V
Dawn was breaking over the desert. Steadily the triumphant rose
spread upward in the pale opalescent sky, and broad waves of light
rippled slowly over the wide level plain. The little keen breeze of
the morning, the herald of the dawn that runs ever in front of its
chariot, stirred the branches of the palm trees by the Nile, and
played a moment idly with the flap of a tent door before it passed
onward. Here, some two miles away from cool Assouan, lying out in
the desert, was the Bishareen encampment, and the last small tent
of the long line had its door open, and the flap of the awning
loose, with which the morning wind stopped to play.
Within, seated cross-legged on the scarlet rug and sheepskin which
formed their bed, were two girls braiding their hair before a tiny
square of glass, which each in turn held up for the other.
"How cold the morning is! How I hate to hear the wind shake the
door flaps," one said and shivered.
"Doolga, don't; you are holding the glass all crooked; I cannot see
myself. Why should you feel cold this morning of all others, when
Sheik Ilbrahim dar Awaz is coming to claim you?" returned the
other, and she laughed softly, with her slim fingers busy trying to
bind up and restrain her dusky cloud of hair.
How lovely she was, this young Bishareen, who had looked on the
yearly fall of the Nile but fifteen times--lovely as the tall
slender palm of the oasis, or the gold light on the river at
sunset.
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