Bedouin Love

by Arthur E. P. Brome Weigall

Yes, that was it: that was his obligation. For the first time in his life he understood thoroughly and wholly the meaning of the word. “It is my duty,” he muttered over and over again. “It is my duty at all costs to prevent any scandal which would hurt Monimé or Ian.” He had so often asked himself the meaning of that strange term “duty,” and now he knew. Love had taught him.

Fortunately, Monimé was very hard at work on the completion of her paintings, and he was therefore able to go away alone into the desert for hours at a time, under the pretence of writing his verses, and thus obtain a respite from the strain of appearing cheerful and normal. The great untenanted spaces soothed the clamour of his brain; and, wandering there alone over the golden sand or the shelving rocks, in the blazing sunlight, between the vacancy of earth and the void of heaven, there passed into his mind a kind of calmness which remained with him when Monimé was again at his side.

But the nights were made fearful to him lest in his sleep he should reveal his secret. He would lie awake hour after hour in the darkness, while Monimé slept peacefully, her head upon his encircling arm, her black hair tumbled about his shoulder, her breast against his breast, and he would not dare to shut his eyes. Sometimes, his weariness overcoming his will, he would drop into oblivion, only to waken again with a start which caused her to turn or to mutter in her slumbers. Once he woke up thus, knowing that he had just uttered the words “Not guilty,” and in an agony of fear he waited, propped on his elbow, to ascertain whether she had heard him or not. She was asleep, however, and with beating pulse he fell back at length upon the pillows, the cold sweat upon his face.

During these days, which he recognized as his last upon earth, he allowed himself to drown his sorrow in the full flood of his love; and, like the waves of the sea, he overwhelmed Monimé in the tide of his adoration, sweeping her along with him so that there were times when the breath of life seemed to fail them, and the silent rapture of their hearts had near kinship with the quiescence of death. There were times when it was as though he were eager to die upon her lips, and so to pass in ecstasy into the hollow acreage of heaven. There were times when by the might of his passion he seemed to lift her, clasped in his arms, into the regions beyond the planets, there to revolve in the exaltation of dream, round and round the universe, until the sound of the last trump should hurl their inseparable souls headlong into the abyss of time and space.

But between these spells of enchantment there were periods of deep and horrible gloom in which he cursed himself for his mistakes, and railed against man and God.

“How I hate myself!” he muttered. “Life is like a prison cell where you and your deadly enemy are locked in together.”

Standing at the summit of the cliffs above the temple, he would shake his fists at the blue depths of the sky, or, with bronzed arms folded, would stare down at the rippling waters of the Nile, and kick the pebbles over the precipice. Occasionally, too, he turned for comfort to his guitar; and at the river’s brink, or in the shade of an acacia tree, he would sit twanging the strings and singing some outlandish song, his head bent over the instrument and his dark hair falling over his face.

As the day of their departure drew near these periods of gloom increased in frequency, and he was often aware that the troubled eyes of his wife were fixed upon him, while, more than once, she questioned him in regard to his health. His mirror revealed to him the haggard appearance of his face, and in order to prevent this becoming too apparent he was obliged to manœuvre his position so that, when Monimé was facing him, his back should be to the light.

At length the dreaded hour arrived. Upon the glaring face of the waters the little puffing steam-tug, which had been ordered by them for this date, came into sight, bearing down upon them as they sat at breakfast on deck; and soon it was heading northwards again, towing their dahabiyeh in its wake towards the First Cataract which marks the frontier of Egypt proper. For the greater part of the two days’ journey Jim sat listlessly watching the banks of the river as they glided by; but when at last Shallâl, their destination, was reached he pulled himself together to meet the last crisis, and, by the exertion of the power of his will, managed to appear as a normal being.

They made no halt upon their way; but, after sleeping for the last time upon their dahabiyeh, moored near the railway station, they transferred themselves and their baggage to the morning train, and arrived at Luxor as the sun went down.