Part 12 (1/2)
”How awful! How awful!” she whispered. ”Surely, surely you never let them _kill_ her!”
For a moment the Arab sat silent, as he forced his mind to an understanding of the Western outlook upon what to him was so simple a matter.
”But she was unchaste, woman, therefore there was nothing else to do!”
And at the tone of finality in the gentle voice, Jill sat back on her heels and said, ”And then?” and listened without interrupting until the tale was done.
”So,” continued Hahmed, ”she was taken screaming to a public spot and there buried to her waist, and after that her mother had thrown the first stone, was put to death by men and women who, following the edicts of the Moslem law, meted out death by stoning to the unchaste.
And from that day I fled my country and my home. East and West I travelled, pa.s.sing many moons in England, hence it is that I can converse with you in your own language.
”There are many good things in your country and there are some bad, the greatest of the latter, to an Eastern mind, being the freedom of the women, who, even in their youth, go half-naked to the festival, so that all men, yea, even to the slaves who serve at table, may cast their eye of desire upon wife, or wife to be, taking from the husband the privilege of possessing all the beauty of the woman for himself. Also did I see the women of the West go down to the salt waters to bathe.
Naked were they save for a covering which clung as closely as the skin to a peach, so that if I had had a mind I could have discoursed upon the comeliness of the wife of el Jones, or the poor land belonging to el Smith. Allah! I remember well a bride-to-be of seventeen summers, comely in her outer raiment, displaying to her future husband, without hesitation, the poor harvest of which he would shortly be the reaper, for I think that the majority of the women of the West strive not to render themselves beautiful, develop not the portion of the body which maybe lacks contour from birth, bathes not her body in perfumed waters, feeds not her skin with delicious unguents, cares not if her hair reaches in wisps to her shoulders, or falls below her waist as a natural covering under which she may hide at the approach of her master, neither does she daily perfume it, nor her hands, nor her feet, nor any part of her.”
Once again Jill snapped the story thread, but this time with laughter, for her mind's eye, aided by her companion's scathing comments, had called up picture after picture of friends and acquaintances who, at b.a.l.l.s, theatres, or by the sea, had draped themselves or not according to what they imagined to be their menfolk's outlook upon life.
”How funny!” she laughed, ”how too funny!” And added: ”And then?” as she lit another cigarette which she did not smoke.
”For many years,” continued Hahmed, ”I wandered, even unto Asia and to America. In truth whilst there the desert suddenly called me. My body craved for the sun, my eyes for the great distances of the sand, my ears for the familiar sounds of the East.
”But I could not return to the place of my shame, likewise were my parents dead, leaving me an equal part of their great wealth.
”So I went to other parts and bought 'the flat oasis' as it is called, on account of the many miles of perfectly flat sand surrounding it, absolutely unbroken by rock or bush or sand-dune. And perforce because I needed it not I acquired wealth, and yet more wealth, buying villages and great tracts of ground, breeding and selling camels and horses, diverting myself with my hawks, hunting with my cheetahs, or greyhounds, to occupy my time, heaping up the jewels in my bank at Cairo, keeping the best of everything for my wife, the woman predicted in my horoscope, for there can be no real happiness without a perfect helpmate, and real happiness has been promised me.
”And all these things I have done for her, yet am I looked upon as mad by many in that at twenty-eight years I have not begotten me a son, for they could not understand the disgust which had taken root in my whole being, so that in love or pa.s.sion or desire I laid not hands upon women.
”You cannot understand, woman of the West, what it means when I say this to you, for in the East a man's greatest desire is to propagate his race, to have sons, many sons, with a daughter or two, or more as Allah wills, and to satisfy this longing in the shadow of the law, Allah, who is G.o.d, in His all-powerful goodness and bounty has allowed us as many as four wives, and as many women slaves or concubines as a man can properly and with decency provide for, the children of the latter, if recognised by the father, sharing equally with the offspring of the former. Though why a man who has found his love should wish to c.u.mber his house with other women, seething with jealousy and peevish from want of occupation, is beyond my power of comprehension.
”So I have none, because it is within me to love one woman only, and to find the light of my life in her and the children of her loins, and if Allah in his wisdom sees not good to grant me this woman, who must come to me of her own free-will and love, then will I go to my grave in Allah's time without wife, without child, although the Koran sayeth that he who fails in his duty towards his race is accursed among men.”
And behold, a great trembling fell upon the English girl, as rising to her feet she stood to look out upon the desert, and drawing the glory of her hair about her so that she was covered from the gaze of the man who stood apart, pa.s.sed into her tent.
And the hour of prayer being at hand the man purified himself, and turning towards Mecca praised his G.o.d, and divesting himself of his outer raiment laid himself across the entrance of the woman's tent so as to guard her through her sleep, until such time that Allah, who is G.o.d, should open the entrance of her chamber unto him, and place the delights thereof into his hands for ever.
CHAPTER XXI
And the first day was like unto the second and the third, for these two desert farers went but slowly.
Each dawn, if they had travelled in the night, they found their tents pitched; each night they moved on, or not, as pleased the girl's mood, each hour of the day strengthening the love in the man's soul, each minute of the night pa.s.sing over him, as he lay outside the entrance to her tent, so that, at the slightest sound from the dim, sweet, scented interior, he might spring to his feet, awaiting the little call for help which never came. Jill slept as peacefully as a babe, stirring only at a dreamed of, or imagined, swaying of the bed, as does the seafarer sometimes who sleeps for the first time after many months upon a bed, the four feet of which stand firmly on the ground.
During the waking moments after her first night's rest, uninitiated Jill had in imagination gone through and ardently disliked the frightful hour in which she would help collect, and clean, and pack a litter of soiled pots and pans, and other such abominations, which collecting, etc., seems to const.i.tute one of the chief charms of a Western picnic; so great had been her relief on hearing that there was absolutely nothing to do but to see that the cus.h.i.+ons and coffee were safely strapped upon Howesha's back, the only patient part of the animal. They were standing in front of the tents with the animals at their feet, the man watching the girl's every movement. Jill herself, being vastly rested, was absolutely radiant as to looks; strange dishes and hot winds and cold causing no havoc to the skin, nor the lack of Marcel methods unsightliness to her hair.
The dusk hid the dilapidation of her tailor-made, which looked the fresher for being pressed under the mattress; she always travelled boot-trees, so her shoes were all right, and the two Jacob's ladders, falling on the outside of her stockings, looked just like clocks neatly mended; her lovely hair rioted under her blue hat, and her high spirits rioted in her blue eyes, as she fed the camels with dates and wiped her sticky fingers on the silken coats.
”What!” she had exclaimed. ”You don't mean to say that you are going to leave all this for the first thief to collect,” withdrawing as she spoke her basket of dates from the vicinity of her new camel's mouth.
Verily, a beast of great beauty and worth was she, but s.h.i.+ning as a mere rushlight, in comparison to the Bleriot head-light radiance of the fallen Taffadaln.
”The Arab does not steal!”