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Page 86
He loved her and to her had pitched his tents.
He prayed that he might be with her when he died, and, convinced that
his prayer would be answered, he had pitched him a funeral tent between
those of Purple and of Gold.
Bewitched of the desert, the colour of the tents resembled those in
which she decks herself in the passing of a day and a night.
Outwardly they were just ordinary Bedouin tents, the tan and brown of
camel-hide; flat-roofed and square, giving a full-grown man room in
which to move and stand to his full stature without the fear--as in the
peaked affair called bell--of bringing the whole thing down upon his
crown. They lifted at each side to allow the desert wind to enter at
any hour it listed; or the moon to pierce him with silvery spear; or
the stars to blaze like jewels before his eyes, as he waited for sleep
on a rug upon the sand.
The one in which he slept was hung inside with satin curtains of
deepest purple, with here and there a star of silver, which glittered
in the light of the cut-crystal lamp which hung from the cross-pole.
The Persian rug upon the floor was grey and old rose and faintest
yellow, and glistened like the skin of woman; of the ordinary
furnishings of an ordinary bedroom there was no sign--you would have to
go much farther afield to find the tent with all the paraphernalia of
the toilet. Just as you would have to go still farther and towards the
west, to where were pitched the stables, and the quarters of the
specially-chosen servants he took with him in his desert wanderings;
just enough--and they had their work cut out--to look after the dogs
and birds and horses. The camels, upon whom depended the supplies,
were right out of sight, and any one of the servants would have
preferred death by torture to approaching within a mile of his master's
tents until he heard his call.
In the other tent he ate his bread and dates and drank his coffee or
received the humblest of his passing brothers; those who, scorched with
heat, tortured with thirst or hunger, and blinded with flying sand, yet
would not exchange one minute of their own free desert life for an
eternity of soft couches and the most succulent effort of a _cordon
bleu_ in the cramped surroundings of a crowded city.
It was hung with orange satin; cushions of every hue were flung upon a
carpet of violent colours; the lamps of bronze with wicks floating in
crimson saucers, hanging from the crosspole, were rarely lit; the satin
curtains hid a smaller room behind filled with dates and coffee-beans,
sweetmeats, beads and other things which bring joy to the grateful
heart of the wandering Arab and his family.
The sand outside was marked and pressed, down with footprints of men
and women and little children.
They had not to ask in order to receive.
But no foot but his had ever trod the fine matting of the tent between
the other two.
Firmly convinced that his prayer would be granted and that in the
desert he would find the answer to the many questions which had
occurred to him to ask of life, he had sought for a covering under
which he could lie after death until naught but his bones should be
left for the wind of chance to play with.
He had all a Mohammedan's belief in the hand of destiny, but the
English blood in his veins filled him with horror at the thought of
being torn to pieces by vultures after death; his desert blood filled
him with an equal horror at the thought of being weighted down by the
regulation tomb of bricks and mortar.
And so it came to pass on this night of the full moon, when the girl he
loved was racing towards him and Fate was disentangling the threads she
had knotted so grievously, that he lay stretched upon the block of wood
which stood three feet high in the centre of this tent. He lay face
downwards, with chin in hand, looking out through the lifted flap in
the direction of Mecca, whilst the moon hung as a silver shield above
him, and the desert enfolded him on every side.
Outwardly the tent was as that of any Bedouin; tan and brown, the
colour of the camel's hide, of which it was made; square-roofed, with
one side only which lifted, the side which was towards Mecca.
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