She was grave, and her eyes were big and bright. "Is it a hard choice?" I asked, well aware she was leading up to something, hardly daring to guess what it might be.
"It won't be hard or easy either, for I'll not make it. It's for you to say. For as long as you want me and can stay with me, I'm your woman. These Tuareg, the Sons of the Spear who followed my mother and now follow me, will take you where you wish to go and do what you desire. If we go west, in due course we'll come to the tents of the Tuareg. But I know you wouldn't stay longer than the second caravan making toward the Christian settlements, if indeed you don't join the first."
"How did you know that, Isabel Gazelle?"
"Because for many moons I've watched your face—when I could bear to look at it-and lately have lain all night in your arms. The Beni Kabir say you will foUow a great blood feud, but I doubt if it's business of the blood. It may be to go on a pilgrimage to-what can I say? It may be to cast some lie into its teller's teeth. It may be to raise a cairn of stones over the bones of your brethren whom you greatly loved."
"It's all three of those things, but especially the raising of a cairn of stones over the bones of my brethren whom I loved, for the peace of their souls wherever they may be, and the peace of my soul, and to vindicate my survival in the sight of God."
She swayed to me then, this beautiful young woman whose lineaments and form looked as though carved with a sword, this daughter of the merciless desert, and I felt her tender lips warming with the warmth of life and transfiguring with love my jagged face of stone.
Isabel Gazelle fed the fire and brought squares of camel cheese, a handful of dates, and a wooden bowl of fermented camel's milk. This was to tell me it would be a long time yet before we went to bed.
"Behind the little Christian settlements of the Rio de Oro, the Sultan's Mamelukes raid to catch slaves, and his ships rake the seas," Isabel told me.'"I never want you to hide again, or run. So what if we journeyed eastward to the tents of the Beni Kabir? It would be a fit thing for me to dwell among them until my husband's son becomes a man, and you could ride El Stedoro while I rode Farishti. But I might as well ask the moon to ride backward across the sky."
She spoke cheerfully, plainly having still another string for her bow. I was almost sure what was forthcoming, but life with Isabel Gazelle was one continuous adventure of surprise. . . .
"What if we went still further east?" I asked.
"After many days we would cross the Libyan desert and come to the Nile. Beyond lies the Atbara River and the lands of the Beni Amer, fiercest of the Beja. But my mother's cousin, Takuba, of whom I told you, has become a great chief among them; and he would be of help to you when you try to rob the lost tomb of the Pharaoh."
Now that she had come out with it, I felt belated wonder. I wished I had no more need for buried treasure than the Tuareg or the Beni Kabir. Isabel and I could live together on the desert until one of us died and dusky sons and daughters could live after us. Our sons would be great cameleers and horsemen and hunters; our daughters would be beautiful and proud.
"I've never mentioned robbing the Pharaoh's tomb," I remarked to Isabel.
"Your eyes did when I told you about it, your head on my lap."
"Now I'll tell you why I must have gold—much gold. Two tasks have been laid on me by my captain. Many years have passed since then, and the trail is cold. Without gold, I can't come close to the doers of the crime or enter the same doors or even speak to them, for would they hire one with a face like mine for a body servant? My fellow Jim and I are long forgotten and unknown and unarmed. Also, I'll need gold to build a cairn of stones in memory of my brothers."
"Much of that, too, I knew," Isabel answered. "Suliman told me you would need gold—he said it's king in Frankistan. I myself have seen how with trade goods bought with gold, the captains of the slave ships can buy whole villages of black men and women, sometimes whole tribes, and carry them away over the sea."
"Did Suliman think the tomb might contain gold?"
"Yes, for those tombs downriver, beside the Gezira desert, gave up gold—as much as a donkey-load in the times that men remember."
No doubt she meant the pillaged tombs along the Fourth Cataract which various travelers had described, insignificant compared to many in Lower Egypt. I had retained very little of this lore; but I did recall that dark-skinned savage conquerors from the Nubian deserts had more than once swooped down on the luxurious courts and sat the golden thrones like camel saddles. Might one of them be buried in Egyptian splendor on his own steppe?
"You told me the king of the Beni Amer had rock dumped on the tomb entrance to close it forever."
"Yes, so the demons wouldn't come out and kill the people." "Wouldn't we have to open it on the sly?" "I think we could hunt elephants, as though to get ivory." "Do you think the demons that guard the passage will kill me?" "I asked Suliman about that. He said he had never seen anyone killed by a demon. Perhaps you can find some kind of barraka to keep you safe." She paused, collected her thoughts, then went on in great earnestness. "There are many other dangers, but none in our own camp—you can be sure of that. If you brought forth gold to load ten donkeys, not one of the Tuareg would take a grain." "Now, that's a wonderful thing, and will you tell me why?" "To start with, they know very little about gold. They've never dealt with it or judged things by it, and the thought of it doesn't make their hearts beat fast. They count wealth in camels, horses, donkeys, and sheep. Besides this, I'll tell them a story they'll believe and love. It won't be true and yet it won't be wholly a lie. It will be, that a prophecy has been made, long ago, that you shall come to this tomb and seek for gold that was put there for you by certain gods; and that other gods are arrayed against you and will try to kill you, and your quest for it is like the great quests of old. With that in their hearts, they'll vie with one another to help you find it, and get it out, and bear it away. Remember they are sons of the desert—they love a tent more than a palace, one fleet she-camel more than a drove of plow beasts, a tale more than a feast, a verse more than a silver bangle, a dream more than a victory, the young moon with a star beside her better than a field of durra, and a princess they deem beautiful best of all. And aren't you her finder when she was lost in the Thirst-long her lover separated from her by the curtain of the sheik's tent-and at last her husband?" "Ah! Ah!" I murmured, trying not to break the spell of prophecy suddenly come upon her.
"We loved each other with great passion, yet I made marriage with the sheik," she went on in a beautiful soaring tone. "I would have given him my flower, not in begrudged due, but in joy and pride, for I'm a princess of the Tuareg, and I'd taken him for my husband; but that was not to be, for causes forever secret between him and me. And that did not keep him from being a husband to me in his heart and mind. And lo, he gave me of his wisdom, and of his truth, and of his greatness as much as I could bear."
Something was coming, and I did not know what it was. My neck pricked fiercely, tinglings ran up and down my spine and across my back, the air was sharp in my nostrils, the fire burned with strange, sharp crackhngs, the stars leaned down. I looked at Isabel Gazelle, and again she was Izubahil of the Tuareg, and beauty was upon her beyond my comprehension, and something more than beauty, something born of the desert or the night.
"When I went to dwell in his tent, I was a child, I knew the joy of living and loving, of work and play, of peril and sweet escape, but I knew no evil. I did not know that it dogs the soul of a man like his shadow follows his form. It was Suliman, my husband, who taught me to fight it tooth and nail, so it might not fasten upon me or upon anyone in my heart or in my charge."