The Hawk of Egypt
from the sufferers, who chorused that "they didn't want no
compensation, only too pleased to part with their bits, as long . . ."
etc., etc.
"I do not think the fault was all on one side, Miss Hethencourt,"
summed up the Captain, speaking in guttural consonant and flattened
vowel from suppressed emotion. "The--er--the plaintiff must have
approached the dog as he was chained and------"
"A bulldog," broke in Damaris, "is a magnet to the best in every human
being. They simply could not help themselves; they were drawn within
reach of his teeth; they----"
"I cannot quite------" interrupted the captain. "Yes?"
Chips, the carpenter, showed signs of bursting with information
withheld.
"Beggin' your pardon for interruption, sir, but what; the lady says is
true; we just couldn't keep away. I saw the Chink--beg pardon, sir, I
mean Ling-a-Ling the laundryman, burning joss-sticks in front of
'im,"--pointing of stub finger towards shameless dog--"one night when
the dawg was asleep. Jus' worship, please, sir, on all parts. And
Mrs. Pudge what didn't oughter 'ave been down in our quarters, dropped
the air cushion, sir, 'cause she missed in stays------"
"I cannot," interrupted the captain--then choked at a mental vision of
Mrs. Pudge, who scorned such frivolous inventions as whalebone to
support the figure--then trumpeted behind his handkerchief, ending in
that combined half-snort, half-giggle which is so disastrous to dignity
and complexion, "I cannot allow the--the--er--form of the Company's
stewardesses to be so discussed."
"Beggin' yer pardon, sir," fiercely rejoined Chips--who was getting a
bit of his own back on Mrs. Pudge--"I'm using the nautical expression,
sir; she failed to get about when that there dawg"--pointing of stub
thumb at heedless dog--"growled 'cause she has water in the knee. I'm
usin' a an--anatomical expression now, sir--her knee--this,
sir"--slapping of knee with horny hand of toil--"The ship's knees,
miss," addressing Damaris, whose straight brows had almost met in
puzzlement, "is a chock on the forepart of the lowermast on which the
'eel--heel, miss, of the topmast rests. Yuss, sir. Her knee may 'ave
water in it; but no one couldn't say the same of her _grog_."
To prevent death from combustion, the speechless captain here intimated
by signs that the culprit should stand up. And the brindle of Rodney
Stone strain stood, whilst the men's eyes glistened as they fidgeted
upon their feet from very joy in the spectacle.
His skull was massive and perfectly-shaped, the under-jaw square and
strong, thrust up and beyond the upper; the teeth were perfect, even,
large and also strong; the nose was black and large, well back between
the eyes, which were set low down and wide apart, but well in front and
round, with a deep "stop" between them; the honestest outward sign of
his gallant loving heart. The ears were rose; not in colour, of
course, but of rose-leaf shape, set high and small and fine; the face
was closely-wrinkled, the "chop" well down, and the loose skin in
abundant folds about his throat and neck.
The chest was wide and deep and prominent; the shoulders were
tremendously muscular; the body was short, with a Roach back, fine in
the rear; the forelegs, short and strong, with the developed calves
which give them the appearance of being bowed, whereas the bones are
really straight; the feet turned out a bit, with toes split up and
arched; the tail set low and straight down and anything but a glad
tail. His heart was of the finest, honest, loving, courageous, capable
of hurling its owner to instant battle or death, in defence of the one
loved, at other times rendering him, in its gentleness, an almost
ludicrous spectacle of adoration. Of such was Wellington, and if the
description is somewhat detailed and technical it is because he happens
a good deal into the book.
The duchess had been put into the train for Port Said by Ben Kelham,
who, inwardly kicking at her sage advice, looked as despondent as a
camel who considers its strength unequal to its burden.
"Cheer up, lad," she cried as the train moved off. "Cheer up;
something is sure to happen before long."
Which was a perfectly safe prophecy to make where Damaris was concerned.
Arrived at Port Said, she put off in a boat with her maid and her
parrot, and found her godchild, who did not expect her, on deck,
entranced with all she saw.
Yes! of course Port Said is a sink of iniquity and a place of odours
and a fold for native wolves in sheep's clothing; also a centre for
antiquities made in Birmingham, or by the vendor himself in the hot
weather; and a market for things which should not be sold, much less
bought.
In fact, in one short sentence, it is a deal of cosmopolitan
wrong-doing.
All the same, you need not buy and you need not listen nor look, and if
it is the first bit of the Orient you have meet with for the first time
in your life, well! it is the East, and jolly exciting and interesting,
too.
Damaris rushed at the old lady, and having curtsied to her, gathered
her up in her strong arms and hugged her tightly, just as Captain X,
who during one trip had had the duchess as passenger and therefore
loved her, came along.
As they turned in the direction of the dining-saloon, the girl looked
over her shoulder at the two maids, and smiled.
With a great love of their respective mistresses as their sole bond in
common they stood, otherwise divided, staring at each other.
"Pleased to meet you again," volunteered country-bred Jane, offering a
plump hand.
"Hoping you are in good health," responded Maria Hobson, making a
corner in strawberry-leaves as she just touched the finger-tips.
"Wellington, you have met Dekko, I think," laughed the girl.
"Woomph!" grunted the dog disdainfully, as he cocked an eye at the
bird, which ruffled its feathers, spread its red tail and looked down
sideways and spitefully for a long moment.
"My Gawd!" it suddenly shrieked. "My Gawd!"
And it swung about and rubbed its soft grey pate against its mistress's
outrageous golden perruque, then hurled itself onto the captain's
shoulder.
CHAPTER V.
"_Oh, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill_."
TENNYSON.
After the fight in the bazaar, the ducal party stayed for another
fortnight in Cairo, during which time Damaris saw as much of the place
and its surroundings as she could in fourteen days and a few hours out
of each of the fourteen nights; whilst her godmother played bridge or
poker, paid and received visits, took her to dances and parties, and
busied her fingers in the tangled threads Fate had tossed into her lap.
It was an understood thing that the girl should be ready to conduct the
old aristocrat to the dining-room at the dinner-hour and give her the
evening; other than that her time was her own, though, owing to her
innate courtesy and her love for her godmother, she never once absented
herself without having obtained permission.
"You are a positive tonic, child, in these perplexing days," remarked
her grace, when the girl had concluded the recital of the fight in the
bazaar. "Only, do remember to come straight to me if ever you get into
a real scrape."
And that night, the old lady, who had lost heavily at poker, fairly
snapped at Maria Hobson, who, tucking her up in bed, remarked, greatly
daring, upon the amount of liberty allowed the child.
"Don't be foolish, my good woman," she said, "and do for goodness' sake
mind your business of looking after me. Although my god-daughter may
bluff a bit for the fun of the game, and get let down a bit for her own
good, yet I shouldn't advise anyone to get seeing her too often. Fate
dealt her a royal straight flush in hearts, and better that you
can't--no! not even if you hold a full house of intrigue and bad intent
t'other end of Life's table."
"Humff!" replied the maid heavily through her nose, not having
understood one word of her mistress's admonition.
Each day at breakfast and at dinner a bunch, big or little, of simple
or hothouse flowers lay beside the girl's plate, without name or
message.
Now, the finding of flowers upon your table does not, in Egypt,
necessarily imply that the donor thereof is a son of the desert; the
maitre d'hotel has been known to do it out of deference to your rank or
purse; and only once had Jane Coop had the mixed pleasure of meeting
the deaf-mute Nubian who daily left the posies at the hotel.
Refreshed from her siesta, she had descended to the hall _via_ the
stairs instead of the lift, and bumped into the ebony-hued slave as he
bent to lay a sheaf of flowers upon the matting outside her mistress's
door.
He had straightened himself and salaamed almost to the ground--which
had delighted Jane Coop--and had offered the bunch to her.
"Oh, no, my man!" she had said, bridling, "you don't come over me that
way. Just you take that trash back to where it came from. My young
lady ain't that kind," and had shaken her fist in his face and flounced
downstairs to lay a complaint.
What with the militant maids, the parrot and the dog, the ducal party
was continually breaking out in some direction or another, but the
maitre d'hotel, who simply worshipped the old lady, merely smiled and
poured the oil of soothing words upon the troubled waters.
The girl had quite casually recounted the fight in the bazaar, and the
wise old woman had made no comment; but, all the same, next day she
indifferently asked a few questions of Lady Thistleton, who had a big
heart, narrow mind, an ever-wagging tongue and two daughters.
"Oh, that's the son of the Arab and the English girl. You must
remember the fuse there was in England over the runaway marriage--what
was her name?--how she could, you know----"
"Ah! yes. You must be talking of Jill Carden. I knew her very well.
Naughty girl, she refused the invitation I sent them asking them to
come to England and stay with me, and gave up writing to me after a
while. Does she live in Cairo?"
It seemed that Jill, the wife of the Sheikh el-Umbar, lived in the Flat
Oasis t'other side of the Canal, in Arabia proper, but, according to
current gossip, was at the moment upon a visit to her son at the House
'an Mahabbha, which had been built for the elder branch of the House
el-Umbar on a verdant patch watered by the springs, from the limestone
hills which stretch on the desert side of the Oasis of Khargegh.
"He's not in Cairo, then?"
"No; he left to-day," replied the gossip. "You see, his mother is
expected any time at his home, if she isn't already there. My maid
will chatter so, there's absolutely no stopping her. Funnily enough, I
arrived at the station as he was leaving in a special train. Such a
handsome man, educated in England, millionaire too. Of course it's a
case of a touch of the tarbrush--such a pity, too!"
The duchess suddenly shivered.
"Little Jill!" she said gently. "Little Jill! I must go and see her
if she will let me. Ah! General, what about a hand at ecarte before
dinner?"--and she rose with a stormy rustling of her softly-scented
silks, leaving the gossip wondering in what way she had put her foot in
it.
That night, as she lay like a little brown mouse under the
mosquito-net, watching the stars through the open window, the old lady
suddenly decided to bestir herself.
"It's too risky! She's too beautiful, too young and unsophisticated,"
she murmured as she lit a cigarette under the curtains, which is
strictly against the rules. "I'd bet my last _piastre_ that Jill
Carden's son's all right, but, all the same, one has to reckon with the
glamour of the East. Love's all very well in a cool climate, but it's
the dickens out here. Must get her anchored in safe waters. What