CHAPTER XV.RUPERT MAKES OBEISANCEFor three days after the passionate scene that has been described, Rupert saw no more of Mea. When he asked about her, not without anxiety, Bakhita, who had taken her place as his nurse, informed him that she had gone to a distant part of the oasis to inquire about her crops, and to settle a dispute between two families as to some land. For some reasons he wished that she would come back again, since during those days Bakhita was very short with him; indeed, the word “harsh” would scarcely have exaggerated her attitude.“I know you are angry with me,” he said at last, “but you who are wise and acquainted with our law, will understand.”“I understand that you are a fool, Rupert Bey, like many of you white men who think yourselves so good and clever. I wish you had never come to Tama, for now my niece will go unmarried, and the ancient race must die.”“It is not my fault,” he answered humbly, “it is yours, Bakhita, who would accompany me somewhat against my will, and thus have brought ruin upon everybody.”“Nay,” she answered crossly, “it was yours, who spied upon us in the sanctuary at Abu-Simbel, and thus caused the libation to be poured amiss. From that moment Tama became your slave, and the god grew jealous and brought evil upon us all, especially upon you, Rupert Bey.”He laughed a little and said:“You don’t really believe all that, do you, Bakhita? Those old gods have been dead for many an age.”“I am not sure what I believe,” she answered, “but departed faiths still haunt the blood of those whose fathers held them, and the ancient gods live on in other forms. To-day none worship ours, save I, for Mea turned from him to you, and the people have forgotten long ago. Well, I was sure that ill-luck would come, and so it has. Still, I do not blame you, Rupert Bey, who are brave and honest, and have dealt well by her whom you might have betrayed and left. Nor,” she added, with a curious burst of conviction, “nor am I sure that things will go so ill after all. You said to us one day that the spirit is greater than the flesh, and that those who follow the spirit win at last. Though you seem such a fool, perhaps you are right, Rupert Bey. I think so at times, for, look you, I also have put aside the flesh and followed the spirit all my life, and learned much, for do they not call me wise and foresighted? Only,” she added reflectively, “perhaps I have followed the false spirit, and you follow the true. Perhaps the old gods are really dead at last, and new ones rule the world. But if so, in the Soudan they are devils. Meanwhile, Rupert Bey, deal gently with the flower whose stalk you have broken in your clumsy hand, lest the air should soon lack its fragrance.”On the third day Mea reappeared, looking rather pale and red-eyed, but outwardly, at any rate, in a cheerful mood. Not one word did she say then or afterwards to Rupert about their great argument as to the moralities of the East and West. For whether she had been visiting her crops, or perchance lying weeping on her bed, at least it would seem that she had conquered herself, and was determined to adapt her life to the conditions upon which they had tacitly agreed. By now it was certain that his sight would be restored to Rupert, and this joyful fact worked wonders for them both. For instance, mounted on a quiet mule, which a servant led, whilst others ran before, behind, and around him, and Mea herself rode at his side, she conducted him about the oasis that was her heritage.It was a large place, thirty miles or more in length by perhaps fifteen in breadth, which would have supported a great population, as once it must have done, for its soil, washed down from the mountain-sides, was of a marvellous fertility and very well-watered. The local methods of cultivation, however, were primitive, and as the trade with outside people was very small, its inhabitants had no incentive to grow more than they could consume.“If I had the management of this oasis for ten years,” said Rupert to Mea, after he had inspected most of it, “I would make you the richest woman in the Soudan.”“Then stay and make me so,” she answered, smiling. But he felt that it was not the riches which she desired.What interested him even more were the ruins of the great temple which had evidently been devoted to the worship of Ra—that is, the Sun as the robe and symbol of Divinity. It was of a late period, Ptolemaic indeed, and not of the best workmanship, and there were various passages in the inscriptions which seemed to suggest that it was founded by some Egyptian prince of the thirtieth dynasty, who fled hither after the reconquest of Egypt by the Persians. It appeared that his descendants for many generations kept a kind of royal state in this far-off oasis where nobody thought it worth while to attack them. Indeed, on the sarcophagus of one of them who died as late as the reign of Theodosius four centuries after Christ, was an inscription pompously describing the deceased as “Beloved of Ra, King of Tama and of Upper and Lower Egypt.”The most impressive part of this temple, indeed, was the mausoleum of the rulers of the oasis who had called themselves kings. Probably because they could not afford to make for themselves great separate tombs after the fashion of those in the Valley of Kings at Thebes, they hollowed in the rock beneath the temple a vast crypt, from which opened outside chambers like to those of the Serapeum, the burying-place of the sacred bulls of Memphis. At the head of this crypt stood a huge and solemn statue of Osiris in his mummy wrappings, but wearing the crown and feathers of Amen-Ra, and at its entrance was a great underground pool or cistern of water, across which the bodies of the dead were ferried, in imitation, doubtless, of the last journey across the Nile. Certain of the side-chambers were bricked up, but others were either never closed, or had been opened, and there in their sarcophagi lay the dead.In a past age some of the granite coverings and coffin-lids had been removed, but the mummies remained inviolate, even their golden ornaments were not disturbed. Those of one young queen, or rather chieftainess, who had died a few years before the birth of Christ were indeed of remarkable beauty and great value, comprising a crown of gold filagree and enamelled flowers of marvellous workmanship, inlaid pectoral and bracelets and a sceptre of gold surmounted by a crystal symbol of the sun. Mea took them from the body and arrayed herself in them and stood before Rupert a queen of Egypt, as once he had seen her stand in the sanctuary at Abu-Simbel. Very wonderful she looked thus with the lamp-light shining upon her in that awesome, silent place.“What are you doing?” he asked, for notwithstanding the bizarre beauty of her decorations, it jarred upon him to see her ornamented with these insignia of death.“I try them on, Rupert Bey,” she answered. “As we cannot make such things now I will borrow them from the lady, my long-ago grandmother, to be buried in. Come here; I show you my tomb.”Then she led the way past certain built-up chambers in which, she informed him, her immediate predecessors lay uncoffined, to a recess where was a magnificent sarcophagus of alabaster. It was graved about with the usual texts from the Book of the Dead, but had several peculiarities. Thus in its great interior were places for two bodies with a little ridge of alabaster left to separate them. It was quite empty, the massive lid which stood by its side never having been put on. Also the spaces for the name, or names, of its occupants were left blank, showing that those for whom it was prepared rested elsewhere.“Where are they?” asked Rupert, as with the help of Mea and his crutch he scrambled down from the pediment of the tomb.“Don’t know,” she answered, “perhaps die somewhere else, or killed by enemy; perhaps quarrel, and no wish to be buried together. I take their house when my time comes; just fit me.”“Then you mean your husband to lie there too?” blurted out Rupert, without thinking.Holding the lamp in her hand she turned and looked at him with steady eyes.“Understand, Rupert Bey,” she said, “I have no husband, never—never. All day I work alone, when night come I sleep alone. Then my people build up this place—all, all, for I the last and nobody ever come in here any more. Yes, build it up with stone of the temple and make it solid like the mountain, for I wish to sleep long and quiet.”Such were the oasis Tama and its antiquities. Of its people there is little to say, save that they were grave in demeanour, rather light in colour and handsome in appearance, especially the women, looking much as the last descendants of an ancient and high-bred race might be expected to look. The men, as we have seen, were brave enough in war, suspicious and exclusive also, but indolent at home, doing no more work than was necessary, and for the most part lacking the energy to trade. Their customs as regards marriage and other matters were those common to Nubia and the Soudan, but although they talked of Allah they were not Mahommedans, and if they worshipped anything, it was God as symbolised by the sun. Indeed this was all that remained of their ancient faith, with the exception of certain feasts and days of mourning, whereof they had long forgotten the origin. Only a few of the old women before a marriage or a burial, or any other event of importance, would occasionally creep down to the vault and pour a libation to the statue of Osiris that wore the crown and feathers of Amen-Ra, as, in an hour of danger, Bakhita had made Mea do at Abu-Simbel.This survival was interesting, but Rupert was never able to discover whether it had descended from the ancient days, or whether they had learnt the practice from the sculptures on the temple and the paintings in the vault, which showed the departed rulers and their wives and attendants pouring such libations before this very statue. At least, of the old religion nothing else remained, nor could anyone in Tama read the hieroglyphics. It was her desire to acquire this and other learning, and to become acquainted with those men and the wonderful outside world, whereof rumours had reached her in her isolated solitude, that had caused Mea to disguise herself and spend two years at the school at Luxor. Here, although, as she found to her disappointment, they did not teach hieroglyphics, she had accumulated a considerable quantity of miscellaneous knowledge of men and things, including a superficial acquaintance with the English tongue, in which she loved to talk.Now she insisted upon continuing her education under Rupert’s guidance, and as they had only one book, the instruction took the form of lectures upon history, literature, art, and everything else under the sun with which he had the slightest acquaintance. It was a strange sight to see them in one of the big rooms of her house, Mea seated at a little table and Rupert limping to and fro upon his crutch, and holding forth on all things, human and Divine, such as Egyptology—of which he really knew something; modern political history, especially that of Africa, and religion. Indeed, the last played a large part in their studies, for as it happened among the few belongings that were saved from the saddle-bags of his camel was Rupert’s Bible, that same skin-bound volume which had excited Edith’s wonder and interest. Therefore it was out of this Bible that he made her read to him, with the result that she learned from it more than the letter. As he intended that she should, soon she began to appreciate the spirit also, and in its light to understand much that had puzzled her in Rupert’s conduct towards herself and others. But the knowledge did not teach her to love him less, only perhaps she honoured him the more.So the weeks passed on, and strange as were the conditions of his life, not altogether unhappily for Rupert. As yet it was impossible for him to leave the oasis for the reasons that have been given, and sometimes with a sudden sense of shame, he awoke to the fact that this detention was no longer the agony to him that it had been at first; that now indeed he could endure it with patience. Of course the truth was that we are all of us very much the creatures of our immediate surroundings, and that the atmosphere of this peaceful desert home had crept into his being, bringing with it rest, if not content. He had suffered so much in mind and body, and now he was not called upon to suffer. So skilful was she in her dealings with him, so well did she veil her heart in its wrappings of courtesy and friendship, that he ceased even, or at any rate to a great extent, to be anxious about Mea.He tried to forget that passionate scene, and when he did think of it his modesty prompted him to believe that it really meant nothing. Eastern women were, he knew, very impulsive, also very changeful. Probably what had moved her, although at the time she did not know it, was not devotion to a shattered hulk of a man like himself, but as she had said at the beginning, pity for his sad state of which indirectly she was the cause.Al least he hoped that it was so, and what we hope earnestly in time we may come to believe. So that trouble was smoothed away, or at any rate remained in abeyance.For the rest those palms and mountain-tops, those bubbling waters and green fields, that solemn, ruined temple and those towering pylons, were better than the parks and streets of London, or that hateful habitation in Grosvenor Square where Lord Devene leant against his haunted marble mantel-piece and mocked. Indeed, had it not been for Edith and his mother, Rupert would, he felt, be content, now that his career had gone, to renounce the world and live in Tama all his days. But these two—the wife who must think herself a widow, and the mother who believed herself sonless, he longed ceaselessly to see again. For their sakes, day by day he watched for an opportunity of escape.At length it came.“Rupert Bey,” said Mea quietly to him one morning in Arabic as they sat down to their usual lesson, “I have good news for you. By this time to-morrow you may be gone from here,” and whilst pretending to look down at the parchment upon which she was writing with a reed pen, as her forefathers might have done twenty centuries before—for paper was scarce with them—she watched his face from beneath her long lashes.The intelligence stunned him a little, preventing—perhaps fortunately—any outbreak of exuberant joy. Indeed, he only answered in the words of the Arabic proverb:“After calm, storm; after peace, war,” and the reply seemed to satisfy Mea, although she knew that this proverb had an end to it “after death, paradise—or hell.”“How, Mea?” he asked presently.“A big caravan, too strong to be attacked, is going to cross the Nile above Wady-Halfa and pass through the Nubian desert to the shores of the Red Sea beyond the country that is held by Osman Digna. Its chief, who is known to our people, and a true man, makes the pilgrimage to Mecca. I have sent messengers to him. He is willing that you should accompany him, only you must not say who you are, and if they meet any white men you must promise not to talk to them. Otherwise, you may bring him into trouble for the befriending of a Christian.”“I will promise that,” answered Rupert.“Good! Then you leave here to-morrow morning at the dawn. Now, let us go on with the lesson; it is my last.”That lesson proved a very desultory performance; indeed, it consisted chiefly of a compilation by Rupert of lists of books, which he instructed Mea she was to send to Egypt to buy, as soon as there was an opportunity, in order that she might continue her education by herself. But Mea seemed to have lost all interest in the future improvement of her mind.What was the good of learning, she asked, if there was nobody to talk to of what she had learned? Bakhita did not care for these things, and the others had never heard of them.Still she took the lists and said she would send for the books when she could, that was, after the country grew quiet.The rest of that miserable day went by somehow. There were meals to eat as usual; also Rupert’s dromedary had to be got up, and a store of food made ready for his journey. Mea wanted him to take money, of which she had a certain amount hidden away—several thousand pounds indeed—the products of her share of sales of horses and corn which the tribe occasionally effected with travelling merchants, who bought from them cheap and sold to the Egyptian Government, or others, dear. But this he would not touch, nor did he need to do so, for in his clothes when he was captured were sewn about a hundred pounds, some in gold and some in bank-notes, which he thought would be sufficient to take him to England.It was night. All was prepared. Rupert had said his farewells to the emirs and chief men, who seemed very sorry that he was going. Mea had vanished somewhere, and he did not know whether he would see her again before he started at the dawn. The moon shone brightly, and accompanied by the native dog that had led him when he was blind, and having become attached to him, scenting separation with the strange instinct of its race, refused to leave his side that day, Rupert took his crutch and walked through the pylon of the temple, partly in the hope that he might meet Mea, and partly to see it once more at the time of full moon, when its ruin looked most beautiful.Through the hypostyle hall he went where owls flitted among the great columns, till he came to the entrance of the vast crypt, a broad rock-slope, down which in old days the sarcophagi were dragged. Here he stopped, seating himself upon the head of a fallen statue, and fell into a reverie, from which he was roused by the fidgeting and low growlings of the dog, that ran down the slope and returned again as though he wished to call his attention to something below.At length his curiosity was excited, and led by the dog, Rupert descended the long slope at the foot of which lay the underground pool of water. Before he reached its end he saw a light, and limping on quietly, perceived by its rays Bakhita and Mea, the former bending over the pool, and the latter wrapped in a dark cloak, seated native fashion at its edge. Guessing that the old gipsy was celebrating another of her ancient ceremonies, he motioned the dog to heel, stood still and watched.Presently he saw her thrust out from the side of the pool a boat about as large as that which boys sail upon the waters of the London parks. It was built upon the model of the ancient Egyptian funerary barges with a half deck forward, upon which lay something that looked like a little mummy. Also, it had a single sail set. Bakhita gave it a strong push, so that it floated out into the middle of the pool, which was of the size of a large pond where, the momentum being exhausted, it lay idly. Now the old woman stretched out a wand she held and uttered a kind of invocation, which, so far as he could hear and understand it, ran:“Boat, boat, thou that bearest what was his, do my bidding. Sail north, sail south, sail east, sail west, sail where his feet shall turn, and where his feet shall bide, there stay. Boat, boat, let his Double set thy sail. Boat, boat, let his Spirit breathe into thy sail. Boat, boat, in the name of Ra, lord of life, in the name of Osiris, lord of death, I bid thee bring that which was his, to north, south, east, or west, where he shall bide at last. Boat, boat, obey.” ** The Double and the Spirit here mentioned were doubtless those constituent parts of the human entity which were known respectively to the old Egyptians as the Ka (the Double), and the Khu (the Soul itself). Of these, some traditional knowledge might very well have descended to Bakhita.She ceased and watched a little lamp which burnt upon the prow of the boat, in front of the object that looked like a toy mummy. Mea also rose and watched, while out of the darkness Rupert and the dog watched too. For a little while the boat remained still, then one of the numerous draughts that blew about these caverns seemed to catch its sail, and slowly it drew away across the water.“It goes west,” whispered Mea.“Aye,” answered Bakhita, “west as he does. But will it bide in the west?”“I pray not,” answered Mea, “since ever from of old the west has been the land of death, and therefore to the west of these waters lie the sepulchres, and where the sun sets beyond the west bank of the Nile, there for thousands of years our people laid their dead. Nay, boat, tarry not in the west where Osiris rules, the cold and sorrowful west. Return, return to the House of Ra, and in his light abide.”Thus she murmured on, like one who makes a song to herself in the Eastern fashion, all the while intently watching the little lamp that showed the position of the boat. Having reached the western edge of the pool, it seemed inclined to remain there, whereon Mea, turning to Bakhita, began to scold her, asking her why she had brought her there to see this childish play, and whether she thought that she, Mea, who had been educated at Luxor and received many lessons from the Bey, believed in her silly magic, or that a toy boat, even though it did carry a man’s foot made up like a mummy, could possibly tell whither he would wander.“If the boat sails right, then you will believe; if it sails wrong, then you will not believe. That I expected, and it is best,” answered Bakhita drily, and at that moment something happened to the little lamp that stood before the mummy foot, for suddenly it went out.Now Mea grew positively angry, and spoke sharp words to Bakhita as to her methods of divination and the benighted and primitive condition of her intelligence in general.“Were I to accept the augury of your boat,” she said, “I must be sure not only that he will stay in the west, but that he will die there, for look, the light is out.”“Other things die beside men’s bodies,” answered Bakhita, in her brief fashion; “their hopes, or beliefs, or perhaps their good luck—who can say?”As she spoke, suddenly out from the darkness of the pool into the ring of light cast by the lamp which Bakhita bore, that fairy boat came gliding. The gust of wind blowing down the western sepulchres beyond the pool, which extinguished its lamp, had also caught its sail and brought it back, half filled with water shipped in turning; brought it back swiftly, but sailing straight to where Mea knelt upon the edge of the pool. She saw it, and with a little cry of joy, bent herself over the water, and stretching out her rounded arms, caught the boat just before it sank, and hugged it to her breast.“Put the thing down,” said Bakhita. “You don’t believe in it, and it is wet and will spoil your robe. Nay, the Bey’s foot is mine, not yours. I brought it from the Wells.”Then they began to quarrel over this poor mummied relic of which Rupert thought that he had seen the last many a day before, while he took an opportunity to beat his retreat. Bakhita and her ancient spells were, as usual, interesting, though when they involved a lost fragment of himself they became somewhat gruesome. But in such things he had no belief whatsoever; they only attracted him as historical, or rather as spiritual survivals. What moved him about the matter was Mea’s part in it, revealing, as it did, that her interest in his future had in no way abated. Indeed, he felt that it would be long before he was able to forget the touching sight of this wayward and beautiful girl, this desert-bred daughter of kings, snatching the sinking boat and its grizzly burden from the water and pressing them to her breast as though they were a living child. Meanwhile, the accident that he had seen it did not make this farewell less difficult.When at length he reached the house—for amongst the fallen stones of the temple his progress with a crutch was slow—Rupert sat down upon its steps, feeling sure that Mea would wish to see him, and that it would be well to get that parting over. Presently the mongrel at his side began to bark, and next minute he saw her walking slowly up the path towards him, her cloak open and the breast of her robe still wet where she had pressed the dripping boat against it. He struggled from the step to meet her.“Sit, Rupert Bey,” she said; “sit. Why trouble you to rise for me?”“I cannot sit while you stand,” he answered.“Then I sit also, on the other side of the dog. He look like the god on the wall, does he not, what you call him—Anubis, brother of Osiris? No, don’t growl at me, Anubis; I no hurt your master, you nasty little god of the dead.”“Where have you been, and why is your dress wet?” asked Rupert.“Ask Anubis here, he wise, knows as much as his master. I been to the burying-place and lean over holy water to look if I grow more ugly than usual.”“Stuff!” answered Rupert.“You no believe me? Well, then, perhaps I thirsty and drink water. Much weep make me thirsty. No believe still? Then perhaps I look in water and see pictures there.”“What pictures can you see in that dark place?”“Oh, plenty, dark no matter. See things inside, like you when you blind. I tell you what I see; I see you come back here, and so I weep no more. I—I—happy. Make that dog go the other side, he want to bite me now, he jealous because you look at me, not him.”Accordingly the protesting Anubis was rearranged, and continued his snarlings and grumblings from a safer distance.“Some more of old Bakhita’s nonsense, I suppose,” said Rupert. “I thought that you had given up believing in her myths and omens.”“What mean myths and omens? No matter; Bakhita old fool, gods old stones, believe in none of them. You say it, so all right. Believe in you, and me—inside, what my heart tell me. My heart tell me you come back. That why I happy.”“Then I am afraid, Mea, that your heart knows more than I do.”“Yes,” she answered, “think more; feel more, so know more.Thatall right; what do you expect?” Then suddenly dropping her jerky and peculiar English, Mea addressed him in her solemn and native Arabic. “Hark you, Rupert, guest of my home, guest of my heart, preserver of my body, who shed your blood for me. You think me foolish, one who tries to warm her hands at the fires of the marsh, one who plucks flowers that fade, and believes them immortal stars fallen to deck her breast and hair. Yet she finds warmth in the marsh fire, and in the dead flower’s heart a star. I believe that you will come back, why or how it matters not, but to make sure you shall swear an oath to me, you shall swear it by the name of your Jesus, for then it will not be broke.”“What oath?” asked Rupert anxiously.“This: Sometimes lamps go out, and where we thought light was there is great blackness. Sometimes hopes fail, and death stands where life should have been. This may chance to you, Rupert Bey, yonder in the cold, western land of the setting sun.”“Do you mean that I shall find my wife dead?” he asked, with a quiver in his voice. “Is that the picture you saw in your pool?”“Nay; I saw it not; I do not know. I think she lives and is well. But there are other sorts of death. Faith can die, hope can die, love can die. I tell you I know not, I know nothing; I have no magic; I believe in no divination. I only believe in what my heart tells me, and perchance it tells me wrong. Still I ask you to swear this. If things should so befall that there is nothing more to keep you in the West, if you should need to find new faith, new hope, new love, then that you will come back to Tama and to me. Swear it now by the name of your God, Jesus; so I may be sure that you will keep the oath.”“I do not swear by that name,” he answered. “Moreover why should I swear at all?”“For my sake, Rupert Bey, you will. Hear me and decide. I tell you that if you do not come back, then I die. I do not ask to be your wife, that does not matter to me, but I ask to see you day by day. If I do not see you, then I die.”“But, Mea,” he said, “it may be impossible. You know why.”“If it is impossible, so be it, I die. Then it is better that I die. Perhaps I kill myself, I do not know, at any rate I go away. I ask not that you should swear to come, if it should make you break your oath to others, only if there are no more oaths to keep. Now choose, Rupert Bey. Give me life or give me death, as you desire. Make your decree. I shall not be angry. Declare your will that your servant may obey,” and she rose and stood before him with bent head and hands humbly crossed upon her breast.He looked at her. There could be no doubt she was in earnest. Mea meant what she said, and she said that if he did not gratify this strange wish of hers, and refused to give her any hope of his return, she would die, or at least so he understood her; and was certain that if she had the hope, she would not die and bring her blood upon his head. Rupert looked at her again, standing there in the moonlight like some perfect statue of humility, and his spirit melted within him, a blush of shame spread itself over his scarred and rugged features, shame that this loyal-hearted and most honoured woman should thus lay her soul naked before him, saying that it must starve if he would not feed it with the crumb of comfort that it desired. Then he hesitated no longer.“Mea,” he said, in the kind and pleasant voice that was perhaps his greatest charm—“Mea, my law says: ‘Swear not at all’; I read it to you the other day. Now, Mea, will my word do instead?”“My lord’s word is as other men’s oaths,” she answered, lifting her humble eyes a little.Then he bent forward, resting on his knee, not as an act of adoration, but because it was difficult to him to rise without assistance, and stretching out his hand, took her crossed hands from her breast, and bowing himself, pressed them against his forehead, thus—as she, an Eastern, knew well—prostrating himself before her, making the ancient obeisance that a man can only make with honour to his liege sovereign, or to one who has conquered him.“My lady Tama,” he went on, “after one other my life is yours, for you gave it back to me, and after her and my mother there lives no woman whom I honour half so much as you, my lady and my friend. Therefore, Mea, since you wish it, and think that it would make you happier, should I perchance be left alone—which God forbid!—I promise you that I will come to you and spend my life with you until you weary of me—not as a husband, which you say you do not desire, which also might be impossible, but as a brother and a friend. Is that what you wish me to say?” and he loosed her hand, bowed to her once more in the Eastern fashion, with his own outstretched, so that his fingers just touched her feet, and raised himself to the step again.“Oh!” she answered, in deep and thrilling tones, “all, all! More, by far, than I had hoped. Now I will not die; I will live! Yes, I will keep my life like a jewel beyond price, because I shall know, even if you do not come, that you may come some time, and that if you never come, yet you would have come if you could—that the marsh-light is true fire, and that the flower will one day be a star. For soon or late we shall meet again, Rupert Bey! Only, you should not have prostrated yourself to me, who am all unworthy. Well, I will work, I will learn, I will become worthy. A gift, my lord! Leave me that holy book of yours, that I may study it and believe what you believe.”He limped into the house and brought back the tattered old Bible bound in buckskin.“You couldn’t have asked for anything that I value more, Mea,” he said, “for I have had that book since I was a child, and for that reason I am very glad to give it to you. Only read it for its own sake—not for mine—and believe for Truth’s sake, not because it would please me.”“I hear and I obey,” she said, as she took the book and thrust it into the bosom of her loose robe.Then for a moment they stood facing each other in silence, till at length, perhaps because she was unable to speak, she lifted her hands, held them over him as though in blessing, then turned and glided away into the shadows of the night.He did not see her any more.
For three days after the passionate scene that has been described, Rupert saw no more of Mea. When he asked about her, not without anxiety, Bakhita, who had taken her place as his nurse, informed him that she had gone to a distant part of the oasis to inquire about her crops, and to settle a dispute between two families as to some land. For some reasons he wished that she would come back again, since during those days Bakhita was very short with him; indeed, the word “harsh” would scarcely have exaggerated her attitude.
“I know you are angry with me,” he said at last, “but you who are wise and acquainted with our law, will understand.”
“I understand that you are a fool, Rupert Bey, like many of you white men who think yourselves so good and clever. I wish you had never come to Tama, for now my niece will go unmarried, and the ancient race must die.”
“It is not my fault,” he answered humbly, “it is yours, Bakhita, who would accompany me somewhat against my will, and thus have brought ruin upon everybody.”
“Nay,” she answered crossly, “it was yours, who spied upon us in the sanctuary at Abu-Simbel, and thus caused the libation to be poured amiss. From that moment Tama became your slave, and the god grew jealous and brought evil upon us all, especially upon you, Rupert Bey.”
He laughed a little and said:
“You don’t really believe all that, do you, Bakhita? Those old gods have been dead for many an age.”
“I am not sure what I believe,” she answered, “but departed faiths still haunt the blood of those whose fathers held them, and the ancient gods live on in other forms. To-day none worship ours, save I, for Mea turned from him to you, and the people have forgotten long ago. Well, I was sure that ill-luck would come, and so it has. Still, I do not blame you, Rupert Bey, who are brave and honest, and have dealt well by her whom you might have betrayed and left. Nor,” she added, with a curious burst of conviction, “nor am I sure that things will go so ill after all. You said to us one day that the spirit is greater than the flesh, and that those who follow the spirit win at last. Though you seem such a fool, perhaps you are right, Rupert Bey. I think so at times, for, look you, I also have put aside the flesh and followed the spirit all my life, and learned much, for do they not call me wise and foresighted? Only,” she added reflectively, “perhaps I have followed the false spirit, and you follow the true. Perhaps the old gods are really dead at last, and new ones rule the world. But if so, in the Soudan they are devils. Meanwhile, Rupert Bey, deal gently with the flower whose stalk you have broken in your clumsy hand, lest the air should soon lack its fragrance.”
On the third day Mea reappeared, looking rather pale and red-eyed, but outwardly, at any rate, in a cheerful mood. Not one word did she say then or afterwards to Rupert about their great argument as to the moralities of the East and West. For whether she had been visiting her crops, or perchance lying weeping on her bed, at least it would seem that she had conquered herself, and was determined to adapt her life to the conditions upon which they had tacitly agreed. By now it was certain that his sight would be restored to Rupert, and this joyful fact worked wonders for them both. For instance, mounted on a quiet mule, which a servant led, whilst others ran before, behind, and around him, and Mea herself rode at his side, she conducted him about the oasis that was her heritage.
It was a large place, thirty miles or more in length by perhaps fifteen in breadth, which would have supported a great population, as once it must have done, for its soil, washed down from the mountain-sides, was of a marvellous fertility and very well-watered. The local methods of cultivation, however, were primitive, and as the trade with outside people was very small, its inhabitants had no incentive to grow more than they could consume.
“If I had the management of this oasis for ten years,” said Rupert to Mea, after he had inspected most of it, “I would make you the richest woman in the Soudan.”
“Then stay and make me so,” she answered, smiling. But he felt that it was not the riches which she desired.
What interested him even more were the ruins of the great temple which had evidently been devoted to the worship of Ra—that is, the Sun as the robe and symbol of Divinity. It was of a late period, Ptolemaic indeed, and not of the best workmanship, and there were various passages in the inscriptions which seemed to suggest that it was founded by some Egyptian prince of the thirtieth dynasty, who fled hither after the reconquest of Egypt by the Persians. It appeared that his descendants for many generations kept a kind of royal state in this far-off oasis where nobody thought it worth while to attack them. Indeed, on the sarcophagus of one of them who died as late as the reign of Theodosius four centuries after Christ, was an inscription pompously describing the deceased as “Beloved of Ra, King of Tama and of Upper and Lower Egypt.”
The most impressive part of this temple, indeed, was the mausoleum of the rulers of the oasis who had called themselves kings. Probably because they could not afford to make for themselves great separate tombs after the fashion of those in the Valley of Kings at Thebes, they hollowed in the rock beneath the temple a vast crypt, from which opened outside chambers like to those of the Serapeum, the burying-place of the sacred bulls of Memphis. At the head of this crypt stood a huge and solemn statue of Osiris in his mummy wrappings, but wearing the crown and feathers of Amen-Ra, and at its entrance was a great underground pool or cistern of water, across which the bodies of the dead were ferried, in imitation, doubtless, of the last journey across the Nile. Certain of the side-chambers were bricked up, but others were either never closed, or had been opened, and there in their sarcophagi lay the dead.
In a past age some of the granite coverings and coffin-lids had been removed, but the mummies remained inviolate, even their golden ornaments were not disturbed. Those of one young queen, or rather chieftainess, who had died a few years before the birth of Christ were indeed of remarkable beauty and great value, comprising a crown of gold filagree and enamelled flowers of marvellous workmanship, inlaid pectoral and bracelets and a sceptre of gold surmounted by a crystal symbol of the sun. Mea took them from the body and arrayed herself in them and stood before Rupert a queen of Egypt, as once he had seen her stand in the sanctuary at Abu-Simbel. Very wonderful she looked thus with the lamp-light shining upon her in that awesome, silent place.
“What are you doing?” he asked, for notwithstanding the bizarre beauty of her decorations, it jarred upon him to see her ornamented with these insignia of death.
“I try them on, Rupert Bey,” she answered. “As we cannot make such things now I will borrow them from the lady, my long-ago grandmother, to be buried in. Come here; I show you my tomb.”
Then she led the way past certain built-up chambers in which, she informed him, her immediate predecessors lay uncoffined, to a recess where was a magnificent sarcophagus of alabaster. It was graved about with the usual texts from the Book of the Dead, but had several peculiarities. Thus in its great interior were places for two bodies with a little ridge of alabaster left to separate them. It was quite empty, the massive lid which stood by its side never having been put on. Also the spaces for the name, or names, of its occupants were left blank, showing that those for whom it was prepared rested elsewhere.
“Where are they?” asked Rupert, as with the help of Mea and his crutch he scrambled down from the pediment of the tomb.
“Don’t know,” she answered, “perhaps die somewhere else, or killed by enemy; perhaps quarrel, and no wish to be buried together. I take their house when my time comes; just fit me.”
“Then you mean your husband to lie there too?” blurted out Rupert, without thinking.
Holding the lamp in her hand she turned and looked at him with steady eyes.
“Understand, Rupert Bey,” she said, “I have no husband, never—never. All day I work alone, when night come I sleep alone. Then my people build up this place—all, all, for I the last and nobody ever come in here any more. Yes, build it up with stone of the temple and make it solid like the mountain, for I wish to sleep long and quiet.”
Such were the oasis Tama and its antiquities. Of its people there is little to say, save that they were grave in demeanour, rather light in colour and handsome in appearance, especially the women, looking much as the last descendants of an ancient and high-bred race might be expected to look. The men, as we have seen, were brave enough in war, suspicious and exclusive also, but indolent at home, doing no more work than was necessary, and for the most part lacking the energy to trade. Their customs as regards marriage and other matters were those common to Nubia and the Soudan, but although they talked of Allah they were not Mahommedans, and if they worshipped anything, it was God as symbolised by the sun. Indeed this was all that remained of their ancient faith, with the exception of certain feasts and days of mourning, whereof they had long forgotten the origin. Only a few of the old women before a marriage or a burial, or any other event of importance, would occasionally creep down to the vault and pour a libation to the statue of Osiris that wore the crown and feathers of Amen-Ra, as, in an hour of danger, Bakhita had made Mea do at Abu-Simbel.
This survival was interesting, but Rupert was never able to discover whether it had descended from the ancient days, or whether they had learnt the practice from the sculptures on the temple and the paintings in the vault, which showed the departed rulers and their wives and attendants pouring such libations before this very statue. At least, of the old religion nothing else remained, nor could anyone in Tama read the hieroglyphics. It was her desire to acquire this and other learning, and to become acquainted with those men and the wonderful outside world, whereof rumours had reached her in her isolated solitude, that had caused Mea to disguise herself and spend two years at the school at Luxor. Here, although, as she found to her disappointment, they did not teach hieroglyphics, she had accumulated a considerable quantity of miscellaneous knowledge of men and things, including a superficial acquaintance with the English tongue, in which she loved to talk.
Now she insisted upon continuing her education under Rupert’s guidance, and as they had only one book, the instruction took the form of lectures upon history, literature, art, and everything else under the sun with which he had the slightest acquaintance. It was a strange sight to see them in one of the big rooms of her house, Mea seated at a little table and Rupert limping to and fro upon his crutch, and holding forth on all things, human and Divine, such as Egyptology—of which he really knew something; modern political history, especially that of Africa, and religion. Indeed, the last played a large part in their studies, for as it happened among the few belongings that were saved from the saddle-bags of his camel was Rupert’s Bible, that same skin-bound volume which had excited Edith’s wonder and interest. Therefore it was out of this Bible that he made her read to him, with the result that she learned from it more than the letter. As he intended that she should, soon she began to appreciate the spirit also, and in its light to understand much that had puzzled her in Rupert’s conduct towards herself and others. But the knowledge did not teach her to love him less, only perhaps she honoured him the more.
So the weeks passed on, and strange as were the conditions of his life, not altogether unhappily for Rupert. As yet it was impossible for him to leave the oasis for the reasons that have been given, and sometimes with a sudden sense of shame, he awoke to the fact that this detention was no longer the agony to him that it had been at first; that now indeed he could endure it with patience. Of course the truth was that we are all of us very much the creatures of our immediate surroundings, and that the atmosphere of this peaceful desert home had crept into his being, bringing with it rest, if not content. He had suffered so much in mind and body, and now he was not called upon to suffer. So skilful was she in her dealings with him, so well did she veil her heart in its wrappings of courtesy and friendship, that he ceased even, or at any rate to a great extent, to be anxious about Mea.
He tried to forget that passionate scene, and when he did think of it his modesty prompted him to believe that it really meant nothing. Eastern women were, he knew, very impulsive, also very changeful. Probably what had moved her, although at the time she did not know it, was not devotion to a shattered hulk of a man like himself, but as she had said at the beginning, pity for his sad state of which indirectly she was the cause.
Al least he hoped that it was so, and what we hope earnestly in time we may come to believe. So that trouble was smoothed away, or at any rate remained in abeyance.
For the rest those palms and mountain-tops, those bubbling waters and green fields, that solemn, ruined temple and those towering pylons, were better than the parks and streets of London, or that hateful habitation in Grosvenor Square where Lord Devene leant against his haunted marble mantel-piece and mocked. Indeed, had it not been for Edith and his mother, Rupert would, he felt, be content, now that his career had gone, to renounce the world and live in Tama all his days. But these two—the wife who must think herself a widow, and the mother who believed herself sonless, he longed ceaselessly to see again. For their sakes, day by day he watched for an opportunity of escape.
At length it came.
“Rupert Bey,” said Mea quietly to him one morning in Arabic as they sat down to their usual lesson, “I have good news for you. By this time to-morrow you may be gone from here,” and whilst pretending to look down at the parchment upon which she was writing with a reed pen, as her forefathers might have done twenty centuries before—for paper was scarce with them—she watched his face from beneath her long lashes.
The intelligence stunned him a little, preventing—perhaps fortunately—any outbreak of exuberant joy. Indeed, he only answered in the words of the Arabic proverb:
“After calm, storm; after peace, war,” and the reply seemed to satisfy Mea, although she knew that this proverb had an end to it “after death, paradise—or hell.”
“How, Mea?” he asked presently.
“A big caravan, too strong to be attacked, is going to cross the Nile above Wady-Halfa and pass through the Nubian desert to the shores of the Red Sea beyond the country that is held by Osman Digna. Its chief, who is known to our people, and a true man, makes the pilgrimage to Mecca. I have sent messengers to him. He is willing that you should accompany him, only you must not say who you are, and if they meet any white men you must promise not to talk to them. Otherwise, you may bring him into trouble for the befriending of a Christian.”
“I will promise that,” answered Rupert.
“Good! Then you leave here to-morrow morning at the dawn. Now, let us go on with the lesson; it is my last.”
That lesson proved a very desultory performance; indeed, it consisted chiefly of a compilation by Rupert of lists of books, which he instructed Mea she was to send to Egypt to buy, as soon as there was an opportunity, in order that she might continue her education by herself. But Mea seemed to have lost all interest in the future improvement of her mind.
What was the good of learning, she asked, if there was nobody to talk to of what she had learned? Bakhita did not care for these things, and the others had never heard of them.
Still she took the lists and said she would send for the books when she could, that was, after the country grew quiet.
The rest of that miserable day went by somehow. There were meals to eat as usual; also Rupert’s dromedary had to be got up, and a store of food made ready for his journey. Mea wanted him to take money, of which she had a certain amount hidden away—several thousand pounds indeed—the products of her share of sales of horses and corn which the tribe occasionally effected with travelling merchants, who bought from them cheap and sold to the Egyptian Government, or others, dear. But this he would not touch, nor did he need to do so, for in his clothes when he was captured were sewn about a hundred pounds, some in gold and some in bank-notes, which he thought would be sufficient to take him to England.
It was night. All was prepared. Rupert had said his farewells to the emirs and chief men, who seemed very sorry that he was going. Mea had vanished somewhere, and he did not know whether he would see her again before he started at the dawn. The moon shone brightly, and accompanied by the native dog that had led him when he was blind, and having become attached to him, scenting separation with the strange instinct of its race, refused to leave his side that day, Rupert took his crutch and walked through the pylon of the temple, partly in the hope that he might meet Mea, and partly to see it once more at the time of full moon, when its ruin looked most beautiful.
Through the hypostyle hall he went where owls flitted among the great columns, till he came to the entrance of the vast crypt, a broad rock-slope, down which in old days the sarcophagi were dragged. Here he stopped, seating himself upon the head of a fallen statue, and fell into a reverie, from which he was roused by the fidgeting and low growlings of the dog, that ran down the slope and returned again as though he wished to call his attention to something below.
At length his curiosity was excited, and led by the dog, Rupert descended the long slope at the foot of which lay the underground pool of water. Before he reached its end he saw a light, and limping on quietly, perceived by its rays Bakhita and Mea, the former bending over the pool, and the latter wrapped in a dark cloak, seated native fashion at its edge. Guessing that the old gipsy was celebrating another of her ancient ceremonies, he motioned the dog to heel, stood still and watched.
Presently he saw her thrust out from the side of the pool a boat about as large as that which boys sail upon the waters of the London parks. It was built upon the model of the ancient Egyptian funerary barges with a half deck forward, upon which lay something that looked like a little mummy. Also, it had a single sail set. Bakhita gave it a strong push, so that it floated out into the middle of the pool, which was of the size of a large pond where, the momentum being exhausted, it lay idly. Now the old woman stretched out a wand she held and uttered a kind of invocation, which, so far as he could hear and understand it, ran:
“Boat, boat, thou that bearest what was his, do my bidding. Sail north, sail south, sail east, sail west, sail where his feet shall turn, and where his feet shall bide, there stay. Boat, boat, let his Double set thy sail. Boat, boat, let his Spirit breathe into thy sail. Boat, boat, in the name of Ra, lord of life, in the name of Osiris, lord of death, I bid thee bring that which was his, to north, south, east, or west, where he shall bide at last. Boat, boat, obey.” *
* The Double and the Spirit here mentioned were doubtless those constituent parts of the human entity which were known respectively to the old Egyptians as the Ka (the Double), and the Khu (the Soul itself). Of these, some traditional knowledge might very well have descended to Bakhita.
She ceased and watched a little lamp which burnt upon the prow of the boat, in front of the object that looked like a toy mummy. Mea also rose and watched, while out of the darkness Rupert and the dog watched too. For a little while the boat remained still, then one of the numerous draughts that blew about these caverns seemed to catch its sail, and slowly it drew away across the water.
“It goes west,” whispered Mea.
“Aye,” answered Bakhita, “west as he does. But will it bide in the west?”
“I pray not,” answered Mea, “since ever from of old the west has been the land of death, and therefore to the west of these waters lie the sepulchres, and where the sun sets beyond the west bank of the Nile, there for thousands of years our people laid their dead. Nay, boat, tarry not in the west where Osiris rules, the cold and sorrowful west. Return, return to the House of Ra, and in his light abide.”
Thus she murmured on, like one who makes a song to herself in the Eastern fashion, all the while intently watching the little lamp that showed the position of the boat. Having reached the western edge of the pool, it seemed inclined to remain there, whereon Mea, turning to Bakhita, began to scold her, asking her why she had brought her there to see this childish play, and whether she thought that she, Mea, who had been educated at Luxor and received many lessons from the Bey, believed in her silly magic, or that a toy boat, even though it did carry a man’s foot made up like a mummy, could possibly tell whither he would wander.
“If the boat sails right, then you will believe; if it sails wrong, then you will not believe. That I expected, and it is best,” answered Bakhita drily, and at that moment something happened to the little lamp that stood before the mummy foot, for suddenly it went out.
Now Mea grew positively angry, and spoke sharp words to Bakhita as to her methods of divination and the benighted and primitive condition of her intelligence in general.
“Were I to accept the augury of your boat,” she said, “I must be sure not only that he will stay in the west, but that he will die there, for look, the light is out.”
“Other things die beside men’s bodies,” answered Bakhita, in her brief fashion; “their hopes, or beliefs, or perhaps their good luck—who can say?”
As she spoke, suddenly out from the darkness of the pool into the ring of light cast by the lamp which Bakhita bore, that fairy boat came gliding. The gust of wind blowing down the western sepulchres beyond the pool, which extinguished its lamp, had also caught its sail and brought it back, half filled with water shipped in turning; brought it back swiftly, but sailing straight to where Mea knelt upon the edge of the pool. She saw it, and with a little cry of joy, bent herself over the water, and stretching out her rounded arms, caught the boat just before it sank, and hugged it to her breast.
“Put the thing down,” said Bakhita. “You don’t believe in it, and it is wet and will spoil your robe. Nay, the Bey’s foot is mine, not yours. I brought it from the Wells.”
Then they began to quarrel over this poor mummied relic of which Rupert thought that he had seen the last many a day before, while he took an opportunity to beat his retreat. Bakhita and her ancient spells were, as usual, interesting, though when they involved a lost fragment of himself they became somewhat gruesome. But in such things he had no belief whatsoever; they only attracted him as historical, or rather as spiritual survivals. What moved him about the matter was Mea’s part in it, revealing, as it did, that her interest in his future had in no way abated. Indeed, he felt that it would be long before he was able to forget the touching sight of this wayward and beautiful girl, this desert-bred daughter of kings, snatching the sinking boat and its grizzly burden from the water and pressing them to her breast as though they were a living child. Meanwhile, the accident that he had seen it did not make this farewell less difficult.
When at length he reached the house—for amongst the fallen stones of the temple his progress with a crutch was slow—Rupert sat down upon its steps, feeling sure that Mea would wish to see him, and that it would be well to get that parting over. Presently the mongrel at his side began to bark, and next minute he saw her walking slowly up the path towards him, her cloak open and the breast of her robe still wet where she had pressed the dripping boat against it. He struggled from the step to meet her.
“Sit, Rupert Bey,” she said; “sit. Why trouble you to rise for me?”
“I cannot sit while you stand,” he answered.
“Then I sit also, on the other side of the dog. He look like the god on the wall, does he not, what you call him—Anubis, brother of Osiris? No, don’t growl at me, Anubis; I no hurt your master, you nasty little god of the dead.”
“Where have you been, and why is your dress wet?” asked Rupert.
“Ask Anubis here, he wise, knows as much as his master. I been to the burying-place and lean over holy water to look if I grow more ugly than usual.”
“Stuff!” answered Rupert.
“You no believe me? Well, then, perhaps I thirsty and drink water. Much weep make me thirsty. No believe still? Then perhaps I look in water and see pictures there.”
“What pictures can you see in that dark place?”
“Oh, plenty, dark no matter. See things inside, like you when you blind. I tell you what I see; I see you come back here, and so I weep no more. I—I—happy. Make that dog go the other side, he want to bite me now, he jealous because you look at me, not him.”
Accordingly the protesting Anubis was rearranged, and continued his snarlings and grumblings from a safer distance.
“Some more of old Bakhita’s nonsense, I suppose,” said Rupert. “I thought that you had given up believing in her myths and omens.”
“What mean myths and omens? No matter; Bakhita old fool, gods old stones, believe in none of them. You say it, so all right. Believe in you, and me—inside, what my heart tell me. My heart tell me you come back. That why I happy.”
“Then I am afraid, Mea, that your heart knows more than I do.”
“Yes,” she answered, “think more; feel more, so know more.Thatall right; what do you expect?” Then suddenly dropping her jerky and peculiar English, Mea addressed him in her solemn and native Arabic. “Hark you, Rupert, guest of my home, guest of my heart, preserver of my body, who shed your blood for me. You think me foolish, one who tries to warm her hands at the fires of the marsh, one who plucks flowers that fade, and believes them immortal stars fallen to deck her breast and hair. Yet she finds warmth in the marsh fire, and in the dead flower’s heart a star. I believe that you will come back, why or how it matters not, but to make sure you shall swear an oath to me, you shall swear it by the name of your Jesus, for then it will not be broke.”
“What oath?” asked Rupert anxiously.
“This: Sometimes lamps go out, and where we thought light was there is great blackness. Sometimes hopes fail, and death stands where life should have been. This may chance to you, Rupert Bey, yonder in the cold, western land of the setting sun.”
“Do you mean that I shall find my wife dead?” he asked, with a quiver in his voice. “Is that the picture you saw in your pool?”
“Nay; I saw it not; I do not know. I think she lives and is well. But there are other sorts of death. Faith can die, hope can die, love can die. I tell you I know not, I know nothing; I have no magic; I believe in no divination. I only believe in what my heart tells me, and perchance it tells me wrong. Still I ask you to swear this. If things should so befall that there is nothing more to keep you in the West, if you should need to find new faith, new hope, new love, then that you will come back to Tama and to me. Swear it now by the name of your God, Jesus; so I may be sure that you will keep the oath.”
“I do not swear by that name,” he answered. “Moreover why should I swear at all?”
“For my sake, Rupert Bey, you will. Hear me and decide. I tell you that if you do not come back, then I die. I do not ask to be your wife, that does not matter to me, but I ask to see you day by day. If I do not see you, then I die.”
“But, Mea,” he said, “it may be impossible. You know why.”
“If it is impossible, so be it, I die. Then it is better that I die. Perhaps I kill myself, I do not know, at any rate I go away. I ask not that you should swear to come, if it should make you break your oath to others, only if there are no more oaths to keep. Now choose, Rupert Bey. Give me life or give me death, as you desire. Make your decree. I shall not be angry. Declare your will that your servant may obey,” and she rose and stood before him with bent head and hands humbly crossed upon her breast.
He looked at her. There could be no doubt she was in earnest. Mea meant what she said, and she said that if he did not gratify this strange wish of hers, and refused to give her any hope of his return, she would die, or at least so he understood her; and was certain that if she had the hope, she would not die and bring her blood upon his head. Rupert looked at her again, standing there in the moonlight like some perfect statue of humility, and his spirit melted within him, a blush of shame spread itself over his scarred and rugged features, shame that this loyal-hearted and most honoured woman should thus lay her soul naked before him, saying that it must starve if he would not feed it with the crumb of comfort that it desired. Then he hesitated no longer.
“Mea,” he said, in the kind and pleasant voice that was perhaps his greatest charm—“Mea, my law says: ‘Swear not at all’; I read it to you the other day. Now, Mea, will my word do instead?”
“My lord’s word is as other men’s oaths,” she answered, lifting her humble eyes a little.
Then he bent forward, resting on his knee, not as an act of adoration, but because it was difficult to him to rise without assistance, and stretching out his hand, took her crossed hands from her breast, and bowing himself, pressed them against his forehead, thus—as she, an Eastern, knew well—prostrating himself before her, making the ancient obeisance that a man can only make with honour to his liege sovereign, or to one who has conquered him.
“My lady Tama,” he went on, “after one other my life is yours, for you gave it back to me, and after her and my mother there lives no woman whom I honour half so much as you, my lady and my friend. Therefore, Mea, since you wish it, and think that it would make you happier, should I perchance be left alone—which God forbid!—I promise you that I will come to you and spend my life with you until you weary of me—not as a husband, which you say you do not desire, which also might be impossible, but as a brother and a friend. Is that what you wish me to say?” and he loosed her hand, bowed to her once more in the Eastern fashion, with his own outstretched, so that his fingers just touched her feet, and raised himself to the step again.
“Oh!” she answered, in deep and thrilling tones, “all, all! More, by far, than I had hoped. Now I will not die; I will live! Yes, I will keep my life like a jewel beyond price, because I shall know, even if you do not come, that you may come some time, and that if you never come, yet you would have come if you could—that the marsh-light is true fire, and that the flower will one day be a star. For soon or late we shall meet again, Rupert Bey! Only, you should not have prostrated yourself to me, who am all unworthy. Well, I will work, I will learn, I will become worthy. A gift, my lord! Leave me that holy book of yours, that I may study it and believe what you believe.”
He limped into the house and brought back the tattered old Bible bound in buckskin.
“You couldn’t have asked for anything that I value more, Mea,” he said, “for I have had that book since I was a child, and for that reason I am very glad to give it to you. Only read it for its own sake—not for mine—and believe for Truth’s sake, not because it would please me.”
“I hear and I obey,” she said, as she took the book and thrust it into the bosom of her loose robe.
Then for a moment they stood facing each other in silence, till at length, perhaps because she was unable to speak, she lifted her hands, held them over him as though in blessing, then turned and glided away into the shadows of the night.
He did not see her any more.