The Hawk of Egypt
Certainly everything should be ready in the quickest possible time. A
hamper and some brandy; the boat; and upon the other side the swiftest
camel from the hotel stables for her Excellency the wife of the Sheikh
el-Umbar; the swiftest men to carry a litter--ah! two litters, as her
grace's maid would join in the search. Not Miss Coop; she was staying
behind, of course, to have everything in readiness for Miss
Hethencourt, who would doubtless be very tired and a little frightened.
"There is nothing to fear," he added. "Nobody has ever really been
lost in Egypt, and as Miss Hethencourt will not want a crowd of friends
to meet her on her safe return, not one word shall be said about the
little expedition of relief."
He salaamed and retired, leaving the duchess looking after him.
She had her doubts about his belief in one word of the story.
* * * * * *
Wrapped in her ermine cloak and leaning on her ebony stick, Olivia
Duchess of Longacres stood near all that is left of the Gate of
To-morrow.
Hugh Carden's mother looked down at her from the back of her camel, on
which had been fixed the padded seat which is perhaps the most
comfortable of all saddles.
Wellington, with the book between his teeth, sat next her, firmly
secured by a rope through the steel ring in his spiked collar to the
back of the seat.
"Take him, your grace," had urged Jane Coop, whose own heart was nigh
to breaking at being left behind. "Take him; he'll find her if we
should happen to have made a mistake. Missie calling you, Wellington.
Take the book to Missie; she wants it."
And the dog had obediently picked up the book in his teeth and waddled
in the wake of the search-party.
Maria Hobson stood close beside her mistress; the indifferent
_fellaheen_ stood some little way apart. They, too, have long since
become accustomed to the vagaries of the great white races.
"Let me go alone, dear. He is my son!"
The mother had pleaded for the sake of her first-born, and the old
woman, understanding, had given way.
"Goodbye, dear. I will wait for you here. Hobson will look after me.
Besides, as long as we save her good name, what matters anything else?
Thank God for the moon, Jill. You will easily follow the track of the
two horses. Give them both my love, and tell them I'm waiting. _Au
revoir_."
She stood and watched the camel slither across the desert at that
animal's almost incredible speed; then turned, sat down on the edge of
her litter, took out her bejewelled Louis XV snuff-box, rasped a match
on the sole of her crimson shoe, and lit a Three Castles with her eyes
on the track left by the hoofs of two horses.
Yes! Two.
Just an hour before they arrived, Ben Kelham had started from the Gate
of To-morrow to find his school-mate, Hugh Carden Ali, at his Tents of
Purple and of Gold.
CHAPTER XXXI
"_Sweet is true love tho' given in vain, in vain;
And sweet is death who puts an end to pain_."
TENNYSON.
Hugh Carden Ali, quite still and strangely unwelcoming, stood just
inside his tent; as Ben Kelham flung himself off his horse; neither did
he put out his hand to take the outstretched one of his old
school-fellow.
Pretending not to notice the seeming lapse in courtesy, Kelham turned
to hitch his horse, only to find that that product of the bazaar had
cleared for the horizon.
It were wise when out in the desert, if your horse is not
desert-trained, to hang on to the bridle until you have hobbled or
hitched your steed, lest peradventure the vultures, at a discreet
distance, should assemble about you later, as you lie raving upon the
sands, only waiting until your ravings cease altogether, to approach
quite near to you.
That the omission was intentional never crossed his mind. He
remembered his friend's religion and the strictness with which he
adhered to its tenets, and thought that perhaps the shaking of a
fellow-creature's hand was forbidden at certain hours.
So that he did not offer his hand again, but his eyes shone with all
the affection, which might be termed love, he had had at Harrow for the
man who had met him so often as opponent in the cricket-field, and as a
friend in his rooms.
He stood quite still for a minute just outside the tent, the moon
shining down upon his splendid six-foot-two, and a little shadow of
doubt swept across the face of the Eastern as, so strong was the
moonlight, he noticed the set of the jaw and the honesty of purpose in
the steady grey eyes.
This Englishman might make a mistake, might blunder in the slowness of
his deliberate way--there was the faintest suspicion of a smile on Hugh
Carden Ali's face as he remembered, even at this critical moment, how,
having won the toss, it had taken Ben Kelham so long to decide, at the
foot of the Hill, whether to put his side in or not--but that he would
deliberately behave like a cad to anything so beautiful and desirable
as Damaris, or in fact to any man, woman, child or beast on earth, no!
that thought was not to be entertained for one moment.
Come to think of it, what a blessing it is that the cad cannot efface
the mark of Nature's branding-iron.
He may be an Adonis, a diplomat, a _bon viveur_, a good sort, a real
sport; he may have a brain and a personality and a gift for choosing
and wearing his clothes; his blood may be cerulean, red or merely
muddy; but just watch out. One day he will forget to shoot his linen,
and you will catch a glimpse of the mark of the beast.
And in the second of time which it took this little analysis of his
friend to flash across his mind the hands of Life moved slowly towards
the hour.
He put his hand to his turban, then stood on one side.
"Come in, Kelham. Who ever would have thought of seeing you! Jolly
decent of you coming all this way out to see me. I thought you were
after lion, but I see you have no gun. I'm afraid I can only offer you
coffee. No pegs in a Mohammedan's tent, you see."
They each advanced one step and their hands met and gripped across the
little dividing-line, on one side of which, one of the two stood under
the stars which belong to all men, and the other inside the desert
dwelling.
Such a faint line, this one of racial distinction, yet which rises as a
barrier higher than the Himalayas, deeper than the ocean, and stronger
than steel between the men of the East and the men of the West.
Kelham laughed as he sat down at the end of the wooden couch to which,
without making any apology for the bareness of the tent, his host had
pointed.
"Jolly seeing you again, Carden. I had an idea you were travelling
round the world, and only discovered through the morning paper that you
were quite near. The paragraph gave a full description of you and
these tents, so I took the first train--I was in Cairo--enquired about
you when I arrived at Luxor station, where they seemed to know all
about you, hired that horse which has just gone off on a survey into
the middle of the desert, got ferried across, and came straight here.
I don't mind telling you that lion is rather a sore point with me at
present." He laughed again as he took his automatic Colt, which lay
cosily in the palm of his big hand, from his pocket and released the
safety-catch.
"I'm like darling old Aunt Olivia; she refuses to be parted from hers,
once she has sighted Port Said. By Jove, Carden, you've absolutely got
to meet her, if you haven't met her already. She knew your mother
well. But of course you stayed at the Castle--no! you didn't though;
you had measles. Well, you've got to meet----"
He stopped suddenly as the thought of the abominable anonymous letter
flashed across his mind; turned a dull red under his tan, and looked
round the strange tent, and then at the man who sat on the opposite end
of the wooden couch, dressed in all the picturesque simplicity of the
East, with the stars and the far-reaching desert as a background.
He sat quite silent, staring at his friend, who yet in some indefinable
way seemed such a total stranger.
"By Jove, Carden," he said at last, "I didn't know you had------" He
stopped, confused, horrified at the words which had almost escaped him.
"Turned native, Kelham? I haven't. I am an Arab, a Mohammedan by
birth. This"--he looked quickly at the leather curtain at the back of
his friend--"This is my natural environment. Harrow was a--a loving
thought on the part of my honoured mother, and------" He paused, and
raising his voice ever so slightly, looked steadily at the curtain
which seemed to move, perchance blown by the night wind--"and a great,
a terrible mistake. Yes, Kelham, a terrible mistake. Did you ever
think of the risk I ran, I, an Arab, of meeting some white woman, whom
I might love? Supposing I had met such an one, and had loved her, and
had wanted to marry her, tell me, you, all white as you are,--_could_ I
have done so?"
He took a simple wooden cigarette-case from his cummerbund and held it
out to his friend; they lit their cigarettes and sat smoking in an
intolerable silence.
There was no real need to ask the question, because it had been
answered even whilst the Englishman had swung himself from the saddle.
In a searing flash, by the sound of his friend's voice, the way he
moved, the whole Western look of him, Carden Ali had understood that
this man, born of the moors, the bracing climate, the cold skies, the
snows and springs of England, was the true mate for beautiful English
Damaris.
But, to turn the knife in the wound in his heart, he repeated the
question, and Kelham, who knew it could be answered only in one way,
wrenched at his collar and got to his feet, and crossed to the wall, to
finger the throwing-spear with his back to his friend.
"Well, you know, old man, I--well, don't you think it's best--as your
father is an Arab--well!--well, you know what--who was it
said--something about East and West?--I--don't------" He passed his
hand over the wall, then exclaimed, in an effort to change the subject,
"By Jove! it's leather! Why, I thought the wall was velvet."
Carden laughed and lit another cigarette as he watched Kelham out of
the corner of his eye as he walked slowly round the tent.
Keeping something from each other, they were ill at ease, where, under
ordinary circumstances, they would have talked without ceasing upon the
good old days at Harrow; of Houses and masters and schoolfellows; of
Ducker--the swimming-bath--and Lords and Bill--the roll-call.
They talked, instead, disjointedly upon things which, though they
interested them mightily, were not near their hearts as is the Hill to
the Harrovian. They had both come to a decision, which, however, left
them in nowise comforted.
Ben Kelham decided as he walked about the tent that not a word about
the anonymous letter or the courtesan should pass his lips. How could
he ever have thought of mentioning the matter, even if it had been only
as a safeguard for the future in finding out the best way in which to
silence the woman's lying tongue? Besides, if Carden, he thought, had
met Damaris or the duchess, he would most surely have said so--which
only showed that he knew nothing whatsoever about the Oriental.
Hugh Carden Ali had come to his decision even as he had realised that
honour bade him give up the girl whom he had held so close to his heart
in his one hour reft from life; on the pretext of want of
accommodation, with promise to meet in Cairo or elsewhere as soon as
possible, he would send Ben Kelham back upon the track to Luxor, and by
a circuitous route would take the girl at dawn to a spot from whence
she could ride to Kulla, and get from there by boat to Denderah or back
to Luxor.
None save the _sayis_ knew she had come to the tents this night, and he