By the middle of March Muriel's enforced residence at El Hamran was
drawing to a close. Already she had been with Daniel for eleven or
twelve days, and he had kept her so busy that the time had passed
rapidly. These days had been like a fantastic dream to her, and she
could hardly believe in the reality of her actions. The whole situation
was absurd; and yet, notwithstanding her artificial outward stiffness
and her actual inward rebellion, she was conscious that her experience
had not been unprofitable.
In spite of Daniel's hectoring and churlish manners--for so she thought
them--she felt that she had seen something of life as it is lived under
primitive conditions which otherwise she would never have known. She had
even experienced, latterly, a pleasant sense of calm while she had been
carrying out her duties: it was almost as though being under orders were
a satisfactory condition--now and then. And as to her physical health,
she was obliged to admit that she had never before felt so thoroughly
fit.
Her attitude to her monitor was one of unbending hostility, but now no
longer of furious anger. She was not afraid of him, but very decidedly
she did not feel the contempt for him which she endeavoured to show. She
regarded him as a man of difficult and contrary character, but she now
realized that she had greatly misjudged his outlook upon life. She had
thought that in regard to women he was a prurient savage: she now knew
that he was a high-principled and rather fastidious celibate.
Undoubtedly he had taught her the lesson of her life, but she was
certainly not going to grasp his hand and thank him kindly on that
account. He had built up a barrier between them which would remain a
fixture for all time, and, though her heart often ached, she was far too
estranged from him to think of any future intimacy whatsoever between
them.
Only in one respect, in these days of their life together, did she feel
drawn towards him. He had an indefinably benevolent and humorous
attitude towards life, of which she was daily more conscious. It was
something which could not be described, but on more than one occasion it
nearly served to break down the wall of ice within in which she had
enclosed herself. Sometimes it would be merely that he stopped in his
walk to make an absurd remark to a passing cow or to a wandering goat;
sometimes it would be the way in which he played with his dogs; or
sometimes it was his manner to the native children which would cause her
to unbend towards him. It was as though he had a private joke with every
living creature. It was too quiet to be termed joviality: it was in no
wise rollicking. It was a subtle droll and whimsical good-nature; it
seemed almost as if, conscious of his own great strength, he were saying
"Bless your little heart!" to all things weaker than he.
One morning, just as they were finishing a silent breakfast, Hussein
entered the room, and delivered himself of a few rapid words in the
Arabic tongue, which so much upset Daniel that he rose to his feet and
paced up and down the floor in great perturbation.
"Anything wrong?" asked Muriel, temporarily unfreezing.
"Yes; very bad news," he replied. "Old Sheikh Ali is very ill. It sounds
like pneumonia. I must go down to him at once."
He snatched up his hat, and, without taking any further notice of
Muriel, hurried out of the room. Sheikh Ali was a man whom he loved and
respected, and the possible death of his friend was so great a sorrow to
him that his mind was filled full of darkness, like a room in which the
blinds have suddenly been pulled down. And the condition in which he
found the old man confirmed his worst fears; and presently, in deep
anxiety, he hastened back to the house to procure the necessaries for
his proper nursing.
"Will you come with me," he said to Muriel, "and help me to look after
him?"
She hesitated. "I am not much good as a nurse," she demurred, "but I'll
do what I can."
"Thank you," he replied, and the words were uttered with genuine
gratitude.
Daniel knew something of the rudiments of medical science, and he was
aware that there was very little to be done in a case of pneumonia
except to keep the patient warm and to maintain his strength. When he
returned, therefore, to the Sheikh's house with Muriel, he was carrying
with him a small oil stove with which to warm the sick-room at night,
and a pillow in its clean white cover was thrust under his arm, while
Muriel held a basket containing a number of articles from the
store-cupboard and medicine-chest.
The house, a whitewashed building of two storeys, stood amongst the
palms, not more than three or four hundred yards distant from the
monastery. As they approached it they heard the sound of wailing in the
women's quarters, and at this Daniel uttered an exclamation of disgust.
"Oh, these women!" he muttered. "We mustn't let them do that. Wait a
minute."
He went to the side door and knocked upon it. An old negress, a servant
of the house, opened the door, her eyes red with weeping, and her
withered breast bare.
"The Sheikh is dying, the Sheikh is dying!" she wailed, as Daniel
questioned her.
He put his hand on her shoulder. "Go and tell them," he said, "that if I
hear another sound of weeping I shall send somebody to beat you all with
a stick. Do you not know the saying of the Prophet: 'Trust in God, but
tether the camel'? If God has decreed that your camel shall run away it
will certainly run away, but nevertheless you must do your part in
preventing it. If the Sheikh is going to die he will die; but until he
is dead you must do all you can to tether him to life. Let me hear no
more sounds of mourning until the breath has left his body. In my
country we say 'While there is life there is hope.' Go now and
hope--hope in silence."
He pushed her back into the house and returned to Muriel.
[Illustration: _A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY--BURNING SANDS_]
They found the Sheikh lying upon a couch in the whitewashed upper room,
into which the sun struck through the open casements. He was propped up
upon the hard square pillows taken from an ordinary native divan, and
his laboured breathing sounded ominously in their ears. His son Ibrahim,
a grave, black-bearded man of middle age, stood by his side, drumming
the fist of one hand into the palm of the other in his great distress.
"See," said Daniel, speaking to the patient in Arabic, "I have brought
her Excellency to nurse you. Let me put this soft pillow under your
head; and, look, here is a stove to keep off the chill of night. In two
or three days, my father, we shall bring you back to health."
The old man shook his head. "No, my dear," he whispered, "I am going to
my God. God has said, 'I am a hidden treasure. I have made man that he
might find Me!' I go now to find Him."
Daniel knelt down by his side, and, taking the thin hand in his,
remained silent for some moments, his eyes shut, his brows knitted.
Muriel watched him in surprise. It was evident that he was praying; and
she had never before seen anybody pray, though in church she had known
people go through the correct postures and outward formalities of
prayer.
Presently he rose to his feet, and at once became businesslike and
practical. He took the patient's temperature; dexterously pinned the
native shawl about him; arranged the pillows under his head; opened a
bottle of meat-extract and administered a little of its contents; and,
sending for milk and eggs, made Muriel go out on the rickety landing to
beat up the eggs into the milk.
When she returned with the beverage she found that he and Ibrahim had
fastened grass matting across the windows to check the glare of the sun,
and now were standing in the subdued light talking in quiet cheerful
tones to the sick man.
Presently Daniel turned to her. "I think the best thing you can do," he
said, "is to sit beside him and fan away the flies when you see them
bothering him."
He handed her a fly-whisk, and placed a small stool beside the couch;
and here she sat herself, while her patient closed his eyes and drowsed
in some degree of comfort.
They went back to the house for luncheon, and during the meal Daniel
told her of the troubles which might ensue in the Oasis if the Sheikh
were to die. He spoke of the feud between the sick man's family and that
of their rivals; and he explained how Sheikh Ali desired to be succeeded
in his office as headman by his son Ibrahim, and that there was a danger
of the other party taking advantage of the absence of so many of the
Sheikh's adherents, who had gone to El Khargeh.
"If Sheikh Ali dies," he pointed out, "the other faction may carry out a
_coup_, and establish their candidate in power while all these men are
away. That would be a disaster; for the man they wish to set up is a
crook, if ever there was one. He would be just the sort of fellow to
play into Benifett Bindane's hands and sell himself to the Company."
"But," said Muriel in surprise, "aren't you in favour of this Company?"
"No," he answered. "I have come to the conclusion that it is not in the
best interests of the natives. They are happier as they are, for their
products are sufficient to their needs, and are pretty evenly
distributed. I don't trust these Stock Exchange fellows: they'll exploit
the Oasis to fill their own pockets. That's what I'm going to tell your
father when I get back to Cairo."
"Poor Mr. Bindane!" Muriel smiled. "He has set his heart on this
business."
In the afternoon they returned to the sick-room, where she made herself
very useful, and showed a remarkable aptitude for nursing; and the sun
was setting before they came back to the house once more. Muriel was
very tired by now, and as soon as the evening meal was over Daniel
advised her to go to bed.
"What about yourself?" she asked.
"Oh, I'll go back to him for a bit," he answered, but he would not
accept her proffered help.
She therefore went early to her room and soon fell asleep, nor did she
awake again until Hussein aroused her at sunrise with his clattering
preparations for her bath.
She found herself alone at breakfast, and it was explained to her by
signs that Daniel was with Sheikh Ali. Presently, therefore, she went
down to the sick man's house, a little ashamed of herself for not having
risen earlier.
As she entered the upper room she caught sight of Daniel's face, and its
expression of weary sorrow checked her. He was seated beside the couch,
his hand on the patient's pulse, his eyes fixed upon the old man, who
lay panting for breath, the beads of perspiration upon his wrinkled
forehead.
"Is there anything I can do?" she whispered.
He raised his head and gazed at her: she had never seen him look so
haggard before. "No," he answered, "he is beyond human aid. It's only a
question of minutes now."
"I ought to have come to help you sooner," she said. "How long have you
been here?"
"All night," he replied. "I couldn't leave my _friend_, could I?" There
was something in the inflection of his voice which very much touched
her.
The Sheikh turned his head slightly, and Daniel bent forward to catch
the laboured words.
"Ibrahim," he whispered.
Muriel understood, and, at a nod from Daniel, went out of the room to
find the dying man's son, whom she had seen at the doorway of the house,
on her arrival, kneeling upon the praying-carpet, his hands extended
towards the East. He had just risen to his feet as she came now to him,
and she made signs to him to go upstairs.
When she entered the sick room once more she saw the younger man
kneeling beside his father's couch. Daniel was holding the feeble old
hand, so that it rested upon Ibrahim's turbaned head. She heard and
seemed almost to understand the whispered words of the old man's
blessing, and presently, to her surprise, she observed the tears start
from Daniel's eyes, and their quick brushing away, with the back of his
hand. She had not thought him capable of tears.
Then suddenly she saw the dying man raise himself; she saw Daniel and
Ibrahim leaning forward to support him. She heard the rattling of his
breath, and she recognized the words that he uttered as those of the
Moslem formula which Daniel had more than once repeated to her: "I
testify that there is no God but God...." They came rolling now from his
lips with passionate energy: it was as though the sum of his whole life
were being expressed in these guttural, rhyming sounds. But the
declaration remained unfinished. The voice ceased upon the name of
Allah, the mouth dropped open, and the patriarchal head fell back.
Muriel had only once before stood at a deathbed; and later, as she
walked back to the monastery, she compared the scene of her mother's
death with that from which she had just come.
In the one case there had been the big four-poster bed, with its
hangings of embroidered velvet; the sombre room, lit by a shaded bedside
lamp and by the flickering of the fire in the wide Tudor grate; the
tapestried walls with their designs of dim huntsmen pursuing phantom
deer through the time-worn twilight of forgotten forests; the faded
Jacobean painting upon the ceiling, representing the fat back-view of a
reclining Venus and the fat front-view of naked Cupid. There had been
the pompous family doctor and the frigid specialist in their black frock
coats, and in the bed, between the embroidered sheets, her mother had
lain inert, her dyed hair, tidy to the end, framing her carefully
powdered face.
"Come here, my dear," she had whispered to Muriel. "Tell me, do you
believe in a God?"
"Yes, I think I do," she had replied.
"Well, I don't," was her mother's reply; and those were almost her last
words.
And, in contrast, there was this patriarchal scene in the bare,
whitewashed room, the sun beating upon the grass matting, the palms
rustling outside, and the flies droning: the old, saintly face of the
dying man, his withered hand laid upon the head of his beloved son, and
the fervent affirmation of his faith in God upon his lips.
Muriel was in a very subdued and reflective mood when she returned, and
as she stood at the window of the living-room, listening to the wailing
of the mourners in the distance, she wondered how best she could show
her sympathy with Daniel in his loss, without in other respects
unbending to him. He relieved her of the difficulty, however, when he
came in; for he showed no outward signs of his grief, and seemed in no
wise to be asking for her condolence. He spoke of the beauty of the
Sheikh's life, and of the serenity of his death; and when Muriel made
some remark in regard to the sadness of the event he quietly corrected
her.
"Death," he said, "is not a calamity when a man has reached old age. It
is like the ripeness of corn, as Marcus Aurelius says, when the soul
drops out of the husk almost of its own accord. It is a natural action,
just as birth is. It is only we who are left behind who are
unhappy--because we have lost a friend; and as for that, why, I am not
going to let my loss make me wretched."
"That sounds extremely selfish," she remarked, coldly.
"No," he answered, "sorrow is selfish, not happiness. There's never any
use in pulling a long face."