Arthur Weigall - Burning Sands

“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.

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 two hours or more he rode in silence, and ever as he passed deeper into the great void before him his musing mind contemplated with increasing serenity the events of the last night and day. Out here in this everlasting calm he could smile at the little agitations which had beset him in Cairo, and could observe their triviality. Here the strident call of flesh and blood was hushed, and the equable balance of mind and body was able to be resumed. No wonder, he thought to himself that the monks of old had hidden themselves in the wilderness: they had discovered a blessed equanimity, and a consequent happiness not to be found in the busy thoroughfares of the city.

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.