The Hawk of Egypt Part 7

"For pity's sake, Hugh, stop!"

But the storm swept on, tearing the veil from the woman's eyes.

"Behold, I care not for the plucking of garden blossoms, therefore are the beautiful, docile women of the East not for me, and the thorns upon the hedge of convention defied, the barbed wires of racial distinction keep me from the hedgerow flower, born of the wind and the sky and the summer heat, which I covet.

"Among men I am nothing; I may not claim equality with the scavenger of the Western streets; or with the donkey-boys of the Eastern bazaar.

Here I am served with fear and servility, being a man of riches; across the waters, I may sun myself in the smiles of women as long as I have no desire to wed." He suddenly seized the woman, holding her in a grip of iron which left great bruises on her arms. "Do you know what she called me, Mother?--that harlot of a line of n.o.blemen--what she flung in my teeth because, seeing in her a woman of the streets hidden under the cloak of marriage, I refused to be tempted?"

There fell a terrible silence, and then a few whispered words.

"She called me a half-caste, Mother!--me--a half-caste!"

And the mother fell at her son's feet and bowed her head to the ground, and he swept her up into his arms, raining kisses upon the piteous face.

"I don't blame you, sweetheart-mother," he said in English, whilst she sobbed on his heart. "Am I not the fruit of a brave woman's great love? Could there be anything finer than that? But my father in me made my whole body clamour for the desert when I was in England; my mother in me makes my heart throb in the desert for just one hour of her cool, misty country, one hour on a hill-top in which to watch the pearl-gray dawn. Dearest, dearest, don't sob so. It is a case of two affirmatives making a negative; two great nationalities decried, derided, rendered null and void in their offspring through the dictates of those who, in religion, prate that we are all brothers. I have just got to stick it, my mother, and life is not very long. But I shall never marry." And as he spoke, Fate flicked a page of an ill.u.s.trated paper, which was but the volume of the Book of Life, and perhaps only a mother's eyes would have noticed the sudden tightening of the hand upon the marble of the bal.u.s.trade as the man looked down into the pictured beauty of the woman he loved.

And, having read what had been written, he knelt to receive his mother's blessing.

"To the Tents of Purple and Gold, my darling?" she asked, smiling so bravely to hide her breaking heart.

"Not just yet, dear; a bit further North first, I think."

"For long?"

"I do not know, dear. Bless me, O my mother."

She blessed him and called to him as he stood at the head of the marble stairway:

"Come back to me, my son!"

"That, O woman, is in the hands of Allah, who is G.o.d."

And he turned and left her, and she, having wept her heart out and her beautiful eyes dim, took up the ill.u.s.trated paper which was a volume of the Book of Life, and turned the pages.

"Ah!" she said. "How beautiful!"

It was just a simple photograph of Damaris at a tennis tournament, and underneath the information that the most popular and beautiful visitor in Cairo would celebrate her birthday in a week's time, that in honour of the occasion her G.o.d-mother, the d.u.c.h.ess of Longacres, had issued invitations for a fancy-dress ball, after which social event she and her G.o.d-daughter would proceed to the Desert Palace Hotel, Heliopolis.

"I wonder," whispered Jill, "I wonder if she would come to see me. She was always such a wise old woman. I wonder if there is a way out"--and she stretched her arms out towards the desert. "Hahmed!" she called, "Beloved, I love you, and my heart is breaking,"--and she lifted her head and listened to the sound of many horses running; then bowed her head and wept.

The dawn was nigh to breaking, and yet the parade of horses was not finished; whilst the trainer, the head groom, the stud groom, the under-grooms and the rank and file of the stables tore their beards or their hair as they endeavoured to please their master, whilst they waited anxiously for the return of the man who had been hurriedly sent to fetch in the mare, Pi-Kay, who was out to gra.s.s, and as wild as a bird on the wing.

Singly, or in pairs, every priceless quadruped had been put through its paces upon the track of tan imported from England.

Three coal-black stallions, brothers to el-Sooltan, even then in Cairo, and famous throughout Egypt, tore past him like a cyclone and left him indifferent; a chestnut brood mare, whose price was above that of many rubies, trotted up at his call and snuffled a welcome in his sleeve, searched for sugar in his hand and found it, and whinnied gently when he turned away; bays, piebalds, roans, greys, trotted, galloped, jumped, whilst their master smoked endless cigarettes and the stud groom prayed fervently to Allah.

"By the patience of the Prophet," the master suddenly cried, turning on the man, "hast thou nothing else? Is there no jewel amongst my horses?

Hast thou not in all my stables one of the Al Hamsa, a descendant of the mares who found favour in the eyes of Mohammed the prophet of Allah who is G.o.d? The mare Alia--has she been, perchance, as sterile as thy wits?"

And then he stopped short and stood in silence, watching the loveliest picture any human could wish to see.

Picking up her dainty feet as though she walked upon hot stones, tossing her proud little head, with big, gentle eyes, spreading nostrils and fine small ears almost touching at the tips, mane flowing, tail set high and spread, came the snow-white mare, Pi-Kay.

Allah! but the loveliness of that picture as she stood, thoroughbred, perfect, as proud as any queen, as scornful as any spoiled beauty, as confused at the sight of her master as any bride!

Ten yards away and motionless she stood from this man who seemed to take no notice of her, and then she wheeled, and flung up her heels; then stopped and looked at him along her satin flank and piqued with his indifference suddenly sped out into the desert.

Then, softly, melodiously, the man's voice called her, ringing like a bell under the lightening sky, and behold, love awoke in the mare's heart and she turned and raced back towards him, longing for his hand and the grip of his knees upon her. But with her feet upon the tan, she turned her back upon him and danced across towards the coal-black stallions, causing their grooms to hold on to them with both hands; then she came back to circle round about this man, who seemingly took no notice of her vagaries, not even when she reared just behind him, pawing the air, nor when she lashed out at a humble _sayis_, missing him by a hair; until, at last, overpowered by curiosity and love, curveting, rearing, throwing her feet and making a frightful to-do over nothing at all, she came close up--oh! very close--and whinnied gently.

With one hand clutching the silvery mane and in one bound he was across the bare back and away with her into the desert, gripping her with his knees, calling to her by every love-name he could think of.

And out there alone in the desert at the hour of prayer, he slipped from her and, turning towards Mecca, raised his hands to heaven.

"O G.o.d of the West! O Allah of the East! Give me one single hour of love!"

And the mare, Pi-Kay, wonderful in her beauty, raced from him far out into the desert, leaving him alone with his G.o.d; then stood quite still, with fine small ears p.r.i.c.ked, waiting for the call she knew would come. And when it came ringing clear over the golden sand, she raced back to him and pushed against him, until he sprang upon her and turned her towards the East.

"_By the war-horses_," he cried, quoting from Al-Koran, "_which run swiftly to battle, with a panting noise; and by those who strike fire by das.h.i.+ng their hoofs against the stones; and by those who make a sudden invasion on the enemy early in the morning and therein raise the dust, and therein pa.s.s through the midst of the adverse troops_ . . . .

by the Message of the Great Book and by my love will I wrest one hour from life."

And urging the mare with the whip of love to the uttermost of her wonderful speed, he thundered back across the path of sand, which was to be trodden by his feet alone, in spite of the plots which Zulannah the courtesan was even then weaving about him--to her own advancement.

CHAPTER VII

"_. . . . and she painted her face, and tired her head, and looked out at a window_."

II KINGS.

The house of the "Scarlet Enchantress," with its balconies, turrets and outer and inner courts, stood quite by itself at one corner of the Square, in a big, neglected garden. It had been built by means of untold gold and the destruction of scores of miserable, picturesque hovels, which, poor as they might be, had however meant home to many of the needy in the Arabian quarters of Cairo. It would be useless to look for that building covered in white plaster now; it was, later, looted and burned to the ground.

A beautiful wanton of fourteen summers, ambitious, relentless, with the eyes of an innocent child, the morals of a jackal and a fair supply of brain-cunning rather than intellect, Zulannah sat this night of stars in a corner of her balcony overlooking the Square, smoking endless cigarettes.

Courtesan of the highest rank, she had plied her ruthless trade for three successful years, acc.u.mulating incredible wealth in jewels and hard cash. Her ambition knew no bounds; her greed no limit; her jealousy of other women had become a by-word in the north.

Physically she was perfect; otherwise, she had not one saving grace, and her enemies were legion. She had driven hard bargains, demanding the very rings off men's fingers in exchange for kisses; shutting the door with callous finality in the face of those she had beggared; she had disowned her mother, who, stricken with ophthalmia, begged in the streets; she had no mercy for man, woman or beast, yet all had gone well until love had come to her.

Love comes to harlots and to queens as well as to us ordinary women, and they suffer every whit as much as we do, perhaps more keenly on account of the hopeless positions they fill.

It had come to Zulannah, uncontrollably, that night when, unveiled, garbed in silks and satins and hung with jewels, she brazenly graced the stage-box at a gala performance.

She looked down, and Ben Kelham, in the end seat of the first row of stalls, looked up and looked and looked, seeing nothing, being blinded with love of Damaris.

Zulannah drove back in her Rolls-Royce to the edge of the Arabian quarter, where, owing to the narrowness of the lanes called by courtesy streets, she alighted to finish what remained of the journey in a litter swung from the shoulders of four Nubian slaves, and, arrived at the great house, summoned her special bodyguard, Qatim the Ethiopian; and for acquiring information down to the smallest detail about some special individual there is, surely, no detective agency on earth to compare to one ordinary, native servant.

He loves intrigue!