When they had gone, Jim gave me his slow, heart-warming smile.
"Cap'n, I've had mighty lively times with 'em Tuareg mens, and I reckon I'll spend the night amongst 'em, talking it over."
"If you like."
"When de mom start coming up across de bay, I'll sing out."
"Aye, aye."
"Isabel Gazelle, I might not see you no mo'. I'm mighty thankful for all you done for Cap'n and me, and for de love you gave him in his loneliness, and I'll pray de Lawd for you to be happy when us gone."
"I'll pray to Messiner to take good care of you." Her throat was suddenly full.
I led Isabel back to her seat before the fire. After a moment or two I asked, "Why did the Tuareg leave the camp tonight?"
"Do you remember the night we left camp, intending to spend it on the Stairway of the Jinns?"
"Yes."
"We didn't do so, because it came about for me to marry Suliman. I told the Tuareg of it, and of how we were parted. Tomorrow we'll again be parted, forever. The wheel of our fates had made another complete turn, and they thought that the night of solitude we lost should be restored to us before you went away."
"Did they tell you so?"
"No, but I, too, am Tuareg. Besides this, they thought that if I must weep aloud, it would come easier if they weren't here."
"I wish I could pay my debt to the Tuareg."
"You have paid it, in full, by leaving me with child. They had great admiration for you before they met you—I'd told them enough that they considered you a true chief—and it's greatly increased since Tembu tried your horsemanship and Tui your strength. They think that if I bring forth a boy, he'll have great strength and become a great rider. That, with his courage, which is as much a part of every Tuareg as his flesh and bone, will fit him to become a chief of the Sons of the Spear. If I bring forth a girl, they think your fearful visage will cause her to turn toward beauty as a flower to the sun, and she'll become greatly beautiful, to bring joy to our whole clan. And although they'll miss you and mourn you more than you know, they think the prospect of these things coming true is much better if the baby begins life as a Tuareg, and knows no other life, and isn't touched by the ways of the farengi."
"Now that's a strange thing, but I don't deny it's a true thing."
"In what way is it strange, Omar?"
"There are those in Frankistan who would condemn me past forgiveness for leaving my woman with a child I'll never see, to be brought up as a desert nomad."
"Such folk are blind or mad. It's not the babe who needs care—it's you. Beside the pain of parting from you, I can hardly bear to have you go back to your cruel world now that you're no longer young. The life of the Tuareg is a life of peril, but no matter how few his days, those days have been full. He has journeyed far and ridden hard and hunted and fought and loved women and seen the desert in the moonlight as well as in the dust storm, and known the beauty of poems and of stars. Our daughters are freeborn and can't become chattels to any man's hate. So think of him with joy. If he's dead, he'll have laughed much, and been well-loved, and won many victories before he died. If he's alive, he'll be growing tall and strong, brave and proud, a rider and warrior and hunter and a lover of our maidens, or if she is alive, she'll be growing tall and strong and beautiful, worthy to mate with and to mother a rider and warrior and hunter. We trace through the distaff. So do not doubt your babe will be a Son or Daughter of the Spear!"
"I'll never doubt it, Isabel Gazelle."
"But how can I think of you except with terror and pity, as you dwell in the great city shadowed with hate and fear? So I'll tell you my farewell wish. Gratify it if you can, for the sake of the love we bore each other, and will bear each other to the last. When you've built the great cairn of stones over those you loved who were lost— when you've done what you must do, according to the bond—go back to the life you lived when you were young and which you so greatly loved. Sail the tall ships. Do battle with the sea and make him serve you. Ride the horse-of-tree."
"I'll do it if I can. It will be my heart's desire. Have you any other heart's desire to tell me? The hour grows late, and I want you in my arms."
"I want you in my arms, my beloved. Although I'D wed again, some youth with light in his eyes and laughter in his mouth, my arms will yearn for you still. Yes, I have a heart's desire I've not yet told you, but its fulfillment will be on the lap of fate. I want you to marry some woman of Frankistan who'll remind you of me."
"There must be one, and when the time comes, I'll try to find her."
Then we went into our tent and left the door open to the moonlight. Once more I knew the fullness of her beauty and the victory of her love in the reuniting of her flesh with mine, and then the strange dream of love and the vision of immortality that it wakes as I gazed into her face as she lay in childlike slumber in my arms. Sometimes I drowsed, but mainly I kept vigil over her while the moon sailed westward down the sky. Long after midnight I fell into deep sleep, and it seemed that I was sinking into death when Isabel wakened me with a long kiss. The joy it gave me flowed through me in a great, sunlit wave, and it did not die away because the dawn had not cracked, and we could have each other one more hour.
It seemed an hour out of the world. At its end I knew that our so-brief mating, to be followed now by forever parting, was not a defeat but a victory to enrich our stay on earth, the price of which was heartbreak. When I had heard Jim call, and a few minutes later he asked me a question, low-toned, standing beside the ashes of our fire in the chill dawn with his eyes on mine, I knew the answer.
"Cap'n Whitman, is it needful 'at we go?"
"Aye, it is, James Porter."
I returned to Isabel, who stood in the doorway of the tent, and once more the jagged flint of my face was aglow with her beauty, redeemed by her kisses, and wet with her tears. She was still standing there as Jim and I started down into the town, and as I touched my hand to head and heart, she replied with the same gesture. On the dock Jim and I shook hands before we went aboard, and just before sunrise, the two white-bearded captains ordered the hoisting of the lateen sails. As the dhows moved out from the dock, jerkily and yet uncertain of their bright-red wings, but slowly gaining headway, the sun heaved up and glimmered on the bay.
It cast a reflected glow in the west. Against that glow 1 made out the shape of a sand dune, alone in that part of the coast, and on its top a minute figure. I could not doubt that it was Isabel, if only by the tallness and straightness of her posture. Standing on the deckhouse, I waved my arm.
It came to me that she waved in reply. Long after distance hid her from my sight, I was sure she watched our bright-red sail on the blue sea. But at last it also dimmed, grew small, and began to drop below the horizon. With her eyes I saw it fade. It was as though I had died.
Instead of death, Isabel, you brought me life and freedom. Now there comes upon me a greater strength of will and purpose than I ever had before, and I buckle on the sword that you gave me, the strange, strong sword of gold. If you could know its wielding in the days to come, you would not be ashamed of me. I will not flinch from its use in behalf of those I loved, or in fear of my foes.
I will be true to you, Isabel Gazelle. In memory of you, I will be a captain worthy of the name.
BOOK FOUR
THE SWORD OF GOLD
CHAPTER 23
King's Country
Winds blew, sails filled, heathen stems cut the water much like Christian stems. Hardly nine weeks after our departure from Suakin, the two dhows rounded the Cape of Good Hope into view of Cape Town. I went below to don some of the garments I had bought at the moribund Portuguese settlement at Sufala. I had not tried them on until now, and to my amazement I had forgotten how to put on a shirt, tie a lace, or fasten a button. When I had finished the labor, we were putting into port. My heart stood still at the sight of a church like those of the old Dutch settlements on Long Island Sound and at what looked like a village green.