The Hawk of Egypt Part 24

". . . You do not understand! You do not understand that I love you!

And, loving you, I stand a prisoner behind the bars wrought for me by the love of my parents. That I love you as surely you never have been, never will be loved, and that I dare not, can not ask you to be my wife,--even if you loved me--which you do not. . . What? You do not see why I should not marry into my mother's race even as my father did?

I will tell you why." He gripped her wrists and pulled her to him.

"Because I am the outcome of their union. My father is an Arab, my mother an Englishwoman. I--I am a half-caste. I am nearer white, truly, than my father, but--but my son, although he might be white or dark,--a--a native, as you say in England--would only be a half-caste lying on your white breast, if you were my wife."

The moonbeams lengthened as the man talked on, whilst Damaris learned of one of love's bitterest mistakes.

"Oh, forgive me!" he ended. "Why did I bring you here to hurt you, to make you cry for a pain which is not yours? Why are you left alone?

It is so dangerous in this land of my fathers. Your G.o.dmother deserts you whilst she goes to my mother, who is afraid for me--ah! did you not know? The man who loves you has left you to the wind of chance: my friend, Big Ben Kelham--O G.o.ds of ancient Egypt, how you must laugh!--my _friend_! Shall we meet again, I wonder?----"

Surely Anubis the G.o.d of death, Anubis the jackal-headed--who leads the soul of the departed through the underworld into the presence of the great Osiris--surely he moved upon the wall and turned to look after those two as they pa.s.sed out of the inner chamber to stand beneath the Hawk upon the wall.

Or was it the s.h.i.+fting of the moon amongst the shadows?

"Will you"--there was no trace of the man's anguish in his voice: the Mohammedan's resignation to the inevitable may seem a weak way out to one who will kick and worry until he drops from exhaustion, but it saves a great deal of pain to others--"will you--you must surely marry some day, so beautiful, so sweet you are--will you let me give you this as a wedding-present, and will you think of me, a prisoner, when you fasten it in your wedding-gown?" He held out a jewel in the shape of the Hawk which spread its wings upon the wall above them. "It was found here, in this sanctuary--a priestly ornament? a pilgrim's offering? Who knows? Will you?--_I_ have no right to it, for beneath my wings is the plumage of another race. I am not a pure-bred son of Northern Egypt."

"Will you pin it in?"

The girl's voice shook as she tilted back her chin so that her mouth was on a level with the man's as he bent to fasten the jewel in the silk.

"Will you promise me one thing? Yes!--you are good to the prisoner.

Allah! how I love you, and surely, if I may not be your master I may serve you. If you should be in trouble--ever--in this land of Egypt, the very soil of which is drenched with the blood of those who have fought, and loved, and won, and lost thousands of years before the coming of the gentle prophet who said that in the sight of the great G.o.d, anyway, we are brethren--yes, if trouble should come to you, will you send me a messenger--to the Tents of Purple and of Gold? I am doing you a great wrong in lingering where I can catch glimpses of you.

I love you--love you--but that is no excuse for causing you harm through the wagging of evil tongues."

Tears dropped one by one upon the jewel which glittered on her breast.

"And if I were in trouble--great trouble--if I were to come to you myself, how----?"

"My boat waits at the landing-stage from sundown to sunrise, the swiftest mare in all Egypt, as the fortune-teller foretold you, the snow-white mare Pi-Kay waits from the setting until the rising of the sun at the Gate of To-morrow, which is a ruined portal on the road of the Colossi. From there the way lies west. And fear not." He pointed to an inscription on the wall and translated it in the Egyptian tongue.

"'_I have come full of joy because of my love to thee; my hands are full of all life and purity. I am protecting thee among all G.o.ds_.'"

Followed by the dogs, they walked slowly down the incline to a mound of rubbish flung up and left by an excavating party many years back; behind it they found the stallion Sooltan in the care of his _sayis_, also the one donkey which had wandered off in search of gra.s.s and got lost, and whose absence in the cavalcade had not been noticed on account of the disorder of the descent.

"Kismet!" had said Jobad the guide when he had made the discovery at the water's edge.

If the white folk could not keep count of themselves he was not going to draw their attention to the fact that one of the party was missing; he had not the slightest intention of providing an evening meal for the lion by offering to go in search of the pair. "Kismet!--Allah would watch over them!"

Hugh Carden Ali leapt to the saddle without touching the stirrups, then swung the girl as lightly as a leaf up into his arms.

Heedless of the extra burden of the slip of a girl who had mastered him in the desert and who lay so quietly against his master's heart, the magnificent black beast stood stock-still, then suddenly s.h.i.+vered violently, just as the dogs of Billi, belly to ground, eyes blazing, ruffs on end, growled softly.

Hugh Carden pressed Damaris back against his shoulder and turned and looked in the direction whence had come that sound, paralysing if you do not happen to be armed.

From somewhere amongst the rocky wilderness of the hills, carried by the night-breeze, had come the hoa.r.s.e coughing of a lion.

"Listen," he said.

And as it came again, with shrieks of "Sabe! sabe!" the pea-green _sayis_ leapt on the back of the terrified donkey, which, spurred by fear, disappeared like a streak down the hill just as the stallion, sweating with pure terror, reared and wheeled, then backed, with great eyes rolling and hoofs striking sparks from the stones.

Up he reared, until it seemed impossible that he should not fall backwards, crus.h.i.+ng to death or hideously maiming the man who, enc.u.mbered with the girl upon his arm, could do little to calm the frightened beast, And well for them was it that Hugh Carden Ali, with his love and understanding of horses, knew that only to the sagacity of the animal could the safe negotiation of the dangerous descent down the hillside be left. He gave Sooltan his head.

There is no danger in it, goodness knows, when you bestride a diminutive donkey whose dainty little feet know every pebble on the route, but there is danger when an animal like Sooltan takes the Avenue of Sphinxes at a mad rush and slips and slithers and slides, under the impetus of his own weight, pace and terror, the rest of the way, even if he is as sure-footed as a goat.

Later, when her beloved child wakened the night-porter, Jane Coop, blue with anxiety and cold, most unhygienically closed the window and thankfully padded off to her comfortable bed.

CHAPTER XXII

"_Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that being nothing art everything! . . . .

The mighty future is as nothing, being everything! the past is everything, being nothing!"

LAMB.

In spite of her tongue, which was somewhat unduly inclined to gossip, Lady Thistleton was a motherly old soul and had a great affection for Damaris.

". . . I should not like either of my little girls," she was saying the morning after the visit to the Terrace Temple, "to visit the ruins or stay out unchaperoned after dark. I am responsible for you, you know, dear, and you are very beautiful and very young. Of course I know that you are a little unhappy, dear, but other girls have been the same. So you must not worry. Everything will come right. I expect you know all about my Ellen." Damaris nodded. "And everybody is so fond of you.

Would you like to have a long day in bed to-day, dear, or go to Denderah with the girls? They are thinking of staying for a few days."

Damaris smiled the radiant smile which made her so attractive, and, rising, put her arms round the motherly old dear's neck and kissed her, which was an unusual thing for her to do, as she was, as a rule, undemonstrative to coldness.

"I'd love to go to Denderah, if I may take Janie and Wellington. And I'm truly not worrying; it's just a tremendous spirit of adventure which drives me to do these awful things."

So to Denderah she went, with her spirits at highest pitch at the thought of getting away from Luxor for a few days and of seeing the wonderful Temple of Hathor, the G.o.ddess of Joy and Youth.

She was in riotous spirits when she arrived at the Hotel Denderah in Kulla, where the lovely porous jugs come from; in fact, so blithe was she that Ellen, inclined to despondency and of a superst.i.tious tendency, remarked:

"I should calm myself a little, my dear Damaris; such gaiety can only lead to depression, later on."

But Damaris only laughed.

How good it is that we cannot visualise beforehand the hour in which our tears must flow and our hearts come well-nigh to breaking!

She laughed, she sang, she visited the town, and went to bed early.

She teased Jane Coop the next morning as, perilously perched on donkey-back, she headed the little procession which wended its way through the stretches of earth which later would give a harvest of corn and sweet-scented flowering bean.

She urged the panting bulldog along the three good miles, and laughed at him when, sneezing and coughing, he rubbed his great paws over his face, covered with the cobwebs which floated on the air; but she stopped laughing when she first caught sight of the great arch of crumbling antiquity which is all that is left of the edifice upon the site of which the Temple of Hathor was built; and she stood quite still in the over-powering colonnade, whilst the Thistletons, notebooks in hand, rushed inside in the wake of the guide. Jane Coop stopped dead at the outer edge of the colonnade.

"I thought you said it was a Temple of Love, dearie: all white marble, with doves and lovers'-knots and--and hearts. It's a tomb, that's what it is, and I'm going to sit outside. I don't like it; it bodes no good. Let's go back, dearie; I don't like the place or the hotel or the town. If we go quickly we can catch the first boat. Let the others stay if they want to. I'm thinking of you; my heart's telling me that you must not stop, and that if you do, harm'll come to you, or somebody."

Strange was the persistence of the usually placid woman, as she caught her young mistress by the arm and quite violently shook her fist at the sinister face of the G.o.ddess which shows on each side of the columns.

And strange it is to know that if the girl had but listened, the harm might not have befallen.

But Damaris shook her head.