The Hawk of Egypt Part 40

As she called to her son from her high seat upon the camel the woman was the only living thing to be seen in the desert. In her simplicity, her colouring, her solitude, she was biblical; she might have been a woman of the Old Testament asking for succour or sanctuary at the tent of Abraham pitched between Beth-el and Hai; she might have been a woman fleeing from the wrath of Moses, who gave unto sin its strength when, out of sheer solicitude for the soul-welfare of the ma.s.ses, he made laws about things to which in the innocence of their hearts they had, up till then, never given two thoughts.

Leave that corner piece of pasture unhedged, and it's odds on that not a single soul will tramp or want to tramp over it, from one year's end to another; hedge it, close it with padlocked gate, prop up the warning _re_ trespa.s.sers and see if you don't find a wide track of footprints across it in the morning.

Yes; the picture was biblical.

Rebecca must have worn exactly the same fashioned clothes as this woman, and doubtless Leah had become pink-eyed through the tears of vexation she had shed over the ancestral humped quadruped she had ridden; and most certainly Lot's wife, Ruth, Solomon's wives and appendages, Jezebel, and every other woman mentioned in the Bible once watched just such a dawn rise across just such a desert.

We change our fashions, our fixed opinions, the colour of our hair and the pattern of our socks when the fancy seizes us, but neither time nor man has changed the desert--so far. Thank heaven for it, there is still one place left in which we can go to die or be re-born--in seemly solitude.

The grief of Rachel was shadowed upon the face of Jill, the wife of the Arab, as she sat quite still, looking down at the pool of orange light flung from the tent out onto the sand; then she sighed, the little sigh of the anxious heart which, like the wind that springs up and sweeps over your dwelling, and is gone, heralding the storm, is the forerunner of the grief which will ere long overwhelm you.

She knew!

The lover, the wife, the brother, the friend, can temporarily blind themselves with the blinkers of false hope and can blunt the stabbing spear of hideous fear with sharp-edged reasoning, but the _mother_--never.

You cannot deceive her with a smile, nor can distance hide your distress from her; you cannot, if you could be so minded, conceal your joy from her, nor can you hurt her with a wound that will not heal.

Go to her with your hands swelling from the sting of the wasp you found in the stolen fruit, or stained with crime; or your shoes wet through with the mire of the by-ways in which you have been straying, and what will she do? She will sit you down in front of the glowing fire of her love, warm your straying feet, wash away the stain in the bitter waters of her tears, and then dry them with her smile.

And you can go on straying--if you could be so minded--until seven million seventy-times-seven, and you will find her just the same.

It is not forgiveness; it is Love.

And it was Love which, when there came no answer to her call, urged Jill to get her camel to its knees.

Over twenty years had pa.s.sed since Jill Carden, the English girl, had first tried her 'prentice hand upon the obstreperous camel. She had ridden out into the desert under the stars with her desert lover; she had, strong in a great love, fearlessly climbed the high wall of racial distinction crowned with the spikes of custom and convention; she had watched the seed of happiness burst and blossom until it had grown into a great tree; but she had forgotten that no tree, however deep its roots, however strong its branches, is safe, so long as Fate, in senile jealousy, can tear the heavens into ribbons with her h.e.l.lish lightning.

The camel, lurching and groaning, staggering and heaving, got to its knees in just the same way as Taffadaln had done over twenty years ago; just as the camel will do twenty centuries hence, if it has not become extinct through some b.u.t.ton, or wire, or wave, or ray which will have turned the desert into a kind of international piazza into the middle of which, for our post-prandial coffee and cigarette, we shall be conveyed in a few moments by means of something wireless, for so much cash down in advance, which will include the tip to the Bedouin waiter.

One can see empires and deserts disappearing, but the tipping system--never!

And as Wellington would not let go of the book his mistress had left him as guarantee of her return, so as to grip the back of the seat in his powerful jaw, he came nigh to being strangled as he lurched and swung and b.u.mped as the camel got to its knees, which seemed to be legion as it tucked its legs under and untucked them, and did it all over again with vociferous lamentations until it had got them all neatly folded up; and once standing four-square upon the sand, he wrinkled his nose in disgust and removed himself some yards from the odour of this unpleasant complaining brute which hailed undoubtedly from the bazaar, and gave disgusting and crude imitations in its throat of water being poured out of a small-necked bottle.

He wanted his mistress, and her only, so, having no use for or interest in this woman who had brought him, for no apparent reason, upon such an uncomfortable journey, he simply took matters into his own big head and without a with or by your leave waddled off, book in s...o...b..ring mouth, to look for his beloved, whom--his olfactory powers not being of the keenest--he felt to be somewhere in the neighbourhood, perhaps playing at hide-and-seek behind the tents, as she did on wet mornings at home behind the Chesterfield.

Jill dismounted and stood facing the desert, which seemed to stretch as one vast purple pall; and as she stood she wrestled with a mighty fear which held her so that she could not turn and go towards the tent through which shone the orange light.

She did not say to herself that her son had gone out with his horses and his dogs; she did not try to trick herself with the thought that perhaps he slept in his purple tent, and for that reason had not rushed out hot-foot across the desert to meet and lift her from the camel.

She knew that she had only to turn and walk the few yards to the tent to have all her questions answered, but she also knew that all she wanted to do was to stand on and on and on, just as she was, with her face towards the night, and her back to the dawn of another day, and definite knowledge.

She loved her other sons deeply and dearly; she loved her little daughter; but her first-born held equal place in her heart with the Arab his father, and her love for him was beyond words and almost too great and too holy a thing to be written about here.

Tears and laughter, the moon and the stars, the mystery of the Sphinx and the desert at dawn, at noon, at night, bound them both to her heart with golden chains of a surpa.s.sing love.

She had said no word of what she had suffered in all these years he had been gone from her; she could not have told you, an' she would, of her joy at the thought of his home-coming at last.

And she lifted up her hands and cried aloud:

"He is my son! He is my son!"

Then turned and walked slowly to the tent.

She made no sound, she gave no cry, she just stretched wide her arms in stricken motherhood, as the great dogs sat immovable at their master's head, like images of grief carved out of stone.

The cloak slid from her shoulders and fell about her feet, as she crossed to the foot of the couch with out-stretched arms, where she stood, such a slender and beautiful mother, looking down; and her silken veils filled the air with a gentle whispering as she moved to his head--such a desolate mother,--looking down at the little crimson mark which showed like a rose above the heart.

"Hugh!" She whispered, as she touched the long lashes which hid the eyes which had always been so full of tender love for her. "My son!"

she whispered as she stroked his cheek and, with slender fingers and a little smile, tucked back the stray lock of brown hair which never would stay under the turban.

She patted his chest and arranged the full skirt of his satin coat into folds, and stroked his hand as mothers do; and she knelt at his knees and laid her cheek against his boots, and smiled a little, nodding her head, just to let him know how wonderful she thought him.

She did not know she was doing it; she did not fully understand--how could she?--she was just holding back the door which was closing.

She lifted the amulet in the form of a scarab, of which the base was in the shape of a heart, and which just touched the mark that looked like a crimson rose.

She was not very good at reading inscriptions, but she always tried her best, because it pleased him and made him laugh--so lovingly--at her funny little accent. And to please him now she tried; she did not know she was doing it, but there was not much more than a crack left open through which she could see.

"_My Heart, my mother; my heart, my mother; my heart whereby I came into being_."

And if great tears dropped upon his heart as she slowly read "the words of power," they surely made a very fitting insignia with which to enter into the presence of Allah, who is G.o.d.

She kissed his hands, and kissed the closed eyes, and tender mouth which smiled as he slept.

She moved round the tent, pulling the curtains straight, having promised faithfully to carry out his wishes--ah! how she had smiled when she had given that promise; love of his wife and his children, she had thought, would soon oust the idea of death from his mind--and looked up at the lamp, to see if it was well filled with oil, and gently took down the spear from the wall, whilst the great dogs sat immovable as images of grief carved out of stone.

And she laid her hand upon their heads and, taking the corner of her veil, wiped the sand from their jaws; but they growled softly--not angrily--just to let her know that no hand but that of their master must touch them.

She went to the entrance and called them, but they growled, just to let her know that they would answer no voice but that of their master, and that for the sound of that beloved voice they would wait for eternity.

Of course she did not quite understand them--how could she--not knowing that the love of a dog surpa.s.ses that of a friend, and equals that of a mother?--so she lifted the chequered curtains at the back just to let them know that there was a way out, and looked down at the footprints of small feet and of heavy feet, and across to the lifted flap through which she could see the day dawning.

And if her whole being shook with anguish as part of her question was answered; and if her heart was stabbed with sudden pain at the thought that strangers had plucked her crown of glory from her and trampled upon it; and if she suddenly threw out her arms and questioned the Almighty upon the wisdom of His ways, can we blame her?

She pa.s.sed through the lifted flap of the Room of Prayer, and mounted her camel, and rode out to the west; and at the sight of the woman with the light throwing-spear in her hand the servants, who had been watching the tents, rushed out to meet her and, at the sign she made, bowed their heads to the sands.

And their dirge swept across the desert as they answered as she called:

"Thy Master, O my people, has started upon a long journey. Allah receive him at his journey's end into His safe keeping!"

"Our Master," they answered, "is absent upon a long journey. Allah guide his feet into eternal joy."

They brought her two camels and watched her depart, then turned to make all things ready to lead their Master's horses, and dogs, and birds down to the river.

She rode her camel some distance from the Tents of Purple and of Gold and of Death, and hobbled them, and returned on foot across the sands, which were gold with the beams of the risen sun.

She lifted the lamp in the Tent of Purple and spilled the oil upon the floor, and let drop the wick upon the oil; and she crossed to the Tent of Gold and did likewise, and as the flames shot up on each side, she crossed to the Tent of Death, and entered.