The Gabriel Hounds Read Online Free PDF

city lights spoiled the deep velvet of that sky; even hanging as it was above the glittering and crowded richness of the Damascus oasis, it spoke of the desert and the vast empty silences beyond the last palm tree. The courtyard itself was quiet. The far murmur of city traffic, no louder than the humming in a shell, made a background to this still quiet, where the only sound was the trickle of the fountain. The well in the desert … A fish moved below the surface, and the flick of gold, caught by the lamp, seemed to underscore the beauty of the living water. One could almost hear the fish moving. A bird settled itself crooningly to sleep above the arcade in a rustle of leaves.
    ‘A turtle dove, do you hear it?’ Charles’s voice, quiet as it was, made me jump. ‘The poets say she calls all the time for her lover – “
Yusuf, Yusuf
”, till her voice breaks in a sob. I’ll ring you Saturday evening then, at the Phoenicia, to tell you when I’m coming.’
    ‘I’ll be waiting. I only hope that after all this we getour Arabian Nights’ Entertainment at Dar Ibrahim. Oh,
you
probably will, fascinating creature that you are, but is there the faintest reason why she should want to see me?’
    ‘She’ll be delighted to see you,’ said my cousin generously. ‘Damn it, I was even quite pleased to see you myself.’
    ‘You must be slipping, paying me compliments like that,’ I said, preceding him to the doorway.

2
    Adonis
    Who lives away in Lebanon,
    In stony Lebanon, where blooms
    His red anemone.
    James Elroy Flecker:
Santorin
    I SUPPOSE I had assumed Charles to be exaggerating the Dar Ibrahim ‘legend’, but it seemed he was right. I found it quite easy to get news of my eccentric relative in Beirut, In fact, even had I never heard of her, she would have been brought to my notice.
    It happened on Saturday, the day the group left for London, and I moved myself to the Phoenicia Hotel to plan my brief independence and wait for Charles. On what was left of the Saturday I wanted to get my hair done and do some shopping; then on Sunday I planned to hire a car and driver to take me exploring up into the Lebanon range to the source of the Adonis River.
    It was when I approached the desk clerk in the hotel, to ask him to lay on a chauffeur-driven car for this trip, that I came across my great-aunt.
    The clerk entered into my plans with enthusiasm,almost managing to conceal his private thoughts about the inexplicable whims of tourists. If a young woman was eager to incur the expense of a car and driver to go up and look at a few dirty villages and a waterfall, then of course he would help her … and (I could see the expert assessment of my clothes, my room number, and my probable bill) the more expensive the car the better.
    ‘And I understand,’ I added, ‘that right up at the Adonis Source there’s the ruins of an old Roman temple, and another smaller one not too far away, that I might visit.’
    ‘Yes?’ said the clerk, then hurriedly changing his intonation: ‘Yes, of course, temples.’ He wrote something, passing the buck with some relief. ‘I will tell the driver to include them in the itinerary.’
    ‘Please do. What do we do about lunch?’
    Now this, it seemed, was talking. He brightened immediately. There was the famous summer hotel – I had heard of it, no doubt? – where I could get an excellent meal, and with music. Oh, yes, there was music in every room, continuous music, taped round the clock, in case the mountain silence got you down. And a swimming-pool. And tennis. ‘And then, of course, if you make a slight detour on your way back you’ll be able to see Dar Ibrahim.’
    He misunderstood the surprise on my face, and explained quickly: ‘You have not heard of this? Oh, Dar Ibrahim’s a palace where an English lady lives, a very old lady who used to be famous, and she bought this palace when it was falling into ruin and filled it withbeautiful things and planted the gardens again, and in the