THE HANGING DOG
Our English host possessed a spaniel bitch, which, being well-bred
gave him much anxiety. The fear of mésalliances was ever in his mind,
and furiously would he drive away the village pariahs when they came
slinking round the house, with lolling tongues. One brown and white
dog, larger than the others and with bristling hair, was a particular
aversion, the thought of which deprived him of his sleep of nights;
and not the thought alone, for that persistent suitor--more like a
bear than any dog I ever saw--made a great noise around us in the
darkness, whining, howling, and even scrabbling at the stable door. At
length, in desperation, he resolved to kill him.
One night, when all the village was asleep, we lay out on the balcony
with guns and waited. After a while the shadow of a dog slinking among
the olive trees was seen. We fired. The village and the mountains
echoed; fowls clucked, dogs barked; we even fancied that we heard the
cries of men. We expected the whole commune to rise up against us; but
after a short time of waiting all was still again.
Rashîd, out in the shadows, whispered: 'He is nice and fat,' as if he
thought that we were going to eat the dog.
'And is he dead?' I asked.
'Completely dead,' was the reply.
'Then get a cord and hang him to the balcony,' said my companion. 'His
odour will perhaps attract the foxes.'
Another minute and the corpse was hanging from the balcony, while we
lay out and waited, talking in low tones.
The bark of foxes came from vineyards near at hand, where there were
unripe grapes. 'Our vines have tender grapes,' our host repeated;
making me think of the fable of the fox and the grapes, which I
related to Rashîd in Arabic as best I could. He laughed as he
exclaimed:
'Ripe grapes, thou sayest? Our foxes do not love ripe grapes and
seldom steal them. I assure you, it was sour grapes that the villain
wanted, and never did they seem so exquisitely sour as when he found
out that he could not reach them. How his poor mouth watered!'
This was new light upon an ancient theme for us, his hearers.
After an hour or two of idle waiting, when no foxes came, we went to
bed, forgetting all about the hanging dog.
The house was close beside a carriage road which leads down from the
chief town of the mountains to the city, passing many villages. As it
was summer, when the wealthy citizens sleep in the mountain villages
for coolness' sake, from the dawn onward there was a downward stream
of carriages along that road. When the daylight became strong enough
for men to see distinctly, the sight of a great brown and white dog
hanging from our balcony, and slowly turning, struck terror in the
breasts of passers-by. Was it a sign of war, or some enchantment?
Carriage after carriage stopped, while its inhabitants attempted to
explore the mystery. But there was nobody about to answer questions.
My host and I, Rashîd as well, were fast asleep indoors. Inquirers
looked around them on the ground, and then up at the shuttered house
and then at the surrounding olive trees, in one of which they finally
espied a nest of bedding on which reclined a blue-robed man asleep. It
was the cook, Amîn, who slept there for fresh air. The firing of the
night before had not disturbed him.
By dint of throwing stones they woke him up, and he descended from his
tree and stood before them, knuckling his eyes, which were still full
of sleep.
They asked: 'What means this portent of the hanging dog?'
He stared incredulously at the object of their wonder, then exclaimed:
'Some enemy has done it, to insult me, while I slept. No matter, I
will be avenged before the day is out.'
The tidings of the mystery ran through the village, and every
able-bodied person came to view it, and express opinions.
'The dog is well known. He is called Barûd; he was the finest in our
village. He used to guard the dwelling of Sheykh Ali till he
transferred his pleasure to the house of Sheykh Selîm. It was a sin
to kill him,' was the general verdict. And Amîn confirmed it, saying:
'Aye, a filthy sin. But I will be avenged before the day is out.'
At last Rashîd, awakened by the noise of talking, came out of the
stable where he always slept, and with a laugh explained the whole
occurrence. Some of the villagers were greatly shocked, and blamed us
strongly. But Rashîd stood up for us, declaring that the dog belonged
in truth to no man, so that no man living had the right to blame his
murderer; whereas the valuable sporting bitch of the Casîs (our host)
was all his own, and it was his duty therefore to defend her from
improper lovers. He then cut down the body of the dog, which no one up
till then had dared to do; and all the people gradually went away.
The coast was clear when we arose towards eight o'clock. Rashîd, with
laughter, told the tale to us at breakfast. We had been silly, we
agreed, to leave the hanging dog; and there, as we supposed, the
matter ended.
But hardly had we finished breakfast when a knock came at the open
door, and we beheld a tall and dignified fellâh depositing his staff
against the doorpost and shuffling off his slippers at the call to
enter.
He said the murdered dog was his, and dear to him as his own eyes, his
wife and children. He was the finest dog in all the village, of so
rare a breed that no one in the world had seen a dog just like him. He
had been of use to guard the house, and for all kinds of work. The
fellâh declared his worth to be five Turkish pounds, which we must pay
immediately unless we wished our crime to be reported to the
Government.
With as nonchalant an air as I could muster, I offered him a
beshlik--fourpence halfpenny. He thereupon became abusive and
withdrew--in the end, hurriedly, because Rashîd approached him in a
hostile manner.
He had not been gone ten minutes when another peasant came, asserting
that the dog was really his, and he had been on the point of regaining
his possession by arbitration of the neighbours when we shot the
animal. He thus considered himself doubly injured--in his expectations
and his property. He came to ask us instantly to pay an English
pound, or he would lay the case before the Turkish governor, with
whom, he could assure us, he had favour.
I offered him the beshlik, and he also stalked off in a rage.
We were still discussing these encounters with Rashîd when there
arrived a vastly more imposing personage--no other than the headman of
the village, the correct Sheykh Mustafa, who had heard, he said, of
the infamous attempts which had been made to levy blackmail on us, and
came now in all haste to tell us of the indignation and disgust which
such dishonesty towards foreigners aroused in him. He could assure us
that the dog was really his; and he was glad that we had shot the
creature, since to shoot it gave us pleasure. His one desire was that
we should enjoy ourselves. Since our delight was in the slaughter of
domestic animals, he proposed to bring his mare--of the best blood of
the desert--round for us to shoot.
We felt exceedingly ashamed, and muttered what we could by way of an
apology. But the sheykh would not accept it from us. Gravely smiling,
and stroking his grey beard, he said: 'Nay, do what pleases you. God
knows, your pleasure is a law to us. Nay, speak the word, and almost
(God forgive me!) I would bring my little son for you to shoot. So
unlimited is my regard for men so much above the common rules of this
our county, and who are protected in their every fancy by the Powers
of Europe.'
His flattery dejected us for many days.