CHAPTER VI

"_A mother is a mother still,

The holiest thing alive_."

COLERIDGE.

"May the blessing of Allah who is God be upon thee, O woman!"

The sonorous words, of the benediction rang through the room as Hugh

Carden Ali stood with the silken curtain drawn back in one hand and the

right raised in blessing upon his mother, who stood with arms

outstretched in the centre of the room.

Then he knelt to receive the benison of the woman he loved, smiled when

he felt the small hands upon his head and, leaping to his feet, swung

her up into his arms, covering her face with kisses.

"You beautiful darling!" he said, as he crushed her up, to the

derangement of her perfumed silks and satins and many jewels. "It's

just heavenly coming back to you, you dear, understanding mother."

The woman's heart leapt to battle, for in the last words, in the way

her beloved son looked down upon her in the tone of his voice, she knew

that, somewhere out in the world, he had received a hurt. She knew so

little of him, had only had him for such a little, little while under

the influence of her love and in the shelter of her heart, and she

loved him, her firstborn, with a love beyond words. Thinking to do the

best for him, and making the biggest mistake of all, beating down her

beloved husband's opposition, she had sent the boy to England, and in

the subsequent eight years had only seen him twice.

"He is of the East, Woman of my Heart! Behold, I have studied him,"

had said the Sheikh, all those years ago. "Let him be, else evil may

befall him."

But Jill, his beautiful wife, had insisted, and his love for her being

beyond telling, the great Arab had submitted to her wish.

For so it had been written.

And what can be the outcome of the tragic mixing of blood? Nothing but

pain.

"Come to the roof and talk, Mother, under the stars."

So up the marble staircase, with his arm about her waist, to the roof

they went, where the silken awnings lay folded and the scented white

flowers hung asleep.

They stood under the canopy of purple night studded with flashing,

silvery points, as the soft winds carried to them the notes of a guitar

softly thrummed in the shade of the palms.

"It is Mary, dear," happily whispered the woman. "She came with me to

welcome you." And then she clasped her hands at the blaze of anger

which swept the man's face.

"Most gracious Mother, I am master of my house, and, save for your

ever-esteemed, ever-desired presence, I cannot have woman set foot in

it without my consent. When I have the desire for one as wife,

plaything or servant, then I will give orders."

"But, Hugh, Mary is your sister!"

"Mary is my sister, and I do not deem it wise or seemly that she should

run about the country at her own wish or whim."

"But, Hugh,------"

"Dear, let me speak. I saw so much of woman in Europe that the

yashmak, the barku, the seclusion and modesty of the East have become

dear to me above all else. Have you forgotten, dear, the restaurants,

the theatres, the parks and, Allah! the streets? The half-stripped

bodies, the craving for excitement, the wine, the nights turned into

day! Why, one has but to stretch the hand, for flowers to be laid

therein; the feet trip at every step with the trap of woman's hair; the

quarry stands waiting for the arrow; there is not even the incentive of

the chase, the hot pursuit, the lust of the kill. I speak as my

father's son, and in my house I will have privacy and seclusion and

seemliness. Women shall be brought to me when I desire their

presence." And the steeliness of the voice brought the woman

up-sitting as he gave her an order cloaked in the guise of a favour

begged. "And I shall be glad if you will ask my sister to keep within

the women's quarters until I send for her."

"But----"

And she ripped the corner of her veil between perturbed fingers when,

upon the clapping of hands, a slave ran swiftly to learn his master's

pleasure, then hastened away to find the head body-woman of the

guesthouse assigned to women-visitors.

After which the sweet thrumming of the guitar instantly stopped.

On more than one night they talked under the stars, sitting on satin

cushions, or leaning on the marble fret-work of the balustrade looking

due east to where, so many miles away, flows the blue-green Nile, as it

has flowed through the centuries, all unheeding of the passing of

mighty kingdoms.

And yet had the mother learned nothing of the hurt reflected in her

firstborn's eyes.

"Most precious Mother," he was saying, as he stood flicking the pages

of the latest illustrated paper just arrived from Cairo, but which was

really a volume of the Book of Life written, printed and published by

Fate. "If it pleases you to stay when I am gone, will you do so just

as long as you find happiness in my dwelling?"

"You are going, Hugh,--so soon--for long?"

"There has come a report of lion in the Nubian Desert, as far north as

Deir el-Bahari. I can hardly believe it, for it is years and years

since a lion has been seen even in the Khor Baraka. However, a runner

from Nubia came in this morning, so there may be something in it. God

grant it, for the sport and the danger would be great, killing or being

killed, in the rocks and ruins of the Temple. Also I could visit my

Tents of Purple and of Gold. How long shall I be gone, sweet Mother?

That is known only to Allah, to whom our goings and our comings are as

the drifting of the sands."

"Your tents are very beautiful, my son. The servants are waiting for

your orders before pitching the--the--middle one. Without asking

permission, I went to inspect them. Just before your return, just to

see if everything was quite all right. One can never quite trust the

servants."

Jill might have been sitting on a rectory lawn, talking about her

linen-cupboard or spring-cleaning with a neighbour, instead of one of

the wonders of modern Egypt. In fact, so quaint was it that the man

laughed and swung her onto the balustrade.

"I'm not surprised Father worships the ground your ridiculous little

feet tread on, Mater," he said, causing his mother to gasp, so English

did he sound, so Oriental did he look.

"Dear!" she said gently, as she scrutinised him with a mother's eyes

and touched his face and patted his cheek and pulled a bit here and

there at his fine white linen coat, upon which in coarse thread was

embroidered the Hawk of Old Egypt. "Dear! don't you think you would be

happier if you were to marry and--settle down?"

And it was then that there came to her the full explanation of the hurt

reflected in her firstborn's eyes.

"I shall never marry, dear," very gently replied the man, so fearful

was he of causing pain to the woman who had borne him. "I--I--you see,

I cannot."

"Cannot, Hugh? But, my dear, what is the matter? You will have to,

some day, you know. You are your father's eldest son," answered the

woman, who, wrapped in perfect love and happiness, had never given a

thought to the far-reaching effects of her marriage with the Arabian.

"Dear son, there are so many beautiful, cultured, gentle women here and

at home--I mean in England--you------"

"Mother, please! Oh, Mother, you don't understand--dear heavens! you

don't understand. Listen--and, how I wish my father, whom I honour,

were here to comfort you. Forgive me, dear, forgive me for the pain I

must cause you------"

And the woman went white to the lips under a sudden blinding flash of

understanding and her proud eyes dropped to the hands clenched in her

lap.

"I want to marry, Mother of mine." He spoke in the Arabian tongue,

which, is so atune to love, "for behold love in the space of an hour

has grown within me. The floods of love drown me, the full-blossomed

trees of passion throw their shade upon the surging waters, and,

behold, the shade is that of tenderness. From the midst of the flood

where I am like to drown, I stretch my arms towards the rocky shore

where stands, looking towards me, the desire of my soul. Behold, my

eyes have seen her, and, behold, she is white, with hair like the

desert at sunset, and eyes even as the pools of Lebanon. She is as a

rod to be bent, and as a vase of perfume to be broken upon a night of

love. And I love her--her--out of all women--a doe to be hunted at

dawn, a mare to be spurred through the watches of the night------"

"Hugh!"

"I love her as my father loved you--my father, of whom I am the eldest

son--son of a highborn father, son of a highborn

mother--outcast--outcast!"

"For pity's sake, Hugh, stop!"

But the storm swept on, tearing the veil from the woman's eyes.

"Behold, I care not for the plucking of garden blossoms, therefore are

the beautiful, docile women of the East not for me, and the thorns upon

the hedge of convention defied, the barbed wires of racial distinction

keep me from the hedgerow flower, born of the wind and the sky and the

summer heat, which I covet.

"Among men I am nothing; I may not claim equality with the scavenger of

the Western streets; or with the donkey-boys of the Eastern bazaar.

Here I am served with fear and servility, being a man of riches; across

the waters, I may sun myself in the smiles of women as long as I have

no desire to wed." He suddenly seized the woman, holding her in a grip

of iron which left great bruises on her arms. "Do you know what she

called me, Mother?--that harlot of a line of noblemen--what she flung

in my teeth because, seeing in her a woman of the streets hidden under

the cloak of marriage, I refused to be tempted?"

There fell a terrible silence, and then a few whispered words.

"She called me a half-caste, Mother!--me--a half-caste!"

And the mother fell at her son's feet and bowed her head to the ground,

and he swept her up into his arms, raining kisses upon the piteous face.

"I don't blame you, sweetheart-mother," he said in English, whilst she

sobbed on his heart. "Am I not the fruit of a brave woman's great

love? Could there be anything finer than that? But my father in me

made my whole body clamour for the desert when I was in England; my

mother in me makes my heart throb in the desert for just one hour of

her cool, misty country, one hour on a hill-top in which to watch the

pearl-gray dawn. Dearest, dearest, don't sob so. It is a case of two

affirmatives making a negative; two great nationalities decried,

derided, rendered null and void in their offspring through the dictates

of those who, in religion, prate that we are all brothers. I have just

got to stick it, my mother, and life is not very long. But I shall

never marry." And as he spoke, Fate flicked a page of an illustrated

paper, which was but the volume of the Book of Life, and perhaps only a

mother's eyes would have noticed the sudden tightening of the hand upon

the marble of the balustrade as the man looked down into the pictured

beauty of the woman he loved.

And, having read what had been written, he knelt to receive his

mother's blessing.

"To the Tents of Purple and Gold, my darling?" she asked, smiling so

bravely to hide her breaking heart.

"Not just yet, dear; a bit further North first, I think."

"For long?"

"I do not know, dear. Bless me, O my mother."

She blessed him and called to him as he stood at the head of the marble

stairway:

"Come back to me, my son!"

"That, O woman, is in the hands of Allah, who is God."

And he turned and left her, and she, having wept her heart out and her

beautiful eyes dim, took up the illustrated paper which was a volume of

the Book of Life, and turned the pages.

"Ah!" she said. "How beautiful!"

It was just a simple photograph of Damaris at a tennis tournament, and

underneath the information that the most popular and beautiful visitor

in Cairo would celebrate her birthday in a week's time, that in honour

of the occasion her god-mother, the Duchess of Longacres, had issued

invitations for a fancy-dress ball, after which social event she and

her god-daughter would proceed to the Desert Palace Hotel, Heliopolis.

"I wonder," whispered Jill, "I wonder if she would come to see me. She

was always such a wise old woman. I wonder if there is a way out"--and

she stretched her arms out towards the desert. "Hahmed!" she called,

"Beloved, I love you, and my heart is breaking,"--and she lifted her

head and listened to the sound of many horses running; then bowed her

head and wept.

The dawn was nigh to breaking, and yet the parade of horses was not

finished; whilst the trainer, the head groom, the stud groom, the

under-grooms and the rank and file of the stables tore their beards or

their hair as they endeavoured to please their master, whilst they

waited anxiously for the return of the man who had been hurriedly sent

to fetch in the mare, Pi-Kay, who was out to grass, and as wild as a

bird on the wing.

Singly, or in pairs, every priceless quadruped had been put through its

paces upon the track of tan imported from England.

Three coal-black stallions, brothers to el-Sooltan, even then in Cairo,

and famous throughout Egypt, tore past him like a cyclone and left him

indifferent; a chestnut brood mare, whose price was above that of many

rubies, trotted up at his call and snuffled a welcome in his sleeve,

searched for sugar in his hand and found it, and whinnied gently when

he turned away; bays, piebalds, roans, greys, trotted, galloped,

jumped, whilst their master smoked endless cigarettes and the stud

groom prayed fervently to Allah.

"By the patience of the Prophet," the master suddenly cried, turning on

the man, "hast thou nothing else? Is there no jewel amongst my horses?

Hast thou not in all my stables one of the Al Hamsa, a descendant of

the mares who found favour in the eyes of Mohammed the prophet of Allah

who is God? The mare Alia--has she been, perchance, as sterile as thy

wits?"

And then he stopped short and stood in silence, watching the loveliest

picture any human could wish to see.

Picking up her dainty feet as though she walked upon hot stones,

tossing her proud little head, with big, gentle eyes, spreading

nostrils and fine small ears almost touching at the tips, mane flowing,

tail set high and spread, came the snow-white mare, Pi-Kay.

Allah! but the loveliness of that picture as she stood, thoroughbred,

perfect, as proud as any queen, as scornful as any spoiled beauty, as

confused at the sight of her master as any bride!

Ten yards away and motionless she stood from this man who seemed to

take no notice of her, and then she wheeled, and flung up her heels;

then stopped and looked at him along her satin flank and piqued with

his indifference suddenly sped out into the desert.

Then, softly, melodiously, the man's voice called her, ringing like a

bell under the lightening sky, and behold, love awoke in the mare's

heart and she turned and raced back towards him, longing for his hand

and the grip of his knees upon her. But with her feet upon the tan,

she turned her back upon him and danced across towards the coal-black

stallions, causing their grooms to hold on to them with both hands;

then she came back to circle round about this man, who seemingly took

no notice of her vagaries, not even when she reared just behind him,

pawing the air, nor when she lashed out at a humble _sayis_, missing

him by a hair; until, at last, overpowered by curiosity and love,

curveting, rearing, throwing her feet and making a frightful to-do over

nothing at all, she came close up--oh! very close--and whinnied gently.

With one hand clutching the silvery mane and in one bound he was across

the bare back and away with her into the desert, gripping her with his

knees, calling to her by every love-name he could think of.

And out there alone in the desert at the hour of prayer, he slipped

from her and, turning towards Mecca, raised his hands to heaven.

"O God of the West! O Allah of the East! Give me one single hour of

love!"

And the mare, Pi-Kay, wonderful in her beauty, raced from him far out

into the desert, leaving him alone with his God; then stood quite

still, with fine small ears pricked, waiting for the call she knew

would come. And when it came ringing clear over the golden sand, she

raced back to him and pushed against him, until he sprang upon her and

turned her towards the East.

"_By the war-horses_," he cried, quoting from Al-Koran, "_which run

swiftly to battle, with a panting noise; and by those who strike fire

by dashing their hoofs against the stones; and by those who make a

sudden invasion on the enemy early in the morning and therein raise the

dust, and therein pass through the midst of the adverse troops_ . . . .

by the Message of the Great Book and by my love will I wrest one hour

from life."

And urging the mare with the whip of love to the uttermost of her

wonderful speed, he thundered back across the path of sand, which was

to be trodden by his feet alone, in spite of the plots which Zulannah

the courtesan was even then weaving about him--to her own advancement.