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Page 104
She looked back in the direction in which she thought she had come.
There was no sign of the tents; there could not be; they were not out
of sight, but merely wrapped in the mist which, sometimes rises as a
fog in the desert at dawn.
"Let me die soon! let me die soon!"
A great sob shook her as she prayed the prayer of the weak. How much
easier is it to stand at the window, with the police battering at the
door, and, stimulated by its morbid interest, blow out our brains
before the gaping crowd--which will, by the way, take exactly the same
morbid interest in the shooting of a horse in the street--than to
retire into the silence of the prison-cell or seclusion of the tideless
backwater, and there work out our salvation amongst those who do not
know if our name is Smith or Jones or Brown--and much less care!
In the intensity of her prayer she clasped her hands upon the jewelled
symbol upon her breast and looked up.
From out of the west, cleaving the air like a thrown spear, flying
straight towards the sun in greeting, there came a hawk. Up, up it
sped, as though to pierce the very heavens; then hovered, wheeled and
swooped downwards above the girl. She flung out her arms as its symbol
struck through her clouded senses, and unconsciously called the "Luring
Call" she had heard but once, when she had first seen the man, who lay
asleep in the tent, in the market-place of the Arabian quarter in Cairo.
Sweet and clear her voice rose through the morning air, rising until
the bird caught the sound and, just as she swayed and fell, swooped.
Down it came, straighter than a shaft of rain; swept across her like
the wind; rose; and sailed away.
There was no call to bring it back now. The falconer who had thrown
it, as was the custom, at sunrise, was upon his knees with his forehead
upon the ground, in sign of a great grief, taking no notice of his
master's favourite _shahin_ which he had petted and trained. It flew
towards the rising sun; it flew away; it was never seen again.
Perhaps, after all, had it heard its master's call?
CHAPTER XXXIII
"_Good-night?. . . .
. . . .
Let us remain together still,
Then it will be GOOD night_."
SHELLEY.
Ben Kelham sat on the ground, with his head resting on the edge of the
wooden couch so that his friend's satin coat touched his cheek.
Save for his hands clenched round his knee there was no sign of the
grief which was well-nigh breaking his heart; which had drawn great
lines across his face and had turned him in one hour from a youth, into
a grave man, with steady, sorrowful grey eyes.
There was no sound as he sat staring in front of him as the light of
the lamp grew dim in the coming light of day, there was no movement
anywhere save for the chequered curtain behind his friend, which
stirred as though blown by the wind of dawn; they seemed to be alone,
quite alone in the desert, these two who had been known as David and
Jonathan in the care-free days on the Hill.
And he turned his head and looked at the wonderful beauty of the calm
face, and in the soft light it seemed that the brown eyes were looking
at him from under half-closed lids, and he stretched out his hand and
laid it on the arms which were folded across the breast in an attitude
of surpassing dignity.
"Carden, old fellow," he said, "wake up!"
As his friend slept on, he spoke more clearly, repeating the line out
of the school-song, which had acted like a charm in those days when
love, and pain, and death had been mere words to them:
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