The Hawk of Egypt Part 18

Then, just as he was, clad only in loin-cloth and with whip in hand, the gigantic brute strode to the House of Zulannah. Ensued a turbulent hour, at the end of which he remained acknowledged master of the house and inmates until the return of the mistress, whilst those who had mocked him went in search of cool leaves to place upon the bruised portion of their backs and those two whose heads he had cracked together for having resisted him lay quite still.

Returned to the hovel as the sun was sinking, and in high fettle, he donned red tunic, huge turban and rattling scimitar and strutted with all the negro's delight in fine feathers in front of the mirror which rested against the crumbling plaster walls.

And then he suddenly stopped and stared into the gla.s.s.

The filthy straw in the corner of the room had moved. His face went grey; great beads of sweat showed upon his chest, his knees shook, then he fell on his face and covered his head with a corner of the green-yellow Kidderminster carpet, when a voice feebly craved for water and a small blood-stained hand weakly pulled at the straw.

Zulannah was not dead.

He lay terror-stricken for some long time, then slowly got to his knees, tore off the fine feathers and flung the scimitar into a far corner; then, naked save for the loin-cloth, sat down with his back to the straw and pulled at his curly oiled hair, a sure sign in him of deep thought.

Then he grinned and, rising, walked across the floor, and, sitting down again, pulled the woman from under the straw.

No! Zulannah was not dead, nor even fatally hurt, but she was horrible to look upon when the Ethiopian had washed her clean by means of a handful of straw dipped in a broken pitcher of water.

The dog's great fangs had driven behind the ear, severing the mastoid nerve so that the mouth was pulled right up the left side of the face; it had also injured the muscle controlling the eyelid, causing it to droop and giving a diabolical leer to the once beautiful doe-like eye; it had also injured the muscle of the neck so that the head was slightly twisted; but, worst of all, the other dog had driven its terrible fangs into the muscle above the knees, injuring it so that she would never walk straight again.

And Qatim sat back on his haunches, and laughed, clapping his enormous hands.

She was not dead, and her hands were not injured, but she was too hideous to show herself unveiled and too twisted to be recognised in the street.

So all that was left to him to do was to cure her injuries--which he did, and quickly, under the advice of an old herbalist in the Silk Market,--and then sit down for the rest of his life whilst she drew strange little marks on those pale pink leaves.

CHAPTER XVI

"_My faint spirit was sitting in the light Of thy looks, my love; It panted for thee like the hind at noon For the brooks, my love_."

Sh.e.l.lEY.

For some inexplicable reason, the little old lady's trust in Jill's son was unshakable. Why, she could not have well explained. It might have been because of his ability to hide his hurt or the memory of his words spoken as the fortune-teller on the night of the ball, or perhaps through his self-denial in refraining from using his mother's erstwhile friends.h.i.+p with the old aristocrat, as a key to the door which was locked fast between himself and the girl he loved.

After all, such marriages _had_ taken place, thousands of them, so why should not his with the beautiful girl be added to the list, the outcome thereof proving the proverbial exception to the inevitable disastrous ending of all such unions?

Why did he deny himself?

Just because he loved the girl with the same all-sacrificing love his white mother had given his Arabian father.

If it had been otherwise, with never a second thought he would have lifted the girl, as doubtlessly his ancestors had oft-times lifted women in their _gazus_ or raids, and left the consequences in the hands of that old beldame Fate.

So it had been decided to start the day after the morrow by private and swiftest steam-boat to Luxor, where Damaris, shepherded by Jane Coop and under the social wing of Lady Thistleton, would sojourn at the Winter Palace Hotel until such time as her G.o.dmother should see fit to return from her errand of mercy to the House 'an Mahabbha in the Oasis of Khargegh.

Thus, whilst Jane Coop slept placidly and Maria Hobson wrestled under the bed-covering in the last throes of a nightmare in which, as a camel, she packed parcels of sand wrapped in tissue-paper, in trunks which stretched across an endless desert, Damaris drove out to the Obelisk for her last ride on the stallion Sooltan.

She rode out into the shadows, the dawn having barely lifted the hem of night's purple raiment from the edge of the world; out into the desert stretching silver-grey, soundless, half-waking; just stirred by the light touch of the breeze, which, heralding the dawn, sends little spirals of sand dancing away to the east and away to the west and blows out the stars one by one.

And she rode listlessly, knowing that no desert would ever be as this desert, or dawn as this pa.s.sing of the night, or liberty as this hour of freedom in the wastes of sand.

And then, when perhaps ten, perhaps more or less, miles out, she pulled the stallion sharply and sat forward, staring, whilst her heart thrilled in a most unwarrantable manner beneath her coat.

Upon a hummock of sand, with tattered robes of saffron, purple and of gold about his feet, there sat a youth.

Sideways he sat, with tips of slender feet to ground as though preparatory to flight. One fine brown hand pushed back a misty veil before the face, which shone wanly in the half-light. A strange, dreamy, cruel face, with crimson laughing mouth, hawk-nose, pointed chin, and eyes of grey-blue-green: eyes in which the pupils never close and which under the shadow of the coa.r.s.e black hair a-grit with sand shone like twin pools of loneliness hidden in the rocks of Time. The other hand, outstretched, palm uppermost, held between the curling beckoning fingers tatters of the veil which, blown by the wind, twined about the slender limbs and outlined the ribbed ridges of the body thin to gauntness.

And even as she looked, the hummock showed empty, whilst, half-turned, upon tips of slender feet, with beckoning hand, he stood a mile off, perchance more, this youth of crimson, laughing mouth and haunting eyes.

One with the silver-grey and purple of the night, one with the gold and crimson of the coming day, he drew her, whilst the breeze laughed over her head and, soughed faintly in her ears, so that she strove to ride him down, only to find that he was not there; and urged the great beast further still and at his greatest speed, to see the figure ever out of reach, with beckoning hand; and little mocking laugh.

And then, with hoofs clattering in the s.h.i.+ning bones of some long-dead fugitive who had failed to reach the oasis, the stallion reared and wheeled, and, caring naught for the hand upon the reins and with the bit between his teeth, raced back upon his tracks, leaving the Spirit of the Desert wrapped to the eyes in tattered misty veil.

Take heed!

So matter at what hour of the day you meet him; be it at the hour of noon, when the scorpion basks blissfully in the scorching sun; be it at night, when the white fingers of the moon essay to close your eyes in the sleep that perchance may have no waking; or at dawn, when heart or soul, or whatever it be, is like unto running water in its strength, beware of that gaunt figure with crimson laughing mouth.

Men bewitched as with woman have followed; women bewitched as with man have followed. You will find their bones if you go far enough or dig deep enough; and leave yours to bleach with theirs if you have not strength to resist.

Beasts see it not at all.

So that through a certain unromantic yearning for oats under his loosening girth, the stallion Sooltan raced Damaris back to the _sayis_ and safety.

She had not understood the import of the apparition in the desert any more than she perceived the figure of a man standing amongst the ruins, watching her.

Hugh Carden Ali knew that it was her last ride; the last time she would feed the stallion with sugar; her last day amongst the ruins of the City of On.

The blood of his fathers, even that of the men who had swept the desert for their women, warred with the blood of his mother of a gentler breed; so that, fearing the strength of the one or the weakness of the other, he had sacrificed the last ride to the love in his heart.

CHAPTER XVII

"The hundred-gated Thebes, where twice ten-score in martial state Of valiant men with steeds and cars march through each ma.s.sy gate."

There was no moon to break the shadows in the Great Hypostyle Hall of the Temple of Amnon; neither was there sound or sign of life, the winter residents and bird-of-pa.s.sage tourists being duly occupied in the festivities which are the order of the night in hotel life on the Nile.

It is not actually dangerous, nor is it actually wise, to visit the stupendous ruins of Egypt alone at night. The native has far too good an eye to business to lurk behind obelisk or column with intent to spring out and demand the purse of any stray unit of the cosmopolitan hordes which bring such wealth in the winter months to the land of the Pharaohs.

Rather not! Far greater joy for him at full noon is palming off upon your guileless self the spurious scarab at a price 300% above its intrinsic worth.

Incidents of that kind do not occur in the great tourist centres--though worse, far worse happens to the foolhardy or featherheaded in the by-paths and hidden corners of this mysterious land--but if you have the vision, the terrible silence of the Past, the supreme indifference of the great ruins to the pa.s.sage of Time, the wonderful repose of the mighty blocks of stone piled in the days of the great Pharaohs, are apt to give a thrill to your heart and an impression to your mind which may last a lifetime.

If you have not the vision you need not worry, for you will not want to wander from the hotel lounge after your coffee to traverse these ancient wastes.

Damaris had spent the last fortnight in helping her G.o.dmother prepare for her tedious journey.