The way of the spirit

by H. Rider Haggard

For he was not dead, nor like to die. Mea, who innocently enough had brought all this trouble upon him, had saved his life by her sweet care, as by her swift decision and fierce courage she saved him from the noose. Rupert believed that he owed his reason to her also, for at times in the beginning, when all the weight of his terrible misfortunes pressed upon his brain and crushed him, it seemed like to fail. Then she who watched him always would see and understand. And, since the customs of the East are always the same, as “when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, David took an harp and played with his hand; so Saul was refreshed and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him,” so did Mea take her harp and play before Rupert and sing over him in that full, sweet voice of hers, the old, old songs of Egypt, some of which she no longer understood, till at length for a little while he forgot his sorrows and was refreshed. Moreover, there came to him one happiness, his sight returned.

He was lying on an angarib, or native bedstead, during the heat of the afternoon in the large, cool room that had been given to him, since if he sat up for long his mutilated leg still pained him, whilst over against him, Mea sat upon a stool. She had been playing to him, singing as she played; but now her harp-like instrument lay at her side and she watched him in silence, her chin resting upon her hand. He knew that she was looking at him, for he could feel her gaze, and was amusing himself by trying to recollect the exact fashion of her beauty, which he had really seen but thrice—in the temple at Abu-Simbel; when she bade farewell to him in the pass; and lastly, when she appeared again at the head of her charging regiment and decreed the doom of Ibrahim and his brigands.

This last time did not count, however, for then she was quite changed, a valkyrie, an animated Vengeance, not a woman. Now he amused himself by attempting to reconcile these two countenances that both were hers, and in wondering what sort of face she wore to-day. Useless as it was, from old habit, he looked towards her through the pitchy, maddening darkness that hemmed him in like a wall.

He looked, and lo! he saw. On that darkness there appeared something soft and cloudy, and he knew that it was a woman’s outspread hair. Then within the frame of hay arose a ghost-like face, and in it shining eyes, from which tears ran down, and on it such a look of utter tenderness as he never, never had beheld. Oh! it was beautiful, that face; always it would have been beautiful, but to this man who, after those weeks of utter blindness, beheld it first of anything, it was like a vision out of heaven. And the look upon it! Surely that, too, had been borrowed from some pitying angel in heaven. Rupert turned his head, then looked again, thinking that it would be gone; but no, it still was there, and now he could even see the hand beneath the chin and the quivering of the lips which strove to stifle back a sob.

“Mea,” he said, in English, “why do you cry?”

She sprang up, dashing the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

“I no cry,” she answered, in a merry voice. “Bey, you not hear me cry.”

“No, Mea; but I saw you. Your cheek was all wet, and you sat with your chin upon your hand.”

She uttered some Arabic exclamation of joy, then snatched the linen veil or wimple from her head and threw it over his face.

“Look no more,” she said, “not good for your eye to look too much or you go blind again. Also,” she added, with a happy laugh, “great shame of you to spy upon a lady when she no think you see. You should tell her first you going look, then she put on proper face.”