Burning Sands Part 42

"If you were afraid of a scandal," he answered, quickly, "why did you come at all? When you arrived this afternoon I thought you had left that question to me, and were ready to get married at once, which was the only way to avoid hurting your father-unless I had sent you back this very night to Kate Bindane. No, you weren't afraid of a scandal: you arranged it all too cleverly for there to be much risk."

"I was prepared to marry you," she said, "if you really wanted marriage."

"And if I didn't," he replied, "you were prepared to live with me for a fortnight. Oh, you make me ashamed!"

"I wanted to save you from these other women," she protested.

"I tell you there never were any other women," he answered. "I'm not a man out of one of your horrible novels."

"I don't know what you are driving at," she exclaimed. "Anyway I won't be played fast and loose with like this. I shall go back to my friends tomorrow, and I hope I shall never see you again."

Suddenly her voice broke, and throwing her arms out across the table, she laid her head upon them, and cried bitterly.

Daniel did not move. His heart was hardened against her, and he told himself that her tears were but one of the wiles of her s.e.x.

"No," he said at length, coming suddenly to a decision, "you shall not go back tomorrow. You have come here for a fortnight, and have made arrangements for your visit to be secret. You say there is no fear of a scandal such as would hurt your father. Very well then, you shall stay here a fortnight whether you want to or not. I propose that we get to know each other: we've had enough misunderstandings. You have misunderstood everything I have ever said to you: it has all been warped and twisted by your miserable society att.i.tude of mind."

"I shall never understand you," she answered, raising her head, and drying her eyes with the back of her hand. "This is quite final. You've insulted me and humiliated me. I might have known that that was what you'd do."

"Very well," he said, "I think you had better go to your room now.

Remember, you are going to stay here for the full fortnight."

"I shall do no such thing," she declared, facing him defiantly.

He gripped hold of her wrist. "Do you want me to have to lock you up?"

he asked; and she quailed before the authority of his voice.

He went across to the door and opened it. Outside, upon the floor, a hurricane lamp was burning; and this he picked up.

"Here's a lamp," he said, "and here are matches. Now go to bed."

She took them from him in silence, and slowly walked out of the room.

He watched her as she pa.s.sed across the refectory, the light from her lantern casting her swaying shadow in huge size upon the ruinous walls.

Then he shut the door, and sitting down at the table, buried his face in his hands.

CHAPTER XXVII-THE FLIGHT

For a long time Daniel lay awake upon his bed at the top of the tower, while his thoughts pa.s.sed through a number of recurrent phases. More than once he felt that he had made a mountain out of a molehill; but this att.i.tude of mind was dismissed by the recollection that, whether Muriel truly loved him or not, she had come to him "on the sly," and, by planning this surrept.i.tious interlude (for she had meant it to be no more than that) she had invested their relationship with that very atmosphere of intrigue which he so strongly resented.

He saw in her action the influence of that small section of London society which he abhorred, wherein the women appeared to him to be secret courtesans who would neither abide by the traditional law nor openly flout it; and he was determined either to eradicate that influence or to lose Muriel. He was not entirely clear in his mind as to what he was going to do with her in the Oasis for this fortnight; but of this he was sure, that she needed a lesson, and that he was going to take her in hand, remorselessly, whatever might be the consequences.

The moon, in the last quarter, rose above the far-off hills while yet he was wearily thinking, and realizing thus that daybreak was not more than two hours distant, he obliged himself by force of will, to compose his mind for sleep. In this he was successful and presently he fell into a deep slumber from which it would have been difficult to wake him.

Meanwhile, Muriel had also watched the dim light of the rising moon as it slowly spread over the desert. She had slept for two or three hours-a miserable sleep of exhaustion; but when she was awakened by the hooting of an owl outside the window, she lit her lamp and made no further attempt at repose.

Her one idea was to get away from Daniel and to go back to Kate Bindane, who would still be alone at El Homra until the end of the coming day.

She did not want to wait until daybreak, for if Daniel were awake he would perhaps try to stop her; and now the slight illumination given by the moon encouraged her to make her immediate escape. She could hardly miss the road: all she had to do was to mount her camel and ride straight ahead.

Hastily she put on her clothes, and soon she had crept out into the refectory, carrying her heavy dressing-case in her hand. She had slipped her revolver into one of the pockets of her skirt, and in the other she had placed a packet of chocolate unused on the previous day, while her water-bottle was slung across her shoulder.

Her heart was beating, and she was frightened at the prospect of the long journey alone, but there was no practicable way of getting into touch with her dragoman, and she was obliged, therefore, to steel herself for the adventure.

By a stroke of good luck she found the three dogs wandering about the refectory, and they were thus not startled into barking: they followed her with wagging tails as she made her way to the camel-shed outside.

There were no doors to open, nor bolts or bars to unfasten; and she could hear the servants snoring at the other end of the building.

Creeping into the shed, lantern in hand, she found her camel and Daniel's kneeling side by side upon the sand, dreamily chewing the cud, and, having learned the tricks of the stable during her journey from Cairo, she quickly slipped a rope around the bent knee-joint of the foreleg of her own beast, thus preventing it from rising.

The saddle was heavy, and was furnished with a number of confusing straps; but, after a somewhat prolonged struggle, she managed at length to adjust it, and to tie her dressing-case on to the back pommel. Then, removing the tether, she held the nose-rope in one hand, and prodded the unwilling beast with her toe until it floundered to its legs, snarling and complaining as is the habit of the breed.

Leading it out into the open she buckled the girth in a fashion, but for some minutes she failed to make the creature kneel so as to allow her to climb into the saddle. She tugged at the nose-rope, and tapped its legs with her crop, but presently she was obliged to desist, owing to her fear that its whining grumbles would be heard.

She was in despair and was very near to tears, when suddenly she recollected that the native makes a certain noise in the roof of his mouth, like the rolling of a German _ch_, when he wishes his camel to kneel; and no sooner had she imitated this sound than the creature went down on its knees with the utmost docility. She clambered into the saddle with a sigh of relief, and a moment later was trotting silently northwards while the dogs stared at her in mild surprise as they stood in the light of the lantern which she had left burning at the doorway of the shed.

The soft pads made little sound as she pa.s.sed under the outer walls of the monastery, and, looking up at the tower, she saw no signs of movement, for Daniel was fast asleep. Nor was there any indication of human life in the Oasis below her as she trotted along the cliff-tops, but the sporadic barking of the village dogs much alarmed her.

The day was now breaking in the east, while the moon also gave a certain amount of light; and she therefore found the track with ease, and in less than half an hour had left the Oasis behind and was heading out into the open desert across the high ground.

The excitement of her escape had prevented her from thinking of her actual sorrow, and now she was too nervous, too overawed by her surroundings, to be conscious of more than a general horror. A six hours' ride across an absolutely uninhabited and lifeless stretch of country, with nothing but a packet of chocolate for sustenance, was likely to be a physical ordeal; and already she knew that the nervous strain was going to be very great.

As has been said, there were three wells upon the route, and the nearest of these, some six miles from the Oasis, she reached within the hour.

The sun being now well above the horizon, she did not halt; for she realized that Daniel, on his tower top, would already have been awakened by its rays, and would perhaps be even now in pursuit.

This, in fact, was the case. When he had descended from the tower he had quickly discovered her flight, and had sent Hussein scuttling into the stable, while he himself put on a shirt and a pair of trousers and slipped his bare feet into the old canvas shoes which lay to hand.

s.n.a.t.c.hing his water-bottle and a tin of biscuits from the living-room, and pocketing his pipe and pouch, he ran through the refectory like a charging bull, sprang on to his camel, and was off and away before his servant had recovered from his first astonishment.

"_Walla kilma!_" he shouted to the staring Hussein, which means "Not a word!" And the loyal native thereupon went back to the kitchen, muttering to himself "His Excellency has gone hunting," as though to convince himself of the veracity of the statement, which, after all, was not very far removed from the truth.

As Daniel raced along in the sparkling sunshine he could detect here and there the marks of Muriel's camel upon the tracks before him, and he knew that, at the pace at which he was travelling, he would have the chance of overtaking her before she had accomplished half the journey back to El Homra; for he had not been long asleep, and her departure could not have taken place earlier without attracting his attention. He therefore settled down to a protracted and pounding chase, and in the brisk morning air his steed did not fail to show its mettle.

He was travelling at twice Muriel's pace, and he caught sight of her, and she of him, as he descended from the high ground into the wide plain which lay between the two oases. She was over a mile ahead of him, a mere speck, like a little fly crawling across a vast brazen dish, and a considerable time pa.s.sed before he had come close enough to observe her movements.

He saw her now urging her camel forward, beating it with her crop. Her hat had been discarded, and her hair had fallen down and was being tossed out behind her by the north wind like a fluttering banner.

She turned to glance at him, and he saw her flushed face, as again she belaboured her tired beast. He was about to call out to her when suddenly her camel stumbled. The loosely buckled girth gave way, and the saddle slipped over to one side. For a moment she clutched on to it, while her camel went round in a circle as though about to overbalance and fall on top of her. Then she slid to the ground, fell on her hands and knees, picked herself up, and set off running like a maniac, while the startled camel went staggering off to one side.

Daniel did not slacken his pace, and in a few moments he was close upon her heels.

"Stop!" he called, coming to a halt. "It's no good running like that!"

For answer she suddenly swung round and faced him, panting and distracted. Her hand dived into her pocket, and issued again holding her revolver. He saw the sunlight flash upon it as she pointed it at him.

His camel was well trained, and he did not wait to tether it. Vaulting from the saddle he walked rapidly towards her, regardless of the menace of the weapon which covered him.