CHAPTER XIV

"_Oh! for a falconer's voice to lure

This tassel gentle back again_."

SHAKESPEARE.

Lunch, desultory shopping and tea with friends in Cairo had been the

order of the afternoon following the dawn which had found her grace at

the window trying to come to a decision about her god-daughter. They

were just returning from these festivities and were negotiating the

last cross-roads of the Sharia Abbas when a native policeman, waving

his arm like a semaphore, stepped into the slowly-moving stream of

traffic.

Resulted the usual maelstrom of motors, native vehicles, stray animals

and trams, in which tossed the native pedestrian as, agile and

vociferous, he slipped in and out of the block, calling loudly upon

Allah in his extremity.

"A native wedding, or something," said Damaris, who was driving. "What

fun!" then blushed divinely pink.

There was one gorgeous mounted figure in the laughing, happy,

tumultuous crowd which came whirling across the road kept clear for it

by the police.

Hugh Carden Ali had gone a-hawking in a certain part of the desert near

the ancient City of On, where gazelle is sometimes seen and birds are

plentiful.

Clad in orange satin a-shine with jewels, with tight-fitting Eastern

trousers ending in perfect riding-boots, with diamond osprey glittering

in the white turban and falcon, with jesse to match the orange coat, on

gauntleted wrist, he rode serenely in the cheering throng.

His falconers with their underlings walked on either side of the roan,

which fretted and fidgeted at the slowness of the pace; the dogs of

Billi walked sedately and by themselves; grooms of the kennels led

greyhounds on the leash; behind them, almost bursting with importance,

came a Persian deftly carrying the cadge, which is a kind of padded

stand upon which, hooded and fastened by leashes, the favourite birds

are carried to and fro.

At the rear was the birds' van, in which are carted the birds which may

or may not be required, also spare parts of the paraphernalia upon

which depends the success of this sport, the sport, in truth, of kings!

In the "days that are past" the favourite sport of our own monarchs,

especially in the "spacious days of great Elizabeth."

The bag was good considering the district, the poles on the servants'

shoulders bending under the weight of two gazelle and countless birds

of all sizes and plumage.

A couple of _siyas_ waving the customary horsehair fly-whisk ran

shouting before their master; servants surrounded the cortège, armed

with sticks which they rattled with good effect upon the shins of the

more venturesome among the spectators as the procession moved slowly,

as move all things in the East.

Shouting fiercely, the _siyas_ stopped suddenly in front of her grace's

car, arms uplifted, mouths open, then turned in their tracks and sped

back to the master who had called them.

The old lady and the girl beside her interchanged never a word as they

watched Hugh Carden Ali urge the mare who picked a dainty path through

the wondering crowds which opened a way before her. The sun caught the

jewels on the man's breast and above his turban and upon the

saddle-cloth of the roan mare, and struck fiercely slantwise into the

proud, handsome face with the set mouth and the eyes which never once

looked in the Englishwomen's direction.

For a full minute he sat immovable, whilst the mare, freed from the

fret of the crowd, stood stock-still. In his bearing, in the

magnificent picture he made under the flaming skies, there seemed a

subtle challenge to the two Englishwomen. All his English nature rose

in revolt against the barriers that rose between himself and Damaris,

daughter of his mother's race; but, curbing his passion with the

self-control he had learned in British fields of sport, he remembered

that he belonged primarily to his father's land, whose people had three

thousand years before held the keys of civilisation in their powerful

hands, whilst the people of his mother's land were just about emerging

from the primitiveness of the Stone Age.

"_I am the East_!" he seemed to cry in his utter immobility.

Then he turned, beckoned, and gave a sharp order to the bewildered

policeman, who salaamed almost to the ground.

Hugh Carden Ali bowed, to the saddle, as the great car shot smoothly

forward. There was a smile of welcome on the face of the old woman who

had loved his mother; a whole world of welcome in the outstretched hand

and a little feeling of thankfulness in her heart; that at last she

might get to know the man in time, and, with him, go to visit his

mother, or, better still, win his confidence, heal his hurt, and so

obviate the tedious journey.

But there was to be no drawing together of the man's wound with the

silken threads of sympathy.

He sat like a statue, with his left hand raised in salute,[1] until the

Englishwomen had passed; then, throwing his falcon, he watched the

confused bird's flight in search of the quarry which was not there.

"_Cry aloud to Ali the worker of wonders,

From Him thou wilt find help from trouble_."

He quoted the first two lines from the _Ned'i Ali_, the formula used in

the East when trouble threatens a falcon, and, touching the mare,

passed down the Sharia Abbas, whilst the old lady, going in the

opposite direction, came to a sudden decision.

[1]In the East the falcon is carried on the right hand.