Chapter 22

Fortunately, Runyon knew what to do in that hour of earth's desolation and his own and Sylvia's peril.

He sprang from his horse and drew his bridle-rein over his arm; and then he laid a firm hand on the bridle of Sylvia's horse. His own animal he could trust in such an emergency; but the other had seemed to lose in height and he knew that it was trembling. It might make a bolt for it at any moment.

"Keep your seat," he shouted to Sylvia, and she realized that he was leading both horses away from the road. She caught glimpses of his wraith-like figure as the whirling dust-cloud that enveloped them thinned occasionally.

She knew that he had found a clump of mesquite after a faltering progress of perhaps fifty yards. Their progress was checked, then, and she knew he was at the hitching straps, and that he was tethering the animals to the trees. The powdered dust and sand were stinging her face, and the cold wind was chilling her; yet she felt a strange elation as she realized that she was here alone with Runyon, and that he was managing the situation with deftness and assurance.

She felt his hand groping for her then, and, leaning forward, she was borne to the ground. He guided her to a little depression and made her understand that she was to sit down. He had removed his saddle-blanket and spread it on the earth, forming a rug for her. "The _rebozo_?" he cried in her ear.

"It's fastened to the pommel," she called back.

She could neither see nor hear him; but soon he was touching her on the shoulders. The _rebozo_ was flung out on the wind so that it unfolded, and he was spreading it about her.

She caught his hand and drew him close so that she could make herself heard. "There's room under it for two," she said. She did not release his hand until he had sat down by her. Together they drew the _rebozo_ about them like a little tent.

Immediately they were transformed into two sheltered and undismayed Arabs. The _rebozo_ was pinioned behind them and under their feet. The finest dust could not penetrate its warp and woof. The wind was as a mighty hand, intent upon bearing them to earth, but it could not harm them.

Sylvia heard Runyon's musical laugh. He bent his head close to hers. "We're all right now," he said.

He had his arm across her shoulder and was drawing her close. "It's going to be cold," he said, as if in explanation. He seemed as joyous as a boy--as innocent as a boy. She inclined her head until it rested on his shoulder, so that both occupied little more than the space of one. The storm made this intimacy seem almost natural; it made it advantageous, too.

And so the infinite sands swarmed over them, and the norther shrieked in their ears, and the earth's blackness swallowed them up until they seemed alone as a man and a woman never had been alone before.

The _rebozo_ sagged about them at intervals, weighted down with the dust; but again it rippled like a sail when an eccentric gust swept away the accumulated sediment.

The desert was a thing of blank darkness. A protected torch would have been invisible to one staring toward it a dozen steps away. A temporary death had invaded the world. There was neither movement nor sound save the frenzied dance of dust and the whistle of winds which seemed shunted southward from the north star.

Runyon's hand travelled soothingly from Sylvia's shoulder to her cheek. He held her to him with a tender, eloquent pressure. He was the man, whose duty it was to protect; and she was the woman, in need of protection.

And Sylvia thought darkly of the ingenuities of Destiny which set at naught the petty steps which the proprieties have taken--as if the gods were never so diverted as when they were setting the stage for tragedy, or as if the struggles and defeats of all humankind were to them but a proper comedy.

But Runyon was thinking how rare a thing it is for a man and a woman to be quite alone in the world; how the walls of houses listen, and windows are as eyes which look in as well as out; how highways forever hold their malicious gossips to note the movements of every pair who do not walk sedately; how you may mount the stairway of a strange house--and encounter one who knows you at the top, and who laughs in his sleeve; how you may emerge from the house in which you have felt safe from espionage--only to encounter a familiar talebearer at the door.

But here indeed were he and Sylvia alone.