Part II

THE BOOK OF HIS FATE

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

TIME TABLE

PART ONE

THE BOOK OF HIS LUCK

“_There were some of them who made a covenant with God: Verily, if

He gives us of His abundance, we will give alms and become righteous

people._”—ALCORAN.

[Illustration]

I

The house of Saïd the fisherman nestled among the sandhills of the

seashore at a long stone’s throw from the town, in whose shadow it lay

at sunset. Within, it was a single room, very dirty, the abode of many

aged smells; without, a squat cube with walls of stone and roof of mud

sun-baked and rolled to a seemly flatness. Hard by was a fig-tree,

the nearest to the sea in all that coast. Here, in a crotch of the

branches, Saïd would place his mattress in the stifling summer nights

and snore two deep bass notes in peace and coolness, while his wife

trumpeted a treble from her couch upon the house-top. Here, when the

day’s work was done, he would squat in the shade, drawing leisurely at

his narghileh, with the sound of bubbling water to cool him at every

puff.

He was not a great fisherman, such as is to be found in Europe, with

a sailing-boat of his own, who will go far out to sea with his nets.

If there were any such in all the coasts of Arabistan, Saïd had never

heard of them. Sometimes he would row out in a friend’s boat to a

little distance from the shore and drop his nets, a great circle of

bobbing cork and driftwood to mark their whereabouts. But mostly he

would go to some river-mouth or promontory where flat-topped rocks

stretched far into the sea, promising safe foothold. And there,

mother-naked, save for a huge turban, he would paddle and flounder all

day long with his cast-net, sometimes alone, sometimes with several

comrades.

At times, when the catch had been good, he would go into the city with

a crate of fish and take his stand in the market-place, in a corner

which from long use he had come to call his own. There he would cry

in a loud voice, beseeching Allah to put a craving for fish into the

hearts of the passers-by. And Allah often lent a kindly ear to his

prayer, for he seldom went home but with an empty basket.

It was one evening as he was wending homeward, dragging his empty

basket with him across the sand, that the first gust of misfortune

struck him.

The sun drew near to his setting, though as yet the sky was innocent

of red. Shadows lengthened eastwards across the sand, of the colour

of a periwinkle flower. A number of dogs were lying replete about the

body of a dead donkey at the edge of the ripples, panting drowsily with

their tongues out. They blinked at him as he passed, and their bellies

heaved uneasily. They were too full to snarl. A sense of well-being was

upon him. He stopped to draw forth a little bag from the girdle of his

robe. It contained the gains of the day. He let go the empty basket and

squatted down upon the sand, telling out the money piece by piece into

his lap. His eyes gloated over the pile.

He held the fingers of his left hand wide apart and touched them one

by one with the forefinger of his right. His brows puckered with the

effort to reckon how much he could afford to lay by in that hole in the

floor of his house which held his savings.

So far as he could count, it needed but one more day like this to make

up the price of the coffee-house he had it in his mind to buy. Then he

would leave the fishing business to Abdullah, his friend and partner,

and customers would know him thenceforth as Saïd Effendi. That was but

the first step in the path of his ambition. Presently he would be a

Bey—an Emìr, perhaps. He would lie all day upon a cushioned couch,

smoking from a narghileh of rare workmanship. And when Abdullah came to

beg him to buy fish, he would seize him by both ears and spit in his

face.

Of a sudden the sound of loud shouting broke upon his reverie.

“Oäh! Oäh! Look to thyself, son of a dog!”

He was aware of two horsemen galloping madly down upon him from a gap

in the sandhills—Turkish officers of the garrison by their uniform.

They were close upon him. He leapt to his feet and sprang aside just in

time to save himself from being knocked down and trampled under their

horses’ hoofs. He heard them laugh aloud and curse him as they sped by,

blinding him for the moment in a cloud of sand.

“May their house be destroyed!” he snarled, looking after them and

showing his fangs like a dog that is angry. Then he remembered the

money which had been in his lap when their shouts startled him, and

there was no longer any room for anger in his heart.

A wild light of hope and fear in his eyes, he flung himself full length

upon the ground and fell to groping and sifting with trembling hands.

But the wild rush of the horses had played the whirlwind with the sand,

scattering it hither and thither and dinting it deep with hoof-prints.

After many minutes of burrowing and seeking he had found only two small

copper coins; and already the sun was sinking behind the city and its

headland, whose shadow was within a hand’s-breadth of him. A long train

of camels passed him going towards the gate, the drivers cheerful at

sight of their journey’s end.

“What seekest thou, young man?” cried one of them as he passed the

fisherman.

Saïd raised himself to a kneeling posture and spread his hands over his

eyes.

“Away, scoffer!” he cried sternly. “Who art thou that thou shouldst

question a pious man at his prayers?” Then, after an interval of

meditation, he prostrated himself so that his forehead touched the sand

and forthwith resumed his search, earnestly beseeching Allah to guide

his fingers aright and to keep all prying strangers at a distance.

The shadow was now upon him. All the west was a blaze of red gold, so

that every roof, every dome, every palm-tree upon the sky-line stood

outlined clear and black. It was time to give over this frantic groping

and clutching which gave such meagre results. He sat up and, squatting

on his heels, began a more orderly and less haphazard search, taking

one handful of sand at a time, sifting it between his fingers and

laying it on one side upon a heap. After more than an hour’s experience

of this process he had recovered some twenty small coins, amounting

perhaps to a fifth part of the sum he had lost.

Night fell: the stars shone out, blackening the bulk of the dead ass,

a few paces distant, which the dogs, reinforced by stray comrades

from the city, were beginning to worry anew. The ripples, breaking in

luminous foam upon the beach, murmured sadly in his ears. Hunger began

to get hold of him. Hasneh would be wondering what had happened, and

that savoury mess of lentils and oil would be baked to a cinder. Why

should he not go home, eat and drink, and return to his search later

on? It was not likely that the sand would be again disturbed that

night. He could come back early in the morning and collect the rest of

his scattered fortune. His basket would mark the exact spot.

So thinking, he rose and went homewards. A faint light streamed from

the door and window of his dwelling. Hasneh was in there with the

lentils. His heart warmed at the thought, making the neighbouring void

colder and more empty by contrast. As he drew near to the house a sound

of wailing grew in his ears—such wailing as he had heard at funerals

of the rich, where mourners were well paid for it.

His first thought was of the lentils, that they were spoilt. His

next, not without relief, that someone was dead within the house. But

there was no one to die except Hasneh herself, and she it was who was

wailing, as he had sometimes heard her scold, in a shrill cadence. His

desire to learn the truth lent wings to his feet. In a few long strides

he gained the threshold.

His woman lay stretched upon the floor within—a heap of clothes from

which those ghastly moans and howls proceeded, mingled with curses on

some unknown being of the male sex. For a moment Saïd stood frozen in

the doorway. Then the sight of something black and shrivelled in a pan

upon the brazier sent angry blood coursing through every vein in his

body. That something had once been a savoury mess of lentils baked in

oil, the lust of which had drawn him from his search among the sand.

He sprang to a corner of the room, seized a great staff which leaned

against the wall, and fell to belabouring the woman with all the

strength of his arm. Her droning wail changed all at once to a lively

shriek. She leapt to her feet and closed with him, trying vainly to

wrest the stick from his hand.

“May Allah cut short thy life!” she cried. “What have I done to deserve

this of thee?”

“The lentils are spoilt!” retorted Saïd, furiously, wrenching his arm

free of her and bringing the stick down heavily on her back. “May thy

house be destroyed!”

“Madman!” she screamed. “Thou speakest of lentils when an enemy has

robbed thee, ruined thee! Look!”

She pointed to a hole in the floor which had been hidden by her body

when Saïd entered. Little mounds of fresh sand on the brink of it

showed that hands had lately been at work there.

As Saïd’s eyes followed the line of her forefinger his jaw fell and the

anger died out of his face. His stick clattered on the ground. Some

thief had found out the place where his treasure was hidden, had come

in his absence and unearthed the savings of ten long years.

He peered into the hole to assure himself that it was quite empty. Not

a single para had been let fall or overlooked by the miscreant. His

eyes became dull and filmy as those of a blind man. His face grew livid

as the face of a corpse. He fell back against the wall of the room.

Supposing that the shock of her news had killed him, Hasneh began to

wail anew, beating her breast and plucking at her robe to tear it. Her

voice revived Saïd somewhat.

“Be silent,” he muttered—“thou thief! Thou alone wast in the secret of

the hiding-place.”

“Thy life is my life; thy fortune, my fortune,” replied the woman, with

indignation. “If thou prosperest, I prosper; and I have a part in thy

loss. Listen now to the truth, nor judge me hastily unheard.

“Having prepared the lentils, I sat awaiting thy return, when my heart

became sad within me. And I thought, if I uncover the hiding-place and

fill my eyes with the sight of that which is good to see, there is no

sin. So I took the piece of a broken vessel and scraped until the heap

of coins was laid bare to mine eyes. So my heart had peace.

“And as I sat gazing upon my husband’s wealth which is mine, the voice

of Abdullah called from without; ‘Behold the great fish, the giant of

the deep, whose back is like Lebanon and his fins as the winnowing fans

of Allah, with which he makes the winds to blow and stirs the sea to

madness! It is Saïd who has brought it to land. It lies by the white

stone where the nets of Saïd are spread out to dry. Run, O Hasneh, and

thou shalt see that which no woman has ever seen.’

“At that I gathered up my raiment and ran out of the house, expecting

to find Abdullah; but I found no man. I went all about the house, but

I found not Abdullah nor any other. Then I trembled and fear came upon

me. But the news of the great fish drew me onward, until I came to the

white stone and found it lonely as ever and the sea-fowl undisturbed

upon it. Then I knew that an evil spirit had cried in the voice of

Abdullah to lead me astray. So I ran back with all speed along the

shore. When I came to the house the hole was as thou seest it and all

the money gone.”

Her last words were almost drowned in a flood of tears.

Saïd trembled and cold sweat stood in pearls upon his forehead.

“An evil spirit has done this,” he murmured hoarsely. “Oh, that my

enemy had been a man!”

He fell to bemoaning his fate, cursing the day that he was born, and

calling upon Allah to have mercy upon his faithful servant. The house

that had been rifled by an evil spirit seemed dreadful and unfamiliar.

The night which wrapped it about was filled with hideous faces, which

glowered at him and mocked him through door and lattice. At length he

exclaimed: “Abide here, Hasneh, and keep watch. If thou hearest a voice

or seest any evil sight, cry aloud upon the name of Allah and thou

shalt be safe.”

With that he stepped out into the night, and, girding up his robe,

sped across the sand to the city, black on the starlight, where a few

scattered lights shone faintly.

II

Close to the gate which is called the sea-gate, by which one goes down

to the shore, there was a house, or rather hovel, built against the

wall. This was the dwelling-place of Abdullah, Saïd’s bosom friend

and partner. Abdullah himself was sitting in the doorway, smoking his

narghileh, when Saïd came upon him. He was a fat man, with small bright

eyes which were seldom at rest. Within the house a wick, floating in

a saucer of grease, threw a fitful light upon the four walls, upon a

couch whereon his wife lay huddled, a baby at her breast, upon the

disorderly litter of the floor. At sight of his friend Abdullah started

to his feet. His eyes were shifty to right and left, as though seeking

some way of escape.

“May thy night be happy,” he faltered.

“May thy night be happy and blessed,” replied Saïd, keeping the rule

which bids every man return a compliment with interest. Then with a

frantic gesture, “I am ruined! An evil spirit is my ill-wisher. My

money—all that I had saved these many years—has been stolen. Oh, that

a man had been the thief!”

Saïd’s hands clutched murderously at the air and clenched, showing how

he would have dealt with a mortal foe.

Abdullah’s composure returned to him at these words. His face was

almost cheerful as he exclaimed, “Merciful Allah!”

“Listen, Abdullah,” pursued the other. “In my way homeward from the

market I sat down to count over the price of the fish I had sold,

when—whizz!—came two horsemen out of the air, and would have ridden

over me had not Allah put it into my mind to jump aside. They laughed

as they galloped by. They had the faces of jin—you know them!—eyes

set slantwise, ears long and leaf-shaped like the ears of a pig. Then

I found that all the money I had been counting was scattered in the

sand. After long seeking I recovered but a few coins of small value.

It grew dark. A train of camels came along the shore. Each camel was

as big as a house, with a hump like the dome of a mosque. One of the

drivers looked at me and asked me what I did. His eyes were two flames.

They seemed to burn through to my heart. But I prayed to Allah and he

vanished, the camels with him. I went home, hungry and thirsty, to

supper; but I found my wife cast down upon the floor, weeping, and the

lentils quite spoilt.

“Then she told me what had happened. As she sat in the house a voice

cried to her, for there was a great fish like a mountain lying on the

shore by the white stone. She stepped out, but saw no man. She went to

the stone, but there was no fish great or small. When she returned to

the house she found a hole in the floor at the place where my treasure

was hidden. All the money was clean gone. Oh, that my enemy had been a

man!”

“Said she aught of the voice which tempted her?” asked Abdullah, with a

hint of anxiety. His form was outlined in shadow upon the faint light

which streamed from the doorway, so that Saïd could not see his face.

“Yes—a strange thing—she says that the voice was as thy voice, O

father of Azìz.”

“There is no doubt that some devil has robbed thee,” said Abdullah,

quickly. “Allah be my witness, I have not left my house since noon by

reason of a pain in my belly. Is it not true, Nesibeh?”

The woman thus appealed to rose from her couch and came shuffling to

the door. “Yes, it is true, by Allah,” she averred. “He has been very

ill, I feared he was at the gate of death. But, praise to Allah, the

pain has left his belly and he is now in health again. An afrìt has

robbed thee and has beguiled thy woman with the voice of Abdullah.”

“I am ruined! What can I do?” Saïd cried in a frenzy of despair. “Thou,

O Abdullah, art known in all the city for a wise man. Counsel me, I

entreat thee!”

Abdullah’s face assumed the stolid expression supposed by the muleteers

and camel-drivers whose oracle he was, to betoken wisdom. His eyes

became intent upon the inwards of a fish which adorned the ground

near his feet. He sucked long and steadily at the mouthpiece of his

narghileh, causing the water in the bowl to bubble convulsively and the

charcoal in the cup above to give forth a lurid glow. Then he took the

tube from his mouth, cleared his throat, spat solemnly, and said,—

“A devil has a spite against thee—that is known. He has entered thy

house once, he will enter it again. It is likely that he is of those

who haunt the waste places of the shore, perhaps the very same who

dwells in the ruined shrine among the sandhills. It were well for thee

to take thy staff and thy woman and go into some far country—into Masr

or into the sunset-land which lies beyond. So thou shalt have peace,

being far from the enemy.”

“What a mind!” exclaimed his wife, with hands raised in admiration. “He

speaks like a prophet. The mind of Abdullah is not as the mind of other

men. He is a devil!”

“Tush, be silent, woman!” said the sage, indulgently.

Saïd squatted down at the threshold beside his friend. He put a hand

to his forehead and remained thus thoughtful for some time. Then he

said, “Thy advice is good. To-morrow, at the rising of the sun, I shall

depart. But thinkest thou in truth that the evil spirit will not follow

me?”

“The jin have their homes like men,” replied Abdullah, sententiously.

“They love to spend their lives in one place. In another city thou

shalt surely live undisturbed.”

“But I have no money,” Saïd moaned, “without wealth I shall find no

place in a strange land.”

Abdullah shook his head sadly.

“I am a poor man,” he said, “but all that I have is thine. Go, Nesibeh,

see how much money there is in the house.”

The woman left the doorway and shuffled across the room to the couch

where her baby slept. She felt under the coverings and drew forth a

small box, which jingled as she shook it.

Raising the lid,—

“Alas!” she moaned. “It is a bad day with Abdullah. There are but a few

baras.”

“It is a shame to ask my brother to accept so little!” exclaimed her

husband.

“A little is much to one who has nothing,” whispered Saïd, eagerly.

“Give me but the few baras that are there and may Allah increase thy

wealth!”

Nesibeh turned the box upside down over the palm of her hand, and a

number of small coins fell from it. Saïd’s brown fingers closed on them

like an eagle’s claws. Then he rose to take leave.

“In thy grace, I depart,” he said. “May Allah prosper thee, O father of

Azìz.”

“My peace go with thee,” said Abdullah, his voice broken with grief.

Saïd strode away, sad at heart, his mind busy with plans for the

future. Hope was all but dead within him, for he had eaten nothing

since sunrise. Alone once more and in the darkness, fear fell upon

him with renewed strength. All the night was full of ghastly faces,

of fiery eyes that glowered upon him. Strange shapes flitted among

the sandhills. The sea burned with a pallid light. A fitful moaning

was in the air. Pausing for a moment, he fancied the night an endless

procession of weird forms—a multitude which moved glidingly, silently,

as one man. It filled him with a strange new horror, which yet seemed

half familiar, as something remembered from a dream. Well-known sounds,

such as the hooting of an owl, the bark of a dog from the city, or the

howl of a jackal from some landward garden, were separate terrors.

He had not made many steps from the door of his friend’s house ere the

fear of the Unknown which lurks in darkness took hold of him. He girded

up his loins and ran across the sand as fast as his brawny legs would

carry him. He looked neither to the right nor left till he reached his

house. On the threshold a savoury smell attacked his nostrils and hope

suddenly revived. Hasneh stood with her back towards him, leaning over

the brazier, from which light steam arose enveloping her and filling

the house with that peculiarly hopeful smell. “Allah is just!” murmured

Saïd, licking his lips.

III

It was the coolest hour of all the twenty-four when Saïd the fisherman

climbed down from his nest in the fig-tree. In spite of the troubles

and fears of the evening before he had slept soundly and was refreshed.

The eastern sky was whitening to the dawn, and a wave-line of distant

mountains was grey and cloudlike upon it. Darkness still lingered on

sea and land, but it was a darkness of the earth rather than of the

heavens.

From a jar within the threshold of the house he took a little water and

went through the form of ablution. Then, facing south, he knelt and

fell prostrate several times, thumbs fast behind his ears and hands

spread across his eyes as an open book.

As he walked along the shore to the place where he had left his basket

overnight, the cry of the first awakened seabird hailed the dawn. The

little city with its dome and minarets grew white before him against

a sky still dark and studded with stars. A man came down from the

sea-gate riding upon an ass. Then came another man with two camels. The

folk of the city were astir and going every man about his business.

The place was just as he left it, save that the carcase of the donkey

had been dragged a few yards to landward by the hungry tearing of

the dogs, and the backbone was now laid bare. He flung himself face

downward on the sand and fell at once to his groping and sifting.

The stars shone dead in the west, then vanished altogether. Rosy light

stole over land and sea, mantling on the white buildings of the city

like the shame in a young girl’s cheek. Then the sun flashed forth

above the distant hills and all things had colours of their own once

more.

The rays struck warm on Saïd’s back as he lay prone beside his basket.

Their touch cheered him like a friend’s hand. He set to work hopefully

with the result that, in half an hour, he had recovered many coins,

amounting to within a few paras of the sum lost.

By that time there were many people on the beach, some entering, some

leaving the city. It was unsafe to prolong the search lest someone,

guessing his task, should fall upon him and rob him. He got up,

therefore, and walked homeward, trailing his basket along with him.

Hasneh stood in the doorway looking out for him. A donkey, burdened

with two sacks, was tethered to a low-bending branch of the fig-tree.

He smiled approval as he slipped off his shoes at the door. She had

been stretched upon the roof when he set out and snoring loudly. He

had been gone but a little while, yet here was the ass laden with all

the house that was worth carrying, and the morning’s meal of bread and

curds ready to be eaten.

His fast fairly broken, Saïd went out to the fig-tree to see that the

girths were firm which held the sacks to the body of the ass. The

sunlight danced on the little waves as they pushed shoreward, and made

pearls of the dewdrops which yet hung in the shade of some feathery

tamarisks behind the house. The sky was a great blue dome over sea and

land. His heart turned sick with the thought of quitting the well-known

scene, with its familiar voices, to sojourn among strangers in a

strange country. Why need he go? The terrors of the night before had no

weight with him now. They had faded with the darkness and the stars.

Doubtless his loss was great and hard to bear; but others had suffered

worse things. The evil spirit which had robbed him might not return

again; and if it did he had but to write the name of Allah upon the

doorposts, then upon the shutters of the window, and his house would be

safe. He stretched out his hand to loose the burden from the donkey’s

back.

“May thy day be happy, O Saïd,” came a complacent voice from behind.

Turning, he stood face to face with Abdullah, his partner. “Thou art to

depart—not so? I am coming to see if I can serve thee in the work of

packing and lading.”

“My mind is changed. Perhaps I go not,” rejoined Saïd, moodily.

“What is this?” exclaimed the other, seeming horror-stricken. “Thou art

mad to stay after all that has befallen thee here.”

“What matter! The like or worse may befall me in a strange land. I will

stay in the place where I was born, wherein is my father’s grave.”

Once more Saïd put forth his hand to unload the ass, but Abdullah

caught his arm.

“I advise thee to thy advantage,” he whispered angrily. “We spoke last

night of devils. What are they? Their power is only in the night. There

are those who have power to harm thee both by night and day.” He sank

his voice as if fearing lest a bird of the air might carry his words to

high places. “The Basha has heard of thy wealth which thou pretendest

to have lost. Men have told him how thou dost grope in the sand.

Remember the fate of Ali ebn Mahmud, who was said to have a treasure

hidden in his garden, how they beat and tortured him so that he died!”

Saïd’s jaw fell. “Is this true?” he faltered.

“True, by Allah!” replied the other, his face anxious, his little eyes

keenly watchful of his friend’s countenance. “Am I a liar?”

A wild light of terror flamed in Saïd’s orbs. He strode to the door

of the house and shouted to Hasneh to make ready for the start. Then

he returned and, untying the rope which bound the ass to the tree,

bestrode the already laden beast. At the same moment his woman appeared

from the house, a great bundle upon her head.

“Allah be with thee!” he cried, striking the ass with his staff, so

that it started forward at a shambling trot.

“But what of thy nets, of thy house, of thy fig-tree?” cried Abdullah,

wringing his hands.

“Take them—all that I have!” shouted Saïd, without looking back. He

was sitting on the hind-quarters of the donkey, flourishing a rope

which served for bridle, his long brown legs stretched along the sacks,

his feet erect beside the beast’s ears. His whole frame jolted with the

trotting of his steed. The woman ran behind with one arm raised to keep

her bundle from falling.

“Whither away?” shouted Abdullah.

“To Es-Shâm—to Baghdad—to India!—far away! What matter, so that I be

out of his reach. May all his race perish!”

Abdullah stood looking after the fugitives until they were lost to

sight among the sandhills. Then he took a cigarette from somewhere in

the depths of his trousers, lighted it and squatted down in the shade

of the fig-tree now his own.

IV

As for Saïd, he urged his steed across the sand as fast as the weight

on its back and the looseness of the ground would allow. His arm rose

and fell continually with a backward sweep, and the hindmost part of

the donkey rang wooden to the thwack of his stick. A constant growl of

curses rolled upwards from his throat. Hasneh, her bosom heaving, her

breath coming and going in short pants, struggled to keep up with him.

As they proceeded the soil became firmer under foot; creeping branches

of the wild vine, rank grasses and sundry big-leafed plants, bound

the sand together. Soon they came into a road with a hedge of prickly

pear on either side, fencing an orange garden. Through gaps in the

hedge golden globes shone amid dark foliage with here and there a

spray of white blossom. The air was cloyed with a fragrance from which

the hum of bees seemed inseparable. A gate by the wayside stood open.

Within were two men busy packing a great heap of oranges into square

wooden boxes. Saïd shouted a salutation as he sped by, and in return

they pelted him with the fruit—a dozen at least—which Hasneh stayed

to gather up into the bosom of her robe. The scarlet flowers of a

pomegranate tree flamed among the leafage on their right hand.

A little while and the gardens were left behind. The wide plain rolled

in smooth waves before them, away to the foot of the mountains, with a

shimmer of grey olives in the distance.

At the end of an hour, during the whole of which Saïd ceased not for a

minute from beating his donkey, they drew near to a village which stood

upon a hill, three fine palm-trees tapering skyward from among its

squat dwellings of sun-baked mud. Here the fisherman proposed to rest

awhile till the heat of the day should be passed. Hasneh praised Allah

for the respite.

As they entered the narrow pathway, choked with offal, which ran

between the hovels, a man’s voice called to them from a doorway,—

“Deign to enter, O Saïd! Honour my house with thy presence!”

The speaker came forth and bowed low, holding a hand to his forehead.

He was a huge, loutish fellow, who had seen thirty summers and more. He

had a bushy black beard, and big brown eyes of rare stupidity. His long

garment and his turban had grown old upon him. He came sometimes to the

market to sell the produce of his fields. Saïd had seen him there and

spoken with him more than once. He was called Muhammed abu Hassan, and

bore the reputation of a good-tempered, lazy fellow.

The fisherman, nothing loth, alighted, and having touched the hand of

his host in salutation, proceeded to tie up his ass to the doorpost.

That done, he slipped off his shoes and allowed himself to be ushered

into the house. Hasneh squatted down humbly at the threshold of the

door.

Their host set to work to kindle some charcoal upon a stone in one

corner of the room, grumbling all the while because his woman was not

there to do it for him. She was at work in the tobacco-fields, it

appeared, with others of the village.

Somehow—it must have been by magic, or the laden ass tethered outside

may have had something to do with it—it soon became known in all the

village that a stranger had arrived from the city and was the guest of

Muhammed abu Hassen. Men dropped in, one by one, feigned surprise at

sight of Saïd and of each other, and squatted down with their back to

the wall.

“What news?” was the first question of a new-comer after the proper

civilities had been exchanged.

To which Saïd replied, in every case, “There is nothing new to-day.”

“It is said that there will be war between the Turks and the Franks?”

said an old man, reverend and very dirty, in a tone three parts of

assertion, one part of inquiry.

“I have heard nothing of it,” Saïd answered, rolling a cigarette

between thumb and forefinger.

“Allah grant that there be no war!” cried an aged sheykh, with face

wrinkled as a withered olive, in a quavering voice. “I remember, when

the last war was, they sent suddenly and seized every horse, mule, and

donkey in our village for the soldiers to ride. Only a horse and two

asses were restored to us when all was over. And after two days the

horse died.”

There broke forth a chorus of guttural curses upon wars and soldiers.

At last the business of grinding and stewing the coffee was

accomplished. Two small cups were passed round the circle from hand

to hand, Muhammed filling and refilling them until all had partaken.

Even Hasneh, sitting patient and submissive on the doorsill, was not

forgotten in the end.

“Whither goest thou?” asked Muhammed of his guest, when at last he had

leisure for conversation.

“To Damashc-ush-Shâm,” replied Saïd, and hesitated. He dared not tell

the true reason of his leaving home, lest he should forfeit the esteem

of his hearers. A man who bewails his misfortunes before strangers is a

fool and rightly despised; but he who exalts himself is sure of honour.

He added,—

“I go to Es-Shâm, to the house of my brother, who is dead. He was a

great man and rich. Moreover, his woman was barren. I go to claim the

inheritance.”

The murmur of congratulation which this fiction called forth had

scarcely died away when a clatter of hoofs rang through the village.

Faint shouts and cries came from the distant field where the women were

at work.

“The soldiers! The soldiers are upon us!” cried Hasneh from her post at

the threshold.

Every man sprang to his feet and rushed to the door, Saïd with the

rest. Five Turkish soldiers and a young officer rode at a foot’s pace

up the narrow path between the hovels. Remembering the words which

Abdullah had spoken that morning, Saïd’s teeth chattered. Doubtless the

Pasha was informed of his flight and these men had been sent to take

him.

“Where is the house of the sheykh of the village?” cried the officer as

he rode by.

A score of turbaned heads were bowed, a score of brown hands saluted,

and a score of voices proffered directions in divers tones of

self-abasement. Saïd was reassured. Had the officer been looking for

him he would not surely have asked for the house of the sheykh. The

next moment his heart sank again and a cry of dismay broke from his

lips. One of the troopers, in passing, bent down, and, severing the

cord by which the donkey was tethered with one stroke of a knife,

caught the end deftly as it fell, and rode on, leading with him all

that remained of Saïd’s worldly goods. With a shriek of rage and

despair, the wretched man broke through the crowd and sprang forth into

the blinding sunlight. A few fierce bounds and he had overtaken the

plunderer. He strove to wrest the rope from his grasp.

“Stay! Stay!” he cried. “Let me but take off the sacks! It is all that

I have!”

For answer he received a blow on the wrist which forced him to quit

hold.

“Pig!” cried the soldier, angrily. “The Sultàn has need of thy beast

for his soldiers; and I that am his soldier have need of those sacks

for myself. Dost understand? Let go, son of a dog!”

Saïd, baffled in his design upon the rope, was now struggling

frantically to wrench the sacks from the donkey’s back.

The cavalcade had come to a standstill before the house of the sheykh,

and the other soldiers looked on good-humouredly, laughing now at

their comrade, now at the fisherman, with perfect impartiality. Their

laughter stung the plunderer to frenzy. He unslung the carbine from

his back, and, leaning over the saddle-bow, dealt a vicious blow at

Saïd’s head with the butt of it. The daylight swam blood-red before the

fisherman’s eyes. His head seemed to dilate and there was a singing in

his ears. He fell forward, senseless, upon the ground.

V

When Saïd again became conscious of his surroundings he was in the

house of Muhammed abu Hassan, lying on a couch. Hasneh and another

woman were bending over him. The latter drew her veil hastily across

her face as his eyes blinked at her in bewilderment. Hasneh uttered a

cry of delight.

Saïd looked about him wondering. Sullen, scowling faces filled the

doorway, blotting out the sunlight. A sound of muttered oaths was in

the room. Of a sudden he remembered all that had befallen him and

staggered to his feet.

“I am ruined!” he cried. “They have taken my donkey—all that I have.

May Allah cut short their lives.”

Responsive curses came from the group in the doorway, and Muhammed

replied,—

“We are sad for thee, effendi. The journey to Es-Shâm is long and

wearisome for one that goes on foot. Yet art thou more happy than we.

Thou wilt have the inheritance of thy brother who is dead. Thou wilt

have wealth wherewith to buy horses and asses, as many as thou needest.

But they have taken all that was ours. Curse their father! Of all our

beasts there remain but a camel, and a mule which is on the point of

dying.”

Saïd’s hand was pressed to his forehead. His face had the inward look

of one reviewing things past. At length he asked eagerly, “What is the

hour?”

“It is near the third hour since noon,” replied Muhammed after a brief

glance at the shadow of his dwelling.

The fisherman turned to his woman. “Ready, O Hasneh?” he asked.

“Ready” was the meek rejoinder.

“But thou art yet weak from the blow which the soldier—burn his

house!—gave thee,” Muhammed, as host, was bound to protest. “My house

is thy house. Rest here till evening. The first hours of night are

pleasant for travelling.”

But Saïd, remembering the words of Abdullah, was resolute. Pursuers

might come upon him at any time. With profusion of thanks to Muhammed

for his kindness he took up his staff and set out once more. Hasneh

followed, her bundle poised upon her head.

They passed out from the village down a steep slope, where big red

anemones shone amid ragged grass, across a stony wady with a trickle of

water among the pebbles, and entered a grove of olive-trees. Here Saïd

lay down in the shade. He was still dizzy from the stunning blow he had

received, and the strength seemed to run out of his legs. He complained

bitterly of thirst; whereupon Hasneh produced those oranges which had

been thrown at them in the morning from the bosom of her robe. Having

devoured two of them, Saïd wiped his dripping mouth upon his sleeve and

felt refreshed. He was preparing to resume his way when the sound of a

man’s voice close at hand stayed him.

“Praise be to Allah, who has placed such fools in the world! I asked

for bread, and he gave me meat as well. And when I had finished eating

he gave me money for my journey. A madman—may Allah reward him!”

The sun through the leafage cast a chequer-work of golden light and

blue shadow upon the ground. The speaker came towards them, walking

slowly between the gnarled trunks, with eyes upturned. It was a hale

old man of sixty years or more, tall and upright. His body was clad in

a loose robe, whose colour had once been blue, reaching to a little

below the knee. His bare feet and shins were grey with dust. Upon

his head was a battered and tasselless fez, with a dirty rag wound

round it by way of turban. Happening to let his eyes fall a minute

from their heavenly contemplation, he became aware of the presence of

fellow-creatures and his whole demeanour changed in a second. His form

seemed to shrivel and grow less. His head sank down upon his breast,

his eyes writhed upward so that only the whites of them were visible,

and his whole body was distorted to a semblance of the last agony.

Stretching forth a trembling hand he besought the pity of his hearers

for a poor old wretch who found himself alone and without money in a

strange land.

“Allah will give to you!” he whined. “For the love of Allah, help me

or I die!… O Lord!… Allah will give to you!… By the Coràn, I am at

the gate of death!… Allah will give to you!… My sons were killed by

the Bedawin; my daughters were ravished before my eyes!… Allah is

bountiful!… O Lord!… I myself have a hand that is withered!… O Lord!…

My house was destroyed by an earthquake; a thief came in the night and

stole my mare from me!… Allah will give to you!… My children were slain

before my eyes!… O Lord!…”

It is likely that he would have gone on whining in this strain for an

hour or more had not Saïd broken in,—

“Allah will give to thee! I am poor even as thou art. I, too, have

been robbed and my house brought to ruin. I, too, was once a rich man,

having flocks and herds, houses and vineyards, ay, and the half of a

city belonging to me. And now there is no difference between me and

thee. Allah will give to thee; I have nothing.”

In a twinkling the old beggar resumed his natural shape. His head rose,

his body straightened, the pupils of his eyes came again into sight.

“Is it true?” he said in a friendly tone, squatting down in the shade

beside the fisherman. “Then I tell thee thou art happy. All to gain;

nothing to lose. There is no trade like ours. All the day long we

cringe, we flatter, we weep, and none can resist us. And afterwards,

when the evening is come, we laugh and are merry, with eating and

drinking, with music and women. Behold, I love thee, for thy likeness

to my son, Mansûr, who forsook me. I feel as a father toward thee. Is

it a long time that ruin is upon thee?”

“But a few hours, O my uncle,” replied Saïd, bitterly.

The old rascal threw up his hands and cast his sly eyes skyward.

“Ah, it is sad at the first, and thou art downhearted—it is natural.

But after a few days—a week—a month, thou wilt not envy the greatest

in the land.”

Saïd was not pleased to have his misfortunes thus lightly treated as

part of the common lot of mankind. He made haste to explain.

“With another man it would have been a small thing. He would have lost

a camel, or perhaps a house. But as for me, I was a great man—the

greatest in all the city. Men ran to kiss my robe as I walked abroad. I

had camels and horses, asses and mules, more than a man can count in an

hour. It is no common loss that makes me sad.”

“I suffer with thee,” said the beggar, with a reminiscent shake of his

head. “I also was lord of great wealth. In those days men knew me by

the name of Mustafa Bek. Now I am only Mustafa, the old beggar. Allah

is greatest!”

But Saïd was not to be outdone.

“But yesterday men kissed the ground between my feet,” he said, with

a shake of the head the counterpart of the other’s. “I was called the

Emìr Saïd, and none dared come near me save with forehead to the earth.

Allah is greatest!”

“I had twenty men whose only pleasure was to do my bidding,” said the

beggar in his turn, “and the beauty of my three wives made the fair

ones of Paradise jealous.”

“All the men of the city were as slaves before me,” said Saïd; “and if

I had a desire towards any girl, I had but to command her father and

she was given to me.”

“And how wast thou deprived of all this?” asked his rival, curiously.

“Such things do not fade away like stars at the sun’s rising. By Allah,

they do not go out like a lamp for a puff of wind.”

“My city was by the seashore,” faltered Saïd, after a moment’s

hesitation. “Last evening, at the hour of sunset, the waters rose and

swallowed up all that was mine. I and this woman alone remain alive of

all that were in the city.”

The beggar rose to his feet with a laugh.

“Thou hast yet much to learn, O Emìr,” he said scornfully, yet with a

certain indulgence. “The sea rises not once in a hundred years, and

then all the world knows of it. Yesterday, at the hour of sunset, I

stood by the shore and beheld the sea calm and undisturbed as usual.

Thou hast much to learn, my son.”

“May thy house be destroyed!” muttered Saïd, grinding his teeth with

mortification. “How far is it to the next village, old man?”

“Perhaps an hour—maybe an hour and a half—Allah knows!—perhaps two

hours.”

“Who was that of whom thou wast speaking at the first?” asked Saïd with

some eagerness. “He gave thee meat, thou wast saying, and money for thy

journey. Doubtless it is some great one whose house is open to poor

wayfarers?”

“I spoke but of a Frank who passed me in the way,” said the old man,

with a chuckle at the recollection. “He was dressed all in black, and

rode upon a fine horse. I knew him for one of those who preach to the

Christians and would have all men believe in three gods. I saw him a

long way off and, when he drew near, I flung myself down in the way,

swearing horribly, and crying out that Allah had forsaken me. Thereat

he got down from his horse and tried to comfort me with soft speaking

and hard words from the book of his religion. But I cursed the louder

and let him know that I was very hungry; whereupon he drew out a paper

from his saddle-bags, wherein was bread and meat, which he gave to me.

“When I had made an end of eating I began to weep and told him a

grievous tale of how my house had been burned and all my children

killed by Turkish soldiers. This I said knowing that a Frank loves

always to hear evil of the Turks. He wept with me as he listened. He

gave me money—as much as a man could earn by the labour of a week.

Then he mounted and rode away, his face sad from the tale which I had

told him. May Allah reward the unbelieving fool!”

“Y’Allah! Let us depart at once,” cried Saïd, eagerly. “Perhaps we may

overtake him before the night.”

“Did I not tell thee that he rides upon a horse, and that a fine one?”

said the beggar. “Thou canst never hope to overtake him. He told me

that he was going two days journey on the way to Es-Shâm, to the place

where he dwells. Whither goest thou?”

“To Es-Shâm,” cried Saïd, gleefully. “I will visit him and tell the

tale of my great loss. Allah be with thee!”

Saïd set forward through the olive grove at a great pace, Hasneh

shuffled after him with her usual docility—the good beast of burden,

ready to stand or go on at her master’s word. As for the beggar, he

stood looking after them until they were lost to sight among the tree

trunks. He chuckled often as he went his way, repeating the word “Emìr”

with scornful emphasis.

Sunset fires were blazing high in the west when Saïd and Hasneh drew

near to the village of which the beggar had told them. It was a small

place, built of stone, crowning the utmost slope of the mountain

seaward. To reach it they had to climb a pebbly road, which wound

upwards serpent-wise among terraces of fig and olive-trees. At the

entering in of the village grew a giant sycamore, about whose trunk the

elders of the place were squatting in solemn conclave, smoking. Saïd

saluted them politely as they drew near.

“What news?” asked a reverend sheykh, who seemed the head man of the

place.

“There is war,” replied Saïd, with a low obeisance. “Soldiers scour

the country for horses and mules. I know it well, alas! for they have

taken my mare—curse their fathers!—a thoroughbred worth fifty Turkish

pounds, by Allah!—and I am forced to pursue my journey on foot.”

“Allah restore her to thee,” rejoined the sheykh, fervently. “We

guessed that all was not well in the land, for this afternoon, as

my son was ploughing on the hillside yonder, he beheld a company of

soldiers ride across the plain, and many beasts of burden with them.

Thanks be to Allah, we are warned in time. Ere the rising of the sun

all our cattle shall be in a safe place among the hills, save a few

that are sick, which they can take if it please them.”

Saïd, seeking tidings of the missionary, was told that he had ridden

through the place about the third hour after noon, and must be sleeping

at Beyt Ammeh, a mountain village four hours distant.

“Is there a guest-chamber in this village where I and my woman may pass

the night?” asked Saïd, in some anxiety.

“Thy news is timely and thou art welcome,” replied the sheykh. “My

house is thy house. Deign to follow me.”

With that he rose and led the way to a house which was larger by a room

than other houses of the village. This room was built on the roof and

had the appearance of a tower when seen from a distance. Within, it was

a small chamber, softly carpeted, with a cushioned divan running round

the walls, destined for the lodging of guests of distinction. Saïd

would never have been admitted to its precincts but for that fabulous

mare of his worth fifty Turkish pounds.

Here, having partaken of a feast such as he had seldom enjoyed, he

spent the night, a pale sky flaked with stars watching his slumbers

through open door and lattice.

VI

In the morning Saïd rose early, and having breakfasted and taken leave

of his host, set forth with Hasneh in the cool twilight and started

to climb the steep path which twisted among olive-trees up from the

village. At the top he paused for a last look at the plain he was

leaving. Away to the southwest a little promontory jutted into the sea.

White buildings, a dome and two slender minarets were just discernible

upon it in the pale light which comes before the sun. That was the

city of his birth, and there, somewhere on the yellow rim of the bay,

was his own little house with the fig-tree beside it from which he had

seen the sun rise morning after morning, year after year. From where he

now stood he could trace his whole course of the previous day. There,

midway in the plain, on the crest of a wave of green, was the village

where his donkey had been taken from him, where he had been stunned by

that blow of the soldier’s carbine of which the very memory brought

pain. He knew it from the other villages dotting the landscape by the

three tall palm-trees tapering above its hovels, like rich plumes in a

ragamuffin’s cap. There was the olive grove where he had spoken with

the old beggar. And here, two hundred feet below, at the foot of a

terraced slope so steep that it seemed easy to throw a stone down on

to the roof of the sheykh’s house, was the village he had just left.

His eyes ranged over the prospect, to return always to that white town

upon the headland which was his birthplace. The sun rose upon the sea

and the skirts of the plain, though the shadow of the mountains still

darkened the near villages. Standing at the doorway of his home he

would have been in the sunlight now. The thought gripped him by the

throat. A sob from Hasneh told that her mind was straying in the same

direction. Saïd’s voice was hoarse as he set forward once more, bidding

her follow him.

The path dipped rapidly to the brink of a rocky gorge, and naked hills

closed in upon them as they descended. To Saïd it seemed as if a door

had slammed behind him, shutting off the past. His heart sickened for a

while.

But the fresh air of the spring morning would not brook despair. In

spite of himself hope came uppermost as he made his way along the

rugged mountain side. The beggar’s words kept ringing in his ears:

All to gain, nothing to lose! He could rob a man now without fear of

reprisal. He had all the world before him, and bright, keen wits,

undulled by the least rust of conscience, for a sword against his

fellow-man. He had nothing to lose, unless—

A thought, which was almost a wish, flitted through his brain. He

turned his head and let his eyes rest for a minute upon the form of

Hasneh plodding patiently beneath her burden.

The shadows dwindled with every minute. The dew on the ground rose in

steam wherever the sun’s rays touched it. For long they trudged on

in a land of mountains barren and rocky. Overhead the deep blue sky

paled about a blinding sun. Not a tree was to be seen. The distance

swam before them in streams of heat. The sound of Hasneh’s breathing

was like the panting of a dog at his heels. In the shade of a great

rock they sat down to rest. All around them, between the boulders,

anemones held out scarlet cups to the sun. Small pink flowers filled

the crannies of the rocks. Here and there, from its clump of dark-green

leaves, a tall spear of asphodel stood up, bristling with buds. Saïd

eyed the scene with disgust as he mopped his forehead with one hand.

“By the Coràn, it is hot to-day,” he muttered. “And there is no water

until we come to Beyt Ammeh.”

Hasneh thrust a hand into her bosom and drew forth the few oranges

which were left. Saïd seized one and devoured it greedily. A second

went the same way. By the time his thirst was slaked but one remained,

which Hasneh, despite the craving of her dry lips and throat, put back

within her robe.

They set forward once more and had not made many steps before a man met

them, asleep on the hump of a camel. Saïd called to him to know the

way; whereat he awoke with a start, lost balance, and fell heavily on

the stones by the wayside. He staggered to his feet, blood streaming

from a wound in his forehead. Cursing bitterly, he caught up a big

stone and hurled it at Saïd, who dodged it narrowly and, without

waiting for further provocation, rushed on his assailant and closed

with him. Hasneh shrieked loudly for help, wakening vain echoes. The

camel, nose in air, chewed the cud placidly, as a wise man smokes his

pipe, with a downward, supercilious glance at the fighters.

Victory did not hang long in the balance. Saïd was a tall man, lean and

wiry, while his opponent was short and hampered with fat. The fisherman

forced him backward until he tripped on a boulder and fell. Then he set

foot on the belly of the fallen one and raised his staff to strike at

the face of his enemy. Fury blazed in his eyes.

“Stay! may thy religion be destroyed!” panted the camel-driver in a

rapture of fear. “What am I to thee that thou shouldest slay me? Thou

art a devil to cause me to fall and then to destroy me! May thy father

perish! Strike not; I am no enemy of thine! I never beheld thee till

this hour!”

Saïd lowered his stick, but his brow was still clouded and his posture

threatening.

“Take away thy foot!” gasped the other. “What have I done that thou

dost so ill-treat me? All that I have is thine, only spare my life!”

Saïd did not budge.

“A man’s life is worth much,” he said thoughtfully. “How much wilt thou

give me?”

“May thy whole race perish! I will give thee all that I have—ten

piastres.”

“Not enough.” Saïd’s foot pressed more heavily upon the mound of flesh.

“Twenty—thirty piastres!” shrieked the man.

“Not enough.”

“A Turkish pound!… By Allah, it is all that I have. And it is my

master’s money, not my own. Alas for me, I am ruined!”

Saïd withdrew his foot.

“Rise not until thou hast paid the ransom or I will slay thee,” he said

savagely.

The man loosened his garment, showing a linen bag which hung by a

string from his neck. Slipping the cord over his head he flung the bag

to Saïd with a curse. The fisherman examined the contents in a kind of

dotage, then nodded to the hostage.

“It is well,” he said. “Go in peace. And another time, when thou

fallest by chance from thy camel, throw no stones at those who stand by

lest a worse thing befall thee.”

Calling to Hasneh, he strode on his way with a light heart, leaving

the camel-driver to digest the gall of his loss as best he might. They

had gone some twenty paces when a noise of mighty cursing filled the

air behind them. At the same moment a great stone came whizzing within

a foot of Saïd’s head. Another struck Hasneh on the back, causing her

to stagger and fall forward. Saïd girded up his loins and ran until he

was beyond the utmost range of any missile. Then he got upon a rock

and began to revile his assailant in a loud voice, using his hand as

a trumpet. He watched the wretched man climb upon his camel again and

heard the scream of rage and hate with which he turned to shake a fist

at his plunderer. The fisherman laughed aloud and ceased not from

insulting his enemy until a shoulder of the mountain hid camel and

rider from sight.

Hasneh had struggled to her feet by this time and was making her

way towards him, stumbling, one arm hugging her bundle, the other

outstretched, like one walking in the dark. He cried to her to know if

she were hurt. Her answer was in the negative, but faintly and without

conviction. Saïd waited until she was within a few yards of him and

then pursued his way, chuckling over his own cleverness in turning what

had once seemed a misadventure to good account. The linen bag nestled

lovingly to his chest, seeming to recognise a worthier owner.

All to gain, nothing to lose ….

He could no longer apply the words strictly to himself. Nevertheless,

they rang hopefully in his ears, seeming to tell him that the sum he

had just acquired was but an earnest of the wealth in store for him.

The sun was almost at the zenith when they came in sight of the village

of Beyt Ammeh; for the great heat oppressed them and they walked

slowly, taking frequent rests. The squat, flat-roofed houses were

hardly to be made out at a distance, so little did they differ in form

and colour from the surrounding rocks. Only a few ragged fig-trees and

a thankless striving after cultivation in the immediate neighbourhood

told of a dwelling-place of man.

On the outskirts of the village, just below the ringed

threshing-floors, a spring gushed out beneath a ruinous arch by the

wayside. Flat-topped stones had been placed in the shadow to serve as

seats to wayfarers. Here Saïd stopped, and after a long, refreshing

drink proceeded to bathe his head, hands and feet. Hasneh sank down

upon a stone with hand pressed at her side, waiting patiently until

her lord should have done with the water. Then she rose, took one step

forward, staggered, and, with hands outstretched to the fountain, fell

heavily upon her face.

For full three minutes Saïd stared down at her blankly. Such behaviour

was quite beyond the cycle of his experience. At last he bethought him

of the cold water and began to dash it over her wildly with both hands.

Then, as she did not move, he concluded her dead and sat down to

try and get used to the notion. He was engaged thus, staring at the

lifeless form of the woman at his feet, when a shadow darkened the

ground before him. At the same moment a quavering voice asked to know

what was the matter. Lost in reflection, Saïd had not heard the patter

of feet drawing near.

Alarmed by the suddenness of the apparition, he leapt up with a curse.

An old woman stood before him, bent almost double beneath a heavy

burden. Her head nodded, her limbs quaked with palsy. Her jaw working

like a camel’s, she repeated the question in a shriller tone as Saïd

stared at her with wide-open eyes.

“It is my woman who is dead,” said the fisherman, ruefully, pointing to

the ground.

“How dost thou know that she is dead?” asked the old hag, in scorn. “As

I came out from the village I saw her fall, and would have run to help

her but that I am very old and feeble. But I watched thee. Thou hast

done nothing more than throw a little water upon her clothes. Turn her

over, madman, so that she lies upon her back.”

Something in the manner of the old woman daunted Saïd and made him

ashamed. He had not done much to revive Hasneh, it was true; but then,

he had supposed her dead, and none but a fool would wantonly waste his

time in trying to bring a dead woman back to life. He had now little

doubt that she lived, thanks to the old woman’s scornful suggestions.

In his heart he cursed the crone for breaking in upon him just when he

had brought his mind to a peaceful contemplation of his wife’s dead

body. Yet he obeyed her, and, lifting Hasneh in his arms, laid her down

again, face uppermost.

“Now sprinkle water upon her lips!”

Saïd obeyed a second time, with the result that after a little while

Hasneh opened her eyes.

“Take her up and bear her to the village! Thou hast no more mind

than a donkey!” piped the hag, in shrillest scorn, seeing him stand

purposeless.

The shame Saïd felt at having his actions ordered by a woman found

vent in a hearty curse on her, her religion and all her belongings.

Nevertheless, he did as he was bidden, and taking Hasneh in his arms

entered the village, grumbling at every step.

At the threshold of one of the hovels, on the edge of the sunlight, sat

a woman grinding at a small handmill. Saïd called to her that his wife

had fallen sick and needed rest. She rose at once from her business

to bid him enter and welcome. The darkness of the room within was

refreshing after the scorching glare of noon. A man rose from a squalid

couch against the wall and greeted Saïd in a sleepy voice. He waved a

hand to the dirty mattress he had quitted, and then to the woman in the

fisherman’s arms.

“May Allah increase thy wealth!” murmured Saïd, laying down his burden

upon the bed.

“Leave a woman to the care of a woman,” said the man of the house,

beckoning him to the doorway. “This woman of mine will tend her and,

after a little, we will drink some coffee.”

Saïd squatted down beside his host, just within the shadow of the room.

The outlook was of stony hills whitening under the burning noonday

sky, and in the foreground the low mud roofs of the village in broken

terraces.

“Whence comest thou?” asked the lord of the house, after a silence

spent in the rolling and lighting of cigarettes. Saïd told him the name

of the village where he had passed the night.

“Didst thou meet any man by the way?” he asked with sudden interest.

“My brother—his name is Farûn—set out this morning on the road to the

plain. He is a short man and very fat. He rides upon a camel laden with

stone. Hast seen him?”

“Yes, I saw him,” replied Saïd, thoughtfully, as one recalling a

picture to his mind. “He was sitting by the wayside and blood streamed

from a wound in his head. His camel strayed browsing at a little

distance. He told me that robbers had fallen suddenly upon him in the

way. They had taken all that he had of money. They had beaten him with

a stick and stoned him. I helped him to bind up his wound and gave him

of my money—all that I could spare. Then I saw him mount upon his

camel and ride away. He bade me tell his brother what had befallen him

when I should reach this village. The sickness of my woman had ousted

it from my mind till now.”

“Now, may Allah requite thee, for thou art a good man and bountiful!”

said the other, with eyes and hands upraised. “I hold thee as my near

kinsman for this kindness done to my brother. My house is thy house.

Rest here to-night, I pray thee. To-morrow, about the third hour, my

brother will return. Abide with us till then that he may thank thee

once again. By Allah, I think he would slay me were I to suffer thee to

go thy way unfeasted. Stay at least till the evening. Seeing the mishap

which has befallen him it may well be he will return ere night. By the

Coràn, it is lucky that the robbers did not take his camel also!”

“I cannot stay,” said Saïd hurriedly. “My brother is dead in

Damashc-esh-Shâm and I go to claim the inheritance. I must hasten on my

way.”

“If not for thine own sake, for the sake of thy woman abide here till

evening,” urged the host.

Saïd appeared wrapt in thought for some minutes. His face was moody

with knitted brows. Of a sudden it brightened.

“For myself, I cannot stay,” he said. “But it were well for my woman

that she should rest a while till the sickness leave her ….”

His eyes looked eager inquiry at the other.

“She is welcome and more than welcome!” cried the host, without

hesitation.

“May Allah increase thy wealth!” murmured Saïd, fervently, making a

low salaam. “When I come to the city I will send to fetch her, and thy

reward shall be very great. Think not because thou seest me poorly clad

that thou art showing kindness to a beggar. My brother was rich and I

go to claim the inheritance.”

He glanced furtively towards the couch, in fear lest Hasneh should have

heard anything of his speech. But her eyes were closed, and her bosom’s

rise and fall was of one in a peaceful sleep, gentle and even. Her

robe hung open at the neck showing something round and yellow nestling

in the soft brown hollow between her breasts. It was the orange which

she had forborne to eat that morning. The sight of it in the bosom of

the sleeping woman warmed Saïd’s heart to something like pity. It was

an appeal to his good nature, the stronger for being voiceless. For a

moment his purpose was shaken.

“All to gain: nothing to lose!”

His heart hardened as he recalled the words of the old beggar. There

was a glint of steel in his eyes as he turned them once more upon his

host.

“It is past noon,” he said. “In thy grace I depart. Take care of the

woman belonging to me and thy reward shall be great. May thy wealth

increase!”

“My peace with thee!” said the man, staring at him with amazement. “But

stay at least until thou hast drunk coffee with us. See! it is almost

ready.”

Saïd dared not break the law of hospitality. He waited, fidgety, and

ill at ease like one sitting upon a red-hot iron. He shifted his seat

continually, and his eyes kept veering round to where Hasneh lay

asleep, yet never looked at her. When at length a tiny cup of coffee

was put into his hand he flung his head back and swallowed the whole

contents at a gulp. Then he pressed both hands to his chest and his

whole body writhed. He had forgotten in his haste to drink and be gone

that the stuff was scalding hot. Tears streamed from his eyes, sweat

stood in great beads on his forehead as he set down the empty cup and

rose to take his leave.

“Thou art a fire-eater, by Allah!” cried the lord of the house, staring

aghast at him, cup in hand. “Why art thou in so great a hurry? A minute

or two will not rob thee of thy inheritance, and the heat of the day is

not yet past.”

But Saïd was more eager than ever to be off. Glancing fearfully in

the direction of the bed he had seen Hasneh open her eyes and stare

vacantly about her.

“Take all care of her, and may Allah prosper thee!” he muttered

hurriedly, crossing the threshold and dodging behind the doorpost.

“After a week I shall send to thee. Allah requite thee, O father of

kindness!”

He set off at a great pace, spurred by the thought that Hasneh might

discover the trick played on her and come running after him.

VII

At the village where he passed the night, a village half-way down a

mountain side, terraced and fledged with olive-trees, which looked over

a wide stretch of flat country, Saïd gleaned tidings of the missionary

of whom he hoped so much. The man in black had ridden through the place

before noon and was gone to his house in the plain, an hour’s journey

beyond. His heart was light when he set out in the morning. Far away

across the plain, mountains—the hugest he had ever seen—were dreamy

in the mists of early dawn. A white gleam of snow among their summits

was new to him, and would have held his eyes but for the nearer charms

of a red-roofed house in the plain below, where a blessed fool dwelt

and a man could have money for the asking. Thanks to the hospitality of

the villagers, the Turkish pound was still untouched in the linen bag

upon his chest. With what he hoped to obtain from the preacher he would

enter the great city in triumph instead of beggary.

The sun was already hot upon the plain when he reached the house of

the Frank. A tall negro, clad in a flowing robe of yellow and white,

finely striped, with a clean white turban, bound about his scarlet fez,

was sweeping the doorstep with a broom. Saïd wished him a happy day,

and sitting down upon his heels—for the ground was dewy—disposed

himself for a chat. But the negro was gruff. All Saïd’s compliments

were returned as curtly as the barest politeness would allow, and his

leading questions answered by an “Allah knows!” and a shrug of the

shoulders far from satisfying.

Finding that there was nothing to be gained by flattering the surly

doorkeeper, the fisherman changed his tone. Rising to his feet, he

cried, in a loud voice, meant to sound like thunder, “Go, tell thy

master that I wish to speak with him!”

The negro paused in his sweeping to look at him and laughed, showing

two rows of dazzingly white teeth.

“My master sleeps,” he said. “Thou knowest little of the ways of a

Frank if thou thoughtest to speak with him at this hour.”

“At what hour will he awake?” asked Saïd in the same lofty tone.

“Allah knows!” replied the negro, with a shrug, going on with his

sweeping.

Saïd squatted down once more upon his heels.

“I wait here till he is ready!”

The negro grinned angrily and indicated the vastness of the horizon by

a flourish of his broom.

“Walk!” he said grimly.

Saïd seemed not to understand.

“Walk!” repeated the negro, fiercely, rushing upon him with broom

upraised.

With a scared curse Saïd scrambled to his feet and bounded away, swift

as a gazelle in fear of the hunter. The negro stood looking after him,

his bosom still threatening, until the flutter of a blue robe and the

twinkle of brown legs were lost to sight among the knotted trunks of an

olive grove.

As soon as he thought himself safe Saïd flung himself upon the ground,

panting for breath. A pair of doves fluttered somewhere among the

branches, cooing sadly over a lost paradise. The sunlight made its

way here and there through the leafage in bars of golden haze. A

sound, made up of the barking of a dog, the cries of children and the

musical clink of a hammer on iron, told him that there was a village

somewhere in the depths of the wood. The grating song of the cicadas,

that waxed and waned in his throbbing ears, seemed the live spirits

of the sunlight stirring in the shade. Warm breaths, the sweet steam

from dew-drenched plants and moistened earth, rustled the leaves and

silvered them faintly.

“May his father perish!” muttered Saïd between his clenched teeth—a

sign that his breath was returning.

A little later, when he had ceased panting, he crept to the edge of

the sunshine. Keeping his body hid behind the widespread trunk of an

ancient olive he peeped forth.

At a stone’s throw the house of the missionary rose sheer amid a waste

of rank grass and thistles traversed by a bridle-path. Beyond rose the

mountain side, filmy in a bluish heat-mist. Halfway up Saïd descried

the place where he had slept, a cluster of low buildings of the same

hue as the neighbouring rocks, seeming as natural a growth as they.

The negro had left the doorway ere this, and was gone out of sight to

some other place where was need of his broom. But Saïd dared not yet

step forth into the open, an impression of the black man’s strength of

limb and the broom’s menace being fresh upon him. He watched and waited.

Soon there were signs of a stirring to life within the house. The

shutters of an upper window were closed against the sun by an arm

thrust out for the purpose. At the same time a man’s head was seen for

a moment. Then a little boy with thin brown legs came out of the olive

wood, passing close to Saïd but without seeing him. He must have come

from the village near at hand for he carried a big pitcher of milk

easily and without fatigue. He passed round a corner of the house, and

shortly returned swinging the empty pitcher. Windows were opened. A

shrill Arab chant in a woman’s voice came from some lower room. How

many servants had this accursed unbeliever? Saïd wondered.

Presently, just as he was thinking of trying his luck once more, the

negro being nowhere to be seen, a tall Frank, clad all in black save

his arms, which were in white sleeves, appeared in the gloom of the

doorway and shouted, “Cassim!”

Saïd had taken a step forward, with intent to rush across the

intervening space and fling himself at the blessed madman’s feet, when

the reappearance of his enemy made him shrink back. The man in black

seemed to be giving an order, to which the negro bowed assent. Then

Saïd saw the Frank re-enter the house, while the servant ran round to

the back of the building.

The coast was clear once more. But the second coming of the negro to

thwart him had made Saïd cautious. Choosing what he deemed the wise

man’s part, he watched still and waited. But after a few minutes the

negro returned, leading a handsome grey stallion by the bridle, when

Saïd had the vexation of seeing the missionary mount and ride away.

His parting charge to the black servant, shouted as the restive horse

broke into a canter, reached Saïd’s ears distinctly through the still,

sounding air.

“I return at sundown, O Cassim! Tell the people there will be no school

to-day!”

The negro stood awhile looking after the horseman. Then he turned and,

going about his business, passed once more out of sight.

Saïd flung himself down in the deep shadow behind his tree trunk,

calling down every ill he could think of upon the Frank and all his

race. The tall negro also was not forgotten in that all-embracing

curse, nor his father, nor his grandfather; not so much as an aunt or a

cousin was left out. Then, feeling better, he began to sound the depths

of his disappointment.

From the time of his meeting with the old beggar he had looked to the

bounty of the Frankish missionary as a traveller in the waste looks

forward to the place of waters. He snarled as he thought that he might

have gained his end and gone rejoicing on his way but for the selfish

devil that kept the door, who guarded the well for his own use. Now he

must leave the place as he had come, with only a single Turkish pound

in the linen bag against his chest. It was nothing beside what he had

hoped to get from the mad preacher of unbelief. He had no mind to stay

there till nightfall on the slender chance of eluding the watchfulness

of the negro and winning the ear of his master. The city called him

with a siren’s voice. There, in the vast bustling hive, were wondrous

chances for a young man and a strong who had nothing to lose. There

were women fairer and sweeter than Hasneh—young girls, perhaps, pure

as lily buds, who would tremble and wax faint at a kiss. He licked his

lips softly.

A sound of footsteps close at hand startled him out of a languorous

dream. It was the negro, who, unobserved of Saïd, had crossed the open

space of sunlight and was threading his way among the gnarled trunks of

the grove, a large basket on his arm. He passed within twelve paces of

the fisherman, but without perceiving him, so still he lay.

Then a thought came to Saïd. Now that the enemy was gone what was

to hinder him from entering the house and viewing for himself the

splendour which must assuredly reign within? From all he had seen and

heard during his long watch it was unlikely that the unbeliever had

more than one manservant. There would be none but women in the house;

and if one of them should surprise him and ask what he did there, he

had only to tell her of his wish to speak with the Frank, her master.

He stole from his lair and stepped out into the sunlight.

The silence of the place, with all those windows gazing so fixedly at

him, was a little daunting at first, so that he advanced warily. It

seemed as if a shout must come from the open door, which looked so like

a mouth. But when he had made a few paces unchallenged courage returned

to him. The Arab chant he had before heard came faintly from some room

at the back. But for that, and a great cat blinking to sleep on a

window-sill, the place seemed desolate.

Slipping off his shoes on the doorstep he passed swiftly into the cool

gloom within. There was a sort of hall, wide and lofty, having two

windows, one on either side of the entrance. Upon a table in the midst

of it lay the remains of a feast—broken bread and meat, a plate of

oranges and a bowl half empty of curds, besides a great cup and saucer

and two white jugs of an outlandish fashion. Facing him, beyond the

table, were two doors, both shut, from behind one of which the sounds

of chanting seemed to proceed. He stole past the table, his bare feet

making no noise on the stone pavement or the matting which was over

part of it. There was a stairway in a recess to the right. He mounted

swiftly and stealthily.

At the top an open door attracted him. It showed a room with a bed in

it and soft rugs upon the floor. Saïd went straight to the bed and fell

to examining its framework, sitting on his heels and exclaiming, “Ma

sh’Allah!” under his breath. It was almost like a table standing on six

iron legs; but four of the legs reached above it as well as below, and

each of the four was crowned with a little knob, like an orange, of

some burnished yellow metal he took for gold. A wonderful thing! It was

long ere he could tear himself away from the marvel.

The room was cool and pleasant, shaded from the sun, which beat on that

side of the house, by the shutters of the window, which were closed.

Upon a small table there was a mirror. He saw his counterpart for a

minute without recognition. Then he grinned, and scanned the face in

the glass with complacency. From a peg beside the door hung a long

garment of brown stuff, soft as wool, yet thick and strong as if it had

been of camel’s hair. It was braided with red at the collar and on the

sleeves, and a red cord dangled from a loop in the middle, ending in

two red tassels. Above it, on a nail, was a scarlet fez, of the high

shape worn by Turks and great ones.

Saïd took off his own cap and the encircling turban which old ties of

dirt and perspiration had made of one piece with it. The back of his

shaven head, thus laid bare, was reflected in the looking-glass, the

ears standing out from it huge and grotesque as those of a jinni. He

eyed his ancient head-dress with disgust. The round tarbûsh, shaped

like the half of a pomegranate, with its clumsy tassel which had once

been blue, appeared a sorry thing indeed as he looked from it to the

new scarlet of that other cap. His raiment, too, was old and stained,

in need of a cloak to hide its shortcomings. Taking down the brown robe

from the wall he turned it about and about, seeking the holes for the

arms. Then he slipped into it and, setting the scarlet fez upon his

head, went back to the mirror.

He noticed a fault. The fez, being used to cover a thick crop of hair,

was too large for his shorn poll. His ears alone prevented it from

putting out the light of his countenance. He cast about for a remedy.

There was upon the table a small white cloth or kerchief of finest

linen. This he made to serve his turn by twisting it tight round cap

and forehead as a turban. That done, he grinned freely and examined

other objects upon the table. Among them was a picture of a girl,

clad indecently after the manner of the Franks. Saïd eyed it closely,

wondering what purpose it could serve. Then he remembered that the

Franks are but idolaters, who worship pictures and other forbidden

things of their own making. “It is his god, by Allah!” he muttered,

turning away with a gesture of disdain. Before leaving the room he

cast his discarded headgear upon the bed with a parting curse on its

religion.

VIII

As Saïd was making his way downstairs, with less of caution than he had

observed in his ascent (the joy of his new finery had elated him beyond

all prudence), a door was opened in the hall below and a woman came

out. Beholding him she drew her veil hastily across the lower part of

her face. Her eyes were bright and her movements had the grace of youth.

“Who art thou? What dost thou here?” she cried shrilly. “The khawaja

is on a journey and Cassim is gone to the village. I am alone in the

house, the old woman, my mother, being ill. If perchance thou hast an

errand to my master I can give word to him on his return.”

Of a sudden her voice rose to anger.

“Allah, pardon! Where gottest thou that cloak? Thief that thou art!

It is the robe of my lord, which hangs always in his own chamber. O

Cassim, there is a thief in the house! A thief! O Cassim, a thief!”

She ran screaming to the outer door and opened her mouth wide towards

the olive grove, crying always, “O Cassim! O Cassim! A thief! a thief!”

Saïd rushed on her and pinioned her arms.

He tried to fling her to the ground, but she struggled like a mad

thing, and at length, bending swiftly, with the yell of a wild beast,

bit the fisherman’s hand so that he cried out with pain. Need to look

at the wound made him loose his hold, whereupon she broke away and fled

within the house, barring a door behind her.

Saïd frowned at the marks of her teeth in his flesh, from which the

blood began to ooze. He put the place to his mouth and sucked it—an

act which prevented a storm of curses. And even as he was tending his

wound in such a manner as Nature prompted, the screams of the woman

broke out anew, as of one in a frenzy,—

“O Cassim! Help! a thief! O Cassim! O Cassim!”

This time there came an answering shout from the olive grove.

Turning, he beheld the negro running towards the house as fast as his

long black legs could carry him. Saïd snatched up his slippers from

the doorstep. With the spring of a hunted animal he leapt out into

the sunlight, and gathering up his new robe, sped away from house and

olive-trees, out into the wide plain, where hot air swam along the

distance in liquid mist.

Once he turned to look back. The negro had set down his basket and

was pursuing at a steady trot which meant business. Saïd fled on,

but with slackened pace. He had need to husband his breath, for the

race was like to be a long one. Panting, sweating from every pore, he

stumbled across a wady where a little freshet of water tinkled among

boulders from pool to pool. Brushing through the belt of oleanders on

the further bank, he ran on across the bare land, trampling rank grass,

thistles and creeping plants.

But the negro had long legs. Saïd learnt, by the growing beat of

footfalls in his ears, that he was losing ground. Soon he could hear

also the hard breathing of his pursuer. He made a spirt, though his

heart was near to breaking, it thumped so against his ribs.

“Allah is merciful!” He had almost fallen into a deep hole, overgrown

with weeds at the mouth—a disused cistern, it might be. He had

lengthened his stride only just in time. A piteous shriek came from

behind him. He turned to glance back, still running. The black was

nowhere to be seen. He dropped to the ground, pressing his hand on his

heart. “Praise to Allah!” he gasped, and then lay still, panting.

The sun beat hotly upon him there in the open plain. He longed for some

patch of shade, were it but of a shrub, enough to shelter his head and

face. Only a few paces distant a lonely carub-tree of great size spread

its gnarled boughs and glossy dark foliage over a rough pavement—a

pious foundation for the repose of travellers. Saïd dragged himself

thither and lay a great while with eyes closed.

“Praise be to Allah!” he exclaimed again, when breath had quite

returned. Then he bethought him of the black man and that the hole

might be of no great depth after all. He rose and went to the place.

While he was searching among weeds and dwarf shrubs for the mouth of

the pit he saw a black hand come up out of the ground and clutch the

stalk of a big blue thistle. Then he regretted bitterly that he had

flung away his staff lest it should prove a hindrance in running. For

want of it he took a jagged stone in his hand and beat viciously with

it upon the bony parts of the fingers. The desired yell at once reached

his ears, and the hand was nimble as a lizard to slip back into its

hole. Then Saïd, lying flat upon his stomach, wriggled forward until he

could look down into the prison. There was his enemy standing upright

in a narrow place like a well, but dry to all appearance. By stretching

down his arm he could almost have touched the negro’s white turban.

Cassim glared up at him with white eyes of hate. Saïd could hear him

grind his teeth for rage of helplessness.

He looked forth over the wide brown plain with faint blue mountains

everywhere along the sky-line, and back to where the house of the Frank

at the foot of the hill was like a tiny white box shut tight with a

high red lid.

Then peering again into the hole, he laughed aloud.

“Is it cool down there, O son of a pig?” he inquired. “By Allah, thou

art well housed and I envy thee. Up here I am roasting in the noonday,

whilst thou, within arm’s length of me, dost enjoy the cool of night.

There is a road not far from thy dwelling, O foul scion of a race of

swine; also a great tree where travellers may rest in the shade. But

for all that, help is far from thee. Men will take fright at thy cries,

coming from under the earth, and will fly swiftly as from a place of

sin. I have it in my mind, thou dog, to drop earth down on thee and

stones, and so bury thee. What sayest thou, ugly one? It would give me

joy to defile thy grave!”

Of a sudden the negro made a great leap with hand upstretched. His

nails grazed Saïd’s face, causing him to draw back in alarm.

“Curse thy father, son of a dog that thou art!” came a terrible voice

from the pit. “May thy life be cut short! May all thy children rot, and

thy woman betray thee to an enemy!”

“A wise man gives fair words to his master,” retorted Saïd, and his

voice was like a leopard’s paw, so soft yet dangerous. “What art thou

to me that I should delay to slay thee? At my elbow there is a nice

stone which would break thy head as it were an egg. Speak smoothly to

thy master, O Cassim, son of a pig!”

A fresh outbreak of cursing answered from the hole. Then Saïd reflected

that he had wasted time enough in play by the wayside. The shadow of

the carub-tree, lying like a blot of ink upon the whitening land,

tempted him to rest there yet a little while. But two fears urged him

onward. The negro might in the end get out of the hole, when Saïd could

hope for no mercy if caught napping thereabouts; and the woman he had

assailed, alarmed at Cassim’s non-appearance, would soon raise the

hue-and-cry, if she had not already done so.

Saïd knew that his road lay towards those faint blue distant mountains

with the whiteness among their crests, and there his knowledge ended.

The plain stretched burning and treeless in that direction, but at a

point far away a ripple of foliage broke the level. He could make out

the shape of a palm-tree, seeming of no more substance than a blade of

grass, so distant it was, and the quiver of hot air between. Palms do

not grow solitary like weeds or carub-trees. A village was therefore

near it, where he could inquire his road more perfectly. There remained

only to take farewell of the prisoner.

He drew near once more to the mouth of the pit. With a look of

concentration he leaned over and spat full in the upturned face of the

negro. Then he rose lightly and went his way.

IX

It was towards evening when Saïd left the place where, weary from

long walking in the fierce eye of noon, he had sought shelter and

refreshment. A crowd of men, women and children—all who dwelt in

that place—went out with him from among the hovels as far as a tall

palm-tree, which crowned a smooth hillock green with grass. In the

midst of the obsequious rabble Saïd strutted a king, distinguished as

he was by the missionary’s brown dressing-gown, braided conspicuously

with red, and girt about the waist with a red and tasselled cord; not

to speak of the new scarlet fez bound to his head by a turban of more

than human cleanness.

Arrived at the palm-tree, all the villagers pressed forward to kiss his

hand or, it might be, only the skirt of his wondrous robe. The glory

of his raiment had enthralled them at his coming, and in the first

rapture of greatness, in the joy of their cringing and flattery, he had

promised to see that all their wrongs and grievances were presently

redressed.

So he strode on his way with their blessings, turning ever and anon,

with a gracious gesture, to look back at the squalid crowd of fellahìn,

who stood grouped about the palm-tree, looking after him with hands

shading their eyes. His brain was on fire with arrogance. Every herb on

which he trod marked a new act of condescension. The whole earth fell

down before him. The sun burned for him alone. Trees and shrubs cast

their shadows like garments in his path.

But by-and-by, as the village shrank in distance, the vapours besetting

his brain began to disperse. His legs were stiff from his race of the

forenoon. He longed for a horse to carry him at ease, and the wish did

much to sober him. A great one does not travel on foot, neither does he

wander from home in the heat of the day without at least a sunshade in

his hand, if not a servant to hold it over him. Sudden shame came upon

him like an ague. The villagers would discuss his appearance now that

he was gone, and remembering that he had neither horse nor servant, not

so much as a parasol, would perceive their own folly and curse him for

an impostor. At that he quickened his step so as to be far from a place

where he must shortly be held in derision.

The violet mountains, which had seemed so far away in the morning, were

now nearer to him than those others from whose base he had set out.

The sun, a disc of flame, was sinking down on the uttermost rim of the

plain. Shadows were no longer dense and inky under every object, but

stretched long and blue to eastward, growing with every minute. Far

away across the flat Saïd was aware of a thin bright line, vague and

dreamy beneath the setting sun. On that side was the sea. He grew sad

as he recalled his little house among the sandhills. The cool breeze of

evening was stirring the great leaves of his fig-tree even now.

As he pondered on things past a spirit awoke within him and showed him

Abdullah in a new light. He stood still, as if gripped by a sudden

twinge of pain. Stretching forth his hands to Heaven he bade Allah

witness the trust he had ever placed in his friend and partner, and the

consequent enormity of the fraud. In the first frenzy he thought to

retrace his steps, to walk day and night without respite, until he had

slain the treacherous liar. He even took a dreadful oath before Allah

to that effect. But his mind soon changed. There was an evil report of

him all along the way by which he had come. He felt ashamed because

of Hasneh, and feared to see her face again. And the great city lay

before him, where Allah alone knew what joys might be in store for him.

Nevertheless, he made a vow: that, when he had achieved the greatness

of his hopes, he would return to his native town riding upon a horse,

with a company of horsemen, his servants, and would cause Abdullah

to be whipped in his sight with a lash set thickly with sharp nails;

and then, when his enemy lay bleeding and faint at his feet, he would

recite the story of his crime aloud for all men to hear. And at last,

to make vengeance complete, he would spurn his enemy with his foot and

gallop off with his servants in a cloud of dust.

Twilight was closing swiftly into night when Saïd reached a place where

was a well in the shade among some olive-trees, and hard by a low,

flat-roofed house, from whose open door and window a faint red light

flickered upon the trampled ground.

“Praise be to Allah—a khan!” he murmured, espying the forms of two

men smoking on stools before the door. Tethered to the nearest tree, a

horse, which appeared black in the half light, was munching steadfastly

in a wooden trough. The saddle was still on its back, though the girth

was unfastened and dangling.

The two who sat smoking by the door rose courteously at the approach of

a stranger. Saïd returned their salutation as though it had come from

the dirt beneath his feet. He removed a stool to a seemly distance from

them and sat down, calling impatiently for food and drink.

“My horse is fallen by the way,” he cried in a loud voice, for the

enlightenment of all who might be in the house. “I bade my men stay to

tend the beast, having yet hopes that he may recover. A good horse, by

Allah, which I bought for fifty Turkish pounds, but I would not part

with it for a hundred. In a little while they will be here, if they

lose not their way in the darkness, which is very possible, their mind

being little as the mind of a sheep.”

At the sound of that high speech the master of the khan appeared—a

tall, black shape on the glow of the doorway. Behind him other dark

forms were discernible—a cluster of heads, some turbanded, others

draped in a shawl bound about the temples with a rope of camel’s hair.

Saïd was not pleased to find the khan so full of people. In such a

crowd there might well be some great one who might expose him. The

fear was vague but sickening. It was speedily laid to rest. A ray of

firelight played on Saïd’s sleeve, showing the fine red braiding, when

an awe-stricken murmur spread among the group at the door. It made him

smile in his beard.

“What is thy will, effendi? All that I have is thine,” said the owner

of the house, coming forward with a deep obeisance. “Deign but to

enter the room. It is my shame that I have no meat to set before your

Eminence. But condescend to wait a little and my woman shall slay a

fowl ….”

“I have little hunger, I thank thee, and I prefer the open air,” broke

in Saïd, loftily. “I do but await the men belonging to me, whom I left

to tend my horse, which fell in the way hither. A good horse! Two

hundred Turkish pounds would not requite me for his loss. Bring only a

little fruit, some bread and some sherbet of roses. And forget not to

prepare coffee and a narghileh for when I have done with eating.”

At that all was bustle and running to and fro. One ran to the well for

water. Another undertook to pound the coffee. A third set a little

stool before the fisherman and a lantern to shed light on his repast.

A fourth prepared the weed for his narghileh by first plunging it into

a jar of water, then wringing it out strongly with both hands. And

those who could not be of active use raised their voices officiously in

counsel and direction.

Only one held aloof. It was an aged man, one of those who sat smoking

before the door. His bearing seemed superior to the rest. He alone

remained seated, sucking lazily at his narghileh. Saïd divined a

scornful smile on this man’s face as he looked on at the slavishness of

his neighbours. Night, stealing out from under the olive-trees, had now

completely hemmed in the house, so that, as they sat apart, Saïd could

not see his countenance. But something told him the contempt was there,

and it made him uneasy.

All that he required was presently brought and set upon the stool

before him. There followed a hush, as the bystanders, having no more

work to do, sat down on their heels at a discreet distance and watched

his meal. They conversed together in whispers.

Saïd could hear the horse munching its chaff and barley under the

trees hard by. There was now and then the stamp of a hoof, or a faint

thud as it pushed against the wooden manger. He found it irksome to

eat in state and apart. It came into his mind to call the host to him;

but reflecting that true greatness brooks no fellow, he refrained.

Instead, he pricked his ears to catch the gist of their whispering.

“Officer”—“Soldiers”—“War” were among the words which reached him.

They fired a train of new ideas. Straightening his back, he stroked his

moustache and beard with soldierly fierceness.

He was aware of a movement in the group. With the tail of his eye he

saw the master of the khan draw near to that aged one who sat aloof and

speak to him. Even in the darkness he knew that both their faces were

turned in his direction.

“O Faris! Bring the coffee for his Excellency!—and the narghileh

also!” cried the host, whereat a man rose and ran quickly into the

house. But the innkeeper himself did not budge. He remained whispering

with the sheykh, and their eyes were fixed on Saïd.

Presently, when the great man seemed fully and happily occupied with

his smoking, the sheykh rose with a show of carelessness, picked up

a pair of saddle-bags which lay by the wall, and went silently to

where the horse was tethered. Saïd heard him thrust aside the portable

manger, and knew, though he could not see, that he was busy strapping

the girth. Then came the jingle of a bit.

The fisherman rose with an evil smile. He felt himself the object of

all eyes, and in face of that quaking audience which believed in him

was bold as a lion to act his part. Without a second’s delay he rushed

upon the sheykh, and, seizing him by his clothing, swung him round and

gripped his throat.

“I have thee, old fox,” he hissed, shaking his prisoner gently but with

a deft suggestion of worse to come. “This horse is no longer thine.

In the name of the Sultàn’s majesty—may Allah preserve his life for

ever!—I take him from thee. Thou knowest the law. After a little, when

the war is over, he will be thine again—if he die not in the meantime,

which is very likely, for it is a sorry beast.”

With that he left hold of the old man, sending him reeling against the

trunk of a tree, and, gathering up his grand robe, climbed into the

saddle. All the men of the inn were now gathered to the spot. Their

eyes were fierce upon Saïd, but fear sealed their lips. The sheykh,

recovered from his stupor, grasped the bridle tightly.

“Yes, it is true, I know the law!” he screamed. “Thou mayst take my

horse—good, since there is war. But first thou must write me a paper

of acknowledgment. I am no common man, I warn thee, to be robbed and

no questions asked. I have friends in power. Give me, I tell thee, a

writing of acknowledgment that I may claim my own when the evil time is

past!”

Saïd hesitated, aghast. He had never dreamt of any more formality about

the levying of a beast of burden for the army than had been observed in

the taking of his own donkey. In any case, to give the paper was quite

beyond his power, for he could scarcely write.

“What is this, son of a dog?” he exclaimed at last. “A paper, sayest

thou?—and the law? Am I one to take orders from a dog like thee? As

soon as my men arrive with the other beasts thou shalt have thy paper,

but not now. Dost hear—eh, old dotard? Now stand aside or I ride over

thee! I go to meet my followers.”

He urged the horse forward; but the old man still kept hold of the

bridle, and the steed knew his master. His hesitation, and the

misgiving which showed a little through his brave mask, had taken

something from his prestige with the onlookers. They closed in upon

him, clamouring for justice. It was a lonely place; in all the darkness

there was no friend. He began to be afraid.

“At least the saddle-bags are mine,” cried the sheykh, setting to work

to free them.

“Fruit and bread and coffee are worth money, O my uncle! even without

syrup of roses and the narghileh,” said the master of the khan in tones

of blandest remonstrance. As he spoke his face was very near to Saïd’s,

and its expression was terribly at variance with the suavity of his

utterance.

All who stood by looked meaningly at one another. “By Allah, the right

is with him!” they exclaimed, “All this is worth money. It is just that

he be paid for it.”

Saïd moved uneasily in his seat.

“Take thy saddle-bags, old madman!” he cried. “What are they to me? As

for thee, dog, thou mayst count thyself happy if I send thee not to

prison. I saw thee whisper to the sheykh here, and knew that thou wast

warning him to be gone quickly with his horse. Thou art no true subject

of the Sultàn. If I spare thy life it is payment enough.”

At that there was a great outcry from all the group. They beset him

angrily with intent to drag him from the saddle. Saïd felt deadly sick.

Only the thought that he was a high officer of the Sultàn’s army upheld

him. Rough hands were already laid upon him, when he shouted “Praise be

to Allah!” very fervently, with joy in his voice. They all drew back in

surprise.

“Make haste, Ahmed!—Mustafa!—Muhammed! I, your leader, am assailed

by robbers. Hassan and Ali, ride fast! Let Negìb, whose horse is lame,

take charge of the captured beasts! I, Saïd Agha, am in peril of my

life!”

Turning to the terrified innkeeper and his friends, he said shortly,—

“Dogs, count yourselves dead! Hear ye not the sound of hoof-beats?” And

digging the sharp corners of the iron stirrups deep into the flanks

of the horse he galloped away into the night. The last he saw of his

assailants, they were standing huddled together, like silly sheep,

half-dead with fright.

X

It was evening when Saïd at last came in sight of the great city. He

reined in his horse on the brow of a steep hill, the last wave of the

bare brown highlands through which his way had lain all day. Hard by

was a little shrine, the crescent fiery above its dome. The sun was

just setting among the dark peaks behind him, and the last gleam of

day was warm upon the shrine and all the hill-top. Horse and man had

a glory at their backs. But beneath, the city and its endless garden

lay already in the lap of night. White domes and minarets, mosques and

palaces, loomed wanly in the heart of a vast grove, which stretched,

far as the eye could ascertain, to eastward towards a smooth horizon

which was the desert. Gathering shades spread a thin veil over all the

plain, like the bloom on a purple grape. An amethyst flush suffused

the eastern sky—a spirit flush, soft, yet living, wherein starlight

and daylight seemed mingled. Saïd’s heart leapt as he beheld the

mistress of his dreams, set in her gardens, seeming the fairer and more

desirable for the grim, treeless mountains which were her girdle.

“It is paradise,” he murmured in ecstasy.

At the foot of the hill, on the utmost fringe of the gardens, he could

see a little village of flat-roofed houses. A string of camels was

drawing near to it along the base of the steep. The tinkle of their

bells rippled the twilight cheerily. Of a sudden the noise of chanting

arose—a wild, delirious song of piercing shrillness. It came from the

high platform of the only minaret of the village. Somewhat mellowed by

the distance, it reached Saïd’s ears as heavenly music. The clangour

of bells ceased of a sudden. The camels had halted. Their drivers,

obedient to the muezzin’s call, were prostrate in prayer.

Saïd got down from his horse and went through the form of ablution with

some dry dust he collected. Taking off his grand garment, a good deal

the worse for his five days’ wearing of it, he stretched it on the

ground for a mat. He turned his face carefully to the south and knelt

down as near to the shrine as he conveniently might. He raised his

thumbs to his ears and spread his hands over his eyes in the likeness

of an open book. He rose, stooped, knelt again, prostrated himself and

pressed his forehead to the earth. Then he sat awhile upon his heels

with eyes closed, and then glanced to left and right, to exorcise any

evil spirits who were thereabout.

At last he rose and resumed his cloak. The orange glow of sunset was

fading fast, and the mountains he was leaving were black and grey upon

it. He bestrode his horse once more and began to descend. It was night

when he entered the city. The streets were almost deserted. The few men

he met were wending homeward, some in a hurry, others with the leisure

of importance. Light streamed from an arched doorway, making a yellow

pool on the rough pavement. A red glow, sifted through the tracery of

an upper lattice, made a delicate filigree upon the wall opposite. But

for such chance alms the streets were pitchy dark. The strip of sky

above, sprinkled thick with stars, was a brightness in comparison. At

the clatter of a horse’s hoofs, dogs, seemingly without number, rose

grudgingly and slunk snarling from the roadway. Every wayfarer had a

lantern to light his steps, either in his own hand or in that of a

servant who walked before.

Anon he came to a region where all the streets had roofs which shut

out the sky, save a starry shred here and there where there was a rift

in the black covering. Here was more life. A few merchants were yet

busy stowing away their wares for the night, black shapes in flowing

robes and turbans moving hither and thither about their lanterns. At a

place where four of these covered ways met, seeming like corridors in

a giant’s house, a sentry was standing in the door of his little hut

talking to two muleteers.

The ride through the dim streets had humbled Saïd. He felt very

lonely all at once. In all that wilderness of dwellings there was not

one soul who knew him. He would have given much—even his horse, or

his brown cloak with the red braiding—to have had Hasneh with him.

Fearing he knew not what rebuff, he had been ashamed to accost any man

hitherto. But now he reined in his horse before the sentry-box and,

wishing the little group a happy evening, inquired after a khan. One

of the muleteers knew a good one and offered to guide him thither. It

was plain, by the fervour of their salutations, that they took him

for a superior. He began to feel more at ease. It was not far to the

hostelry. The muleteer talked glibly all the way, of travelling and of

his own journeys in particular. His name it appeared was Selìm. He was

but lately returned from Haleb the White, and before that he had been

to Baghdad with a hundred camels. Whence had his honour come. From the

South?—from the sea-coast. Ah, he had been there too, having journeyed

with a caravan to Gaza, and back by El Khalìl and the holy city. It was

a pleasant land, the lord of all for oranges; he had the taste of them

yet in his mouth.

Saïd lent a gracious ear to his guide’s prattle, which relieved him of

that feeling of loneliness which was weighing him down. Arrived at the

khan, he bestowed a small coin upon the fellow, who blessed him and

went his way.

A bare-legged lad belonging to the inn held his horse while he

dismounted, and led it in through an archway. Saïd followed closely

to be sure that the right measure of fodder was given and the beast

properly cared for. He entered a huge vaulted chamber, its groined roof

upheld by two rows of pillars. Couched upon the ground, big, ungainly

camels were pompously chewing the cud, now and then rolling up a deep

gurgling sound like a groan from some nether stomach. Horses were

there, each fastened with a halter to a ring in the wall. One stallion,

a new-comer, was screaming lustily and tugging at his rope. Patient

asses with moving ears and swishing tails, and sullen mules whose eyes

looked wicked in the lurid glow of the single lantern, were tethered

here and there. There was a sound of stamping, of scrunching, and a

pungent smell. A little donkey just within the gate lifted up his voice

and brayed as Saïd entered.

Having seen his steed well placed and provided for, Saïd followed

the serving-lad to a door in the wall, whence light streamed upon a

camel’s hump. The noise of voices and a smell of cooking also issued

from it, soothing two senses with the promise of cheer within. He found

himself in a long room with cushions ranged along the wall, lighted by

a number of wicks floating in a large saucer full of oil. A numerous

company were seated, some smoking and chatting on the divan, others, on

isolated cushions, eating ravenously with their hands out of dishes set

upon brass trays before them. They all rose in acknowledgment of his

salutation and a place of honour was offered to him, which, however, he

declined to accept, choosing rather a lowly seat about midway in the

room. In an arched alcove or inner room a fire was glowing in a great

brazier, whereon were many vessels steaming.

Saïd desired a portion of a savoury mess of pigeons and rice, which the

bare-legged lad informed him was almost ready. The meal, though proper

enough to his fine robe braided with red and the decent horse he rode,

was scarcely in keeping with the sum of ready money in the linen bag

upon his chest. But he had no longer any need of a horse. He would sell

his steed on the morrow, and the price he hoped to get for it would

keep him in comfort for many months.

When hunger was appeased, and a tiny cupful of the bitterest coffee had

diffused a pleasant warmth within him, he began to take interest in the

conversation around him. A big, sanguine fellow, who by his garb seemed

a wealthy fellah—the sheykh of some village, perhaps, or a small

landowner—was talking excitedly in a loud voice. His large brown eyes,

of ox-like stupidity, were bright, but without a spark of cunning. His

close-cut beard was reddish like his moustache.

“My cause is a just one. Also I have set aside much money to secure

judgment. My enemy cannot bring forward a single witness in his favour,

whereas I have my brother here and my servant who were present at the

transaction. It is certain that I shall win.”

He took up the hem of his robe—a rich one though somewhat soiled—to

wipe the amber mouthpiece of his narghileh.

“Truly thou art an honest man and a trusting,” said a bilious-looking

person, short and swarthy, with a sneering smile. “It is well seen thou

comest from a far village. As for witnesses, I tell thee thy adversary

may have ten for thy two. Thou art rash, young man, to quarrel with

one so powerful as the tithe-farmer. Thou hast wealth, it may be, but

be sure he is richer than thee. Also he has the ear of the rulers, who

profit by his exactions. The Mehkemeh is not a house of justice as thou

thinkest, but an open market where judgment goes to the heaviest purse.

Thou comest from afar; but I am of the city and speak from knowledge.

To-morrow, when thou goest to the court, thou wilt be beset at the

gate by a crowd of rascals whose trade is to bear witness for money.

Twenty piastres will buy thee a plausible fellow who will swear to

aught that pleases thee. The Cadi will count the witnesses on either

side, and will give judgment for the greater number—if he have not

sold his verdict beforehand, which is most likely. Bakshìsh is lord of

all. A wise man does not fall out with the rich. It is the same all the

world over. They tell of countries where justice is for rich and poor

alike; but that is all a lie!”

He looked round on the faces to mark the effect of his words. Then he

leaned back and began to roll a cigarette.

The young man who had first spoken broke out in fierce invective at

such a state of things. Yet he still believed that his own case would

prove a big exception. He boasted wildly and a little foolishly of

the revenge he would take if judgment were given against him. He even

reviled those in authority, so that his listeners murmured, with

fear in their eyes. It was ill to speak thus in a public place where

none knew his company. The eyes of everyone sought a neighbour’s in

concern. Saïd above all was singled out for suspicion. His brown

cloak of outlandish make, and especially the red braid upon it, had

a quasi-official look. It was a relief to all when a fat-faced man

with roguish eyes, who sat in the lowest seat and seemed the poorest

there, raised his voice in fantastical eulogy of riches. He stood up,

and mimicking an advocate or other public speaker, talked nonsense

glibly in a high poetic strain. It was rather brilliant nonsense, and

it tickled his audience hugely. One and all rolled with laughter,

holding their sides. By the time the wag sat down again he was dear as

a brother to every man there. As an approved jester he might have taken

the seat of honour without offence to the most arrogant.

After that the talk became less general. Men yawned one after another.

Those nearest to Saïd made overtures of friendship. They asked

questions: whence he came, what his name was, whether he had a son,

what might be his business in the city, and so forth—questions Saïd

was often puzzled to answer. To escape from their inquisitiveness he

declared himself with a yawn to be very weary, and asked to be shown

to the place of sleep. One or two of the company had already set the

example. He salaamed to the room in general as he went out.

The same bare-legged youth who had served him on his arrival led him

now through the dim stable, among the sleeping beasts, to a place

where a flight of stone steps was built against the wall. Ascending,

he came into a long room like to that he had just left. The lantern

his guide carried showed the floor bare save for four mattresses, on

which as many men lay stretched, and a heap of dirty bedding in one

corner. There was a lattice affording a glimpse of the stars above the

uneven blackness of flat-topped roofs. The night air came freely into

the chamber—not the sweet breeze of the mountain or the seashore, but

a breath of the sleeping city redolent of the day’s filth. The lad

dragged a mattress and a covering from the heap and spread them close

by the window. Then wishing the traveller a happy night, he departed.

Saïd lay awake a great while. Men came in by ones and twos, spread

out their beds and lay down, until the floor was strewn with sleeping

forms and the sound of loud snoring in every key floated out melodious

into the night. He could not be rid of a feeling that he was still on

horseback, riding at a foot’s pace over hill and dale, breezy mountain

and burning plain. A fear was at his heart—a fear that had been with

him always of late, that he might fall in with a band of soldiers who

would rob him of his horse even as he had robbed the rightful owner.

He had indeed learned from a shepherd lad that there was no war but

only a general movement of troops changing garrison. But as steeds were

needed as much in the one case as in the other, the tidings in no way

relieved his mind. By a cautious avoidance of towns and large villages,

and choice of a by-path, even though it went a long way round, he had

almost doubled the length of his journey, and had approached the city

by the way of the hills, whereas the way of the plain was much shorter.

When at length he fell asleep it was to dream that the whole city

had become solid, of a single stone, and that he was immured in a

little cavity in the midst of it. The stone was populous, swarming

with human beings who gave no heed to his cries. There were endless

tunnels thronged with wayfarers, all bearing lanterns—a nation which

had never seen the sun. The weight of the whole stone was somehow upon

him. He called to Allah for relief; but the thickness of that stone was

inconceivable, and Allah very far away. However, the face of Muhammed

the Prophet (peace be to him!)—a fat sly face like Abdullah’s—looked

in upon him and sternly remarked, “It is Paradise.” Then arose a

terrible cry for bakshìsh, and Saïd knew that the stone was no other

than a court of law.

XI

Saïd awoke, as soon as it began to be light, to find the chamber

already half empty of sleepers. His forehead was clouded as he went

down the flight of stone steps into the stable, and threaded his way

gingerly among the beasts and merchandise. His mind was busy laying

plans for the day. There was much to be done. His horse must first

be sold, and then he must look out for a lodging in keeping with his

means. He must be on his guard every minute, for the dwellers in towns

have ready wits and love to whet them on a stranger.

The ghost of daylight, looking in at the arched doorway, cast a pallor

on the stumpy columns, on the humps and heads of camels, on the glossy

flanks of horses and mules. He made his way to where his own steed was

standing listless, awaiting the morning’s dole of chaff and barley. A

soft neigh and a pricking of the ears welcomed him. He smoothed the

horse’s mane lovingly, patted its neck and rubbed its nose, whispering

all manner of endearment. It was a good beast, and he was sad to part

with it.

In the guest-room he found the young man who had spoken so rashly

overnight seated on the floor at a meal of bread, curds and olives.

A handsome lad of sixteen or thereabouts, whom a strong likeness

proclaimed his brother, sat with him, eating from the same tray. At a

becoming distance their servant—a swarthy, fierce-eyed fellow, whose

weather-beaten tarbûsh had lost its tassel—squatted on his bare heels

awaiting their pleasure. Saïd greeted them politely before shouting

for something to eat. While a servant who answered his cry was pouring

water over his hands and helping to dry them on a dirty cloth, the

voice of the young man rose in flowered eloquence.

He was rehearsing the speech he meant to make before the Cadi. It must

have been written for him by some learned scribe skilled in all the

bewilderment of tangled words; for no plain man could lay hold of its

meaning. It was all of one piece from first syllable to last, and as it

was recited, or rather intoned, there was no telling where one thought

ended and the other began. Saïd’s mouth fell agape with admiration. He

listened spellbound, forgetful even of his breakfast. Once or twice

the orator, finding himself at a loss, drew a scroll from the bosom of

his robe and passed his finger along and down it till he came to the

passage. Then he replaced the scroll and went on with renewed fervour.

“Capital!” cried the servant, when a complacent grin of his master

announced the end. “In all my life I have heard nothing like it. It

speaks with the mouth of the Coràn, with the voice of an angel. It

would melt the heart of the Chief of Mountains, by Allah! Rejoice, O my

master, for our cause is won!”

“Good—very good!” said the younger brother, his face eager with

impatience. “Is it not the hour when we should repair to the Mehkemeh?”

Saïd also lent his voice to swell the chorus of praise. Such a speech,

he protested, would grace the lips of princes. It was polished as a

tray of gold, exquisite as a mosaic of divers kinds of precious stones,

sweet as the voices of girls singing to the sound of the one-stringed

lute. The ear of Allah would not disdain it. This high praise, which

was perfectly sincere of its kind, flattered the orator and his boyish

brother. Even the surly henchman looked at Saïd with grudging approval.

The chief of the party informed him graciously that he had procured the

speech of a scribe renowned in all the city for his learning, and that

it had cost him a pretty sum of money, which he named. If his enemy

could produce a better he would be surprised, and so forth. “Moreover,”

he added, with a smile of such doltish cunning that Saïd envied his

opponent—“moreover, I have laid out much money already among the

servants of authority, and I have here a great sum to be expended in

the court itself. It is sure that I shall win.”

“There is no doubt!” his companions chimed in, the one eagerly, the

other with a kind of sullen defiance.

“No doubt—not a shred of doubt,” echoed Saïd, his bearing very

respectful of a sudden as he heard the jingle of coins in the sack

which the young man opened his robe to show him.

His fast fairly broken, he called for the reckoning. The lord of the

khan appeared—a very fat man wearing a robe of indigo blue, under

which dirty white pantaloons showed to his ankles, the reddest of red

slippers, and a girdle of many colours which, instead of restraining

his bulk at all, bulged out frankly upon the most obvious part of him.

His turban was richly embroidered, but old and dingy. His demeanour was

important but polite, as became a substantial host requiring payment of

a guest of unknown quality. The amount was twelve piastres, he informed

the effendi. After a little fruitless haggling, which only served to

hurt the feelings of mine host and turn him to a boulder of dignity,

Saïd discharged his debt and took leave of the hopeful litigant and his

supporters.