Her Royal Highness Part 7

Then after he had watched the red tail-light disappear over the sandy waste he turned, and wondering what skeleton of the past that exile held concealed in his cupboard, strode along the river-bank beneath the belt of palms.

How many Englishmen abroad are self-exiles? How full of bitterness is many a man's heart in our far-off Colonies? And how many good, sterling fellows are wearily dragging out their monotonous lives, just because of "the woman"? Does she remember? does she care? She probably still lives her own life in her own merry circle--giddy and full of a modern craving for constant excitement. She has, in most cases, conveniently forgotten the man she wronged--forgotten his existence, perhaps even his very name.

And how many men, too, have stood by and allowed their lives to be wrecked for the purpose of preserving a woman's good name. But does the woman ever thank him? Alas! but seldom--very seldom.

True, the follies of life are mostly the man's. But the woman does not always pay--as some would have us believe.

Waldron, puffing thoughtfully at his cigar, his thoughts far away from the Nile--for he was recalling a certain evening in Madrid when he had sat alone with Beatriz in her beautiful flat in the Calle de Alcala--had pa.s.sed through the darkness of the palms, and out upon the path which still led beside the wide river, towards the Second Cataract.

From the shadows of the opposite sh.o.r.e came the low beating of a tom-tom and the Arab boatman's chant--that rather mournful chant one hears everywhere along the Nile from the Nyanza to the sea, and which ends in "Al-lah-hey! Al-lah-hey!" Allah! Always the call to Allah.

The sun--the same sun G.o.d that was wors.h.i.+pped at Abu Simbel--had gone long ago, tired Nubia slept in peace, and the stars that gazed down upon her fretted not the night with thoughts of the creeds of men.

Again Hubert Waldron reached another small clump of palms close to the water's edge, and as he pa.s.sed noiselessly across the sand he suddenly became conscious that he was not alone.

Voices in French broke the silence, and he suddenly halted.

Then before him, silhouetted against the blue, clear light of the desert night, rose two figures--Europeans, a man and a woman.

The woman, who wore a white dress, was clasped in the arms of the man, while he rained hot, pa.s.sionate kisses upon her brow.

Waldron stood upon the soft sand, a silent witness of that exchange of pa.s.sionate caresses. He feared to move lest he should attract their attention and be accused of eavesdropping.

From where he was, half concealed by the big trunk of a date-palm, he could distinctly hear the words uttered by the man.

"I have been here for three days awaiting you, darling. I travelled by Port Sudan and Khartoum, and then on here to meet you."

"And I, too, Henri, have been wondering if you would arrive here in time," was the girl's response, as her head lay in sweet content upon her lover's shoulder. "Imagine my delight when the Arab came on board and slipped your note into my hand."

"Ah, Lola darling, how I have longed for this moment!--longed to hold you in my arms once again," he cried.

Lola!

Hubert Waldron held his breath, scarce believing his own ears.

Yes, it was her voice--the voice he knew so well. She had met her lover there--in that out-of-the-way spot--he having travelled by the Red Sea route to the Sudan in order to keep the tryst.

Waldron stood there listening, like a man in a dream.

It was all plain now. The man who had been marked out as Lola's husband she hated, because of her secret love for that young Frenchman in whose arms she now stood clasped.

He was telling her how he had left Brindisi three weeks before, and going down the Red Sea had landed at Port Sudan, afterwards taking sail to Khartoum and then post-haste across the desert to Haifa.

"Had I not caught the coasting steamer I could not have reached here until you had left," he added.

"Yes, Henri. But you must be most careful," she urged. "My uncle must never suspect--he must never dream the truth."

"I know, darling. If I travel back to Cairo with you I will exercise the utmost discretion, never fear."

"Neither by word nor by look must the truth ever be betrayed," she said.

"Remember, Henri, my whole future is in your hands."

"Can I ever forget that, my darling?" he cried, kissing her with all the frantically amorous pa.s.sion of a Frenchman.

"It is dangerous," she declared. "Too dangerous, I fear. Gigleux is ubiquitous."

"He always is. But leave it all to me," the man hastened to a.s.sure her, holding her ungloved hand and raising it fervently to his lips. "I shall join your steamer as an ordinary pa.s.senger just before you sail."

"But you must avoid me. Promise me to do that?" she implored in a low, earnest tone.

"I will promise you anything, my darling--because I love you better than my life," was his low, earnest answer, as he tenderly stroked the soft hair from her brow. "Do you recollect our last evening together in Rome, eh?"

"Shall I ever forget?" was her reply. "I risked everything that night to escape and come to you."

"Then you really do love me, Lola--truly?" For answer she flung her long arms around his neck and kissed him fondly. And she then remained silent in his strong embrace.

CHAPTER SIX.

MORE CONCERNING THE STRANGER.

At their feet, winding its way for thousands of miles between limitless areas of sand, its banks lined for narrow distances with green fields and the habitations of men, flowed dark and wondrous the one thing that makes human life possible in all the lands of the Sudan and of Egypt-- flowed from sources that for ages were undiscovered, and which even in this day of boasted knowledge are yet incompletely known--the Nile.

In the lazy indolence of that sun-baked land of silence, idleness and love, affection is quickly cultivated, as the fast-living set who go up there each winter know well. Hubert Waldron, man of the world that he was, had watched and knew. He stood there, however, dumbfounded, for there was now presented a very strange and curious state of affairs.

Lola, the dark-eyed girl who had enchanted him and held him by the great mystery which surrounded her, was now revealed keeping tryst with a stranger--a mysterious Frenchman who had come up from the blazing Sudan--a man who had come from nowhere.

He strained his eyes in an endeavour to distinguish the stranger's outline, but in vain. The man was standing in the deep shadow. Only the girl's familiar form silhouetted against the starlit sky.

"We must be very careful of my uncle," the girl urged. "The slightest suspicion, and we shall a.s.suredly be parted, and for ever."

"I will exercise every discretion, never fear, dearest," was his rea.s.suring reply, and again he took her soft, fair face in both his hands and kissed her pa.s.sionately upon the lips.

"But, Henri," she exclaimed presently, "are you quite sure they suspect nothing at home--that you have never betrayed to anyone your affection for me? Remember, there are spies everywhere."

"Surely you can trust me, my darling?" he asked in reproach.

"Of course, dear," she cried, again raising her lips and kissing him fondly. "But, naturally, I am full of fear lest our secret be known."

"It cannot be known," was his confident reply. "We can both keep the truth from others. Trust me."

"And when we return to Europe. What then?" she asked in a low, changed tone.

"Then we shall see. Why try and look into the future? It is useless to antic.i.p.ate difficulties which may not, after all, exist," he said cheerfully, again stroking her hair with tenderness.

He spoke in French in a soft, refined voice, and was evidently a gentleman, though he still stood in the shadow and was therefore undistinguishable. He was holding the girl in his arms and a silence had fallen between them--a silence only broken by the low lapping of the Nile waters, and that rhythmic chant now receding: "Ah-lal-hey!

Al-lal-hey?"

"My darling!" whispered the stranger pa.s.sionately. "My own faithful darling. I love you--ah! so much more than you can ever tell. And, alas! I am so unworthy of you."

She, in return, sighed upon his breast and declared that she loved but one man in all the world--himself.