The Hawk of Egypt
A hand clutched at her streaming hair and missed it as she sped down
the garden; they were upon her heels, dogs jumping at her face as she
ran.
She was blind, deaf, almost dead when the great gorilla-shaped arms of
Bes closed about her.
She made no sound as she hurtled through the air. Mercifully perhaps
was she dead, as she crashed down into the pit at the bottom of which
great shapes prowled hungrily.
They did not stay to watch, not one of them.
Shouting and laughing, men and women ran back to the house, which in
one hour they had stripped bare.
Just before the dawn a great flame shot skywards, an orange ribbon
across the purple robe of dying Night.
* * * * * *
_Requiem_
"There was an awful row in the Bazaar last night," said Mr. Ephraim
Perkins to his spouse facing him across the breakfast table. "They
killed a woman and burned her house down."
"Really, dear?" said Mrs. Ephraim Perkins, rasping butter on a piece of
toast. "These natives want a firm hand over them. Poor thing! They
usually stab each other in the East, don't they?"
"Yes; I think so. But they threw this one into a lions' den."
"Now, that's exaggeration, Ephraim." The knife never stopped its
rasping. "They would not be allowed to keep wild beasts in a populated
quarter."
"Stranger things happen in the native quarter, Maria," misquoted Mr.
Perkins, "than are dreamt of by the Government official."
True words!
If we dared penetrate the labyrinths of the bazaar and stir with
foolish finger the dust which lies thick upon immemorial custom, what
should we not find?
But having a meed of wisdom in the full measure of our imperial
insularity, we do not pry with foolish fingers; guessing, even knowing
of the wild beasts in those labyrinths, we draw a glove upon the hand
and walk delicately in the opposite direction, with half-closed eyes.
"I repeat, it is an exaggeration," stubbornly replied Mrs. Ephraim
Perkins, as she stretched for the marmalade. "And I do hope the
fire-engines arrived in time."
CHAPTER XXVII
"_A tale-bearer revealeth secrets; but a man of
understanding holdeth his peace_."
PROVERBS.
It was the night of the full moon.
It was also the night of the cotillon given by a certain princelet of
unpronounceable name and great wealth, who hailed from one of those
countries in Europe where quasi-royalties abound.
The cotillon-favours were to be of extraordinarily fine quality.
Rumour spoke of gold cigarette-cases and other such trifles, for both
sexes; the supper was to be a Bacchanalian feast; every invitation had
been accepted--_ca va sans dire_. The hotel was like a disturbed
wasps' nest, and the buzzing of the chatterers and the gossips
well-nigh deafening.
Damaris had decided to go to the ball; in fact, since her storm of
tears on her return from the unlucky visit to Denderah she had taken
the broad view of the situation and had decided to give her neighbours
no cause for comment and to continue the festive life, as led in the
winter season on the Nile, until the return of her godmother; after
which she would, as soon as possible, shake the dust of the land of the
Pharaohs from off her feet.
In fact, so gay was she, so full of life and high spirits, that she
appeared to have forgotten her lover completely, thereby giving the
Thistleton family cause to congratulate themselves in the seclusion of
their bedrooms.
"I told you so, Mamma," had said Ellen, this night of the full moon, as
she had pondered before the mirror upon the effect a headache-bandeau
in the shape of a royal asp would have upon a certain retired colonel
who seemed inclined to find solace for his long widowhood _en secondes
noces_. "She evidently did not see Mr. Kelham and Sybil on the
sand-bank, and I honestly do not think she cares for him a bit."
"No," broke in Berenice, whose hair clung to her head like wet seaweed
to a rock; "I am sure she does not. Do you think if Ambrose had--had
courted me and then neglected me, that I could have danced and laughed
and------"
"Well, I'm thankful," broke in Mamma. "Looking after any girl as
beautiful and-----"
"Erratic," supplied Ellen, who had decided on the headache-bandeau.
"--erratic as Damaris, is certainly no------"
"Sinecure," supplied Berenice, who, in the fervour of her affection for
her herculean cleric, gave no thought to such trifles as head-dresses,
and not much to the rest of her attire.
Giving a final pat to her offsprings' toilettes, Mamma shepherded them
downstairs, tapping at Damaris's door as she passed, inviting her to
join them in the Winter-Garden, where they were going to sit and look
at the dresses, and watch the arrival of the guests from the less
select hotels.
Damaris looked radiantly beautiful as she stood for a moment at the
window of her godmother's sitting-room, into which she had gone to
fetch a fan.
True, her eyes looked over-big in the violet shadows that surrounded
them, and her cheek and collar-bones were unduly prominent, but then,
however well you hide the fox of uncertainty which tears at the vitals
of your common sense and sense of humour, you cannot completely hide
the outward signs of the inner agony which tortures you.
"You're a perfect picture, dearie!" said Jane Coop as she tied the
ribbons of the simple, heelless, white leather shoes in which the girl
always preferred to dance. "Let me look at you just once more."
Like a slender lily Damaris stood under the electric light. The soft
white satin seemed to cling like a sheath to the slender, beautiful
figure; her arms were bare; the bodice cut low enough to show her
gleaming shoulders. She was dazzling, virginal, remote as she stood
quite still, looking down at her maid.
Her eyes looked intensely black; her red hair flamed; she wore no
jewels save for a massive jewelled brooch in the shape of a hawk which
glittered in the bodice just above the waist-belt where, thinking the
bodice too low, she had pinned it hastily.
"I don't like that brooch, dearie," said the maid. "It's a waste of
money, I think, to buy these heathen things. But there! you and her
grace know best. And don't forget your cloak, darling; it's too chilly
to sit out in the grounds without one, Egypt or no Egypt. I'll be real
glad when we run into Waterloo station, that I shall."
Damaris laughed as she took the satin cloak with broad sable collar,
then kissed her Nannie and walked down the corridor to her godmother's
sitting-room, followed by the bulldog.
"I don't want to dance, Well-Well; I'd much rather stay up here with
you and read."
"Humff!" said the dog, as he followed his beloved onto the small
balcony, where he stood as close as he could to her as she leant on the
rail, and looked up at the moon and out to the other side of the river,
where ruined temple and ruined tomb shone white.
"I'll come up and see you both," she said, looking down into the
hideously-beautiful face, with its honest eyes and beaming expression.
"But I can't take you down with me, you know. You might hurl yourself
into the middle of a fox-trot to find me. I'll bring you up a cake or
a chocolate, if you'll stay in here and not go after Jane to worry her
with my night-slippers. Good boy; stay here and wait for Missie."
"Take me with you," said Wellington, as plainly as he could with eyes
and tail. "Take me with you."
"Can't, old boy. Look"--she reached inside for a book she had been
reading, and laid it on the ground. "Keep that for Missie until she
comes back."
She smiled down at the great brute as it placed both forefeet upon the
volume, but she sighed as she leant for a moment on the rail, then
suddenly drew back as she heard her name mentioned by someone who,
hankering after a cigarette, had wandered out to the canvas rocking
seat directly beneath the balcony.
". . . Well!" said the masculine voice, "I think it's damned hard lines
on Miss Hethencourt, that's all; and a man wants a damned good hiding
for being a knave as well as a fool."
"Of course it's not gospel-truth," replied the voice of the hotel's
biggest-gossip-bar-none, who, on account of her abnormal interest in
other people's affairs, had earned the sobriquet of Paulina Pry, "but
some people I know who were at Heliopolis and have just come from
Assouan told me that Mr. Kelham is engaged to Miss Sidmouth--you know,
she is the crack lady-shot--and that they are on their way home now.
The engagement, I should think, will be announced shortly."
"Well, all I can say is that I'm infernally sorry that Miss Hethencourt
has been made the butt of gossip and scandal through a cad's behaviour,
and I think that you and I ought to be shot for discussing her and her
very intimate affairs. If------"
Damaris waited to hear no more.
White as chalk, she stumbled back into the room and crouched down upon
the floor beside a chair, burying her face in her arms. For five of
the longest minutes of her life she knelt, burning with shame,
trembling with rage; then she sat hack on her heels.
"Is there nobody to help me in all the wide world? Nobody I can go to?"
And clearly, as though it was in the room, she heard the echo of the
words spoken in the Shrine of Anubis, the God of Death: "Allah! how I
love you, and if I may not be your master, I can at least serve you.
If you are in distress, will you send me a messenger to my Tents of
Purple and Gold? . . . My boat from sunset to sunrise waits at the
landing-stage . . . the mare Pi-Kay waits from the setting until the
rising of the sun at the Gate of To-morrow."
She acted on the impulse of her outraged pride; she gave not one
thought to the mad thing she was about to do; she stayed not one
instant to question the trustworthiness of the man who had so strangely
shadowed her since their meeting in the bazaar; she decided in the
flick of an eyelid.
She would go to him; she would tell him everything, and if he were then
willing to make her his wife, she would go to his English mother, and
from the shelter of her arms proclaim her engagement to the world.
Yes! she would run away.
In a flash she thought of her beloved old godmother and the loving arms
always held out to her, and the loving sympathy and counsel which never
failed.
But she shook her head.
To silence the scandalmongers her engagement must be made known before
that of the man who had treated her so shamefully; who, if only she had
known, was racing towards her at that very moment as fast as train
could take him.
"Wait for Missie; you shall come to her," she whispered as she knelt
and kissed the dog; "you and Janie."
She sprang to her feet.
What about her promise to her old Nannie? Had she not crossed her
heart and given her word that she would always let her know where she
had gone?
She moved swiftly to the writing-table, took a sheet of paper and
hastily wrote a line; then looked round for some place to leave the
message.
Wellington whimpered as he stood with his fore-feet on the book.
She ran to him and twisted the folded paper into the steel ring of his
collar, hugged him closely, and turned away.
With a lace veil over her head, concealing her face, with the
sable-trimmed cloak wrapped close about her, she slipped from the hotel
without being recognised, and down to the quay.
Almost uncanny is the intuitive power of the native.
Without hesitation, a boatman stepped forward and salaamed to the
ground before her.
"By the sign of the Hawk-headed Harakat."
He repeated the phrase his master had taught him, and which he had
repeated over and over again for many days.
And Damaris never once looked back as the boat crossed the blue-green
Nile, which, for all she knew, would stretch forever, an impassable