Outside the hall of judgment it was dusk in the streets. Men wending
homeward from the place of business hurried past, a dwindling stream.
Their lanterns, shining with confined rays, appeared set in the first
rich bloom of night like the eyes in a peacock’s tail. Shems-ud-dìn
desired no lantern to guide his steps. The dogs beginning to prowl after
offal might snarl at his disturbance, he feared not their spite; he cared
for nothing earthly. Through a gap in the hard black roofs, the flowers
of heaven shone in their pleasant field. He did not observe them, all
desire of the eyes, all lust of contemplation having rest within him.
Of a sudden, in a quiet place, Zeyd plucked his robe.
“Haste, O my master; the soldiers follow us!”
“Hist!” whispered Mâs from the background. “Be silent, blockhead! It is
his son who follows.”
Zeyd and Mâs together shrank away into the darkness.
Confused by the touch of Zeyd, by words which had failed to pierce his
sad abstraction, and yet more by the vanishing of the disturbers ere he
could ask what ailed them, Shems-ud-dìn stood still, as they had left
him, looking back.
A tall shape grew out of the darkness. It loomed swiftly upon him. He
heard a sobbing, felt his robe caught fast in a clutch of despair.
“Forsake me not, O my father!”
It was the voice of Abd-ur-Rahman, the one voice in all the world of
power to strike him. Folding his son to his breast, the old man lifted up
his voice and wept.
“Ah, have mercy, O my father! Go not now to the khan, but turn aside into
this entry till I bare my soul to thee.”
“Is it worth the while, O beloved? Do I not know already?” said
Shems-ud-dìn; but his son’s will constrained him.
In a gloom so profound that the night they had left without seemed a
brightness by comparison, Abd-ur-Rahman fell at his father’s feet. When
the sheykh strove to raise him, he uttered cries of pain.
“Let be, O my father! First hear me to an end. When I left thee to go to
my uncle, I was the child of thy training; I knew no law but that God
sent, in which thou hadst instructed me; I thought that all who call
themselves Muslimûn deferred to that law in conscience as in form. But
when I came to Istanbûl, and beheld the grandeur of that city, with its
wealth and luxury, my soul doubted, and I looked two ways; for things I
had reckoned sinful were there done openly in the daylight, while men of
ripe years and superior judgment smiled at my careful observances and
scruples against the use of this and that. After a little, thy likeness
faded from my remembrance; thy maxims sounded faint amid the voices near
me.
“The precepts of my uncle Milhem were not what thine had been. He is a
good man in his fashion, and was very kind to me. His wisdom, his wit
in talk, compelled my admiration. The high authority I saw him wield
enforced respect. Moreover, having no son of his own body, he used me as
the apple of his eye. He gave me money for my pleasures, more than I had
ever seen in all my life. He chose for me companions, Turks, the sons of
good houses, in whose society I ate and drank of abomination.”
Here a burst of sobbing broke the narrative. Abd-ur-Rahman had felt his
father’s hand touch his brow.
“Yet for that my uncle was not angry. He only laughed, when I confessed
to him, and bade me have a care for my health. He himself was my tutor in
the science of statecraft, of which he is the greatest master. From him I
learnt to separate faith and behavior, the rules of government and those
from Allah Most High. He placed me for a while at the customhouse, and
when I had there learnt all that he wished me to learn from the conduct
of the officials, he brought me into the employment of a certain wazìr,
his friend. Everywhere I saw the needy turned away, while he who owned
fine clothes and brought a gift in his hand secured an audience. Hence I
contracted a loathing for the poor and miserable, and would never be seen
in the company of a man ill-clad.
“From the closet of that wazìr I passed to the military service, in which
I served but two months before the influence of my uncle procured my
appointment to this garrison as a yezbashi. At the same time I received
from the bounty of our Sultàn the style and dignity of Bey.
“In the parting audience my uncle informed me that he would no longer
push my fortunes so openly, for fear of jealousies, but that I must
make my own way on from the start he had given me. He would make me an
allowance of money, which he named and I thought most handsome. Then came
his last word of advice. It was to associate only with those who could
further my career. He said, laughing, that he was afraid lest my father’s
son should waste time in the profitless frequentation of learned madmen,
in relieving the wants of scabby beggars, who said never ‘The Lord reward
thee.’ He need not have thus adjured me, for already I was the son of his
teaching.
“So it came to pass, O my father, that when I came to this city, and
found myself a personage courted and admired, I forbore to think on the
little place of my birth, or on the friends of my youth, but made all
my endeavor to appear the greatest possible, vaunting my high lineage
and powerful connections. I sent no word unto thee, O my father, nor
let anyone suspect thy presence upon earth. I even told a comrade, who
inquired of me somewhat straitly, that I was an orphan, and that my
father had been a great statesman on the pattern of my uncle Milhem.”
A deep groan from the mouth of the passage caused Abd-ur-Rahman to cease
speaking and start to his feet.
“Some one listens. May his house be destroyed!”
“Who is out there?” called Shems-ud-dìn; and the voice of Zeyd made
answer:
“It is I, O my master, and with me Mâs the black.”
“O insolence! May their fathers perish!” cried Abd-ur-Rahman.
“Nay, curse them not, my son. They are folk of our own house. In my
distress, when thou and Shibli and all others left me, this Zeyd was
hands and feet and ears and eyes to me. Mâs thou knowest of old; I have
no need to tell thee who he is. Continue, O my soul!”
“When I received the letter warning of thy coming, which reached me in
the same hour when thou shouldst arrive, I knew not what countenance to
adopt. Indeed my surprise was great, for I had not written to thee, and
who, I wondered, could have informed thee of my existence in El Cûds? One
half of me yearned for thy blessing, while the other hung back for fear
lest by thy means some of my pretensions should be belied.
“When I beheld thee riding in so strange-looking a company, when I
found thee resolute to pursue thy dealings with the Frank physician, I
determined thenceforth to visit thee only in secret, and to refute every
rumor of our relationship which might get abroad. Thanks to the garrulity
of Hassan Agha, I was driven thrice to contradict that kind of rumor.”
The narrator paused, sobbing. Again a hollow groan from the mouth of the
tunnel made him wince. But he soon recovered enough force to proceed in a
broken voice:
“O my father, what is left to tell? Thou knowest the end of the story,
how the shock of thy captivity drove out the devil which had so long
possessed me; how I strove, tardily, to repair my fault. Now see, I am
the dust before thee. My companions, for whose sake I sinned, now turn
from me with sneers and cutting taunts. I am become unclean in their
sight.
“And now, O my father, learn my firm resolve. I will at once resign my
high position and the favor of my uncle, and return with thee to our
little town in the wilds, there to end my days in thy peace and in the
way of the upright.”
“God is Most Great! God is Most Merciful! Unto God the praise!” cried Mâs
and Zeyd together from the night without.
“I approve not at all,” said Shems-ud-dìn gently, yet with decision,
“unless on one condition: that thou remain first a full three months
at thy post. If, when that term shall have expired, thy desire be not
altered, then come to us; and may Allah grant thee of His blessings!”
“But ... O Lord!” moaned Abd-ur-Rahman, in anguish. “My companions—all my
acquaintance spurn me. How can I endure for three months the scorn of all
around me?”
“The scorn will not long survive its cause. And if some things I have
heard are true, thou art not all contemptible, my son. Thou art called a
zealous, a competent, and a clever officer; and, moreover, I hear it said
that thou alone of all thy kind hast been known to refuse a bribe.”
“The praise in that is not mine. It belongs, under Allah, to my uncle
Milhem, who keeps me so well provided that I require not the gifts of any
man. But, O my father! ask me not to endure for three months the sneer of
my companions.”
“I ask no less, my son. Be brave, O beloved! Consent to reap the harvest
of thy sin; so shall it be expiated before Allah, whose wrath is more to
be feared than my pain or the looks of thy companions. To-morrow thou
wilt present me to the Mutesarrif, to the Chief of the Soldiers, and
to all thy friends; and I shall contrive to let fall a word or two to
lighten thy offense. Fear not that I shall bring shame or ridicule upon
thee. My speech is not that of the fellâh or the muleteer. Afterwards
I, in my turn, will present thee to the Chief of the Learned, whose
blessing shall sustain thee through the trial. Thy mistake has been
always to shun the society of the devout and studious. It is the mistake
of my brother Milhem.... Now walk with me to the khan.”
“Nay, I beseech thee! I have wept much; I would avoid the stare of
strangers.”
“I say not, enter with me; but bear me company as far as to the door.”
The street seemed light as they came forth to it. Great stars throbbed
overhead in a tranquil sky, but the grudging house shapes and frequent
arches allowed but a glimpse of them. Mâs stalked in front and Zeyd
behind, to kick off the dogs which soon formed a barking phalanx in their
wake. Shems-ud-dìn held his son’s hand in a tight clasp. At the entrance
of the khan, he embraced him and let him go.
Then, having watched him depart, he caused Mâs to fetch a lantern and
light him up a dark and broken stair to the roof of the hostelry, whence
he could view the perfect flower of night and drink its fragrance.
The city slept around him. Except for light here and there in some upper
chamber, for the shapen Dome of the Rock and a few minarets, he might
have thought it an outcrop of black rock on the face of the hills. Far
away to the eastward, across a gulf, appeared the rampart of his own
land, vague and dreamy beneath the stars.
Peace fell about him like a pleasant rain. To-morrow he would go hand in
hand with his long-lost son. To-morrow, for the last time, he would visit
the grave of Alia. To-morrow, ere the sunset, he would take leave of the
wicked city never to return. If Allah willed.
Alia was dead, his blindness gone. Once more he could see clearly the
right way. Once more he enjoyed access to the mercy of the Most High.