The love-song broke the stillness of the desert night with the
suddenness and sweetness of the nightingale's call in the depths of an
English garden, laden with the perfume of June roses.
So softly as to be hardly distinguished from a whisper, the wonderful
voice called--called again and stopped, whilst the stars seemed to
gather closer until the sky hung as a canopy of softest purple velvet
picked out in silver lightings over the heads of those who listened to
the call of love, and from very ecstasy were still.
Again, and yet again, the voice cried aloud to its hearts desire,
rising like incense from some hidden spot in the village, twining among
the feathery leaves of the palms to drop like golden rain upon the
heart of some maiden, who doubtless sat upon her roof-top, modestly
veiled if in company of friends or relations, but otherwise, I am
positively certain, might be found peeking over the top of the
balustrade as have peeked the hearts' desires from the beginning of all
time.
Jill's face was white as death, as she too sat motionless, listening to
the love-song, whilst her great eyes blazing like the stars above
watched the man at her feet.
Closely veiled was she, for this was the eve of her wedding journey to
Cairo, also had the spirit of perversity prevailed within her for the
last month, causing her to resemble the coldness, warmth, eastiness,
sweetness, and general warpiness of the English climate, sparkling one
day with the dew-drop-on-the-grass-freshness of an early summer
morning, to hang the next as passing heavy on the hand as the November
fog upon the new hat brim; veering within twelve hours to the sharpness
of the East wind, which braces skin and temper to cracking point, and
to make up for it all, for one whole hour in the twenty-four,
resembling the exquisite moment of the June morning, in which you find
the first half-open rose upon the bush just outside your breakfast-room.
She was consumed with love of the man who lay at her feet, with the hem
of her rose-satin veil against his lips, and her heart had melted
within her as the love-song thrilled; and sobbed, and cried its love
through the night; melted until she suddenly leant forward and
stretching out her hand laid it for one moment on the man's dark head,
whereupon he rose to his knees so that the dark beauty of his face was
on a level with hers, the tale in his eyes causing her heavy white lids
to close, whilst speechless she lay back among her satin cushions.
"Woman! O! woman! The touch of your hand is like the first breeze
after the scorching heat of the day, and yet must I await your word
before the love that consumes me may throw aside its coverings to stand
in the perfumed freshness of the wind which maketh the delight of the
desert dawn.
"Together we have watched the goings out of the caravans on their way
to Cairo, laden with gifts and all that is necessary for the feasting
of those who are invited to attend the marriage of one who, by the
wonder of Allah's bounty, has been allowed to gather the glory of his
harvest. In your graciousness you have troubled your heart with
misgivings as to the outcome of a marriage between a Mohammedan and a
Christian, and I have answered you that there are many such marriages
in the East, of which great happiness has been the outcome, though not
such happiness as shall well forth from the union of our love."
And the man rose to his feet, standing straight as a pine against the
fretted wood-work of the balcony, and the girl watching him from under
the half-closed lids, suddenly tearing the veil from before her face,
sprang also to her feet, and stood against him with her face upraised,
so that the glory of her red mouth came to the level of his shoulder,
and the thudding of her heart caused the diamonds on the embroidery of
her vest to flash in the starlight, and the perfume of her skin to
scent the night air.
And the man bent down until it seemed that their lips must meet in this
their first kiss, but instead he withdrew one pace, though the agony of
love drew all blood from his face, until it shone palely in the gloom.
"Yea, woman, you love me, else would not your eyes be suffused with the
pain of unsatisfied longing! Yet have I not said that until you come
to me, and whisper, 'Hahmed, I love you!' until that moment I will not
in love touch even the fairness of your hand, though as Allah is above
us it taxes my strength to the uttermost shred.
"Perchance I am foolish, missing the untold and unknown delights of
wooing the woman of my heart, but in such wise am I built. I will have
all the fruit at the plucking or none, for where is the delight of the
sweetest peach if the stem, the leaves, the bloom have been bruised by
much handling.
"One day, nay in the stillness of one night shall I hear you call
me--then, ah! Allah!"
The voice stopped suddenly, though the man made no other sign, when the
girl before him, beside herself with anger which springs from love
denied, suddenly struck him full upon the mouth, and then shaking from
head to foot, with rage, and love, and fear, broke the deadly silence.
"Nay, man! In that you are mistaken, for you shall never hear my voice
calling you in love. That may become the woman of your land, but not
the woman from the West. I will marry you, for I will not bring
derision upon a man who has treated me with such courtesy and
gentleness. But love! Nay! better far buy some beautiful Circassian
upon our wedding-trip, for surely you shall never hear my voice
upraised in love!"
And gathering her swirling draperies about her, she made to depart,
knowing that she had spoken hastily, making vows she could not keep for
the very love she denied. Her hand was upon the silken hangings of her
door when she was swung round by the shoulder to face the very essence
of cold rage.
"So, woman, you are one of those who have ever hidden an inner chamber
of perversity, for surely had I thought to have come to the end of your
store of moods and whims. Listen! By striking me across the face you
have but made my love the greater, but as Allah is above me, I will
make you pay, as you say in your far cold country. You will come to me
one day, because such love as ours is not to be denied, and when you
come, for that blow I will bruise your lips until the red blood starts
from them, and I will bruise your body until marks of black show upon
its startling fairness, but above all will I bruise your soul with
unsatisfied longings, and unrequited desires, until you lie half dead
at my feet; then only will I take you in my arms and carry you to the
secret chamber, which Fate has prepared somewhere for the fulfilment of
my love."
And as the love-song died on the night, Jill passed slowly into the
inner chamber, failing to see the man kneel to kiss the rug impressed
by the passage of her little feet.
PART II
THE FLOWER
CHAPTER XXXII
The Rolls Royce containing representatives of the Savoy and Shepherds
in the shapes of beautifully gowned, handsome, placid, somewhat dull,
the Honourable Mary Bingham, pronounced Beam, her friend Diana Lytham,
and the rotund personalities of Sir Timothy and Lady Sarah Ann
Gruntham, drew up behind the menacing hand of a policeman alongside a
limousine containing representatives of Shepherds and the Savoy in the
shapes of two rotund-to-be daughters and one thin son of the race of
Gruntham, and the Honourable Mary's faded mother, who were all racing
home in the search of cool baths, or cooler drinks, or a few moments'
repose in a darkened room in which to forget the stifling half hours of
a series of social functions, given in honour of Cairo's most festive
week of the season, before starting on a dressing campaign against the
depredations made upon the skin by flies, heat, sand, wind, and
cosmetics.
The past middle-aged Sir Timothy of the latest birthday honours,
partner in life of Lady Gruntham, and therefore part possessor of the
Gruntham family, was whole owner of an army of chimney stacks which,
morning, noon, and night, belched thick oily smoke across one of
England's Northern counties in the process of manufacturing a
substitute for something; also he owned a banking account almost as big
as his honest old heart.
_La famille_ Gruntham were breaking their first wide-eyed, open-mouthed
_tour de monde_ in Cairo, having selected their hotel from an
advertisement in the A.B.C.
The Honourable Mary's nondescript mother sat patiently waiting the
decisive moment which would see her _en route_ once more to tea in her
bedroom and the last chapter of a Hichens novel, as she had patiently
awaited decisive moments for years, having uncomplainingly allowed the
reins which controlled the large estate, and large fortune, to slip
into the large, capable hands of her daughter, just as she had also
either as uncomplainingly criss-crossed the world in the wake of her
daughter's unaristocratically large footsteps, or submissively remained
at home for the hunting, in which field the Honourable Mary excelled.
Diana Lytham, spinster, through no want of trying to remedy the defect,
expert at bridge, razor-edged of tongue, but still youthful enough to
allow the lid of Pandora's casket to lift on occasions, also to be
described by those who feared the razor-edge as petulant instead of
peevish, and cendrée instead of sandy, passed the tedious moments of
waiting in a running commentary upon the idiosyncrasies and oddities of
the people and refreshments of the past hours, with a verve which she
fondly believed to be a combination of sarcasm and cynicism, but which,
in reality, was the kernel of the nut of spitefulness, hanging from the
withering bough of the tree of passing youth.
She, having an atrocious seat and knowing it, with the excuse of
England's winter dampness had fled the hunting. The Gruntham's younger
generation, knowing not the difference between a hunter and a
carriage-horse, had not given the subject a thought, but Mary Bingham
had made a whole-hearted sacrifice of the month she loved best because,
although loving her horses with a love of understanding, she knew that
the love in her heart for just the one man, was a love passing all
understanding whatsoever; feeling, therefore, that the sacrifice
brought its own reward in the qualified bliss of being near the one man
of her heart, whilst he passed weeks and months in the vain endeavour
to find their friend, who had been lost to them in the land of the
long-dead Pharaohs.
"Most annoying indeed--great negligence on the part of the city police
to allow a hold-up like this at _this_ hour of the afternoon. No
wonder Egypt's in the mess of ruins it is if this is the way traffic
has always been regulated," fumed and fretted Sir Timothy, whilst Mary
Bingham twirled her sunshade over her hat and gazed unseeingly at the
domes, cupolas, and minarets of the distant mosque of the Mohamet Ali;
and the thin heir of the race of Gruntham pondered upon the allurements
of the yashmak, which hid all but the eyes of the few Eastern women who
glanced timidly in passing at the occupants of the motor-cars.
"Now then, dearies," smiled the irate old knight's comfortable wife,
"don't you take on so, though I do allow it's a nuisance, considering I
have to get into my apricot satin to-night, with all those hooks. Pity
Sir John Wetherbourne ain't--isn't here, it u'd never have happened I'm
sure if he had been, seeing the way he has with him, though I can't say
as 'ow I approve of him so young and good-looking--and all these
Eastern hussies around--wandering about so much by himself. I do
wonder what 'appened--all right, lad, there's many a slip between the
aitch and the noovoh rich lip, _h'appened_ to the girl he's looking
for. Over a year ago you say, Mary, my dear, since she disappeared at
Ishmael, and not heard of since, and Sir John scouring Egypt with all
the energy I used to use to the kitchen floor, and not half the result
to show for it, eh, Timothy lad? Do you think he was in love with her,
or is it a case of--oh, what's them two words which mean that you can't
think of anything but one thing."
"_Idé fixe_," enlightened Diana Lytham.
"Eyedyfix! Sounds like one of those cocktails that heathen
feller-me-lad's always trying to poison me with, eh, Miss Diana,"
chuckled the old manufacturer, who worshipped the cloth of aristocracy,
and even reverenced the fringe.
"Oh, you bet he was in love all right, don't you think so, Mary
dearest," and the small grey eyes snapped spitefully across at the
good-natured, healthy girl, who had raised a weak resemblance of hate
in her whilom school friend's breast, more by the matter-of-course,
jolly way she had helped lame dogs over stiles than the fact that such
obstructions had never lain in her path.
"Are you talking about Jack and Jill? Everybody loved her, and she was
made to be loved, was beautiful, wilful Jillikins. I wish he could
find her, or a trace, or some news of her! Oh, but surely we are
intruding upon his own affairs too much, and I _wonder_ what has----
Oh, but listen--do listen, did you ever hear such a noise, and just
_look_ at the crowds! Why, the whole of old Cairo is coming this way."
Even as she spoke, two Arabs, mounted on superb horses, and brandishing
spears, dashed past the cars, shouting continuously what would be the
equivalent of "clear the way" in English, just as to the sound of
shouting and singing, the beating of drums, and clashing of cymbals, a
stream of natives, dancing and waving their arms, poured into the
square.
Round and round they spun about six great camels, which, hung with
bells and decked from head to stubbly tail with glistening harness and
embroidered saddle-cloths, stalked ahead, unheeding of the tumult;
whilst riders of restless horses did their best to regulate the action
and pace of the nervous animals.
Behind them walked scores of young men in snow-white galabeah, their
impassive, delicately curved faces surmounted by the scarlet tarboosh,
chanting that old-Egyptian marriage song of which the music score was
lost some few thousand years ago, lying perhaps securely hidden in a
secret chamber, undiscovered in the ruins of Karnak, but which song,
without a single alteration of note or word, has descended from Rameses
the Second down through the history-laden centuries to _us_, the
discoverers and worshippers of ragtime.
But the greatest crush surged round two camels which walked
disdainfully through the throng, seemingly as oblivious of the excited
multitude as the one made herself out to be of the man who walked
beside her with a fantastic whip, and the other of the golden chains
which fastened her to the blackest eunuch of all Africa.
Upon the one of the golden chains, rested a golden palanquin, closed
with curtains of softest white satin, a-glitter with precious stones.
Around the brute's neck hung great garlands of flowers, from its
harness chimed golden bells of softest tone, whilst tassels of silver
swung from the jewel encrusted net covering her shining coat.
What or who was inside, no one seemed to be able to coherently explain,
though the setting alone told of some priceless treasure.
There was no doubt as to the rider of the other camel!
"Hahmed! Hahmed! Hahmed!" rose the unceasing cry from old and young,
whilst blessings ranging from the continued comfortable shape of his
shadow, to the welfare of his progeny unto the most far-reaching
generation, through a life perpetual of sun, sweetmeats, and shady
streams, rose and fell from the pavements, roofs, and balconies crowded
with the curious, upon the impassive man who held his camel harnessed
with native simplicity, just one pace behind its companion.
The crowning touch was added to this delirious moment of festival by
the simply scandalous distribution of golden coin, _golden_ mind you,
which attendants clothed in every colour of an Egyptian sunset, and
mounted upon diminutive, but pure bred donkeys, threw right and left
with no stinting hand, to the distribution of which largesse responded
shrill laughter, and still shriller cries, and thwack of stick on dark
brown pate and cries of pain upon the meeting of youthful ivories in
the aged ankle or wrist.
No doubt about it, Cairo, _real_ Cairo I mean, had been in an uproar
from the moment two special trains had chugged into the Central Station
a few hours back.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Crowned and uncrowned queens travel in comfort all the world over, a
comfort of over-heated special trains, the most stable part of the
boat, the most skilful chauffeur, allied to the most speedy car, an
elaboration of the luncheon basket, and the heartening effect of strips
of red baize; but the comfort of a church pew compared to the downy
recesses of a Chesterfield, against the comfort and regal luxury of
Jill's mode of travelling.
Surrounded by an armed guard under the absolute control of black
Mustapha, armed to the teeth, chaperoned by Mrs. Grundy in the shape
or, as I should say, represented in the shapeless person of a dusky
duenna of many moons, a good heart and a vitriolic tongue, who coyly
peeped from behind the sombre curtains of her middle-aged palanquin,
Jill started on her wedding journey. Over a carpet of flowers, through
a long lane of palm leaves, held by veiled maidens, so as to form an
arch, she passed, whilst the sweetness of the girls' voices rose to the
tops of the acacia and mimosa trees, and gigantic date palms, in the
Egyptian bridal song.
In no way did Jill's return journey across the desert and through the
mountains to the canal's edge resemble the out going.
She did it with leisure and comfort this time, to find the Arab's great
white steam yacht waiting to race her to Ismailiah.
She had looked round for the man she loved, but had seen him only when,
with great pomp and circumstance, she landed on the other side.
The whole of the town had turned out, so that the white car in which
she made the short trajet between the landing-place and the station
passed between a lane lined with male faces, dusky, dark brown, and
light tan, thousands of soft eyes sparkling over the all-hiding,
all-attractive yashmak, and a dotted line, well in the forefront of the
leather-brown, European physiognomies, of those who nudged and pointed,
exclaiming aloud, so that their words carried even into the interior of
the closed car, upon their luck of seeing a _real native show_.
With grave obeisance to the woman, Hahmed the Arab had entered his
special train, which preceded Jill's by ten minutes, so that when she
arrived at Cairo Central Station, surrounded by her armed guard, and
with her duenna rocking painfully by her side in a pair of over small
shoes, a little scared at the sea of faces, and the echo of the voices
of those who stood outside, kept in order by the swash-buckling native
police of fez ornamented heads, she had stood transfixed, wondering
what on earth she should do next.
Verily, the Eastern can carry off a situation which would undoubtedly
fill the Western with consternation.
Perhaps the clothing has as much to do with it as any national traits,
for surely no man in stove-pipe trousers, and all that goes to the
well-looking of these garments, could have so composedly traversed the
broad flower-strewn carpet, laid with the consent of the authorities
and no little distribution of backsheesh upon the dusty station, and
making deep obeisance, have so serenely led the little cloaked and
veiled figure to the gorgeously caparisoned (if one may apply that term
to the ship of the desert's rigging) camel, which sprawled its neck
upon the ground for the benefit of the motley crowd without.
Anyway, it was an unbelievable thing to happen in Egypt, the land of
veiled and secluded women. It was wonderful enough to know that the
great Hahmed was taking unto himself a wife, but that that wife should
suddenly appear from out of the desert unknown, unseen--well, it took
one's breath away, indeed it did, but well again--seeing the wealth and
power of the man, it was wiser to rejoice than to quibble and gossip
upon such doings.
So all along the Sharia Clot Bey, which is the electrically lit, motor
filled, modern shop-lined road leading from the station, Jill peeped
between the curtains at the throngs of jubilant natives, and the
surrounding Western looking buildings.
She felt hurt to the soul by the modernity of the latter, just as she
had been hurt on arriving in Rome and Venice, until later on she had
found balm in the old stones and streets and buildings of both places
hidden behind the twentieth century.
Jill knew that she was being taken to the palace of the old Sheikh,
uncle of the man she was about to wed, but where it was she had no
idea, nor of the names of the streets, the mosques or the palaces and
the mansions she could spy upon, from between her satin curtains, on
her way to the Bab-es-Shweyla gate. The route they had taken in the
glow of the setting sun, once they had left European Cairo behind, lay
through the El Katai quarter, having chosen the road leading from the
mosque of Sultan Hassan, through the Bazaar of the Amourers to reach
the great gate, the very heart of old Cairo.
And the girl's whole being seemed inundated with the light of the
gorgeous heavens above her as she passed down the Sukkariya, the broad
and pleasant path running under the gate, and her eyes shone as they
rested on the huge and ancient El-Azhar, the university of all Islam.
Past mosque and tomb in the El-Nahassin, whilst minarets turned from
gold to rose, and rose to crimson in the dying sun, up through the
Gamahyia, danced and sang the ever increasing multitude, until the
armed guard suddenly came to a standstill, forming a circle round the
two camels, who had haughtily condescended to kneel, as Jill with her
hand in that of her chaperon, passing between rows of salaaming
servants, wondering what had become of Hahmed, and where she was going,
and if tea could possibly be forthcoming instead of coffee, entered a
courtyard, beautiful beyond words, and passing through the gates
leading to the harem, heard them shut behind her; whilst with little
cries of greeting, the four wives and many inhabitants of this secluded
spot swept down upon her, their dainty, henna-tipped fingers quickly
removing her cloak and veil, their little exclamations of astonishment
testifying to their appreciation of the radiant little vision who
smiled so sweetly upon them, and returned their greetings in such
prettily broken Arabic.
Only one contretemps had marred the perfect organisation of the
proceedings, and that happened when the advance guard, turning a corner
at full speed, regardless of the life and limbs of the seething mass of
adults, babies, and dogs, had found themselves forced to edify the
spectators with an exhibition of _haute école_, as their terrified
horses, suddenly rearing, pawed the quivering air above a brace of
camels, who had lawlessly and obstinately stretched themselves forth
upon the soft bed of mud and house garbage spread liberally throughout
one of the narrowest streets in El-Katia.
Proddings of spears, and kickings of tender anatomical portions
availing nothing, the last means for the hasty moving of obstreperous
camels had been resorted to with success.
The following is the recipe:
Take two or more camels, fully laden for choice, stretched at length
across a narrow street. For removal of same, apply a vigorous drubbing
by means of a stick or sticks. If no result, apply foot with yet more
vigour. If this fails, gather an armful of good dry straw, fix it
cunningly under the animal's belly, apply match, and fly for your life
to the nearest sanctuary.
CHAPTER XXXIV
Jill had been married a fortnight. Everything down to the minutest
detail had passed off perfectly, everything had been duly signed and
sealed and conducted in the most orthodox and binding manner, leaving
the witnesses breathless at the thought of the land, jewels, houses,
and cattle with which Hahmed the Arab endowed this woman who brought
him nothing excepting beauty, which was not exactly beauty, but rather
colouring, plus brain and charm.
Not even love had she brought it seemed, or obedience, for had not her
lord and master uncomplainingly allowed her to keep the door of her
apartments closed, neither had he insisted on the dyeing of her golden
hair to that henna shade, of which so much is thought in the land of
black hirsute coverings.
The feasting and rejoicings of the past ten days had surpassed anything
ever dreamt of on the banks of the Nile.
There had been tournaments and exhibitions of strength and agility and
horsemanship in the day, and dancing by the most famous dancers in the
land by night--dances, let me tell you, in spite of what you gather by
hearsay or ocular proof in such cesspools as Port Said and kindred
towns, which were lessons in modesty compared to that blush-producing
exercise called the Tango and its descendants.
The harem was a cage of excited love-birds to whom were duly brought
detailed accounts of the nightly and daily doings. Never had there
been such a commotion within the somewhat over-decorated walls, nor had
the great mirrors reflected such sheen of wondrous silks, and satins,
and flashing jewels; whilst sweetmeats, coffee, and cool drinks were
the order of the day for the sustenance and refreshment of the
never-ending stream of high-born ladies, who from far and near and in
all kinds of covered vehicles hastened with the excuse of greeting the
wife of the great Arab, to gather first hand delectable morsels of
gossip anent her strange methods of procedure, and her master's still
stranger leniency towards her.
"Truly," remarked Fatima (which is not her real name), the
thirteen-year-old and latest addition to the harem, and therefore
favourite of the old Sheikh, as for the eighth time she changed her
costume, and with the tip of her henna pink finger skilfully removed a
too liberal application of kohl from about her right and lustrous eye,
whilst chatting with her maid. "Truly, I say, the man is either
besotted with love, or suffering from some strange malady. Nigh upon
the passage of ten days and nights, and yet he bends not the woman to
his will, and she more luscious than a peach from the southern wall.
Thinkest thou it's love, oh Fuddja? And thinkest thou the whiteness of
my bosom shows to advantage against the gold of my neckband?"
CHAPTER XXXV
Having just wrested a promise from Hahmed that he would take her one
moonlight night to the summit of the Great Pyramid, in spite of the
strict rules against such nightly excursions, Jill sat very still and
quite content upon her camel gazing at the Sphinx. She turned and
looked in the direction where the great eyes were staring, and then
turning once more towards the mystery of all ages, she urged her camel
on until it stood close to the base, and then, dissatisfied, she urged
it back until she could look once more from a distance, and shaking her
head with a little sigh, spoke in a whisper to the man at her side.
"I wonder, Hahmed," she said, holding out her hand as was her habit
when perplexed or distressed, "I wonder who conceived the idea. No! I
mean something quite different--it is--how shall I say--I wonder who it
was who, having the _meaning_ of that face in his mind, had the power
and the will to hold it there while he carved or chipped it--oh! so
slowly into stone. It is easy enough to paint from a model, or hew
blocks of marble in the shape of a man or a woman or animal, isn't
it--when you have them in front with their expressions and their forms?
But how did the man who did this with only a picture in his _mind_ to
rely on _dare_ to use a chisel? Because you can't rub out mistakes in
stone, and sketches wouldn't have helped him, would they, because even
photographs give one no real idea of all the Sphinx means? And I
wonder where the look lies--in the eyes or the whole face, or the set
of the head, or what? The eyes are rather like a dog's, aren't they--a
sort of wistfulness and steadfastness."
"Many have asked, O! woman, though not many who have looked upon the
Sphinx have, I think, thought upon just your first point. What do we
know about this living stone before which the mightiest, and most
wonderful, and most beautiful works of even the greatest masters seem
as nothing? Who was he? Whose brain conceived, and hands gave birth
to this mystery? Why is his name not engraved somewhere for us pigmies
to read? Though doubtless it is in the depths of the hidden chambers
in the base which up to now have only been superficially examined."
"Yes!" broke in Jill, "but whoever he was, slave or prince, captive or
free, _who_ taught him what eternity _looks like_; for that surely is
is what the Sphinx sees, the circle with no join, the world--not this
one--not Egypt--without end. We all say for ever and ever, but _our_
brains reel when we _think_ for one minute on eternity. Do you think
his brain snapped when he put the last stroke? Do you think he was
buried with decency with his chisels beside him?"
"No! surely not! Otherwise, Moonflower, somebody would have dug him
out along with the Pharaohs, and priests, and courtesans, so that we
should have learned something about him by turning his mummified body
inside out, and unwinding the burial cloth from about those fingers
which have given us the Sphinx. Strange! that a woman's whim, born of
vanity, should be spoken of with bated breath, even to this day! A
woman melts a pearl and the world continues to cry Ah! through all
time; a man creates this, and no record is left of him. Verily Allah
has blessed me in giving you into my hands, for behold your thoughts
are as sweet to me as the wind that blows through the mimosa trees at
dawn."
The girl turned a serious face towards Hahmed and smiled sweetly.
"How small and futile we are, Hahmed, in front of this great thing.
See how it, I say it because surely there is no sex in any one part of
it, brushes us aside, not in indifference, but just because to it we
simply do not exist any more than the sand, even less so, because the
sand in time would even blind those eyes. How I wish I could see it
lying uncovered on its base. And I somehow can't imagine that Mary
laid the Infant Christ to rest between its paws! How did they cross
the desert on one poor ass? How would they, so humble and so poor, be
able to approach the Sphinx with its guards about it? And I wonder if
they will ever open up the shaft and search until they find the history
on the walls of the base which, I am sure, buries somebody down in its
depths.
"Eternity! and yet I fret and worry, get cross--_cross_, Hahmed, which
is so much more little than angry--and love to tease and give pain.
Forgive me!"
And something had crept into the girl's voice which caused the man to
lean forward, and very gently to tilt Jill's face upward so that the
moon struck down full upon it.
But the heavy lids veiled the eyes, so that nothing could be seen of
the wonder of all-time reflected therein. A wonder of the birth of
which there is no record; a mystery which has a million times million
shapes, each shape fashioned afresh, yet always the same; a mystery
besides which the Sphinx is as a grain of sand. The mystery of Love.
And Hahmed the Arab, who had waited since all eternity for this moment
of time, raised one hand to heaven and praised his God, and then leant
forward to readjust the veil before the woman's face.
"The Sphinx shall not see your face, neither shall the stars, nor shall
the wind touch your mouth, O! my beloved! For I would take you to the
ruins of the Temple of Khafra, where the rose colour of the stone shall
tint your face and your hands, where eyes shall not see nor hear the
story of the love I have to tell you."
And leaning across he put his arm about Jill and lifted her from her
saddle, and laid her across his knees with her head in the hollow of
his shoulder.
"I am of the desert, O! my woman, of the sandstorm and the winds, the
rocks, and the heat--I have no desire this night for soft cushions, nor
for the fragrance of the hanging curtains of your chamber. I love you,
Allah, and this time I will not wait. You have played with me for many
moons! Not even once have I laid my lips upon even the whiteness of
your hand since Allah in His greatness made you my wife in the name
before the law. At your wish I have denied myself all, until I have
longed to bring you to my feet with the lash of the whip--yet have I
waited, knowing that the moment of your surrender would be the sweeter
for it.
"And the spirits of the past shall be your hand-maidens, and the moon
shall be your lamp, and the sand shall be your marriage-couch this
night--and I, O! woman--I shall be your master."
And who knows if it was not love who wrought upon the granite until the
Sphinx was born? For after all Love is eternal, and eternity is Love.
CHAPTER XXXVI
The silver shafts of the full moon struck down into the ruined outer
courts of the Temple of Khafra, turning the rose-colour of the granite
to a dull terra-cotta, and picking out the pavement with weird designs
of gigantic beasts and flowers, the which, when Jill put her foot upon
them, proved to be nothing more harmful than the shadows thrown by the
walls and huge blocks of fallen masonry.
Slowly she crossed the court and as slowly climbed the incline leading
to the chambers of long dead priests and priestesses, pausing at the
opening with a little catch of the breath, and a quick glance at the
man she loved beside her.
The darkness of Egypt is a common enough expression on the lips of
those who know nothing of what they are talking about, and Jill, who
had often used the words, stood transfixed at the abysmal blackness in
front of her.
Outside it was as clear as day, inside it was darker than any night,
and like a flash, the girl compared it with her life at that very
moment.
Up to now she had been her own mistress, in that she had deliberately
and of her own free will done the things she ought and ought not to
have done, and had been content with the result.
True, she was married to the man beside her, bound to him by law, his
in the eyes of the world, and of Allah Who is God, but she knew full
well that until she called to him and surrendered herself in love, that
she was as free as any maiden could be in that land, and, she thought,
that doubtless in time he would tire of her caprice and let her go,
taking unto himself another as wife. In which surmise she was utterly
mistaken!
Should she move forward into the darkness? Should she turn back into
the light?
If she crossed the threshold she knew she would seek the protection of
his arms against the threatenings of the shadows which surely held the
spirits of the past; and in his arms, why! even at the thought her
heart leapt and her face burned beneath the veil.
If she turned back she would return to her position of honoured guest
in the man's house, a barren, unsatisfying position for one in whom
youth cried for love and mastery.
If only Hahmed would make a sign, a movement; if only he would say one
word. But he stood motionless just behind her, waiting himself, with
the oriental's implicit belief for some deciding sign from Fate.
There was no sound, no sign of life as they stood waiting, and then the
night breeze, gently lifting a corner of the Arab's full white cloak,
wrapped it like some great wing about the girl.
A thrill swept her from head to foot as she pressed her hands above her
heart, and then with eyes wide open and alight with love stepped across
the threshold into the shadows, unknowingly turning the corner of that
block of granite which hides the opening, leaving one in complete and
utter darkness.
She flung out her hands and felt nothing, turned swiftly and flung them
out again, vainly searching for the Arab's cloak, and finding nothing
let them fall to her side.
"My God!" she whispered, and moved a step forward, stopped and listened
and moved back. "Hahmed! Hahmed!"
She called aloud in fear, she who had never known what it was to be
afraid, and she gave a little sob of pure relief when the Arab answered
from the distance of a few feet.
"Wherefore are you afraid, O! woman? Behold I am near you, watching
you, for my eyes are trained for the night as well as for the day, even
though your eyes, which are as the turquoise set in a crown of glory,
may not pierce the darkness, being unaccustomed to the violent
contrasts and colourings of the East."
Then fell a silence.
And then the perfume of the night, and the scent of the sand and the
spirit of the dead women who had lived and loved even in that temple
chamber, assailed the nostrils of the girl, entering in unto her and
causing a wave of longing and unutterable love to rise and flood her
whole being, so that she smiled sweetly to herself and held out her
arms, and trembled not at the thought of the moment awaiting her.
"Hahmed! Hahmed!" she called softly from love, and hearing no sound
called again and yet more softly. "Come to me, Hahmed! come to
me--because--I love you!"
And her master held her in one arm whilst he gently removed the veil
from before her face, which she turned and laid against his heart as he
poured forth his soul in an ecstasy of love.
"Behold!" he cried, as he removed the outer cloak from about her.
"Behold is my beloved like unto a citadel which has fallen before my
might, and the gates thereof are unbarred before the conqueror!
"Behold," and Jill's head veil fell to her feet, "is the citadel fair
to look upon, from the glistening of the golden cupolas to the feet
awash in the River of Love.
"Surrounded by the ivory wall of innocence is she, and unto her lord is
the glory of measuring the circumference thereof.
"Even as a flowering tree is she, and beneath my hands shall the bloom
of love turn even unto the passion flower.
"Like unto a Court of Love is my heart's delight, and many are the
chambers therein, in which in the heat of the day and the coolness of
the night I shall find repose.
"Her fingers are as the lattice before the windows of her joy, through
which she shall peep; looking for the coming of her lord; her lashes
are the silken curtains which she will draw before the twin pools of
love which are her eyes; her body is as a column of alabaster in the
shadow of which I shall find my delight!
"Yea! the citadel has fallen, and the walls about it are riven at my
approach. Allah! Allah! Allah!"
And the shadows crept gently about them as once more the silence fell,
and gathered again into the corners as Jill sighed softly.
"Tremble not, my beloved! for behold I love thee! Gentle is love to
such as thee, and soft is the sand of Egypt which shall be thy couch.
And yet, thou child of love, even at this moment when my heart waxeth
faint within me from love of thee, yet will I listen, and take thee
back unto thy dwelling and thy fragrant chamber if so thou desireth!"
But Jill, lifting her arms, laid her hands in utter submission upon the
man's breast, and sighed again in perfect content beneath the kisses
which covered them, and her arms and her breasts and her beautiful
mouth.
"As thou wilt," she whispered softly, "only as thou wilt."
And verily as a young tree she stood in the glory of her youth with her
feet upon the sands of Egypt, and verily was her heart glad when she
was carried into the inner chamber, and passed into the keeping of her
master for ever.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Some months had gone, and the sun sparkled on the water of the little
singing stream, though bitter winds had blown and all-enveloping sand
had swirled about the palms which surrounded Jill's beautiful home in
the oasis, of which the reins were gradually slipping into fingers
skilled in driving anything from a four-in-hand to a donkey in a cart.
Three mornings a week, an hour after dawn, she gave audience to all
those who, with grievance or in difficulty, desired her help or advice;
for which ceremony, and having the dramatic instinct, she had caused a
clearing to be made in the shade of the palms, under the biggest of
which she had also had placed a great chair of snow-white marble, in
which, clothed always in white, she would seat herself, her passionate
mouth smiling happily behind the yashmak whilst over it the great eyes,
into which had crept a look of infinite tenderness in the months that
had passed, would scrutinise the people standing humbly and astounded
before her.
She would look across upon mothers with obstreperous sons who would not
work, or would not wed; mothers who beat their breasts in despair at
the utter lack of looks or grace in the unfortunately multiplied
feminine arrows within the parental quiver; young men who craved a word
of recommendation so as to obtain a certain post; older men who craved
an overdraft at the bank of her patience; young mothers whose infants
were either too fat or too lean, or with eyes half-eaten away with
disease; all of whom having received a full measure of help, pressed
down and running over, and having bestrewn themselves upon the ground
around her chair, would depart in high fettle to spread the news of
this wonder woman, their mistress, in whom they felt such inordinate
pride; so that one, then two, then more, from distances long and short,
would creep into the council with pretexts ranging from the thin to the
absolutely transparent, until one morning the whole séance ended in an
unseemly fracas between the legitimate and the illegitimate seekers
after help in word or kind, whereupon Hahmed, rising in his wrath,
smote them verbally hip and thigh, and Jill departed in high dudgeon,
leaving the culprits to wilt in the frost of her keen displeasure.
And from about that date, a month ago, everything seemed to have gone
wrong.
Days of depression would follow days of mad spirits, hours when she was
as the sweetest scented rose within the hands of the Arab, followed by
interminable, stretches of time when the points of the "wait-a-bit"
thorn were blunt compared to the exceeding sharpness of her temper.
Days when all that was right was wrong, and all that was wrong _was_
wrong, so that her women crept quietly, and Hahmed wondered sometimes
if some "afreet"[1] haunted the soil and had taken possession of the
soul of his beloved.
Jill swung to and fro in a hammock slung between two palms at a very
early hour indeed of this morning late in December.
She had neither veil before her face nor shoes upon her feet, and the
flimsy mauve robe clung to the supple body as she restlessly swung,
until she clapped her hands to summon her breakfast, and clapped them
again sharply so that a figure came running at high pressure.
"Go, ask thy master if he will break bread with me in the shade of the
palms, oh Laleah, and let not the shadows lengthen unduly in thy going
for fear that I give thee cause to hasten thy footsteps!"
Which manner of speech shows that Jill had not unduly tarried either in
acquiring knowledge of things Eastern. And Hahmed, as he stood before
her and greeted her in the beautiful Arabian tongue, wondered if in all
the world there could be found such another picture as that of his
wife, with the riot of red-gold hair about her little face, which
somehow seemed over white in the shade of the palm, and the blueness of
her eyes, and the redness of her mouth, which neither the one nor the
other smiled at his approach.
"Do sit down and help yourself!" said she indeed, and clapping her
hands sharply ordered fresh food and drinks, both hot and cold, to be
brought upon the instant.
And her next remark, after the breakfast of tea in a real teapot, a
hissing kettle, strange loaves, purest butter, honey, and fruits of
every conceivable colour had been laid upon a cloth upon the grass,
fell like a bolt from the blue, though the man made no sign of
disturbance from the impact.
"I want eggs and bacon, Hahmed!"
For a moment he pondered the remark, whilst he offered Jill a cigarette
and lit one for himself.
"The eggs, my woman," and the musical voice made a poem even of the
absurd words, "now that thou hast taught thy slaves to poach and
scramble and prepare them in divers and pleasant ways, are easy--but
bacon--no! that canst thou _not_ have amongst these my people!"
And Jill swung ceaselessly to and fro, looking at the man sitting a few
yards from her on a rug, before she answered in tersest English:
"Don't be dense, Hahmed! I want eggs and bacon, and a starched finger
napkin--toast in a rack--covered dishes--marmalade--I'm--I'm------"
"Fed up!"
The deep voice filled in the pause also in tersest English.
For one moment Jill sat up as straight as the hammock would allow, and
then for the first time in many days broke into a peal of sweetest
laughter, and swinging herself clear of the net ran over and laid
herself down upon the rug beside the man, with her chin in the palms of
her hands, to find herself the next moment in his arms, whilst he
looked down into her eyes without speaking. Whereupon she turned her
face on to his shoulder and burst into tears.
And Hahmed, being wise, let her cry until there were no more tears,
only little sobs which tore at his heart, which lightened considerably
when having mopped her eyes with the edge of his cloak, she twisted
herself into a sitting position, and smiled as she laid her golden head
against his dark one, and entwined her slim fingers in his.
And Hahmed smiled also, knowing that this was the preliminary to some
request of which his wife had doubts as to the granting, but never a
word did he utter, nor made sign to help, whilst Jill, somewhat at a
loss, lit a cigarette, and proceeded to blow rings which on account of
the breeze refused to pass one through the other.
"Hahmed!" she managed at last and stopped, and then continued as she
got up and moved away: "Hahmed! I'm feeling absolutely _miserable_. I
think I want a change--I really do want all I said just now, so--so
_can't_ we go to Cairo and stay at an English hotel for the New Year?
We could _just_ do it if we started at once--_couldn't_ we? I know you
have important business or something next month--_can't_ you put it
off?"
Hahmed looked at her for a moment, as she stood very fair and straight,
with her beautiful feet peeping from under her trailing gown; and
frowned a little, noticing the shadows round the big eyes, and the
suspicion of a collar-bone showing above the embroidery of her bodice.
"And why didst thou hesitate, little one, to ask--knowing as thou dost
that thy wish is law absolute to me? Business affairs, what are they?
Let them wait--let the world wait as long as thou art happy. Verily
thou art pale and thin------" Upon which unfortunate remark Jill
turned like the spitfire she had lately become.
"Seeing that you are allowed four wives, Hahmed, there is no reason to
bemoan your fate; this is not Europe, where once married you are for
ever tied to the one girl, who, a bud in her youth, may as time passes
turn to one of those dreadful cabbage-roses, which go purple and fat
with age. I'm sorry," she continued, as she held out both her hands,
"you simply must not notice me these days. I think I am bewitched--I
have even sent my darling old Ameena away because her deformity
suddenly irritated me, and I told Mustapha I would have him thrown as
breakfast to the cheetahs if he dared to make himself seen, and he
believed it, and no shampoo will _ever_ get the sand out of his hair."
"But he _shall_ be thrown to the cheetahs if it would please thee,
beloved!"
And the uncalculating cruelty in the man's voice sent the red to the
girl's white face, and moving over to him made her lean down and kiss
him upon the mouth.
And then she seated herself upon the ground and made tea, laughing like
a child when to please her the Arab drank it protestingly.
"By Allah! it is a poison which you drink in Europe, and yet you would
go and drink it in a crowded city."
"Are we going, Hahmed, oh Hahmed, _are_ we?" whispered Jill, half
afraid to break the spell by the raising of her voice.
"But of course, beloved--hast thou not expressed the wish--though
surely it were better to go to thine own dwelling, for it will go hard
with thee to keep thy face covered and remain undiscovered to thy many
friends, who doubtless will be seeking the solace of Egypt's winter
sun; for the time is not yet at hand when I will permit thee to make
thyself known to them."
But Jill was ready to accept anything as long as her craving could be
satisfied, and Hahmed, longing to satisfy her craving, looked with eyes
of love upon the sweetness of her face aglow with anticipation, so that
both were well content.
And an hour passed in which they ate and drank, and Jill balanced
pieces of sweet bread upon the noses of two great hounds, who, scenting
their master from afar, had broken bounds and raced to him, leaping the
breakfast table to Jill's infinite delight, whilst their groom lay upon
the ground out of sight anticipating the thrashing his carelessness
merited him, but from which he was spared by reason of his mistress'
sweetness.
"And so, Light of Heaven, I must leave thee, for there is much to
prepare if we would start at once, for it is difficult to secure the
strict privacy due to my wife in these times when the world is overrun
by the tourist ants who should by right be underground.
"And my heart inclineth to hours spent with thee, O! Flower of the
Desert, hours spent at thy feet in the heat of the day whilst thou
slumberest, hours upon the roof of thy dwelling, watching the day
prepare herself for the coming of her lover, the night; and yet must I
leave thee when my being is overwhelmed with love of thee, thou wind of
caprice! Would that I could tell the meaning of my gentleness towards
thee, I, Hahmed, who, like a love-sick youth, sleeps the night without
the silken curtain of thy door and dare not enter in unto thee."
And his hands suddenly gripped the girl by her shoulders and pulled her
towards him, at which roughness she smiled, as women do when so
treated, and rested her sweet-scented head above his heart.
"Ah, Hahmed! Who knows if thou are not over timorous even for a
love-sick youth," she sighed. "And _must_ thou go when my heart
inclineth to hours spent with _thee_? And yet at night the stars come
out so 'tis said, and can be seen from the roof of my dwelling; and
when the wind sweeps over chill across the sands the fire throws
shadows in my room of roses, where the love bird with little wings
hovers above my couch suspended by a little silken cord."
And the man bent her back towards him so that the ribbon of her bodice
snapped and the beauty of her lay under his hands, and she stretched
both arms outwards and whispered so that only he could hear, "Kiss me,
Hahmed, oh my heart's desire! Kiss me, for I am faint with love of
thee."
And even as he bent downwards to her she fell unconscious at his feet,
whereupon he raised her in his arms and looked into the white face,
speaking so that only she might hear.
"And the love bird shall fly down to thy couch this night, Delight of
my Heart, and the shadows upon thy sweet face shall deepen ere the
dawn," and he kissed the closed eyes and the red mouth and the white
throat and the shadow of a collar-bone which showed above the roundness
of her breasts, and then he laid her upon the cushions on the ground,
and, clapping his hands, gave her into the care of her handmaidens.
[1]Evil Spirit.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
An hour and more had passed before Jack Wetherbourne suddenly awoke,
and stretching his arms above his head apostrophised the full moon
shining down upon the Great Pyramid in the shadows of which he was
sitting.
"What the dickens Lady Moon brought me to this place of all places
to-night," he said lazily, as he struck a match and lit a cigarette.
"Let's hope my ship of the desert hasn't upstreamed for Cairo all on
her own, else I see myself here until the advent of the next Cook's
party. Decent of the camel wallah to let me take the apple of his
commercial eye into the desert unaccompanied." He stretched and
settled himself more comfortably, continuing to talk aloud. "What a
night--what a country--wish I'd brought Mary with me--ideal spot for a
heart-to-heart talk. I might have shaken her out of her 'eyedyfix,' as
old Gruntham calls it. Silly idea that she won't get married until
Jill has been found--why! what! who in heaven's name are coming down
the pyramid? Well, I'm blessed! two native wallahs been breaking the
rules, and I had no idea they were perched up there above my head."
Safe in the protecting shadows he watched Hahmed and Jill descend.
Little ripples of laughter fell on the night air as Hahmed, letting
himself down easily from one gigantic block to another, held out his
arms and lifted Jill down, bending his head to kiss her each time he
put her on her feet.
They were at the last step but one when, with a little scream, she
swayed, and nearly fell to the step beneath.
"Hold me, Hahmed," she cried, "I'm dizzy, everything is going round!"
And Hahmed caught her and lifted her gently down the last steps to the
sand, bending to kiss her on the mouth, and shifting her suddenly to
his left arm so as to catch Jack Wetherbourne by the throat as he
dashed shouting from the shadows upon them.
"Jill! Jill! It's I--Jack! don't let-----"
Until the grip tightening choked back his words, when with a surprising
swiftness the Arab let go his hold, and getting one in on the point,
sent the Englishman reeling backwards to fall in a heap against the
base of the pyramid, and then to scramble to his feet, too dizzy to
stop his adversary, who, flinging the veil over the woman's face,
passed swiftly to the place where awaited the camels.
And too slow was Jack Wetherbourne to gain the spot in time to stop the
flight of the camel which with its double burden was already racing
straight ahead into the desert; and too bemused by the blow to
recognise the fact when he did get there that the hired brute he was
staggering too was built for speed in the image of the tortoise
compared to the hare-like-for-swiftness contour of the abandoned beauty
who had strolled to the spot from the other side of the pyramid, and
quite undisturbed was watching her sister's hurried departure into the
unknown.
CHAPTER XXXIX
All our lives we all chase wraiths in the moonshine! Be the wraiths
the outcome of proximity in the garden under the silvery moon rays,
which so often snap the trap about our unwary feet by rounding off the
physical angles of our momentary heart's desires, or lending point to
the stub ends of their undeveloped mentality; or the wraiths of the
midnight soul, otherwise disarranged nervous or digested system, which
float invitingly, distractingly, tantalisingly in front of our
clogged-by-sleep vision at night; turning out, however, in the early
light heralding the early cup of tea, to be nothing more soul
distracting than the good old brass knob adorning the end of the
bedstead.
But Jack Wetherbourne's wraiths, which he was chasing in the moonlight,
were good honest humans with the requisite number of legs and arms
wrapped in good, white raiment; one of which humans with the other in
his arms sat astride a camel, who made up by her muscular development
whatever she might lack in goodness of heart and honesty of purpose;
she too being wrapped in the silvery drapery which the moon throws
pell-mell around pyramid and mud hut, humble fellah, descendant maybe
of some long dead Pharaoh, and the jocular, jubilant millionaire, who
with luck can trace a grandfather.
But chase he ever so eagerly, Jack Wetherbourne could barely keep his
quarry in sight as on and on sped the racing camel with that curious
slithering gait which denotes great speed, whilst the wind caught at
Jill's veil, blowing it this way and that until she impatiently tore it
from before her face, and struggling against the arm which held her
like a vice, managed to screw herself round to look behind, whereupon
the Arab jerked her suddenly back, looking down into her white face
with eyes ablaze with jealousy.
"Hast thou no circumspection, O! wife of mine?" he cried, the wind
carrying the words from his lips almost before they were uttered.
"Mine, all mine thou art, and yet thou strivest to look upon the
countenance of that madman who would have outraged my honour by looking
upon thy face!"
"Oh, but Hahmed! you don't understand--that was Jack Wetherbourne, my
neighbour and brother and friend, and do for pity's sake make the camel
go slower, I am being bumped to bits!"
Which of all foolish utterances was the most foolish she could have
uttered, fanning the man's jealousy to a pitch where it burned right
through the barrier of self-restraint, making him desire to stop her
foolish words with kisses, and long to strangle her as she lay in his
arms, and cast her on to the sands for the vultures to pick at.
"Thy friend and brother! How could any man unborn of thy parents be
anything but the would-be lover and husband of thy beautiful self!
Verily, woman, could I beat thee for such words until thy shoulders ran
blood. I know of him and his foolish futile searchings for thee, yet
it is _I_ who hold thee, and in very truth can call thee wife; nor will
I stay this my camel so that thou mayest have speech with him; this
pale faced yearling, who dared to look upon thy shadow; but by the
grace of Allah, I will so bewilder him who blundereth after thee
astride the product of the bazaar, that his sightless skull shall stare
blindly at the moon to-morrow night, whilst I shall feast my eyes upon
the whiteness of thy satin skin."
And Jill lay still, knowing that she was up against something with
which she could not cope, noticing not at all that the camel began a
wide circle to the left, therefore being excessively surprised when an
hour before the dawn, upon the very outskirts of Cairo itself, the man
caused his camel to kneel, and placing the girl like a bundle of hay
upon the ground, turned towards Mecca; and the time of prayer being
passed, came to her suddenly and held her to him, raining kisses upon
the fairness of her face, shining pale and shadowed in the light of the
coming day.
CHAPTER XL
You have only to stare long enough at it to get the image of some
distinct object imprinted upon your retina, then you need but stare
again at some space of indistinct colouring and you will see the
impression of your distinct object reprinted a hundred times upside
down.
Who has not tried the experiment in their youth with the aid of the
ceiling and red-lettered advertisement of chocolate or soap, and later
in years upbraided the reflected blobs of sun which usually choose a
critical moment in which to obscure your vision when you have turned
your back upon the sunset.
Jack Wetherbourne distinctly saw the fleeing camel in front of him,
when he at last got his own to its feet, and being eager to keep his
quarry well within his vision, continued to stare and strain his eyes,
whilst he raced for hour after hour over mile after mile of sand, until
in the end he saw the fleeing camel ahead of him when in reality it was
well on its way back to Cairo; and continued, with eyes staring out of
a white, dust-covered face, to pursue the phantom until the first ray
of the sun hitting him fiercely, caused him to cover his eyes a while,
and after, to look about him with refreshed sight, which showed him in
the midst of the desert, alone, with a cloud of sand rising before the
wind some miles behind him--an infant sandstorm, but strong enough to
hide the distant peaks of the pyramids from him, and to send his
terrified, idiotic camel fleeing straight ahead through hours of
increasing heat, without a drop of water upon its foolish back or in
its master's pocket flask, until with a sudden silly chuckle the man
jerked the reins and tumbled headlong from the saddle, laughing
stupidly with sudden sunstroke.
CHAPTER XLI
The midday sun of the same day blazed down upon a picture which for
ghastliness surpassed even the horrors painted by the madman Werth,
which, if your mind is steeped in morbidness, you can see for a franc,
or for nothing, I really forget which, when next you visit Brussels.
Upon a hillock of sand, the summit of which continually trickled to the
base in fine golden streams, a little mound built with the aid of a
pair of pumps, sat Jack Wetherbourne, laughing sickeningly, just as he
had sat since the moment he had waved a delirious adieu to the quickly
disappearing camel. His dress coat, trousers, white waistcoat, shirt,
undergarments, socks and shoes, lay upon the sand arranged by the
disordered mind in the fantastic design of a scarecrow.
As I have said, the man himself, naked save for a vest twisted round
his waist, sat upon the mound gesticulating violently, whilst keeping
up a one-sided, unanswered conversation with the figure on the sand.
His bronzed face, burnt almost black even in the few hours of sun
beating down upon his unshaded head, turned restlessly to the right and
left; his long fingers plucked without ceasing at the great blisters
which the heat drew up upon his body, bursting them, so that the fluid
mingled with the sand blown upon him by the light wind, and upon which
flies, thousands of them, settled, to buzz away when he rose to run
this way and that in an effort to stay the awful irritation.
Two o'clock by the clocks in Cairo, the hour when workers and idlers,
rich and poor, seek the coolest spot in their vicinity in which to lay
them down and sleep a while--the hour when Mary Bingham drove up to
Shepherds, having raced here, there, and everywhere during the morning
in a vain endeavour to awaken a little interest in the minds of those
who listened, and shrugged, and looked at each other significantly, at
the tale of a man who had got lost in Cairo for a night and a
morning--a tale told agitatedly by a charming woman who could give no
reason for her agitation.
Also she had tried, desperately hard, with the aid of the hotel porter,
to make head or tail out of the narrative as recounted by the hirer of
camels--a woebegone tale in which the undercurrent was a dismal
foreboding as to the fate of the priceless quadruped; the fate of an
Englishman seemingly being of small account when compared to that of
the snarling, unpleasant brute who represented the native's entire
fortune--at least so he said. "Yes, the nobleman had hired the camel
as he so often did, and being acquainted with the ways of the animal
had gone alone as he always did. No! upon the beard of his grandfather
he had no idea in which direction he had gone, though verily upon the
outskirts of Cairo there had been a festival in which La Belle, the
well-known dancer, was to dance--who knows------" And the Hon. Mary
had flung out of the place in disgust, knowing with a woman's
intuition, sharpened love, in comparison with which a _kukri_ is blunt,
that no such place hid the man she had been searching for so
desperately ever since she had suddenly wakened and sprung out of her
bed the night before, for no reason whatever, and, having rung up
Shepherds and ascertained the fact that Sir John Wetherbourne was not
in the hotel, had paced her room until she could with reason arouse her
maid, and, having bathed and breakfasted, had started out on the
seemingly mad pursuit of someone who had failed to return to his
habitat during the night--and in Cairo too!
Is it surprising that men winked secretly at one another, and that
their wives, sharers of their joys and sorrows, scandal and gossip
inclusive, jingled their bracelets and pursed their lips, and did all
those things which jealous women--not necessarily love jealous--are
feign to do when the object responsible for the conception of the
green-eyed monster within their being is bent on making a fool of
herself?
"Come now, dearie," mumbled Lady Sarah Gruntham, who insisted on
keeping Lancashire meal hours to the consternation of the hotel staff,
native and otherwise, as she mopped her heated brow with her
handkerchief and with the other hand patted the dark head leaning
wearily upon the row of scarab buttons adorning her tussore front, from
which she had forgotten to remove her finger napkin when the girl had
entered. "Come now--come now. Don't 'ee take on an' fret so. The
lad'll coom back to ye, never ye fear now. Well I remember when yon
Tim of mine was down t' mine in t' big explosion--I took on just as ye
are takin' on, love, but down in me heart, lass, I never really feared
me, because I knew that me love for me lad was that great, lass, that
I'd pull him out of danger--and sure and I did, lass, black as a sweep
and with a broken arm, but alive, and a champion tea of shrimps and
cress we had, jest as ye'll have with yer lad when he comes back, lass!"
Which motherly comfort served to lighten the heavy heart, but brought
not the faintest shadow of a smile to the steadfast eyes. For even the
vision of watercress, shrimps and tea on the verandah at Shepherds will
not force a light to the windows of the soul when they are blinded with
anxiety.
So Mary Bingham, in her cool white dress, lay back in the long chair,
with a glass of iced lemonade on a table by her side in a room darkened
so as to induce slumber, whilst out in the desert with choked cries of
"Good dog! At it! Good dog!" a man began scratching the sand as a
ratting terrier does the earth, until he had excavated a hole big
enough in which to curl himself, where he lay until desert things that
creep and crawl drove him out again, shrieking for water.
CHAPTER XLII
And the full force of the storm crashed about Jill's defenceless head
at the midday hour also of the same day, when she ought to have been
searching the coolness of her midday sleeping chamber, and
forgetfulness of the last few hours in sleep.
Not quite defenceless was she, however, as she sat back in the chair,
her eyes ablaze and her veil torn to shreds at her feet, ripping the
moral atmosphere with words which seemed to have been dipped in some
corrosive verbal fluid. She was angry, hurt, and deathly tired, and
was doing her best to pass some of her mental suffering anyway on to
the man who leant with folded arms against the cedar wall.
The inevitable crisis had come!
The independence of Western womanhood had clashed with the Eastern
ideas on the privacy and seclusion of the gentler sex. Jill simply
could _not_ understand that there was any cause for the terrible
jealousy which had suddenly blazed up in the Arab when she had
innocently repeated her request to be allowed to see her old friend;
Hahmed was as incapable of understanding the request, having failed in
his sojourn in the West to fully realise the everyday kind of jolly,
good, frank camaraderie which can exist between certain types of
English man and woman.
Half a word of tenderness, half a gesture of love, and she would have
been sobbing or laughing happily in his arms, but like a prairie fire
before the wind, the terrible Eastern rage was blazing through the man,
too fierce, too terrific to allow him to analyse the situation, or
remember that the upbringing of his girl-wife had been totally
different to that of the women of his country.
Jill suddenly sat forward, clasping one slim ankle across her knee in a
slim hand, a position she knew perfectly well would rouse Hahmed to a
frenzy, and spoke slowly and mockingly in English instead of the pretty
lisping Arabic which always entranced him.
"You may lecture, and remonstrate, and admonish, which all comes to the
same thing, until night falls, but you will never make me see eye to
eye with you in _this_. It is simply _absurd_ to threaten that you
will shut me in my apartments until I learn reason. If you lock me in,
or place guards about me, I will jump from the roof and gain my freedom
by breaking my neck. Why Jack Wetherbourne--oh------"
Hahmed had leant forward, and gripping her by the shoulders had very
suddenly, and not over gently, jerked her to her feet, holding her by
the strength of his hands alone, as she desperately tried to liberate
herself.
"Let me go, Hahmed! let me go! You are hurting me dreadfully. You
must _not_ hurt me--you must _not_ bruise me. Oh! you don't
understand!"
She struggled furiously and unavailingly, resorting at last to cruelty
to gain her end.
"Let me go, Hahmed! Take your hands away--I--I _hate to feel them upon
me_!"
He let her go, pushing her away from him ever so slightly, so that she
stumbled against the chair, cracking her ankle-bone, that tenderest bit
of anatomical scaffolding, against a projecting piece of ornamental
wood.
It was a case of injury added to insult, and she crouched back furious
in her physical hurt as she tore the silken covering from her arms,
where already showed faint bruises above the little tattoo mark showing
itself so black against the white skin, and upon which she put her
finger.
"Oh! who would have thought when you tattooed that, Jack----!"
But she stood her ground and shrugged her naked shoulders irritatingly
when Hahmed crossed the dividing space in a bound with his hand upon
the hilt of his dagger.
"Bi--smi--llah! what sayest thou? This mark upon the fairness of thy
arm which I have thought a blemish, and therefore have not questioned
thee thereon--sayest thou it is a _dakkh_, what thou callest a tattoo
mark? And if so what has it to do with the man whose name is
unceasingly upon thy lips?"
Jill stood like a statue of disdain.