The Hawk of Egypt Part 2

"You ride?"

Damaris, thinking of the hack, the only thing with the shape of a horse she had been able to get so far, and upon the back of which she loathed to be seen, made a grimace.

"I go out on horseback," she said. "I have not ridden since I left home."

The man's reply, whatever it might have been, was interrupted by Abdul, who, all smiles, stood before them, with the white pigeon in the left hand and the _shahin_ upon his right fist.

The native had no intention of causing the white woman pain; in fact, wis.h.i.+ng to find favour in the eyes of the n.o.bles, he only wanted to give them a chance of witnessing a little of, to him, the finest sport in the world.

"Look, lady!" he cried.

He tossed the pigeon high into the air, allowed her a little distance, then threw the hawk.

"No! Oh, no! don't!" cried Damaris, as the hawk rose, "stooped" and missed the pigeon by a hair's-breadth as it "put in", which means that it flew straight into a small niche of a minaret for cover.

"Ah!" cried Damaris, and "_Bi-sma-llah_!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Abdul, as he threw the lure of a dead plover and called his hawk with the luring Eastern call. "Coo-coo," he called; "coo-coo," to which the hawk responded as a well-trained _shahin_ should.

Hugh Carden Ali stood with his hand on the stallion's mane, looking up at the sky, in which shone a great star.

"The hawk of Egypt failed," he said to himself. "Flown at a white bird, it failed. The House of Allah, who is G.o.d, gave sanctuary to the little white bird. Praise be to Allah who is G.o.d."

He looked down at the girl, who was kneeling, consoling the dog, who, reft 'tween pride and pain, showed a lamentable countenance. Suddenly she looked up and rose, and stood silently.

"Come," he said simply, while he longed to pick her up and ride with her to his home in the Oasis. "I will take you to your hotel."

"My car is waiting for me in the Sikket el-Gedideh," she replied.

Later, a vision of loveliness, she walked down the dining-room behind the d.u.c.h.ess of Longacres, whilst continuous lamentations were wafted through the spring-doors from the spot where sat a dog with sticking-plaster across his nose and middle girt with a c.u.mmerbund of pink boracic lint.

Beside the girl's place lay a huge bunch of crimson roses tied with golden ta.s.sels; there was no card, name nor message.

She asked no question, neither did her G.o.dmother.

To what purpose should they? The one _knew_; the other firmly believed in allowing the young to work out the salvation of their own souls; which did not, however, mean that she would not keep a sharp look-out in the future over the troubled sea of Life.

"I knew something would happen," thought the wise old lady, as she pa.s.sed a biscuit up to the parrot on her shoulder.

"_Kathir Khairak_," it said delightedly.

It merely means "thank you," but had taken weeks of teaching and repeating to master.

CHAPTER III

"Lor! but women's rum cattle to deal with, the first man found that to his cost; And I reckon it's just through a woman, that the last man on earth'll be lost."

G. R. SIMS.

Damaris was the only daughter of Squire Hethencourt. Her mother was an Italian from the Udino, where the hair of the women is genuine t.i.tian-red and the eyes are blue; which perhaps accounted for her colouring and some part of her temperament.

Her type of beauty was certainly remarkable--given, it must be confessed, to a certain amount of fluctuation--and she danced divinely, which gift must not be counted as a parlour-trick; she was slow in her movements and quiet in her manner until she talked of horses or anybody she loved; then her great eyes would flash and her laugh ring out, also she would gesticulate as her mother had been wont to do, until the climate, maybe, of a northern country had served to repress the spontaneity of her Latin mannerisms.

She was simple and unsophisticated and would have made a splendid little chum, if only one out of every three men who met her had not been consumed with a desire to annex her for life by means of a gold ring.

"Dads," she exclaimed, two months before the beginning of this story, having enticed him to her bedroom one night and offered him cream chocolates as he eat at the foot of her bed, facing her. "Dads, what am I to do? Guy Danvers says he is coming to see you to-morrow, and I--I am sure it will only turn out to be--well--you, know."

"But, Golliwog dear, I'm the one to be pitied. This makes the--how many is it?"

"I don't know, Dads, and it isn't the number; it's the awful _habit_ they've got into--and I don't understand anything and I don't encourage them, do I? Do lend me a hankie--this chocolate has burst--and what am I to do?"

"Turn a deaf ear, or a cold shoulder, or put a brave face on, until------" said Dads, retrieving his handkerchief.

"Until what?"

"Until the right man comes along, darling, as he surely will."

The girl's lids suddenly dropped until the lashes lay like a fringe upon the white cheek over which very slowly but very surely crept the faintest of rose-colours.

"Hum!" said Dads to himself, as he made great use of the hankie.

"Do smoke, dearest!"

"No, thank you, pet; I couldn't here."

The man who wors.h.i.+pped his wife and adored his little daughter looked round the white and somewhat austere room, and ran his eye over the bookstand at his elbow.

Books on horses, a treatise on bulldogs, the New Testament, essays in French and in German, the History of Egypt in Arabic, Budge's "Book of the Dead," and "King Solomon's Mines."

"But what am I do _meanwhile_, Dads?" and the girl threw out her hands imploringly.

"Be cold, deaf or brave, Golliwog, as I have suggested."

"But I've been all that, and it's quite useless. Do you think it would help if I let my hair grow and did it up in a tight k.n.o.b?"

"I think it would help a lot if you shaved your head entirely, kiddie."

And the man leant forward and ran his hand through the red curls.

Once upon a time Damaris had read the advertis.e.m.e.nt of a certain powder guaranteed to darken hair of any colour, and life having been one long torment owing to her violent colouring, she had, greatly daring, acquired a packet; had followed the directions by mixing the powder with water and covering her head with the muddy result, and, "to make a.s.surance doubly sure," had sat with her clay pate for an hour instead of ten minutes near a fire; had cracked the clay, washed her head, and found her hair gra.s.s-green.

She had chopped the verdant ma.s.ses off without a thought, and had ever after refused to allow it to grow to hairpin length, and to her father only had granted the privilege of calling her by the pet name of Golliwog.

"Would you like to travel a bit, pet?" And the man smiled, though his heart was heavy at the thought of the blank which his Golliwog's departure would leave in the home and the daily round.

"Travel! Travel! Oh! darling--to Egypt?