For some time he sat in his bedroom, overwhelmed by horror and pity at
Dolly’s death, and by the terrible menace of his own situation. Mrs.
Darling would certainly denounce him to the police, for hardly could
she think otherwise than that he was the murderer of her daughter, even
though his open visit to her at her hotel would be difficult to reconcile
with his guilt.
Fate seemed to be playing with him, torturing him, hitting him from all
sides. If only he had postponed his visit to Mrs. Darling he would now be
free to slip away as unnoticed as he had come, resuming his life in the
Near East as Jim Easton, and being in no way suspected of the crime, for
the silence of Smiley-face could be relied on.
But now he was done for! True, he was to-day a widower, and was therefore
in a position to marry the woman whom he loved with a passion which
seemed only to grow stronger as the complications increased. But he would
be obliged to lie to her daily, throughout his life: there would always
be this pitiable barrier of deception between them. And, moreover, the
tragedy of Dolly’s death so filled his mind that any advantage it might
have to himself was hardly able to be realized. He was profoundly shocked
at her pitiable end, and its consequences were enveloped in gloom.
Even though Mrs. Darling were to hold her tongue, the Eversfield estate
would none the less be wholly lost to him now, nor would his son ever
reign there as a Tundering-West; for were he to lay claim to the
property, or reveal the fact that he, James Tundering-West, was alive,
Monimé would think he had gone to England and had done Dolly to death so
as to be free to marry again. How could she think otherwise?
And, again, though he were for the time being to escape from the arm of
the law, he could only marry Monimé at the risk of dragging her into a
possible scandal in the future.
He paced his bedroom in his despair, now cursing himself for his actions,
now screwing up his eyes to shut out the pitiful picture of Dolly, now
laughing aloud, like a madman, at the nightmare of his own position. One
thing was certain: he must leave England this very morning and make his
way back to Cyprus or Egypt, or somewhere. Already Mrs. Darling might
have notified the police. Fortunately she did not know his address, nor
had she ever heard the name “Easton,” but doubtless the ports would be
watched, and were he to delay his departure he would be caught.
In sudden haste which bordered on frenzy he packed his portmanteau and
rang for his bill; and soon he was driving to the station, a huddled
figure with hat pulled down over his eyes. He was far too early for the
train, and, during the long wait every pair of eyes which looked into his
set his heart beating with apprehension.
He had always been an outlaw: he had never fully understood the basis
of society, nor were the habits of the community altogether intelligible
to him. He had gone his own ways, and had left organized humanity to
go theirs. They had not molested one another. But now the State had a
grievance against him, and soon it would be feeling out for him with its
millions of antennæ, searching over hill and dale, city and field, with
waving, creeping tentacles. He would have to duck and dodge continuously
to avoid being caught, and always there would be in his heart the terror
of that cruel, relentless mouth waiting to suck the life out of him.
His relief was intense when at the end of the day he found himself, still
unmolested, in Paris. But he did not here stay his flight. All through
the night he journeyed southwards, sitting with lolling head in the
corner of a third-class compartment in a slow train—a mode of travelling
which he had deemed the least conspicuous.
At length, upon the following evening, he reached Marseilles, where he
put up at a small hotel at which he had stayed more than once under the
name of Easton. He told the proprietor he had just come from Italy, a
remark which led him to a frenzied erasing of labels from his baggage in
his bedroom.
The next morning he made inquiries as to the steamers sailing east, and
was relieved to find that a French liner was leaving for Alexandria in
a few hours. He obtained a berth without difficulty and, after a period
of horrible anxiety at the docks, found himself once more upon the high
seas, the menace of the western world fading into the distance behind
him, and the greater chances of the Orient ahead.
Thus he arrived back one morning upon the soil of Egypt, a fugitive from
the terror of the law, all his nerves strained to breaking-point, his
face pallid, his dark eyes wild. With aching heart he yearned for the
serenity which Monimé exuded like the perfume of incense around her;
he longed to be able to go to her and to bare his soul of its secrets,
and to lay his heavy head upon her complacent breast; he craved for the
comfort of those caressing hands which seemed in their soothing touch to
be endowed with the mother-craft of all the ages.
Never before in his independent life had he felt so profound a desire for
sympathy and companionship, yet now more than ever must he lock up his
troubles in his own heart. He would write to her at Mena House Hotel,
near Cairo, where she was staying, and tell her ... tell her what? That
he could not live without her, that he had come back to her after but a
couple of days in England, that she held for him the keys of heaven, that
away from her he was in outer darkness. He would await her answer here in
Alexandria, and by the time it arrived perhaps he would have recovered in
some degree his equilibrium.
Feeling that his safety lay in the unbroken continuity of his life as Jim
Easton, he went to the little Hotel des Beaux-Esprits, vaguely telling
the proprietress that he had travelled over from Cyprus. Some London
papers had just arrived and these, having come by a faster route, carried
the news to the second morning after his departure from England. His hand
shook as he searched the columns for the “Eversfield Murder,” and his
excitement and relief were altogether beyond description when he read
that George Merrivall’s housekeeper, Jane Potts, had been arrested and
charged with the crime.
Eagerly he turned to the recent copies of the local newspaper in which
the English telegrams were published daily, and here he read that the
evidence against the woman was of such damning character that she had
been committed for trial. He recalled how Smiley-face had spoken of this
woman’s jealousy of Dolly, and it seemed evident that she had followed
George Merrivall into the woods that day and had wreaked her vengeance on
her rival.
Mrs. Darling, then, had not notified the police! Doubtless she had heard
of the guilt of Jane Potts in time to prevent the further scandal in
regard to himself. She must have realized at once that since he was not
the murderer there was no good purpose to be served in revealing the fact
that he was still alive. Possibly, indeed, she may have hoped to profit
by Dolly’s death—she was the next-of-kin—and had no wish to resuscitate
the rightful lord of the manor from his supposed grave beneath the waves
of Pisa. He could quite imagine the pleasant, unscrupulous soul saying to
him: “You remain dead, my lad, and make no claim to the estate, or I’ll
force you also to stand your trial for the murder, whether you did it or
not.”
He was free, then! He wanted to shout the tidings to the four corners
of the world. He was free to go to Monimé, and to ask her to marry him.
For a short time longer he would have to hide his identity: he must wait
until Jane Potts had paid the penalty of her jealousy. Then he could
pension off Mrs. Darling, and, when all was settled and the estate once
more in his possession, the opportune moment would have arrived for his
clean breast to Monimé. She would understand; she would forgive! With
him she would rejoice that by bequest their son would be made heir to
a comfortable income and home, while they themselves would have the
means to procure that house of their dreams, somewhere beside the blue
Mediterranean, which should be their resting-place at desired intervals
in their untrammelled wanderings over the face of the earth.
The sudden simplification of all his complexities, the disentangling of
the web in which he had been struggling, had an immediate and palpable
effect upon his appearance. His head was held high again, his eyes were
no longer furtive, his step was buoyant. Not for another hour could he
delay his reunion with Monimé, and to the astonished proprietress he
announced a sudden change of plans, and was gone from the hotel within
thirty minutes of his arrival.
He reached Cairo at mid-afternoon upon one of those warm and brilliant
days which are the glory of early winter in Egypt, and was soon driving
out in the Mena House motor-omnibus along the straight avenue of majestic
acacia-trees leading from the city to the Pyramids, in the shadow of
which the hotel stands at the foot of the glaring plateau of rock on the
edge of the desert.
At the hotel he was told that Monimé was probably to be found at a point
about half a mile to the north-west, where she had caused a tent to be
erected, and was engaged upon the painting of a desert subject. He was
in no mood to wait for her return at sundown; and, without visiting the
bedroom which was assigned to him, he set out at once on foot to find her.
Through the dusty palm-grove behind the hotel he hastened, and up the
slope of the sandy hill beyond, from the summit of which he could see the
tent standing in the distance amongst the rolling dunes. Thereat he broke
into a run, and went leaping down into the little valleys and scrambling
up the low hills beyond, like a captive freed from the toils.
A few minutes later, mounting another eminence, he found himself
immediately at the back of the tent, and here a native boy, who had been
lying drowsing upon the warm sand, rose to his feet, and, in answer to a
rapid question, told him that the lady was at work at the doorway of the
tent.
Jim hurried forward, his heart beating, and the next moment he was face
to face with Monimé.
“Jim!” she exclaimed in astonishment, throwing down her palette and
brushes. “My dear boy, I thought you were in England.”
“So I was,” he laughed. “I was there just two days, and then ... I gave
it up.”
He could restrain himself no further. “Oh, Monimé,” he cried, and flung
his arms about her, kissing her throat and her cheeks and her mouth. She
made a momentary show of protest, but her face was smiling; and soon he
felt that droop of the limbs and heard that inhalation of the breath,
and saw that closing of the eyes which, the world over, are the signs
of a woman’s capitulation. No further words then were spoken; but, each
enfolded in the arms of the other, with lips pressed to lips, they hung
as it were suspended between matter and spirit, while the sun tumbled
from the skies, the hills of the desert were shattered, the valleys were
cleft in twain, and there came into being for them a new earth and a new
heaven.
When at length they stood back from one another, bewildered and
spellbound, their whole existence had undergone an irreparable change;
and each gazed at the other with unveiled eyes which revealed a naked
soul. Now at last, as by an instantaneous flash of the miraculous hand of
Nature, she was become blood of his blood, bone of his bone, and they two
were for ever merged into one flesh.
Quietly, automatically, she put away her brushes and paints; then, coming
back to him as he stood staring at her with a dazed expression upon his
swarthy face, she put her arms about his neck and laid her lips upon his
mouth.
“I never knew,” she whispered, “until you had gone that I belonged to you
body and soul.”
He threw his head back and laughed in his exaltation. “To-morrow,” he
said, “I shall go to the Consulate, and notify them that we are going to
be married.”
She nodded her head calmly. “Yes,” she smiled, “I suppose it’s too late
to do it to-day.”
The sun was going down behind the Pyramids as they returned with linked
arms to the hotel; and for a moment that sense of foreboding which is so
often felt at sunset in the desert, intruded itself upon his dream of
happiness. There were banks of menacing cloud gathered upon the horizon;
and from the village of El Kafr, at the foot of the Great Pyramid, there
came the far-off throbbing of a drum, a sound which always has in it an
element of alarm.
Jim turned to Monimé. “Tell me,” he urged, “that you have no doubts left
in your mind.”
“No, I have no doubts,” she answered. “You and I and Ian—we are bound
together now right to the end. It is Destiny.”
The period of three weeks which, by consular law, had to elapse before
the ceremony of their marriage could be performed, was a time of
blissful happiness to Jim. The open desert with its wind-swept spaces
of glistening sand, and its ranges of low hills which carried the eye
ever forward into its mysterious depths, enthralled him like an endless
tale of adventure, or like a native flute-song that rises and falls in
continuous changing melody. With Monimé he left the hotel each morning,
and, having conducted her to her tent, he would wander over the untrodden
wastes until the luncheon hour brought him back to her to share their
picnic meal. He would come to her again at sundown, and together they
would stroll back to civilization in time to see the last flush fade
from the domes and minarets of the distant city. Or, when the painter’s
inspiration failed her, they would mount their camels and go careering
into the wilderness, riding through silent valleys and over breezy hills,
talking eagerly as they went, and sending their laughter echoing amongst
the rocks.
For him it was a lazy, sun-bathed existence, rich in the abundance of
their love, and unmarred by any cares. He read in the papers that the
trial of Jane Potts would not take place before March; and with that
assurance he returned to his earlier habit of detachment from the world’s
doings, and did not again trouble even to glance at the news. Life was a
new thing to him: it had begun again; and the tragic events of the past
were, for the present, able to be forgotten.
Even a favourable letter from the publishers to whom he had sent his
poems hardly aroused his excitement, so deeply was he in love. It was
a somewhat patronizing letter, in which no great consideration for his
artistic sensibilities was manifest. The manuscript was accepted for
publication some time in the spring, on moderately satisfactory terms;
but it was stated that the firm’s discretion must be admitted, and,
owing to his inaccessibility, it might be necessary to rely on their own
“readers” in the correction of the proofs. He was told, in fact, to leave
the matter in their hands, and not to assert himself further than to
cable his consent to this agreement; and this he did, without giving two
thoughts to the matter. Some ten days later a contract arrived, which he
was requested to sign; and having done so, he mailed it back to London,
and went his joyous way.
Monimé had been commissioned to paint some pictures of the great
rock-temple of Abu Simbel, in Lower Nubia, far up the Nile; and it was
therefore decided that they should go there immediately after their
marriage, by which time her work in the neighbourhood of the Pyramids
would be completed. To this Jim looked forward eagerly; for there was
something akin to rapture in the thought of faring forth, alone with his
beloved, into distant places, where they would be undisturbed by the
proximity of their entirely superfluous fellow-creatures.
At length the great day arrived, and, driving into Cairo, they were
married in ten minutes at the Consulate, and thence they sped across to
the English church, where the religious ceremony was quietly performed.
That night, as in a dream, they travelled by sleeping-car to Luxor, and,
next day, continued their ecstatic way to the Nubian frontier. Here the
railroad terminates, and the remainder of the journey, therefore, had to
be made by river.
The dahabiyeh which they had chartered awaited them at Shallâl, over
against Philæ, just above the First Cataract; and their settling in was
much simplified by the fact that the local police officer, sauntering
on the wharf, recognized Jim, and at once put himself at their service.
He had been in charge of the camel patrol which used to visit the gold
mines; and Jim had shown him some kindness, which now he endeavoured to
return by a noisy but effective show of his authority and patronage.
The vessel was not large, the interior accommodation consisting of a
white-painted saloon, a narrow passage, from which a small cabin and a
bathroom led off, and a fair-sized bedroom at the stern. Above their
apartments was the deck, across which awnings of richly-coloured Arab
tenting were drawn when the ship was not under sail. In the prow were the
kitchen and quarters of the native sailors.
Abu Simbel is a hundred and seventy miles up stream from Shallâl; and,
sailing from silver dawn to golden sunset, and mooring each night under
the jewelled indigo of the skies, the journey occupied some five
enchanted days. The beauty of the rugged country and their own hearts’
happiness, caused the hours to pass with the rapidity of a dream. Even
the heat of the powerful sun seemed to be mitigated for them by the
prevalent north-west wind, which bellied out the great sail and drove the
heavy prow forward so that it divided the waters into two singing waves.
Now they sailed past dense and silent groves of palms backed by
precipitous rocks; now they shattered the reflections of glacier-like
slopes of yellow sand marked by no footprints; and now they glided into
the shadow of dark and towering cliffs. Sometimes a ruined and lonely
temple of the days of the Pharaohs would drift across the theatre of
their vision; sometimes the huts of a village, built upon the shelving
sides of a hill, would pass before their eyes and slide away into the
distance; and sometimes across the water there would come to their ears
the dreamy creaking of a _sâkiyeh_, or water-wheel, and the song of the
naked boy who drove the blindfolded oxen round and round its rickety
platform.
At length in the darkness of early night they moored under the terrace
of the great temple of Abu Simbel, and awoke at daybreak to see from the
window of their cabin the four colossal statues of Rameses gazing high
across their little vessel towards the dawn.
These mighty figures, sixty feet and more in height, carved out of the
face of the cliff, sit in a solemn row, two on each side of the doorway
which leads into the vast halls excavated in the living rock. Their
serene eyes are fixed upon the eastern horizon, their lips are a little
smiling, their hands rest placidly upon their knees; and now, in the
first light of morning, they loomed out of the fading shadow like cold,
calm figures of destiny, knowing all that the day would bring forth and
finding in that knowledge no cause for vexation.
With a simultaneous impulse Jim and Monimé rose from their bed, and,
quickly dressing, hastened up the sandy path to the terrace of the
temple, that they might see the first rays of the sun strike upon those
great, unblinking eyes.
They had not long to wait. Suddenly a warm flush suffused the pale, rigid
faces, a flush that did not seem to be thrown from the sunrise. It was
as though some internal flame of vitality had transmuted the hard rock
into living flesh; it was as though the blood were coursing through the
solid stone, and miraculous, monstrous life were come into being at the
touch of the god of the sun. The eyes seemed to open wider, the lips to
be about to open, the nostrils to dilate....
Monimé clasped hold of Jim’s hand. “They are going to speak,” she
exclaimed. “They are going to rise up from their four thrones.”
In awe they stood, a little Hop o’ my Thumb and his wife, staring up
out of the blue shadows of the terrace to the huge, flushed faces above
them. But the miracle was quickly ended. The sun ascended from behind the
eastern hills, and in its full radiance the colossal figures were once
more turned to inanimate stone, to wait until to-morrow’s recurrence of
that one supreme moment in which the pulse of life is vouchsafed to them.