“Come, O my brothers! Talk is vain when the throat is dry and the belly
empty. Lead the way to some place where we can eat together, and drink a
cup or two of good coffee. So shall our business prosper by the blessing
of Allah.”
“But we have no money, O my lord! How should we soldiers have money,
seeing they never pay us?”
“With me is money enough. Deign to eat and drink at my expense, and mine
the honor.”
“May Allah Most High repay your noble Excellency!”
Two soldiers of a rank somewhat above the private, accosted by Hassan
Agha amid the crowd in a long bazaar, laid hand to breast and lip and
brow, bowing to his invitation as men too greatly honored. Their tongues
still wagged of reluctance and unworthiness even while their feet made
speed toward the place of refreshment. Three Circassians, the companions
of Hassan’s morning prowl, followed intelligently like trained hounds.
Shibli went along with them, mystified yet admiring.
The tavern to which they came was chill and dark within. They carried
their stools to the wide entrance, where they could enjoy the relative
warmth and light of the street without.
“Arac, O lord of good cheer! Bring to us arac!” cried the soldiers.
“Allah forbid!” murmured Shibli with a start, gazing in horror at those
reckless ones. He knew only that they called for a fiery drink and
maddening, accounted poison by all faithful men.
Thereupon the whole company burst out laughing, and the tavern keeper,
attendant on their needs, laughed with them, holding his belly.
“Allah forgive our ribaldry!” said Hassan. “The sin is ours, not his.
Know, O my brothers, that this is a good, virtuous youth, the disciple
of a certain holy one revered of all. Allah witness, and do thou take
note, O Shibli, that I, for my part, touch not the abomination. Neither
I nor my companions; let it be told the sheykh!” He turned then to the
soldiers, adding, “It behooves a man to avoid small offenses when he
has the uncommon honor to be the friend and companion of the holiest of
living men. And that honor is upon all of us here.”
The soldiers expressed their polite interest in tones of commiseration.
To sip their arac without reproach, they had taken seat close to a pillar
of the doorway which screened them, when they leant to drink, from the
gaze of the passer-by.
“Once, when I was a boy,” said one of them, entertaining Shibli and the
rest, while his colleague spoke aside with Hassan, “I had the honor
to lie down beneath the horse of a holy sheykh—I and my father and my
big brother and a thousand more. It was in El Bica’a, behind Lebanon.
The plain was strewn with living bodies. You could not see the ground
anywhere between us. Then the sheykh rode his horse over the backs of us,
and when it came to my back, lo, it was to me no more than if some girl,
mistress of beauty, fondled me for love, there where the hoof pressed.
And the spot has been blessed ever since; for when I do evil it pains
me, and when I do good it is again as if some hand of love caressed me.
By Allah, it pains me now for the sake of this arac—a sin, as the youth
rightly declared!... A strange thing—not so, O my masters?
“I remember to have seen, in Anadol far from here, a man who went
well-nigh naked, his face like the earth itself for dirt and roughness.
A one-eyed man might see that he was holy above the rest of us. That
man leaned upon a sword—upon the blade of it, by Allah! so that the
point came forth at his back. Then he drew it out slowly, showing all
men how the blood rained from it. As for him, he laughed to see the
red stuff fall. Then, as we looked for him to die, he began to dance,
chanting praise to Allah. And that he did not once nor twice, but many
times before he died. Strange things are seen in the world, O my masters!
By Allah, I count you fortunate! I myself would fain behold that saint
of yours. Peradventure he would grant me to witness some marvel worth
relating, like the turning of wicked people into dogs....”
“The Sheykh Shems-ud-dìn is no wandering derwìsh, whose mind is to cajole
the vulgar,” broke in Shibli, from the height of indignation. “He is a
learned sheykh of the religion, a man of high lineage and great wealth,
to whose wisdom even princes defer with reverence.”
“Ma sh’ Allah!” smiled the soldier, but little impressed. “Your talk had
led me to suppose him otherwise. Why call him saint, then? Has he wrought
no signs in the land?”
“Of a truth, that has he, by Allah,” said Hassan, who had ended his
whispered conference. “He brought light to the city where we dwell. He
is lord of the jân. They have had no master like him since the death
of Suleyman the Wise. When his daughter fell ill, and all help failed,
it was by advice of a jinni, his slave, that he brought her hither, to
this city, to the house of a Frank physician, where she now lies. Signs,
say you? I assure you, by Allah, he is lord of them all! He knows the
language of beasts, and on our way hither made use of that knowledge to
restore to a certain poor fellâh his camel, which had been long lost. The
fellâh, his name Zeyd ebn Abbâs, is still with us. If thou wilt, thou
canst speak with him and hear the wondrous story from his own lips.”
“Is it truth thou speakest?” asked one of the soldiers, with a shrug
aside to his mate.
“By Allah, it is truth! All these are witnesses with me. Ask one of them.
Ask any man acquainted with his holiness!”
They sat a-row in the wide archway, brushed by the raiment of the throng
without, hearing snatches of conversation, shouts, laughter, and the
ceaseless shuffle of feet along the stones; while at their backs was
darkness, save for one red gleam of fire, which the ample form of the
taverner kept eclipsing as it revolved in his avocations about the
brazier.
“Allah knows I should count it an honor to behold that saint of yours,”
said one of the soldiers at length, in a manner of resolution.
“And I also,” agreed the other in the same tone of belated conviction.
“That is easy. If Allah will, we shall find him without difficulty.”
“Let us go, then!”
“Slowly, slowly, O my two dear ones!” Hassan’s face turned cunning in
the mold of thought. “Is our business settled quite? No, I think not so.
We have not yet appointed an hour for the transaction. Let it be after
to-morrow, toward the fifth hour of night. What say you?”
The soldiers shook their heads.
“No,” said each, upon reflection. “After to-morrow is the great feast of
the Nazarenes—of half of them, that is to say; for the two halves quarrel
so that they cannot even keep festival upon the same day.... It is the
busiest of the year for us. We shall stop their fighting in the church;
and after that, it is likely, we shall be called upon to keep order in
the streets of the city. It is work enough for one day. Let our business
stand over till the night beyond.”
“As you will,” said Hassan, playing indifference. “But I would have the
goods as soon as possible. My eyes have perceived certain rascals in the
garb of the Bedawi prowling near the castle and whispering with you
soldiers. Now, I adjure you, face the matter! View it fairly with clean
eyes! Are we not—my men and I—loyal servants of the Sultàn appointed
from of old to guard the Eastern portals of this land, and so entitled
to arms and ammunition like you others? As for the Bedû, what are they?
Marauders, thieves, murderers—Allah knows them! It were a crime to give
them the preference!”
The soldiers exchanged sly glances, swift as sword thrusts. Said one of
them, cringing, “What sayest thou, O Excellency? The Bedû!... Allah pity!
What Bedû?”
“Perchance,” thrust in the other with an air of extreme candor, “our good
lord would allude to certain tribesmen who, calling themselves Catholics,
are come up to fight at the feast.”
Hassan laughed. “Think not I trust you. Remember only that, in the place
where I dwell, it is counted death to offend Hassan Agha.... And now,
unless your desire is changed, we will show you the saint of whom we
talked but now.”
“With joy and alacrity,” replied the soldiers.
All, rising, kicked back their stools. They smiled one to another,
showing white teeth, as they yawned and stretched themselves. Hassan told
some small gleaming coins into the grimed hand of the taverner, thrust
out in anticipation from the inner gloom.
Suddenly, with a muttered exclamation not of blessing, the soldiers
dodged behind the stone doorpost. The hindmost, upsetting a stool, cursed
its religion as it fell. In the covered way without, they had seen a
young officer riding upon a black horse, slowly, because of the crowd. It
was Abd-ur-Rahman Bey.
Hassan Agha stood forward with a jaunty air, a hand on his white mustache.
“Hail, O sun of soldiery! May thy day be happy, O child of a blessed
birth! Deign to dismount and drink one cup of coffee with him who first
taught thee to handle sword and gun!”
His design in thus shouting before the multitude was simply to vex
the false pride of the son of Shems-ud-dìn. It amazed him to have his
salutation returned twofold, to see the proud youth alight and give his
horse to a bystander.
“How is thy health, O Hassan, light of my eyes?” inquired Abd-ur-Rahman,
smiling, as they touched hands. “And thou, O Shibli: is all well with
thee?... How is Alia? How the dear old man?”
He chose for seat one of those stools which the soldiers had just
vacated, next to that which was overturned. Straightway he became aware
of a shuffling close at hand, and, looking round the doorpost, beheld two
of his own men.
“What is this, O Muhammed—O Rashìd?” he asked, smiling. “Is my face this
morning so terrible that you must hide from it? Come forth, O foolish
ones, and attend me to the castle, whither I go presently.... O Hassan, a
word with thee in private, by thy leave!”
He carried his stool into the inner gloom, and Hassan followed him. They
conversed apart until the coffee was served, when they brought back their
stools into the light of the doorway. Hassan reappeared frowning, but the
countenance of the young caïd beamed, as before, of an imperturbable good
humor.
Abd-ur-Rahman stayed but to swallow a cupful of coffee; then rose,
smiling on the company, and took leave. The two soldiers followed him
with the demeanor of whipped curs. They went forward to offer him
assistance at mounting his horse, and he availed himself of their
obsequiousness, still smiling.
“Ma sh’ Allah,” muttered Hassan, as he watched them depart. “To reflect
that it is but a youth, one whom yesterday I held upon my knee. By the
Lord of Heaven and Earth, he is a devil!... That is not the son of the
Sheykh Shems-ud-dìn! It is the son of Milhem Pasha, Eblìs in person——!”
As they sauntered forth in search of the sheykh, he continued:
“May it please you, he forbids us to touch a rifle. He says that he will
apply to the authorities on our behalf for a special grant. The praise
to Allah! We shall wait a hundred years and see never a cartridge! Our
need is instant, and if we get not the things, others less worthy will
presently obtain them. I know these outlying garrisons. At Istanbûl or
Edreyneh it may be different. But for Esh-Shâm, El Cûds, Haleb, there is
one way in all of them.”
He ceased not to growl in soliloquy.
They had entered a narrow alley of the Muslim quarter, strolling as their
manner was, when there came a sound of feet hurrying after, and a ragged
soldier overtook them, sweating and out of breath.
“Say, is not one among you the excellent Hassan Agha, whom Allah
preserve?”
“I am he.”
The man louted. “A word from the Bimbashi Muhammed—he that had charge of
the armory (Allah witness how I ran to overtake thee, questioning all
men as I ran; for I had but a hint of thy likeness and the number of thy
companions from him who sent me)—a word from the Bimbashi Muhammed which
he whispered to me in the castle yard as he went to durance: ‘Attempt
nothing, for the love of Allah! Lay aside thy purpose. For things are not
as of wont.’”
“Good. I thank thee.” Hassan bestowed on the man a coin and received his
blessing in exchange. He appeared unmoved by the tidings.
“The day wears on,” he said. “Let us go at once to the sheykh, for I am
impatient to hear his news.”
“At this hour we shall find him in the Haràm,” asserted Shibli, who was
supposed to know.
Toward the sanctuary they went accordingly. It had thundered in the
night; the day had dawned in rain, and so continued until the third hour.
But now the clouds were rolled away to eastward. As the little group
emerged from the buried ways of the city on to the open ground below
the shrine, Omar’s dome was a dew-drenched flower in the sunlight, the
scattered cypress trees pricked a sky of dreamy blue.
At the top of the steps, along the edge of the noble terrace, rose divers
little cubic buildings like to tombs. Their open arches gave the effect
of mouths gaping on the central dome.
On the threshold of one of those alcoves, gazing raptly in, squatted
Zeyd, the son of Abbâs. The fellâh laid a finger to his lip at their
approach.
“Hush!” he whispered and pointed. There, in the white recess, sat
Shems-ud-dìn, stiffly rocking to and fro, his face set, his eyes
steadfastly downcast. “The health of the girl is worse to-day. She knew
him not. Let Allah comfort him!”
All murmured of compassion and reverence. Shibli threw himself down
beside Zeyd, in the same shadow with his master. The rest sat on their
heels in the sunshine, enjoying that sight of holiness.