The Hawk of Egypt Part 14

The stallion lashed out, reared and stood still, ears p.r.i.c.ked, silken mane and tail flying in the wind.

Then _he_ answered, until the desert seemed filled with the calling of the n.o.ble beasts, as the girl sat with thudding heart and eyes fixed on the distant spot where fretted and fidgeted the mare ridden by the Arab.

Then something within her rebelled at this intrusion upon her privacy, causing her to be suddenly stricken with anger and confusion.

"Take me to the tents, Sooltan!" she cried, turning to look back.

"Take--but--why--oh! what an escape--a mirage--a----"

But the rest was lost in the sudden bound of el-Sooltan as he raced in obedience to his master's call.

The man waited until they were within a mile of him; then he wheeled the mare and took her back along her tracks, urging her to her topmost speed. Swiftly she fled and swiftly pursued Sooltan, the man not once turning in his seat.

And as they neared the outskirts of the oasis of Heliopolis Hugh Carden Ali urged the mare so that she gained upon the stallion, and beckoned to his groom, who had run hot-foot from the Obelisk to the edge of the desert with fear in his heart for the beast but not one whit for the girl. And he caught the shouted order as his master pa.s.sed him at full speed, and ran out, shouting in his turn to the stallion.

El-Sooltan, connecting the _sayis_ with the bucketsful of water he stood so badly in need of, stopped short, nearly unseating Damaris with the suddenness of his decision and then with the hand of the groom upon his heaving flank trotted docilely back to the Obelisk, where Wellington, risking curvature of the spine, turned himself into a canine picture of ecstatic welcome.

"To-morrow at the same hour," said Damaris, feeding the stallion with sugar, "he will know me better."

"_Ma sha-Allah_!" murmured the servant to himself, praising the courage of this bit of a woman.

"_Bikhatirk.u.m_," she said gently, as she moved off in the car.

"_Ma'a-s-salamah ya sitti_," answered the delighted, astounded man as he salaamed almost to the ground before such unexpected graciousness.

CHAPTER XI

"_Give me that man that is not pa.s.sion's slave and I will wear him in my heart's core_. . . ."

SHAKESPEARE.

In his blindness and obstinacy and hurt Ben Kelham carried out his intention and went after lion, the report of which, for all he knew, might have been the outcome of some _fellah's_ vision of a tame p.u.s.s.y mixed up with the nocturnal habits of the lion-headed G.o.ddess Sekhet, who, so tradition avers, prowls about ruins by the light o' the moon, seeking whom she may devour.

The moon plays havoc with the strongest-minded, out yonder!

Anyway, love-sick, he left Heliopolis, placing the panacea of sport like a poultice upon his hurt.

Shortly after, one day during the noon hours, in the cool shadows of his great palace in Cairo, there came to Hugh Carden Ali an overpowering desire to see the girl he loved amongst her own people.

She was his at dawn in the desert, although miles of sand stretched between them; his in the rush of the wind, the glory of the sky and the thunder of the horses' hoofs; but to whom did she turn at night; in the maze of the dance; the hothouse atmosphere of the hotel; the crush of the winter visitors?

So, giving a twist to the dagger of love in his heart, he tucked the dogs of Billi in beside him and drove as the sun set to Heliopolis, and, guessing that the d.u.c.h.ess would have a table near the window, chose one on the opposite side of the dining-room, so that his presence should not be thrust upon the girl or the old woman who had known his mother.

He sat there, indifferent to or oblivious of the interest his presence aroused, unconsciously counting the vertebrae of the lady at the next table, who had evidently forgotten some essential part of her bodice.

He counted the vertebrae in the back of the lady who was dying to turn round, until the d.u.c.h.ess and Damaris entered the room; then he clenched his hands under the table with an involuntary shudder of disgust.

It was the first time he had seen the girl he loved in evening dress, and every instinct of the Oriental in him was outraged at the sight of the gleaming neck and shoulders and hint of lace-shrouded virgin form.

She was not in full _decolletage_ by any means, but the waiter's sleeve was but an inch from her satin skin when he bent over her, so that, although he had long grown accustomed in Europe to the undraping of woman o' nights, yet, because he loved the beautiful girl, he longed for the right to walk across the room, pick her up in his arms, and, smothering her in a _barku_, hide her forever from all male eyes but his own.

Later, as he sat alone in a far corner of the ball-room, he twisted the dagger of love this way and that in his tormented heart, whilst the dogs of Billi worried the life out of the hall-porter as they fretted and moaned for their master who tarried. He had never danced, himself, loathing the idea of the propinquity of a stranger's body so close to his own; of a stranger's mouth so near his own; of the animal odour of the naked body, which no perfume can hide, within his nostrils; just as he loathed the idea of a woman pa.s.sing from one man's arms to another's throughout the best part of a night.

He had no desire whatever to dance with Damaris, but all the Eastern in him longed to make her dance for him; in the desert for preference; under the light of the moon; with the insistent throbbing of the drum keeping time to the rhythm of the slender feet upon the warm sand.

And he sat and dreamed under the palms, taking no heed of the sudden cessation of music, the gathering of the dancers against the walls; the half-suppressed, laughter and moistening of lip with furtive tongue and the unusual feeling of expectancy in the heavy, perfumed air.

But he came back to earth when from some corner of the room there came the faint tapping of a drum.

Three times there fell a single beat, then a gentle roll and a single beat, bringing him to his feet as he recognised the measure, just as the lights were switched off, excepting for one great beam which, striking down from some device in the ceiling, made a silvery pool in the middle of the floor.

"No!" he cried from the shadows, "this must not be. It is not seemly for the eyes of women."

But the answer to this protest came in little jeering laughs and quick remonstrance from those who feared that the whetting of their appet.i.tes should be s.n.a.t.c.hed from them, and a sigh of satisfaction went up when, from the shadows, there sprang an Arabian youth, beautiful as a G.o.d, supple as a snake, quick upon his feet as any fighting stallion.

He stood for a second with arms outflung to the men and women he knew were watching his every movement outside the radius of the light, and then he sprang back with that marvellous leap which is the gift of some Arabian male dancers.

Ah me! you talk in pharisaic whispers of the Nautch girl; in righteous anger against the dainty geisha; in horror of the weaving Salomes as known in Western cities; wait, however, before you pour the last drop from your vials of wrath and indignation until you have seen an Arab dance "_al-fajr_" which, being translated, means the dawn. You can put what interpretation you like upon it: the dawn of day, or love, anything will do, but you most certainly ought not to watch it.

If, however, you persist in so doing, you should blush to the roots of your hair--you will not, because it will be the perfect poetry of motion you will be witnessing; also ought you, after the third movement, to turn your back or flee the room--you will not, again, because of the mocking sensuality which will keep you rooted where you stand; again, you ought to stuff your ears against the throbbing of the drum--but that will you not do because of the words of love which fall, seemingly reft from the dancer's lips in the rapture of his movements.

It is the last word in sensual ecstasy, and should be prohibited for public exhibition to Europeans, yet it is quite impossible to point at any one movement and label it as the cause of the tumult within you.

But Hugh Carden Ali, standing under a palm, turned quickly when a little sound of distress caught his ear, and put out his hand and pulled the girl he had recognised in the dark by her perfume towards him, so that the back of her head rested against his arm; and sensing her nausea at the sight from which she had been trying to fly, and knowing the sheer impossibility of keeping the eyes shut in a theatre, he pulled his handkerchief from his sleeve and placed it across her eyes.

Save for the back of her head resting just below his shoulder he did not touch her, and if he bent his head so that the perfumed riot of her curls swept his cheek, should it count as a grievous sin against him?

The stone beside each of us is quite likely to lie untouched throughout our span of three-score plus ten.

At the last beat of the drum and just before the lights were switched on, Damaris was alone, with a silken handkerchief in her hand, in one corner of which, as she discovered later, was embroidered the Hawk of Old Egypt.

CHAPTER XII

"_. . . Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, And one by one back in the Closet lays_."

OMAR KHAYYAM.

Hugh Carden Ali, with the dogs of Billi crushed in beside him, raced back to his palace in Cairo and with the s.h.a.ggy pair at his heels pa.s.sed to his side of the great house. His body-servant, as nimble as a monkey, as devoted as a dog, and almost dumb by reason of a tongue split in his youth for misdemeanour, fell on his knees at his feet.

He wors.h.i.+pped his young master, who had one time rescued him from a savage, baiting crowd in the bazaar and taking him into his service had made him his own particular servant; he equally loathed his master's austere bedroom and adjoining dressing-room, with simple furniture which had lately come from _Bilid el-Ingliz_, a dark, cold country across the sea, where it rains without ceasing. And he helped strip his master of the hateful, tight, hot European clothes and trotted joyfully after him to the swimming-bath, and watched him dive in and swim the length and climb out the other end, and disappear between curtains into the luxurious rooms of the East.

Having robed him, agog with curiosity and at a discreet distance, he followed the resplendent figure in his satin raiment, snow-white turban glistening with jewels and hooded falcon on wrist, and cursed the dogs under his breath when they turned and growled softly. But his curiosity was turned to a great amazement when his master pa.s.sed into the court of the empty, luxuriant, perfumed harem, where once had loved and quarrelled, idled and fought, so many beautiful women.