The Desert Healer

by E. M. Hull

But determined to go no further than bare courtesy demanded he vouchsafed only a brief nod to her tentative advance and led the way to the inner room. She paused on the threshold, looking curiously at the little sleeping apartment, then turned to him with a swift imploring glance. “You won’t let me sleep too long?”

For a moment Carew’s gloomy eyes looked deeply into the troubled depths of the blue ones fixed so earnestly on his, then: “The horses will be ready in two hours,” he said curtly, and dropped the portiere into place. For some time he paced the big tent restlessly, a prey to violent agitation. He swore at himself angrily. What in God’s name was the matter with him! Why did his thoughts, despite himself, keep turning to the woman in the adjoining room? Woman! She was only a girl, little more than a child in spite of the wedding ring that seemed to lie so uneasily on her slim finger. Any woman or child, what did she matter to him. Once safely back in Algiers she could go to the devil for all he cared.

Swinging on his heel he crossed the room and taking a medical book from a small case by the door, flung himself on the divan to read until the waiting time was over.

He was still reading when Hosein came back two hours later.

Laying the book aside with no particular haste he took a white burnous his servant tendered him and went slowly towards the inner room, scowling with annoyance and disinclination. Yet somebody had to wake the girl and he could hardly relegate the job to Hosein. He swept the curtains aside with an impatient jerk. She was still asleep, lying in an attitude of unconscious grace, her face hidden in the mass of tangled curls spread over the pillow. And from her his frowning gaze went swiftly round the room as if the alien presence made him see it with new eyes. His stern lips set more rigidly as he touched her shoulder. She woke with a start and leaped to her feet with a sharp cry that changed quickly to a nervous little laugh of embarrassment. “I was dreaming—I—is it time?” she stammered, stifling a yawn and blinking like a sleepy child. Sparing of speech he held out the white cloak. “The night is cool,” he said briefly, and turned away too quickly to notice the vivid blush that suffused her face.

At the door of the tent, under the awning, he found Hosein, who was to accompany them, waiting for him and together they watched the three black horses Carew had selected for the journey being walked to and fro in the moonlight by the grooms.

And in an incredibly short space of time the girl joined them. The enveloping burnous was clasped securely, hiding her tattered clothing, and she seemed to have regained her self-possession for she was quite at ease and looked about with eager curiosity at the scattered camp, and then with even greater interest at the waiting horses. The stallion Carew was to ride was almost unapproachable, wild-eyed and savage, held with difficulty by the two men who clung to his head. But the mount he had chosen for his unwelcome guest was a steadier, friendly beast that nozzled her inquisitively as she went to him. She caught at his velvety nose with a little cry of delight, “Oh, what a darling!” and rubbed her cheek against his muzzle, crooning to him softly. Then before Carew could aid her she was in the saddle, backing to make room for the screaming fury that was demonstrating his own reluctance to be mounted by every device known to his equine intelligence. But his rage was futile and Carew was up in a flash. And for five minutes Marny Geradine, who had ridden from babyhood, watched with breathless interest the sharpest tussle she had ever seen between a horse and its rider, and marvelled at the infinite patience of the man who sat the plunging, frenzied brute like a centaur, handling him perfectly without exhibiting the smallest trace of annoyance. His methods were not the cruel ones which, for five miserable years, she had been compelled to witness, she thought with sudden bitterness. And yet this man was an Arab in whom cruelty might be excused.

Then as Carew wheeled alongside of her she put away the painful thoughts that had risen in her mind and gave herself up to the delights of this strange ride with this equally strange companion.

It was all like a dream, fantastic and unreal, but a dream that gave her more happiness than she had known for years. The swift gallop through the night, the cool wind blowing against her face, the easy movements of the horse between her knees, were all sheer joy to her. She had no wish to talk, even if the taciturn manner of the man beside her had not made speech difficult. She wanted nothing but the pleasure of the moment, the beauty of the moonlit scene and the charm of the wonderful solitude. For her Algeria had been Algiers, she had not been asked to accompany her husband on his occasional shooting expeditions, and she had wearied of the town and its immediate surroundings. She had longed to go further afield, to get right out into the desert, but she had been given no opportunity and she had long since learned to suppress inclinations that were ridiculed and never gratified. She craved for open spaces and the lonely places of the earth, and she had been chained to towns or crowded country houses and forced into a company whose society nauseated her; she had dreamt of nights like this, of the silence and peace of the wilderness, of solitary camps where she would sleep in happy dreamlessness under the radiant stars—and the nights that were her portion had been her chiefest torment. But this one night she could revel in her dream come true and rejoice in the freedom that might never again be hers. That she might have to pay, and perhaps pay hideously, for what had occurred did not matter, almost she did not care. She had suffered so much already that further suffering seemed almost inevitable and she would not spoil the rare joy of this wonderful ride by anticipating trouble. But even as she argued bravely with herself, she blanched at the possible consequences of the terrible adventure that had been no fault of her own. If when she reached the villa at Mustapha, Clyde had already returned! She clenched her teeth on her quivering lip. He had gone for a fortnight’s shooting and the fortnight would be up tomorrow—today, she remembered with a sudden glance of apprehension at the sky, where the pinky flush of dawn was already showing. He might be back now! And if he were—what would her punishment be, what would she have to endure from one who knew his strength and used it brutally, who was cruel and merciless by nature as if he, too, were an Arab. Her mind leapt to the man who had abducted her. When, at the close of an appalling day, she had been brought to the hut in the deserted village, when she had finally realised the sinister purpose intended against her, the ghastly fear that had come to her, the paralysing sense of helplessness she had felt as she struggled against the crushing arms that held her, the horror of the relentless face thrust close to hers quivering with lust and desire, was no new thing. So did Clyde look at her, so did she shrink and sicken when he touched her. Were all men alike—sensual brutes with no consideration or pity? One, at least, had shown himself to be different—and he was an Arab! She turned and looked at him curiously. By the light of the brilliant moon she studied the lean, tanned face, wondering at its grave austerity. And as her gaze lingered on the white seam of an old scar that ran diagonally across his cheek above the curve of his square-cut jaw, she remembered suddenly that the stern, sombre eyes that had looked into hers were blue. Were there, then, blue-eyed Arabs, as there were blue-eyed Afghans? Who was he? A personage of importance, obviously—the rich appointments of the camp to which he had taken her, proved it. The embroidered cloth burnous, the wide silk scarf swathed about the haick that shaded his face, the scarlet leather boots he wore was the dress of a Chief. One of the wealthy Sheiks from the far south, perhaps, coming into Algiers for the Governor’s annual ball. Whoever he was, he had saved her honour, had saved her from worse than death. And a sudden inexplicable desire came to her to explain to this strange, taciturn Arab the situation in which he had found her. She swung her horse nearer. “I oughtn’t to have ridden alone,” she began jerkily. “I know that, but I was quite close to Algiers—it seemed safe enough—and I had a reason for what I did. One has to—be alone—sometimes. I didn’t think there could be any danger. It all happened so suddenly—” she broke off, chilled with his silence, wondering how she had found courage to speak to him at all, for his frigid manner did not invite confidence. And his brief answer did not tend to put her more at ease.

“It is always dangerous for a woman to ride alone in Algeria,” he said gravely. It was his tone rather than the actual words that sent the hot blood rushing to her face and reduced her to a silence that lasted until they sighted the outskirts of Algiers. The dawn was brightening, already the stars were paling and dying, one by one, and the red glow of the rising sun was warming in the east.