The Hawk of Egypt
at home--I mean in England--you------"
"Mother, please! Oh, Mother, you don't understand--dear heavens! you
don't understand. Listen--and, how I wish my father, whom I honour,
were here to comfort you. Forgive me, dear, forgive me for the pain I
must cause you------"
And the woman went white to the lips under a sudden blinding flash of
understanding and her proud eyes dropped to the hands clenched in her
lap.
"I want to marry, Mother of mine." He spoke in the Arabian tongue,
which, is so atune to love, "for behold love in the space of an hour
has grown within me. The floods of love drown me, the full-blossomed
trees of passion throw their shade upon the surging waters, and,
behold, the shade is that of tenderness. From the midst of the flood
where I am like to drown, I stretch my arms towards the rocky shore
where stands, looking towards me, the desire of my soul. Behold, my
eyes have seen her, and, behold, she is white, with hair like the
desert at sunset, and eyes even as the pools of Lebanon. She is as a
rod to be bent, and as a vase of perfume to be broken upon a night of
love. And I love her--her--out of all women--a doe to be hunted at
dawn, a mare to be spurred through the watches of the night------"
"Hugh!"
"I love her as my father loved you--my father, of whom I am the eldest
son--son of a highborn father, son of a highborn
mother--outcast--outcast!"
"For pity's sake, Hugh, stop!"
But the storm swept on, tearing the veil from the woman's eyes.
"Behold, I care not for the plucking of garden blossoms, therefore are
the beautiful, docile women of the East not for me, and the thorns upon
the hedge of convention defied, the barbed wires of racial distinction
keep me from the hedgerow flower, born of the wind and the sky and the
summer heat, which I covet.
"Among men I am nothing; I may not claim equality with the scavenger of
the Western streets; or with the donkey-boys of the Eastern bazaar.
Here I am served with fear and servility, being a man of riches; across
the waters, I may sun myself in the smiles of women as long as I have
no desire to wed." He suddenly seized the woman, holding her in a grip
of iron which left great bruises on her arms. "Do you know what she
called me, Mother?--that harlot of a line of noblemen--what she flung
in my teeth because, seeing in her a woman of the streets hidden under
the cloak of marriage, I refused to be tempted?"
There fell a terrible silence, and then a few whispered words.
"She called me a half-caste, Mother!--me--a half-caste!"
And the mother fell at her son's feet and bowed her head to the ground,
and he swept her up into his arms, raining kisses upon the piteous face.
"I don't blame you, sweetheart-mother," he said in English, whilst she
sobbed on his heart. "Am I not the fruit of a brave woman's great
love? Could there be anything finer than that? But my father in me
made my whole body clamour for the desert when I was in England; my
mother in me makes my heart throb in the desert for just one hour of
her cool, misty country, one hour on a hill-top in which to watch the
pearl-gray dawn. Dearest, dearest, don't sob so. It is a case of two
affirmatives making a negative; two great nationalities decried,
derided, rendered null and void in their offspring through the dictates
of those who, in religion, prate that we are all brothers. I have just
got to stick it, my mother, and life is not very long. But I shall
never marry." And as he spoke, Fate flicked a page of an illustrated
paper, which was but the volume of the Book of Life, and perhaps only a
mother's eyes would have noticed the sudden tightening of the hand upon
the marble of the balustrade as the man looked down into the pictured
beauty of the woman he loved.
And, having read what had been written, he knelt to receive his
mother's blessing.
"To the Tents of Purple and Gold, my darling?" she asked, smiling so
bravely to hide her breaking heart.
"Not just yet, dear; a bit further North first, I think."
"For long?"
"I do not know, dear. Bless me, O my mother."
She blessed him and called to him as he stood at the head of the marble
stairway:
"Come back to me, my son!"
"That, O woman, is in the hands of Allah, who is God."
And he turned and left her, and she, having wept her heart out and her
beautiful eyes dim, took up the illustrated paper which was a volume of
the Book of Life, and turned the pages.
"Ah!" she said. "How beautiful!"
It was just a simple photograph of Damaris at a tennis tournament, and
underneath the information that the most popular and beautiful visitor
in Cairo would celebrate her birthday in a week's time, that in honour
of the occasion her god-mother, the Duchess of Longacres, had issued
invitations for a fancy-dress ball, after which social event she and
her god-daughter would proceed to the Desert Palace Hotel, Heliopolis.
"I wonder," whispered Jill, "I wonder if she would come to see me. She
was always such a wise old woman. I wonder if there is a way out"--and
she stretched her arms out towards the desert. "Hahmed!" she called,
"Beloved, I love you, and my heart is breaking,"--and she lifted her
head and listened to the sound of many horses running; then bowed her
head and wept.
The dawn was nigh to breaking, and yet the parade of horses was not
finished; whilst the trainer, the head groom, the stud groom, the
under-grooms and the rank and file of the stables tore their beards or
their hair as they endeavoured to please their master, whilst they
waited anxiously for the return of the man who had been hurriedly sent
to fetch in the mare, Pi-Kay, who was out to grass, and as wild as a
bird on the wing.
Singly, or in pairs, every priceless quadruped had been put through its
paces upon the track of tan imported from England.
Three coal-black stallions, brothers to el-Sooltan, even then in Cairo,
and famous throughout Egypt, tore past him like a cyclone and left him
indifferent; a chestnut brood mare, whose price was above that of many
rubies, trotted up at his call and snuffled a welcome in his sleeve,
searched for sugar in his hand and found it, and whinnied gently when
he turned away; bays, piebalds, roans, greys, trotted, galloped,
jumped, whilst their master smoked endless cigarettes and the stud
groom prayed fervently to Allah.
"By the patience of the Prophet," the master suddenly cried, turning on
the man, "hast thou nothing else? Is there no jewel amongst my horses?
Hast thou not in all my stables one of the Al Hamsa, a descendant of
the mares who found favour in the eyes of Mohammed the prophet of Allah
who is God? The mare Alia--has she been, perchance, as sterile as thy
wits?"
And then he stopped short and stood in silence, watching the loveliest
picture any human could wish to see.
Picking up her dainty feet as though she walked upon hot stones,
tossing her proud little head, with big, gentle eyes, spreading
nostrils and fine small ears almost touching at the tips, mane flowing,
tail set high and spread, came the snow-white mare, Pi-Kay.
Allah! but the loveliness of that picture as she stood, thoroughbred,
perfect, as proud as any queen, as scornful as any spoiled beauty, as
confused at the sight of her master as any bride!
Ten yards away and motionless she stood from this man who seemed to
take no notice of her, and then she wheeled, and flung up her heels;
then stopped and looked at him along her satin flank and piqued with
his indifference suddenly sped out into the desert.
Then, softly, melodiously, the man's voice called her, ringing like a
bell under the lightening sky, and behold, love awoke in the mare's
heart and she turned and raced back towards him, longing for his hand
and the grip of his knees upon her. But with her feet upon the tan,
she turned her back upon him and danced across towards the coal-black
stallions, causing their grooms to hold on to them with both hands;
then she came back to circle round about this man, who seemingly took
no notice of her vagaries, not even when she reared just behind him,
pawing the air, nor when she lashed out at a humble _sayis_, missing
him by a hair; until, at last, overpowered by curiosity and love,
curveting, rearing, throwing her feet and making a frightful to-do over
nothing at all, she came close up--oh! very close--and whinnied gently.
With one hand clutching the silvery mane and in one bound he was across
the bare back and away with her into the desert, gripping her with his
knees, calling to her by every love-name he could think of.
And out there alone in the desert at the hour of prayer, he slipped
from her and, turning towards Mecca, raised his hands to heaven.
"O God of the West! O Allah of the East! Give me one single hour of
love!"
And the mare, Pi-Kay, wonderful in her beauty, raced from him far out
into the desert, leaving him alone with his God; then stood quite
still, with fine small ears pricked, waiting for the call she knew
would come. And when it came ringing clear over the golden sand, she
raced back to him and pushed against him, until he sprang upon her and
turned her towards the East.
"_By the war-horses_," he cried, quoting from Al-Koran, "_which run
swiftly to battle, with a panting noise; and by those who strike fire
by dashing their hoofs against the stones; and by those who make a
sudden invasion on the enemy early in the morning and therein raise the
dust, and therein pass through the midst of the adverse troops_ . . . .
by the Message of the Great Book and by my love will I wrest one hour
from life."
And urging the mare with the whip of love to the uttermost of her
wonderful speed, he thundered back across the path of sand, which was
to be trodden by his feet alone, in spite of the plots which Zulannah
the courtesan was even then weaving about him--to her own advancement.
CHAPTER VII
"_. . . . and she painted her face, and tired her
head, and looked out at a window_."
II KINGS.
The house of the "Scarlet Enchantress," with its balconies, turrets and
outer and inner courts, stood quite by itself at one corner of the
Square, in a big, neglected garden. It had been built by means of
untold gold and the destruction of scores of miserable, picturesque
hovels, which, poor as they might be, had however meant home to many of
the needy in the Arabian quarters of Cairo. It would be useless to
look for that building covered in white plaster now; it was, later,
looted and burned to the ground.
A beautiful wanton of fourteen summers, ambitious, relentless, with the
eyes of an innocent child, the morals of a jackal and a fair supply of
brain-cunning rather than intellect, Zulannah sat this night of stars
in a corner of her balcony overlooking the Square, smoking endless
cigarettes.
Courtesan of the highest rank, she had plied her ruthless trade for
three successful years, accumulating incredible wealth in jewels and
hard cash. Her ambition knew no bounds; her greed no limit; her
jealousy of other women had become a by-word in the north.
Physically she was perfect; otherwise, she had not one saving grace,
and her enemies were legion. She had driven hard bargains, demanding
the very rings off men's fingers in exchange for kisses; shutting the
door with callous finality in the face of those she had beggared; she
had disowned her mother, who, stricken with ophthalmia, begged in the
streets; she had no mercy for man, woman or beast, yet all had gone
well until love had come to her.
Love comes to harlots and to queens as well as to us ordinary women,
and they suffer every whit as much as we do, perhaps more keenly on
account of the hopeless positions they fill.
It had come to Zulannah, uncontrollably, that night when, unveiled,