 CHAPTER XXIX A great light shone in his eyes as he rose from the couch of wood upon which his dead body, with feet turned towards Mecca, was to lie. The light from the lamp of bronze and cut-glass shade of deepest orange tint struck down upon him, throwing shadows from the snow-white turban which outlined the face to beneath the eyes, and round about the hawk-nose, and the mouth of which the gentleness was so belied by the dominant jaw. It gave an ivory shade to the snow-white satin of his raiment. It glistened on his only jewel, an amulet carved from an emerald in the shape of a scarab, set in gold and hung from a fine gold chain about his neck. His beauty was of the East, but it was male. There was no trace of that effeminacy which sowed jars upon the sensibilities of those who are bred in colder climes, and brought up on sterner lines than the luxurious dweller of the East. He stood listening to the far distant sound, then threw out his arms. By the mercy of Allah, God of gods, I am found worthy to serve thee, O my beloved, within the hour, yea, in but a little over the passing of half one hour, before the shadow of my tent shall reach yon rope, I shall have looked upon thee. He knew. His heart told him who was coming to him out of the night. His knowledge of the desert enabled him, by the drumming sound of the hooves upon the sand, a sound which has not its semblance in the world, to know to a second when the mare would stop before the tent. It was not the hour of Nazam, the hour of prayer before dawn, the dawn which was to see his questions answered, but he turned, and pulling back the velvet soft leather curtain, entered the small room lighted by a silver lamp hanging just above the crystal basin, full to the brim with water. No, it was not the hour of Nazam, but filled with the oriental's mysterious premonition of that which is to befall, he performed the prescribed ablutions of the hour of prayer. Three times he washed his nostrils, his mouth, and hands, and arms to the elbows, the right first as ordained, then the head and neck, and ears once and feet once. He stood erect, with his hands above his head, for five full minutes, whilst the drumming of the sand sounded nearer and nearer, then emptied the water in a circle upon the desert sands, refilled the crystal basin with water from a crystal pitcher, and passed into the tent and out upon the sands across which, and even as a speck upon the horizon, he saw the mare P.K. racing. And he threw his hands heavenwards with a great cry, Allah be praised, O Allah unto the I give thanks, the prayer of thanksgiving uttered by his own father so many years ago. It was a sight to watch, that of the snow-white mare P.K. stretched out, flying like the wind, ridden by a slip of a girl with her gleaming cloaks streaming like a banner behind her. But the look upon the man's face was still more wonderful to behold, as he stood motionless, sharply outlined against the orange light behind him. The mare slackened, not her pace, one wit. Like a thunderbolt she hurled herself right up to where stood the master she loved with all her great equine heart. Then she stopped short, fine foreheads spread wide, then reared until it seemed she must fall backwards, then crashed down to rear again, until the loved voice bade her stand. With the strange, frozen look in her eyes which gave them the appearance of ice-bound lakes, and which had been there since she had crept from the hotel, Demera slipped from the saddle into the arms of Hugh Cardinali, and there she rested, trembling from head to foot with the stress of her ride whilst the white mare whinnied for some recognition from her master. And he pulled her forelock from about her gentle eyes and pulled her small ears, and stroked the arched neck, then with a sharp word ordered her to the stables, and turning to lead the girl into the tent in which no foot but his had trod, gave no more thought to the mare p.k. She obeyed him, with mighty little zest, yet lingered not one moment, even though her delicate nostrils showed wide their crimson depths, and her satin flanks heaved like bellows through the speed in which she had covered so many miles. She moved away at a gentle trot, then stopped, and looked back along her satin flank towards the tent, in a vain hope of seeing her master just once more. She did not completely turn round. She obeyed where she loved. She just looked back along her flank. Then, doubtless recognizing her defeat, gave a little flick of her feels, and trotted off again. She was just midway between the tents and her stables when she stopped dead, with ears pricked forward. Say for the silvery mane and tail blown by the night wind she might have been a statue carved out of marble, so still was she. Then she suddenly backed and reared a foot or two, then backed again, wheeled, started towards the tents, stopped, and wheeled again. She trembled from head to foot, the beautiful, terrified creature, great eyes rolling, little feet sending the sand flying as she moved continually on one spot. There was nothing to see as she stood, looking east, the tents were behind her, her stables in a straight line from them to the west. There was absolutely no sound, none at all, until she nade. She nade until the desert rang with the sound, nade until the horses in the stables some miles away pulled at their halters and lashed out on every side. Then she reared in wheeled as she stood straight on her slender hind legs, then crashing to the ground with a confulsive leap was off into the desert. Neither did she return for many days, nor was she seen until that dawn when her saïse found her in the front of the middle tent, snuffing at the closed flap. But the flap was not closed this night, as Hugh Carden Ali sat on the couch of wood and looked at the girl who sat beside him. She stared down at her hands, which pleaded and flattened and repleted the satin of her skirt, and her face was as wide as her neck and her arms, which shone like lilies kissed by the sun, under the light of the orange lamp. He waited for her to speak, for it was not for him to guide or influence her in any way by spoken word. He led her to the wooden couch, which had perforce to serve as seat, and there was none other in the tent, and took her cloak, passing his hand gently across the sable collar which encircled her throat, and he glimpsed the hurt of her heart down in the depths of her eyes when she looked up at him and put out her hand and stopped him. When, murmuring something about coffee, he turned to the entrance. I could not drink it, thank you, she whispered. I want—I—and stopped and looked down and pleaded the satin over her knee and flattened it with her palm. She was terrified at the desperate steps she had taken, and well she might be. She was strung to a great pitch of nervous excitement through the exhilaration of her tearing ride. She was stubbornly determined to prevent the finger of scorn from pointing in her direction, but she was finding a subtle salve to the smart of the wound to her pride in the romantic setting of the wonderful picture made by the man beside her. In faith I see no real excuse whatever in exoneration of her mad impulse, unless it be in her education, or rather want of it, and in the fact that she was younger than her years. Educated in the hugger-mugger way in which are educated the girls who will not have to use their knowledge to earn a livelihood, it must be confessed the great and rare in these days asset of perfect manners and courtesy towards all mankind, yet she had never been taught the rudiments of self-control and deliberation. She had a heart of gold, truly, but she led to conclusions with closed eyes. With her to think had always been to act. So that, having leapt far out into a morass of insertitude, she sat perplexed, for it is no easy matter to say, Please, will you marry me? to a man, even if you know that he worships the ground where your shadow falls upon. He sat silent, with his eyes upon her hands, waiting for fate to point out his path. Little by little, bit by bit, her surroundings began to affect her. The blood came slowly back to her cheeks so that they glowed like the wild rows in the hedgerow, and her eyes began to lose that set stare which hides the perturbed mind, and to soften behind the heavy fringe of lashes, and her hands to cease their nervous plucking at her dress. She lifted her eyes to the strangely painted tentside, looked at the silvery spear and tilted her head back, until her throat gleamed like an ivory pillar, to look up at the ceiling with the painted vultures, the emblem of maternity. The man looked up, then looked down upon this woman of his mother's race whom he loved, and longed with all the intense passion of his father's race that he might see his firstborn upon her breast. She was trying to find words, and they came to her when she clasped her hands upon the jeweled brooch in the shape of the hawk of Egypt. She looked at him suddenly, and a little shiver swept through her at the strange beauty of this silent man, and he as suddenly turned his hands palm upwards in an uncontrollable eastern gesture of prayer to fate who had so much to give him, or perhaps so little. You said you had helped me if I came to you in trouble. She tripped and stumbled over the words. I have come to ask my help. The words were as cold as stones dropped in the beggar's hand, but Demaris lent back quickly when she looked into the man's eyes, and saw in them the reflection of the fire she had kindled. What is the help you need of me? I know nothing of the ways of women, but I do know that it has been the storm which has swept you away from your safe harbor out towards a shore upon which are piled the wrecks of many souls. She twisted the brooch between her fingers. My wedding gift, said Hugh Cardinal Lee softly, then watched the crimson die the white neck and surge across her face. You come to me for help. He repeated the words slowly. Then you, of course, are free. Ah! He lent forward and caught her hands. You have run away from that. No, do not speak. I can read your answer in your face. You have been hurt. He lifted the little ringless left hand, then pressed it against the other between his own, whilst a great light flamed in his eyes. You have come to me, and there is but one meaning for me in that you have come to me. Is it his voice dropped to the softest whisper as he crushed her hand down upon the wooden couch so that she swayed towards him? Is it that I may fasten my own wedding gift into the bridal robe of the woman I love and will take to wife? Is it? Demaris bowed her head so that the curls danced and glistened in the light as the torrent of his words in the Egyptian tongue swept about her like a flood. Has thou come to me in love, thou dove from the nest? Nay, what knowest thou of love? I ask it not of thee yet, but the seed I shall plant within thee shall grow in the passing of the days and the nights, and the months and the years, till it is as a grove of perfumed flowers which shall change to golden fruit ready to the plucking of my hand. He pressed her little hands back against her breast so that the light fell full upon her face, and held her thuswise, watching the color rise and fade. Allah! he whispered, Allah! God of all, what have I done to deserve such signs of thy great goodness? Will't love me? He laughed gently. Canst thou look into my eyes and shake thy golden head, which shall be pillowed upon my heart? My wife, the mother of my children, look at me, look at me! Ah, thine eyes, which were as the pools of Lebanon at night, are as a sun-kiss sea of love. Thou knowest it not, but love is within thee, for me, thy master. And was there not truth in what he said? May there not have been love in the heart of the girl? Not, maybe, the love which stands sweet and sturdy, like the stocky hyacinth, to blue a fresh, no matter how often the flowers be struck, or the leaves be crushed, from the humdrum bulb deep in the soil of quiet content. But the God-given, iridescent love of youth for youth, with its passion so swift, so sweet, a love like the rosebud which hangs half-closed over the door in the dawn, which is wide flung to the sun at noon, which scatters its petals at dusk. The rose! She has filled your days with the memory of her fragrance, her leaves still sent the night from out the sealed crystal vase which is your heart. But, and you would attain the priceless boon of peace, see to it that a humdrum bulb be planted in the brown flower-pot which is your home. And because of this God-given love of youth which was causing her heart to thud, and the blood to race through her veins, she did not withdraw her hands when he held and kissed them, and pressed his forehead upon them. Lotus flower! he whispered, so that she could scarcely hear. God of Innocence! Ivory Tower of Womanhood! Temple of Love! Beloved, beloved, I am at thy feet. And he knelt and kissed the little feet in the healless little slippers. Then, rising, took both her hands and led her to the door. And his eyes were filled with the great sadness in spite of the joy which sang in his heart as he took her into the shelter of his arms. I love thee too well, he said, as he bent and kissed the rideous curls so near his mouth. Ye, I love thee too well to snatch thee even as a hungry dog snatches his food, though verily I be more near to starving than any hungry dog. What does thou know of love, of life in the strange countries of the East? For thy life will be a desert life, my love, if once thou art my wife. Look up, look around thee. He pointed to the stars, he pointed to the dim horizon of the desert, over which at that very moment was padding that hound fate. Wilt thou be content with that and with me and thy children? Wilt thou not yearn for the comforts of thy heated rooms, the company of those who will point the finger of scorn, maybe, at thee as they have pointed at my mother? He spared her not one jot as he made plain to her what might be the result of her marriage. She would not be marrying the purebred son of a splendid race as his mother had done. She would be the wife of a half-case, the mixed offspring of two great races. Her children would be half-case, outcast from their rightful heritage of the sons of the East and the West. The women of her race would not own her, the women of his father's race would not permit her children to play with theirs. Wealth, palaces, camels, horses, jewels would be hers, a place for her children in the seat of his father's, or her father's, never. I should be strong, I should be strong, for in my heart something tells me that I am thinking of my happiness and not thine. Your mother, whispered to Maris so softly that he had to bend his head lower still so that when she moved in the pain of his arms which crushed her, her cheek brushed his. She is happy, everyone says so. Happy? Yes, she was happy, his beloved, most honoured mother. At least she had been, until there had come the question of her child's happiness, her half-case child. Then he laughed, joyfully, stretched the girl's arms wide, then crushed her hands above her heart. Of course, of course, he cried, they are at my house and Mahaba, the house of love, even now, where they have met to see if they, the deers, thy wise old godmother, my beautiful wise mother, can find an answer to this very question. They were not, sick with suspense they had landed on the far side of the Nile, on their race with time to the gate of tomorrow. We will go to them to-morrow, thou and I, to the gate of to-morrow, thou with the mare P.K., I with the stallion Sultan, who will well nigh kill thy mare, my woman, in jealousy. Yea, he bent and whispered in her ear so quietly, so coldly, as to cause the girl to tremble, as I will kill any one who looks at thee when thou art my wife. Then he laughed, like a boy, as he swung her round and held her at arm's length by both hands. We will start to-morrow to meet them, when we will lay the question before them, and then, and then, why, Demaris, with all the smart of the wound to her pride revived, had shaken her head. I want you, I want you to you-kardon Ali, understood by the grace of intuition. We will start for Kairgag to-morrow, he continued after a little pause, and at the same time, if it will please thee, with thy consent, I will send my swiftest runner to Luxor, where he will dispatch by cable the news of, oh, my beloved of our engagement. Allah, what a word to describe the opening of the gates of paradise, to all the great cities of my country and of thy country. Have I thy consent? Incapable of speech, Demaris nodded, having cast the die, she trembled like a leaf, and at the side of her, white, with big, frightened eyes staring at him and teeth driven into her lip, he took her into his arms. Thou art mine, beloved, mine as thou hast been in all the past, as thou wilt be in all the ages to come. All mine, thy heart, thy soul, thy body. I ask to gather no pebble from the path nor flower from the tree, as I will have the jeweled necklace of thy beauty to hang above my heart, and the grove of thy sweetness in which to take my rest. I love thee, and for the agony of the hours past in the ruined temples I will take my reward. I love thee, love thee, love thee. She made no sound when he bent and kissed her hair, but in the glory of the love, which is that of youth, which is, as a but at dawn, the full flower at noon and a few petals at dusk, and of which the fragrance stays with you down all the ages, he raised her face so that he kissed her on the mouth. And he kissed her closed eyes, and the pillar of her throat, and the whiteness of her shoulders, and her crimson mouth again and yet again, in the wonder of this, his hour of life, granted to him by Allah, who is God, and then raised his head and stared out across the desert. From a great distance there came to him the drumming of a horse's hooves upon the sand. CHAPTER 30 The True, Strong, and Sound Mind is the Mind that can Embrace Equally Great Things and Small The Two Wise Women Had Long Since Left Kairgad By a special train, by a special boat, by aid of runners, telephone and telegraph, but above all by the magic of the Sheikh el-Ambar's name and his wife's unlimited distribution of gold, Olivia, Duchess of Longacres, and her maid, and Jill el-Ambar, and her maid, arrived at the hotel on the night of the full moon. They would have arrived before sunset if it had not been for the mistake made about the special steamer which had kept them waiting at the quay. They would not have arrived until twenty-four hours later if they had made use of the ordinary train and boat. Can't we go faster, ma'am? Can't we get there quicker? It was Maria Hobson, stolid, solid, dower, big-hearted woman with a streak of scotch blood in her veins, who worried outwardly. If you had watched her out of the corner of your eye you would have seen her shake her fist at the desert. If you had walked behind her on the quay you would have heard her say, with a world of entreaty in her voice, to some terrified, non-understanding fella who quaked at the knee. Can't you get a move on somehow? You're only a heathen, to be sure, but if you'd heard the tone in the young lady's voice you'd do something instead of salamming. She said very little to her beloved mistress, but to Jill she poured out her heart, and Jill, who with the intuition of a mother's love had connected the dream with her son, let her repeat her tale over and over again. Just as though she was standing on a precipice and frightened of falling over was her voice like, Mom. Miss Jill, may I call you Miss Jill? It's more familiar and—homely, and I know you will excuse me, Miss Jill, if I say I can't get used to you in those clothes, pretty as they are in becoming to you. It seems to me like fancy dress, you with a veil over your face, if you will excuse me saying so. You are just the same to me and my lady is when you came to stay with her, Grace, and glad I, for one, will be when I see the barouche waiting for her at Victoria, with whip-up and his powdered head on the box. I don't mind that young chauffeur who lost one leg in the war, but I don't like that wicked-looking red vermilion motor-carve her graces, though the slum-folks do, and you should hear them cheer, Miss Jill, when it goes down Shadwell Way. This conversation took place on the quay whilst her grace was absent, trying to still the unaccountable fear with which her heart had been filled by her maid's dream, by talking to the little brown urchins who swarmed about her to get the better view of the bird. What do you think of them, Deco, old fellow? She took him on her wrist, at which he spread his tail, rattled his wings, and puffed his ruff, whereupon the children fled, yelling, Come now, say something nice to the poor little things, you frightened them. Ask them if the boat is ready. Deco gave a sudden piercing screech. You damned dirty lot, he yelled. You—and some doubted the bird's sojourn on a sailing vessel in the full-rigged, mouthful days of 1840. Her grace wrapped the razor-edged beak sharply and returned to the other two just in time to hear her maid's answer to some question. Sergeant O'Rafferty of the Irish Guards, Miss Jill, he demeaned himself by marrying a barmaid, Miss. As already mentioned, love and marriage had passed Maria Hobbson by. Arrived at the hotel, their spirits went up with a bound. What had come to them out there in the desert town? Had they all been stricken with some dreadful depression? Of course the child was safe in this laughing, dancing, happy throng, and at the sight of her godmother she would leave her partner and run to her, would throw her arms about her and hug her in her loving way. Owing to the crowds of people and the crush of cars, little if any notice had been taken of their arrival, the luggage was coming up later. Wait a minute here, Hobbson, had said her grace. Jill, come and see if you can recognize Demaris by the picture you saw of her, the prettiest girl in Egypt. They stood at the side door of the ballroom and scanned the laughing couples sitting in rows in the throes of the Cotillion. Ellen Thysselton, with the royal asp of ancient Egypt, with a slight list to starboard above her heated countenance, stood alone in the middle of a room with a glass of champagne in one hand. Before her stood Mr. Lumlow and the Colonel for whom the gilded asp was being worn at such a rakish angle. She stood for quite some seconds in her conspicuous position as though debating within herself upon the choice. As Mr. Lumlow subsequently remarked to his panting partner in his customary slang, she had a nerve. Then, with head on one side, she coyly handed the veuve clico to the thankful young man, and on allowing herself to be gathered to the heart of the portly, jubilant Colonel, who loving her saw the jaunty gilded asp as a nimbus around her head. Of Demaris there was no sign, and the old lady's heart, through some unaccountable terror, seemed as if it would sink into her small crimson shoes, though outwardly she showed no sign of the fear that gripped her. I expect she has gone upstairs or out into the grounds to give Wellington a run. I don't see him anywhere. Come, Hobson, give me your arm to the lift. A deep growl welcomed them as the maid opened the sitting-room door and switched on the light as the ladies entered. Wellington lay near the balcony window, head on pause, with the book his mistress had given him between his teeth. He rose slowly, very slowly, eyes red, rough bristling around the spiked collar, growling menacingly. My dear, said the duchess quietly, just stand still. Demaris has gone away. He is always like this when she has left him. Hobson, go and see if you can find Jane Coop. I hope to goodness you don't. She walked across the room and passed close to the dog, who turned his head and growling savagely, watched her as she moved. Then she came back and sat down quite near him, and leaning down arranged the buckle on her shoe, whilst Jill stood perfectly still, filled with admiration for the old woman, who was not acting out of bravado but simply tackling the situation in the only possible way. Once let a bulldog on guard know that you do not want to take away or touch his carefully guarded possessions, and that you are not in the least bit afraid of him, and all will be well. Come over here, Jill. Jill, who had removed her veil and sat in mantle, crossed the room and sat down on a stool at the elder woman's feet. She took the wrinkled little old hand and patted it, and then they sat still and silent, hand in hand, waiting for the maids' return. What was there for these women to make such a fuss about? Cannot a girl be allowed to sit out, perhaps a dance, or a whole coutillion even, without the world coming to an end? What made them all three, fret, fuss, and fear? The great love they had for the other, perhaps, for love has been known to pierce the mental fog we each one of us weave about ourselves, and so allow us to help one another, sometimes even at a great distance. Maria Hobson knocked an open Jane Coop's door, who rose and came quickly towards her, and as her graces made involuntarily glanced round the room, old nanny peered over her shoulder with the hope of seeing her young mistress in the corridor. Isn't she here? My young lady? No, she's dancing. She paused and put out her hand. Isn't she dancing? Isn't she? Why did Jane Coop fear as the others feared? And why did her bonny face go suddenly white? Because she, too, was one of the happy, limited throng who know what real love is. My mistress would like to speak to you, Miss Coop. What's wrong? Maria Hobson tell me what's wrong. Hobson allowed the unlicensed use of her Christian name to pass unnoticed. She closed the door behind her and spoke gently as she took the other woman's hand and shook it, which was her somewhat masculine way of showing sympathy. I don't know. None of us know that there is anything wrong. As Michael Rafferty used to say, we may be after barking up the wrong backyard, but I had a dream, Jane Coop, sit you down whilst I'm telling it to you. They sat on the sofa, hand in hand, strangely like their mistresses, as they sat in the sitting room near the suspicious bulldog. At the end of the story of the dream, Jane Coop rose. Thank you, Miss Hobson. I thought my young mistress was dancing. I was hoping she was forgetting a bit, with the music and young folk. There's one thing I shall like to know where she has gone to. My dearie wouldn't break her word. Come along. She opened the door and turned and spoke over her shoulder. Drat, men, she said briefly and emphatically. Yes, dratum, replied Maria Hobson, even more emphatically, as her memory leapt clear across the gulf of years to the time when she had walked out with a certain sergeant of the Irish guards. Jane Coop dropped a curtsy to the gentry and stood just inside the door, up in arms, ready to fight anyone at the first word of condemnation of her young mistress. Come over here, Coop, please, and tell me everything you can about Mr. Maris. I have an idea, mind you, I am not sure, that she has gone out alone, and we must be as quick as we can in finding her, because Egypt is no place for a white girl to be running about by herself. Jane Coop took up a corner of the big white apron she insisted upon wearing and pleaded it between her fingers as she told her grace everything with a surprising lucidity. She came in here to fetch your fan, your grace, and in here somewhere she will have left me a message. I've never known my baby to break her word, and I'll look for it, if I may. She'll have written it on a bit of the block with this pencil. It's been thrown down in a hurry. Mr. Maris is that tidy. She can put her hand on anything she wants in the dark, which is more than most of the slip-shod take off your dress and leave it there young ladies of the present day could do. The anxious maid hid her face in a never-ending Sadovache invective against the pharaohs and their descendants down to the present generation, as they all hunted vainly for the bit of paper. Then she stood helplessly in the middle of the room and apostrophied the dog. You know where your missy's gone to. Why don't you help us instead of lying there growling. She stood scowling at him, then suddenly walked across to where he lay. I wonder if she put it inside that book, she muttered, then gave a little cry as she caught sight of the paper twisted in the steel ring of the spiked collar. I've got it, she cried, I've got it. The duchess, who was quite near her, put her hand on her arm. Take care, Coop. The dog is really angry. Let me get it. Not you, your grace. No, not ever so, bless you. Wellington was standing on the book, great tusk gleaming, eyes glaring, a hideous picture of rage. But love casts out fear, even the just fear of a dog who would never let you go until you or he were dead, once he got his teeth into any part of you. There was no haste about Jane Coop as she knelt beside him. Missy wants you, she said, do you hear? The rose-leafed ears pricked at the sound of the beloved name, but the whole tremulous body shook with his growling response. You don't love her, you brute. Else you'd have picked up the book and been ready to start at the sound of her name. I'll teach you to be so slow. With a lightning movement she caught hold of the loose skin just under the jaw, firmly, grimly, with her left hand, holding him amazed and for a moment helpless as she pulled the paper out of the ring. Then she let go and pointed to the book, just as the dog was about to spring. Missy told you to keep it for her. The room vibrated with the thunder of his fury as he placed both feet on the book and glared about him. I know, said Jill, as she read the message over the old woman's shoulder, she has gone to my son, to his tents in the desert. She spoke quietly and with a certain dignity and authority which checked all questions. He will take her straight to me. Shall we go back to Kerrgug, or shall I go to them, to his tents? There was no sign of the triumph in the mother heart at the thought of the happiness which was to come to her first-born, neither had she a single thought for the others. A mother's love is the most surpassing of all loves. It is the eighth wonder of the world. It is a mystery before which that of the sphinx shrinks to insignificance. It is the only one love which asks for so little in return for all it gives. Blessed sanctified refuge against all harm. Five minutes of quick discussion, rapid weighing of the pros and cons as to the best way to keep from the ears that which would serve as a whetstone to the tongues of the scandal-mongers, a sharp, clear understanding and decision. The manager of the hotel salomed deeply in the doorway before the high-born women, and showed no surprise at the tale, which he believed, perhaps, of Miss Heathencourt, who had gone to meet her grace and having undoubtedly mixed up instructions, had either gone up to Culla to meet her, crossing her on the river, or had crossed to the other side, thinking, as her grace had suggested doing, that the return from Culla will be made by camel on the far side of the Nile. Would Gracious know? He had long since given up, showing or feeling surprise at anything any of the great white races might elect to do. He had harbored them for several winters in his hotel, you see. Certainly everything should be ready in the quickest possible time. A hamper and some brandy, the boat, and upon the other side the swiftest camel from the hotel stables for her Excellency, the wife of the sheikh El Umbar, the swiftest men to carry a litter, ah, two litters, as her grace's maid would join the search. Not Miss Coop, she was staying behind, of course, to have everything in readiness for Miss Heathencourt, who would doubtless be very tired and a little frightened. There is nothing to fear, he added. Nobody has ever really been lost in Egypt, and as Miss Heathencourt would not want a crowd of friends to meet her on her safer turn, not one word shall be said about the little expedition of relief. He salomed and retired, leaving the duchess looking after him. She had her doubts about his belief in one word of the story. Wrapped in her ermine cloak and leaning on her ebony stick, Olivia, duchess of Longacre, stood near all that is left of the gate of to-morrow. Hugh Carden's mother looked down at her from the back of her camel, on which had been fixed the padded seat, which is perhaps the most comfortable of all saddles. Wellington, with the book between his teeth, sat next to her, firmly secured by a rope through the steel ring in his spiked collar to the back of the seat. Take him, your grace, had urged Jane Coop, whose own heart was nigh breaking at being left behind. Take him, he'll find her if we should happen to have made a mistake. Miss He calling you, Wellington. Take the book to Miss He, she wants it. And the dog had obediently picked up the book in his teeth and waddled in the wake of the search-party. Maria Hobson stood close beside her mistress, the indifferent fellow-heans stood some way apart. They, too, have long since become accustomed to the vagaries of the great white race. Let me go alone, dear. He is my son. The mother had pleaded for the sake of her first-born, and the old woman, understanding, had given way. Good-bye, dear. I will wait for you here. Hobson will look after me. Besides, as long as we save her good name, what matters anything else? Thank God for the moon, Jill. You will easily follow the track of the two horses. Give them both my love and tell them I'm waiting. Au revoir! She stood and watched the camel slither across the desert at that animal's almost incredible speed, then turned, sat down on the edge of her litter, took out her bejeweled Louis XV snuff-box, rasped a match on the sole of her crimson shoe, and lit a three castles with her eyes on the track left by the hooves of two horses. Yes, two. Just an hour before they arrived, Ben Kellam had started from the gate of to-morrow to find his schoolmate, Hugh Cardin Ali, at his tenths of purple and gold. CHAPTER 31. SWEET IS TRUE LOVE, THOUGH GIVEN IN VAIN, IN VAIN, AND SWEET IS DEATH WHO PUTS AN END TO PAIN. TENNESON. Hugh Cardin Ali, quite still and strangely unwelcoming, stood just inside his tent, as Ben Kellam flung himself off his horse. Neither did he put out his hand to take the outstretched one of his old school fellow. Pretending not to notice the seeming lapse in courtesy, Kellam turned to hitch his horse, only to find that product of the bizarre had cleared for the horizon. It were wise, when out in the desert, if your horse is not desert-trained, to hang on to the bridle until you have hobbled or hitched your steed, lest paired venture the vultures at discrete distances should assemble about you later, as you lie raving upon the sands, only waiting until your raving cease altogether to approach quite near to you. That the omission was intentional never crossed his mind. He remembered his friend's religion and the strictness with which he adhered to its tenets, and thought that perhaps the shaking of a fellow-creature's hand was forbidden at certain hours. So that he did not offer his hand again, but his eyes shone with all the affection which might be turned love he had had at harrow for the man who had met him so often as opponent in the cricket field, and as a friend in his rooms. He stood quite still for a minute just outside the tent, the moon shining down upon his splendid six-foot-two, and a little shadow of doubt swept across the face of the eastern, as, so strong was the moonlight, he noticed the set of the jaw and the honesty of purpose in the steady gray eyes. This Englishman might make a mistake, might blunder in the slowness of his deliberate way. There was the faintest suspicion of a smile on Hugh Cardin's Ali, as he remembered, even at this critical moment, how, having won the toss, it had taken Ben Kellam so long to decide, at the foot of the hill, whether to put his side in or not. But, that he would deliberately behave like a cat to anything so beautiful and desirable as de Maris, or in fact to any man, woman, or child, or beast on earth, no, that thought was not to be entertained for one moment. Come to think of it, what a blessing it is that the cat cannot efface the mark of nature's branding iron. He may be an Adonis, a diplomat, a bon viveur, a good sport, a real sport. He may have a brain and a personality and a gift for choosing and wearing his clothes. His blood may be cerulean, red or merely muddy, but just watch out. One day he will forget to shoot his linen, and you will catch a glimpse of the mark of the beast. And in the second of time which it took this little analysis of his friend to flash across his mind, the hands of life moved slowly towards the hour. He put his hand to his turban, then stood on one side. Come in, Kellam. Whoever would have thought of seeing you, jolly decent of you coming all this way out to see me. I thought you were afterliant, but I see you have no gun. I am afraid I can only offer you coffee. No pegs in a Mohammedan's tent, you see. They each advanced one step, and their hands met and gripped across the dividing line, on one side of which one of the two stood under the stars which belonged to all men, and the other inside the desert dwelling. Such a faint line, this one of racial distinction, yet which rises as a barrier higher than the Himalayas, deeper than the ocean and stronger than steel between the men of the East and the men of the West. Kellam laughed as he sat down at the end of the wooden couch, to which, without making any apology for the bareness of the tent, his host had pointed. Jolly seeing you again, Cardin, I had an idea you were traveling round the world and only discovered through the morning paper that you were quite near. The paragraph gave a full description of you in these tents, so I took the first train, I was in Cairo, inquired about you when I arrived at Luxor Station, where they seemed to know all about you, hired that horse which has just gone off on a survey into the middle of the desert, got ferried across, and came straight here. I don't mind telling you that Lion is rather a sore point with me at the present. He laughed again as he took his automatic colt, which lay cosily in the palm of his big hand from his pocket and released the safety-catch. I'm like darling old Antelivia, she refuses to be parted from hers once she has sighted in Port Said. By Joe, Cardin, you've absolutely got to meet her if you haven't met her already. She knew your mother well. But of course you stayed at the castle. No, you didn't, though. You had measles. Well, you've got to meet. He stopped suddenly as the thought of the abominable, anonymous letter flashed across his mind, turned a dull red under his tan, and looked round the strange tent, and then at the man who sat on the opposite end of the wooden couch, next in all the picturesque simplicity of the east, with the stars and the far-fetching desert as a background. He sat quite silent, staring at his friend, who yet in some indefinable way seemed such a total stranger. By Joe, Cardin, he said at last, I didn't know you had— He stopped, confused, horrified at the words which had almost escaped him. Turned native, Kellum? I haven't. I am an Arab, a Mohammedan by birth. This, he looked quickly at the leather curtain at the back of his friend. This is my natural environment. Hera was a loving thought on the part of my honoured mother, and he paused and raising his voice ever so slightly, looked steadily at the curtain which seemed to move per chance blown by the night wind. And a great, terrible mistake. Yes, Kellum, a terrible mistake. Did you ever think of the risk I ran, I, an Arab, of meeting some white woman whom I might love? Supposing I had met such a one and had loved her and had wanted to marry her. Tell me, you, all white as you are, could I have done so? He took a simple wooden cigarette case from his cummerbund and held it out to his friend. They lit their cigarettes and sat smoking in an intolerable silence. There was no real need to ask the question, because it had been answered even whilst the Englishman had swung himself from the saddle. In a searing flash, by the sound of his friend's voice, the way he moved, the whole western look of him, Cardinali had understood this man, born of the moors, the bracing climate, the cold skies, the snows and springs of England, was the true mate for beautiful English demerits. But to turn the knife in the wound in his heart, he repeated the question, and Kellum, who knew it could be answered only in one way, changed at his collar and got to his feet, and crossed to the wall, to finger the throwing spear with his back to his friend. Well, you know, old man, I—well, I don't think it's best, as your father is an Arab—well, well, you know what, who was it said, something about East and West? I don't— He passed his hand over the wall, then exclaimed, in an effort to change the subject, by Jove its leather, why I thought the wall was velvet. Cardinali laughed and lit another cigarette as he watched Kellum out of the corner of his eye and walked slowly round the tent. Keeping something from each other they were ill at ease, where under ordinary circumstances they would have talked without ceasing upon the good old days of harrow, of houses and masters and school-fellows, of ducker, the swimming bath, and lords and bill, the roll-call. They talked instead disjointedly upon things which, though they interested them mightily, were not near to their hearts as is the hill to the Harovian. They had both come to a decision which, however, left them in no wise comforted. Ben Kellum decided as he walked about the tent that not a word about the anonymous letter or the courtesan should pass his lips. How could he have ever thought of mentioning the latter, even if it had been only as a safeguard for the future in finding out the best way in which to silence the woman's lying tongue? Besides, if Cardin, he thought, had met Demaris or the Duchess, he would most surely have said so, which only showed that he knew nothing whatsoever about the Oriental. Hugh Cardinale had come to his decision, even as he had realized that honour bad him give up the girl whom he had held so close to his heart. In his one hour, ref from life, on the pretext of accommodation, with promise to meet in Cairo or elsewhere as soon as possible, he would send Ben Kellum back upon the train to Luxor, and by a circuitous route would take the girl at dawn to a spot from what she could ride to Culla, and get, from there, by boat, to Dendra, or back to Luxor. None save the Syes knew she had come to his tent this night, and he was faithful and dumb as a dog. Besides, the Oriental had shrugged his shoulders, if he should prove to be otherwise, what easier than to silence him for all eternity? And if a life barren of love stretched as bleak and limitless as the desert before him, what then? Life was short, and if children of mixed races were to suffer the hell he must suffer through honour, well, surely praise should be offered to Allah in that he would never see his man-child upon the breast of woman. Kismet. He whispered the Oriental's supreme submission to the inevitable and caught his breath, then lit another cigarette. Ben Kellum placed his hand upon the checkered curtain, which swung back at his touch. Is this where you sleep, Carden? I never thought you had another room behind. It is the room in which I make my ablutions prescribed by Muhammad the prophet of Allah, who is God, at the hour of prayer. The words which were in truth a prayer for the safekeeping of the woman, beloved and renounced, rang sonorously through the tent, causing Ben Kellum to turn and look at the Oriental who had risen to his feet as he prayed. The two fine men stood looking at each other across the tent, then the Englishman moved forward and sat down on the end of the wooden couch as the other moved back and lent against the wall, with his fingers upon the little amulet above his heart. Have you ever been in love, Carden? Kellum asked abruptly, unable to control the question. There is no have been in love. You either love or you do not. Do you? Ben Kellum nodded his head. Then, if you do, why in the name of Allah who is your God as well as mine, why are you here? Why are you not at the feet of this woman, stricken with wonder and humility before the gifts the great God has given you? Why do you leave her exposed to the temptations of the East where has been wrecked the soul of many a white woman? What is the killing of wild beasts compared to the look of the woman's eyes? Where are your eyes, the eyes of your soul? What is this love you speak of which lets you drop the jewel from between your fingers as you would drop the half- consumed cigarette upon the ground? It was the prisoner's last despairing cry as the prison door swings, too, shutting out the sun, the song of birds, the voice of children. It was the beggar hungering for crust, crying against the wasted abundance of the rich man's table. What is this love you speak of? This love which lets you pass your days in the shadow of another woman, a woman brown as a burned cake, as comely as a stuffed pillow, who lies in wait to kill the king of beasts? Yes, I know. In the East all things are known. I know whom it is you love, and it is for her that I dare not speak, as men should not speak of woman. Go to her, tarry not. Go and heal the wound to her pride, her heart, her love, lest in her pain she should fly to the first hand for sucker. Ben Kellam sprang to his feet. Do you think if my love was returned, Carden, that I should be here? Love! The man's voice was not raised one tone, but the tent vibrated with the passionate words. Are you such a coward that you ran away at the first hurt? When the ball struck you in the face at lords, did you retire, hurt? No, you struck it and scored a century. Are you such a dullard that you cannot read beneath a woman's yes and no? Love! Do you know what love means? What would you do for love? Could you forgive in love? Kellam had stared at the man who, word for word, repeated the question Demaris had asked on the night he had proposed to her. If you heard tongues gossiping out of jealousy of the woman you loved, if you found her in a situation which could not easily be explained, if she, hurt, wounded, had run like a little child to another to beg balm for her wound, tell me, would you forgive her? Tell me! There was a strange insistency in the repeated question and a deep anxiety in his eyes which passed as Kellam laughed. It was the genuine, honest laugh of the man who loves and is willing to shoulder the burdens, great and small which love brings in her train. You say there is no have been in love, Carden. I say there is no question of forgiveness in love. You love and there is no room anywhere for anything else but love. A great silence fell, the silence of two strong men who for one moment had broken through the barbed wire of convention to be their natural selves, the silence heralding the birth of a new day. There was no sound as the hands of fate pointed to the full hour. It all happened and was over even as the hour struck. There was a shout from both men, the tawny shape leapt out of the night through the opening of the tent, the crashing report of Ben Kellam's revolver as he fired, the coughing of the wounded lioness as, spitting blood she recoiled to spring, a ringing shout from Hugh Carden Ali as he flung himself in front of his friend just as he fired, and the great brute with a mighty roar turned and disappeared into the night when she had come. There was a look of great wonder on the face of Hugh Carden Ali, as he stood looking beyond his friend, then suddenly turned in the direction of Mecca. Slowly he raised his hand to his turban, whilst a look of an effable piece swept across his face and stayed, as a little red stain like a crimson rose showed just above his heart. Here, sir, the answer to the roll-call rang out across the desert he had loved so well, and was carried by the breeze of dawn up through the stars, to the headmaster whose justice and mercy take no account of race. Then the old Harovian crashed face downward, dead. CHAPTER XXXII. Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep. Spirits that live throughout, vital in every part. The light from the silver lamp shone down upon the water in the crystal basin, and upon the girl's red head as she crouched upon her knees against the leather curtain. Well might she crouch, well might she have put dust upon her head as do the Easterns in their grief and shame, well might her voice have wailed out across the desert in sorrow for the young life broken by the careless fingers of her heedless youth. But she knelt without movement, with her face in her hands, the hands which had so lightly played pitch and toss with a man's heart and a man's life, and prayed desperately, silently, for forgiveness. Let it be granted her on account of her years, for youth is ever blind, and the young are ever selfish, giving never a thought to the years they must spend, when gray-haired and wise they will try to repair with their shaking old hands the tatters and rents they had made in their thoughtless, grasping youth. Strange it is that the olden years in sorrow and knowledge will sit darning the rents and patching the bad places with their trembling hands, as their wise old heads nod and their dear old mouths murmur a prayer, and yet be unable to teach the young how to keep the fabric of life whole, or safeguard it with the lavender of love and goodwill pressed between its folds. Until the drumming of the sands had sounded like distant thunder, and the shape of horse and its rider had become distinct to the desert-trained eye of her desert lover, de Meris remained apprehensive and silent in the safe refuge of his arms, which crushed her to his heart. Then he lifted her and carried her swiftly to the little room of prayer, lit by the silver lamp, and resting a promise from her to keep her presence hidden, no matter what she might hear through the curtain, kissed her hands once and twice and yet again and left her, drawing the curtain closed. Horrified she heard the voice of Ben Kellam, like a statue of fear she stood, with her ear close to the curtain, for the half of an hour, the thirty short minutes in which she came to understand at last, clearly, definitely, that there was only one man in the world for her, and that he was the Englishman who sat with clenched hands under the lash of his friend's words, and her hen trembled so that the curtain shook as though blown by the night wind, as she held it back just wide enough to look through without being seen, and her eyes were soft with gratitude when she understand the greatness of the sacrifice of the man of the East, had laid upon the altar of his honor and his friendship and his love. 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 Cardinale 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 on 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 Demera shivered and bewildered, not knowing if an hour or a second had passed while she had laid 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 re-back, then urged by a desire which clamored 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 like other girls, she must therefore go adventuring through the world's mazy highways and byways 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 Kellam, 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 purcing 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 principles 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, very hard, rubbed frantically, but the red spots were there on her hands, in 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 jeweled 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 Cardinalee, 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 center 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 gray and white, there stood a figure. And the wind of dawn, upon whose wings are wafted the liberal souls into the safekeeping of Allah, who is God, lifted for one instant the veil before her face. But 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 gray cloth of gray and white and bounded across the hawk-like 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 phalanges, 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-horse chariots straight towards the cup of gold which rested upon the rim of the world. They came 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 as in our line, passes and go marching along with them, marching along until we come 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 sand stretched a carpet of rosy and gray and gold before her, the sky a canopy of blue and gray 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 Demaris 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 week. How much easier it is 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 jeweled symbol upon her breast and looked up. From out of the west, cleaving the air like a thrown spear, flying straight towards the sun and 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 marketplace 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. When 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 great grief, taking no notice of his master's favourite Shaheen, which he had petted and trained, it flew towards the rising sun, it flew away, it was never seen again. This, after all, had it heard its master's call. Ben Kellam sat on the ground, with his head resting on the edge of the wooden couch, so that his friends sat and coached, touched his cheek. Safe 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 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 checkered 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 carefree 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. As an 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 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 equaled his love for her. There's 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 fleetily through the shadows. Iua and Tua, the dogs of Bili, 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 disgraced to look upon, with their shaggy hair matted with sand, and what looked suspiciously like blood? What if one of Tua's ears hung limp and Oua's tail hung down? The lioness was dead, and they were coming just as hard as they could tell to ask him to come and see. They knew exactly what he would say and do when they rushed up upon him. He would hold up his hand and say, You disgraceful-looking pair of disreputable tykes! He always did, and pulled them to him, Tua 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, or 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 all, 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 fingernail 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 sultan would come racing with native pad and halter, riderless towards them. This is how they worked it. First Tua, 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 Ua, who had just pulled the coat to come and point in 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 in their silly ways, but they knew better. He was really just as keen as themselves, besides, he belonged to the desert. And to-night 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, and they would take him farther along the path and show him how fast they had gone by the marks of their pads in the sand, 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 left 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 Tua had rolled after her side had been ripped, and the place from which Ua 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 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 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, rough 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 be 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, left 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 left inside. They had seen him asleep. Their hearts were at rest. How could he hear or whistle them if he lay asleep? Then on each side, tails wagging, eyes gleaming, they stood with wharfied upon the couch, and bent to sniff him who was so dear to them. So they stood for just one uncomprehending minute, then dropped to the ground, shivering, as Tua gave a little whine. Then they walked slowly round the couch, whining and sniffing as they went, and Tua stayed for a moment to lick the hand which had so often pulled her stilky ears, and Ua rose for an instant upon his hind legs, and scratched to 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. Tua wagged her tail once. Ua 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 Kellam 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 black, close together, and separating it at the foot, went up to the head of the couch and sat down upon their haunches, one on each side of him, livable as though carved by grief out of stone. Ben Kellam, 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. Then he stood and stared and stared as he turned the little lace-trimmed square over and over in his hand. It was ringing wet. It smelt faintly of the perfume of 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 other 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 there was a voice heard, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted because they were not. ST. MATHEW. SECOND. 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 coloring, her solitude, she was biblical. She might have been a woman of the Old Testament asking for succor or sanctuary. At the tent of Abraham pitched between Bethel and High. 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 sole welfare of the masses, he made laws about things which in the innocence of their hearts they had, up till then, never given two thoughts. Leave that cornerpiece of pasture unhedged, and its 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 a 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 fashion to close 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 color of our hair and the pattern of our socks when the fancy ceases 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 reborn in seemingly solitude. The grief of Rachel was shadowed upon the face of Jill, the wife of the Arab, as she stood 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 air 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 byways 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, then dry them with her smile. And you can grow 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 spikes of custom and convention. She had watched the seed of happiness burst and bloom 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 in evening, got to its knees in just the same way as Taffadon 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 ever post-pranial coffee and cigarettes, 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 desert disappearing, but the tipping system, nip, 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 seed 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 odor 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 width 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 neighborhood, perhaps playing at hide and seek behind the tents as she did on wet mornings at home behind the chester-field. 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 had held her so that she could not turn and go towards the tent, through which shone the bright 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 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 firstborn 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 and 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, and she would, of her joy at the thought of his homecoming 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 without 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 mother's 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 down 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 curtain 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 dog 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 checkered 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 to 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 side 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 received him at his journey's end, and 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 of gold and of death, and hobbled them, and returned on foot across the sands, which were the gold with the beams of the rising 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 Shaheen flew straight into 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 of the Hawk of Egypt by Joan Conquest Read for LibriVox.org into the public domain. 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 colors, 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 Kellam'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 Kellam walked slowly, with his eyes upon the faint track of little feet which had moved in a circle, and did not once look behind, else he would 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 forever had fallen the jewel of youth. But somehow he had managed to scramble to the bank and pull himself out, and he had 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 wrapped 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 flugged 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 hand 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 risable 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 humor, and it twisted the corners of the man's mouth into a distinct smile as he involuntarily thought of the drizzling November afternoon when Demaris, in Brogues, tweed-skirt in Macintosh, 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 Demaris, 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 those who love them spread themselves like doormats, 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 mollusk to which the tide regularly brings tidbits 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 smile 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. Demaris, 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, and 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 forever, yea, even if the body of the woman passeth into another's keeping. And Ben Kellam, feeling her shiver and thinking in the simplicity of his heart that she was cold and hungry, tucked the satin cloak with sable collars still closer round her, then looked across to the east, where lay a pall of smoke upon the air. I am taking you back, de Maris, 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 I can tell everyone directly we get back? He put her on his feet when she suddenly struggled and pushed against him, and stared aghast when she bowed her face in her hands and sobbed. De Maris, dear, what is it? Don't you want to marry me? De Maris 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, de Maris! 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 you—they will laugh at you behind your back. 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 heard others, darling, and he looked over his shoulder to the tents, it has been through my carelessness, and we shall be shown away 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 and connection with any of his womenfolk. But he set his teeth and crushed her up closer, then let her go suddenly, and swung her round, pointing across to the west. Laugh, darling, Laugh! And the tears streamed down the girl's face as she flung out her arms. Irja Sultan! She called Irja Sultan! Her voice carried on the still air like the note of a bell over water. And the stallion, who had broken from his aïse 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 Sultan! It came again. Irja! Irja! And he reared and wheeled in the direction from once 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. Then Kellan was saying, with one hand on the stallion's bridle, Say it, Demaris. 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 back along his tracks. Then beloved, he cried as he bent as he rushed past her at full speed and lifted her into 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 good-bye, together. And they swept across the desert. Then he reigned in the stallion and sat staring, then whispered as he bent and kissed the Bonnie Curls. The way out, dear, the way out. Someone is waiting for us. Subberingly, 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 crisscross 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 lent right down to lift the dog. But Wellington's great heart was troubled. He looked up at his mistress and said as plainly as he could with reproachful eyes, too's company, and turned to walk stubbornly and heavily back across those many, many deserts to the tents. Ben Kellam 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 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 in my heart. I love you. THE END of CHAPTER XXXV. END OF THE HAWK OF EGYPT by Joan Conquest. Read by Cibella Denton. For more information, please visit LibriVox.org.