The road, or rather camel-track, from El Homra to El Hamran passes
across a wide plain of comparatively flat sand, which looks like the bed
of a vast lake from which the waters have been drained off. It is a huge
hollow separated by high ground from the smaller basin in which the
former oasis is situated. Ranges of hills form the boundaries of this
area, those to the east being high and many-peaked, the others low and
undulating; and from one side of the plain to the other must be
something like twenty miles. There are three wells between the two
oases, the second being practically in the centre of the plain, and
marking the half-way point of the journey.
Muriel and her dragoman reached this well at about one o'clock, when the
sun was almost directly overhead and the glare intense. It was a deep
pool not more than a dozen feet from side to side; but in the clear
water the blue of the sky was so vividly reflected that Muriel, as she
stood staring down into it, had the impression that the earth was flat
and that she was looking through a hole into further spaces of empty air
beneath.
A few yards distant there were some tamarisks, providing a little patch
of shade, almost as blue as the sky and water; and a stone's throw away
there was a hillock of sand upon which grew a few low and dusty bushes.
With these exceptions there was no vegetation to be seen, and the sand
stretched out in all directions, barren and dazzling, until the surface
was lost in vaporous mirage, so that the far-off hills looked like
islands floating above the haze.
She called her dragoman to her. "Mustafa," she said, "I'm going to
bathe. You must go and sit behind that hillock over there, and you
mustn't move till I tell you you may."
Servants in the East are ever accustomed to be told to take themselves
off in this fashion, when their native mistresses desire to amuse
themselves; and he now received his orders from the daughter of the
foreign ruler of Egypt without surprise. He quickly filled the
water-bottles from the pool, and, telling her that he would prepare the
luncheon on the other side of the hillock, walked off across the sand.
As soon as she was alone, Muriel divested herself of her clothes in the
shelter of the tamarisks, and plunged into the cool water. Never in her
life had she felt so boisterously, recklessly happy; never before had
she realized how cramped her existence had been. Here in these empty
spaces of the world she was like a child with all the delights of the
open garden to herself; and presently she would slip into the next
garden and greet there her playmate.
As she splashed in the water she learned for the first time the
wonderful sensation of bathing without the weight of a costume about her
limbs; and her thoughts flashed back with disdain to those elegant days
at fashionable seaside resorts where she had almost feared to let the
waves wet her dainty bathing-dress, and where she had been aware of
opera glasses levelled upon her as she walked sedately into the sea.
From side to side of the little pool she swam, tossing the water into
the air in showers of sparkling drops; and, presently, when, clambering
back on to the sand, she stood with arms stretched out to the sunlight,
she felt that at last she knew the meaning of life.
The hot sun dried her body, without much need of the aid of her
handkerchief; and when she was dressed she hastened with a wonderful
appetite to her luncheon. Mustafa, being a well-trained dragoman, did
not trouble her with his presence; and she was thus able to make very
frank inroads into the tongue and sweet-pickles, the biscuits and the
jam, which he had provided. And after the meal she lay back in the
shade, against the slope of the sand, and slept for half an hour in
profound content.
She awoke with the conviction that at last all was well with her. It
seemed to her that what Daniel had all along desired was that she should
renounce "the World," as he called it, and come to him; and now, in
these last few days, she had realized that this was no renunciation at
all. He had been perfectly right: a life in the open was the only life
for Youth; and here, not in the cities, real happiness was to be found.
All he had asked of her was to break loose from her conventional
existence, and to come to him; and now she knew how incomprehensible her
reluctance must have seemed to him. He had been holding out to her the
free joys of her youth: he had been saying to her, "Come and be my
playmate and my dear companion," and when she had refused, he had gone
off by himself, bidding her follow him if at last she should shake
herself free of her imaginary bonds. How stupid to him, how vulgar, must
have been her wish for a correct betrothal!--no wonder he had given up
in dismay.
Such thoughts occupied her brain during the afternoon as she trotted
exultantly, and with wild and reckless freedom from all restraint,
towards El Hamran; but very different were the thoughts in the mind of
Daniel Lane, as, all unaware of her proximity, he sat peacefully in his
room, putting the finishing touches to his interrupted study of the
customs of the Bedouin of the Oases.
In a manner it might be said that he was content. He had fought a
terrible battle with himself during these five-and-twenty days since he
had left Cairo, and his mighty spirit had won the victory over his
mutinous body. Like a monk abandoning the pleasures of the world, he had
crushed within him the one passionate episode of his continent life.
Throughout his strenuous manhood he had put away from him the call of
the flesh: he had mastered his body, and had subordinated all other
interests to those of his work. In a sense he had lived the life of an
ascetic, save that he had not actually mortified his body. He had
governed and controlled his physical instincts, but he had found no need
to break them with rods. In perfect health, in perfect physical fitness,
he had passed his days, filled with that deep, laughing happiness which
comes from a quiet mind. His gigantic muscles were ever ruled by his
mighty reason; and serene, smiling tranquillity had been his reward.
It was only since Muriel had come into his life that he had known any
disturbance; for she was practically the first woman with whom he had
ever been on intimate terms. And when she had failed him he had beaten
out the very thought of her from his riotous heart, and had fled to the
placid sanctuary of the desert, there to recover his equanimity.
To him she had seemed to be tainted by her contact with that section of
society whose artificiality he so heartily disliked. These people paid
outward court to the conventions of life, but in secret they treated in
the lightest manner the very bases upon which these conventions were
founded. Being satisfied with the surface of things, they lived their
lives in turmoil and called it pleasure; nor had they any idea of that
deeper happiness which comes from contact with fundamental truth and
simplicity.
And Muriel had been as blind as the blindest of them. She only played
with life--skimmed over the surface, snatching at such pleasures as lay
to hand.
If she had turned her back on her dances and her parties, and had come
to him and had said, "Take me into the desert for ever," he would have
believed in her love, and nothing could have held them apart; but,
whether correctly or incorrectly he knew not, he had had the impression
that she had wished to fill but an idle hour with the sweets of love,
just as, so it seemed to him, all fair women of Mayfair were wont to do.
Therefore he had come back to the clear and open spaces of the desert;
and here, in the ruined monastery which for so long had been his home,
he had sought and found once more his peace of mind. In a few weeks'
time he would return to Cairo; but in future he would arrange to receive
his Egyptian visitors away from the Residency, at some house in the
native quarter where he could work without distraction.
As he sat writing in his shirt-sleeves at his table near the window and
the sun was descending towards the horizon, his attention was attracted
by the barking of his dogs, and he wondered whether some native from the
village had come to see him. He was concerned just now in regard to the
growing quarrel between the two main families of the Oasis, and visits
were frequently paid to him by persons connected with the great feud.
The barking, however, presently ceased abruptly, and therewith he went
on with his work. The room was large, and the loud chattering of the
sparrows in the palms outside the window prevented him from hearing the
opening of the door behind him. He was not aware that his servant,
Hussein, had entered, agog with excitement; nor did he see Muriel, who,
followed him, as she waved him out of the room, and shut the door behind
her.
It was only when she was close to him that he heard the footstep and
looked around.
He sprang to his feet. "Muriel!" he exclaimed, as he stared at her in
astonishment.
She did not speak. She ran to him, and, throwing her hands around his
neck, was lifted from the ground in his arms. For a few moments she did
nothing but kiss him--she rained kisses on his mouth and his bewildered
face in a very frenzy of love, so that he gasped. Then her hands,
slipping from behind his neck, passed over his forehead and his cheeks,
and through his hair, patting him and stroking him; while her hat fell
off, unnoticed, and her feet dangled above the ground, vainly seeking
for foothold in the vicinity of his shins.
At last, having been lowered to the ground, she stood before him, her
hands held in his, her face flushed, her hair falling down.
"Oh, my darling," she cried, "I couldn't live without you any longer.
I've broken loose: I've run away and come to you."
And, as his arms went about her once more, nigh crushing the breath out
of her, she shut her eyes and received his answering kisses in
passionate glorious silence.