From this time Mustapha changed his conduct. He was obliging and
attentive as before, ready to exert himself to do for me what I wanted,
ready also to extort money from the ordinary tourist for doing nothing,
to go with me and carry my tools when I went forth painting, and to joke
and laugh with Jameson; but, unless he were unavoidably detained, he
said his prayers five times daily in the mosque, and no inducement
whatever would make him touch anything save sherbet, milk, or water.
Mustapha had no easy time of it. The strict Mohammedans mistrusted this
sudden conversion, and believed that he was playing a part. Ibraim gave
him no encouragement. His relatives maintained their reserve and
stiffness towards him.
His companions, moreover, who were in the transitional stage, and those
who had completely shaken off all faith in Allah and trust in the
Prophet and respect for the Koran, were incensed at his desertion. He
was ridiculed, insulted; he was waylaid and beaten. The young fellows
mimicked him, the elder scoffed at him.
Jameson took his change to heart, and laid himself out to bring him out
of his pot of scruples.
"Mustapha ain't any sport at all now," said he. "I'm hanged if he has
another para from me." He offered him bribes in gold, he united with the
others in ridicule, he turned his back on him, and refused to employ
him. Nothing availed. Mustapha was respectful, courteous, obliging as
before, but he had returned, he said, to the faith and rule of life in
which he had been brought up, and he would never again leave it.
"I have sworn," said he, "that if I do I will cut my throat."
I had been, perhaps, negligent in cautioning the young fellow the first
winter that I knew him against the harm likely to be done him by taking
up with European habits contrary to his law and the feelings and
prejudices of his people. Now, however, I had no hesitation in
expressing to him the satisfaction I felt at the courageous and
determined manner in which he had broken with acquired habits that could
do him no good. For one thing, we were now better acquaintances, and I
felt that as one who had known him for more than a few months in the
winter, I had a good right to speak. And, again, it is always easier or
pleasanter to praise than to reprimand.
One day when sketching I cut my pencil with a pruning-knife I happened
to have in my pocket; my proper knife of many blades had been left
behind by misadventure.
Mustapha noticed the knife and admired it, and asked if it had cost a
great sum.
"Not at all," I answered. "I did not even buy it. It was given me. I
ordered some flower seeds from a seeds-man, and when he sent me the
consignment he included this knife in the case as a present. It is not
worth more than a shilling in England."
He turned it about, with looks of admiration.
"It is just the sort that would suit me," he said. "I know your other
knife with many blades. It is very fine, but it is too small. I do not
want it to cut pencils. It has other things in it, a hook for taking
stones from a horse's hoof, a pair of tweezers for removing hairs. I do
not want such, but a knife such as this, with such a curve, is just the
thing."
"Then you shall have it," said I. "You are welcome. It was for rough
work only that I brought the knife to Egypt with me."
I finished a painting that winter that gave me real satisfaction. It was
of the great court of the temple of Luxor by evening light, with the
last red glare of the sun over the distant desert hills, and the eastern
sky above of a purple depth. What colours I used! the intensest on my
palette, and yet fell short of the effect.
The picture was in the Academy, was well hung, abominably represented in
one of the illustrated guides to the galleries, as a blotch, by some
sort of photographic process on gelatine; my picture sold, which
concerned me most of all, and not only did it sell at a respectable
figure, but it also brought me two or three orders for Egyptian
pictures. So many English and Americans go up the Nile, and carry away
with them pleasant reminiscences of the Land of the Pharaohs, that when
in England they are fain to buy pictures which shall remind them of
scenes in that land.
I returned to my hotel at Luxor in November, to spend there a third
winter. The fellaheen about there saluted me as a friend with an
affectionate delight, which I am quite certain was not assumed, as they
got nothing out of me save kindly salutations. I had the Egyptian fever
on me, which, when once acquired, is not to be shaken off--an enthusiasm
for everything Egyptian, the antiquities, the history of the Pharaohs,
the very desert, the brown Nile, the desolate hill ranges, the ever blue
sky, the marvellous colorations at rise and set of sun, and last, but
not least, the prosperity of the poor peasants.
I am quite certain that the very warmest welcome accorded to me was from
Mustapha, and almost the first words he said to me on my meeting him
again were: "I have been very good. I say my prayers. I drink no wine,
and Ibraim will give me his daughter in the second Iomada--what you call
January."
"Not before, Mustapha?"
"No, sir; he says I must be tried for one whole year, and he is right."
"Then soon after Christmas you will be happy!"
"I have got a house and made it ready. Yes. After Christmas there will
be one very happy man--one very, very happy man in Egypt, and that will
be your humble servant, Mustapha."