The Weavers Part 66

"Ay, I will marry Jasper now," she answered. "It has been a long waiting."

"It could not be till now," she responded.

David looked at her reflectively, and said: "By devious ways the human heart comes home. One can only stand in the door and wait. He has been patient."

"I have been patient, too," she answered.

As the d.u.c.h.ess disappeared with David, a swift change came over Lacey.

He spun round on one toe, and, like a boy of ten, careered around the deck to the tune of a negro song.

"Say, things are all right in there with them two, and it's my turn now," he said. "Cute as she can be, and knows the game! Twice a widow, and knows the game! Waiting, she is down in Cairo, where the orange blossom blows. I'm in it; we're all in it--every one of us. Cousin Hylda's free now, and I've got no past worth speaking of; and, anyhow, she'll understand, down there in Cairo. Cute as she can be--"

Suddenly he swung himself down to the deck below. "The desert's the place for me to-night," he said. Stepping ash.o.r.e, he turned to where the d.u.c.h.ess stood on the deck, gazing out into the night. "Well, give my love to the girls," he called, waving a hand upwards, as it were to the wide world, and disappeared into the alluring whiteness.

"I've got to get a key-thought," he muttered to himself, as he walked swiftly on, till only faint sounds came to him from the riverside. In the letter he had written to Hylda, which was the turning-point of all for her, he had spoken of these "key-thoughts." With all the childishness he showed at times, he had wisely felt his way into spheres where life had depth and meaning. The desert had justified him to himself and before the spirits of departed peoples, who wandered over the sands, until at last they became sand also, and were blown hither and thither, to make beds for thousands of desert wayfarers, or paths for camels' feet, or a blinding storm to overwhelm the traveller and the caravan; Life giving and taking, and absorbing and destroying, and destroying and absorbing, till the circle of human existence wheel to the full, and the task of Time be accomplished.

On the gorse-grown common above Hamley, David and Faith, and David's mother Mercy, had felt the same soul of things stirring--in the green things of green England, in the arid wastes of the Libyan desert, on the bosom of the Nile, where Mahommed Ha.s.san now lay in a nugger singing a song of pa.s.sion, Nature, with burning voice, murmuring down the unquiet world its message of the Final Peace through the innumerable years.

GLOSSARY

Aiwa----Yes.

Allah hu Achbar----G.o.d is most Great.

Al'mah----Female professional singers, signifying "a learned female."

Ardab----A measure equivalent to five English bushels.

Backsheesh----Tip, douceur.

Bala.s.s----Earthen vessel for carrying water.

Bdsha----Pasha.

Bersim----Clover.

Bismillah----In the name of G.o.d.

Bowdb----A doorkeeper.

Dahabieh----A Nile houseboat with large lateen sails.

Darabukkeh----A drum made of a skin stretched over an earthenware funnel.

Dourha----Maize.

Effendina----Most n.o.ble.

El Azhar----The Arab University at Cairo.

Fedddn----A measure of land representing about an acre.

Fellah----The Egyptian peasant.

Ghia.s.sa----Small boat.

Hakim----Doctor.

Hasheesh----Leaves of hemp.

Inshallah----G.o.d willing.

Kdnoon----A musical instrument like a dulcimer.

Kava.s.s----An orderly.

Kemengeh----A cocoanut fiddle.

Khamsin----A hot wind of Egypt and the Soudan.

Kourbash----A whip, often made of rhinoceros hide.

La ilaha illa-llah----There is no deity but G.o.d.

Malaish----No matter.

Malboos----Demented.

Mastaba----A bench.

Medjidie----A Turkish Order.

Mooshrabieh----Lattice window.

Moufettish----High Steward.

Mudir----The Governor of a Mudirieh, or province.

Muezzin----The sheikh of the mosque who calls to prayer.

Narghileh----A Persian pipe.

Nebool----A quarter-staff.

Ramadan----The Mahommedan season of fasting.

Saadat-el-bdsha----Excellency Pasha.

Sdis----Groom.

Sakkia----The Persian water-wheel.

Salaam----Eastern salutation.

Sheikh-el-beled----Head of a village.

Tarboosh----A Turkish turban.

Ulema----Learned men.

Wakf----Mahommedan Court dealing with succession, etc.

Welee----A holy man or saint.

Yashmak----A veil for the lower part of the face.

Yelek----A long vest or smock.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

A cloak of words to cover up the real thought behind Antipathy of the man in the wrong to the man in the right Antipathy of the lesser to the greater nature Begin to see how near good is to evil But the years go on, and friends have an end Cherish any alleviating lie Does any human being know what he can bear of temptation Friends.h.i.+p means a giving and a getting He's a barber-shop philosopher Heaven where wives without number awaited him Honesty was a thing he greatly desired--in others How little we can know to-day what we shall feel tomorrow How many conquests have been made in the name of G.o.d Monotonously intelligent No virtue in not falling, when you're not tempted Of course I've hated, or I wouldn't be worth a b.u.t.ton One does the work and another gets paid Only the supremely wise or the deeply ignorant who never alter Pa.s.sion to forget themselves Political virtue goes unrewarded She knew what to say and what to leave unsaid Smiling was part of his equipment Sometimes the longest way round is the shortest way home Soul tortured through different degrees of misunderstanding The vague pain of suffered indifference There is no habit so powerful as the habit of care of others There's no credit in not doing what you don't want to do To-morrow is no man's gift Tricks played by Fact to discredit the imagination Triumph of Oriental duplicity over Western civilisation We want every land to do as we do; and we want to make 'em do it We must live our dark hours alone When G.o.d permits, shall man despair?

Woman's deepest right and joy and pain in one--to comfort