Burning Sands

by Arthur E. P. Brome Weigall

As she splashed in the water she learned for the first time the wonderful sensation of bathing without the weight of a costume about her limbs; and her thoughts flashed back with disdain to those elegant days at fashionable seaside resorts where she had almost feared to let the waves wet her dainty bathing-dress, and where she had been aware of opera glasses levelled upon her as she walked sedately into the sea.

From side to side of the little pool she swam, tossing the water into the air in showers of sparkling drops; and, presently, when, clambering back on to the sand, she stood with arms stretched out to the sunlight, she felt that at last she knew the meaning of life.

The hot sun dried her body, without much need of the aid of her handkerchief; and when she was dressed she hastened with a wonderful appetite to her luncheon. Mustafa, being a well-trained dragoman, did not trouble her with his presence; and she was thus able to make very frank inroads into the tongue and sweet-pickles, the biscuits and the jam, which he had provided. And after the meal she lay back in the shade, against the slope of the sand, and slept for half an hour in profound content.

She awoke with the conviction that at last all was well with her. It seemed to her that what Daniel had all along desired was that she should renounce “the World,” as he called it, and come to him; and now, in these last few days, she had realized that this was no renunciation at all. He had been perfectly right: a life in the open was the only life for Youth; and here, not in the cities, real happiness was to be found.

All he had asked of her was to break loose from her conventional existence, and to come to him; and now she knew how incomprehensible her reluctance must have seemed to him. He had been holding out to her the free joys of her youth: he had been saying to her, “Come and be my playmate and my dear companion,” and when she had refused, he had gone off by himself, bidding her follow him if at last she should shake herself free of her imaginary bonds. How stupid to him, how vulgar, must have been her wish for a correct betrothal!—no wonder he had given up in dismay.

Such thoughts occupied her brain during the afternoon as she trotted exultantly, and with wild and reckless freedom from all restraint, towards El Hamrân; but very different were the thoughts in the mind of Daniel Lane, as, all unaware of her proximity, he sat peacefully in his room, putting the finishing touches to his interrupted study of the customs of the Bedouin of the Oases.

In a manner it might be said that he was content. He had fought a terrible battle with himself during these five-and-twenty days since he had left Cairo, and his mighty spirit had won the victory over his mutinous body. Like a monk abandoning the pleasures of the world, he had crushed within him the one passionate episode of his continent life.

Throughout his strenuous manhood he had put away from him the call of the flesh: he had mastered his body, and had subordinated all other interests to those of his work. In a sense he had lived the life of an ascetic, save that he had not actually mortified his body. He had governed and controlled his physical instincts, but he had found no need to break them with rods. In perfect health, in perfect physical fitness, he had passed his days, filled with that deep, laughing happiness which comes from a quiet mind. His gigantic muscles were ever ruled by his mighty reason; and serene, smiling tranquillity had been his reward.

It was only since Muriel had come into his life that he had known any disturbance; for she was practically the first woman with whom he had ever been on intimate terms. And when she had failed him he had beaten out the very thought of her from his riotous heart, and had fled to the placid sanctuary of the desert, there to recover his equanimity.

To him she had seemed to be tainted by her contact with that section of society whose artificiality he so heartily disliked. These people paid outward court to the conventions of life, but in secret they treated in the lightest manner the very bases upon which these conventions were founded. Being satisfied with the surface of things, they lived their lives in turmoil and called it pleasure; nor had they any idea of that deeper happiness which comes from contact with fundamental truth and simplicity.