The Night of Temptation

by Victoria Cross

Here, in the still, moonlight evenings, with the canvas sides of the awning rolled up and their steam tug pulling them swiftly upstream against the ripple and the light, floating airs of the Nile, Everest would lie, while she played to him, or they would sit together, watching the golden sand—golden to deep orange, even in the moonlight—of the banks speed past them. It had been so far a dream of enchantment, their life on board that boat. Day by day, and night by night, this floating up and up the magical, golden river, between ever-changing vistas of loveliness, of palm grove and date plantations, of rose and azure-tinted hills, of deep green bands of the cultivated fields, of burnished stretches of glittering desert, brought to the girl's mind sometimes a sense of unreality.

"One never is so perfectly happy in one's life, for long," she often thought. "The gods must begin to envy me soon, as the Greeks would say, and strike me down." And she clung to every jewelled hour, as sometimes in those rare dreams of perfect happiness that visit the human brain the dreamer clings to his sleep, and fears the moment of his awakening, which he is dimly conscious is approaching.

But, so far, no blow had fallen on the girl, each day came to her like a messenger loaded with new gifts. Time was her ally, and every morning the huge mirror, between its velvet hangings, showed her a face that grew more lovely, a form that grew more perfect, as it developed, flower-like, in this atmosphere, mental and physical, of warmth and light; and though, in reality, Everest's feet were already on that cold bridge that leads from youth to age, no trace yet of that awful, slow destruction of the human frame could be detected in the lithe, active body, nor in the clear-skinned, handsome face. The tremendous energy that filled them both prevented any day seeming one moment too long for them: its twenty-four hours barely sufficed them for what they wanted to do in it.

Everest knew Egypt well, as he did Nubia, the Soudan, Abyssinia and much of the heart of Africa, but he took an immense interest in Regina's initiation and education. She was so well worth teaching! She loved learning so much, and learnt so easily and rapidly! A good part of their mornings were given up to the study of Arabic, which Everest spoke perfectly himself. One of the girl's great joys was to hear him talk when the Arab sheiks or other native visitors came to see them on their boat, and she longed eagerly for the time when she would converse easily with them, as he did. Then she must learn to ride perfectly and easily anything that might be necessary at any moment, camel, horse or donkey, and the dahabeeyah was stopped by his orders for many days, at the most interesting spots, so that they might take long rides together. And these camel races over limitless tracts of desert sand! what a source of wildest joy and elation they were to her.

Everest would have the boat pulled up by some large native village or settlement, and send his servants on shore to scour it for camels.

When some good-looking beast had been found, and sent up, he would go himself, and personally examine it. Every cloth and covering would be stripped from the camel by his orders, and then its condition and skin carefully examined. The least sore or any pain-giving defect caused rejection. He would only hire for his amusement animals that could give it to him without distress. Finally, when two camels were eventually selected, they were given food and water under his personal supervision, and then left to rest in sheltered repose till the next day. Under these circumstances, the camels on the following morning were ready and fit and willing to go any distance, and those long flying, swinging rides that she and Everest took together were a source of great delight to Regina, delight greatly heightened by Everest's care of the beasts themselves.

"I hate to hear a camel cry," he replied once to her eager praise. "I know them so well—they are so good and gentle and patient and when they scream as they do it means they are in terrible suffering."

And all his camels ever did was to gurgle with pleasure, whenever he approached them. He seemed to possess a magnetic power over animals, to speak to them in their own language. They never resisted him, nor resented anything he did. They seemed to have an instinctive belief in his knowledge of their troubles and requirements. And no trait in a man could have bound Regina so closely to him as this did; no quality evoked a greater admiration.