The Circe of the deserts

by Paule Henry-Bordeaux

Lady Hester, her long burnous floating in the wind, mounted on a horse with a flowing mane, passed, surrounded by her general staff of sheiks. Their lances decorated with ostrich feathers, their curly hair meandering down their cheeks, their bony mares, their savage demeanour, made a bad impression on the crowd. A long murmur of pity and commiseration rose towards the Syt. The janissaries who were keeping it back were overwhelmed; all the inhabitants of Hama wishing to take a last look at her who was going to her death, to be plundered at the least.

Sixty-six Bedouins galloped on the flanks of the caravan, their keffiyes and abayes floating in the breeze. Mrs. Fry, always so ill at ease in her masculine garb, Bruce and the doctor, who had allowed their beards to grow to keep themselves in countenance, Beaudin, Pierre, the syces, the men-servants followed in good order. A file of twenty-five horsemen. And to wind up the procession, some forty camels, with the haughty and disillusioned airs of old politicians undeceived about many things, defiled solemnly, showing their varied burdens: tents, light and heavy baggage, firewood, sacks of rice and flour, tobacco, coffee, sugar, soap, kitchen utensils, leathern bottles of drinking water, oats for the horses.

Lady Hester undertook the journey as a true Englishwoman whose formula is simple and in good taste: to have the maximum of comfort and the minimum of boredom. Little does it matter after mobilising a province, after unsettling a part of the earth, to render oneself odious to the inhabitants. It is always necessary to set one's house in order to travel with the English.

After a march of two days, the caravan arrived at the springs of Keffiyah, where the Emir Mahannah was encamped with his tribe. Lady Hester lingered there two days. The doctor dreamer, was he not seeking to see again the Bedouin girl who had touched his vulnerable heart? He called to mind the last stage of his journey with the Anezes.

"Ah, Raby, little Bedouin girl, where art thou now? Where is thy graceful and full figure, thy gilded skin, thy sad gazelle-like eyes? How lightly didst thou spring on to the back of a camel, placing thy bare foot on his protuberant joints, seizing with grace his tail by way of a hand-rail!

"Raby, thou didst turn thy head too often towards the stranger; perhaps thou wast saying to thyself in thy artlessly coquettish mind: Why dost thou look at me thus, amiable cavalier? I know that I am beautiful, for, although I am only fourteen years of age, several chiefs of the tribe have already demanded me in marriage. But my father demands fifty camels and a thoroughbred mare, and he says that that will not be enough as the price of my charms....

"Raby, little Raby, what hast thou done that a single smile from thee should be graven in my soul for ever?"

And the doctor becomes exalted in sentimental and lyrical incantations which time carried away like mustard seed.

The Anezes, of whom Mahannah was the chief, were at that time warring against the rival tribe of the Feydars. It was reported that strong detachments of the enemy had been met with on the desert routes. It was necessary to be on the watch to guard against a surprise attack.

The order of march was strictly established. At the head were Nasr, Lady Hester and her escort; Bruce, the doctor and the armed servants protected the rearguard, and the scouts extended themselves unceasingly across the sand-hills. The travellers felt then that the journey was serious and disquieting. They were on territory which did not submit to the Turks, and had no succour to expect. Their protectors were Bedouins, conquered by the lure of gain to-day, but changeable, uncertain, unattachable, hostile to-morrow. The caravan was long, the camels loaded with objects calculated to excite covetousness, the servants little numerous. The courage and the decision of a woman, her sang-froid, her energy, her liberalities, the renown which had preceded her, it was this which constituted the surest guarantees for the success of the expedition! And this woman was ill, so much that Bruce and Meryon asked each other, not without trembling, how she would withstand the fatigue. How was physical exhaustion and mental lassitude to keep in good order the quarrelsome and thievish Bedouins? Already there was a struggle, cunning and dissimulated, between Nasr and Lady Hester: the one wishing to compel the other to increase the price agreed upon, ready to employ every means to gain piastres; the other persuaded that, if she yielded, to-morrow her baggage, her arms, her clothes would no longer belong to her.