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Page 103
"God!" she prayed. "You Who alone can save me and--everyone--from
shame; You Who can hide me from--Ben--show me a way out--show me a way
out!" And as she repeated the words, the answer came.
"Of course," she whispered. "Right out in the desert, out on the
sands, alone with my shame, where, when this has been forgotten,
perhaps all that will be left of me will be found by some wandering
Bedouin, who will bury me deep in the sand."
She was genuinely remorseful and horrified at what she had done, but
also was she, as are so many of us who do not really feel deeply,
pleasurably thrilled at the thought of the dramatic picture in which
she should be the centre figure.
If only men knew it, that is why so many women create such terrific
scenes over nothing at all--it gives them a chance of donning their
most effective gown and pulling their hair--if their own--down about
their shoulders.
Not even then did she grasp the full meaning of love!
She parted the curtain at the back of the room of prayer, and looked
out across the desert and behold! standing upon the tips of slender
feet, wrapped about in binding cloths of grey and white, there stood a
figure.
And the wind of dawn, upon whose wings are wafted the liberated souls
into the safe keeping of Allah, who is God, lifted for one instant the
veil from before the face.
Just for a moment she looked upon the eyes alight with no earthly
happiness and the tender mouth smiling in farewell, and then the wind
lifted the soft cloth of grey and white and bound it across the
hawklike face.
Half-turned, the figure stood with beckoning hand outstretched. And to
the girl was granted the Vision of the Legions at Dawn.
There was no sound in all the limitless desert, yet the air was filled
as with the tramp of feet, the thunder of horses, the rumble of wheels.
They came from nowhere, those countless legions, from out of the
shadows of the spent night. They walked in phalanxes, the uncountable
spirits of dead kingdoms, with eyes uplifted to the dawn; spears
raised, mouths open, with their shouts of welcome to the break of day,
they rode their horses thundering down the path of Time; they drove
their four-horsed chariots straight towards the cup of gold which
rested on the rim of the world.
They come from nowhere, those countless legions, from out the shadows
of the spent night; they journey over the ordained path which they have
trod since the beginning of time, which has no beginning, and which
they will tread unto the end of all time which shall have no end.
And, laughing or sobbing, hoping, despairing, we shall fall in as our
line passes and go marching along with them, marching along, until we
came to the place where "_the shadow of the God is like a ram set with
lapis lazuli, adorned with gold and with precious stones_."
"Wait for me."
The whisper was just a part of the shadows, as the girl turned her face
to the East.
Wrapped in her satin cloak, she walked wearily on and on. Her eyes
were wide open, staring in a terrible fatigue; she saw nothing; her
heelless slippers were torn to shreds, her feet were bleeding; she felt
nothing. Not once did she look up or back or round. Had she done so,
she might have noticed that her footprints in the sand were describing
a circle, as our footprints do when we are lost in the bush or the
desert.
The shadows had gone, and the sands stretched a carpet of rose and grey
and gold before her; the sky a canopy of blue and grey and purple above.
Like a lighthouse of Hope, Day was flashing his golden beams across the
sky, a message to the weary who have toiled through the night.
And then, with one great leap he sprang clear of the horizon, just as
Damaris stopped.
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