The Hawk of Egypt Part 35

"My dear," said the d.u.c.h.ess quietly, "just stand still. Damaris has gone away. He is always like this when she has left him. Hobson, go and see if you can find Jane Coop. I hope to goodness you don't."

She walked across the room and pa.s.sed close to the dog, who turned his head and, growling savagely, watched her as she moved. Then she came back and sat down quite near him, and leaning down arranged the buckle on her shoe, whilst Jill stood perfectly still, filled with admiration for the old woman, who was not acting out of bravado but simply tackling the situation in the only possible way.

Once let a bulldog on guard know that you do not want to take away or touch his carefully-guarded possessions, and that you are not in the least bit afraid of him, and all will be well.

"Come over here, Jill."

Jill, who had removed her veil and satin mantle, crossed the room and sat down on a stool at the elder woman's feet. She took the wrinkled little old hand and patted it; then they sat still and silent, hand in hand, waiting for the maids' return.

What was there for these women to make such a fuss about? Cannot a girl be allowed to sit out perhaps a dance, or a whole cotillon even, without the world coming to an end?

What made them all three fret, and fuss, and fear?

The great love they had one for the other, perhaps, for love has been known to pierce the mental fog we each one of us weave about ourselves and so allow us to help one another, sometimes even at a great distance.

Maria Hobson knocked and opened Jane Coop's door, who rose and came quickly towards her; and as her grace's maid involuntarily glanced round the room, old Nannie peered over her shoulder with the hope of seeing her young mistress in the corridor.

"Isn't she here?"

"My young lady? No; she's dancing." She paused, and put out her hand.

"Isn't she dancing? Isn't she?"

Why did Jane Coop fear as the others feared, and why did her bonny face go suddenly white?

Because she, too, was one of the happy, limited throng who know what real love is.

"My mistress would like to speak to you, Miss Coop."

"What's wrong? Maria Hobson, tell me what's wrong."

Hobson allowed the unlicensed use of her Christian name to pa.s.s unnoticed; she closed the door behind her and spoke gently, as she took the other woman's hand and shook it, which was her somewhat masculine way of showing sympathy.

"I don't know; none of us know that anything _is_ wrong. As Mike O'Rafferty used to say. 'We may be afther barking in the wrong back-yard,' but I had a dream, Jane Coop. Sit you down whilst I'm telling it you."

They sat on the sofa, hand in hand, strangely like their mistresses as they sat in the sitting-room near the suspicious bulldog.

At the end of the story of the dream, Jane Coop rose.

"Thank you, Miss Hobson. I thought my young mistress was dancing. I was hoping she was forgetting a bit, with the music and young folk.

There's one thing, I shall know where she has gone to. My dearie wouldn't break her word. Come along." She opened the door and turned and spoke over her shoulder.

"Drat men!" she said briefly and emphatically.

"Yes, _drat_ 'em!" replied Maria Hobson, even more emphatically, as her memory leapt clear across the gulf of years to the time when she had walked out with a certain Sergeant of the Irish Guards.

Jane Coop dropped a curtsey to the gentry and stood just inside the door, up in arms, ready to fight anyone at the first word of condemnation of her young mistress.

"Come over here, Coop, please, and tell me everything you can about Miss Damaris. I have an idea--mind you, I am not sure--that she has gone out alone, and we must be as quick as we can in finding her, because Egypt is no place for a white girl to be running about in by herself."

Jane Coop took up a corner of the big white ap.r.o.n she insisted upon wearing, and pleated it between her fingers as she told her grace everything with a surprising lucidity.

". . . She came in here to fetch her fan, your grace, and in here somewhere she will have left me a message. I've never known my baby to break her word, and I'll look for it, if I may. She'll have written it on a bit of this block and with this pencil. It's been thrown down in a hurry. Miss Damaris is that tidy, she can put her hand on anything she wants in the dark, which is more than most of the slipshod, take-off-your-dress-and-leave-it-there young ladies of the present day could do."

The anxious maid hid her fear in a never-ending, _sotto voce_ invective against the Pharaohs and their descendants down to the present generation, as they all hunted vainly for the bit of paper; then she stood helplessly in the middle of the room and apostrophised the dog:

"_You_ know where your missie's gone to. Why don't you help us, instead of lying there growling?" She stood scowling at him, then suddenly walked across to where he lay. "I wonder if she put it inside that book," she muttered; then gave a little cry as she caught sight of the paper twisted in the steel ring of the spiked collar. "I've got it!" she cried. "I've got it!"

The d.u.c.h.ess, who was quite near her, put her hand on her arm.

"Take care, Coop. The dog is really angry. Let me get it."

"Not you, your grace. No, not ever so, bless you."

Wellington was standing on the book, great tusks gleaming, eyes glaring, a hideous picture of rage; but love casts out fear, even the just fear of a dog who would never let go until you or he were dead, once he got his teeth into any part of yon.

There was no haste about Jane Coop as she knelt beside him. "Missie wants you," she said. "D'you hear?" The rose-leaf ears p.r.i.c.ked at the sound of the beloved name, but the whole tremendous body shook with his growling response. "You don't love her, you brute, else you'd have picked up the book and been ready to start at the sound of her name.

I'll teach you to be so slow." With a sudden lightning movement she caught hold of the loose skin just under the jaw, firmly, grimly, with her left hand, holding him amazed and for a moment helpless as she pulled the paper out of the ring; then she let go, and pointed to the book, just as the dog was about to spring.

"Missie told you to keep it for her."

The room vibrated with the thunder of his fury as he placed both feet on the book and glared about him.

"I know," said Jill as she read the message over the old woman's shoulder. "She has gone to my son. To his tents in the desert." She spoke quietly and with a certain dignity and authority which checked all questions. "He will take her straight to me. Shall we go back to Khargegh, or shall I go to them, to his tents?" There was no sign of the triumph in the mother-heart at the thought of the happiness which was to come to her first-born; neither had she a single thought for the others.

A mother's love is the most surpa.s.sing of all loves; it is the eighth wonder of the world; it is a mystery before which that of the Sphinx shrinks to insignificance; it is the one love which asks for so very little in return for all it gives.

Blessed, sanctified refuge against all harm!

Five minutes of quick discussion; rapid weighing of the pros and cons as to the best way to keep from the ears that which would serve as a whetstone to the tongues of the scandalmongers; a sharp, clear understanding and decision.

The manager of the hotel salaamed deeply in the doorway before the high-born women, and showed no surprise at the tale--which he believed, perhaps--of Miss Hethencourt, who had gone to meet her grace and having undoubtedly mixed up instructions, had either gone up to Kulla to meet her, crossing her on the river, or had crossed to the other side, thinking, as her grace had suggested doing, that the return from Kulla would be made by camel on the far side of the Nile.

Good gracious! no. He had long since given up showing or feeling surprise at anything any of the great white races might elect to do.

He had harboured them for several winters in his hotel, you see.

Certainly everything should be ready in the quickest possible time. A hamper and some brandy; the boat; and upon the other side the swiftest camel from the hotel stables for her Excellency the wife of the Sheikh el-Umbar; the swiftest men to carry a litter--ah! two litters, as her grace's maid would join in the search. Not Miss Coop; she was staying behind, of course, to have everything in readiness for Miss Hethencourt, who would doubtless be very tired and a little frightened.

"There is nothing to fear," he added. "n.o.body has ever really been lost in Egypt, and as Miss Hethencourt will not want a crowd of friends to meet her on her safe return, not one word shall be said about the little expedition of relief."

He salaamed and retired, leaving the d.u.c.h.ess looking after him.

She had her doubts about his belief in one word of the story.

Wrapped in her ermine cloak and leaning on her ebony stick, Olivia d.u.c.h.ess of Longacres stood near all that is left of the Gate of To-morrow.

Hugh Carden's mother looked down at her from the back of her camel, on which had been fixed the padded seat which is perhaps the most comfortable of all saddles.