gnarled hands playing
with Life's shuttlecock drew a golden thread to a brown, proceeding to
weave them in and out with the blood-red silk of the pomegranate, the
orange of the setting sun, the silver of the rising moon, and the
purples of the bougainvillaea, until upon the background of dull greys
and saffrons appeared an amazing pattern of that which is called Love.

And suddenly the girl looked up into the man's face, and stretching out
her hand spake softly, calling upon him by name, so that his heart
quaked within him, and his being was suffused with love.

"Hahmed! O! Hahmed! Is it happiness?"

And Hahmed the Arab, raising his right hand, called heaven to witness.

"As Allah is above us, O woman, it is happiness. Glory be to Him Whose
prophet is Mohammed."

[1]The most poisonous snake in Egypt.

CHAPTER XXIII

Little by little the face of the desert began to change, just as
changes the face of a fainted woman, which, drawn and grey and pinched
about the mouth, starts to relax and fill out and to colour faintly,
when life begins to return to the limp form. Rough shrubs grew in
patches, giving way to rough grass growing about the roots of short
trees. A clump of palms and then another, a mimosa tree scenting the
air from its diminutive yellow lanterns, and then great stretches of
land, some light with the grain silvered by the waning moon, some dark
from the plough's drastic hand, undivided by hedge or wall, yet as
evenly marked out as a chess-board, reminding Jill of a very great
patchwork quilt held together by some invisible feather-stitching.

Her questions fell like rain, and in them the man seemed to find great
joy. That was an artesian well, and this a grove of Tailik dates.
Yes! the rivulet which would sing her to sleep on its way through the
sand was a very bounteous spring, more precious than gold or jewels,
holding only a second place to Allah, Whose prophet is Mohammed, in the
esteem of the fellaheen, but being a playful spring, almost
disappearing at one moment to gush out the next, artesian wells had
been made so that the oasis should not depend solely upon her caprices,
though, be it confessed, she had bubbled and laughed her way
contentedly through many years, and had even deigned to widen into a
diminutive lake, which lay between the principal dwelling-place, which
contained the sleeping apartments and living rooms of the master, and
the house which had been built on the same