There was a King in Egypt

by Norma Lorimer

To the hospitable Omdeh he confided nothing. The old man was pleased and delighted to have Michael as his guest. During the patient's rapid recovery, after his first weeks of intermittent convalescence, he was as pleased as a child to be allowed to entertain Michael with all the delights which he had held out before his eyes when he had invited him to spend two or three days with him, before he journeyed to the camp in the hills.

During that time Michael became learned in the points of well-bred gazelles. He saw some native dancers, both male and female, who charmed him with their beauty and their art. And he listened so many times to celebrated A'laleeyeh (professional musicians) that, with the help of the Omdeh, be became familiar with the remarkable peculiarity in the Arab system of music—its division of tones into thirds. Egyptian musicians consider that the European system of music is deficient in sounds. This small and delicate gradation of sound gives a peculiar softness to the performance of good Arab musicians.

At first Michael was unable to appreciate the excellence of the music he listened to, for the finer and more delicate gradations of tone are difficult to discriminate with exactness; they are seldom heard in the vocal and instrumental music of people who have not made a regular study of the art. But as his ear became more habituated to the style, the more it delighted him. He had seen the rapture on Abdul's face and had heard the exclamations of "God approve thee!" "God preserve thee!" from the Omdeh, many times before the knowledge came to him. He knew that it was his own ignorance, and not the musicians' lack of skill, which was to blame. Until now he had only been familiar with the music of the Nile boatmen and the popular music of the people.

It was delicious, or so Abdul thought, to sit with his master and the Omdeh in the cool garden, under the shade of a fantastic arbour, darkened by the leaves of oleanders and other semi-tropical trees, and there listen to the songs of famous Arab singers, or to the music of the 'ood, or the nay, a picturesque native flute, made out of a reed about half a yard in length, pierced with holes.

Sometimes story-tellers would arrive. One would begin his romance early in the evening and it would not be nearly finished by bed-time, which came late in the hot summer nights. The reciting of it was broken by pleasant intervals for discussions, or for the sipping of sweet syrups and cool native drinks. The romance always left off at a thrilling point; sometimes it took three evenings to finish it.

Abdul lived in a condition of satisfaction only to be expressed by a Moslem mind. As for Michael, he had never imagined that he could feel himself so much at home and so closely in sympathy with purely native life. He began it at the point in his convalescence when nothing mattered; the path of least resistance was the only one which he could take. He continued in it when he no longer desired to resist.

He had received no word from the Valley or from the outer world. He felt that he was cut off and abandoned. Millicent had no doubt taken pains to let Margaret know that she had been with him in the desert, and what could he expect but that Freddy would be justly indignant?

But he was getting better every day. He had had no return of the fever for some time. Whenever he felt fit to travel, he would go to the Valley and see if he could discover anything of Freddy's whereabouts. Of course, he could not stay there during the hot weather, but the guards in charge of the excavation-site might be able to tell him where he was to be found.

It was no difficult matter for Michael to let things drift, and easier for him under the circumstances than it might otherwise have been.

It was only after his complete recovery, and at the end of his long journey with the faithful Abdul back to the Valley, that he realized the utter desolation which faced him.