Burning Sands

  CHAPTER XXVI--THE STOLEN HOUR

  She had come to him! Impelled by her love she had come to him! That wasthe jubilant thought in Daniel's rejoicing heart. At last she had turnedher back upon the amusements and pleasures of the old life, finding themaltogether unsatisfying now, and she had come to him! She loved him, andshe had given up all to come to him! No longer was romance to besandwiched in between race-meetings and dances, between "At Homes" andopera-parties: she had renounced the whole thing, and had come to him!

  "How did you manage it?" he said, looking at her with admiration in hiseyes.

  "Oh, it was quite simple," she laughed. "There was nothing extraordinaryin my joining the Bindanes on their trip; and then ..."

  She told him how she had waited until Mr. Bindane was out of the way,and had then made a bolt for it.

  "But what is the next step?" he asked. "What about the future?"

  "Oh, man," she cried, "don't talk about the future--that can wait tillyou have time to think."

  The words may have had no particular significance, but to Daniel theyseemed to be the most wonderful he had ever heard. They meant to himthat she trusted him, that she placed her future in his hands, that shegave herself unreservedly to him. She left it to him to think out whathe was going to do with her....

  He looked at her with deep gratitude in his face; for she had, as itwere, crowned him as lord of their destinies and enthroned him upon thevery pinnacle of eventuality.

  He could not take his eyes from her as she stood at the window, thereflected light of the sunset in her face, her well-proportioned figureseeming to be more vigorous, more athletic, than he had known it before.Her smile, always brilliant, was now intoxicating to him; and her eyeswere filled with such tenderness that he could find no adequate responseto their appeal. It was as though his kisses and his words of love wereall insufficient to this great hour; and, with inward, joyous laughter,he found himself baffled in his search for means of expression.

  He lifted her up in his arms, and kissed her throat and her shouldersand her knees. He lowered her to her feet again, and, with his arm abouther, walked half-way across the room and back. He buried his face in herhair; held her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers one by one; hesat her in a deck-chair, and, kneeling before her, laid his head for amoment upon her lap.

  She was his, she belonged to him!--the thought went coursing through hisbrain in headlong career, breaking down his reserve, overthrowing thewalls of the citadel of his being.

  At last, forcing himself down from the heights to the practicalities, hewent to the door and shouted for tea; but Hussein, who, like most loyalEgyptian servants, regarded himself, with due deference, as _ibn elbet_, "son of the house," or "one of the family" as we should say, hadthrown himself whole-heartedly into his master's excitement, and hadalready prepared the tea and had opened the choicest tin of biscuits inthe store-cupboard.

  Muriel was hungry after her long ride; but she had so much to say, andthe interruptions induced by their love were so frequent, that the mealoccupied a great deal of time. She told him of the journey from Egypt,and of the wonders of the desert which had been revealed to her; shespoke of the bath that day in the pool at the roadside; she describedher sensations of increasing happiness and well-being as day by day theold routine of her life had slipped further from her; and she talkedwith enthusiasm of the beauties of El Hamran as she had approached itjust now from the high ground.

  "I spotted this old ruin of yours from miles away," she said, "and weskirted along the high ground on this side of the Oasis until we camewithout a single wrong turning to your door."

  She went to the window, and, standing there with her arm linked in his,gazed in silence over the shimmering sea of the tree-tops. Upon the nearside the shadow of the cliffs was spread, and the foliage seemed here tobe tinged with cobalt and purple; but on the far side the mellow lightof the vanishing sun still bathed the green of the leaves with atincture of gold and copper.

  The chirping of thousands of sparrows, as they gathered themselves inthe branches to roost, filled the air with clamorous sound; and at thefoot of the cliff, just below the window, a string of camels went by,the foremost being ridden by a small boy, dressed in a single garment ofblue cotton, who was exultantly carolling a native song in afull-throated voice which, with its chucks and gurgles, seemed to be animitation of the nightingale.

  "What is he singing about?" Muriel asked. "He's nearly bursting withit."

  "It is a part of the story of Leila and her lover Majnun," Danielexplained, after listening for a few moments; "the part where the Sultansees Leila, and tells Majnun that he doesn't think she is anything towrite home about; and Majnun says: 'O King, if you could only see herfrom the window of Majnun's eyes, the miracle of her beauty would bemade known to you.'"

  The boy's voice passed into the distance; and Muriel stood gazing infront of her in silence, while the golden light faded from the palms asthe 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, whitewashedliving-room, coming presently to the old monks' refectory, with itsroofing of dried cornstalks, and so to the servants' quarters and thekitchen, and thence to the ruined tower at the top of which Daniel waswont to sleep. They ascended this tower together, and from its summitMuriel could see the whole extent of the building; and, in a rapidpassage of thought, she realized with inward satisfaction that the storyof his harim was a fabrication.

  The view from here was magnificent. In the west, above the rugged lineof the dark hills, the sunset was revealed to her in sudden,overpowering splendour. To the east the Oasis lay in cool shadow; andhere and there a thin wisp of smoke rose into the air. Beyond lay thesilent desert, and the far-off ranges of pink and mauve hills; and abovethem the sky was turquoise, fading into grey-blue. The wind had dropped,and now the chattering of the sparrows was ceasing, so that there seemedto be an increasing hush upon all things.

  The foliage of the palms screened from sight any movement of human lifein the Oasis; and Muriel had the feeling that she and Daniel stood quitealone in this vast setting, like two little sparks of vibrant energydropped down from the hand of Fate in an empty, motionless world.

  She looked up at him as he stood before her, his rough grey shirt thrownopen at the neck, his sleeves rolled back from his bronzed arms, and hiswhite trousers held up by an old sash of faded red and yellow silkknotted about his waist. He looked down at her, dressed in her silksweater, and the same white serge skirt with the little stripe of greyin it which she had been wearing that afternoon at Sakkara. And as theireyes met they both laughed, like two playmates of childhood who hadquarrelled, and whose quarrel was now forgotten.

  Presently he led her down the stairs again and across the outer kitchenyard. Here her dragoman, Mustafa, was waiting to take his orders; and henow 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 thenight; and this Muriel at once gave him.

  "Where are the camels?" she asked; and in reply he pointed to a shedbuilt against the outer wall of the monastery near the entrance. Here,also, were the three yellow dogs, who, knowing her well, came now to herwith the fawning attitudes and uncertainly wagging tails of the realpariah 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 theusual hour. Daniel referred him to Muriel. "Any time you like," sheanswered, smiling happily at Daniel, as though even the arranging ofsuch trivial details were a matter of delight. "I want a bath first, ifI can have one."

  At this Daniel suddenly laughed. "Gee!" he exclaimed, "I'd forgotten tofix up a bedroom for you." He scratched his head. "Now where on earth amI to put you?"

  There was a small whitewashed chamber--originally a monk's cell--openingoff the refectory. This, Daniel used as his dressing-room, and in itstood his large tin foot-bath. He now told his servant,
therefore, toset up the spare camp-bed in that room, to prepare the bath, and toremove his own belongings to the chamber at the base of the tower belowthe stairs.

  "You won't be nervous alone there, will you?" he asked her, and sheshook her head. "If you feel lonely or frightened, you've only got toslip round to my tower and shout to me, or come up the stairs and wakeme up."

  To Muriel there seemed to be a wonderful intimacy in his words, and shepictured herself creeping up the dark staircase in the night, andstanding by her lover's bedside under the stars, whispering to him thatshe could not sleep.

  Hussein was not long in carrying out his instructions, and soon he cameback to announce that the bath was ready. Therewith, Daniel took Murielto this room, which looked exceedingly clean and comfortable in thelamplight. Towels and jugs of hot and cold water stood upon thegrass-matted floor beside the bath-tub; the camp-bed had been made up inone corner; and Muriel's dressing-case stood upon a chair near a tableabove which a looking-glass was hung. In place of a door a grass mat wassuspended across the entrance; and the unglazed window, lookingwestwards on to the open desert, was fitted with rough wooden shuttersnow standing open to the warm night.

  Daniel was loathe to leave her even for this little while, and he stoodwith his arm about her while she unfastened her dressing-case. He helpedher to lay out her brushes and toilet utensils; and there was a peculiarand very tender sense of intimate companionship as she handed him herslippers to place beside the bed and her nightdress to lay upon thepillow. He made no attempt to go when she began to take the hairpinsfrom her hair; and, when it fell about her shoulders, he took her in hisarms once more, calling her by so many loving names that her brainseemed to be singing with them, and she could feel her riotous heartbeating as it were in her throat.

  At last he left her, and went to his own improvised dressing-room, toput on more presentable clothes; but when he was ready, and she had notyet made her reappearance, he went back to her doorway and spoke to herthrough the screen of the grass-matting.

  She told him he might enter, and he found her sitting before the mirrorfastening up her hair. She was dressed now in a kind of kimono; and heseized her bare white arms, which were raised above her head, kissingthem fervently.

  When at length her toilet was finished, he led her back to theliving-room, where soon the evening meal was served at a small tableupon which two candles burned at either side of a bowl of wild flowershastily picked in the fields, where, at this time of the year, they growin great abundance; and never in all their lives had either of them feltso completely happy. Through the open window the stars glinted in thewonderful sky, like amazing jewels sprinkled upon velvet; and the dimlylit room, with its series of shadowy domes, seemed to be a magicalbanquet-hall, its walls of alabaster and its flooring of marble. It wassomewhat bare of furniture, for many things had been left behind at thePyramids; but its very bareness enhanced its Oriental effect and addedto its enchantment.

  Hussein had prepared a very excellent meal, not sparing thestore-cupboard; and he had opened a particularly large fiasco of Italianred-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 orleft the room he seemed to Muriel to have taken to himself the nature ofa geni out of a tale of the _Arabian Nights_.

  When at last the meal was finished, and cleared away, and she and Danielwere 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, leavingher 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 earsthe distant and wandering sound of a flute, played by some unseengoatherd passing homewards with his flock, the magic of the desert wasalmost overpowering in the measure of its enchantment. She wasbewildered and intoxicated by it; and in Daniel's eyes she found, too, alight of love such as she had never seen there before.

  The hours passed unnoticed, for time had ceased to be; and it wasalready late when at last Daniel arose, and stood looking down at herwith a smile upon his face. "Well," he said, with a sigh, "I didn'tthink 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 nohurry, 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 takethe real significance of her words.

  "Well," he said. "I suppose it will be all right for you to be here fora day or two; and then we can ride straight to Cairo and be married byspecial licence or whatever they call it." He lifted her fingers to hislips. "Oh, darling, in less than a week you'll be my wife!"

  Muriel stared at him, wide-eyed. It was as though she had suddenlyawakened from a dream. "Oh, but the family will be horrified," she said."Everybody will expect a proper wedding in London: after we get home--inMay or June. You'll have to make that concession to the world, mydarling."

  Daniel laughed. "Yes, but what about our compromising situation, here?"he asked. "Don't you see, my sweet, what I mean? Your bolting from theBindanes is to me a sort of sacred and wonderful thing that you havedone, because you've put your fate irrevocably in my hands. To my way ofthinking we are already married, because you have openly abandonedeverything and come to me; but I'm not going to give anybody the chanceto question our acts. We belong to each other, and the quicker theposition is regularized, so to speak, the better."

  "But who is to find out?" she said. "If I stay with you till theBindanes come, nobody will hear of it in Cairo."

  He looked quickly at her, his brows drawn together. "What d'you mean?"he asked, as though he could not follow the workings of her mind.

  She laughed. "I mean, I've arranged it all," she answered. "Kate is tosay I was ill, and that I came to you so as not to be a nuisance tothem. She can prevent her husband ever giving me away, and I shouldthink you could manage the others, or at any rate keep them from talkinguntil we're married."

  He did not answer, but his eyes were fixed upon her. She got up fromtheir chair, and put her hands about his neck. "This is to be ourwonderful fortnight, darling," she whispered. "It is to be our secret."

  He lifted her arms from his shoulders, holding her wrists. "I don'tunderstand," he said, and his voice was hard.

  She looked at him with wonder. She could not comprehend what wastroubling him. "Darling, what's the matter?" she asked, in dismay. "WhatI mean is that I've done what you always wanted me to do: I've brokenloose; only I've chosen my opportunity, and arranged it so that peoplewon't talk."

  Still he did not take his eyes from her; but he removed his hand fromher wrist. "You mean," he said very slowly, "that you will return withthe Bindanes, and finish up the Cairo season?"

  "Well," she answered, "I've got all sorts of more or less officialengagements, you know."

  "This is to be just a stolen fortnight?" he asked, and she wasfrightened by the stern tones of his voice.

  She nodded, and again her arms sought his shoulders. But he stepped backquickly from her, and his hand passed across has forehead.

  "You are going to cover up your tracks with a pack of lies," he said,his breath sounding like that of one in pain. "And then you are goingback to your dances and your parties, pretending nothing has happened."

  "Oh, you don't understand," she cried. "I've given myself to you, bodyand soul."

  "Yes," he scoffed, his voice rising. "You've given yourself to me for afortnight. A sneaking fortnight that you think nobody will ever hearabout. A fortnight sandwiched in between the middle and the end of theCairo season, to fill up the blank time while your father is away."

  "But I never want to go back," she answered, her voice trembling.

  "If that is true," he said, "why have you arranged everything for yourreturn? You've given yourself to me, you say! Yes, for a stolenfortnight, as you call it yourself: it is to be just an underhand littleintrigue. Good God!--and I believed you had giv
en up everything for yourlove's sake; and now I find you've given up nothing. You've taken allthe necessary steps to prevent your action being decisive, to make yourreturn to society perfectly easy. And I thought you had burnt yourboats!"

  She faced him angrily. "Oh, you're incomprehensible," she exclaimed."You let me see in every possible way that you want me to give myself toyou and to follow you into the desert; you let me understand that thisis what you expect of a woman; you knew that I had heard about youraffairs with the Bedouin women here; you didn't seem to mind my havingheard about Lizette: and then, when I accept your point of view and cometo you, you tell me I've done wrong."

  "What on earth are you saying?" he cried. "What do you mean aboutBedouin women? I have never had any relations whatsoever with nativewomen in my life--never. And as for Lizette, I didn't tell at the time,because I wanted you to trust me of your own accord; but I will tell younow. I've only spoken to her twice in my life. Once we had suppertogether, and once we had coffee together in a restaurant. That is thebeginning and the end of my relationship with her. Do you mean to saythat thinking me a sort of libertine, you have come out to live with mehere as my mistress for a fortnight? Is that what you mean?"

  She did not reply. She sat down on a cane chair near the table, andtwisted her handkerchief to and fro with her fingers. The expression onher pale face revealed the black despair of her heart.

  "Answer me!" he said, sharply.

  "I have no answer," she replied. "I thought you wanted me, I thought youloved me."

  He turned from her, sick at heart. It seemed now to him that his worstfears were realized: he could almost have called her "Harlot." In nowise had she abandoned the world and run to him, defying the conventionsbecause she desired to be his mate. She had merely planned a secretlove-affair: she had just slipped out of the ballroom, so to speak, toenjoy an amorous interlude, and she would be back amongst the dancersonce more before anybody had missed her. This sort of clandestine,cunningly arranged affair was an insult to the whole idea of union: itwas an intrigue out of a French novel.

  He looked at her once more as she sat at the table, and, in hisrevulsion of feeling, he thought her kimono gaudy. The expression on herface was angry, almost sullen.

  "I think you must be mad," she said. "In Cairo you wouldn't be publiclyengaged to me, and you made me understand quite clearly that it wasn'tour actual marriage you were thinking about: you wanted me to run awaywith you. You always jibbed at the thought of marriage, and were silentabout it; but you talked freely enough about our life together. You madeit quite clear that you regarded morals with contempt; and now, yousuddenly have scruples, and pretend that you are shocked at my havingtaken steps to prevent a scandal which would hurt my father'sreputation."

  "If you were afraid of a scandal," he answered, quickly, "why did youcome at all? When you arrived this afternoon I thought you had left thatquestion to me, and were ready to get married at once, which was theonly way to avoid hurting your father--unless I had sent you back thisvery night to Kate Bindane. No, you weren't afraid of a scandal: youarranged it all too cleverly for there to be much risk."

  "I was prepared to marry you," she said, "if you really wantedmarriage."

  "And if I didn't," he replied, "you were prepared to live with me for afortnight. Oh, you make me ashamed!"

  "I wanted to save you from these other women," she protested.

  "I tell you there never were any other women," he answered. "I'm not aman out of one of your horrible novels."

  "I don't know what you are driving at," she exclaimed. "Anyway I won'tbe played fast and loose with like this. I shall go back to my friendstomorrow, and I hope I shall never see you again."

  Suddenly her voice broke, and throwing her arms out across the table,she laid her head upon them, and cried bitterly.

  Daniel did not move. His heart was hardened against her, and he toldhimself that her tears were but one of the wiles of her sex.

  "No," he said at length, coming suddenly to a decision, "you shall notgo back tomorrow. You have come here for a fortnight, and have madearrangements for your visit to be secret. You say there is no fear of ascandal such as would hurt your father. Very well then, you shall stayhere a fortnight whether you want to or not. I propose that we get toknow each other: we've had enough misunderstandings. You havemisunderstood everything I have ever said to you: it has all been warpedand twisted by your miserable society attitude of mind."

  "I shall never understand you," she answered, raising her head, anddrying her eyes with the back of her hand. "This is quite final. You'veinsulted me and humiliated me. I might have known that that was whatyou'd do."

  "Very well," he said, "I think you had better go to your room now.Remember, you are going to stay here for the full fortnight."

  "I shall do no such thing," she declared, facing him defiantly.

  He gripped hold of her wrist. "Do you want me to have to lock you up?"he asked; and she quailed before the authority of his voice.

  He went across to the door and opened it. Outside, upon the floor, ahurricane lamp was burning; and this he picked up.

  "Here's a lamp," he said, "and here are matches. Now go to bed."

  She took them from him in silence, and slowly walked out of the room.

  He watched her as she passed across the refectory, the light from herlantern casting her swaying shadow in huge size upon the ruinous walls.Then he shut the door, and sitting down at the table, buried his face inhis hands.