Desert Love | Page 6

and throw back the caked mud under which it has blissfully slept.
As a preventative to social and racial mishaps she thoroughly endorsed the theory that "East is East and West is West, etc." But in her heart, or rather in her somewhat searching brain, she had often wondered if there could be no exception to the ruling, if half of the East and half of West could never combine to make a perfect whole.
All smiles the dragoman ran forward, saluting her with hands to forehead, mouth, and breast.
"Do you know who that man is?" she asked, indicating with a scarcely perceptible movement of the head the Arab who had not moved a muscle since she had turned away from him to look at his homeland, the desert.
"'Im! My lady!" replied the native, eyes and white teeth flashing as he essayed in his best Anglo-French to please the beautiful foreigner who so graciously spoke to him. "'Im? Oh, 'im! is Hahmed the Camel King. 'Im provide the camels for Government 'Camels Corpse,'" pointing to the Camelry Corps, where perspiring Tommies and a seething mass of brown beasts were literally raising the dust on the other side of the railroad. "'Im," he continued, "is ze great man, from far away over ze Canal from ze greates' and best part of South Arabia. Is rich, oh! rich! Oh! so very rich--riche comme le diable, Madame. Is master of many villages, many peoples, but is 'ow say, my lady--est ��trange--and feared. 'Is word is ze law and 'is arm is ze iron and 'e can also shoot ze fly on ze top of Cheops!"
The man paused, literally from want of breath.
"He is evidently a very fine man," said Jill, it must be confessed a little disappointedly, having expected something a little less ordinary in the way of history, "but I can't say I see anything strange about it all!"
The dragoman, slightly downcast by the lack of enthusiasm on the part of his audience, took in a huge quantity of the absolutely stifling air and started afresh.
"Oh! mais, Madame, ze strange zing is zat wiz all 'is rich, all 'is camel, all 'is 'ouse--ah! I forgot zat is 'is Ismailiah 'ouse," pointing a long, brown finger to a huge pink edifice, standing like a huge pink birthday cake under the blazing sun on the edge of the town--"'e 'as no woman--no not an one--not wife--not lady--zere is tales of one wife long ago over zere," pointing vaguely in the direction he imagined South Arabia might be, "but feared, we say and ask nozing--no! ze great Hahmed live alone--not zere------" Once more pointing contemptuously to the pink abode. "Zat but a business 'ouse--ze most beautiful place in one oasis! Ze Flat Oasis! Ah Madame! comme c'est 'belle--I who 'ave been on camel business can tell, ze 'ouse, ze shade, ze water--but no lady, no children, no son, no one--'e go and sleep and live all by self alone--triste, Madame, because 'e is ze great, ze just, but go always alone in ze night to 'is oasis bien aim��e and------"
And here the uplifting of an angry guttural voice caused him to turn and run hurriedly towards a figure vehemently signalling with a huge fawn-coloured sun-shade lined with green.
And as he ran the soul of the desert, born of the sun, palms, ennui, flies, the sand, and Allah knows what besides, suddenly sat up in Jill's eyes and laughed, and as she laughed the words "Go always alone in ze night to 'is oasis bien aim��e" rang in the girl's ears, as a strange and startling idea flashed across her mind.
For and against the idea ranged her thoughts; upheld one moment by the insistent clamouring of her whole soul for freedom; combated the next by the inherited deference to convention planted by long dead generations in the mind soil of almost every British subject.
Why should she not break away and strike out on her own, if only for a few hours? But would she not be running into positive physical danger if she did so? Still it would only be for a few hours--a swift ride into the desert--a glimpse of a desert home--a break anyhow in the deadly, soul-stifling monotony of her daily round. Yes! but what did she know of the man outside the eulogies of the dragoman, who for all she knew might be leagued with him in nefarious schemes.
And yet, no one cared if she lived or died in soul or body. Marry she would not for years, and years, though of a truth that prospect would become more and more remote as youth vanished and the waters of her wealth remained at low tide. But the most irresistible argument in favour of the mad idea was that so far she had not had