Before Millicent's appearance his men had no doubt talked together in a way which would have shocked a stranger to the East if he could have understood what they were saying, but there had been an absence of any special topic; their talk had been impersonal. Now their interests were awakened, their lowest instincts were on the alert, their pa.s.sion for intrigue whetted. Suggestion, like perseverance, can work miracles.

With Millicent riding by his side and with the whole company of servants discussing their affairs, the desert had lost its purity, its healing powers. In its sands the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil seemed to need no water.

Michael clung to the thought of Margaret. For some few moments they rode in silence. Michael was inarticulate; his thoughts were like a flaming bush. In half an hour's time they would halt for lunch; until that time Millicent held her soul in patience.

Nothing was to be gained by a broken conversation on camel-back. A delicious excitement exalted her; her plans had succeeded; the very devil of insolence danced in her veins. She had trapped Michael and successfully outwitted Margaret Lampton. She was going to thoroughly enjoy herself. Michael, of course, would become quite docile in her hands later on; one of her gentle spells would reconcile him.

"How long have you been in the desert?" Michael asked.

"We've camped for two nights," she said. "It's been perfectly beautiful!

We have had no difficulties, no adventures and we've scarcely met a living soul. This eastern desert is awfully desolate, Mike--you're alone with your thoughts if you can't speak to your dragoman."

"It's very desolate," Mike said. "And it's quite different from the Valley in colour and in feeling--at least it is to me."

"I think so, too. This morning we met a strange creature--the only human we've struck--one of those desert fanatics, 'a child of G.o.d,' as my dragoman called him."

Michael's heart beat faster; he forgot his annoyance. "Where did you meet him?" he asked.

Millicent noticed the change in his voice. "Not long before we sighted you. He was travelling this way--we shall probably pa.s.s him. Our camels were travelling at a good pace."

"Did you speak to him?"

"No, I couldn't, but Ha.s.san did. I asked him about him. He told me that what we call an idiot or a village simple is really a man whose reasoning powers are in heaven. We see the material part of him, the part that mixes with ordinary mortals. To the Mohammedans such people are considered sacred, special favourites of G.o.d."

"Yes, I know," Michael said, "and the worst of it is that advantage is taken of that charming idea and dreadful things are done by rogues who pretend to be religious fanatics or holy men. Some of them are awful creatures, absolute impostors, but as a rule they frequent towns and cities. The genuine holy man, a 'child of G.o.d,' lives apart from his fellows in the desert."

"This poor creature wore a long cloak made out of all sorts of bits, a weird Joseph's coat of many colours. His tall staff was hanging with tattered rags and his poor turban was in the last stages of decay."

Millicent's voice betokened genuine pity. "He looked terribly thin and tired. I ought to have given him some food--he wouldn't accept money. I don't think he grasped its meaning."

Michael's thoughts were busy. "A little child will lead you, do not despise the favoured of G.o.d--their wealth is laid up for them in heaven."

And so they journeyed on, Millicent pleased at the result of her conversation, it had set Michael dreaming.

"They have lots of beautiful ideas," she said. She meant Moslems generally, not only the simples or religious fanatics.

"Yes," Michael said. "No religion has more lofty or beautiful ideas and ideals."

"You don't think their ideas are often put into practice?"

"I don't know," Michael said. "It isn't fair to judge--the Western mind can't. Their ideas are beautiful and in obeying the laws laid down by the Koran they do beautiful and kindly acts; at the same time, their minds to us seem terribly polluted. Their religion doesn't appear to elevate their general aims or thoughts of life."

"But isn't it the same with the greater portion of Christians, with many of what we call religious people?" Millicent laughed. "I know it is with myself, Mike. I go to church and say my prayers and I think I believe in all the tenets of the Church and in the Bible--at least, I'd be frightened to not believe--and yet it doesn't make me feel a bit better. I don't really want to be good. I want to eat my cake on this earth and have it in heaven as well. All the nicest plums with you, Mike!"

Michael laughed. Millicent was always so frank upon the subject of her own worthlessness.

"We don't know what these people would be like if they had no Koran to curb them," Millicent said. "It may do more than you think. It's a strong bearing-rein."

"That's true. The Egyptians are, I suppose, about the most sensual of all Easterns--the women are considered so, at any rate, by Lane, and he knew them intimately."

Millicent laughed. "I'm sure they are, speaking generally--that's to say, I suppose you meet exceptions here and there, as in all other countries."

"The Prophet had his work cut out," Michael said. "And the world doesn't give him half the credit he deserves. The rules he laid down in the Koran are the only laws a Moslem really observes or reverences. His own soul teaches him nothing; it has been buried far too long by the laws imposed upon it; his superman is non-existent. The natural man blindly obeys the Prophet's teachings in the hope of the material rewards which will be his when he dies. The future life has always meant a great deal to the Egyptian peoples; their existence on earth has since time immemorial only been looked upon as an apprenticeship for the fuller existence. The very fact that their earthly homes, even the Pharaoh's palaces, were only built of sun-baked bricks made of mud, shows that they carried out in practice the saying in the Bible about having no abiding cities here. Their tombs were their lasting cities and _they_ were built to endure throughout all eternity."

"Anyhow, they are delightfully picturesque people in their devotions,"

Millicent said. "I feel almost as pious when I watch a Moslem praying before sunset as I do when a boy's voice is reaching up to heaven in one of our Gothic cathedrals at home. I think I'm at my best then, Mike, only no one is ever present to test me."

Michael knew exactly what Millicent meant. The emotional side of religion excited her senses. She imagined, when she was listening to a boy's treble soaring up into the lofty heights of an English minster, that her soul was soaring with it, that she was deriving spiritual benefit from the service. He could picture her kneeling with folded hands, the polished nails conspicuously bright, and eyes upraised, listening to the boy's clear, pure voice, her whole being in a satisfied sensuous ecstasy.

He knew that this state of ecstasy was about as far as Millicent's religion ever carried her. She was afraid to give up the flesh-pots of this world in case she found life without them too dull to be supportable. She enjoyed her state of being so thoroughly that she had no wish to change it. Her religion and church-going were, she considered, sufficient to ensure her a place in heaven. It was her way of paying her future-life insurance policy, as were her many liberal gifts to charities.

When the halt for lunch came, Michael and Millicent were to all outward appearance good friends. Michael had been considering within himself what att.i.tude he ought to adopt towards her amazing adventure, what face he should try to put upon their meeting. His knowledge of the East told him that it was probably best to leave things alone, for whatever he said Ha.s.san and Abdul would put their own construction on the affair. During their conversation, which had been carried on without the slightest regard for Michael's annoyance at her appearance, his thoughts had been very busy. Their serious talk must come later on, when they halted for lunch.

Among the many things which troubled him, Michael tried to solve the riddle of how Millicent had gained her knowledge of his movements.

Freddy's words had come back to him--that the fair Millicent had not come to their camp to learn of his engagement to Margaret! She had come to find out something which was more difficult to discover. Had she seen the servants in the hut and questioned them when she was alone there?

Had she bribed Mohammed Ali? How otherwise had she found out all that she wanted to know?

When lunch-time came, Millicent's splendid basket, exquisitely furnished and equipped with everything that could be desired for an appetizing and original lunch, was opened, instead of Michael's, which contained the simple necessities of a desert outfit. They chose their halting place under the shadow of a mighty rock--they were reaching hilly ground.

Millicent's outfit included a sun-shelter, which was quickly raised and in incredible shortness of time they were comfortably seated under it, on camp chairs at a camp table. Michael could not help showing his pleasure and admiring the dainty equipment. His child's heart was very easily touched and pleased. Nothing was left undone which could be done to give freshness and daintiness to the scene. A luscious fruit salad looked cool and tempting in a gla.s.s bowl, while iced drinks, which had been carried in ingenious Eastern water-coolers, appealed to his parched lips.

The galantine of chicken and the selection of _hors d'oeuvre_ would not have disgraced the table of the Cataract Hotel at a.s.suan. Here, indeed, were the flesh-pots of Egypt--_la tentation de Saint Antoine_.

Millicent noticed Michael's pleasure. It was expressive of his simple, open nature. In such moments he was very lovable.

"Now, isn't this nicer," she said, "than pigging it alone?"

"It's beautiful," he said. "What a wonderful outfit! How clever of you--I feel as if you had a magic wand."

"Ha.s.san's a good man--I left everything to him."

"He's done it A1," Michael said, more coldly. Suddenly he felt annoyed, vexed with himself, for yielding so easily to the pleasures which Millicent had provided, antic.i.p.ating the enjoyment he would derive from eating all the good things.

After three days' hard travelling in the desert and some days spent in economical living in Luxor, while his arrangements were being made, he was readier than he imagined for a good and delicately-appointed meal.

Even at the hut he had never sat down to a lunch such as this. The renaissance of the old Adam astonished him.

The servants had betaken themselves to a sheltered spot; discretion being nine-tenths of a good dragoman's training, Ha.s.san and Abdul saw to it that their master and mistress should not be disturbed, while they themselves remained out of sight, but within call.

"Let's sit down," Millicent said. "I'm starving--the desert turns me into an absolute primitive."

They sat down and while Millicent rid herself of her gloves; and sun-hat and veil, Michael remained lost in thought. How nice it was! As nice as anything could be, if . . . the "if" was subconscious . . . if he had only come on this journey into the desert to enjoy himself, if there was no Margaret. But there was a Margaret, and he adored Margaret, whose dear dark head and trustful eyes were ever present with him they were as present in the shelter as the golden head and the inviting, provoking eyes opposite to him. There never again would be for him a world which held no Margaret, nor could he endure it if there was. And yet her very existence robbed this desert feast of its flavour. He knew that to be loyal and true to Margaret he ought not to be accepting and appreciating the dainty lunch laid before him. He ought not to be eating it with the woman Meg detested.

What if Margaret knew? What if his practical mystic had already had a vision of their meeting? Had some native carried Millicent's plans to meet him to the Valley? Had the birds of the air brought the news to Freddy's ears? Was Margaret now tortured by a vision of this sumptuous desert picnic? Could she see him sitting alone with Millicent in her tent? He knew how mysteriously news travels in the desert, how quickly it journeys. A wave of anger flushed his face as he pictured to himself what Freddy would think of the situation.

His hands trembled as he took Millicent's dust-cloak and hat. She looked extremely pretty in her white muslin dress, which the cloak had hidden.

Millicent mistook the meaning of his trembling hands. She had seen men's hands tremble many times.

"Our little home," she said, as she sat down at the table. "My desert dream realized. I'm so happy!"

"Why did you do it?" Michael cried pa.s.sionately.

Millicent still mistook the nature of his emotion. She leaned across the table. "Don't ask, dearest--just rest and be content. Hand me the sardines, like a dear man."