Part 6 (1/2)
Three times she had been in actual danger of death: once when her horse bolted, making straight for the cliffs a short way ahead; another time when the receding tide had caught her, pulling her slowly out to sea, and never a boat in sight; and again when taking a pre-breakfast stroll on the Col di Tenda, she had encountered a fugitive of the law desperately making for the frontier, who, half crazed with fear, sleeplessness, and hunger, literally at the point of an exceedingly sharp knife had demanded money, or bracelet, in fact anything which could be transformed into a mattress, and coffee, polenta, cigarette or succulent frittata.
After each of the preceding incidents she had tried to a.n.a.lyse her utter want of feeling, her inability to recognise danger, her almost placid confidence in an ultimate happy ending.
”It doesn't seem to be me, Dads,” she had once explained, or tried to explain, to her father, who, in the depths of an armchair and the _Sporting News_, had no more idea of what she was talking about than the man in the moon. ”I seem to be standing outside myself looking at myself. A sort of something seems to come right down, shutting the danger right away from me. I know I'm in it and have to get out of it, but though I pulled Arabia for all I knew, and swam for all I was worth to reach Rock Point, and bluffed that poor devil out of taking Mumsie's bracelet, I kind of did it mechanically, not with any intention of putting things right, for I knew I was not going to die that time, because I'm sure that I shall _know_ when I've got to die . . .
understand, Dads?”
To which Dads had replied:
”Quite so, my dear, quite so! Personally I don't see how it could be otherwise. I agree with every word you say!” patting his red setter's head, which in the firelight he fondly believed to be his daughter's.
CHAPTER XII
And so it was now as she sat under the African moon, whilst little rings and puffs of smoke helped to irritate the insects ensconced in the leaves of the creeper. She seemed to be standing on the other side of a wall, watching the outcome of the tossing of a silver coin.
”I've had a perfectly awful day,” she announced with a ripple of genuine amus.e.m.e.nt in her voice as she proceeded quite unconcernedly to recount the doings of the last few hours.
”So naturally I was followed from the restaurant,” she went on after a moment's pause, ”and my bag was so heavy, and I was absolutely lost, and only just managed to give the man the slip by hiding behind a half-open door, painted bright blue of all colours.”
”Allah!” murmured Hahmed. ”An English girl hiding in a house with a blue door!”
”But,” she went on, having for some unknown reason omitted the dance episode from her narrative, ”that wasn't the worst part”--and continued, quite unconcernedly, to give a detailed account of the night's happenings. Whilst she was speaking the Arab moved nearer until he stood over her, there was neither shadow nor frown upon the fine face, or movement of lip or hand, but the air seemed to throb with the intensity of the white-hot rage within him.
”By Allah!” he said quite gently, as he took the emerald ring Jill held out. ”I do not need this, for behold for many years I have known of the doings of this thing of whom you speak. And yet so great has been his cunning, that until to-night I have never been able to lay hands upon him in his guilt. But to-morrow will dawn a brighter day for Egypt, in that she will be rid of one of her greatest evils. And were you not afraid?”
Jill smiled up into the eyes fixed with love, plus wors.h.i.+p, plus reverence, upon her. ”I? Oh! no! Why should I be when I am supposed to be one of the finest shots in Europe? Are you going to kill him?”
”He will be dead ere the sun rises, and I beg you to forgive me if I leave you for a while, for I must go to give orders as to his death.”
Jill's thoughts can be most aptly described as tumultuous, but her smile was a festival of youth as she watched the Arab, in whom she had put her trust, walk up the long avenue, stop, and clap his hands.
She could hear no word of the orders given to the servant, who ran from out a clump of trees to kneel at his master's feet, but she guessed that it was the engraven emerald ring which pa.s.sed from one to the other to be hidden in the servant's turban; and she felt a wave of absolute satisfaction sweep through her whole being at the thought of the man's death before the dawn.
At which sensation she mentally shook herself, feeling that the young tree of her experience, unrestrainedly shooting out in all directions within the s.p.a.ce of a few hours, would require the sharp edge of the pruning knife if it was to be kept to the merest outline of the shape common to the ordinary life she had led up to now.
”It is well! He dies before the dawn!” announced the Arab prosaically, as he came towards this woman who, on the edge of a new life which might, for all she knew, bring ruin, despair, or even death in its wake, could so tranquilly talk of the risks she had already encountered in the course of the first few steps she had taken upon the path she had chosen to follow.
”And tell me, O! woman, whose courage causes me to marvel, how once happily escaped from the house of few windows and but one apparent door, did you find your way to these gates?”
”Oh! that!” said Jill, as she sat with her hands about her knee and her face upturned to the moon, which, throwing a deep shadow from the hat brim across the upper part of her face, made of the deep eyes a mystery, and a delirious invitation of the red mouth. ”Amongst other till now useless accomplishments, I have learned to guide myself by the stars, though I'm positive they move over here. I had noticed that big one there, which we haven't got in England, that very big sparkling one, hung over the quarter in which the waiting-maid told me lay your house.”
”Yes!” replied the man who, though he knew the West so well, was secretly wondering at the trait in a character which allowed a _woman_, on the edge of something unknown, fraught, perhaps, with every kind of danger, to talk unconcernedly of hotels, face creams, blue doors, and stars. ”That is the Star of Happiness, it hangs also right in the middle of my oasis, right over my desert dwelling,” and the string of beads hanging from the waist slipped through the long fingers as words of prayer fell softly on the perfumed air.
The girl got up and walked over to the camels.
”So I followed my star and suddenly found myself at the gates! Is this my s.h.i.+p of the desert--and what a beautiful coat, the dear thing,”
starting back as the dear thing turned its bead suddenly, bared its teeth and snarled.