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Page 28
"Could I help you? If you were to tell me your trouble, perhaps it
would be easier?"
"The moment is not yet, woman, but, being a teller of tales, even as I
am a teller of fortunes, one day will I sit at thy feet and, for the
passing of an hour, will tell thee the story of the Hawk of Egypt."
"You have made this hour pass so pleasantly that I should--should like
to--to give you something so as--as to show you how pleased I am. But
I have nothing with me, nothing."
She put out her hands and turned them down.
The man looked down at her for a moment with blazing eyes.
"Give me--as a reward--Allah--give me----" They stood quite still as
the torrent surged, about them. "Give me the ring from off thy
finger," he added, gently.
The girl held out her hand.
"Take it, though it seems a poor reward for all you have promised me."
"Nay, give it thou to me."
She slipped it off and held it out, showing a bruise across the back of
her hand.
"Allah!" whispered the man, "that I should mark thee thus--and yet, in
love--in love!"
He took the ring, of which the dull-gold setting held an emerald in the
form of a scarab with heartshaped base.
The fortune-teller turned it over in the palm of his hand, then held it
out.
"Nay, this I cannot take. I thought it was a ring from the bazaar to
go with thy dress of fantasy. Behold, it is an amulet of the heart,
of--nay, I cannot tell thus quickly of what dynasty--with words of
power engraved upon it which read thus:
"'_My heart, my mother; my heart, my mother. My heart whereby I came
into being_.'"
The girl listened entranced, touching the ring with finger-tips which
felt as snow-flakes upon the man's hand.
"What is an amulet of the heart?"
"In the days of Ancient Egypt, when the heart had been taken from the
dead body for purposes of preservation, an amulet, a scarab, sometimes
heart-shaped, was placed within the body to ensure it life and movement
in the new life."
They both stood looking down upon the jewel, the girl's finger-tips
resting upon the man's hand.
"Keep it," she said softly. "Keep it."
"I will keep it to replace that which has gone from me. I will restore
it to its shape, I will take from it the golden setting of the ring. I
will wear it upon my breast." And, bending, he gently raised the
yashmak in both hands and pressed his forehead to the few inches which
had rested above her crimson mouth.
CHAPTER IX
"_Love is one and the same in the original, but
there are a thousand copies of it, and, it may
be, all differing from one another_."
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
Ben Kelham, disguised as Rameses the Great, laid a hand upon the girl's
shoulder as, passing to the left of the tent, she walked slowly towards
the door leading to the grounds, whilst sounds of wrath came from the
serried ranks of those who wished to pry into the future.
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