The beating heart

BY

VICTORIA CROSS

They were coming up in a closed carriage from Jerico, a jolly, merry, roystering crowd. Melisande whose real name was Eliza, late of the Gaiety theatre, now married to a millionaire, Lord and Lady Hillingford on their honeymoon, an old bachelor Major keen on reckless adventure, and Miss Smith.

To pass the time they were singing comic songs with resounding chorus, which floated out of the open windows and echoed strangely from the stony hills of the wide stretching barren wilderness that lies between Jerico and Jerusalem.

It was a brilliant night with a huge silver moon at the full hanging in the sky above sending its floods of light down upon the lonely waste, in which there was no tree nor flower nor bird: yet something moved at intervals, a curious low four-footed shape with sloping spine and coat so cunningly contrived in spots and lines of brown and white that it matched exactly the patchy, stony hills and clefts and crannies amongst the rocks through which the creatures flitted with their elusive movements.

The exhilarated crowd within the carriage took no notice except one, Miss Smith who was always an exception to whatever the rest might do or be.

The supper at the Jerico Inn before their start had been good with copious libations of the rich Greek wine and now Melisande’s golden head was leaning on Hillingford’s shoulder while she shrilled out the chorus from her coral mouth and the millionaire’s arm was round Lady Hillingford’s neck and the Greek wine no doubt was to blame if she was too confused to notice it wasn’t her husband’s arm. The old Major was frankly overcome and curled up in a quiescent ball in his corner of the great roomy old carriage, only Miss Smith sat quiet and sedate in her grey travelling dress watching the shapes flitting among the rocks in the moonlight. They were hyaenas Miss Smith knew what they were. She was not intoxicated, she was not sleepy. She was not singing comic songs. She sat up straight, alert and watchful.

Her companions did not heed her. They generally left her alone recognizing that while with them she was not of them. At the same time they did not object to her. No one ever objected to Miss Smith. They teased her goodnaturedly because she never drank, smoked, flirted nor swore as they did and used to read and study dingy brown books in the queer languages of the country and she as goodnaturedly smiled and continued to pursue her own quiet way. Among other women she was generally passed over and ignored and considered unattractive because she was generally termed “good” and in these days to be a good woman, is not attractive. A beautiful woman, a fast woman, a fascinating woman, a wicked woman, any adjective almost, sounds interesting but good no. So once having dubbed her good everyone let her alone and she was allowed to wear her crown of Virtue unchallenged and undisturbed.

In person she was rather tall and slender and affected quiet well-fitting tailor made clothes. Her hair was of a warm brown shade and very thick but so quietly done, pressed close to her small head that no one looked twice at it while the frizzed out golden curls, now getting thin from over much dying that flared in a halo round Melisande’s head drew every eye. Miss Smith’s skin was cool and pale, her eye grave and grey a different thing altogether from the sunny saucy laughing blue beloved by man. Yet the eye had beauty in its calm repose like a clear deep pool in a shady wood. She was 36 though she looked only about 26 and her present and future had been kindly settled for her as old maid by her friends. When she had first joined the touring party, both the married men had attempted to flirt with her after the way of married men but Miss Smith did not care for flirtations with married men and did not want the attentions of the old bachelor Major Mitchell who gallantly offered them. What she did want was locked up in her own soul.

She had been proposed to at 16 and had accepted. He was a young man her father’s secretary. The engagement had pursued a tranquil and as Miss Smith privately thought a disappointing course until one evening when as he was leaving her after much long and as she thought boring conversation, she ventured to whisper softly as he took her hand in farewell “Kiss me.”

Instantly she was enfolded in his arms and a kiss pressed upon her lips, not an irreverent one but one full of force and electric fire and pressed down so hard that her lips were painfully crushed upon her teeth, under it. When he let her go suddenly she was absolutely white dazed and breathless and involuntarily sank down on the chair nearest her.

The young man’s face was white too as they stared for a moment at each other in silence. Not a word was spoken. He retreated silently, swiftly to the door and vanished through it. She sat still where she was until the beating of her heart grew calmer and allowed her to get up. Then as the sense of physical shock passed she smiled. That had been delightful! That was Life! That was Love! That moment compensated her for the preceding boring weeks of her engagement. In that moment she had had her first insight into that stupendous joy that we share with the animals and primitive man alike. Perverted, degraded, chained and beaten down out of sight, as the sexual instinct is by civilization, there are still moments like these of innocent youthful joy in which we see the face of Nature for an instant and realise her tremendous power.

Little Christine Smith went to bed that night profoundly happy. Engagements were not stupid after all. Life was not all dullness. Poets and novelists were right. There was something in existence which was marvelous and golden and glowing and it was love. She adored her fiance now. Had he not in that electric wonderful kiss shown her the majestic Force that he represented? It was overaweing, inspiring. All night she dreamt innocently happily of the kiss that had lifted her to heaven. In the morning there was a letter from him.

Trembling and flushing she had carried it to her room to read alone. His prayer no doubt to her to hasten their marriage so that there might be more and more and more of those heavenly moments. But the letter was not that. It was an apology. A craving of pardon for that kiss. A promise that if forgiven he would never, never ever again. Christine could not understand. Grown cold and white she read that astounding letter over and over again and the more she read it the less she understood it. What did he mean? What was wrong? Why was the kiss wrong? It was not, her common sense told her that. It had been just the revelation of his love for her in all its splendid strength and ardour and she loved him for it, and now here was this stupid letter in which he painted himself as a sort of criminal. She was dumbfounded. But one thing was clear. He evidently thought the kiss was very wicked and if she did not agree then he would think her very wicked also. Christine sat very still and cold thinking, the gay mirage that Nature had flung all about her dissipated and gone. Her primitive instincts urged her to go to him and tell him he was mistaken. The kiss was Right and he must take her in his arms and kiss her again and again in exactly the same way give her again that wonderful glimpse of a golden and rose-coloured world of ecstasy. But civilised 16 is rather shy. Christine shrank from facing that cold condemnation that was in the letter, turned upon herself. It seemed so impossible to explain, to find the words to fit all those myriad feelings leaping within herself. She was afraid he would not understand.

At last after hours of thought she folded the letter and put it away. He had said he would come that evening to hear her say she forgave him. She decided she must say nothing but extend to him her pardon as he desired.

For months the engagement went on. Christine secretly hoped that once again his feelings might betray him and that glorious moment come again but it never did.

The engagement was finally broken off and not by him. Christine told him gently that she feared they hardly understood each other well enough for marriage.

The young man mournfully and humbly accepted her decree. To this day he believes that it was that fatal moment (to her so ecstatic) that was his undoing.

There had been several engagements since then on the same dull formal lines and terminated in the same way by her. They had not contained any whirling moments such as the one she had experienced and for the return of which she waited confidently as an astronomer for the return of a comet. This time when it came....

Meanwhile she was not unhappy. She was strong and fleet of foot and clear of eye. She had perfect health in a splendid well knit frame and life was sweet and all the days of this tour through Palestine had been very bright and fair.

She had enjoyed especially this just finished visit to Jerico, going down from Jerusalem in the early summer when the heat was so deadly that not a soul except their own reckless party would venture down there.

The Hotel keeper at Jerusalem had begged them not to go! The season for it was over the heat far too great but they had laughed at him. They had been so cooked they declared a temperature of 110° could not frighten them and the idea of going down down to the scorching plain of Jerico, to the borders of the Dead Sea beneath which lay the sinful Cities of the Plain had a delightful fascination in it.

The road the landlord urged was extremely dangerous. It lay through the wilderness and at this time the Bedouin Arabs were travelling up and down. Caravans and long lines of them fully armed might be met at any point. If go they must an escort of two armed soldiers would be provided for them by the Government. What would be the good of two soldiers against a band of robbers? Hillingford had asked and the landlord had explained “If you have Turkish soldiers with you, no matter how few, it shows you are under the protection of the Sultan of Turkey the head of their religion the Sheik-Islam: they will not lift a hand against their own chief. No one will touch you.”

The party consented to take the escort but at the last moment it did not arrive and they would not wait. Finally to the sound of lamentations from their host, they drove away, in the capacious vehicle with a good pair of horses and a single unarmed man as driver. They went by night to avoid the blinding heat of the sun and here they were returning by night by moonlight and the moonlight that falls on the plain of Jerico and on the stony wilderness around it is as hot as English sunlight. The party were well pleased with their visit they had enjoyed it especially Miss Smith. She had liked the journey down down into the simmering bowl of heat, at the bottom of which lay the rich verdant tree filled plain of Jerico and the sparkling blue Salt Lake called the Dead Sea.

The Jerico Inn kept by a Greek where they stayed was a low white building of immensely thick walls and almost hidden from view under the shade of a gigantic fig tree whose wide spreading massive thick leaved boughs filled the court yard with deep delicious shadow green and cool. Here, on their arrival after midnight they had sat and supped at a table neatly spread with bread and cheese and fruit and great jars of honey and the rich heady wines of Greece and while the others had rioted and jested and laughed and kissed Miss Smith had sat gazing up through the fig leaves to where between them here and there a great planet burned fiercely in the sky uneclipsed even by the silver light of the moon. She was enjoying it all in her deep calm soul. The next morning the rioters slept late in the cool stone chambers of the inn, but she was up while the larks were singing overhead and the whole fair plain of Jerico was smiling in fresh dew and early light. Alone and unafraid and unmolested she found her way down to the edge of the sparkling sea, undressed and bathed in its wonderful blue and limpid waters that would not let her sing and clung round her snowy throat and limbs like the heaviest thickest oil.

Miss Smith thought of all these things now in pleasant retrospect as the carriage lumbered along slowly up the stony road between the hills.

Suddenly a sharp sound the crack of a rifle came stinging through the silence, followed by a terrible thud in front of the carriage. Their driver, doubled up in a sort of ball, fell from his seat and then rolled heavily to the ground, the reins still in his hands. The horses plunged and shied a little as his body fell close by their heels, but they were too hot and weary in that long upward climb to run away. They were startled frightened, something had happened but fatigue was greater than any other feeling. They stopped dead still with heaving sweating sides.

The instant the carriage stopped, the occupants who had by now sung themselves into a state of lethargy, woke up with a shock and the men began to get out. Miss Smith had descended on her side and was first at the side of the fallen driver.

Miss Smith knew all about first aid and she saw here there was no aid to be given. The man was dead. The old Major came to her side. He also knew death when he saw it. “God bless me!” he ejaculated. “This is dreadful, poor fellow! Poor fellow! What’s it all mean, eh?”

Miss Smith did not answer, she was looking through the silver space to a long broken line of rocks some 200 yards away. From these, men were running up to them. In a few moments it seemed the carriage in which the two women still sat, huddled together, was surrounded by a circle of Bedouin Arabs. Each one carried a rifle in one hand and a short knife was thrust into the broad sash folded many times round their waist.

Thought is very quick and Miss Smith had time to think even in that alarming moment how handsome and picturesque a crowd they were. Their dark faces were finely carved and featured with brilliant flashing eyes and teeth. On their heads they wore what looked like two enormous rolls of coloured cord, deep red and blue, forming a sort of turban and falling in a twist on their shoulders at the back. A vest of coloured silk and purple Zouave jacket, wide sash and cartridge belt, and loose crimson trousers to somewhat below the knee made up a costume worn with extraordinary grace on beautiful and stately figures of about average height. These men were not specially tall but extremely lithe and well proportioned. They closed round the little English group as leopards encircle antelope. Two of them between them carried the soft limp body of a shot hyaena. They laid it down by the body of the driver. Miss Smith stooped for a moment and stroked softly the exquisite white fur on its chest. Then she straightened herself and looked round on the circle of eager dark faces and asked them in Arabic what they wanted.

And then the whole English party realised that they were helpless and useless in this emergency except for this slim quiet serene person, whom they had laughed at and ignored. She was now the mistress of the situation. Their lives and safety lay in her hands. They could only stand by gaping helplessly while she, thanks to her dingy brown books, parleyed with their enemies.

It looked as if they were in an appalling mess and they depended on her now to get them out of it. The women in the carriage put scared white faces out of the window.

“What do they say, the scoundrels?” queried the Major after Christine in her musical voice had exchanged some sentences with the leader. To Major Mitchell the best man living, if he had a dark skin, was always a scoundrel.

“He says they had no intention of killing our driver,” she replied, “but a shot ricochetted from a rock that was aimed at a hyaena.”

“Oh come that’s good!” said Hillingford, “well then can they help us to get on anywhere?”

“You must remember that is what they say,” she returned calmly and then she resumed conversing with the Arab leader, while the women in the carriage shivered in the heat and the English men cursed themselves inwardly for having come without the Government guard. The millionaire stole close to Christine’s side. “Offer them anything, anything, a thousand, ten thousand, if we get safely back to Jerusalem,” he whispered shakily. Christine turned her clear eyes upon him. “I do not think money is what they want,” she replied regarding him steadily. What she thought they did want she did not say.

John Briggs, millionaire, stepped back, white under his Eastern sunburn. His money had smoothed out most ruts in his life. Was it going to fail him now? He glanced at the other two men and it was three very pinched looking faces that stared at each other in the moonlight, while the long glistening barrels of the rifles held by the Arabs sides, almost touched them as the circle drew nearer and the dark eager countenances with their glittering eyes and teeth came thrusting themselves close up to their shoulders.

“Ugly business Jack,” muttered Hillingford.

“Scoundrels,” repeated the Major whose vocabulary was limited, clenching his fists.

“This is just what the landlord said. Fools we were not to take his advice,” said Briggs savagely.

Then they were silent. Christine had finished a long talk with the leading Arab and had now turned to them.

“They say they don’t want money nor anything we have with us. That they are not robbers and that the shooting of our driver was an accident. As they have killed him however, they can do nothing without their Sheik’s orders. He is called Sheik Lasrali and he has a tent pitched some distance from here in the wilderness and we must all go there with them and hear his orders.”

“What cheek! The scoundrels,” burst out the Major. Christine’s even brows contracted a little.

“Do be careful Major and control yourself,” she said, “We are in a bad enough position as it is, don’t make it worse.”

“How are we to get to this Lasrali?” asked Hillingford.

“We must walk,” returned Christine and he thought how well she showed up, standing there in the moonlight, wholly undismayed, quite calm and mistress of herself and talking easily and clearly that difficult gutteral tongue which he had given up studying in despair.

“We have no driver,” she went on, “and if we had the carriage couldn’t go over that rough ground. It would be overturned directly. We have got to go back some distance in that direction.” She pointed far back across the stony waste towards the plain of Jerico whence they had come and the travellers groaned involuntarily. To go back! Further away from the city with its law and order and protection, further into this savage desolation where the moonlight showed nothing but rocks and stones where even the rough rocky grass struggled in vain for existence and here and there bleached bones showed whitely on the ground.

“There is no help for it” she said merely and turned to the carriage. The women in it were sitting white faced and silent but like English women faced with grave emergency their courage rose to meet it. There was no complaint, no shrinking back. They opened the door of the carriage and stepped down on to the stony ground without a word.

The vehicle was packed in all its corners with small handbags and cases, extra cloaks and wraps and sunshades. The Arabs peered in curiously jabbering amongst themselves. There was a hasty consultation between the travellers as to whether they could carry anything with them. The Gaiety girl, Melisande, prayed for her handbag. It had all her make up in it. Lady Hillingford could not bear parting from her small flat case. Hillingford hastily opened his bag and extracted his favorite razor. Miss Smith went to hers and pulled out her Arabic dictionary.

“Don’t take much,” she advised. “It’s so hot and we have a long way to walk. The Arabs are going to leave a guard and the carriage and all its contents will be perfectly safe. I have told them we must take the horses out and take them with us. The Sheik will have water and food and rest when we get there.”

While the women fussed over their luggage, anxious as human beings always are about trifles even with the great issues of life and death hanging over them, and the Arabs sat down a little way off watching them with an amused smile curling their dark lips and their rifles held across their knees, the three men and Christine stood for a moment together at the horses’ heads.

“I wonder whether we’re wise,” Hillingford asked, “in giving in like this? Suppose we said we would not go?”

“The alternative is for us all to sit here under a guard while two of the Arabs go off with a message to the Sheik and ask for orders.” Christine answered, she had evidently discussed this with the chief already, “but you see he might be ages coming back. Perhaps he wouldn’t come till the morning and we’d get awfully tired waiting here and the horses would get no water. Then he says the Sheik would be sure to send for us, so we’d have to go in the end.”

“Why should he send for us, damn him?” This from the Major.

“The leader says he would not mind the men going on but he would be sure to want to see the three ladies!”

“Scoundrel!” shouted the Major.

“I think we had better go and make no trouble about it,” said Christine, “we may be able to reason things out with Lasrali.”

The men nodded. There seemed no way out. An Arab came up and took out the two horses, weary and dejected with the long toil. Christine patted their necks and the Arab led them off the roadway. Next came another Arab strung about with various small articles belonging to the English that he had been deputed to carry by the leader. Hillingford and his wife followed, then Briggs and Melisande, then the Major and Christine and this small column of English was flanked on each side by a guard of six Arabs.

Christine turned and glanced back as they were starting. Two motionless Arabs sat on the box seat of the carriage, their rifles on their knees. Side by side on the ground lay the dead driver and the dead hyaena mingling their blood in a small dark pool on the road.

Out into the wilderness. Away from even the road, that wild desolate and inhospitable as it is, has at least, each end in civilization. But in the wilderness itself that stretches between the proud city of Jerusalem and the fair plain of Jerico there one can see the face of Loneliness itself and feel Starvation and Death lurking among those never ending ridges of whitish rock rising from the arid, waterless plain. The African desert with its soft films of sand, its glorious mirage seems homelike by contrast with it. The American desert with unbroken miles of sagebrush and its alkali pools seems inviting ground in comparison. In the wilderness there is nothing but solitude and stone and hyaenas grown fat on the corpses of wayfarers.

Doggedly and in silence the little party went on. The two wives in their thin high heeled shoes and silk stockings suffered most. The men and Christine walked easily on flat heels over the loose stones and uneven surface. But no one of them made any sound of discontent. Melisande and Eva Hillingford stumbled along awkwardly and painfully but bravely and the curls on their forehead and the silk blouses on their chests were soaked through with sweat in the hot still air.

Apprehension as to their possible fate had got its teeth well into them now. Leaving the road, their only friend and guide, had brought them to a sense of their utter helplessness. Even if left now unmolested, they could not find their way back to it, they could only wander about amongst these everlasting gleaming rocks, each one exactly like another till they died.

After a little while physical fatigue and pain shut out much reflection on other things. They were intolerably thirsty and their limbs ached from that curious rough walking similar to going up hill on an English beach. The Arabs were not inconsiderate and did not even hurry them. Only once when the Major lagged behind one of the guard pressing on their heels poked the nuzzle of a rifle against his shoulder blades. After that, rather than have it happen again, he stepped out more briskly.

The first light of the dawn showed faintly in the East, when the Arab leader pointed out to the white weary crowd toiling on some large dark objects not very far away.

“Lasrali’s tents,” he said.

It seemed as they came nearer quite a large encampment altogether a great number of tents pitched near to a ridge of rock which slightly overhanging made a sort of rough shed. Against this were grouped various animals, camels, horses, donkeys and goats, some lying down others standing round a heap of fodder put down for them. Christine went forward and spoke earnestly with the Arab leading the horses: making him promise to allow them to lie down and to give them plenty of food and water as they could take it. He laughed showing all his glittering teeth in the bright moonlight.

“Lasrali would be very angry with me if I did not look after them. He loves horses.” What a relief those words carried to her mind. A man who loved horses could not be wholly bad. She fell back and told the good news to the others. They were just on the outside of the encampment now. Most of its occupants had retired apparently, but a long line of cooking fires burnt redly still upon the ground. The chief man who had so far all along spoken with Christine, gave his charges over to the guard and disappeared into the largest of the tents to know his master’s wishes. It was only a few minutes before he returned and ushered them all in, holding back the tent flaps for them and then bringing up the rear himself.

It was a large and roomy tent well carpeted and with masses of silken cushions lying about. Also there were little tables at which if sitting on a cushion on the floor, one could comfortably write and read.

Lasrali himself was seated in one of those capacious black wood chairs inlaid with mother of pearl, so familiar in Damascus. Wearing a snow white burnous, edged with gold embroidery and a gold band encircling the hood of it, just above his black brows he presented a kingly and dignified appearance. His face was handsome in the typical Arab way. Olive skinned and oval with refined aristocratic features and large dark eyes. In age he appeared about 38. In one rather white and slender hand he held a long stemmed pipe which he appeared to have been peacefully smoking when disturbed.

As soon as the worn weary captives were ushered in, he rose from his seat, bowed slightly and then immediately resumed it, ordering one of his Arabs to bring forward cushions for his visitors. When these were brought the three women sank down gratefully upon them, the men taking their stand behind them until Lasrali waved them with a more decided gesture to be seated also. Then he called up the leader to stand beside him, and set himself to listen attentively to the man’s story, pulling occasionally at his pipe and asking now and then a quiet question.

The Arab leader went on with his interminable relation for endless time as it seemed to the wearied English. With the exception of Miss Smith, they could none of them understand a word and they were so dazed and sleepy with heat and fatigue that the conversation came to their ears only in an unmeaning blur. Christine was tired too, but her head was clear and she sat bright eyed and upright on her cushion listening intently to every word that was uttered. Much of the conversation’s meaning she missed of course. It is impossible for a stranger however well he knows a language to catch all that passes between two others, not addressing him but talking rapidly to each other, but the drift of it she gathered very well. At one time when the leader said something as to money she took her courage in both hands and ventured to re-inforce his statement.

“There is a gentleman here,” she said, indicating Briggs, “who will pay anything you like to ask in money for our release.”

Lasrali regarded her in silence but did not reply and the leader turned on her saying:

“My master is very rich man, he does not seek money. He might be pleased however to take a white wife.”

“The dream of my life has been to win a white woman who is also a lady,” supplemented Lasrali in a very low tone, “no sum of money can weigh against such a dream.”

Christine did not translate any of these sentences into English. They sank into her heart and set it beating. In defiance of something within her that seemed holding her back, she seized hold of the old phrases and stated them as one who speaks from a sense of duty.

“The English are a mighty people. We are few but if any of us are injured, a great army will come to avenge us.”

She thought she saw the faint flicker of a smile pass over Lasrali’s face that he was too courteous to wholly indulge in. The leader was not so ceremonious however. He laughed openly.

“Your country used to be great and protect its subjects. It is too lazy to do that now. Besides my master cannot be found in his native mountains and the captive men would be killed and scattered to the winds of heaven long before help came and the captive women would be—”

The expression made the blood fly flaming all over Christine’s face and Lasrali sharply reprimanded the Arab leader.

“Do not talk to the lady at all,” he said with anger. “Confine your conversation to me,” and he motioned him to come closer to his chair.

After a long discussion between them Lasrali at last waved him to one side and addressing Christine direct asked her and the other two ladies to get up and approach him. This they did, Christine springing up at once and the other two wearily dragging themselves to their feet. Then they stood in a line before him and the Arab regarded them all with grave attentive eyes. Dusty and tired, with rumpled hair and damp faces, in their rather bright coloured clothes, hatless and with arms and necks bare in the intense heat, neither Lady Hillingford who was 25 and pale and dark, nor Melisande who had no age and was of the flamboyant type, looked their best and being conscious of this did not improve matters by their expressions. Melisande trying to get up her footlight smile and Lady Hillingford frankly weary and disdainful. It was on Christine that the Arab’s quiet gaze rested longest. Trim, elegant, apparently untired, her clear pale skin rendered still paler by the heat, her large eyes burning with keen interest and power, her lips, glowing red, her thick hair unruffled in its soft close waves about her head, she certainly presented the most pleasing aspect of the three. Her gaze was fixed unwaveringly upon the handsome face turned to her. She looked exactly what she felt, intensely interested. After a lengthened survey which was in no way rude nor impudent, only evidently extremely critical and observant of the minutest details, he turned to his attendant and told him to conduct all the English to a private tent and look after them except the lady who spoke Arabic and she should follow them directly. Christine looked at her companions with her cheerful smile and translated this adding, “Go ahead and leave me. I’ll come as soon as I can.”

They did not like seeming to desert her, but she had become so much their leader and director in the last few hours and she seemed so perfectly unafraid of the whole situation that they solemnly filed out after the Arab in silence.

The tent was now empty except for the handsome seated form and herself standing before him, a slender, graceful English figure in her simple grey clothes. The light from the great swinging center lamp fell on her thick brown hair and showed a soft wavering colour in her cheeks as she gazed steadily at her captor. She felt no fear as she heard the others withdraw. She did not know what was going to happen to her, no word in the long conversation had indicated what her fate might be and she knew herself absolutely defenceless but her whole mind had been seized as it were by a great expectancy and there was no room for any other feeling. Physically she was in those moments intensely alive: every sense seemed at its highest power. Her eyes took in every detail of the face and form opposite her, her ears were conscious of the faintest rustle and click of the curtain behind her as they fell to shutting her in, her nostrils quivered to the strange scent of tobacco and camel, coffee and wood fire, in the tent. Her whole being seemed rising on tip-toe to go forward to something she did not know. Lasrali rose from his seat and approached her. She did not retreat. Then in a single sweep of his arm he had drawn her close up to his breast, he bent his head and pressed his lips down hard on hers.

Then suddenly she knew that here now, whirling down upon her through the space of twenty years, was again the wonderful moment she had known at 16 and never refound. It was here now. It was hers again. Her head was pressed back on his arm. She could not move. Again the pain on her mouth. Again the realization of being in the presence of a tremendous Force and that not a destructive but an august beneficent force, the constructive force of Life itself. Again that glimpse before her eyes of something wonderful, something majestic and utterly beyond the petty details of everyday existence. For the moment she seemed united to something vast, eternal, primaeval, as indeed she was, to the Impulse of Life itself that causes the whole universe to roll on through its countless aeons. Her eyes gazed up to the dark beauty of those above her but she did not see them with their lids half closed over them and the straight black brows contracted into one line almost as with severe physical pain above them. She saw before her mental vision the magnificence of triumphal Life sweeping up towards her to engulf her in its stupendous onrush.

It was only for an instant: She was released suddenly and staggered slightly, clutching at the central tent pole for support and white and trembling just as she had been on that other evening long ago. But her eyes were shining still with the joy of the vision and she smiled at Lasrali now gravely regarding her. He took her arm and led her up to his own vacant chair into which he gently pressed her. Then bending over her he began to speak slowly and distinctly so that she caught every word.

“Listen. I want you. For the others I do not care. As you know I am an Arab and not like the English supposed to have only one wife. I can have a number but as it happens I have none now. If you will stay and be my wife, I will let all your companions go. I will give them a driver and a guard and they will go safely on their way to Jerusalem. Nothing of theirs will be taken and I will send two of my Arabs to explain the shooting.”

He stopped, waiting for her reply and Christine in the crisis of her fate seemed suddenly struck dumb. The immensity of her feelings, the intense desire to express all that was surging up in her soul seemed to paralyse her utterance as a volume of water gets choked by its own pressure in the narrow neck of a vessel from which it is struggling to escape. She, the glib interpreter for others, she, the student who had read Arab poetry by the hour was now tongue tied and silent, unable to utter one little word of love or encouragement to the man bending over her. She thought the beauty of his face so perfect, its expression now so infinitely soft and tender, that she longed to throw her arms about his neck and tell him that she loved him and would those words have been any less true, any more exaggerated an expression than when an English society girl says, “I love you,” to a man she is going to marry, after a three weeks’ engagement?

Rather, the truth of it was so intense in Christine’s case and the realisation of it so overawing that her lips were locked and her limbs seemed inert. She struggled as we struggle in dreams to speak but not a single world would come to her aid. She could only look and look back to the eyes above her. Her dilated, appealing gaze might have been one of helpless, fascinated terror and her heart thumping so violently in her bosom blanched her face and lips.

A shade of disappointment came over Lasrali’s countenance.

“You will stay to save your friends?” he repeated and Christine managed to force her trembling lips to a weak, yes.

“Aiwa.”

Lasrali gave a deep sigh as of relief and straightened himself. His face relapsed into its habitual gravity as he said:

“I see you are very frightened but there is no need. In my tent you will not be hurt or grieved. You will be safe, protected, I believe happy. I shall try with all my force to make you so. You are very tired now, go and rest; eat and sleep. Peace be with you.”

Again Christine tried to respond but the whole view of this love and life so suddenly forced upon her seemed too great for her to assimilate and to find quickly the suitable words a vehicle for her thoughts. And the moment for her to speak and accept seemed maliciously to have gone before she could grasp it.

If it was impossible for her to speak while he bent over her, his face suffused with tenderness, it seemed still more hopeless to do so now when he had drawn a little away and his usual calm and dignity had enfolded him.

She hesitated clasping her hands, not as he fancied in supplication to him, but to those unseen powers that were holding her, preventing her disclosing her feeling towards him. Her mind was staggered and as we fail when suddenly we come into view of a colossal mountain or a huge giant tree, to summon words in which to describe our admiration, because words seem so inadequate, so did Christine fail now.

Lasrali did not touch her again but with a grave gesture, waved her to the door of the tent, the curtains of which he himself held back that she might pass through.

With a look of intense gratitude, admiration and love, which he translated as one of final appeal, she passed out and he was left alone.

When Christine entered the other tent, the rest of the party were seated in the centre, round a piece of carpet on which stood a coffee pot of steaming coffee, a jug of goat’s milk, white bread as good as in the Jerico hotel and a pile of dates.

They raised jaded looking enquiring faces to her as she joined the circle and sat down.

“It’s all right. You are quite safe. Give me some coffee and I’ll tell you.”

“Hurrah!” exclaimed Briggs. “Well you are splendid. What does he say?”

“He says, first we must all sleep here and rest until it’s cool to-morrow afternoon. He will then send you all with a good driver and an armed escort up to Jerusalem and an Arab who will explain all about the shooting and see that the proper people are sent after our driver’s body, which will be guarded till they come.” She paused and drank up her coffee. A relieved sigh rose from the others, from all except the Major who would not look relieved. He glared fiercely into his coffee cup in silence.

“How wonderful!” said Lady Hillingford.

“Good fellow,” from her husband.

“Thank God,” said the millionaire.

“Well, he’s a darling,” declared Melisande.

Then Christine quietly threw her bombshell.

“Yes, only he says one of the women must stay.”

“Scoundrel,” shouted the Major, banging his cup down on the carpet.

“Ah, I thought so,” murmured Lady Hillingford turning very white.

The two husbands looked at each other across the coffee without a word.

“Which one does he want?” asked Melisande drawing out her little mirror from the bag on her lap and puffing out her golden locks at the side of her head with her jewelled fingers.

“Me,” replied Christine.

“You?” exclaimed both ladies at once with an emphasis which was not at all complimentary.

“Yes: seems strange, doesn’t it?” returned Christine tranquilly, sinking her white even teeth into her dates with keen satisfaction. She was evidently going to enjoy her supper to the full.

All eyes turned on her. Her companions stared at her in those moments as if they had never seen her before. And indeed it was a new Christine from the one they had been travelling with. The primaeval woman was rising in her in all her strength and glory and arming her with new and wonderful weapons. In her skin which had a curious transparency was kindled a lovely rose flush, her eyes were no longer still dark pools but rather wells of moving fire, her lips were redder than Melisande’s painted ones. As she sat her slender body rose full of proud grace from her cushion seat.

There was a long pause, full of tension. Somehow the ladies looked displeased and the men not less concerned than before. Melisande was the first to break the silence.

“What did you say?” she asked abruptly as Christine continued to eat calmly and cheerfully.

“Said I’d stay.”

“Said you would stay?” gasped the men together.

“Yes, of course. I wasn’t going to get you all shot and Eva and Sandy kept as prisoners as well as myself. I didn’t see the use.”

“Oh, but look here, we can’t stand this,” broke out Hillingford. “Do you think we could go back and save ourselves at your expense like that?”

“Well, what would you propose?” asked Christine pouring more milk into her coffee.

“Er—well, I—er—don’t know—I should think they’d never dare to—to—” he stopped.

“I don’t know either but they might dare a good lot. I heard a great many cheering references to ‘Dead men tell no tales,’ while the leader was talking to him. He seemed to think it was a splendid plan for you three men to be shot and then for Lasrali to disappear into the wilderness with us three women after duly rewarding his faithful followers with our horses, carriage, bags, and jewelry and burying the driver under a rock. It sounded a most engaging programme and I was afraid each minute Lasrali would accept it. But he wouldn’t.”

“Did you offer him all he liked to ask if he would let us all go?” asked Briggs.

“I did and he said it had been the dream of his life to—to marry a white woman and a lady and he would not give it up for any amount of money.”

“Scoundrel,” exclaimed the Major.

“Did you say that although we seemed a small party we had all the power of England and the law behind us and he would certainly suffer very much if he injured us?”

“I did: and he said England wasn’t much good now and didn’t protect her people worth a cent. Besides which nobody could possibly get at him in the wilderness until—until, well, until he’d realised his dream.”

“Devil! Devil!” shouted the Major who had at last got on to another word.

The others all sat pale and silent. The tremendous end of their journey to the Dead Sea taken so thoughtlessly and gaily was coming close up to them now and appalled them.

It was Hillingford who spoke first.

“I don’t know what you others think about it but personally I feel I’d rather stay here and be shot than save myself at a woman’s expense. Damn it, I say, we can’t go back and leave you here.”

“Our wives, Hillingford, our wives, we’ve got to think of them,” murmured Briggs. He doubtless did think of his wife, but also somewhere at the back of his mind he had the feeling that Eternal Justice would be better satisfied by Miss Smith becoming an Arab’s bride than by John Briggs with all his millions being murdered in the wilderness.

“If I know Eva,” Hillingford returned hotly, “she’d die here with me rather than sneak out of a thing like this.”

Lady Hillingford looked back at her husband. Her face was dead white but she knew what she had to do and say and played up to her caste.

“Certainly, Will, I’ll stay. I have no doubt you can finish me with a rock or a knife.”

Christine looked over to him with a smile in her now lovely eyes. Then having finished an excellent meal, she sat back on her cushion and wiped her pink tipped fingers on her little handkerchief. Then she stretched out a small hand to Hillingford.

“It’s most awfully good of you Lord Hillingford and I do appreciate it. But I should simply hate for all our lives to be wasted. I should want to do the same and stay and save you, in any case but as it is you needn’t worry at all. You can all go off with clear consciences. We came out for adventures and this is the biggest we’ve had. It’s mine principally and I’m going to take it. I think Lasrali hasn’t been half bad in spite of what the Major says. He has very self sacrificingly picked out the plainest and least attractive woman simply because she’s free and the others have husbands. I like him and I’m going to stay and marry him.”

This was another bombshell amongst them that left them gasping. Only Melisande did not seem surprised. She watched Christine with a little malicious smile.

“Good heavens!” was all Hillingford seemed able to answer and the distress on his face hardly lightened. Briggs was candidly and openly pleased. It had been an awful moment for him when he really thought Death was coming for him through his stockade of money-bags.

“Very plucky, I call it,” he said, “daring little devil, isn’t she Sandy?”

“Oh, very,” returned Melisande getting out her cigarette case and lighting up.

Suddenly the Major banged both clenched fists down on the carpet square making the coffee cups dance and jingle.

“You an English woman going to marry that devil and like it. Faugh!”

In his indignation he tried to struggle to his feet but being short and fat and seated on a cushion he found this very difficult and nearly rolled over into the coffee cups. Christine sprang to her feet and offered him her hand.

“I think we’re all dead tired,” she said, “let’s go to bed and talk in the morning.”

The rest of the circle broke up. They were tired beyond all words and got up and approached thankfully the great square at the back of the tent where rugs were unrolled and a quantity of cushions laid out. They ranged themselves in the following order. Lady Hillingford, then her husband, then the millionaire, then his wife, then next her in the outside Miss Smith. The Major would have none of them. He stalked up to the capacious bed and took his cushion and small rug.

“I despise you,” he said in a fierce undertone to Miss Smith as he grabbed his pillow.

“Sorry,” replied Christine and threw herself full length beside Melisande. She longed for rest and a cessation of talk and discussion, to lie still in the darkness and listen to the Voice of Nature in her ear and feel the kiss of Life burning on her lips.

They drew the great rug which they shared in common over them, for with the dawn a little chill was coming into the air.

“Put out the light as you pass, Major,” called Briggs, and the Major did so throwing his rug and cushion down as far from the others as he could get. No one spoke any more and sleep came down heavily like a great cloud upon them and enfolded them. Except (as usual) Christine. Stretched out still and looking into the soft darkness, she lay and thought.

Here after all these years, winging its way to her across the gulf of time and space had come again the joy she had known when on the threshold of life.

She had come into the barren desert which gives nothing neither shade nor rest nor water nor food, and it had given her this.

How strangely things happened; she had joined this touring party, hoping for fun and adventure, all the amusing little adventures of travel and suddenly she had stumbled into the biggest adventure that could happen to her that would change her whole life.

She was, what so very few of us are, free from the necessity of consideration for others. She was without relations, home or family ties. Without any dear ones to regret or that would regret her. In the twenty years that had intervened between that first engagement and the present time, one by one every one that belonged to her or who loved her had been taken from her. She had felt the extreme loneliness of this grow upon her and had wildly resented it at times, but here now she saw that it was enviable. Without remorse or regret, she was free to accept this great experience, now she had come face to face with it. She had nothing to hold her nor restrain her from going forward to it. There was nothing in the life behind her to hold out a single detaining hand. She had not even a pet nor a house that needed attention and arrangement.

She was one of those single women with a sufficient income to dress well and live in the best hotels who spent her time studying, motoring, dancing, amusing herself in all legitimate, civilized ways, travelling widely and looking, always looking for something. With some of them if they are plain and stupid it is love they are looking for, sometimes only a kiss. Christine had never had to seek for love and kisses she could have had by dozens. It was because she was looking for a particular kind of love, a special sort of kiss, that the search had been long. She did not seek brutality nor cruelty, those are totally different from though often confused with force, intensity. The real true strength of Love that is striving to create Life in a beloved object that is what she had been seeking and had now found and she could not see that she had to make any particular sacrifice for it. She admired the grave dignity and beauty of the man himself and she had felt that strange sharp call of his individuality to hers, which is after all the basis of all love between the sexes whether civilized or uncivilized. The one quality which to her was one absolute essential in any man she was to love, tenderness and kindness to animals seemed assured by what his servant had said. Had she really known anything more of her father’s secretary, than she knew now of Lasrali? She could have married him for the sake of that golden moment in his arms and she was now going to marry Lasrali for exactly the same reason. In her eyes it was quite as good a reason as marrying to obtain a house in town, a settled income or a title. She saw very clearly that Nature, cruel as she is in the deaths, disease, pain and all the woes she sends upon us and the animals has yet in her hands for all created things this one supreme joy and consolation for all the suffering of life, the joy of simple, natural unrestrained love. No animals fail to realise this and few men and women in a natural state, but in a civilized state there are hundreds of thousands who live, marry, suffer and die without one glimpse of this Eternal Truth.

So far Christine had steadily avoided marrying anyone, between whom and herself there did not seem to be that strange wild magnetism, that irresistible call and challenge to the senses, getting out of her numerous engagements as best she could and submitting to being angrily and furiously called a jilt, which she knew was not true. She was simply one looking for gold and consistently refusing the dross that was pressed upon her in its place.

Lasrali did not sleep that night. All through the remaining hours he sat wide eyed in his chair, sometimes drawing at his pipe but more often idle staring down at the carpet that kept the stony dust of the wilderness from his fine narrow high arched feet. A very hardy struggle was going on within him and he was fighting bravely against the greatest power in the Universe, outside that still greater power that has been given to the soul of man.

Several times his wearied attendant outside raised the tent flap a tiny bit and looked in only to see his master still sitting there as a statue, lost in thought.

It is absurd to limit the good and bad impulses in man by any creed, caste, or colour. The human soul has no such limits. Nobleness, generosity, self-sacrifice, dwell indiscriminately in black, yellow, red, and white races alike. Evil, also is scattered impartially through the whole of humanity as witness the loathsome cruelties and barbarities committed by men of our own time and race under the name of Scientific Research which surpass in horror anything done by savage tribes.

At last when the morning was fairly on its way, he summoned his Arab.

“Are the English still sleeping?”

“Yes, they all sleep very soundly: a good time to kill the men now if you wish.”

Lasrali lifted his hand in protest, his brows contracting.

“Listen. When the English wake, take them water for washing and all they need. Then a good meal. While they eat, come and rouse me if I should be sleeping. When they finish their meal, bring them here to me.”

The Arab bowed and went away muttering. Lasrali, exhausted, passed through the curtains to his inner tent to sleep.

Although Christine had slept less than the others she was the first to awake, when the light was sinking in the tent and the flush of sunset was stealing over the wilderness, softening all its grim, glaring whiteness. She looked round with a feeling of surprise that the day had vanished, they had slept it away. It seemed strange to be waking to the rose of sunset instead of the rose of dawn as she was accustomed to do. She lifted herself from the rugs and looked at the sleepers beside her. Hillingford was the only one whose eyes were open and as he met her glance he smiled and as if by common consent they both rose, very quietly so as not to disturb the others and went out of the tent together, passing by the Major still soundly asleep by the door.

The encampment outside was an animated scene, cooking fires were sparkling everywhere and Arabs coming and going between them preparing the evening meal. The line of camels and other animals were feeding leisurely under their rock shelter, all the tent doors were open except the great double one, really two tents, joined together, one behind the other, which belonged to Lasrali. Of these the door flaps were closed and fastened and two Arabs sat on the ground before them.

Christine looked out on it all curiously and smelt the scent of the wood fires rising in the hot still air with a curious leaping of the heart. Why is it that the scent of the camp fire affects all or nearly all mankind with a strange feeling like nostalgia? Is it because on its fragrance our senses are borne back to primaeval times when our first camp fires smoked in the untamed forest?

She glanced across to Lasrali’s tent and the sight of its closed door struck her with a sense of loneliness. Her life henceforth would lean upon him. This scene that she looked upon would be its outside shell but there was nothing in it that she cared about except himself.

She turned to Hillingford who stood beside her. The Arabs about them glanced at them sideways, but the Mahomedan from his earliest years is taught not to stare and the long dark eyes were drooped again immediately over boiling kettle, or rice bowl as if they had seen nothing unusual.

“There are just one or two things I should like you to do for me,” she said gently, “if you will.”

“Of course, I will, anything,” he returned gazing at her in the soft rose light that fell all about them from the tinted sky. How wonderfully well she was looking he thought with no toilet made nor adjuncts of any kind. He did not realise how the great force of expectant life was awakened and moving within her, painting her cheeks and lips, kindling and softening her eyes.

“You know I have no near relations,” she went on, “so there’s no one to see or to tell about me, but I should like the money I have to be safeguarded. Will you be my trustee and look after it for me? And re-invest the income, so that in the future, if there should be any—any, well if it’s wanted it will be there. In my bag when you go back to the carriage you will find a small packet of all my papers, bank book, check book, etc. Will you take possession of it. That will give you all the details. And send me back by one of the Arabs my little case of clothes. I shall want that here.”

“I’ll do anything and everything,” he returned, “but you must authorize me about the money here,” and he drew out his pocket book and gave it to her. “Write down there that you wished me to act for you. Here’s a pen.” He gave her his own stylographic and she looked at it for a moment in silence.

“Isn’t this all funny? Doing this civilized sort of business out here in this wilderness. What an end we have had to our tour!”

“Yes, it’s awful,” groaned Hillingford, “I shall never forgive myself or feel the same again.” Christine had seated herself on a great stone and was writing rapidly in the pocket book all that she thought was necessary. When it was done, she handed up the book and pen to him.

“Will that do?”

Hillingford read it through.

“That’s all right,” he said and shut the book and replaced it. “But we shall send after you and rescue you as soon as we get back.”

Christine still seated put her hand round her knees and stared over the small space that intervened to the closed tent door of Lasrali.

“Do you remember your Roman History?” she said slowly after a minute. “You remember how the Romans carried off the Sabine women and how after a time the Sabine husbands and fathers came after them to rescue them and the Sabine women came out and said they were happy with their Roman husbands and didn’t want to be rescued? It was too late. Well it’s the same now. I am sure it will be too late. Besides this I am a sort of hostage. If you come after me to rescue me I believe you won’t find me because Lasrali will go far, far away in the mountains and hide.”

“But surely he could be found. We could get an army to scour the place,” remonstrated Hillingford in hot desperation.

Christine shook her head.

“It might be possible to find and punish him but what about me? I should think I should be killed when the news first came to him he was being followed and don’t you see he has us all in his power now? If he lets you go, you are on parole, as it were. You can’t pursue him afterwards,” Hillingford groaned, then he burst out, “He’s no right to keep you.”

“No, but I am staying of my own free will. Don’t attempt to rescue me. You will only make fearful trouble if you do and it seems to be dishonourable when he has had you in his power and let you go. Be quite happy about me, really. I have had so many years of ordinary civilized life I am quite prepared to accept this adventure as a change and make the best of it.”

Hillingford was silent, staring down at the ground.

“Do you despise me, too, like the Major?” she asked with a little laugh.

“Good heavens, no, I think you are a heroine. Of course, I know whatever you may say, you are only doing it for us!”

Christine’s brows contracted.

Again this wall of hopeless misunderstanding. She could not clear it away. She could not explain to him for he would never understand. They spoke the same language, they were of the same country, class and creed, yet she felt further from him, in a way, than she did from the stranger who was their host.

Hillingford who was girt about with conventions and civilization got on very well with the half of Christine that was conventional, civilized woman, the other half the simple, natural primitive woman he would not have been able to understand at all.

Christine did not attempt further explanation all she said was:

“Well, remember the Sabine women and don’t rescue me. I don’t want it. I think it would be dishonourable and extremely dangerous. When I want civilization again I’ll find a way of getting back to it. Now, promise. Then I shall feel safer and happier,” and very reluctantly Hillingford promised.

The rosy glow was fading, stars sparkled in it here and there. In the East a great pale moon came up reminding them of the approaching hour of departure.

In silence they walked back to the tent. The door was open and an Arab was lighting the central lamp, while two others were spreading out a meal on the carpet. The women were arranging their hair before scraps of looking-glass and the men sat moody and silent watching the Arabs at work.

It was a short and quiet meal, less lively than their supper last night.

There seemed nothing more to be said. No one seemed to have any ideas, or to wish to speak. A sullen sort of apathy had settled on them all as if they were a flock of overdriven sheep. Christine alone looked radiant and clear-eyed and sat looking through the door of the tent towards that other one of which she could just see the closed flaps. At last she saw movement about it. Arabs went in carrying coffee and Arabs came out and at last one crossed the space to their tent and entered.

“The horses are refreshed and ready. All is now prepared for your departure and our Master would be pleased if you will come to his tent.”

Not knowing yet whether they were all going to be executed at the last moment or not the English all rose and followed the Arab out of their tent across the now moonlit space to the other one and were ushered gravely in.

Lasrali was standing to receive them. The audience was to be short so no cushions were prepared nor offered, of which the Major was very glad. They filed in. Christine as the interpreter and the only one who could understand was pushed a little forward and stood in front of the rest. Her eyes alight, her cheeks and lips glowing, her form full of elastic strength, she looked as she felt in the first flush of womanhood. Her face was smiling as she looked up at him and Lasrali looked down at her as a man dying of thirst looks at a crystal spring. Then he began to speak very clearly and restrainedly.

“I am an Arab and a host is a host, and guests are guests. I tell you now you are all free. Last night I made conditions I should not have done. They do not exist this evening. With my escort you will all proceed to Jerusalem and may peace be with you.”

He stopped and Christine, paling a little, repeated it in English.

Then Lasrali approached her a step nearer and added: “Sacred is the law of hospitality. I infringed it last night. I touched this lady. To her I apologise.”

Utter silence. Christine stood as if actually turned to ice or stone. Her color fled. She gazed up at Lasrali as if he were demented. Her companions to whom the words conveyed nothing grew cold with fear. What now? What in heaven’s name had he said? Was all that first palaver some ghastly joke? Had he now suggested they should be eaten alive or what? They gazed at Christine, longing for her to speak and fully prepared for the worst. Her face was a study of astonishment, agony and despair. The Major couldn’t stand it. He went up behind her and shook her arm.

“What’s he said now? The scoundrel!”

Lasrali bent towards her with grave kindness.

“Perhaps you do not understand. You are free. Go with your friends. I regret that your beauty last night overcame me.”

Christine still stood white and silent and trembling. Was it possible? Here again the very idea, the actual words that had ruined her happiness at 16! Here in this man of different race and caste and blood, country and creed, the same misunderstanding. Were men all alike? Was it only Woman who saw clearly back to the primaeval fount of things and recognized in passion the joyous force of life?

“Christine!” it was Lady Hollingford’s voice sharp and thin. She was delicate and nervous and she felt she could bear the strain no longer. “Do tell us what he says, whatever it is!”

In a flash Christine saw how this little accident of knowing the language put them all in her power. Her friends, their safety, Lasrali, his reputation, were all her toys.

For the moment the temptation came to her to mistranslate his words. Just to say he dismissed them as had been arranged and was keeping her. The primaeval woman fighting for her ends prompted this. That would satisfy all these civilized fools and they would go and leave her in peace with the heroine’s halo round her head. It would be so difficult otherwise perhaps to stay.

But the impulse was pushed aside instantly by her feelings of truth and honour and responsibility to those who trusted her. Also she would not rob Lasrali of the credit for his fine feelings and his self-sacrifice.

Stammering and hesitating because of the amazement gripping her, she gave out his words in English exactly as he had spoken them and the relief of the others was mixed with surprise.

“Well, that’s all right! What’s the matter with you?” asked Lady Hillingford, but Melisande only laughed.

“Please leave me now I desire rest,” Lasrali said.

“Do thank him for us and tell him how grateful we are,” Hillingford said and Christine mechanically turned his words into Arabic. Slipping, slipping from her she saw the golden moment, never to be captured again. The English are not a graceful people. They tried to bow and salute Lasrali who stood there reposeful and dignified but they were not very good at it and in a sort of huddled bunch they got through the tent curtains. The Major marched out with flat defiance.

“Showed the white feather after all, didn’t dare to touch us, thought so, damned scoundrel!” was his farewell remark.

Christine was the last to leave. The others had preceded her and the curtains had fallen to behind them. Her hand was on the dangling fringes. She looked back. The tent was empty. At the other side of it were the curtains dividing off Lasrali’s sleeping tent. Through them he had disappeared. Should she? Dare she? Race after that fleeting, golden moment which was now eluding her for the second time? Behind her lay all those years of an existence she knew so well. Almost every form of civilised amusement that a modern age provides had been hers. And love in all its delicate restrained civilised ways had been offered her again and again but there had seemed something tame and flat about it all. Before her stood Life in another dress or rather in an unashamed barbaric nakedness which had some strength and glory about it. Above all it was something new. She seemed in those seconds to visualise it as a dancing, laughing figure, taunting her, daring her to come after it. And she would dare. Beyond the further curtains was burning a great electric force that was calling to every nerve and pulse and fibre of her frame pulling her irresistibly to itself.

The curtains dropped from her nerveless fingers. Swift, silent as a shadow, she passed across the space and drew back the curtains that had closed behind Lasrali. A dim light burned in the tent. Beyond she saw his unrolled bed. He himself was standing still gazing at the ground. He turned and saw her as she entered, not weak nor white nor trembling nor hesitant now, but alive, determined, triumphant, glowing, expanding, the future mother of a bold and hardy race. Eyes shining, she advanced towards him with outstretched hands.

“Lasrali! don’t send me away! I want to stay here with you!”

A flash came over his face as of some great enlightenment. He put both his hands on her shoulders and gazed keenly into her eyes but hers did not waver. They glowed and glowed carrying their message straight to his.