The following afternoon, directly his work at the office was
finished, he went out to the oasis in the desert to look at his new
possession, his bungalow in the palms.
The moment he saw it peeping out from amongst them, and surrounded
by roses, he expressed himself satisfied, and named the place
Saied-i-stan, or the place of happiness.
The butler met him there; he was bursting with self-importance.
"You leave everything to me, Sahib--everything. I know all the
Sahib wants. He shall have all. Let him come, ten o'clock, nine
o'clock, no matter when; all quite ready. I am here. I have
everything waiting for the Sahib."
Hamilton smiled and praised him, and went back to the station; took
a pretence of dinner and a hurried cup of coffee, and then went
down into the bazaar with the precious bit of paper containing the
directions to Saidie's dwelling-place in his breast pocket.
He found the house at last, and, going in at the doorless
entrance, climbed patiently the wooden stairs that ran straight up
from it in complete darkness. On the topmost landing--a frail
wooden structure that creaked beneath his feet--he paused, and
rapped twice on the door opposite him.
His heart beat rapidly as he stood there; the blood seemed flying
through it. All the strength of his vigorous body seemed gathering
itself together within him, all the fire of his keen, hungry brain
leapt up, and waiting there in the dark on the narrow landing he
knew the joy of life.
The door was opened. In a moment his eye swept round the interior
of the high windowless room. The floor was bare, with mats here and
there, and in the centre stood a flat pan of charcoal, glowing
under a closed and steaming cooking-pot. At one end a coarse chick,
suspended from a wooden bar, dropped its long lines to the floor,
and behind this, on some cushions, sat Saidie with another of the
dancing-girls.
The old woman who had opened the door, salaamed, touching the floor
with her forehead as Hamilton walked in, and then securely shut and
fastened the door behind him. Saidie rose and looked through the
shimmering lines of the chick at him as he entered.
Very handsome the tall commanding figure looked in the mean, bare
room: the long neck and well-modelled head, with its black,
close-cut hair, stood out a noble relief against the colourless
wall, and the clear brown skin, with the warm tint of quick blood
in it that showed above the English collar, arrested the girl's
eyes with a keen thrill of joy. Looking at him, she felt rushing
through her the passionate delight that self-surrender to such a
man would be. Without waiting to be summoned, she parted the lines
of the chick, came out from them, and fell on her knees at his
feet.
The heat in the shut-up room was very great, and she was wearing
only a straight white muslin tunic, through which all the soft
beauty of her form could be seen, as an English face is seen
through a veil. Her hair was looped back from her brows and tied
simply with a piece of green ribbon, as an English girl's might
have been, and flowed in its thick, black glossy waves to her
waist.
Hamilton bent over her and raised her in his arms, feeling in that
moment, though the whole universe were reeling and rocking round
him to its ruin, he would care nothing while he pressed that soft
breast to his.
The old woman sat down cross-legged by the charcoal, and began to
fan it.
The other girl behind the chick looked out curiously, but her eyes
never noted the strength and beauty of Hamilton's figure, nor the
bright glow in the oval cheek: she looked to see if he wore rings
on his fingers, and tried to catch sight of the links in his cuffs
to see if they were silver or gold.
Saidie had the divine gift of passion: all the fire of the gods in
her veins. Zenobie had none, and Saidie's joy now was something she
could not understand.
"Have you come to take me away, now at once?" Saidie murmured in a
soft, passionate whisper close to his ear, and the accent of joy
and delight went quivering down through the deepest recesses of the
man's being.
"Yes: are you ready to come with me?" Needless question! put only
for the supreme pleasure of listening to its answer.
"Oh, more than ready," whispered the soft voice back. "How shall
the slave explain her longing to her lord?"
Zenobie had come round the chick, while they stood by the door, and
drawn forward the one little low wooden stool that they possessed.
She came up now, and pulled at Saidie's sleeve.
"Let the Sahib be seated," she said reprovingly, and Saidie let her
arms slip from his neck and drew him forward to the stool by the
charcoal pan.
With some difficulty Hamilton drew up his long legs and seated
himself cautiously on the small seat; Saidie and Zenobie sat
cross-legged on the ground close to his feet. The old woman ceased
to fan the fire; the bright red glow of the coals fell softly on
the strong, noble beauty of the man's face, and Saidie, looking up
to it, sat speechless, her bosom heaving, her lips parted, her dark
eyes full of mysterious fires, melting, swimming, behind their veil
of lashes.
Zenobie watched her with curiosity: what did she feel for this
infidel who wore no rings and only silver in his cuffs?
Hamilton, as soon as he was seated, drew out his pocket-book--old
and worn, for he spent little on himself--and opened it.
The old woman sat up. Zenobie's eyes gleamed: the business was
going to commence. Only Saidie did not stir nor move her eyes from
his face.
"Two thousand rupees was the price agreed upon; here it is," he
said, taking out a thick bundle of notes that occupied the whole
inside of the poor, limp pocket-book; and as the old woman
stretched out a skinny claw for them and began to slowly count
them, he turned his gaze away, on to the upturned face of the girl
watching him with sensual adoration.
The old woman counted through the notes, and then securely tied
them into the end of her chudda.
"The sum is the due sum, well counted," she said, looking up; "and
when will my lord take his slave?"
"To-night," Hamilton replied briefly, but not without a swift
enquiring glance into the girl's eyes. Though he had bought and
paid for her, he could not get out of the Western knack of
considering that the girl's desires had to be consulted.
The old woman raised her hands in affected horror.
"To-night! But she is not well clothed, she is not bathed and
anointed; the bridal robes are not prepared. My lord, it cannot
be!"
Hamilton looked at Saidie; she crept to his side and put her head
on his breast.
"Yes, to-night, take me to-night," she murmured eagerly; he smiled,
and put his arm around her.
"The bridal clothes are of no consequence," he answered decisively.
"My camel waits below. I will take her to-night."
"She has no shoes," objected the old woman. "She cannot descend the
stairs."
"I will carry her down," replied Hamilton, and, springing up from
the little stool, he stooped over the lovely form at his feet,
raising her into his arms, close to his breast. Saidie clung to his
neck with a little cry of pleasure, her bare, warm-tinted feet hung
over his arm.
The old woman gasped: Zenobie laughed. The Englishman looked so
big, so immensely strong. The weight of Saidie, tall and
well-developed as she was, seemed as nothing to him.
"Zenobie, will you hold the lamp at the doorway, that he may see
his way?" Saidie cried out, slipping off a thin gold circlet she
wore on her arm, and letting it drop into the other's hands.
"Farewell, Zenobie; may you be always as happy as I am now."
Zenobie caught the bracelet and ran to the wall, unhooked the lamp
that hung there, and came to the door.
"Farewell, my mother," Saidie said, as they turned to it.
"Farewell, my daughter; be submissive to the Sahib, and obey him in
all things."
The door was opened, and by the dim, uncertain light of Zenobie's
lamp, Hamilton, clasping his warm, living burden, went slowly and
heavily down the bending stairs, feeling the life brimming in every
vein.
Outside, in the tranquil splendour of the starry Eastern night,
knelt the camel, peacefully awaiting its lord, and as Hamilton
approached it with his burden, it turned its head and large, liquid
eyes upon him with a gurgle of pleasure.
"The camel loves Hamilton Sahib," murmured the girl, as he set her
on the soft red cloth laid over the animal's back, which formed the
only saddle. He took his own place in front of her.
"Hold to my belt firmly," he told her, gathering into his hand the
light rein. "Are you ready for him to rise?"
He felt her little, soft hands glide in between his belt and waist.
"Yes, I am quite ready," she answered, and at a word of
encouragement, the great beast rose with its slow, stately swing to
its feet, and Hamilton guided it towards the Meidan. The soft, hot
air stirred against their faces as they moved through the night.
Nothing could present a more lovely picture than the bungalow that
evening. A low, white house, looking in the moonlight as if built
of marble, surrounded by masses of palms which threw a delicate
tracery of shadow upon it and drooped their beautiful, fan-like,
feathery branches over it, between it and the jewelled sky.
A light verandah ran around the lower of the two stories,
completely covered by the white, star-like bloom of the jessamine
that poured forth floods of fragrance like incense on the hot,
still air, and a giant pink magnolia rioted over the wide porch of
lattice-work. Within it was brightly lighted, and a warm glow from
shaded lamps came out from each window, stealing softly through the
veil of scented jessamine and falling on the masses of pink roses
surrounding the house.
The deep peace, the sweet scent in the silence, the kiss of the
moonlight and the starlight on the sleeping flowers, the exquisite
form of the shadows on the white wall, filled Hamilton with
pleasure: each sense seemed subtly ministered to; he felt as if
invisible spirits round him were feeding him with ambrosia.
He turned round to Saidie as the camel slowly and majestically
entered the compound gate, and saw her clearly framed in the soft
silver light; all this wondrous beauty round them seemed to be to
her beauty but as the harmonies that in an opera float round the
central air. And she smiled as he turned upon her.
"How do you like your new house, Saidie?" he said, half laughing as
he leant back to her.
"Surely it is Paradise, Sahib," she murmured back in awestruck
tones.
Within the door waited the servants to welcome them in a double
line, and as Saidie entered, they fell flat with their faces on the
floor. She passed through the prostrate row saluting them, and on
to the foot of the stairs. The ayah that the butler had engaged
rose and followed her mistress upstairs, where she was ushered into
her bath and dressing-room; while the butler, swelling with
importance and joyous pride, led Hamilton to the large room he had
prepared as a bedroom on the first floor. As they went in Hamilton
gave a murmur of approval very dear to the man's heart, as he heard
it, standing respectfully by the door.
The room was large, and two windows, draped with curtains, stood
open to the soft night.
The bed in the centre of the room was one of the wide Indian
charpais which are unrivalled for comfort, and glimmered softly
white beneath its filmy mosquito curtains in the lamplight shed by
four handsome rose-shaded lamps. Small tables stood everywhere,
bearing vases of fresh flowers, roses, and stephanotis; a rich,
deep rose-coloured carpet spread all over the floor, with only a
small border of chetai visible round the walls; and two easy-chairs
of the same colour and numerous smaller ones piled up with cushions
completed the equipment of the room. The air was full of scent, and
the scheme of colour in the room perfect. Nothing but rose and
white was allowed to meet the eye. The flowers were selected with
this view, and the great bowls of roses all blushed the same
glorious tint through the snowy whiteness of the stephanotis.
The room suggested, in its softly-lighted glow of pink and white, a
bridal chamber.
Hamilton turned to his servant with a pleased smile on his
handsome, animated face.
"You are an artist, Pir Bakhs, and a sort of magician, to do all
this in twelve hours."
Pir Bakhs bowed and salaamed by the door, his well-formed polished
face wreathed in many smiles.
Downstairs the girl was already waiting for her lord, bathed, and
with her long hair shaken out and brushed after the dust of the
desert ride, and looped back from her forehead by a fresh green
ribbon. She did not sit down, but stood waiting.
This room showed the same care as the upper one, and the table was
laid out with Hamilton's plate and glass and four beautiful
epergnes held the flowers.
Natives are artists, particularly in colour arrangements; the whole
colour scheme here was white and green, and any table in Belgravia
would have had hard work to equal this one. Saidie stood looking at
it, and the servants, already ranged by the sideboard, stood with
their eyes on the ground, yet conscious of her wonderful beauty,
and pleased by it in the same way that they would have felt pride
and pleasure in the beauty and good condition of a new horse or
camel acquired by their master.
After a few minutes Hamilton came down. He had put on his evening
clothes as they had been laid out for him by the bearer, and
looked radiant as he entered.
Saidie gave a little cry as she saw him. His present dress, well
cut and close-fitting, showed his splendid figure to greater
advantage than the loose suit she had seen him in hitherto. His
long neck carried his fine, spirited head erect, and the masses of
thick, black hair, with just the least wave in it, shone in the
lamplight. His well-cut face, with its gay animation and charming,
debonair, unaffected expression, made a kingly and perfect picture
to the girl's dazzled eyes.
As they took their places and their soup was served, she could not
detach her gaze from his face.
He laughed as he looked at her.
"Come, you must be hungry. Take your soup while it's hot; don't
waste your time looking at me."
"Sahib, I cannot help looking at you. You are so wonderful to me!
Please give me leave to. I do not want any soup."
Hamilton, who by this time had finished his own, leant back in his
chair and laughed again, looking at her with eyes blazing with
mirth and passion. This innocent, genuine admiration was very
pleasing to him in its flattery; this worship offered to himself,
rather than his gifts, was something new to him, and the girl's
beauty sent all the fires of life in quick streams through his
frame as he looked on it. He was alive for the first time in his
existence, and filled with a surprised happiness as great as the
girl's. He was as virgin to joy as she was to love. "You are the
dearest little girl I ever knew," he said; "but if you won't take
soup, you must eat fish. Yes, I positively refuse you my permission
to look at me till you have finished that whole plate."
Saidie dropped her eyes to her fish very submissively at this,
while Hamilton himself filled her glass.
"Have you ever tasted wine?" he asked. "This is champagne; drink
it, and tell me what you think of it."
"All my people are Mahommedans; we do not drink wine," Saidie
replied, taking up the glass and sipping from it.
"Perhaps you won't like it," he suggested, watching her.
"If the Sahib gives it to me I shall like it," replied Saidie,
smiling at him over the delicate golden glass: it threw its light
upwards into her great gleaming eyes, and Hamilton kissed the
little hand that put the glass gently down on the table again.
Next after the fish came game and joints, course after course, more
food in that one meal than Saidie was accustomed to see for many
people for a week. Her own appetite was soon satisfied, and she sat
for the most part gazing at Hamilton, with her hands tightly locked
together in her lap: such a nervous delight filled her, such a
strange joy in knowing herself to be alive, to be possessed of a
beautiful body that by reason of its beauty was worthy the caresses
of a man like this; such a pure rapture animated every fibre, to
realise that it was in her power to give pleasure to him. With such
feelings as these no faintest hint of humiliation or degradation
could mingle. Saidie felt only that superb and joyous pride that
Nature originally intended the female to have in her surrender to
the male.
Her very breath seemed to flutter softly with joyous trepidation
and excitement as it passed over her lips. That she was to be his,
held in his arms, admitted to his embrace, seemed to her to be the
crown of her life, an honour given by special divine favour.
So must Rhea Sylvia have felt praying before her Vestal altar when
Mars first appeared to her startled eyes.
And Hamilton, with his keen, sensitive temperament, saw into her
mind clearly, and was fully aware of all this fervent adoration,
this intense passionate worship springing within her; and an
immense tenderness and reverence grew up within him, enclosing all
his passion as the crystal vessel encloses the crimson wine.
That she would not in her present state have shrunk or flinched
from a knife, if only his hand held it while it wounded her, he
knew quite well, and this wonderful voluntary self-sacrifice which
is the soul of all female passion appealed to him as a very holy
thing.
He knew that constantly this adoring love was poured out by women
for men, that almost every virgin heart beats with this same
worship as the first pain of love enters it, but ah! for how short
a time! How quickly the man tears open those eyes that would so
willingly be closed to his vileness! how soon come the infidelity,
the lies and the meanness, the trickery and the treachery! How
assiduously the man teaches the woman who loves him that there is
nothing in him worthy of adoration, not even admiration, not even
decent respect! How little confidence, how little credence she soon
gives to his word that was once so sacred to her! How in her heart,
though her lips say nothing, is that once rapturous worship changed
into a measureless contempt!
Men persistently teach women that they must not expect the best
from them, but the lowest. And the women cry in pain as they see
the white mantle of their love trampled upon and dragged in the
mire of lies and falseness, and they take it back from the base
hands and burn it in the fires kindled in their outraged hearts.
Something of this flashed through Hamilton's brain as he met the
adoring trust and love in the girl's eyes, and an unspoken vow
formed itself within him that he would not deceive and betray it,
that his lips should not lie to her, that to the end he would be to
her as she now saw him in the glamour of those first hours.
When he had tempted her to every sweet and bon-bon on the table,
and made her drink all the wine he thought good for her, he sent
the servants away, and they remained alone together in the
dining-room with their coffee before them. He put his arm round
her, and drawing her out of her own chair, took her on to his knees
and pressed her head down on his shoulder.
"Are you not tired with that long ride on the camel?" he asked.
"No, Sahib, I am not tired."
The soft weight of her body pressed upon him; her lids drooped over
her eyes as her head leaned against his neck.
"I think you are tired and very sleepy," he repeated, pinching the
glowing arm in its transparent muslin sleeve.
"If the Sahib says so, I must be," responded Saidie quite simply.
"Come, then, and sleep," he said in her ear, and they went
upstairs.
Saidie gave a little cry of delight as they entered together the
rose-filled room, and beyond its soft shaded lights she saw the
great flashing planets in the dark sky.
"This is a different and a better home for love than we had last
night," said Hamilton softly, as he closed the door.
A great peace reigned all round them. Within and without the
bungalow there was no sound. The lights burned steadily and
subdued, the sweet scent of the flowers hung in the air like a
silent benediction upon them.
He put his arm round her, and felt her tremble excessively as his
hand unfastened the clasp of her tunic. He stopped, surprised.
"Why do you tremble so? Are you afraid of me?" he asked, looking
down upon her, all the tenderness and strength of a great passion
in his eyes.
"No, no," she returned passionately, "I tremble because great waves
of happiness rush over me at your touch. I cannot tell you what I
feel, Sahib; the love and happiness within me is breaking me into
fragments."
"Then you must break in my arms," he murmured back softly, drawing
her into his embrace, "so that I shall not lose even one of them."
* * * * *
In the morning a flood of sunlight rushing into the room through
the open windows, bringing with it the gay chatter of birds, roused
the lovers. Hamilton opened his eyes first, and, lifting his head
from the pillow, looked down upon Saidie still asleep beside him.
In the rich mellow light of the room her loveliness glowed under
his eyes like a jewel held in the sun. He hardly drew his breath,
looking down upon her. Her heavy hair, full of deep purplish
shades, and with the wave in it not unusual in the Asiatic, was
pushed off the pale, pure bronze of the forehead, on which were
drawn so perfectly the long-sweeping Oriental brows. The nose,
delicately straight, with its proud high-arched nostrils, and the
tiny upper lip, led the eye on to the finely-carved Eastern mouth,
of which the lips now were softly, firmly folded in repose. How
exquisitely Nature had fashioned those lips, putting more elaborate
work in those lines and curves of that one feature than in the
whole of an ordinary English face. Hamilton hung over her, filled
with a passion of tenderness, watching the gentle breath move
softly the warm column of bronze throat and raise the soft, full
breast.
Passion, in its highest phase, is indeed the supreme gift of the
gods. In giving it to a mortal for once they forget their envy: for
once they raise him to their level; for that once they grant him
divinity.
Hamilton now marvelled at himself. The whole fruit of his forty
years of life--all that accomplished work, success, wealth,
rewarded worth, satisfied ambition, all the pleasures his youth,
his health and strength, and powers had always brought him, crushed
together--could not equal this: the charm and ecstasy with which he
gazed down on this warm beauty of the flesh beside him.
And yet he knew that it was not really in that flesh, not even in
that beauty, that lay the delight. It was in himself, in his own
intense desire, and the gratification of it, that the joy had
birth; and if the gods give not this desire, no matter what else
they give, it is useless.
The girl might have been as lovely, Hamilton himself, and all the
circumstances the same, yet waking thus he might have been but the
ordinary poor, cold, clay-like mortal a man usually is. But the
great desire for this beauty that had flamed up within him, now in
its possession, gave him that fervour and fire, those wings to his
soul, that seemed to make him divine. It was for him one of those
moments for which men live a life-time, as he indeed had done, but
they repay him when they come. To some, they come never. To these
life must indeed be dark.
Suddenly the girl opened her eyes; the fire in his bent upon her
seemed to electrify and thrill her into life, and with a little
murmur of delight she stretched up her rounded arms to him.
At breakfast Hamilton regretted he should have to leave her all
day; what would she do?
"You must not think of it, Sahib," she answered. "Have I not the
garden? I shall be quite happy. I shall sing all day long to the
flowers about my lord, and count the minutes till he comes back."
The office did not attract Hamilton at all that day, yet he felt it
was better to attend there as usual, to make no break in his usual
routine.
Scandal there was sure to be, sooner or later, about his
desert-bungalow, but at least it was better not to give to the
scandal-mongers the power to say he had neglected his duties. Yet
he lingered over his departure, and took her many times into his
arms to kiss her before he went, keeping his impatient Arab waiting
at the door. He would not use the camel again this morning, but
left it resting in its corner of the compound beneath the palms.
After Hamilton had gone, Saidie stepped through the long window
into the verandah, full of green light, completely shaded as it was
by the giant convolvulus that spread all over it. The chetai
crushed softly under her feet, and she went on slowly to the end
where it opened to the compound. Here she stood for a moment gazing
into the wilderness of beauty of mingled sun and shade before her.
Against the dazzling blue of the sky the branches of the palms
stood out in gleaming gold, throwing their light shade over the
masses of crimson and white and yellow roses that rioted together
beneath. Groves of the feathery bamboo drooped their delicate
stems in the fervent, sweet-scented heat, over the white,
thick-lipped lilies, from one to other of which passed languidly
on velvet wings great purple butterflies.
The pomegranate trees made a fine parade of their small, exquisite
scarlet flowers, and pushed them upwards into the sparkling
sunlight through the veils of white starry blossoms of the
jessamine that climbed over and trailed from every tree in the
compound.
The girl went forward dreaming. How completely, superbly happy she
was! And she had nothing but the gifts of Nature, such as she, the
kindly one, gives to the gay bird swinging on the bough, the
butterfly on the flower, the deer springing on the hills: health
and youth, beauty and love.
These only were hers; nothing that man ordinarily strives
for--neither wealth nor fame, fine houses, costly garments, jewels,
slaves, power; none of these were hers. Over her body hung simply a
muslin tunic worth a few annas; of the garden in which she stood
not a flower belonged to her, no weight of jewels lay on her happy
heart. She had no name; she was only a dancing-girl from the
Deccan. With the animals she shared that wonderful kingdom of joy
that they possess: their food and mate secured, their vigorous
health bounding in their limbs, their beauty radiant in their
perfect bodies.
Are they not the Lords of Creation in the sense that they are lords
of joy? Man is the slave of the earth, doomed by his own vile lusts
to bondage of the most dismal kind. All of those gifts that Nature
gives, and from which alone can be drawn happiness, he tramples
beneath his feet, putting his neck under the yoke of ceaseless
toil, striving for things which in the end bring neither peace nor
joy.
All within the compound under the reign of Nature rejoiced. The
parroquets swung on the trees, and the butterflies floated from the
marble whiteness of the lily's cloisters to the deep, warm recesses
of the rose, and the dancing-girl walked singing through the
sparkling, scented air thinking of her lord.
Hamilton, speeding down the dusty, burning road to his office in
the native city, felt a strange bounding of his heart as his
thoughts clung to the low, white bungalow amongst the palms
outside the station, and all that it held for him.
He went through his work that day with a wonderful energy, born of
the new life within him. Nothing fatigued, nothing worried him. The
court-house air did not oppress him. He heard the pleadings and
made his decisions with ease and promptitude. His patience,
gentleness, his clearness and force of brain were wonderful. The
whole electricity of his body was satisfied: the man was perfectly
well and perfectly happy. Who cannot work under such conditions? In
the evening his horse was brought round, and with a wild leaping of
the heart he swung himself into the saddle. The animal felt
instantly the elation of his master, and at once broke into a
canter; as this was not checked, he threw up his lovely head, and
as Hamilton turned across the plain, let himself go in a long
gallop towards where the palms glowed living gold against the
rose-hued sky.
Hamilton had hardly passed through the white chick into the
interior of the house before he heard the sound of bare feet upon
the matting, and through the soft magnolia-scented, pinky gloom of
the room, shaded from the sunset light, Saidie came and fell at his
knees, taking his dusty hands and kissing them.
Hamilton lifted her up, and held her a little from him, that he
might feast his eyes on the delicate beautiful carving of the lips,
and on the great velvet eyes, soft, round throat, and breasts
swelling so warmly lovely under the transparent gauze.
Then he crushed her up in his arms close to his breast, and carried
her to their own room with the golden and green chicks all round
it, where the servants did not come without a summons. The garland
she had twisted on her head smelt sweetly of roses, and the masses
of her silky hair of sandal-wood; her soft lips, that knew so well
instinctively the art of kissing, were on his; the warm, tender
arms clasped his neck. All the way that he carried her she murmured
little words of passion in his ear.
After dinner the servants carried chairs for them into the
verandah, with a small table laden with drinks and sweetmeats, that
they might sit and watch the moon rising behind the palms in the
compound, and see the hot silver light pour slowly through their
exquisite branches and foliage.
"How did you amuse yourself all day?" he asked her as she sat on
his knee, his arm round the flexible, supple waist pulsating under
the silky web of her tunic.
"I was so happy. I had so much to do, so much to think of," she
answered, gazing back into his eyes bent upon her, and eagerly
drawing in their fire. "I wandered in the compound and made garland
after garland, then I sang to my rabab and practised my dancing. In
the heat I went in and slept on my lord's bed dreaming of him--ah!
how I dreamt of him!" She broke off sighing, and those sighs fanned
the blazing fires in the man's veins.
"You were quite contented, then, with your day?"
"How could I not be contented when I had my lord to think about,
his love of last night, his love of the coming night?"
Hamilton sighed and smiled at the same time.
"English wives need more than that to make them content," he
answered.
"English wives," repeated Saidie, with her laugh like the sound of
a golden bell; "what do they know of love?"
"Not much certainly, I think," replied Hamilton.
For a moment the vision of a thin blonde face, with its expression
of sour discontent, rose before him. What had he not given that
woman--what had she not demanded? Extravagant clothes to deck out
her tall lean body, a carriage to drive her here and there, a
mansion to live in, all the money he could gain by constant
work--these things she demanded because she was his wife, and he
had given them, and yet she was always discontented, simply because
she was one of those women who do not know desire nor the delight
of it. This one had nothing but that divine gift, and it made all
her life joy.
"Dance for me now in the cool," murmured Hamilton in the little
fine curved ear with the rose-bud just over it.
Saidie slipped off his knee, and fastening the little gilt link at
her neck more securely, drew her soft filmy garment more closely to
her, and commenced to dance before him in the screened verandah,
with the hot moonlight, filtered through the delicate tracery; of
innumerable leaves falling on her smooth, warm-tinted body.
To please him, to please him, her lord, her owner, her king: it was
the one passion in her thoughts, and it flowed through every limb
and muscle, glowed in her eyes, quivered on her parted lips, and
made each movement a miracle of sweet sinuous grace.
The soft, hot night passed minute by minute, the scents of a
thousand flowers mingled together in the still violet air. Some
white night-moths came and fluttered round the exquisite form on
whose rounded contours the light played so softly, and Hamilton lay
back in his chair, silent, absorbed, hardly drawing his breath
through his lungs, shaken by the nervous beating of his heart.
Motionless he lay there, almost breathless, for the wine of life
was in all his veins, mounting to his head, intoxicating him.
"I am very tired; may I stop now?" came at last in a low murmur
from the curved lips so sweetly smiling at him, and the whole soft
body drooped like a flower with fatigue. Hamilton opened his arms
wide. She saw how the fresh colour glowed in the handsome cheek,
how his splendid neck swelled as the red deer's in November, how
the dark eyes blazed upon her.
"Come to me," he commanded, and she flew to his arms as the
love-bird flies upward to her mate in the pomegranate tree.