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   :PG.Id: 34978
   :PG.Title: Burning Sands
   :PG.Released: 2011-01-15
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   :PG.Producer: the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
   :DC.Creator: Arthur Weigal
   :DC.Title: Burning Sands
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 2011

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      BURNING SANDS
=========================

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      Title: Burning Sands

      Author: Arthur Weigal

      Release Date: January 15, 2011 [EBook #34978]

      Language: English

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   A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY—BURNING SANDS

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   |

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Burning Sands

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By

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Arthur Weigall

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| Author of
| Madeline of the Desert, Etc.
|
|
| Illustrated With Scenes From The Photoplay
| A Paramount Picture
| Directed by George Melford
|
|
| Grosset & Dunlap
| Publishers   New York
|
| Made in the United States of America
|
|
|
|
| Copyright, 1921.
| By Dodd, Mead And Company, Inc.
|
| Printed in U. S. A.

.. contents:: Contents
   :backlinks: entry
   :depth: 1



CHAPTER I—A STUDY IN BEHAVIOUR
==============================

The music ceased. For a full minute the many
dancers stood as the dance had left them,
stranded, so to speak, upon the polished floor
of the ballroom, clapping their white-gloved hands in
what seemed to be an appeal to the tired musicians to
release them from their awkward situation. The *chef
d’orchestre* rose from his chair and shook his head,
pointing to the beads of moisture upon his sallow forehead.
Two or three couples, more merciful than their
companions, turned and walked away; and therewith
the whole company ceased their vain clapping, and, as
though awakened from an hypnotic seizure, hastened
to jam themselves into the heated, chattering mass
which moved out of the brilliantly lighted room and
dispersed into the shadows of the halls and passages
beyond.

Lady Muriel Blair, to all appearances the only cool
young person in the throng, led her perspiring partner
towards a group of elderly women who sat fanning themselves
near an open window, beyond which the palms
could be seen redundant in the light of the moon. An
enormous-bosomed matron, wearing a diamond tiara
upon her dyed brown hair, and a rope of pearls about
her naked pink shoulders, turned to her as she approached,
and smiled upon her in a patronizing manner.
She was the wife of Sir Henry Smith-Evered, Commander-in-chief
of the British Forces in Egypt; and
her smile was highly valued in Cairo society.

“You seem to be enjoying yourself, my dear,” she
said, taking hold of the girl’s hand. “But you mustn’t
get overtired in this heat. Wait another month, until
the weather is cool, and then you can dance all night.”

“Oh, but I don’t feel it at all,” Lady Muriel replied,
looking with mild disdain at her partner’s somewhat
limp collar. “Father warned me that October in Cairo
would be an ordeal, but so far I’ve simply loved it.”

Her voice had that very slight suggestion of husky
tiredness in it which has a certain fascination. With
her it was habitual.

“You’ve only been in Egypt twenty-four hours,”
Lady Smith-Evered reminded her. “You must be
careful.”

“Careful!” the girl muttered, with laughing scorn.
“I hate the word.”

Her good-looking little partner, Rupert Helsingham,
ran his finger around the inside of his collar, and adjusted
his eyeglass. “Let’s go and sit on the veranda,”
he suggested.

Lady Muriel turned an eye of mocking enquiry upon
the General’s lady, who was her official chaperone
(though the office had little, if any, meaning); for, in a
strange country and in a diplomatic atmosphere, it
was as well, she thought, to ascertain the proprieties.
Lady Smith-Evered, aware of dear little Rupert’s strict
regard on all occasions for his own reputation, nodded
acquiescence; and therewith the young couple sauntered
out of the room.

“A charming girl!” remarked the stout chaperone,
turning her heavily powdered face to her companions.

“She is beautiful,” said Madam Pappadoulopolos,
an expansive, black-eyed, black-haired, black-moustached,
black-robed figure, wife of the Greek Consul-General.

“She has the sort of monkey-beauty of all the
Blairs,” declared Mrs. Froscombe, the gaunt but romantic
wife of the British Adviser to the Ministry of
Irrigation. She spoke authoritatively. She had recently
purchased a richly illustrated volume dealing
with the history of that eminent family.

“It is a great responsibility for Lord Blair,” said
Lady Smith-Evered. “Now that poor Lady Blair has
been dead for over a year, he felt that he ought not to
leave his only daughter, his only child, with her relations
in England any longer; and, of course, it is very
right that she should take her place as mistress here
at the Residency, though I could really have acted as
hostess for him perfectly well.”

“Indeed yes,” Madam Pappadoulopolos assented,
warmly.

“You have a genius for *that* sort of thing,” murmured
Mrs. Froscombe, staring out of the window at
the moonlit garden.

“Thank you, Gladys dear,” said Lady Smith-Evered,
smiling coldly at her friend’s averted face.

Muriel Blair’s type of beauty was in a way monkey-like,
if so ludicrous a term can be employed in a laudatory
sense to describe a face of great charm. She
was of about the average height; her head was gracefully
set upon her excellent neck and shoulders; and
there was a sort of airy dignity in her carriage and step.
Her enemies called her sullen at times, and named her
Moody Muriel; her friends, on the contrary, described
her as a personification of the spirit of Youth; while
her feminine intimates said that, except for her dislike
of the cold, she might have earned her living as a sculptor’s
model.

She possessed a much to be envied mane of rather
coarse brown hair which she wore coiled high upon her
head; and her skin was that of a brunette, though there
was some nice colour in her cheeks. Her eyes were
good, and she had the habit of staring at her friends,
sometimes, in a manner which seemed to indicate a fortuitous
mimicry of childlike and incredulous questioning.

It was perhaps the tilt of her small nose and an occasional
setting of her jaw which caused her undoubted
beauty to be called monkey-like; or possibly it was the
occasional defiance of her brown eyes, or the puckering
of her eyebrows, or sometimes the sudden and whimsical
grimace which she made when she was displeased.

As she seated herself now in the moonlight and leant
back in the basket chair, Rupert Helsingham looked at
her with admiration; and in the depths of his worldly
little twenty-five-year-old mind he anticipated with
pleasurably audacious hopes a season tinctured with
romance. He held the position of Oriental Secretary
at the Residency, and was considered to be a rising
young man, something of an Arabic scholar, and an
expert on points of native etiquette. She was his
chief’s daughter, and heiress to the Blair estates.
Every day they would meet; and probably, since she
was rather adorable, he would fall in love with her, and
perhaps she with him. It was a charming prospect.

His father had recently been created Baron Helsingham
of Singleton. The old gentleman was the first
of an ancient race of village squires who had ever performed
any public service or received any royal recognition;
and now he, the son and heir, might very possibly
make the first notable matrimonial alliance of his
line.

“I wonder what’s happened to my father,” said
Muriel, breaking the silence engendered by Rupert’s
reflections. “I haven’t seen him since the how-d’you-doing
business.”

His whereabouts was only of casual interest to her,
for she regarded him with no particular love, nor, indeed,
did she know him at all intimately. His duties
had taken him abroad a great deal during her childhood,
while her education had kept her in England;
and for the last three or four years he had passed almost
entirely out of her scheme of things.

“He’s working in his study,” her companion replied,
pointing to the wing of the house which went to form
the angle wherein they were sitting. “He always dictates
his telegrams at this time: he says he feels more
benevolent after dinner. He’ll come into the ballroom
presently, and say the correct thing to the correct people.
He’s a paragon of tact, and, I can tell you, tact
is needed here in Cairo! There’s such a mixture of
nationalities to deal with. What languages do you
speak?”

“Only French,” she replied.

“Good!” he laughed. “Speak French to everybody:
especially to those who are not French. It makes
them think that you think them cosmopolitan. Everybody
wants to be thought cosmopolitan in a little place
like this: it indicates that they have had the money to
travel.”

“I shall look to you for guidance,” said Muriel,
opening her mouth to yawn, and shutting it again as
though remembering her manners.

“I’ll give you a golden rule to start with,” he answered.
“Be very gracious to all foreigners, because
every little politeness helps the international situation,
but behave how you like to English people, because
their social aspirations require them to speak of you
as *dear* Lady Muriel, however fiercely they burn with
resentment.”

Muriel smiled. She had a really fascinating smile,
and her teeth were worthy of the great care she gave to
them. “And how must I treat an Egyptian—I mean
an Egyptian gentleman?” she enquired.

“There isn’t such a thing,” he laughed, having very
insular ideas as to the meaning of the word.

“Well, a Prince or a Pasha or whatever they’re
called?”

“O, that’s simple enough. If his colour is anything
lighter than black coffee, ask him if he’s a Frenchman.
He will protest vehemently, and cry ‘Mais non!—je
suis Egyptien.’ But he’ll love you for ever all the
same.”

Muriel gazed before her into the mystery of the
garden. For a brief moment she had the feeling that
their conversation was at variance with their surroundings,
that the sweet night and the moon and the stately
trees were bidding them be silent. But the thought
was gone almost before it was recorded.

From where she sat she looked across one side of the
short circular entrance-drive, and behind the acacias
and slender palms, which grew close up to the veranda,
she could see the high white wall of the garden, whereon
the purple bougainvillea clustered. Through the ornate
bars of the great front gates she watched the
regular passage to and fro of the kilted sentry, the
moonlight gleaming upon the bayonet fixed to his rifle.
Beyond, there was an open lamp-lit square, in the middle
of which a jet of sparkling water shot up from a
marble fountain.

Roses grew in profusion at the edges of the drive,
and the gentle night-wind brought their fragrance to
her nostrils; while to her ears came the rustling of the
trees, the ringing tramp of the sentry’s heavy boots,
and the subdued chatter of the resting dancers to whom
this part of the veranda was forbidden. In the clear
Egyptian atmosphere so strong was the moonlight that
every detail of the scene was almost as apparent as it
would have been at high noon; and, between the houses
on the opposite side of the square, her vision travelled
out over the ranges of white buildings which gradually
rose towards the towering Citadel and the hills of the
desert beyond. Here and there a minaret pierced the
sky, so slender that its stability seemed a marvel of
balance; and countless domes and cupolas gleamed like
great pearls in the silvery light.

She was about to ask a further languid question of
her partner in regard to the ways of Cairene society
when her attention was attracted by the appearance
of a man wearing a slouch hat, who came suddenly into
view beyond the bars of the gates and was at once accosted
by the Scotch sentry. He looked something of
a ruffian, and the sentry seemed to be acting correctly
in barring the way with his rifle held in both hands
across his bare knees.

A rapid argument followed, the exact words of which
she could not quite catch; but it was evident that the
Scotchman was not going to admit any suspicious
character or possible anarchist on to the premises until
he had consulted with the native policeman who was to
be seen hurrying across the square. On the other hand
the intruder appeared to be in a hurry, and his voice
had clearly to be controlled as he explained to the zealous
guardian of the gate that he had business at the
Residency. But the sentry was obdurately silent, and
the voice of the speaker, in consequence, increased in
volume.

“Now don’t be silly,” Muriel heard him say, “or
I’ll take your gun away from you.”

At this she laughed outright, and, turning to her
companion, suggested that he should go and find out
what was the trouble; but he shook his head.

“No,” he said. “We can’t be seen here behind
these flower-pots: let’s watch what happens.”

The newcomer made a sudden forward movement;
the sentry assumed an attitude as though about to
bayonet him, or to pretend to do so; there was a rapid
scuffle; and a moment later the rifle was twisted out of
its owner’s brawny hands.

The soldier uttered an oath, stepped back a pace, and
like a lion, leapt upon his assailant. There was a confused
movement; the rifle dropped with a clatter upon
the pavement; and the Scotchman seized about the middle
in a grip such as he was unlikely ever to have experienced
before, turned an amazingly unexpected
somersault, landing, like a clown at the circus, in a sitting
position in which he appeared to be staring open-mouthed
at the beauties of a thousand dazzling stars.

Thereupon the ruffian quietly picked up the rifle,
opened the gate, shut it behind him, and walked up the
drive; while the Egyptian policeman ran to the soldier’s
assistance, blowing the while upon his whistle with all
the wind God had given him.

The dazed sentry scrambled to his feet, and, with a
curious crouching gait, suggestive of the ring, followed
the intruder into the drive.

“Gi’ me ma rifle,” he said, hoarsely. It was evident
that he was trying to collect his wits; and his attitude
was that of a wrestler looking for an opening.

The ruffian stood still, and in voluble Arabic ordered
the policeman to stop his noise, at which the bewildered
native, as though impressed by the peremptory words,
obediently took the whistle out of his mouth and stood
irresolute.

“Gi’ me ma rifle,” repeated the Scot, in injured
tones, warily circling around his cool opponent.

Rupert Helsingham suddenly got up from his chair.
“Why,” he exclaimed, “it’s Daniel Lane! Excuse me
a moment.”

He hurried down the steps of the veranda; and, with
breathless interest, Muriel watched the two men shake
hands, the one a small dapper ballroom figure, the other
a large, muscular brigand, a mighty man from the
wilds. He wore a battered, broad-brimmed felt hat,
an old jacket of thin tweed, and grey flannel trousers
which sagged at the knees and were rolled up above a
pair of heavy brown boots, covered with dust.

With an air of complete unconcern he gave the rifle
back to the abashed sentry; and, putting his hand on
Helsingham’s shoulder, strolled towards the veranda.

“I’ve ridden in at top speed,” he said, and Muriel
noticed that his voice was deep and quiet, and that there
was a trace of an American accent. “A hundred and
fifty miles in under three days. Pretty good going,
considering how bad the tracks are up there.” He
jerked his thumb in the direction of the western desert.

“The Great Man will be very pleased,” the other
replied. ‘The Great Man’ was the designation generally
used by the diplomatic staff in speaking of Lord
Blair.

As they ascended the steps Daniel Lane cast a pair
of searching blue eyes upon the resplendent figure of
the girl in the chair. In the sheen of the moon her
dress, of flimsy material, seemed to array her as it were
in a mist; and the diamonds about her throat and in her
hair—for she was wearing family jewels—gleamed
like magic points of light.

“Got a party on?” he asked, with somewhat disconcerting
directness.

“A dance,” Rupert Helsingham replied, stiffly, “in
honour of Lady Muriel’s arrival. But let me introduce
you.”

He turned to the girl, and effected the introduction.
“Mr. Lane,” he said, “is one of your father’s most
trusted friends. I don’t know what we should do sometimes
without his counsel and advice. He knows the
native mind inside out.”

Now that the man had removed his hat, Lady Muriel
felt sure that she had seen him before, but where, she
could not recall. The face was unforgettable. The
broad forehead from which the rough mud-coloured
hair was thrown back; the heavy brows which screened
the steady blue eyes; the bronzed skin; the white, regular
teeth—these features she had looked at across a
drawing-room somewhere. His bulk and figure, too,
were not of the kind to be forgotten easily: the powerful
neck, the great shoulders, the mighty chest, the strong
hands, were all familiar to her.

“I think we’ve met before,” she ventured.

“Yes, I fancy we have,” he replied. “Use’n’t you
to wear your hair in two fat pigtails?”

“Four years ago,” she laughed.

“Then I guess it was four years ago that we met,”
he said; and without further remark he turned to
Rupert Helsingham, asking whether and when he might
see Lord Blair. “I was going to ring at the side door
there,” he explained, pointing to the door behind them
which led directly into the corridor before the Great
Man’s study. “That’s my usual way in: I’ve no use
for the main entrance and the footman.”

“And not much real use for sentries, either,” Muriel
laughed.

“The lad only did his duty,” he answered good-humouredly,
pointing to his rough clothes; “but somehow
things like fixed bayonets always make me impatient.
I must try to get over it.”

“If Lady Muriel will excuse me, I’ll go and find out
if his Lordship can see you at once,” said Helsingham,
in his most official tone of voice. A sentry after all is
a sentry, not an acrobat; and if people will wear
the garments of a tramp, they must take the consequences.

Daniel Lane thrust his hands into his pockets, and
stared out into the garden; while Muriel, left alone with
him, was aware of a feeling of awkwardness and a consequent
sense of annoyance. His broad back was
turned to her—if not wholly, certainly sufficiently to
suggest a lack of deference, a lack, almost, of consciousness
of her presence.

A minute or two passed. She hoped that her polite
little partner would quickly return to take her back to
the ballroom, in which the music had again begun.
She felt stupid and curiously tongue-tied. She wanted
to make some remark, if only as a reminder to him of
his manners.

The remark which at length she made, however, was
foolish, and unworthy of her: she knew this before the
words had passed her lips. “You seem to find the
garden very interesting,” she said.

He turned round slowly, a whimsical smile upon his
face. “Very,” he answered; and then, after an embarrassing
pause, “I haven’t seen any roses for six
months: I’m revelling in them.”

“Do you live in the desert?” she asked.

“Yes, most of my time. It’s a fine free life.”

“Oh, one can be free anywhere,” she replied. She
felt an indefinable desire to be contrary.

“Nonsense!” he answered, abruptly. “You don’t
call yourself free, do you, in those diamonds and those
absurd shoes?”

He turned again to the garden and breathed in the
scent of the roses, with head thrown back. To Lady
Muriel’s joy Rupert Helsingham returned at this moment,
followed by a footman.

“Lord Blair will see you at once,” he said.

The girl gave a sigh of relief which she hoped Mr.
Lane would observe; but in this she was disappointed,
for, with a nod to her partner and a good-natured bow
to herself, he strode away.

“A very odd fellow,” remarked Helsingham, when
they were alone once more. “His manners are atrocious;
but what can one expect from a man who spends
his life in the desert?”

“What makes him live there?” she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Being a crank, I suppose.
He’s studying Bedouin manners and customs, or
something. He’s a great Arabic scholar.”

“He made me feel rather uncomfortable,” she said,
as she rose from her chair and laid her fingers on her
partner’s arm.

“Yes, he’s boorish,” he replied, smoothing his sleek,
dark hair with his disengaged hand.

“It isn’t that, quite,” she corrected him, her eyebrows
puckering. “But he made me feel that I was of
no importance whatsoever, and, being a woman, I resented
it. He brushed me aside, like the sentry.”

“He was probably shy,” her companion suggested,
for conciliation was his *métier*. “And of course he
must have been tired after that long ride.”

“No,” she said, as they entered the ballroom, “I
don’t think he was in the least bit shy; and, as for being
tired, could anything make a man of that kind tired?
He looks like a Hercules, or a Samson, or something
unconquerable of that sort.”

Rupert Helsingham glanced quickly at her. There
was a tone in her voice which suggested that their visitor’s
personality had at once imposed itself on her
mind. Women, he understood, were often attracted
by masculine strength and brutality. He had known
cases where an assumption of prehistoric manners had
been eminently successful in the seduction of the weaker
sex, painfully more successful, indeed, than had been
his own well-bred dalliance with romance.

A school-friend had told him once that no girl could
resist the man who took her by the throat, or pulled
back her head by the hair, or, better still, who picked
her up in his arms and bit her in the neck. He wondered
whether Lady Muriel was heavy, and, with a sort
of timorous audacity, he asked himself whether she
would be likely to enjoy being bitten. He would have
to be careful of Daniel Lane: he did not want any rivals.

She led him across to the three elderly ladies. He
was her partner also for the present dance; but Muriel,
throwing herself into a chair beside Lady Smith-Evered,
told him that she would prefer not to take the floor.
He glanced at the forbidding aspect of the three, and
admired what he presumed to be her self-sacrifice in
the interests of diplomacy.

“Rupert, my dear,” said the General’s wife, “do be
an angel and bring us some ices.”

“What a willing little fellow he is,” murmured Mrs.
Froscombe, as he hurried away on his errand, and there
was a tone of derision in her voice.

“He’s always very helpful,” Lady Smith-Evered retorted,
somewhat sharply, for he was her pet.

“I think he’s a dear,” said Muriel. “Nice manners
are a tremendous asset. I hate churlishness.”

“I think you seldom meet with churlishness in Englishmen,”
remarked Madam Pappadoulopolos. Her
husband had told her to flatter the English whenever
she could.

Muriel laughed. “I don’t know so much about
that,” she replied. “On the veranda just now I met
an Englishman who, to say the least, was not exactly
courteous.”

“Oh, who was that?” asked her chaperone, with interest.

“A certain Daniel Lane,” she replied.

Lady Smith-Evered gave a gesture of impatience.
“Oh, *that* man!” she exclaimed. “He’s in Cairo
again, is he? He’s an absolute outsider.”

“What is he?—What’s he do?” Muriel asked, desiring
further particulars.

“Ah! That’s the mystery,” said Lady Smith-Evered,
with a look of profound knowing. “Incidentally,
my dear, he is said to keep a harîm of Bedouin
women somewhere out in the desert. I shouldn’t be
surprised if every night he beat them all soundly and
sent them where the rhyme says.”

She laughed nastily, and Muriel made a grimace.


CHAPTER II—THE FREEDOM OF THE DESERT
====================================

Lord Blair rose from his chair as the door
opened, and removed from his thin, furtive nose
a pair of large horn-rimmed spectacles which
he always wore when quite alone in his study.

“Come in, come in, my dear Mr. Lane,” he exclaimed,
taking a few blithe steps forward and shaking his visitor
warmly by the hand. “I’m very well, thank you,
very well indeed, and so are you, I see. That’s right,
that’s good,—splendid! Dear me, what physique!
What a picture of health! How did you get here so
quickly?—do take a seat, do be seated. Yes, yes, to
be sure! Have a cigar? Now, where did I put my
cigars?”

He pushed a leather arm-chair around, so that it
faced his own desk chair, and began at once to hunt for
his cigar-box, lifting and replacing stacks of papers
and books, glancing rapidly, like some sort of rodent,
around the room, and then again searching under his
papers.

“Thanks,” said Daniel Lane, “I’ll smoke my pipe,
if it won’t make you sick.”

“Tut, tut!” Lord Blair laughed, extending his delicate
hands in a comprehensive gesture. “I sometimes
smoke a pipe myself: I enjoy it. A good, honest,
English smoke! Dear me, where *are* my cigars?”

Lord Blair was a little man of somewhat remarkable
appearance—remarkable, that is to say, when considered
in relation to his historic name and excellent diplomatic
record. In a company of elderly club waiters he
would, on superficial observation, have passed unnoticed.
He bore very little resemblance to his daughter;
and, in fact, he was often disposed to believe his
late wife’s declaration, made whenever she desired to
taunt him, that Muriel was no child of his. Lady
Blair had had many lovers; and it is notorious that
twenty odd years ago in Mayfair there was an exceptionally
violent epidemic of adultery.

He himself had thin auburn hair, now nearly grey,
neatly parted in the middle; nervous, quick-moving
brown eyes; closely cut ‘mutton-chop’ whiskers; an
otherwise clean-shaven, sharp-featured face; and a
wide mouth, furnished with two somewhat apparent
rows of false teeth. His smile was kindly and gracious,
and his expression, in spite of a certain vigilance, mild.

The evening dress which he was now wearing was
noteworthy in four particulars: his collar was so big
for him that one might suppose that, in moments of
danger, his head totally disappeared into it; his bow-tie
was exceptionally wide and large; his links and studs
were, as such things go, enormous; and the legs of his
trousers were cut so tightly as to be bordering on the
comic. In other respects there was nothing striking
in his appearance, except, perhaps, a general cleanliness,
almost a fastidiousness, especially to be noticed
in the polished surface of his chin and jaw, and in his
carefully manicured finger-nails.

Daniel Lane pulled out his pipe and began to fill it
from a worn old pouch. “Please don’t bother about
cigars,” he said, as Lord Blair extended his hand towards
the bell. “Tell me why you sent for me. Your
letter was brought over from El Homra by a nigger
corporal of your precious frontier-patrol, who nearly
lamed his camel in trying to do the thirty miles in under
four hours. My Bedouin friends thought at the very
least that the King of England was dying and wished
to give me his blessing.”

“Dear, dear!—it was not so urgent as all that,”
his Lordship replied. “I told them to mark the letter
”Express,“ but I trust, I do trust, the message itself
was not peremptory.”

“Not at all,” the other replied. “I was mighty
glad of an excuse to come into Cairo; I wanted to do
some shopping; and there was another reason also. A
young cousin of mine—in the Guards—has come to
Cairo, with his regiment, and I ought to see him about
some family business. I should probably have let it
slide if you hadn’t sent for me. Tell me, what’s your
trouble?”

“Ah, that’s the point!—you always come to the
point quickly. It’s capital, capital!” Lord Blair
leaned forward and tapped his friend’s knee with a sort
of affection. “I don’t know where I should be without
your advice, Mr. Lane—Daniel: may I call you
Daniel?”

“Sure,” said Daniel, laconically.

“When I came here two years ago, my predecessor
said to me ‘When in doubt, send for Daniel Lane.’ Do
you remember how worried, indeed how shaken—yes,
I may say shaken—I was by the Michael Pasha affair?
How you laughed! Dear me, you were positively rude
to me; and how right you were! Personally I should
have had him deported: it never occurred to me to convert
him into a friend.”

His visitor smiled. “‘Bind a brave enemy with the
chains of absolution,’” he said.

“Yes, yes, very true,” replied Lord Blair, still hunting
about for the cigars. “Very true, very daring: a
policy for brave men.” He started into rigidity, as
though at a sudden thought: one might have supposed
that he had recollected where he had put the cigars.
“Daniel!” he exclaimed, “you bring with you an air
of the mediæval! That’s it! One always forgets that
Egypt is mediæval.”

Daniel blew a cloud of oriental tobacco-smoke
through his nostrils, at which his host frenziedly renewed
his search for the less pungent cigars. “About
this business you want to ask my advice upon ...?”
he asked.

“Ah yes, you must be tired,” his Lordship murmured.
“You want to go to bed after your long ride.
Let me put you up here. I’ll ring and have a room
prepared.”

“No thanks,” said Daniel, firmly. “I’ve left my kit
at the Orient Hotel. But fire away, and I’ll give you
my opinion either at once or in the morning.”

Lord Blair laid his thin fingers upon a document,
and handed it to his friend. “Read that,” he said,
and therewith leaned back in his chair, his dark eyes
glancing anxiously about the room.

The document was written in Arabic, and beneath
the flowing script a secretary had pencilled an English
translation. “The translation is appended,” remarked
his Lordship, as Daniel bent forward to study the paper
in the light of the electric reading-lamp.

“I prefer the original,” he replied, with a smile,
“I don’t trust translations: they lose the spirit.”

For some considerable time there was silence. Suddenly
Lord Blair rose from his chair, and hurried across
to a cupboard, from which he returned bearing in
triumph the missing cigars. He proffered them to his
visitor, who, without raising his eyes, took one, smelt
it, and put it in his breast pocket.

At length, through a cloud of smoke, Daniel looked
up. “The man’s a fool,” he said, and laid the paper
back upon the table.

“You think I ought to refuse?” asked Lord Blair.

“No, procrastinate. That’s the basis of diplomacy,
isn’t it?”

The document in question was a request made by the
Egyptian Minister of War that the nomadic Bedouin
tribes of the desert should be brought under the Conscription
Act, from which, until now, they had been
exempt.

“I ventured to ask you to come in,” said his Lordship,
“because I am sure, indeed I know, you have the
interests of these rascals at heart. I thought you
would wish to be consulted; and at the same time I felt
that you would be able to tell me just what the consequences
would be of any action of this kind.”

Daniel nodded. “Yes, I can tell you the consequences,”
he answered. “If you conscribe them, they
will evade the law by all possible means, and you will
turn honest men into law-breakers.”

“But, as you see, he suggests that it will bring the
benefits of discipline into their lives,” Lord Blair
argued. “And if some of them escape across the
frontiers into Arabia or Tripoli, it will be, surely it will
be, no great loss to Egypt.”

Daniel spread out his hands. “What is military discipline?”
he asked. “Good Lord!—d’you think the
Bedouin will be better men for having learnt to form
fours and present arms? Will barrack life in dirty
cities bring them some mystic benefit which they have
missed in the open spaces of the clean desert? Don’t
you realize that it is just their freedom from the taint
of what we call civilization that gives them their particular
good qualities? Why is it that the man of the
desert is faithful and honourable and truthful? Because
time and money and power and ambition and success
and cunning are nothing to him. Because he is
not herded with other men.”

He leant forward earnestly. “Lord Blair,” he said,
and his voice was grave, “hasn’t the thought ever come
to you that we civilized people, with our rules and regulations,
our etiquette and our conventions, have built
up a structure which screens us from the face of the
sun?”

“Ah, yes, indeed, my dear Daniel,” he replied.
“Back to the land: the simple life: Fresh Air Fund—a
capital sentiment. But, you know, I am very
anxious, most anxious, not to offend this particular
minister—most anxious.”

His visitor relapsed into silence, and the volume of
smoke which issued from his mouth was some indication
that he had much to say which he preferred to leave
unsaid.

At length he took the pipe from between his teeth.
“You had better fix your frontiers first,” he declared.
“There’ll be a fine old row if Egyptian patrols blunder
into foreign territory. There’s your chance for procrastination.
Send out a commission to settle the
desert frontiers definitely. That’ll keep you all wrangling
comfortably for five years.”

“Ah!—that is an idea, a very good idea,” replied
Lord Blair, bringing the tips of the fingers of one hand
against those of the other sharply and repeatedly.

“Write to the minister,” Daniel went on, “and tell
him you don’t altogether agree with him, but that you
will consent to the preliminary step of fixing the frontiers.
Before that’s accomplished you may both be
dead.”

“I trust not, I trust not,” murmured Lord Blair.

“Or retired,” said his friend; and his Lordship
nodded his thanks for the correction.

It was not long before Daniel rose to take his departure.
“Oh, by the way,” he said, with a broad
smile, “I have one little favor to ask you....”

“Certainly, certainly,” responded Lord Blair
warmly. “Anything I can do, I’m sure—anything.
You have put me under a great obligation by coming
so promptly to my aid in this matter.”

“Well, will you be so good as to walk as far as your
front gate with me? There’s something I want to
show you.”

Lord Blair, somewhat mystified, accompanied him on
to the veranda; and here they chanced upon Lady
Muriel again taking the air with Rupert Helsingham
who was once more her partner. The couple
were strolling towards them as they came out of the
house.

Daniel made for the steps. “What I want you to
see is over here,” he said, pointing to the gateway.

“One moment,” Lord Blair interjected, taking hold
of his arm. “I want to introduce you to my daughter.”

He called Muriel to him, who replied somewhat coldly
that she had already met Mr. Lane.

“Really?” exclaimed his Lordship. “Splendid,
capital!”

“Yes,” said Daniel, taking his pipe out of his mouth,
“when she was quite a kid; but I’m blest if I know
where it was.”

He was standing again almost with his back to
Muriel, his pipe between his teeth, and once more a
sense of annoyance entered her mind. She would have
liked to pinch him, but for all she knew he might turn
round and fling her into the middle of the drive. She
racked her brains for something to say, something
which would show him that she was not to be ignored
in this fashion.

“Ah,” she exclaimed suddenly, “now I remember.
It was in the Highlands that we met. You came over
to tea with us: I was staying with my cousin the
Duchess of Strathness.”

Daniel scratched his head. “I’m so bad at names,”
he said. “What’s she like?”

Lord Blair uttered a sudden guffaw, but Muriel did
not treat the matter so lightly. A man with gentlemanly
instincts, she thought to herself, would at any
rate *pretend* he remembered.

“Oh, why bother to think it out?” she answered,
her foot ominously tapping the floor. “It’s of no consequence.”

“None,” Daniel replied, looking at her with his
steady laughing eyes. “You’re still you, and I’m still
I.... But I did like your pigtails.”

Muriel turned to her partner, who stood anxiously
fiddling with his eyeglass. “Come along,” she said;
“let’s go back. The music’s begun again.”

She nodded with decided coolness to Daniel, and
turned away. He gazed after her in silence for a moment;
then he put his hand on her father’s arm, and
gently propelled him towards the gates.

As they walked down the drive in the moonlight,
the sentry peered at them through the iron bars, and,
recognizing Lord Blair, suddenly presented arms, becoming
thereat a very passable imitation of a waxwork
figure.

Lord Blair put his arm in Daniel’s. “What is it
you wanted to show me?” he asked, as they
passed through the gate and stood upon the pavement
outside.

“A good soldier,” said Daniel, indicating the sentry,
whose face assumed an expression of mingled anxiety
and astonishment. “I wanted to call your attention
to this lad. Do you think you could put in a
word for him to his colonel? I was very much struck
this evening with the way in which he dealt with a
ruffianly tramp who apparently wanted to get into the
grounds. He showed great self-restraint combined
with determination and devotion to duty.” There was
not the trace of a smile upon his face.

Lord Blair turned to the rigid Scotchman, whose
mouth had fallen open. “What’s your name, my
man?” he asked.

“John Macdonald, me Lord,” he answered unsteadily.

“Now, will you make a note of it?” said Daniel.
“And if you get a chance, recommend him for his soldierly
conduct. Or, better still, send him a little present
as a mark of your regard.”

“Certainly, certainly,” replied Lord Blair, still
somewhat puzzled.

“Thanks, that’s all,” said Daniel. “Good-night.”

“Will you come to luncheon tomorrow?” Lord Blair
asked, as they shook hands. “I will then show you
the draft of my reply to the Minister of War.”

“Thank you,” Daniel answered, knocking the ashes
from his pipe. “I’ll be delighted, if it isn’t a party.
I haven’t got any respectable clothes with me.”

“Tut, tut!” murmured his Lordship. “Come in
anything you like.” And with that he patted his
friend on the arm, and hastened with little tripping
steps back to the house.

Daniel put his hands in his pockets and faced the
sentry, who was once more standing at ease. “John
Macdonald,” he said, “is the account square?”

The Scotchman looked at him with a twinkle in his
eye. “Ye mus’ na’ speak tae th’ sentry on duty,” he
answered.

Daniel uttered a chuckle, and walked off across the
square.


CHAPTER III—THE WORLD AND THE FLESH
===================================

When a man, in the heyday of his manhood,
voluntarily lives the life of a monk or hermit,
his friends suppose him to be either
religious, defective, or possessed of a secret mistress.
Now, nobody supposed Daniel Lane to be religious, for
he seldom put his foot inside a church: and people
seem to be agreed that religion is, as it were, black kid
gloves, handed out with the hymnbooks and, like them,
“not to be taken away.” Nor did anybody think him
abnormal, for a figure more sane, more healthy, or
more robust in its unqualified manhood, could not
easily be conjured before the imagination.

Hence the rumour had arisen in Cairo that the
daughters of the Bedouin were not strangers to him;
but actually, like most rumours, this was entirely incorrect.
He did, in very truth, live the life of a celibate
in his desert home; and if this manner of existence
chanced to be in accord with his ideas of bachelorhood,
it was certainly in conformity with the nature of his
surroundings. Some men are not attracted by a diet
of onions, or by a skin-polish of castor oil.

When he had been commissioned by a well-known scientific
institute to make a thorough study of the manners,
customs, and folk-lore of the Bedouin tribes of
the Egyptian desert, he had entered upon his task in
the manner of one dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge;
and he found in the life he was called upon to
lead the opportunity for the practice of those precepts
of the philosophers which, in spite of his impulsive nature,
had ever appealed to him in principle during the
course of his wide reading.

Almost unwittingly he had cultivated the infinite joys
of a mind free from care, free from the desires of the
flesh; and, with no apparent, or, at any rate, no great
effort, he had established in himself a condition of undisturbed
equanimity, by virtue of which he could smile
benevolently at the frantic efforts of his fellow men and
women to make life amusing. To him his existence in
the desert was a continuous pleasure, for the great
secret of human life had been revealed to him—that a
mind at peace in itself is happiness.

But here in Cairo circumstances were different; and
as he walked from the Residency through the moonlit
streets to the Orient Hotel his thoughts were by no
means tranquil. He did not feel any very noticeable
fatigue after his long ride; for a series of recent expeditions
through the desert had hardened him to such a
point that the hundred and fifty miles which he had
covered in the last three days had in no way strained
his always astonishing physical resources. His senses
were alert and active, and, indeed, were near to a riotous
invasion of the placid palace of his mind, where his soul
was wont to sit enthroned above the clamour of his
mighty body.

He took the road which led him past the Semiramis
Hotel, and through its brilliantly illuminated windows
he could see the richly dressed throng of visitors, and
could hear the strains of the orchestra which was playing
selections from a popular musical comedy. He
turned his head away, and gazed across the Nile which
lay on his other hand; but here too the lights of the
gay city glittered and were reflected in the water, while
from a dahabiyah moored against the opposite bank
there came the sound of tambourines and the rhythmic
beating of the feet of native dancers.

In the main streets of the city the light of the lamps
seemed strangely bright to his unaccustomed eyes; and
the great square in front of the Orient Hotel presented
an animated scene. Crowds of people were here
streaming out of the Opera House, and carriages and
automobiles were moving in all directions. The trees
of the Esbekieh gardens were illuminated by the neighbouring
arc lamps, and rich clusters of exotic flowers
hung down towards the dazzling globes. The cafés on
the other side of the square were crowded, and hundreds
of small tables, standing in the open, were occupied
by the native and continental inhabitants of the
city. The murmur of many voices and the continuous
rattle of dice upon the marble table-tops could be heard
above the many sounds of the traffic; and somewhere a
Neapolitan orchestra was playing a lilting tune.

The terrace and façade of the hotel were illuminated
by numerous rows of small electric globes, and as Daniel
ascended the steps to the brilliantly lighted main entrance
he was met by a throng of men and women in
evening dress pouring out on to the terrace. Evidently
the weekly ball was in progress, and the couples were
emerging into the cool night air to rest for a few brief
moments from their exertions.

For some time he wandered about the hotel, furtively
watching the dancers; but in his rough clothes
he did not feel quite at his ease, and he was conscious
that many pairs of eyes looked at him from time to
time with wonder, while those of the hall-porter and
the waiters, so he thought, expressed frank disapproval,
if not disgust. He had no wish, however, to retire to
his room; for the music of the orchestra would undoubtedly
prevent sleep for yet some time to come.
Moreover, he felt excited and disturbed by the brilliant
scenes around him; and the seclusion of his desert home
seemed very far away.

At length he found a seat upon a sofa at the end of
a passage near the American Bar, where, except during
the intervals between the dances, he was more or
less alone; and here he settled himself down to enjoy
the cigar which he had pocketed at the Residency. He
wanted to be quiet; his mind was disturbed by his sudden
incursion into the world, and he was aware of a
number of emotions which he had not experienced for
many months.

Suddenly the swinging doors of the Bar were burst
open and a red-headed young man, muffled in an overcoat,
sprang through and darted down the passage.
He was clutching at a lady’s gold bag; and for a moment
Daniel supposed him to be a thief. An instant
later, however, he was followed by a girl, wearing an
evening cloak and a large black hat, who called after
him in broken English, telling him to behave himself.
At this the man paused, tossed the bag to her, and, with
a wave of his hand, disappeared round the corner.

The bag fell at Daniel’s feet. He therefore stooped
down, and, picking it up, returned it to her.

“A silly boy—that one,” she smiled. “He like
always the rag.”

“I nearly shot him for a thief,” said Daniel, placing
his hand significantly upon his hip-pocket, where he
still carried the revolver which had accompanied him
on his journey.

The girl fixed her large dark eyes upon him in amazement.
“Mais non!” she exclaimed. “He has the red
hair: he like joking and running about.”

She sat herself down beside him, and made a pretence
to touch his hip-pocket.

“Why you carry a pistol?” she asked.

Daniel looked at her with mild amusement. Her
profession was evident, but it did not shock him.

“Because I’m a wild man,” he answered, with a
smile.

“You not live in Cairo?” she queried.

“No fear!” he replied.

There was silence for some moments, while Daniel,
smoking his cigar, endeavoured to ignore her existence.
Once or twice she looked expectantly at him: it was
evident that she could not quite classify him. Then
she rose to her feet, and, with a little friendly nod to
him, walked towards the swinging doors.

Daniel suddenly felt lonely, felt that he would like
to have somebody to talk to, felt that he could keep
any situation within bounds, felt that he did not much
mind whether he could do so or not. He took the cigar
out of his mouth, forming an instant resolution: “Hi!”
he called out.

She turned round. “Why you call me ‘Hi’?” she
asked. “I’m Lizette.”

“I beg your pardon,” he answered, gravely. “Will
you have supper with me, Lizette?”

“Have you got enough money?” she asked.

“Plenty,” he laughed. “Shall we have supper
here?”

She shook her head, “Oh, no,” she replied frankly.
“The Manager not like me, because I’m not good girl.
Everybody know Lizette—very bad, very wicked girl.
Everybody are shocked for Lizette.”

“I’m not shocked,” said Daniel. “I like your face.
You look truthful.”

He got up, and followed her into the bar, and, crossing
it, made for the street-entrance.

“You give me supper at Berto’s?” she said, putting
her hand lightly upon his arm, and looking up at
him, as they stood upon the pavement outside.

“Anywhere you like,” he answered; and thus it came
about that a few minutes later he found himself seated
before her at a small table in a quiet restaurant. She
was decidedly attractive. Her grey eyes were tender
and sympathetic; the expression of her mouth was
kindly; and her dark hair, which was drawn down over
her ears, was soft and alluring. She was wearing a
low-necked black-velvet dress, and her slender throat
and shoulders by contrast seemed to be very white.

Her broken English, however, was her chiefest
charm; and Daniel listened with pleasure as she talked
away, candidly answering his somewhat direct questions
in regard to her early life and adventures. She
hailed originally, she told him, from Marseilles; but
when her widowed mother had died she had found herself
at the age of seventeen, alone and penniless. She
had got into bad company, and at length had been advised
by a well-meaning young British guardsman, on
his way to Egypt, to ply her trade in Cairo. Here she
had become a great favourite with his particular battalion,
and in fact, was so monopolized by them that
when she was seen in the company of a civilian her
action was said to be “by kind permission of the Colonel
and officers” of the regiment in question.

“Good Lord, what a life!” said Daniel.

“But what else can a girl do,” she asked, “after the
little first mistake, eh? I get plenty good food; I not
work eight hours, ten hours, every day to get thirty
francs the week; I not live in the little top one room
and cry: no, I have the beautiful *appartements au
premier étage*, and I laugh always—plenty friends,
plenty dresses, plenty sun.”

At a table at the other side of the room, Daniel had
noticed, while she was talking, a heavy-jowled, red-faced
young officer who was seated alone, and whose
sullen eyes appeared to be fixed upon him. The girl’s
back was turned to this man; but presently she observed
that her companion was not paying attention to
her remarks, and, wondering what had attracted his
attention, she looked behind her. Immediately she uttered
a little angry exclamation, and made an impatient
shrug with her shoulders.

“That is a beast,” she said.

“He’s drunk, I think,” Daniel remarked. “Is he a
friend of yours?”

She made a gesture of denial. “He hate me because
I not let him come home with me ever.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because he very cruel pig-man. He beat his dog.
I see him beat his dog.”

They rose presently to leave the restaurant, and as
they did so the objectionable officer floundered unsteadily
to his feet, and placed himself across the doorway.
As in the case of most men of gigantic physical
strength, Daniel’s nature was gentle, and wanting in
all bellicose tendencies; and, moreover, he had already
once that evening used his muscles in a manner which
did not conform to his principles. He therefore made
an attempt to take no notice of the obstruction; but
finding the way entirely barred, he was obliged to request
the man to stand aside. The officer, however,
stood his ground stolidly.

Daniel raised his voice very slightly. “Will you
kindly get out of the way,” he said.

For answer the man shot out his hand, and made an
ineffectual grab at the girl’s arm. She darted aside,
and by a quick manœuvre slipped out through the glass
doorway, standing thereafter in the entrance passage,
watching the two men with an expression of anger in
her alert eyes.

It was now Daniel’s turn to bar the way, whereat his
opponent thrust his red face forward and uttered a
string of oaths, his fists clenched.

“I don’t stand any nonsense from a damned civilian,”
he roared. “Let me pass, or I’ll put my fist
through your face.”

Suddenly Daniel’s self-control for the second time
deserted him. He blushed with shame for his countryman;
he burnt with indignation at the arrogance of
this product of a militaristic age; he felt like an exasperated
schoolmaster dealing with a bully. With a
quick movement he gripped the man’s raised arm, and
seizing with his other hand the collar of his tunic,
shook him so that his head was bumped violently against
the wall behind him.

“I don’t believe in violence,” he said, shaking him
till the teeth rattled in his head, “or I’d really hurt
you. I don’t believe in it.”

In his tremendous grip the wretched man was, in
spite of his bulk, as entirely powerless as the sentry at
the Residency had been. His eyes grew round and
frightened: he had never before come up against
strength such as Daniel possessed.

“Let me go,” he gasped.

“Shut your mouth, or you’ll bite your tongue,” said
Daniel, a grim smile upon his face, as he administered
another shattering shake. Then with a contemptuous
movement he flung him backwards, so that he fell to the
floor at the feet of an amazed waiter who had hurried
across the room.

Daniel turned upon his heel, and, taking the girl’s
arm, conducted her out of the building. She appeared
to be too enthralled by the discomfiture of her enemy to
utter a word.

An empty taxi-cab was passing, and this he hailed.

“Where d’you want to go to?” he asked.

She gave him her address. “You are coming home
with me?” she asked. “Please do.” Her expression
was eloquent.

“I’ll drive you as far as your door,” he replied.

“But...?” There was a question in her
eyes.

He sat himself down beside her, and she put her arm
in his, looking up into his face with admiration.

“I never see a one so strong,” she whispered, with a
kind of awe. “I think you very great man, very to be
loved.”

Daniel laughed ironically, “Oh, yes, of course
you’re filled with admiration because you’ve seen me
handle a poor drunken fellow-creature roughly. My
girl, that is not the thing for which you should admire
a man. I’m ashamed of myself.”

“Ashamed?” she exclaimed, incredulously.

“Yes,” he answered, shortly. “D’you think I’m
proud that I can master any man in a fair fight?
What I want to be able to do is to master *myself*!”

There was silence between them, but he was aware
that she did not take her eyes from him. At length he
turned and looked at her and, seeing the admiration in
her face, laughed aloud.

“Why you laugh?” she asked.

“I’m laughing at you women,” he answered. “How
you love a little show of muscle! Good God, we might
be living in the year one!”

“I not understand,” she said.

“No, I don’t suppose you do,” he answered. “But
here we are: is this where you live?”

They had stopped before some large buildings in the
vicinity of the main station. She nodded her head.

“Please don’t go away,” she said.

“No,” he answered. “I’ve had enough of the world,
the flesh, and the devil for one day. I guess we’ll meet
again some time or other. Good night, my girl; and
thank you for your company.”

She held her hand in his. “Thank you,” she said,
“for fighting that pig-man, Barthampton.”

“Barthampton? Lord Barthampton?” he repeated.
“Was that the man?”

She nodded. “Why?” she asked, as he uttered a
low whistle.

“Gee!” he laughed. “He’s my own cousin.”


CHAPTER IV—A JACKAL IN A VILLAGE
================================

Tired after the dance, Lady Muriel stayed
upstairs next day until the luncheon hour.
The long windows of her room led out on to a
balcony which, being on the west side of the house, remained
in the shade for most of the morning; and here
in a comfortable basket chair, she lay back idly glancing
at the week-old magazines and illustrated papers
which the mail had just brought from England. While
the sun was not yet high in the heavens the shadow cast
by the house was broad enough to mitigate to the eyes
the glare of the Egyptian day; and every now and then
she laid down her literature to gaze at the brilliant
scene before her.

The grounds of the Residency, with the rare flowering
trees and imported varieties of palm, the masses of
variegated flowers and the fresh-sown lawns of vivid
grass, looked like well-kept Botanical Gardens, and
appealed more to her cultivated tastes than to the original
emotions of her nature. It was all very elegant
and civilized and pleasing, and seemed correspondent
to the charming new garment—all silk and lace and
ribbons—which she was wearing, and to the fashionable
literature which she was reading. She, the balcony,
the garden, and the deep blue sky might have
been a picture on the cover of a society journal.

But when she raised her eyes, and looked over the
Nile, which flowed past the white terrace at the bottom
of the lawn, and allowed her gaze to rest upon the long
line of the distant desert on the opposite bank, the
aspect of things, outward and inward, was altered; and
momentarily she felt the play of disused or wholly novel
sensations lightly touching upon her heart.

So far she was delighted with her experience of
Egypt. She enjoyed the heat; she was charmed by
the somewhat luxurious life at the Residency; and the
deference paid to her as the Great Man’s daughter
amused and pleased her. At the dance the previous
night she had met half a dozen very possible young
officers; and the secretaries whom she saw every day
were pleasant enough, little Rupert Helsingham being
quite amusing. That afternoon she was going to ride
with him, which would be jolly....

There was, however, one small and almost insignificant
source of unease in her mind, one little blot upon
the enjoyment of the last two or three days. A ruffianly
fellow had treated her in a manner bordering on
rudeness, and in his presence she had felt stupid. He
had shown at first complete indifference to her, and
later he had spoken with a sort of easy familiarity
which suggested a long experience in dealing with her
sex, but no ability to discriminate between the bondwoman
and the free. And she had behaved as a bondwoman.

The recollection caused her now to tap her foot
angrily upon the tiled floor, and to draw the delicate
line of her eyebrows into a puckered frown. The
thought which lay at the root of her discomfort was
this: she had pretended that their previous meeting had
been at the house of the Duchess of Strathness simply
because she had been lashed into a desire to assert her
own standing in response to his lack of respect. The
Duchess was her most exalted relative: she was a Royal
Princess who had married the Duke, and the Duke was
cousin to her mother. She knew quite well that she had
not met Mr. Lane there: she had uttered the words before
her nicer instincts had had time to prevail.

She had said it in self-defence—to make an impression;
and his reply, whether he had meant it as a snub
or not, had stung her. “I’m so bad at names: what’s
she like?” Her Royal Highness Princess Augusta
Maria, Duchess of Strathness! Of course it was a
snub; and she had deserved it. He couldn’t have made
a more shattering reply: he couldn’t have said more
plainly to her “Now, no airs with me, please!—to me
you are just you.”

The recollection of the incident was unpleasant; it
made her feel small. She had behaved no better than
the servants and shopkeepers who delight to speak in
familiar terms of duchesses and dukes. However!...
she did not suppose that she would see the man again:
he belonged to the desert, not to Cairo; and with this
consolation, she dismissed the matter from her mind.

When at last she descended the stairs at the sound of
the gong, she came upon General Smith-Evered, who
had called to see Lord Blair upon some matter of business,
and was just stumping across the hall on his way
out. He was a very martial little man. He greeted
her with jocularity tempered by deference; he kissed
her hand in what he believed to be a very charming old-world
manner; he told her what a radiant vision she
made as she walked down the great staircase in her
pretty summer dress; he described himself as a bluff
old soldier fairly bowled over by her youthful grace;
and he slapped his leggings with his cane and gloves
and kissed his fingers to England, home and beauty.

Muriel knew the type well—in real life, on the stage,
and in the comic papers; nevertheless, she felt pleased
with the rotund compliments, and there was a pleasurable
sense of well-being in her mind as she entered the
drawing-room. Here the sun-blinds shaded the long
French windows, and the light in the room was so subdued
that she did not observe at once that she was not
alone. She had paused to rearrange a vase of flowers
which stood upon a small table, when a movement behind
her caused her to turn; and she found herself face
to face with Daniel Lane, who had just risen from the
sofa.

“Good morning!” he said, gravely looking at her
with his deep-set blue eyes.

Her heart sank: she felt like a schoolgirl in the presence
of a master who had lately punished her. “Oh,
good morning,” she answered, but she did not offer him
her hand.

She turned again to the flowers. “Are you waiting
to see my father?” she asked, as she aimlessly withdrew
a rose from the bunch and inserted it again at
another angle.

“I’ve come to lunch,” he said. “I’m early, I suppose.
My watch is busted.”

Deeper sank her heart. “No, you’re not early,”
she replied, “the gong’s gone.”

“Good!” he exclaimed; “then you haven’t got a
party. I was shy about my clothes.”

He was wearing the same clothes in which she had
seen him the night before, except that he appeared to
have a clean collar and shirt, his hair was carefully
combed back, and he had evidently visited a barber.

“Do sit down,” she said.

“Thanks,” he answered, and remained where he was,
his hands deep in the pockets of his jacket, and his eyes
fixed upon her.

There was an awkward pause, awkward, that is to
say, to Muriel, who could not for the life of her think
what to talk about.

“Will you smoke a cigarette?” she asked, handing
him the box as a preliminary to an escape from the
room.

He took it from her unthinkingly, and, without opening
it, put it down upon a table.

“I’ve remembered where it was we met,” he remarked
suddenly, as she moved towards the door.

“Really?” There was a note of assumed indifference
in her voice; and, as she turned and came back to
him, she made a desperate attempt to emulate the
cucumber. She felt that there was a challenge in his
words, in face of which she could not honourably run
away.

“Yes,” he said. “It was at Eastbourne, at your
school. I came down to see your head mistress, who
was a friend of mine; and they let you come into the
drawing-room to tea.”

A wave of recollection passed over her mind. “Of
course,” she exclaimed, “that was it.”

They had let her, they had *allowed* her, to come into
the drawing-room to have the honour of making his acquaintance!
She paused: the scene of their meeting
developed in her mind. A girl had rushed into the
schoolroom where she was reading, and had told her
that she and one or two others were to go into the
drawing-room to make themselves polite to this man,
who was described as a great scholar and explorer.
She had gone in shyly, and had shaken hands with him,
and he had stared at her and, later, had turned his back
on her; and, after he had gone, the headmistress had
commended her manners as having been quiet, ladylike,
and respectful. Respectful!

He was smiling at her when she looked up at him once
more. “You were wrong about it being at your
cousin’s,” he said.

Muriel felt as though she had been smacked. “Oh,
I only suggested that,” she replied, witheringly, “to
help you out. I didn’t really suppose that you knew
her.”

“I know very few people,” he answered, unmoved.
“I can’t afford the time. Life is such a ‘brief candle’
that a man has to choose one of its two pleasures—sociability
or study: he can’t enjoy both.”

She looked at him curiously. He must have a tough
hide, she thought, to be unruffled by a remark so biting
as that she had made. For a moment she stared
straight at him, her hand resting on her hip. Then
she caught sight of herself in the great mirror against
the wall, and her hand slipped hastily from its resting-place:
her attitude had been that of a common Spanish
dancing-girl. Her eyes fell before his.

“I’ll go and find the others,” she said, and turned
from him.

As she did so Lord Blair hurried into the room. He
was wearing a hot-weather suit of some sort of drab-coloured
silk, straight from the laundry, where, one
might have supposed, the trousers had been accidentally
shrunk. His stiff and spacious collar, and his
expansive tie, folded in the four-in-hand manner and
fastened with a large gold pin, detracted from the sense
of coolness suggested by his suit; but a rose in his buttonhole
gave a comfortable touch of nature to an otherwise
artificial figure.

“Ah, good morning, Muriel dear,” he exclaimed,
giving her cheek a friendly but quite unaffectionate kiss.
“You’ve had a lazy morning, eh? Feel the heat, no
doubt. Yes? No? Ah, that’s good, that’s capital!
Good morning Mr. Lane, or Daniel, I should say, since
you permit it. I hope Muriel has been amusing you.”

“She has,” said Daniel, and Muriel blushed.

Rupert Helsingham entered the room; and, when he
had made his salutations, Muriel turned to him with
relief, strolling with him across to the windows through
which the warm scented air of the garden drifted, bringing
with it the drone of the flies and the incessant rustle
of the palms.

“Please see that I don’t sit next to that horrible
man at lunch,” she whispered.

“There’s no choice,” he answered. “The four of
us are alone today.”

“Shall we go in?” said Lord Blair, nodding vigorously
to Muriel; and the three men followed her into
the dining-room.

The meal proved to be less of an ordeal than she had
expected. Their visitor talked at first almost exclusively
to his host, who showed him, and discussed, the
draft of his reply to the Minister of War; and Muriel
made herself quite entrancing to Rupert Helsingham.
Under ordinary circumstances she was, in spite of occasional
lapses into bored silence, a quick and witty
talker; one who speedily established a sympathetic connection
with the person with whom she was conversing;
and her laughter was frequent and infectious. It was
only this Daniel Lane who had such a disturbing effect
upon her equanimity; but here, at the opposite side of
a large table, she seemed to be out of range of his influence,
and she rejoiced in her unimpaired power to
captivate the little Diplomatic secretary.

“I am going to call you Rupert at once,” she said
to him; and, breaking in on the opposite conversation,
“Father,” she demanded, “d’you mind if I call this
man by his Christian name? Everybody seems to.”

Lord Blair laughed, holding out his hands in a gesture
which indicated that he took no responsibility, and
turned to Daniel. “Do you think I ought to let her?”
he asked.

To Muriel his remark could hardly have been more
unfortunate, and a momentary frown gathered upon
her face.

“I think it’s a good idea,” replied Daniel, looking
quietly at her. “Then if you quarrel you can revert
to ‘Mr. Helsingham’ with telling effect.”

Muriel made a slight movement, not far removed
from a toss of her head, and, without giving any reply,
continued her conversation to Rupert.

The meal was nearly finished when she became aware
that her friend was not paying full attention to her remarks,
but was listening to Daniel Lane, whose tongue a
glass of wine had loosened, and who was speaking in a
low vibrating voice, describing some phases of his life
in the desert. At this she, too, began to listen, at first
with some irritation, but soon with genuine interest.
She had supposed him to be more or less monosyllabic,
and she was astonished at his command of languages.

As she fixed her eyes upon him he glanced at her for
a moment, and there was a pause in his words. For
the first time he was conscious of a look of friendship
in her face; and his heart responded to the expression.
The pause was hardly noticeable, but to him it was as
though something of importance had happened; and
when he turned again to continue to address himself to
his host, there was a warm impulse behind his words.
Muriel thereafter made no further remark to Rupert;
but leaning her elbow upon the table, and fingering
some grapes, gave her undivided attention to the
speaker.

“It’s always a matter of surprise to me,” he was saying,
“that people don’t come out more often into the
desert. You all sit here in this garden of Egypt, this
little strip of fertile land on the banks of the Nile, and
you look up at the great wall of the hills to east and
west; but you don’t ever seem to think of climbing over
and running away into the wonderful country beyond.”

Was it, he asked, that they were afraid of the roads
that led nowhere-in-particular, and the tracks that
wandered like meandering dreams? Why, those were
the best kind of roads, because they merely took your
feet wherever your heart suggested—to shady places
where you could sprawl on the cool sand; or up to rocks
where the sun beat on you and the invigorating wind
blew on your face; or down to wells of good water where
you could drink your fill and take your rest in the shade
of the tamarisks; or along echoing valleys where there
was always an interesting turning just ahead; or into
the flat plains where the mirage receded before you.

“You soon grow desert-wise,” he said: “you can’t
get lost; and at last the tracks will always bring you
to some Abraham’s tent, and he’ll lift up his eyes and
see you, and come running to you to bid you welcome.
And there’s bread for you, and honey, and curds, and
camel’s milk, and maybe venison; and tobacco; and
quiet, courteous talk far into the night, under the stars;
and perhaps a boy’s full-throated song.... I can’t
think how you can live your crabbed life here in Cairo,
when there’s all that vast liberty so near at hand.”

Muriel sipped her coffee, and listened, with a kind of
excitement. His voice had some quality in it which
seemed to arouse a response deep in the unfrequented
places of her mind. It was as though she saw with her
own eyes the scenes which he was describing. With
him she ascended the bridlepath over the wall of the
hills, and ran laughing down into the valleys beyond,
the wind in her face and the sun at her back; with him
she went sliding down the golden drifts of sand, or
sprang from rock to rock along the course of forgotten
torrents; and with him she sat at the camp fire and
listened to the far-off cry of the little jackals.

He told of warm moonlight nights spent in the open,
when the drowsy eye looks up at the Milky Way, and
the mind drifts into sleep, rocked, as it were, in a cradle
slung between the planets. He spoke of the first sweet
vision of the opalescent dawn, when sleep ends in quiet
wakefulness, without a middle period of stupor; and of
the rising sun over the low horizon, when every pebble
casts a liquid blue shadow and the shallowest footprints
in the sand look like little pools of water.

He told of blazing days; of long journeys across hills
and plains; of the drumming of the pads of the camels
upon the hard tracks; of deep, shadowed gorges, and
precipices touched only at the summit by the glare of
the sun; of the endless waves of the sand drifts, their
sharp ridges seen against the sky, like gold against blue
enamel; of flaming sunsets, and mysterious dusks, when,
by creeping over the top of a hillock, one might look
down at ghostly gazelle drinking from a pool, and
might listen to the sucking in of the water.

And more especially he spoke of the freedom of the
desert. “Ah, there’s liberty for you!” he exclaimed,
and his eyes seemed to be alight with his enthusiasm.
“That’s the life for a man! There are no clocks out
there, no miserable appointments to keep, no laying of
foolish foundation stones, or inspecting of sweating
troops, no diplomatic speeches, no wordy documents
signifying nothing. Out there the men that you meet
speak the truth openly, and do all that they have to do
without cunning, and without fuss or frills. If you are
wandering and hungry they give you shelter and feed
you; if they like you they treat you as a brother; and
when they wish to kill you they tell you so, and give
you four-and-twenty hours in which to quit. They are
free men, and to them all men have the status of the
free; all partake, so to speak, of the liberty of the
desert.”

He stopped rather abruptly: it was as though suddenly
he had become conscious that he had engaged the
attention of the company, and was abashed.

“You make me quite restless,” said Lord Blair, as
they rose from the table. “Some day you will find me,
even conservative me, setting out into that happy playground
beyond the horizon. Aha! I grow lyrical,
too!”

“I’ve stayed too long,” said Daniel. “I must say
good-bye at once. I have a lot of shopping to do, and
I told my men to meet me with the camels at five o’clock
at Mena House.”

“What!—are you going back at once?” exclaimed
Rupert Helsingham, adjusting his eyeglass.

“Yes, I’ve had enough of Cairo,” he laughed. “I
feel like a fish out of water here, or rather, I feel like a
jackal that has ventured into a village and must make
tracks over the wall and away. I’ve stolen a square
meal and I’m off again.”

He stood at the door smiling at them. He seemed
now to radiate imperturbable and rather disconcerting
happiness: it was as though he regarded life as a quiet,
good-natured comedy, and the friends before him as
participators in the fun. His talking about the desert
had, as it were, softened his uncouthness, and had made
him of a sudden surprisingly intelligible.

“I’m immensely obliged to you for coming,” said
Lord Blair, warmly clasping his hand. “In fact I
can’t tell you how highly I value your advice and friendship.”

Muriel held out her hand. She saw this man in a new
light, and her hostility was temporarily checked. His
words had aroused in her a number of perplexing sensations:
it was like tasting a new fruit, in part sweet, in
part bitter.

“I’ve enjoyed listening to you,” she said, frankly.

“I’ve enjoyed talking to you,” he replied, his voice
sinking, but his eyes fixed powerfully upon her.

There was something dominating in his manner which
again caused her to be perverse. “I thought you were
talking to my father,” she answered casually.

“No,” he said, “I was speaking to *you*.”


CHAPTER V—FAMILY AFFAIRS
========================

Daniel Lane left the Residency with curiously
mixed feelings; and as he made his way
through the sun-scorched streets, he found
some difficulty in bringing his thoughts to bear upon
the afternoon’s business. He felt that he had talked too
much: it was almost as though he had faithlessly given
away secrets that were sacred. Lord Blair and young
Helsingham were hardly possessed of ears in which to
repeat the confidences of the desert; and as for Lady
Muriel, he was not in a position to say whether she had
received his words with real understanding or not.

He had enjoyed his luncheon, and he was obliged to
confess to himself that dainty dishes and a handsome
table were by no means to be despised. On the other
hand, he had been conscious of an artificiality, a sort of
pose in much that was said or done at the Residency.
His long absences from his countrymen had made him
rather critical, and seemed now to reveal what might
otherwise have passed undetected.

On the previous evening Muriel Blair had appeared
to him—in her diamonds and frills and high-heeled
shoes—to constitute as artificial a picture as could
well be imagined; and he was disconcerted by the fact
that nevertheless she had looked delightful. And today
he had overheard fragments of her conversation
with Rupert Helsingham, and had been alternately
charmed and distressed by the manner in which they
exhibited to one another their familiarity with all that
was thought to represent modern culture and refinement
of taste. It had seemed to be such empty wit;
and yet the effect was often, as though by accident, quite
close to the truth.

“Epstein is plain-spoken by implication”; ...
“dear Augustus John! He’s a striking instance of
the power of matter over mind”; ... “I always enjoy
the Russian dancers: they are so stupid”; ...
“the trouble with English Art is that it is so Scotch”; ...
and so forth.

It was the wit of a certain section of London society,
and it troubled him because it was restless and superficial;
and he did not want to find an attractive girl,
such as Muriel Blair, to be a kind of dragon-fly of a
summer’s day. He would like to take her right out of
her environment; and yet—oh, he could not be bothered
with her!

With an effort he collected his thoughts, and, standing
still at the street corner, studied his notebook and
his watch. The first thing to be done was to go to find
his cousin, to whom he had already sent a note saying
that he would call upon him in the early afternoon, a
time of day when at this season of the year most reasonable
people remained within doors. He had long
dreaded the visit to this unknown relative; and now
after the tussle of the previous night, he felt keenly the
awkwardness of the situation. However, the painful
family duty could not be shirked, and the sooner it was
over the better.

He turned off to his left, and walked quickly over to
the barracks, which were not far distant; and at the
gates he enquired his way to the officers’ quarters.

“Who d’you want to see, mate?” said a young corporal
who sat in the shadow of the archway, picking his
teeth.

Daniel told him.

“Oh, ’im!” chuckled the soldier. “Are you the
man from Kodak’s? I ’eard him a-cursin’ and a-swearin’
this morning when ’e smashed ’is camera.
Just ’ere, it was. ’E’ll give you ’Ell!—’e says the
strap broke. It’s always somebody else’s fault with ’is
Lordship.”

Daniel smiled. “A bit impatient like, is he?” he
asked. He saw no point in explaining his identity.

“Impatient!” laughed the corporal. “Twice already
’e’s sent for the whole shop. You’ll catch it,
mate, I warn yer!”

Daniel followed the direction indicated to him, and
crossing the flaming compound, soon reached the entrance
of his cousin’s rooms. Here a soldier-servant
took in his name, and, quickly returning, ushered him
through the inner doorway.

Lord Barthampton had risen from his chair, and was
standing in what appeared to be interested expectation
of the meeting with his unknown relation. His tunic
was unfastened, and his collarless shirt was open at the
neck, revealing a pink, hairy chest. His heavy red
face was damp with perspiration, and it was evident
that he was feeling the effects of a large luncheon.
He had a big lighted cigar in his hand, and on a table
beside him there were glasses, a decanter, and a syphon.
The *Sporting Times* and *Referee* lay on the floor at
his feet.

As Daniel appeared in the doorway his manner suddenly
changed, and his bloodshot blue eyes opened wide
under frowning eyebrows. He slowly replaced the
cigar in his mouth and thrust his hands into his pockets.

“What d’you want?” he muttered.

“Well, Cousin Charles ...” said Daniel. He held
out his hand, but Lord Barthampton made no responding
movement.

“So *you* are Daniel, are you!” he ejaculated. “I
might have guessed it. I’d heard that you were a sort
of prize-fighting vagabond. What d’you want to see
me for?”

“First of all,” the visitor replied, “to say I’m sorry
about last night. I didn’t know till afterwards who
you were.”

His cousin grunted like a pig. “You took an unfair
advantage of me,” he said. “You could see I was
a bit tight. In England we don’t think it’s sporting to
knock a man down when he’s full of whiskey; but you
Americans don’t seem to know....”

Daniel smiled. “I’m English too, you know.”

“Yes, in a way I suppose you are,” he grumbled,
dropping into an arm-chair. “We’re both Lanes; but
your mother was a Yankee, and you’ve spent half your
life over there. You had no right to hit me.”

“I didn’t hit you,” said Daniel, with a broad smile.
“I only shook you; and I’ll do it again if you don’t offer
me a chair.”

Charles Barthampton stared at him, and, taking the
cigar out of his mouth, blew a cloud of smoke from between
his lips. “There’s a chair behind you,” he replied,
rudely. “You can sit in it if it doesn’t make
you stay too long.”

Daniel fetched the chair, and, placing it immediately
in front of his cousin, sat himself down. “This is a
bad start, cousin,” he said. “I’ve told you I’m sorry;
but you know quite well it was your own fault.”

“I tell you I was tight,” he answered petulantly.
“And besides, what right had you to be with Lizette?
She belongs to the regiment.”

“She was good enough to have supper with me,”
Daniel answered, and there was an unmistakable menace
in his voice. “Please leave her out of the question.”

Lord Barthampton laughed. “I suppose you feel a
bit struck on her this morning.”

Daniel suddenly rose to his feet; and his cousin,
startled by the look in his face, sprang from his chair,
and placed his hand on the bell on the wall behind him.

“Sit down, *Cousin* Daniel,” he sneered, “or I’ll ring
the bell and have you thrown out by the guard.”

Daniel shrugged his shoulders, and resumed his seat.
“There’s nothing to be timid about,” he replied, “if
you’re careful what you say. I tell you again I apologize
for my part in last night’s affair: I’m always
ashamed of myself when I’m rough with anybody.
I’ve come here to talk about family business, so you’d
better sit down too.”

He pulled out his pipe, and began to fill it, while
Charles Barthampton, with an awkward air of unconcern,
sat heavily down once more.

“Family business, is it?” he growled. “I suppose
you’re going to claim some money or something. Well,
your name was mentioned in my father’s will, if you
want to know, but he didn’t leave you anything.”

“He sent me a copy of the will last year, just before
he died,” Daniel answered, unmoved.

His cousin glanced quickly at him. “Did he
really?” he remarked. “That was odd, as he left you
nothing; but he was a bit strange always. I don’t see
what it had got to do with you, though. Your father,
his brother, died years ago, didn’t he? And your
mother hardly knew him.”

Daniel lit his pipe. “You forget,” he said, “that
your father and I had a couple of months shooting together
on the Peace River, three or four years ago,
while you were in India. We became good friends, and
I saw him in England afterwards.”

Lord Barthampton nodded, and was silent. He
puffed viciously at his cigar; then, as though deciding
that there might be some call for diplomacy, he pointed
to the table. “Have a drink?” he said.

“No, thanks,” his visitor answered.

“Well, what the Hell *do* you want?” He was becoming
exasperated.

Daniel looked gravely at him. “I want you to turn
over a new leaf,” he said. “Now that you’ve inherited
the property, and now that you’re head of the family,
you’ve got a lot of responsibilities.”

“That’s my own business, not yours,” muttered his
cousin, again grunting loudly.

“No, it’s my affair, too,” Daniel answered. “You’re
not married; you have no son. As things stand at
present I’m the next of kin. I’m your heir.”

The other uttered a short laugh. “Oh, I see,” he
scoffed. “You’re banking on my drinking myself to
death, or something, before I can become a proud
father, eh? You wanted to have a look at me: and I
suppose you’re disappointed to find I’m in the pink.
You’d rather fancy yourself as Daniel Lane, Earl of
Barthampton.” He made a gesture of contempt. “A
pretty sight you’d make in the House of Lords! I
wonder they even let you into the barracks!”

Daniel laughed with genuine amusement. “They
thought I’d come to mend your camera.”

Lord Barthampton suddenly leapt to his feet.
“God!” he exclaimed. “Where the Hell is that
man?” He rang the bell furiously. “Why the blasted
Hell don’t they come when I send for them?”

“Are you in a hurry to have it mended?” asked
Daniel mildly.

“Of course I am!” snapped his cousin.

“Then why didn’t you take it round to the shop,
yourself, instead of going into tantrums like a baby?”

His Lordship stood stock still, and stared at Daniel,
like an infuriated bull. “I wish to God I knew why
you were sitting here in my room!” he roared. “Why
don’t you go?”

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in!” he snorted.

The knock was repeated.

“Come in, confound you!” he shouted, and thereat
a soldier entered. “Are you deaf? Send somebody
over to the camera place at once, and tell them that if
they don’t attend to my orders I’ll break every damned
thing in the shop. D’you hear?”

“In other words,” said Daniel, turning to the soldier,
“say Lord Barthampton presents his compliments, and
would be very grateful if they would hustle a bit.”

His cousin turned on him as the soldier, prompted by
natural tact, speedily left the room. “Will you kindly
mind your own business!” he snapped.

“How Lord Barthampton behaves *is* my business,”
Daniel answered sternly. “Now, sit down there,” he
added peremptorily, “and listen to me.”

The infuriated man stood where he was, breathing
hard and biting at his cigar.

“Sit down, I said!” Daniel repeated; and now there
was a ring of command in his voice at which the other
started. He evidently had not forgotten last night.

“Oh, very well,” he replied, and flung himself into
his chair.

Daniel leant forward and drew a long, type-written
letter from his pocket. “This,” he said, “is a copy
of your father’s last letter to me.”

“If he promised you any money,” the other interjected,
“you won’t get it.”

Daniel took no notice. “I won’t trouble you with
the first pages of the letter,” he remarked. “They
just tell an old man’s disappointment in his son, and
his fears that you will not only ruin yourself, but also
sully the name and squander the estate. ‘Now, Daniel,’
he writes, ‘I am going to put the matter entirely into
your hands, and to rely on your honour to carry out
my wishes. In spite of my son’s shortcomings I love
him for his mother’s sake, and it is my earnest desire
that he should be a worthy representative of our line.
If, however, you find that he is hopelessly going to the
bad, I herewith place the documentary evidence in your
hands by means of which you can turn him out in favour
of yourself.’”

“What’s he mean?” exclaimed his cousin, half rising
from his chair. “It’s forgery—it’s a trick or something!”
His voice was unsteady.

Daniel, pipe in mouth, continued quietly to read:
“‘I regret to say that, as these papers will show, my
son was born out of wedlock. You are aware, no doubt,
that I met my wife in South Africa, when I had a farm
there, some years before I even expected to come into
the title; but, except you and I, no living person knows
that Charles was born six months before our marriage.
I now leave the secret entirely in your discretion, knowing
that you will only reveal it if you feel that I should
wish you to do so.’”

“It’s a lie!” shouted Lord Barthampton. “It’s
blackmail!”

“No,” said Daniel. “There’s no getting over it.
The documents are all in order. You’re only Lord
Barthampton on sufferance.”

His cousin sank back in his chair. His cigar had
gone out, and he flung it on the ground. Then he leant
forward and rested his head in his hands, scratching his
red ear with one finger. In this attitude he appeared
fat, unpleasant, and altogether devoid of dignity.

At length he looked up, sullenly, with a sort of cunning
in his face. “How much do you want for those
papers?” he asked.

Daniel sucked at his pipe for a few moments. “I
want rather a stiff price,” he declared at length.

“What?” said his cousin, in a dull voice.

Daniel fixed his eyes upon him. “Your reformation,”
he said.

“Oh, go to Hell!” was the reply, and Daniel rather
liked him for it. He felt uncomfortable in a mentorial
rôle.

“Look here,” he said, “let’s understand what your
father meant.”

Charles Barthampton got up and mixed himself a
whiskey-and-soda. “If that letter’s genuine,” he muttered,
“there’s no understanding him.”

“Oh, yes, it’s simple enough,” replied Daniel.
“You are his son, whether you’re legitimate or not;
and he didn’t want to have your name, or his, or
especially your mother’s, dragged through the mud by
letting out his secret. So he wished you to inherit.
But at the same time, he had a very Spartan sense of
duty; and, as he was good enough to trust me, he
thought I would act as a bit of a brake on you, if you
knew that I could have you fired out if you didn’t behave
yourself.”

“A dirty trick!” the other grunted, pacing up and
down the room, his fists clenched, and much of the
colour gone from his face. He swung round on his heel,
and stared at Daniel with fierce, bloodshot eyes. “Oh,
it’ll be easy enough for you to find a pretext for outing
me. I can see already I’m done for. You’ve only got
to say the word, but, by God! if you do turn me out”—he
shook his fist in his cousin’s face—“I’ll send a
bullet through you.”

Daniel put his hand to his hip-pocket, from which
the butt of his revolver protruded. “I’m not a bad
shot myself,” he replied.

“Oh, really!” Barthampton ejaculated, with an explosive
splutter, and, darting to the table, he pulled
open a drawer and dived his hand into it.

Instantly Daniel whipped out his revolver and covered
him. “Stand back from that table!” he called
out, and there was something very terrible in his voice.

His cousin’s hand fell to his side, and he took a pace
back. Still covering him, and not taking his eyes from
him, Daniel leaned over the table and felt for the revolver
which lay there. Having found it, he slipped it
into the pocket of his jacket.

“Now don’t behave like a damned fool,” he said.
“Understand me: I am not going to turn you out. I
haven’t the slightest wish to do so. I don’t want the
beastly estates, and I much prefer to be plain Daniel
Lane. By law I’m Lord Barthampton, not you; but
by something that’s above law, I mean fair-play, you
are your father’s son and the heir he wanted. And
nothing short of your utter damn-foolery will ever make
me turn you out. D’you understand? But, mind
you,” and his voice resumed its gravity, “you’ve got to
turn over a new leaf. You’ve got to give up your drink
and your pig ways, and your gambling, and your tantrums,
and your women. You’ve got to be a considerate
landlord to your tenants, and a good citizen, and
a credit to your country, and your regiment, and your
family. And you’ve got to live within your income,
and give generously to the poor. D’you hear me?—give
generously to the poor. We shan’t see much of
each other, but from time to time I’ll look you up, and
I shall be surprised if I don’t find a great improvement
in you.”

Lord Barthampton stood in front of him, staring at
him as at a ghost. He was visibly trembling, and his
face had lost its colour. Very nearly he had been a
murderer. He appeared to be on the verge of collapse.

“D’you mean what you say?” he whispered. “How
can I trust you?” His mouth was so dry that his
tongue clicked as he spoke.

“Your father trusted me,” Daniel replied, and held
out his hand.

.. figure:: images/illus-058.png
   :align: center

   A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY—BURNING SANDS

Very slowly his cousin responded, and a cold,
trembling, clammy hand was placed in his own.

“Very well, then, good-bye, Cousin Charles. I’m off
to the desert now. I don’t know when we’ll meet again.”

He took his cousin’s revolver from his pocket and,
putting it back in the place where he had found it, closed
the drawer. “May I take one of your cigars?” he
asked. His pipe had gone out.

“Y-yes, of course,” the wretched man replied, still
standing like one in a dream.

Daniel took the cigar, lit it, and, turning round,
walked out of the room.

In the blazing sunlight outside he paused and stared
across the dazzling open space, which, towards the west,
led down to the Nile. A scorching wind beat in his
face, and blew the dust of his footsteps towards the
building which he had left. “Phew!” he whispered.
“Thus goes ten thousand pounds a year and a peerage!”

He gazed across the river to the shimmering line of
the desert which could be seen in the distance between
the palms, and held out his hands towards it.


CHAPTER VI—TOWARDS THE SUNSET
=============================

During the warm weather an afternoon siesta
is habitual to the residents in Egypt, and
Muriel at once lent her support to the custom
with undisguised approval. This was but her
third day in Cairo, yet, as soon as Daniel Lane had
taken his departure, she went up to her room as though
to the manner born, and slipped off her dress.

The bed looked cool and inviting, and a mass of white
roses upon a table beside her pillow spread a gentle
fragrance through the room; but this she thoughtlessly
dissipated by lighting a Turkish cigarette. She did
not particularly want to smoke, but she felt that the
little gold-tipped cigarette was in keeping with her
state of dainty semi-undress, with her somewhat exotic
surroundings, and with the French novel which she had
selected as an inducement to sleep.

Anybody peeping at her through the keyhole as she
lay upon the rose-bud coverlet, bare arms and silk-stockinged
legs asprawl, would have been hard put to it
to decide whether here rested the girlish chastity of
English tradition or the naughtiness of French fiction;
for nowadays, when the one has had the hardihood at
last to claim its share of the habiliments of the other,
appearances are astonishingly deceptive. Actually,
however, Muriel was but an innocent production of that
form of upbringing which, while encouraging independence
of action, accustoms the minds to the standards
of the seraglio.

She had moved freely in the segment of London society
which patronizes Covent Garden, hobnobs with the
stage, and becomes ecstatic over the latest painter,
sculptor, poet, or dancer. She had been shown all the
little vices and failings of the world in their most attractive
guise; and for her special edification the ancient
virtues had been rendered even more seemingly ridiculous
than the virtuous themselves had made them.
Obediently she had laid her thoughtless tribute at the
altar of the alluring goddess of today; and she had
been shown the correct posture of obeisance that was
to be made to the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.

She had been taught, if she had not actually mastered,
all the short cuts to that appearance of culture which is
so highly appraised; and, in matters of taste and form,
she had been shown how to be bizarre without being
crude, audacious without being vulgar. She knew just
what to say about men of letters, and what books to
leave lying about the room; and in regard to politics,
the church, and sport, she had been shown how to lump
the three together under the one heading of “Tradition.”

It was now three years since this part of her education
had begun; and yet she had passed through the
school with a surprisingly unsullied mind. Like most
pupils of her age, she was, of course, in complete outward
subjection to Mistress Fashion; but a spirit of
mutiny still plotted in the dark chambers of her heart.

She had not yet altogether stupefied herself into that
chronic semblance of light-heartedness which passes for
happiness; and there were moments when in inward revolt
she sent her entire circle of friends to blazes. At
such times she was vaguely aware that, in some subtle
manner, she was in bondage; but so carefully had she
been trained to wear her golden chains with grace that
the fleeting consciousness of their presence induced little
more than an extra yawn or two, and a more luxurious
enjoyment of any opportunity to kick up her heels.

As she lay now upon the bed, she was not conscious
of any lack of freedom in her life, and yet she was profoundly
happy to be out here in Egypt, where the day’s
routine was not so hide-bound as it was in England.

The drone of the flies and the plaintive cry of the
circling kites, the incessant cawing of the crows in the
garden, and the occasional song of the boatmen on the
Nile, soon lulled her to sleep; and it was four o’clock
before she arose to dress herself for her ride with Rupert
Helsingham. When she descended the stairs half an
hour later, she was wearing a new riding-habit of white
linen and a wide-brimmed felt hat in which she was conscious
of appearing at her best.

Rupert, too, who awaited her at the tea-table in the
drawing-room, was aware of his own becoming costume;
and the spurs upon his highly polished boots clicked
more frequently than was necessary. He was certainly
good-looking, if somewhat undersized.

“I’ve told them to meet us with the horses on the
other side of the water,” he said. “We’ll go across in
the launch, which will save a long round by the bridge.”

After a hasty cup of tea, therefore, they walked
through the garden to the landing-steps, and were soon
speeding over the river in the glare of the afternoon sun,
the cloudless heavens above them and the swift-flowing
waters of the ancient Nile shining beneath.

They landed amidst the cool shade of the palms on
the opposite bank, near a road along which many native
carriages and English dogcarts were passing to and
fro, this being the fashionable hour for taking the air;
and many curious eyes were turned upon the immaculate
couple as they mounted their horses, for the white
launch with its little Union Jack at the stern, and the
scarlet livery of the native attendants, revealed their
identity, and Lady Muriel’s charms had already become
a topic of general conversation.

“Which way would you like to go?” asked Rupert.
“By the native roads across the fields, or straight along
the main road out to Mena House?”

Muriel looked quickly at him. “Mena House?” she
said. “Isn’t that on the edge of the desert, where Mr.
Lane said he was starting from?”

Her companion nodded. “Yes,” he answered.
“We would probably run into him. Shall we go the
other way?”

Muriel drew rein for a moment. She would like to
take her first view over that garden wall of which Daniel
Lane had spoken, and it might be interesting to watch
him ride away towards the setting sun. She might
even have an opportunity of firing a parting shot at
him—something about his rumoured harîm of
Bedouin women to whom he seemed so anxious to return.
She would like to hurt him.

“No, let’s go to Mena House,” she answered at
length, and she gave as her reason her anxiety to see
the Pyramids which stand on the edge of the desert,
dominating the well-known Mena House Hotel.

Rupert looked at his watch. “It’s nearly five,” he
remarked, without any particular reason. He was not
thinking of the hour of Daniel Lane’s departure.

But Muriel was thinking of it, and, for answer, she
urged her horse forward.

“I enjoy a good long gallop, don’t you?” she said,
as they turned into the avenue of acacias which runs in
a fine straight line out to the desert, flanked by a riding-track
of soft earth.

“It’s a bit hot for anything strenuous, isn’t it?” he
suggested. He wanted to ride quietly and talk to her
as they went.

For some distance they trotted in silence, but at
length Muriel shortened her rein. “Come in!” she
laughed, and therewith she gave her restless Arab a
touch with her heel, and instantly was off and away in
a cloud of dust, as though she and her horse had been
discharged in one piece from some monstrous gun.

Rupert swore peevishly, and followed in her wake,
presently overtaking her and galloping by her side.
The tree-trunks on either hand seemed to whirl past
them, and the foliage, which met overhead, formed a
sort of tunnel pierced at one side by stabbing shafts of
dazzling sunlight. The effect was blinding, and soon
Rupert, an excellent horseman, began to feel as though
he were the maddened villain of some flickering film of
the Wild West, whose career had soon to end in a
frightful tumble.

“Isn’t it lovely?” shouted Muriel, ecstatically. Her
blood seemed to be boiling in her veins; she glowed like
a fiery immortal being, full of tremendous excitement
and enthusiasm. This was life!—this was youth!
She dragged her hat over her eyes, regardless of her
own appearance, regardless of the hat’s. She felt entirely
crazy, and presumably her horse felt the same,
for not for a moment did he slacken his thundering
speed. The warm wind whistled in her ears; occasional
roadside villas appeared to whirl past almost as soon as
they were sighted; an automobile, full of gesticulating
Egyptians, raced them and had difficulty in beating
them; the electric tram from the Pyramids to Cairo appeared
to leap past them with wildly clanging bell; she
caught sudden glimpses of peasant carts and an occasional
smart carriage, astonished brown faces and smiling
white ones. Her hair began to come down.

At last her horse had had enough, and his gallop
decreased to a trot, his trot to a walk. Her companion
turned a laughing red face to her. He had
caught the infection of her spirits, and, like her, was
conscious of a burning sense of youth and strength.
The perspiration was streaming down his cheeks.

“Phew!” he exclaimed, and recklessly mopped his
forehead with a coloured silk handkerchief intended
only for a breast-pocket ornament. “D’you often get
taken like that?”

Muriel laughed excitedly, and, twisting the reins
around her arm, pulled off her hat, thereby letting
loose a tumbling mass of brown hair, which fell about
her shoulders. Then, handing the hat to Rupert to
hold, she raised her hands and coiled up the hair on
to her head again, fastening it with the few remaining
hairpins.

Rupert uttered an ordinary, vulgar whistle. He,
too, had been galloped into naturalness. “By Jove!”
he cried. “You have got glorious hair!”

Muriel settled her hat upon her head once more, and
picked up her reins.

“I’ll let it down properly for you some day,” she
said. At that moment she would have stood on her
head, had anybody dared her to do so. A law should
be passed prohibiting women from galloping.

“I’ll kiss you if you do,” replied Rupert. The law
should, perhaps, include young men as well.

He was startled at his audacity; but Muriel was not
in a mental condition to do otherwise than laugh.

Thus they arrived, like two flushed children, at the
end of the road, the hotel on their right, the mighty
Pyramids rising up like hand-made mountains on their
left, backed by the descending sun. In front of them
stretched the desert—a ridge of white and yellow
shelving rocks, and great shadowed slopes of sand
mounting to the clear sky. Southwards, at the foot
of the hills, stood a native village, the clustered white
houses and dignified groups of palms reflected in the
still waters of the inundation which, at this time of the
year, cover the surrounding fields.

Outside the hotel several Bedouin dragomans sauntered
about or sat smoking and chatting; and a few
camels and donkeys, saddled in readiness for hire, stood
tethered near by.

Muriel hardly glanced at the Pyramids: they had
been visible to her through the trees during most of
the ride, and they were just as she had pictured them.
But the Bedouin in their flowing silks, the betasselled
camels, and the background of the desert made a picture
which delighted her eyes.

“What’s the time?” she asked. “I wonder if he
has gone.”

It was some seconds before Rupert took her meaning:
he had forgotten about Daniel Lane. He looked
at his watch: it was half-past five.

“I’ll ask some of these fellows if they’ve seen him,”
he said, perhaps a little put out. A shadow had fallen
upon the gay opening scene of his romance.

He rode forward, and soon elicited the information
that “the Englishman who came in from the desert”
had but a few minutes ago gone up the hill to the
rocky plateau above, where his camels were awaiting
him.

“We’ve missed him,” he said, returning to her.
“He’s just gone.”

“Well, let’s ride after him,” she answered, and
without further remark she trotted up the short, winding
road which led on to the higher ground. Rupert
followed her, musing upon the inscrutable ways of
women.

The road lay in the shadow of the hillside, but as
they reached the summit they came into the full glare
of the setting sun which was now nearing the distant
horizon. On their left the Pyramids towered up into
the blazing sky, but before them the rock-strewn plateau
lay open and vast, and over it the wind blew
warm and mysterious.

Muriel arched her hand above her eyes and looked
about her.

“There he is!” she cried at length, directing her
companion to a little group in a sandy hollow about a
hundred yards distant, and therewith they both trotted
forward.

Daniel Lane was about to mount his camel as they
approached. Muriel waved her hand to him, whereat
he pulled off his well-worn hat and laughed aloud.

“That’s odd!” he said. “I had a sort of feeling
you’d come.”

Muriel stared at him, and her responding smile died
upon her lips.

“We rode in this direction quite at random,” said she,
coldly. “I don’t yet know one way from another.”

“Well, you’ve found your way to the desert quickly
enough,” he replied. “You know there are some people
who seem to be drawn towards it at once.”

Muriel glanced about her. “I think it looks a horrid
place,” she said, which was entirely untruthful.
“I don’t feel at all drawn to it.”

She turned to Rupert Helsingham. He was slowly
riding round the four camels which crouched, grunting,
on the sand, in charge of two lean and wild-looking
men of the desert, whose appearance was strikingly different
from that of the Bedouin of the Pyramids, grown
prosperous in their profession as guides and dragomans
to the sightseers. Three of the camels were
saddled, the seat in each case being covered by a rough
sheepskin, and having on either side a coarsely embroidered
bag containing food, while a rifle and two
water-bottles were slung across the back. The fourth
camel, which was to be led by one of the riders, was
lightly laden with stores and various purchases made in
Cairo, and two small water-skins depended at its sides.

“I travel light, you see,” said Daniel, as Rupert
returned to them.

“Yes, you couldn’t otherwise have come in at the
pace you did,” he answered. “Are you going back at
the same rate?”

Daniel laughed. “Oh, no,” he said. “I shall
travel in easy stages, taking five or six days probably—as
long as the food lasts, in fact. We can pick up
water at the wells, and if we shoot anything we can
take it still slower.”

Muriel looked curiously at him. “Then why were
you in such a hurry to be off?” she asked.

“One night in a Cairo hotel is enough for me,” he
answered. “I’m starting now so as to get ten or
fifteen miles away by bedtime, where I can sleep peacefully
on the clean sand, away from mosquitoes and bad
smells and noise. And then we can just saunter. So
long as we plan to reach a water-hole every two days,
there’s nothing to hurry us.”

He turned towards the sunset and breathed in the
pure air with evident satisfaction. “It’s splendid to
think there’s all that empty space in front of one!”
he exclaimed. “In a few minutes now I shall be swallowed
up in it! Gee! I’ll think of you tonight, my
girl, in your stuffy bedroom; and you can envy me
lying under God’s heaven, talking with my two good
friends here about cities and slavery and civilization
and things, till we yawn ourselves to sleep.”

Muriel’s interest in him began to revive. “It sounds
wonderful,” she said, doubtfully.

The sun had sunk behind the low line of the horizon
when at length Daniel bid good-bye and mounted his
camel. Rupert, who was impatient to be back, had
already turned his horse’s head and was slowly moving
away as the four camels, snarling and complaining in
their wonted manner, rose upon their long legs, lifting
their riders high above the ground; but Muriel remained
for a moment or two, curbing her restless horse,
while Daniel looked down at her from his lofty seat.

“I’ve enjoyed meeting you,” he said. “I’m afraid
you think I’m very rude and rough. I don’t mean to
be, only—”

“Only what?” she asked, as he paused.

“Yes?” She was all attention now.

“Only when I meet a girl like you—”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, and there came a look
of great earnestness into his eyes. “There’s so much
you’ve got to unlearn, my dear.”

He struck his camel lightly with his stick, and trotted
away. Then, turning in his saddle, he put his hand to
his mouth and called out to her: “Why don’t you
break loose?”

Muriel made a gesture indicating that she did not
understand, but his head was again averted, and he
did not look round. She watched him, as, followed by
the men, he slid silently away into the barren vastness
of the desert. He seemed to be riding straight into
the glory of the sunset.

Then she wheeled her horse around, and cantered
after her companion. Far off in front of her now the
city was spread out amongst its trees and luxuriant
fields. From the high ground she looked down on distant
roofs of palaces and mansions, domes and cupolas,
minarets and towers, and the lights began to twinkle
in the windows along the embankment of the Nile. It
looked like an enticing magic City of Happiness; and
she glanced over her shoulder with a sudden wave of
terror at the darkening immensity of the desert behind.


CHAPTER VII—THE DESERT AND THE CITY
===================================

Daniel’s mind was not at ease as he
rode through the gathering darkness. His
thoughts had been shaken out of their habitual
tranquillity by his few hours in the city, and he had
the feeling that he had turned his back upon a picture
which he would have liked a little longer to contemplate,
that he had shut a book in which he would have
preferred to read yet another chapter. But when the
moon rose and cast its early mystery upon the empty
wilderness around him, a greater calm fell upon him,
and he began to appreciate once more that sense of
detachment from the restless doings of the world which
is the particular gift of the desert.

For two hours or more he rode in silence, and ever
as he passed deeper into the great void before him his
musing mind contemplated with increasing serenity the
events of the last night and day. Out here in this everlasting
calm he could smile at the little agitations which
had beset him in Cairo, and could observe their triviality.
Here the strident call of flesh and blood was
hushed, and the equable balance of mind and body was
able to be resumed. No wonder, he thought to himself
that the monks of old had hidden themselves in the
wilderness: they had discovered a blessed equanimity,
and a consequent happiness not to be found in the busy
thoroughfares of the city.

At length he called a halt in a rugged valley,
through which a stream had flowed in bygone ages.
Its bed of fine shingle and sand made a soft and pliable
resting-place; and here he ate his evening meal, lying
back upon his sheepskin thereafter, smoking his pipe
and talking to his friends, until sleep came to him.

On the following day they rode no more than
five-and-twenty miles, taking a course somewhat more
roundabout than that of their outward journey, and it
was mid-afternoon when they reached the water-hole
at which the night was to be spent. Riding round a
bend in a precipitous valley, Daniel, who was some
distance ahead of his retainers, suddenly found himself
looking down upon the rocky hollow in which lay
the little pool of water, so blue in its setting of mellow
sun-bathed rocks that it seemed even deeper in tone
than the sky it reflected. Here grew the greenest reeds
and rushes, and, mirrored in the water, there was a
delicate tamarisk whose soft foliage swayed in the
breeze as though setting the time to the nodding dance
of the reeds.

Sitting beside the pool a little girl was tending a
few goats whose bleating came merrily to his ears on
the wind. She had not heard the soft pads of his approaching
camel, and he was almost upon her before
she looked up. With a cry of surprise she fled down
the valley, and suddenly, from amidst the shadows of
the boulders, a grey-bearded son of the desert stepped
forth into the sunlight, an ancient broadsword in his
hands, and a ragged cloak of many colours thrown
over his shoulders.

Daniel dismounted from his camel, and exchanged
greetings with the patriarch, while the little girl hid
herself behind the man’s thin brown legs, and the goats
leaped upon the rocks to stare at the stranger from a
safe distance.

“Never fear, little one,” said the old man as he
patted the child’s head. “This is only an Englishman.
There are many such: they harm not.”

The old goatherd, and two of his grandsons, who
presently made their appearance, proved to be related
to families in the Oasis of El Hamrân where Daniel
resided; and the talk during the evening meal was all
of mutual acquaintances, of the movements of various
groups of Bedouin, of camping-grounds and water-holes.

A woman and the little girl, her daughter, sat amidst
the rocks in the background as they talked, and Daniel
observed that the child was nursing a primitive doll
made of three sticks and a piece of rag, and that at
length she fell asleep with this poor proxy held close
in her brown arms. Later in the evening, therefore, in
the light of the moon, he fashioned a very much more
convincing article out of sticks, string, and a handkerchief;
and with his fountain-pen he outlined an audacious
face, which, with a few combings from his sheepskin
in the place of hair, gave an appearance of striking
and awful reality to the figure.

The goatherds encouraged his efforts with excited
laughter, and when, at last, the doll was finished, he
walked over to the sleeping girl and placed it in her
arms.

On the third day they made good going, passing
across a range of low hills, and descending into a wide
plain where they disturbed a herd of gazelle, which
went galloping off at their approach and were lost in
the haze of the distance.

So they journeyed in easy stages; and day by day
Daniel more fully resumed that jovial, contented mind
which is the basis of happiness. The benign influence
of sun and breeze and open space was upon him once
more, and his heart was filled as it were with laughter.
Riding ever westward, he seemed to be following the
course of the sun; and each evening, as it passed down
behind the horizon ahead, it marked tomorrow’s track,
as though bidding him come deeper, ever deeper, into
the merry freedom of the desert. He whistled a tune to
himself as he rode through echoing valleys; he sang at
the top of his voice as, far ahead of his men, he passed
over the hills, and viewed the great vistas before him;
and as he drew near to the oasis which was his destination,
and observed once again the presence of birds and
the tracks of jackals, he urged his camel forward with
many an endearing and persuasive word.

Now he met with goatherds and camelherds who were
his friends, and merrily he called his greetings to them;
now he knew the lie of the country, and noted the places
where, from time to time, he had camped or rested in
the shade at noon when he had been out hunting gazelle,
or tracking the jackals to their lairs, by way of exercise.
Now the west wind brought the faint scent of the
cultivated land to his sensitive nostrils, and his camel
lifted its head to snuff at the breeze.

At last, in a golden sunset, amidst the chattering of
innumerable sparrows, he descended from the barren
hills into the dense palm groves of the Oasis of El
Hamrân, from whose shadows the white-robed figures
of the Bedouin emerged to greet him.

An all-pervading peace enfolded him, and his short
visit to civilized life seemed like a dream that was fading
from his memory. The city beside the Nile had become
a thing of unreality, and he had awakened, as it
were, to the happy sunshine of life’s placid day, and
was eager to be once more at his work.

Yet, in far-away Cairo, there were five minds at least
which retained a vivid recollection of his brief incursion
into the city. There was Lord Barthampton, who,
for forty-eight hours after Daniel’s departure, had
lain in a drunken stupor which, for form’s sake, was
termed a touch of the sun; and who, thereafter, had
forsworn all intoxicating liquor, and had resumed his
place at the mess in the sullen silence of one who has
returned unwillingly to the fold.

There was Lizette, who had wept a little, and for a
little while had bemoaned her lot, and who, later, had
gone, as was her wont, to the Franciscan Church, and
had said her beads and had prayed that one day she
might meet again the mighty man who had sent the
pig Barthampton so beautifully sprawling upon the
floor.

There was Lord Blair, who had received an effusive
reply from the gratified Minister of War, and, thereat,
had schemed and plotted to bring the wise Daniel within
closer reach of the Residency. There was Rupert
Helsingham, who, ever since the ride to Mena House,
had been filled with matrimonial dreams and fears of
rivalry, and had racked his brains to decide upon a
course of action which should give him opportunities
of displaying those brutal tendencies of manhood which
seemed to be so successful with the opposite sex.

And lastly, there was Muriel, who had aroused Rupert’s
jealousy by talking from time to time about
Daniel, with a sort of defiance in her voice which could
almost be mistaken for awe.

It was inevitable that she and Charles Barthampton
should meet: it was only strange that they had not met
before in London. On the same evening upon which
Daniel had arrived at his home in El Hamrân, his
cousin was a guest at dinner at the Residency, where
he found himself seated next to Muriel. The latter
had been taken into dinner by one of the Egyptian
princes, an elegant personage who had lived most of his
life in Vienna, Paris, and Monte Carlo, and whose contempt
for the English was only equalled by his scorn
of the Egyptians. He was an authority on modern
French art; and when Muriel, in a frenzy of tact, had
rushed the conversation again and again into that province,
and had exhausted all that she knew by rote upon
the subject, she was glad of an opportunity to turn
in the opposite direction and address herself to Barthampton.

He, on his part, had taken in the daughter of the
French Consul-General, who was much more interested
in Rupert Helsingham upon her other hand; and, being
thus left alone to play with his toast and sip his wine,
he had turned to Muriel with relief.

“I can’t talk to this French girl,” he whispered.
“She doesn’t understand English, and my French isn’t
exactly ladylike.”

“Well, do you know anything about French art?”
she asked, hopefully. “I’m sitting next to a connoisseur,
and I’ve run dry.”

“French art?” he laughed. “Rather! I’ve got
a collection of postcards—I’ve framed some of them;
and I take *La Vie Parisienne* regularly.”

Muriel sighed. “No, I’m afraid that won’t help,”
she said.

“Well, try him on English art,” he suggested.
“Good stuff, you know—Landseer and Leighton and
Alma-Tadema.”

“No,” said Muriel gravely, “he’s very modern.”

“Oh, modern, is he? Then what about Kirchner?
Or Cecil Aldin?—but I don’t suppose he knows a fox
from a hound.” He leaned forward and stared at the
Prince. “Queer little devil, isn’t he, what? Doesn’t
look much like a nigger.”

“Why should he?” Muriel asked. “The Royal
house is Albanian—pure Turkish.”

“Oh, I lump them all together,” he answered, with a
gesture of his red hand. “Quaint country, Egypt,
isn’t it? What d’you think of it?”

“So far, I like it immensely,” she replied. “But I
shouldn’t think it was an interesting place for a soldier.
What do your men think of it?”

“I don’t know: I’ve never asked ’em,” he replied.
“Not much, I shouldn’t think. There are not enough
housemaids to go round, and the beer’s atrocious. I
can’t think why we’re not kept in London; after all,
we’re the Guards. They ought to leave the dirty work
to the ordinary regiments of the line. I don’t see why
we should be made to sweat out here. It’s these Radicals:
they never can mind their own business.”

“Father and I are Radicals, you know,” she smiled.
“And our forebears were Whigs before us.”

“Beg pardon,” he said, with a grunt. “I’d forgotten
my history lessons. We Lanes were always
Tories.”

Muriel glanced at him quickly. “Oh, I’d quite forgotten,”
she said, with interest. “Of course, you’re a
Lane. I wonder if you’re any relation to a certain
Daniel Lane?”

Lord Barthampton’s face fell. “How d’you come
to know Daniel Lane?” he asked, as he busied himself
with his food.

“I met him the other day,” she answered. “He’s a
friend of my father’s. Oh, yes, I remember now: he
said he had a relation out here in the Guards.”

“Yes,” he replied, with his mouth full. “He’s a
cousin; but I hardly know him. He’s spent much of his
life in the States.”

“Tell me about him,” she said. She was all interest.

“I don’t know anything to tell you,” he answered,
casually. “He’s a crank—lives with the niggers in
the desert or something. Looks like a tramp.”

“He’s very clever, isn’t he? My father thinks the
world of him.”

Lord Barthampton noisily threw down his knife and
fork. “There’s not much love lost between him and
me,” he said, and relapsed into silence; while Muriel,
seeing that she had touched upon a sore subject, took
the opportunity to resume her conversation with her
partner.

Late that evening, after the guests had departed,
Muriel, prompted by a sense of duty, found herself in
the library, bidding a motherly good-night to her father,
who was smoking a final cigar, and was standing
before the empty fireplace, his hands under his coattails
in unconscious retention of the habits of other
days.

“By the way,” she said, “did you know that Lord
Barthampton was Daniel Lane’s cousin?”

“You don’t say so!” he exclaimed. “Well, well!
I had no idea.”

He opened a bookcase, and lifting out *Burke’s
Peerage*, turned over its pages with evident interest.
After a few moment’s study, he uttered a little ejaculation.

“Dear me, dear me!” he remarked. “Daniel is
not only his cousin, but his heir presumptive.” He
stroked his chin, and carried the bulky volume nearer
to the light. “Hm! Well, well—to be sure!” he
muttered.

He laid the book down, and clasping his hands behind
his back, walked to and fro across the room, while
Muriel turned to glance at the family record.

As she looked up once more, her father paused, his
head on one side, his fingers stroking his jaw. “Now,
if that lout were to die ...” he mused.

“D’you mean Mr. Lane?” asked Muriel innocently.

“No, no! Tut, tut!” exclaimed her father, pinching
the lobe of her ear, and then, as though afraid of
giving offence, patting her cheek instead. “Daniel
Lane is not a lout! I was referring to his cousin. If
Daniel were to inherit—”

“If he were to inherit,” Muriel put in, as he paused,
“there’d be a panic in the House of Lords—peers
hiding under benches, Lord Chancellor flung into gallery,
Archbishop popped into waste-paper basket—”

Lord Blair raised his delicate hand in protest: his
thoughts were more serious. “You know,” he said,
“that man is wasting himself in the desert. I wish I
could persuade him to accept some official position in
Cairo. I should like to push him into prominence—oblige
him, force him, to take an active part in the
government of this country.”

An expression almost of sadness came into his face.
“I sometimes feel,” he went on, “that we diplomatists,
products of the Foreign Office, are totally unfitted to
rule a mediæval country such as this. Look at me,
Muriel; am I the romantic figure to impress the native
mind? Egypt does not want diplomacy; she wants
physical strength combined with philosophy—she
wants a man who is a mighty hunter before the Lord,
a giant, a hero out of a legend.”

“Oh, father dear,” Muriel replied, “everybody says
you are the ideal ruler.” She felt sorry for him: he
seemed such an insignificant little figure, so fussy, so
well-meaning, and just now so modest.

“No,” he continued, “I don’t understand the native
mind; I must confess, I don’t understand it. And I
sometimes think that I am not serving the best interests
of England. I want my country to be respected,
Muriel; I have such vast ambition for England. I
want our manhood to be seen to the best advantage, so
that the natives may say: ‘Since we are to be ruled,
let us be glad that we are ruled by *men*.’”

Muriel put her hands upon his shoulders. For the
first time she really liked him. “I think you’re splendid,
father,” she said.

“Now, if Daniel Lane took his position in society,”
he mused, “if, for instance, he were Lord Barthampton,
there would be no difficulty. I could push him forward,
and in a few years he would be old enough to succeed me
here at the Residency. A little more care about his
appearance, perhaps—”

“And a little less rudeness,” said Muriel.

“No, he is not rude,” Lord Blair corrected her.
“He is only unceremonious.”

There was a tap at the door, and Rupert entered.
He was the only one of the Secretaries who lived on
the premises.

“I’m just off to bed,” he said. “Is there anything
you want me to do, sir?”

Lord Blair looked at him, as though waking from
a dream. “Let me see, yes, there was something I was
going to ask you to do. What was it, now? Dear,
dear! How bad my memory is! Ah, yes, I have it!
A letter: I want you to acknowledge it formally, the
first thing in the morning. It’s on my study table.
No, you could not find it in all that litter. I must
really have a grand tidying-up, I must indeed. One
moment: I’ll get it for you.”

He hurried from the room, in short, nervous steps,
and, as he disappeared, Rupert turned to Muriel.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “You do look beautiful
tonight. I could hardly take my eyes off you all the
evening.”

Muriel smiled happily. “I’m glad you think so. I
thought I looked a sight; and Prince What’s-his-name
was evidently bored with me.”

“On the contrary,” he answered, “he told me he
thought you were charming, and such a connoisseur.”

“Of what,” she asked brightly.

“Of the art of the Stone Age, he said. I don’t know
what he meant.”

Muriel flushed. “The little beast!” she cried, angrily.
“He was trying to be rude.”

“Rude, was he?” said Rupert, viciously. He assumed
a fighting attitude, and, when Muriel had
frankly explained the insinuation of the remark, he set
his teeth and made a determined attempt to appear
grim.

“He’ll get one in the jaw, if he doesn’t look out,”
he muttered.

Lord Blair re-entered the room, carrying the letter
(for some unknown reason) extended in his thumb and
first finger as though it smelt. He paused on seeing
Rupert’s simulation of pugilism, and looked at him
critically, as it were measuring the young man’s capacities
in that arena. Then he shook his head sadly, and
handed him the letter.

When Rupert had left them, Lord Blair turned to his
daughter. “Undersized,” he murmured, “sadly undersized.”

“Oh, not so very,” said Muriel, divining his thoughts.
“And, any way, he’s a good-looking boy, and his manners
are charming. I’m growing very fond of Rupert.”

Lord Blair glanced at her quickly.


CHAPTER VIII—THE ACCOMPLICE
===========================

Undoubtedly the ancients were quite right
in regarding youth as a kind of fever, an intermittent
sickness lasting from puberty to
middle age. In Egypt this particular illness is rampant:
everybody who is not old feels youthful, and the
actually youthful have hours of violent delirium.

As the weather, in the last days of October, became
cooler and more stimulating, Lady Muriel began to experience
a series of startling sensations. She felt excited,
and her mind turned itself to a heated study of
the romantic possibilities of existence at the Residency.
She had always been told that a young woman’s life
was divided into two distinct ages, the first being a
period filled with romantic episodes and terminated by
marriage, and the second being a period crowded with
very serious love affairs and only curtailed by age or
the divorce court.

So far she could safely say that she had only been
in love three times. Once at Eastbourne, during her
school-days, she had fallen into a divine frenzy over a
curate, who had been a rugger blue at Oxford, and
who, in a certain brief and desperate sofa-episode, had
apparently mistaken her for the football with which
he was touching down a try, but who, a moment later,
had recovered his feet and had staggered out into
the night calling upon God for mercy upon a married
man. She had nursed her bruises and had sorrowed
for him for many days, ardently desiring to poison his
wife and all her babies, but his sudden appointment to
a far-away living had closed the story.

A year later she fell in love with a Russian singer
who, at the time, was being heavily lionized in London;
but, as luck would have it, she met three of his mistresses
in one day, and the fright sobered her.

The third episode had been much more prosaic.
The man was merely a young Member of Parliament
who made his overtures in the most approved style, and
might have succeeded in capturing her, had it not been
discovered on the day the engagement was to be announced
that he had borrowed money on the strength
of the coming alliance. In this case she had not
grieved for long: indeed, when she happened to see him
a week later she had already sufficiently recovered to
observe that his eyes were set too close together, his
teeth were like a rabbit’s, his hands too hairy, his
head not hairy enough, and his legs bandy.

That was a year ago, and since then she had been
entirely heart-whole. Now, however, the starry Egyptian
nights, the sun-bathed days, the multitude of officers,
officials, and diplomats whose acquaintance she
was making, and the general court paid to her, both as
a charming woman and as the Great Man’s daughter,
were beginning to stimulate her senses.

One morning, at the beginning of November, as she
sat up in her bed, playing with her toes, the thought
came strongly to her that her season in Egypt ought
to be graced by some exceptional romance. Here was
the setting for the play; here was the heroine; but
where was the hero? It was true that Rupert Helsingham,
of whom she had grown quite fond, was becoming
daily more bold; but he had ever an eye on her father,
on whom depended his budding career. In her exposed
position whatever romance came to her would have to be
conducted on very correct lines; and would probably be
expected to end in marriage; but she did not want to
be married. Indeed, the thought appalled her. She
vastly preferred the idea of a great sorrow, a heartbreaking
parting under the stars, a life-long devotion
to a sad, sweet memory. But that a man should walk
nightly into her bedroom in his striped pyjamas was a
horrible thought.

Pensively she gazed at her toes, upon which a shaft
of the morning sunlight was striking. They were
pretty toes. A man’s feet usually had corns on them.
No, she had little wish for a bare-footed romance: the
hero she pictured would make love in his boots, and
tragedy should descend before the hour came to take
them off.

Everything pointed to a clandestine affair—something
in a garden, with the scent of roses in it; or in a
boat floating down the Nile, very placid and mysterious;
or far away in the desert....

In the desert! The thought brought back to her
mind the parting words of Daniel Lane. “Why don’t
you break loose?” Several times she had wondered what
he had meant: whether he were suggesting a breaking
away from the routine of her life, or whether he were
advising her to run amuck in a moral sense. The latter,
it seemed to her, was the more probable, judging
by his reputation; but this was not a form of entertainment
that appealed to her. She did not mind playing
with fire, but she had no wish at all to be burnt.
Her education had trained her to think lightly of the
chastity of others, but so far it had not injured her
own natural continence.

Getting out of bed she stood for a few moments in
the middle of the room, staring through the open window
at the distant line of the desert. Yes, the desert
would be a wonderful setting for a romance; and yet
even there she would not seem to be quite alone, quite
unobserved. In her mind the whole of those vast spaces
belonged, somehow, to Daniel Lane. She would feel
his disturbing influence there: his head would rise from
behind a rock, and his quiet eyes would stare mockingly
at her and her lover, whoever he might be. He might
even stroll forward, pick up the wretched Romeo, with
a yawn throw him over the cliffs, seat himself by her
side instead, and light his pipe. And if she protested
he might whistle up half a dozen cut-throat Bedouin
and peg her to the ground for the jackals to sniff at
till he was ready to put her in his harîm.

She laughed nervously to herself as she went to her
bath; and her thoughts turned again to the possibilities
of the garden and the Nile, and once more the difficulties
of her position were manifest. Female accomplices are
required in romance: she had none. There was her
maid, Ada, a large Scotchwoman, who would play the
part about as nimbly as a hobbled cow. Lady Smith-Evered
was not to be trusted with secrets, even if she
were able to be flattered into acquiescence. There was
no other woman in Cairo with whom she was at all well
acquainted as yet, and none that gave promise of the
paradoxical but necessary combination of self-effacement
and presence of mind.

What she required was the friendship of a young
married woman without stain and without scruple.
Then there would be some hope that the season would
not be entirely barren of romance, and, when she returned
to England in the spring, she would not be in the
painful necessity of having to invent confidences for
the ears of her girl friends.

There is, however, an ancient and once very popular
Egyptian god who seems to have survived to the present
day, if one may judge by the strange events which
take place in the land of the Pharaohs. By the Greeks
he was called Pan-Who-is-Within-Hearing; and he
must certainly have been sitting in the bathroom. For
no sooner had Muriel dressed and come downstairs than
the accomplice walked straight into the house.

Muriel had just entered the drawing-room by one
door when a footman threw open the opposite door
and announced “Mr. and Mrs. Benifett Bindane.”

A moment later a plump, square-shouldered young
woman hurried into the room and flung herself into
Muriel’s arms. “Muriel—you darling!” she cried,
and “Kate—my dear!” cried Muriel, as they kissed
one another affectionately.

Mrs. Bindane beckoned to the middle-aged man who
had followed her into the room. “This person is my
husband,” she said. “I think you saw him when he
was courting me.”

He came forward and gave Muriel a limp hand. He
was very tall, and appeared to be invertebrate; he had
watery blue eyes, thin yellow hair, a long, white, clean-shaven
face, and a wet mouth which was seldom, if ever,
shut.

“Benifett, my dear,” said his capable, handsome
wife, “say something polite to the lady.”

“How-de-do,” he murmured, staring at her awkwardly.

“Yes, I think we did meet once, didn’t we?” said
Muriel.

Mrs. Bindane intervened. “Yes, don’t you remember?
At the pictures, when we were keeping company.
We got wed at our chapel ten days ago—such a
to-do as you never saw! And afterwards a real beano
at the Fried Fish Shop: beer by the barrel, and port
too! And Pa gave me away, in his evening dress, red
handkerchief and all!”

Such was her peculiar and characteristic way of referring
to the fact that she had introduced Muriel to
her fiancé one night at Covent Garden, and that she
had been married to him at St. Margaret’s, Westminster,
where she had been given away by her father, Lord
Voycey, a reception being later held at her paternal
home in Berkeley Square.

“I didn’t know you were coming out here,” said
Muriel. “It’s splendid.”

“We only decided on Egypt at the last minute,” explained
Mr. Bindane. “Kate was so anxious to go
up the Nile.”

“It’s a blinkin’ fine river, I’m told,” remarked his
wife, at which he smiled reprovingly.

Her friend’s language was notorious, though actually
she seldom approached an oath except in mimicry.
She was a woman of five-and-twenty, and for seven
years she had delighted London with her pretended vulgarity.
Her husband, on the other hand, was more or
less unknown to the metropolis, though, as the inheritor
from his father of an enormous fortune, his name had
lately been heard in Mayfair, while in the City it was
well known. People said he was a fool; and everybody
supposed that the eccentric Kate had married him for
his money. As a matter of fact, she had married him
for love.

“Where are you staying?” Muriel asked.

“We’ve got a little paddle-wheeled steamer on the
river,” he replied. “We arrived last night.”

“And of course we came round to see you at once,”
said Kate. “Benifett’s rather a snob, you know: loves
lords and ladies. So do I. How’s your pa?”

“Oh, just the same as always,” Muriel answered.
“I don’t seem to see much of him.”

“People say he’s rather a success at running this ’ere
country,” the other remarked. “Personally, I detest
the man: I think he’s neglected you shamefully all your
life.”

“Oh, father’s all right,” said Muriel. “I’m very
fond of him.”

“Rot!” muttered her friend.

For some time they exchanged their news, and
Muriel gave some account of the quiet life she had spent
since her arrival.

“Any decent men?” Mrs. Bindane asked. “What
about little Rupert Helsingham?”

“Oh, d’you know him?”

“Lord! yes. He stayed with us once when he and
I were kiddies. I saw him when he was on leave last
summer: he’s grown into a handsome little fellow.”

She asked if he were on the premises, and whether
she might see him. In reply, Muriel rang the bell, and
sent a message to the office where Rupert usually spent
his mornings in interviewing native dignitaries.

“Here’s a friend of yours,” she said to him as he
came into the room, and there ensued a rapid exchange
of merry greetings.

“This is what I’ve married,” remarked Mrs. Bindane,
taking her husband’s hand in hers and delivering
it into Rupert’s friendly grasp.

“How-de-do,” said Mr. Bindane, looking down from
his great height at the dapper little man before him.

“Glad to meet you, sir,” said Rupert, looking up at
the limp figure, which gave the appearance of being
about to fall to pieces at any moment.

“His father’s a lord, dear,” whispered Mrs. Bindane
to her husband, in a hoarse aside.

“You’re just as impossible as ever, Kate,” laughed
Rupert.

“It’s my common blood,” said she. “One of my
ancestors married his cook: she was the woman who
cooked that surfeit of lampreys King John died of.”

“Is Lord Blair in?” Mr. Bindane asked, very suddenly.

Mrs. Bindane turned sharply and stared at him.
“Now *what* has Lord Blair to do with you, Benifett?”
she asked in surprise. “I didn’t know you knew him.”

Her husband flapped a loose hand. “I’ve met his
Lordship,” he said.

“*His Lordship*,” mimicked the impossible Kate, giving
a nod of simulated awe. “Rupert, my lad, go and
tell the boss he’s wanted in the shop.”

“I’d like to see him,” murmured Mr. Bindane, quite
unmoved.

“Well, I never!” said his wife.

“I’ll go and see if he’s busy,” Rupert volunteered.

“Thanks,” droned Mr. Bindane, his mouth dropping
more widely open than usual.

.. figure:: images/illus-090.png
   :align: center

   A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY—BURNING SANDS

“Well, you have got some nerve!” exclaimed his
wife.

Rupert went out of the room, and sought the Great
Man in his study.

“What is it, what is it?” Lord Blair muttered with
some irritation, looking up from a mass of disordered
papers.

“Oh, sorry, sir,” said Rupert. “I didn’t know you
were busy. There’s somebody here who wants to see
you.”

“I can’t see anybody—no, nobody,” Lord Blair expostulated.
“What’s he want? Who is he?”

“A Mr. Bindane. He’s in the drawing-room with
Lady Muriel.”

Lord Blair sat up briskly. “Benifett Bindane?”
he asked, sharply.

Rupert nodded, and thereat the Great Man jumped
to his feet.

“Where is he?” he exclaimed. “Show him in at
once. Dear me, dear me! How fortunate! I had no
idea he was in Egypt. No, I’ll come into the drawing-room.”

He hurried past Rupert, and hastened across the corridor.

“How d’you do, my dear sir, how d’you do,” he exclaimed,
as he tripped into the room and wrung his visitor’s
feeble hand.

“My wife,” said Mr. Bindane, bowing towards his
startled spouse.

Lord Blair took her hand in both his own. “An old
friend!” he cried. “Capital, capital! We were reading
about your marriage the other day. Splendid!”
And he beamed from one to the other. Then, turning
again to Mr. Bindane, “You’ve come to see for yourself,
eh?” he exclaimed. “Very wise, very wise indeed.”

“It’s a pleasure trip,” the other replied; “our
honeymoon, you know.”

“Of course, yes,” muttered Lord Blair. “Business
and pleasure!”

“Business?” muttered Mrs. Bindane. “It’s the
first I’ve heard of it. What a dark horse you are,
Benifett.” And she abused him roundly in that absurd
mimicry of the dialect of the slums which was habitual
with her.

Muriel looked vacant. Her thoughts were racing
ahead. Here was the desired accomplice, married to
a rich fool who was evidently on the best of terms with
her father. They had a private steamer on the Nile.
Could anything be better, more secluded, more romantic?
All she had to do was to find her Romeo.


CHAPTER IX—ON THE NILE
======================

Muriel was not slow to spy out the possibilities
of her friend’s steamer. Her father, she
soon discovered, was glad enough that she
should make herself agreeable to the Bindanes; for, as
he explained to her at some length, Mr. Bindane was at
that time engaged in raising an enormous sum of money
for agricultural investment in the western oases of
Egypt, and it was of great importance that the luxurious
river-steamer and the Residency should be on intimate
terms.

For years Lord Blair and his predecessors had endeavoured
in vain to interest the financial world in the
mineral products and rich soil of the chain of oases
which spreads across the desert between Egypt and
Tripoli. But nobody, least of all the Government,
would yet trust their money in an outlying territory
so recently explored and opened up. Then Benifett
Bindane had wandered into the Foreign Office, when
Lord Blair was on leave in England, and had remarked
laconically that he would raise the necessary millions.

At first he had hardly been taken seriously, for he
looked such a fool. Later it was thought that because
he looked such a fool it might be worth while to help
him to part with his money; and finally it was discovered
that he was not such a fool as he looked. The
money he proposed to find was to be mostly other people’s,
those other people being likely to be persuaded
by the fact that the money would appear to be mostly
his own. He had promised to send somebody out to
Egypt to investigate, and now, quietly and without any
apparent pretext other than that of his honeymoon, he
had come himself.

Three or four days after the Bindanes’ arrival a
thirty hours’ excursion up the river was planned, the
party consisting of the bridal couple, Lady Muriel,
Lady Smith-Evered, Rupert Helsingham, and Professor
Hyley, the Egyptologist. The Pyramid of
Meidûm, some fifty miles upstream from Cairo, was the
objective; and it was proposed to start at noon, to moor
for the night near the village of Meidûm, to ride over
to the ruins on the following morning, and to make the
return journey to Cairo during the afternoon and evening.

Muriel boarded the steamer when the time came with
keen interest hidden under a casual exterior. For her
it was to be a sort of trial run: she was going to study
the romantic possibilities of the Nile. If the trip provided
opportunities for Rupert Helsingham to make
love to her, in which direction his recent actions had begun
to point, she would try to arrange further excursions,
perhaps with him, perhaps in other company.

The professor was a neat and natty little man, with
prominent teeth and wistful eyes, a eunuch’s voice and
pretty manners; and an hour had not passed before
it was apparent that the General’s lady had taken him
to her bosom. He examined an antique scarab ring
upon her finger, and told her to what dynasty it was to
be dated; he showed her a somewhat similar ring upon
his own finger, and said it was not so good nor so old a
specimen as hers; he remarked what a fine old English
soldier the General was, and he sighed to think how few
were left of that breed; he poked delicate and kindly
fun at the younger hostesses of Cairo, and compared
their social efforts with those of the elder generation, so
admirably represented by the lady to whom he was
speaking. Lady Smith-Evered thought him a dear little
man, a designation the first two words of which were
certainly applicable.

“They just love each other, don’t they!” Rupert
whispered to Muriel.

“Yes,” she replied. “I think that disposes of my
chaperone.”

She made the remark with evident satisfaction, and
Rupert glanced quickly at her. His heart was beating
fast.

“You seem glad,” he said.

Muriel shrugged her shoulders.

The afternoon was hot, and as the party lounged on
deck the glare of the sunlight upon the mirror of the
water was dazzling. Mr. Bindane put on a pair of
blue spectacles, and presently gave vent to a series of
hay-feverish sneezes.

“Good God!” exclaimed his wife. “Look at what
I’ve married!” She seized his unresisting arm.

“Come, Benifett, let’s go and lie down in the cabin.”

“A good idea,” said Lady Smith-Evered, thankfully
following her hostess below. “I shall go to my cabin
too.”

“I think forty winks for me, also,” the Professor
presently remarked, feeling himself to be *de trop*.

“Are you going to have a siesta?” asked Rupert,
looking at Muriel with fervour in his eyes.

“Not unless I fall off to sleep in this comfy chair,”
she answered. “In that case, you must promise to
wake me if my mouth drops open. Pull up your chair
close to mine, and tell me the story of your life.”

Rupert stood up, and, taking off his coat, rolled back
his shirt-sleeves, revealing a pair of well-made blue-veined
arms. The leather belt which held up his white
flannel trousers was pulled in tightly, and Muriel did
not fail to admire the slimness of his waist as he settled
himself in the long deck-chair at her side.

They were screened from the sun by an Arabic awning
of many colours, and their eyes looked out across
the oily surface of the water to the luxuriant river
bank which seemed to pass before them like an unfolding
picture, now revealing the open fields, now a village
basking in the sunlight, now groups of palms and cedars
in the deep shadows of which the peasants rested with
their flocks, and now a native villa with mysterious latticed
shutters and silent walled gardens. Every hundred
yards or so there was a *sakieh*, by which the water
was raised from the river into the irrigation channels;
and as each came into sight the creaking of the great
wooden cogwheel, and the song of the half-naked boy
who drove his patient ox round and round, drifted to
their ears, drowsily and with plaintive monotony.

Neither Muriel nor Rupert talked much, but their
sleepy proximity engendered a quiet sympathy between
them more potent than any words. Her hands lay
idly in her lap; and presently, with a lazy movement,
he extended his arm and let it fall across hers, so that
his hand rested upon her hand. She turned slightly
and smiled at him, but she did not move. Their two
heads, each upon its cushion, drooped closer together.
Muriel’s eyes closed, and, with a sense of gentle happiness
pervading her mind, she fell asleep.

When she woke up, a quarter of an hour later, she
knew that Rupert had just kissed her: she still felt the
touch of his lips. She did not resent it; it was not unexpected.
But somehow she felt that she was no longer
carrying out an experiment. The handsome young
man beside her, after these few weeks of probation, had
managed, somehow, to step into the sanctuary of her
heart, and had seated himself audaciously upon the
throne which had stood vacant these many months.

She sat up in her chair and passed her hands across
her eyes. Then she turned, and, with a smile upon her
lips, looked steadily at her companion.

“You kissed me,” she said. She spoke in a tone
almost of awe.

“Yes,” he answered, and his voice failed him. He
turned his eyes to the bank of the river and clenched
his teeth. He felt very uncomfortable.

“Why?” she asked. Her face was very close to his,
and his hand was about her wrist.

“Because I love you, Muriel,” he whispered; and the
hoarseness of his voice would have seemed comical to
her had she been in a normal condition.

Suddenly he put his arm about her shoulder and
pulled her down to him, so that her head lay upon his
breast and her hair touched his face. She did not resist;
the drowsy warmth of the afternoon, the Oriental
beauty of their surroundings, and the still unevaporated
magic of that great enchanter, Sleep, held her
powerless.

Again and again he kissed her—kissed her mouth
and her eyes, her forehead and her cheeks, her throat
and her hair; and with each touch of his lips the fires
of her womanhood leaped up within her, so that in these
few moments the whole course of her life, so it seemed
to her, was changed, and new directions, new vistas,
were revealed in intense illumination.

At last, dazed and flushed, she released herself from
his hold and stood before him, her fingers clasping and
unclasping themselves, her eyes wild and yet tender in
their wildness.

“Rupert!” she gasped. “O Rupert!”

Suddenly she turned and ran to the companionway,
and the next moment had disappeared.

Rupert sprang from his chair, and banged his fist
into the palm of his other hand. “Gad!” he cried
aloud, and there was exultation in his voice. He
walked the length of the deck, with his hands in his
pockets; then he sat down, and immediately got up
again. His knees seemed to be trembling under him.
He wondered whether that was a symptom of love, and
decided that it was not. No he was not in love;
he was just excited. And no wonder! Muriel was
one of the great heiresses of England, and one of the
most charming girls on the market, so to speak; and
he had practically got her! Well, perhaps he was in
love: her kisses were wonderful; the feeling of closeness
to her was exquisite! How delighted his father would
be! “Lady Muriel Helsingham,” and, in time to come,
“Lady Helsingham of Singleton!” And all that
money!

He lit a cigarette, puffed frenziedly at it, and threw
it into the river. Then he, too, went below.

Muriel’s cabin was opposite his own, and at the door
he paused and listened. He thought he heard her sigh,
and his heart heat faster. She was madly in love with
him! Why hadn’t he acted sooner? His school-friend
had been perfectly right: a man has only got to take
his courage in both hands and attack a woman forcibly,
and she succumbs.

He went into his cabin and shut the door briskly.
He sat down on the edge of the narrow bed, and stared
critically at himself in the mirror opposite. He was
quite good-looking. He wondered how Lord Blair
would take it. After all, it was not a bad match for
his daughter: he was the son and heir of a Peer of the
Realm, and his father had a very nice little estate.

In the cabin opposite, Muriel, likewise, sat upon the
edge of her bed. She had been crying, and there were
still tears in her eyes. Surely, she thought, this must
be love that had come to her, though sudden and unexpected
had been its advent. She was profoundly
stirred, and wonderingly she recalled every moment of
the experience through which she had just passed. It
had been so sweet; his eyes had looked into hers so tenderly;
his lips had aroused something so mighty within
her. Of course she would marry him if he asked her;
but she was so selfish, so stupid, and he was so clever.
Everybody loved him: perhaps he would quickly grow
tired of her....

At tea-time she could not look at him. She talked
at random to the others, and as they all sat afterwards
on deck watching the sun go down, she still kept aloof
from him. Later, in dressing for dinner, she exacted
particular care from her maid; and she was thankful
that she had brought her most becoming dress with her.

“My dear, you look a dream!” exclaimed Kate Bindane
as she came into the dining-room. “A dam’ sight
too beautiful for my liking! I’ll have to keep my old
man out of your way, or you’ll make him feel all of a
twitter. As it is, I see him eyeing you all the time.
He’s a dark horse, is Benifett: you never know what
he’s up to.”

And certainly during dinner his watery eyes were
fixed upon her from time to time with disconcerting
directness. A glass or two of champagne helped her
to overcome a feeling of shyness in relation to Rupert,
and soon she became conscious of a growing excitement.
She wondered what would happen before the
evening was over, and alternately she longed for the
meal to come to an end, and was dismayed to find it
advancing so quickly. She talked feverishly, and, indeed,
Lady Smith-Evered once felt it her duty to make
signs to the butler to refrain from filling the girl’s
glass. Muriel, however, observed the signal, and
laughed aloud.

“Am I talking too fast or something?” she asked,
holding up her empty glass to the hesitating butler.

“No, it’s only that wine is not very good for one
in this climate,” whispered Lady Smith-Evered, her
expression hinting at strange things.

“It can’t hurt her,” said Mr. Bindane, yet he drank
only water himself.

As they went up on deck for their coffee, Muriel felt
her face burning and her heart thumping; and when
Rupert stood at her side and surreptitiously touched
her hand she experienced so wondrous a thrill of emotion
that she forgot what she was saying at the moment
to Professor Hyley, and their conversation—something
about ancient Egyptian gods—completely
broke down.

Owing to some engine-trouble earlier in the day the
steamer had not nearly reached its destination; and
now, for the sake of the passengers’ comfort, it was
travelling quietly and at a much reduced pace. The
night was warm, windless, and intensely dark, for the
waning moon had not yet risen; but the stars were
brilliant, and the Milky Way stretched across the
heavens like a band of ghostly silver.

As soon as the coffee cups were removed Mr. Bindane
proposed the inevitable game of bridge, and therewith
their host and hostess, Lady Smith-Evered, and the
Professor descended to the saloon, Muriel and Rupert
remaining on deck—by the tacit and tactful arrangement
of Kate Bindane, who seemed to anticipate their
inclinations.

“There’s a nice little cosy corner at the stern,” she
whispered to Rupert, and gave him a friendly dig in
the ribs. Fortunately Muriel was out of earshot.

To the stern, therefore, he led his companion when
at length they were left alone, and here on a comfortable
sofa they seated themselves. Nor did he allow
many moments to pass before he attempted to resume
the intimacy of the afternoon. Muriel, however, was
self-conscious, and as he kissed her she gently thrust
him away from her.

“Don’t,” she muttered. “Please don’t, Rupert,
dear.”

There was a tone of anguish in her voice, for at the
dawn of love a woman feels terror such as no man can
understand. Instinctively, and without definite reasoning,
she dreads the consequences of her actions; and
whereas a man’s new love is glorious with the exultation
of careless conquest, a woman’s is tender with the
vision of uncomprehended pain to be. At the lightest
touch of a new lover’s lips she catches sight of her
whole destiny; and where a man rejoices, a woman
quakes.

Rupert was abashed, and, releasing her from his
grasp, stared before him into the darkness, while Muriel
waited for him to make her quake again: it was a wonderful
sensation.

“Why shouldn’t I kiss you, Muriel?” he asked.
“You love me, you know you do.” He turned to her,
and his face came close to hers. “You do love me,
don’t you?”

For answer she ran her fingers through his hair and
looked long at him. In the dim light he could see that
she was searching his face as though endeavouring to
find in it the assurance her womanhood required. He
hoped that her hands were not untidying him beyond
quick repair: he very much disliked having his hair
ruffled.

Again he put his arms about her, and now she did
not resist. Her eyes closed, and as in a dream she
gave herself up to the emotion of the moment. In some
miraculous manner it seemed to her Rupert had developed,
and his arms that now enfolded her were suddenly
endowed with celestial strength. It was as
though by loving her he had identified himself with a
force far greater than his own; and even the broken
words which he uttered seemed to have a more profound
meaning. She forgot that she had read such words in
many a short story, many a novel; they sounded beautiful
to her; they came to her ears with all the enchantment
of things never before spoken in the whole history
of the world.

“O Rupert,” she murmured, “do I mean all that to
you?”

“You mean heaven and hell to me, Muriel,” he said,
dramatically.

For a considerable time—though time to her stood
still—they sat together in the darkness, closely held
in one another’s arms, his cheek and his lips pressed
against her bare shoulder and neck; and as the moments
passed the intoxication of love began to bewilder him
as it had already overwhelmed her. Her skin was so
warm, so soft, so alluring, and the surge of her breath
was so entrancing!

Suddenly they became conscious of the sound of
much shouting amongst the native crew, and at the
same time the drone of the paddle-wheels ceased.
Rupert raised his head, and his hands began instinctively
to tidy his hair and to arrange his disordered tie.

“We must have arrived,” he said. “The others will
be coming up on deck: we’d better move.”

He stood up, and Muriel sank back into the corner of
the sofa, her arm across her eyes. For some moments
she seemed to be unable to bring her mind down from
the heights of her dream; and Rupert watched her with
anxiety, hoping that she would speedily master herself.

“Come,” he said. “Let’s walk along the deck.”

Very slowly she rose to her feet, and, with a sigh, put
her arm in his.

The steamer had evidently reached its destination,
and the captain’s bell incessantly rang his orders to the
engine-room, while the hurried tread of bare feet could
be heard on the bridge above them as they came into the
soft light amidships. On one side the bank of the river
could be discerned in the darkness, still some thirty or
forty feet distant; on the other the open water
stretched, reflecting the innumerable stars. To this
latter side Rupert led her, and, leaning his back against
the railing above the now silent paddle-wheel, he held
his hand out to her as she stood before him.

“Muriel,” he whispered, when fervently he had kissed
her fingers, “will you be my wife?”

She drew in her breath sharply, and her hands clasped
themselves against her breast. She had been waiting
for these words, but now when she heard them they
frightened her. Somehow in the light of the electric
lamps her dream in the darkness had faded, and there
was a sense of cooler reality in her mind, a kind of reaction.
Why should she say ‘Yes’ at once? Ought
she not to try him yet a little while before she gave
herself to him? She remembered that until today she
had not known that she loved him: perhaps it was all
an illusion, created by the Nile.

He saw the look in her face, and as he leaned back
heavily against the railing his heart sank within him.
Was she only playing with him? Did she only feel for
him what he felt for her?

“Well?” he asked, and his hands were clenched upon
the iron rail.

She did not answer. She stood staring at him with
fixed eyes, and as she did so a sensation of annoyance
passed across his mind.

“Ah!” he muttered. “You don’t love me.
You’re only amusing yourself with me.”

“Rupert!” she exclaimed.

Seeing that his tactics were correct, he allowed his
anger to develop. He made a dramatic gesture and
flung himself back against the railing. At the same
moment the paddle-wheel beneath him began suddenly
to revolve, as the captain manœuvred the ship towards
the shore. There was a slight lurch; Rupert uttered
an exclamation; he seemed to sway away from her; and,
heels over head, he fell into the churning water.

Muriel sprang forward. In the half-light she saw
the soles of his shoes disappear as the black water
swallowed him; then a dripping, writhing form was
lifted on a blade of the paddle and tossed into the air.
She saw his horrified eyes and his spread fingers. She
heard him shriek....

“Help!” she screamed, and, screaming, she rushed
across the deck. “Help! Help!”


CHAPTER X—“FOR TOMORROW WE DIE”
===============================

Amidst the wildest clamour the rowing-boat
was launched, and two red-jerseyed native
sailors took the oars, while a third, shouting
and gesticulating, stood at the tiller holding up a hurricane-lamp.
Just as they pushed off, Professor
Hyley, carrying another lantern, tumbled into the
stern; and, in the unreasoning excitement of the
moment, called out “Mr. Helsingham, Mr. Helsingham!
Hi, hi! Mr. Helsingham!” in a piping voice which
sounded through the darkness like that of a lost soul.

The pandemonium upon the steamer was appalling.
The jabbering native sailors ran aimlessly to and fro,
flinging ropes and buoys into the river from the vessel’s
stern; while the Egyptian captain, completely losing
his head, rang and bawled orders down to the engine-room,
as a result of which the paddle-wheels churned
up the water, now this way, now that. Lady Smith-Evered
and Mr. Bindane leant over the rail, shouting
instructions to Professor Hyley as the boat dropped
into the distance.

Muriel and Kate Bindane stood together in agonized
silence. There was nothing to be done; for there was
not a second rowing-boat, nor were there any available
lamps or buoys. Their eyes were fixed upon the two
points of light drifting astern, and on the illuminated
figures of the searchers. And now the misshapen moon,
in its last quarter, crept out from behind the horizon,
as though curious to know what all the pother was
about, but too disdainful to throw any light upon the
scene.

At length there were renewed shouts from the boat,
and much splashing of the oars; and presently it was
apparent that the men were lifting something out of
the ink-black water. A few minutes of horrible suspense
ensued as the searchers returned; and at last, in
a dazed condition, Muriel watched them raise the limp,
dripping form out of the boat and lay it on the deck.

Mr. Bindane’s servant, Dixon, knew something about
the method of resuscitation to be employed in such
cases; and, with the aid of Muriel and Professor Hyley,
the sodden clothes were removed from the upper part
of the prostrate figure, and the bare white arms were
worked to and fro. Brandy in a teaspoon was forced
between the blue lips by Kate Bindane, who sent her
helpless and apparently callous husband off with the
weeping Lady Smith-Evered to fetch blankets and the
one hot-water bottle which chanced to be available.

Their efforts, however, were all in vain. With the
tears flowing from her eyes, Muriel rose from the puddle
of water in which she had been kneeling, and stood
clinging to Kate’s arm.

“He’s dead,” she sobbed. “He’s been dead all the
time;” and a shudder almost of repulsion shook her.

She dried her tears and tried hard to pull herself
together: she felt that this undefined feeling of disgust
was unworthy of any woman, and was altogether
despicable in one who had been so lately clasped in
Rupert’s arms. She wanted to run away, and that
primitive instinct which produces in the mind the nameless
horror of a dead body was strong upon her. Yet,
bracing herself, she resisted the sensation of nausea,
and stood staring down at the prostrate figure before
her, vividly illuminated in the glare of the electric
light.

His mouth, from which the water oozed, was slightly
open, and a pale, swollen tongue protruded somewhat
from between his lips. His eyes were closed, and wet
strands of dark hair were plastered over his forehead.
His bare neck and shoulders looked thin and poor; and
damp wisps of hair covered his chest. The soaked,
black trousers clung to his legs; and his ill-shapen toes,
from which the socks and shoes had been removed, were
ghastly in their greenish whiteness as they rested upon
the hot-water bottle.

Suddenly she swayed, and the lights seemed to grow
dim. She heard Kate Bindane call out sharply for the
brandy, and she was dimly conscious that she was being
led away by her maid, Ada. Her perceptions, however,
were not clear again until she aroused herself to
find that she was lying upon her bed in her cabin, and
that Mr. Bindane was standing at the door, staring
down at her with his mouth open.

She sat up quickly. “Did I faint?” she said, as
the horror of remembrance came upon her once more.

“No,” he answered. “You were only a bit giddy.
You must try to sleep: we’re all going to try to. We
shall be back in Cairo before sunrise.”

“Where is he?” she asked, pressing her fingers to
her pale face.

“On the sofa at the end of the deck,” he said.

She sprang to her feet. “No, no!” she cried.
“Not there—please not there!”

She buried her face in her hands; and Benifett Bindane,
disliking hysteria, hurried away to the saloon,
where he played Patience by himself until the small
hours; while his wife, Kate, wedging herself into
Muriel’s narrow bed, comforted her friend until dozing
sleep fell upon them.

The next two or three days were like a nightmare.
An impenetrable gloom seemed to rest upon the Residency;
and, although the body lay in the mortuary of
a neighbouring hospital, it was as though the presence
of death were actually in the house.

The funeral came almost as a relief; and when the
imposing ceremony was at an end, she felt as though
the weight were beginning to be lifted from her heart.
For the first time since the tragedy she was able to
speak of it with calmness.

“You know, father dear,” she said, “Rupert and I
came to mean a very great deal to one another in these
few weeks that we’ve been together.”

He glanced at her timidly, and patted her hand.

“Yes,” he answered, “I have eyes, Muriel.”

She turned and looked at him with a little smile of
confidence. “We were going to be married,” she said.

He started violently. “What!” he exclaimed.
“Well, well, we must see about that.”

“It’s no good seeing about it, father,” she corrected
him, feeling an hysterical desire to laugh; “he’s
dead.”

“The poor boy, the poor boy!” he murmured.
“Such a capital fellow.”

“It was just after he had proposed to me that he fell
overboard,” she told him.

“Dear me, dear me!” he sighed. “And you had
accepted him? I suppose the shock.... How very,
very sad!—He just fell backwards.”

Awkwardly, but with great tenderness, he put his
arm about her. “You must forget all about it,” he
whispered. “You must have a good time.”

“It was so ghastly,” she said. “You see, when he
asked me to be his wife, I didn’t say ‘yes.’”

“Of course not, of course not,” he murmured.
“Very proper, I’m sure.”

“But he thought I was only playing with him,” she
faltered. “He was so angry, so hurt. And then the
paddle-wheel started with a jerk, and he overbalanced.”

“Ah, my dear,” he answered, “the course of true
love never runs smoothly. An ancient saw, but a very
true one! But you are young: you will soon get over
it. You must throw yourself into your duties as hostess
at the Residency; and, in the first place, I want you to
help me in a little scheme I have in mind.”

Muriel guessed what was coming, and her feelings
were peculiarly diversified.

“I want to persuade Daniel Lane to accept some
official position,” he said. “Of course I can’t offer him
the mere Oriental Secretaryship which poor dear
Rupert has left vacant; but I think its scope and importance
could be greatly extended, amplified, and he
might be tempted.”

“I doubt it,” Muriel replied. She did not know
quite what to say.

“I shall write to him at once,” Lord Blair went on,
nodding archly at her. “I shall say how whole-heartedly
you second my proposal.”

Muriel stiffened. “O, no, *please*,” she answered,
quickly, and the colour mounted to her face. “Please
leave me out of it; Mr. Lane and I have nothing in common.
I hardly know him, and much of what I do know
I dislike.”

Her father’s face fell. There is no telling how far
his scheming mind had advanced into the future, nor
what plans he was forming for the well-being of his only
child. It may only be stated with certainty that he
had a very great admiration for Daniel, and that he
was not blind to the fact that the object of this admiration
was heir-presumptive to a man who, by common
report, was drinking himself to death.

To Muriel, however, the prospect of having the masterful
Mr. Lane actually on the premises was disturbing
in the extreme, and, during the ensuing days, added not
a little to her mental distress.

She greatly missed Rupert’s entertaining company;
and although, as the days passed, she realized that his
death was not as shattering a blow to her as she had
thought, the remembrance of their brief romance often
brought the tears to her eyes. Yet even as she wiped
them away she was conscious that her sorrows were
aroused rather by the tragedy itself than by her own
heart’s desolation. It is true that her emotions had
been deeply stirred by his passion; but gradually the
fires, lighted for so brief a moment, died down, and
she was obliged to admit that her heart was not
broken.

But if the romantic effect of the sad affair was
proved in these few days to be less severe than she had
at first supposed, there was another aspect of the matter
which had a very profound bearing upon her mental
attitude. The sudden termination of Rupert’s career
had set her thinking about life in a way that she had
never thought before. If death were always so near
at hand, if so simple an accident so quickly put out the
little lamp of existence, ought one not to concentrate
all the forces of the human constitution upon the enjoyment
of each passing hour?

She stood off from herself as an artist stands back
from his picture, and she saw that she was but a shadow
amongst shadows, a speck of vapour passing across
time’s fixed stare, having no substance of which one
could say, “this at least will remain.” Today she was
here; tomorrow she would be dissolved and gone.

To Kate Bindane she confessed all that had occurred
on that fatal night. “I don’t want to be romantic,”
she told her. “I don’t want to make more of the thing
than there was really in it. But his death means more
to me than it does to any of you others. I can’t forget
the sight of the soles of his shoes disappearing into
that black water. It’s as though I’d seen Death himself
swallow him up. I had always thought of Death
as a sort of unknown country where one goes to; but
in this case I saw it come for him and swallow him. I
saw it as an ink-black monster; it snapped him up, and
spit out the limp shell of him, but kept the essence of
him in its stomach. And it’s waiting to snap up you
and me. It’s close at hand, always close at hand....”

She shuddered as she spoke; and her friend, putting
her strong arm around her, found difficulty in soothing
her.

“Well, perhaps,” she replied, “it was an act of
Providence to save you from a mistaken marriage.”

“O, but he loved me,” said Muriel, “and I should
have come to love him entirely. He was so sweet, so
good-natured.”

“Perhaps there’s something better in store for you,
old girl.”

Muriel shook her head. “No,” she answered,
“there’s nothing much but Death for any of us. It all
comes to that in the end: it all leads just to Death.”

“Well, then, let’s eat, drink, and be merry,” said her
friend.

“Yes,” Muriel replied, with conviction. “That’s
what I’m going to do. Omar Khayyam was right:
I’ve been reading him again.”

“He was a wise old bird,” Kate Bindane commented.
“Wasn’t he the fellow who said something about a
bottle of claret and a hunk of bread-and-butter in the
desert? I’ve always thought it a fine conception of
bliss.”

Muriel clasped her hands together, and looked up
with youthful fervour. “Yes,” she replied, “and he
said ‘Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the dust descend,’ and ‘Ah, fill the
cup:—what boots it to repeat how time is slipping
underneath our feet.’”

“Yes,” said Kate, “I always remember that line by
thinking of boots and slippers and feet.”

Muriel was speaking with too much earnestness to
give heed to her friend’s lack of poetic reverence.
“Life’s so short,” she went on, “that I’m going to make
the most of it. I’m going to have my fling, Kate. I’m
going to be merry.”

“Right-o!” said Kate. “I’m with you, old bean.”


CHAPTER XI—THE OASIS IN THE DESERT
==================================

Upon a day towards the end of November,
Daniel Lane was seated upon the clean sand of
the outer courtyard of the little mosque which
stood at the southern end of the Oasis of El Hamrân.
It was the hour of noon, and the shadow cast by the
small, squat minaret behind him extended no further
than his white canvas shoes, as he leaned his back
against the unbaked bricks, and stared before him
across the glaring enclosure to the palm-groves outside
the open gateway.

In spite of the heat of the sun, the blue shadow in
which he rested still afforded a pleasant coolness; and
clad in a somewhat frayed tennis shirt, open at the neck,
and a pair of well-worn grey flannel trousers, held up
by a stout leather belt, his figure gave the appearance of
such comfort and ease that his lazy reluctance to rise
and go home to his midday meal was understandable.

Five Bedouin Arabs who had been laughing and
talking with him, were now standing a few yards distant
at the whitewashed door of the mosque, and were
engaged in removing their red shoes before entering the
sacred building; while, at the same time, they were conversing
together in undertones, as though discussing
some matter of importance.

Daniel sprawled to his feet, and, pulling his hat over
his eyes, walked towards the whitewashed gateway which
gleamed with dazzling brilliance against the deep blue
of the sky and the green of the palms; but as he moved
away his Bedouin friends hastened to him across the
hot sand, and one of the number, the white-bearded
Sheikh Ali, the headman of the Oasis, laid a hand upon
his arm.

“My friend,” he faltered, speaking in the liquid-sounding
Arabic of the western desert, “there is something
I would say to you.” He seemed to hesitate.

“He is wise who listens to the wise,” Daniel replied,
taking hold of the Sheikh’s hand, in the native manner
of friends.

The old man smiled. “The Prophet has written:
‘Seek wisdom even if it were only to be found in
China’,” he said.

Daniel looked into the kindly and, indeed, saintly face
with perplexity. He was wondering what was to come;
and, raising his arms, he clasped his two hands at the
back of his neck, an attitude he was wont to assume
when he was puzzled.

The four others, who had been hovering shyly at a
little distance, came forward; and the Sheikh, as though
emboldened by their support, bared his heart without
much further preamble. He pointed out, as Daniel
well knew, that there was a feud of many years standing
in the Oasis, between the family of the speaker and
that of a former Sheikh who had been dispossessed of
his office. The quarrel had become almost traditional;
and though, up till now, no very serious incident had
occurred, there was a growing danger that a brawl
might take place in which somebody might be shot, and
that thus the feud might become an endless vendetta
with its reciprocal crimes of violence.

Stripped of its pious and flowery decorations, the
proposition put forward by the Sheikh was of the
simplest character. He proposed that the Englishman
should act as judge and mediator between the two families,
and should hold a court at which the whole trouble
should be ventilated; and so insistent was he that Daniel
was obliged to acquiesce.

“Praise be to God!” exclaimed the old man, when at
length he had received the definite answer he desired;
and with many pious ejaculations of gratitude he and
his friends turned to enter the mosque, while Daniel
passed out through the gateway into the rustling palm-grove
beyond.

His way led him for four or five hundred yards
through the shade of the thickly growing trees—a
dusty shade, pierced by innumerable little shafts of sunlight;
but presently he came out once more under the
dazzling sky, and, bearing off to the left, mounted a
rugged path which ascended the sloping side of a sandy
hill, till, reaching the summit, it passed over level
ground towards his house which stood upon a spur of
rock overlooking the Oasis.

Two years ago, when he had come to reside at El
Hamrân to make, for the Institute which had commissioned
him, a study of the manners and customs of the
Bedouin, he had here found the abandoned ruins of an
ancient Coptic monastery, dating from the days when
Christianity was still the religion of the Egyptians; and
he had established himself in their shelter, and later had
rebuilt some of the rooms, so that now his place of
abode had come to be a much-loved desert home, where
month after month was passed in quiet study, and the
days slipped by in placid contentment.

From the windows of his rooms he could look down
over the whole extent of the dreamy little Oasis, with
its sun-baked palm-groves, some three miles in length
and half a mile in breadth, its houses and tents, its
dozen wells, its few acres of tilled ground, and its miniature
mosque. All these lay in a kind of basin, surrounded
by the cliffs and low hills of the vast desert;
and from his vantage-point he could look over the swaying
green sea of the massed palm-tops to the barren
plateau around about, and on a clear day he could just
discern, far away to the east, the first of the ranges of
the hills which rose between his isolated home and the
far-off valley of the Nile.

At the ruined gateway of his dwelling he was met by
his three yellow dogs who had been with him since they
were puppies, and were fairly well-mannered considering
their low pariah breed; and while he was playing
with them, his servant, Hussein, came out to tell him
that his luncheon was served. Therewith he crossed
the courtyard of the old monastery, with its shattered
row of cells to right and left, and its still lofty walls of
unbaked bricks, and entered the large refectory which
he had caused to be roofed over with palm-beams and
dried cornstalks spread in a loose thatch, and which
now served as a kind of entrance hall to his apartments.
Upon its plastered walls some of the ancient frescoes
were still visible; and here and there a Coptic inscription
in dim red paint recorded the names of pious sentiments
of long forgotten monks; while over the ruined
doorway there was an indistinct figure of St. Michael,
the patron saint of the place, whose pale eyes and
smudged lips seemed to look down on him with faded
and vacant mirth.

A rebuilt doorway in the right-hand wall led into his
whitewashed living room, at the northeast end of which
two large casements framed the splendid view over the
Oasis and the desert.

In a corner of the room, on a small table, a simple
but not uninviting meal was spread upon a spotless
tablecloth. Fresh poultry and eggs were always plentiful
in the Oasis; and on the store-room shelves there
was a large and varied supply of preserved foods, and
even delicacies, which had been brought over some
months ago in a train of camels from Cairo.

Daniel sat down to his meal with good appetite; and
as he munched his food in silence his gaze travelled
round the airy room and brought back to his heart a
glow of pleasant contentment. After all, what could
the outside world give him in exchange for the peace
and comfort of his desert home? Here he had the intellectual
companionship of his books and his work, the
simple friendship of courteous, good-hearted men, who
had come to regard him as a kind of teacher, and the
devotion of three well-meaning, if somewhat degenerate,
yellow dogs. Here the brilliant sun, and the splendid
north wind, which blew continuously from the distant
Mediterranean across the great intervening spaces of
clean desert, brought vigour and health to his body and
a kind of laughing enthusiasm to his brain. Here he
could amuse himself by long rambling walks in the freedom
of the empty desert, or, with his gun, could make
exciting expeditions in search of gazelle. Here, on the
flat roof at the top of one of the ancient towers of the
monastery, he slept each night under the blazing stars,
lying in his comfortable camp-bed, breathing the purest
air in all the world, and gazing up into the vault of the
heavens, till the calm sleep of a child descended upon
him. And here from golden sunrise to golden sunset
the days slipped by, each brought to perfection by that
greatest of all human blessings, an untroubled mind.

He rose from the table, and, lighting his pipe, sank
luxuriously into a deck-chair, a book of the poems of
Hafiz in his hand, a cup of Turkish coffee by his side,
his feet resting crossed upon a wooden stool, and the
cry of the hawks and the drone of the bees making
music in his ears.

The barking of the dogs outside, followed by a knock
at the door, aroused him; and his servant entered the
room. “Sir,” he said, “a soldier of the Frontier
Patrol has ridden in from El Homra, bringing a letter
for your Excellency.”

Daniel threw down his book, and, making a broad
gesture with his hands, looked up at the smiling Hussein
with a frowning pretence of anger.

“Curses upon his father!” he thundered. “Will
his confounded masters never leave me in peace?
Bring him in to me.”

A few moments later a smart, khaki-clad negro was
shown into the room, who saluted in military fashion,
and produced a sealed envelope from the breast pocket
of his tunic.

Daniel saw at a glance that the letter was from Lord
Blair, as he had expected. He opened it with misgiving,
and read it through without any apparent change of
expression, though it was noticeable that the pipe in
his mouth was allowed to go out. Then he slowly
folded the sheets, and, thrusting them into his pocket,
rose from his chair.

“I cannot give you my answer until tomorrow morning,”
he said to the messenger. “Go now and look
after your camel, while Hussein prepares food for you;
and in the morning you may carry back my reply.”

As soon as he was alone once more, he pulled the letter
from his pocket, and spreading it out upon the window-sill,
stood bending over it, with wrinkled brows and
brooding eyes, his elbows resting upon the sill and his
head in his hands.

  MY DEAR DANIEL,

  You will be surprised to hear from me again so soon, and you
  will, I dare say, think me something of a nuisance. I am sorry
  to say that a sad calamity has befallen us. Poor young Rupert
  Helsingham was accidentally drowned in the Nile not many days
  after you returned to the desert; and we have all been very much
  cut up, especially my daughter, Muriel, in whose presence the
  tragedy occurred. You will recollect that Helsingham held the
  position here of Oriental Secretary; and it now falls to me to fill
  the vacancy. I have therefore decided greatly to extend the
  functions of the post and to offer it to you; and I shall esteem
  myself fortunate if you decide to accept it. As I am very anxious
  to increase by every means the respect in which the holder of the
  position should be held by the native population, I would propose
  to recommend you to His Majesty’s Government for early elevation
  to Knighthood, an honour which your scholarly attainments
  and your services to the Residency fully deserve. I trust, my dear
  Daniel, that you will give me the reply that I desire; and I am
  sure you will know what a personal pleasure it will be both to me
  and to my daughter to have you at the Residency.

  Yours very sincerely,

  BLAIR.

After reading through the letter two or three times,
he stood for some minutes staring before him with unseeing
eyes. His first impulse had been to reject the
invitation on the instant, for he detested officialdom and
all its ways; and the thought of connecting himself with
the social life of the Residency was horrifying. But
now, against his inclinations, he obliged himself to consider
the proposition with an open mind.

To some extent it might be said that his work in the
Oasis was finished: his notebooks contained an enormous
mass of information. Yet he was loth to consider
that his task was accomplished. El Hamrân and its
inhabitants, and especially the saintly and benevolent
Sheikh Ali, had become very dear to him; and the detachment
from the world made an appeal to his nature
which was very strong. His occasional journeys to
Cairo were always disturbing to the peace of his mind;
and how then could he expect to be happy in close daily
contact with all that produced unrest?

There was this girl Muriel Blair, who, against his
reason, had made some sort of impression upon him
which was hard to eradicate. He had tried his best,
even to the point of rudeness, to ignore her; and yet he
had found himself interested in her welfare, and, on his
return journey to the Oasis, he had given more thought
to her than he supposed she deserved. And now he had
to confess that Lord Blair’s reference to her in his letter
had aroused the response it was intended to arouse.

During the whole afternoon he turned the matter
over in his mind, and at sunset he went out for a rambling
walk into the desert behind his house; nor did he
return until his mind was made up.

As he entered his gateway in the gathering darkness,
he was met by the Sheikh, who had come to discuss further
the subject which he had opened that morning.

Daniel led him into his lamp-lit sitting-room, and
bade him be seated; but when the old man began to discuss
the merits of his case and those of his enemy, his
host held up his hand.

“I would first ask your advice upon my own affairs,”
he said. “My heart is sad tonight, my father.”

“Let me share your sorrow,” the Sheikh replied,
with simple sincerity.

“My father,” said Daniel, “you have told me that
long years ago you resided for some years in Cairo
and other great cities.”

The Sheikh nodded his head. “It is so,” he replied.

“Were you happy there?”

“My son, I was young.”

“I mean,” said Daniel, “do you believe that happiness
is to be found in cities?”

The old man raised his hand and moved it from side
to side. “No,” he answered, “not happiness—only
pleasure. Why do you ask?”

“Because I received a letter today....”

“I saw the messenger,” said the Sheikh.

“I have been offered a position of some importance
in Cairo. My friends want me to leave El Hamrân, and
to live in Egypt.”

Sheikh Ali uttered an exclamation of distress.
“What is your reply?” he asked.

“Advise me, my father,” Daniel answered.

The Sheikh leant forward and silently examined his
red leather shoes. For some moments no word was
spoken. At length he looked up, and his hand stroked
his white beard. “What use is it for me to advise
you?” he said. “Your decision is already made. You
will leave us; but it is not the glory of office which
attracts you, nor yet the call of your duty which bids
you depart.”

“What then is it?” Daniel asked.

“My friend,” he answered, after a pause, “no son
of Adam, having strength and vitality such as yours,
and enjoying the springtime of life, can remain a *dervish*,
an ascetic. It is true that you care little for the
world, that you do not desire fine clothes, nor wealth,
nor possessions. Yet you are man, and man looks for
his mate. You go to choose for yourself a wife.”

Daniel smiled. “You are mistaken,” he answered.
“I shall not marry for some years to come.”

The Sheikh shook his head. “No man knows the
secrets of his own heart,” he replied, “yet his friend
may read them like a book written in a fair hand. I
say again, you go to choose for yourself a wife.”

The ready denial was checked upon Daniel’s lips.
For a moment he paused, and it seemed to him that a
sidelight had been flashed upon the workings of his
brain: then he dismissed the thought as being something
very nearly fantastic.

“No,” he said, “I am going because I believe it to be
my duty. My country needs me.”

The Sheikh made a gesture which seemed to indicate
the uselessness of argument. “It is not good for a
man to live alone,” he answered, with a sigh. “Some
day, perhaps, you will return to us, bringing with you
your wife.”

Daniel smiled again, but there was sadness in his face.
“El Hamrân is my wife,” he said. “When I go, my
heart will remain here.”

“When will your Excellency leave?” the Sheikh
asked, becoming suddenly a man of action.

“In a few days” the other answered; “as soon as
this matter of feud is set to rights.” And therewith he
turned the conversation into that channel.

In the night as he lay upon his bed upon the tower-top,
gazing up into the immensity of the heavens, he repeated
to himself, almost with derision, the words of the
Sheikh: “You go to choose for yourself a wife.” It
was absurd, and yet somehow the thought made a way
for itself amongst the crowded places of his mind. To
choose for himself a wife...!

“Good Lord!” he muttered; “what a horrible idea!”


CHAPTER XII—THE HELPMATE
========================

Daniel was drying himself after his bath early
next morning when Hussein came to tell him
that the soldier of the Frontier Patrol craved
permission to ask whether the reply was ready, as he
was anxious to start back as early as possible, so as not
to delay the messenger who wished to leave for Cairo at
noon.

He therefore fastened a towel around his waist, and,
striding into the adjoining room, scribbled his answer
on a half-sheet of paper.

“Excuse scrawl,” he wrote, “but am having my bath,
and the messenger, whom I’ve kept all night, can’t wait
any longer. All right, I’ll turn up within a week or so
and take on the job you so flatteringly offer. No
knighthood, please. D. L.”

He thrust the sheet into an envelope, and with a
broad smile addressed it: “The Rt. Hon. The Earl
Blair of Hartlestone, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., etc.; His
Britannic Majesty’s High Commissioner and Minister
Plenipotentiary.” He felt that, since he was now to
be a respectable member of society, he ought to accustom
himself at once to the world’s accepted ways, even
though they seemed to him to belong to the realm of
comic opera. High-sounding titles always made him
laugh. He could not explain it: it was just a clear
sense of actuality, a looking at things as they are and
not as ceremony presents them.

Now that his mind was made up, and Lord Blair’s
invitation accepted, he felt no longer troubled; and, his
reply having been dispatched, he set about packing his
belongings and rounding off his affairs with the greatest
equanimity.

To his great regret, however, he failed to bring the
matter of the feud to a successful conclusion. The
chief members of the family opposed to Sheikh Ali
would not be reconciled; and all that Daniel’s eloquence
and persuasion could accomplish was an agreement to
maintain the *status quo* during the Sheikh’s lifetime.
But as the old man was already bending under the
weight of years, and as his hopes were concentrated
upon the succession of his son, Ibrahîm, this compromise
was not very satisfactory.

Daniel’s departure was the cause of much regret in
the Oasis, for he had come to be regarded by the inhabitants
as a loyal and helpful friend, one who was full of
wisdom and benevolence, and who could doctor both
their souls and their bodies. But in the case of Sheikh
Ali the parting was the occasion of deep sorrow; and
the old man endeavoured on these last days to pour into
his ears all the good advice he could command.

“This is my parting gift,” said Daniel to him, when
at length the hour of setting out had arrived. “I give
you my promise that when you go to rest with your
fathers, I will support with all my might the candidature
of your son, Ibrahîm, for the office of Sheikh.”

The old man spread his arms wide. “God be
praised!” he cried. “Now *am* I at peace, my dear.”

A crowd of natives followed his caravan for some
distance, the men firing their guns in the air and shouting
words of encouragement and blessing to him; and
when at last the desert hills had swallowed him, he felt
that he had set behind him a phase of his life the happiness
of which he could never hope to enjoy again.

The journey was accomplished at a moderate speed,
and on the fifth morning, soon after sunrise, they
sighted the Pyramids in the distance ahead of them,
backed by the green belt of the Nile valley. The early
sun now struck full in their eyes; and Daniel, turning
down the brim of his hat, did not often look far in advance
of his camel’s nose until he was within some two
miles of the Pyramids.

As he jogged along at the head of his caravan, his
three yellow dogs trotting after him, his thoughts began
to be coloured by a gentle excitement; and, for the
first time, the future seemed to him to hold a variety of
interesting possibilities.

After all, he said to himself, a man should rise above
his surroundings; and indeed his philosophy would be
proved a mere pretence if his happiness were dependent
upon circumstances. Why should he dread the restlessness
of Cairene life? If there were to be unease it
would arise from within, not from without; and the
citadel of his soul, of his individuality, would hardly be
a fortress worth holding if the clamour of the world
outside should be able to arouse an answering and traitorous
disturbance within. Even in Cairo he would remain
master of himself: one can be free anywhere.

“One can be free anywhere” ... Why, those were
the words used by Muriel Blair when he had first met
her; and he had laughed at them. Well, certainly she
had not appeared to be very free as she sat there in the
moonlight, with the diamonds sparkling around her
throat. She did not know what freedom was: she was
a product of the social conventions. He wondered
whether she had taken his advice and had endeavoured
to break loose from them.

He was aroused from his reverie by the sound of
horses’ hoofs, and, looking up, he saw a man and two
women approaching him at a fast trot. Behind them
were the Pyramids, and in the far distance the minarets
and domes of the great city rose into the splendour of
the sunlight from above the opalescent mist of the
morning, backed by the shadows of the eastern hills.
The air now in the first days of December was cool and
sharp; and there was a sparkle in the sunshine which
only this time of day enjoys.

The picture was exquisite, and for a moment his eyes
rested upon it entranced. Then he turned his attention
to the three figures coming towards him, and, with
sudden excitement, he recognized the foremost of the
three as Lady Muriel.

She reined in her horse and waved her hand. “I
guessed it was you,” she cried.

Without waiting for his camel to kneel, Daniel slid
from the high saddle and dropped to the ground.

“Why, what are you doing out here at this time of
day?” he asked her, as, leading his camel behind him,
he hastened to her side and grasped her hand. “I’m
mighty glad to see you.”

She turned to her companions, Mr. and Mrs. Benifett
Bindane, and introduced them to Daniel. She had
been spending the night at Mena House Hotel, she explained,
where the Bindanes were staying, and the fresh
morning air having aroused her before sunrise, she had
had an early breakfast and had come out for a canter
over the desert.

“I spotted you a long way off,” she said. “I knew
you by your hat, if it is a hat.” Somehow she did not
feel so shy of him as at their meeting at the Residency.

“I guess I’m going to shock you all in Cairo with
that hat,” he laughed. “It’s an old friend, and old
friends are best.”

“Am I an old friend?” she asked.

“Pretty old,” he answered. “I’ve known you for
four years, you must remember.”

She told him that her father was not expecting his arrival
for some days, and that she feared no room had
yet been prepared for him.

“But I’m not going to stay in the house,” he answered
quickly. “You didn’t think I’d come and live
in the town, did you?”

Muriel felt somewhat relieved. Even if the feelings
of ease in his society which at the moment she was experiencing
were to last, she had no particular wish to
have him always about the house, nor present at every
meal.

“Well, where are you going to live?” she asked.

He glanced around him. They were standing upon
a level area of hard sand, in the shadow of a spur of
rock which formed the head of a low ridge. The broken
surface of the desert was spread out to their gaze to
north, east and west; but the rocks shut off the view
towards the south. The caravan had strayed considerably
from the beaten track; and the sand hereabouts
was smooth and unmarked, except by their own footprints
and by those of the desert larks which were now
singing high overhead.

“Where am I going to live?” he repeated, suddenly
coming to a decision, in his impulsive way. “Why
right here where we stand. It shall be my home: just
where I shook hands with you.”

Muriel glanced at him, wondering whether his words
contained any deep significance; but, by his smiling
face, she judged that they did not.

He looked about him with interest. “It couldn’t be
bettered,” he exclaimed. “It’s a good mile-and-a-half
back from the Pyramids, and well out of the way of
people. I’ll ride in to Mena House on my camel every
morning, and take the tram into Cairo from there.”

Mr. Bindane stared at him open-mouthed.

“Rather far away, isn’t it?” he commented. “A
bit lonely at nights.”

Daniel laughed. “I suppose there’s something
wrong with me,” he answered. “I’m always happiest
alone.”

Kate Bindane picked up her reins. “I think that’s
the bird, Benifett, my love,” she remarked, “in fact the
screeching peacock.”

Her husband looked blankly at her.

“‘The bird’,” Kate explained; “a theatrical term indicating
peremptory dismissal.”

By this time the train of camels was within fifty yards
of them; and Daniel called out to his men to halt. His
servant Hussein came forward, and took charge of his
camel.

“I’ll pitch my camp at once,” he said to Muriel.
“Then I can go and announce myself to your father
this afternoon.”

Acting on an impulse, a desire to establish friendly
relations at the outset, Muriel dismounted from her
horse. “Do let me stay and help you,” she suggested.

“Sure,” said Daniel. He called to one of his men
to hold her horse.

Muriel turned and explained the situation to her
friend Kate.

“The man’s practically going to live with us,” she
whispered: “I’d better make friends.”

“Oh, rot!” said Kate. “He’s a picturesque lunatic,
and you’re a bit mad yourself, and it’s a lovely day, and
you’ve got nothing to do, and you know you look a
dream in that riding kit.” She turned to her husband.
“Come along, Benifett; her ladyship’s going to spend
the day with the gent from the Wild West.”

Muriel laughed. “I’ll ride back to the hotel soon,”
she said.

“No hurry, old sport,” replied Kate; and, after a
few polite remarks to Daniel, she and her pliant husband
trotted away.

Muriel at once began to survey the surroundings.
She clambered up the sand drift to the top of the spur
of rock, and there, in the fresh morning breeze, she
stood with her hand shading her eyes, gazing over the
undulating spaces of the desert. She felt like a child
beginning a holiday at the seaside and investigating the
possibilities of the sands.

The brisk morning air, the brilliant sunshine, the blue
sky in which a few little puffs of white cloud were floating,
the golden desert with its patches of strongly contrasted
shadow, the distant green of the Nile valley, the
far-away minarets of the city, the singing of the larks,
the excited barkings of the three dogs, and the shouts
of the camel-men: these sights and sounds seemed to be
full of vivid life.

The shadow of her recent sorrow was quite removed
from her mind; and though her furious attempts at
gaiety of late had been sadly unsuccessful, this morning
she felt that the world still contained wonderful
possibilities of adventure, and it must be admitted that
her fidelity to the memory of Rupert Helsingham was
already indeterminate.

She turned and watched Daniel as he helped in the
work of unloading the camels. He had taken off his
coat, and his shirt sleeves were rolled back from his
mighty arms. He was wearing a shabby old pair of
riding breeches and gaiters; and the butt of his heavy
revolver protruded from his hip pocket. His wide-brimmed
hat was pulled over his bronzed face, and his
pipe was in his mouth. He appeared to be lifting
enormous loads with incredible ease; and just now he
had set all his Bedouin laughing by walking off unceremoniously
with a huge bundle of tenting, in the ropes of
which one of the natives had become entangled, thereby
dragging the astonished man across the sand as a
puppy might be dragged at the end of a string.

Presently he came towards her, beckoning to her; and
she slid down the sandy slope to meet him.

“Look here,” he said, “this’ll be a long job. I wish
you’d let me send your horse away: I’ll be wanting the
man who’s holding him soon.”

Muriel felt abashed, and something of her old hostility
returned to her.

“I’d better go,” she said. “I’m in your way.”

“No,” he answered quickly “I don’t want you to
go. I like you to be here—very much indeed.”

His obvious sincerity appeased her. He fetched a
notebook and pencil from the pocket of his coat, and
handed them to her.

“I’ll send your horse back to the hotel,” he said.
“Please write a note to your friends.”

“What d’you want me to say?” she asked, taking
the writing materials from him, her eyes curiously wide
open, and having in them that characteristic expression
of assumed and mischievous innocence.

“Say this,” he replied, and, with mock obedience, she
wrote at his dictation: “Mr. Lane insists on my working.
Please ’phone to my father that he has arrived,
and that I will bring him to the Residency for tea. I’ll
look in at the hotel in the early afternoon.”

“Anything else?” she asked with a laugh. “Won’t
you send a few directions to my maid to pack my things,
and order a car to take us into Cairo?”

“Yes,” he replied, without a smile. “You’d better
add that.”

As she was writing he turned to the man who was
holding her horse, and gave him his instructions; then,
having handed him the note, he sent him galloping off.

“Now what?” asked Muriel. Unaccountably, her
heart was beating fast.

“Now take your coat off, and come and help,” he
said.

For a moment she hesitated, and a sensation very
much like fear took hold of her; but, recollecting that
he was nothing more than her father’s new diplomatic
Secretary, she gave herself up to the enticement of the
free and sparkling desert.

“Come on then,” she answered; “let’s get at it.”
And pulling off her long white linen coat, she tossed it
aside, with her gloves and crop, and rolled up the
sleeves of her silk shirt.

Daniel looked gravely at her as she stood before him
in her well-cut white breeches and brown top-boots; and
for the first time Muriel could see admiration in his
eyes. She was feeling reckless, and her boyish costume
did not disconcert her: she was quite aware that her
figure had nothing of that ungainliness about the hips
and knees which so often makes the hunting-field a place
of mirth.

He wisely offered no comment upon her appearance,
much as he liked the graceful freedom and vigour which
it suggested; and together they hastened over to the
camels, Muriel pretending, as they went, to spit on her
hands.

For a couple of hours they worked with the Bedouin:
erecting the tents at the foot of the spur of rock; laying
down the grass mats over the level floors of sand;
unpacking the kitchen utensils, the enamel jugs and
basins, the plates and dishes; setting up the camp bed
and collapsible tables and chairs; arranging the books
in the portable bookcase; and folding up the towels and
blankets in the useful camel-boxes, or lockers, of which
there was a good supply.

Muriel threw herself into the work with energy; and
indeed she thought it one of the best games she had
ever played. She hastened to and fro, laden with pots
and pans; she crawled about on her hands and knees,
banging away at doubtful pegs, or scooping up the
sand around the skirting of the tents; she sorted out
and arranged the tins and bottles of food and drink;
and she helped to heap up stones and sand to make a
sort of kennel for the dogs.

Her labours gave her little time for conversation,
and indeed a great part of Daniel’s remarks had the
nature of somewhat peremptory orders and instructions.
When she dropped a glass bottle of jam, and
smashed it, he scolded her not altogether in jest; and
she was quite relieved to find that he did not make her
lick it up, but, on the contrary, took care that she did
not cut her fingers. And when she tripped over one of
the tent-ropes and fell flat on her face he actually
tempered his reproofs with kindly enquiries after her
general health, and dusted her down with the greatest
care. Every now and then, however, they had short
opportunities of exchanging their news; and she then
gave him a few of the less compromising details of the
recent tragedy, at which he showed genuine and undisguised
distress. But she had no inclination to cast a
shadow on the morning’s strenuous enjoyment; and she
did not linger on that sad subject.

“This is just like a game of Indians or something,”
she said, as she sat herself upon a packing case to rest.

“Yes,” he answered, looking down at her with amusement.
“That’s the funny thing: life is generally lived
on such rigid lines that when one comes down to
actuality it seems like pretence.”

He opened a tin of biscuits and a bottle of aerated
water, and fetched a couple of tin mugs from the
kitchen-tent; and, thus refreshed, they continued their
work until midday.

By this time the camp was spick and span; and
the three tents which served as dining-room, bedroom,
and study, looked alluringly comfortable. They were
decorated inside in the usual Arab manner, with bold
designs and inscriptions cut out in bright coloured
cotton-cloth stitched to the canvas; and the camp-chairs
of green sail-cloth, the grass matting, and the
plain wooden lockers, gave an appearance of clean and
cool comfort which rejoiced Daniel’s heart. The
kitchen, and the smaller tent which was to shelter his
servant at night, both stood somewhat apart, tucked
away behind a projecting arm of the rock.

“What are you going to do with your camels and
men?” Muriel asked, as she stood in the sunlight, regarding
her handiwork with satisfaction.

“One of the camels belongs to me,” he replied, “and
its duties will be to take me to and from Mena House
every day, and to fetch water from the well. My servant
Hussein is going to remain with me; and his
brother—the lean fellow with the squint—will look
after the camel. All the rest of the bunch will be off
back to the desert tomorrow morning, the lucky devils.”

Muriel looked at him questioningly. “Why
‘lucky’?” she asked. “Are you sick of your fellow
countrymen already?”

He corrected himself quickly. “No,” he said; “I
spoke without thought. As a matter of fact, I’m
mighty glad to be here, thanks to you.”

“O, have I made any difference?” she queried, with
an air of innocence.

He put his hands into his pockets, and, sucking at
his pipe, regarded her thoughtfully. “Yes,” he said
at length, “I think you’ve made all the difference.”
And then, as though afraid that his words might be
thought to bear a romantic interpretation, he added:
“You’ve made the place look fine.”

Hussein now served an excellent little luncheon consisting
of particular delicacies from the store-cupboard,
washed down with refreshing lime-juice and soda; and
Muriel did full justice to the meal. When she had devoured
everything within sight, like a hungry schoolgirl,
she yawned loudly; and Daniel, without further
question, arranged some blankets on the floor at the
side of the tent, and covered them with the sheepskin
from his saddle.

She stared at him anxiously. “What’s that for?”
she asked.

“For you to sleep on,” he said. “I’m going out
to see about the men, and you’d better take the opportunity
for a siesta. You look half asleep already.”

“I think I’d better not,” she replied. “We ought
to be going soon.”

“Do what I tell you,” he commanded, pointing to
the sheepskin; and, being indeed sleepy, she obeyed
without further argument.

“Comfy?” he asked, as she lay down.

“Gorgeous,” she answered drowsily, and shut her
eyes. When she opened them again a few moments
later he had already left the tent; and, with a sigh of
supreme happiness, she settled herself down to her repose.

Half an hour later Daniel looked into the tent and
found her fast asleep. She was lying upon her back
with her legs crossed, and one arm behind her head; and
frankly he admitted to himself that she made a most
delightful picture.

He went away again, and busied himself for half an
hour in changing his clothes and having something of
a wash. He routed out quite a respectable suit of
grey flannels, and a white stock for his neck; and thus
arrayed, he returned to the sleeper.

She lay now upon her side, her cheek resting on her
two hands, her knees drawn up; and he confessed to
himself that she looked adorable. He did not take his
eyes from her for a full minute.

He went out for a walk, and surveyed with satisfaction
the position which he had chosen for his camp;
and it was half past three when he returned once more
to Muriel.

This time she was lying on her back, with one knee
raised, one arm across her breast, and the other flung
out upon the floor. He sat himself down in the entrance
of the tent, and lit his pipe. He did not look
at her; for suddenly some door in his heart had opened,
revealing a vista of thought which was new to him.
The girl upon the sheepskin was no longer merely a
charming picture: she was a woman sleeping in his tent
after her labours in the camp. She was his companion,
his mate, tired out with helping him. She was Eve,
and he was Adam: and lo!—the desert was become the
Garden of Paradise.

He got up from his chair with a start, and uttered
an exclamation of dismay. His thoughts were riotous,
mutinous, foolish: he had no business to think of her
like that. He knew nothing about her—nothing, except
that she did not belong truly to his system of life.
Her little show of vigorous, outdoor activity was a pretence
on her part, a mere experiment, a new experience
filling an idle day. She was not a child of the open
desert: she was a daughter of that busy, dressed up,
painted old harlot, the World. Presently she would go
back to her stuffy rooms and trim gardens, her dinner-parties
and balls, her diamonds and frocks and frills,
her conventions and mockeries of life.

.. figure:: images/illus-138.png
   :align: center

   A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY—BURNING SANDS

When he turned to her again she had opened her
eyes, and was looking at him in dazed wonderment.
She sat up with a start, and the colour flushed into her
face. Then she threw her head back and laughed
happily.

“It’s nothing to laugh about,” he said, gloomily.
“It’s nearly tea-time.”

She jumped to her feet, and began arranging her
hair, which was falling down. “Why didn’t you wake
me, man?” she asked.

“I was too busy,” he replied.

He spoke roughly, and she thought he was angry
with her. “I slept like a log,” she said. “I’m so
sorry.”

“It’s no good being sorry,” he exclaimed. “The
mischief’s done.”

“What d’you mean?” she asked, perplexed.

He did not answer. “I’ll go and get the camels,” he
said. “Ever ridden a camel?”

She shook her head.

“Well, that’ll wake you up all right,” he laughed,
and therewith left the tent.

She thought him very ungracious, after all the work
she had done for him. “I suppose he wanted me to
clean his boots,” she muttered.


CHAPTER XIII—THE NEW LIFE
=========================

Perched on the make-shift saddle of a baggage-camel
at an apparently break-neck height above
the ground, Muriel still had the feeling that she
was playing an elaborate game as she jogged along beside
Daniel’s taller and more magnificent beast, with its
gaily coloured tassels and trappings, and its rich white
sheepskin upon which its rider was seated. Behind
them rode a black-bearded son of the desert, with a
white *bernous* over his head, silver-mounted pistols
stuck into his sash, and a rifle slung over his shoulders.
Daniel was holding her guiding-rope, and her two
hands were therefore free, as she bounced up and
down, to cling on to the sides of the saddle—a circumstance
for which she was grateful, although it
caused her to feel like a captive being led into slavery.

At the gate of the hotel her companion’s camel knelt
at a word from him, and he dismounted; but in her
own case her less accustomed mount was not so easily
induced to go down on its knees, and startled by its
antics, she recklessly slid from the saddle and hung for
a moment at its side, her legs kicking about in the air.
A moment later she tumbled into Daniel’s arms, and
presently found herself deposited, like a piece of baggage,
upon the doorstep, in front of Mrs. Bindane, who
happened to be standing in the entrance bullying the
hall porter.

“Hullo,” said Kate, casually, “the washing’s come
home.”

Muriel felt herself all over carefully, as though to
make sure that her anatomy was still reasonably complete,
and then, linking her arm in that of her friend,
described to her the day’s strenuous events; while
Daniel, feeling that his presence was not required during
these confidences, went over to his attendant to give
him his instructions.

“My dear,” said Muriel enthusiastically, “we’ve
made a lovely camp out there. It’s like a story out
of the *Arabian Nights*.”

Kate Bindane looked at her suspiciously. “Well,
you be careful of those stories,” she said. “They generally
need a lot of expurgation before they’re fit for
family reading. Isn’t this the man you told me kept
a harîm in the desert?”

“So they say,” she answered. “Anyway he’s evidently
given it up.”

“He’ll soon collect another,” her friend replied.
“I expect that’s the Grand Chief Eunuch he’s talking
to now.”

“Did you get my note?” asked Muriel, anxious to
change the subject.

“Yes,” she smiled, “and your esteemed orders received
the prompt attention of our Mr. Bindane, who
’phoned your papa, and ordered the car, and made himself
quite useful.”

After the tragic death of Rupert Helsingham, four
weeks ago, Kate Bindane had taken a gloomy aversion
to their steamer, and had persuaded her husband to
get rid of it, and to come out to this hotel on the edge
of the desert. Muriel had, on more than one occasion,
spent the night here with them in their comfortable
suite of rooms; and now as she said “good-bye,” she
made arrangements for future meetings and visits, while
Daniel, in a spasm of hospitality, suggested that they
should make use of his camp as an occasional halting-place.

“During the day, while I’m at work in Cairo,” he
said, “you can make use of my tents. I’ll tell my servant
to look after you.”

Kate Bindane laughed. “O, come now,” she answered,
“that’s driving your birds right over my gun.
It makes shooting too easy.”

Daniel was perplexed. “What d’you mean?” he
asked, as he seated himself beside Muriel in the car.

“Well,” said Mrs. Bindane, “you’ve got the reputation
of being a bit short with your fellow men; but
to say you’ll be glad to entertain us provided that you
yourself are not there is the limit.”

Muriel turned to Daniel. “She’s only joking,” she
assured him; “that’s her way.”

Kate uttered an exclamation. “Oh, you little
swine!” she said to Muriel. “You’re on *his* side
now!”

“No, I’m not,” Muriel protested, hastily, and the
colour came into her face.

Daniel looked from one to the other. “I don’t
know what you’re talking about,” he said. “I’m all
at sea.”

The car moved away, and Muriel sat back in her
corner luxuriously. She was very tired, and her feet
ached. She was happy to find that she no longer felt
awkward in this man’s presence, and that her feminine
intuition had not deserted her, for she seemed to have
learned the trick of managing him. It was only necessary
to make herself useful to him, to roll her sleeves
up and show a little muscle, and his antagonism evaporated.
He was prehistoric—that was all; and yet
she could not associate the idea of brutality with him.
No, she had not quite classified him; but at any rate
she realized that she had probably been wrong in regarding
him as being contemptuous of her sex. He
was only contemptuous of uselessness.

She glanced at him as he sat in silence by her side,
and she noticed that his expression had become grave,
and even sad.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “You look unhappy.”

He aroused himself, and smiled; but his eyes were
troubled.

“Yes, I feel a bit blue,” he said. “I suppose it’s
the thought of my new job.”

“I’m rather surprised,” she commented, “that you
have taken it on. Why did you?”

He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I thought it
was my duty,” he said. “You see I happen to speak
Arabic as fluently as I speak English, and I’ve made
a study of the native mind. I understand these fellows
and they understand me; and Egypt just now is craving
for understanding.”

“You’ve got a lot to live up to,” she told him.
“My father thinks you are going to be the saving
of the country. I’m always hearing your praises
sung.”

He looked gravely at her. “You call to my mind,”
he said, “the prayer of Abu-Bakr, the first Khalif.
When he heard that people were praising him, he used
to say something like this: ‘O God, Thou knowest me
better than I know myself, and I know myself better
than other people know me. Make me, I pray Thee,
better than they suppose, and forgive me what they
know not.’”

Therewith he relapsed into silence once more; and
Muriel, feeling that there was a sort of momentousness
in this hour of his entrance into the political arena,
held her peace. There was in her mind a sense of pride
at the part she was playing in a great event. She felt
that she was, as it were, a sharer in a diplomatic secret;
it was almost as though she, too, were serving a great
cause. Suddenly the things which made up her social
life seemed to become insignificant, and her existence
took on a larger aspect.

As they drove up to the door of the Residency, she
turned to him as though he were an old friend. “I’m
awfully glad my father is going to have you with
him,” she said. “I feel a sort of personal interest in
it all.”

Daniel’s reply was interrupted by Lord Blair’s appearance
on the steps. He had heard the car drive up
to the door, and had hastened out to greet the newcomer.

“Welcome, my dear Daniel,” he exclaimed, holding
out his arms as though he were going to embrace his
friend. “This is splendid, capital!”

The two men shook hands, and as they did so, Lord
Blair winced as though his fingers had been crunched
in a man-trap. For some minutes thereafter he held
his right hand loosely in his left, bending the joints
carefully to and fro, under the pretence of fiddling
with his rings. Even after they had entered the drawing-room
and Muriel was dispensing the tea, he was still
clenching and unclenching his fist, and bending and
straightening his first finger as though surreptitiously
beckoning to somebody.

Muriel told her father of her morning’s work, and
described with enthusiasm the camp in the desert.

“I’m very sorry,” he answered, turning to Daniel,
“very sorry indeed, that you are not going to live here
in the house, but I bow to your wishes. You must
consider yourself entirely free; and indeed I know we
shall lose you if you are not your own master.”

“Oh no,” Daniel replied, “I’m quite prepared to
follow a routine. I’ll work here all the morning, talking
to your native callers, and I’ll do the correspondence
at the camp in the evenings.”

“That will be admirable,” said Lord Blair; and
presently, when tea was over, he led Daniel away to
his study.

“And now,” he said, when they were seated, “let
us discuss the question of your salary....”

Daniel interrupted him. “Oh, don’t bother about
that. I’ll take whatever the position carries—I don’t
suppose it’s much, as it’s a Foreign Office job. I’ve
got a small income of my own, you know; and my tastes
are simple. Get me as much as you reasonably can, of
course; but don’t worry about it.”

Presently Lord Blair spoke of the question of
Knighthood, and attempted to persuade him to reconsider
his decision; but Daniel was obdurate, and very
reluctantly his chief abandoned the project.

“Let me follow my own instincts,” said Daniel.
“From the native point of view your adviser on Oriental
matters does not need that sort of thing.”

“Don’t you think he does?” asked Lord Blair,
rather doubtfully.

“Certainly not. If you’ll let me, I shall turn out
all the fine English office furniture from my official
room: the desk, and the red leather chairs, and the
pictures. They’re all right for a governor, but not for
the—what shall I say?—the court philosopher, as
I intend to be. I want plain bare walls, bare floors
with just a rug or two, and a few chairs. No books,
or papers, or maps, or calendars, or clocks.”

“As you wish, my dear Daniel: I rely on you,”
said Lord Blair.

“You see,” he continued, “what English pro-consuls
in the East so often lack is the go-between, the man
who tries to get at the native soul, so to speak. You,
as governor, must represent the might and the justice
of England; but I must be the voice saying ‘Don’t be
afraid: we shall not outrage your religion or your
philosophies or your traditions.’ Now I can’t be that
if I’m sitting at an American desk, with an eyeglass in
my eye, and a stenographer tapping away beside me,
and a large office clock ticking on the wall. I should
be so unconvincing. Do you see what I mean?”

“Quite, quite,” Lord Blair answered. “I dare say
you are right.”

His face, however, belied anything of conviction that
he attempted to put into the words. He did not want
Daniel to orientalize himself to any marked extent: he
wished him to take his place in the English and Continental
society of the Residency. He had great ambitions
for him, and the idea of training him ultimately
to occupy his own exalted position was developing
rapidly in his mind. He dreaded anything in
the nature of eccentricity: he had the characteristic
British dislike of the crank. Yet he could not imagine
Daniel as ever becoming unbalanced, for a kind of
equilibrium and stability were apparent in all his actions.

On the other hand, the idea of the new Oriental Secretary
adopting the rôle of philosopher appealed to
him; he saw the force of it; for his experiences in the
East had made him realize that if a white man is to
gain the confidence of a brown race he must be, in both
senses of the words, capable of a brown study.

When Daniel returned to the drawing-room to say
“good-bye” to Muriel and to thank her, it was already
dark outside, and the room was brilliantly illuminated
by a number of somewhat inadequately shaded electric
globes. There were five or six people in the room;
and he paused for a moment in the doorway, wondering
whether he would give offence by beating an immediate
retreat. He was paying very careful regard to
his behaviour, however; and when Muriel called out
to him, he was obliged to enter.

“I’m going now,” he said to her, approaching the
sofa where she was seated. “I just wanted to say
‘thank you.’” He looked neither to right nor left.

Lady Muriel turned to a very smartly dressed woman
who was seated beside her on the sofa, and introduced
Daniel. His hands were, at the moment, clasped behind
his back, and he bowed to her with great gravity.
She held out her hand, but, seeing that he had considered
the more formal bow sufficient to the occasion,
withdrew it again. He thought that perhaps he had
been stiff, and at once held out his tanned and muscular
paw, but finding that it was too late, thrust it into
his coat pocket, at the moment when, for the second
time, she offered her fingers. He snatched his hand
out of his pocket, but simultaneously she withdrew hers
again.

Muriel laughed nervously, but Daniel faced the situation
frankly.

“I’m sure I don’t know whether I’m supposed to
shake hands or not,” he said. “What do people do
in society?”

“Which ever you like,” the lady murmured, with
a titter of laughter.

“That’s no good,” he answered, “unless you do
what the other fellow’s going to do. Anyway,” he
added, bending forward and very deliberately taking
hold of her irresolute hand, “how d’you do?”

He glanced about him, and observed that the others
were watching him with mild amusement. Near him
was Sir Frank Lestrange, the First Secretary, whom
he had met before—a fair-haired, clean-shaven man
of some forty years of age, whose rigid formality
seemed incapable of disturbance. Daniel shook him
warmly by the hand, but for all the impression he made
he might have been greeting a tailor’s dummy.

Near the window he saw Lady Smith-Evered, talking
to a pale young Guardsman, who appeared to be
in immediate need of a tonic. He went over to her,
and made his salutations with cordiality, for a year
ago he had made her acquaintance at the Residency,
and he had a vague recollection that she had taken
offence at something or other he had said. He held
out his hand, but once more his pocket became its sudden
place of refuge as she bowed with all the stiffness
that her undulating figure permitted, and, with no more
than a glance in his direction, turned to continue her
conversation with the Guardsman.

In another part of the room an elderly man with
sleek, grey hair was talking to a heavy matron whose
respectable cloth dress looked as though it had been
made for her by a builder of club-room furniture.
Daniel thought he recognized the man, and took a
few steps towards him, but, deciding that he was mistaken,
turned on his heel and, narrowly avoiding a
collision with a small table, returned to Muriel.

The curious thing was that though these situations
were embarrassing, he did not appear awkward.
Muriel observed this remarkable fact, and wondered
at it. He was certainly out of place in a drawing-room,
she thought, but he was not therefore out of
countenance; and his *sang-froid* seemed to deserve a
more friendly treatment than it was receiving. She
therefore got up as he approached her, and in a very
audible voice asked him if he would let her help him to
arrange his official quarters on the morrow.

He thanked her, and then, lowering his voice, asked
her if she could explain Lady Smith-Evered’s very
marked hostility.

“Why, don’t you know?” Muriel whispered. “She
told me all about it: she said you had run down the
Army once when you were talking to her last year.”

“Nonsense,” said Daniel, “I’m sure I never did.”

Muriel nodded. “Yes, you did. She said you spoke
of the officers of her pet regiment as men who looked as
though they’d been through the ranks.”

“But I meant that as a compliment,” he answered.
“I meant they looked as though they weren’t afraid of
hard work. Had she any other complaints?”

“No, I think that was her only grievance.”

Before she could stop him, he turned and walked
straight across the room to Lady Smith-Evered, and
came to a halt immediately in front of her.

“I was just asking Lady Muriel how I had offended
you,” he said, with disconcerting directness; “and she
tells me it was because you thought I had disparaged
some of our soldier friends.”

The General’s lady flushed. He saw the red glow
creep up from her neck to her face, under the thick
powder, and her eyes gleamed menacingly; but she only
inclined her head.

“I want to apologize,” he went on. “I’m most
awfully sorry: my remarks were stupid, and I think
I must have been trying to say something bright.
Will you please forgive me?”

The flush deepened. “I’m glad you apologize,” she
said, and she glanced at the Guardsman beside her, as
though to bid him take notice of what she supposed
to be the discomfiture of the offender.

“I’m very glad that you accept my apology,” he
said, and with a bow he left her.

“What on earth did you say?” asked Muriel, when
he had returned to her.

“I apologized,” he answered, quietly.

“Ate humble pie?” she queried, with a touch of disdain.

“I had hurt her feelings: I’m always sorry to annoy
anybody,” he replied.

“Well,” she remarked, “I think you’ve rather annoyed
*me* now, by climbing down like that.” She did
not feel that humility suited him, and she was conscious
of a sense of disappointment.

“My good girl,” he whispered, “you’ve got a lot to
learn from the philosophers. You must let me put
you through a course of reading.”

Her disappointment flamed into anger at his words,
and she responded coldly to his adieux. When he had
left the room she sat down once more upon the sofa,
and in the few moments of silence which followed, she
experienced a variety of sensations. She felt as
though he were the schoolmaster again who had scolded
her; she felt abashed and did not know why; she felt
angry with him, and, after their happy hours together,
her displeasure fell like a destructive hand upon the
day’s edifice; she felt that they belonged to different
worlds, and that it was hopeless to attempt to understand
him; she felt that she was right and he was
wrong, and yet there was a doubt at the back of her
mind as to whether the opposite might not somehow be
the case.


CHAPTER XIV—THE COURT PHILOSOPHER
=================================

In the West an interest in Philosophy is considered
to be an indication of eccentricity; and the
thought brings before the imagination some long-haired
and ancient professor, detached from the active
world, wandering around a college quadrangle, his
hands folded, and his face upturned to the sky as
though averted from the stains of spilt food upon his
breast. In the East, however, the Philosopher is held
in high honour; and his vocation calls to mind a thousand
tranquil figures each of whom has been the power
behind an Oriental throne.

Daniel Lane was a philosopher by inclination and
by education, and his great common sense was the definite
consequence of careful reasoning.

He believed that Right was an unconquerable force
which needed no display of manners or sounding of
trumpets to signal its movement; and so long as he did
not offend against the laws formulated by his philosophy,
he did not look for difficulties or defeat.

Nor was he a man who could be terrorized by any
threats; and though Lord Blair had warned him that
assassination was a likely end to a political career in
Cairo, he was not in the slightest degree troubled by
the thought. Very reluctantly he consented to profit
by the activities of the Secret Service; and he determined
to dispense with their aid as soon as he had made
himself acquainted with the ramifications of native intrigue.

He began his work at the Residency, therefore, without
trepidation; and on the first morning of his official
employment he inaugurated a procedure which before
nightfall was the talk of many in the native quarter.

In a secluded corner of the garden, at the end of a
short terrace at the edge of the Nile, there was a luxuriant
group of palms, in the shade of which stood a
marble bench of Arabic design, built in a half-circle
upon a base of Damascus tiles. A mass of shrubs and
prolific rose bushes shut it off from the main grounds;
while from passing boats it was screened by a low parapet
covered by a wild tangle of flowering creepers.
This sheltered and peaceful alcove was promptly appropriated
by Daniel, and in this setting he made his
appearance in the political life of Cairo.

His first visitor was a wealthy, silk-robed land-owner
from Upper Egypt, who desired to lay certain complaints
before the British authorities, in regard to the
hostile actions of a native inspector of Irrigation. The
man had been shown into the waiting-room in the Residency,
where he had been filled with anxiety by the
ticking of the typewriters in the adjoining room, the
constant ringing of telephone bells, and the hurried
passage to and fro of clerks and liveried servants. He
had wondered whether he knew sufficient English to
make himself understood without the aid of an interpreter,
and whether, if the interpreter’s services were
required, he would have to give him very handsome
*backshish* to render his tongue persuasive.

Therefore, when he was led presently across the lawn
to the sunny terrace beside the Nile, where he came
upon a mild and quiet figure who stood smoking his
pipe, and idly tossing pebbles into the placid waters,
and who now greeted him in the benevolent language of
the Koran, his agitation left him upon the moment,
and with it went the need of cunning. He stated his
case frankly, as he strolled to and fro with Daniel in
the sunlight, and he blessed God and his Prophet that
the interview which he had dreaded so long in anticipation
should prove so undisturbing in actuality.

Daniel next found himself seated upon the marble
bench with a caravan-master who had failed through
the ordinary channels to obtain redress for the illegal
seizure of certain goods at the Tripolitan frontier; and
this personage’s amazement at the Englishman’s knowledge
of the desert routes was profound.

Later, a deputation of sheikhs from Dongola was
received in the shade of the rustling palms: grave, anxious
men who had come to speak of the disaffection of
certain neighbouring tribes, and to express their own
loyalty, which was somewhat in doubt.

At the close of the interview, while he was warning
them against revolt, Daniel happened to notice a bundle
of stout wooden faggots lying near by in readiness
for use as supports for some young trees which had recently
been planted. He went across to them, and selecting
one of them, carried it back to his seat upon the
bench; and presently, turning to the sheikhs, he asked
if any man amongst them could break such a faggot
across his knees.

The youngest member of the deputation, a magnificent
specimen of negroid humanity, took the faggot in
his brown hands, and strained his muscles in the attempt
to break it, but without success. His colleagues,
older men, made no trial of their lesser strength, but
were satisfied to declare the task to be impossible.

Daniel rose and took it from them, and a moment
later flung it to the ground in two halves. “That faggot,”
he said, quietly resuming his seat, “may be likened
to the land of Dongola, which is to be the strong
support of the fruit-bearing tree of the Sudan. But
if it fail in its useful duty, it may thus be broken
asunder by hands more powerful than yours, and be
cast into the flames.”

To the native mind a demonstration of this kind was
more potent than any words, and the deputation of
sheikhs left the alcove, carrying with them a tale which
would be told to their children’s children.

As they retreated across the lawn towards the entrance,
Daniel suddenly caught sight of Muriel, whose
face peered out from amongst the rose bushes, as
though she were looking to see if he were alone.

“Hullo!” he called out; “what are you doing
here?”

“Spying on you,” she answered, coming out into the
open, her arms full of roses which she had been picking.

“That’s very wrong of you,” he said.

“Well, you’ve taken possession of my particular
corner,” she laughed, “and I always get my roses from
here.”

“I’m sorry,” he replied as they seated themselves
upon the marble bench. “I though you slacked about
upstairs until midday.”

She looked at him squarely. “You’ve got a wrong
idea about me altogether,” she declared. “It’s true I
don’t spend my mornings in smashing up Government
property.... By the way, why did you break that
wooden stake across your knee?”

He laughed quietly. “It was a parable: it represented
a certain province of the Soudan, and its possible
fate at England’s hands.”

She thought it out. “I wonder what would have
happened,” she mused, “if you’d found that you
couldn’t break it. I suppose in that case you would
have said it represented England.”

“No,” he answered, “I should have been in a bad
fix, and it would have served me right for showing off.
But I don’t often attempt what I don’t think I can do.
It’s a bad thing to fumble about with anything that’s
beyond one, like a dog with an uncrackable bone.”

“Somebody ought to have invented a proverb,” she
said, “like ‘Don’t worry what you can’t bite.’ But,
you know, you’re fumbling about with me very badly.”

“Would you rather I bit clean through you right
away?” he asked. “Supposing I said I thought I had
smashed you open already...?”

“I’d pity your strange delusion,” she answered, and
they both laughed, though Muriel did not feel hilarious.

“Well, supposing I just said I thought I *could* do so,
and was going to try?”

“I’d reply: ‘Any thing, so long as you don’t worry
me.’”

Again they laughed, and this time Muriel did so
with more sincerity, for she felt that she had answered
him well.

He took a rose from the bunch in her hands, and
smelt it thoughtfully. “Yes, I’m going to try,” he
said at length. “I’m going to understand you, and
then make you understand yourself. I’m going to show
you yourself.”

“You’re a busy man,” she answered, at once estranged;
“you’d better not take on any new job.”

“It’s worth while, I think,” he replied.

There was something in his voice which changed the
tone of their conversation, and arrested the development
of her hostile feelings. The flippancy of their
words died away, and a new seriousness, a salient eventfulness,
took its place. Suddenly Muriel was filled with
longing to be understood, to be laid bare mentally both
to him and to herself. She felt solitary and her heart
cried out for the enlightenment of friendship; yet she
did not dare to make an intimate of this man, whose
treatment of her sex did not seem to be conspicuously
delicate. Nevertheless the inadequacy, the inutility of
her method of life was very forcibly presented to her,
and she seemed to be beating at the bars of her cage.
There was something so flat and unprofitable in all
that she had done, and the desire was urgent in her to
realize herself and expand.

“O, I want to be taught,” she exclaimed, “I want to
be taught....” She checked herself, and was silent.

He looked at her in surprise, for she uttered the
words with intensity, and it was clear that she meant
them; but it was not clear that they were prompted
by more than a passing emotion, for presently she began
to talk about the lighter things of her life, and
she spoke of the various events in prospect which would
keep her from brooding. The greater part of each
day for the next week or so was already filled; and
Muriel spoke of these coming events as though they
were dispensations granted to her by a benevolent Fortune
for her heart’s comfort.

“I’ve come to the conclusion,” she said, “that the
only way to be happy is to be surrounded by amusing
people, so that there is no opportunity for thinking
about oneself.”

He shook his head. “No, you’re wrong. Your
happiness must come from within, from the contentment
and fullness of your own mind. The Buddha once
said ‘Let us dwell free from yearning, among men who
are anxious’; and there is an anonymous Oriental poem
which says something about the lost paradise being
hidden, really, in the human breast. My good girl,” he
exclaimed, warming to his subject, “don’t you realize
that what you can get from this restless world of ‘society’
you live in is only pleasure, not happiness, and
even at that it doesn’t last. You are like a punctured
wheel: so long as people are pumping you up, you seem
to be all right, but when they leave you alone you go
flat, because your inner tube isn’t sound. You ought
to be alone in the desert for a bit: it would do you all
the good in the world.”

Muriel looked at him questioningly. “Were you
alone in the desert?” she asked. There had come into
her mind a vision of that harîm of which she had heard
tell.

“Well, I wasn’t exactly alone ...,” he replied;
for he had many friends among the natives.

His answer gave fresh colour to her thoughts, and a
sense of annoyance crept over her.

“It seems to me,” she remarked, “that I ought to
remind you of the Biblical saying, ‘Physician, heal
thyself.’”

She got up, and, with a little nod to him, strolled
back to the rose-bushes. He watched her as she added
fresh blooms to the bunch she was carrying; and he
noticed how the sunlight caught her hair and made it
beautiful. He would have liked to have gone after her
and taken her in his arms.

Presently he returned to the house, and, finding that
there were no more native visitors, went to talk over
serious matters of policy with the regular Secretaries.

He remained to luncheon at the Residency, and at
the table Lord Blair enquired eagerly as to whether
he had found his first morning’s work interesting, and
appeared to be relieved to hear that such was the case.

Muriel joined in the conversation. “I was eavesdropping
behind the bushes,” she said, “and I can say
with confidence that Mr. Lane enjoyed it all thoroughly,
especially the part where he smashed up the
gardener’s work of weeks.” Therewith she related the
incident of the wooden stake, but in her narrative the
faggot became an immense tree-trunk.

Lord Blair rubbed his hands. “That’s the sort of
thing!” he exclaimed. “Dear me, dear me!—what
strength you have, Daniel!”

“Yes,” said Muriel, “his mere presence would make
the dullest party piquant. One has only to recollect
that if he were suddenly to get out of control, every
person in the vicinity would run the risk of being
banged into a boneless emulsion....”

She broke off with a laugh, and Daniel smiled affably.
Somehow, in spite of his Herculean proportions, he was
not a man one would associate with violence.

After luncheon, Daniel spent some time in talking to
Lord Blair in regard to native affairs; and it was
already half past three when he left the Great Man’s
study, and walked across the hall to the main entrance.
Here he encountered Lady Muriel, who was just going
off upon her visit to the bazaars. She was about to
step into a very new and luxurious automobile, which
Mrs. de Courcy Cavilland, wife of the Colonel of the
Dragoons, had recently purchased to the honour of the
regiment and to the dismay of her husband. This lady,
a small fluffy woman, with innocent blue eyes and sharp
little teeth, was making gushing remarks to Muriel as
Daniel appeared at the head of the steps; and three
young Dragoon officers were standing behind her, like
nice little dogs awaiting their turn to go through their
tricks. Actually they were excellent fellows, but in the
presence of their colonel’s wife, they bore little resemblance
to the fire-eating cavalrymen of tradition; and
Daniel, as he looked down upon them from the top of
the steps, wondered which was the more disastrous influence
in a regiment—that of the colonel’s wife upon
the younger officers, or that of the younger officers
upon the colonel’s wife.

He felt a sort of gloomy interest in the group before
him; and, as his presence seemed to be unnoticed,
he leaned against the jamb of the door, hat in hand,
watching the scene through a recurrent haze of tobacco-smoke.

“I suggest,” Mrs. Cavilland was saying to Muriel
whose back was turned to him, “that we drive up the
Mousky, and go first to the scent bazaar. Willie Purdett,
here, wants to buy some scent for his mother—Lady
Mary, you know. And then I must go to the
brass bazaar: I promised dear Lady Agatha Lawer
I’d get her one of those tea-tray things. She so hates
going to the bazaars herself: she says they’re so smelly.
Personally, I simply love the East....”

Muriel took her seat in the car, and as she did so
she caught sight of Daniel.

“Hullo!” she exclaimed, “I thought you’d gone.”

He took his pipe out of his mouth, and told her he
was just going.

Muriel introduced him to Mrs. Cavilland, who stared
at him with disdain, casting a withering glance upon
the disreputable hat he was holding in one hand, and
upon the pipe in the other. She then turned away as
though the sight were unbearable.

“Mr. Lane is a cousin of your friend Charles Barthampton,”
Muriel told her; and thereat her manner
changed with surprising suddenness, for the British
peerage was as meat and drink to her.

“Why, of course,” she answered, “I can see the likeness
now;” and she glanced with surprise at the mischievous
smile—almost a wink—which Muriel directed
at him. “You’re new to Cairo?” she added.
”You must come and see me: I’m always at home on
Tuesdays.“

“Yes,” said Muriel, “that will be very nice for him:
he loves tea-parties, don’t you, Daniel dear?”

Daniel looked at her curiously. His Christian name
sounded strange from her lips, and he wondered why
she had used it now for the first time. Her expression
suggested that there was a private joke between them,
and the intimacy pleased him.

“Yes, Muriel dear,” he replied, gravely, and Muriel
gasped; “but you needn’t blurt out my secret.” He
turned to Mrs. Cavilland as though to explain. “I’m
rather addicted to tea-drinking and quiet gossip,” he
said.

Mrs. Cavilland thought him somewhat forward, but
she excused it in one who was so well-connected. “We
tear each other to pieces on Tuesdays,” she laughed.

He did not reply. He was still wondering why his
name, Daniel, should have sounded so pleasant to his
ears, and why the expression of silent understanding on
Muriel’s face should have stirred him so subtly. It
was as though their friendship had taken a leap forward.

He stepped to the side of the car, and put his hand
on Muriel’s arm. “Don’t get too tired,” he said, “or
you won’t enjoy your dance tonight.”

“Are you coming?” Mrs. Cavilland asked him.

“No,” he answered, “I have a previous engagement
with a lady in the desert.”

“Who?” asked Muriel, quickly. She was taken off
her guard.

“A very dear friend,” he replied. “Her name is
Sleep.”


CHAPTER XV—A BALL AT THE GENERAL’S
==================================

Lady Smith-Evered’s dance was a social
event of much importance, and those members
of the English community who were not invited
had perforce to regard themselves as outside the
ranks of the elect: a fact which led that night to much
moodiness on the part of ambitious young women who
wandered about their creditable little flats and houses,
hating their mediocre husbands. On the other hand,
those to whom invitations had come somewhat unexpectedly,
vied with one another in their efforts to indicate
that their presence at the General’s house was to
be regarded as a matter of course; and herein, perhaps,
lay the explanation of those curious demonstrations of
nonchalance which were so frequently to be observed—the
careless attitudes, the friendly words to the servants
behind the supper buffet, the assumed knowledge of
the plan of the house and garden, and the casual remarks
to host and hostess.

Muriel, of course, was the outstanding figure of the
ball: not so much because of her looks, for there were
many well-favoured young women in the ballroom, nor
because of her charming frock, for the beginning of the
winter season in Cairo is notable for a general display
of recent purchases; but rather because she was her father’s
daughter, and, as his heiress, one of the most
frequent victims of the familiarities of the London
Press.

She paid little attention, however, to the many pairs
of eyes which scrutinized her; for she had come here
to enjoy herself, and her dancing program was full.

As an opening to the ball, she danced with the General;
but her efforts to avoid having her toes trodden
upon caused her to indulge in such antics that she speedily
manœuvred him to a convenient sofa, where he
puffed and blew until the military band had ceased and
again renewed its conscientious din.

There are few noises so dispiriting as a British military
band’s rendering of American ragtime; but, as has
already been stated, Muriel was determined to enjoy
herself, and, save for an occasional desire to sandbag
the conductor, she was entirely untroubled by ill-humoured
thoughts as her elegant partners swung her
around the room, or led her out to rest in the illuminated
garden, where a hundred gaily coloured Chinese
lanterns dispelled the mystic sorrow of the moonlight.

After some two or three hours of dancing, however,
she began to grow weary; and when something went
wrong temporarily with the suspender which held up
one of her stockings, she was glad enough to come to
rest in the supper-room. Here she seated herself next
to her hostess, who was just forming a big party at a
little table, and who was jovially endeavouring to pretend
that there was much fun to be derived from jamming
oneself into the smallest possible space and eating
with one hand.

Lady Smith-Evered, having swallowed during the
evening quite a lot of champagne, was in a talkative
and even confidential mood. On several occasions she
nudged Muriel, and whispered loudly to her from behind
her fan, calling her attention to the General, who,
at a neighbouring table, was flirting resolutely with
Kate Bindane.

“He’s such a Lothario,” she whispered: “I’m quite
thankful he’s growing old; though, mind you, he
doesn’t often show signs of age yet.” She laughed
hoarsely, and turned her eyes upwards with a nod to
express admiration for his virility.

Muriel, as she looked at her, conceived a violent horror
of old age; and inwardly she prayed that in her
own case she would know when to abandon the thoughts
which only Youth can make beautiful.

“Women used to be mad about him,” Lady Smith-Evered
went on presently, still speaking in husky asides,
“but I don’t think he was unfaithful to me, except,
perhaps, when he was in India.” She munched her
lobster-salad in silence for a few moments. “One can’t
blame him for that, poor dear,” she mused at length.
“Men will be men—especially in that climate...!”

Muriel turned away in shame, and at once caught
the eye of Lord Barthampton, who was one of the
party. He was staring at her from the opposite side
of the table.

“Lady Muriel,” he said, raising his glass to her,
“Your very good health. Cheerio!”

Muriel thanked him, and busied herself in prodding
at the food upon her plate which was a full arm’s
length away from her.

“Do let me feed you,” said the good-looking youth
who was sitting beside her, and who had managed to
ram himself closer to the table.

He picked up her plate, and, screwing himself round
on his chair, presented a morsel on the end of the
fork to her lips. The intimate operation delighted
him, and as he repeated it, Muriel observed the excitement
in his face. It is a most dangerous thing to feed
a woman: it arouses the dormant instincts of the Pliocene
Age.

Lady Smith-Evered patted her hand archly. “You
mustn’t let him do that,” she whispered. “That’s the
way doves begin. And look at Charles Barthampton:
he’s madly jealous.”

“Jealous?—Why?” asked Muriel, glancing at
Lord Barthampton, who was scowling at her across the
table.

“My dear, haven’t you eyes? Can’t you see that he
is making a dead set at you?”

“Oh, nonsense,” said Muriel, a little crossly. “I’ve
only met him once or twice, and this evening I’ve had
half a dance with him.”

Lady Smith-Evered smiled knowingly. “He’s a
very eligible young man,” she purred.

“He drinks,” Muriel remarked, shortly.

“Oh, but he has turned over a new leaf,” her hostess
replied. “Didn’t you notice he drank your health in
soda-water just now? He’s a very good sort. What
a difference there is between him and that extraordinary
cousin of his!”

“There is, indeed,” Muriel answered, with feeling.

The youth beside her had abandoned his attempts to
feed her, and was excitedly filling his own mouth with
good things, women and food being associated ideas in
his pristine young mind.

“Did you notice how he apologized to me?” Lady
Smith-Evered remarked.

“Who?” asked Muriel. Her thoughts were wandering.

“Mr. Lane,” she answered. “It was a great triumph.”

“Who for? You, or Mr. Lane?” Muriel’s heart
beat as she asked the question, for it was meant to be
a blow in defence of the man she was beginning to
regard as her good friend.

Lady Smith-Evered was too befogged to divine her
meaning. “It was a triumph for me,” she declared.
“People generally find it better to be in my good
books.” She made a menacing gesture to the company
at large; and three or four young officers, not quite
catching her words, but judging by her expression that
she was demanding their approbation, nodded their
heads wisely. “But of course he’s not quite right in
his head,” she went on. “He has lived alone in the
desert too much. Why, my dear, do you know what
I saw him doing yesterday in the street?”

“What?” asked Muriel, at once alert.

“It was just outside the Residency,” she said. “I
was talking to him, when a donkey, left alone in a native
vegetable cart, got its leg over the shaft and started
kicking. Well!... He lifted the creature clean off
the ground, got its leg back between the shafts, and
then took hold of its ear and whispered into it: ‘Oh,
you absurd ridiculous ass!’ It sounded quite uncanny.”

Lord Barthampton got up ponderously from his seat
and came round the table to Muriel. “The music’s
started again,” he said. “It’s our dance, isn’t it?
Are you ready?”

Muriel rose, somewhat relieved to take her departure
from the supper-table. As she did so her hostess again
nudged her heavily.

“Just look at the General!” she whispered.

Kate Bindane turned round, and, catching Muriel’s
eye, burst out laughing; while the General, finding his
wife’s gaze fixed upon him, put his hand playfully over
his face.

“What’s the joke?” Muriel asked.

“Sir Henry is telling risky stories,” replied Kate.

“It’s all right, my dear,” said the General, waving
his hand to his wife. “It’s only the one about the little
boy and the Sunday school teacher.”

Lady Smith-Evered laughed huskily. “I’m glad it’s
no worse,” she declared. “Henry, you must behave
yourself.”

“She’s egging me on,” he replied, slapping his thigh.

“Now then, now then!” exclaimed Kate, “none o’
your sauce.”

Muriel put her hand on Lord Barthampton’s arm,
and turned away. She was feeling an indefinable sense
of disgust; and she was glad to merge once more into
the revolving mass of dancers, and to allow the brazen
music to beat the thoughts out of her brain. Her
partner did not speak. He was turning over in his
mind the possibilities of future happiness, and the effort
absorbed his attention, so that his dancing, never
of a high standard, became atrocious.

The only solution of his perplexing problem was for
him to marry a rich wife: then, if Daniel were to reveal
the secret of his birth, he would not suffer a knock-out
blow. He would lose his title and the fortune which
went with it, but he would have refeathered his nest,
and all would be well. And the partner with whom
he was now dancing was an heiress, and a jolly fine
girl into the bargain.

He was making praiseworthy efforts to check the
downward course of his career, and ever since his interview
with his cousin, he had been on the water-waggon;
but, even though his reform were complete, was
Daniel to be trusted not to dispossess him? He
doubted it: the temptation would be too great. What
a dirty trick his father had played him! But he
wasn’t so easily floored: he would obtain another fortune
by marriage, and then he could tell Cousin Daniel
to go to hell.

“You’re looking very glum,” said Muriel, as they
wandered out, presently, into the garden.

Lord Barthampton braced himself. “Yes, I *am* a
bit down in the mouth, little woman,” he murmured.
“You know, even we soldier fellows get the hump sometimes—sort
of lonely.”

Muriel glanced at him apprehensively. She saw at
once that the moonlight and the lanterns had had an
instant effect upon him, and she presumed that he
would now become sentimental. Self-pity is the token
of a fool, and her feminine intuition told her that,
since he was worse than a fool, he would probably picture
himself as a stern, silent Englishman of heroic
mould bravely battling against a deep and poetic loneliness.

She sighed sweetly, for there was always something
of the rogue in her. “Yes, I understand,” she whispered,
and she pressed her fingers sympathetically upon
his arm.

His line of attack seemed to be justified, and he developed
it with ardour. “Sometimes a chap comes to
the end of his tether,” he went on, but paused again and
squared his shoulders. “However, one’s got to keep a
stiff upper lip, eh? We’re out here, far from home,
just to do our duty, so we mustn’t grouse. We have to
keep the old flag flying.”

“The dear old flag,” said Muriel fervently, feeling
rather a beast thus to play up to him, but excusing
herself on the grounds of curiosity as to what he would
say next.

“Sometimes it’s hard, though,” he confessed, “and
I’m afraid I’ve been reduced more than once to the
whisky bottle and baccarat and bad company. Ah!
I know that sounds weak,” he exclaimed, as she uttered
a little squeak of distress, “but you don’t know the
temptations of a lonely man, with nothing to do, cursed
with wealth....”

“O, but I can guess,” she replied, intoning her words
as though she were speaking Shakespearian lines.
“Sunday afternoons, leaning over the parapet, with
nothing to do but spit in the river—why shouldn’t you
join in a game of chance, instead of going to church?
I can quite understand it.”

He looked at her in astonishment, wondering if she
were pulling his leg; but in the moonlight he saw only
a sympathetic girl, gazing into the distance with an
expression of saintly purity.

“It’s worse than that,” he sighed. “A man has
temptations that you couldn’t understand, little woman.
What he wants is the pure friendship of a girl.”

“An English girl,” she murmured, with fervour.

He bent forward and looked into her eyes. “Lady
Muriel,” he said, “will you be a friend to me? Will
you be my little English rose?”

“Lord Barthampton ...” she began, wondering
how she could terminate a jest of which she was already
tiring.

He checked her. “Please call me ‘Charles,’” he
begged.

The music began again in the ballroom, and Muriel
rose with alacrity. “Come,” she said, dramatically.
“Let us go back to the gay and frivolous world.”

“Right-o!” he exclaimed, brightly, inadvertently
changing his tone now that the desired impression
seemed to have been made.

As they entered the house they encountered Lord
Blair, who had looked in at the dance for the purpose
of demonstrating the perfect agreement between the
diplomatic and the military services, for it so happened
that his own policy and that of the General disagreed
on every occasion and on every essential point. He
was standing in the hall, having just made a parade
of the ballroom with his hostess, and the latter was now
talking to him, calling him “George” for the benefit of
the guests who happened to be within earshot.

As the girl and her partner approached, Lady Smith-Evered
whispered that Lord Barthampton seemed very
attracted to Muriel; and she repeated her assertion that
he was a very eligible young man.

At this, however, a frown gathered upon Lord Blair’s
forehead, and he made a deprecating gesture with his
thin hand. He had other plans for his daughter which,
if not yet mature, were already in train; and, it must
be confessed, he wished Barthampton an early and comfortable
demise.

Muriel presently wandered off with her chaperone,
Lady Smith-Evered; and Lord Blair thereupon suggested
that her late partner should come with him into
the smoking-room for a quiet cigar. The heavy-jowled
young man was inwardly astonished at the mark
of consideration, and the thought entered his slow-working
mind that Lady Muriel’s father was taking an
anticipatory interest in him.

The smoking-room not being open to the ordinary
guests, the two men found themselves alone in it; and
Lord Blair at once took up his stand, as was his wont,
upon the hearthrug, and made his customary pretence
of warming a certain part of his anatomy before the
empty grate. Lord Barthampton, meanwhile, seated
himself upon the arm of a neighbouring chair, and lit
the cigar which had been proffered to him.

“I’m afraid I shall never persuade your cousin
Daniel to come to these sort of functions,” the elder
man remarked, after a few casual references had been
made to the evening’s entertainment.

“No, he’s a queer fellow,” the other responded,
shortly.

“I have the greatest admiration for him,” Lord
Blair declared. “Tell me, is he not your heir
presumptive?” His words indicated only a polite
interest.

“Yes,” said Barthampton, puffing heavily at his
cigar, and shifting his legs. “But, of course, I shall
marry soon—when I find the right girl....”

“Of course, of course,” Lord Blair replied. “Very
right, very proper. But ...” he paused, “there is
no hurry, is there?”

“I’d like to have a son and heir,” the other responded.
“You see there’s a good deal of property
involved. Luckily, I need not marry for money: I’ve
got plenty.” He was anxious to announce his eligibility.

“Well,” said Lord Blair, speaking out of the blacker
depths of his scheming mind, “take my advice, my
dear fellow, and don’t marry yet awhile. ‘Marry in
haste and repent at leisure,’ you know—a very true
adage. You have a long life before you ... plenty of
time, plenty, to make your choice with care.”

“Yes, I’m pretty healthy,” he answered; and Lord
Blair looked at him critically, hoping that he was mistaken.

“Does the climate agree with you out here?” he
asked, hopefully.

“Well, I can’t say I exactly enjoyed the summer,”
Lord Barthampton laughed. “A heavy fellow like me
feels the heat.”

Lord Blair’s spirits rose. “A little tightness, perhaps,
at the back of the head, eh?” His thoughts
were running on the possibilities of apoplexy.

“No,” he answered, “but I’m always in such a devil
of a sweat.”

“Yes, yes, very natural, I’m sure,” Lord Blair murmured.
“And a little short of breath sometimes, I
dare say?”

The younger man stared at him warily. He was
wondering whether the questions were those of a prospective
father-in-law; and he decided that it was his
policy to show as clean a bill of health as possible.

“Oh, I’m as sound as a bell,” he laughed.

Lord Blair’s face fell. If apoplexy were unlikely to
carry him off, perhaps there was some hope of kidney-trouble:
there were ominous pouches under the young
man’s eyes.

“Some people,” he said, “find that they suffer out
here from pains in the small of the back—stabbing
pains, you know, with a sensation of burning....”

“Do they, now?” the other replied, quite interested.
“No, I can’t say I ever felt ’em.”

Again Lord Blair’s hopes were dashed to the ground.
He knew, however, that Barthampton was a heavy
drinker, and he introduced the subject with manifest
interest, and with a disregard of principle which sorely
troubled him.

“Doctors sometimes advise abstemiousness out here,”
he said, “but personally I think a little stimulant is a
good thing.”

Lord Barthampton warmed to him. “So do I,” he
replied heartily. “Still, for the present I’m absolutely
on the water-waggon.”

“Dear, dear!” muttered Lord Blair, fidgetting
openly. “Dear me!—dear me! That’s a little
drastic, isn’t it?—a little unnecessary?”

“I don’t suppose I’ll keep it up for long,” was the
reply.

“No, why should you?” Lord Blair commented, and
the younger man thought him very broad-minded.

The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of
the General, in search of a quiet corner for a smoke, and
Lord Blair, much dispirited, presently made his way
back to the ballroom, and thence home to bed. His
daughter, however, remained till past three o’clock in
the morning, and at last was one of the little group of
enthusiasts which kept up the revels to the accompaniment
of amateur efforts on the piano, after the weary
band had dispersed.

She traversed the short distance back to the Residency
under the protection of Lord Barthampton;
who had managed by sheer obstinacy to obtain this
office for himself; and as she said “good-night,” to
him upon the doorstep, he held her hand in his somewhat
longer than was necessary.

“I shall always remember tonight,” he said, “as the
first time I have really got to know you.”

“Will you?” she replied, feebly, not finding any appropriate
comment.

“Yes,” he answered. “Good-night, little woman.
Think kindly of your lonely friend.” He came closer
to her. “If ever you hear anything against me from
Cousin Daniel, take it with a pinch of salt.”

“Oh, I always rely on my own judgment,” she answered;
and with that she passed into the house.


CHAPTER XVI—AT CHRISTMASTIDE
============================

During the ensuing two or three weeks Daniel
was absorbed in the organization of his work,
and it was not until the festivities of Christmas
interrupted his routine, that he was able to look
about him and take his bearings. He had found the
work extremely interesting, and already he could see
some indications that his point of view was being
adopted in the general policy of the Residency, while
in specific cases Lord Blair accepted his advice with
very little hesitation.

In this atmosphere of confidence Daniel thrived and
his labours prospered. He was amused by his new
insight into the Egyptian mind; and he enjoyed his
frequent rambles through those quarters of the city
which are unknown to the European visitor. Already
he had native friends in all parts of Cairo—from scavengers
to Pashas; and in many of the bazaars he was
now greeted as a guest by the hospitable merchants.
He did not find any great difficulty in avoiding the more
tedious of the social functions at the Residency: and
the early mornings and the evenings were spent in tranquillity
at his camp or in the surrounding desert.

Sometimes, returning from his duties soon after
luncheon, he would fill his pockets with biscuits and his
water-bottle with cold tea, and, mounting his camel,
would ride for two hours or more into the desert, until
as the last light of day faded from the sky he would
reach some sheltered drift of sand or bed of shingle
amongst the rocks; and here he would refresh himself
and take his rest, mental and physical, in the vast solitude,
until the blackness of the night enveloped him.
Then, under the glistening heavens, he would ride slowly
home again, guiding himself by the stars, and dreaming
his way through the witchery of the darkness, until the
distant lights of his camp, with the promise of supper
and bed, brought him down from the dim regions of
everlasting quiescence to the pleasant things of the
body, so that he would press forward in a final rush
through the night, the sharp air of the Egyptian winter
beating in his face, the planets swinging above him,
and the obscure jackal-track slipping like a trail of
vapour beneath the soft pads of his camel.

He slept by night upon the top of the spur of rock
above his tents; and here on his camp bed, under the
warm blankets, he would lie absorbed in the splendour of
the stars until sleep carried him outside the range of
astronomy. As the first shafts of the morning sun
struck upon him from above the eastern horizon, he
would cast the blankets from him, and, full of the joy
of vigorous life, would clamber down to his camp, there
to bathe and dress himself in the keen air of the morning,
and to devour his breakfast in the brilliant sunshine
at the door of his tent.

Here in his beloved desert any anxieties which the
day might bring were wholly banished from his brain;
and each morning he took up his duties with a mind
purged and washed clean of the dust of yesterday, enlivened
by healthy sleep and vigorous exercise, and,
above all, renewed in its unity with the everlasting
Wisdom. It was as though his mighty hands were
clasped in the mightier hands of that Spirit which
dwells in the world’s open spaces; and, if he strayed
during his work into tangled paths of disquietude, he
stepped back, as it were, with the descending sun into
the grasp of the unfailing Friend.

In one particular there was especial need of this refreshment
and renewal; for his thoughts were often disturbed
in regard to his friendship with Lady Muriel.
He was sufficiently frank with himself to realize that as
the days passed he was growing more interested in her,
and at the same time he was well aware that any such
interest was likely to lead to discordance and unrest;
for her method of life so greatly differed from his own.

Muriel was having what she called “a good time”;
and the argument “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow
we die,” was ever ready upon her lips. There was
a sort of defiance in her attitude to Daniel, and sometimes
as she set out upon some new chase of amusement
she seemed to be daring him to stop her.

On a certain evening in Christmas-week this challenge
had been particularly evident. He had stayed on
at the Residency until past seven o’clock, for there had
been an attempted assassination of one of the native
ministers, and Daniel had at once set himself to get to
the bottom of the trouble; and when at last he was
crossing the hall on his way out, he had come upon
Muriel descending the staircase, dressed for a dinner-party
and dance which was being given at Mena House
that evening. Her luxurious automobile was standing
at the door, and she had, of course, offered to give him
a lift.

Sitting by her side under the electric light in the car,
he had been more than ever conscious of the dissimilarity
of their views of life. It was not that he disapproved
of her enjoyments, but rather that he regretted the
absence of all attempt on her part to get below the surface
of things. She was satisfied by her pursuit of the
pleasures of what is called Society; and the trouble was
that she had caused him to be dissatisfied with his own
more profound search after happiness.

In his rough clothes he had seemed to be so far removed
from this exquisite dainty girl beside him, around
whose white throat the pearls glistened, and from whose
gold-tasseled cloak of blue velvet there came the faint
scent of the lotus; and the disturbing fact had been
this—that he had been intoxicated by the fragrance
of her, and the touch of her arm against his. He had
wanted to command her to abandon her friends and to
follow him into the desert; and suddenly he had been
aware that the expression in her eyes was one of disdain
for the hardihood that he loved.

As they had driven up to the gates of the hotel he had
called her attention to his camel which awaited him at
the roadside, in charge of a silent native, who now raised
his hand to his dazzled eyes as the headlights of the car
fell upon him.

“Now confess,” she had said, “that you would rather
be coming with me into the comfort of the hotel than
bumping off on that great beast into the cold bleak
desert.”

“I confess I would rather be with you tonight than
alone,” he answered, “but not in the hotel. I don’t
like noise and clatter and stuffiness.”

She had looked at him with a smile as the door of the
car was opened by a liveried servant. “I wonder,”
she mused, “why you play at being a hermit. You are
not a hermit at heart.” She made a gesture with her
arms which was full of enticement. “Don’t you ever
hear the world calling you?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered, gravely, “I hear it calling now;
and I am shutting my ears, because I know that it has
nothing worth having to offer me.”

“If you happen to be here at midnight,” she said, “I
dare say I shall be wanting a breath of air.”

The words had thrilled in his ears, and as she disappeared
into the lighted hall of the hotel he had stood for
a moment irresolute. If he were to ride down from the
desert at midnight, she would stroll with him for a few
moments amongst the palms, and who could say what
advancement in their relationship would take place?
But in so doing would he not be but offering her material
for new amusement?

He had ridden, then, in silence to his camp; and at
his usual hour he had gone to his bed beneath the stars;
and though he was awake at midnight he had not stirred
from beneath his blankets.

That was three days ago; and now Christmas was
passed, with its church-service which he had attended
together with the whole diplomatic staff, and its heavy
luncheon thereafter, at which he had been one of twenty
guests. Already, today, he had resumed the routine of
his work; but the short interruption had given him time
to look about him, and his bearings troubled him with
their threat of dangers ahead.

Muriel, on her part, had felt herself snubbed that
night when he failed to take advantage of the midnight
hour. She had slipped out on to the veranda of the
hotel and had waited for him, thereby missing a dance
and inconveniencing at least one partner. She had
suggested the meeting experimentally, to see what
might be his attitude towards her; for she could not decide
whether he were fond of her or merely interested in
her as a case of needing reformation. And when he
failed to turn up at the trysting-hour, her foot tapped
angrily upon the tiles of the veranda; and at length she
had gone indoors again with her head in the air but her
heart in the depths.

She was undoubtedly attracted to him, but she was
also very decidedly afraid of him. Sometimes it was as
though he were suggesting to her that she should
abandon the luxuries and the little frivolities which she
so much enjoyed, and should trail after him into the
desert, the Lord knows where, and cook his food for
him, and dress in a sheepskin, and sleep on the hard
sand with a rock for a pillow.

One of the most serious aspects of the matter was
that her father was very obviously attempting to throw
her and Daniel Lane together. At first she had supposed
that Lord Blair desired her to come under his influence
for its philosophical value; but during the last
few days certain things that had been said led her to the
amazing conclusion that her father regarded him in the
light of a possible son-in-law.

She utterly failed to picture this man in the rôle of
husband: she could imagine him as a companion or even
as a lover, but as a husband never! Husbands were
people in top-hats, black coats, and stripey trousers,
with whom one went to St. Margaret’s, Westminster,
and then to somebody’s villa on the Riviera, “kindly
lent,” etc.; they had a lot of old family servants who
sniffed at you and said that such-and-such wasn’t his
lordship’s custom; they wanted sons and heirs, and, if
you failed to provide them, they cynically made you
try again; they developed money troubles sooner or
later, and cut down your expenses at the moment when
you wanted to rebuild the ballroom; as the years passed
they became coldly courteous or hotly ill-tempered; and
finally you were either divorced or else laid by their
crumbling side in the family vault, in the sure and certain
hope—thank God—that there were no marriages
in heaven.

But Daniel Lane was not of this autocratic class;
nor could she picture him living in England. If he
succeeded to the Barthampton earldom he would make
an appalling mess of it; if he had to wear London
clothes he would look a sight; and if he shared the conjugal
bed, it would probably be on the roof or in the
shrubbery, with gnats and things biting your nose or an
icy wind blowing around your legs.

She noticed her father’s strategic dispositions one
morning just after Christmas, when Charles Barthampton
called to take her to a military review. She went
into the study to tell him of her proposed absence; but
Lord Blair put his foot down, saying to her that if she
attended this particular function she ought to do so
in the company of a civilian, so as to avoid inter-regimental
jealousies: a palpable excuse which did not bear
scrutiny. He suggested that Daniel Lane should go
with her; and before Lord Barthampton could escape,
his cousin was sent for, and Muriel went off into the
garden in annoyance, leaving the three men together
in the hall. Lord Blair thereupon tripped back to his
study, bidding Daniel offer his cousin refreshment in
the library.

Lord Barthampton, however, was scowling with
anger, and would have taken his departure immediately.
But Daniel took him by the arm in a grip which, though
friendly, was one of iron, and, forcing him into a chair,
handed him a cigar.

“Have a whisky-and-soda?” he then suggested.

“No,” his cousin grunted. “I’m a teetotaller,
damn you.”

Daniel chuckled. “Good for you,” he laughed.
“Have some barley water?”

At this Lord Barthampton scrambled to his feet, but
Daniel gently pushed him back into the chair.

“I want to have a talk with you,” he said. “I want
to tell you how glad I am to see that you are pulling
yourself together. You look a different man already.”

His cousin glared at him warily from under his
heavy brows. “Yes,” he replied, “I’m not going to
give you any excuse for turning me out. When you do
so, you’ll have to do it against my father’s wishes and
intentions; and I hope he’ll come back from the grave
and haunt you.”

He spoke with dramatic gloom, and Daniel could not
help being sorry for him.

“Oh, don’t worry yourself,” he assured him. “As
long as you behave yourself decently, you’re quite safe.”

“I doubt it,” the other muttered, despondently.

“I heard the other day,” said Daniel, “from one of
your brother officers that you’d sworn off cards too.”

Charles Barthampton puffed viciously at his cigar.
“I suppose you’ll rob me of all my fun before I’m
through with you. Hadn’t you better ask me whether
I’ve joined the Y.M.C.A., and regularly say my
prayers?”

“No, I’ll leave that to you,” Daniel answered with
a smile. “But there’s one thing I should like to ask
you: have you taken any steps yet to give anything to
the poor?”

His cousin shook his head.

“Well, hurry up and do so,” said Daniel.

Once more Lord Barthampton rose from his chair,
and this time to his relief, he was not pushed back again.
“I’m late for the show,” he grumbled, “and anyway
it’s no fun staying here, being put through my paces.
You’ve got all the cards, and the game’s in your hands.
It makes me sick.”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” Daniel replied, and he spoke with
sincerity. “But don’t worry yourself. You’re going
on fine.”

With that he let him go.

Upon the following day, Lord Blair again acted in a
manner which showed the movement of his thoughts.
Muriel was going out to lunch at Mena House, and
Daniel suggested that she and the Bindanes should ride
over to his camp to tea. Lord Blair appeared to be
delighted at the proposal, and gave it such hearty support
that Muriel was constrained to accept the invitation.

Thus it came about, that soon after four o’clock
Daniel was helping his three visitors to dismount from
the hired camels which had jolted them over the desert
to his tents; and no sooner had the attendant camel-men
taken charge of the animals, than he found himself
smilingly following in his friends’ wake as Muriel began
enthusiastically to conduct them around the camp,
as though she were its proprietress.

She pointed out the various lockers and revealed their
contents with pride; she showed how this table folded
up, or how that chair could be converted into a bed;
she called attention to the portable book-shelf, and held
up for inspection some of the volumes which she had arranged;
she introduced the three yellow dogs, and explained
the merits of the kennel she had built for them.

In her interest and pride in the work of her hands
there was a complete absence of self-consciousness; and
the situation engendered so warm a sense of intimacy
that she found herself calling Daniel by his Christian
name, as though this had long been her habit.

When tea had been drunk and the sun was setting,
Kate Bindane took her husband by the arm and suggested
a stroll. At this, however, Muriel’s mind returned
to the conventions, and she intimated her desire
to accompany them. But Kate, profiting by Daniel’s
momentary absence with Benifett Bindane, argued the
point with her.

“You stay with Mr. Lane, old girl,” she said. “He
wants to be with you, I’m sure; and any way I want to
be alone with Benifett. Damn it, we’re on our honeymoon!”

There was a touch of wistfulness in her friend’s
jocular words; and Muriel had seen enough of their
married life to be understanding. Kate Bindane had a
romantic heart under her uncompromising exterior;
and her cold-blooded husband, to whom she was obviously
devoted, must have played the lover about as
ardently as a jellyfish. But out here in the solitude,
the glory of the setting sun might infuse a little warmth
into his veins, and might lift his thoughts above those
schemes of commercial enterprise which seemed to constitute
his sole interest in Egypt.

The two couples therefore separated for a while;
and Muriel strolled with Daniel to a cluster of rocks,
amidst which they presently seated themselves upon the
slope of a sand-drift, facing towards the south and
west. Before them, framed between the great boulders
of sun-browned limestone, the desert stretched out to the
purple hills in the distance; and above the hills the
glory of the cloud-flecked western sky was spread like a
vision of the Isles of the Blessed.

The evening was warm and windless, and no sound
came to their ears except the occasional twitter of an
early bat, and the far-off wail of a circling kestrel. It
was as though some magical leap through time had been
accomplished, whereby they two had alighted upon the
earth in an age before the advent of man and beast, or
after the last trump had left the planet again desolate.
Yet there was no sense of death in these rock-strewn
spaces, but rather a pulse of sleeping nature which held
the reiterated promise of life. The sand upon which
they lay was warm and golden, and the rocks about
them were not cold nor dead to the touch.

Muriel lay upon the slope, her hands behind her
head; and Daniel, sitting beside her, and looking down
at her with his calm blue eyes, had the sunset as his
aureola, so that he put her in mind of some figure by
Bonozzo Gozzoli painted against gold. His massive
head and shoulders seemed to tower above her like those
of a rugged presence rising out of the rocks and sand
of the wilderness; and she noticed for the first time that
his face was reminiscent of Watts’ “Samson,” a picture
which had always delighted her.

.. figure:: images/illus-186.png
   :align: center

   A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY—BURNING SANDS

Neither she nor he found any need of words, and for
some time there was almost complete silence between
them, so that one might have supposed the spell of the
desert to have bewitched them. His hands idly played
with the sand; and, as the grains ran between his fingers,
she seemed to feel the memories of all her days slipping
from her, until only this one little moment of the present
remained.

“Well?” she asked at last, and there was the question
of all the ages in her eyes.

“No man can escape his destiny,” he replied; but
the words did not seem to be detached: rather they were
the conclusion of a mute analysis to which they had both
contributed.

Again there fell a silence between them, a silence, however,
so filled with unspoken words that in it their relationship
grew immeasurably more close. The glory of
the sunset began to fade, and the veil of the twilight
descended gently about them; but in their hearts it was
dawn, and the sunrise was very near.

At length he arose and stretched his arms to their
full extent. Muriel gazed up at him, wondering how he
would choose to seal the compact which, so it seemed,
had been made between them in this period of their
silence. Suddenly she was conscious that her heart was
beating fast, and its throbbing brought her back from
her dream.

She sat up, and looked at him for a moment with fear
in her eyes; for it was as though she had spoken words
in the depths of her being which her tongue would have
been too reticent to utter.

Daniel clasped his hands behind the back of his head,
and stood watching her, a whimsical smile on his face.
His expression was one of perplexity, almost of amusement
at the incomprehensibility of Fate.

“Come,” he said, “we had better be going, Muriel,
my dear.”

He took her hand in his and raised her to her feet.

“Yes, Daniel, we had better be going,” she replied.

She linked her arm in his; and thus they walked
slowly back to the tents, he looking down at her, and
she looking up at him, and around them the vast spaces
of the desert already dim with the coming of night.


CHAPTER XVII—DESTINY
====================

Upon the following morning, before eleven
o’clock, Muriel installed herself in a hammock
slung from the lower branches of a shady
sycamore, some yards distant from the rose-bushes and
shrubs which screened her favourite alcove, now appropriated
by Daniel. She had brought with her from
the house a handful of fashion-papers and illustrated
journals, but these she did not read as, with one foot
touching the ground, she swung herself gently to and
fro. She looked up through the tracery of the foliage
to the brilliant blue of the sky, and her mind was too
occupied with her thoughts to give its attention to the
latest manner in which the women of Paris, London,
and New York were adorning their nakedness.

Little shafts of sunlight, like fiery rods, pierced
through the cool blue shadow wherein she lay; and beyond
the protection of the heavy foliage the lawn of
newly-sown grass gleamed in the radiance of the morning.
The faithful northwest wind, which almost daily
blows over the desert from the Mediterranean, was
gently rustling the greenery overhead, and rattling the
hard leaves of the palms; and she could hear the cry of
the circling kites above her, though she could only see
these scavengers of the air when they swooped and
tumbled down, as though in play, to snatch at any
edible fragments floating upon the surface of the Nile.

All around her she was aware of the joy of existence,
flashing out like laughter and vibrating like song. The
water sprinkled upon the lawn by the garden hose
seemed to be making merry in the sunshine; a black and
grey cow lurching across the grass seemed to be overcome
with hilarity; the palm-leaves swaying in the
breeze might have been shaking with mirth; and the
babbling of the river as it swirled past the terrace was
like an endless lyric of well-being.

Muriel was too happily content to indulge in any
profound self-analysis; but vaguely she was conscious
that her life had entered upon a new phase, and shamelessly
she asked herself whether the guiding hand were
love. She had realized for some time that Rupert Helsingham
had made a spurious impression upon her
heart, and during the recent weeks of amusement she
had come to wonder how it was that he had aroused any
emotion in her, except that caused by his tragic death.

Now, however, she was aglow with buoyant happiness,
and she had a persistent feeling that all was well
with her. Yesterday, on her return from Daniel’s
camp, she had spoken to Kate Bindane of this sense of
well-being, and her friend’s reply had set her laughing.

“My dear,” Kate had said, “I’m sure I don’t want
to mess up your bright picture of things; but in my
opinion, look at it as you will, the joy of life is always
some sort of an itch and the scratching of it.”

But today Muriel felt that the definition was false.
Her happiness was intangible, and all that she could
say with certainty was that it was the result of her little
time of silence yesterday in the desert.

It had been so quiet and gentle, so entirely opposite to
the prehistoric rough-and-tumble which might have been
expected. Her thoughts went back to the incident of
the curate at Eastbourne, who had banged her about on
the sofa, and would have rolled her on the floor, had not
the ten commandments suddenly affrighted him. She
thought, too, of Rupert and his impassioned kisses: he
had left red marks on her shoulder.

But Daniel had been so silent, so tender, and withal
so genuine. He had seemed to be part of the vast sky
and desert around him, enfolding her, and harming her
not. Yet with a twist of his hand he could have killed
her.

In the distance she heard the murmur of his voice as
he talked to his native visitors in the alcove; and she
had a curious feeling that his proximity was protective.
She was no longer afraid, or even shy of him.

Presently, across the lawn, she saw him dismissing
three silk-robed Egyptians; and, when they had taken
their departure, he waved his hand to her before returning
once more behind the screen of roses and trees.
The signal was like the caress of an old friend, and by
it her happiness was enhanced.

A few minutes later she watched another caller being
piloted by a native servant across the lawn to the alcove.
He was a young *effendi* wearing European
clothes and the usual red *tarboush* or fez—an unhealthy
little man, who paused once to cough and to
spit unpleasantly.

Lazily she watched the servant return to the house,
and she hoped that Daniel was finding his new visitor
interesting.

She closed her eyes, and sleep was stealing upon her
when suddenly she was startled into full consciousness
by the sharp crack of a pistol-shot. She sprang out
of the hammock and stood for a moment staring about
her, her heart beating.

The sound had come from the direction of the alcove,
but now all was silent once more. Evidently nobody
in the house had heard the shot; and she might have
thought it to have been an illusion of sleep, had it not
been for the manifest excitement of the birds which had
risen from the branches of the trees around.

Almost without definite thought she hastened across
the lawn, and paused, listening, near the rose bushes.
A whimpering sound of moaning came to her ears; and
at this she ran forward impulsively, and, a moment
later, came to a sudden halt upon the secluded terrace.

Before her, upon the flagstones, crouched the figure
of the young Egyptian. He was holding his right
wrist in his left hand, and was staring up, with open
mouth, at Daniel who stood over him, fingering a revolver
which now he slipped quietly into his pocket as
he caught sight of her.

“Go away, Muriel!” he exclaimed in surprise.
“What are you doing here?”

The Egyptian struggled to his feet, but Daniel
caught him by the arm and half dragged him to the
marble bench.

“What’s happened?” she cried. “I heard a shot.”

“Did anybody else hear it?” he asked, so sharply
that his voice startled her.

“I don’t think so,” she answered.

“Good,” he said. “This young man’s revolver went
off by mistake: that’s all. Please go away.”

“O Daniel!” she cried, realizing the truth. “He
tried to kill you!”

“Hush!” he whispered, impatiently. “Here, help
me to tie up his wrist: I’ve broken it, I think.”

The Egyptian rocked himself to and fro, making no
resistance as Daniel took hold of his injured arm, talking
to him the while in Arabic, as though bidding him
have no fear. With the would-be assassin’s handkerchief
he bound up the injured wrist, while Muriel gave
all the assistance of which her trembling fingers were
capable; and then, with his own large handkerchief he
improvised a sling, never ceasing meanwhile to soothe
the man with soft words of sympathetic consideration,
as though he had been a doctor called in to attend the
victim of an accident.

When the bandaging had been accomplished, he
turned to Muriel. “Now please go away, Muriel dear,”
he said, “and thanks very much for your help. Remember,
not a word about this to anybody at all.”

He smiled at her reassuringly, and obliged her to
take her departure, again cautioning her to keep the
incident secret. She walked across the lawn to the
house, dazed and anxious; and thus she went up to her
room, where, looking into the mirror, she was surprised
to observe the paleness of her face.

Meanwhile Daniel sat upon the bench beside the
Egyptian, smoking his pipe, and waiting for him to recover
his composure. The incident had been so foolish,
and the attempt upon his life so bungled, that he felt
nothing but pity for the wretched man who, he presumed,
had believed himself to be performing a patriotic
act.

The Secret Service Agents had fully warned him of
possible danger, and he had spotted this youth as a suspicious
character as soon as he had entered the alcove.
The man had been trembling visibly, and when his unsteady
hand had fumbled in his pocket, Daniel had
gripped his wrist on the instant that the revolver came
into sight. The bullet had struck the balustrade and
had gone singing into the river, while the weapon had
fallen with a clatter upon the pavement.

Daniel had experienced no alarm, and now he felt no
anger. He was determined, however, to get to the root
of the plot; and it seemed to him far wiser to take action
here and now, than to await a judicial enquiry.

As soon, therefore, as his assailant had ceased his
moaning and his monotonous rocking to and fro, Daniel
took him by his left arm, and led him across the lawn
and round to the front gates of the Residency. Here
he hailed one of the little open carriages from the stand
at the other side of the square, and, helping the Egyptian
into it, told the coachman to drive to the nearest
hospital.

In the consulting room he explained to the doctor
that the man was a friend of his who had injured his
wrist by a fall; and soon the mischief was rectified and
the arm put into splints.

Daniel then announced his intention of seeing him
back to his house; but at this the man aroused himself
from the silent stupor into which he had fallen, and
vehemently protested.

“You cannot come with me,” he declared. “By
God, I shall give no address.”

Daniel had been told by his agents an address at
which a certain group of malcontents were known to
meet; and, chancing the man’s connection with this
fraternity, he now named the house to the driver. The
*effendi* immediately sank back into the corner of the
carriage with a look of terror upon his face which indicated
clearly enough that the surmise had been correct.

“Do not fear,” said Daniel to him, “I mean you no
harm. If God is willing I shall meet some of your
friends, and we shall be able to talk over this matter.”

Once during the journey, when their carriage had
come to a momentary standstill, in the crowded Mousky,
Daniel observed a certain tension in his companion’s attitude
which indicated that he was contemplating flight;
and he was prepared, therefore, when the man made a
sudden leap forward.

“Ass!” he exclaimed, pulling him down on to the
seat. The meaning of the expression in Arabic is much
the same as it is in English.

For the rest of the way Daniel kept an eye upon the
injured man; but the sharp twinge of pain consequent
upon his attempted flight had led him once more to prefer
a condition of fatalistic apathy, and he made no
second effort to escape.

A turning off the Mousky brought them into a winding
native street, where a few low-class Greeks were the
only European pedestrians to be observed in the crowd
of Orientals; and at last the driver steered his carriage
into a quiet alley, and pulled up before the arched doorway
of a whitewashed house, the upper storeys of which
projected outwards until they abutted those of the
buildings on the opposite side.

Daniel assisted the Egyptian to alight, and, as they
passed through the archway into the stone-flagged hall
beyond, where the light was dim, warned him against
treachery.

“I still have your loaded revolver in my pocket,” he
reminded him. “I have come to speak to your friends,
and if they are here you must lead me to them.”

For a moment the man hesitated, but Daniel accelerated
matters by clapping his hands loudly, which is
the Egyptian method of summoning a servant; and
thereupon a door was opened at the head of the crazy
flight of wooden stairs, and an untidy figure of a man in
a blue-cotton shirt appeared before them.

“Are the others here?” asked Daniel, seeing that his
companion was recognized.

“Upstairs,” the man answered, shortly, pointing to
the gallery above him, and therewith returned whence he
came, his slouching attitude displaying all the indifference
of which the untrained Egyptian servant is so eminently
capable.

“Lead the way,” said Daniel to his companion, who,
recognizing the *Kismet al Allah*, the destiny of God,
obeyed without protest, mounting the stairs in silence.

As they neared the shut door which had been indicated
to them, the Egyptian was overcome with a fit of
coughing, the rasping sound of which echoed through
the house; and, as though the sound had been recognized,
the door before them was immediately opened,
and the pock-marked face and red *tarboush* of another
young native *effendi* appeared.

“What’s this?” he exclaimed in astonishment, pointing
to his friend’s injured arm. Then, seeing the Englishman,
he checked himself warily.

Daniel took a step forward. “I have brought him
back to you,” he said, affably. “He is hurt.”

A moment later they were inside the room, and Daniel
was fingering the trigger of the revolver in his pocket,
as he glanced from one to another of the five men confronting
him. They had risen to their feet, and were
standing in attitudes of manifest nervousness. They
had evidently been disturbed at their midday meal, for
it was now a little past noon: three or four dishes of
food stood upon the floor, and the mouths of at least
two of the men were full. The smell of garlic and stale
tobacco smoke pervaded the room; and a shaft of sunlight
striking through the window revealed a mass of
flies hovering and buzzing around a plate of something
which appeared to be cold minced meat.

“Peace be unto you!” said Daniel, using the Islamic
salutation; and the men muttered the customary response,
as though by force of habit.

Daniel stood with his back to the door which he had
closed behind. “I ask your forgiveness for my intrusion,”
he said, still speaking in Arabic, “but I thought
the matter urgent. This morning this gentleman came
to the Residency, where I have the honour of being employed,
and fired the revolver at me which I am now
holding in my pocket. But it pleased God to spare my
life, and I immediately came to ask you why you wished
my death. You know the words of the Prophet:
‘Man is a building erected by God, and he who destroys
the building of God shall himself be destroyed.’”

The injured man had collapsed upon a stiff bench
which stood against the wall, and was now rocking himself
to and fro once more, the tears of pain and exasperation
streaming down his face.

“He is in great pain,” said Daniel, “for I am sorry
to say I have broken his wrist. I took him to the hospital,
and the bones are set; but he will require much
care. I think you would do well to give him something
to eat.”

One of the Egyptians, less concerned with his own
interests than the others, fetched a cup of water, and
held it to the sufferer’s lips; but his companions still
stood like startled sheep, eyeing their muscular visitor
with undisguised dismay. They were all young men—students,
perhaps, or clerks in minor employ; and it was
evident that they were entirely nonplussed, for they
answered not a word.

“My object in coming here,” Daniel continued, “is
simply to learn from you the cause of your anger. You
must be feeling something very deeply to resort to assassination;
but why should you desire to murder *me*?
I am the only person who can help you.”

He assured them of his desire to understand their
point of view, and gradually he was able to break down
their anxious reserve, so that presently they spoke to
him with a certain amount of freedom, and they heard,
probably for the first time, the English attitude expounded
in terms of idealism. They were fanatical
young men whose patriotism was nothing more than
dislike of the foreigner, which, indeed, is a large part
of all patriotism; and though Daniel made little attempt
to argue with them he was able very soon to establish
more or less sympathetic relations with his would-be
murderers, and perhaps to convince them that bloodshed
is foolish.

The situation had a piquancy which amused him
vastly; and when, presently, he unloaded the revolver
and handed it back to the melancholy figure upon the
divan, he could not refrain from laughter, in which, to
his surprise, the others joined.

“Cheer up, O son of complaint!” he said. “You
ought to be praising God that you are not about to be
hanged.” Then, turning to the others, he told them
how glad he was that they found cause for mirth in the
situation. “Are we not all like the pieces upon a chessboard?”
he asked. “But do we realize that God is
playing both sides of the game? Remember the words
of the Koran: ‘They plotted, and God plotted; and
God is the best of plotters.’ Now let us laugh and give
thanks that no blood has been spilt, for it is precious
stuff; and finally let us agree to forget the incident.
So far as I am concerned it is *khalâs khâlas*—absolutely
closed; and on your part, if you have further
cause for hostility, come to the Residency and ask for
me, but do not bring your revolvers with you or I shall
give you no coffee.”

He arrived back at the Residency somewhat late for
luncheon, and his high spirits were such that Muriel
stared at him in amazement. When the meal was
finished she took him aside, as the others left the room,
and asked where he had been.

“I took my murderer home,” he explained, “and
made friends with his fellow-assassins, and we all had a
good laugh together. It seemed to be the best way of
settling the matter.”

“O Daniel,” she whispered, “you’re either a hero or
else you’re crazy.”

“No,” he answered, “I’m just a philosopher—that
is to say, one who sees the comic side of life.”

“There’s not much comedy about the attempted murder
of one’s best friend,” she answered.

His face became serious and his eyes sought hers.
“Am I your best friend?” he asked.

She turned from him and stared out of the window.
They were alone in the room, and he put his hand upon
her shoulder, as she nodded her head in silence.

Suddenly he observed that her eyes were full of tears,
and at this his heart seemed for a moment to stop
beating.

“Muriel,” he whispered, but his voice failed him.

She looked round at him, and smiled; and that which
was destined to happen happened all in a moment. His
arms enfolded her, and, bending down, he kissed her
with the passion of revelation—fervently, exultantly,
joyously.


CHAPTER XVIII—MAN AND WOMAN
===========================

On the following morning Daniel received a message
from Lord Blair asking him to come into
the study, and he presumed that the question
of his relationship to Muriel was to be discussed, for in
his present state of upheaval he could hardly imagine
that there was anything else in the world to talk about.
He was deeply troubled in his mind, for he felt that this
fever of love which had kept him awake half the night,
and which hourly was growing more intense, was a
menace to his happiness and to hers. A thousand
times he had told himself that their two lives were incompatible,
and yet their unity was now to him the vital
object of his existence. Nothing else seemed to
matter.

Lord Blair received him with a whimsical smile, and
waved him to a chair as though formally introducing
him to it. “Sit down, my dear Daniel,” he said. “I
want to know if you can throw any light upon this extraordinary
letter which was delivered here this morning,
by hand.”

He held up a large pink envelope inscribed in green
ink, and handed it across the table; and, while Daniel
examined it, he sat watching him benevolently, the tips
of his thin fingers pressed together.

The document was written in English, and the wandering
handwriting was not unlike that of a child.
The address upon the envelope was arresting in its simplicity.
“His Excel. The Lord’s Deputy,” it read.

“Frank Lestrange opened it,” said Lord Blair; “for
he presumed that the ‘Lord’ referred to was myself
and not the Almighty, and that the ‘Deputy’ indicated
a secretary. But the letter itself was an enigma to
him, and the enclosure a mystery.”

He held up a carefully folded pocket-handkerchief
which the envelope had contained, and Daniel glanced
at it with sudden recognition.

The document was as follows:

  Dear sir we are sorry one assassnated you yesterday because
  you came to us and we see you for the brave gentilman and the
  Egyptian rispect the Chivalry herewith please find and oblige

  Your Wishwellers.

“Well?” asked Lord Blair.

Daniel burst out laughing. “Oh, what children they
are!” he exclaimed. “I think that if we all packed up
and went home, and sent out half a dozen schoolmasters
in our place, the Egyptian question would be solved.”

“Why?—what is the meaning of the letter?” asked
his lordship.

“I’d much rather not tell you,” Daniel replied.

“But I must insist,” said Lord Blair. “I must indeed
insist.”

Daniel felt awkward: the story was so silly. “It
was nothing much,” he explained. “A wretched boy
came here yesterday to kill me, and in taking his revolver
away from him I unfortunately broke his wrist.
So I made a sling with my handkerchief and took him
to the doctor. He was in great pain, poor chap.” He
paused and reread the letter.

“Go on with the story,” said Lord Blair. “‘This is
very serious, very serious indeed.”

“Oh, no, it’s not,” replied Daniel. “I guessed
where he came from and took him home, and had a talk
to the whole gang of them. They were all very young
and very ardent. But there’s nothing more to hear
from them now. Poor lads!—I think they were
mighty glad the bullet went wide.”

“D’you mean to say you bearded them in their
den?”

“Yes; luckily I found them assembled at their
dinner.”

Lord Blair sat back in his chair and toyed with a
paper-knife, while Daniel gave him a few more details
of the occurrence. There was a curious expression on
his face as he listened, and his dark eyes seemed to be
shining very brightly. When the brief tale was finished,
he rose to his feet, and made a flitting expedition to the
window; drummed on the pane; and then, coming round
in front of his friend, put his hands upon his broad
shoulders.

“My dear fellow ...” he said, and hesitated.
Then: “Dear me, dear me, Daniel.” Suddenly he
drew himself up, and, thrusting forward a stiff arm,
grasped the other’s hand and wrung it shyly but fiercely.

Daniel looked at him in surprise, for he appeared to
be battling with some powerful emotion; and, feeling
that the situation no longer required his presence, he
rose to go.

Lord Blair stopped him. “Wait,” he said; “there
is another matter about which I want to speak to you.”

Daniel guessed what was coming, and waited with
impatience for Lord Blair to open the subject. It
seemed to him that his relationship to Muriel was the
only thing worth discussing. But the Great Man’s
thoughts were still occupied with the tale which Daniel
had unfolded, and for some time he continued to ask
questions and to make ejaculatory comments.

At length, however, an awkward silence and some
signs of nervousness indicated that the all-important
subject was about to be introduced; but Lord Blair, as
was his wont, circled round the outskirts of the matter
for some time, speaking of his advancing years and of
a father’s duty to his only child.

Daniel was impatient to get to grips. “I take it,”
he said, interrupting him, “that you want to ask me
what my intentions are in regard to Lady Muriel.”

Lord Blair smiled nervously. “Or shall we say,”
he suggested, “that I want to know what Muriel’s intentions
are in regard to you. I have noticed the growing
intimacy between you, and you will perhaps have observed
that I have not discouraged it. But today, it is
my duty to tell you, I saw you ... er ... ahem
... I saw you kiss one another good morning.”

Lord Blair, having thus delivered himself, sat back
in his chair, his eyes fixed upon the younger man.

“Yes, that’s so,” the latter replied; “and I wish to
Heaven you’d tell me what is to be done about it. I am
afraid I have got to tell you that I love Muriel.” He
leant forward and knitted his brows. “I’m sunk,” he
groaned, running his hand through his hair. “It’s no
good fighting against it any longer.”

Lord Blair drummed his fingers on the table.
“Dear me, dear me!” he muttered. “And what does
Muriel say about it?”

“I haven’t asked her,” Daniel replied. “I suppose
she believes she cares for me, too; but that’s just the
trouble: I’ve been wondering all night whether she
knows her own mind. You see we are so totally unsuited
to one another.”

“What makes you say that?” Lord Blair asked,
obviously pained.

Daniel shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I’m a serious-minded
sort of fellow, and Muriel seems to enjoy
all this Society business which I detest.”

“She is young,” was the reply.

“And then I’m a comparatively penniless nobody,
and I’ve heard her described as one of the most eligible
young women in England.”

“Tut, tut,” Lord Blair ejaculated. “It is true that
she will inherit whatever I am able to leave; but an alliance
between the Lanes and the Blairs does not seem to
me to be open to criticism. After all, our respective
names have figured side by side in many pages of English
history.”

Daniel did not wish to pursue this aspect of the matter.
He wanted Muriel, but he wished her to be sure
of her love before he bound her to him by a formal engagement:
this summed up his attitude in a single sentence.
He therefore discussed the question along these
lines; but it was apparent that he was labouring under
great mental and emotional stress. He begged Lord
Blair not to influence his daughter in one direction or
the other, but to leave the solution of the problem in
the hands of Providence.

“I just want her to feel,” he explained, “that I am
an intimate chum of hers; and then if the thing carries
us both off our feet, why we’ll come to you and say we
want to get married. If not—well, I’m not going to
bind her unless it’s clear she is as head over ears in love
with me as I am now with her.”

“You may lose her,” said Lord Blair, shaking his
head wisely.

“If that is going to be at any time likely,” Daniel
answered, “I would rather it happened now than after
we are married.”

When the interview was at an end Lord Blair sat for
some time in deep thought. He was somewhat disappointed
that Daniel was not more impetuous, and he
saw no reason why Muriel should be treated with such
careful consideration, lest she should make a mistake
and suffer for it later. He regarded his daughter as
decidedly flighty, and, since she was his heiress, he
wanted to see her married as soon as possible to the
man of his choice, a man of strong will who would keep
her well in hand: but that, to his surprise, was just
what the mighty Daniel seemed disinclined to do.

Lord Blair did not believe in a man pandering to the
whims of the woman he loved: his own experience had
been too devastating for that. He would have liked to
have heard Daniel say to him: “Your daughter wants
mastering: I will take her in hand, and turn her into a
dutiful wife and a God-fearing mother of your Blair-Lane
grandsons.” But instead of this he had said in
effect: “Since I shall always want her, if she wants
me she can have me when she wants;” and this seemed
a poor policy, bordering on self-abnegation.

Muriel’s own attitude was interesting. During this
and the day following she waited breathlessly for a proposal
of marriage, and when none was forthcoming, she
decided that she would give him one week and then lose
her temper. But the week went by, and nothing happened,
except that their intimacy grew and their eyes
sought one another more frequently.

His work kept him very busy, but daily he found
some moment in which he could be alone with her; and
at these times he put his arms about her and looked
into her face with such tenderness in his eyes that she
could have cried. He seemed to be searching her heart,
to be trying to assure himself of her love; and when he
kissed her he appeared to restrain the passion which
she knew was consuming him.

Once he came so near to a definite offer of marriage
that she held her breath. Yet what he said was but
this: “Life is short, and there is no time for a mistake.
Think, Muriel, think!—You and I will soon
have to make a decision which cannot be altered.
Think of all those things in my method of life which
you don’t like or don’t understand. Because the choice
is close at hand.”

And in her bedroom, in the darkness of the night,
she had thought; but her thoughts had travelled in
circles, leading her nowhere. Perhaps, she said to herself,
he wished to hint that there were ugly aspects of
his life which she ought to take into consideration:
perhaps he was referring to those Bedouin women who
were said to have been his mistresses in the desert; or
perhaps his frequent visits to the bazaars and to native
houses were not entirely dictated by the needs of his
work. She knew that women of the poorer classes often
came to see him at the Residency; and the stories which
had come to her ears of his goodness to widows and destitute
paupers might have their origin in less worthy
circumstances than was supposed. It looked as though
his conscience were smiting him.

He had said to her: “The woman who loves me
must give up much.” Was he suggesting, she wondered,
that she should defy the conventions and fly with
him into the desert? Perhaps he had no thought of
marriage: he only wanted her to ride beside him over
the limitless wilderness, and to sleep with him under the
stars. His words might be interpreted as meaning that
since one day they would grow tired of one another and
he would leave her to fish for herself, she ought to consider
carefully whether the adventure were worth while.
But, no: that could hardly be his meaning, though his
refraining from a definite proposal of marriage was
suspicious.

Another matter greatly puzzled her. He did not
seem to be jealous of her familiarity with other men;
and though during the last few days she had rather enjoyed
the novel experience of asking his permission,
more or less, when she was going out on what she termed
a “joy-ride,” she had observed that he assumed no authority
over her. He appeared to be quite indifferent
to her exits from, and interested only by her entries on
to, the stage of life.

Daniel, as a matter of fact, was determined to eradicate
all those fierce feelings of jealousy which shamefully
he was aware she had aroused in him. The green-eyed
monster was a prehistoric beast, unfitting the fair
pastures of a philosopher’s mind; and he would have
none of it. He believed passionately in freedom; and
he was resolved to regard love not as a prison but as a
sphere of unbounded liberty—for man and woman
alike.

He was wroth with himself when he wished to break
the heads of the young men who hovered around her.
He had not believed himself capable of such disturbances;
and his control was exerted to so much purpose
that Muriel mistook it for indifference.

Fortunately he was usually back in the solitude of his
camp by mid-afternoon, and he did not have to watch
Muriel setting out for her almost nightly dinners,
dances, or opera-parties; and when, next day, she used
to relate her adventures, he would oblige himself to
show amusement and interest, though only black unrest
could have been found in his heart. He was impatient
for the time when she should grow weary of her amusements,
and thus show that her heart was full of sweeter
interest, but he had no wish to force her to leave all, as
it were, and come to him.

Muriel, on her part, was increasingly annoyed at his
apparent indifference; and matters reached a crisis one
afternoon at the end of the first week in January. An
expedition to the ancient necropolis of Sakkâra had
been arranged, the party consisting of Muriel, Daniel,
Mr. and Mrs. Bindane, and John Dregge, one of the
younger Secretaries at the Residency. The Tombs of
Sakkâra stand at the edge of the desert, some ten miles
south of Mena House; and the excursion was made on
horseback, servants having been sent on ahead to prepare
tea at the little rest-house in the necropolis.

During the outward journey Benifett Bindane rode
close to Daniel, cross-questioning him in regard to the
possibilities of agricultural development in the Oases.
He had decided to make a journey at the end of February
through the great chain of these oases; and Lord
Blair, who, as has been said, was keenly interested in
the project, had already begun to make arrangements
for the expedition. Daniel was surprised to find that
Mr. Bindane had fully grasped all the essentials of the
scheme, and, in spite of his lethargic appearance,
seemed to be making himself master of the facts.

The subject was very interesting to both men, and
Kate Bindane, who rode with them, put in some shrewd
observations; but meanwhile Lady Muriel was left to
ride ahead with John Dregge, and their two horses
could be seen moving close abreast, while Muriel’s
laughter frequently floated back to them with the suggestion
that she was enjoying herself thoroughly.

This, however, was not the fact. She did not like
her companion, who was a very proper young man with
a sallow face, side whiskers in the Byronic style, a button
of a mouth, and small, watchful eyes.

She was growing decidedly cross—“turning nasty”
as they say; and though she laughed loudly so that
Daniel should hear, she made two or three remarks to
Mr. Dregge which were neither kind nor clever. The
three o’clock sun was extremely hot, the glare was intense,
and her horse—a borrowed one—had an objectionable
habit of ambling when she wished him to
trot and of walking when she attempted to correct the
amble.

When at last their destination was reached, and all
five of them were together again, she would not so much
as look in Daniel’s direction. Tea was served at a
tressel-table on the veranda of the rest-house, an island
of cool shadow in the golden sea of sand; but Muriel
enjoyed neither the meal nor the view. Nor did she
give any great attention to the beauties of the sculptured
tombs and mausoleum which they subsequently
visited; and she felt only impatience when Daniel spoke
with enthusiasm of the grace of the ancient figures.

“We haven’t advanced much in these thousands of
years, have we?” he said to her.

“No,” she answered, “and judging by the progress
made in the last ten days, it’ll be many thousands of
years more before anything happens.”

Daniel glanced quickly at her, with an inward
chuckle, but she turned from him with her head in the
air.

The return journey was begun some time after the
sun had set, and complete darkness descended upon
them while they were still two or three miles from the
hotel. Daniel now rode beside Muriel; and the others
having pushed ahead, they presently found themselves
completely alone, moving through the indigo of the
night like two phantom riders wandering over the uninhabited
plains of the moon.

The air was cold, and sharp; and the stars gleamed
overhead, so numberless, so vivid, that the tremendous
sky was densely spangled and jewelled, in brilliance unknown
to the western eye. It is only in clear, dry air
such as this that one actually sees the heavens as a
vault, an inverted bowl of deep royal blue, with the
Milky Way arched across like a vaporous white rainbow,
and the greater stars and planets standing out in
bold patterns amidst the glittering atoms powdered
over the whole amazing area.

The pathway was obscure, and Daniel had to guide
himself by the great Pyramids which were silhouetted
on the horizon against the stars; but riding became
altogether dangerous while yet there was over a mile
to go, and he proposed that they should dismount and
lead their stumbling horses.

Muriel followed his lead without protest; and
Daniel, taking hold of her arm with one hand, and leading
the horses with the other, piloted her slowly over
the rough ground. He was very tenderly solicitous,
anxiously enquiring whether she were cold or tired; and
she, stirred by the marvel of the night, very largely
forgot her anger. This trudging through the intense
darkness was having an extraordinary effect upon her
mind: she began to feel that her safety, indeed her very
existence, depended upon the giant of the desert who
held her arm so firmly.

“I’m glad you’re with me,” she said to him. “I
should be frightened with anybody else.”

“Frightened?” he asked. “But don’t you feel, as
I do, that the desert at night is protective? Down
there in the inhabited lands there are robbers and murderers
of body or mind; but up here I’m in my own
kingdom: I go wherever I like, do whatever I like, and
there’s nobody to disturb me and nobody I disturb except
a shy little jackal or two.”

Presently Muriel paused. “Wait a minute,” she
said. “My boot has got some sand in it.”

She sat down upon the ground and pulled it off;
while Daniel, being in no hurry to return to the world,
tethered the horses by rolling a small boulder on to
the trailing ends of the reins. This done, he came to
her, and, sitting beside her, helped her to put on the
boot once more.

She was tired physically, and tired also of being
angry. The astonishing solitude caused her heart, as
it were, to go to him for companionship. Here in this
tremendous silence, in this enveloping obscurity, she
seemed to belong to him, to be his property.

He put his arms about her. “Why have you been
so unfriendly to me today?” he asked, reproachfully.

She leaned her head back, and her hand went up around
his neck. “Because I love you, Daniel,” she whispered.

She drew him down to her. At that moment she had
no morals: she had shaken the conventions from her like
so many pieces of useless armour. Her education had
ever taught her to put small value upon such methods
of protection; and now, with a mental shrug, they fell
wholly from her. She wished only to be his, body and
soul: here couched in the lap of this great Mother
Earth, and in the presence of the starry host of heaven.

For a moment Daniel held her tightly within his
arms; and the tempest of his passion carried him forward
to the brink of heedless disaster. But mentally,
as well as physically, he was a mighty man; and now
his philosophic training in control did not fail him.

Roughly he threw her arms from him, and, rising to
his feet, gripped her wrist. “Get up,” he commanded
her. “For God’s sake get up!”

He dragged her up to him, and his fingers must have
left bruises upon her arm.

“O Daniel,” she murmured, and in her abandonment
there was almost laughter in her words, and almost
tears. “I’m yours—yours to do what you like with.
You can put me in your harîm if you want to.”

He turned from her, and fetched the horses.
“Fool, fool!” said his body to his mind. “Again,
misunderstanding the meaning of life, you have robbed
me.” “Be silent, rebel,” said his mind to his body.
“Give me time to see if her passion be love.” “Is there
any difference?” sneered his body; and his mind replied,
“Had I not thought so, you should have had
your way.”


CHAPTER XIX—THE SEEDS OF SORROW
===============================

During the ensuing fortnight circumstances
were not favourable to the development of
their romance. Daniel was closely occupied
with the settling of certain political difficulties which
had cropped up; and Muriel, on her part, found herself
much occupied with the social functions of the Residency
which, in the month of January, are always very
exacting.

But if there were few opportunities for the tender
intimacy of love, there was now the compensation of a
very sweet understanding between them. There was
no need, so it seemed, for a formal betrothal: the engagement
was mutually assumed, and, though no binding
words had been spoken, Lord Blair did not have
to ask again what were their intentions.

Muriel was, of course, a little disturbed at Daniel’s
refusal to allow a definite announcement to be made, or
even an irrevocable word to be spoken between them;
but actually his attitude was quite understandable. He
was keenly aware that his method of life was somewhat
peculiar, and he was modest enough to regard himself
as a thoroughly undesirable husband.

Muriel had told him all about the Rupert Helsingham
affair, and, with some degree of correctness, he had
attributed it to the enchantment of the Nile. He had
realized, too, that in his own case his most intimate moments
with her had occurred under exceptionally romantic
circumstances; and though he was too deeply
in love thus to explain away her emotions, he could
not blind himself to the possibility that their origin
was less profound than their intensity suggested.

He was determined not to bind her yet awhile; for,
he argued to himself, if the miracle had happened, if
really she had found in him her eternal partner, time
would prove the fact to them; but if she had been building
her love on the deceptive foundations of romantic
passion, nothing but ultimate misery would come of the
immediate exchange of mutual vows.

Being a philosopher, he did not judge love’s day by
the tempest of its passion: indeed, he mistrusted such
storms as a frequent cause of disastrous miscalculation.
But Muriel, being woman pure and simple—if ever
there could be a woman of her upbringing either pure
or simple—did not analyse her feelings nor mistrust
them. She knew only that Daniel hung like a thunderstorm
over the meadows of her heart, and she waited in
breathless, headaching silence for his lightnings and
his torrents to descend upon her.

There was one aspect of the matter, however, which
troubled him. Muriel, he recognized, belonged to a
section of English society which was very lax in its
morals; and he knew quite well that, in the darkness
of the desert on the memorable night of their return
from Sakkâra, she had been entirely carried away by
her love. The fact did not disturb him in itself, for he
was a believer in instinct, and his judgment was not influenced
by the conventions. If she really loved him,
and if they had mutually taken one another for a life-partnership,
no marriage ceremony would make the
compact in his eyes more binding, and her desire at once
to identify her life irrevocably with that of the chosen
one would be comprehended and condoned by him.

But there was the fear at the back of his mind lest
she had entered upon the adventure lightly. He knew
too much about the ways of Mayfair: perhaps, indeed,
his abhorrence of all that that name stood for was exaggerated.
Her upbringing, therefore, caused him
anxiety: not, be it understood, because of her possible
willingness to break the traditional law, but because
she might be willing to break it lightly. He hated
himself for doubting her; but she was a child of Society,
a daughter of the Old Harlot, and no member of her
particular branch of that family was above suspicion.

One day, yearning for an hour alone with her, he
asked her to come out to his camp on the following
evening. She was to dine with the Bindanes at Mena
House, and he suggested that he should call for her
after dinner, when the young moon would be low in the
heavens, and that they should ride out to his tents and
talk for a little while.

Muriel fell in with the scheme readily enough; but
there was something in her manner and in the expression
of her face which indicated that she took the step
with deliberation, fully conscious of all that it might involve.
And, in actual fact, she did not care what happened.
She only wanted to belong to him, to feel that
she was in his power and he in hers.

But on the next morning she awoke with a bad cold
in her head, and she was obliged to take to her bed.
One cannot be really romantic with one’s nose running,
and any of love’s most wonderful situations may be
ruined by a sneeze.

A few days later, when she was more or less recovered,
Daniel told her how disappointed he had been
that the arrangement had fallen through.

“I expect it was my guardian angel,” she whispered,
with a laugh. “I had made up my mind to come; and
I suppose the angel read my thoughts, and said ‘You’d
better not,’ and sprinkled a handful of germs over
me.”

Daniel was startled. “Why, you don’t think that
I...?” He paused. Men are seldom so plain-spoken
as women, and seldom face facts so deliberately.

On the following afternoon he was obliged to go to
the railway station to pay his farewell respects to a
native dignitary on his departure for England upon a
commercial mission; and, while walking back through
the Levantine shopping quarter, he came upon Lizette
who, as he now recollected, lived in this part of the
city.

He had not seen her since that night, three and a
half months ago, when he had taken her out to supper
at Berto’s; and he was distressed to observe the change
that had taken place in her. She was looking thin and
haggard, and her eyes were like the melancholy eyes of
a sick dog.

She glanced at him as she approached and a quick
smile of pleasure came into her face; but the etiquette
which is always observed in the best circles on such occasions
prevented her from showing recognition of a
client in a public place. (Money-lenders and dentists
follow much the same code.)

Daniel, however, knew nothing about such rules of
polite conduct. If Lizette were good enough to talk
to in a restaurant she ought to be good enough to
salute in the street. He therefore pulled off his hat
as she passed, and, pausing, bid her good day.

“I believe you’ve forgotten me,” he declared.

“Forgotten?—no!” she exclaimed. “I not ever
forget that pig Barthampton jeté par terre.”

“I’m sorry that’s what you remember me by,” he
answered, seriously.

“I remember many things,” she said. “But now
you are so great, so important: one say you are like
the Wazîr of Egypt. I astonish me that you speak
here in the street. Lizette belong to the night, and to
the American Bar.”

She spoke with bitterness, and Daniel was sorry for
her. She looked ill; and the afternoon sun seemed
to disintegrate the bloom of the powder upon her face.

“You’re not looking very well,” he commented. “Is
there anything the matter?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “The matter is here,”
she answered, tapping her heart.

“In love?” he asked.

“No, not love,” she replied, with sudden intensity.
“Hate, hate!”

He shook his head. “That’s bad. Whom do you
hate?”

“Men,” she said.

There was tragedy in her face; and Daniel, in his
simple wisdom, guessed that what she needed was the
friendship of a man who had no ulterior motive. He
looked along the street, and, seeing that there was a
large French café on the opposite side, asked her
whether she would care to go in there and have coffee
with him.

.. figure:: images/illus-218.png
   :align: center

   A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY—BURNING SANDS

She hesitated for a moment; but when he had explained
that he had no more than half an hour to spare,
and that he could not employ the time better than by
talking to her, she crossed the street with him and entered
the café.

“Now tell me what your trouble is,” he said, when
they were sipping their coffee at a table in the almost
deserted saloon.

“O, it is nothing,” she replied. “I suppose I am
ill. I have—how do you say?—the ’ump, eh? If
I had the courage I should suicide myself; but the priest
he tell me that the little devils in hell are men, and
the angels in heaven are men: so you see I cannot escape
from men.”

“Oh, men are not so bad,” he told her. “You, of
course, see them under rather startling circumstances;
and, if I may say so, you can’t always judge of what a
man is by looking at a subaltern in the Guards.”

She laughed. “But they tell me they are the élite
of England.”

“Yes, poor lads,” he answered; “but it’s not their
fault that they think so: it’s due to other men being
so bashful.”

Almost as he spoke a young officer walked past the
café, under the awnings, with an expression on his face
which suggested that he detected a very unpleasant
smell in the world. He glanced into the saloon, and,
seeing Lizette, looked quickly in the other direction.

“That is one of them,” she said. “He come to me
every Sunday after Church.”

Daniel turned his eyes to her, and there was pity and
horror in them. “Ah, my girl, no wonder you hate
us,” he declared. “If I were you, I’d try not to speak
to a man for, say, six months.”

“But how to live?” she asked. “I must get the
money to live.”

She moved her head from side to side in despair;
and Daniel, searching his brains for a solution of the
problem, stared out into the sun-bathed street, his
brows puckered, his fingers combing back his unruly
hair.

“Gee!” he muttered. “You’re in a fix! Hav’n’t
you got any relations in Marseilles?”

She nodded, but without animation. “There is my
brother Georges-Antoine....”

“Does he know how you earn your living?” he asked.

“No,” she replied. “He think I make the hat.”

“How much money have you saved?” he enquired.

She shook her head. “None.”

“Well, look here,” he said. “I’ll pay your fare
back to France, if you’ll go.”

She stared at him incredulously. “Why you say
that?” she asked.

“Because I hate to see a girl like you behaving like
a filthy beast,” he answered sternly. “Oh, why were
you such a fool as to start this life?”

“It begin,” she sighed, “it begin so sweet. I was
very young; and the man he love me so much. He
was the real amant-passioné—what you do not know
in England. He used to kiss me until my head went
round and round; and I was like a mad one when he
came into the room. Never in my life again or before
was I so drunken by a man....”

Daniel watched her as she told the story of her
youthful love, and he saw her eyes grow drowsy and
full of memories.

“You must have been very happy,” he said at length.

“Yes, I was happy,” she answered, “but I paid for
the happiness with tears and weeping and bitterness.”

“Why?—did he desert you?”

Her voice, which had grown so tender and so near to
a whisper, became light and clear in tone once more.
“No,” she said, with an almost flippant gesture of the
hand, “he died. He had the—how do you say?—the
gall-stones.”

Daniel finished his coffee, pensively. The tale, and
especially its ending, had a sound of stark and terrible
truth about it.

“Then what happened?” he asked.

“Oh, then I was a good girl for half a year, perhaps;
but presently when another man made the love
to me, I say to myself: ‘If once, then why not twice?’
He was a soldier, big, very strong like you.” She
looked at him closely. “Yes, he were very like you;
and I thought in my heart, ‘I love him because he is
so brave, and I am like a little bird in his hands.’”
She laughed. “Oh, I knew he was a man à bonne
fortunes. He had many girls; but in love all women
are like the Orientals, is it not?—and I was content
to have my day, like the new one in the harîm of the
Egyptian pasha here....”

Daniel suddenly clenched the fingers of his hand
which rested upon the table. Muriel’s words came
into his mind: “You can put me in your harîm if you
want to.” They rang in his ears again, and his heart
seemed to stand still in fear.

The murmur of Lizette’s voice continued, and he
listened in terror now as she told of her second love.

“Then one night,” she was saying, “we walked together
on the road by the sea, the Chemin de la Corniche,
you know; and the beautiful stars were in the
sky, and there were little lights across the water on
the islands of Ratonneau and Pomegne. And I was
so tired, and I sat down on the rocks by the sea, and
we were all alone....”

Daniel stopped her with a sudden movement of his
hand. “I know, I know,” he said. “Don’t tell me!”

“O, I soon forgot my love,” she laughed, thinking
that the intensity with which he spoke denoted his concern
for her sorrows. “A few months, a few weeks,
perhaps, and it was finish. Then some one else, and
some one else, and some one else....”

He rose from the table, sick at heart. “I must be
going,” he said. “If you will accept my offer, write
to me at the Residency, and I’ll send you the money for
you to go to your brother.”

She looked at his troubled face with a question in her
eyes. “I think you not like me,” she sighed. “I
think you have the disgust.”

He shook his head. “No,” he answered, “I think
you were not much different from other women at
first.”

“And afterwards?”

“I suppose one’s feelings soon get blunted,” he replied;
“and you had need of money.”

She assumed an expression, an attitude, not far removed
from dignity. “Thank you for being—how
you say? *fair* to me,” she said.

He paid his bill, and walked out of the café into the
blaze of the afternoon sun; but between him and its
brilliance the shadow of doubt had descended. “I am
not the first of Muriel’s lovers,” he groaned in his
heart. “How do I know that I am the last?”

He walked through the city, seeing nothing, hearing
nothing, by reason of the clamour in his mind; but as
he came down to the river, he raised his eyes and stared
out into the west, where the sun was descending towards
the far-off hills of the wilderness.

He stood stock still, and his lips moved. “Oh,
peace of mind!” he was whispering. “Will you never
come down to me here in the valley? Must I go up into
the desert to find you once more?”


CHAPTER XX—PRIVATE INTERESTS
============================

When Benifett Bindane found himself writing
“February 1st” upon his letters, he
suddenly became the victim of a violent fit
of energy. Time was passing, and not much progress
had been made with his great scheme for the floating of
the Egyptian Oases Development Company. By nature
he was indolent, and he had thoroughly enjoyed
his three months basking in the Egyptian sun. It was
always a great pleasure to him to sit in the warmest
corner of a veranda, to glance at the *Financial News*,
and then to stare in front of him with an empty countenance
and a mind full of wonderful commercial
schemes.

He had the habit of thinking in millions; and his
brain, in many ways so deficient, was capable of visualizing
an extraordinarily prolonged repetition of the
figure “o” at the end of any sum in pounds sterling.

He had quickly made himself master of all the available
information in regard to the territory in question,
but there were a great many points on which he desired
enlightenment before he made his projected grand tour
through the Oases at the end of this month. He wished
to go there fully primed, so that he should not fail to
take note of all those matters on which personal observation
might prove to be of value; but now the
calendar had awakened him to the fact of the days’
rapid passage, and he was obliged to make a serious
effort to put some stiffening into the loose fabric of his
bones and brain.

In the secret council-chamber of his mind he had decided
that Daniel Lane was the one man really essential
to the project, and it was his main object now to
enlist his services. He wondered what was the lowest
high salary that would tempt him; and he thought out
many very fantastic schemes for getting him away from
the Residency. Lady Muriel was the real obstacle; for
Kate had kept him informed as to the progress of her
friend’s love affair, and he realized that as matters
now stood there would be the utmost difficulty in persuading
Daniel to abandon his present post. Steps,
however, in the desired direction ought to be taken;
and at any rate there would be no harm in ascertaining
the possibilities of the matter.

He therefore telephoned to Lord Blair asking for an
immediate interview; and as the clock struck noon he
was being ushered into the Great Man’s presence.

Lord Blair received him in a very businesslike manner.
A large map of the Oases was spread upon the
writing-table, entirely covering the chronic litter of
papers heaped thereon, and, indeed, covering the
greater part of his lordship himself as he sat in his
desk-chair; while upon a side-table there were numerous
chorographic memoranda, and a variety of type-written
reports made upon the subject the last few
years.

Lord Blair opened the proceedings by describing
to his visitor the arrangements which had already been
made for the forthcoming tour.

“The camels and camping-equipment are bespoken,”
he said; “perhaps you would like to see the list of
articles to be supplied.”

He lifted the map, and dived his head under it in
search of the document, while Benifett Bindane stared
vacantly at the folds of the large sheet which rose and
fell, like pantomime waves, as Lord Blair moved about
under it.

At length the long type-written inventory was found,
and for some minutes Mr. Bindane stared at it with
dull, watery eyes. He might have been thought to
have gone off into a trance; and Lord Blair had begun
to fidget when at last the list was handed back.

“Please add ‘one tea-tray’ and ‘one toasting-fork,’”
said Mr. Bindane. “That’s all that is omitted,
I think.”

Lord Blair was profoundly impressed; but his rising
enthusiasm was somewhat damped when presently his
visitor broached the subject which was uppermost in
his mind.

“There are certain points about which I wish to be
informed,” said Mr. Bindane, “before I go out to the
Oases.” He drew a piece of paper from his pocketbook.
“Here they are. Do you think it would be
possible for Mr. Lane to give me his help?”

“Mr. Lane?” queried Lord Blair. “Why?”

“Because I think Mr. Lane’s advice is essential to
the scheme,” replied Mr. Bindane.

Lord Blair spread out his hands. “Oh, but I don’t
think he can be spared just now,” he protested.

“I thought I understood you to tell me,” said the
other, “that the political situation was extremely quiet
just at present. I was hoping you might let Mr. Lane
turn his attention now to the Oases.”

“My dear sir,” Lord Blair replied, leaning back in
his chair, “the quiet times that we are having, that
we are enjoying, are very largely due to Daniel Lane.
His influence with the natives is extraordinary, quite
phenomenal.”

“Yes, I know,” Mr. Bindane replied, his face devoid
of expression. “That is why I want him for the
scheme.”

Lord Blair leaned forward. “I don’t quite follow.
Do I understand you to mean that you want him to be
associated definitely with the enterprise?”

Benifett Bindane’s mouth fell open more loosely than
usual, and for a second or two he stared vacantly before him.
“Yes,” he answered, at length. “I want
him to be our General Manager.”

Lord Blair started. “Tut, tut!” he ejaculated,
“By the time the company is floated I expect Daniel
Lane will have made himself altogether indispensable
to his Majesty’s Government here at the
Residency.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. “I was counting
on his support,” said Mr. Bindane, presently.
“Without it I don’t know whether I would be inclined
to find the necessary capital.”

Lord Blair instantly accepted the challenge.
“Then the project will have to be shelved,” he replied,
sharply: and when he spoke sharply there was
no doubt about his being the “Great Man.”

Benifett Bindane, however, appeared to be entirely
unmoved. “I don’t think Mr. Lane is as happy now
as he was when he lived in the desert,” he mused.

Lord Blair rose to his feet. “Please regard his
services as unavailable, quite unavailable, for this project,”
he said deliberately, “except in an occasional
advisory capacity.”

Mr. Bindane had also risen, and now the two stood
facing one another. Outwardly the trim, eager little
man and the tall, lifeless figure before him might have
appeared to the eye to be friendly enough; but a reader
of hearts would have detected in them two opposing
forces arrayed for battle, the one having in mind the
extension of the prestige of England, the other the increase
of his private fortune.

Meanwhile, in the library, another of life’s little plays
was being enacted.

Lord Barthampton had come to the Residency to invite
Lady Muriel to a picnic on the following day, and
she had just disappointed him by saying that she was
already engaged. He had arrived with such a flourish,
spanking up to the door in his high dogcart, his little
“tiger” leaping to the cob’s head as he pulled up, and
the morning sunshine sparkling on the harness and the
varnished woodwork; and now, after waiting a very
long time in the rather severe library, Lady Muriel
had come in and had told him that every moment of
her time was booked up apparently for weeks to come.

“I never seem to get the chance to say half a dozen
words to you,” he grunted, feeling thoroughly put out.
“You women are all so mad about having a good time
that you can’t spare a moment for us lonely fellows.”

Muriel was quite concerned at his depression, and
asked him whether he would have a glass of port or a
whiskey-and-soda.

“No, I will not,” he said, with a gloomy laugh.
“I’m on the water-waggon for your sake, and you
don’t even say you’re glad.”

“O, but I am,” she answered. “I’m awfully glad.
I think you’ve shown true British grit. You’re one of
the old Bulldog Breed, and, when once you’ve set your
jaw, nothing can get the better of you.”

Somehow she could not help pulling this man’s leg;
and she spoke to him in this strain the more readily in
that he evidently appreciated the language of what she
called the Submerged Male.

“God knows it’s been a struggle,” he said: and,
turning away from her, he stared out of the window.

“How did you get into all those bad habits?” she
asked, looking at him with interest.

“Oh, India, I suppose,” he replied, with a shrug.
“When one’s east of Suez, and the memsahibs have
all gone home....”

She stopped him with a gesture. There were limits
to the game of leg-pulling; and if he were going to become
Anglo-Indian in his phrases, the jest would be
intolerable.

“I’m so sorry I can’t come to your picnic,” she said,
checking the drift of the conversation. “I’d come if
I possibly could, but I’ve got to attend a meeting.”

“A meeting?” he asked, in astonishment. “That
sounds a funny thing for you to be doing.”

“I’m honorary President of a fund for helping poor
European children in Egypt,” she explained. “It’s a
very worthy object, I believe.”

He seized his opportunity. “Yes, we’ve all got to
help the unfortunate, hav’n’t we?” he said. “I do all
too little myself—just a yearly donation.”

Muriel was impressed, and questioned him.

“Yes,” he told her, “I always try to give between
£500 and £1,000 a year to the poor.”

“I call that very fine of you,” she declared, warming
to him immediately.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he answered. “I’m blessed with
abundance, you know; and I like to practise what I
preach. I’m not like *some* fellows I could mention—full
of high principles in public, and full of sins in
secret.”

“Who are you thinking of, specially?” she asked,
noticing the marked inflection in his words.

He hesitated. “Well, Cousin Daniel, for example.”

“Oh, Daniel’s all right,” she replied.

“I don’t know so much about that,” he laughed.
“There are some things you couldn’t understand, little
woman. But ... well, there are some pretty tough
female devils in the Cairo underworld; and Master
Daniel has been seen more than once in low cafés and
places with a girl who’s known as the ‘worst woman
in Egypt’—the famous Lizette: but I don’t suppose
you’ve heard of her.”

The words were like a knife in Muriel’s heart. So
people were right, then, about Daniel’s disreputable
character.

“Oh, that’s all past,” she replied, hardly knowing
what she said.

“No, it isn’t,” he answered. “Only the day before
yesterday one of my brother-officers saw him with her.
And I saw him myself dining with her not so long ago—in
fact I tried to separate them. I admit it was only
for the honour of our family that I interfered. He
was drunk, I think, and wanted to fight me.”

Muriel stared at him with round, frightened eyes;
but Lord Barthampton had shot his arrow, and now
desired only to make his escape.

“I must be going,” he said, nervously. “I oughtn’t
to have told you that: it slipped out.”

He could see plainly enough that she was grievously
wounded; and his conscience certainly smote him,
though it smote with a gentle forgiving hand.

She turned away from him with tears in her eyes;
and he, feeling decidedly awkward, bade her “good-bye,”
and hastened out of the room.

In the hall he came upon Benifett Bindane, who was
also making towards the front door. The two malefactors
greeted one another; and Mr. Bindane being, as
Kate had said, “very fond of lords,” attached himself
to the younger man with evident pleasure.

“That’s a smart turn-out,” he remarked, as they
came out of the house into the glare of the sunshine.

“Give you a lift?” asked Lord Barthampton.
“Anywhere you like.”

“Thanks,” the other replied. “I’m going to the
Turf Club.”

“Right-o!” said his friend. “In you get. Hold
her head, damn you, you little black monkey!” he
shouted to the diminutive groom. “Now then!—*imshee
riglak!*”—which he believed to be Arabic.

They drove off at a rattling pace, presently scattering
the native traffic in the open square outside the
Kars-el-Nil barracks, and nearly unseating a venerable
sheikh from his slow-moving donkey.

“Why don’t you get out of the way!” shouted Lord
Barthampton, turning a red face to the mild brown
wrinkles of the clinging rider. “Lord! these niggers
make me impatient.”

“Yes,” said his companion, who always disliked a
show of temper, “I notice that it’s only the English
resident officials who have learned to be patient with
them.”

Arrived at the Turf Club, Lord Barthampton accepted
Mr. Bindane’s invitation to refresh himself with
dry ginger-ale; for, during the drive, a good idea (with
him something of a rarity) had come into his head. He
had suddenly recollected that Kate Bindane was Lady
Muriel’s bosom friend; and it had occurred to him that
if he could obtain the sympathy of the husband, the
wife might plead his cause. It would be better not to
say very much: he would adopt the manner which, he
felt sure, was natural to him, namely that of the stern,
silent Englishman.

He therefore lowered his brows as he entered the club,
and looked with frowning melancholy upon the groups
of laughing and chattering young men about him.

“God, what a noise!” he muttered as he sank into
a seat.

Mr. Bindane stared vacantly around, and waving a
flapper-like hand to a passing waiter, ordered the
ginger-ale as though he were totally indifferent as to
whether he ever got it or not.

“I’m feeling a bit blue today,” said Lord Barthampton,
leaning back gloomily in his chair.

“What’s the matter?” asked his friend.

“I’m in love,” was the short reply.

Mr. Bindane was mildly interested. “Who with?”
he asked.

“Lady Muriel,” the other replied, between his
clenched teeth. He was anxious to convey an impression
of sorrow sternly controlled.

“A very charming young lady,” said Mr. Bindane,
“and my wife’s best friend.”

“Yes, that’s why I’m telling you,” replied Lord
Barthampton, looking knowingly at him. “I’ve been
wondering if you could get her to put in a word for
me.”

“I’ll see,” said Benifett Bindane.

“Thanks awfully,” answered his companion.

That was all. There was no more said upon the
subject; but Charles Barthampton felt that the brief
and pointed conversation had been very British and
straightforward. There had been no mincing of matters;
what he had said had been short and soldierly, as
man to man.

When he was once more alone, Mr. Bindane lay for
awhile loosely in the deep red-leather chair. His open
mouth, his vacant eyes, the perpetual pallor of his
face, and his crumpled attitude of collapse, might have
led an observer to suppose that he had passed quietly
away. He was, however, merely absorbed in a series
of interesting thoughts. He was thinking that a possible
engagement between Lady Muriel and Lord Barthampton
would probably have the effect of sending
Daniel Lane back to the desert in despair. He was
thinking what a great deal of tact would be needed in
buying up the land of the Oases from the natives, as he
intended ultimately to do. He was thinking how very
tactful Daniel Lane was said to be; and how wasted,
commercially, he seemed to be at the Residency.


CHAPTER XXI—THE CLASH
=====================

During the next three days Muriel flung herself
into her social engagements with desperation.
She wanted to prevent herself from
thinking about Daniel, for her attitude towards him
baffled her and put her out of conceit with herself.
She was violently jealous of this Lizette, whoever she
might be; but, somehow her jealousy did not estrange
her from her lover. All the more passionately she
wanted Daniel to belong to her: she wanted to step into
his life, to drive all else out, and to take possession of
him. It is true that she meant to hurt him, to punish
him; but, even while being angry with him, she knew
that she would ultimately forgive him.

Had her training been other than that of the typical
young woman of the world, she would probably have
regarded her relationship to him as at an end; but she
had been brought up to the idea that men have to be
indulged in their little peccadillos and excused for their
excesses, and now, somewhat to her own annoyance, she
found herself exonerating him. She was hurt, she was
offended, she was jealous, she was disgusted; but she
was not completely estranged. She declared to herself
with her lips that she could never feel the same to him
again; but her heart, by its very sorrows, gave the lie
to her passionate mutterings.

She did not have many opportunities of speaking to
him during these three days, and she shunned the beginning
of what she knew was going to be a serious
quarrel. But on the fourth day circumstances threw
them together: and then the trouble began.

They had both accepted an invitation to luncheon
with Colonel and Mrs. Cavilland; and, Muriel’s presence
being the social feature of the occasion, she did
not feel that she ought to disappoint her hostess. Nor
could she avoid driving to the house in Daniel’s company;
and it was only the shortness of the distance that
prevented some sort of an outburst.

As it was, she was distant and preoccupied, and
Daniel looked at her every now and then, wondering
what could be the matter.

Lady Smith-Evered was one of the guests; and the
question as to whether the Colonel should take her or
Lady Muriel as his partner must have been the subject
of much discussion. It had evidently been decided,
however, that the daughter of Lord Blair took precedence
of the wife of Sir Henry Smith-Evered; and
Colonel Cavilland therefore led the former into the dining-room,
and to Daniel fell the duty of giving his arm
to the latter.

Lady Smith-Evered plainly showed her indignation
at this outrage by a mere colonel of Dragoons upon
the martial dignity of the Commander-in-Chief; and
for much of the meal she hardly spoke a word. Daniel
was thus left to look about him; and he observed how
gaily Muriel laughed and joked with her partner, and
with Captain Purdett upon her other hand.

Snatches of her conversation came to his ears; and
he was conscious, as ever, that the things she said in
public had no relation to those meant for his private
hearing. When she was alone with him she spoke with
frankness and sincerity; but to other people she seemed
to be striving after an effect, and just now, somehow,
he would have liked to have shaken her, even though
she made him laugh.

The colonel was talking about the recent discovery
at Alexandria of a Greek papyrus, extracts from which
had appeared in translation in the Egyptian Gazette.

“It’s a treatise on love,” Colonel Cavilland was saying.
“The Greeks were specialists on that subject.”

“Oh, I thought they were general practitioners,”
Muriel replied, and was rewarded with a burst of
laughter.

He spoke of the passages quoted as being very charming,
direct, and simple; and Muriel remarked that she
had always thought of the Greeks as wicked old men
who sat on cold marble and made hot epigrams.

“But in this case,” he laughed, “the author seems
to have been a poor shepherd.”

“Then no wonder his views were peculiar,” said she.
“‘Poverty makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows,’
they say.”

The colonel glanced at her apprehensively, but
Muriel’s face seemed to show perfect innocence. “Oh,
well, for that matter,” she added, musingly, “I suppose
wealth does, too.”

Her host’s breath appeared to be taken away by her
audacity. He was not used to the style of chatter
current in what are called “smart” circles. He
caught Daniel’s eye, and, seeing that he had been listening,
winked at him; but Daniel turned quickly away,
and made another abortive attempt to engage Lady
Smith-Evered in conversation.

Mrs. Cavilland observed his difficulties, and helped
him to enter the gaieties at her end of the table; but
here, again, he felt himself to be out of harmony with
the laughter, and he began to think himself a very
surly fellow.

Mrs. Cavilland was amusing her neighbours by making
fun of the wives of the minor officials in Cairo; and
she was clever enough to rend them so gently that her
feline claws were hardly to be observed, her victims
seeming, as it were, to fall to pieces of their own accord.

“What a cat I am!” she laughed. “Mr. Lane, I
can see your disapproving eye on me.”

Lady Smith-Evered leant forward. “Mr. Lane disapproves
of everything English,” she said. “He prefers
natives.”

“Oh, it’s not as bad as that,” Daniel replied, with
a smile. “I’ve got the greatest admiration for my
countrymen in the rough....”

He checked himself. He felt that he was being a
boor. He wanted to add: “but I detest the ways of
this politely infamous thing called Society.”

It was Muriel, strangely enough, who came to his
rescue. “Oh, don’t take any notice of him,” she said,
speaking across the table. “That’s only his fun.”

If she spoke with bitterness she concealed the fact;
and Mrs. Cavilland, knowing that he had lived much of
his life in America, presumed that his form of drollery
must be of that kind to which English people are notoriously
obtuse. She did not wish to be thought slow
in the uptake, and she therefore laughed merrily, declaring
that he was “a perfect scream,” which so tickled
Daniel that he, too, smiled.

There was to be a garden party at the Residency that
afternoon, which, owing to the anticipated presence of
a number of native dignitaries, he would be obliged to
attend. As soon as luncheon was finished, therefore,
he whispered to Muriel, suggesting that they should
leave early, and thus have a little time together before
the afternoon’s function.

“I *must* have an hour alone with you, Muriel,” he
said. “I’m feeling all on edge.”

Muriel shook her head. “Can’t be done,” she answered
casually. “I’ve promised Willie Purdett I’d
go for a spin with him in his new car.”

“Well, tell him you’ve changed your mind,” he said,
deliberately. “I want you.”

“I’m afraid you’re too late, my dear,” replied Muriel,
and turned away from him.

Later, at the garden party he watched her as she
moved about the lawn; and he seemed to be unusually
sensitive to the number of young men who hovered
around her. His philosophy had wholly deserted him,
and his mind was disturbed and miserable.

Once he joined a group in which she was the principal
figure; and again he was distressed by the tone of
her remarks. It was almost as though she were trying
to offend his ear.

Somebody had said “The good die young,” but
Daniel had not heard the earlier part of the conversation;
and Muriel replied, “Yes, dullness is the most
deadly thing on earth, and the most contagious.”

He did not wait to hear more: he turned his back on
her and walked away, his heart heavy within him. He
was utterly out of tune with her.

That evening she was to dine with the Bindanes at
Mena House and to spend the night with them, so as to
be ready for an early start next morning upon an all-day
excursion into the desert. It was to be a large
and elegant picnic; and Daniel had been glad to be able
to make his work an excuse for not joining the party.

Soon after dark, therefore, he found himself driving
out to the Pyramids with Muriel and her maid; and on
reaching the hotel he asked her to come into the garden
for the half-hour before the first gong would ring.

“Oh, it’s so dark out there,” she replied. “I want
to have a talk to you, too. Couldn’t we find a corner
in the lounge?”

“No,” he said, “it’s stuffy inside.”

He took her arm, and led her towards the dense group
of trees which surrounded the tennis court. She did
not resist. This state of veiled hostility was intolerable,
and she welcomed the thought of a pitched battle with
him.

The night was moonless; and the hot south wind
which had been blowing during the day had dropped,
leaving the upper air so filled with a hazy dust that the
stars were dim. The darkness, when they had passed
out of the range of the hotel lights, was intense; and it
was with difficulty that they found their way to a
bench upon the lawn, under the blackness of the overhanging
foliage.

Here they seated themselves in silence; and, though
they were close to one another, each could feel, rather
than see, the presence of the other. The distant clanging
of the tram-car bells, and an occasional grumble of
an automobile, reminded them that civilization was not
far removed; but here in the obscurity all was hushed,
and there was a sense of detachment from the busy ways
of mankind which was accentuated by the ominous hooting
of an owl and by the gentle rustle of the trees, as
the leaves were stirred by the dying wind.

“Well?” said Muriel.

“Well?” he replied. “Let’s have it out.”

“Oh, then you know there’s something wrong.”

“I know you have been trying to hurt me for the
past two or three days,” he answered.

He put his hand upon hers as it rested on her knee,
and drew her towards him; but she resisted the movement,
and he noticed that her fingers, which pushed his
own away, were cold.

“Tell me,” he said. “What has been the matter?
You have made me very unhappy.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” she answered.
“Only ...”

“Only what?”

“I don’t think you know what love is,” she murmured,
and her voice was so low that her words were
almost lost in the darkness.

“But that is just what I was going to say to you,”
he replied.

She uttered a little laugh. “It seems that we shall
always interpret things differently,” she said.

She turned to him, and in the obscurity his face
seemed strange to her. She could not construct the
features, nor supply the well-known lines now lost in
the shadow. She saw only the great forehead, faintly
white, and the upper part of his cheeks; but his eyes
were hidden in two deep cavities of blackness, and all
expression was extinguished.

“There will always be these misunderstandings,” he
told her, “so long as you are tied to this sort of social
life.”

“I prefer it to the underworld,” she answered, and
her heart beat, for she was launching her attack.

“What d’you mean by the ‘underworld’?” he asked.

“The world that Lizette belongs to,” she replied.

She had said it!—she had hurled her lightning, and
now she waited for the roll of the thunder. But there
was no cracking of the heavens: only silence; and, as
she waited, she could feel the beating of her pulse in her
throat.

At last he spoke, and his voice was quiet and clear.

“Please tell me exactly what Cousin Charles has said
about Lizette.”

She turned quickly on him. “Why should you think
it was Charles Barthampton who told me?”

“Because I was with Lizette the day I first met him,”
he answered.

“Then you don’t deny it?”

“Deny it?” he repeated, with scorn in his voice.
“Why on earth should I deny it?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “A man generally denies
that sort of thing to the girl he wants to marry,”
she said.

“That only shows how little you understand me,” he
replied, and there was despair in his words.

“O, I understand you well enough,” she answered,
bitterly. “You are just like all men. But what I
can’t understand is how you could be going about with
that woman at the same time that you were making love
to me.”

Again he was silent. It seemed that he had to turn
her words over in his mind before their significance was
clear.

“You mean,” he said at length, “that if I had told
you Lizette was an old flame of mine now set aside, you
would have condoned it?”

“Women have to forgive a great deal in the men
they love,” she answered.

“You mean,” he went on, ruthlessly, “that you
think me capable of coming to you with that woman’s
kisses on my lips?”

It was she, now, who was silent for a while. “I’ve
got to think you capable of it,” she said at last. “You
were with her only a few days ago.”

“Yes,” he answered. “I was with her, as you say,
a few days ago. Well?”

She moved restlessly in her seat. “That’s not the
way to ask my forgiveness,” she said.

Suddenly his shadowy bulk seemed to loom up above
her. He gripped her wrist with his left hand, and drew
her towards him; while the fingers of his right hand
laid themselves upon her throat. His face came close
to hers.

“How dare you!” he whispered. “How dare you
think of me like that? D’you mean to say that if all
this were true, if I were living with that woman, you
would be prepared to forgive me?”

She did not speak. “Answer me!” he cried, and his
arms crushed her to him.

“I don’t know,” she gasped. “I only know I love
you, Daniel.”

He loosed his hold upon her. “Oh, you’re tainted,”
he exclaimed. “Intrigues, jealousies, deceptions, quarrels,
reconciliations—they’re all part of your scheme
of life. I suppose you revel in them, just as you revel
in the latest divorce case at your gossiping tea-parties,
and the latest dresses from Paris, and the latest dancing
craze, and the latest thing in erotic pictures or
sensuous music....”

Muriel put her hands over her ears. “I won’t listen!”
she cried. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

He stood in front of her, his hands driven into the
pockets of his coat. His massive head and shoulders
shut out the misty stars, and as she looked up at him
he appeared to her as a black and vaporous elemental
risen from the ancient soil of Egypt.

It was evident that he was trying to control his
anger; and when he spoke again his voice was quiet and
restrained.

“I’m afraid I must seem to you very rude,” he said,
“but when one is speaking out of the pit of despair the
words one utters are black words. These last few days
I’ve been seeing you with critical eyes: watching you,
listening to you. And the result is ...”

“What?” she asked, as he paused.

“I realize more and more how I dislike all this fooling
with the surface of things—surface emotions, surface
wit, surface honesty. I can’t get down to the real
You: the veneer is so thick. All that I have seen and
heard belongs to the superficial. I’m beginning to think
there’s nothing real or solid under it all. The things
you say are clever empty things; the things you do....”

She rose to her feet and faced him—a shadow confronting
a shadow.

“We seem to be getting further away all the time
from the original point of contention,” she said, her
voice rising. “I suppose that is what is called ‘confusing
the issue.’ It is rather clever. But please try
to remember that I am accusing you of deceit and disgusting
duplicity. I am accusing you of being with a
woman whom even your obnoxious cousin couldn’t stand
seeing you with, so that he had to try to separate you.”

“Oh, he said that, did he?” Daniel’s tone was apathetic.

“Do you deny it?” she asked, quickly.

“No,” he answered. “If you believe the story, it
has served its purpose.”

“How can I not believe it?” she cried. “You don’t
deny it.”

“Why should I deny it?” he demanded. “It is not
a compromise with you I am looking for: I am looking
for your trust.”

“Trust!” she scoffed. “You come to me and
whisper to me of your wonderful desert, and the wonderful
times we shall have there together; you tell me
that I am your mate, your sweetheart; your chosen
one: and all the time you are carrying on a liaison
with a wretched woman in a back street.”

“Yes,” he answered, “and, believing that, you decide
to have it out with me and then make it up. Oh, you
sicken me! If I were to tell you the whole thing were
nonsense, you wouldn’t believe me. You might even be
disappointed. The tale would have been found to have
no point: it wouldn’t be up to the standard of the stuff
you read in your French novels.”

Muriel sat down upon the bench once more, and her
hands fell listlessly to her sides. “I don’t think there’s
any use in talking,” she murmured.

“No, none,” he answered. “I shall never get to the
real you until you cut loose from all this. We belong
at present to different worlds. I’m all at sea when I
try to look at things from your point of view.”

“Very well, then,” she said. “Please take me back
to the hotel. I shall be late for dinner.”

There was a complete silence between them as they
made their way through the trees and along the gravel
path towards the strongly-illuminated veranda.
Through open doors the lounge could be seen, and here
groups of visitors were gathering in readiness for dinner.
The chatter of voices and little gusts of laughter
came to their ears as they approached; and an elegant
young man at the piano was lazily fingering the notes of
Georges Hüe’s haunting *J’ai pleuré en rêve*.

Daniel paused at the steps of the veranda, but Muriel
walked on, and, without turning her head, passed into
the house. He stood for a moment, after she had gone,
staring into the brightly lit room with dazed uncomprehending
eyes: then he turned towards the desert,
and presently was engulfed in the night.


CHAPTER XXII—THE CALL OF THE DESERT
===================================

As soon as Daniel arrived at the Residency next
morning he sent a message to Lord Blair, asking
that he might see him. He had hardly
slept at all during the night, and his haggard face
showed the ravages of his emotion.

Lying on his bed upon the rocks above his camp, he
had striven to examine the entire situation with an impartial
mind; and he would not admit that his philosophy
had failed him. His reason strove to assert itself,
and to quell the tumult of his tortured heart; and again
and again he reminded himself that there was no such
thing as sorrow of the soul. It was only his body that
was miserable; and could he but manage to identify
himself with the spiritual aspect of his entity, the pain
of the material world would be forgotten in the serenity
of his spirit. This was a first principle of his philosophy;
and yet it seemed now to be utterly beyond his
attainment.

“I could not believe in a merciful God,” he thought
to himself, “unless I believed that He had placed within
the reach of every man the means to overcome sorrow.
Therefore the means must be at hand, if only I can
take hold of them.”

And again: “My reason, my soul, is unconquerable.
It stands above my miserable body. If only I can look
at this disaster with the calm eyes of the spirit, I shall
get the victory over the wretched torment of my heart.”

In itself the actual quarrel with Muriel had presented
no insuperable obstacle to their relationship. Had the
trouble been an isolated incident, it would not have been
difficult for them to have kissed and made friends; but
Daniel realized that the differences between them had
been growing for some time, and for many days now it
had seemed clear to him that Muriel was too chained in
the prison of her class ever to understand the freedom
of the desert. He despaired of her; yet he loved her
so deeply that their estrangement was, beyond all words,
terrible to him.

While he waited in his room for Lord Blair’s reply,
he paced to and fro; and in his weary brain the battle
which had raged all night came ever nearer to a definite
issue.

“I must get away from it all,” he kept saying to himself.
“I must go back to the desert, for only there
shall I find peace.”

At length a servant came to him, saying that Lord
Blair would receive him; and thereat he betook himself
to the Great Man’s study, his impulsive mind made up
on the instant and eager to meet his destiny.

“Why, what is the matter, Daniel?” Lord Blair
asked, as he entered the room. “You looked troubled.”

“I am more than troubled,” said Daniel. “I’m in
despair. It’s about Muriel: I’m afraid we’ve had a
definite quarrel.”

Lord Blair wiggled in his chair, apparently with annoyance,
though possibly with nothing more than an
itch.

“Ah—a lovers’ tiff ...,” he commented; but
Daniel stopped him with a gesture.

“No, it’s a total estrangement,” he said, fiercely.
“It’s been growing gradually, and now there’s nothing
to be done. I’ve come to give you my resignation. I’m
going back to El Hamrân.”

Lord Blair suddenly sat back in his chair, his eyes
fixed on his friend, the tips of his fingers touching the
edge of the table as though some movement had been
arrested. “My dear Daniel,” he said at last, and he
spoke sharply, “control yourself! This is an absurd
situation.”

“Oh yes, I know,” Daniel replied, “you think I’m
just a fool in love, who’s going off in a huff. No, that’s
not it. I want to go because I’ve lost my happiness
since I’ve been in Cairo: I’m utterly out of tune with
the people I meet. Why, yesterday at the Cavillands’
I could feel myself being a boor and a bore. I couldn’t
laugh.... Yes, that’s it; since I’ve been amongst all
these witty people I’ve forgotten how to laugh. Good
God!—I hav’n’t smiled for weeks. Out there in the
desert, when my mind was at peace, I was always full
of laughter; I was always chuckling to myself, just
from sheer light-heartedness or whatever you like to call
it. But here my heart’s in my boots, and I’m blue all
day long. I can’t even whistle.”

“I think—indeed, I am sure—you are taking
things too seriously,” said Lord Blair.

“You’re right,” Daniel answered, quickly, interrupting
him. “The gay life makes me painfully serious;
this fashionable stuff fills me with gloom. It’s all this
blasted chase after amusement, this immense preoccupation
with the surface of things, that gives me the hump.
You see, to my way of thinking, light-heartedness only
comes from a tranquil sort of mind. It’s something
deep inside oneself; one doesn’t get it from outside—though,
on the other hand, outside things do certainly
obscure one’s inner vision. Real happiness—not just
pleasure—seems to be absolutely essential to life and
to all human relations. It’s the key to diplomacy.
You’ve got to see the fun of things, you’ve got to bubble
inside with happiness before you can really govern or
be governed. You’ve got to be the exact opposite of
sinister, and nearly the opposite of solemn, before you
can get any punch into your dealings with your fellow
men, don’t you think? And how, in God’s name, can
one be happy unless there is the right mental atmosphere
of truth, and sincerity, and trust, and benevolence,
and broad understanding?”

He spoke with intensity, and the movement of his
hands added expression to his words.

“But do you realize,” said Lord Blair, “what an immense,
what an unqualified success your work here has
been? And now you would throw it all up just because
a chit of a girl has annoyed you.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Daniel replied. “I
might have been able to ignore all this miserable Society
business; but when Muriel and I grew fond of one another
I was drawn into it. And then, gradually, I began
to see that that was her world. At first I hoped she
would be the buffer between me and that world, and a
non-conductor, so to speak, but I find that she transmits
the shocks to me direct.”

He told Lord Blair something of the more tangible
trouble between them, but he would not reveal all the
bitter yearning of his heart. He might have said “I
love her, I want her to be wholly mine, I want her to
come over to my way of thinking so that I can show her
where real happiness is to be found.” He might have
said “I am distracted by her, and I want to go away to
forget her dear eyes, and the touch of her lips, and the
intoxication of her personality.” But on these matters
he was silent.

As he talked his mind was filled with a passionate
desire for the peace of the desert. He was like a monk,
longing for the refuge of his quiet monastery walls;
and he seemed to hear in his heart the gentle voice of
the wilderness calling to him to come back into the
sweet smiling solitude, away from the sorrows of the
superficial world.

“I must go back to El Hamrân,” he said. “I beg
you not to stop me.”

Lord Blair looked at him with pity. He was in the
presence of an emotion which he could not altogether
understand, but the reality of which was very apparent.
“There must be no question,” he said, “of your
resignation. Go away for a time, if you wish, but you
mustn’t play the deserter.”

An idea had suddenly come into his head, and he
turned to Daniel with relief in his anxious eyes. “Now
listen to me,” he said. “Go back to El Hamrân: I
can send you there on business.”

He hunted about amongst his papers, and presently
produced the memorandum which Benifett Bindane had
handed to him. “Here are some matters upon which
Mr. Bindane desires information before he starts his
tour of the Oases in three or four weeks’ time. You
can send your answers in to him on his arrival at El
Homra; and after that you can wait at El Hamrân in
case he comes there. After that I won’t hurry you to
return: I can give you leave of absence. And then,
when your mind is more settled you can come back
here. The winter season will be over, and what you call
‘Society’ will have left the country for the summer.”

Daniel fell in with the suggestion gladly. “You are
very patient with me,” he said. “I don’t deserve it: I
feel I’m being very cranky.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” the elder man replied,
and his sincerity was apparent. But he was much
startled when Daniel asked if he might leave at once.

“Today?” he exclaimed, in surprise.

“Yes, now,” said Daniel, emphatically. “There
are practically no outstanding matters. I can put
Lestrange wise about everything in ten minutes.”

Lord Blair looked at him, curiously. “Muriel won’t
be back from Mena House until this evening,” he said.
“Don’t you want to see her before you go?”

“No,” he replied, quickly and decisively, rising to
go, “I have nothing to say to her.”

Lord Blair sighed as they walked to the door.
“Daniel,” he said, “all this is a great blow to me.”

Thus it came about that an hour after Daniel had arrived
at the Residency he was on his way back to the
desert, his teeth set, and his brain occupied, by force of
will, with his plans. He did not dare to look into the
future: he was going, as a sick man goes to an operation,
to find by a path of pain the health of mind that he had
lost. Perhaps he would return to the Residency; perhaps
he would not; but for the present it was of paramount
importance that he should master his complaint,
and regain the power to see clearly, the power to work
happily, the power to laugh.

By mid-afternoon his camp was struck, and he was
ready to depart. A camel-owner in the village of
Kafr-el-Harâm, near the Pyramids, had supplied the
necessary camels and men at a moment’s notice, hastened
by the enthusiasm of Hussein and his brother,
both overjoyed at the good fortune which was to take
them so suddenly back to their home. Some of the
tents and the unnecessary articles of furniture had been
stored in the village at the house of a native friend;
and the remainder were packed upon the camels.

As the afternoon shadows were lengthening the start
was made. The camels, grumbling and complaining,
lurched to their feet; the three dogs, barking with excitement,
ran in circles around the company; and
Daniel, swinging into his saddle, took his place at the
head of the caravan. In single file, and at a slow trot,
they moved away westwards, their long shadows stretching
out behind them; and soon they had disappeared
into the waste of sand and rocks, golden in the light of
the descending sun.

An hour later the picnic party, coming back from
a point to the south, rode towards the Pyramids.
Muriel had been very silent all day; but Kate, who was
in her confidence, had helped her to conceal her depression,
and now was riding by her side, a little removed
from the others. The desert had had a soothing influence
upon the raw wound which the quarrel of the
previous day had inflicted; and Muriel was already
somewhat happier in her mind.

“Don’t you worry, old girl,” said Kate. “Men
have got to be managed, and you’ll soon put things
ship-shape in the morning.”

“But the morning is so far off,” Muriel replied,
pathetically.

She did not altogether understand what the trouble
was about. Daniel had attacked her so suddenly, just
when she had been wholly engaged in attacking him.
So far as she could make out, he had been angry with
her because she had made a fuss about his relationship
with Lizette. “I suppose,” she thought to herself,
“he thinks a woman oughtn’t to question a man’s movements,
or know anything about what he is doing when
he is not with her. It doesn’t seem fair somehow....”

She did not in the least realize that Daniel’s hostility
had been aroused by her belief that there was anything
between him and Lizette, and by her readiness, in spite
of that belief, to overlook his supposed deception as
soon as she had vented her feelings by a brief show of
temper. She felt that he had been harsh, and rather
brazen about the whole thing; and yet, so greatly did
she yearn for his love, she was prepared to forgive even
his brutality.

She turned to her companion. “I don’t think I can
wait till the morning,” she said. “I’m going to ride
over to his camp now, and say I’m sorry. It’s only a
mile out of the way, and I’ll be home almost as soon as
you.”

Kate was sympathetic. “Go on, then,” she replied.
“I’ll hint to the others that you’ve got a stomach-ache
or something, and have ridden on. And let me see more
colour in that old mug of yours when you get back.”

She leant forward in her saddle, and struck her companion’s
horse with her cane, so that he went off at a
gallop across the sand.

Bearing off to the left, Muriel soon described the
head of rock which overlooked the camp; but approaching
it thus from the south she knew that the tents would
not come into view until she had rounded this ridge.

She had no idea what she was going to say. She
thought only that she would go into his tent, where she
would probably find him writing at his table; and she
would put her arms about him, and tell him that she
could not live under his displeasure.

At last she reached the rocks; and, as she rode round
them, she drew up her reins and prepared to dismount.
Then, with horrible suddenness, the truth was, as it were
flung at her. Where she had thought to see the tents,
there was only a patch of broken-up sand, a few bits of
paper and straw, and innumerable footprints.

She uttered a little cry of dismay, and, with wide,
frightened eyes, gazed about her. The footprints of
the camels passed in a thin line out to the west, and she
could see them winding away into the silent desert.


CHAPTER XXIII—THE NATURE OF WOMEN
=================================

Kate Bindane had just gone up to her room
and was standing there alone, examining herself
disapprovingly in the long mirror, when
Muriel staggered in, her face white, her knees giving
way.

“Kate!” she cried. “He’s gone!”

She threw herself down on the floor in front of a low
arm-chair, and spreading her arms across its seat,
buried her face in them.

Her friend stood perfectly still for a few moments,
staring down at her in amazement. She had never before
seen Muriel give way to uncontrolled grief in this
manner; and she was frightened by the terrible rasping
of her muffled sobs, and by the convulsive heaving of her
shoulders. She did not know what to do, and her hands
hesitated uncertainly between the whiskey-bottle standing
on a shelf and the smelling-salts upon the dressing-table
near to it.

At last, discarding the stimulants, she knelt down by
her friend’s side, and put her strong arm around her.
The tears had come into her own eyes, and as she
patted Muriel’s shoulder, she fumbled for her handkerchief
with her disengaged hand.

“Hush, hush, my darling!” she whispered. “Tell
me what has happened.”

“He’s gone,” Muriel sobbed. “The camp’s gone.
I saw the track of his camels leading away into the
desert.”

She could say no more, and for a considerable time
continued her passionate weeping.

At length she raised her head. “There are only
some bits of paper and things left,” she moaned; and
therewith she returned to her bitter tears.

Kate rose to her feet. “I am going to ’phone your
father,” she said, “and ask him what has happened.”

She gave Muriel an encouraging pat, and hastened
into the adjoining sitting-room, where a telephone was
affixed to the wall. A few minutes later she was speaking
to Lord Blair, asking him the reason of Daniel’s
departure.

“We’ve just seen the deserted site of his camp,” she
said, “and poor Muriel is in floods of tears.”

“Dear, dear!” came the reply. “Poor girl! Tell
her Daniel has only gone away for a short time. I
have had to send him to the Oases on business, that’s
all.”

“Rather sudden, wasn’t it?” queried Kate.

Lord Blair coughed. “Daniel is always very
prompt to act, when action has to be taken,” he said.

“Didn’t he leave any note or message for Muriel?”

“No, none,” was the reply. “He went away in a
great hurry. Am I to expect Muriel back to dinner?”

“With her eyes bunged up?” exclaimed Kate, impatiently.
“Of course not. I’ll send her back to you
in the morning. Hav’n’t you anything to say to comfort
her?”

There was a pause. “Yes,” he replied at length,
“tell her I’ve just seen Ada going upstairs with two
bandboxes. She says they are new night-dresses from
Maison Duprez.”

Kate uttered a contemptuous grunt. “That’s the
last thing to tell her!” she exclaimed. “Good-night.”

She slammed down the receiver, and, going back to
her bedroom, repeated to Muriel her father’s explanation
of Daniel’s departure. This brought some comfort
into the girl’s forlorn heart; and a second outburst
of tears, which occurred an hour or so later, was due
more to a kind of self-pity, perhaps, than to despair.

“It’s so unkind of him,” she cried, “to go off without
even saying good-bye, or leaving a note.”

“But from what I gather,” Kate replied, “he doesn’t
think you really care much about him.”

“Ah, I do, I do,” Muriel wailed, wringing her hands.

“Well, you know,” Kate commented, somewhat
brutally, “seeing how you’ve been carrying on this last
month, I shouldn’t have said myself that you were really
stuck on him.”

“You don’t understand,” Muriel moaned. “I
wanted to be properly engaged to him, but he wouldn’t
hear of it—I told you at the time. I don’t believe he
ever wanted to marry me at all,” she exclaimed, passionately.
“I believe he only wanted me to run away
with him.”

Suddenly she looked up, with a curious light in her
face. “I wonder....” She paused. She recalled
the words he had said when he first knew her: “Why
don’t you break loose?” And then last night he had
said: “I shall never get to the real you until you cut
loose from all this.” Could it be that the manner of his
going away was meant to be a sort of silent gesture, a
beckoning to her to follow?

She was so absorbed in her thoughts that her tears
dried upon her face; and presently Kate was able to induce
her to make somewhat more than a pretence of
tasting the little dinner which had been sent up to
them.

Later in the evening, when Benifett Bindane had
come upstairs, and when Muriel had gone to her own
room, Kate told her husband that she would sleep that
night with her friend.

“As you wish, my dear,” he answered pleasantly.
“You must help her to get over this business. She’ll
soon live it down, I expect.”

Kate looked annoyed. “You needn’t be so damned
cheerful about it,” she said. “I sometimes think you
haven’t got a heart at all.”

He sat down loosely, and stared at her for some
moments, as though about to make a profound remark.

“Spit it out,” said Kate encouragingly.

“I was just thinking,” he droned, “that I shall
probably get Lane as our General Manager after all.”

She turned upon him. “Oh, you cold-blooded brute!
It’s always business first with you. I suppose
you’re hoping he’ll never want to come back to
Cairo.”

“Well,” he mused, “he evidently feels that life in the
Oases suits him better.”

“Ugh!” his wife ejaculated. “I suppose you think
he’ll be content to be a sort of pasha out there, with his
harîm of Bedouin women; raking in a fat salary from
your precious Company, and fleecing the natives to fill
your pockets. It’s a pretty picture!”

.. figure:: images/illus-258.png
   :align: center

   A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY—BURNING SANDS

“Well, it isn’t a prettier picture,” he answered,
“to think of a fine man like that messing about Cairo,
wasting his time at dinner parties and dances on a
wretched Foreign Office pittance.”

Kate did not continue the discussion, and it was not
long before she went to her friend’s room, where, entering
quietly, she found Muriel standing in her nightdress
at the western window, her bare arms resting on
the high sill, and her gaze fixed upon the obscurity of
the desert which lay black and desolate under the stars.
The window was open, and the drifting night-wind
stirred the mass of her dark hair which fell about her
shoulders.

She turned quickly as she heard the footstep, and
Kate was dismayed at the pallor of her face.

“I can’t make him out,” Muriel said. “I can’t
make him out. Right out there somewhere, in that
blackness, he is smoking his pipe and stroking his dogs
and yawning himself to sleep. And yet he must know
that I’m here, calling to him and crying to him.”

She stretched out her arms, her fists clenched. “O
God!” she muttered, “Let me understand him, let me
see what’s in his mind.”

Kate drew the curtain across the window, as though
she would shut out the dark menace of the desert, and
drew her friend towards the bed.

“It’ll all come out in the wash, old girl,” she choked.
“You’re not the only woman who finds her man incomprehensible
sometimes.”

She looked at Muriel and Muriel at her; and suddenly,
like two children, they put their heads each upon
the other’s shoulder, and sobbed as though their hearts
would break.

When Muriel returned next morning to the Residency,
she went up to her own sitting-room at once;
and presently she sent a message down to her father,
who was at work in his study, asking him to come to her
as soon as he had a few minutes to spare: nor was it
long before he came tripping into the room.

It was evident that he felt the situation to be somewhat
awkward; for his remarks began on a piping note
of jocularity, and so rapidly descended the scale to one
of profound melancholy that Muriel was reminded of a
gramophone running down.

“Father,” she said presently, “I want you to tell
me exactly what Daniel said about me before he left. I
suppose he told you that we had had a quarrel.”

Lord Blair seemed puzzled, and he raised his hands
in a gesture indicating his lack of grasp of the essential
points in Daniel’s recent tirade.

“Yes, he told me about the little tiff; but I really
don’t know whether I apprehend his meaning exactly.
He was very much upset, very overwrought. It seems,
if I have understood him aright, that he finds fault with
you because you are rather—what shall I say?—rather
given to the superficialities of our civilization.
He would prefer you *in puris naturalibus*”—he corrected
himself—”that is to say metaphorically speaking.
He said that ‘the fashionable world,’ as he called
it, filled him with gloom, gave him the ... ah ...
hump, I think he said; and he was disappointed to find
that you associated yourself so fully with the frivolities
of society, and were so foreign to the liberties, the sincerities,
of more primitive conditions. I don’t know
whether I am making myself clear.“

“Perfectly,” said Muriel. “I suppose he would
have preferred to see me turning head over heels in the
desert *in puris* ... what-you-said-*ibus*.”

“I take it,” Lord Blair explained, “that he was referring
to your mental, not your physical attitude.”

“Oh, quite so,” replied Muriel; and she burst out
laughing, but her laughter was very close to tears.

Lord Blair patted her cheek. “Ah, Muriel,” he said,
his manner again becoming serious, “you mustn’t lose
Daniel. I would rather that he were your husband
than any man living.”

“But I don’t think he wants to be my husband, or
anybody’s husband,” she replied.

“He is deeply in love with you,” her father told her.

“That’s another matter,” said she; and Lord Blair
glanced at her in perplexity.

He was not altogether sorry that events had taken
their present course; for it seemed to him that this temporary
disunion would have a salutary effect on his
daughter’s character. He could see clearly the faults
of which Daniel complained; and he could not help
thinking that this forceful show of disgust on her lover’s
part would be instrumental in arousing her to the more
serious things of life. It would be a lesson to her which
would serve to fit her to be the wife of a man of genuine
sincerity.

Moreover, in the case of Daniel, his sudden return to
El Hamrân, with his heart left behind him here at the
Residency, would probably dispel, once and for all, that
haunting dream of his desert paradise which otherwise
would always cause him to be restless in Cairo. This
time, if he were made of flesh and blood, he would find
the desert intolerable, and in a few weeks he would probably
be lured back to civilization by the call of his
manhood.

That Daniel should marry Muriel, and take up his
permanent position at the Residency, was his most ardent
hope; and as the present events had occurred he
had fitted them each into place in his growing plan of
action.

In brief, his scheme was as follows. At the end of
the month he himself would have to go up to the Sudan
on his annual tour of inspection; and about the same
time the Bindanes would be going to the Oases. He
had expected to take his daughter with him to the
Sudan, but, instead, he would send her with the Bindanes,
and thus she would be in a position to effect a
reconciliation with Daniel on his own ground, so to
speak. Hardy Muriel on camel-back in the desert
would be more likely to win him than dainty Muriel in
the ballroom; and Lord Blair, priding himself on his
strategy, had almost come to believe that his sending
Daniel off to El Hamrân had been a definite move in
his game, made with the object of bringing about this
romantic meeting in the desert.

He rubbed his hands together now as he prepared to
tell Muriel of his plan, so far as she ought to know it.

“Now, my dear,” he said to her, “you must not fret.
I have a little scheme in my mind, of which I think you
will approve. I am going to try to arrange for you to
go out to the Oases with our friends; and thus you will
be able to see Daniel for a day or two, and, if so you
wish, you will be able to make it up with him.”

He stood back from her, and beamed upon her, his
hands raised as though he were beating time to a visionary
orchestra. But as he saw the expression in her
eyes his face fell, and his hands sank to his side. He
looked at her in dismay, and the thought came into his
mind that she was undoubtedly a Blair; for, like all the
Blairs in a temper, she resembled a beautiful monkey.
Her eyebrows were knitted, her eyes were round and
wide open, her lips were pursed, and her jaw was set.
He had never realized before how very attractive she
was.

“Do you suppose,” she said, slowly and distinctly,
“that I shall again put myself in a position to be
snubbed? Do you think I would lower myself to go
out to him in the desert and ask his forgiveness? No!
If he wants me he can come back and ask *my* forgiveness.”

He watched her anxiously as she turned haughtily
away. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “You both
seem determined to lose one another,” he remarked;
and presently, like a man who has no time to waste, he
stepped back to the door and opened it.

“I never want to see him again,” said Muriel over
her shoulder.

Lord Blair did not answer, but, shutting the door
with a snap, left her to her bitter reflections.

Five minutes later a message was brought up from
Lady Smith-Evered, who had called to consult her in
regard to a proposed picnic; and Muriel therefore went
downstairs to the drawing-room. There she found her
imposing visitor seated upon the sofa behind a great
bunch of pink peonies which stood in a vase upon a low
table. She had evidently been walking in the hot sun,
and her face, in spite of its powder, was itself extraordinarily
suggestive of a pink peony in full bloom, so
that, appearing as it seemed to do from amongst these
showy flowers, it was like a burlesque of caricature of
the works of nature.

“Good morning, my dear: forgive my getting up,”
she said to Muriel. “Your sofa is lower than I expected.”

Muriel sat down beside her. “I think Daniel Lane
must have broken the springs,” she answered. “He
always used to fling himself into that corner when he
had a fit of laziness.”

Lady Smith-Evered glanced at her. “Why d’you
say he ‘used to’? Doesn’t he do it now?”

“He’s gone,” said Muriel. “Didn’t you know?”

“Gone?”

Muriel told her how Lord Blair had sent him off on
a mission to the Oases. Her voice betrayed no
trace of feeling as she explained away his sudden departure.

“Well, my dear,” said Lady Smith-Evered, “I know
you and he quite like each other, but I must say I can’t
understand it. I’m relieved to hear he has gone. I
don’t trust him in regard to women.”

Muriel uttered a short laugh. “One might say the
same of any man,” she replied.

Lady Smith-Evered looked at her curiously. “I
wonder what’s the real reason of his being sent off so
suddenly,” she remarked, a crafty expression coming
into her face. “His going on a mission is probably
only eyewash.”

Muriel shrank before her prying eyes, and a feeling
of anger was awakened in her; but she only shrugged
her shoulders.

“I wonder if your father has been wise enough just
to dismiss him in this way,” Lady Smith-Evered mused.
“I’ll find out: yes, I’ll get to the bottom of it.”

The expression of inquisitive, self-complacent cunning
in the woman’s face, and her actual blindness to the
real facts of the matter, combined to arouse in Muriel
an uncontrollable hostility.

“Oh, you needn’t bother to find out,” she said.
“You wouldn’t understand the real reason.”

“Ah, then there *is* a secret: I thought as much,”
she replied, with a knowing smile. “There’s always a
secret about the movements of such men as Mr. Lane.”

“Yes,” answered Muriel, suddenly seeing red, as the
saying is; “absolute frankness and absolute honesty
must always seem fishy to those who can’t conceive what
such things mean. If you want to know, Daniel Lane
has gone away because he was fed up with the rotten life
we lead here in Cairo. The sham of it all sickened him.
He has gone away to escape from the pretences and
the hatefulness and the pettiness of people like you and
me. He’s gone to get some fresh air: he was being suffocated
here.”

Lady Smith-Evered stared at her in blank astonishment,
and the pinkness of her face turned to a deeper
red. “Oh, that’s what he has told you, is it?” she
scoffed. “He must think you very gullible.”

Muriel rose from the sofa, and faced her visitor with
blazing eyes. “I said you wouldn’t be able to understand,”
she exclaimed. “There’s no mystery about it:
he was just frankly disgusted, and off he went. But
he’ll come back one day, when the hot weather begins
and we’ve all gone home. Then he and Father will be
able to get on with their work, with England’s work,
without being distracted by fussy little interruptions
from women like you and me....”

Lady Smith-Evered managed to raise herself with
some dignity from the sofa. “I wanted to speak to
you about plans,” she said, stiffly; “but that can wait
now till another day. I don’t know what is the matter
with you, but I know we shall quarrel if I remain. I
don’t care to be spoken to as you are speaking to me.”

Her large bosom was heaving threateningly, and
Muriel was abashed.

“I’m sorry,” she answered, the light of battle dying
in her eyes.

Lady Smith-Evered took her departure without many
more words, and thereon Muriel went directly up to her
room again, her heart aching within her. Here at the
open window she stood staring out across the lawn to the
translucent Nile. A native boat, with huge bellying sails,
was making its way slowly up stream; and she could hear
the wailing song of the blue-gowned youth at the rudder.
Away in the distance the Pyramids marked the edge
of the placid desert, now bathed in sunlight; and above,
the cloudless sky stretched in tranquil splendour.

She was ashamed of herself, ashamed of her inconsistency.
Her mind was confused, but in its confusion
she was conscious of one clear thought, namely that
Daniel would have rebuked her for her show of temper.
“Look away over there at the quiet desert,” he would
have said. “Do you see how it is smiling at you for
your angry thought and for that flush in your face?
You won’t get at the root of things by raising your little
voice in protest.”

“O Daniel, Daniel,” she whispered, her eyes filling
with tears, “you oughtn’t to have left me here alone.
You oughtn’t, you oughtn’t.”

And some time later, still staring out of the window,
she said: “Did you go away because you wanted me
to follow you? Must I humiliate myself and come to
you? O Daniel, my darling, how I hate you!”


CHAPTER XXIV—THE GREAT ADVENTURE
================================

As the days passed, and the Bindanes’ departure
for the Oases drew near, Muriel’s rather feeble
resolution not to accompany them steadily
weakened. Lord Blair had done his best to alter her
decision, and the Great Man could be a clever strategist:
his daughter, indeed, would have had little chance
of opposing his wishes successfully in this matter even
had she battled against him with a whole heart, but in
the vacillating condition to which love had brought her
she had no chance at all.

“Don’t be a dam’ fool,” Kate Bindane said to her
one morning at the Residency. “What’s the good of
moping about outside the ropes like a heavyweight with
a stomach-ache? You know you’re fed up with everybody
here: Gor’ blimy!—why don’t you swallow
your maidenly pride, and put on the gloves, and have
three rounds with Fate? It’s better to be counted out
than never to have boxed at all. Tennyson.”

Thus it came about that at the end of February,
when Lord Blair took the train southwards upon his
journey to the Sudan, Lady Muriel set out westwards
as a member of the Bindanes’ elaborate caravan. The
start was made one morning from Mena House, and so
great was the general confusion and hullabaloo that
Muriel’s thoughts did not begin to clarify themselves
until a ride of two hours had brought them to the rocky
valley wherein they halted to eat their luncheon.

Here, seating herself upon the rocks at the foot of
the cliff, she shaded her eyes with her hand, and surveyed
the animated scene with amused interest. There
was Kate, in a white coat and skirt, and a sun-helmet,
stumping over the sand to cure the “pins-and-needles”
from which she was suffering; her husband, in a grey
flannel suit and a green-veiled helmet, was still seated
upon his camel as though he had forgotten to dismount;
his man, Dixon, rather fat and red, and wearing his new
gaiters apparently back to front, was hastening to his
master’s assistance; and the two imposing native dragomans,
in silks all aflutter in the wind, were shouting unnecessary
orders to the Egyptian cook and *sofragi* to
hasten the luncheon.

A few yards down the valley a khaki-clad Egyptian
police-officer, wearing his red *tarboush*, or fez, at a
rakish angle, was giving instructions to his four negro
troopers; a fat native gentleman from the Ministry of
Agriculture was mopping his forehead as he stood beside
his grumbling camel, and the Egyptian secretary
to the party, a dapper youth with mud-coloured complexion
and coal-black eyes, had just thrown himself
down in the shade and had removed the *tarboush* from
his close-cropped head, in conscious defiance of local
etiquette.

The baggage camels, carrying the camp equipment,
the stores, and the tanks of water, were lurching at a
walking pace along the valley, led by blue-robed camel-men,
under the orders of the caravan-master, a grey-bearded
Arab who rode sleepily at the head of the line.
These were not to halt at the midday hour, but, pushing
ahead, they would be overtaken later in the day by the
swifter riding-camels; and Muriel watched them now as
they slowly jogged along the little-used track between
the yellow cliffs, the brilliant sun striking down upon
them from a deep blue sky in which compact little
bundles of snow-white cloud went scudding past.

There was a boisterous breeze blowing, and the tingling
glow of the sun and wind upon her cheeks, as she
sat perched high upon the rocks, seemed to match the
exhilaration of her heart. The morning’s ride had
shaken her brain free from the heavy gloom of the last
three weeks; and already the shining open spaces of the
desert had produced their effect upon her, so that she
felt as though her mind had had a cold bath.

It was good to be up and doing; it was good to be
setting out upon this adventure, the ambiguousness of
which seemed every moment to be growing less disconcerting;
it was good to be in this great playground
where the rules of her life’s schoolroom were mainly in
abeyance. Up here in these splendid spaces it would
not matter if she pulled her skirt off, or let her hair
down, or turned a cartwheel, or stood on her head.
Already she was whistling loudly, and throwing fragments
of stone into the valley before her, in the manner
of a child upon the seashore; and all her love-sick
sorrows of yesterday seemed to have vanished in the
exaltation of youth and youth’s well-being.

She watched the servants, in the distance at the other
side of the valley, spreading the picnic luncheon on a
white tablecloth laid upon a shaded patch of sand; and
when at length the meal appeared to be ready, she took
a flying leap down from the rock where she had been
sitting, and landed sprawling upon the sand-drift below.
The sensation pleased her, and, clambering up
the rocks once more, she repeated the jump, this time
arriving with a considerable thud upon her back, and
sliding down the drift with her legs in the air.

She hopped across the valley, rubbing herself, and
was presently joined by the Bindanes.

“I feel about twelve years old,” she told them; and
indeed at the moment she did not look much more than
that age. “The desert is having an extraordinary effect
on me.”

“But we’re only ten or twelve miles into it so far,”
said the practical Kate. “You wait another
week....”

“If I go on at this rate,” Muriel laughed, “I’ll be in
arms by the time we reach the Oases.”

“I wonder whose,” muttered Kate, with a smile; but
her friend’s face at once became serious. It was a jarring
note, and it nearly ruined the joviality of the
picnic.

The afternoon ride carried them another fifteen
miles; and towards sunset they came to a halt in the
midst of a wide flat plain of sand, across which a winding
ribbon of stunted tamarisks and sparse vegetation
marked the bed of a primeval river now reduced
to a mere subterranean infiltration. In the far distance
on all sides the low hills hemmed them in,
like a rugged wall encircling a sacred and enchanted
area.

The tents were pitched amongst the low-growing
bushes in the dry, shingly bed of the stream; and the
hobbled camels were turned loose to crop such twigs
and grasses as they found edible. Muriel, meanwhile,
wandered away into the open desert; and presently, like
warm sand, and resting her chin on her hands, watched
the sun go down behind the purple hills.

For some time the excitements of the day, and the
physical exhilaration produced by her long ride in the
sun and wind, held her from thought. But at length
the dreamlike silence of the wilderness, the amazing
sense of isolation from the outside world, began to release
her mind from the captivity of the flesh, so that
becoming one with the immensity of nature, her spirit
drifted out into the sunset with the freedom of light or
air.

The little deeds of all her yesterdays appeared suddenly
insignificant to her, and she began to feel that life,
and the happiness of life, was something far greater
than she had supposed. She wondered why she had
been troubled with regard to Daniel: he was just an
expression of nature, as she was: and here, in the solitude
he so dearly loved, she seemed to understand for
the first time his scorn of the intricacies of modern
civilization. Here all was so simple, so devoid of complexities,
that she laughed aloud. It was only her
wits, the mere fringe of her mind, which had veiled her
spirit from his spirit; but now she had shaken herself
loose from these ornamentations of life, and stood as it
were, revealed like a lost fragment dropped at last into
place in the great design.

She rose to her feet at length, with a sense of light-heartedness
such as she had never before known; and,
returning to the camp in the gathering dusk, she looked
with amused pity at Benifett Bindane who sat in a
deck-chair reading the *Financial News* by the light of
a glass-protected candle.

“Just look at him!” said Kate, who, herself, had
been admiring the sunset. “Isn’t it pitiful?”

Mr. Bindane laid the paper down, and stared at his
wife with uncomprehending eyes.

“The market is showing a good deal of weakness in
Home Rails,” he said to his wife; “but your South Africans
are all buoyant enough, so you needn’t worry.”

“Worry!” exclaimed Kate, contemptuously, and
turned from him to the fading light in the west.

“I’m glad I bought those Nitrates,” he went on, addressing
the back of her neck; “they’re improving, so
far as one can tell from the closing quotations given
here.”

He held the newspaper out, but she struck at it
viciously with her hand.

“Oh, for God’s sake shut up!” she cried. “It’s
money, money, money all the time with you.”

“I was speaking,” he said, very slowly, and as
though he had been hurt, “of stock I had bought for
you, my dear.”

Kate turned to him, and her friend observed that
her face softened, as though at the thought that in
his own way he was showing his affection for her. But
the picture was, nevertheless, pathetic; and the recollection
passed through Muriel’s mind, in sudden illumination,
that Daniel was entirely free from financial
interests. So long as he earned a reasonable living he
never seemed to trouble himself about money.

Next morning they were in the saddle by eight
o’clock, while yet the sun was low in the heavens and
the air cold and sharp. Crossing the wide plain in
which they had camped, they passed into the echoing
valleys amongst the hills; and for the next three days
they made their way through rugged and broken country,
now mounting some eminence whence they surveyed
a wide prospect in which range behind range of
rugged peaks was revealed to them, now losing themselves
in the intricate valleys, where they rode in the
blue shadow of the cliffs, and where the sound of their
voices and their laughter was flung back at them from
the walls of rock.

Each night they camped beside some water-hole or
well, known by name to their guides, but which to them
seemed to be a deserted and unvisited place, frequented
only by the unseen gazelle whose footprints were
marked upon the sand. It was cold here in the high
ground, and they were glad of all the blankets which
they had brought; but in the mornings the sun soon
warmed them, and by noon they were glad to take their
rest in the shade.

It was in the afternoon of the fifth day of their
journey that, descending from the higher level, they
came into sight of the little Oasis of El Homra, set
like an emerald in the golden bowl of the desert.
Muriel was riding beside Kate Bindane when, emerging
from the maze of the hills, they first looked down
into this wide basin in the centre of which the Oasis was
situated; and both she and her friend uttered a cry of
delight.

In the case of Muriel the ejaculation was a response
to the grandeur of the scene; but in that of her friend
the exclamation was one of devout thankfulness that
the outward journey was nearing its end. Being heavily
built and somewhat stout Kate had suffered very
much more severely from the long-protracted jolting
than she had been willing to admit; and there were
many very sore places upon her body which caused the
thought of much further exercise of this kind to be intolerable.

“You won’t catch me coming out here again,” she
declared, “until the Company has built its light railway.
Five days of blinkin’ torture!—that’s what it’s
been. And to think that five hours by train would
have done it...!”

Muriel looked at her in dismay. “I’d much rather
not think we were so near Cairo as that,” she answered.
“The whole pleasure of the thing is that we’re so cut
off from civilization.”

Kate groaned. “Well, I’m glad to say I’ve brought
a bit of civilization with me in the shape of a pot of
ointment and a roll of lint.”

Her further remarks, however, were checked by her
efforts to pull in her camel; for the west wind had
brought to its nostrils the scent of vegetation, and its
pace had suddenly increased.

Muriel turned in her saddle as her own beast hurried
forward, and waved her hand excitedly to Mr. Bindane,
who was holding on to his pommels with both hands, his
head wobbling, and his body swaying.

As they neared their destination the police officer
overtook her, and directed her towards the south end
of the Oasis, where, a little removed from the palm-groves,
some whitewashed buildings were clustered together.
He explained that these formed the headquarters
of the Frontier Patrol, near which their camp
would be pitched; and soon he had galloped ahead, followed
by one of his troopers, to herald their arrival.

The sun was setting when at last the party dismounted
within the walled compound of the outpost;
and it was dark before the baggage caravan came
creaking and grunting into the circle of light cast by
the lanterns of the police. Kate and her husband had
at once gone into the bare-walled room which had been
placed at their disposal; but Muriel, who was experiencing
an extraordinary sense of activity, went out
with the dragoman to supervise the erection of the
tents in the open desert some little distance from the
buildings.

For some time she lent a hand to the work, but at
length she sat herself down upon a derelict packing-case,
and watched the figures moving to and fro, now
lit up by the flickering light of the lanterns, now passing
again into the darkness.

The evening was warm, for the month of March had
begun; and there was not that sharp tingle in the air
which had been experienced up in the high ground they
had lately traversed. On her one hand there were the
dark palm-groves, their branches silhouetted against
the brilliant stars: she could hear the rustling of the
leaves, and there came to her ears, also, the sound of a
flute, the notes rising and falling in plaintive inconsequence
like babbling water in a forest at night. On
her other hand the open desert lay obscure and mysterious,
the darkness made more intense by contrast
with the flicker of the lanterns and the light issuing
from the open doorways of the adjacent buildings.

It was so strange to feel that she was separated from
El Hamrân, and from the man she loved, by no more
than thirty miles—an easy day’s ride to the southwest;
and her heart was restless as she realized that Mr.
Bindane proposed to make an extended tour of the
northern Oases before getting into touch with Daniel.
It seemed to her that she could not tolerate another day
of absence from him; and a wild thought entered her
mind that she would give her friends the slip next morning
and ride alone to El Hamrân. It was, indeed, the
thought of such an escapade which sent her presently
hurrying back to the light of the outpost, as though in
flight from the mad suggestions of the starlit spaces
about her.

The evening meal was served in the room where Mr.
and Mrs. Bindane had settled themselves; and it was
still early when they went to their tents. Muriel was
already yawning loudly, as she helped Kate to doctor
herself; and no sooner was she alone than she crawled
into bed, and, in spite of the barking of the dogs, the
lowing of the cattle, and the braying of a donkey; fell
instantly asleep.

On the following morning Benifett Bindane displayed
unwonted briskness, and, after an early breakfast, set
out with the native officials to make a tour of inspection
of the Oasis. His plan was to continue his journey
next day to the large Oasis of El Arâbah, to the
northwest, where he would spend the night. Then, returning
to El Homra, where they were at present, he
would ride northwards on a tour which would occupy
twelve or thirteen days; and that being accomplished,
he would, if necessary, visit El Hamrân where Daniel
was staying, though he had now received the latter’s
very full reply to the questions on which he had desired
information.

When he got back to the camp, however, after his
first day’s work, he found that his wife and Lady
Muriel had made certain plans of their own, consequent
upon Kate’s abrasions. They had decided to remain
where they were while Mr. Bindane paid his short visit
to El Arâbah; and it was hoped that on his return his
wife would be sufficiently recovered to go north with
him on his longer trip.

He received the news with apparent indifference,
merely remarking that he would take with him on this
short trip only one servant and one tent, leaving the
remainder of the camp where it was, under the care of
the two dragomans. The Bedouin of the Oases were
a peaceful, law-abiding people; and the two ladies
would be as safe here, he well knew, as they would be in
an English village at home.

That night, after Muriel had gone to her bed, Kate
Bindane took her husband into her confidence.

“I don’t know what’s going on in Muriel’s head,” she
told him, “but it seems to me that she’s about the most
love-sick creature I’ve ever struck. She won’t even
look in any other direction except the southwest, because
that’s where her Daniel is.”

A slight expression of interest came into her husband’s
blank face. He was sitting in his striped
pyjamas on the side of his bed, scratching himself
dreamily; but now he paused and his arms fell loosely
upon his pointed knees. “I thought,” he said, “she
had got over all that. She has been jolly enough all
the way here.”

“Yes,” answered Kate, “but now that she’s within
a day’s ride of her young man, she seems to have come
over all funny-like. I can’t make her out.” She
waited a moment. “Wouldn’t it be possible for us to
go to El Hamrân before we make the northern trip?”
she asked, poking the wick of the candle, absently, with
the stump of a match.

Her husband shook his head. “No,” he replied.
“The plans are all fixed. And, you see, I don’t suppose
Mr. Lane will give me more than a couple of days
of his time just now; and I’d rather have it at the end
of my tour, when I know what I’m talking about, than
now when I hav’n’t yet seen the lie of the land. I want
to be able to come to him with a definite offer.”

He relapsed into silence for some time, resuming his
leisurely scratching; but at length he surprised his wife
by asking a further question as to Muriel’s state of
mind.

“Why, Benifett,” she said, smiling upon him, “you
seem quite interested. You know, I believe you’re
rather a sport, after all.”

He looked at her with his mouth open. “Oh, it’s a
recognized maxim of the commercial world,” he answered:
“‘Make yourself a party to the love affairs of
your business friends.’”

“But Muriel isn’t a business friend,” said Kate.

“No,” he replied, “but her father is.” And with
that enigmatical remark, he blew out the candle.

At sunrise next day he was up and about; and an
hour later he had assembled his party for the start upon
their journey. Kate and Muriel watched them as they
filed out of the compound in front of the police buildings,
in the brilliant light of the morning.

“Tomorrow evening, probably,” called Mr. Bindane,
waving his hand to them; and, “No hurry,” replied
Kate, casually: “we’ll be quite all right.”

With that he moved away, riding with the fat
Egyptian from the Ministry of Agriculture. Behind
him followed the police-officer and the native secretary,
and after them went their servants and baggage camels.

As the cavalcade passed out of sight behind the palm-trees,
Kate turned to her friend. “Now for a quiet
time with the ointment pot,” she laughed; but her words
were checked as she observed the surprising expression
on Muriel’s face. “Why, what’s the matter?” she
exclaimed.

Muriel caught hold of her arm. “Kate,” she said,
“I’m going to shock you. I’m going to Daniel.”

Mrs. Bindane stood perfectly still, her hands upon
her hips in the manner of a fishwife. “What the Hell
d’you mean?” she asked.

Muriel confronted her, the monkey expression suddenly
developing upon her face—her jaw set, her eyes
wide open. “I’m going to leave you, Kate,” she said.
“I made up my mind in the night. I can’t bear it another
moment: I’m going to start at once.”

“Don’t be a damned fool,” her friend ejaculated,
angrily.

Muriel shrugged her shoulders. “I shall take my
dragoman with me,” she went on. “He knows all the
roads hereabouts. I shall be quite safe. I’m going
to Daniel for a fortnight: I’ve thought it all out, and I
know now that’s what he’s been wanting me to do.
You’ll find me at El Hamrân when you come there—if
you do come, and, if not, I’ll join you here.”

“But, my good idiot,” cried her friend, “there’ll be
the most awful scandal! What d’you think Benifett
will say?”

“I’ll leave that for you to find out,” she answered.
“I don’t see Master Benifett changing his plans for
anybody. You can say I was ill, and therefore went
off to Daniel so that I shouldn’t spoil your trip or delay
you. Father need never know, and I’m sure Benifett
won’t give me away. Not that a scandal isn’t just
what he wants. Doesn’t he want to oblige Daniel to remain
here in the Oases?—Oh, but I know what I’m
doing. Daniel never wanted to marry me: he wanted
me to run away with him.”

“Yes, but where are you going to run to?”

“To seed,” Muriel replied, with a little laugh. “I
can’t help it. He’s won: I can’t stay away from him.
I’m going to have this fortnight with him, if I hang
for it!”

“Oh, you’re mad!” exclaimed Kate, and, clutching
hold of Muriel’s arm, she led her into her tent.

Here they argued the matter to and fro; but it was
apparent from the first that the thing was irrevocably
sealed, and that all the details of the plan had been
thought out so as to prevent the adventure becoming
public.

“Very possibly there’ll be no scandal at all,” said
Muriel; “the natives can be bribed not to tell. I shall
come back with you to Cairo when you return there, and
who is going to give me away?”

“But what is a fortnight?” asked Kate, in despair.
“Good God!—what is a fortnight, when it means even
the *possible* ruin of your whole life?”

“I can’t look so far ahead,” Muriel replied. “I
only know I want him now. And I’m going to him,
Kate; I’m going to the man I love, the man who loves
me!”

She ran out of the tent, calling to her dragoman,
Mustafa, who appeared at once from the domestic
quarters. He received the news without perturbation.

“Yes, my leddy,” he said. “I varry pleased.
My wife’s brother him live at El Hamrân. Thirty
mile’—it is nudding: five, six hours riding; and the
road him varry good, varry straight.”

She told him to get two camels ready at once, to
fill the water-bottles, collect a few eatables, and—to
hold his tongue. “I have to take some important
papers over to Mr. Lane,” she said, and he smiled at
the lie.

Her large dressing-case was already packed; but, returning
to her tent, she opened it to put into it her
little revolver, which, for the fun of the thing, she had
purchased in Cairo. This done, she went back to Kate,
who received her in cold silence.

“Oh, Kate,” she cried, “don’t be beastly to me.
I’m only going to do the sort of thing that’s been done
by most of the girls we know. It’s human nature, Kate.
When you love a man and feel you absolutely can’t live
without him, you’ve got to surrender to him and do
what he wants; and I know now that this is what he’s
been asking me to do all along.” She put her arms
about her neck, and kissed her.

Kate looked at her sorrowfully, and her face softened.
“Muriel, you blinkin’ idiot,” she said, “I don’t
know what’ll come of this, but whatever happens, old
bean, I’m with you.”


CHAPTER XXV—BREAKING LOOSE
==========================

The road, or rather camel-track, from El
Homra to El Hamrân passes across a wide
plain of comparatively flat sand, which looks
like the bed of a vast lake from which the waters have
been drained off. It is a huge hollow separated by
high ground from the smaller basin in which the former
oasis is situated. Ranges of hills form the boundaries
of this area, those to the east being high and
many-peaked, the others low and undulating; and from
one side of the plain to the other must be something
like twenty miles. There are three wells between the
two oases, the second being practically in the centre of
the plain, and marking the half-way point of the journey.

Muriel and her dragoman reached this well at about
one o’clock, when the sun was almost directly overhead
and the glare intense. It was a deep pool not more
than a dozen feet from side to side; but in the clear
water the blue of the sky was so vividly reflected that
Muriel, as she stood staring down into it, had the impression
that the earth was flat and that she was looking
through a hole into further spaces of empty air
beneath.

A few yards distant there were some tamarisks, providing
a little patch of shade, almost as blue as the sky
and water; and a stone’s throw away there was a hillock
of sand upon which grew a few low and dusty bushes.
With these exceptions there was no vegetation to be
seen, and the sand stretched out in all directions, barren
and dazzling, until the surface was lost in vaporous
mirage, so that the far-off hills looked like islands floating
above the haze.

She called her dragoman to her. “Mustafa,” she
said, “I’m going to bathe. You must go and sit behind
that hillock over there, and you mustn’t move till
I tell you you may.”

Servants in the East are ever accustomed to be told
to take themselves off in this fashion, when their native
mistresses desire to amuse themselves; and he now received
his orders from the daughter of the foreign ruler
of Egypt without surprise. He quickly filled the water-bottles
from the pool, and, telling her that he would
prepare the luncheon on the other side of the hillock,
walked off across the sand.

As soon as she was alone, Muriel divested herself of
her clothes in the shelter of the tamarisks, and plunged
into the cool water. Never in her life had she felt so
boisterously, recklessly happy; never before had she
realized how cramped her existence had been. Here
in these empty spaces of the world she was like a child
with all the delights of the open garden to herself; and
presently she would slip into the next garden and greet
there her playmate.

As she splashed in the water she learned for the first
time the wonderful sensation of bathing without the
weight of a costume about her limbs; and her thoughts
flashed back with disdain to those elegant days at fashionable
seaside resorts where she had almost feared to
let the waves wet her dainty bathing-dress, and where
she had been aware of opera glasses levelled upon her
as she walked sedately into the sea.

From side to side of the little pool she swam, tossing
the water into the air in showers of sparkling drops;
and, presently, when, clambering back on to the sand,
she stood with arms stretched out to the sunlight, she
felt that at last she knew the meaning of life.

The hot sun dried her body, without much need of
the aid of her handkerchief; and when she was dressed
she hastened with a wonderful appetite to her luncheon.
Mustafa, being a well-trained dragoman, did not trouble
her with his presence; and she was thus able to make
very frank inroads into the tongue and sweet-pickles,
the biscuits and the jam, which he had provided. And
after the meal she lay back in the shade, against the
slope of the sand, and slept for half an hour in profound
content.

She awoke with the conviction that at last all was
well with her. It seemed to her that what Daniel had
all along desired was that she should renounce “the
World,” as he called it, and come to him; and now, in
these last few days, she had realized that this was no
renunciation at all. He had been perfectly right: a
life in the open was the only life for Youth; and here,
not in the cities, real happiness was to be found.

All he had asked of her was to break loose from her
conventional existence, and to come to him; and now
she knew how incomprehensible her reluctance must have
seemed to him. He had been holding out to her the
free joys of her youth: he had been saying to her,
“Come and be my playmate and my dear companion,”
and when she had refused, he had gone off by himself,
bidding her follow him if at last she should shake herself
free of her imaginary bonds. How stupid to him, how
vulgar, must have been her wish for a correct betrothal!—no
wonder he had given up in dismay.

Such thoughts occupied her brain during the afternoon
as she trotted exultantly, and with wild and reckless
freedom from all restraint, towards El Hamrân;
but very different were the thoughts in the mind of
Daniel Lane, as, all unaware of her proximity, he sat
peacefully in his room, putting the finishing touches to
his interrupted study of the customs of the Bedouin of
the Oases.

In a manner it might be said that he was content.
He had fought a terrible battle with himself during
these five-and-twenty days since he had left Cairo, and
his mighty spirit had won the victory over his mutinous
body. Like a monk abandoning the pleasures of the
world, he had crushed within him the one passionate
episode of his continent life.

Throughout his strenuous manhood he had put away
from him the call of the flesh: he had mastered his body,
and had subordinated all other interests to those of his
work. In a sense he had lived the life of an ascetic,
save that he had not actually mortified his body. He
had governed and controlled his physical instincts, but
he had found no need to break them with rods. In perfect
health, in perfect physical fitness, he had passed
his days, filled with that deep, laughing happiness which
comes from a quiet mind. His gigantic muscles were
ever ruled by his mighty reason; and serene, smiling
tranquillity had been his reward.

It was only since Muriel had come into his life that
he had known any disturbance; for she was practically
the first woman with whom he had ever been on intimate
terms. And when she had failed him he had beaten out
the very thought of her from his riotous heart, and had
fled to the placid sanctuary of the desert, there to recover
his equanimity.

To him she had seemed to be tainted by her contact
with that section of society whose artificiality he so
heartily disliked. These people paid outward court to
the conventions of life, but in secret they treated in
the lightest manner the very bases upon which these
conventions were founded. Being satisfied with the surface
of things, they lived their lives in turmoil and called
it pleasure; nor had they any idea of that deeper happiness
which comes from contact with fundamental
truth and simplicity.

And Muriel had been as blind as the blindest of them.
She only played with life—skimmed over the surface,
snatching at such pleasures as lay to hand.

If she had turned her back on her dances and her
parties, and had come to him and had said, “Take me
into the desert for ever,” he would have believed in her
love, and nothing could have held them apart; but,
whether correctly or incorrectly he knew not, he had
had the impression that she had wished to fill but an
idle hour with the sweets of love, just as, so it seemed
to him, all fair women of Mayfair were wont to do.

Therefore he had come back to the clear and open
spaces of the desert; and here, in the ruined monastery
which for so long had been his home, he had sought and
found once more his peace of mind. In a few weeks’
time he would return to Cairo; but in future he would
arrange to receive his Egyptian visitors away from the
Residency, at some house in the native quarter where
he could work without distraction.

As he sat writing in his shirt-sleeves at his table
near the window and the sun was descending towards
the horizon, his attention was attracted by the barking
of his dogs, and he wondered whether some native from
the village had come to see him. He was concerned
just now in regard to the growing quarrel between the
two main families of the Oasis, and visits were frequently
paid to him by persons connected with the great
feud.

The barking, however, presently ceased abruptly,
and therewith he went on with his work. The room
was large, and the loud chattering of the sparrows in
the palms outside the window prevented him from hearing
the opening of the door behind him. He was not
aware that his servant, Hussein, had entered, agog
with excitement; nor did he see Muriel, who, followed
him, as she waved him out of the room, and shut the
door behind her.

It was only when she was close to him that he heard
the footstep and looked around.

He sprang to his feet. “Muriel!” he exclaimed, as
he stared at her in astonishment.

She did not speak. She ran to him, and, throwing
her hands around his neck, was lifted from the ground
in his arms. For a few moments she did nothing but
kiss him—she rained kisses on his mouth and his bewildered
face in a very frenzy of love, so that he gasped.
Then her hands, slipping from behind his neck, passed
over his forehead and his cheeks, and through his hair,
patting him and stroking him; while her hat fell off,
unnoticed, and her feet dangled above the ground,
vainly seeking for foothold in the vicinity of his shins.

At last, having been lowered to the ground, she
stood before him, her hands held in his, her face flushed,
her hair falling down.

“Oh, my darling,” she cried, “I couldn’t live without
you any longer. I’ve broken loose: I’ve run away
and come to you.”

And, as his arms went about her once more, nigh
crushing the breath out of her, she shut her eyes and
received his answering kisses in passionate glorious
silence.


CHAPTER XXVI—THE STOLEN HOUR
============================

She had come to him! Impelled by her love she
had come to him! That was the jubilant
thought in Daniel’s rejoicing heart. At last she
had turned her back upon the amusements and pleasures
of the old life, finding them altogether unsatisfying now,
and she had come to him! She loved him, and she had
given up all to come to him! No longer was romance
to be sandwiched in between race-meetings and dances,
between “At Homes” and opera-parties: she had renounced
the whole thing, and had come to him!

“How did you manage it?” he said, looking at her
with admiration in his eyes.

“Oh, it was quite simple,” she laughed. “There was
nothing extraordinary in my joining the Bindanes on
their trip; and then ...”

She told him how she had waited until Mr. Bindane
was out of the way, and had then made a bolt for it.

“But what is the next step?” he asked. “What
about the future?”

“Oh, man,” she cried, “don’t talk about the future—that
can wait till you have time to think.”

The words may have had no particular significance,
but to Daniel they seemed to be the most wonderful he
had ever heard. They meant to him that she trusted
him, that she placed her future in his hands, that she
gave herself unreservedly to him. She left it to him to
think out what he was going to do with her....

He looked at her with deep gratitude in his face; for
she had, as it were, crowned him as lord of their destinies
and enthroned him upon the very pinnacle of
eventuality.

He could not take his eyes from her as she stood at
the window, the reflected light of the sunset in her face,
her well-proportioned figure seeming to be more vigorous,
more athletic, than he had known it before. Her
smile, always brilliant, was now intoxicating to him;
and her eyes were filled with such tenderness that he
could find no adequate response to their appeal. It was
as though his kisses and his words of love were all insufficient
to this great hour; and, with inward, joyous
laughter, he found himself baffled in his search for means
of expression.

He lifted her up in his arms, and kissed her throat
and her shoulders and her knees. He lowered her to
her feet again, and, with his arm about her, walked half-way
across the room and back. He buried his face in
her hair; held her hand to his mouth and kissed her
fingers one by one; he sat her in a deck-chair, and,
kneeling before her, laid his head for a moment upon her
lap.

She was his, she belonged to him!—the thought
went coursing through his brain in headlong career,
breaking down his reserve, overthrowing the walls of
the citadel of his being.

At last, forcing himself down from the heights to
the practicalities, he went to the door and shouted for
tea; but Hussein, who, like most loyal Egyptian servants,
regarded himself, with due deference, as *ibn el bêt*,
“son of the house,” or “one of the family” as we
should say, had thrown himself whole-heartedly into his
master’s excitement, and had already prepared the tea
and had opened the choicest tin of biscuits in the store-cupboard.

Muriel was hungry after her long ride; but she had
so much to say, and the interruptions induced by their
love were so frequent, that the meal occupied a great
deal of time. She told him of the journey from Egypt,
and of the wonders of the desert which had been revealed
to her; she spoke of the bath that day in the pool at
the roadside; she described her sensations of increasing
happiness and well-being as day by day the old routine
of her life had slipped further from her; and she talked
with enthusiasm of the beauties of El Hamrân as she
had approached it just now from the high ground.

“I spotted this old ruin of yours from miles away,”
she said, “and we skirted along the high ground on
this side of the Oasis until we came without a single
wrong turning to your door.”

She went to the window, and, standing there with
her arm linked in his, gazed in silence over the shimmering
sea of the tree-tops. Upon the near side the
shadow of the cliffs was spread, and the foliage seemed
here to be tinged with cobalt and purple; but on the far
side the mellow light of the vanishing sun still bathed
the green of the leaves with a tincture of gold and
copper.

The chirping of thousands of sparrows, as they gathered
themselves in the branches to roost, filled the air
with clamorous sound; and at the foot of the cliff, just
below the window, a string of camels went by, the foremost
being ridden by a small boy, dressed in a single
garment of blue cotton, who was exultantly carolling
a native song in a full-throated voice which, with its
chucks and gurgles, seemed to be an imitation of the
nightingale.

“What is he singing about?” Muriel asked. “He’s
nearly bursting with it.”

“It is a part of the story of Leila and her lover
Majnûn,” Daniel explained, after listening for a few
moments; “the part where the Sultan sees Leila, and
tells Majnûn that he doesn’t think she is anything to
write home about; and Majnûn says: ‘O King, if you
could only see her from the window of Majnûn’s eyes, the
miracle of her beauty would be made known to you.’”

The boy’s voice passed into the distance; and Muriel
stood gazing in front of her in silence, while the golden
light faded from the palms as the sun went down.

At length she turned to Daniel, asking him to show
her over his house; and, arm in arm, therefore, they
went out of the airy, whitewashed living-room, coming
presently to the old monks’ refectory, with its roofing
of dried cornstalks, and so to the servants’ quarters
and the kitchen, and thence to the ruined tower at the
top of which Daniel was wont to sleep. They ascended
this tower together, and from its summit Muriel could
see the whole extent of the building; and, in a rapid
passage of thought, she realized with inward satisfaction
that the story of his harîm was a fabrication.

The view from here was magnificent. In the west,
above the rugged line of the dark hills, the sunset was
revealed to her in sudden, overpowering splendour. To
the east the Oasis lay in cool shadow; and here and
there a thin wisp of smoke rose into the air. Beyond
lay the silent desert, and the far-off ranges of pink and
mauve hills; and above them the sky was turquoise, fading
into grey-blue. The wind had dropped, and now
the chattering of the sparrows was ceasing, so
that there seemed to be an increasing hush upon all
things.

The foliage of the palms screened from sight any
movement of human life in the Oasis; and Muriel had
the feeling that she and Daniel stood quite alone in
this vast setting, like two little sparks of vibrant energy
dropped down from the hand of Fate in an empty, motionless
world.

She looked up at him as he stood before her, his
rough grey shirt thrown open at the neck, his sleeves
rolled back from his bronzed arms, and his white
trousers held up by an old sash of faded red and yellow
silk knotted about his waist. He looked down at her,
dressed in her silk sweater, and the same white serge
skirt with the little stripe of grey in it which she had
been wearing that afternoon at Sakkâra. And as their
eyes met they both laughed, like two playmates of childhood
who had quarrelled, and whose quarrel was now
forgotten.

Presently he led her down the stairs again and across
the outer kitchen yard. Here her dragoman, Mustafa,
was waiting to take his orders; and he now asked permission
to ride over to the house of his brother-in-law,
which was situated at the far end of the Oasis, and
there to spend the night; and this Muriel at once gave
him.

“Where are the camels?” she asked; and in reply
he pointed to a shed built against the outer wall of
the monastery near the entrance. Here, also, were the
three yellow dogs, who, knowing her well, came now to
her with the fawning attitudes and uncertainly wagging
tails of the real pariah breed.

Hussein was lighting the lamps in the living-room
when they returned; and he paused to ask whether the
evening meal should be served at the usual hour.
Daniel referred him to Muriel. “Any time you like,”
she answered, smiling happily at Daniel, as though even
the arranging of such trivial details were a matter of
delight. “I want a bath first, if I can have one.”

At this Daniel suddenly laughed. “Gee!” he exclaimed,
“I’d forgotten to fix up a bedroom for you.”
He scratched his head. “Now where on earth am I
to put you?”

There was a small whitewashed chamber—originally
a monk’s cell—opening off the refectory. This,
Daniel used as his dressing-room, and in it stood his
large tin foot-bath. He now told his servant, therefore,
to set up the spare camp-bed in that room, to prepare
the bath, and to remove his own belongings to the
chamber at the base of the tower below the stairs.

“You won’t be nervous alone there, will you?” he
asked her, and she shook her head. “If you feel lonely
or frightened, you’ve only got to slip round to my tower
and shout to me, or come up the stairs and wake me
up.”

To Muriel there seemed to be a wonderful intimacy in
his words, and she pictured herself creeping up the dark
staircase in the night, and standing by her lover’s bedside
under the stars, whispering to him that she could
not sleep.

Hussein was not long in carrying out his instructions,
and soon he came back to announce that the bath
was ready. Therewith, Daniel took Muriel to this
room, which looked exceedingly clean and comfortable
in the lamplight. Towels and jugs of hot and cold
water stood upon the grass-matted floor beside the
bath-tub; the camp-bed had been made up in one corner;
and Muriel’s dressing-case stood upon a chair near
a table above which a looking-glass was hung. In place
of a door a grass mat was suspended across the entrance;
and the unglazed window, looking westwards
on to the open desert, was fitted with rough wooden
shutters now standing open to the warm night.

Daniel was loathe to leave her even for this little
while, and he stood with his arm about her while she
unfastened her dressing-case. He helped her to lay
out her brushes and toilet utensils; and there was a
peculiar and very tender sense of intimate companionship
as she handed him her slippers to place beside the
bed and her nightdress to lay upon the pillow. He
made no attempt to go when she began to take the hairpins
from her hair; and, when it fell about her shoulders,
he took her in his arms once more, calling her by
so many loving names that her brain seemed to be singing
with them, and she could feel her riotous heart beating
as it were in her throat.

At last he left her, and went to his own improvised
dressing-room, to put on more presentable clothes; but
when he was ready, and she had not yet made her reappearance,
he went back to her doorway and spoke to
her through the screen of the grass-matting.

She told him he might enter, and he found her sitting
before the mirror fastening up her hair. She was
dressed now in a kind of kimono; and he seized her bare
white arms, which were raised above her head, kissing
them fervently.

When at length her toilet was finished, he led her
back to the living-room, where soon the evening meal
was served at a small table upon which two candles
burned at either side of a bowl of wild flowers hastily
picked in the fields, where, at this time of the year, they
grow in great abundance; and never in all their lives
had either of them felt so completely happy. Through
the open window the stars glinted in the wonderful sky,
like amazing jewels sprinkled upon velvet; and the
dimly lit room, with its series of shadowy domes, seemed
to be a magical banquet-hall, its walls of alabaster and
its flooring of marble. It was somewhat bare of furniture,
for many things had been left behind at the Pyramids;
but its very bareness enhanced its Oriental effect
and added to its enchantment.

Hussein had prepared a very excellent meal, not
sparing the store-cupboard; and he had opened a particularly
large fiasco of Italian red-wine to grace the
occasion. He had donned a clean white garment, held
in at the waist by a crimson sash; and as he noiselessly
entered or left the room he seemed to Muriel to have
taken to himself the nature of a geni out of a tale of
the *Arabian Nights*.

When at last the meal was finished, and cleared
away, and she and Daniel were seated in the deck chairs
at the open window to drink their coffee, Muriel felt
that the whole world of actuality had slid from her,
leaving her enthroned with her lover in a palace of
glorious dream; and when, out of the darkness of the
palm-groves below, there came to their ears the distant
and wandering sound of a flute, played by some unseen
goatherd passing homewards with his flock, the magic
of the desert was almost overpowering in the measure of
its enchantment. She was bewildered and intoxicated
by it; and in Daniel’s eyes she found, too, a light of
love such as she had never seen there before.

The hours passed unnoticed, for time had ceased to
be; and it was already late when at last Daniel arose,
and stood looking down at her with a smile upon his
face. “Well,” he said, with a sigh, “I didn’t think
anything would induce me to return to Cairo so soon;
but now.... When shall we start?”

Muriel looked at him in surprise. “O Daniel,” she
whispered, “there’s no hurry, is there? The Bindanes
won’t be going back for a fortnight.”

Her low voice set his heart beating for a moment,
but he did not take the real significance of her words.

“Well,” he said. “I suppose it will be all right for
you to be here for a day or two; and then we can ride
straight to Cairo and be married by special licence or
whatever they call it.” He lifted her fingers to his
lips. “Oh, darling, in less than a week you’ll be my
wife!”

Muriel stared at him, wide-eyed. It was as though
she had suddenly awakened from a dream. “Oh, but
the family will be horrified,” she said. “Everybody
will expect a proper wedding in London: after we get
home—in May or June. You’ll have to make that
concession to the world, my darling.”

Daniel laughed. “Yes, but what about our compromising
situation, here?” he asked. “Don’t you
see, my sweet, what I mean? Your bolting from the
Bindanes is to me a sort of sacred and wonderful thing
that you have done, because you’ve put your fate irrevocably
in my hands. To my way of thinking we are
already married, because you have openly abandoned
everything and come to me; but I’m not going to give
anybody the chance to question our acts. We belong
to each other, and the quicker the position is regularized,
so to speak, the better.”

“But who is to find out?” she said. “If I stay
with you till the Bindanes come, nobody will hear of it
in Cairo.”

He looked quickly at her, his brows drawn together.
“What d’you mean?” he asked, as though he could not
follow the workings of her mind.

She laughed. “I mean, I’ve arranged it all,” she
answered. “Kate is to say I was ill, and that I came
to you so as not to be a nuisance to them. She can prevent
her husband ever giving me away, and I should
think you could manage the others, or at any rate keep
them from talking until we’re married.”

He did not answer, but his eyes were fixed upon her.
She got up from their chair, and put her hands about
his neck. “This is to be our wonderful fortnight, darling,”
she whispered. “It is to be our secret.”

He lifted her arms from his shoulders, holding her
wrists. “I don’t understand,” he said, and his voice
was hard.

She looked at him with wonder. She could not comprehend
what was troubling him. “Darling, what’s
the matter?” she asked, in dismay. “What I mean is
that I’ve done what you always wanted me to do: I’ve
broken loose; only I’ve chosen my opportunity, and arranged
it so that people won’t talk.”

Still he did not take his eyes from her; but he removed
his hand from her wrist. “You mean,” he said
very slowly, “that you will return with the Bindanes,
and finish up the Cairo season?”

“Well,” she answered, “I’ve got all sorts of more
or less official engagements, you know.”

“This is to be just a stolen fortnight?” he asked,
and she was frightened by the stern tones of his voice.

She nodded, and again her arms sought his shoulders.
But he stepped back quickly from her, and his hand
passed across has forehead.

“You are going to cover up your tracks with a pack
of lies,” he said, his breath sounding like that of one
in pain. “And then you are going back to your dances
and your parties, pretending nothing has happened.”

“Oh, you don’t understand,” she cried. “I’ve given
myself to you, body and soul.”

“Yes,” he scoffed, his voice rising. “You’ve given
yourself to me for a fortnight. A sneaking fortnight
that you think nobody will ever hear about. A fortnight
sandwiched in between the middle and the end of
the Cairo season, to fill up the blank time while your
father is away.”

“But I never want to go back,” she answered, her
voice trembling.

“If that is true,” he said, “why have you arranged
everything for your return? You’ve given yourself to
me, you say! Yes, for a stolen fortnight, as you call
it yourself: it is to be just an underhand little intrigue.
Good God!—and I believed you had given up everything
for your love’s sake; and now I find you’ve given
up nothing. You’ve taken all the necessary steps to
prevent your action being decisive, to make your return
to society perfectly easy. And I thought you had
burnt your boats!”

She faced him angrily. “Oh, you’re incomprehensible,”
she exclaimed. “You let me see in every possible
way that you want me to give myself to you and to
follow you into the desert; you let me understand that
this is what you expect of a woman; you knew that I
had heard about your affairs with the Bedouin women
here; you didn’t seem to mind my having heard about
Lizette: and then, when I accept your point of view and
come to you, you tell me I’ve done wrong.”

“What on earth are you saying?” he cried.
“What do you mean about Bedouin women? I have
never had any relations whatsoever with native women
in my life—never. And as for Lizette, I didn’t tell
at the time, because I wanted you to trust me of your
own accord; but I will tell you now. I’ve only spoken
to her twice in my life. Once we had supper together,
and once we had coffee together in a restaurant. That
is the beginning and the end of my relationship with her.
Do you mean to say that thinking me a sort of libertine,
you have come out to live with me here as my mistress
for a fortnight? Is that what you mean?”

She did not reply. She sat down on a cane chair
near the table, and twisted her handkerchief to and
fro with her fingers. The expression on her pale face
revealed the black despair of her heart.

“Answer me!” he said, sharply.

“I have no answer,” she replied. “I thought you
wanted me, I thought you loved me.”

He turned from her, sick at heart. It seemed now
to him that his worst fears were realized: he could
almost have called her “Harlot.” In no wise had she
abandoned the world and run to him, defying the conventions
because she desired to be his mate. She had
merely planned a secret love-affair: she had just slipped
out of the ballroom, so to speak, to enjoy an amorous
interlude, and she would be back amongst the dancers
once more before anybody had missed her. This sort
of clandestine, cunningly arranged affair was an insult
to the whole idea of union: it was an intrigue out of a
French novel.

He looked at her once more as she sat at the table,
and, in his revulsion of feeling, he thought her kimono
gaudy. The expression on her face was angry, almost
sullen.

“I think you must be mad,” she said. “In Cairo
you wouldn’t be publicly engaged to me, and you made
me understand quite clearly that it wasn’t our actual
marriage you were thinking about: you wanted me to
run away with you. You always jibbed at the thought
of marriage, and were silent about it; but you talked
freely enough about our life together. You made it
quite clear that you regarded morals with contempt;
and now, you suddenly have scruples, and pretend that
you are shocked at my having taken steps to prevent
a scandal which would hurt my father’s reputation.”

“If you were afraid of a scandal,” he answered,
quickly, “why did you come at all? When you arrived
this afternoon I thought you had left that question to
me, and were ready to get married at once, which was
the only way to avoid hurting your father—unless I
had sent you back this very night to Kate Bindane.
No, you weren’t afraid of a scandal: you arranged it
all too cleverly for there to be much risk.”

“I was prepared to marry you,” she said, “if you
really wanted marriage.”

“And if I didn’t,” he replied, “you were prepared
to live with me for a fortnight. Oh, you make me
ashamed!”

“I wanted to save you from these other women,” she
protested.

“I tell you there never were any other women,” he
answered. “I’m not a man out of one of your horrible
novels.”

“I don’t know what you are driving at,” she exclaimed.
“Anyway I won’t be played fast and loose
with like this. I shall go back to my friends tomorrow,
and I hope I shall never see you again.”

Suddenly her voice broke, and throwing her arms out
across the table, she laid her head upon them, and
cried bitterly.

Daniel did not move. His heart was hardened
against her, and he told himself that her tears were but
one of the wiles of her sex.

“No,” he said at length, coming suddenly to a decision,
“you shall not go back tomorrow. You have
come here for a fortnight, and have made arrangements
for your visit to be secret. You say there is no fear
of a scandal such as would hurt your father. Very
well then, you shall stay here a fortnight whether you
want to or not. I propose that we get to know each
other: we’ve had enough misunderstandings. You have
misunderstood everything I have ever said to you: it has
all been warped and twisted by your miserable society
attitude of mind.”

“I shall never understand you,” she answered, raising
her head, and drying her eyes with the back of her
hand. “This is quite final. You’ve insulted me and
humiliated me. I might have known that that was what
you’d do.”

“Very well,” he said, “I think you had better go to
your room now. Remember, you are going to stay
here for the full fortnight.”

“I shall do no such thing,” she declared, facing him
defiantly.

He gripped hold of her wrist. “Do you want me
to have to lock you up?” he asked; and she quailed before
the authority of his voice.

He went across to the door and opened it. Outside,
upon the floor, a hurricane lamp was burning; and this
he picked up.

“Here’s a lamp,” he said, “and here are matches.
Now go to bed.”

She took them from him in silence, and slowly walked
out of the room.

He watched her as she passed across the refectory,
the light from her lantern casting her swaying
shadow in huge size upon the ruinous walls. Then he
shut the door, and sitting down at the table, buried
his face in his hands.


CHAPTER XXVII—THE FLIGHT
========================

For a long time Daniel lay awake upon his bed
at the top of the tower, while his thoughts
passed through a number of recurrent phases.
More than once he felt that he had made a mountain
out of a molehill; but this attitude of mind was dismissed
by the recollection that, whether Muriel truly
loved him or not, she had come to him “on the sly,”
and, by planning this surreptitious interlude (for she
had meant it to be no more than that) she had invested
their relationship with that very atmosphere of
intrigue which he so strongly resented.

He saw in her action the influence of that small
section of London society which he abhorred, wherein
the women appeared to him to be secret courtesans who
would neither abide by the traditional law nor openly
flout it; and he was determined either to eradicate that
influence or to lose Muriel. He was not entirely clear
in his mind as to what he was going to do with her in
the Oasis for this fortnight; but of this he was sure,
that she needed a lesson, and that he was going to take
her in hand, remorselessly, whatever might be the consequences.

The moon, in the last quarter, rose above the far-off
hills while yet he was wearily thinking, and realizing
thus that daybreak was not more than two hours
distant, he obliged himself by force of will, to compose
his mind for sleep. In this he was successful and presently
he fell into a deep slumber from which it would
have been difficult to wake him.

Meanwhile, Muriel had also watched the dim light of
the rising moon as it slowly spread over the desert.
She had slept for two or three hours—a miserable
sleep of exhaustion; but when she was awakened by the
hooting of an owl outside the window, she lit her lamp
and made no further attempt at repose.

Her one idea was to get away from Daniel and to
go back to Kate Bindane, who would still be alone at
El Homra until the end of the coming day. She did
not want to wait until daybreak, for if Daniel were
awake he would perhaps try to stop her; and now the
slight illumination given by the moon encouraged her
to make her immediate escape. She could hardly miss
the road: all she had to do was to mount her camel
and ride straight ahead.

Hastily she put on her clothes, and soon she had
crept out into the refectory, carrying her heavy dressing-case
in her hand. She had slipped her revolver into
one of the pockets of her skirt, and in the other she
had placed a packet of chocolate unused on the previous
day, while her water-bottle was slung across her shoulder.

Her heart was beating, and she was frightened at the
prospect of the long journey alone, but there was no
practicable way of getting into touch with her dragoman,
and she was obliged, therefore, to steel herself
for the adventure.

By a stroke of good luck she found the three dogs
wandering about the refectory, and they were thus not
startled into barking: they followed her with wagging
tails as she made her way to the camel-shed outside.
There were no doors to open, nor bolts or bars to unfasten;
and she could hear the servants snoring at the
other end of the building.

Creeping into the shed, lantern in hand, she found
her camel and Daniel’s kneeling side by side upon the
sand, dreamily chewing the cud, and, having learned the
tricks of the stable during her journey from Cairo, she
quickly slipped a rope around the bent knee-joint of
the foreleg of her own beast, thus preventing it from
rising.

The saddle was heavy, and was furnished with a number
of confusing straps; but, after a somewhat prolonged
struggle, she managed at length to adjust it,
and to tie her dressing-case on to the back pommel.
Then, removing the tether, she held the nose-rope in
one hand, and prodded the unwilling beast with her toe
until it floundered to its legs, snarling and complaining
as is the habit of the breed.

Leading it out into the open she buckled the girth
in a fashion, but for some minutes she failed to make
the creature kneel so as to allow her to climb into the
saddle. She tugged at the nose-rope, and tapped its
legs with her crop, but presently she was obliged to
desist, owing to her fear that its whining grumbles
would be heard.

She was in despair and was very near to tears, when
suddenly she recollected that the native makes a certain
noise in the roof of his mouth, like the rolling of
a German *ch*, when he wishes his camel to kneel; and
no sooner had she imitated this sound than the creature
went down on its knees with the utmost docility.
She clambered into the saddle with a sigh of relief, and
a moment later was trotting silently northwards while
the dogs stared at her in mild surprise as they stood in
the light of the lantern which she had left burning at
the doorway of the shed.

The soft pads made little sound as she passed under
the outer walls of the monastery, and, looking up at
the tower, she saw no signs of movement, for Daniel
was fast asleep. Nor was there any indication of human
life in the Oasis below her as she trotted along the
cliff-tops, but the sporadic barking of the village dogs
much alarmed her.

The day was now breaking in the east, while the
moon also gave a certain amount of light; and she
therefore found the track with ease, and in less than
half an hour had left the Oasis behind and was heading
out into the open desert across the high ground.

The excitement of her escape had prevented her from
thinking of her actual sorrow, and now she was too
nervous, too overawed by her surroundings, to be conscious
of more than a general horror. A six hours’
ride across an absolutely uninhabited and lifeless
stretch of country, with nothing but a packet of
chocolate for sustenance, was likely to be a physical
ordeal; and already she knew that the nervous strain
was going to be very great.

As has been said, there were three wells upon the
route, and the nearest of these, some six miles from the
Oasis, she reached within the hour. The sun being now
well above the horizon, she did not halt; for she realized
that Daniel, on his tower top, would already have been
awakened by its rays, and would perhaps be even now
in pursuit.

This, in fact, was the case. When he had descended
from the tower he had quickly discovered her flight, and
had sent Hussein scuttling into the stable, while he
himself put on a shirt and a pair of trousers and
slipped his bare feet into the old canvas shoes which
lay to hand.

Snatching his water-bottle and a tin of biscuits from
the living-room, and pocketing his pipe and pouch, he
ran through the refectory like a charging bull, sprang
on to his camel, and was off and away before his servant
had recovered from his first astonishment.

“*Walla kilma!*” he shouted to the staring Hussein,
which means “Not a word!” And the loyal native
thereupon went back to the kitchen, muttering to himself
”His Excellency has gone hunting,“ as though to
convince himself of the veracity of the statement, which,
after all, was not very far removed from the truth.

As Daniel raced along in the sparkling sunshine he
could detect here and there the marks of Muriel’s camel
upon the tracks before him, and he knew that, at the
pace at which he was travelling, he would have the
chance of overtaking her before she had accomplished
half the journey back to El Homra; for he had not
been long asleep, and her departure could not have
taken place earlier without attracting his attention.
He therefore settled down to a protracted and pounding
chase, and in the brisk morning air his steed did not
fail to show its mettle.

He was travelling at twice Muriel’s pace, and he
caught sight of her, and she of him, as he descended
from the high ground into the wide plain which lay between
the two oases. She was over a mile ahead of him,
a mere speck, like a little fly crawling across a vast
brazen dish, and a considerable time passed before he
had come close enough to observe her movements.

He saw her now urging her camel forward, beating
it with her crop. Her hat had been discarded, and her
hair had fallen down and was being tossed out behind
her by the north wind like a fluttering banner.

She turned to glance at him, and he saw her flushed
face, as again she belaboured her tired beast. He was
about to call out to her when suddenly her camel stumbled.
The loosely buckled girth gave way, and the saddle
slipped over to one side. For a moment she
clutched on to it, while her camel went round in a circle
as though about to overbalance and fall on top of her.
Then she slid to the ground, fell on her hands and
knees, picked herself up, and set off running like a
maniac, while the startled camel went staggering off to
one side.

Daniel did not slacken his pace, and in a few moments
he was close upon her heels.

“Stop!” he called, coming to a halt. “It’s no
good running like that!”

For answer she suddenly swung round and faced
him, panting and distracted. Her hand dived into her
pocket, and issued again holding her revolver. He
saw the sunlight flash upon it as she pointed it at him.

His camel was well trained, and he did not wait to
tether it. Vaulting from the saddle he walked rapidly
towards her, regardless of the menace of the weapon
which covered him.

“Don’t dare to come any nearer,” she gasped, “or
I’ll shoot you, you brute!”

He stretched out his arms. “Very well, shoot!” he
said. “Good God! D’you think I value my life
now?”

He saw her fingers press the trigger. There was a
flash, a sharp report, and the bullet went singing past
his ear, not close enough, perhaps, to suggest that she
had taken aim at him, but not so distant that he could
ignore it. He ran at her, therefore, and grasped her
wrist, so that the revolver fell to the ground. Instantly
she flung herself upon her knees and grabbed at it with
her left hand, but he dragged her back by her arm, pulling
her to her feet.

“You beast!” she exclaimed. “Leave me alone!”
and she struck at him with her free hand. Her eyes
were flashing, and her hair was tossed about her
shoulders.

He put his arm about her, holding her as in a vice,
and, stooping, he picked up and pocketed her revolver.

“Now sit down there,” he said, lowering her on to the
sand, “and get your breath.”

She saw that there was no use in resisting, and she
sat, therefore, glaring up at him as he stood before her.

He turned his head and glanced at the camels, and
as he did so she stretched out her foot and kicked his
shins.

“Ough!” he exclaimed. “Don’t do that—it
hurts!”

“Oh, I wish we were near Cairo,” she cried. “I’d
turn the servants on to you and have you whipped. Go
and fetch my camel!”

“Yes,” he answered, “I’m just going to. And
don’t you start running away again, or I’ll not be so
gentle with you when I catch you.”

He hastened across the desert, and, without any
difficulty, caught Muriel’s wandering and tired animal,
and readjusted the saddle. Soon he had tethered it
beside his own; and coming back to her, he sat himself
down a yard or two away from her, and lit his pipe.

“Say when you’re ready to start back,” he said,
stretching himself out and resting his head upon his
elbow.

“I’m not coming back with you,” she replied. “I’m
going back to El Homra.”

“No, you’re not,” he told her. “You’re going to
stay with me for this fortnight you’ve so carefully
planned.”

She scrambled to her feet, her fists clenched. “If
you try to force me to come with you,” she burst out,
“I shall ... I shall *bite* you.”

He also stood up. “Now look here,” he said.
“Understand me: you’re going back with me, whether
you like it or not. And if you struggle I shall tie you
up. Now, come along quietly.”

He caught hold of her wrist, and led her towards the
camels.

“Take your hand off my arm!” she gasped.
“You’ve got me in your power now, but you just wait
till my father hears of this. He’ll have you hounded
out of Egypt.”

He did not reply, but releasing her, left her to climb
into the saddle.

“Go and get my crop,” she said. “I dropped it
somewhere here.”

“Very well,” he replied, “but, remember, if you ride
off while my back is turned, I’ll come after you and tie
your hands behind your back.”

Muriel wriggled furiously in her seat, but she knew
that it was useless to attempt to escape. Presently
Daniel found her crop and brought it back to her.
Then he mounted his camel, and the two of them rode
off southwards side by side.

“We shall come across your hat soon,” he said.
“Be on the lookout for it. You’ll get sunstroke without it,
in spite of all that mass of hair.”

She uttered something like a growl as she jogged
along beside him over the blazing sand.


CHAPTER XXVIII—THE SURPRISING FORTNIGHT
=======================================

It was mid-morning when they reached the house,
and Daniel advised Muriel to go at once to her
room, whither Hussein presently brought refreshments
and cans of water for the bath.

“Send Mustafa to me,” she said to him, but, understanding
no English, and grasping only the name of
the dragoman, he pointed towards the Oasis, indicating
by signs that the man had not yet returned.

At this she went to the door of her room and called
out sharply “Mr. Lane!”

Daniel, who at the moment had just ducked his head
in a pail of water, came into the refectory drying his
hair with a towel.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Anything I can
do for you?”

“Where’s my dragoman?” she asked, suspiciously.

“*I* don’t know,” he replied. “I haven’t touched
him.”

Hussein volunteered the information that Mustafa
had not yet returned, and Daniel translated the statement
into English.

“Well, when he comes,” she said, “please send him to
me at once.”

“No,” he replied, very decisively, “I’m going to send
him straight off to El Homra before he hears of our
little trouble this morning. I can trust Hussein to say
nothing in the village, but Mustafa I don’t know very
well.”

She turned angrily to him. “You do like bullying
women, don’t you!” she sneered.

He looked at her with steady, serene eyes, “You
won’t need a dragoman for a fortnight,” he remarked.
“He may as well make himself useful to the Bindanes.”

With that he went back to his ablutions, and when,
half an hour later, Mustafa made his appearance,
Daniel immediately sent him off on his long journey,
telling him to convey his compliments to Mr. and Mrs.
Bindane and to say that her Ladyship was in the best
of health, and would come back to them on the thirteenth
day from now.

This done, he called Hussein to him and spoke to him
somewhat after this manner: “Her Excellency,” he
said, “desires to go back to her friends, but I believe I
shall be carrying out the wishes of her father by obliging
her to remain here. You will therefore take her
camel and mine into the village, so that she cannot get
at them; and you will notify me at once if she leaves the
house. Otherwise you are to treat her with the deference
due to her high rank; and I think it will be best to
make no mention of what I have told you to your
friends.”

Hussein bowed, and at once went off to find a suitable
stable for the camels.

When luncheon was announced a couple of hours
later Muriel came into the living-room, carrying herself
with dignity.

“Am I obliged to eat my meals with you?” she asked.

“It will be more convenient,” he replied.

“I shall probably be sick,” she muttered.

“You’ll get used to it,” he answered; and therewith
they sat down at the table.

The meal was eaten in a distressing silence, broken
only by Daniel’s polite profferring of salt, pepper, and
the like, and by his pressing but vain invitations to her
to eat a little more of this or that dish. When at
length they rose from the table, he advised her to go to
her room to rest. “You must be very tired,” he said,
“after getting up so early, and all that excitement.”

“I’ll lie down,” she replied, “but I don’t suppose I
shall sleep. The very fact of being anywhere near you
disgusts me too much to allow me to go to sleep.”

“You must try to master that feeling,” he said,
with perfect seriousness. “It hurts nobody but yourself.
I can quite understand your being angry; but I
think Al Ghazzali, the Muslim philosopher, put the
matter in a nutshell when he said: ‘God loves those
who swallow down their anger, and not those who have
no anger at all.’ It only makes you yourself miserable
to be in a temper; but try to say to yourself that you
won’t let me be of such importance in your life as to
have the power to upset you. You ought to say:
‘Nothing that this fellow does can shake my equanimity:
he has absolutely no power over my inner self.’
If you can really say that to yourself you’ll sleep all
right. There’ll be some tea going at half-past four.”

She stared at him freezingly and went out of the
room, while Daniel quietly settled down to his writing,
refusing to allow himself any further thoughts in regard
to her.

At tea-time he told her that he wanted her to come
down into the Oasis with him. “It will take your
thoughts off yourself,” he said.

“Thank you,” she replied. “I prefer to stay here in
my prison. I wish you’d realize that your society is
obnoxious to me. I hate the sight of you.”

“I quite understand that,” he said, “but, all the
same, I want you to come, please.”

“If I refuse,” she retorted, “I suppose you’ll drag
me down by the hair?”

“No.” he replied, “not by your hair: only by your
hand.”

She was too tired to put up any resistance, and soon
they left the house together, descending by the rough
path down the cliffs to the lower level, where the
shadow lay deep.

Presently they entered the forest of palms, wherein,
here and there stood a mud-brick hut or cluster of huts,
upon the flat roofs of which the goats and chickens ran
about, and sometimes a dog looked down at them and
barked.

The shadow of the cliffs extended for some distance,
like a blue veil, but further ahead the sun still struck
down upon the Oasis, and the mellow light, seen between
the tree-trunks and foliage, was made so rich by
contrast with the cool tones of the shadowed foreground
that Muriel was constrained to remark on its
beauty. Pigeons fluttered to and fro amongst the
trees, those close at hand being white as snow, but those
in the sunlit distance appearing to flash before the eyes
like gilded birds of a fairy tale.

Soon they passed out of the shadow, and now the
sunlight was sprinkled upon them from between the
rustling palm-branches overhead, and the dust of their
footsteps was like a haze of powdered gold. Before
them, in a clearing, a number of rough buildings, some
of them whitewashed, encircled an open space of sun-baked
ground wherein a number of natives sauntered to
and fro. Here there were a few stalls, sheltered by
tenting or tattered fragments of brown camel-cloth:
grain being on sale at one of them; at another, basket-work;
at another, pottery.

The loiterers and salesmen greeted Daniel with polite
salaams, and to some of them he spoke a few words;
but they were too well-mannered, or perhaps too indifferent,
to show any particular interest in Muriel,
and even when she paused to pat the shaven head of a
little naked urchin, and to give him a piastre, there were
few curious eyes upon her. The villagers seemed to be
dawdling through a peaceful dream, unruffled by the
ardours and eagerness to which the Westerner is accustomed;
and Muriel had the feeling that she had
come into a lull in the breeze of life, as when a sailing
boat is becalmed and the sails flap idly. Even the
tempest in her heart was quietened, and the warmth of
the evening caused her to feel a languor that was temporarily
almost serene.

Daniel led her across the open ground to a lane between
the ramshackle buildings on the far side. Here,
at a crazy-looking door, he paused.

“I want you just to shake hands with an old man,”
he said. “He acted as guide years ago to one of your
father’s predecessors.”

“There’s no need to say who I am, is there?” she
asked, a little anxiously.

He smiled. “Your dragoman will have spread the
news already.”

“I told him not to,” she answered.

Daniel made a gesture of impatience. “We must try
to correct that,” he said. “Secrecy is very unpleasant,
though it is sometimes necessary. You’ll find it
always best to be frank when you can.”

In response to his knocking the door was opened by
a small, smirking boy, and they entered a little yard,
wherein a clean cow, several emaciated hens, and a
couple of goats wandered about in front of a two-roomed
house, the rear wall of which appeared to be
about to collapse. Here a dim-eyed old man sat upon
a native bedstead of split palm-branches, engaged in
hunting for fleas in his cloak, and, as his gnarled old
fingers plucked at the folds, his grey-bearded mouth
was pursed and pushed forward in the manner of a
monkey.

He rose, creaking, to his feet as he caught sight of
his visitors, and, tottering forward, grasped Daniel’s
extended hand, who then introduced him to Muriel.

Daniel spoke to him in Arabic, and presently, turning
to his companion, asked her to say something to the
old man.

“What shall I say?” Muriel enquired.

“He is very old,” Daniel replied. “Wish that God’s
face may shine upon him. Say you hope the evening
of his life may be full of peace and blessedness.”

“Yes, tell him that,” she answered.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Oh, make up something for me,” she replied.

“No,” he answered, severely. “Please take your
thoughts from yourself, and concentrate them on this
old fellow. Think what is the best thing you can wish
him. Think hard.”

Muriel glanced at him in surprise, while her host
turned his fading eyes to Daniel, asking what she was
saying.

“She is trying to think what is the most blessed wish
she can make for you,” he replied, speaking in Arabic;
and the old man beamed upon her.

Muriel made an effort, and, taking his horny hand in
hers, told him that she hoped he would keep his health
and that his affairs would prosper. With an eye on
his cloak, she wanted to add that she hoped he would
have good hunting, but she restrained herself.

Daniel translated the words into the native tongue,
and, after a brief conversation, they took their departure.

As they walked down the lane Muriel asked him,
freezingly, why he had so particularly wished her to
make herself polite to the old man.

“I had no reason,” he answered, “except that I
wanted you to think of him and not of yourself.”

“Why?” she asked with increasing ill-humor. “Am
I usually selfish?”

“You have been trained to think first of yourself,”
he answered, with disconcerting candour, “though by
nature you are not really selfish at all. During this
fortnight I want you to think mostly of other people.”

She had no time to reply before Daniel stopped at
another and larger door, which he pushed open without
a preliminary knock. Here, in a shed, two camels and
a donkey stood feeding from a trough.

“This,” he told her, “is my hospital for sick animals.
Both these camels have saddle-sores, as you see,
and the old moke foaled the other day, but the youngster
died. She is very depressed about it.”

Muriel was interested, and patted the donkey affectionately,
while Daniel, stepping on to an inverted box,
examined the camels’ sores.

“Just hand me that bottle over there,” he said.
“It’s my patent mixture of carbolic and lamp-oil. It
keeps the flies off, and heals up the sores mighty quick.”

Muriel haughtily gave him the bottle, and watched
him as he poured a few drops on to the wounds. Her
attention was presently attracted by a board nailed to
the wall, upon which an inscription was written in large,
flowing Arabic characters.

“What does that say?” she asked, forgetting for the
moment that she was not really desirous of holding any
communication with him.

“It is a quotation from the Koran,” he told her.
“I wrote it and stuck it up for a lesson to these people.
It reads ‘The *Prophet* has written: There is no *beast*
on earth, nor bird that flieth, but the same is a people
like unto you, and unto God shall they return.’”

“I like that,” she said.

He fetched a broom from the corner of the shed and
held it out to her. “Would you mind just sweeping
the ground a bit while I clean up the troughs?” he
asked. “The native attendant is off duty today.”

He busied himself with his work, and Muriel, making
a grimace, did as she was bid. It was less awkward
than standing still, and the cause was good though the
job unpleasant.

They walked home in silence through the gathering
dusk. Daniel offered her his hand to help her up the
steep path which ascended the cliff to his house, but she
frigidly refused it; and when, presently, she stumbled
and nearly fell, she scrambled to her feet once more in
surprisingly quick time, as though to avoid his proffered
aid.

Later she sat down to the evening meal without uttering
a word, and the silence was extremely oppressive.

“Look here,” Daniel broke out at last, “I don’t
know what you feel about it, but for my own part I
rather object to this silence.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” she replied.

“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “I will do the
talking. I shall choose a subject and talk about it: you
can listen if you want to.”

Therewith he gave her an account of the Bedouin
tribes of this part of the desert, how they had come to
settle there, how he had recovered a part of their history
from the old tales and ballads which he had
recorded; and he told her something of their curious
laws and customs.

Muriel’s face did not betray any interest whatsoever,
but Daniel persevered courageously until the meal was
finished.

“You can stay in this room and read a book if you
like,” he said to her, as they rose from the table.

Muriel looked at him coldly. “Thank you,” she replied,
with an emphasis which she hoped was withering,
“I prefer to go to my room. Good-night!” And
with that she took her departure.

The day had seemed intolerably long to her, and her
smouldering anger had flamed up within her at frequent
intervals. She realized that Daniel was playing the
schoolmaster to her, and she was determined not to
knuckle under to him. If he had decided to keep her a
prisoner here for the full fortnight, she would do her
best to make him thoroughly uncomfortable. His
cool, impersonal attitude annoyed her; she was amazed
that a man who but yesterday was branding her with
his burning kisses could be today so entirely detached
from emotion, and she flushed at the insult of it.

Her only consolation lay in the thought that he was
injuring himself by his behaviour. She would now
never be even so much as a sister to him—not even so
much as a friend. When she had escaped from this
horrible place she would go to England, and soon, no
doubt, she would marry a nice, ordinary man, with
sleek hair and a tooth-brush moustache and long, thin
legs; and as she came out of the church after the marriage
ceremony she would catch sight of Daniel in the
crowd and would smile contemptuously at him....

She was very tired, and many minutes had not passed
before she abandoned the pretence of reading the
anthology of English verse which Daniel had placed in
her room on the previous evening, nor was it long before
she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep which held her
as it were entombed until Hussein caused her resurrection
by bringing in the bath-water in the morning.

The cool breeze and the sparkling air brought a certain
feeling of well-being into her heart; but the meeting
with Daniel at the breakfast table was a wretched
business, and was made all the more distasteful by his
evident good health and the morning freshness of his
mind.

“I hope you are feeling fit,” he said to her. “We
have a busy morning before us.”

That he was not speaking in jest was proved by the
event. Soon after breakfast he took her down to the
house of Sheikh Ali, and introduced her to the old man
and his son Ibrahîm. Thereafter the four of them
walked over to the open ground outside the mosque,
where a large number of men and camels were gathered,
while on the outskirts of the area many women and
children stood in the shade of the palms. Daniel explained
to her that a large number of the chief men of
the El Hamrân were setting out upon the long journey
to the far-off Oasis of El Khargeh, where there was to
be a great gathering of the tribes. Sheikh Ali himself
was too old and too feeble to go with the caravan, and
his eldest son, Ibrahîm, was remaining with him; but
his younger sons and most of his male relatives and
adherents were going.

She watched the animated scene with interest, and
the hubbub came to her ears with the wonder of novelty—the
women uttering their strange, whinnying cries
in token of their grief at parting with their husbands;
the white-bearded old Sheikh embracing his sons, like a
Biblical picture come to life; the diversely robed figures
steering their camels in circles and firing their rifles in
the air; the barking of innumerable dogs skulking
amongst the palms; and over all the brilliant sunshine
and the deep blue of the sky.

She and Daniel shook hands with a very large number
of men, and, as she walked homewards after the
caravan had departed, she had a confused memory of
smiling bearded faces, dark eyes, and many-coloured
robes fluttering in the wind.

After sundown he took her down to the village, armed
with pots of ointment, to help him to doctor the eyes of
two little grandchildren of the Sheikh, who were suffering
from ophthalmia, and whose sight his daily ministrations
were saving. And in the evening he continued
his writing, leaving her to read a book until, with many
yawns, she betook herself to her room.

This day was typical of all the others in that surprising
fortnight. Quietly and impersonally he led her
through her duties, obliging her to make herself useful
in a score of different ways. Now he set her to the task
of classifying his photographs and notes; now he sent
her down to the animals’ hospital to doctor the camels’
sores; now he asked her to massage the sprained ankle
of a small girl who had been brought to the house for
treatment; now he made her grace with her presence a
village wedding festival; and now he dispatched her
with milk and eggs to the hovel of a blind old woman
who lived on her neighbours’ charity.

In the afternoons he would take her for painfully
long tramps over the desert, for the good of her health
as he told her; and when the silence became oppressive
he would talk to her, whether she listened or no, about
the nature of the birds they saw or whose footprints
were marked upon the sand, about the geological formation
of the country, about the jackals and their
habits, and so forth. During their meals together he
attempted, cold-bloodedly, to enlighten her on many
subjects, and sometimes he would talk philosophy to her,
endeavouring to give her a new standpoint on certain
age-old themes, but “You do like preaching, don’t
you?” was the kind of response he received.

Sitting opposite to him at the table, it seemed to him
that she carried herself with great dignity; and he had
to admit that, under the circumstances, she was a great
deal more self-possessed and high-mettled than he had
expected her to be. She stood up to him, so to speak,
and there were times at which he had the feeling, though
he did not show it, that he was behaving like a boor.

On one occasion in particular he was conscious of
having been put to rights by her. He had been talking
about the sincerity of Islâm, and had said how wise the
Prophet was to refuse to organize a priesthood, preferring
to leave the faith in the hands of the laity.

“It is so different from the empty ceremonials of our
own religion,” he said. “It seems to me that the
Church’s idea of the imitation of Christ is generally a
burlesque in bad taste.”

“In every walk of life,” she replied, “there are men
who make an outward hash of their inner ideals. You,
for example, have great ideas as to what women should
be; but in actual fact you make a terrible mess of your
dealings with them.”

“I wonder,” he mused. It was as though he had
been chastised.

She did not continue the argument. That was, to
Daniel, the baffling thing about her: she was growing
so quiet now that she was in his power. She performed
the tasks he set her almost in silence, and he could never
tell whether she were learning her lesson or whether she
were treating him with contempt as a man who lacked
sympathetic understanding.

In her silence he seemed to find the quiet suggestion
that she knew already all he wished to teach her; and
there were moments when he felt that he had estranged
himself needlessly from her. At such times he was
obliged to remind himself that she had deliberately
treated his love as a romantic adventure, and such treatment
had had to be dealt with drastically. It was better
that it should die outright than live to bring misery
to them both; and with this thought he steeled his heart.

Thus the days passed by—days of brilliant sunshine
and warm, mysterious nights, of active toil and
healthy sleep; days meant for love and companionship,
but turned down, one after the other, in cold antagonism
and frigid reticence. Sometimes in the evening,
after she had gone to her room, he would sit with his
head buried in his hands, calling himself a fool and
loathing his rôle of schoolmaster; and more than once
there was a black hour of despair when, had she come to
him, she would have been astonished to see his huge
arms spread out across the table and his head sunk
upon his mighty breast.


CHAPTER XXIX—IN THE PRESENCE OF DEATH
=====================================

By the middle of March Muriel’s enforced residence
at El Hamrân was drawing to a close.
Already she had been with Daniel for eleven or
twelve days, and he had kept her so busy that the time
had passed rapidly. These days had been like a fantastic
dream to her, and she could hardly believe in the
reality of her actions. The whole situation was absurd;
and yet, notwithstanding her artificial outward stiffness
and her actual inward rebellion, she was conscious
that her experience had not been unprofitable.

In spite of Daniel’s hectoring and churlish manners—for
so she thought them—she felt that she had seen
something of life as it is lived under primitive conditions
which otherwise she would never have known.
She had even experienced, latterly, a pleasant sense of
calm while she had been carrying out her duties: it was
almost as though being under orders were a satisfactory
condition—now and then. And as to her physical
health, she was obliged to admit that she had never
before felt so thoroughly fit.

Her attitude to her monitor was one of unbending
hostility, but now no longer of furious anger. She was
not afraid of him, but very decidedly she did not feel
the contempt for him which she endeavoured to show.
She regarded him as a man of difficult and contrary
character, but she now realized that she had greatly
misjudged his outlook upon life. She had thought that
in regard to women he was a prurient savage: she now
knew that he was a high-principled and rather fastidious
celibate.

Undoubtedly he had taught her the lesson of her life,
but she was certainly not going to grasp his hand and
thank him kindly on that account. He had built up a
barrier between them which would remain a fixture for
all time, and, though her heart often ached, she was far
too estranged from him to think of any future intimacy
whatsoever between them.

Only in one respect, in these days of their life together,
did she feel drawn towards him. He had an indefinably
benevolent and humorous attitude towards
life, of which she was daily more conscious. It was
something which could not be described, but on more
than one occasion it nearly served to break down the
wall of ice within in which she had enclosed herself.
Sometimes it would be merely that he stopped in his
walk to make an absurd remark to a passing cow or to
a wandering goat; sometimes it would be the way in
which he played with his dogs; or sometimes it was his
manner to the native children which would cause her to
unbend towards him. It was as though he had a private
joke with every living creature. It was too quiet to
be termed joviality: it was in no wise rollicking. It was
a subtle droll and whimsical good-nature; it seemed
almost as if, conscious of his own great strength, he
were saying “Bless your little heart!” to all things
weaker than he.

One morning, just as they were finishing a silent
breakfast, Hussein entered the room, and delivered
himself of a few rapid words in the Arabic tongue,
which so much upset Daniel that he rose to his feet and
paced up and down the floor in great perturbation.

“Anything wrong?” asked Muriel, temporarily unfreezing.

“Yes; very bad news,” he replied. “Old Sheikh Ali
is very ill. It sounds like pneumonia. I must go down
to him at once.”

He snatched up his hat, and, without taking any further
notice of Muriel, hurried out of the room. Sheikh
Ali was a man whom he loved and respected, and the
possible death of his friend was so great a sorrow to
him that his mind was filled full of darkness, like a room
in which the blinds have suddenly been pulled down.
And the condition in which he found the old man confirmed
his worst fears; and presently, in deep anxiety,
he hastened back to the house to procure the necessaries
for his proper nursing.

“Will you come with me,” he said to Muriel, “and
help me to look after him?”

She hesitated. “I am not much good as a nurse,”
she demurred, “but I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you,” he replied, and the words were uttered
with genuine gratitude.

Daniel knew something of the rudiments of medical
science, and he was aware that there was very little to
be done in a case of pneumonia except to keep the
patient warm and to maintain his strength. When he
returned, therefore, to the Sheikh’s house with Muriel,
he was carrying with him a small oil stove with which to
warm the sick-room at night, and a pillow in its clean
white cover was thrust under his arm, while Muriel held
a basket containing a number of articles from the store-cupboard
and medicine-chest.

The house, a whitewashed building of two storeys,
stood amongst the palms, not more than three or four
hundred yards distant from the monastery. As they
approached it they heard the sound of wailing in the
women’s quarters, and at this Daniel uttered an exclamation
of disgust.

“Oh, these women!” he muttered. “We mustn’t
let them do that. Wait a minute.”

He went to the side door and knocked upon it. An
old negress, a servant of the house, opened the door,
her eyes red with weeping, and her withered breast
bare.

“The Sheikh is dying, the Sheikh is dying!” she
wailed, as Daniel questioned her.

He put his hand on her shoulder. “Go and tell
them,” he said, “that if I hear another sound of weeping
I shall send somebody to beat you all with a stick.
Do you not know the saying of the Prophet: ‘Trust
in God, but tether the camel’? If God has decreed
that your camel shall run away it will certainly run
away, but nevertheless you must do your part in preventing
it. If the Sheikh is going to die he will die;
but until he is dead you must do all you can to tether
him to life. Let me hear no more sounds of mourning
until the breath has left his body. In my country we
say ‘While there is life there is hope.’ Go now and
hope—hope in silence.”

He pushed her back into the house and returned to
Muriel.

.. figure:: images/illus-330.png
   :align: center

   A SCENE FROM THE PHOTOPLAY—BURNING SANDS

They found the Sheikh lying upon a couch in the
whitewashed upper room, into which the sun struck
through the open casements. He was propped up upon
the hard square pillows taken from an ordinary native
divan, and his laboured breathing sounded ominously
in their ears. His son Ibrahîm, a grave, black-bearded
man of middle age, stood by his side, drumming the fist
of one hand into the palm of the other in his great distress.

“See,” said Daniel, speaking to the patient in
Arabic, “I have brought her Excellency to nurse you.
Let me put this soft pillow under your head; and, look,
here is a stove to keep off the chill of night. In two or
three days, my father, we shall bring you back to
health.”

The old man shook his head. “No, my dear,” he
whispered, “I am going to my God. God has said, ‘I
am a hidden treasure. I have made man that he might
find Me!’ I go now to find Him.”

Daniel knelt down by his side, and, taking the thin
hand in his, remained silent for some moments, his eyes
shut, his brows knitted. Muriel watched him in surprise.
It was evident that he was praying; and she had
never before seen anybody pray, though in church she
had known people go through the correct postures and
outward formalities of prayer.

Presently he rose to his feet, and at once became
businesslike and practical. He took the patient’s
temperature; dexterously pinned the native shawl about
him; arranged the pillows under his head; opened a
bottle of meat-extract and administered a little of its
contents; and, sending for milk and eggs, made Muriel
go out on the rickety landing to beat up the eggs into
the milk.

When she returned with the beverage she found that
he and Ibrahîm had fastened grass matting across the
windows to check the glare of the sun, and now were
standing in the subdued light talking in quiet cheerful
tones to the sick man.

Presently Daniel turned to her. “I think the best
thing you can do,” he said, “is to sit beside him and fan
away the flies when you see them bothering him.”

He handed her a fly-whisk, and placed a small stool
beside the couch; and here she sat herself, while her
patient closed his eyes and drowsed in some degree of
comfort.

They went back to the house for luncheon, and
during the meal Daniel told her of the troubles which
might ensue in the Oasis if the Sheikh were to die. He
spoke of the feud between the sick man’s family and
that of their rivals; and he explained how Sheikh Ali
desired to be succeeded in his office as headman by his
son Ibrahîm, and that there was a danger of the other
party taking advantage of the absence of so many of
the Sheikh’s adherents, who had gone to El Khargeh.

“If Sheikh Ali dies,” he pointed out, “the other faction
may carry out a *coup*, and establish their candidate
in power while all these men are away. That
would be a disaster; for the man they wish to set up is
a crook, if ever there was one. He would be just the
sort of fellow to play into Benifett Bindane’s hands and
sell himself to the Company.”

“But,” said Muriel in surprise, “aren’t you in
favour of this Company?”

“No,” he answered. “I have come to the conclusion
that it is not in the best interests of the natives. They
are happier as they are, for their products are sufficient
to their needs, and are pretty evenly distributed. I
don’t trust these Stock Exchange fellows: they’ll exploit
the Oasis to fill their own pockets. That’s what
I’m going to tell your father when I get back to Cairo.”

“Poor Mr. Bindane!” Muriel smiled. “He has set
his heart on this business.”

In the afternoon they returned to the sick-room,
where she made herself very useful, and showed a remarkable
aptitude for nursing; and the sun was setting
before they came back to the house once more. Muriel
was very tired by now, and as soon as the evening meal
was over Daniel advised her to go to bed.

“What about yourself?” she asked.

“Oh, I’ll go back to him for a bit,” he answered, but
he would not accept her proffered help.

She therefore went early to her room and soon fell
asleep, nor did she awake again until Hussein aroused
her at sunrise with his clattering preparations for her
bath.

She found herself alone at breakfast, and it was explained
to her by signs that Daniel was with Sheikh
Ali. Presently, therefore, she went down to the sick
man’s house, a little ashamed of herself for not having
risen earlier.

As she entered the upper room she caught sight of
Daniel’s face, and its expression of weary sorrow
checked her. He was seated beside the couch, his hand
on the patient’s pulse, his eyes fixed upon the old man,
who lay panting for breath, the beads of perspiration
upon his wrinkled forehead.

“Is there anything I can do?” she whispered.

He raised his head and gazed at her: she had never
seen him look so haggard before. “No,” he answered,
“he is beyond human aid. It’s only a question of minutes
now.”

“I ought to have come to help you sooner,” she said.
“How long have you been here?”

“All night,” he replied. “I couldn’t leave my
*friend*, could I?” There was something in the inflection
of his voice which very much touched her.

The Sheikh turned his head slightly, and Daniel bent
forward to catch the laboured words.

“Ibrahîm,” he whispered.

Muriel understood, and, at a nod from Daniel, went
out of the room to find the dying man’s son, whom she
had seen at the doorway of the house, on her arrival,
kneeling upon the praying-carpet, his hands extended
towards the East. He had just risen to his feet as
she came now to him, and she made signs to him to go
upstairs.

When she entered the sick room once more she saw
the younger man kneeling beside his father’s couch.
Daniel was holding the feeble old hand, so that it rested
upon Ibrahîm’s turbaned head. She heard and seemed
almost to understand the whispered words of the old
man’s blessing, and presently, to her surprise, she observed
the tears start from Daniel’s eyes, and their
quick brushing away, with the back of his hand. She
had not thought him capable of tears.

Then suddenly she saw the dying man raise himself;
she saw Daniel and Ibrahîm leaning forward to support
him. She heard the rattling of his breath, and she recognized
the words that he uttered as those of the
Moslem formula which Daniel had more than once repeated
to her: “I testify that there is no God but
God....” They came rolling now from his lips with
passionate energy: it was as though the sum of his
whole life were being expressed in these guttural, rhyming
sounds. But the declaration remained unfinished.
The voice ceased upon the name of Allah, the mouth
dropped open, and the patriarchal head fell back.

Muriel had only once before stood at a deathbed;
and later, as she walked back to the monastery, she
compared the scene of her mother’s death with that
from which she had just come.

In the one case there had been the big four-poster
bed, with its hangings of embroidered velvet; the sombre
room, lit by a shaded bedside lamp and by the flickering
of the fire in the wide Tudor grate; the tapestried walls
with their designs of dim huntsmen pursuing phantom
deer through the time-worn twilight of forgotten forests;
the faded Jacobean painting upon the ceiling, representing
the fat back-view of a reclining Venus and the
fat front-view of naked Cupid. There had been the
pompous family doctor and the frigid specialist in their
black frock coats, and in the bed, between the embroidered
sheets, her mother had lain inert, her dyed hair,
tidy to the end, framing her carefully powdered face.

“Come here, my dear,” she had whispered to Muriel.
“Tell me, do you believe in a God?”

“Yes, I think I do,” she had replied.

“Well, I don’t,” was her mother’s reply; and those
were almost her last words.

And, in contrast, there was this patriarchal scene in
the bare, whitewashed room, the sun beating upon the
grass matting, the palms rustling outside, and the flies
droning: the old, saintly face of the dying man, his
withered hand laid upon the head of his beloved son,
and the fervent affirmation of his faith in God upon
his lips.

Muriel was in a very subdued and reflective mood
when she returned, and as she stood at the window of
the living-room, listening to the wailing of the mourners
in the distance, she wondered how best she could
show her sympathy with Daniel in his loss, without in
other respects unbending to him. He relieved her of
the difficulty, however, when he came in; for he showed
no outward signs of his grief, and seemed in no wise to
be asking for her condolence. He spoke of the beauty
of the Sheikh’s life, and of the serenity of his death;
and when Muriel made some remark in regard to the
sadness of the event he quietly corrected her.

“Death,” he said, “is not a calamity when a man has
reached old age. It is like the ripeness of corn, as
Marcus Aurelius says, when the soul drops out of the
husk almost of its own accord. It is a natural action,
just as birth is. It is only we who are left behind who
are unhappy—because we have lost a friend; and as
for that, why, I am not going to let my loss make me
wretched.”

“That sounds extremely selfish,” she remarked,
coldly.

“No,” he answered, “sorrow is selfish, not happiness.
There’s never any use in pulling a long face.”


CHAPTER XXX—THE REVOLT
======================

The funeral took place next morning, as is the
native custom, and it was during the great
gathering of the Sheikh’s friends that the adherents
of the opposing faction made their feared *coup*.
The event, and its serious consequences for Muriel and
Daniel, was upon them so quickly that there was no
time for preparation or retreat.

Muriel had not gone to the funeral, and she was sitting
quietly writing in the living-room when Daniel
flung open the door.

“Quick!” he said. “Get ready to start at once.
Leave your dressing-case: you just want your water-bottle
and a tin or two of food from the cupboard.
We’ve got to ride like the wind. I’m just going to get
the camels.”

She stared at him in amazement as he hastened
away, and thought how extremely inconsiderate he was;
but the realization that her extraordinary fortnight
with him was now at an end led her to obey his instructions
with alacrity. She was soon ready, but for some
time she waited impatiently for his reappearance.

At last he came in, this time slowly and with careful
serenity.

“I’m afraid the journey’s off,” he said.

Muriel was angry, and she tapped her foot sharply
on the floor. “Oh, you’re impossible!” she exclaimed.
“I’m all ready to start, and now you say you’re not
going.”

He looked at her gravely and steadily for a moment,
and then very calmly he told her what had occurred.
While Ibrahîm and those of his adherents who had not
gone to El Khargeh were attending the funeral, the
rival faction had seized every camel and donkey in the
Oasis, for of the former more than half the number
owned by the inhabitants had gone with the caravan.
They had disarmed the village *ghaffirs*, or guards, they
had proclaimed their own chief as Sheikh of the Oasis,
and they had picketed every track leading out into the
desert and to the lands beyond.

Daniel had found his and Muriel’s camel gone from
the stable, and he had encountered a group of “enemy”
leaders who had informed him that he would not be permitted
to communicate with the outside world for several
days.

“Their idea,” he explained, lighting his pipe, “is to
get their man firmly established in power before the
police hear of it, and then it will be a *fait accompli*. It
is to be a peaceful revolution, without bloodshed if possible;
but I don’t suppose they will hesitate to shoot
anybody who tries to get away. So, you see, we’re
caught.”

Muriel received the news calmly. According to the
time-table the Bindanes would return to El Homra tomorrow
or the next day, and then, if she had not made
her reappearance, they would probably send her dragoman
and a trooper or two to fetch her. But Daniel
pointed out that three days might elapse before these
men arrived, and two weeks before the authorities in
Egypt could give instructions. Moreover, their coming
might lead to an awkward situation for himself and
her.

“You see, they know that I will support Ibrahîm’s
claim,” he said, puffing quietly at his pipe, “for I promised
his father I would do so; and if an unfortunate accident
could account for you and me, it would be all the
better for them. Supposing, for example, you and I
were found to have gone out hunting, and to have lost
our way, and to have fallen over a cliff or something of
that kind, there would be nobody much to uphold
Ibrahîm against a rival already established in office.”

Daniel did not take his eyes from hers as he put this
aspect of the matter before her. It was as though he
were testing her nerve; or perhaps it was that he
thought candour best in regard to a contingency the
possibility of which would doubtless occur to her.

“It seems to me,” she said presently, “that human
nature is much the same all the world over. You were
rather intolerant of the intrigues of Cairo; but rivalries
and disputes evidently go on in the desert too.
I’m very disappointed.”

“So am I,” he replied, with disarming candour.
“The only thing to be said for it is that it has been
done pretty openly and boldly.”

“What do you intend to do?” she asked. She was
remarkably calm.

“I’m going to slip away after dark,” he replied,
with a smile, “and walk to El Homra.”

“It’s thirty miles,” she said. “And supposing you
get shot or caught...?”

“You can come too, if you like,” he replied. He
might have added that this actually was his intention.

She remained silent for some moments, her face a
little flushed, her fingers drumming on the table. In
spite of her self-control he could see that she realized
the danger. “Yes,” she said at length, “I’ll come
too.”

He smiled broadly. She caught sight of his strong
white teeth, in which the stem of his pipe was gripped.

“I don’t see anything to smile about,” she remarked.

He did not answer. In his mind there was an astonishing
sense of exultation. He had had no idea that
she would show such quiet pluck: he had hardly dared
to think, as he put the graver possibilities of their situation
before her, that she would receive the news without
a tremor. But now, suddenly, his heart was crying
out within him: “This is my mate; this is the woman
who will dare all with me”; and he laughed to think of
their present absurd relationship. He did not realize
how deep was their estrangement.

After the midday meal he sent her to her room to rest,
and, pocketing his revolver, went down into the village.
Here all was quiet, but he observed that small groups of
the revolters were moving to and fro, some of them
carrying their antiquated firearms. Ibrahîm, he was
told, was more or less a prisoner in his own house, and
he thought it politic to make no attempt to visit him.

“Time will show,” he said to an adherent of the
usurper, “whether your master is worthy to be
Sheikh”; and that was as far as he would commit himself.

At tea-time he returned to the monastery, and now
he gave full instructions to Hussein. The latter was
to go to bed as usual that night, and was to take no
part in the events of the darkness. He was to call his
master an hour after sunrise, and if it chanced that he
failed to find him, he was to take what steps he chose
to report the disappearance and exonerate himself from
blame.

It was not until after nightfall that any outward
signs of their dangerous situation were to be observed.
Daniel found then that three armed natives were loitering
outside the ruined walls, and, in answer to his enquiries
as to their business, they told him amiably that
they were there to prevent him leaving the Oasis.

“But how can I leave it without a camel?” he asked.
“In the morning you must tell your master that the
two camels must be brought back to me. They must be
here before midday.” His voice was peremptory, and
the natives salaamed respectfully.

It was at about an hour before midnight that, from
the top of his tower, he took a final survey of his surroundings.
There was a young moon in the heavens,
and by its pale light he observed the figure of one of the
guards reclining on the sand, his back against the wall,
directly beneath the window of Muriel’s room. The
other two, as he had previously noticed, were seated in
a more or less comatose state at the entrance of the
monastery, at which point they no doubt presumed that
reason required them to remain.

He descended stealthily from the tower, and, feeling
his way through the dark refectory, found Muriel
seated, ready, upon her bed. In silence she rose to her
feet, and thereupon Daniel gathered up the bedclothes in
his arms and crept with them to the window. She did
not know what he was about to do, but presently she
saw him crouching upon the sill, his figure silhouetted
against the sky.

Suddenly, with a flutter of the blankets, he disappeared,
and from outside she heard a series of muffled
sounds. Darting to the window, she saw him struggling
with what appeared to be a furiously animated bundle
of bedclothes from which two kicking brown legs protruded;
and, a moment later, this bundle was lifted
from the ground.

“Quick!” he whispered, looking up at her, and thereupon
she crawled through the window and jumped on to
the soft sand outside.

Daniel, clasping his burden, with the head pressed
against his breast, told her to pick up the man’s rifle
and to put it through the window on to her bed. When
she had done so he at once set off at a run towards the
open desert, and Muriel followed him, her heart wildly
beating. A distance of not more than fifty yards separated
them from some clusters of rock which would
shelter them from sight, and soon they were scrambling
over the rough ground in temporary immunity from
detection.

Here Daniel paused to rearrange his struggling captive,
who was in grave danger of suffocation, and, having
warned him that a single sound would mean instant
death, he lifted him across his shoulder, with the
blankets more loosely thrown over his head, and again
broke into a jog-trot.

When about a quarter of a mile had been covered
they descended into a shallow ravine, with which Daniel
was well acquainted; and here, being screened from the
Oasis, he set down his burden, cautiously removing the
bedclothes from the perspiring and anxious face. The
man’s eyes were wide with fear as he found himself looking
into the muzzle of a revolver; but his captor smilingly
reassured him, promising him that no harm would
come to him if he but walked ahead in complete silence.

“I am afraid,” he said in Arabic, “that you are
about to have a somewhat lengthy walk.”

“Where are we going?” the man asked.

“To El Homra,” Daniel replied casually.

“*Ya salaam!*” exclaimed the man, in an awed
whisper. In our language the expression may be rendered
“Oh, lor’!”

The ravine led them to the northwest, and they must
have covered nearly two miles before Daniel deemed it
safe to bear off more to the north, over the higher
ground. The going was easy, for the surface of the
rocks was smooth, and the light of the moon sufficient
to prevent stumbling; and an hour’s walking brought
them to a point at which they could without risk move
to the east, so as to pick up the track leading to El
Homra. This they found at length without any difficulty,
and they now judged themselves to be beyond
the pickets, being already two or three miles distant
from the near end of the Oasis.

The first danger was now past, and Daniel therefore
began to discuss with Muriel their chances of success.

“We must have come six or seven miles,” he said.
“I suppose you are pretty tired?”

“No,” she answered, “I can keep up for some time
yet. You’ve taken me for some pretty long walks
during the last fortnight: it was good training.”

“Well, say when you’re done,” he said, “and I’ll
carry you.”

“Thanks,” she replied stiffly, “I’m not a child.”

They walked on in silence, three ghostly figures stalking
through the dim light of a dream.

“I suppose,” said Daniel presently, “that they’ll
not miss us until well after sunrise, if then; so I think
our chances are fairly rosy. It all depends on your
feet, my girl.”

With the extra mileage due to their detour, the distance
to the half-way pool would be about eighteen
miles or so; and it was obvious to Daniel that Muriel
would not be able to stand more than twelve or fourteen.
He therefore glanced anxiously at her every
now and then as they pushed forward across the great
open plain which lay between the two oases; and at
length he noticed that she was limping.

It was nearly four o’clock in the morning, and they
were still some four or five miles distant from the pool,
when Daniel suddenly took hold of her arm.

“Now I’m going to carry you,” he said.

She did not protest. For some time she had been
hobbling forward in a kind of nightmare, her feet sore
and burning, her knees feeble, and her brain fevered.
The moon had now set, but the stars gave sufficient
light for them to see the straight track beneath them.
She hardly realized what he was doing as he lifted her
from the ground, putting one of his great arms about
her shoulders and the other under her knees. In a
confused manner she was aware of a feeling of annoyance
at her weakness; but presently, nevertheless, her
head dropped upon his shoulder. She did not sleep,
but she was certainly not awake.

When at last she recovered full consciousness she
found to her infinite surprise that the day was breaking,
and that Daniel was in the act of depositing her
upon the sand at the edge of the half-way pool.

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “How far have
you carried me, man?”

“About five miles,” he said, rubbing his stiff arms.
“Now for a bit of a rest.”

She was wide awake again, and to her great relief she
found that her feet were no longer burning. Their
wretched captive, however, was entirely exhausted, and
was stretched upon his stomach, drinking greedily from
the pool.

Daniel himself did not show any marked signs of
fatigue. A walk of eighteen miles was nothing to him,
and the burden of Muriel’s weight was not intolerable to
a man of his colossal strength.

When half an hour later, they resumed their journey
the sun was rising above the distant hills. They walked
off alone, for Daniel had extracted an inviolable promise
from their captive to rest where he was until noon
before setting out on his return journey; and he had
given the man a few biscuits and a slice or two of meat
to keep him going. Both Muriel and Daniel had bathed
their feet in the pool, and having eaten a square meal
they fared forth once more with some degree of vigour.

As the sun increased in power, however, this sense of
freshness vanished, and but five miles had been covered
when Daniel was obliged once more to take his companion
in his arms, in spite of her valiant protests.
This time he set her upon his shoulder, clasping her
about the legs, and every mile or two he varied the
position.

From the pool to the hills which divided the plain
from El Homra was, roughly, ten miles, and when at
last they mounted, at about ten o’clock, on to the high
ground, Daniel was already feeling the strain. For
the next couple of miles Muriel limped along by his
side; and now their practical immunity from capture
permitted them to take an occasional rest in the shade
of the rocks.

The last three miles of the journey were very exhausting
to them both, for it was now noon, and the
sun was intensely hot. Their water-bottles were nearly
empty and their provisions were all gone; but the sight
of the Oasis in the distance served to keep up their
courage.

Muriel, much against her inclinations, had now to
be carried almost continuously, but Daniel would not
listen to her repeated requests that he would leave her
while he went on to fetch help. He still feared a possible pursuit,
for even so near to their goal they were
travelling through uninhabited and utterly isolated
country. He set his teeth, therefore, and carried her
forward, now on this shoulder, now on that, now upon
his back, and now, as originally, in his arms. He was
aching from head to toe, and his feet felt like burning
coals of fire, while the perspiration issued from every
pore.

“Gee!” he said, as he set her down a mile from their
destination, “this has been some walk!”

He took her in his arms again, and set out upon the
last lap. The buildings of the police headquarters
were now clearly visible against the palms, and near
them stood the tents which told them that the Bindanes
had returned from the north.

Muriel looked up at his haggard face. “I’m
ashamed of myself for being so feeble,” she said. “It
is very humiliating for me to have to be carried by *you*,
of all people.”

For answer he suddenly bent her head down and
kissed her.

Muriel uttered an exclamation. “Put me down!”
she cried. “How dare you!”

Again he kissed her, holding her up in his arms as
her legs kicked at his hip. She freed her hand and
pressed it into his face.

“If you do that,” he laughed, “I’ll drop you.”

“How dare you!” she repeated. “Oh, you brute!”

He threw his head back, and looked up at the sun
from under the brim of his battered old hat. “It’s
been an extraordinary fortnight,” he panted, as though
he were addressing the heavens.

Muriel did not answer, but she was breathing hard
as he looked down into her face once more, and her eyes
were wide with anger.

“I’ve learned a lot about you,” he said, “during
these days; and I guess you’re worth winning, after
all.”

“In that case,” she replied furiously, “I guess you’ll
be sorry that you’ve lost me.”

“Have I lost you, Muriel?” he asked.

“You have,” she replied, shortly and decisively.
“What else did you expect, after the way you have
insulted and bullied me? You’ve lost me for ever.”

The intensity with which she spoke silenced him; and
thus they came stumbling into the camp.


CHAPTER XXXI—PAYING THE PRICE
=============================

“Kate!—where are you?” Muriel called, as she
stood in the blazing sun in the midst of the
silent camp.

Daniel had deposited her here, and was now hastening,
in a last spurt of energy, towards the police headquarters,
intent on gathering a force to return with
him to El Hamrân.

“Good Lord!—it’s Muriel,” came a voice from one
of the tents, and Kate Bindane ran out into the sunlight,
shading her eyes with her hand.

She slapped Muriel lustily on the back, and led her
to an empty tent, where she put her arms about her and
kissed her. “My word!—you’re looking tired!” she
laughed. “Have you had a wonderful time?”

“Lovely,” said Muriel, sitting down upon the camp
bed.

“Where are your camels?—where’s Daniel?” Kate
asked, somewhat bewildered.

“Oh, we walked back,” Muriel answered, with a
casual gesture. “I’m feeling quite tired.” She began
to laugh hysterically.

“D’you mean to say he made you walk?” her friend
asked, incredulously.

“There wasn’t much choice,” she replied. “Oh, for
heaven’s sake, get me something to drink, something
long—miles long, and cold. I’ll tell you all about it
presently.”

Kate hurried away to find refreshments, and as she
crossed the hot sand once more, carrying an assortment
of bottles, she encountered Daniel coming back
with the local police officer. He pulled off his hat and
shook hands with her, rapidly.

“How d’you do,” he said. “Have you got a spare
tent where I can have an hour’s sleep?”

Kate stared at him. “You seem very pleased to see
me,” she laughed. “You’re bubbling over with news,
aren’t you?”

“So sorry,” he replied. “Muriel will tell you:
there’s been a bit of trouble at El Hamrân. I’m going
back there with the police presently. Can I doss down
in here?” He pointed to the tent behind him; and,
hardly waiting for her reply, walked into it, telling the
officer to arouse him in an hour’s time.

Kate shrugged her shoulders, and went back to
Muriel, whom she found pulling off her boots and stockings.

“Muriel, what’s happened?” she asked. “Daniel
says he’s going back to El Hamrân with the police in
an hour’s time.”

Muriel looked up, her face flushed. “Oh, the man’s
mad!” she declared. “He’s fagged out. He carried
me half the way.”

Rapidly she told her friend of the trouble in the
Oasis and of their escape, while Kate, uttering ejaculations
of awe, plied her with refreshment and helped her
to pull off some of her clothes. Muriel was far too exhausted
to give a very intelligible account of their adventures;
and while yet Kate was fussing around, dabbing
her feet with eau de cologne, and rubbing her legs,
she suddenly fell off to sleep.

Benifett Bindane listened, later, to his wife’s version
of the story with marked interest.

“Well,” he said, at length, “that settles our plans
for us. We’ll start back for Cairo tomorrow.” He
looked at his wife curiously. “I wonder what Lord
Blair will say to it all,” he mused.

“He must never know that Muriel wasn’t with us,”
said Kate.

“That’s impossible,” he replied. “I shall have to
tell him the truth.”

“Benifett!” exclaimed his wife, staring at him in
horror. “You’re not going to give her away, are
you?”

His mouth hung open for some moments. “I’ve
been thinking it over,” he said, at length, “and it seems
to me that Lord Blair will have to be told. If it leaked
out, and we were found to have lied to him, there’d be
no hope of doing business with him in the future.”

“Business!” Kate snorted. “Oh, man alive, is business
the only thing in life?” She turned away in disgust.

“No,” he answered, “it’s not the only thing, but it
happens to be my hobby, Kate, as you knew quite well
when you married me. And I may as well say now,
that I am very hurt at the way you sneer at what is
meat and drink to me. I hope you’ll think that over.”

He looked very nearly pathetic as he spoke; and his
wife was sufficiently touched by his dejection to turn an
angry scene into one of affectionate conciliation.

“P’r’aps you’re right,” she said; and presently they
went out together to see what was happening to Daniel.

They found him just emerging from the tent where
he had slept. It was evident that he was still thoroughly
tired; but a group of troopers and their camels
outside the police buildings indicated that, nevertheless,
an immediate start was to be made.

He was munching biscuits as he shook hands with
Mr. Bindane. “I’m sorry I can’t stay,” he said.
“I’ve got to set this business to rights at once. But
I dare say we’ll meet in Cairo before you leave for England.
Good-bye!” He held out his hand, but Kate
checked him.

“I’ll go and see if Muriel is awake,” she said.

“No, never mind,” Daniel answered, with his mouth
full. “I won’t disturb her. Please tell her I’m coming
to Cairo within a month from now.”

He waved his hand to them, and hurried away; and
presently they saw him mount his camel and ride away
southwards, followed by half a dozen troopers, their
rifles slung across their shoulders.

“Well, I’m blowed!” muttered Kate.

“It seems to me it’s business first with him, too,” remarked
Mr. Bindane, looking vacantly before him.

“Oh, rot!” replied his wife. “From what Muriel
says it appears that he had promised the old Sheikh
that his son should hold office after him; and he’s going
to keep his word.”

That night Muriel confessed the whole truth to her
friend, only exacting the promise that she would not
tell of her humiliation to Benifett. She related the
events without emotion, her voice steady and the expression
of her face calm. It was as though she were
telling the story of some other woman in whom she felt
no personal interest. It was as though Daniel had
now passed entirely out of her life.

“I’m going to marry the first man who proposes to
me,” she said, setting her jaw.

“Well, you’ll have to look sharp about it,” Kate replied.
“He’s coming to carry you off by the hair in a
month’s time, and don’t you forget it.”

Muriel put out her hand quickly, and touched her
friend’s arm. “No, you don’t understand him,” she
said. “He’s not a bit that sort of man....”

She checked herself, feeling that she had no desire
to be inveigled into discussing his character.

Next morning, soon after breakfast, the start was
made on the return journey to the Nile. Muriel, after
a long sleep, was quite recovered from her fatigue; but
she did not feel happy, and the wide vistas of the desert
did not make the same appeal to her as on the outward
journey. She felt herself to be very much older, very
much more subdued; and there was, as it were, a veil
between her eyes and the beauty of the wilderness.

Moreover, she was very self-conscious. It seemed to
her that she had lost caste; and, now that all the alarums
and excursions were over, she was not a little dismayed
at the affront she had put upon the conventions. Benifett
Bindane’s attitude to her was non-committal, but
in his evasion of the subject of her adventures he displayed
an awkwardness which she found almost insulting.

And then the natives.... She felt as though many
pairs of eyes were upon her, and more than once it
seemed to her that she was not being treated with the
same deference as formerly.

Once, when her camel had lagged behind the others,
she found herself riding beside the Egyptian secretary
of the expedition, a young man who evidently regarded
his personal appearance with favour; and it seemed to
her that he turned his dark eyes upon her with a boldness
which she had not previously observed.

But the most galling experience was provided by her
dragoman, Mustafa, who took the opportunity to speak
to her on the day of their departure, when she was sitting
alone, waiting for the picnic luncheon to be served.

“I hope my leddy was varry happy at El Hamrân,”
he said, grinning at her boldly.

“Thank you, yes,” she answered, fiddling with her
shoe.

“Mistair Lane he varry nice gentleman,” he went
on; and then, leaning forward, he lowered his voice.
“Mustafa know the beesness: he say nudding; he keep
varry quiet, my leddy. No talk ’bout El Hamrân....”

“What d’you mean?” she exclaimed angrily, but
he only smiled at her, and salaamed.

It was disgusting, and she felt a cold shiver creep
down her spine, as she hastened across to the others.

As she jogged along, day after day, towards Cairo
her thoughts were given more and more to the subject
of her coming return to her father. What was she
going to say to him? It had all seemed so easy before:
she had thought that there would be no difficulty
in concocting a plausible story. But now the idea of
inventing a pack of lies revolted her; and as they drew
ever nearer to the Nile there grew steadily in her mind
a determination to tell him the truth.

Daniel, it seemed to her, had deliberately left her to
extricate herself; and at the thought her heart was
filled with renewed anger against him. Yet had she not
told him that her plans were all laid to prevent gossip,
to prevent her father’s name being injured? He probably
supposed that there would be no scandal; and,
after all, why should there be? A little talk in the native
quarter, perhaps, that would be all. But these
lies she would have to tell her father! They hung over
her like a menacing storm.

Yet if she told the truth, what then? Daniel’s reputation
would suffer as much as hers: she wondered
whether he had realized this fact, when he had obliged
her to stay with him for the full fortnight.

Yes, she would tell the truth. It would be a ghastly
ordeal, that hour when she would have to face her father;
but it would be better than lies, and shufflings,
and the crooked ways of which she had seen so much
amongst the women she had known in her life.

Suddenly the realization came to her that her character
was not such as theirs, that it took no delight in
intrigue; and upon that disclosure there followed a new
understanding of Daniel’s attitude to her when she had
told him of her arrangements for their secret fortnight.

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed, almost speaking
aloud in the surprise of her sudden shame. “What a
sneaking little liar I must have seemed to him!”

At last one day, in the blaze of noon, they descended
from the desert and dismounted from their camels at
the gates of Mena House Hotel. Now, towards the
end of March, the days were growing hot, and Muriel
appreciated to the full the cool halls and shaded rooms
of the hotel, and at luncheon the ice which tinkled in her
glass seemed to be a very gift of the gods.

Amongst her letters, addressed to the care of Mr.
Bindane, she found one from her father, written from
the White Nile; and her heart leaped with sudden relief
when she read in it that he had decided to extend
his tour through the Sudan, and would not be back in
Cairo for another three weeks. He suggested to her
that she should invite the Bindanes to stay at the Residency,
so that Kate could be with her, thereby relieving
Lady Smith-Evered of the responsibility of upholding
the conventions by her otherwise unnecessary presence;
or else that she should remain at Mena House with them
until his return.

She therefore put the two alternatives to her friends,
and, though Kate was all for remaining where they
were, her husband could not resist the aristocratic enticement
of the Residency. Next day, therefore, they
made their adieux to the desert and drove into Cairo.
Muriel’s relief at not having yet to face her father had
raised her spirits; and for the first time for many days
she appeared once more to be vivacious and conscious of
the enjoyments of life.

All went well for a week or more. Muriel entertained
her guests at the Residency with painstaking care; and
every day had its list of engagements. Indeed she was
glad of the task, for, now that her life had resumed its
unadventurous course, she could not keep her mind
from thinking over the events of the last few months,
although her recollections brought her nothing but
searchings of heart.

Towards Daniel she maintained an attitude of
estrangement. Though her eyes had been opened to
her own shortcomings, and she was no longer so sure
of herself as to be able to censure him without qualification,
yet she wanted to assert herself, and to show him
that she was mistress of her own destiny; and, like a
spectator of her own life, she almost hoped that she
would find herself belonging to some other man by the
time that Daniel returned, so that she would be able to
say, “There now!—you’ve lost me, you see.”

The bombshell fell unexpectedly. One morning Lady
Smith-Evered came over to the Residency soon after
breakfast, and asked Muriel if she might see her alone.
She had been dining with them only the night before,
and Muriel did not, therefore, anticipate any serious
trouble.

They went into the library together, and no sooner
was the door shut than the elder woman sat herself
down in the desk chair, and cleared her throat as though
she were about to make a speech.

“Now Muriel,” she began, “I want you to tell me
the truth, please. I have acted more or less as your
chaperone throughout the winter, and I’m sure you can
trust me to do what is right. I want you to give me
a direct answer to a direct question: did you or did you
not spend a fortnight alone with Mr. Lane in the
Oases?”

For a moment Muriel’s head was in a whirl, and she
felt the colour mounting to her cheeks, as she hesitated
to face the sudden crisis. Then, fortifying herself
to meet the situation with candour, she looked at
her questioner straight in the face.

“Tell me, first,” she replied, “the story you have
heard.”

Lady Smith-Evered shrugged her shoulders. “I see
no reason why I should not. My maid told me late last
night that she had heard it from our native cook, who
had heard it in the bazaars. The story was simply that
you left the Bindanes and went to stay with that man.
I thought the best thing I could do, and the General
agreed, was to come and ask you straight.”

“Thank you,” Muriel replied. “Yes, it’s perfectly
true.”

Lady Smith-Evered threw up her fat hands. “My
dear girl!—what on earth made you do such a foolhardy
thing? You might have known the natives would
talk. Of course I guessed you were in love with him,
otherwise you would never have been so rude to me as
you were that day when I asked you why he had left
the Residency so suddenly. But I never dreamed that
things had gone so far. Supposing you have a
baby...?”

An expression of amazed indignation came into
Muriel’s eyes, and for a few moments she was absolutely
dumb. It was as though she had had a lump of mud
flung straight at her face; and at first she experienced
only burning resentment and blinding anger. Then,
suddenly, she saw things as they were: the thought had
never come to her until now in all its crudeness, its
stark nakedness.

“How can you suggest such a thing?” she answered
at last, lamely, her indignation strengthening her voice
but not her wits.

“You must have been mad,” said Lady Smith-Evered.
“And at your age, too! It was more than
naughtiness: it was downright folly. And as for the
man, he deserves to be thrashed.”

“But you don’t understand,” Muriel gasped.
“There was no intimacy of any kind.”

Her visitor moved impatiently on her chair. “Oh,
don’t tell me such fibs,” she exclaimed. “My dear
Muriel, I am a woman of the world. I only want to
help you.”

Her words only served to accentuate the girl’s alarm.

“But it’s true,” she cried. “I swear to you there
was nothing of that kind between us.”

Lady Smith-Evered stared at her. “You can’t expect
me or anybody else to believe that. Why, the man
is a notorious bad character in regard to women.”

“No, he’s not,” she answered. “He may be a brute
in other ways, but all this rot about his Bedouin harîm
is just the silly talk of Cairo. I’m not going to beg
you to believe me. I’m just telling you the truth; and
if you don’t think it’s the truth you can go to ...”

She checked herself suddenly.

“But what are we to do?” said the elder woman,
spreading out her hands. “I’m not a prude; but the
whole thing is shocking in a country like this. How
are we to prevent it ever coming to your father’s ears?”

“I’m going to tell him as soon as he comes back,”
Muriel replied.

“Oh, you’re incorrigible,” exclaimed Lady Smith-Evered,
angrily. “You hav’n’t got the sense even to
know when to hold your tongue.” She rose to her feet
and paced up and down the room. “What’s to be
done? Will you please tell me what’s to be done?”

“Nothing much,” Muriel answered. She was becoming
calmer now. She saw herself in a new light,
and her humiliation was extreme. Lady Smith-Evered
belonged to that world which Daniel had tried
to teach her to despise; and in this woman’s eyes she
appeared merely as a foolish, naughty girl, whose rash
actions had to be covered up by some sort of lie. She
would have infinitely preferred it if she had been instantly
ostracized and cut.

“Of course,” Lady Smith-Evered went on, “I shall
tell my maid that the whole thing is nonsense; and it’s
just possible that the story will go no further. But you
ought to be ashamed of yourself for taking such risks.
And I have no words to express what I feel about Mr.
Lane.”

“Oh, please leave him out of it,” Muriel exclaimed.
“He never asked me to come, or knew I was coming.”

Lady Smith-Evered sniffed. “He knows his own
power over women,” she said.

Muriel turned upon her fiercely. “I tell you he is
in no way to blame.”

Her visitor bowed. “I respect you for trying to defend
him,” she answered. “We women always defend
the men we love.”

“But I don’t love him,” she cried. “I hate the sight
of him.”

Lady Smith-Evered spread out her hands again, evidently
baffled. “That makes it all the worse,” she
said. “Romance is whitewash for the sepulchres of
passion: it makes these things presentable; but if you
say the affair was not prompted by love, then I absolutely
fail to understand you. It sounds unnatural, indecent.”

She moved towards the door. “I’ll do my best to
hush it up,” she concluded; “but the sooner you get
married to some nice easy-going Englishman the better.
These sort of things are more *comme il faut* after
marriage, my dear.”

And with that she left the room.


CHAPTER XXXII—THINKING THINGS OVER
==================================

Benifett Bindane was seated on the front
verandah of the Residency one afternoon, when
Lord Barthampton drove up to the door in his
high dogcart. He rose from his chair, and going to the
steps, shook hands with the younger man somewhat less
limply than was his wont.

“Is Lady Muriel in?” asked the visitor.

Mr. Bindane shook his head. “I’m afraid not; but
I think she’ll be home to tea. Come in and have a
drink.”

He led him into the library, and rang the bell.
“What will you have?” he asked. “A whiskey and
soda?”

“Thanks,” Lord Barthampton replied. “I’ve given
up the temperance stunt. I think one needs something
with a punch in it now that the weather’s getting hot.”

A servant entered the room, and Mr. Bindane, playing
the host with relish, ordered the refreshments.

Charles Barthampton had seen Muriel more than
once since her return from the desert, and now he had
come with the determination to make her a proposal of
marriage. He was nervous, therefore, and soon he was
helping himself liberally from the decanter and with
marked moderation from the syphon. While doing so
he thought he observed the older man’s eye upon him,
and felt that candour would not here come amiss.

“I’m fortifying myself,” he laughed, holding up his
glass. “Fact is, I’m going to pop the question this
afternoon.”

Mr. Bindane nodded slowly, with seeming abstraction,
and his lordship decided that a little drama ought to
be added to his words.

“Yes,” he said, bracing his shoulders bravely, “this
suspense is too much for me; so I’m going to rattle
the dice with Fate, and win all or lose all at a single
throw. What d’you think of my chances?”

“Not much,” replied Mr. Bindane, gloomily.
“Lady Muriel is a difficult sort of girl. Still, she may
be suffering from a reaction: you may catch her on the
rebound.”

The words slipped from him without intention; but
as soon as they were spoken he realized that he would
either have to explain them or cover them up as best
he could.

“How d’you mean?” came the inevitable question,
and Mr. Bindane’s brains were immediately set rapidly
to work. He knew that Lord Barthampton was running
after the girl’s fortune: such a chase seemed a
very natural thing to his business mind; and he did
not suppose that the suitor would be deterred by hearing
that the lady’s hand had already been given temporarily
to another.

“Well,” he replied, “you know, of course, that she
was by way of being in love with your cousin a short
time ago.”

His visitor scowled. “No, I didn’t know that,” he
muttered. “Confound the fellow!—he’s always getting
in my way. I wish he’d stay in the desert, and not
come back.”

“Yes, so do I,” Mr. Bindane remarked. “I want
him to live out there, and manage this Company I’m trying
to launch. Frankly, that is why I wish you success.
At present it is Lady Muriel who attracts him
to Cairo; and if by any chance she should marry him,
my plans would be spoilt.”

“Oh, I see,” said the other, a look of cunning coming
into his red face. “So we both want the same
thing.”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Bindane. The conspiracy interested
him, the more so because he felt that he was
acting in the best interests of Daniel, for whom he had
conceived an unbounded admiration. He thought that
he was wasted at the Residency: there was no money in
his present work, whereas, if he entered the proposed
Company’s employment, he might rise to great wealth.
Nor would he ever be happy in Cairo, certainly not if
he were tied to Lady Muriel: she was not the right
wife for him. She was too flighty, and this escapade
of hers in the desert stamped her as a woman of loose
morals, who would bring only sorrow to a man of
Daniel Lane’s temperament.

Lord Barthampton leaned forward. “Did she see
much of him in the Oases?” he asked.

Mr. Bindane hesitated. He did not like to give the
secret away; yet he felt that if this burly and rather
unscrupulous young man were in possession of the
facts, he might terrorize Lady Muriel into marrying
him. Then Cairo would cease to have any attraction
for Daniel Lane. “She saw a great deal of him,” he
replied at length.

“Why, was he with your party?”

Mr. Bindane’s lips moved flabbily, but he did not
speak.

“I thought you told me the other day that he
wasn’t with you,” Lord Barthampton added.

“Yes, that’s so,” the other answered. “He wasn’t.”

His visitor got up suddenly from his chair. “Do
you mean that *she* was with *him*?” he asked, incredulously.

“That is a secret,” Mr. Bindane replied, a little
scared, but at the same time calming himself with the
assurance that he was acting for the best.

Lord Barthampton paced the floor, chewing his lips,
his heavy brows knitted. “I see,” he said, at length.
“And you think that it will help me if I hold this piece
of information over her head.”

Mr. Bindane’s blank expression indicated that nothing
of the kind had entered his head—in fact, that
nothing of any kind had ever entered it. “You could
have heard it from the natives,” he said. “They all
know she was at El Hamrân while we went north. If
I hadn’t let it slip out like this, no doubt you would
have heard it from somebody else in time.”

“No doubt,” the other answered, and he drained his
glass once more.

Benifett Bindane also rose from his chair. He was
alarmed, and the qualms of conscience were upon him.
“Of course it was just an escapade,” he murmured.
“I don’t suppose there was anything wrong in it.”

“Well, I won’t use the information, unless I’ve got
to,” said Lord Barthampton.

As they issued from the library, they heard the sound
of an automobile driving up to the door. “That’s
probably her,” Mr. Bindane remarked. “You’d better
go and wait in the drawing-room, and I’ll make myself
scarce.”

He patted the young man on the shoulders and hurried
up the stairs to his room, while Charles Barthampton,
nervously tidying himself, went into the drawing-room,
where a footman was arranging the tea-table.

He had not long to wait. In a few minutes Muriel
entered, and, seeing him, held out her hand.

“Hullo!” she said. “You here again?”

“I don’t seem to be able to keep away from you for
long,” he sighed. “Can I see you alone?”

Muriel glanced at him quickly. There was an expression
of ludicrous agony upon his face, and she knew
full well what he had come to say to her. “Let’s have
tea, first,” she answered. “It will fortify us.”

He stared anxiously at her, but all further preliminary
remarks were checked by the entrance of Kate
Bindane; and soon two or three callers were ushered in.

It was a long time before he managed successfully to
outstay the other visitors; but at length he found himself
alone with Muriel. The removal of the tea-tray
caused another interruption; and he refrained with difficulty
from cursing aloud when the footman again entered
to switch on the lights.

At last, however, the moment for his declaration arrived,
and Muriel settled herself down upon the cushions
of the sofa to hear him, as though she were preparing
to listen to a recital upon the grand piano.
“Now tell me,” she said, “what it is that you want to
say to me.”

He was standing in front of her, the fingers of his
hand scratching his ear. He cleared his throat.
“Well, it’s like this,” he began. “Ever since I’ve
known you I’ve felt that there was something lacking
in my life....”

“I was wondering how you’d begin,” she said, interrupting
him.

He flushed, and hastened on with his prepared speech.
“Even soldiers, you know, long for the comforts of
home. I suppose every Englishman likes to think of
his own fireside....”

“Not in this weather, surely,” she put in, again interrupting
him.

He hurried on. “... With the woman he loves,
seated before him, after the day’s toil is over.”

“Are you proposing to me?” she asked, wishing
mercifully to cut him short.

“Well, yes, I am,” he answered, with a deep sigh.
“Ah, don’t be cruel to me. You know that I love
you. I’m quite well off: I can give you a fairly comfortable
time of it.”

“Yes, but they say you have led a very wild life,”
she told him. “You said yourself that you drank.”

“I’ve sown my wild oats, little woman,” he sighed.

“But drink is such a dreadful thing,” she murmured.
“I wonder your conscience hasn’t pricked you. Or
are you one of those people who have no conscience,
only a religion?”

Without waiting to reply he returned to the speech
which he had memorized, and drew a picture of his
English home: the snow on the ground at Noël, the
bells of the little church ringing, the Yule log, and his
tenants singing carols to them as they dined in the
great hall. It reminded Muriel of a Christmas-card—something
with sparkling stuff powdered over it, and
“Hark, the herald angels sing” printed in the corner.

Lord Barthampton, however, was very much touched
by his own eloquence; and, coming close to her, he
held out his hands. “Will you?” he said, brokenly.

“I must have time to think,” she answered. “This
is so sudden.” Then, with deep seriousness, she added:
“Yes, I want to think it over.”

“Well, I’m going off to the Fayoum tomorrow to
shoot,” he told her. “May I come for my answer in
three days from now?”

“Very well,” she replied.

He seized her hand in his, and pressed it fervently
to his lips. Then, as though overcome with emotion,
he whispered, “God bless you, little woman,” and, turning,
walked slowly out of the room.


CHAPTER XXXIII—THE RETURN
=========================

Daniel’s work at El Hamrân was soon accomplished.
When he returned there with the
police, he was not empowered to use the aid
of the law further than to restore order, to release the
camels which had been seized, and to liberate Ibrahîm
from his illegal semi-captivity. The officer in command
of the troopers, however, was aware that the messengers
who had been dispatched at top speed to Cairo would
bring back instructions to him to act in accordance
with the Englishman’s dispositions; and thus Ibrahîm
had been recognized already as Sheikh by the time that
the official confirmation of his appointment arrived, and
when the men who had made the journey to El Khargeh
returned home, the abortive revolt was a thing of the
past.

Daniel, however, was unable to reconcile the two
parties, and the feud thereafter continued its tedious
course, though now in a more underground manner.
He was disappointed in the failure of his attempts at
conciliation, and was disgusted at the bickerings and
the petty insults exchanged between the one faction
and the other. The tranquillity of the desert had been
rudely disturbed.

It was, thus, with a feeling of relief that he packed
up his belongings once more, and turned his face
towards Cairo. It was now the middle of April, and
he crossed the desert in a blaze of burning sunshine,
but his mind was so much occupied with his thoughts
that he took little notice of his surroundings. The
shimmer of heat rising from the sand, the haze of the
distances, and the red dusk of the warm evenings,
seemed but to carry his sad heart into the region of
speculation; and, at nights, the stars and the crescent
of the new moon lifted him into a sphere in which his
brain worked with terrible clarity.

He saw his life spread out before his inward consciousness
like a tale written in a fair hand upon an
open scroll, wherein his mistakes and his shortcomings
were inscribed in bolder letters, very apparent to the
eye. It seemed to him that his attitude towards Muriel,
towards humanity, had been illiberal, too one-sided.
There had been need of so much greater tolerance: he
had been too inclined to be impulsive, to jump to a conclusion.

In teaching Muriel the lesson that the love between a
man and a woman should be a thing of frankness and
permanence, not snatched at in secret, nor lightly conceived,
he had learned as much as he had taught. He
had found in her all manner of qualities to which he
had paid insufficient regard—dignity, control, bravery
in face of danger, and courage to act according to the
dictates of her heart.

He saw now that while she had walked the pathways
of that world which he had despised, he had taken
refuge, like a coward, in the desert; yet she, in spite
of the pitfalls and the sloughs which he had shunned,
was not at heart contaminated. She had honestly believed
that he had wished her to come to him in the
desert, and she had obeyed him. A less impulsive man
would have treated her mistake gently, and with more
understanding, as being something for which her lax
education and not her brave heart was to blame.

In an agony of mind he asked himself whether he
had really lost her. He would go to her; he would
make her look right into his mind, so that she should
see how greatly he had need of her. But would she
have pity on him?

Would she have pity on him?... Suddenly an essential
aspect of the relationship of man and woman
flashed before him. Man, mighty man, was but a
lonely, blundering wanderer, a weak thing, a dweller in
the desert, seeking where to lay his head. With all his
strength, with all his masterful handling of events,
man was yet a vagabond in the world, until he had
found his mate; and woman, in spite of the greater
sway of her thoughtless instincts, held for him the keys,
as it were, of his heart’s home. From the summit of
her weakness she could look down upon his strength, and
could smile at his struggle to surmount the obstacles
which he had placed in his own path. In the loneliness
of his soul she could look down and pity him, and take
him to her breast, and heal his wounds.

Over and over again he asked himself whether she
would turn from him when he came to her now, or
whether she would forgive and be forgiven. He was
feeling mentally and physically tired, yet he found no
respite from his dark thoughts as he jogged along; and
when at last he came into sight of Cairo and the Pyramids
he was nigh exhausted by his anxiety to know what
was to be his fate.

He reached his old camping-ground at about three
o’clock in the afternoon, and in a short time one of the
tents had been erected, wherein he was able to have a
wash and a change of clothes. He then left his retainers
to pitch the other tents and to arrange the
camp, and, mounting his camel once more, rode to Mena
House, where he boarded the electric tram for Cairo.

Weary though he was, he was desperately impatient
to find Muriel and to get this matter settled at once.
Nothing else was of the slightest importance.

At the terminus of the tramway he jumped into a
carriage, calling to the coachman to drive “like the
wind” to the Residency; and, arrived there, he handed
to the *bowab* at the gate a generous sum, telling him
to keep the driver waiting for a good half-hour before
paying him off, so that the sweating horses should have
a rest after their exertions.

In the hall he asked a footman whether Lord Blair
were in, and was surprised to hear that he had not yet
returned from the Sudan. Lady Muriel, he was told,
was in the garden with Lord Barthampton: the man
thought that they were in the alcove beside the river.
Mr. and Mrs. Bindane were out driving, and the Secretaries
had all gone home.

Daniel hastened through the house, and out by the
door at the back. His legs were aching, but he went
down the stone steps of the terrace two at a time, and
hurried across the lawn, his heart full of foreboding.
He could not understand why Muriel should be entertaining
his cousin.

At the rose bushes which screened the alcove, however,
he paused; for the thought came to him with
renewed terror that he might be an unwelcome
visitor.

But, even as he came to a halt, he heard his cousin’s
voice, and for a moment he could not help playing the
eavesdropper.

“Yes,” he was saying, “you’ll have to marry me, or
I shall tell all I know, and then there’ll be a fine old
scandal. Come on, now, give me a kiss.”

Daniel did not wait to hear more, but ran round the
bushes on to the terrace beyond. At a glance he took
in the situation. Lord Barthampton, his back turned
to him, was endeavouring to take Muriel in his arms;
and from behind the screen of his burly form, the girl’s
figure was partly visible, struggling to escape.

Daniel leaped forward and grasped him by the scruff
of the neck, flinging him aside so that he staggered
across the terrace. He saw Muriel’s wide frightened
eyes; and hardly realizing what he was doing, he put
his arm about her.

She, too, forgot her relationship to him: she only
knew that he had intervened between her and a half-drunken
bully; and she clung to him, clung desperately,
her hands clutching at his coat.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Daniel exclaimed,
angrily staring at his cousin, who seemed to be about
to spring upon him.

“What the Hell do you want here?” Lord Barthampton
roared, his face scarlet.

Muriel pointed her finger at the furious man.
“You’d better go,” she said. “Go and tell everybody
whatever you like—I don’t care.” She turned to her
protector. “There’s a lot of gossip about my having
stayed at El Hamrân.”

Daniel stared from one to the other. “Well, and
what is your answer to it?” he asked her, and, waiting
for her reply, he seemed to hold his breath.

“I hav’n’t denied it,” she said, looking at him full in
the face.

He uttered an exclamation, a sort of suppressed
shout of joy. “Good for you!” he cried; and, forgetting
all else, he snatched off his battered hat and
flung it up into the air. Catching it again, he turned
to his cousin. “I take it,” he said, “that you are
trying to blackmail Lady Muriel. Is that it?”

“I have asked her to be my wife,” he answered, his
fists clenched, “and it’s no damned business of yours.”

“Well,” said Daniel, “you’ve got your answer now,
so you’d better go.”

Lord Barthampton was trembling with passion; he
was beside himself. “Yes, I’ll go,” he shouted, “and
you’ll very soon find, dear Cousin Daniel, that you and
Lady Muriel will be cut by all Cairo, and Lord Blair
will have to leave the country. I know enough to ruin
the lot of you.”

Daniel looked at him steadily. “Don’t forget that
I know something about you, too,” he replied; “and if
you do what you say you’re going to do, I shall not
consider you worthy to hold your present position any
longer. And you’ve been drinking again, too: you’re
half drunk now.”

“Very well then, dispossess me, you swine!” his
cousin blurted out, coming close to him and shaking
his fist so menacingly that Muriel took fresh hold upon
Daniel’s coat. “Take the title and the money, and be
damned to you! I’d rather be a penniless bastard than
the smug pillar of society you’re trying to make of me.
Good God!—I’ve stood enough from you, you pious
hypocrite.”

Daniel laughed aloud. “Don’t be a fool,” he said.
“I’ve told you that so long as you behave yourself
you’re quite safe. It surely isn’t so difficult as all that
to be a gentleman.”

With a snort, Lord Barthampton lurched round, and,
without another word, took his departure.

Muriel stepped back. “I don’t know what I’m
clinging on to you like that for,” she said, with a smile.
“What on earth does he mean about your taking his
title and his money?”

“Oh, I’ll explain later,” he answered, rather listlessly.
“It’s only that by law I ought to have inherited
when his father died, not he. It’s a great joke,
because, you see, he thinks I’ll dispossess him if he
misbehaves himself; but, of course, really he’d have to
go altogether to the dogs before I’d do such a thing.
I don’t want the bother of being a peer, and I would
be hopeless with a lot of money.”

Muriel looked up at him with wonder in her face.
Quietly and naturally she linked her arm in his,
“I’ve been wanting so much to be beastly to you,
Daniel,” she said, and her voice was husky; “but it’s
no good, my dear. When a man like Charles Barthampton
curses you and tells you to take his money, and
you simply laugh and say you don’t want it, what
chance have *I* got of upsetting this disgusting unworldliness
of yours? I should only hurt myself, not
you.”

“No, you’re wrong there,” he answered. “You will
hurt me more than I can bear, *more than I can bear*,
Muriel, if you keep up this quarrel any longer. I don’t
feel that I can stand it.”

There was a weariness in his voice which startled
her, and, looking at him, she saw an expression in his
eyes which made an instant and overwhelming appeal
to her.

“Somehow,” he said, speaking hardly above a whisper,
“I feel that all these misunderstandings are so
superficial. D’you know, I believe that if you were to
remain implacable I should simply collapse. I’ve never
felt such a thing before in my whole life.”

It was the first time she had ever heard him speak in
this way, and all her woman’s heart responded. “Oh,
my dear,” she answered, putting her arm about his
neck, “it’s no good pretending that we don’t belong
to one another, is it?”

He looked at her with joy in his face, and led her
towards the marble seat under the palms. “We’ve got
a great deal to tell each other,” he said.

They had, indeed, so much to tell that the sun went
down behind the Pyramids while yet they were talking,
and the dusk gathered about them.

At length they arose and walked back to the house;
but now they were laughing like two children, and as
they crossed the lawn their arms were still linked together.

Kate Bindane, having returned from her drive, was
standing at the drawing-room window as they approached
the house.

“Great Scott!” she exclaimed, turning to her husband.
“Come here, Benifett: just look at that!”

He arose from his chair, laying aside the *Financial
News* which he had been reading; but he gave no more
than a single glance through the open window. Then
he returned to his newspaper, and looked at it with
listless eyes and open mouth.

Two days later a telegram was received saying that
Lord Blair would arrive from the south by special train
on the following morning at ten A.M.

Soon after breakfast next day, therefore, Daniel presented
himself at the Residency to take Muriel to the
station. He was dressed in a suit of grey flannels; and
as he crossed the hall, he was carrying his now famous
old felt hat in one hand and his pipe in the other.

Here, to his dismay, he came upon Sir Frank
Lestrange and John Dregge, both dressed as though
they were about to attend a London wedding, and
carrying their gloves and silk hats in their hands.

“Great Scott!” he exclaimed. “What on earth are
you rigged out like that for?”

“We’re going to the station,” replied Lestrange,
somewhat stiffly. “Aren’t you coming too?”

“Sure,” said Daniel.

“I’m afraid you’ll be rather out of the picture,” remarked
the punctilious Mr. Dregge, and he uttered a
short laugh. “Two of the Princes, and most of the
Ministers and Advisers will be there, not to mention
the General in full war-paint.”

“Gee!” muttered Daniel. “In this hot weather,
too! I guess I’ll look the only sane person on the platform.”

John Dregge glanced at his companion, and he at
him, as Daniel, waving his hat to them, went towards the
dining-room to find Muriel; but they were too startled
even to exchange glances when, at the door of that
room, the Great Man’s daughter made her appearance,
and stood on tiptoe, holding up her face to be kissed by
Daniel.

The scene at the railway-station, half an hour later,
was very disconcerting to a man so recently come from
the wilds; but Daniel either managed somehow to conceal
his embarrassment or felt none at all. Upon the
platform the inevitable piece of red carpet was spread,
and under the draped British and Egyptian flags several
frock-coated celebrities were standing, the Europeans
wearing silk hats, the Egyptians the more becoming
red *tarboushes*. A guard of honour of British
and native troops was drawn up near the iron palings;
and at intervals down the whole length of the platform
stood brown-skinned policemen, their hands looking
curiously farcical in white cotton gloves.

Muriel’s cool pink dress, her shady hat, and her
parasol, gave by contrast a remarkable appearance of
discomfort and heat to the assembled males; and
Daniel appeared to be the only man present who could
turn his head or swing his limbs with ease. Strange to
say, his unceremonious clothes were inappropriate only
in European eyes. The native mind regarded them as
perfectly suitable to one who was already recognized
as a kind of court philosopher: a Mohammedan holding
a similar office would probably have been garbed in
the coarse robe of a *derwîsh*. It was thus noteworthy
that while the Westerners regarded him askance, the
Orientals greeted him with particular respect, so that
even John Dregge presently began to walk beside him
and to converse with him—in marked contrast to his
earlier attitude of distant disdain.

At length the white, dusty train panted into the
station; and the black-faced engine-driver, by means
of a desperate struggle with the breaks, managed to
manœuvre the entrance of the saloon to a reasonable
proximity to the red carpet.

“Now for the little surprise for Father,” said
Muriel, and suddenly she linked her arm in Daniel’s,
allowing her hand to rest upon his own.

Lord Blair, hat in hand, stepped on to the platform,
and, at a sharp word of command, the guard of honour
presented arms.

He did not seem to see the crowd of waiting dignitaries:
he stared at Muriel and Daniel, a wide smile
revealing the two even rows of his false teeth.

“Dear me, dear me!” he exclaimed, kissing his
daughter’s cheek. “My dear Muriel! How are you,
Daniel? This is capital, capital! You two, arm in
arm....”

“Yes, Father,” Muriel laughed, “we’re going to be
married, ... please.”

“Aha!” chuckled Lord Blair. “I knew it, I knew
it! A little bird told me. Well, well!—I’m delighted.
A Lane and a Blair: capital, splendid!”

Frank Lestrange stepped forward anxiously glancing
at the native Princes. “Their Highnesses,
sir, ...” he whispered.

“Ah, yes, to be sure,” said Lord Blair, turning to
them, and holding out his hand. “I beg you to excuse
me for speaking first to my daughter and my future
son-in-law.”

  |

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