"Thus on and on went our weary caravan—the camels like great swans with their steady upturned heads, slithering as if in slippers along the noiseless sand, and many of the tired people asleep on them. But I could not sleep, and Ishmael, who was very much awake, rode by my side and talked to me.
"It was about love, and included one pretty story of a daughter of the Bedawee who married a Sultan—how she scorned the silken clothes he gave her and would not live in his palace—saying she was no fellaha to sleep in houses—and made him come out into the desert with her and dwell in a tent. I thought there was a certain self-reference in the story, but that was not all by any means.
"At midnight we halted by a group of wells, and while our vast army of animals was being watered my tent was set up outside the camp, so that I might rest without noise. I suppose I had been looking faint and pale, for just as I was listening to the monotonous voice of a boy who, at a fire not far away, was singing both himself and me to sleep, Ishmael came with a dish of medida, saying, 'Drink this, it will do you good.'
"Then he sat down, and, with that paralysing plainness of speech which the Easterns have, began to talk of love again, especially in relation to the duty of renunciation, quoting in that connection 'the lord of the Christians,' who had said, 'There be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake.'
"It was more than embarrassing from the beginning, but it became startling and almost shocking when he went on to talk about Jesus in relation to Mary Magdalene (whom he supposed to be the sister of Martha), and of the home at Bethany as the only place in which He found the solace of female society, and how He had to turn His back on the love of woman for His work's sake.
"We are so accustomed to think of Jesus's inaccessibility to human affection as if it were a merit in Him to be superior to love, that it made my skin creep to hear this person of another faith talk like that. But I shivered a good deal more when he came to closer quarters, and said that renunciation was the duty of every one on whom God had laid a great mission until his task was finished, and then ... then it was just as much his duty to live as a man!
"He went away quite calmly, commending me to God, but he left me in a state of terror; and though I was nearly worn to death by the double journey, I did not sleep a wink that night for thinking of that accursed day of the betrothal, and what would happen if he ever broke his promise and came to me to claim the rights of a husband.
"The next day or two passed without any serious incident except that Ishmael, who had developed a pair of haunting, imploring eyes, was always riding his camel by its halter and nose-rein at the side of my litter, and talking constantly on the same subject. But then came an event of thrilling interest. Can I—shall I—must I tell you about it? Yes, I can, I shall, I must!
"Out here on the desert I always feel as if I were travelling in Bible lands, and if our caravan were to come upon 'Abram the Hebrew,' and Rachel and Rebecca flying away with some Bedouin Jacob, I should not be the least surprised, so it seemed natural enough that yesterday, in the country of the Bisharin Arabs, we lit upon Laban, living as a patriarch among his people.
"There were his sons and his sons' sons, big, brawny boys, strong and clean of limb, and with their loins well girt but hardly anything else covered, and there were 'the souls born of his house' in their felt skull-caps and blue galabeahs. But what most concerned me were his two splendid daughters. No corsetted women out of Bond Street, sir, but superbly fine and majestic young females, tall and straight, with big bosoms like pomegranates, ringletted black hair, clear oval faces, the olive skin of the purest Arab blood, and large black eyes that shone like gems.