CHAPTER XI VAE VICTIS
A wonderful deep bank of orange glowed all across the western sky, and the light of the sunset fell like a mantle over the limitless expanse of the desert stretching away for ever, as it seemed, beneath the flaming clouds. Round the camp that lay between the rocky ridges to east and west was some stir and excitement. A train of camels bearing tents and outfits stood ready waiting the signal to depart. A group of figures were in parley before the three white tents that still stood pitched upon the sand.
Sybil and Merton, with their part of the camp, their servants, guides and camels, were going.
The figures waited in silence outside the closed doors of Regina's tent. In a moment or two Everest came out.
"You can come and say good-bye to her now. She is waiting for you," he said, as he joined the group. Graham started forward immediately. Sybil's feet seemed to cling to the sand, she hesitated and murmured half inaudibly: "I don't want to see her."
Everest said nothing. He merely looked at her, and Sybil walked forward mechanically and entered the tent.
On the bed, with her head raised, lay Regina, her great flashing eyes turned towards them all as they pressed in. Her face was like marble in its whiteness, even her lips were colourless. Her whole shoulder, right arm and side were a mass of bandages, the soft cloudy yellow of her hair lay above her forehead and fell over her left arm. Sybil approached the bed and said nervously:
"Good-bye, Regina, I hope you will get over it soon. I expect you will. Everest is such a splendid nurse." There was a half-suppressed sigh at the end of her words, and as they fell on the silence in the tent all the three men who heard it glanced involuntarily at Everest. It was quite clear in that moment to them all that of the two women, Sybil, standing upright, erect, untouched in her full power and beauty, envied bitterly the one who was lying crushed and broken, maimed and disfigured in the shadow of death, at her feet, simply because of the delight of this man's presence that she would have about her which would outweigh delirium and fever and pain. It came in upon them all for a moment, a glimpse of the greatness of a woman's love, even when it has a base and selfish form, the value of it, the immense proportion it has in a woman's scheme of things.
They felt the truth, that Sybil, fresh and strong and sound, only longed to change place with the other, shattered and in pain, to know his touch and his kiss.