They met. In the midst of threescore goats whose feet had made the
yellow cloud of dust was a man, tall, gaunt, dressed in the garb of the
desert, and burned by the sun as black as a Soudanese.
"Ah, my son," he cried, in French, when he was within distance, "you
travel light this time. Whom have you with you, another mistress, or,
at last, a wife?"
"Hush," said Abdullah, "she is a little damsel who has ridden twelve
leagues and is cruel tired."
"God help her," said the man of the goats; "shall I give her some warm
milk--there is plenty?"
"No," said Abdullah; "let us go to thy house," and the goats, at the
whistle of their master, turned, and followed the camels under the
palms of the oasis of Zama.
They halted before a little hut, and Abdullah held up his hand. The
camels stopped and kneeled. The girl did not move. Abdullah ran to her,
took her in his arms, lifted her, turned, entered the hut, passed to
the inner room, laid her upon a low couch, beneath the window, put away
her veil, kissed her hand, not her lips, and came out.
In the outer room he found his host. Upon the table were some small
cheeses, a loaf of bread, a gourd of milk. Abdullah fell upon the food.
"Well, my son," said his host, after Abdullah began to pick and choose,
"what brings you to me?"
"This," said Abdullah, and he felt in his bosom, and drew out the
invoice of his passenger.
His host took from a book upon the table a pair of steel-bowed
spectacles--the only pair in the Sahara. He placed the bow upon his
nose, the curves behind his ears, snuffed the taper with his fingers,
took the invoice from Abdullah, and read. He read it once, looked up,
and said nothing. He read it a second time, looked up, and said: "Well,
what of it?"
"Is it legal?" asked Abdullah.
"Doubtless," said his host, "since it is a hiring, merely, not a sale;
and it is to be executed in Biskra, which is under the French rule."
"The French rule is beneficent, doubtless?" asked Abdullah.
His host did not answer for some minutes; then he said: "It is a
compromise; and certain souls deem compromises to be justice. The real
men of this age, as of all others, do not compromise; they fight out
right and wrong to a decision. The French came into Algeria to avenge a
wrong. They fought, they conquered, and then they compromised. Having
compromised, they must fight and conquer all over again."
"You are a Frenchman, are you not?" asked Abdullah.
"No," replied his host, "I am a Parisian."
"Ah," exclaimed Abdullah, "I thought they were the same thing."
"Far from it," replied his host. "In Brittany, Frenchmen wear black to
this day for the king whom Parisians guillotined."
"Pardon," said Abdullah; "I have been taught that Paris is French."
"Not so, my son," rejoined his host; "Paris is universal. If you will
go to the Museum of the Louvre, and take a seat before the Venus of
Milo, and will remain long enough, everybody in this world, worth
knowing, will pass by you; crowned heads, diplomats, financiers, the
demimonde; you may meet them all. They tell me that the same thing
happens to the occupant of the corner table of the Café de la Paix--the
table next to the Avenue de l'Opéra; if he waits long enough, he will
see every one--"
"Pardon me, Monsieur," said Abdullah, "but I care to see no one save
the little maid sleeping within."
"Ah," said his host, "it is love, is it? I thought it was
commercialism."
"No," said Abdullah; "it is a question of how I can keep the woman I
love, and still keep my commercial integrity. She is consigned to me by
her father, to be delivered to Mirza, the mother of the dancers, in
Biskra. I am the trusted caravan owner between El Merb and Biskra. In
the last ten years I have killed many men who tried to rob my freight
of dates, and hides, and gold-dust. Now I long to rob my own freight of
the most precious thing I have ever carried. May I do it, and still be
a man; or must I deliver the damsel, re-cross the desert, return the
passage money to her father, come once more to Biskra, and find my love
the sport of the cafés?"
The Man who Keeps Goats rose and paced the floor.
"My son," he said, finally, "when the French occupied Algeria, they
made this bargain--'Mussulmans shall be judged by their civil law.' It
was a compromise and, therefore, a weakness. The civil law of the
Mohammedans is, virtually, the Koran. The law of France is, virtually,
the Code Napoléon. The parties to the present contract being
Mohammedans, it will be construed by their law, and it is not repugnant
to it. If, on the contrary, the damsel were a Christian, the French
commandant at Biskra would tear the contract to pieces, since it is
against morals. Better yet, if _you_ were a Christian, and the damsel
your wife, you might hold her in Biskra against the world."
Abdullah sat silent, his eyes half closed.
"Monsieur," he said at length, "is it very difficult to become a
Christian?"
The Man who Keeps Goats sat silent--in his turn.
"My son," he said, finally, "I myself am a priest of the Church. I have
lived in the desert for twenty years, but I have never been unfrocked.
I cannot answer you, but I can tell you what a wiser than I declared to
a desert traveller who put this same question nineteen hundred years
ago."
He took up the book upon the table, turned a few pages, and read--"'And
the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward
the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which
is desert. And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, a
eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who
had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to
worship, was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias the
prophet.... And Philip ran thither to _him_, and heard him read the
prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he
said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired Philip
that he would come up and sit with him.... Then Philip opened his
mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus.
And as they went on _their_ way, they came unto a certain water: and
the eunuch said, See, _here is_ water; what doth hinder me to be
baptized?
"'And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest.
And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God.
"'And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both
into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.'"
Scarcely had the reader ceased when Abdullah sprang to his feet.
"Father," he cried, "see, _here_ is water. What doth hinder _me_ to be
baptized?"
"My son," said the old man, "how canst thou believe with all thine
heart? No Philip has preached Jesus unto thee."
"What need?" exclaimed Abdullah. "Can a man's belief need preaching to
in such a case as this? How long must I believe a religion that saves
her I love? A month, a year, until it avails nothing, and she is gone?
This eunuch was a blacker man than I; like me, he was a man of the
desert. He did not ride with Philip long. I have not only heard what
Philip said to him, but I have also heard what you have said to me.
Both of you have preached unto me Jesus. What right have you to doubt
my belief in a God who will save my love to me? Again, I ask you, what
doth hinder me to be baptized?"
"Nothing," said the old man, and they went out both to the well,
sparkling beneath the palms, both Abdullah and the Man who Keeps Goats;
and he baptized him.
When Abdullah rose from his knees, his forehead dripping, he drew his
hand across his face and asked, "Am I a Christian?"
"Yes," said the priest, "so far as I can make you one."
"Thank you," said Abdullah; "you have done much, and in the morning you
shall do more, for then you shall baptize the damsel and shall marry us
according to your--pardon me--our religion."
They entered the hut, and the priest, pointing toward the chamber-door,
asked: "Does she believe?"
"She believes what I believe," said Abdullah.
The priest shook his head. "You speak," he said, "not as a Christian,
but as a Moslem. You were brought up to look upon woman as a mere
adjunct, a necessary evil, necessary because men must be born into the
world. A female child, with you, was a reproach; she was scarcely seen
by her parents until she was brought out to be sold in marriage. With
Christians it is different. A woman has a soul--"
"Hush," said Abdullah, "or you will awaken the camels with that strange
doctrine. A woman has a soul, has she? You read me no such proposition
from your prophets, a half-hour ago. Woman was not mentioned by Philip
or by the Ethiopian in what you read to me. Is there aught in your book
that argues that woman has a soul?"
"Doubtless," said the priest, "but I do not recall it."
He caught up his Bible. He opened it unluckily, for the first words
that met his eye were these, and he read them: "Woman, what have I to
do with thee?" and he paused, embarrassed.
"Whose words were those?" asked Abdullah.
The priest hesitated, crossed himself, and answered: "They were the
words of Jesus."
"To whom were they spoken?" asked Abdullah.