At length he called a halt in a rugged valley, through which a stream had flowed in bygone ages. Its bed of fine shingle and sand made a soft and pliable resting-place; and here he ate his evening meal, lying back upon his sheepskin thereafter, smoking his pipe and talking to his friends, until sleep came to him.
On the following day they rode no more than five-and-twenty miles, taking a course somewhat more roundabout than that of their outward journey, and it was mid-afternoon when they reached the water-hole at which the night was to be spent. Riding round a bend in a precipitous valley, Daniel, who was some distance ahead of his retainers, suddenly found himself looking down upon the rocky hollow in which lay the little pool of water, so blue in its setting of mellow sun-bathed rocks that it seemed even deeper in tone than the sky it reflected. Here grew the greenest reeds and rushes, and, mirrored in the water, there was a delicate tamarisk whose soft foliage swayed in the breeze as though setting the time to the nodding dance of the reeds.
Sitting beside the pool a little girl was tending a few goats whose bleating came merrily to his ears on the wind. She had not heard the soft pads of his approaching camel, and he was almost upon her before she looked up. With a cry of surprise she fled down the valley, and suddenly, from amidst the shadows of the boulders, a grey-bearded son of the desert stepped forth into the sunlight, an ancient broadsword in his hands, and a ragged cloak of many colours thrown over his shoulders.
Daniel dismounted from his camel, and exchanged greetings with the patriarch, while the little girl hid herself behind the man’s thin brown legs, and the goats leaped upon the rocks to stare at the stranger from a safe distance.
“Never fear, little one,” said the old man as he patted the child’s head. “This is only an Englishman. There are many such: they harm not.”
The old goatherd, and two of his grandsons, who presently made their appearance, proved to be related to families in the Oasis of El Hamrân where Daniel resided; and the talk during the evening meal was all of mutual acquaintances, of the movements of various groups of Bedouin, of camping-grounds and water-holes.
A woman and the little girl, her daughter, sat amidst the rocks in the background as they talked, and Daniel observed that the child was nursing a primitive doll made of three sticks and a piece of rag, and that at length she fell asleep with this poor proxy held close in her brown arms. Later in the evening, therefore, in the light of the moon, he fashioned a very much more convincing article out of sticks, string, and a handkerchief; and with his fountain-pen he outlined an audacious face, which, with a few combings from his sheepskin in the place of hair, gave an appearance of striking and awful reality to the figure.
The goatherds encouraged his efforts with excited laughter, and when, at last, the doll was finished, he walked over to the sleeping girl and placed it in her arms.
On the third day they made good going, passing across a range of low hills, and descending into a wide plain where they disturbed a herd of gazelle, which went galloping off at their approach and were lost in the haze of the distance.
So they journeyed in easy stages; and day by day Daniel more fully resumed that jovial, contented mind which is the basis of happiness. The benign influence of sun and breeze and open space was upon him once more, and his heart was filled as it were with laughter. Riding ever westward, he seemed to be following the course of the sun; and each evening, as it passed down behind the horizon ahead, it marked tomorrow’s track, as though bidding him come deeper, ever deeper, into the merry freedom of the desert. He whistled a tune to himself as he rode through echoing valleys; he sang at the top of his voice as, far ahead of his men, he passed over the hills, and viewed the great vistas before him; and as he drew near to the oasis which was his destination, and observed once again the presence of birds and the tracks of jackals, he urged his camel forward with many an endearing and persuasive word.
Now he met with goatherds and camelherds who were his friends, and merrily he called his greetings to them; now he knew the lie of the country, and noted the places where, from time to time, he had camped or rested in the shade at noon when he had been out hunting gazelle, or tracking the jackals to their lairs, by way of exercise. Now the west wind brought the faint scent of the cultivated land to his sensitive nostrils, and his camel lifted its head to snuff at the breeze.
At last, in a golden sunset, amidst the chattering of innumerable sparrows, he descended from the barren hills into the dense palm groves of the Oasis of El Hamrân, from whose shadows the white-robed figures of the Bedouin emerged to greet him.
An all-pervading peace enfolded him, and his short visit to civilized life seemed like a dream that was fading from his memory. The city beside the Nile had become a thing of unreality, and he had awakened, as it were, to the happy sunshine of life’s placid day, and was eager to be once more at his work.
Yet, in far-away Cairo, there were five minds at least which retained a vivid recollection of his brief incursion into the city. There was Lord Barthampton, who, for forty-eight hours after Daniel’s departure, had lain in a drunken stupor which, for form’s sake, was termed a touch of the sun; and who, thereafter, had forsworn all intoxicating liquor, and had resumed his place at the mess in the sullen silence of one who has returned unwillingly to the fold.
There was Lizette, who had wept a little, and for a little while had bemoaned her lot, and who, later, had gone, as was her wont, to the Franciscan Church, and had said her beads and had prayed that one day she might meet again the mighty man who had sent the pig Barthampton so beautifully sprawling upon the floor.
There was Lord Blair, who had received an effusive reply from the gratified Minister of War, and, thereat, had schemed and plotted to bring the wise Daniel within closer reach of the Residency. There was Rupert Helsingham, who, ever since the ride to Mena House, had been filled with matrimonial dreams and fears of rivalry, and had racked his brains to decide upon a course of action which should give him opportunities of displaying those brutal tendencies of manhood which seemed to be so successful with the opposite sex.
And lastly, there was Muriel, who had aroused Rupert’s jealousy by talking from time to time about Daniel, with a sort of defiance in her voice which could almost be mistaken for awe.
It was inevitable that she and Charles Barthampton should meet: it was only strange that they had not met before in London. On the same evening upon which Daniel had arrived at his home in El Hamrân, his cousin was a guest at dinner at the Residency, where he found himself seated next to Muriel. The latter had been taken into dinner by one of the Egyptian princes, an elegant personage who had lived most of his life in Vienna, Paris, and Monte Carlo, and whose contempt for the English was only equalled by his scorn of the Egyptians. He was an authority on modern French art; and when Muriel, in a frenzy of tact, had rushed the conversation again and again into that province, and had exhausted all that she knew by rote upon the subject, she was glad of an opportunity to turn in the opposite direction and address herself to Barthampton.
He, on his part, had taken in the daughter of the French Consul-General, who was much more interested in Rupert Helsingham upon her other hand; and, being thus left alone to play with his toast and sip his wine, he had turned to Muriel with relief.
“I can’t talk to this French girl,” he whispered. “She doesn’t understand English, and my French isn’t exactly ladylike.”
“Well, do you know anything about French art?” she asked, hopefully. “I’m sitting next to a connoisseur, and I’ve run dry.”
“French art?” he laughed. “Rather! I’ve got a collection of postcards – I’ve framed some of them; and I take La Vie Parisienne regularly.”
Muriel sighed. “No, I’m afraid that won’t help,” she said.
“Well,