Part 8 (1/2)
A striking and unrealistic picture the two made as they lay on their cus.h.i.+ons alone in the desert. The girl in her white dress, which in truth was somewhat crumpled, her white neck rising like a gleaming pillar from the low-cut blouse, the little curls rippling round the face which, under the moonlight and the stress of the past hours, showed white with shadow-encircled eyes, gazing at the man who rose and knelt with a towel of softest linen, and a basin of bra.s.s filled with water.
Jill happened to be one of those lucky individuals who can with impunity wash their face anywhere, and at any time of the day, and look the better for it. Neither had she to fear a futurist impression in vivid colours of Dorin rouge and blue pencillings mixed with liquid powder appearing on her face after a sudden rain storm.
So she put her face right into the basin, lifted it sparkling with laughter and rainbow drops to bury it in the snowy cloth. Her sleeves she turned back, and ran the water up and down her arms.
”And you must wash your feet, woman, for so small are they, they must a.s.suredly be fatigued!”
And without hesitation the girl proffered her shoe to be unlaced, whilst without lifting her skirt, with a quick movement she undid the suspender which held her last pair of real silk stockings to the infinitesimal girdle she wore instead of the usual figure-distorting corset, peeled off the silken hose and put the prettiest foot in the world in flesh, painting, or marble, into another basin of bra.s.s laid upon the ground, and also filled with water.
”Allah!” whispered the man, as he dried each little foot, ”so small, so slender, rivalling the arch of Ctesisphon, dimpled as the sky at dawn, never in the most perfect Circa.s.sian have I seen feet so wonderful, glory be to Allah, whose prophet is Mohammed.”
And then the Arab, filling another basin, moved to the far corner of the rug, where facing towards the East he made ablutions of his mouth and hands and feet, and raising his hands to heaven, gave praise to his G.o.d for the wonder of the day, and bowed himself in obeisance.
”I was returning thanks to Allah for you, O! Moon Flower,” he said simply, and led her to the cloth of finest damask upon which the repast was spread, praising Allah anew as he poured the contents of the wine jars upon the sands when Jill announced that she only drank water.
Rested and cheered, the girl chatted merrily all through the al fresco meal, in her turn inwardly giving thanks for the Arab's perfect manners and knowledge of table methods, for in her heart she, particular to the point of becoming finicky about the usually so unpleasant process of eating, had looked forward with absolute horror to the moment when the man's fingers should close upon some succulent portion of a mess of pottage or chicken, and convey it to his mouth with charitable distribution of rice grains upon the beard.
Rea.s.sured, her laughter rang out sweetly when the absence of methylated spirit for the ”Cona Machine” was discovered.
”And I would really rather have yours,” said she, ”for am I not to become an Eastern------” and suddenly stopped, for looking up she found the man gazing at her with eyes ablaze with love.
And once more a great silence fell between them, as they both sat staring wide-eyed over the desert, and up into the starry heavens.
Few, very few of those who live in the West have had the privilege of sitting alone under the stars in the desert.
This does not mean riding out on a tourist track with dragoman and camel-driver, and retiring a few yards from their perpetual chatter to gaze at the heavens in what _you_ imagine to be the approved style, to the accompaniment of correct gasps, after which, finding you have left your cigarettes behind, you look at your wrist watch and wait another five minutes, until you can with decency saunter back to your camel-driver with the feeling of something quite well done, and the unuttered hope in your mind that everyone would not have gone to bed on your return.
No! it means, when wearied from long travel you call a halt, perhaps just before the dawn, when the very stars seem to commune with you.
Leaving your servants to pitch your tent, urge your camel to the distance when the clattering of pans, and the jar of inter-domestic feud shall not a.s.sail your hearing, then urge your camel to its knees, and set you down at a distance so that the pungent odour of the beast shall not a.s.sail your nostrils, and then removing little by little the outer covering of the worries and pin-p.r.i.c.ks which have made the pa.s.sing of the day unbearable, give way to your soul, or second self, or whatever you call that which causes you to joy in the coming of the spring, and to mourn when the fire refuses to heat but a portion of the room in winter.
For this is what happened to Jill, the English girl, as she sat on her cus.h.i.+ons in the Egyptian desert, and has nothing to do with table-turning, or ten-and-six-penny visions in Maida Vale, or whisperings, or touchings in a conveniently darkened room; neither must you put it down to magnetism or hypnotism, or any of those ”isms” which we, of a glacier-born country and a machine-made life, so irreverently tag on as terms descriptive to all that which we cannot label and place upon a museum shelf, or conveniently start by motor power.
A long dissertation on the Eastern's power of concentration, love of meditation, and utter detachment from self, would doubtlessly prove wearisome in the extreme, neither for a true explanation thereof can help be got from highly or lowly born native. Without movement for hours he will sit or squat, as becomes his station, staring, as we should say, vacantly into s.p.a.ce, in reality seeing and hearing that which others, blinded by material enjoyment, can never hope to visualise or hear.
Jill afterwards tried to explain the outcome of this, her first step in the meadows of meditation, which she took without help and without intention, and in which she has become so versed, to the mystification of those about her, who look upon woman as a bearer of children, a plaything for sunny hours, useful in time of rain, endowed with the brain of a pea-hen, and as much soul as the priests see fit to mete out to her.
”Something had left me,” Jill explained later. ”My body seemed to be sitting on the cus.h.i.+ons, and I could minutely describe the way Hahmed was sitting, and the exact shape of the shadow cast before him by the moon, which was setting behind us. But inside I was quite empty, whilst all sorts of little things I had known so long, crept out and stole away into the desert. I was just a husk, with no more impatience or quick temper or restlessness, and I can remember wondering if I were likely to break in two or crumble into dust, I felt so thin. And then I heard all sorts of whisperings, just as though thousands of people were standing near me, trying to make me understand something, and a violet shadow suddenly appeared between Hahmed and myself, seeming to get deeper and deeper in colour, and then get less and less; and as it lessened, so did my feeling of being a mere husk leave me, until at last, when it had all gone, I felt--well _full_ is the only way to put it, and my heart was thudding, and the blood pounding in my head, and well--that's all!”
Very indefinite and very unsatisfactory, and of which the whispering can easily be put down to the snuffling of the camels, the pa.s.sing of the faint breeze, or the intake of the Arab's breath; and the purple shadows to the folds of his black cloak. For the effect of fatigue, excitement, and strong Egyptian coffee upon the mind of a Western maid is quite likely to turn the buzzing of a fly into the flight of an aeroplane, or the dripping of a tap into the roar of a Niagara.
Be that as it may, the Arab made no sound or movement when with a low cry the girl sprung suddenly to her feet, and with both hands upraised, although she knew it not, turned towards the direction in which Mecca lay.
For a full minute she stood absolutely motionless, then gently moving towards the man, who had risen and was standing behind her, she put out her hand, saying softly, ”Behold! I am ready to come with thee.”
CHAPTER XVI
It was close upon dawn when the two figures suddenly and silently emerged from the tree shadows in which they had been hiding for some considerable time.