The sun was sinking when Jill moved, stretched a little, half opened
her eyes, and closing them turned over and went to sleep again for
about two minutes.
Then she half opened her eyes again, stretched out her hand to pull
uncomprehendingly at the white netting round her bed, through which she
could see a blaze of red, gold, and purple; and laughing in the vacant
manner of the delirious, or those but half-awake, tried to collect her
thoughts sufficiently to explain the strangeness of her surroundings,
sitting up with a jerk as the doings of the last twenty-four hours
suddenly stirred in her awakened mind.
Wide-eyed she sat with her hands clasped round her knees, whilst the
deadly stillness seemed to rise as a wall around her, cutting her off
from laughter, love, and life, until wild unreasoning fear, seizing her
very soul, caused her to tear and rend the mosquito nets, and force a
way through them and out of the tent.
For a while she stood holding to the tent rope, looking this way and
that for the sign of some living thing. Before her stretched one vast
plain of gravel, miles upon miles of it receding into nothingness, on
each side the same, behind her tent above, the palm trees waving gently
in the evening breeze, and above again, a sky such as is to be seen
only in this part of the world, for travel you ever so widely, you will
find nothing to rival a desert sunset in its design and colour.
Above her head seemed to be stretched a canopy, made by some Eastern
magic, of a mixture of colours woven by the hands of Love and Hate,
Passion and Revenge, underneath which she stood disheartened,
dishevelled, in crumpled clothes and shoeless feet, with fear-distended
eyes in a fatigue-shadowed face, searching vainly for something alive
and near, be it human, dog, horse or camel.
Owing to a sudden nervous reaction brought about by the cessation of
all physical and mental effort, the girl's power of reasoning had gone,
along with her will, her common sense, and her fearlessness.
That there was another tent beside her own made no more impression on
her mind than the fact that a slight smoke haze softened the intense
blue of the sky on her right.
She was absolutely terrified and ravenously hungry, also unwashed,
therefore altogether unhappy, so with no more ado she flung out her
arms, and with a great sob rushed headlong into that which frightened
her most, the unlimited, uninhabited desert.
Her shoeless feet made hardly a sound as she sped like a deer from the
desolation she imagined, to the certain desolation and death in front
of her, but she had hardly cut her little feet over more than twenty
yards when Hahmed, the swiftest runner in Egypt, was speeding after her.
"Allah! Be merciful to me! For behold, I fail to keep from harm that
which Thou hast placed in my keeping," he murmured, as he ran abreast
with the girl for a few yards, then putting his arm around her lifted
her off her feet, holding her gently to him, and speaking no word until
the paroxysm of sobs had subsided.
"Where to fly you, O! woman, and whyfore are you thus afraid?"
"I was simply terrified. I--I--thought you had left me all alone to
die, and I just ran and ran to find someone or something else beside
myself in the desert," answered a voice, muffled by the snowy garments
of the man who held her so gently against his heavily beating heart.
"I will take you back to your tent, to the bath and repast which awaits
you. I dared not loosen your raiment without your permission, so
having removed the shoes from off your feet, laid you upon your bed,
but when you are bathed, I pray you wrap yourself in the soft garments
you will find, and clapping your hands make known to your slave that
you are ready to eat."
"Oh, there is a servant to wait on me. I thought we were quite alone."
"I am your slave," simply replied the Arab, as he placed Jill upon her
feet in front of her tent, where she stood with her hand on his arm,
rooted to the spot by the glory of the sky, whilst the man gazed down
upon her, as the dying sun struck the gold of her hair, the blue of her
eyes, and the cream of her neck.
"You, who are of those who are versed in music, and of those who can
make poetry, describe that glory to me," imperiously demanded Jill,
after a moment of silence, with that suddenness and complete change of
mood which falls occasionally upon all women, causing the meek to
scratch like cats, and the strong to give in, often to their
everlasting undoing.
"Bathe the white body of thy beloved in the blue-green of Egypt's
river, so that the coolness and fairness may give delight to thee!
Drape the satin veil of deepest blue about the red glory of thy love's
hair, and bind a band of gold, set deep is sapphires, above the twin
pools of heaven, which are her eyes. Set turquoise, threaded with
finest gold, a-swing in the rose-leaf of her ears, to fall and wind
about the snow of her white neck.
"Fasten the blue flower which spies upon thee from the shelter of the
golden corn, within the glory of her hair.
"Perfume her hair and her breasts, anoint her hands and her feet, and
wrap thy delight in a garment of passion, sparing not the shades
therein, for in them shalt thou find thy delight.
"Let the garment be heavy with the gold of love, rich with the purples
of passion, aflame with the crimson of thy desire, forgetting not the
caress of the rose, nor the light mingling of opal and saffron, and the
faint touch of amethyst and topaz, in which shall _she_ find _her_
delight.
"Bind thy love with the broad bands of the setting sun so that she
cleaves unto thee, and carry her unto the twilight of thy tent, which
shall slowly darken until the roof thereof is swathed in purple gloom,
through which shall shine the stars of thy beloved.
"And there lie down in thy delight, until the hour of dawn calleth thee
to prayer."
The voice was stilled, whereupon Jill lifted her face bathed in rosy
colour, which might or might not have been the reflection from the sky,
whilst her red mouth quivered ever so slightly, and her great blue eyes
looked for a moment into those of the man, and as quickly looked away.
So seductive was she in her youth and utter helplessness that the man
stepped back two paces, and saluting her for whom his whole being
craved, gathered his cloak about him and departed to his tent.
And Jill also entered her tent, and having earlier and under the lash
of terror departed therefrom in blind haste, stood amazed.
She had imagined a mattress, a rug, an earthenware basin on the ground,
and sand over everything, and on the top of the sand scorpions,
spiders, and all that creepeth and flieth both by day and by night.
Not at all.
A carpet of many colours stretching to the corners of the desert tent,
which is not peaked like the European affair, into which you crawl
fearing to bring the whole concern about your ears, when if you should
be over tall you hit the top with your head. It was as big as a
fair-sized room, high enough for a man of over six feet to stand erect,
not so broad as long, with sides which, lifted according to the
direction of the sun, and through the uplifted portion of which the
faint delicious evening breeze blew refreshingly. A white enamelled
bedstead covered in finest, whitest linen stood in the centre of the
carpet, surrounded by a white net curtain hanging from the tent
ceiling, each foot in a broad tin of water. In the corners were a
canvas folding dressing-table, a full length mirror, a long chair and a
smaller one, over which hung diaphanous garments of finest muslin, and
a shimmering wrap of pearl white satin, and through a half-drawn
curtain which hung across the narrower end of the tent, the vision of a
big canvas bath filled with water, big white towels, and another canvas
table upon which stood all the things necessary to a woman's toilet.
So that it was a very refreshed Jill who, wrapped in a loose Turkish
bath-gown, with little feet thrust into heelless slippers, went in
search of raiment. And wonderfully soft, simple things she found into
which she slipped, and out of which she slipped again, holding them out
at arm's length for inspection, then burying her face in the soft
perfumed folds in very thankfulness.
And she laughed a delicious little laugh, of pure glee as she replaced
the garments on the chair, and slithering hither and thither in her
unaccustomed footgear, tidied the tent and made her bed, regarding
ruthfully the torn mosquito curtain.
"Oh, for a maid," she sighed, as she wrestled with the mattress, and
"Oh, for dear Babette," she sighed again, as she wrestled with the
masses of her hair.
And the tent was filled with a blaze of light, as, wrapped in her
bath-gown, she stood in front of the steel mirror, plaiting and
unplaiting, twisting and pinning her hair, until with an exclamation of
impatience she let it all down, holding great strands out at arm's
length, through which she passed the comb again and again, until the
red-gold mass shone, and curled, and rippled about her like a cloak of
satin.
It is hopeless to try and describe the shining, waving masses which
curled round her knees, and fluttered in tendrils round her face, and
it would have been hard to find anything anywhere so beautiful as Jill
when, clad in the loose silk garment and soft satin wrapper, with her
perfumed hair swirling about her, she stood entranced at the opening of
her tent, until the sun suddenly disappearing left her in darkness,
whereupon she clapped her hands quickly.