When Shems-ud-dìn set forth from the town, there was great excitement.
Babes were held up by their parents to watch the saint ride by. A cry
arose that he should bless the place; and he did so, sitting on his old
white horse, adorned with old trappings of scarlet and light blue and
gold which had not seen service for twenty years. The little city on its
hillside, then, in the early sunlight, looked restful as a flock of sheep
at noon. There were tears in the sheykh’s eyes as he turned and rode away.
He rode alone, with eyes downcast, his beard upon his breast, never
far from the palanquin which contained Alia and her nurse. Shibli, in
the pride of youth, galloped ahead with the Circassians, the sunshine
glancing from their accouterments as they darted in and out of the
shadows flung by great rocks across their path.
The poles of the women’s litter were borne by two mules, one in front
and one behind. Beside the hinder trudged Mâs, armed with a long goad.
He crooned as he walked a sad song without end, some echo of his
long-lost childhood in hot Darfur. Now and then a groan came from within
the litter, and Fatmeh was heard soothing her charge. Once the curtains
parted, and Alia looked forth smiling at her father.
“How is thy health?” he asked earnestly.
“The better for being free of that dark chamber, that hateful town,
always the same smells, the same thoughts. Now, in the sun and sweet air,
I am well, O my father!”
“In sh’ Allah!” murmured Shems-ud-dìn, and he bowed his head.
But as the heat increased, and shadows shrank away, nothing but moans
came from within the palanquin. The Circassians, tired of display,
came back one by one. Shibli, ranging his steed alongside that of
Shems-ud-dìn, prattled incessantly without regard for his listener. The
sheykh heard the talk around him as a buzzing of flies.
“What gift bearest thou to the Frank physician, O Nesìb?” cried one of
the riders to his comrade near at hand.
“A fine one, O my eyes! I bear an old-time garment, the best of my
inheritance. It belonged to my father’s father, and has been as an
heirloom in the family.”
“Capital! Allah will give to thee.... For my part, I take a trifle, a
mere nothing. The chief’s command was on every man to bring some present
in his hand. And I had nothing, being a young one, newly married. But I
remembered to have seen clouds of bees upon a certain rock in the wady
below our house. So I went, bearing fire with me, and slew those bees and
took their honey, a portion of which is here in my saddlebags. My woman
wrapped it for me and put it in a jar. In sh’ Allah, the infidel will
accept of it.”
“In sh’ Allah, but it is no great thing,” returned he of the garment.
They proceeded by the easiest and clearest road, which was also by much
the longest, so that for the sake of the litter they spent four hours
upon a distance which the horsemen alone could have covered in less than
two.
At length they reached a little plain, or cup-shaped hollow, among the
hills, in the midst of which stood an ancient terebinth full three parts
dead. A number of rags hanging from the withered branches gave to that
tree a curious bearded look.
“We will halt awhile in its shade,” said Hassan, who had assumed the
chief command. “The sun is hot; and after a little, Allah sends to us
the midday breeze, when it will be more pleasant riding.”
At that Shibli, with a shout, set off galloping toward the tree. At his
shout a flight of small birds forsook its branches and flew, wavering,
with faint tweets, toward the northern hillside. With a scream of
delight, the youth unslung the gun from his back, leveled it, and fired
after the birds. In a second his horse was standing on its hind legs, and
he himself lay on his back among the stones. His gun had flown a great
way off, in another direction.
A roar of laughter went up from the cavalcade. The women peeped forth,
tittering, between the curtains of the palanquin. Only Shems-ud-dìn
betrayed concern.
“Art hurt, O my son?” he inquired, dismounting amid a general stampede in
chase of Shibli’s horse, which was by that time careering madly across
the plain, showing the flat of its hind hoofs to the pursuit.
“This is a lesson,” said Hassan Agha, chuckling. “Boys must learn from
Allah! Did not I warn thee to have a care in handling thy gun? Did not I
tell thee how to sit for firing—bridle dropped, feet forward, pressing
the stirrups? Yet when the time came, thy feet were somewhere behind thee
and thou didst drag up the bridle. Another time, perhaps, thou wilt
remember.”
Shibli arose, crestfallen, tears trickling down his cheeks. He admitted
with shame that he was unhurt.
The litter was set down in the shade. The beasts were hobbled and
turned loose. The men who had gone in pursuit of the runaway returned
successful, their horses panting and half-blind with sweat. All crowded
together beneath the tree.
Shems-ud-dìn sat with his back to the trunk, where the shade was darkest.
It was nowhere a continuous blot of shade, but rather like a net
enmeshing forms and faces. Nesìb the Thief, who had brought a waterskin
along with him, gave to drink in a horn cup, to the sheykh first, and
then to all the company; not forgetting the women, upon whose needs Mâs
waited.
By and by, as they sat in drowsy converse, came a sighing of the branches
overhead. Flowers that grew among the stones swayed a little. It was as
though a cool hand fell on every brow. The breeze which tempers noon had
found them out.
Throughout the halt Shems-ud-dìn gazed straight before him, or else upon
the ground at his feet. Not until Hassan gave the word to remount did he
raise his eyes in thanksgiving for that half-hour’s refreshment. They
remained fixed in awful contemplation.
From the lowest branch of the tree, just overhead, hung a strip of
brightness, fluttering, among other similar strips by no means bright.
This strip was new, the rest were very old. Moreover, a sunbeam threading
the maze of twigs had singled it out for illumination. The sheykh stared
and stared. Those colors—green and white in stripes, with a slender
thread of crimson down the green—were most familiar. He had bought a
piece of silk of that pattern not long ago of a traveling merchant, and
had made of it a garment for Alia.
He turned toward the litter. A hush had fallen on the group around him.
“O Fatmeh, come forth! Whence is this silken rag? How comes it to hang
here?”
“Rag! What rag?” screamed the woman, creeping out through the curtains.
“Allah witness! What have I to do with it? Is it my tree that I should be
held accountable for all that grows on it? Allah forbid!...”
Her voice, which had arisen shrill and brazen, soon quavered and broke.
The grins of the Circassians cut the ground from under her. She fell on
her face before Shems-ud-dìn, in a paroxysm of repentance.
“How often have I forbidden thee all traffic with this tree? A wrong to
myself I had forgiven; but this is an insult to the providence of God.
Henceforth I wash my two hands of thee. Return to thy kindred, and may
Allah bless thee!”
Fatmeh rolled on the ground in convulsions of shame and grief. She
shrieked to the bystanders to slay her then and there. But the sheykh
stood by his horse, obdurate. He surveyed her contortions without mercy,
till a new voice of lamentation smote his ear.
“O Lord!... O my father!... Be not so wicked!... O Allah, turn my
father’s heart to pity! Wouldst thou slay me quite, now, immediately?
Thou knowest I am nothing without Fatmeh! I will die—yes, die now—and
punish thy wickedness. Oh, woe upon us! Woe! Woe!”
The thin face of Alia looked forth unveiled between the curtains. It was
distorted with pain and fury, most ugly to look upon. Shibli made a wry
face behind her father’s back. It was the first time for many months that
he had seen the likeness of his betrothed.
The sheykh stood gaping, at a loss for a word.
“Arise, O woman, and resume thy place beside her,” he said at last lamely.
The spectators smiled and shrugged shoulders one at another. But in a
moment their looks changed to horror.
The Sheykh Shems-ud-dìn lifted his right arm and, taking hold of the
bright rag, pulled with might. The silk tore with the shriek of a living
thing. He threw it away and straight remounted his horse, heedless of the
piercing cries of Fatmeh.