The Hawk of Egypt
The old woman nodded her head so that the diamond leaves glistened, and
smiled gently and lifting her hand pulled aside the corner of the
mantle, and laid her hand again on his.
"Nay, touch me not, for fear I shall pollute thee, thou woman of one
great race; thou descendant of one unbroken line; thou noble with
unblemished shield."
Then she leant right forward, and laid both hands upon his shoulders.
"My son, my son, perchance could a very wise, very old woman help thee
in thy stress, for behold, she understands all things, having herself
passed through the troubled waters of life."
The fortune-teller shook his head as he gripped the little hands upon
his shoulders.
"For me there is no help, wise, all-loving woman. But she who loves
me, she whom I love and for whom I would die, even breaks her heart
through me, her first-born, in my desert home. Her beautiful eyes are
full of tears, she lifts not her head, and my father, whom I honour, is
far from her in her stress. Perchance in the golden mint of thy heart
hast thou a few coins of patience, wisdom and love to spare."
As the old woman got slowly to her feet, the man sprang up beside her.
"My son, though thou drainest a fortune from the mint of Love at dawn,
yet is it still there at eventide," she whispered as she raised her
jewelled hand to his shoulders and pulled him down towards her. "My
son, thou art my son, and I have faith in and a great love for thee and
thine."
And she kissed him upon the forehead, whilst the tears stood in her
eyes, and turned towards the house, without noticing a man and a woman
sitting in the shadows at the far side of the grounds.
For the woman who watched was Zulannah the harlot, who had gained an
easy admission under the secrecy of her veils and the potency of
backschish.
And as Ben Kelham had sat down, she had crept quietly from behind the
palms to stand, a shimmering bundle of silks and satins, in front of
the man who looked up in annoyance, and then smiled.
You really couldn't be rude to anything so tantalisingly beautiful,
especially when the lady of your choice has just shown a certain
lamentable want of appreciation in regard to your person and
propositions.
"It's one o'clock, fair lady; you must unmask."
And he uttered a cry of astonishment.
Zulannah had lifted her veil.
And the moments sped as she wove the golden web of beauty and desire
and love, into which, however, the clumsy fly refused to be enticed.
But Ben Kelham, for all his slowness, was no fool, and understanding
that the woman was offering him something outside her usual wares, and
understanding also the danger of rousing the wrath of such a woman, he
dealt with the matter as delicately as he could.
"--Come but once to my entertainments," she urged. "My girls shall
dance for thee, my animals fight for thee."
The man shuddered, sick to the soul at the thought of the means by
which this woman enslaved her suitors.
"Am I not beautiful?" she added.
She made her last bid; she stepped back into the moonlight and unwound
her veils from about her, standing, palpitating, trembling under the
possession of her strange love.
Beautiful! She was a dream--yet beside her beauty the pure loveliness
of Damaris Hethencourt would have shown like the work of an Old Master
beside a coarse copy.
But what will you?
Some like the snow-peaks and some the stretching plain; others the
turbulent ocean, and yet others the farmyard with its rural sights and
sounds. Thank goodness for it! Just imagine the lamentation
throughout the world if love, like the _couturiere_ set fashions for
the seasons!
"Love dictates that women, this season, shall resemble the dazzling
peaks of the Himalayas."
And we looking as the majority of us _do_ look!
Not that we should really be downhearted about it. Not a bit. Only
let the decree go forth, and every one of us, at the end of a week or
so, would by hook or by crook have acquired a distinctly peak-like
appearance.
But Kelham looked up, looked long, and smiled.
"You _are_ beautiful--very beautiful--the most beautiful woman I have
seen--save one."
Zulannah recognised her defeat and in a whirl of rage and scented veils
disappeared through the _talik_ palms.
And, arrived at her house, she stormed through court and rooms and down
to the bottom of the scented garden, leaving a trail of terror-stricken
servants lying face downwards in her wake.
She leant over the marble balustrade and looked down into the huge pit
with marble walls and sanded floor. All around it were cages in which
were confined great beasts; and alcoves in which she and her guests,
behind iron bars, would sit, when sated with love and feasting, to
watch the animals fight to the death.
Then she ran quickly down the flight of marble steps, and clapped her
hands.
From some dark corner a shape came running, ambling like some gigantic
ape, maintaining an upright position by means of an occasional thrust
at the ground with the knuckles of the left hand. The small eyes in
his large head blinked craftily at the beautiful woman--its own mate
being well-nigh as simian as itself--; it shuffled on its huge feet and
pulled at its gaudy raiment with abnormally long fingers. The
monstrosity had been nicknamed "Bes," after the monstrous dwarf god of
Ancient Egypt, by someone--the nationality of whom is of no
account--who had balanced the ardour of his studies with hours of
leisure in the bazaar. The beasts, aroused doubtlessly by the scent of
the thing which brought them meat, roared and flung themselves against
the bars of the cage.
They were half-starved.
Unlike most of her class, Zulannah was mean. She was a niggard in
things which did not concern herself.
So that, to feed his numerous progeny of repulsive simian shape, the
keeper of the cages starved the beasts. Not that Zulannah cared one
iota for their hunger or suffering; it made them fight the merrier for
a bit of meat.
And she sat in her ebony chair close to the bars, with a brazier beside
her, and laughed delightedly as the liberated lion flung itself at the
cages in which roared its wretched brethren.
And then the great beast stopped suddenly in the middle of the den,
growling softly, snuffing the air. Then, with heartrending roar hurled
itself straight at the bars behind which she sat.
Was she afraid? Not one bit. She was behind the bars. She laughed
aloud and clapped her hands, standing just out of reach of the paw
which tried to reach her.
Back across the sand rushed the animal, and then with all its might
crashed against the barrier.
A look of horror swept the woman's face--the middle bar had bent. She
sensed her danger, but kept her nerve. Without hesitating, she turned
to the brazier at her side, carefully selected a handle well wrapped
about, and, turning again swiftly, thrust the red-hot point down the
lion's maw.
'Twere best not to describe the rest of the awful scene in which a
woman safe behind bars clapped her hands over the pain she had caused.
But is it surprising that Zulannah's enemies were legion?
CHAPTER X
"_The wind that sighs before the dawn
Chases the gloom of night;
The curtains of the East are drawn
And suddenly--'tis light_."
SIR LEWIS MORRIS.
The desert stretched before Damaris.
As a lover, clad in golden raiment, in quick pursuit of his love with
dusky hair and starry eyes across a field of purple iris, Day flinging
wide his arms leaped clear of the horizon which lies like a string
across the sandy wastes. Gathering her draperies, hiding her starry
jewels in misty scarves, Night fled in seeming fear, leaving behind her
a trail of sweet-scented, silver-embroidered purple, grey and saffron
garments, which melted in the warmth of love.
But leap he from the horizon ever so quickly, don he his most brilliant
armour and pursue he ever so hastily, yet, save for two short hours
when he may barely touch her hem, Night stands ever mockingly,
beckoning, just out of reach.
O thrice-wise woman! How else would there be pursuit?
And Damaris laughed aloud from sheer content as she touched the
coal-black stallion with her heel, and held him, fretting, eager to be
away over the sand, to wherever Fate pointed.
Half-believing, half-doubting the words of the fortune-teller, this
early morning following hard upon her arrival in Heliopolis she slipped
from her room, wakened the astounded night-porter of the Desert Palace
Hotel, and demanded a car to be brought upon the instant. And lucky it
was for her that she made one of the ducal party, for nothing else
would have procured her her heart's desire at that untoward hour before
dawn.
With Wellington beside her, she drove hard along the deserted high-road
towards the village of Makariyeh where, under a sycamore, 'tis said the
Virgin and Child rested on their Flight into Egypt.
The head-lights seemed to hurl the shadows back as she raced down the
Sharia el-Misalla towards the ruins of old Heliopolis, which is all
that remains of the great seat of learning, the biblical City of On.
And the sky lightened way down in the east as she drove along the outer
edge of the fort to the Obelisk, known to the Arab as el-Misalla.
And there the words of the fortune-teller came true, for fretting and
fuming in an endeavour to unseat his _sayis_, who rode him native-wise,
without his feet in the stirrups, rearing and backing at the sound of
the engine throbbing in the gloom, was the coal-black stallion of
Unayza.
Damaris did not cast a look at the Obelisk. She had eyes only for the
beautiful beast which, seemingly, she was to ride on a single rein and
a wisp of a saddle. Standing sixteen hands, born of the desert,
nervous and self-willed, he was no fit mount for a woman, and a gleam
of anxiety flashed across the _sayis's_ face as he measured the slender
girl with his eye and re-adjusted the stirrup-leather.
"In the name of the hawk-headed Ra-Harakht."
The servant salaamed as he mechanically repeated the unintelligible
sentence which had been drummed into him by his master; and Damaris
smiled and replied in the servant's tongue, to his amazement, and
walked up close to el-Sooltan, holding out a flat palm with sugar upon
it.
It took some time before he snuffled her hand, and then only by
stratagem she mounted, swinging herself in a bound to the saddle as the
groom slipped to the ground on the off-side; upon which el-Sooltan
wheeled sharply and headed straight for the village of Khankah, which
is the outskirt proper of the desert.
For two and a half miles, at a tearing gallop, the girl made no attempt
to show any authority. But once on the very edge of the desert she
did, for this was the longed-for moment of her life, when alone, free,
she should ride out into the unknown; and she had no inclination or
intention of being hurled through that moment like a stone from a
catapult. Sooltan, behaving like a very demon, tried his best to
unseat the light weight upon his back by the simple and usually so
effective methods of rearing, plunging and bucking; but Damaris only
smiled and shouted as she looked towards the east, caring not a jot for
any vagary, so content was she.
But as the sun leapt clear of the horizon, she gave one cry, touched
the stallion lightly upon the neck, gave him his head, and was across
the desert, unmindful of an Arab who, some distance away, which, in the
desert, is really no optical distance at all, headed a grey mare,
thoroughbred and of mighty endurance, in the same direction.
Where is there anything to compare to riding across the desert at dawn?
At dawn, when to your right and to your left march phalanxes of ghostly
shapes, which maybe are the shadows of the night, or maybe, as says the