It was a very beautiful girl who stood by the fire listening to the
intense silence which precedes the dawn. The golden shimmering garment
fell from her shoulders in soft folds, clinging here and there as
though it loved the beautiful form it covered; her feet slipped in and
out of the golden mules, in which, try as she would, she could not
walk; her hair fell in two great plaits far below her knees; she was
perfumed with the perfumes of Egypt, than which there is no more to say.
And she was afraid.
There was absolutely no sound, save for the fall of a charred log which
sounded like a pistol shot, the rustle of her raiment, which sounded
like the incoming tide of some invisible sea, and the quick intake of
her breath, which might have meant unadulterated terror, and--did.
She shivered slightly, for of a sudden she saw a woman's face in a
corner unreached by the light of the lamp. A long brown hand drew back
the coarse hair, which curled and tangled under a veil, black brows
frowned down on great eyes, which looked at her steadily, but the
mouth, crimson as blood, parted in a smile wonderful to behold in its
understanding, as Jill called softly:
"Speak, woman! who are you?"
But when the silence remained unbroken, and the girl, rushing swiftly
across the room, touched just ordinary wood, she looked quickly round
for escape; then hesitating, raised her hands and clapped them softly;
raised them again when the silence remained unbroken, dropped them and
once more shook with terror, which was really fatigue, when a something
rustled behind, being in truth the catching of her garment on the
fretted edge of a table; then once more she clapped her hands as she
whispered, so low that the words hardly seemed to carry beyond the
firelight:
"Hahmed! Hahmed!"
Whereupon there was a faint rustle, the swinging to and fro of the
curtain door, and the man stood before her. Not a sound broke the
stillness, not a movement caused a flicker to the name of the shaded
hanging lamp, which, just above the girl's head, threw down the light
on the radiance of her hair, and the wonder of her body which the
diaphanous garment half concealed and half revealed.
Not a sign on the Arab's face, this dweller of the desert, whose
forefathers in wonderment had watched the ways of wisdom with which
Solomon in all his glory had ruled more than one fair and obstreperous
woman among the scented Eastern sands.
Face to face they stood, whilst the racing blood fled from the girl's
face down to the finger-tips of her contradictory hands. The hands she
knew so well, the square back, the square finger-tips, the long,
square, high-mooned, deeply laid nail. Hands which, coming to her down
the centuries through Quaker and through Puritan, were calling to her
to stand firm and hold the scales well-balanced, whilst the soft,
rounded palm, hidden in the golden fringe of her garment, and the
over-sensitive finger-tips, with little nerve-filled cushions at the
end of each, clamoured aloud for beauty and sweetness, tenderness and
mastery, as the great man, with the beads of Allah slipping noiselessly
through his fingers, reading the girl's thoughts as though they were
written on the wall, marked and watched with sombre eyes in the
breathless silence of the coming dawn.
Slowly the girl raised her eyes and scanned the man, from the
snow-white turban on the dark head, the softness of the silken shirt,
showing through the long, open, orange satin front of the voluminous
coat, which reached almost to the ankles, leaving exposed the trousers
of softest white linen, fastened close above the leather shoes, whilst
quite subconsciously she wondered what he would look like in European
evening dress.
Slowly she stretched out her long thin arms, until they almost touched
the golden embroidery on the coat, as slowly she turned her hands, and
looked at the glittering nails, the hands she knew and feared so much,
and turning them back again, with a little smile drew a finger-tip over
the hills and valleys of the palms. Higher still, until the pink and
scented palms were on a line with the man's stern mouth, whilst a sigh,
faint as the passing of a fly's wing, left his lips, as taking the
little hands in his, he drew the girl closer yet.
"Behold, you are beautiful, O! woman, whom I would take to wife. You
start! Why! For what manner of man have you taken me? Did you think
that being an Arab means being without honour? Nay! When my eyes fell
upon you standing in the sun, I knew that my heart had found its
desire, that the woman who for all these years had, invisible to
others, walked beside me in my waking hours, and hovered near me in my
dreams, had come to life; that before me, if Allah willed, stood my
wife and the mother of my children. I know that the English race, from
lack of sun perchance, love not in a moment with a love that can
outlast eternity. I do not ask you if you love me, only that you will
be my wife, honouring me above all men, delighting me with such moments
as you can give me.
"Listen, O! woman. I ask of you nothing until you shall love me. You
shall draw the curtains of your apartment, and until you call me, you
shall go undisturbed. _When_ you shall call me--then--ah!" and his
voice sank to infinite depths of tenderness as he drew her to
him--"then you will be all mine--all--lily of the night you are
now--rose of the morning you will be then, and I--I will wear that rose
upon my heart. You are even as a necklace of rich jewels, O! my
beloved. Your eyes are the turquoise, your teeth are the white pearls,
even as the ravishing marks upon your face,[1] and may be upon that
part of your body upon which my eyes may not rest, are as black pearls
of the rarest. Your lips are redder than rubies, and your fingers are
of ivory.
"And one day shall that necklace be placed in my hands, and not alone
the necklace, but the white alabaster pillar of your body, from your
feet like lotus flowers, to the golden rain of your hair, shall you be
mine.
"And you shall not make me wait too long, for behold, I love you.
Allah! how I love you---as only we men of the desert love. Allah help
me," and holding the girl in the bend of his left arm, so that she felt
the racing of his heart, he raised his eyes and right hand to Heaven.
"Allah! God of all, give me this rose soon!"
For one long moment the girl was still, with face as white as death,
and great eyes troubled even as the ocean when swept by gusts of wind;
for to the very depths of her stirred her heritage of tremendous
passions, untouched, unknown, whilst that which is in all women, from
queen to coster, coming down from the day when they were slaves, that
which urges them to cry aloud, "Master! Master!" upon their bended
knees, stirred not at all; so that even as her eyes, so was her soul
troubled, knowing that love had not yet laid hand to draw the curtains
from about her womanhood.
Freeing herself gently, she moved towards the fire, trailing the golden
raiment after her so that it pulled against the beauty of her body.
For a moment she stood unconsciously silhouetted against the wall,
virginal in her whiteness and her slimness, and yet, in her build
alone, giving such promise of greater beauty, in the maturity of love.
Slowly, whilst her mind worked, she traced the blue vein from her wrist
up her forearm, up until the finger stopped suddenly, upon a tiny mark
tattooed just above the elbow.
A faint shadow of incomprehension swept across the man's face, for from
nowhere, in one brief instant, a little wind, laden with straying
particles of fear, distrust and memories, swept between the two, as the
girl's voice, biting in its coldness, searing great scars upon the
Arab's raging, storming, totally hidden pride, let fall slowly,
cruelly, light-spoken, mocking words of French.
"Please tell me my woman's name, so that I may call her, for I would
disrobe, being overcome by a great desire to--sleep!"
[1]Moles are considered a great beauty among the Egyptian races.