The Palace of Darkened Windows Part 45

"Kerissen--that devil fellow. He is in Cairo with a fever--in the hospital there. A man who come from that hospital just tells us--just by accident he tell us. A _bad_ fever, too!" She laughed in satisfaction. "I hope he burn good and hard up," she added, with energetic spite, "and teach him not to act like a wild man. That man say he got a bad hand," she added, with a shrewd glance at Billy.

The young man merely grunted. "I hope he has," he replied. "It matches the rest of him. Good night."

"Good night--for the now--h'm, Mr. Billy?" and with a quick little clasp of his big hand and a gay little backward look the girl was gone into the shadows upon the arm of her jealous cavalier.

Three people were waiting at the statue foot where he had left the English girl.

"They've come at last, Mr. Hill," Lady Claire's voice struck very gaily upon him, "and Miss Falconer has just come to tell us we must see the colored lights in the great court--and then go home. So hurry!"

She turned as she spoke and put her arm suddenly through Falconer's who was standing next her. "Come on," she lightly commanded, and promptly led the way.

That was something like a fairy G.o.dmother! Into Billy's eyes flashed a warm light of gladness. Some moments out of that wretched evening should yet be his own, bitter-sweet as they were in their sharp finality.

He turned to the blue-cloaked figure at his side. "Do you like colored fire?" he demanded. "Won't you come and see something else--something I've wanted to see and to have you see with me? It's near the way out. We can meet them at the pylon."

Of course she acquiesced. That was part of the cursed restraint between them, he was reminded, to have her accept so obediently any point-blank request of his. But for the nonce he was glad. He wanted those few minutes desperately.

"What is it?" she murmured.

"I'll show you," and then, as he turned from the way they had come and followed a winding path that dipped lower and lower between the dune-like piles of sand, "It's the Sacred Lake," he explained.

"Perhaps you've seen it in the daytime--but I've been wanting to see it at night."

"I think I just caught the glint of it from the pylon," she observed.

"You had time to," said Billy, trying to twinkle down at her in friendly fashion.

She did not twinkle back. She looked as suddenly guilty as a kitten in the cream, and Billy's heart smote him heavily. He did not speak again till they had rounded a corner and their path had brought them out upon the sh.o.r.e of the Sacred Lake.

Like a little horseshoe it circled about three sides of the ruined temple of the G.o.ddess Mut, inky-black and motionless with the stars looking up uncannily like drowned lights from its still waters, and inky-black and motionless, like guardian spirits about it, sat a hundred cat-headed women of grim granite. It was a spot of stark loneliness and utter silence, of ancient terror and desolate abandonment; the solitude and the blackness and the aching age smote upon the imagination like a heavy hand upon harp strings.

"Who are--they?" Arlee spoke in a hushed voice, as if the cat-headed women were straining their ears.

"They're mysteries," said Billy, speaking in the same low tone.

"Generally they're said to be statues of the G.o.ddess Pasht or Sehket--but it's a riddle why the Amen-hotep person who built this temple to the G.o.ddess Mut should have put Sehket here. Sehket is in the trinity of Memphis--and Mut in that of Thebes. And so some people say that this is not Pasht at all, but Mut herself, who was sometimes represented as lion-headed. Between a giant cat and a lion, you know, there's not much of difference."

"I like Pasht better than Mut," said Arlee decidedly.

"There you agree with Baedecker."

"What did Pasht do?"

"She was G.o.ddess of girls," said Billy, "and young wives. She got the girls husbands and the wives--er--their requests. Girls used to come down here at night and make a prayer to her and cast an offering into the waters."

"And then they had their prayer?"

"Infallibly."

"I'd like a guardian like that," said Arlee, with a sudden mischievous wistfulness that played the d.i.c.kens with Billy's forces of reserve. "Do you think she'd grant _my_ prayer?"

"Have you one to make?" said Billy, staring very hard for safety at the monstrous images.

"They look as if they were coming alive," he added.

The moon had come up over an obstructing roof and now flashed down upon them; a ripple of light began to swim across the star-eyes in the inky waters; a finger of quicksilver seemed to be playing over the scarred faces of the granite G.o.ddesses.

"They never died," said Arlee positively. "They're just waiting their time. Can't you see they know all about us?... They particularly know that you are the most deceiving young man they ever saw! Why didn't you tell me you were shot in the arm?" she finished rapidly.

"What?... Where did you hear that?"

"Mr. Falconer enlightened me."

"I wish Falconer would keep his stories to himself," said Billy ungratefully. "It's just a----"

"Scratch," said Arlee promptly. "That's always a hero's word for it."

Billy turned scarlet. He felt hot back to his ears.

"And why did you tell me that you _happened_ to be painting outside the palace?" went on the unsparing voice. "You let me think it was all accident--and it was all you, just _you_!"

"Good Lord," groaned Billy, effecting merriment over his discomfiture, "Is there anything else he told you?... Look here, you shouldn't have been talking about it," he said with sudden anxiety.

Arlee smiled. "It's all over," she said. "I told him everything."

Billy's heart missed a beat, and then hurried painfully to make up for it. He felt a curious constriction in his throat. He tried to think of something congratulatory to say and was lamentably silent.

"Why did you deceive me so?" she continued mercilessly. "Because my grat.i.tude was so _obnoxious_ to you? Were you so afraid I would insist upon flinging more upon you?"

"That's a horrid word, obnoxious," said Billy painfully.

"I thought so," thrust in a pointed voice.

"I only meant," he slowly made out, "that a sense of--of obligation is a stupid burden--and I didn't want you to feel you had to be any more friendly to me than your heart dictated. That is all. It was enough for me to remember that I had once been privileged to help you."

"You--funny--Billy B. Hill person," said the voice in a very serious tone. Billy continued staring at the unwinking old G.o.ddess ahead of him. "You take it all so for granted," laughed Arlee softly, "As if it were part of any day's work! I go about like a girl in a dream--or a girl _with_ a dream ... a dream of fear, of old palaces and painted women and darkened windows. It comes over me at night sometimes. And then I wake and could go down on my knees to you....

I suppose there isn't any more danger from him?" she broke off to half-whisper quickly.

"He's sick in the Cairo hospital," Billy made haste to inform her.

"I found out by accident. I understand he has a bad fever. So I think he'll be up to no more tricks--and I'm out the satisfaction of a little heart-to-heart talk."

"Oh, I told you you couldn't," she cried quickly. "You would make him too angry. He isn't just--sane."

"Then all I have to do in Egypt is to hunt up my little Imp," said Billy. "I must see the little chap again--before I go."

He waited--uselessly as he had foretold. She said nothing, and if the glance he felt upon him was of inquiry he did not look about to meet it. He was still staring a saturnine Pasht out of countenance.

There was a pause.

Then, "However were you able to think of it all?" said Arlee in slow wonder. "However were you able to think such an impossible thought as my imprisonment?"

"Because I was thinking about you," said Billy. Suddenly his tongue ran away with him. "Incessantly," he added.