THE RHINOCEROS WHIP
'Where is the whip?' Rashîd cried, suddenly, turning upon me in the
gateway of the khan where we had just arrived.
'Merciful Allah! It is not with me. I must have left it in the
carriage.'
Rashîd threw down the saddlebags, our customary luggage, which he had
been carrying, and started running for his life. The carriage had got
half-way down the narrow street half-roofed with awnings. At Rashîd's
fierce shout of 'Wait, O my uncle! We have left our whip!' the driver
turned and glanced behind him, but, instead of stopping, lashed his
horses to a gallop. Rashîd ran even faster than before. The chase,
receding rapidly, soon vanished from my sight. Twilight was coming on.
Above the low, flat roofs to westward, the crescent moon hung in the
green of sunset behind the minarets of the great mosque. I then took
up the saddle-bags and delicately picked my way through couchant
camels, tethered mules and horses in the courtyard to the khan itself,
which was a kind of cloister. I was making my arrangements with the
landlord, when Rashîd returned, the picture of despair. He flung up
both his hands, announcing failure, and then sank down upon the ground
and moaned. The host, a burly man, inquired what ailed him. I told
him, when he uttered just reflections upon cabmen and the vanity of
worldly wealth. Rashîd, as I could see, was 'zi'lân'--a prey to that
strange mixture of mad rage and sorrow and despair, which is a real
disease for children of the Arabs. An English servant would not thus
have cared about the loss of a small item of his master's property,
not by his fault but through that master's oversight. But my
possessions were Rashîd's delight, his claim to honour. He boasted of
them to all comers. In particular did he revere my gun, my Service
revolver, and this whip--a tough thong of rhinoceros hide, rather
nicely mounted with silver, which had been presented to me by an aged
Arab in return for some imagined favour. I had found it useful
against pariah dogs when these rushed out in packs to bite one's
horse's legs, but had never viewed it as a badge of honour till Rashîd
came to me. To him it was the best of our possessions, marking us as
of rank above the common. He thrust it on me even when I went out
walking; and he it was who, when we started from our mountain home at
noon that day, had laid it reverently down upon the seat beside me
before he climbed upon the box beside the driver. And now the whip was
lost through my neglectfulness. Rashîd's dejection made me feel a
worm.
'Allah! Allah!' he made moan, 'What can I do? The driver was a chance
encounter. I do not know his dwelling, which may God destroy!'
The host remarked in comfortable tones that flesh is grass, all
treasure perishable, and that it behoves a man to fix desire on higher
things. Whereat Rashîd sprang up, as one past patience, and departed,
darting through the cattle in the yard with almost supernatural
agility. 'Let him eat his rage alone!' the host advised me, with a
shrug.
Having ordered supper for the third hour of the night, I, too, went
out to stretch my limbs, which were stiff and bruised from four
hours' jolting in a springless carriage, always on the point of
overturning. We should have done better to have come on horseback in
the usual way; but Rashîd, having chanced upon the carriage, a great
rarity, had decided on that way of going as more fashionable,
forgetful of the fact that there was not a road.
The stars were out. In the few shops which still kept open lanterns
hung, throwing streaks of yellow light on the uneven causeway, a gleam
into the eyes of wayfarers and prowling dogs. Many of the people in
the streets, too, carried lanterns whose swing made objects in their
circle seem to leap and fall. I came at length into an open place
where there was concourse--a kind of square which might be called the
centre of the city.
The crowd there, as I noticed with surprise, was stationary, with all
its faces turned in one direction. I heard a man's voice weeping and
declaiming wildly.
'What is it?' I inquired, among the outskirts.
'A great misfortune!' someone answered. 'A poor servant has lost a
whip worth fifty Turkish pounds, his master's property. It was stolen
from him by a miscreant--a wicked cabman. His lord will kill him if
he fails to find it.'
Seized with interest, I shouldered my way forward. There was Rashîd
against the wall of a large mosque, beating himself against that wall
with a most fearful outcry. A group of high-fezzed soldiers, the
policemen of the city, hung round him in compassion, questioning.
Happily, I wore a fez, and so was inconspicuous.
'Fifty Turkish pounds!' he yelled. 'A hundred would not buy its
brother! My master, the tremendous Count of all the English--their
chief prince, by Allah!--loves it as his soul. He will pluck out and
devour my heart and liver. O High Protector! O Almighty Lord!'
'What like was this said cabman?' asked a sergeant of the watch.
Rashîd, with sobs and many pious interjections, described the cabman
rather neatly as 'a one-eyed man, full-bearded, of a form as if
inflated in the lower half. His name, he told me, was Habîb; but Allah
knows!'
'The man is known!' exclaimed the sergeant, eagerly. 'His dwelling is
close by. Come, O thou poor, ill-used one. We will take the whip from
him.'
At that Rashîd's grief ceased as if by magic. He took the sergeant's
hand and fondled it, as they went off together. I followed with the
crowd as far as to the cabman's door, a filthy entry in a narrow lane,
where, wishing to avoid discovery, I broke away and walked back
quickly to the khan.
I had been there in my private alcove some few minutes, when Rashîd
arrived with a triumphant air, holding on high the famous whip. The
sergeant came across the court with him. A score of soldiers waited in
the gateway as I could see by the light of the great lantern hanging
from the arch.
'Praise be to Allah, I have found it!' cried Rashîd.
'Praise be to Allah, we have been enabled to do a little service for
your Highness,' cried the sergeant. Therewith he pounced upon my hand
and kissed it. I made them both sit down and called for coffee.
Between the two of them, I heard the story. The sergeant praised
Rashîd's intelligence in going out and crying in a public place until
the city and its whole police force had a share in his distress.
Rashîd, on his side, said that all that would have been in vain but
for the sergeant's knowledge of the cabman's house. The sergeant, with
a chuckle, owned that that same knowledge would have been of no effect
had not Rashîd once more displayed his keen intelligence. They had
poured into the house--a single room, illumined only by a saucer lamp
upon the ground--and searched it thoroughly, the cabman all the while
protesting his great innocence, and swearing he had never in this
world beheld a whip like that described. The soldiers, finding no
whip, were beginning to believe his word when Rashîd, who had remained
aloof, observing that the cabman's wife stood very still beneath her
veils, assailed her with a mighty push, which sent her staggering
across the room. The whip was then discovered. It had been hidden
underneath her petticoats. They had given the delinquent a good
beating then and there. Would that be punishment enough in my opinion?
asked the sergeant.
We decided that the beating was enough. I gave the sergeant a small
present when he left. Rashîd went with him, after carefully
concealing the now famous whip. I suppose they went off to some tavern
to discuss the wonderful adventure more at length; for I supped alone,
and had been some time stretched upon my mattress on the floor before
Rashîd came in and spread his bed beside me.
'Art thou awake, O my dear lord?' he whispered. 'By Allah, thou didst
wrong to give that sergeant any money. I had made thy name so great
that but to look on thee was fee sufficient for a poor, lean dog like
him.'
He then was silent for so long a while that I imagined he had gone to
sleep. But, suddenly, he whispered once again:
'O my dear lord, forgive me the disturbance, but hast thou our
revolver safe?'
'By Allah, yes! Here, ready to my hand.'
'Good. But it would be better for the future that I should bear our
whip and our revolver. I have made thy name so great that thou
shouldst carry nothing.'