
me to see these things if----" And then the golden voice stopped
short, and the girl involuntarily took one step backward.
Those who know the race know that the Arab has a tremendous control
over his emotions. He can love and kill in one moment, but until the
woman is literally swept off her feet, or the man or woman is dead, in
a heap, neither by voice or gesture will he betray the passion
consuming him.
The voice, the greatest betrayer of mankind, is especially under
control of these exceedingly strong men. No matter what paroxysm of
rage, revenge, or desire may be shaking the man to the innermost depth
of his being, his voice flows on just as musically, just as softly.
But Jill, being observant, had noticed that although the hands lay
folded on the crossed arms, the nails were dug into the palms, and
raising her eyes to the sombre face for explanation, had encountered
two eyes blazing with a mighty anger.
There are many ways in which to incite the Arab to wrath, but believe
me, the way which will most surely lead to sudden murder, or to long
bloody feud drawn out over many years, passing from generation to
generation, is the way of _ridicule_.
Let him think that you are laughing at him, and I should advise you to
take the nearest camel, train, or boat, or any other means of
locomotion to hand, and fly the country.
The _country_ mind you, for hide you ever so craftily, he will find
you, even though your hair be white, and your figure bent with the
passage of years, and then, only _then_ will he be appeased, when the
real or imagined jest at his expense has been lost in the deep colour
of your rich red blood.
So that when the Arab spoke a light of understanding dawned upon Jill,
for, touching his forehead, mouth, and a spot on his raiment just above
his heart with his right hand, and murmuring the customary salutation,
"May peace be upon you," he paused for a moment, and then continued,
"But it pleases Madame to jest with me. She awaits the train to take
her to the boat, how therefore could she come into the desert to-night?"
But Jill was absolutely unafraid! Having known no master, she cared
not one _sou_ for any son of man, or any untoward position she might
find herself in, so opening wide her very beautiful eyes she simply
smiled back into the angry ones which looked down upon her from some
considerable height, and, with a little shrug of her shoulders, a habit
acquired from one of a succession of foreign governesses, she made
reply in her turn, and in words which though absolutely common-place
served as the golden key with which to unlock the bejewelled, golden
casket of this man's love.
In any Western country the situation would have been _absurd_! An
English girl, minus scenery and every accessory due to a book heroine,
capable in five brief minutes of smiting the heart of one of Egypt's
most renowned men!
Ridiculous!
Perhaps in the lands of fogs and fires, grey skies and east winds, but
not in Egypt, where the sun, sky, winds, and memories serve rather to
force the growth of the love-plant and hasten the budding of the
passion-flower.
Studiously buttoning up the last button which she always left undone on
her last pair of suede gloves, smooth as a newly born whippet puppy,
and as yet unruffled from the cleaner's manipulations, she spoke with a
ripple of laughter which made it impossible to decide if she was
speaking seriously or not.
"Madame permits herself to do just as she pleases. If by some
unforeseen circumstances she were to miss the train, would she be taken
to see the oasis, and the horses, and the stars?"
And let it be understood that, in her utter ignorance of deserts, she
imagined the oasis could be reached after a journey of a few hours.
For one moment there was dead silence between these two, the strings of
whose lives Fate was inextricably mixing in her fingers, palsied by
age, and fretted by the constant tugging and straining of those other
threads which, in moments of senile anger or childishness, she gets
into such hopeless tangles.
Then as the shriek of an engine whistle shrilled faintly in the
distance the man spoke, his voice sinking to that deep note which no
other nation attains, resembling in no way the Russian bass, and which
in the Arab upon rare occasions alone betrays some emotional upheaval.
"Listen, woman of the West, who even at this moment stands in my
shadow, between that faint engine whistle and the grinding of the
brakes as the train comes to a standstill, you must make your choice.
A few moments ago I saw you toss a silver coin and decide quickly that
which had been decided already for you since the beginning of all time.
"Once more you shall cast your die. The table is the sand of Egypt,
the dice-cup is your hand, the dice are your life and my life, the
stakes our happiness. Decide again and quickly for I hear the rumbling
of wheels. Make known your choice, for although we travellers through
the desert of life lie down to sleep, and rise again to live, to fight,
to hate, and above all to love, in obedience to the will which counteth
and heapeth the particles of sand upon this station, yet are we
allowed, to voice our desires, being mouth-pieces of Fate. Nay! wait
one moment until I make clear the way, so that you may not put down
your beautiful feet blindly upon a trackless waste of doubt and
mistrust. If you come with me to-night, you come alone. I have no
woman in my desert home, excepting one old hunchback slave, a withered
bough but faithful. No woman has set foot within the belt of palms
surrounding my house, and without the sand stretches! Mile upon mile
of pathless sand!
"You will come into the desert alone with me, and the sand will close
in upon you and keep you in the desert alone--with me!
"If you come, be at the gate of yonder pink house at nine to-night; if
you are not there I shall know that your heart has failed."
But the soul of the desert glinted for one moment in the English girl's
eyes.
"There may be no woman there, but there will be a man--a man indeed!"
she whispered, as though communing with herself.
And the eyes so soft and blue looked up, and then down, down into the
soul of Hahmed the Arab, so deeply indeed that a shiver ran from her
brain to her finger-ends, causing her to draw herself together sharply
and to turn and walk away.
* * * * * *
So it came about as it was written that she had decided when the brakes
grinded, and that after retrieving her employer for the last time, and
placing her in a dusty corner of the stifling carriage, she slipped
away on the excuse of finding her dressing-case, which she did, taking
it with her into a corner of the deserted waiting-room just as the
engine announced its immediate departure.
Without a qualm she watched "her crowd" jostle and push their way into
the small carriages, and the train, move out, leaving her alone--alone
in the desert town, alone with the dweller of that desert.
A wave of exultation rushed through her as she thought of this her
great adventure, of this her freedom for at least a short while, and of
the unknown quantity she was mixing into her portion of daily bread
which, up to this moment, had consisted of the plainest, wholesomest,
most uninteresting bun-loaf, not even resembling that extremely dull
and unappetising cake named, I believe, Swiss roll, which hides its
staleness under the glass case of Life's shop window, lying fly-blown
on the plate and heavily and unimaginatively on the digestive powers of
those who consume it for the thin layer of jam to be discovered between
its wedges of sullen dough. A soul-stifling mess to be found in the
drab sideboards of most English households along with its sister made
of a pastry so flimsy that it chokes, filled with a cream that is
merely froth, the whole hiding its cheapness under an application of
highly coloured paint essence, the consuming of which will prove as
fatal as the Swiss roll.
So she raised her hands to the grimy ceiling of the dirty waiting-room
and whispered to the dust, the buzzing flies, and vivid ray of sunlight,
"Verily, and indeed I have burned my boats behind, or perhaps I should
say my liner before me!"