CHAPTER X

"_The wind that sighs before the dawn

Chases the gloom of night;

The curtains of the East are drawn

And suddenly--'tis light_."

SIR LEWIS MORRIS.

The desert stretched before Damaris.

As a lover, clad in golden raiment, in quick pursuit of his love with

dusky hair and starry eyes across a field of purple iris, Day flinging

wide his arms leaped clear of the horizon which lies like a string

across the sandy wastes. Gathering her draperies, hiding her starry

jewels in misty scarves, Night fled in seeming fear, leaving behind her

a trail of sweet-scented, silver-embroidered purple, grey and saffron

garments, which melted in the warmth of love.

But leap he from the horizon ever so quickly, don he his most brilliant

armour and pursue he ever so hastily, yet, save for two short hours

when he may barely touch her hem, Night stands ever mockingly,

beckoning, just out of reach.

O thrice-wise woman! How else would there be pursuit?

And Damaris laughed aloud from sheer content as she touched the

coal-black stallion with her heel, and held him, fretting, eager to be

away over the sand, to wherever Fate pointed.

Half-believing, half-doubting the words of the fortune-teller, this

early morning following hard upon her arrival in Heliopolis she slipped

from her room, wakened the astounded night-porter of the Desert Palace

Hotel, and demanded a car to be brought upon the instant. And lucky it

was for her that she made one of the ducal party, for nothing else

would have procured her her heart's desire at that untoward hour before

dawn.

With Wellington beside her, she drove hard along the deserted high-road

towards the village of Makariyeh where, under a sycamore, 'tis said the

Virgin and Child rested on their Flight into Egypt.

The head-lights seemed to hurl the shadows back as she raced down the

Sharia el-Misalla towards the ruins of old Heliopolis, which is all

that remains of the great seat of learning, the biblical City of On.

And the sky lightened way down in the east as she drove along the outer

edge of the fort to the Obelisk, known to the Arab as el-Misalla.

And there the words of the fortune-teller came true, for fretting and

fuming in an endeavour to unseat his _sayis_, who rode him native-wise,

without his feet in the stirrups, rearing and backing at the sound of

the engine throbbing in the gloom, was the coal-black stallion of

Unayza.

Damaris did not cast a look at the Obelisk. She had eyes only for the

beautiful beast which, seemingly, she was to ride on a single rein and

a wisp of a saddle. Standing sixteen hands, born of the desert,

nervous and self-willed, he was no fit mount for a woman, and a gleam

of anxiety flashed across the _sayis's_ face as he measured the slender

girl with his eye and re-adjusted the stirrup-leather.

"In the name of the hawk-headed Ra-Harakht."

The servant salaamed as he mechanically repeated the unintelligible

sentence which had been drummed into him by his master; and Damaris

smiled and replied in the servant's tongue, to his amazement, and

walked up close to el-Sooltan, holding out a flat palm with sugar upon

it.

It took some time before he snuffled her hand, and then only by

stratagem she mounted, swinging herself in a bound to the saddle as the

groom slipped to the ground on the off-side; upon which el-Sooltan

wheeled sharply and headed straight for the village of Khankah, which

is the outskirt proper of the desert.

For two and a half miles, at a tearing gallop, the girl made no attempt

to show any authority. But once on the very edge of the desert she

did, for this was the longed-for moment of her life, when alone, free,

she should ride out into the unknown; and she had no inclination or

intention of being hurled through that moment like a stone from a

catapult. Sooltan, behaving like a very demon, tried his best to

unseat the light weight upon his back by the simple and usually so

effective methods of rearing, plunging and bucking; but Damaris only

smiled and shouted as she looked towards the east, caring not a jot for

any vagary, so content was she.

But as the sun leapt clear of the horizon, she gave one cry, touched

the stallion lightly upon the neck, gave him his head, and was across

the desert, unmindful of an Arab who, some distance away, which, in the

desert, is really no optical distance at all, headed a grey mare,

thoroughbred and of mighty endurance, in the same direction.

Where is there anything to compare to riding across the desert at dawn?

At dawn, when to your right and to your left march phalanxes of ghostly

shapes, which maybe are the shadows of the night, or maybe, as says the

legend, the ghosts of the many long-dead kingdoms buried in oblivion

and the relentless sands; when the whistling of the wind is as the

shouting of men and the thunder of your horse's hoofs as the rolling of

many drums, calling you through the power of past centuries and the

ecstasy of the solitude in your heart, out to the mystery of the plains.

Mystery, fascination, spell, lure, call of the desert. All fine words,

but hopeless to explain that which has lured more than one white woman

out into the golden wilderness to the wrecking of her soul; and which

has nothing whatever to do with the pseudo-psychic waves which trick us

into such pitiable hysteria and hallucination.

But there is no mystery about that which called Damaris. It was the

joy of youth, the salt of novelty, the exhilarating sympathy between

horse and rider; she shouted as she seemingly rode straight into the

massed colouring of the sunrise; she lifted her face to the golden

banners flung across the sky and turned in the saddle and looked back

at the hem of Night's garments disappearing down in the west.

She was still a child, for those auxiliaries, Love and Life, had not

yet lain hand upon her; they had but pulled aside the veil from before

her eyes for one brief second, and she, dazzled by the glimpse, had

pulled it back hastily. Neither was there anything to tell her that,

upon a not very far distant day, the veil would be torn from her,

leaving her to be well-nigh blinded by the radiance of the greatest

light in the world.

And she rode carelessly, without a thought to the passing of time or to

the ever-increasing speed of el-Sooltan, who was all out in an

endeavour to find his stable, also his companions, from whom he had

been parted for many weary weeks.

That they happened to be in the Oasis of Khargegh, some few hundred

miles down the Nile, he was not to know; he only knew that the desert

was his home and that in it and of it was his happiness to be found;

and it was only when Damaris turned to look at the ruins of the City of

On from a far distance that she discovered that they had disappeared in

a mist which was merely the combination of the distance and the waters

of the oasis evaporating in the morning sun.

She tried to pull the stallion, gently at first, and then with all her

might, but to no purpose; for nothing but the voice of his master or

his own particular _sayis_ could stop el-Sooltan once he had got the

light bit between his teeth; and of the death from thirst which awaited

him and his rider upon this particular venture if he continued in his

obstinacy he had, of course, no warning.

"What a nuisance," said Damaris, as she looked round the great yellow

plain which stretched, a carpet of level sand, to the west and under

her horse's feet and broke to the east into a chain of hummocks, piled

by the last sandstorm which had caused such devastation in the nomad

tribes and such annoyance to the visitors at Heliopolis.

She felt no fear, only an increasing vacuum beneath her waistbelt and

distress for the worry her long absence might cause her godmother.

"And Well-Well will have chewed everything chewable in the car, also

the legs of the _sayis_, by the time I get back," she exclaimed. "And

I can't do anything--I've irrevocably given el-Sooltan his head. It's

no use slipping from the saddle, because I couldn't walk back. I can't

. . ."

She broke off suddenly, rose in the stirrups and waved. And a more

radiant picture of youth you could not have wished to see in a lifetime.

"A village!" she shouted. "Camels, palms, water. An oasis with tents;

women and children and men. Come round, Sooltan, come round." And she

pulled with all her strength, and still to no avail, for, oblivious of

the peaceful, verdant patch, the mighty animal forged ahead.

"Well, I shall have to drop from the saddle, let Sooltan go, and walk

over to them. They are sure to be friendly and . . ."

She had just slipped her foot from the stirrup when, clear and

insistent, there came a ringing cry.

Some way off, the Hawk of Egypt had followed her from the village of

Khankah, with intent, knowing the horse she rode, to watch over but not

intrude his presence upon her. He had known for some time that

el-Sooltan was out of hand, and had decided to call him after a mile or

so more of furious exercise; but, instead, quite suddenly and

instinctively, he cried, "_A'ti balak!--a'ti balak_!" which means, "Be

careful--be careful," and pulled the mare to a standstill.

He too had seen the mirage of the peaceful oasis, thrown by the

atmosphere from a distance of eighty miles, and with his desert-trained

eyes had caught the little movement of the foot; and, connecting the

two, he insistently called the stallion, knowing that a drop from the

saddle at the almost incredible speed at which Sooltan was going might

easily result in twisted ankles or even a broken neck.

"_Irja_!" he called. "_Irja_!" Which means, "Come back, come back!"

And he called again and again as the stallion dropped from a gallop to

a canter, a canter to a trot, then stopped dead; whinnied gently;

wheeled sharply and stood stock-still.

"_Irja, Sooltan_!" came the cry. "_Irja Sooltan_!" And with the cry

came the neighing of the mare.

The stallion lashed out, reared and stood still, ears pricked, silken

mane and tail flying in the wind.

Then _he_ answered, until the desert seemed filled with the calling of

the noble beasts, as the girl sat with thudding heart and eyes fixed on

the distant spot where fretted and fidgeted the mare ridden by the Arab.

Then something within her rebelled at this intrusion upon her privacy,

causing her to be suddenly stricken with anger and confusion.

"Take me to the tents, Sooltan!" she cried, turning to look back.

"Take--but--why--oh! what an escape--a mirage--a----"

But the rest was lost in the sudden bound of el-Sooltan as he raced in

obedience to his master's call.

The man waited until they were within a mile of him; then he wheeled

the mare and took her back along her tracks, urging her to her topmost

speed. Swiftly she fled and swiftly pursued Sooltan, the man not once

turning in his seat.

And as they neared the outskirts of the oasis of Heliopolis Hugh Carden

Ali urged the mare so that she gained upon the stallion, and beckoned

to his groom, who had run hot-foot from the Obelisk to the edge of the

desert with fear in his heart for the beast but not one whit for the

girl. And he caught the shouted order as his master passed him at full

speed, and ran out, shouting in his turn to the stallion.

El-Sooltan, connecting the _sayis_ with the bucketsful of water he

stood so badly in need of, stopped short, nearly unseating Damaris with

the suddenness of his decision and then with the hand of the groom upon

his heaving flank trotted docilely back to the Obelisk, where

Wellington, risking curvature of the spine, turned himself into a

canine picture of ecstatic welcome.

"To-morrow at the same hour," said Damaris, feeding the stallion with

sugar, "he will know me better."

"_Ma sha-Allah_!" murmured the servant to himself, praising the courage

of this bit of a woman.

"_Bikhatirkum_," she said gently, as she moved off in the car.

"_Ma'a-s-salamah ya sitti_," answered the delighted, astounded man as

he salaamed almost to the ground before such unexpected graciousness.