The Hawk of Egypt

by Joan Conquest

CHAPTER X

"The wind that sighs before the dawn
Chases the gloom of night;
The curtains of the East are drawn
And suddenly—'tis light."

SIR LEWIS MORRIS.

The desert stretched before Damaris.

As a lover, clad in golden raiment, in quick pursuit of his love with dusky hair and starry eyes across a field of purple iris, Day flinging wide his arms leaped clear of the horizon which lies like a string across the sandy wastes. Gathering her draperies, hiding her starry jewels in misty scarves, Night fled in seeming fear, leaving behind her a trail of sweet-scented, silver-embroidered purple, grey and saffron garments, which melted in the warmth of love.

But leap he from the horizon ever so quickly, don he his most brilliant armour and pursue he ever so hastily, yet, save for two short hours when he may barely touch her hem, Night stands ever mockingly, beckoning, just out of reach.

O thrice-wise woman! How else would there be pursuit?

And Damaris laughed aloud from sheer content as she touched the coal-black stallion with her heel, and held him, fretting, eager to be away over the sand, to wherever Fate pointed.

Half-believing, half-doubting the words of the fortune-teller, this early morning following hard upon her arrival in Heliopolis she slipped from her room, wakened the astounded night-porter of the Desert Palace Hotel, and demanded a car to be brought upon the instant. And lucky it was for her that she made one of the ducal party, for nothing else would have procured her her heart's desire at that untoward hour before dawn.

With Wellington beside her, she drove hard along the deserted high-road towards the village of Makariyeh where, under a sycamore, 'tis said the Virgin and Child rested on their Flight into Egypt.

The head-lights seemed to hurl the shadows back as she raced down the Sharia el-Misalla towards the ruins of old Heliopolis, which is all that remains of the great seat of learning, the biblical City of On. And the sky lightened way down in the east as she drove along the outer edge of the fort to the Obelisk, known to the Arab as el-Misalla.

And there the words of the fortune-teller came true, for fretting and fuming in an endeavour to unseat his sayis, who rode him native-wise, without his feet in the stirrups, rearing and backing at the sound of the engine throbbing in the gloom, was the coal-black stallion of Unayza.

Damaris did not cast a look at the Obelisk. She had eyes only for the beautiful beast which, seemingly, she was to ride on a single rein and a wisp of a saddle. Standing sixteen hands, born of the desert, nervous and self-willed, he was no fit mount for a woman, and a gleam of anxiety flashed across the sayis's face as he measured the slender girl with his eye and re-adjusted the stirrup-leather.

"In the name of the hawk-headed Ra-Harakht."

The servant salaamed as he mechanically repeated the unintelligible sentence which had been drummed into him by his master; and Damaris smiled and replied in the servant's tongue, to his amazement, and walked up close to el-Sooltan, holding out a flat palm with sugar upon it.

It took some time before he snuffled her hand, and then only by stratagem she mounted, swinging herself in a bound to the saddle as the groom slipped to the ground on the off-side; upon which el-Sooltan wheeled sharply and headed straight for the village of Khankah, which is the outskirt proper of the desert.

For two and a half miles, at a tearing gallop, the girl made no attempt to show any authority. But once on the very edge of the desert she did, for this was the longed-for moment of her life, when alone, free, she should ride out into the unknown; and she had no inclination or intention of being hurled through that moment like a stone from a catapult. Sooltan, behaving like a very demon, tried his best to unseat the light weight upon his back by the simple and usually so effective methods of rearing, plunging and bucking; but Damaris only smiled and shouted as she looked towards the east, caring not a jot for any vagary, so content was she.

But as the sun leapt clear of the horizon, she gave one cry, touched the stallion lightly upon the neck, gave him his head, and was across the desert, unmindful of an Arab who, some distance away, which, in the desert, is really no optical distance at all, headed a grey mare, thoroughbred and of mighty endurance, in the same direction.

Where is there anything to compare to riding across the desert at dawn? At dawn, when to your right and to your left march phalanxes of ghostly shapes, which maybe are the shadows of the night, or maybe, as says the legend, the ghosts of the many long-dead kingdoms buried in oblivion and the relentless sands; when the whistling of the wind is as the shouting of men and the thunder of your horse's hoofs as the rolling of many drums, calling you through the power of past centuries and the ecstasy of the solitude in your heart, out to the mystery of the plains.

Mystery, fascination, spell, lure, call of the desert. All fine words, but hopeless to explain that which has lured more than one white woman out into the golden wilderness to the wrecking of her soul; and which has nothing whatever to do with the pseudo-psychic waves which trick us into such pitiable hysteria and hallucination.

But there is no mystery about that which called Damaris. It was the joy of youth, the salt of novelty, the exhilarating sympathy between horse and rider; she shouted as she seemingly rode straight into the massed colouring of the sunrise; she lifted her face to the golden banners flung across the sky and turned in the saddle and looked back at the hem of Night's garments disappearing down in the west.

She was still a child, for those auxiliaries, Love and Life, had not yet lain hand upon her; they had but pulled aside the veil from before her eyes for one brief second, and she, dazzled by the glimpse, had pulled it back hastily. Neither was there anything to tell her that, upon a not very far distant day, the veil would be torn from her, leaving her to be well-nigh blinded by the radiance of the greatest light in the world.

And she rode carelessly, without a thought to the passing of time or to the ever-increasing speed of el-Sooltan, who was all out in an endeavour to find his stable, also his companions, from whom he had been parted for many weary weeks.

That they happened to be in the Oasis of Khargegh, some few hundred miles down the Nile, he was not to know; he only knew that the desert was his home and that in it and of it was his happiness to be found; and it was only when Damaris turned to look at the ruins of the City of On from a far distance that she discovered that they had disappeared in a mist which was merely the combination of the distance and the waters of the oasis evaporating in the morning sun.

She tried to pull the stallion, gently at first, and then with all her might, but to no purpose; for nothing but the voice of his master or his own particular sayis could stop el-Sooltan once he had got the light bit between his teeth; and of the death from thirst which awaited him and his rider upon this particular venture if he continued in his obstinacy he had, of course, no warning.

"What a nuisance," said Damaris, as she looked round the great yellow plain which stretched, a carpet of level sand, to the west and under her horse's feet and broke to the east into a chain of hummocks, piled by the last sandstorm which had caused such devastation in the nomad tribes and such annoyance to the visitors at Heliopolis.

She felt no fear, only an increasing vacuum beneath her waistbelt and distress for the worry her long absence might cause her godmother.

"And Well-Well will have chewed everything chewable in the car, also the legs of the sayis, by the time I get back," she exclaimed. "And I can't do anything—I've irrevocably given el-Sooltan his head. It's no use slipping from the saddle, because I couldn't walk back. I can't . . ."

She broke off suddenly, rose in the stirrups and waved. And a more radiant picture of youth you could not have wished to see in a lifetime.

"A village!" she shouted. "Camels, palms, water. An oasis with tents; women and children and men. Come round, Sooltan, come round." And she pulled with all her strength, and still to no avail, for, oblivious of the peaceful, verdant patch, the mighty animal forged ahead.

"Well, I shall have to drop from the saddle, let Sooltan go, and walk over to them. They are sure to be friendly and . . ."

She had just slipped her foot from the stirrup when, clear and insistent, there came a ringing cry.

Some way off, the Hawk of Egypt had followed her from the village of Khankah, with intent, knowing the horse she rode, to watch over but not intrude his presence upon her. He had known for some time that el-Sooltan was out of hand, and had decided to call him after a mile or so more of furious exercise; but, instead, quite suddenly and instinctively, he cried, "A'ti balak!—a'ti balak!" which means, "Be careful—be careful," and pulled the mare to a standstill.

He too had seen the mirage of the peaceful oasis, thrown by the atmosphere from a distance of eighty miles, and with his desert-trained eyes had caught the little movement of the foot; and, connecting the two, he insistently called the stallion, knowing that a drop from the saddle at the almost incredible speed at which Sooltan was going might easily result in twisted ankles or even a broken neck.

"Irja!" he called. "Irja!" Which means, "Come back, come back!" And he called again and again as the stallion dropped from a gallop to a canter, a canter to a trot, then stopped dead; whinnied gently; wheeled sharply and stood stock-still.

"Irja, Sooltan!" came the cry. "Irja Sooltan!" And with the cry came the neighing of the mare.

The stallion lashed out, reared and stood still, ears pricked, silken mane and tail flying in the wind.

Then he answered, until the desert seemed filled with the calling of the noble beasts, as the girl sat with thudding heart and eyes fixed on the distant spot where fretted and fidgeted the mare ridden by the Arab.

Then something within her rebelled at this intrusion upon her privacy, causing her to be suddenly stricken with anger and confusion.

"Take me to the tents, Sooltan!" she cried, turning to look back.
"Take—but—why—oh! what an escape—a mirage—a——"

But the rest was lost in the sudden bound of el-Sooltan as he raced in obedience to his master's call.

The man waited until they were within a mile of him; then he wheeled the mare and took her back along her tracks, urging her to her topmost speed. Swiftly she fled and swiftly pursued Sooltan, the man not once turning in his seat.

And as they neared the outskirts of the oasis of Heliopolis Hugh Carden Ali urged the mare so that she gained upon the stallion, and beckoned to his groom, who had run hot-foot from the Obelisk to the edge of the desert with fear in his heart for the beast but not one whit for the girl. And he caught the shouted order as his master passed him at full speed, and ran out, shouting in his turn to the stallion.

El-Sooltan, connecting the sayis with the bucketsful of water he stood so badly in need of, stopped short, nearly unseating Damaris with the suddenness of his decision and then with the hand of the groom upon his heaving flank trotted docilely back to the Obelisk, where Wellington, risking curvature of the spine, turned himself into a canine picture of ecstatic welcome.

"To-morrow at the same hour," said Damaris, feeding the stallion with sugar, "he will know me better."

"Ma sha-Allah!" murmured the servant to himself, praising the courage of this bit of a woman.

"Bikhatirkum," she said gently, as she moved off in the car.

"Ma'a-s-salamah ya sitti," answered the delighted, astounded man as he salaamed almost to the ground before such unexpected graciousness.