The Hawk of Egypt
whom he loved, and longed with all the intense passion of his father's
race that he might see his first-born upon her breast.
She was trying to find words, and they came to her when she clasped her
hands upon the jewelled brooch in the shape of the Hawk of Egypt.
She looked at him suddenly and a little shiver swept her at the strange
beauty of this silent man; and he as suddenly turned his hands palm
upwards in an uncontrollable gesture of Eastern prayer to Fate who had so
much to give him, or, perhaps, so little!
"You said you--you would help me if--I came to you--in trouble." She
tripped and stumbled over the words. "I have come to--to------"
"Ask my help."
The words were as cold as stones dropped in the beggar's hand, but
Damaris leant back quickly when she looked into the man's eyes and saw in
them the reflection of the fire she had kindled.
"What is the help you need of me? I know nothing of the ways of women,
but I do know that it has been the storm which has swept you from your
safe harbour out towards a shore upon which are piled the wrecks of many
souls."
She twisted the brooch between her fingers.
"My wedding gift," said Hugh Carden Ali softly, then watched the crimson
dye the white neck and surge across her face. "You come--to--_me_--for
help." He repeated the words slowly. "Then you, of course, are--are
free--ah!" He leant forward and caught her hands. "You have run
away--from what? No, do not speak, I can read your answer in your face.
You have been hurt." He lifted the little ringless left hand, then
pressed it against the other between his own, whilst a great light flamed
in his eyes. "You have come to me, and there is but one meaning for me
in that you have come to _me_. Is it------" His voice dropped to the
softest whisper as he crushed her hands down upon the wooden couch so
that she swayed towards him. "Is it that I may fasten my own wedding
gift into the bridal robe of the woman I love and will take to wife--_is_
it?"
Damaris bowed her head so that the curls danced and glistened in the
light, as the torrent of his words, in the Egyptian tongue, swept about
her like a flood.
"Hast thou come to me in love, thou dove from the nest? Nay, what
knowest thou of love? I ask it not of thee--yet--but the seed I shall
plant within thee shall grow in the passing of the days and the nights
and the months and the years, until it is as a grove of perfumed flowers
which shall change to golden fruit ready to the plucking of my hand."
He pressed her little hands back against her breast so that the light
fell full upon her face, and held her thus-wise, watching the colour rise
and fade.
"Allah!" he whispered. "Allah! God of all, what have I done to deserve
such signs of Thy great goodness? Wilt love me?" He laughed gently.
"Canst thou look into mine eyes and shake thy golden head which shall be
pillowed upon my heart--my wife--the mother of my children? Look at me!
Look at me! Ah! thine eyes, which were as the pools of Lebanon at night,
are as a sun-kissed sea of love. Thou know'st it not, but love is within
thee--for me, thy master."
And was there not truth in what he said? May there not have been love in
the heart of the girl?
Not, maybe, the love which stands sweet and sturdy like the stocky
hyacinth, to bloom afresh, no matter how often the flowers be struck, or
the leaves be bruised, from the humdrum bulb deep in the soil of quiet
content. But the God-given, iridescent love of youth for youth, with its
passion so swift, so sweet; a love like the rose-bud which hangs
half-closed over the door in the dawn; which is wide-flung to the sun at
noon; which scatters its petals at dusk.
The rose!
She has filled your days with the memory of her fragrance; her leaves
still scent the night from out the sealed crystal vase which is your
heart.
But, an' you would attain the priceless boon of peace, see to it that a
humdrum bulb be planted in the brown flower-pot which is your home.
And because of this God-given love of youth which was causing her heart
to thud and the blood to race through her veins, she did not withdraw her
hands when he held and kissed them and pressed his forehead upon them.
"Lotus-flower," he whispered so that she could scarcely hear. "Bud of
innocence! ivory tower of womanhood! temple of love! Beloved, beloved, I
am at thy feet." And he knelt and kissed the little feet in the heelless
little slippers; then, rising, took both her hands and led her to the
door; and his eyes were filled with a great sadness, in spite of the joy
which sang in his heart as he took her into the shelter of his arms.
"I love thee too well," he said, as he bent and kissed the riotous curls
so near his mouth. "Yea I love thee too well to snatch thee even as a
hungry dog snatches his food, though, verily, I be more near to starving
than any hungry dog. What dost thou know of love, of life, in the
strange countries of the East? For thy life will be a desert life, my
love, if once thou art my wife. Look up; look around thee." He pointed
to the stars, he pointed to the dim horizon of the desert over which at
that very moment was padding that hound Fate. "Wilt thou be content with
that, and with me and thy children? Wilt thou not yearn for the comforts
of thy heated rooms, the company of those who will point the finger of
scorn, maybe, at thee as they have pointed it at my mother?"
He spared her not one jot as he made plain to her what might be the
result of her marriage. She would not be marrying the pure-bred son of a
splendid race, as his mother had done; she would be the wife of a
half-caste, the mixed off-spring of two great races; her children would
be half-castes, outcast from their rightful heritage of the sons of the
East and the West. The women of her race would not own her, the women of
his father's race would not permit her children to play with theirs.
Wealth, palaces, camels, horses, jewels would be hers; a place for her
children in the seat of his fathers, or her fathers, _never_.
"I should be strong, I should be strong, for in my heart something tells
me that I am thinking of my happiness and not thine."
"Your mother," whispered Damaris, so softly that he had to bend, his head
lower still, so that when she moved, in the pain of his arms which
crushed her, her cheek brushed his. "_She_ is happy--everyone says so."
Happy! Yes, she was happy, his beloved, most honoured mother; at least
she had been, until there had come the question of her child's happiness,
her half-caste child!
Then he laughed, joyfully, stretched the girl's arms wide, then crushed
her hands above her heart.
"Of course! of course!" he cried. "They are at my House 'an Mahabbha,
the House of Love, even now, where they have met to see if they, the
dears, thy wise old godmother, my beautiful wise mother, can find an
answer to this very question."
They were not. Sick with suspense, they had landed on the far side of
the Nile, on their race with Time to the Gate of To-morrow.
"We will go to them to-morrow, thou and I. To the Gate of To-morrow,
thou with the mare Pi-Kay, I with the stallion Sooltan, who will
well-nigh kill thy mare, my woman, in jealousy. Yea!" He bent and
whispered in her ear so quietly, so coldly as to cause the girl to
tremble. "As I will kill anyone who looks at thee when thou art my wife."
Then he laughed like a boy as he swung her round and held her at
arm's-length by both hands. "We will start to-morrow to meet them, when
we will lay the question before them. And then--and then--why------?"
Damaris, with all the smart of the wound to her pride revived, had shaken
her head.
"I want you--I want you--to------"
Hugh Carden Ali understood by the grace of intuition.
"We will start for Khargegh to-morrow," he continued after a little
pause. "And at the same time--if it will please thee, with thy
consent--I will send my swiftest runner to Luxor, where he will despatch
by cable the news of--oh! my beloved!--of our engagement--Allah! what a
word to describe the opening of the gates of Paradise--to all the great
cities of my country and of thy country. Have I thy consent?"
Incapable of speech, Damaris nodded; having cast the die, she trembled
like a leaf; and at the sight of her, white, with big, frightened eyes
staring at him and teeth driven into her lip, he took her in his arms.
"Thou art mine, beloved, mine as thou hast been in all the past, as thou
wilt be in all the ages to come. All mine, thy heart, thy soul, thy
body. I ask to gather no pebble from the path nor flower from the tree;
I will have the jewelled necklace of thy beauty to hang above my heart,
and the grove of thy sweetness in which to take my rest. I love thee,
and for the agony of the hours passed in the ruined temples I will take
my reward. I love thee, love thee, love thee!"
She made no sound when he bent and kissed her hair, but in the glory of
the love which is that of youth, which is as a bud at dawn, the full
flower at noon and a few petals at dusk, and of which the fragrance stays
with you down all the ages, she raised her face so that he kissed her on
the mouth.
And he kissed her closed eyes and the pillar of her throat and the
whiteness of her shoulders, and her crimson mouth again and yet again, in
the wonder of this, his hour of life, granted him by Allah who is God;
and then raised his head and stared out across the desert.
From a great distance there came to him the drumming of a horse's hoofs
upon the sand.
CHAPTER XXX
"_The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind
that can embrace equally great things and small._"
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
The two wise women had long since left Khargegh.
By special train, by special boat, by aid of runners, telephone and
telegraph, but above all by the magic of the Sheikh el-Umbar's name and
his wife's unlimited distribution of gold, Olivia Duchess of Longacres
and her maid and Jill el-Umbar and her maid arrived at the hotel on the
night of the full moon.
They would have arrived before sunset if it had not been for the
mistake made about the special steamer which had kept them waiting at
the quay; they would not have arrived until twenty-four hours later if
they had made use of the ordinary train and boat.
"Can't we go faster, ma'am? Can't we get there quicker?"
It was Maria Hobson, stolid, solid, dour, big-hearted woman with a
streak of Scotch blood in her veins, who worried outwardly. If you had
watched her out of the corner of your eye you would have seen her shake
her fist at the desert; if you had walked behind her on the quay you
would have heard her say, with a world of entreaty in her voice, to
some terrified, non-understanding _fellah_ who quaked at the knee:
"Can't you get a move on, somehow? You're only a heathen, to be sure,
but if you'd heard the tone in the young lady's voice you'd do
something instead of sal-aaming."
She said very little to her beloved mistress, but to Jill she poured
out her heart, and Jill who with the intuition of a mother's love had
connected the dream with her son let her repeat her tale over and over
again.
". . . Just as though she was standing on a precipice and frightened of
falling over was her voice like, Mum, Miss Jill--may I call you Miss
Jill? It's more familiar-like and--homely, and I know you will excuse
me, Miss Jill, if I say that I can't get used to you in those clothes,
pretty as they are and becoming to you. It seems to me like
fancy-dress, you with a veil over your face, if you will excuse me
saying so. You are just the same to me and my lady as when you came to
stay with her grace; and glad I for one shall be when I see the