The Hawk of Egypt Part 37

"Kismet!"

He whispered the Oriental's supreme submission to the inevitable and caught his breath, then lit another cigarette.

Ben Kelham placed his hand upon the chequered curtain, which swung back at his touch.

"Is this where you sleep, Carden? I never thought you had another room behind."

"It is the room in which I make my ablutions prescribed by Mohammed the Prophet of Allah who is G.o.d, at the hour of prayer."

The words, which were in truth a prayer for the safe keeping of the woman be loved and had renounced, rang sonorously through the tent, causing Ben Kelham to turn and look at the Oriental, who had risen to his feet as he prayed.

The two fine men stood looking at each other across the tent; then the Englishman moved forward and sat down on the end of the wooden couch as the other moved back and leant against the wall, with his fingers upon the little amulet above his heart.

"Have you ever been in love, Carden?" Kelham asked abruptly, unable to control the question.

"There is no have-been in love. You either love or you do not love.

Do you?"

Ben Kelham nodded his head.

"Then, if you do, why, in the name of Allah who is your G.o.d as well as mine, are you here? Why are you not at the feet of this woman, stricken with wonder and humility before the gifts the great G.o.d has given you? Why do you leave her exposed to the temptations of the East, where has been wrecked the soul of many a white woman? What is the killing of wild beasts compared to the look of the woman's eyes?

Where are your eyes, the eyes of your soul? What is this love you speak of which lets you drop the jewel from between your fingers as you would drop the half-consumed cigarette upon the ground?"

It was the prisoner's last despairing cry as the prison-door swings to, shutting out the sun, the song of birds, the voice of children; it was the beggar hungering for a crust, crying against the wasted abundance of the rich man's table.

"What is this love you speak of, this love which lets you pa.s.s your days in the shadow of another woman, a woman brown as a burned cake, as comely as a stuffed pillow, who lies in wait to kill the king of beasts? Yes! I know; in the East all things are known. I know whom it is you love, and it is for her that I dare speak as men should not speak of woman. Go to her; tarry not; go and heal the wound to her pride, her heart, her love, lest in her pain she should fly to the first hand for succour."

Ben Kelham sprang to his feet.

"Do you think, if my love was returned, Carden, that I should be here?"

"Love!" The man's voice was not raised one tone, but the tent vibrated with the pa.s.sionate words. "Are you such a coward that you run away at the first hurt? When the ball struck you in the face at Lords, did you retire--hurt? No; you stuck it, and scored a century! Are you such a dullard that you cannot read beneath a woman's yes and no? Love! Do you know what love means? What would you do for love? Could you forgive in love?"

Kelham stared at the man who, word for word, repeated, the question Damaris had asked on the night he had proposed to her.

"If you heard tongues gossiping out of jealousy of the woman, you loved; if you found her in a situation which could not easily be explained; if she, hurt, wounded, had run like a little child to another to beg for balm for her wound,--tell me, would you forgive her?

Tell me!"

There was a strange insistency in the repeated question and a deep anxiety in his eyes, which pa.s.sed as Kelham laughed.

It was the genuine, honest laugh of the man who loves and is willing to shoulder the burdens, great and small, which love brings in her train.

"You say there is no 'have-been' in love, Carden. I say there is no question of forgiveness in love. You love, and there is no room anywhere for anything else but love."

A great silence fell; the silence of two strong men who for one moment had broken through the barbed-wire of convention, to be their natural selves; the silence heralding the birth of a new day.

There was no sound, as the hands of Fate pointed to the full hour.

It all happened and was over even as the hour struck.

There was a shout from both men as the tawny shape leapt out of the night through the opening of the tent; the crashing report of Ben Kelham's revolver as he fired; the coughing of the wounded lioness as, spitting blood, she recoiled to spring; a ringing shout from Hugh Carden Ali as he flung himself in front of his friend just as he fired, and the great brute, with a mighty roar, turned and disappeared into the night whence she had come.

There was a look of great wonder on the face of Hugh Carden Ali as he stood looking beyond his friend; then he suddenly turned in the direction of Mecca.

Slowly he raised his hand to his turban, whilst a look of ineffable peace swept across his face and stayed, as a little red stain like a crimson rose showed just above his heart.

"_Here, Sir_!"

The answer to the roll-call rang out across the desert he had loved so well, and was carried by the breeze of dawn up through the stars to the Head Master whose justice and mercy take no account of race.

Then the old Harrovian crashed face downward, dead.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

"_Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep_."

"_Spirits that live throughout Vital in every part. . . ._"

MILTON.

The light from the silver lamp shone down upon the water in the crystal basin and upon the girl's red head as she crouched upon her knees against the leather curtain.

Well might she crouch, well might she have put dust upon her head as do the Easterns in their grief and shame; well might her voice have wailed out across the desert in sorrow for the young life broken by the careless fingers of her heedless youth.

But she knelt without movement, with her face in her hands, the hands which had so lightly played pitch-and-toss with a man's heart and a man's life, and prayed desperately, silently, for forgiveness.

Let it be granted her on account of her years, for youth is ever blind, and the young are ever selfish, giving never a thought to the years they must spend, when, grey-haired and wise, they will try to repair with their shaking old hands, the tatters and rents they had made in their thoughtless, grasping youth.

Strange it is that the old in years, in sorrow and knowledge, will sit darning the rents and patching the bad places with their trembling hands, as their wise old heads nod and their dear old mouths murmur a prayer, and yet be unable to teach the young how to keep the fabric of life whole, or safeguard it with the lavender of love and good-will pressed between its folds.

Until the drumming of the sands had sounded like distant thunder and the shape of the horse and its rider had become distinct to the desert-trained eye of her desert lover, Damaris remained apprehensive and silent in the safe refuge of his arms, which crushed her to his heart; then he lifted her and carried her swiftly to the little room of prayer lit by the silver lamp and, wresting a promise from her to keep her presence hidden, no matter what she might hear through the curtain, kissed her hands one and twice and yet again and left her, drawing the curtain close.

Horrified, she heard the voice of Ben Kelham; like a statue of fear she stood, with her ear close to the curtain, for the half of an hour, the thirty short minutes in which she came to understand at last, clearly, definitely, that there was only one man in the world for her, and that was the Englishman who sat with clenched hands under the lash of his friend's words; and her hand trembled so that the curtain shook as though blown by the night-wind as she held it back just wide enough to look through without being seen; and her eyes were soft with grat.i.tude when she understood the greatness of the sacrifice the man of the East had laid on the altar of his honour and his friendship and his love.

But her youth had gone from her forever and her heart had been stamped with the seal of an everlasting regret; her eyes had been filled with a great questioning which was never to be answered on this earth, when her scream had been drowned in the crash of the report as the man she loved had fired, and killed his friend.

Had Hugh Carden Ali really feared for the safety of his friend and flung himself between him and the wounded beast, or, understanding that in that way only could peace be obtained for all three, had he deliberately sought death?

Allah, who is G.o.d of all, alone knows the answer, so let us leave it with Him.

And then, being untried and very young, she slipped to her knees and fell unconscious, with her face upon her outstretched arms. And there she lay whilst the silence of the coming dawn fell upon the earth, and wrapped itself in a soft winding-sheet about him who lay asleep upon his couch of death, at the foot of which stood his friend, looking down upon the peaceful face.

Only a few moments had slipped into eternity when Damaris shivered and, bewildered, not knowing if an hour or a second had pa.s.sed whilst she had lain senseless, rose to her knees.