Daniel's mind was not at ease as he rode through the gathering darkness.
His thoughts had been shaken out of their habitual tranquillity by his
few hours in the city, and he had the feeling that he had turned his
back upon a picture which he would have liked a little longer to
contemplate, that he had shut a book in which he would have preferred to
read yet another chapter. But when the moon rose and cast its early
mystery upon the empty wilderness around him, a greater calm fell upon
him, and he began to appreciate once more that sense of detachment from
the restless doings of the world which is the particular gift of the
desert.
For two hours or more he rode in silence, and ever as he passed deeper
into the great void before him his musing mind contemplated with
increasing serenity the events of the last night and day. Out here in
this everlasting calm he could smile at the little agitations which had
beset him in Cairo, and could observe their triviality. Here the
strident call of flesh and blood was hushed, and the equable balance of
mind and body was able to be resumed. No wonder, he thought to himself
that the monks of old had hidden themselves in the wilderness: they had
discovered a blessed equanimity, and a consequent happiness not to be
found in the busy thoroughfares of the city.
At length he called a halt in a rugged valley, through which a stream
had flowed in bygone ages. Its bed of fine shingle and sand made a soft
and pliable resting-place; and here he ate his evening meal, lying back
upon his sheepskin thereafter, smoking his pipe and talking to his
friends, until sleep came to him.
On the following day they rode no more than five-and-twenty miles,
taking a course somewhat more roundabout than that of their outward
journey, and it was mid-afternoon when they reached the water-hole at
which the night was to be spent. Riding round a bend in a precipitous
valley, Daniel, who was some distance ahead of his retainers, suddenly
found himself looking down upon the rocky hollow in which lay the little
pool of water, so blue in its setting of mellow sun-bathed rocks that it
seemed even deeper in tone than the sky it reflected. Here grew the
greenest reeds and rushes, and, mirrored in the water, there was a
delicate tamarisk whose soft foliage swayed in the breeze as though
setting the time to the nodding dance of the reeds.
Sitting beside the pool a little girl was tending a few goats whose
bleating came merrily to his ears on the wind. She had not heard the
soft pads of his approaching camel, and he was almost upon her before
she looked up. With a cry of surprise she fled down the valley, and
suddenly, from amidst the shadows of the boulders, a grey-bearded son of
the desert stepped forth into the sunlight, an ancient broadsword in his
hands, and a ragged cloak of many colours thrown over his shoulders.
Daniel dismounted from his camel, and exchanged greetings with the
patriarch, while the little girl hid herself behind the man's thin brown
legs, and the goats leaped upon the rocks to stare at the stranger from
a safe distance.
"Never fear, little one," said the old man as he patted the child's
head. "This is only an Englishman. There are many such: they harm not."
The old goatherd, and two of his grandsons, who presently made their
appearance, proved to be related to families in the Oasis of El Hamran
where Daniel resided; and the talk during the evening meal was all of
mutual acquaintances, of the movements of various groups of Bedouin, of
camping-grounds and water-holes.
A woman and the little girl, her daughter, sat amidst the rocks in the
background as they talked, and Daniel observed that the child was
nursing a primitive doll made of three sticks and a piece of rag, and
that at length she fell asleep with this poor proxy held close in her
brown arms. Later in the evening, therefore, in the light of the moon,
he fashioned a very much more convincing article out of sticks, string,
and a handkerchief; and with his fountain-pen he outlined an audacious
face, which, with a few combings from his sheepskin in the place of
hair, gave an appearance of striking and awful reality to the figure.
The goatherds encouraged his efforts with excited laughter, and when, at
last, the doll was finished, he walked over to the sleeping girl and
placed it in her arms.
On the third day they made good going, passing across a range of low
hills, and descending into a wide plain where they disturbed a herd of
gazelle, which went galloping off at their approach and were lost in the
haze of the distance.
So they journeyed in easy stages; and day by day Daniel more fully
resumed that jovial, contented mind which is the basis of happiness. The
benign influence of sun and breeze and open space was upon him once
more, and his heart was filled as it were with laughter. Riding ever
westward, he seemed to be following the course of the sun; and each
evening, as it passed down behind the horizon ahead, it marked
tomorrow's track, as though bidding him come deeper, ever deeper, into
the merry freedom of the desert. He whistled a tune to himself as he
rode through echoing valleys; he sang at the top of his voice as, far
ahead of his men, he passed over the hills, and viewed the great vistas
before him; and as he drew near to the oasis which was his destination,
and observed once again the presence of birds and the tracks of jackals,
he urged his camel forward with many an endearing and persuasive word.
Now he met with goatherds and camelherds who were his friends, and
merrily he called his greetings to them; now he knew the lie of the
country, and noted the places where, from time to time, he had camped or
rested in the shade at noon when he had been out hunting gazelle, or
tracking the jackals to their lairs, by way of exercise. Now the west
wind brought the faint scent of the cultivated land to his sensitive
nostrils, and his camel lifted its head to snuff at the breeze.
At last, in a golden sunset, amidst the chattering of innumerable
sparrows, he descended from the barren hills into the dense palm groves
of the Oasis of El Hamran, from whose shadows the white-robed figures of
the Bedouin emerged to greet him.
An all-pervading peace enfolded him, and his short visit to civilized
life seemed like a dream that was fading from his memory. The city
beside the Nile had become a thing of unreality, and he had awakened, as
it were, to the happy sunshine of life's placid day, and was eager to be
once more at his work.
Yet, in far-away Cairo, there were five minds at least which retained a
vivid recollection of his brief incursion into the city. There was Lord
Barthampton, who, for forty-eight hours after Daniel's departure, had
lain in a drunken stupor which, for form's sake, was termed a touch of
the sun; and who, thereafter, had forsworn all intoxicating liquor, and
had resumed his place at the mess in the sullen silence of one who has
returned unwillingly to the fold.
There was Lizette, who had wept a little, and for a little while had
bemoaned her lot, and who, later, had gone, as was her wont, to the
Franciscan Church, and had said her beads and had prayed that one day
she might meet again the mighty man who had sent the pig Barthampton so
beautifully sprawling upon the floor.
There was Lord Blair, who had received an effusive reply from the
gratified Minister of War, and, thereat, had schemed and plotted to
bring the wise Daniel within closer reach of the Residency. There was
Rupert Helsingham, who, ever since the ride to Mena House, had been
filled with matrimonial dreams and fears of rivalry, and had racked his
brains to decide upon a course of action which should give him
opportunities of displaying those brutal tendencies of manhood which
seemed to be so successful with the opposite sex.
And lastly, there was Muriel, who had aroused Rupert's jealousy by
talking from time to time about Daniel, with a sort of defiance in her
voice which could almost be mistaken for awe.
It was inevitable that she and Charles Barthampton should meet: it was
only strange that they had not met before in London. On the same evening
upon which Daniel had arrived at his home in El Hamran, his cousin was a
guest at dinner at the Residency, where he found himself seated next to
Muriel. The latter had been taken into dinner by one of the Egyptian
princes, an elegant personage who had lived most of his life in Vienna,
Paris, and Monte Carlo, and whose contempt for the English was only
equalled by his scorn of the Egyptians. He was an authority on modern
French art; and when Muriel, in a frenzy of tact, had rushed the
conversation again and again into that province, and had exhausted all
that she knew by rote upon the subject, she was glad of an opportunity
to turn in the opposite direction and address herself to Barthampton.
He, on his part, had taken in the daughter of the French Consul-General,
who was much more interested in Rupert Helsingham upon her other hand;
and, being thus left alone to play with his toast and sip his wine, he
had turned to Muriel with relief.
"I can't talk to this French girl," he whispered. "She doesn't
understand English, and my French isn't exactly ladylike."
"Well, do you know anything about French art?" she asked, hopefully.
"I'm sitting next to a connoisseur, and I've run dry."
"French art?" he laughed. "Rather! I've got a collection of
postcards--I've framed some of them; and I take _La Vie Parisienne_
regularly."
Muriel sighed. "No, I'm afraid that won't help," she said.
"Well, try him on English art," he suggested. "Good stuff, you
know--Landseer and Leighton and Alma-Tadema."
"No," said Muriel gravely, "he's very modern."
"Oh, modern, is he? Then what about Kirchner? Or Cecil Aldin?--but I
don't suppose he knows a fox from a hound." He leaned forward and stared
at the Prince. "Queer little devil, isn't he, what? Doesn't look much
like a nigger."
"Why should he?" Muriel asked. "The Royal house is Albanian--pure
Turkish."
"Oh, I lump them all together," he answered, with a gesture of his red
hand. "Quaint country, Egypt, isn't it? What d'you think of it?"
"So far, I like it immensely," she replied. "But I shouldn't think it
was an interesting place for a soldier. What do your men think of it?"
"I don't know: I've never asked 'em," he replied. "Not much, I shouldn't
think. There are not enough housemaids to go round, and the beer's
atrocious. I can't think why we're not kept in London; after all, we're
the Guards. They ought to leave the dirty work to the ordinary regiments
of the line. I don't see why we should be made to sweat out here. It's
these Radicals: they never can mind their own business."
"Father and I are Radicals, you know," she smiled. "And our forebears
were Whigs before us."
"Beg pardon," he said, with a grunt. "I'd forgotten my history lessons.
We Lanes were always Tories."
Muriel glanced at him quickly. "Oh, I'd quite forgotten," she said, with
interest. "Of course, you're a Lane. I wonder if you're any relation to
a certain Daniel Lane?"
Lord Barthampton's face fell. "How d'you come to know Daniel Lane?" he
asked, as he busied himself with his food.
"I met him the other day," she answered. "He's a friend of my father's.
Oh, yes, I remember now: he said he had a relation out here in the
Guards."
"Yes," he replied, with his mouth full. "He's a cousin; but I hardly
know him. He's spent much of his life in the States."
"Tell me about him," she said. She was all interest.
"I don't know anything to tell you," he answered, casually. "He's a
crank--lives with the niggers in the desert or something. Looks like a
tramp."
"He's very clever, isn't he? My father thinks the world of him."
Lord Barthampton noisily threw down his knife and fork. "There's not
much love lost between him and me," he said, and relapsed into silence;
while Muriel, seeing that she had touched upon a sore subject, took the
opportunity to resume her conversation with her partner.
Late that evening, after the guests had departed, Muriel, prompted by a
sense of duty, found herself in the library, bidding a motherly
good-night to her father, who was smoking a final cigar, and was
standing before the empty fireplace, his hands under his coattails in
unconscious retention of the habits of other days.
"By the way," she said, "did you know that Lord Barthampton was Daniel
Lane's cousin?"
"You don't say so!" he exclaimed. "Well, well! I had no idea."
He opened a bookcase, and lifting out _Burke's Peerage_, turned over its
pages with evident interest. After a few moment's study, he uttered a
little ejaculation.
"Dear me, dear me!" he remarked. "Daniel is not only his cousin, but his
heir presumptive." He stroked his chin, and carried the bulky volume
nearer to the light. "Hm! Well, well--to be sure!" he muttered.
He laid the book down, and clasping his hands behind his back, walked to
and fro across the room, while Muriel turned to glance at the family
record.
As she looked up once more, her father paused, his head on one side, his
fingers stroking his jaw. "Now, if that lout were to die ..." he mused.
"D'you mean Mr. Lane?" asked Muriel innocently.
"No, no! Tut, tut!" exclaimed her father, pinching the lobe of her ear,
and then, as though afraid of giving offence, patting her cheek instead.
"Daniel Lane is not a lout! I was referring to his cousin. If Daniel
were to inherit--"
"If he were to inherit," Muriel put in, as he paused, "there'd be a
panic in the House of Lords--peers hiding under benches, Lord Chancellor
flung into gallery, Archbishop popped into waste-paper basket--"
Lord Blair raised his delicate hand in protest: his thoughts were more
serious. "You know," he said, "that man is wasting himself in the
desert. I wish I could persuade him to accept some official position in
Cairo. I should like to push him into prominence--oblige him, force him,
to take an active part in the government of this country."
An expression almost of sadness came into his face. "I sometimes feel,"
he went on, "that we diplomatists, products of the Foreign Office, are
totally unfitted to rule a mediaeval country such as this. Look at me,
Muriel; am I the romantic figure to impress the native mind? Egypt does
not want diplomacy; she wants physical strength combined with
philosophy--she wants a man who is a mighty hunter before the Lord, a
giant, a hero out of a legend."
"Oh, father dear," Muriel replied, "everybody says you are the ideal
ruler." She felt sorry for him: he seemed such an insignificant little
figure, so fussy, so well-meaning, and just now so modest.
"No," he continued, "I don't understand the native mind; I must confess,
I don't understand it. And I sometimes think that I am not serving the
best interests of England. I want my country to be respected, Muriel; I
have such vast ambition for England. I want our manhood to be seen to
the best advantage, so that the natives may say: 'Since we are to be
ruled, let us be glad that we are ruled by _men_.'"
Muriel put her hands upon his shoulders. For the first time she really
liked him. "I think you're splendid, father," she said.
"Now, if Daniel Lane took his position in society," he mused, "if, for
instance, he were Lord Barthampton, there would be no difficulty. I
could push him forward, and in a few years he would be old enough to
succeed me here at the Residency. A little more care about his
appearance, perhaps--"
"And a little less rudeness," said Muriel.
"No, he is not rude," Lord Blair corrected her. "He is only
unceremonious."
There was a tap at the door, and Rupert entered. He was the only one of
the Secretaries who lived on the premises.
"I'm just off to bed," he said. "Is there anything you want me to do,
sir?"
Lord Blair looked at him, as though waking from a dream. "Let me see,
yes, there was something I was going to ask you to do. What was it, now?
Dear, dear! How bad my memory is! Ah, yes, I have it! A letter: I want
you to acknowledge it formally, the first thing in the morning. It's on
my study table. No, you could not find it in all that litter. I must
really have a grand tidying-up, I must indeed. One moment: I'll get it
for you."
He hurried from the room, in short, nervous steps, and, as he
disappeared, Rupert turned to Muriel. "By Jove!" he exclaimed. "You do
look beautiful tonight. I could hardly take my eyes off you all the
evening."
Muriel smiled happily. "I'm glad you think so. I thought I looked a
sight; and Prince What's-his-name was evidently bored with me."
"On the contrary," he answered, "he told me he thought you were
charming, and such a connoisseur."
"Of what," she asked brightly.
"Of the art of the Stone Age, he said. I don't know what he meant."
Muriel flushed. "The little beast!" she cried, angrily. "He was trying
to be rude."
"Rude, was he?" said Rupert, viciously. He assumed a fighting attitude,
and, when Muriel had frankly explained the insinuation of the remark, he
set his teeth and made a determined attempt to appear grim.
"He'll get one in the jaw, if he doesn't look out," he muttered.
Lord Blair re-entered the room, carrying the letter (for some unknown
reason) extended in his thumb and first finger as though it smelt. He
paused on seeing Rupert's simulation of pugilism, and looked at him
critically, as it were measuring the young man's capacities in that
arena. Then he shook his head sadly, and handed him the letter.
When Rupert had left them, Lord Blair turned to his daughter.
"Undersized," he murmured, "sadly undersized."
"Oh, not so very," said Muriel, divining his thoughts. "And, any way,
he's a good-looking boy, and his manners are charming. I'm growing very
fond of Rupert."
Lord Blair glanced at her quickly.