The Hawk of Egypt Part 36

Wellington, with the book between his teeth, sat next 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 to breaking at being left behind. "Take him; he'll find her if we should happen to have made a mistake. Missie calling you, Wellington.

Take the book to Missie; 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 _fellaheen_ stood some little way apart. They, too, have long since become accustomed to the vagaries of the great white races.

"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.

"Goodbye, 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 G.o.d 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 bejewelled 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 hoofs of two horses.

Yes! Two.

Just an hour before they arrived, Ben Kelham had started from the Gate of To-morrow to find his school-mate, Hugh Carden Ali, at his Tents of Purple and of Gold.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

"_Sweet is true love tho' given in vain, in vain; And sweet is death who puts an end to pain_."

TENNYSON.

Hugh Carden Ali, quite still and strangely unwelcoming, stood just inside his tent; as Ben Kelham 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, Kelham turned to hitch his horse, only to find that that product of the bazaar 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 peradventure the vultures, at a discreet distance, should a.s.semble about you later, as you lie raving upon the sands, only waiting until your ravings 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 termed 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 grey 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 Carden Ali's face as he remembered, even at this critical moment, how, having won the toss, it had taken Ben Kelham 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 cad to anything so beautiful and desirable as Damaris, or in fact to any man, woman, 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 cad cannot efface the mark of Nature's branding-iron.

He may be an Adonis, a diplomat, a _bon viveur_, a good sort, 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 a.n.a.lysis 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, Kelham. Who ever would have thought of seeing you! Jolly decent of you coming all this way out to see me. I thought you were after lion, but I see you have no gun. I'm 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 little dividing-line, on one side of which, one of the two stood under the stars which belong 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.

Kelham 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, Carden. I had an idea you were travelling round the world, and only discovered through the morning paper that you were quite near. The paragraph gave a full description of you and these tents, so I took the first train--I was in Cairo--enquired 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 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 Aunt Olivia; she refuses to be parted from hers, once she has sighted Port Said. By Jove, Carden, 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, dressed in all the picturesque simplicity of the East, with the stars and the far-reaching desert as a background.

He sat quite silent, staring at his friend, who yet in some indefinable way seemed such a total stranger.

"By Jove, Carden," he said at last, "I didn't know you had------" He stopped, confused, horrified at the words which had almost escaped him.

"Turned native, Kelham? 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. Harrow was a--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, perchance blown by the night wind--"and a great, a terrible mistake. Yes, Kelham, 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 an 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 c.u.mmerbund 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, Carden Ali had understood that 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 Damaris.

But, to turn the knife in the wound in his heart, he repeated the question, and Kelham, who knew it could be answered only in one way, wrenched 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, don't you 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 pa.s.sed his hand over the wall, then exclaimed, in an effort to change the subject, "By Jove! it's leather! Why, I thought the wall was velvet."

Carden laughed and lit another cigarette as he watched Kelham out of the corner of his eye as he walked slowly round the tent.

Keeping something from each other, they were ill at ease, where, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, they would have talked without ceasing upon the good old days at Harrow; of Houses and masters and schoolfellows; 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 their hearts as is the Hill to the Harrovian. They had both come to a decision, which, however, left them in nowise comforted.

Ben Kelham decided as he walked about the tent that not a word about the anonymous letter or the courtesan should pa.s.s his lips. How could he ever have thought of mentioning the matter, 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 Carden, he thought, had met Damaris or the d.u.c.h.ess, he would most surely have said so--which only showed that he knew nothing whatsoever about the Oriental.

Hugh Carden Ali had come to his decision even as he had realised that honour bade him give up the girl whom he had held so close to his heart in his one hour reft from life; on the pretext of want of accommodation, with promise to meet in Cairo or elsewhere as soon as possible, he would send Ben Kelham back upon the track to Luxor, and by a circuitous route would take the girl at dawn to a spot from whence she could ride to Kulla, and get from there by boat to Denderah or back to Luxor.

None save the _sayis_ knew she had come to the tents this night, and he was faithful and as 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 h.e.l.l 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.