CHAPTER XXIV
It was a very beautiful girl who stood by the fire listening to the intense silence which precedes the dawn. The golden shimmering garment fell from her shoulders in soft folds, clinging here and there as though it loved the beautiful form it covered; her feet slipped in and out of the golden mules, in which, try as she would, she could not walk; her hair fell in two great plaits far below her knees; she was perfumed with the perfumes of Egypt, than which there is no more to say.
And she was afraid.
There was absolutely no sound, save for the fall of a charred log which sounded like a pistol shot, the rustle of her raiment, which sounded like the incoming tide of some invisible sea, and the quick intake of her breath, which might have meant unadulterated terror, and—did.
She shivered slightly, for of a sudden she saw a woman's face in a corner unreached by the light of the lamp. A long brown hand drew back the coarse hair, which curled and tangled under a veil, black brows frowned down on great eyes, which looked at her steadily, but the mouth, crimson as blood, parted in a smile wonderful to behold in its understanding, as Jill called softly:
"Speak, woman! who are you?"
But when the silence remained unbroken, and the girl, rushing swiftly across the room, touched just ordinary wood, she looked quickly round for escape; then hesitating, raised her hands and clapped them softly; raised them again when the silence remained unbroken, dropped them and once more shook with terror, which was really fatigue, when a something rustled behind, being in truth the catching of her garment on the fretted edge of a table; then once more she clapped her hands as she whispered, so low that the words hardly seemed to carry beyond the firelight:
"Hahmed! Hahmed!"
Whereupon there was a faint rustle, the swinging to and fro of the curtain door, and the man stood before her. Not a sound broke the stillness, not a movement caused a flicker to the name of the shaded hanging lamp, which, just above the girl's head, threw down the light on the radiance of her hair, and the wonder of her body which the diaphanous garment half concealed and half revealed.
Not a sign on the Arab's face, this dweller of the desert, whose forefathers in wonderment had watched the ways of wisdom with which Solomon in all his glory had ruled more than one fair and obstreperous woman among the scented Eastern sands.
Face to face they stood, whilst the racing blood fled from the girl's face down to the finger-tips of her contradictory hands. The hands she knew so well, the square back, the square finger-tips, the long, square, high-mooned, deeply laid nail. Hands which, coming to her down the centuries through Quaker and through Puritan, were calling to her to stand firm and hold the scales well-balanced, whilst the soft, rounded palm, hidden in the golden fringe of her garment, and the over-sensitive finger-tips, with little nerve-filled cushions at the end of each, clamoured aloud for beauty and sweetness, tenderness and mastery, as the great man, with the beads of Allah slipping noiselessly through his fingers, reading the girl's thoughts as though they were written on the wall, marked and watched with sombre eyes in the breathless silence of the coming dawn.
Slowly the girl raised her eyes and scanned the man, from the snow-white turban on the dark head, the softness of the silken shirt, showing through the long, open, orange satin front of the voluminous coat, which reached almost to the ankles, leaving exposed the trousers of softest white linen, fastened close above the leather shoes, whilst quite subconsciously she wondered what he would look like in European evening dress.
Slowly she stretched out her long thin arms, until they almost touched the golden embroidery on the coat, as slowly she turned her hands, and looked at the glittering nails, the hands she knew and feared so much, and turning them back again, with a little smile drew a finger-tip over the hills and valleys of the palms. Higher still, until the pink and scented palms were on a line with the man's stern mouth, whilst a sigh, faint as the passing of a fly's wing, left his lips, as taking the little hands in his, he drew the girl closer yet.
"Behold, you are beautiful, O! woman, whom I would take to wife. You start! Why! For what manner of man have you taken me? Did you think that being an Arab means being without honour? Nay! When my eyes fell upon you standing in the sun, I knew that my heart had found its desire, that the woman who for all these years had, invisible to others, walked beside me in my waking hours, and hovered near me in my dreams, had come to life; that before me, if Allah willed, stood my wife and the mother of my children. I know that the English race, from lack of sun perchance, love not in a moment with a love that can outlast eternity. I do not ask you if you love me, only that you will be my wife, honouring me above all men, delighting me with such moments as you can give me.
"Listen, O! woman. I ask of you nothing until you shall love me. You shall draw the curtains of your apartment, and until you call me, you shall go undisturbed. When you shall call me—then—ah!" and his voice sank to infinite depths of tenderness as he drew her to him—"then you will be all mine—all—lily of the night you are now—rose of the morning you will be then, and I—I will wear that rose upon my heart. You are even as a necklace of rich jewels, O! my beloved. Your eyes are the turquoise, your teeth are the white pearls, even as the ravishing marks upon your face,[1] and may be upon that part of your body upon which my eyes may not rest, are as black pearls of the rarest. Your lips are redder than rubies, and your fingers are of ivory.
"And one day shall that necklace be placed in my hands, and not alone the necklace, but the white alabaster pillar of your body, from your feet like lotus flowers, to the golden rain of your hair, shall you be mine.
"And you shall not make me wait too long, for behold, I love you. Allah! how I love you—-as only we men of the desert love. Allah help me," and holding the girl in the bend of his left arm, so that she felt the racing of his heart, he raised his eyes and right hand to Heaven. "Allah! God of all, give me this rose soon!"
For one long moment the girl was still, with face as white as death, and great eyes troubled even as the ocean when swept by gusts of wind; for to the very depths of her stirred her heritage of tremendous passions, untouched, unknown, whilst that which is in all women, from queen to coster, coming down from the day when they were slaves, that which urges them to cry aloud, "Master! Master!" upon their bended knees, stirred not at all; so that even as her eyes, so was her soul troubled, knowing that love had not yet laid hand to draw the curtains from about her womanhood.
Freeing herself gently, she moved towards the fire, trailing the golden raiment after her so that it pulled against the beauty of her body. For a moment she stood unconsciously silhouetted against the wall, virginal in her whiteness and her slimness, and yet, in her build alone, giving such promise of greater beauty, in the maturity of love.
Slowly, whilst her mind worked, she traced the blue vein from her wrist up her forearm, up until the finger stopped suddenly, upon a tiny mark tattooed just above the elbow.
A faint shadow of incomprehension swept across the man's face, for from nowhere, in one brief instant, a little wind, laden with straying particles of fear, distrust and memories, swept between the two, as the girl's voice, biting in its coldness, searing great scars upon the Arab's raging, storming, totally hidden pride, let fall slowly, cruelly, light-spoken, mocking words of French.
"Please tell me my woman's name, so that I may call her, for I would disrobe, being overcome by a great desire to—sleep!"
[1]Moles are considered a great beauty among the Egyptian races.