CHAPTER VIII
"If God in His wisdom have brought close
The day when I must die,
That day by water or fire or air
My feet shall fall in the destined snare
Wherever my road may lie."
DANTE GABRIEL ROSETTI
"May I come in? Oh, Maris, what do you think? There is to be a real native fortune-teller in the Winter Garden. They've made the corner near the fountain like an Arab's tent, and he'll tell us our horoscopes in the sand, and all sorts of things."
"Not forgetting the stars, let us hope?"
"Oh, there's sure to be that."
Damaris laughed as she turned in her chair and looked at the excited little visitor in fancy-dress.
"You do look sweet. A Light of the Harem, for certain."
"Yes; and what do you think? There are three dozen Lights. Isn't it a shame? I thought I should be the only one. And there are two and a half dozen Sheikhs, and I don't know how many dozen Bedouins. You are—what are you? You look awfully—awfully—er—I don't quite know what."
Damaris adjusted the selva, the quaint silver kind of tube between the eyebrows which connects the yashmak and the tarhah or head-veil, took a final look in the mirror, and rose.
"I am an Egyptian woman of the humblest class."
She was all in black, as befits a member of that class. The simple bodice, cut in a yoke, of the black muslin dress fitted her like a glove; the skirt fell in wide folds from the waist and swung about her ankles encircled by big brass rings, which clashed as she moved. She wore the black yashmak and tarhah; upon her arms were many brass bracelets which tinkled; on one hand she wore a ring and there were flesh-coloured silken hose and sandals upon her feet. She had made a mistake and henna'd her finger-tips, which members of the humblest class have not time to do—besides, their patient hands matter so little—and her great eyes looked as black as the yashmak over which they shone.
Her beautiful face was hidden, yet was she infinitely alluring, tantilising, mysterious, under her veils.
Heavens! if only women knew how easy it is to enhance the looks by the simple method of touching up the eyes with kohl and covering the rest of the face!
"All of us in veils and masks will have to take them off at one."
"Yes, there'll be the rub," said Damaris, as she knelt down beside the perplexed, growling bulldog.
"Don't know Missie? Don't love her?"
"Woomph!" replied Wellington, hurling his great weight into her lap.
"How he loves you, Maris!"
"Yes, miss, he does," broke in Jane Coop. "And I firmly believe he's my mistress's guardian angel."
"After you, Janie dear," said the girl, smiling fondly up at the plump maid and tying a huge crimson bow round the neck of the long-suffering animal.
"What is he going as, Maris?"
"A gargle, miss," broke in the maid. "I think it's just fun on the part of Miss Damaris, because nothing as solid as him,"—pointing of comb to shamed dog—"could go as anything watery."
Damaris got to her feet.
"Let's go in to Marraine," she choked. "Gargoyle, my dear," she whispered, "is what she meant—gargoyle. Do come along!"
The girls' happy laughter rang down the corridor as they knocked at her grace's door.
She stood at her dressing-table in a beautiful dress of grey brocade. Diamonds sparkled in the laces of her corsage, on her fingers and in the buckles of her lovely shoes; a big bunch of pink carnations was tied on the top of her ebony stick; a priceless lace veil fastened over her head by a fragile wreath of diamond leaves fell almost to the hem of her dress behind. She had discarded the terrifying perruque, and her own hair, snowy-white, was puffed and curled about the little face, which was finely powdered and slightly rouged. She was a dream of beautiful old age, with Dekko just visible under a huge pink bow upon her shoulder.
"May I present a very old woman to youth?" she said simply.
"Darling," cried Damaris as she ran forward and, pushing the yashmak to one side, kissed the jewelled hand. "You are too beautiful—too beautiful! Promise me never, never, never to wear it again."
"I'm too old to get rid of bad habits, chérie," said her godmother.
"And we had better go down. By the way, what is Ben coming as?"
"I really don't know," came the muffled reply from behind the yashmak, "if he comes at all."
As Cairo entire had accepted the invitation, the place was packed, but nowhere was the crowd so suffocating as round the entrance to the Winter Garden.
"Per-fect-ly wonderful," gasped a rotund Ouled Nail to a masked dancer of the same sex and size. "He told me about that terrible time when I lost so much at bridge—you remember, dear, when I had to—er—to raise money on my diamonds. How could he have seen it in my hand?"
He hadn't; he had been a guest at Hurdley Castle with her.
"What's he like?"
"Oh, I couldn't see his face, on account of the handkerchief thing, but I think he's quite common; his clothes are quite poor. I believe he is one of the waiters dressed up. I seem to recognise his voice. Have you long to wait?"
"I'm twenty-fifth down the list. Who's in now?"
"Some woman in black. There are four of them, and I can't tell t'other from which."
The hand of the woman who was twenty-fifth down the list was never told.
Damaris lifted the curtain, and walked into the corner of the Winter Garden, which had been temporarily given the appearance of an Arab's tent.
"Salaam aley," she said gently, giving the word of peace.
The fortune-teller salaamed with hands to forehead, mouth and heart, in the beautiful Eastern gesture.
"Aleykoum es-Salaam!" he replied as gently, which is the sacrament of lips.
There was the fortune-teller's regulation small table, with a chart of the stars and a silver tray covered in sand upon it; on either side was a chair; but it was upon a cushion on the floor that Damaris seated herself, with her back against the canvas drapery of the wall, motioning the Arab to a cushion near her, whilst her eyes swept the loose cotton tunic, the kaleelyah or head-kerchief, which almost completely hid the face, the great white mantle and the sandals upon the naked feet.
Oh! the game of make-believe they played, those two with the jewel-hilted, razor-edged dagger of love between them.
There fell a silence.
And then the fortune-teller spoke in his own tongue, and too absorbed were they in the game of make-believe to notice that he made use of neither sand nor stars nor the lines upon her hands, which were clasped above her heart, as he read her future in her eyes.
"Two paths lie before thee, O woman, and both stretch, through the kingdom of love.
"The one to thy right hand has been marked out upon the Field of Content by feet bound in the sandals of custom and convention. There is shade upon this path, for, behold, the scorching sun of passion may not penetrate the leaves of the trees of tranquillity; the storm breaks not, neither do the biting winds of fear, nor the drenching torrents of desire, encompass those who walk thereon.
"The river, the slow, full-blossomed river of patience, flows ever beside it, on its way to the Ocean of Life in which all waters must mingle in eternity."
There fell a silence, broken by the swaying, throbbing music from the distant ball-room, causing the girl suddenly to stretch out her hands, upon which shone the ring, and the man to stretch out his, though he touched not hers at all.
"And to the left?"
"To the left, O woman whose eyes are like unto the pools of Lebanon at night, to thy left, lies the desert. The desert, where the feet are blistered by the gritting sands of passion and the eyes are blinded in desire. The vast plain where knowledge walks hand-in-hand with death; where the footprints of horror, fear, starvation, thirst, which are but the footprints of jealousy and love desired and fulfilled, mark the sands for one little second and then are gone; the desert, where there is no shade, no cool waters, no content, no peace until the wanderer lies still, with sightless eyes turned towards Eternity."
"And if a woman's feet trod upon it?"
"Then will she cut her feet upon the stones of pain; then will the scorpion of bitter experience sting her heel; then will she die with a smile upon her red mouth, 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, or shatter her body, even as is broken the alabaster vase of sweet perfume. Yet is it the love of the soul that endureth forever, yea, even if the body of the woman passeth unto another's keeping."
The girl pulled her veil closely about her head and sat quite still, her wonderful eyes hidden by the fringe of black lashes.
And yet did she not move when he sprang to his feet, intoxicated with the mystery of her, afire with that love which is the heritage of the desert.
Then he bent and caught her by the wrists and raised her to her feet.
"Take the path at thy right hand, woman; set not a foot upon the desert sand, lest perchance a bird of prey swoop down upon thee, thou white dove."
He pulled her hands up, holding them cruelly, as in a steel vise, so that he had but to bend a finger's breadth to kiss them.
"Thy feet hesitate, woman. Why? What searchest thou?"
"Knowledge."
The man unconsciously laced his fingers in hers, crushing them until she went white to the lips.
"Knowledge is pain, woman. What know'st thou of pain? Great pain.
How could'st thou endure it?"
Then he let her hands go and touched the silver tray of sand upon the table beside him.
"Behold! Love shall be offered thee within the passing of a few hours, the love of thy right hand, and thou shalt reject it. Searching for that which thou desirest thou shalt, surrounded by thy women who love thee, pass down the river even unto Thebes of the Hundred Gates. Yet shalt thou not find it in the river, nor in the temples upon the east bank of the waters, nor upon the west bank."
Drawing a square in the sand, the fortune-teller made a cross at the south-east, upon which, to see it better, the girl drew close—so close that the sweet perfume of her veils filled his nostrils.
"Then shalt thou, in thy search, go, even under the stars, to the Gate of Tomorrow, and there shall thou find a mare descended from the mares of Mohammed, the Prophet of Allah the one and only God. White is the mare, and beautiful, yea, even is she like unto thee, thou woman of ivory; her bit is of silver, her bridle of plaited gold, her saddle-cloth encrusted with jewels. Thou wilt spring upon her, and she, knowing her way, will bring thee to the Tents of Purple and Gold."
"Ah!" whispered the girl. "The Tents of the long-dead Queen! They are the talk of Cairo, but nobody—at least, no foreigner—has seen them."
"No man but the servants, no woman but the mother of him who is the master, has even set foot within the Tents of Purple and of Gold; no one but the master has set foot in the tent which stands between them, the Tent of Death."
"And in them—if I come, what—what should I find?"
"No harm shall befall thee, no smirching of thy fair name. The master alone shall greet thee, and when thou hast found that for which thou searchest, then shalt thou return, if so thou wilt."
"And peace—rest I think I mean—is it in your Tents of Purple and
Gold?"
"Peace is to be found within the Temple of Anubis, who is the god of
Death, and there only."
The girl shivered and lifted her head, as from some part of the hotel there drifted the wonderful desert love-song which begins:
"My love for thee is as the sun at noon——"
Then she looked at the man whose face she had not plainly seen in the passing of the hour.
"How am I to believe you? Will you give me a sign, something, anything, so that I shall know that if I ever want to visit the wonderful tents I shall find them?"
She only spoke to gain time.
Knowing that outside the curtain there stretched the path across the Field of Content, she deliberately placed her foot upon the desert sand, and whilst common sense urged her to get out of the room, she listened to temptation and lingered, throwing safety to the four winds, opening wide her arms to danger.
"By the sign of the black stallion who awaits thee at dawn near all that remaineth upright of the City of On, shalt thou find the Tents of Purple and Gold."
"But I don't ride any more," said Damaris. "I can't find a horse, a good one, and I don't know where the City of On is."
"Thou shall know, thou ivory casket to which love is the key. And if thou see'st one afar off as thou ridest into the desert at dawn, fear not; for behold, is thy beauty spoken of, yea, even in the harem, and it were not wise for thee to ride alone."
The girl put out her hand towards the silken curtain.
"How do you know who I am?"
"By thy voice, which is as the wind of dawn."
She hesitated, divided between a desire to know more about this man and an innate courtesy which forbade her questioning.
"Search not, ask not, woman," said the fortune-teller, divining her thoughts, "for I am not worthy of thy notice. Were I to cross thy threshold, were I to lay my hand upon thee, as surely should I pollute thee. There is that within me which cries aloud, urging me to lead thy feet upon the burning desert sands; and, again, there is that within me which would fain force thee, for thy happiness, upon the path running through the Field of Content. Yet, behold, art thou all safe with me."
"Could I help you? If you were to tell me your trouble, perhaps it would be easier?"
"The moment is not yet, woman, but, being a teller of tales, even as I am a teller of fortunes, one day will I sit at thy feet and, for the passing of an hour, will tell thee the story of the Hawk of Egypt."
"You have made this hour pass so pleasantly that I should—should like to—to give you something so as—as to show you how pleased I am. But I have nothing with me, nothing."
She put out her hands and turned them down.
The man looked down at her for a moment with blazing eyes.
"Give me—as a reward—Allah—give me——" They stood quite still as the torrent surged, about them. "Give me the ring from off thy finger," he added, gently.
The girl held out her hand.
"Take it, though it seems a poor reward for all you have promised me."
"Nay, give it thou to me."
She slipped it off and held it out, showing a bruise across the back of her hand.
"Allah!" whispered the man, "that I should mark thee thus—and yet, in love—in love!"
He took the ring, of which the dull-gold setting held an emerald in the form of a scarab with heartshaped base.
The fortune-teller turned it over in the palm of his hand, then held it out.
"Nay, this I cannot take. I thought it was a ring from the bazaar to go with thy dress of fantasy. Behold, it is an amulet of the heart, of—nay, I cannot tell thus quickly of what dynasty—with words of power engraved upon it which read thus:
"'My heart, my mother; my heart, my mother. My heart whereby I came into being.'"
The girl listened entranced, touching the ring with finger-tips which felt as snow-flakes upon the man's hand.
"What is an amulet of the heart?"
"In the days of Ancient Egypt, when the heart had been taken from the dead body for purposes of preservation, an amulet, a scarab, sometimes heart-shaped, was placed within the body to ensure it life and movement in the new life."
They both stood looking down upon the jewel, the girl's finger-tips resting upon the man's hand.
"Keep it," she said softly. "Keep it."
"I will keep it to replace that which has gone from me. I will restore it to its shape, I will take from it the golden setting of the ring. I will wear it upon my breast." And, bending, he gently raised the yashmak in both hands and pressed his forehead to the few inches which had rested above her crimson mouth.