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Page 7
"Keep quite still," said Hugh Carden Ali, gently, as Damaris made an
effort to turn; then, speaking quickly to the beaming, salaaming
spectators, who had had the time of their lives gambling on the chances
of either animal, ordered them to remove the dead beast and to strew
the place with sand. And "_Irja Sooltan_," he called to the stallion,
which, terrified at the sounds and sight and smell of battle, had
bolted up a side street, where he stood fretting and fidgeting himself
into a fine sweat, until he heard the clear call which could always
bring him back to the man he loved. He stood for one second, then
flung up his heels to the devastation of a stall of earthenware, and
raced back to the square at a most unseemly pace, causing the
spectators once more to fly in all directions with cries of "U'a u'a,"
which means, "Look out, look out!"
He pushed his soft nose with determination against the woman who stood
so close to his master, so that she looked up, and then smiled and
stretched out her arms.
"You beauty!" she cried. "Oh, you _beauty_!"
"You ride?"
Damaris, thinking of the hack, the only thing with the shape of a horse
she had been able to get so far, and upon the back of which she loathed
to be seen, made a grimace.
"I go out on horseback," she said. "I have not ridden since I left
home."
The man's reply, whatever it might have been, was interrupted by Abdul,
who, all smiles, stood before them, with the white pigeon in the left
hand and the _shahin_ upon his right fist.
The native had no intention of causing the white woman pain; in fact,
wishing to find favour in the eyes of the nobles, he only wanted to
give them a chance of witnessing a little of, to him, the finest sport
in the world.
"Look, lady!" he cried.
He tossed the pigeon high into the air, allowed her a little distance,
then threw the hawk.
"No! Oh, no! don't!" cried Damaris, as the hawk rose, "stooped" and
missed the pigeon by a hair's-breadth as it "put in", which means that
it flew straight into a small niche of a minaret for cover.
"Ah!" cried Damaris, and "_Bi-sma-llah_!" ejaculated Abdul, as he threw
the lure of a dead plover and called his hawk with the luring Eastern
call. "Coo-coo," he called; "coo-coo," to which the hawk responded as
a well-trained _shahin_ should.
Hugh Carden Ali stood with his hand on the stallion's mane, looking up
at the sky, in which shone a great star.
"The hawk of Egypt failed," he said to himself. "Flown at a white
bird, it failed. The House of Allah, who is God, gave sanctuary to the
little white bird. Praise be to Allah who is God."
He looked down at the girl, who was kneeling, consoling the dog, who,
reft 'tween pride and pain, showed a lamentable countenance. Suddenly
she looked up and rose, and stood silently.
"Come," he said simply, while he longed to pick her up and ride with
her to his home in the Oasis. "I will take you to your hotel."
"My car is waiting for me in the Sikket el-Gedideh," she replied.
* * * * *
Later, a vision of loveliness, she walked down the dining-room behind
the Duchess of Longacres, whilst continuous lamentations were wafted
through the spring-doors from the spot where sat a dog with
sticking-plaster across his nose and middle girt with a cummerbund of
pink boracic lint.
Beside the girl's place lay a huge bunch of crimson roses tied with
golden tassels; there was no card, name nor message.
She asked no question, neither did her godmother.
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