But her youth had gone from her forever and her heart had been stamped with the seal of an everlasting regret; her eyes had been filled with a great questioning which was never to be answered on this earth, when her scream had been drowned in the crash of the report as the man she loved had fired, and killed his friend.

Had Hugh Carden Ali really feared for the safety of his friend and flung himself between him and the wounded beast, or, understanding that in that way only could peace be obtained for all three, had he deliberately sought death?

Allah, who is God of all, alone knows the answer, so let us leave it with Him.

And then, being untried and very young, she slipped to her knees and fell unconscious, with her face upon her outstretched arms. And there she lay whilst the silence of the coming dawn fell upon the earth, and wrapped itself in a soft winding-sheet about him who lay asleep upon his couch of death, at the foot of which stood his friend, looking down upon the peaceful face.

Only a few moments had slipped into eternity when Damaris shivered and, bewildered, not knowing if an hour or a second had passed whilst she had lain senseless, rose to her knees.

There was no sound.

She sat back and pushed the hair from her forehead; then rose and tiptoed to the curtain. She put out her hand, and drew back; then, urged by a desire which clamoured for definite knowledge, parted the curtain and looked in. She looked for just one second, then staggered back and back as far as the crystal basin filled with the clear water which was used in prayer; and she stood with her arms outstretched, and fingers spread between her eyes, and the picture she herself had painted in the thoughtlessness of youth, and then swung round, with her back to the Tent of Death and looked down into the water, and, as though a veil had been lifted from before her eyes, looked back along the past, and forward into the future.

As in a flash she saw the wreck she had made of her life by throwing away the substance of a good man's love for the fantastic conviction that, as she was not as other girls, she must therefore go a-venturing through the world's mazy high-ways and by-ways until she had found her own particular niche.

She saw the picture of herself proclaiming it to her life by throwing away the substance of a good man's godmother's letter of invitation to Egypt. She saw the girl's lips moving. What was she saying?

"I want to find my own nail and hang for one hour by myself, if it's on a barn door or the wall of a mosque—as long as I am by myself."

Then the picture faded, to give place to another in which she saw herself sitting in the moonlight beside Ben Kelham; the honest, slow, lovable man standing at that very moment a grim picture of despair, divided only by a curtain from her, through whom, indirectly, he had killed his friend.

What was she saying to him in this dream-picture?

"I don't know enough to marry; I want to know what love really is, first . . ."

What was he saying in reply?

". . . You will learn your lesson all right, dear, and suffer a bit, dear, but you will come to me in the end."

She suddenly knelt and plunged her hand down into the water, breaking the smooth surface into a thousand miniature waves which turned, as she stared, into the mocking smiles of her acquaintances and friends; and she knelt quite still until the surface was once more smooth, out of which, as she stared, looked the tragic face of the dead man's mother and the grief-stricken, shamed face of her beloved godmother.

The gossip, the scandal, with her name linked as lover to that dead man; the chuckles, the sly lifting of eyebrow and pursing of lips when it should be known that the other man, the dead man's greatest friend, had come upon them unawares, alone in the tent at night?

The story of this struggle, the shooting of the treacherous friend—for who would believe the story, told by the principals in the drama, of a wounded lion which had turned and disappeared into the night?

There would be the inquest, the inquiry, the arrest for murder and the trial, in which she and all those she loved would be pilloried, through her fault, in the eyes of the world.

She stared down at the water, which seemed to hold her hands in the icy grip of death—her hands—look! what was that?—what had happened to them?

They were spotted with red!

She tore at her handkerchief and rubbed them; under the water, rubbed hard, rubbed frantically, but the red spots were there on her hands, on her handkerchief, on the water—the red she had seen when she had looked . . .

She flung the handkerchief from her and rose to her feet, shaking convulsively from head to foot.

Poor child! Half-crazed from horror, light-headed from fatigue and want of food, she had mistaken the reflection of the jewelled Hawk she wore at her breast, thrown by the lamp upon the water, for the stain she had seen and which had looked like a crimson rose above the heart of Hugh Carden Ali, as he lay asleep, with his feet turned towards Mecca.

"God!" she prayed. "You Who alone can save me and—everyone—from shame; You Who can hide me from—Ben—show me a way out—show me a way out!" And as she repeated the words, the answer came.

"Of course," she whispered. "Right out in the desert, out on the sands, alone with my shame, where, when this has been forgotten, perhaps all that will be left of me will be found by some wandering Bedouin, who will bury me deep in the sand."

She was genuinely remorseful and horrified at what she had done, but also was she, as are so many of us who do not really feel deeply, pleasurably thrilled at the thought of the dramatic picture in which she should be the centre figure.

If only men knew it, that is why so many women create such terrific scenes over nothing at all—it gives them a chance of donning their most effective gown and pulling their hair—if their own—down about their shoulders.

Not even then did she grasp the full meaning of love!

She parted the curtain at the back of the room of prayer, and looked out across the desert and behold! standing upon the tips of slender feet, wrapped about in binding cloths of grey and white, there stood a figure.

And the wind of dawn, upon whose wings are wafted the liberated souls into the safe keeping of Allah, who is God, lifted for one instant the veil from before the face.

Just for a moment she looked upon the eyes alight with no earthly happiness and the tender mouth smiling in farewell, and then the wind lifted the soft cloth of grey and white and bound it across the hawklike face.

Half-turned, the figure stood with beckoning hand outstretched. And to the girl was granted the Vision of the Legions at Dawn.

There was no sound in all the limitless desert, yet the air was filled as with the tramp of feet, the thunder of horses, the rumble of wheels.

They came from nowhere, those countless legions, from out of the shadows of the spent night. They walked in phalanxes, the uncountable spirits of dead kingdoms, with eyes uplifted to the dawn; spears raised, mouths open, with their shouts of welcome to the break of day, they rode their horses thundering down the path of Time; they drove their four-horsed chariots straight towards the cup of gold which rested on the rim of the world.

They come from nowhere, those countless legions, from out the shadows of the spent night; they journey over the ordained path which they have trod since the beginning of time, which has no beginning, and which they will tread unto the end of all time which shall have no end.

And, laughing or sobbing, hoping, despairing, we shall fall in as our line passes and go marching along with them, marching along, until we came to the place where "the shadow of the God is like a ram set with lapis lazuli, adorned with gold and with precious stones."

"Wait for me."

The whisper was just a part of the shadows, as the girl turned her face to the East.

Wrapped in her satin cloak, she walked wearily on and on. Her eyes were wide open, staring in a terrible fatigue; she saw nothing; her heelless slippers were torn to shreds, her feet were bleeding; she felt nothing. Not once did she look up or back or round. Had she done so, she might have noticed that her footprints in the sand were describing a circle, as our footprints do when we are lost in the bush or the desert.

The shadows had gone, and the sands stretched a carpet of rose and grey and gold before her; the sky a canopy of blue and grey and purple above.

Like a lighthouse of Hope, Day was flashing his golden beams across the sky, a message to the weary who have toiled through the night.

And then, with one great leap he sprang clear of the horizon, just as Damaris stopped.

She looked back in the direction in which she thought she had come. There was no sign of the tents; there could not be; they were not out of sight, but merely wrapped in the mist which, sometimes rises as a fog in the desert at dawn.

"Let me die soon! let me die soon!"

A great sob shook her as she prayed the prayer of the weak. How much easier is it to stand at the window, with the police battering at the door, and, stimulated by its morbid interest, blow out our brains before the gaping crowd—which will, by the way, take exactly the same morbid interest in the shooting of a horse in the street—than to retire into the silence of the prison-cell or seclusion of the tideless backwater, and there work out our salvation amongst those who do not know if our name is Smith or Jones or Brown—and much less care!

In the intensity of her prayer she clasped her hands upon the jewelled symbol upon her breast and looked up.

From out of the west, cleaving the air like a thrown spear, flying straight towards the sun in greeting, there came a hawk. Up, up it sped, as though to pierce the very heavens; then hovered, wheeled and swooped downwards above the girl. She flung out her arms as its symbol struck through her clouded senses, and unconsciously called the "Luring Call" she had heard but once, when she had first seen the man, who lay asleep in the tent, in the market-place of the Arabian quarter in Cairo.

Sweet and clear her voice rose through the morning air, rising until the bird caught the sound and, just as she swayed and fell, swooped.

Down it came, straighter than a shaft of rain; swept across her like the wind; rose; and sailed away.

There was no call to bring it back now. The falconer who had thrown it, as was the custom, at sunrise, was upon his knees with his forehead upon the ground, in sign of a great grief, taking no notice of his master's favourite shahin which he had petted and trained. It flew towards the rising sun; it flew away; it was never seen again.

Perhaps, after all, had it heard its master's call?



CHAPTER XXXIII

"Good-night?. . . . . . . . Let us remain together still, Then it will be GOOD night."

SHELLEY.

Ben Kelham sat on the ground, with his head resting on the edge of the wooden couch so that his friend's satin coat touched his cheek.

Save for his hands clenched round his knee there was no sign of the grief which was well-nigh breaking his heart; which had drawn great lines across his face and had turned him in one hour from a youth, into a grave man, with steady, sorrowful grey eyes.

There was no sound as he sat staring in front of him as the light of the lamp grew dim in the coming light of day, there was no movement anywhere save for the chequered curtain behind his friend, which stirred as though blown by the wind of dawn; they seemed to be alone, quite alone in the desert, these two who had been known as David and Jonathan in the care-free days on the Hill.

And he turned his head and looked at the wonderful beauty of the calm face, and in the soft light it seemed that the brown eyes were looking at him from under half-closed lids, and he stretched out his hand and laid it on the arms which were folded across the breast in an attitude of surpassing dignity.

"Carden, old fellow," he said, "wake up!"

As his friend slept on, he spoke more clearly, repeating the line out of the school-song, which had acted like a charm in those days when love, and pain, and death had been mere words to them:

"Carden," he called, "Carden, 'it's a quarter to seven, there goes the bell!'"

And when there came no answer he turned and buried his head on his arms.

So he sat and kept his vigil with never a thought to the outcome of it all. Servants there must be somewhere, he knew, but time enough to explain things when they appeared; time enough to face the world with the terrible tale; time—oh! a whole long life in which to regret. And he ached with a great longing to look upon the girl he loved; he longed passionately to be able to tell her everything before he must tell others; he threw out his arms in a vain hope that perhaps he could reach her, and drawing her to him put his head down upon her knees and tell her of his love for his friend, which had almost equalled his love for her; his one moment of doubt when a vile hand had linked their names together; his happiness when the friend he had doubted had lashed him with words, and told him bluntly to try again.

Then he sat up and turned and looked out into the desert and got to his feet, but his hand did not go to his hip pocket as he watched something which came running fleetly through the shadows.

Iouaa and Touaa, the dogs of Billi, were racing home to tell their master of a surprising adventure which had befallen them, ever so far out in the desert, where they had gone for an evening stroll before taking up their posts as sentries outside his tent for the night.

And if only He had not shaken his head when they asked him to go with them—and He had had his riding-boots on and all—-He would have seen for Himself that there was every excuse in the world for them being out so late at night.

What matter if they were a disgrace to look upon, with their shaggy hair matted with sand, and what looked suspiciously like blood? What if one of Touaa's ears hung limp and Iouaa's tail hung down? The lioness was dead, and they were coming just as hard as they could pelt to ask Him to come and see.

They knew exactly what He would say and do when they rushed upon Him. He would hold up His hand and say, "You disgraceful-looking pair of disreputable tikes"—He always did—and pull them to Him—Touaa first, because she was a lady—and would run His hands over them to feel for bumps, and turn back their ears and lips and look at the pads of their feet, and give them a good cuff, and lead them off, if they were scarred with battle, right away to another tent. And there He Himself would wash their faces and their wounds and brush the sand out of their coats and—but of course this was a deadly secret—would prize open their mouths and wash out all the remains of whatever they had been chewing or chasing with a long-handled ivory finger-nail brush.

Of course He would not do all this to-night because this was a special occasion, and they knew exactly how to make Him come out of the tent and send a certain call ringing across so that their friend the stallion Sooltan would come racing, with native pad and halter, riderless towards them.

This is how they worked it. First Touaa, because ladies always come first, would pull his coat and then go out and point in the direction of the find, growling softly, then give a short yelp and give up her place to Iouaa, who had just pulled the coat, to come and point and yelp, whilst she returned, to pull the coat.

It sounds complicated, but it's really as simple as simple and had never been known to fail.

Of course He would throw something at them and tell them He was coming because He was sick to death of them and their silly ways; but they knew better. He was really just as keen as themselves—besides, He belonged to the desert.

And tonight they would take Him first along the path where they had chased their own shadows and show Him the very spot where they had stopped and crouched, belly to ground, as the wind had brought a most unusual scent to their keen noses; then they would take Him further along the path and show Him how fast they had gone by the marks of their pads in the sand; and then—and then! they would show Him the scene of the great and glorious fight. Why, the field of battle stretched for yards and yards and yards. And they could show Him the marks where the wounded lioness had lashed with her tail in rage, and the very place where they had taken off as they leapt upon her. And He would really have to take care where He walked, because the place was in a really terrible state, and He would have to keep his hand on the halter because horses, even stallions, were most foolishly upset at the scent of lion.

There was the spot where Touaa had rolled after her side had been ripped, and the place from which Iouaa had leapt to fasten his fangs in the lioness's muzzle from which she had dislodged him by rolling on her back and ripping his chest and throat with the claws of her back paws, which somehow had savoured of hitting below the belt.

Then they would show him the place where the great tawny beast lay dead—she was quite dead; you could go and touch her, they had seen to that—and you could see by the churned-up state of the sand how she had beaten off attack after attack. And they had leapt again and again to pull her down, until the great fangs had met in the side of her neck and worried and gripped until the end.

Whose fangs?—Oh! well, of course ladies have to come first.

And they raced across the desert as the dawn broke, to tell Him of the great victory they had won for Him; and then, within twenty yards of the tent they stopped dead, threw up their fine heads, eyes red and glaring, ruffs standing, and sniffed the mingled scents which came to them on the wind.

They sniffed the ground at their feet and growled and, belly to the ground, crept a few yards to their right. The lioness had passed that way! Would their great victory he not such a big surprise for Him after all? Had He seen the beast already? And that other scent—a mixed scent of humans, the humans that were not of the desert! Humans meant noise. Where were they? Why was there such a strange feeling, such a strange quietness about the place? Did He sleep so soundly that He did not hear and whistle them?

They stood quite still, still as though carved, out of stone, looking at the light which showed dim in the coming dawn, and which, when they hunted across the desert, had always been to them as a beacon of happiness.

Then they growled, the deep, unforgiving growl of hate. Somebody was standing looking at them from inside the tent, and that somebody was not Him, nor in any way like Him.

Their great faithful hearts, leapt in a strange fear for their master, and the hair on their backs rose stiff and straight as they moved slowly forward, side by side.

Up to the entrance they went, growling softly all the while; then with barks and yelps of joy they leapt inside.

They had seen Him asleep; their hearts were at rest. How could He hear or whistle them if He lay asleep?

One on each side, tails wagging, eyes gleaming, they stood with fore-feet upon the couch and bent to sniff Him who was so dear to them. So they stood for just one uncomprehending moment; then dropped, to the ground, shivering, as Touaa gave a little whine. Then they walked slowly round the couch, whining and sniffing as they went, and Touaa stayed a moment to lick the hand which had so often pulled her silky ears, and Iouaa rose for an instant upon his hind-legs, and scratched at his master's boot, as he had so often done when impatient to be up and away across the desert.

Then, side by side, they crossed to where the man stood watching, with nails driven into the palms of his hands and tears in his sorrowing eyes.

Touaa wagged her tail once, Iouaa drove his head fiercely against the clenched hand, it was their only way of asking what had happened to make Him sleep so very soundly.

And Ben Kelham bent down and, putting his hand under their mighty jaws, lifted their heads so that their sorrowful eyes looked into his, and slowly shook his head. And they turned and walked close against each other to the outside of the tent, and there they sat upon their haunches and lifted their heads and howled.

Three times the despairing cry, the Last Post of the faithful friends, rang out across the plain; then they turned and walked slowly back, close together, and, separating at the foot, went up to the head of the couch and sat down upon their haunches one on each side of Him; immovable; as though carved by grief out of stone.

Ben Kelham, with the one thought of shutting the tragic picture, if only for a moment, from his eyes; of hiding his grief if only from the great dogs, blindly pulled back the curtain and stumbled into the silent room of prayer lit by a silver lamp.

He stood staring down at the water with which his friend had so lately prepared himself for the hour of prayer; he stooped to pick up the white handkerchief he had evidently dropped.

And he stood and stared and stared as he turned the little lace-trimmed square over and over in his hand. It was wringing wet, it smelt faintly of the perfume the girl he loved had always used; it had her initials woven in one corner.

"My God!" he whispered, as he looked round the little room; then crossed to the spot near the curtain where the sand had been disturbed, and then followed the prints of small feet across the floor to the further side.

"My God!" he repeated. "I understand." He turned his head and looked back at the curtain which divided him from his friend. "Carden, old fellow, I understand what you gave your life to make me understand." And his heart beat with a great love and a greater gratitude as he parted the curtain and went out into the desert. He did not once turn to look back, else might he have seen a speck on the horizon, moving at the incredible speed with which a camel can race as it slithers across the sands.



CHAPTER XXXIV

"In Rama was there a voice heard . . . Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they were not."

ST. MATTHEW, II.

"Hugh!"

As she called to her son from her high seat upon the camel the woman was the only living thing to be seen in the desert. In her simplicity, her colouring, her solitude, she was biblical; she might have been a woman of the Old Testament asking for succour or sanctuary at the tent of Abraham pitched between Beth-el and Hai; she might have been a woman fleeing from the wrath of Moses, who gave unto sin its strength when, out of sheer solicitude for the soul-welfare of the masses, he made laws about things to which in the innocence of their hearts they had, up till then, never given two thoughts.

Leave that corner piece of pasture unhedged, and it's odds on that not a single soul will tramp or want to tramp over it, from one year's end to another; hedge it, close it with padlocked gate, prop up the warning re trespassers and see if you don't find a wide track of footprints across it in the morning.

Yes; the picture was biblical.

Rebecca must have worn exactly the same fashioned clothes as this woman, and doubtless Leah had become pink-eyed through the tears of vexation she had shed over the ancestral humped quadruped she had ridden; and most certainly Lot's wife, Ruth, Solomon's wives and appendages, Jezebel, and every other woman mentioned in the Bible once watched just such a dawn rise across just such a desert.

We change our fashions, our fixed opinions, the colour of our hair and the pattern of our socks when the fancy seizes us, but neither time nor man has changed the desert—so far. Thank heaven for it, there is still one place left in which we can go to die or be re-born—in seemly solitude.

The grief of Rachel was shadowed upon the face of Jill, the wife of the Arab, as she sat quite still, looking down at the pool of orange light flung from the tent out onto the sand; then she sighed, the little sigh of the anxious heart which, like the wind that springs up and sweeps over your dwelling, and is gone, heralding the storm, is the forerunner of the grief which will ere long overwhelm you.

She knew!

The lover, the wife, the brother, the friend, can temporarily blind themselves with the blinkers of false hope and can blunt the stabbing spear of hideous fear with sharp-edged reasoning, but the mother—never.

You cannot deceive her with a smile, nor can distance hide your distress from her; you cannot, if you could be so minded, conceal your joy from her, nor can you hurt her with a wound that will not heal.

Go to her with your hands swelling from the sting of the wasp you found in the stolen fruit, or stained with crime; or your shoes wet through with the mire of the by-ways in which you have been straying, and what will she do? She will sit you down in front of the glowing fire of her love, warm your straying feet, wash away the stain in the bitter waters of her tears, and then dry them with her smile.

And you can go on straying—if you could be so minded—until seven million seventy-times-seven, and you will find her just the same.

It is not forgiveness; it is Love.

And it was Love which, when there came no answer to her call, urged Jill to get her camel to its knees.

Over twenty years had passed since Jill Carden, the English girl, had first tried her 'prentice hand upon the obstreperous camel. She had ridden out into the desert under the stars with her desert lover; she had, strong in a great love, fearlessly climbed the high wall of racial distinction crowned with the spikes of custom and convention; she had watched the seed of happiness burst and blossom until it had grown into a great tree; but she had forgotten that no tree, however deep its roots, however strong its branches, is safe, so long as Fate, in senile jealousy, can tear the heavens into ribbons with her hellish lightning.

The camel, lurching and groaning, staggering and heaving, got to its knees in just the same way as Taffadaln had done over twenty years ago; just as the camel will do twenty centuries hence, if it has not become extinct through some button, or wire, or wave, or ray which will have turned the desert into a kind of international piazza into the middle of which, for our post-prandial coffee and cigarette, we shall be conveyed in a few moments by means of something wireless, for so much cash down in advance, which will include the tip to the Bedouin waiter.

One can see empires and deserts disappearing, but the tipping system—never!

And as Wellington would not let go of the book his mistress had left him as guarantee of her return, so as to grip the back of the seat in his powerful jaw, he came nigh to being strangled as he lurched and swung and bumped as the camel got to its knees, which seemed to be legion as it tucked its legs under and untucked them, and did it all over again with vociferous lamentations until it had got them all neatly folded up; and once standing four-square upon the sand, he wrinkled his nose in disgust and removed himself some yards from the odour of this unpleasant complaining brute which hailed undoubtedly from the bazaar, and gave disgusting and crude imitations in its throat of water being poured out of a small-necked bottle.

He wanted his mistress, and her only, so, having no use for or interest in this woman who had brought him, for no apparent reason, upon such an uncomfortable journey, he simply took matters into his own big head and without a with or by your leave waddled off, book in slobbering mouth, to look for his beloved, whom—his olfactory powers not being of the keenest—he felt to be somewhere in the neighbourhood, perhaps playing at hide-and-seek behind the tents, as she did on wet mornings at home behind the Chesterfield.

Jill dismounted and stood facing the desert, which seemed to stretch as one vast purple pall; and as she stood she wrestled with a mighty fear which held her so that she could not turn and go towards the tent through which shone the orange light.

She did not say to herself that her son had gone out with his horses and his dogs; she did not try to trick herself with the thought that perhaps he slept in his purple tent, and for that reason had not rushed out hot-foot across the desert to meet and lift her from the camel.

She knew that she had only to turn and walk the few yards to the tent to have all her questions answered, but she also knew that all she wanted to do was to stand on and on and on, just as she was, with her face towards the night, and her back to the dawn of another day, and definite knowledge.

She loved her other sons deeply and dearly; she loved her little daughter; but her first-born held equal place in her heart with the Arab his father, and her love for him was beyond words and almost too great and too holy a thing to be written about here.

Tears and laughter, the moon and the stars, the mystery of the Sphinx and the desert at dawn, at noon, at night, bound them both to her heart with golden chains of a surpassing love.

She had said no word of what she had suffered in all these years he had been gone from her; she could not have told you, an' she would, of her joy at the thought of his home-coming at last.

And she lifted up her hands and cried aloud:

"He is my son! He is my son!"

Then turned and walked slowly to the tent.

She made no sound, she gave no cry, she just stretched wide her arms in stricken motherhood, as the great dogs sat immovable at their master's head, like images of grief carved out of stone.

The cloak slid from her shoulders and fell about her feet, as she crossed to the foot of the couch with out-stretched arms, where she stood, such a slender and beautiful mother, looking down; and her silken veils filled the air with a gentle whispering as she moved to his head—such a desolate mother,—looking down at the little crimson mark which showed like a rose above the heart.

"Hugh!" She whispered, as she touched the long lashes which hid the eyes which had always been so full of tender love for her. "My son!" she whispered as she stroked his cheek and, with slender fingers and a little smile, tucked back the stray lock of brown hair which never would stay under the turban.

She patted his chest and arranged the full skirt of his satin coat into folds, and stroked his hand as mothers do; and she knelt at his knees and laid her cheek against his boots, and smiled a little, nodding her head, just to let him know how wonderful she thought him.

She did not know she was doing it; she did not fully understand—how could she?—she was just holding back the door which was closing.

She lifted the amulet in the form of a scarab, of which the base was in the shape of a heart, and which just touched the mark that looked like a crimson rose.

She was not very good at reading inscriptions, but she always tried her best, because it pleased him and made him laugh—so lovingly—at her funny little accent. And to please him now she tried; she did not know she was doing it, but there was not much more than a crack left open through which she could see.

"My Heart, my mother; my heart, my mother; my heart whereby I came into being."

And if great tears dropped upon his heart as she slowly read "the words of power," they surely made a very fitting insignia with which to enter into the presence of Allah, who is God.

She kissed his hands, and kissed the closed eyes, and tender mouth which smiled as he slept.

She moved round the tent, pulling the curtains straight, having promised faithfully to carry out his wishes—ah! how she had smiled when she had given that promise; love of his wife and his children, she had thought, would soon oust the idea of death from his mind—and looked up at the lamp, to see if it was well filled with oil, and gently took down the spear from the wall, whilst the great dogs sat immovable as images of grief carved out of stone.

And she laid her hand upon their heads and, taking the corner of her veil, wiped the sand from their jaws; but they growled softly—not angrily—just to let her know that no hand but that of their master must touch them.

She went to the entrance and called them, but they growled, just to let her know that they would answer no voice but that of their master, and that for the sound of that beloved voice they would wait for eternity.

Of course she did not quite understand them—how could she—not knowing that the love of a dog surpasses that of a friend, and equals that of a mother?—so she lifted the chequered curtains at the back just to let them know that there was a way out, and looked down at the footprints of small feet and of heavy feet, and across to the lifted flap through which she could see the day dawning.

And if her whole being shook with anguish as part of her question was answered; and if her heart was stabbed with sudden pain at the thought that strangers had plucked her crown of glory from her and trampled upon it; and if she suddenly threw out her arms and questioned the Almighty upon the wisdom of His ways, can we blame her?

She passed through the lifted flap of the Room of Prayer, and mounted her camel, and rode out to the west; and at the sight of the woman with the light throwing-spear in her hand the servants, who had been watching the tents, rushed out to meet her and, at the sign she made, bowed their heads to the sands.

And their dirge swept across the desert as they answered as she called:

"Thy Master, O my people, has started upon a long journey. Allah receive him at his journey's end into His safe keeping!"

"Our Master," they answered, "is absent upon a long journey. Allah guide his feet into eternal joy."

They brought her two camels and watched her depart, then turned to make all things ready to lead their Master's horses, and dogs, and birds down to the river.

She rode her camel some distance from the Tents of Purple and of Gold and of Death, and hobbled them, and returned on foot across the sands, which were gold with the beams of the risen sun.

She lifted the lamp in the Tent of Purple and spilled the oil upon the floor, and let drop the wick upon the oil; and she crossed to the Tent of Gold and did likewise, and as the flames shot up on each side, she crossed to the Tent of Death, and entered.

She bent down over her son and kissed him, on the forehead and laid her cheek just for the last time against his, and stood for one moment at the foot of the couch, with arms outstretched in stricken motherhood, looking down.

Then she turned and went out, and called softly to the dogs, who growled, not angrily, but just to let her know that they could not come.

And she looked at her son Hugh Carden Ali, with his two friends like images of grief carved out of stone to guard him, then, dropping the curtain, went out as the door closed.

And just as the shahin flew straight to the sun in answer, perhaps, to his master's voice, she raised the spear and drove it through the corner of the tent into the sand, so as to let those who passed know that the owner was absent upon a long journey.



CHAPTER XXXV

"But in the night of Death Hope sees a star and listening Love can hear the rustling of a wing."

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.

The south wind shouted with joy at the glory of the new day; the sky hung like a canopy of radiant colours, with little clouds of pink dropping like rose-leaves towards the sands which stretched, as a golden carpet, from east to west and north to south.

The south wind shouted far above Ben Kelham's head, it chuckled like a laughing child at his elbow, and buffeted his sad face gently until it saw a ray of light spring up in the steady eyes; then it ran laughing away—you could hear it distinctly on all sides of you—like water singing in a barren place.

The sun is the lamp of the world, and night is its cloak; but the wind is the voice of its heart and you have only to listen to catch its message, and to watch even in the beat and burden of the day, to see the leaves move as its sweet breath touches them.

Take your burdens to the rock in the storm; take them to the depths of the pine forest, and open your heart to the wind.

You will learn many things before you reach home, and amongst them how to loosen the straps which gall your shoulders.

Big Ben Kelham walked slowly, with his eyes upon the faint track of little feet which had moved in a circle, and not once did he look behind, else would he have seen the smoke of the burning tents. He moved slowly, not because he feared or because he did not want to run, but because he knew, and wanted time in which to reason with himself, to decide if he had the right to take the joy which was waiting for him.

He stood for a moment with his hands in his pockets, the strong, silent, lovable man that he was, and shook himself just as a spaniel does when it comes out of the water. He had been nigh to drowning in the depths, and out of his pocket, to be lost for ever, had fallen the jewel of youth; but somehow he had managed to scramble to the bank and to pull himself out, and he made a step forward and swept the horizon to see if his journey was at an end; then hesitated—remembering.

He stood quite still and looked at a slender figure wrapt about in a mantle of gold which stood some distance off, with hands outstretched toward him and with beckoning finger. And the wind, with a laugh, lifted the veil from her face, and dropped it, and lifted it again, and swept the mantle so that it clung to the slender, supple figure, then spread it out behind like gleaming wings.

She put one finger to her mouth, and opened wide her eyes of knowledge shaded with the fringe of tears, which come from pain, and just as much from joy.

"Follow me," she whispered, and the south wind seized upon the golden tones, and flung them to the west wind, and to the east, and to the north wind, so that the message was carried right across the world: "Follow me—I am Hope."

And he plunged his hands still further into his pockets and scrunched up some keys and small change and a most cherished pipe, just out of gratitude, and walked on.

He found her; in fact, he would have seen her ever so much sooner if she had not been lying face down on the sands, with her head buried in her arms. He did not hasten, knowing that the whole of his life stretched before him in which to heal her hurt. She did not hear him because he walked lightly, as those delightfully big men do; and he stood over her, wondering how to rouse her without frightening her, and frowned when a little sob shook her.

Then he smiled.

Strange is it how, in the very middle of the most dramatic situation, a little thought will push open the lid of its own little brain-cell and creep out to touch our risible nerve. It really ought to know better, because empires and marriages and business contracts have been upset, if not lost, on account of its freaky humour; and it twisted the corners of the man's mouth into a distinct smile as he involuntarily thought of the drizzling November afternoon when Damaris, in brogues, tweed skirt and mackintosh, had announced her intention of going out to join in some demonstration which had to do with the upholding of the rights of her fellow-sisters, and had only been dissuaded therefrom by the opportune arrival of tea and muffins.

Little Damaris! Just one of those women who creep right into the hearts of men on account of their gentleness and apparent helplessness; who are born to be put into a glass cupboard before which those who love them spread themselves like door-mats; who rule with a rod pickled in their apparent helplessness, which is stronger than a whip of steel, and who are quite closely related to the barnacle and mollusc to which the tide regularly brings tit-bits out of the ocean, whilst the more mercurial eel has to go out and thresh about in the mud for what it requires to keep it going in its fight for life.

Anyway, the eel has the advantage of getting about a bit!

Then the smiled faded, and he knelt, because he could not stand the sound of that little sob any longer, and he put out his hand and stroked her hair.

"Damaris, darling, it's I—Ben!"

She stiffened under the shock of the words, and flung her hands over her head.

The terrible hour had come!

She would have, out of very decency, to tell him everything: why she lay where he had so miraculously found her; how she had promised herself to his friend; how she had . . .

She clutched her bonny curls in both hands and pressed herself hard to the ground, longing that it should open and swallow her up. She could not get up, she could not turn round to meet the eyes of the man she loved with all the strength of the love of which she was capable; she could not watch the love in his eyes change to a look of disgust; she simply could not do it.

And then she felt his hands on hers, and his fingers unfastening hers one by one from her grasp upon her curls; and she lay quite still; with a lovely warm feeling creeping over and through her, because she knew by the gentleness of the touch and the firmness of it that she would be gathered up safely into his arms, and carried away to happiness.

And, just as she had thought he would, he put his arms around her and lifted her like a feather and crushed her up against his heart and got to his feet and lifted his head to the glory of the sky.

But she would not look up; she could not, because she had taken the jewel of her youth and flung it carelessly far from her, so that she lay as a woman in his arms, and a woman who had looked deep in the passing of a few hours into the heart of those things which have to do with love.

The wind whispered in her ear as it carelessly touched her face, and it whispered in a voice out of the past.

And this is what it whispered:

". . . for love will have come to her, maybe for a day, maybe for a second of time, but a love which will mingle her soul with the soul of her desert lover . . . yet it is the love of the soul that endureth for ever, yea, even if the body of the woman passeth into another's keeping."

And Ben Kelham, feeling her shiver and thinking, in the simplicity of his heart, that she was cold and hungry, tucked the satin cloak with sable collar still closer round her, then looked across to the east, where lay a pall of smoke upon the air.

"I am taking you back, Damaris my little love." He spoke slowly, with his eyes on the burning tents, the significance of which had sunk deep into his heart. "Won't you look up? Won't you just say that you will marry me, so that I can tell everyone directly we get back?"

He put her on her feet when she suddenly struggled and pushed against him, and stared aghast when she bowed her face in her hands and sobbed.

"Damaris—dear—what is it? Don't you want to marry me?"

Damaris nodded, her lovely head which glistened like a hall of silk in the blaze of the sun.

"You do? You will?—Then what are you crying for? Oh! Damaris———"

The words came muffled as she shook with sobs.

"Because of the scandal, Ben. Because of what people will say about me—I mean about me when they know I am engaged to—to you—they will—laugh at you behind your back—they will—they will know about—about——"

He pulled her to him quite roughly and pressed her head against his shoulder, which it barely reached.

"Laugh!" he said. "Laugh—at me—or you! I should just like to hear them, darling. There is a way out of all this, sweetheart, somewhere, and I am going to find it, and all that has happened, beloved, rests on my shoulders, and heaven knows they are broad enough to bear it. And if we have hurt others, darling,"—and he looked over his shoulder to the tents,—"it has been through my carelessness, and we shall be shown a way in which to try and make amends. Laugh, dear? Let them laugh, dear heart, when they see how we love each other."

But, for all that, he frowned above her curly head, because he had all the Englishman's horror of scandal in connection with any of his women-folk; but he set his teeth and crushed her up closer, then let her go suddenly and swung her round, pointing across to the west.

"Look, darling; look!"

And the tears streamed down the girl's face as she flung out her arms.

"Irja Sooltan!" she called. "Irja Sooltan!"

Her voice carried on the still air like the note of a bell over water.

And the stallion, who had broken from his sayis as he was being led from the stable in readiness for the sad procession to the river, and who, terrified at the sight of the burning tents, had rushed on in search of his master, stopped dead, with his head up and tail and mane streaming in the wind.

He had not found his master, but he knew the voice that called.

"Irja Sooltan!" it came again. "Irja! Irja!"

And he reared and wheeled in the direction from whence it came, then raced to where he saw the girl standing.

He stamped, and whinnied, and nuzzled her hand and her shoulder as she stood in her lover's arms.

"Tell me you will marry me, sweetheart," Ben Kelham was saying, with one hand on the stallion's bridle. "Say it, Damaris."

She shook her head and looked up piteously, with tears in her wonderful eyes, as she made a great sacrifice to her honour.

"I can't, Ben," she whispered. "I—I—Oh! I can't tell you—I haven't—the courage—Oh! Ben, you would never understand———"

He gave a great shout as he leapt to the saddle and took the stallion back a hundred yards, then wheeled him and raced him back along his tracks.

"Understand, beloved?" he cried, as he bent as he rushed past her at full speed and lifted her to the saddle. "There is nothing to understand." And he turned the stallion as he spoke and headed him towards the tents. "We will just go back, dear; we will just pass to say goodbye—together."

And they swept across the desert.

Then he reined in the stallion and sat staring, then whispered, as he bent and kissed the bonny curls:

"The way out, dear; the way out. Someone is waiting for us."

Stubbornly, heavily, across the desert, with occasional pauses for rest and investigation of the track of small footprints, and the horizon, came Wellington.

He was very hot and very thirsty, and it seemed to him that he had been walking for many days through many, many endless deserts, but he intended to criss-cross the Sahara, or any other desert, through all eternity, until he could deliver the book he held between his formidable teeth to his beloved mistress.

And she slid from the saddle, and knelt, and put her arms around him, and took the somewhat moist keepsake from him.

She swung up like a bird into her lover's arms and took the reins whilst he leant right down to lift the dog. But Wellington's great heart was troubled. He looked up at his mistress and said as plainly as could be with reproachful eyes. "Two's company," and turned to walk stubbornly and heavily, back across those many, many deserts to the tents.

Ben Kelham cheered him on as they thundered past him. "We'll wait for you, old fellow," he cried, then looked down on the woman he loved.

Her hands were clasped upon the silken bodice where she had pinned the brooch which had been fashioned in the shape of the Hawk of Egypt.

It was not there.

It had come unfastened as she lay in her grief; she had left it to be buried so deep just a few days later, when the greatest storm which had ever been known to sweep the desert piled the sand, the desert's own cloak, to the height of hills, under which slumbered all those who had sought peace at her breast; under which, guarded throughout all ages by his dogs, peacefully slept her son.

"Ben," she cried, opening wide her eyes in which shone love and tears, "Ben, can you ever—ever forgive me?"

And he bent and kissed her as he replied:

"There is nothing to forgive, beloved of my heart—I love you!"



THE END



Transcriber's note:

A number of words in this book are Arabic, using characters that require Unicode to render properly.

I opted to use standard ASCII characters throughout the book, then to list those words here, indicating which characters require Unicode.

Words are listed in the order in which they appear in each chapter. If a word appears more than once in a chapter, it is listed only once. If it appears in multiple chapters, it is listed only in the first chapter in which it appeared.

Words are case-sensitive, i.e. if a word uses the same upper and lower case character in a chapter, both forms are listed, because of the differences in the Unicode values.

This table lists the Unicode character name and its Unicode value.

Character Value Displayed as

a-macron U+0101 [a] e-macron U+0113 [e] i-macron U+012B [i] u-macron U+016B [u] U-macron U+016A [U]



Chapter I

allahu all[a]hu la l[a] ilaha il[a]ha el-Khalili el-Khal[i]li Allah All[a]h masharabeyeh masharab[e]yeh barku bark[u] U'a U'[a] harem har[e]m Suk-en-Nahlesin S[u]k-en-Nahl[e]s[i]n shahin sh[a]h[i]n Hahmed Hahm[e]d Khargegh Kharg[e]gh Deir-el-Bahari Deir-el-Bah[a]ri

Chapter II

Billi B[i]ll[i] Ma sha-Allah Ma sh[a]-All[a]h Sooltan Soolt[a]n U'a u'a [U]'[a] [u]'[a] Bi-sma-llah Bi-sm[a]-ll[a]h el-Gedideh el-Ged[i]deh

Chapter V

Khargegh Kharg[e]gh

Chapter VII

Qatim Q[a]tim harem har[e]m

Chapter VIII

Ouled Nail O[u]led Na[i]l

Chapter X

Makariyeh Mak[a]r[i]yeh Ma'a-s-salamah Ma'a-s-sal[a]mah

Chapter XIII

Assouan Assou[a]n

Chapter XIV

Abbas Abb[a]s

Chapter XXI

Jobad Job[a]d

THE END