He was startled at his audacity; but Muriel was not in a mental condition to do otherwise than laugh.
Thus they arrived, like two flushed children, at the end of the road, the hotel on their right, the mighty Pyramids rising up like hand-made mountains on their left, backed by the descending sun. In front of them stretched the desert – a ridge of white and yellow shelving rocks, and great shadowed slopes of sand mounting to the clear sky. Southwards, at the foot of the hills, stood a native village, the clustered white houses and dignified groups of palms reflected in the still waters of the inundation which, at this time of the year, cover the surrounding fields.
Outside the hotel several Bedouin dragomans sauntered about or sat smoking and chatting; and a few camels and donkeys, saddled in readiness for hire, stood tethered near by.
Muriel hardly glanced at the Pyramids: they had been visible to her through the trees during most of the ride, and they were just as she had pictured them. But the Bedouin in their flowing silks, the betasselled camels, and the background of the desert made a picture which delighted her eyes.
“What’s the time?” she asked. “I wonder if he has gone.”
It was some seconds before Rupert took her meaning: he had forgotten about Daniel Lane. He looked at his watch: it was half-past five.
“I’ll ask some of these fellows if they’ve seen him,” he said, perhaps a little put out. A shadow had fallen upon the gay opening scene of his romance.
He rode forward, and soon elicited the information that “the Englishman who came in from the desert” had but a few minutes ago gone up the hill to the rocky plateau above, where his camels were awaiting him.
“We’ve missed him,” he said, returning to her. “He’s just gone.”
“Well, let’s ride after him,” she answered, and without further remark she trotted up the short, winding road which led on to the higher ground. Rupert followed her, musing upon the inscrutable ways of women.
The road lay in the shadow of the hillside, but as they reached the summit they came into the full glare of the setting sun which was now nearing the distant horizon. On their left the Pyramids towered up into the blazing sky, but before them the rock-strewn plateau lay open and vast, and over it the wind blew warm and mysterious.
Muriel arched her hand above her eyes and looked about her.
“There he is!” she cried at length, directing her companion to a little group in a sandy hollow about a hundred yards distant, and therewith they both trotted forward.
Daniel Lane was about to mount his camel as they approached. Muriel waved her hand to him, whereat he pulled off his well-worn hat and laughed aloud.
“That’s odd!” he said. “I had a sort of feeling you’d come.”
Muriel stared at him, and her responding smile died upon her lips.
“We rode in this direction quite at random,” said she, coldly. “I don’t yet know one way from another.”
“Well, you’ve found your way to the desert quickly enough,” he replied. “You know there are some people who seem to be drawn towards it at once.”
Muriel glanced about her. “I think it looks a horrid place,” she said, which was entirely untruthful. “I don’t feel at all drawn to it.”
She turned to Rupert Helsingham. He was slowly riding round the four camels which crouched, grunting, on the sand, in charge of two lean and wild-looking men of the desert, whose appearance was strikingly different from that of the Bedouin of the Pyramids, grown prosperous in their profession as guides and dragomans to the sightseers. Three of the camels were saddled, the seat in each case being covered by a rough sheepskin, and having on either side a coarsely embroidered bag containing food, while a rifle and two water-bottles were slung across the back. The fourth camel, which was to be led by one of the riders, was lightly laden with stores and various purchases made in Cairo, and two small water-skins depended at its sides.
“I travel light, you see,” said Daniel, as Rupert returned to them.
“Yes, you couldn’t otherwise have come in at the pace you did,” he answered. “Are you going back at the same rate?”
Daniel laughed. “Oh, no,” he said. “I shall travel in easy stages, taking five or six days probably – as long as the food lasts, in fact. We can pick up water at the wells, and if we shoot anything we can take it still slower.”
Muriel looked curiously at him. “Then why were you in such a hurry to be off?” she asked.
“One night in a Cairo hotel is enough for me,” he answered. “I’m starting now so as to get ten or fifteen miles away by bedtime, where I can sleep peacefully on the clean sand, away from mosquitoes and bad smells and noise. And then we can just saunter. So long as we plan to reach a water-hole every two days, there’s nothing to hurry us.”
He turned towards the sunset and breathed in the pure air with evident satisfaction. “It’s splendid to think there’s all that empty space in front of one!” he exclaimed. “In a few minutes now I shall be swallowed up in it! Gee! I’ll think of you tonight, my girl, in your stuffy bedroom; and you can envy me lying under God’s heaven, talking with my two good friends here about cities and slavery and civilization and things, till we yawn ourselves to sleep.”
Muriel’s interest in him began to revive. “It sounds wonderful,” she said, doubtfully.
The sun had sunk behind the low line of the horizon when at length Daniel bid good-bye and mounted his camel. Rupert, who was impatient to be back, had already turned his horse’s head and was slowly moving away as the four camels, snarling and complaining in their wonted manner, rose upon their long legs, lifting their riders high above the ground; but Muriel remained for a moment or two, curbing her restless horse, while Daniel looked down at her from his lofty seat.
“I’ve enjoyed meeting you,” he said. “I’m afraid you think I’m very rude and rough. I don’t mean to be, only – ”
“Only what?” she asked, as he paused.
“Yes?” She was all attention now.
“Only when I meet a girl like you – ”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, and there came a look of great earnestness into his eyes. “There’s so much you’ve got to unlearn, my dear.”
He struck his camel lightly with his stick, and trotted away. Then, turning in his saddle, he put his hand to his mouth and called out to her: “Why don’t you break loose?”
Muriel made a gesture indicating that she did not understand, but his head was again averted, and he did not look round. She watched him, as, followed by the men, he slid silently away into the barren vastness of the desert. He seemed to be riding straight into the glory of the sunset.
Then she wheeled her horse around, and cantered after her companion. Far off in front of her now the city was spread out amongst its trees and luxuriant fields. From the high ground she looked down on distant roofs of palaces and mansions, domes and cupolas, minarets and towers, and the lights began to twinkle in the windows along the embankment of the Nile. It looked like an enticing magic City of Happiness; and she glanced over her shoulder with a sudden wave of terror at the darkening immensity of the desert behind.
CHAPTER VII – THE DESERT AND THE CITY
Daniel’s mind was not at ease as he rode through the gathering darkness. His thoughts had been shaken out of their habitual tranquillity by his few hours in the city, and he had the feeling that he had turned his back upon a picture which he would have liked a little longer to contemplate, that he had shut a book in which he would have preferred to read yet another chapter. But when the moon rose and cast its early mystery upon the empty wilderness around him, a greater calm fell upon him, and he began to appreciate once more that sense of detachment from the restless doings of the world which is the particular gift of the desert.
For