Hamza's shadowy figure crossed a little bridge of palm-wood that spanned the runlet of water, turned and came over the waste ground noiselessly into the camp. He was walking with naked feet. He came to the men's tent, where, in a row, with their faces towards the tent door, the camels were lying, eating barley that had been spread out for them on bits of sacking. When he reached it he stood still. He was shrouded in a black abâyeh.
"Hamza!"
Mrs. Armine had called to him softly from the tent-door.
"Hamza!"
He flitted across the open space that divided the tents, and stood beside her.
She had never had any conversation with Hamza. She had never heard him say any English word yet but "yes." But to-night she had an uneasy longing to get upon terms with him. For he was Baroudi's emissary in the camp of the Fayyum.
"Are you glad to be in my service, Hamza?" she said. "Are you glad to come with us to the Fayyum?"
"Yes," he said.
She hesitated. There was always something in his appearance, in his manner, which seemed to fend her off from him. She always felt as if with his mind and soul he was pushing her away. At last she said: "Do you like me, Hamza?"
"Yes," he replied.
"You have been to Mecca, haven't you, with Mahmoud Baroudi?"
"Yes."
He muttered the word this time. His hands had been hanging at his sides, concealed in his loose sleeves, but now they were moved, and one went quickly up to his breast, and stayed there.
"What are you doing?" Mrs. Armine said, with a sudden sharpness; and, moved by an impulse she could not have explained, she seized the hand at his heart, and pulled it towards her. By the light of the young moon she saw that it was grasping tightly a sort of tassel made of cowries which hung round his neck by a string. He covered the shells with his fingers, and showed his teeth. She let his hand go.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered.
She turned and went into the tent, and he flitted away like a shadow.
That night, when Nigel came in from Sennoures, she said to him: "What is the meaning of those tassels made of shells that Egyptians sometimes wear round their necks?"
"What sort of shells?" he asked.
"Cowries."
"Cowries--oh, they're supposed to be a charm against the evil eye and bad spirits. Where have you seen one?"
"On a donkey-boy up the Nile, at Luxor."
She changed the conversation.
They were sitting at dinner on either side of a folding table that rested on iron legs. Beneath their feet was a gaudy carpet, very thick and of a woolly texture, and so large that it completely concealed the hard earth within the circle of the canvas, which had a lining of deep red, covered with an elaborate pattern in black, white, yellow, blue, and green. The tent was lit up by an oil-lamp, round which several night moths revolved, occasionally striking against the globe of glass. The tent-door was open, and just outside stood Ibrahim, with his head and face wrapped up in a shawl with flowing fringes, to see that the native waiter did his duty properly. Through the opening came the faint sound of running water and the distant noise of the persistent barking of dogs. The opulent smell of the rich and humid land penetrated into the tent and mingled with the smell from the dishes.