Desert Love Part 23

It was a case of injury added to insult, and she crouched back furious in her physical hurt as she tore the silken covering from her arms, where already showed faint bruises above the little tattoo mark showing itself so black against the white skin, and upon which she put her finger.

"Oh! who would have thought when you tattooed that, Jack----!"

But she stood her ground and shrugged her naked shoulders irritatingly when Hahmed crossed the dividing s.p.a.ce in a bound with his hand upon the hilt of his dagger.

"Bi--smi--llah! what sayest thou? This mark upon the fairness of thy arm which I have thought a blemish, and therefore have not questioned thee thereon--sayest thou it is a _dakkh_, what thou callest a tattoo mark? And if so what has it to do with the man whose name is unceasingly upon thy lips?"

Jill stood like a statue of disdain.

"What _is_ the matter now, Hahmed? Please understand that I will not tolerate such continual fault-finding any longer! That is a tattoo mark of a pail of water--you may not know that we have a rhyme in England which begins like this:

"Jack and Jill went up a hill To fetch a pail of water!"

Oh! shades of ancient Egypt, did you ever hear or see anything so pathetically absurd as Jill as she solemnly repeated the old doggerel.

"That makes no difference--a pail of water or the outline of a flower--did this man--this--this _Jack_ make the mark upon thee?"

Jill hesitated for a second and then answered with a glint in her eye.

"Yes! he did--and he did Mary too--put the d.i.n.kiest little heart on her arm--we were under the cherry tree in the vegetable------!"

"Go!" suddenly thundered the Arab.

And Jill, gathering her raiment about her for departure, turned to look straight into the man's eyes, whilst her heart, in spite of the little scornful smile which twisted the corner of her mouth, leapt with the love which had blossomed a hundredfold under the torrent of jealousy, wrath, and mastery which he had poured forth upon her during the last hour.

"Behold! art thou weak," she said sweetly in his own tongue, "having not the strength to kill that which offends thee. 'Thou shalt not know this man, or any other man,'" she mocked, quoting his words, "and yet canst thou not break me to thy will! Of a truth, I have no further use for thee in thy weakness!"

But Hahmed's control had only been slightly cracked, so that he merely pointed to the curtain which divided Jill's quarters from the rest of the house.

"Go!" he said simply, "go to thy apartment, wherein thou shalt stay until thou seest good to come to me in obedience and love. Thou shalt _not_ go forth except to the gardens; neither shall thy friends visit thee, neither shalt thou climb to the roof; and thou _shalt_ obey me--many, aye, many a woman were dead for far less than this thy disobedience--but thou--thou art too beautiful to kill, except with love--go!"

And Jill went, with beautiful head held high, heart throbbing from love, and blood pounding in her ears from downright rage.

"I will not obey you! I shall do exactly as I wish!" she proclaimed, with the curtain in her hand. In which she was mistaken, for the simple fact that love held her fast.

And the curtain swinging to hide her from the Arab, as she stood for one moment holding out her arms toward him; and for the same reason she did not see him pick up her torn, scented veil, to thrust it between his inner silken vest and his sorely perturbed heart.

CHAPTER XLIII

Night with her blessed wind had come at last, which means coolness for a s.p.a.ce beneath the stars, and oblivion for a while in sleep for those who have untroubled heart and good digestion. There was just one black patch in all that silvery stretch of sand, upon which the moon shone, a patch that came neither from rock or tree or cloud, and which moved occasionally in fitful jerks, until it raised itself and collapsed again, and spread itself in a still stranger shape as from underneath garments which had the form of arms and legs and disjointed feet which fell apart, there crawled a man.

A man, though the face was cracked in great seams from brow to chin, whilst the black tongue protruded from the split mouth drawn back from the even teeth until the great bloated face seemed to laugh in derision at the moon's softness.

The body, covered in a ma.s.s of sores coated with sand, raised itself to the knees, whilst the hands tried painfully to scoop up the silver moonbeams and raise them to the mouth. There was no sound in all that deathly plain, which Allah knows is accustomed to such scenes, and when the body had fallen forward once more upon the sand, so that the open mouth was filled with grit, neither was there movement, until upon the pale light of dawn a silent shape, and yet another, and still another one, sailed serenely across the sky, and with a faint rustle of folding wings settled down around the heap; to soar noiselessly skyward when it suddenly twitched convulsively; to settle again with faint rustling when all once more was still.

"Verily, O! brother, I am led towards that spot upon which the birds of death have come together."

So said the Egyptian who was partner in the small caravan proceeding leisurely towards Cairo, as he shaded his eyes and pointed first up to the ever lightening sky, across which from all parts floated small black dots, and then to a distant place upon the sand, where the black spots seemed to mingle until they formed a blot of shade.

"Nay! Raise not thy voice in dissent, O! my brother, for behold we have made good time, and water faileth us not."

And well was it that they turned aside, and shouted as they approached so that only one beak had time to tear a strip of flesh from beneath the naked shoulder, ere the flock of vultures rose, hovered a second, and were gone. The two men drew near, and having dismounted, turned the poor thing over, and feeling the faint beating of the heart, with no more ado than if they were setting down to food, undid one of the goatskins from the nearest camel, and soaking the flowing bernous until it dripped with the precious water, wrapped the body in its folds; and collecting the gold watch, money and card-case strewn upon the sands, slipped everything back into a waistcoat pocket with the exception of a three day old programme announcing a cotillion at Shepherd's Hotel, a sketch of which hideous building was elaborately and mendaciously reproduced on the cover, so that to the mind of uneducated Yussuf, unversed in the English tongue, there was but one thing to do, and that to go straight to the well-known caravanserai with his burden, and deliver it safely into the proprietor's hands.

So Yussuf, euphoniously termed a benighted heathen by some enlightened Christians, seated himself upon the fastest camel in the caravan, receiving into his arms the thing that was still a man by their good efforts, from the hands of the other heathen, who, with hands raised to heaven, called down the blessing of Allah upon men and beast as the latter departed at her swiftest for the great city, leaving him to follow in more leisurely manner.

So that consternation and excitement were great among those who sat upon the verandah after dinner, partaking of coffee and cigarettes before undertaking the more strenuous task of entertaining themselves, when in the glare of the electric light a great camel suddenly appeared out of the night, and totally disregarding the upraised voice of the enormous hotel porter, subsided in the gutter, thereby causing a block in the street; whilst a man clumsily dismounted and staggered up the shallow steps, tenderly holding some covered burden the while in his arms that were breaking with fatigue, and who, speaking with authority, demanded speech of the proprietor, who, furious at being disturbed, came forth as furiously to annihilate the disturber, but instead, at the first word from the Arab, who clutched a dirty piece of paper in a hand almost paralysed with cramp, lifted a corner of the cloth from about that which lay so inertly under the all-hiding cloak, and choked, and stuttered, and then recovering himself, blandly led the Arab to the lift which whirled them to the first floor, leaving the occupants on the verandah all a-twitter, whilst the coffee grew cold and the cigarettes went out.

CHAPTER XLIV

Days and nights pa.s.sed, and still more days and nights, in which the man, bound from head to foot in soft wrappings soaked in unguents, tossed and raved, screaming for water, tearing at the bed-linen which to his distorted mind was alive with every conceivable insect, beating blindly at the faces of the two women who, refusing any help, watched over and tended Jack Wetherbourne through his days of distress.

"Aye, la.s.s! Now don't 'ee lose 'eart," whispered Sarah Ann Gruntham to the girl who, having held consultation with the doctor, was sobbing her heart out on the elder woman's motherly bosom which covered a heart of purest gold. "Don't 'ee listen to such fash, la.s.s, for what's he likely to know outside of Lady Jones's wimble-wambles and me Lor'

Fitznoodles' rheumatism. Why 'e couldn't even tell that I 'ad 'ad a touch of my old complaint, and me with an 'andle to me name. Come, la.s.s, oop with ye bonnie head, for I'll tell 'ee the great news--I sees a bead o' perspiration on Sir John's brow--an' so I'm off to take me 'air out of crackers. Though Tim does find it more home-like, 'e says, when I 'ave 'em h'in--oh, dearie! dearie! I often wish I was plain Mrs. Gruntham again with no aitches to mind. I'll be with you in ten minutes, and then, la.s.s, ye'll just run away and have a bath--I managed the aitch that time--and come back as fresh as a daisy, if there were such a innocent thing in this land of sphinxes and minxes--and ye'll see ten beads then, which sounds as tho' I be a Roman instead of a strict Baptist. I'll run along, love, and don't let 'im see tears in them bonny eyes of yours when he comes to know ye, la.s.s."

And the dearest old soul in the world waddled away to take her hair out of the crackers which had made a steel halo round her silvery hair for many a night, and waddled hack again to see Mary with a great glow in her eyes, and her hand clasping the skeleton fingers of Jack Wetherbourne, who had known her at last, and was gazing blissfully at his beloved.

His lips moved, though so weak was he that no sound came from them, so that Mary had to bend to catch the whisper until her ear just touched the lips still distorted from the effects of the desert sun.

She sat up, blushing from chin to brow, and smilingly shook her head.

"I will marry you, Jack dear, as soon as we find Jill!"

Wetherbourne made a feeble and unsuccessful attempt to frown, and then turned his eyes as Mary turned her head on the opening of the door between the bedroom and the sitting-room.

In the doorway stood the bewildering picture of an Eastern woman.

Wrapped round in the voluminous cloak of the East, with the face and head veils hiding all but her eyes, she stood quite still as Lady Sarah bustled across the room towards her, and Mary held up a warning hand.

A twitching of the man's fingers drew Mary's attention, and once more she leant down to him.

"We're engaged," came the faint whisper, "_it's Jill_!"

CHAPTER XLV

Decked out in Mary's trappings Jill lay on the couch, her pale face shining like an evening flower, whilst she pa.s.sed the brush over and over again through the burnished strands of her wonderful hair.

Mary had sat spellbound, almost open-mouthed, at the Arabian Nights tale Jill had poured into her astounded ears.

"Hahmed!" she had exclaimed when Jill had told her of her marriage; and be it confessed that Jill had tautened to meet the coming attack, and relaxed when Mary, clasping her capable hands, had suddenly and whole-heartedly beamed upon her. "Why, I've heard the most wonderful things about him since I have been out here, in fact I've been almost wearied to death listening to the accounts of his Haroun al Raschid methods and qualities. His wedding put Cairo in an uproar--I saw the pro------ But _Jill_, darling, is it possible it was you inside the palanquin on the wonderful camel?"

Jill nodded as she busied herself in plaiting her hair into great ropes.