Then I knew that in bringing her into my life, fate that had always dealt greatly with me, whether for woe or weal, had, after many a winter, moved nobly in my behalf.
While Izubahil ate—not turning from our gaze as would a Bedouin girl—I had a chance to contemplate her half-ripe beauty and to dwell on her in reverie. The moon was still high, and its vast, copious downpour on the desert, like solid silver rain, invoked a mood of mystery and wonder. Without high lights or glare, the light was like the north light that painters love, marvelously softened.
Kerry, an Orientalist, had told me long ago that the Tuareg are one of the purest of the Berber strains, their ancestral whiteness darkened by the sun. They had adopted a mild version of the Arab's religion, but had not mixed their blood, and there were subtle but telling differences between Izubahil and our Bedouin belles. Beauty was no stranger to the daughters of Kabir, but this was richer and more voluptuous. The lips were more full; the eyes, larger and softer, if not as brilliant; the expression conveyed by the countenance in repose, more happy. Izubahil was lighter of skin than Timor, among the most pale-colored in the tribe; but its tints and not its degree of pallor would determine its beauty.
Indeed, I did not think she would be beautiful if her skin were white and her hair golden: the primitive molding of her face needed the pale dusk of the desert where she dwelt and of which she was a part. She was a princess who had never seen a palace. Her hall was a tent or a thorn-enclosed camp under the sky, her wardrobe a bale on a camel's back; she might have owned great herds of camels before her banishment, but her jewels were some silver ornaments and harness trappings. Yet her pedigree might be longer and far more reliable than any in Europe. If an English colonial officer would not admit her to his stuffy parlor—if an American missionary would see her only as a benighted soul to be saved—still I dreamed that a great traveler, a poet, or even a prince of the Valois would instantly perceive her royalty. Perhaps it was far more real than most so-called, since it was not based on trappings and needed none.
The chill of the night caused Timor to gather faggots of camel thorn. I lighted them with my flint-and-tinder; the girl spread her long, shapely hands to the flame. I saw now that her skin was light brown with pale red tints. Her eyes appeared dark blue, her hair raven black. Her developing beauty lay in a symmetry of face and form, more Egyptian than Grecian, but of classic purity. She was already as tall as our tallest Bedouin women, who, like most of our mares, stood fifteen hands; when Izubahil shot up to her full height, she could stand with El Shermoot at sixteen hands. The joining of her long bare arms with her glossy shoulders told me she was clean-limbed as a gazelle.
"Although I am a slave, my having found you on the desert gives me a claim upon you until I deliver you to our sheik," I told her lightly. "Is it not so?"
"It would take ten judges, each as wise as Daniel, to decide the matter, still it may be so," she replied with surprising sprightliness. The Tuareg women were famous for their love of jest.
"If a slave may not address a princess by her first name, surely the finder may dub his foundling what he sees fit. In my native tongue, the name Izubahil becomes Isabel. Also, your eyes and your young limbs are like those of a ghazal, which word in my speech is gazelle. So I will call you Isabel Gazelle."
"Iss-a-bel Gah-zaille?"
"Yes. I think it fits you well."
"My mother had a pet ghazal—gah-zell—when she bore me in her womb. Do you think it marked me?"
"It could be so."
"I accept the name. And what will I call you, my lord?"
"Omar."
"And the venerable freeman who followed you?"
"Timor."
"Now is it your will that we ride? If we do not, I will fall asleep."
"You can ride and sleep, too, Isabel Gazelle."
"I pray you not to put any bonds upon me to hold me in the saddle. I swear I will stay awake and not fall."
Timor fastened the dead gelding's silver shoes, saddle, and bridle on his croup. The ivory neck shafts that Isabel called Withholders from Wayside Desire he broke in his strong hands. I set her on the neck of my spare mare, mounted behind her, then laid her across my lap.
"I entreated you not to put any bonds on me," she murmured as we started the long trail back.
"Have I done so?"
"What are these?" She touched my arms, her eyes brimming with moonlight in spite of the sleepy curl of her full lips. "Since I am yet young, no doubt they will wear off before I must go to my husband's tent, but I cannot run with my namesake, the gah-zell."
The daughters of the Bedouin and no doubt the Tuareg learn flirtation when very young. Yet I doubted if this remarkable utterance could be called that. She had been giving me quick, furtive glances, no doubt trying to get used to my appearance; and although she had decided to trust me—what other choice did she have?—plainly she found it ugly and most strange. More likely she had performed a courtesy according to the highly conventionalized etiquette of Tuareg belles. A great many gifted but primitive peoples pride themselves on their fluency in the language of love.
"You will run soon enough and too far from me, Isabel Gazelle," I answered.
She gave me a wide smile, wriggled until she was comfortable, then fell instantly asleep.
We trotted the horses for the first hour, but I was so yielding to the jerky motion that my little passenger slept well. When I changed to my gelding, she barely roused, and in spite of the loss and ordeal she had suffered, I thought that the safety that she felt in my arms saved her from evil dreams. My own waking dreams were manifold and strange. Again and again I had the illusion of being under Isabel's protection instead of her being under mine, and when I dispelled it as a nodding man dispels sleep, still the air was sharp in my nostrils and pain zigzagged across my forehead and my body seemed without weight, as in that strange moment when I promised to take the name of Holgar Blackburn and make a good showing for him in Tavistock; and I believed that the spirit of prophecy was upon me—as it has come upon so many dwellers of the desert—and if I would open my mouth and speak, truth would come forth. Perhaps I was afraid to do so. As a morning or a night may be beautiful, so can an hour. It was not perfect, but it was lovely. I did not ask it to stop flowing and stand still; I was being borne down its stream on a voyage of discovery.
The lovely, warm relaxed body across my breast and in the hollow of my arm wrought upon me after a while, arousing a great passion, but it brought no pain or the least temptation to despoil her now. I did not yearn to relieve it, and instead would store it for some enchanted hour to come, for my gift to her, a gift fit for a desert princess, and which such as she could prize.
I was brought back to myself by Isabel's stirring and waking. Her eyes opened, she looked at me without surprise, glanced to the eastern horizon, and said one startling word.
It was orora and I could not doubt it was the Tamashek word for the breaking dawn. Since it was inseparable from aurora, I mused for a moment on some ancient tie between the wild, nomadic Tuareg and Eternal Rome. Yet it was not as strange as the tie between a Tuareg princess and a former Yankee sailor now a slave. I would not be content with those cold and distant thrills. I would not wait patiently for what might come to pass. If I could, I would force fate's hand...