The Hawk of Egypt
the sleep that perchance may have no waking; or at dawn, when heart or
soul, or whatever it be, is like unto running water in its strength,
beware of that gaunt figure with crimson laughing mouth.
Men bewitched as with woman have followed; women bewitched as with man
have followed. You will find their bones if you go far enough or dig
deep enough; and leave yours to bleach with theirs if you have not
strength to resist.
Beasts see it not at all.
So that through a certain unromantic yearning for oats under his
loosening girth, the stallion Sooltan raced Damaris back to the _sayis_
and safety.
She had not understood the import of the apparition in the desert any
more than she perceived the figure of a man standing amongst the ruins,
watching her.
Hugh Carden Ali knew that it was her last ride; the last time she would
feed the stallion with sugar; her last day amongst the ruins of the
City of On.
The blood of his fathers, even that of the men who had swept the desert
for their women, warred with the blood of his mother of a gentler
breed; so that, fearing the strength of the one or the weakness of the
other, he had sacrificed the last ride to the love in his heart.
CHAPTER XVII
"The hundred-gated Thebes, where twice ten-score in martial state
Of valiant men with steeds and cars march through each massy gate."
There was no moon to break the shadows in the Great Hypostyle Hall of
the Temple of Amnon; neither was there sound or sign of life, the
winter residents and bird-of-passage tourists being duly occupied in
the festivities which are the order of the night in hotel life on the
Nile.
It is not actually dangerous, nor is it actually wise, to visit the
stupendous ruins of Egypt alone at night. The native has far too good
an eye to business to lurk behind obelisk or column with intent to
spring out and demand the purse of any stray unit of the cosmopolitan
hordes which bring such wealth in the winter months to the land of the
Pharaohs.
Rather not! Far greater joy for him at full noon is palming off upon
your guileless self the spurious scarab at a price 300% above its
intrinsic worth.
Incidents of that kind do not occur in the great tourist
centres--though worse, far worse happens to the foolhardy or
featherheaded in the by-paths and hidden corners of this mysterious
land--but if you have the vision, the terrible silence of the Past, the
supreme indifference of the great ruins to the passage of Time, the
wonderful repose of the mighty blocks of stone piled in the days of the
great Pharaohs, are apt to give a thrill to your heart and an
impression to your mind which may last a lifetime.
If you have not the vision you need not worry, for you will not want to
wander from the hotel lounge after your coffee to traverse these
ancient wastes.
Damaris had spent the last fortnight in helping her godmother prepare
for her tedious journey.
With the knowledge that she would have a fortnight, perhaps more, in
which there would be little else to do than to visit the ruins, she had
rushed through the principal objects of interest in the wake of a
verbose dragoman, and then given every moment of her time to her
beloved godmother, to whom she had said good-bye that very morning.
Restless and irritated by the trivial conversation of girls of her own
age and the amorous tendencies of the stronger sex of the same age and
also a good bit older, she had spent the afternoon in the hotel
grounds, waiting for the evening, when she could slip away by herself;
having realised that the best time of all in Thebes of the Hundred
Gates is at fall of night, when the shadows cast a seemly cloak over
the vulgarity of the modern buildings, and give an air of romance even
to the glittering lights of the appalling esplanade, which flaunts its
tawdry modernity cheek by jowl with the quay, built by one of the
Ptolemies, and in use even to the present day.
When the call of the _Muezzin_ from the Mosque of Abou'l-Haggag came to
her an hour before sunset she went in, bathed and dressed, and dined in
her own room. Later, she stole out, ordered her car and drove herself
along the broad tree-lined road and up the avenue of ram-headed
Sphinxes to the first pylon of the great Temple.
There she switched off the lights, hid the starting-handle under the
cushions and, tip-toeing, passed through the first pylon and up to the
broken kiosk of the Ethiopian Tahraka.
She walked quietly, though assuredly her footsteps would have been
deadened by Egypt's sands even if she had walked upon her heels, and
stole through the vestibule to the second pylon, occasionally switching
on her electric torch for fear of being tripped by fallen stone.
She had not heard of the great catastrophe which had brought the
columns hurtling to the ground, due perhaps to the merciless greed of
Ptolemy Lathyrus, or earthquake, or the well-known fact that temples,
houses or plans built upon sand are bound to crumble; nor did she wot
of the precariousness of the walls around her or the shifting
propensities of the foundations.
She walked quietly because the spirit of the place was upon her, the
spirit which puts a hand upon your mouth so that words shall not
disturb the ghosts of the past, and which blinds your eyes so that you
look back upon that hour as on a dream.
Yet, as she passed through pylon, vestibule and the Great Court, she
stopped and turned, went on, and stopped again to listen.
There was no sound.
Flashing her light upon part of a fallen column, she sat down upon it,
with the purple sky studded with stars as roof above her head and the
sands of ages as carpet to her feet.
And as she sat, so still, her thoughts turned to the man who had said
he loved her and who yet seemed so content to leave her quite alone.
A woman may refuse a man's honest proposal of marriage and have no
intention whatever of marrying him, even later on, but that does not
mean he need necessarily take her at her word to the extent of retiring
altogether from the horizon of her life.
As for the rest, the flowers upon her breakfast-table, her rides at
dawn--about that she instinctively kept her thoughts in check. It was
like the cut-glass bottle of perfume which you are not allowed to use,
on account of your youth; the first few lines of the first novel you
filched from your mother's book-stand that afternoon she was out; the
first time you put on a real evening dress and wound a fichu about your
neck before you opened your bedroom door.
And as she sat there fell a little sound.
Bits of masonry as big as a bowl or as small as a marble are quite
likely to fall upon your pate in colossal ruins, but, remembering the
vague uneasiness which had caused her to stop and listen, further back,
she sat forward and switched on her light.
Against the wall opposite her, entirely robed in black, with a
glittering jewel clasping a corner of the great black mantle swinging
from the shoulders, there stood a man.
There was no sign of the paralysing terror which swept the girl; her
face, which had gone dead-white, was in shadow, her hands under control.
For a moment she sat breathless, then flashed the light full into the
face of the man who had stalked her through the temple, then flashed it
back to the jewel, then sighed--an unutterable sigh of relief.
The jewel was in the shape of a hawk, the symbol of Ancient Egypt.
Just for a moment they stayed in utter silence, those two who for all
we know may have met and parted in this very spot in the days of the
XII dynasty, to meet and part and meet again.
Then she tackled the untoward situation in the only possible way.
"Will you, as you promised, if the hour is come, tell me the tale of
the Hawk of Egypt?"
She spoke sweetly, softly, switching out the light.
And Hugh Carden Ali crossed the intervening square of sand, which,
however, being one-half his heritage, stretched an impregnable barrier
between them, and sank to the ground beside her.
The perfume of her raiment was about him, the sound of her breathing in
his ears; all the love and worship of his heart was hers. Yet he
merely lifted the hem of her cloak to his lips.
The shadows pressed down upon them as he spoke, quietly, his voice
echoing strangely in the Temple of the Gods.
"Behold, the Hawk of Egypt looked forth from the shadows of the
mountain fastness, and nothing stirred in the earth or upon the face of
the waters.
"Wrong had been wrought and the anger of the gods was as clouds
loosened from their hands.
"And behold, as the first sun-ray pierced the fury of the storm, the
mighty bird spread wide its wings, which were as of ruby and of emerald
and of onyx and of gold as they glistened in the sun, and sailed upon
the wind of the morning down towards the plains.
"And as he passed, glittering like a jewel in the crown of Osiris,
those of his kind, screaming defiance, spread their wings and hastened
west and east.
"They would have none of him, for beneath the mighty pinions showed the
white plumage of another race.
"And in the radiant light of day there came from the southern plains a
white bird, crossing the hawk's path as a snowflake driven by Destiny
across the desert wastes; and he encircled her, lifting her upon the
wind of his great pinions higher, higher yet towards the eyrie in the
solitary mountain peak.
"And as they mounted, those of his kind and those of her kind, who had
followed, battled with him, for he was outcast from the one and the
other. And the mist, which was the anger of the gods, closed
down . . ."
The shadows seemed to deepen as the quiet voice stopped.
"And--" said Damaris gently, "--the end?"
"That is on the lap of the gods."
"I do not understand!"
She had not caught the end of Lady Thistleton's chatter, else would she
have been able to interpret the little story, and the man, who had
thought that his parents' mixed marriage was a common subject for
gossip in the hotel--which it was--sprang to his feet, The future still
held the moment when someone would enlighten her as to the lowliness of
his caste.
"It is late," he said gravely in English. "Perhaps if you were to ask
at the hotel, someone would interpret the little tale. And now will
you not return, for fear they come in search of you? It is not wise to
wander alone, at night, without a companion. Your dog------?"
Damaris laughed, the echoes binding the silvery sound like a soft
wrapping about the wounds and bruises Time had left upon the ruins.
"Wellington? Oh, he cut his foot badly this morning. And I--I want to
go to the hall built like a tent."
"The great Festal Hall of Totmes III?"
The man made no other comment; it was not for him to offer himself as
dragoman.
"Will you--take me there, if you know the way?"
"Verily would I be thy guide," came the passionate reply, "to guard thy
feet against the stones which will surely be spread upon thy path."
Playing with fire! Yes, indeed!
Side by side they walked, the torch throwing a pool of radiance just
ahead, until Damaris walked blindly into a column and cried aloud from
the hurt of the stone against her shoulder.
It was then that she stretched out her hand for support, and tingled to
her feet when sudden flames seemed to singe her finger-tips as they
rested on the man's arm.
Through the Central Court and the Pylons and into the Hall of Records
they went, until she tripped and crashed to her knees, and, rising,
slipped her hand into the man's and stood for a moment with thudding
heart when, closing fiercely round hers, it seemed to burn her whole
being.
Hand in hand they stood, seeing, by reason of the gloom, vastly little
of the columns which have the strange shape of tent-poles; then walked