“it is an hour’s poison.”—arabic proverb.
if ralph trenchard had been a guest instead of a prisoner, if he had been the men’s blood-brother in crime instead of an intruder likely, for a space, to become their leader by marriage through the love-madness of the sheikh’s daughter, more solicitude could not have been shown for his amusement and welfare in the days which preceded the great feast at which he was to be tricked or publicly coerced into a betrothal with zarah.
as a rider and a shot, he had won the men’s hearts; as a foreigner who menaced the peace of the community, he stood in hourly danger of his life, if he had but known it.
he did not know.
with his thoughts given entirely to the memory of the girl he loved, lacking, through her death, the spur necessary to send him hot-foot back upon the road to civilization, he had unquestioningly accepted the explanation zarah had given him of the mistake her men had made, and which had ended in the disastrous battle, and had set himself to live but for the passing day. he had longed for adventure, he had found adventure, and when the novelty passed off and the salt of hunting with cheetahs, racing across the moonlit desert, pitting his skill with rifle and horse against the finest riders and shots in the world, lost its savour, then he would make tracks for his own land, where the fare, if somewhat lacking in spice, is figuratively and literally less calculated to upset the digestion.
having forgotten the european half of zarah’s parentage, and lacking woman’s intuition and keener psychological[207] perception, he put her almost extravagant hospitality down to friendliness arising out of her friendship with helen and her meeting with him in the past, just as he put the men’s apparent friendliness down to the perfect and world-famed hospitality of the arab. he failed to grasp the fact that their intense interest in the sports arose from an almost savage determination to beat him, or to notice the ring of triumph in their shouting, or the bitterness in their eyes when either they triumphed or failed against him.
he came to look forward to his daily meeting with the men in the company of their mistress, well content, in his british detestation of all outward show of feeling, to hide his grievous hurt under a cloak of seeming indifference.
it was an adventure, and would end, as all adventure must, if a taste of salt is to be left on life’s palate.
he loathed the luxury of his dwelling, and longed to ask the meaning of many things, amongst them the cause of the dogs’ hatred for the arabian woman and of the empty sockets in the face of the man he encountered so often on his path, but with whom he had not spoken.
but believing that his adventure must soon end, and knowing the oriental’s dislike of investigation into what concerns him privately, he asked no questions, in which he showed his wisdom; truth, in an answer to a straight question, being about as rare in the east as moss in the desert. he rode and bathed and hunted and ate and slept whilst waiting for something to fix his departure, ignorant of the fact that helen, watched closely day and night, a prey to an overwhelming, secret fear, bravely endured the discomforts of her restricted life on the far side of the jutting rock wall he could see from his door.
he had almost forgotten zarah’s criminal reputation; had grown accustomed to her continual presence and well-meant, if tiresome, ministrations. he thought that the day of sport and night of feasting and dancing had been[208] arranged to celebrate her union with the handsome nubian, against whom he had found himself so often pitted in the sports.
he turned to look for al-asad as he raced at zarah’s side across the desert at the head of a hundred men and, carried out of himself at the magnificent sight, shouted as he rode, taking no more notice than they did of the extraordinary appearance of the sky to the south-east, mistaking the distant phenomenon for a part of the sunset, which was making a blazing, fiery furnace of the sky in the west.
zarah and ralph trenchard headed fifty men, who, their white cloaks streaming behind them in the evening breeze, shouted and laughed as they rode, separated by the patriarch, al-asad and bowlegs from fifty of their brethren, who, their white cloaks streaming behind them in the evening breeze, shouted and laughed as they urged their hejeen, or dromedaries, to their swiftest pace.
to mix camels and horses in a hunt, or at any other time, is a dire and foolish and fruitless task, giving rise to pitched battles between the beasts and broken heads amongst their riders. but zarah’s men looked forward to the inevitable fight which decided the question of the horse or the camel’s precedence over the secret path at the end of a day’s hunting; it gave them all such a chance of paying off bad debts and old scores and such an appetite for the meal prepared for them by their patient, downtrodden womenfolk.
al-asad sang at the top of his golden tenor voice as he guided his magnificent dromedary from oman with his feet, and with his spear prodded the cheetahs, with which they had been hunting, between the bars of the specially made cage strapped on the back of the dromedary he led. bowlegs led another dromedary, upon whose shedad or baggage saddle were piled the gazelle, ostrich and bunches of kangaroo-rat which constituted the not particularly good bag for a day’s hunting in the desert.
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the patriarch, looking as must moses have looked if he bestrode a camel in rounding up the trapesing tribes of israel, rode between the two men, with whom he conversed as best he could for the laughter and shouts of the men and the rumblings of the camels.
he looked at ralph trenchard and zarah as they rode together just ahead and shook his head.
“’tis best for the horse to mate with the mare and the white with the white,” he said, “for the mule is but a beast of burden, to which is apportioned a grievous fare of blows, and the half-caste is but a thing of scorn even to the pure-bred donkey-boy of the cities.”
al-asad stopped his singing and stared towards the west, as bowlegs made answer as best he could for the sounds which proceeded from his camel’s throat and which denoted fear.
“yea, oh, father,” he shouted in gasps. “what afflicts this evil beast? the half-caste is of no account, as we have lately learned through the death of the great sheikh hamed’s first born by his white wife. methinks danger threatens, for, behold, this thrice accursed child of sin trembles as he runs. and the offspring of yon two would have the blood of three countries in its veins, so ’twere well to fell the tree before it bears fruit. and may allah, in his mercy, give me a camel in paradise in the stead of this bag of shivers i now bestride.”
al-asad shaded his eyes from the glare of the evening sky and pointed towards the west.
“what seest thou yonder? a string of ostrich, a fleeing herd of gazelle, or yussuf hunting with his dogs?”
the patriarch, with eyes like a hawk, looked in the direction and laughed.
“’tis blind yussuf with ‘his eyes,’ followed by his dogs. they fly like the wind towards the mountains. from whence do they come and for what reason do they fly like the wind?”
al-asad made a trumpet of his hands and sent a call[210] ringing across the miles of desert sand, upon which ralph trenchard, whose horse was in a sweat of terror, turned and looked at him and in the direction in which zarah was also looking.
yussuf had evidently heard the call.
against the strangely angry-looking sky he stood out in black silhouette, with a team of dogs racing like the wind at his side, and the dumb youth, pillion-wise, behind him.
a strange couple truly, the one with the sight, the other with the speech, rendering each other service, until, when together, they each spoke and saw with the other’s vision and tongue.
they rode together now, and the youth pointed backwards and then forwards, and they stayed not their flight for a moment; neither did they try to change their course so as to approach their mistress.
al-asad looked behind to where the youth pointed and gave a shout of fear, upon which strange sound zarah and ralph trenchard and the entire body of men looked back and, in a desperate effort, tried to check their beasts.
they might as well have tried to stop a runaway engine as horses and camels fleeing before the dread simoom which advanced slowly behind them like some great, evil, purple giant or monster of the underworld.
the simoom!
a column of poisonous gas, twin of the cyclone, with naught in common with the sirocco; a slowly moving column, whipping the air into gusts, as violent and hot as though blown straight out of the mouth of hell; a phenomenon peculiar to the tropics’ desert places, falling upon the desert wayfarer, over him and gone, in the passing of two or three minutes if he happens to be favoured by the gods, in fifteen if ill-luck dogs his path.
a terrible, writhing, twisting scourge of scorching air, with a centre as calm as a lake under a summer’s sky and as full of poison as a scandal-monger’s tongue. if[211] the wayfarer should not be mounted upon some four-footed beast, endowed with such speed and endurance as will carry him out of its range, then there is only one course left, and that is for him to lay flat upon the ground, to cover his head, to scrape a hole in the sand into which to bury his face, and to hang on to his breath and commend his spirit to his maker, until the fell monster has passed over him and proceeded upon its death-dealing way.
zarah was not a leader of men, or the mother of her children, or a child of the desert for nothing.
she turned and raised her right hand, and smiled at her men when they shouted and closed in a ring about her, the horses on her right, the camels on her left, whilst al-asad urged his dromedary to her side and caught her mare’s halter, so that she rode between him and ralph trenchard.
“it’s almost certain death,” she shouted to ralph trenchard as he pressed his horse against her mare as they tore like the wind in the direction of the mountains they could not even see. “almost certain death if we cannot outride it. the horses are——” she gave a sharp cry as a great puff of scorching wind blew over them, then shouted to al-asad.
“those on horses are to follow me, twenty yards ahead; they are to turn with me and ride back on the camels to stop their flight. when they meet they are to fling their cloaks over the camels’ heads. the camels are to be got to their knees; those who ride horses are to dismount and to let them go.” she was magnificent in her courage and beautiful in her seeming solicitude for her men, whereas, if only the truth had been known, she was merely revelling in the fight against almost overwhelming odds.
she turned to ralph trenchard and held out her hand as she swept forward at the head of the fifty horsemen, who rode with their knees, holding their cloaks in their hands.
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“turn!” she cried, though her words were drowned in the thunder of the gallop and the moaning of the wind, which blew like a furnace from the purple cloud close upon their heels. “fight them back, fight them. follow me!”
the terrified horses were turned almost in a line and, headed by zarah, with ralph trenchard and al-asad on either side, charged the camels.
the impact was terrific.
the two lines of huge beasts met with a crash, which sounded to ralph trenchard like the splitting of rocks, as the fifty horsemen fought the camels back and to a standstill, flinging their cloaks over their heads.
“dismount!” shouted zarah, as she rode from end to end, whilst, swaying and bending, the column of poison gas crept slowly across the sands. “let the horses go! get the camels down! dismount for your lives!”
she swung from the saddle and fought her way amongst the seething beasts to where ralph trenchard helped to force the camels down by kicks and blows upon the knees.
“thy heavy boot,” she gasped; “bring that camel down, then lie beside it, and—and——”
she swayed and choked as a blast of poisonous wind blew right across them, then staggered closer to ralph trenchard as, choking, gasping, he brought the camel to the ground with the heel of his heavy riding-boot upon its knees, and fell. he fell beside zarah, his arm across her.
holding his breath for one perilous moment, he lifted his head and looked about him.
the camels lay humped together, their long necks stretched upon the ground, their muzzles buried in the sands; the men lay alongside, their heads pushed under the beasts’ heaving flanks, their faces wrapped in their cloaks and pressed into the sand. far out in the desert, tails and manes flying in the scorching wind, the horses fled, close together, as though pursued by a thousand devils. the sound of their hoofs upon the sand came[213] faintly, like distant thunder, to be lost in the moaning of the dread simoom as it advanced slowly, writhing, bending, flinging its purple draperies heavenward like some gigantic dancer seen in nightmare.
it was a pillar of horror against the night sky, in front of which fled life, in the wake of which lay a path of death.
then ralph trenchard, with heart hammering, blood thundering in his ears, and brain beating as though it must break the skull, struggled to his knees. the world, like a molten mass of red-hot lead, seemed to weigh upon his shoulders; a band of white-hot iron to encircle his chest; a sponge soaked with boiling water to lay upon his face as he struggled to get out of his coat.
he fell forward upon his hands, the sweat pouring down his agonized face; he raised himself and with a mighty effort pulled his coat off. the fringe of the air eddies lifted the loose ends of the men’s cloaks and tore at the coat he grasped between his teeth as he pressed close to the arabian girl, who lay motionless on the ground. he laid himself down close beside her, so close that his cheek touched hers and lifting her head, with infinite pain spread the coat upon the ground and wrapped it about her head and his own head, even as the men had wrapped their cloaks, and held the edges tight as the full weight of the simoom’s poison-filled centre passed over them.
favoured of the gods, they lay for two minutes under the scorching weight—two minutes in which the camel, driven mad by the cheetahs which fought with frenzy in their cage upon its back, scrambled to its feet and fled into the centre of the simoom, there to drop dead; a few seconds in which it seemed to the men that great steamrollers of red-hot steel passed backwards and forwards over them, as they prayed to allah the merciful, and held their breath for an eternity of time which was counted in one hundred and twenty ticks of the watch upon the white man’s wrist.
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they lay long after the pillar of horror had passed, incapable of movement, their heads pressed under the heaving flanks of the camels, which lay there motionless, and were quite capable of lying there, in their camel-headed foolishness, until another simoom should overtake them.
the desert stretched peacefully under the glittering stars when al-asad stirred, pulled the cloak from about his head and his head from under the camel’s flank. he stretched his aching limbs and felt his throbbing head, laughing huskily as he kicked the nearest camel into a consciousness of life and lifted his nearest unconscious neighbour and propped him against the camel’s back. he sat for awhile filling his lungs with the desert air, then rose stiffly and crossed to where ralph trenchard and the arabian girl lay side by side as still as death. he fingered his dagger as he looked at the white man, then laughed and shook his head and removed the coat from about their heads and twined his slender hands in the woman’s hair, then removed ralph trenchard’s arm from about her shoulders and lifted her up against his heart.
“mine!” he said gently, then laughed softly as he looked at the men and camels lying as though dead, and, with the touch of perversity which came, perhaps, from the mixing of the blood in his veins, bent and laid zarah in ralph trenchard’s arms just as he regained his senses and, struggling to his knees, lifted her out of pure solicitude against his shoulder. there was nothing, however, to tell her that his arms had been placed about her simply out of anxiety for her well-being and not in love, so that when she opened her eyes and looked up into his handsome face, bent down so near her own, she naturally concluded that the game was almost won.
she looked at al-asad with eyes devoid of expression, but got to her feet at the smile in his and sat down upon the camel nearest to her.
“kick them, al-asad, all of them, men and beasts, to[215] see if there are any alive,” she said curtly, anxious to be rid of him, and sat and indifferently watched the efforts of men and camels as they struggled back to life, and merely nodded at the nubian when he reported that one man and two dromedaries would not respond to his drubbing.
she had fought for her men’s lives when danger threatened, but rather for the love of gaining a victory over so dire a foe than for any anxiety she felt for them, and now, thirsty, hungry, alive but uncomfortable, she did not care one piastre if they or the camels struggled back to life or remained where they were to die. she wanted to get back to her own dwelling; she wanted to ride there alone with the white man who had held her in his arms, at least, so she thought, sheltering her from death; she frowned as the men swayed drunkenly upon their feet, laughing stupidly as they staggered amongst the camels.
“asad!” she cried sharply, showing how little she understood of the white man’s character by so shamelessly exposing her want of pity and consideration for others. “bring two camels, thine for our guest and yon for me. thou canst return with one or two or more of thy brethren upon one hejeen, clustered like bees about a honey-pot if——”
she stopped and got to her feet and laid her hand on ralph trenchard’s arm.
“camels!” she said briefly.
there was no sound, neither was there anything in the desert to be seen.
“i think you’re mistaken,” replied ralph trenchard. he spoke tersely, his admiration for the girl’s courage suddenly turned to a great dislike through her callous behaviour towards the visibly suffering men. “by jove! you’re right, though!”
headed by yussuf, with “his eyes” pillion-wise behind him, fifty men mounted on camels and leading fifty more[216] camels suddenly appeared out of the shadows in the far distance.
zarah frowned and cursed under her breath at being thwarted in her intention of riding back to the sanctuary alone with ralph trenchard.
“splendid man, yussuf,” he said, watching the approaching camels. “absolutely devoted to you. i suppose he raced home in front of that poisonous pestilence so as to get you a relay of camels and emergency rations and remedies. you’re lucky to have anybody like that about you, don’t you think?”
zarah did not answer. she crossed to al-asad, thereby giving yussuf the opportunity he wanted and ralph trenchard the surprise of his life.
guided by “his eyes,” the blind man brought his camel to a halt within a foot or so of where the white man stood, whilst the fifty brace of camels deployed in a semicircle behind him.
he bent down and searched with his hand until he touched ralph trenchard’s shoulder; then he bent lower still.
“helena!” he whispered, and pressed his hand down hard as ralph trenchard started.
“helena!” he repeated, put his finger to his lips, straightened himself and rode, with much shouting, towards zarah, followed by fifty brace of grunting camels.
