Desert Love Part 26

The soul's wireless, mental telepathy, the sympathetic chord, and so on, and so on, good honest words to describe that which no one understands, and which caused the girl sitting on a prosaic bed in a prosaic hotel to smile suddenly as she sat so very still.

For her soul had wandered until she stood with her feet in the sand, looking in at a wide-open door through which a beam of violet-orange light struck across the night.

Two men sat motionless within, until one slowly turned his head and looked through the door straight into her eyes.

For one long moment, with unutterable longing he gazed, and then the vision faded just as Jill, saying softly, "Beloved! I come," stretched out her arms, and with a sudden shiver awoke to her surroundings.

PART III

THE FRUIT

CHAPTER L

"Doubtless my beloved sleeps!" thought Hahmed the Arab, as he looked at the watch on his wrist to find it pointing to midnight, and clapped his hands for fresh coffee, then lit another cigarette whilst his guest who, like himself, sat cross-legged on cushions on the floor, inhaled contentedly from a _shibuk_[1] in a house of rest on the outer edge of a distant oasis.

Weary to death was he of the uninterrupted flow of words which unceasingly streamed from the mouth of the cross-bred man, who was gleefully rubbing the hands of his soul over what he imagined to be the clinching of a remarkable bargain with the Camel King, whereas if he had but known it, his host had merely put a little difficulty in the way so as to lengthen the deal, and thereby kill a few moments of the dreary hours of the dreary time he had pa.s.sed since had left the woman he loved alone to learn the last words of her lesson.

Turning he called sharply to the servile proprietor of the house, which for the first time was honoured by the presence of its redoubtable landlord.

Salaaming until his tarboosh reached the level of his knees, the inwardly shaking Achmed stood before his two guests.

"Hast thou naught wherewith to entertain thy guests, O! Achmed, or must they perchance pa.s.s the hours in counting the flies which flit about the none too clean lamps? Thinkest thou that this house is solely a roof to shade thy head from the sun, or perchance is it a dwelling of comfort for those who pa.s.s East and West?"

By this time the oriental's head was bobbing like a mandarin's, whilst in a spasm of terror his mouth opened and shut unceasingly.

"Find thy tongue, O! fool, before I turn thee from the door. Hast thou aught of entertainment, and hast thou other than this mud thou callest coffee? Speak I say!"

With a gulp which served to clench Hahmed's fingers, the wretched Achmed vowed he had music of a kind and dancers of sorts, and that at that moment his first wife was preparing a brew surpa.s.sed only by that drunk in the Gardens of Delight by the chosen of Allah, who had pa.s.sed to their well-earned rest.

"Choose, O! my guest! doubtless they will both be as forlorn as this coffee, for which I crave thy forgiveness--our business is at an end, and some hours stretch unendingly before us."

Ali 'a.s.san, dying to satisfy his cross-bred inquisitiveness which, with the curiosity of Egypt entire, had been aroused by the strange rumours of some catastrophe happened in his host's household, had not the slightest desire for bed, rather would he have sat up for an entire week of nights, if only be could have got an inkling of the truth; so he plumped for music and dancing whilst his host sat motionless, the light of the hanging lamps throwing strange shadows on the stern, relentless face.

Hahmed the Arab, it is true, sat upon the cushions in the dingy room; you would have certainly touched a human body if you had laid a hand upon his arm, but by an effort of will which left him sitting absolutely motionless with half-closed eyes, he, in spite of the heat, the irritation of his guest's presence, and all that went to make the evening intolerable, had sent his spirit, or soul, or what you will, adrift, searching for his beloved; so unutterable was his longing, so wracked was his heart with love, so utter was his detachment, that neither piping of reed, tw.a.n.ging of stringed instrument or patter of feet could bring him back to his surroundings.

And then under some unexplainable impulse Hahmed turned his head slowly, looking across the shoulder of his guest to the door behind, and his eyes glowed like fires in the darkness of night as in the doorway he saw framed the face of her for whom body and soul craved.

The face was pale even unto death, but the red mouth smiled softly, and the golden curls cl.u.s.tered and twisted as they had ever done; the blue eyes were wells of love, in which the Arab's soul sank as he called though his lips moved not, neither was there sound of words in the room.

"Come to me, beloved, beloved! Come to me!"

And the vision faded, and Hahmed's spirit returned to its dwelling as a faint sigh from Ali 'a.s.san made him remember his duty towards his guest.

The Arab does not indulge in nerves, though Allah only knows how long it will be before he resorts to bromide if he continues to fraternise with the European, but Hahmed, unknown to himself, was suffering from the almost unendurable strain of the past endless empty days.

He was consumed with thirst for his beloved, agonising with hunger for his heart's desire, forcing himself to do business in out-of-the-way places in his land so as to keep his thoughts from the exquisite face of his own woman.

True, he could have stayed in Cairo, and waited for further news of her; true, he could have seized her and carried her forcibly back to his own lands, but the pride of centuries raged within him, and until she came back of her own free will he would neither move hand nor foot to compel her.

Anyway, let us put the following episode down to the months of strain culminating in an intense irritation wrought by the babble of Ali 'a.s.san's meaningless chatter, and the vileness perhaps of the coffee.

He lifted his eyes and looked at the picture before him.

The room was low, and the lighting bad, the air suffocating, whilst a few particles of sand blown in by the hot wind heralded an approaching storm.

Standing before him with a piece of tawdry gauze about her quite unprepossessing form stood the over aged dancer with a set simper upon her silly vacant face.

"Allah!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Hahmed, as he lit a cigarette, whilst Achmed, peeping through the door, suddenly smote his forehead.

Now dancing women were no more to the great man than a troupe of performing collies, but his artistic sense demanded the best, and when it was not forth-coming he felt the same annoyance as you or I would feel if arrayed in purple and fine linen we adorned a box at the opera with our presence, covered with as many diamonds upon it as possible, to find a street singer deputising for a Melba or Caruso.

"Thou dog," he said pleasantly to the cringing man, who tremblingly explained that indeed he had one better--yea, even fair to look upon.

"Behold, if thou offerest yet another insult to this mine guest I will have thee and thy woman whipped into the desert and left to die."

Whereupon Achmed fled precipitately in the wake of her who had annoyed, and s.n.a.t.c.hing a whip beat her smartly on her plump but ill-formed shoulders, the while he urged the prima ballerina of the establishment to anoint herself and depart right quickly to the pacifying of the great Hahmed, which order, alas, put a totally wrong idea into her Tunisian-Arabian pate.

[1]Long native pipe.

CHAPTER LI

La Belle, a rank cross-breed of Tunisian and French with a dash of Arabian, was the one good part of a bad debt which had overwhelmed Achmed when he had inadvertently over-reached himself.

Her body was pa.s.sable, lithe, sinewy, with a faint hint of rib and a wonderful bust; her brain was good, intuitive in its non-educated state, and subtle from inheritance; her ambition was superb, it knew no limits, it saw no obstacle.

Born in a kennel in Tunis, she had figuratively and literally fought her way to the upper reaches of the gutter, sleeping in filth, eating it, listening to it, living it; dancing for a meal, selling her strangely seductive body for a piastre or so, settling her quarrels with a knife she carried in her coa.r.s.e, crisp, henna-dyed hair, with one goal before her slanting orange eyes, that of dancer in chief, prima ballerina, or what you will, in some house of good repute; the explanation of which phrase would overtax my oriental knowledge I fear.

Dance she could, if dancing is the correct term for the subtle portraying of every conceivable vice by every conceivable gesture and posture; and she had felt herself content on the day she had for a good round sum sold herself to take up a dancing position of some importance in the house of him who, unknown to her, had got himself entangled in more than one human money-spider's web.

If her dancing was correct or not, men had begun to foregather in the house, where--if her temper allowed--she would dance o' nights fully clothed or fully unclothed; also her reputation was beginning to be used as a lure to the uninitiated freshly arrived in Cairo, therefore her usually fiendish temper was as h.e.l.l unloosed when, as part payment of a debt, she found herself w.i.l.l.y-nilly strapped to a camel and carted by slow stages to the house of rest whose proprietor was Achmed, and landlord Hahmed, the Camel King.

"Dance I will not, thou descendant of pigs," she stormed at Achmed, who, reducing his fez to a pulp, raved at her as she crouched in a corner with something a-glitter in her hand. "Send in thy wife who ambles like a camel in foal, and whose ankles are thick enough to serve as prop to a falling house."

"Thou fool," hissed the man with sweat pouring down his face, and who through the working of his oriental mind already felt the swish of the whip about his shoulders, and the agony of the desert fly's bite on his flagellated anatomy. "It is _Hahmed_--the great _Hahmed_, who orders thee to his presence. It is thy chance, thou fool--it is------"

And his dull eyes brightened, and his sensual month widened in a grin as the girl sprang to her feet and sped to a mirror on the opposite side of the room.

"Dullard," she cried, as she pulled her clothing furiously from her, and stood with nothing but a plain coloured shawl of gauze covered in tinsel twined about her slim waist, "why hast thou wasted precious moments? Why has thou imperilled my chance by infuriating the great man? Out of my way, thou snail."

And as she fled precipitately from the room she caught the man by the throat and flung him against the wall with the ease of muscle trained to the last point.