"Stand back. Keep away from the camel."
The man fell back, and Everest went forward quite alone to the complaining beast, who on seeing him approach, and fearing some new form of torture from a fresh enemy, burst into a fresh series of its anguished cries. When he was a little distance from it, Everest stopped and began to talk to it in Arabic, in low caressing tones, and all the crowd stood silent, wide-eyed and staring, and Regina watched him, her heart beating and swelling with love and delight in him. After a few moments the camel's shrieks fell to moans and groans, and finally to silence. It turned its intelligent head this way and that, listening intently to the soft Arabic words of encouragement and sympathy. When it was quite silent, Everest drew near to it, and knelt down, putting his hand gently on the saddle girth, when the creature winced and moaned. It swung its head round towards him, but did not offer to bite, and Everest talked to it again, while his strong, supple fingers worked at the unfastening of the girth. It was difficult to get at, owing to the animal's position, but with infinite patience and calm he accomplished it, the camel watching him and listening to his voice all the time. As the girth was loosened, some blood splashed out on his hand and cuff, and as he drew the band aside a wound, in which a man might lay his closed fist, was revealed. The camel winced and moaned a little, but seemingly breathed more easily when the tight band was loosened.
"Now you can get up," Everest said, exactly as he would have done to a human being, and the camel, groaning slightly, but otherwise not protesting, rose to its feet, while the blood trickled slowly down its foreleg from the wound. Everest stroked and caressed its neck as it stood beside him, and then turned upon the driver.
Regina heard him, in an unbroken flow of Arabic, which she could only partially follow, abuse the man for using an animal in that state, and threaten him with every kind of punishment if he persisted in hiring out that or any other camel in a similar condition.
The man, not knowing in the least who this magnificent and authoritative person might be, turned all colours, and vowed and protested complete and absolute submission, and said he had another camel, only it was worth eight shillings a day, and the English mister had said he couldn't give more than six, so he wouldn't give him his best camel, but now indeed he would, if this great lord would spare his life and possessions. The scene ended by Everest taking the man's name and address down in his note-book, and ordering the camel to be led off by his own servants to have its wound dressed.
When he looked round for the British tourist he had vanished, and some hours late Everest and Regina returned to their boat for breakfast. Such and similar incidents were not uncommon, and each of them seemed to send a gold barb down deep into her heart, pinning fast into her consciousness a memory that could never be torn out.
And gradually, though she had never thought of or wished for children, she delighted in the idea now of bearing them to this man. If she could produce beings with his beauty, grace, strength and intellect, and that dear character of his, and give them to the world, that was a work, after all, worth doing; and hopes, like fairies, came to her now, from day to day, and ideas and thoughts that became almost a conviction, but she said nothing of it. She would wait till she was quite sure. There was plenty of time.
And besides the riding of every kind in the desert, there was the shooting. Everest was so anxious she should shoot well and easily, and two or three times in the week they would go out to distant sandbanks or hill ridges, where they could practise in safety. All kinds of marks and distances were arranged for her: moving objects running on a string, held by servants, and balls thrown into the air gave her quickness and dexterity, with both rifle and pistol.
The days when there was no shooting practice there was the painting, and they sat side by side on the cool upper deck, with the curtains rolled up on some enchanting prospect, each absorbed in giving it duplicate life upon the canvas.
And when the painting tired there was the playing, that they both loved, and so the happy, busy days flew by, each filled to the brim and overflowing with work and exercise, artistic creation and love. Deliciously tired with accomplishment, they fell into each other's arms at night, while the boat glided on by moonlight, to fresh scenes, where the dawn would break.