The way of the spirit

by H. Rider Haggard

“I expect that only means she has made him renounce some other ones,” she suggested. “Of course, it would seem wonderful to all these creatures if a man had only one wife.”

“Ach! we shall see, but at any rate you cannot grumble. It is a matter for his own conscience, not for you who turned the poor man out of doors. Ach! Edith, you must have the heart of a nether millstone. But if you want to know more, tell that wretched Dick to find out. He stopped back to drink some whisky and soda.”

Edith opened her white umbrella, although at the moment the sun did not reach her in the pass, and interposed it between Tabitha and herself to indicate that the conversation was finished. She did not appreciate Lady Devene’s outspoken criticism, of which she had endured more than enough during the past six weeks. Nor did she wish to summon Dick to her assistance, for she knew exactly what he would say.

Here it may be explained that Dick had not been asked to be a member of this party, but when they embarked on the steamer at Marseilles, they found him there. On being questioned as to the reason of his presence, he stated quite clearly that his interests were too much concerned in the result of their investigations to allow of his being absent from them. So as they could not prevent him, with them he came, accompanied by a little retinue of his own.

For the rest of that journey, when she was not stifled by the Campsine wind, which followed them up the pass, or thinking about the joltings of the camel, and other kindred discomforts, Edith remained lost in her own meditations. Rupert was here, of this there could be no manner of doubt, and considering the fashion of their last adieux, what on earth was she to say to him when they met? Also, and this was more to the point, what would he say to her? She was still a very pretty woman, and his wife; those were her only cards; but whether Rupert would respond when she played them remained more than doubtful. His last words to her were that he hated her, that all his nature and his soul rose up in repugnance against her; that even if she swore she loved him, he would not touch her with his finger-tips, and that he would never willingly speak to her again in this world or the next. This was fairly uncompromising, and was it likely that Rupert, that patient, obstinate Rupert, who here, it seemed, was adored by everybody, would of a sudden vary a determination in which he had persisted for more than seven years? Heartily did Edith wish that she had never come upon this wild errand.

But she had been forced into it. Dick, whom she now cordially detested and feared, but who unfortunately knew her secrets, had put stories about concerning her which made it necessary for her to act if she would save her own good repute. Rich as she was and beautiful as she was, very few respectable people would have anything to do with her in future, if it became known as a certain fact that she had rejected her own husband when he rose from the dead, merely because he was in trouble, had been physically injured, and for the time lost his prospects of a peerage. This would be too much even for a false and hypocritical world. But oh! she wished that she could be conveyed to the other end of the earth, even if she had to go there through the Campsine, and on this horrible, groaning camel.

Their road took a turn, and before them they saw the ruins of a temple, and behind it a prosperous-looking Eastern town surrounded by groves of palms and other trees. Through these they rode till they came to the surrounding brick wall of the temple, where the interpreter told them that the guide said they must dismount, because Zahed was speaking, and the people would beat them if they disturbed him.

So they obeyed, and the two of them, accompanied by the interpreter and Dick, who had now arrived, were led through a door in the temple wall into a side chapel, which about half-way down its length opened out of the great hypostyle hall that was still filled with columns, whereof most were standing. At the mouth of this chapel, in the deep shadow behind a fallen column, whence they could see without being seen, they were told to stand still, and did so, as yet quite unnoticed. The sight before them was indeed remarkable.

All that great hall was crowded with hundreds of men, women, and children, rather light in colour, and of a high-bred Arab stamp of feature; clad, everyone of them, in clean and flowing robes, the men wearing keffiehs or head-dresses of various colours, whereof the ends hung upon their shoulders, and the women, whose faces were exposed, wimple-like hoods. On a platform raised upon some broken columns at the end of the hall were two figures, those of a man and a woman, between whom sat a grey-snouted little dog, who looked in their direction and snarled until the man reproved it.

With a kind of sudden pain, Edith recognised at the first glance that this woman was extraordinarily beautiful, although in a fashion that was new to her. The waving hair, uncovered by any veil, but retained in place by the only emblem of her ancient royalty which Mea still used, a band of dull gold whence, above her brow, rose the uræus, or hooded snake, fell somewhat stiffly upon her shoulders, its thick mass trimmed level at the ends. In it, as in a frame, was set the earnest, mysterious face wherein glowed her large and lovely eyes. Placed there on high, her rounded form wrapped in purest white did not look small, or perhaps the dignity of her mien, her folded hands and upright pose in her chair of state, seemed to add to its stature. She was smiling as she always smiled, the coral-coloured lips were slightly parted, and in the ray of sunlight that fell upon her from the open roof, Edith could distinguish the rows of perfect teeth between them, while her head was turned a little that she might watch her companion with those wonderful and loving eyes. So this was the savage woman of whom she had been told, this ethereal and beautiful being with the wild, sweet face like to the face of an angel.