Part 41 (1/2)

The boy's voice pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sage of thought, she realized with inward satisfaction that the story of his harim 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 s.h.i.+rt 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 Sakkara. 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 att.i.tudes 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 gra.s.s-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-gla.s.s was hung. In place of a door a gra.s.s 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 companions.h.i.+p 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 gra.s.s-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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed 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?”