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Page 50
She rode out into the shadows, the dawn having barely lifted the hem of
night's purple raiment from the edge of the world; out into the desert
stretching silver-grey, soundless, half-waking; just stirred by the
light touch of the breeze, which, heralding the dawn, sends little
spirals of sand dancing away to the east and away to the west and blows
out the stars one by one.
And she rode listlessly, knowing that no desert would ever be as this
desert, or dawn as this passing of the night, or liberty as this hour
of freedom in the wastes of sand.
And then, when perhaps ten, perhaps more or less, miles out, she pulled
the stallion sharply and sat forward, staring, whilst her heart
thrilled in a most unwarrantable manner beneath her coat.
Upon a hummock of sand, with tattered robes of saffron, purple and of
gold about his feet, there sat a youth.
Sideways he sat, with tips of slender feet to ground as though
preparatory to flight. One fine brown hand pushed back a misty veil
before the face, which shone wanly in the half-light. A strange,
dreamy, cruel face, with crimson laughing mouth, hawk-nose, pointed
chin, and eyes of grey-blue-green: eyes in which the pupils never close
and which under the shadow of the coarse black hair a-grit with sand
shone like twin pools of loneliness hidden in the rocks of Time. The
other hand, outstretched, palm uppermost, held between the curling
beckoning fingers tatters of the veil which, blown by the wind, twined
about the slender limbs and outlined the ribbed ridges of the body thin
to gauntness.
And even as she looked, the hummock showed empty, whilst, half-turned,
upon tips of slender feet, with beckoning hand, he stood a mile off,
perchance more, this youth of crimson, laughing mouth and haunting eyes.
One with the silver-grey and purple of the night, one with the gold and
crimson of the coming day, he drew her, whilst the breeze laughed over
her head and, soughed faintly in her ears, so that she strove to ride
him down, only to find that he was not there; and urged the great beast
further still and at his greatest speed, to see the figure ever out of
reach, with beckoning hand; and little mocking laugh.
And then, with hoofs clattering in the shining bones of some long-dead
fugitive who had failed to reach the oasis, the stallion reared and
wheeled, and, caring naught for the hand upon the reins and with the
bit between his teeth, raced back upon his tracks, leaving the Spirit
of the Desert wrapped to the eyes in tattered misty veil.
Take heed!
So matter at what hour of the day you meet him; be it at the hour of
noon, when the scorpion basks blissfully in the scorching sun; be it at
night, when the white fingers of the moon essay to close your eyes in
the sleep that perchance may have no waking; or at dawn, when heart or
soul, or whatever it be, is like unto running water in its strength,
beware of that gaunt figure with crimson laughing mouth.
Men bewitched as with woman have followed; women bewitched as with man
have followed. You will find their bones if you go far enough or dig
deep enough; and leave yours to bleach with theirs if you have not
strength to resist.
Beasts see it not at all.
So that through a certain unromantic yearning for oats under his
loosening girth, the stallion Sooltan raced Damaris back to the _sayis_
and safety.
She had not understood the import of the apparition in the desert any
more than she perceived the figure of a man standing amongst the ruins,
watching her.
Hugh Carden Ali knew that it was her last ride; the last time she would
feed the stallion with sugar; her last day amongst the ruins of the
City of On.
The blood of his fathers, even that of the men who had swept the desert
for their women, warred with the blood of his mother of a gentler
breed; so that, fearing the strength of the one or the weakness of the
other, he had sacrificed the last ride to the love in his heart.
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