RASHÎD'S REVENGE
We were staying with an English friend of mine--a parson, though the
least parsonical of men--who had a pleasant little house in a Druze
village of Mount Lebanon, and nothing to do but watch, and do his
utmost to restrain, the antics of a very wealthy and eccentric lady
missionary. He had gone away for a few weeks, leaving us in
possession, when another sort of clergyman arrived--a little man with
long white beard, sharp nose, and pale, seraphic eyes. He was, or
fancied that he was, on duty, inspecting missionary establishments in
those mountains. The master of the house had once invited him to stay
there if he passed that way. He seemed surprised to find us in
possession, and treated us as interlopers, though I was in fact his
host, regarding our small dwelling as a clergy house. His gaze
expressed an innocent surprise when I sat down to supper with him and
performed the honours on the night of his arrival. He gave his orders
boldly to my servant, and his demeanour plainly asked what business I
had there, though he would never listen to my explanation.
I took the whole adventure philosophically, but rage and indignation
took possession of Rashîd. And his indignation was increased by the
popularity of our insulter with the girls and teachers of the
mission-school hard by. Our guest was innocence itself, if silly and
conceited. But Rashîd watched all his movements, and could tell me
that the old 'hypocrite,' as he invariably called him, went to the
school each day and kissed the pupils, taking the pretty ones upon his
knee, and making foolish jokes, talking and giggling like an imbecile,
bestowing sweetmeats. With them--for the most sinful motives, as
Rashîd averred, and, I suppose, believed--he was all sugar; but when
he came back to the house he was as grumpy as could be. Rashîd would
have destroyed him at a nod from me one evening when he said:
'I think I must have left my glasses over at the school. Will you be
good enough to go and ask?'
'Now your Honour knows how we feel when we meet a man like that; and
there are many such among the Franks,' my servant whispered in my ear
as I went out obediently. 'By Allah, it is not to be endured!'
The parson occupied the only bedroom; and I slept out upon the balcony
on his account. Yet he complained of certain of my garments hanging in
his room, and flung them out. It was after that revolting episode,
when I was really angry for a moment, that Rashîd came to me and said:
'You hate this hypocrite; is it not so?'
'By Allah,' I replied, 'I hate him.'
He seemed relieved by the decision of my tone, and then informed me:
'I know a person who would kill him for the sake of thirty English
pounds.'
It became, of course, incumbent on me to explain that, with us
English, hatred is not absolute as with the children of the
Arabs--mine had already reached the laughing stage. He was evidently
disappointed, and answered with a weary sigh:
'May Allah rid us of this foul oppression!'
It was a bitter pill for him, whose whole endeavour was for my
aggrandisement, to see me treated like a menial by our guest; who,
one fine evening, had me summoned to his presence--I had been sitting
with some village elders in the olive grove behind the house--and made
to me a strange proposal, which Rashîd declared by Allah proved his
perfect infamy. His manner was for once quite amiable. Leaning back in
a deck-chair, his two hands with palms resting on his waistcoat, the
fingers raised communicating at the tips, he said, with clerical
complacency:
'It is my purpose to make a little tour to visit missionary ladies at
three several places in these mountains, and then to go on to Jezzîn
to see the waterfall. As you appear to know the country and the people
intimately, and can speak the language, it would be well if you came
too. The man Rashîd could wait upon us all.'
Rashîd, I knew, was listening at the door.
'Us all? How many of you are there, then?'
He hemmed a moment ere replying:
'I--er--think of taking the Miss Karams with me'--Miss Sara Karam, a
young lady of Syrian birth but English education, was head teacher at
the girls' school, and her younger sister, Miss Habîbah Karam, was
her constant visitor--'I thought you might take charge of the younger
of the two. The trip will give them both great pleasure, I am sure.'
And they were going to Jezzîn, where there was no hotel, and we should
have to herd together in the village guest-room! What would my Arab
friends, censorious in all such matters, think of that?
I told him plainly what I thought of the idea, and what the
mountain-folk would think of it and all of us. I told him that I had
no wish to ruin any woman's reputation, nor to be forced into unhappy
marriage by a public scandal. He, as a visitor, would go away again;
as an old man, and professionally holy, his good name could hardly
suffer among English people. But the girls would have to live among
the mountaineers, who, knowing of their escapade, would thenceforth
scorn them. And as for me----
'But I proposed a mere excursion,' he interpolated. 'I fail to see why
you should take this tone about it.'
'Well, I have told you what I think,' was my rejoinder. I then went
out and told the story to Rashîd, who heartily applauded my decision,
which he had already gathered.
I did not see our simple friend again till after breakfast the next
morning. Then he said to me, in something of a contrite tone:
'I have been thinking over what you said last night. I confess I had
not thought about the native gossip. I have decided to give up the
expedition to Jezzîn. And it has occurred to me that, as you are not
going, I could ride your horse. It would save the trouble and expense
of hiring one, if you would kindly lend it.'
Taken fairly by surprise, I answered: 'Certainly,' and then went out
and told Rashîd what I had done. He wrung his hands and bitterly
reproached me.
'But there is one good thing,' he said; 'Sheytân will kill him.'
In all the months that we had owned that horse Rashîd had never once
before alluded to him by the name which I had chosen. It was
ill-omened, he had often warned me. But nothing could be too
ill-omened for that hypocrite.
'I do not want to lend the horse at all,' I said. 'And I am pretty
sure he could not ride him. But what was I to say? He took me by
surprise.'
'In that case,' said Rashîd, 'all is not said. Our darling shall enjoy
his bath to-day.'
The washing of my horse--a coal-black Arab stallion, as playful as a
kitten and as mad--was in the nature of a public festival for all the
neighbours. Sheytân was led down to the spring, where all the
population gathered, the bravest throwing water over him with kerosene
tins, while he plunged and kicked and roused the mountain echoes with
his naughty screaming. On this occasion, for a finish, Rashîd let go
his hold upon the head-rope, the people fled in all directions, and
off went our Sheytân with tail erect, scrambling and careering up the
terraces, as nimble as a goat, to take the air before returning to his
stable.
Our reverend guest had watched the whole performance from our balcony,
which, from a height of some three hundred feet, looked down upon the
spring. I was up there behind him, but I said no word till he
exclaimed in pious horror:
'What a vicious brute! Dangerous--ought to be shot!' when I inquired
to what he was alluding.
'Whose is that savage beast?' he asked, with quite vindictive ire,
pointing to Sheytân, who was disporting on the terrace just below.
'Oh, that's my horse,' I answered, interested. 'He's really quite a
lamb.'
'Your horse! You don't mean that?'
He said no more just then, but went indoors, and then out to the
mission school to see the ladies.
That evening he informed me: 'I shall not require your horse. I had no
notion that it was so strong an animal when I suggested borrowing it.
Old Câsim at the school will hire one for me. I should be afraid lest
such a valuable horse as yours might come to grief while in my
charge.'
That was his way of putting it.
We watched the party start one early morning, the clergyman all
smiles, the ladies in a flutter, all three mounted on hired chargers
of the most dejected type, old Câsim from the school attending them
upon a jackass. Rashîd addressed the last-named as he passed our
house, applying a disgraceful epithet to his employment. The poor old
creature wept.
'God knows,' he said, 'I would not choose such service. But what am I
to do? A man must live. And I will save my lady's virtue if I can.'
'May Allah help thee!' said Rashîd. 'Take courage; I have robbed his
eyes.'
I had no notion of his meaning at the time when, sitting on the
balcony, I overheard this dialogue; but later in the day Rashîd
revealed to me two pairs of eyeglasses belonging to our guest. Without
these glasses, which were of especial power, the reverend man could
not see anything in detail.
'And these two pairs were all he had,' exclaimed Rashîd with triumph.
'He always used to put them on when looking amorously at the ladies.
The loss of them, please God, will spoil his pleasure.'