This train in due course he took, and on the next day, as soon as the Liverpool office was open, booked a second-class passage to Egypt under an assumed name.
It was spring in the oasis of Tama, where the crops were growing fast.
“Bakhita,” said Mea suddenly one afternoon, “I grow weary of this place. To-morrow morning I ride down the Black Pass to look out at the desert beyond, which now should be beautiful with flowers, for heavy rains have fallen.”
“It is not flowers that you would look for in the desert, if indeed any can be found there,” answered Bakhita, with her peculiar smile, and shaking her white head. “Nor shall you enter on to that desert where the Khalifa’s man-stealing savages roam in bands, yelling on Allah and killing peaceable folk. Still, if you wish it—or if you have dreamed a dream—you can ride down to the mouth of the pass with a suitable escort of spearsmen, and stare at the desert till you are tired.”
“Bakhita, my aunt,” asked Mea angrily, “who is mistress in this land—you or I?”
“Tama, my niece,” answered Bakhita calmly, “where you are concerned, I am mistress. You set no foot in that desert.
“If you try to do so, I will order your own council of emirs to shut you up. He can come to seek you if he wishes, you shall not go to seek him.”
“Bakhita, I spoke to you of flowers.”
“Yes, Mea, you did; but the flower you mean has a red beard; also, an Arab has trodden on it and crushed it out of shape. Moreover, it grows in another land, and if it did not, what use would it be to your garden?”
“I am tired of this place and wish to look at the desert,” answered Mea. “If you trouble me much more, I will cross it and travel to Egypt. Even that school at Luxor is not so dull as Tama. Go; do my bidding.”