Читать книгу Desert Love - Joan Conquest - Страница 8

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Arabs as a race are tall, most of them having a grave look of nobility, all without exception, inheriting from their forefathers Ishmail or Johtan that air of studied calm, that seldom smiling, never restless attitude, which expresses the height of dignity and gravity. There were many of them in this motley station crowd, also Bedouins, smaller of stature, and the members of the many other tribes which go to populating the great Egyptian desert. But not one of all the men, magnificent though some of them were, could compare with Hahmed the Camel King, who, standing alone and motionless with folded arms, let his eyes rest upon this most fair woman from the West.

Jill was accustomed to being looked at, from the impudent stare of

Frenchmen, the open look of admiration, both male and female, of the

Italian, to the never-to-be-forgotten look of Berlin that had seemed to

undress and leave her naked in the street.

But now under grave scrutiny she felt the colour, which made her even more lovely, rising from chin to brow, and longed to cover her face or to run away and hide, though there was nothing but a wondering respect in the Arab's eyes.

For one moment his eyes met hers, then she slowly lowered the heavy white lids with their fringe of curling lashes, and, turning, stood looking out over the desert, where she no longer saw the stretches of yellow sand, nor the airing of camels stalking away into the distance, nor the mud houses and patient bullocks. No! nothing of all these, but instead, just one man's face, oval, lean-featured, eyes brilliantly black and deep-set under thick eyebrows, an aquiline nose, the lower part of the face covered in a sharp pointed beard, and the thick virile hair by a snow-white kahleelyah, bound by a band to the well-shaped head.

A man was he indeed with a width of shoulder rarely seen in an Arab, standing well over six foot, in spotless white robes sweeping to his feet, a cloak of finest black cloth falling over all in swinging folds, failing, however, to hide that look of tremendous strength which impresses one so in some of the long-limbed, lean, muscular inhabitants of the desert.

Jill walked over to the edge of the platform which, as a rule is only raised a few inches above the rail, and after a few seconds beckoned her employer's special dragoman, who had annexed himself at Cairo and presumably would only be shaken off on deck.

He came immediately, all smiles.

All the so-called lower classes smiled upon Jill, from the coster in Whitechapel to the Kaffir at the Cape. And why? Why, because she smiled when she asked a service.

"Be more dignified!" she would indignantly reply when remonstrated with about the native. "They certainly show a varied degree of blackness in their skin, and have less brains than some of us, but they are human, so I shall continue to smile if I like," and smile she did, and they smiled too and ran to do her bidding.

Not that she indulged in the "our dear black brother" views of those people who, from utter lack of knowledge upon the subject, believe that with the exception of a certain difference in the pigment which embellishes the skin, the lowest type of Hottentot has the same ideals, desires, and outlook on life as the highest born, or, as I think to be more correct, I should say, the cleanest living individual in the Western Hemisphere.

She did not approve of the promiscuous mingling of the white and black as is so often and so unhappily seen in London, where a servant girl maybe, will ecstatically spend her evening out under the protection of some ebony hued product of Africa and, labouring under the delusion that the dusky swain is the direct descendant of Cetewayo, also totally lacking all knowledge of African history, will fondly imagine herself a queen in embryo, instead of which she is merely the means to feed the lustful longing for the white in some Cape boy, who believes he hides the roll of his native walk under an exaggerated skirt to his over-padded coat.

And she equally hated to see the social butterfly smile upon the high-born native of India, angling for his lakhs with the bait of a fair white skin upon which to fasten a string of priceless pearls, gathering her fastidious skirts about her at the sign of any feeling more human than that which she would allow from a respectable bank manager, recoiling disdainfully from a man whose ancestors were mighty in the land, when hers were just beginning to break through the crust of serfdom, as a toad will crack and throw back the caked mud under which it has blissfully slept.

As a preventative to social and racial mishaps she thoroughly endorsed the theory that "East is East and West is West, etc." But in her heart, or rather in her somewhat searching brain, she had often wondered if there could be no exception to the ruling, if half of the East and half of West could never combine to make a perfect whole.

All smiles the dragoman ran forward, saluting her with hands to forehead, mouth, and breast.

"Do you know who that man is?" she asked, indicating with a scarcely perceptible movement of the head the Arab who had not moved a muscle since she had turned away from him to look at his homeland, the desert.

"'Im! My lady!" replied the native, eyes and white teeth flashing as he essayed in his best Anglo-French to please the beautiful foreigner who so graciously spoke to him. "'Im? Oh, 'im! is Hahmed the Camel King. 'Im provide the camels for Government 'Camels Corpse,'" pointing to the Camelry Corps, where perspiring Tommies and a seething mass of brown beasts were literally raising the dust on the other side of the railroad. "'Im," he continued, "is ze great man, from far away over ze Canal from ze greates' and best part of South Arabia. Is rich, oh! rich! Oh! so very rich—riche comme le diable, Madame. Is master of many villages, many peoples, but is 'ow say, my lady—est étrange—and feared. 'Is word is ze law and 'is arm is ze iron and 'e can also shoot ze fly on ze top of Cheops!"

The man paused, literally from want of breath.

"He is evidently a very fine man," said Jill, it must be confessed a little disappointedly, having expected something a little less ordinary in the way of history, "but I can't say I see anything strange about it all!"

The dragoman, slightly downcast by the lack of enthusiasm on the part of his audience, took in a huge quantity of the absolutely stifling air and started afresh.

"Oh! mais, Madame, ze strange zing is zat wiz all 'is rich, all 'is camel, all 'is 'ouse—ah! I forgot zat is 'is Ismailiah 'ouse," pointing a long, brown finger to a huge pink edifice, standing like a huge pink birthday cake under the blazing sun on the edge of the town—"'e 'as no woman—no not an one—not wife—not lady—zere is tales of one wife long ago over zere," pointing vaguely in the direction he imagined South Arabia might be, "but feared, we say and ask nozing—no! ze great Hahmed live alone—not zere———" Once more pointing contemptuously to the pink abode. "Zat but a business 'ouse—ze most beautiful place in one oasis! Ze Flat Oasis! Ah Madame! comme c'est 'belle—I who 'ave been on camel business can tell, ze 'ouse, ze shade, ze water—but no lady, no children, no son, no one—'e go and sleep and live all by self alone—triste, Madame, because 'e is ze great, ze just, but go always alone in ze night to 'is oasis bien aimée and———"

And here the uplifting of an angry guttural voice caused him to turn and run hurriedly towards a figure vehemently signalling with a huge fawn-coloured sun-shade lined with green.

And as he ran the soul of the desert, born of the sun, palms, ennui, flies, the sand, and Allah knows what besides, suddenly sat up in Jill's eyes and laughed, and as she laughed the words "Go always alone in ze night to 'is oasis bien aimée" rang in the girl's ears, as a strange and startling idea flashed across her mind.

For and against the idea ranged her thoughts; upheld one moment by the insistent clamouring of her whole soul for freedom; combated the next by the inherited deference to convention planted by long dead generations in the mind soil of almost every British subject.

Why should she not break away and strike out on her own, if only for a few hours? But would she not be running into positive physical danger if she did so? Still it would only be for a few hours—a swift ride into the desert—a glimpse of a desert home—a break anyhow in the deadly, soul-stifling monotony of her daily round. Yes! but what did she know of the man outside the eulogies of the dragoman, who for all she knew might be leagued with him in nefarious schemes.

And yet, no one cared if she lived or died in soul or body. Marry she would not for years, and years, though of a truth that prospect would become more and more remote as youth vanished and the waters of her wealth remained at low tide. But the most irresistible argument in favour of the mad idea was that so far she had not had one single real adventure.

"Allah!" she whispered, clasping her hands involuntarily. "Where is my path? Show me the way out!"

And even as she unclasped her hands, she heard a faint tinkle of coins in the well-worn little bag hanging from her wrist.

"Allah has heard!" she murmured to herself, as she fished for a coin.

"Heads I speak—tails I go back to England," she continued, placing the silver coin on her thumb nail, flipping it into the air, and catching it on the back of her hand. "Heads. Oh!"

And giving herself no time to think, whilst the soul in her eyes first frowned and then laughed in glee, she turned and crossed the few yards covered by the sand which for centuries blown hither and hither had been waiting to make a carpet for her lovely feet to tread when Allah in his graciousness should show her the path, which would lead her to the way out.