The Hawk of Egypt Part 41

She bent down over her son and kissed him, on the forehead and laid her cheek just for the last time against his, and stood for one moment at the foot of the couch, with arms outstretched in stricken motherhood, looking down.

Then she turned and went out, and called softly to the dogs, who growled, not angrily, but just to let her know that they could not come.

And she looked at her son Hugh Carden Ali, with his two friends like images of grief carved out of stone to guard him, then, dropping the curtain, went out as the door closed.

And just as the _shahin_ flew straight to the sun in answer, perhaps, to his master's voice, she raised the spear and drove it through the corner of the tent into the sand, so as to let those who pa.s.sed know that the owner was absent upon a long journey.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

"_But in the night of Death Hope sees a star and listening Love can hear the rustling of a wing_."

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.

The south wind shouted with joy at the glory of the new day; the sky hung like a canopy of radiant colours, with little clouds of pink dropping like rose-leaves towards the sands which stretched, as a golden carpet, from east to west and north to south.

The south wind shouted far above Ben Kelham's head, it chuckled like a laughing child at his elbow, and buffeted his sad face gently until it saw a ray of light spring up in the steady eyes; then it ran laughing away--you could hear it distinctly on all sides of you--like water singing in a barren place.

The sun is the lamp of the world, and night is its cloak; but the wind is the voice of its heart and you have only to listen to catch its message, and to watch even in the beat and burden of the day, to see the leaves move as its sweet breath touches them.

Take your burdens to the rock in the storm; take them to the depths of the pine forest, and open your heart to the wind.

You will learn many things before you reach home, and amongst them how to loosen the straps which gall your shoulders.

Big Ben Kelham walked slowly, with his eyes upon the faint track of little feet which had moved in a circle, and not once did he look behind, else would he have seen the smoke of the burning tents. He moved slowly, not because he feared or because he did not want to run, but because he knew, and wanted time in which to reason with himself, to decide if he had the right to take the joy which was waiting for him.

He stood for a moment with his hands in his pockets, the strong, silent, lovable man that he was, and shook himself just as a spaniel does when it comes out of the water. He had been nigh to drowning in the depths, and out of his pocket, to be lost for ever, had fallen the jewel of youth; but somehow he had managed to scramble to the bank and to pull himself out, and he made a step forward and swept the horizon to see if his journey was at an end; then hesitated--remembering.

He stood quite still and looked at a slender figure wrapt about in a mantle of gold which stood some distance off, with hands outstretched toward him and with beckoning finger. And the wind, with a laugh, lifted the veil from her face, and dropped it, and lifted it again, and swept the mantle so that it clung to the slender, supple figure, then spread it out behind like gleaming wings.

She put one finger to her mouth, and opened wide her eyes of knowledge shaded with the fringe of tears, which come from pain, and just as much from joy.

"Follow me," she whispered, and the south wind seized upon the golden tones, and flung them to the west wind, and to the east, and to the north wind, so that the message was carried right across the world: "Follow me--I am Hope."

And he plunged his hands still further into his pockets and scrunched up some keys and small change and a most cherished pipe, just out of grat.i.tude, and walked on.

He found her; in fact, he would have seen her ever so much sooner if she had not been lying face down on the sands, with her head buried in her arms. He did not hasten, knowing that the whole of his life stretched before him in which to heal her hurt. She did not hear him because he walked lightly, as those delightfully big men do; and he stood over her, wondering how to rouse her without frightening her, and frowned when a little sob shook her.

Then he smiled.

Strange is it how, in the very middle of the most dramatic situation, a little thought will push open the lid of its own little brain-cell and creep out to touch our risible nerve. It really ought to know better, because empires and marriages and business contracts have been upset, if not lost, on account of its freaky humour; and it twisted the corners of the man's mouth into a distinct smile as he involuntarily thought of the drizzling November afternoon when Damaris, in brogues, tweed skirt and mackintosh, had announced her intention of going out to join in some demonstration which had to do with the upholding of the rights of her fellow-sisters, and had only been dissuaded therefrom by the opportune arrival of tea and m.u.f.fins.

Little Damaris! Just one of those women who creep right into the hearts of men on account of their gentleness and apparent helplessness; who are born to be put into a gla.s.s cupboard before which those who love them spread themselves like door-mats; who rule with a rod pickled in their apparent helplessness, which is stronger than a whip of steel, and who are quite closely related to the barnacle and mollusc to which the tide regularly brings t.i.t-bits out of the ocean, whilst the more mercurial eel has to go out and thresh about in the mud for what it requires to keep it going in its fight for life.

Anyway, the eel has the advantage of getting about a bit!

Then the smiled faded, and he knelt, because he could not stand the sound of that little sob any longer, and he put out his hand and stroked her hair.

"Damaris, darling, it's I--Ben!"

She stiffened under the shock of the words, and flung her hands over her head.

The terrible hour had come!

She would have, out of very decency, to tell him everything: why she lay where he had so miraculously found her; how she had promised herself to his friend; how she had . . .

She clutched her bonny curls in both hands and pressed herself hard to the ground, longing that it should open and swallow her up. She could not get up, she could not turn round to meet the eyes of the man she loved with all the strength of the love of which she was capable; she could not watch the love in his eyes change to a look of disgust; she simply could not do it.

And then she felt his hands on hers, and his fingers unfastening hers one by one from her grasp upon her curls; and she lay quite still; with a lovely warm feeling creeping over and through her, because she knew by the gentleness of the touch and the firmness of it that she would be gathered up safely into his arms, and carried away to happiness.

And, just as she had thought he would, he put his arms around her and lifted her like a feather and crushed her up against his heart and got to his feet and lifted his head to the glory of the sky.

But she would not look up; she could not, because she had taken the jewel of her youth and flung it carelessly far from her, so that she lay as a woman in his arms, and a woman who had looked deep in the pa.s.sing of a few hours into the heart of those things which have to do with love.

The wind whispered in her ear as it carelessly touched her face, and it whispered in a voice out of the past.

And this is what it whispered:

". . . for love will have come to her, maybe for a day, maybe for a second of time, but a love which will mingle her soul with the soul of her desert lover . . . yet it is the love of the soul that endureth for ever, yea, even if the body of the woman pa.s.seth into another's keeping."

And Ben Kelham, feeling her shiver and thinking, in the simplicity of his heart, that she was cold and hungry, tucked the satin cloak with sable collar still closer round her, then looked across to the east, where lay a pall of smoke upon the air.

"I am taking you back, Damaris my little love." He spoke slowly, with his eyes on the burning tents, the significance of which had sunk deep into his heart. "Won't you look up? Won't you just say that you will marry me, so that I can tell everyone directly we get back?"

He put her on her feet when she suddenly struggled and pushed against him, and stared aghast when she bowed her face in her hands and sobbed.

"Damaris--dear--what is it? Don't you want to marry me?"

Damaris nodded, her lovely head which glistened like a hall of silk in the blaze of the sun.

"You do? You will?--Then what are you crying for? Oh! Damaris------"

The words came m.u.f.fled as she shook with sobs.

"Because of the scandal, Ben. Because of what people will say about me--I mean about me when they know I am engaged to--to you--they will--laugh at you behind your back--they will--they will know about--about----"

He pulled her to him quite roughly and pressed her head against his shoulder, which it barely reached.

"Laugh!" he said. "Laugh--at me--or you! I should just like to hear them, darling. There is a way out of all this, sweetheart, somewhere, and I am going to find it, and all that has happened, beloved, rests on my shoulders, and heaven knows they are broad enough to bear it. And if we have hurt others, darling,"--and he looked over his shoulder to the tents,--"it has been through my carelessness, and we shall be shown a way in which to try and make amends. Laugh, dear? Let them laugh, dear heart, when they see how we love each other."

But, for all that, he frowned above her curly head, because he had all the Englishman's horror of scandal in connection with any of his women-folk; but he set his teeth and crushed her up closer, then let her go suddenly and swung her round, pointing across to the west.

"Look, darling; look!"

And the tears streamed down the girl's face as she flung out her arms.