“A tale-bearer revealeth secrets; but a man of
understanding holdeth his peace.”

PROVERBS.

It was the night of the full moon.

It was also the night of the cotillon given by a certain princelet of unpronounceable name and great wealth, who hailed from one of those countries in Europe where quasi-royalties abound.

The cotillon-favours were to be of extraordinarily fine quality. Rumour spoke of gold cigarette-cases and other such trifles, for both sexes; the supper was to be a Bacchanalian feast; every invitation had been accepted-ca va sans dire. The hotel was like a disturbed wasps’ nest, and the buzzing of the chatterers and the gossips well-nigh deafening.

Damaris had decided to go to the ball; in fact, since her storm of tears on her return from the unlucky visit to Denderah she had taken the broad view of the situation and had decided to give her neighbours no cause for comment and to continue the festive life, as led in the winter season on the Nile, until the return of her godmother; after which she would, as soon as possible, shake the dust of the land of the Pharaohs from off her feet.

In fact, so gay was she, so full of life and high spirits, that she appeared to have forgotten her lover completely, thereby giving the Thistleton family cause to congratulate themselves in the seclusion of their bedrooms.

“I told you so, Mamma,” had said Ellen, this night of the full moon, as she had pondered before the mirror upon the effect a headache-bandeau in the shape of a royal asp would have upon a certain retired colonel who seemed inclined to find solace for his long widowhood en secondes noces. “She evidently did not see Mr. Kelham and Sybil on the sand-bank, and I honestly do not think she cares for him a bit.”

“No,” broke in Berenice, whose hair clung to her head like wet seaweed to a rock; “I am sure she does not. Do you think if Ambrose had-had courted me and then neglected me, that I could have danced and laughed and--”

“Erratic,” supplied Ellen, who had decided on the headache-bandeau.

“Sinecure,” supplied Berenice, who, in the fervour of her affection for her herculean cleric, gave no thought to such trifles as head-dresses, and not much to the rest of her attire.

Giving a final pat to her offsprings’ toilettes, Mamma shepherded them downstairs, tapping at Damaris’s door as she passed, inviting her to join them in the Winter-Garden, where they were going to sit and look at the dresses, and watch the arrival of the guests from the less select hotels.

Damaris looked radiantly beautiful as she stood for a moment at the window of her godmother’s sitting-room, into which she had gone to fetch a fan.

True, her eyes looked over-big in the violet shadows that surrounded them, and her cheek and collar-bones were unduly prominent, but then, however well you hide the fox of uncertainty which tears at the vitals of your common sense and sense of humour, you cannot completely hide the outward signs of the inner agony which tortures you.

“You’re a perfect picture, dearie!” said Jane Coop as she tied the ribbons of the simple, heelless, white leather shoes in which the girl always preferred to dance. “Let me look at you just once more.”

Like a slender lily Damaris stood under the electric light. The soft white satin seemed to cling like a sheath to the slender, beautiful figure; her arms were bare; the bodice cut low enough to show her gleaming shoulders. She was dazzling, virginal, remote as she stood quite still, looking down at her maid.

Her eyes looked intensely black; her red hair flamed; she wore no jewels save for a massive jewelled brooch in the shape of a hawk which glittered in the bodice just above the waist-belt where, thinking the bodice too low, she had pinned it hastily.

“I don’t like that brooch, dearie,” said the maid. “It’s a waste of money, I think, to buy these heathen things. But there! you and her grace know best. And don’t forget your cloak, darling; it’s too chilly to sit out in the grounds without one, Egypt or no Egypt. I’ll be real glad when we run into Waterloo station, that I shall.”

Damaris laughed as she took the satin cloak with broad sable collar, then kissed her Nannie and walked down the corridor to her godmother’s sitting-room, followed by the bulldog.

“I don’t want to dance, Well-Well; I’d much rather stay up here with you and read.”

“Humff!” said the dog, as he followed his beloved onto the small balcony, where he stood as close as he could to her as she leant on the rail, and looked up at the moon and out to the other side of the river, where ruined temple and ruined tomb shone white.

“I’ll come up and see you both,” she said, looking down into the hideously-beautiful face, with its honest eyes and beaming expression. “But I can’t take you down with me, you know. You might hurl yourself into the middle of a fox-trot to find me. I’ll bring you up a cake or a chocolate, if you’ll stay in here and not go after Jane to worry her with my night-slippers. Good boy; stay here and wait for Missie.”

“Take me with you,” said Wellington, as plainly as he could with eyes and tail. “Take me with you.”

“Can’t, old boy. Look”-she reached inside for a book she had been reading, and laid it on the ground. “Keep that for Missie until she comes back.”

She smiled down at the great brute as it placed both forefeet upon the volume, but she sighed as she leant for a moment on the rail, then suddenly drew back as she heard her name mentioned by someone who, hankering after a cigarette, had wandered out to the canvas rocking seat directly beneath the balcony.

“. . . Well!” said the masculine voice, “I think it’s damned hard lines on Miss Hethencourt, that’s all; and a man wants a damned good hiding for being a knave as well as a fool.”

“Of course it’s not gospel-truth,” replied the voice of the hotel’s biggest-gossip-bar-none, who, on account of her abnormal interest in other people’s affairs, had earned the sobriquet of Paulina Pry, “but some people I know who were at Heliopolis and have just come from Assouan told me that Mr. Kelham is engaged to Miss Sidmouth-you know, she is the crack lady-shot-and that they are on their way home now. The engagement, I should think, will be announced shortly.”

“Well, all I can say is that I’m infernally sorry that Miss Hethencourt has been made the butt of gossip and scandal through a cad’s behaviour, and I think that you and I ought to be shot for discussing her and her very intimate affairs. If--”

Damaris waited to hear no more.

White as chalk, she stumbled back into the room and crouched down upon the floor beside a chair, burying her face in her arms. For five of the longest minutes of her life she knelt, burning with shame, trembling with rage; then she sat hack on her heels.

“Is there nobody to help me in all the wide world? Nobody I can go to?”

And clearly, as though it was in the room, she heard the echo of the words spoken in the Shrine of Anubis, the God of Death: “Allah! how I love you, and if I may not be your master, I can at least serve you. If you are in distress, will you send me a messenger to my Tents of Purple and Gold? . . . My boat from sunset to sunrise waits at the landing-stage . . . the mare Pi-Kay waits from the setting until the rising of the sun at the Gate of To-morrow.”

She acted on the impulse of her outraged pride; she gave not one thought to the mad thing she was about to do; she stayed not one instant to question the trustworthiness of the man who had so strangely shadowed her since their meeting in the bazaar; she decided in the flick of an eyelid.

She would go to him; she would tell him everything, and if he were then willing to make her his wife, she would go to his English mother, and from the shelter of her arms proclaim her engagement to the world.

Yes! she would run away.

In a flash she thought of her beloved old godmother and the loving arms always held out to her, and the loving sympathy and counsel which never failed.

But she shook her head.

To silence the scandalmongers her engagement must be made known before that of the man who had treated her so shamefully; who, if only she had known, was racing towards her at that very moment as fast as train could take him.

“Wait for Missie; you shall come to her,” she whispered as she knelt and kissed the dog; “you and Janie.”

She sprang to her feet.

What about her promise to her old Nannie? Had she not crossed her heart and given her word that she would always let her know where she had gone?

She moved swiftly to the writing-table, took a sheet of paper and hastily wrote a line; then looked round for some place to leave the message.

Wellington whimpered as he stood with his fore-feet on the book.

She ran to him and twisted the folded paper into the steel ring of his collar, hugged him closely, and turned away.

With a lace veil over her head, concealing her face, with the sable-trimmed cloak wrapped close about her, she slipped from the hotel without being recognised, and down to the quay.

Almost uncanny is the intuitive power of the native.

Without hesitation, a boatman stepped forward and salaamed to the ground before her.

“By the sign of the Hawk-headed Harakat.”

He repeated the phrase his master had taught him, and which he had repeated over and over again for many days.

And Damaris never once looked back as the boat crossed the blue-green Nile, which, for all she knew, would stretch forever, an impassable barrier, between herself and those she loved.

Acting as in a dream, she could never clearly recall what happened until she stood at the Gate of To-morrow. She had a vague recollection of crossing the great river, and of being helped out of the boat, and of four gigantic Nubians who stood near a litter and salaamed as she approached; she remembered, too, that the litter was lined and hung with satin curtains and piled with satin cushions, and that she had been carried some distance at a gentle trot which had in no wise disturbed her.

Then it had been gently placed upon the ground, and she had been handed out, to find the sayis of the stallion Sooltan standing salaaming before her, with his hand on the bridle of the snow-white mare, Pi-Kay, the glory of Egypt.