Salim Awad, poet, was the son of Tanous--that orator. Having now lost at
love, he lay disconsolate on his pallet in the tenement overlooking the
soap factory. He would not answer any voice; nor would he heed the
gentle tap and call of old Khalil Khayyat, the tutor of his muse; nor
would he yield his sorrow to the music of Nageeb Fiani, called the
greatest player in all the world. For three hours Fiani, in the wail and
sigh of his violin, had expressed the woe of love through the key-hole;
but Salim Awad was not moved. No; the poet continued in desolation
through the darkness of that night, and through the slow, grimy,
unfeeling hours of day. He dwelt upon Haleema, Khouri's daughter--she (as
he thought) of the tresses of night, the beautiful one. Salim was in
despair because this Haleema had chosen to wed Jimmie Brady, the
truckman. She loved strength more than the uplifted spirit; and this
maidens may do, as Salim knew, without reproach or injury.
When the dusk of the second day was gathered in his room, Salim looked
up, eased by the tender obscurity. In the cobble-stoned street below the
clatter of traffic had subsided; there were the shuffle and patter of
feet of the low-born of his people, the murmur of voices, soft laughter,
the plaintive cries of children--the dolorous medley of a summer night.
Beyond the fire-escape, far past the roof of the soap factory, lifted
high above the restless Western world, was the starlit sky; and Salim
Awad, searching its uttermost depths, remembered the words of Antar,
crying in his heart: "_I pass the night regarding the stars of night in
my distraction. Ask the night of me, and it will tell thee that I am the
ally of sorrow and of anguish. I live desolate; there is no one like me.
I am the friend of grief and of desire._"
* * * * *
The band was playing in Battery Park; the weird music of it, harsh,
incomprehensible, an alien love-song--
"Hello, mah baby,
Hello, mah honey,
Hello, mah rag-time girl!"
drifted in at the open window with a breeze from the sea. But by this
unmeaning tumult the soul of Salim Awad, being far removed, was not
troubled; he remembered, again, the words of Antar, addressed to his
beloved, repeating: "_In thy forehead is my guide to truth; and in the
night of thy tresses I wander astray. Thy bosom is created as an
enchantment. O may God protect it ever in that perfection! Will fortune
ever, O daughter of Malik, ever bless me with thy embrace? That would
cure my heart of the sorrows of love._"
* * * * *
And again the music of the band in Battery Park drifted up the murmuring
street,
"_Just_ one girl,
Only _just_ one girl!
There are others, I know, but they're _not_ my pearl.
_Just_ one girl,
Only just one girl!
I'd be happy forever with _just_ one girl!"
and came in at the open window with the idle breeze; and Salim heard
nothing of the noise, but was grateful for the cool fingers of the wind
softly lifting the hair from his damp brow.
It must be told--and herein is a mystery--that this same Salim, who had
lost at love, now from the darkness of his tenement room contemplating
the familiar stars, wise, remote, set in the uttermost heights of heaven
beyond the soap factory, was by the magic of this great passion inspired
to extol the graces of his beloved Haleema, Khouri's daughter, star of
the world, and to celebrate his own despair, the love-woe of Salim, the
noble-born, the poet, the lover, the brokenhearted. Without meditation,
as he has said, without brooding or design, as should occur, but rather,
taking from the starlit infinitude beyond the soap factory, seizing from
the mist of his vision and from the blood of agony dripping from his
lacerated heart, he fashioned a love-song so exquisite and frail, so shy
of contact with unfeeling souls, that he trembled in the presence of
this beauty, for the moment forgetting his desolation, and conceived
himself an instrument made of men, wrought of mortal hands, unworthy,
which the fingers of angels had touched in alleviation of the sorrows of
love.
Thereupon Salim Awad arose, and he made haste to Khalil Khayyat to tell
him of this thing....
This same Khalil Khayyat, lover of children, that poet and mighty
editor, the tutor of the young muse of this Salim--this patient gardener
of the souls of men, wherein he sowed seeds of the flowers of the
spirit--this same Khalil, poet, whose delight was in the tender bloom of
sorrow and despair--this old Khayyat, friend of Salim, the youth, the
noble-born, sat alone in the little back room of Nageeb Fiani, the
pastry-cook and greatest player in all the world. And his narghile was
glowing; the coal was live and red, showing as yet no gray ash, and the
water bubbled by fits and starts, and the alien room, tawdry in its
imitation of the Eastern splendor, dirty, flaring and sputtering with
gas, was clouded with the sweet-smelling smoke. To the coffee, perfume
rising with the steam from the delicate vessel, nor to the rattle of
dice and boisterous shouts from the outer room, was this Khalil
attending; for he had the evening dejection to nurse. He leaned over the
green baize table, one long, lean brown hand lying upon _Kawkab
Elhorriah_ of that day, as if in affectionate pity, and his lean brown
face was lifted in a rapture of anguish to the grimy ceiling; for the
dream of the writing had failed, as all visions of beauty must fail in
the reality of them, and there had been no divine spark in the labor of
the day to set the world aflame against Abdul-Hamid, Sultan,
slaughterer.
To him, then, at this moment of inevitable reaction, the love-lorn
Salim, entering in haste.
"Once more, Salim," said Khalil Khayyat, sadly, "I have failed."
Salim softly closed the door.
"I am yet young, Salim," the editor added, with an absent smile, in
which was no bitterness at all, but the sweetness of long suffering. "I
am yet young," he repeated, "for in the beginning of my labor I hope."
Salim turned the key.
"I am but a child," Khalil Khayyat declared, his voice, now lifted,
betraying despair. "I dream in letters of fire: I write in shadows. In
my heart is a flame: from the point of my pen flows darkness. I proclaim
a revolution: I hear loud laughter and the noise of dice. Salim," he
cried, "I am but a little child: when night falls upon the labor of my
day I remember the morning!"
"Khalil!"
Khalil Khayyat was thrilled by the quality of this invocation.
"Khalil of the exalted mission, friend, poet, teacher of the aspiring,"
Salim Awad whispered, leaning close to the ear of Khalil Khayyat, "a
great thing has come to pass."
Khayyat commanded his ecstatic perturbation.
"Hist!" Salim ejaculated. "Is there not one listening at the door?"
"There is no one, Salim; it is the feet of Nageeb the coffee-boy,
passing to the table of Abosamara, the merchant."
Salim hearkened.
"There is no one, Salim."
"There is a breathing at the key-hole, Khalil," Salim protested. "This
great thing must not be known."
"There is no one, Salim," said Khalil Khayyat. "I have heard Abosamara
call these seven times. Being rich, he is brutal to such as serve. The
sound is of the feet of the little Intelligent One. He bears coffee to
the impatient merchant. His feet are soft, by my training; they pass
like a whisper.... Salim, what is this great thing?"
"Nay, but, Khalil, I hesitate: the thing must not be heard."
"Even so," said Khalil Khayyat, contemptuously, being still a poet; "the
people are of the muck of the world; they are common, they are not of
our blood and learning. How shall they understand that which they hear?"
"Khalil," Salim Awad answered, reassured, "I have known a great moment!"
"A great moment?" said Khalil Khayyat, being both old and wise. "Then it
is because of agony. There has issued from this great pain," said he,
edging, in his artistic excitement, toward the victim of the muse, "a
divine poem of love?"
Salim Awad sighed.
"Is it not so, Salim?"
Salim Awad flung himself upon the green baize table; and so great was
his despair that the coffee-cup of Khalil Khayyat jumped in its saucer.
"I have suffered: I have lost at love," he answered. "I have been
wounded; I bleed copiously. I lie alone in a desert. My passion is
hunger and thirst and a gaping wound. From fever and the night I cry
out. Whence is my healing and satisfaction? Nay, but, Khalil, devoted
friend," he groaned, looking up, "I have known the ultimate sorrow.
Haleema!" cried he, rising, hands clasped and uplifted, eyes looking far
beyond the alien, cobwebbed, blackened ceiling of the little back room
of Nageeb Fiani, the pastry-cook and greatest player in all the world.
"Haleema!" he cried, as it may meanly be translated. "Haleema--my sleep
and waking, night and day of my desiring soul, my thought and
heart-throb! Haleema--gone forever from me, the poet, the unworthy, fled
to the arms of the strong, the knowing, the manager of horses, the one
powerful and controlling! Haleema--beautiful one, fashioned of God, star
of the night of the sons of men, glory of the universe, appealing, of
the soft arms, of the bosom of sleep! Haleema--of the finger-tips of
healing, of the warm touch of solace, of the bed of rest! Haleema,
beautiful one, beloved, lost to me!... Haleema!... Haleema!..."
"God!" Khalil Khayyat ejaculated; "but this is indeed great poetry!"
Salim Awad collapsed.
"And from this," asked Khalil Khayyat, cruel servant of art, being
hopeful concerning the issue, "there has come a great poem? There
_must_," he muttered, "have come a love-song, a heart's cry in comfort
of such as have lost at love."
Salim Awad looked up from the table.
"A cry of patient anguish," said Khalil Khayyat.
"Khalil," said Salim Awad, solemnly, "the strings of my soul have been
touched by the hand of the Spirit."
"By the Spirit?"
"The fingers of Infinite Woe."
To this Khalil Khayyat made no reply, nor moved one muscle--save that his
hand trembled a little, and his eyes, which had been steadfastly
averted, suddenly searched the soul of Salim Awad. It was very still in
the little back room. There was the sputtering of the gas, the tread of
soft feet passing in haste to the kitchen, the clamor from the outer
room, where common folk were gathered for their pleasure, but no sound,
not so much as the drawing of breath, in the little room where these
poets sat, and continued in this silence, until presently Khalil Khayyat
drew very close to Salim Awad.
"Salim," he whispered, "reveal this poem."
"It cannot be uttered," said Salim Awad.
Khalil Khayyat was by this amazed. "Is it then so great?" he asked.
"Then, Salim," said he, "let it be as a jewel held in common by us of
all the world."
"I am tempted!"
"I plead, Salim--I, Khalil Khayyat, the poet, the philosopher--I plead!"
"I may not share this great poem, Khalil," said Salim Awad, commanding
himself, "save with such as have suffered as I have suffered."
"Then," answered Khalil Khayyat, triumphantly, "the half is mine!"
"Is yours, Khalil?"
"The very half, Salim, is the inheritance of my woe!"
"Khalil," answered Salim Awad, rising, "attend!" He smiled, in the way
of youth upon the aged, and put an affectionate hand on the old man's
shoulder. "My song," said he, passionately, "may not be uttered; for in
all the world--since of these accidents God first made grief--there has
been no love-sorrow like my despair!"
Then, indeed, Khalil Khayyat knew that this same Salim Awad was a worthy
poet. And he was content; for he had known a young man to take of the
woe from his own heart and fashion a love-song too sublime for
revelation to the unfeeling world--which was surely poetry sufficient to
the day. He asked no more concerning the song, but took counsel with
Salim Awad upon his journey to Newfoundland, whither the young poet was
going, there in trade and travel to ease the sorrows of love. And he
told him many things about money and a pack, and how that, though
engaged in trade, a man might still journey with poetry; the one being
of place and time and necessity, and the other of the free and infinite
soul. Concerning the words spoken that night in farewell by these poets,
not so much as one word is known, though many men have greatly desired
to know, believing the moment to have been propitious for high speaking;
but not a word is to be written, not so much as a sigh to be described,
for the door was closed, and, as it strangely chanced, there was no ear
at the key-hole. But Nageeb Fiani, the greatest player in all the world,
entering upon the departure of Salim Awad, was addressed by Khalil
Khayyat.
"Nageeb," said this great poet, "I have seen a minstrel go forth upon
his wandering."
"Upon what journey does the singer go, Khalil?"
"To the north, Nageeb."
"What song, Khalil, does the man sing by the way?"
"The song is in his heart," said Khalil Khayyat.
Abosamara, the merchant, being only rich, had intruded from his own
province. "Come!" cried he, in the way of the rich who are only rich.
"Come!" cried he, "how shall a man sing with his heart?"
Khalil Khayyat was indignant.
"Come!" Abosamara demanded, "how shall this folly be accomplished?"
"How shall the deaf understand these things?" answered Khalil Khayyat.
And this became a saying....
Hapless Harbor, of the Newfoundland French shore, gray, dispirited,
chilled to its ribs of rock--circumscribed by black sea and impenetrable
walls of mist. There was a raw wind swaggering out of the northeast upon
it: a mean, cold, wet wind--swaggering down the complaining sea through
the fog. It had the grounds in a frothy turmoil, the shore rocks
smothered in broken water, the spruce of the heads shivering, the world
of bleak hill and wooded valley all clammy to the touch; and--chiefest
triumph of its heartlessness--it had the little children of the place
driven into the kitchens to restore their blue noses and warm their
cracked hands. Hapless Harbor, then, in a nor'east blow, and a dirty
day--uncivil weather; an ugly sea, a high wind, fog as thick as cheese,
and, to top off with, a scowling glass. Still early spring--snow in the
gullies, dripping in rivulets to the harbor water; ice at sea, driving
with the variable, evil-spirited winds; perilous sailing and a wretched
voyage of it upon that coast. A mean season, a dirty day--a time to be in
harbor. A time most foul in feeling and intention, an hour to lie snug
in the lee of some great rock.
The punt of Salim Awad, double-reefed in unwilling deference to the
weather, had rounded Greedy Head soon after dawn, blown like a brown
leaf, Salim being bound in from Catch-as-Catch-Can with the favoring
wind. It was the third year of his wandering in quest of that ease of
the sorrows of love; and as he came into quiet water from the toss and
spray of the open, rather than a hymn in praise of the Almighty who had
delivered him from the grasping reach of the sea, from its cold fingers,
its green, dark, swaying grave--rather than this weakness--rather than
this Newfoundland habit of worship, he muttered, as Antar, that great
lover and warrior, had long ago cried from his soul: "_Under thy veil is
the rosebud of my life, and thine eyes are guarded with a multitude of
arrows; round thy tent is a lion-warrior, the sword's edge, and the
spear's point_"--which had nothing to do, indeed, with a nor'east gale
and the flying, biting, salty spray of a northern sea. But this Salim
had come in, having put out from Catch-as-Catch-Can when gray light
first broke upon the black, tumultuous world, being anxious to make
Hapless Harbor as soon as might be, as he had promised a child in the
fall of the year.
This Salim, poet, maker of the song that could not be uttered, tied up
at the stage-head of Sam Swuth, who knew the sail of that small craft,
and had lumbered down the hill to meet him.
"Pup of a day," says Sam Swuth.
By this vulgarity Salim was appalled.
"Eh?" says Sam Swuth.
Salim's pack, stowed amidships, was neatly and efficiently bound with
tarpaulin, the infinite mystery of which he had mastered; but his punt,
from stem to stern, swam deeply with water gathered on the way from
Catch-as-Catch-Can.
"Pup of a day," says Sam Swuth.
"Oh my, no!" cried Salim Awad, shocked by this inharmony with his mood.
"Ver' bad weather."
"Pup of a day," Sam Swuth insisted.
"Ver' bad day," said Salim Awad. "Ver' beeg wind for thee punt."
The pack was hoisted from the boat.
"An the glass don't lie," Sam Swuth promised, "they's a sight dirtier
comin'."
Salim lifted the pack to his back. "Ver' beeg sea," said he. "Ver' bad
blow."
"Ghost Rock breakin'?"
"Ver' bad in thee Parlor of thee Devil," Salim answered. "Ver' long,
black hands thee sea have. Ver' white finger-nail," he laughed. "Eh?
Ver' hong-ree hands. They reach for thee punt. But I am have escape," he
added, with a proud little grin. "I am have escape. I--Salim! Ver' good
sailor. Thee sea have not cotch _me_, you bet!"
"Ye'll be lyin' the night in Hapless?"
"Oh my, no! Ver' poor business. I am mus' go to thee Chain Teekle."
Salim Awad went the round of mean white houses, exerting himself in
trade, according to the cure prescribed for the mortal malady of which
he suffered; but as he passed from door to door, light-hearted, dreaming
of Haleema, she of the tresses of night, wherein the souls of men
wandered astray, he still kept sharp lookout for Jamie Tuft, the young
son of Skipper Jim, whom he had come through the wind to serve. Salim
was shy--shy as a child; more shy than ever when bent upon some gentle
deed; and Jamie was shy, shy as lads are shy; thus no meeting chanced
until, when in the afternoon the wind had freshened, these two blundered
together in the lee of Bishop's Rock, where Jamie was hiding his
humiliation, grief, and small body, but devoutly hoping, all the while,
to be discovered and relieved. It was dry in that place, and sheltered
from the wind; but between the Tickle heads, whence the harbor opened to
the sea, the gale was to be observed at work upon the run.
Salim stopped dead. Jamie grinned painfully and kicked at the road.
"Hello!" cried Salim.
"'Lo, Joe!" growled Jamie.
Salim sighed. He wondered concerning the amount Jamie had managed to
gather. Would it be sufficient to ease his conscience through the
transaction? The sum was fixed. Jamie must have the money or go wanting.
Salim feared to ask the question.
"I isn't got it, Joe," said Jamie.
"Oh my! Too bad!" Salim groaned.
"Not all of un," added Jamie.
Salim took heart; he leaned close, whispering, in suspense: "How much
have you thee got?"
"Two twenty--an' a penny."
"Ver' good!" cried Salim Awad, radiant. "Ver', ver' good! Look!" said
he: "you have wait three year for thee watch. Ver' much you have want
thee watch. 'Ha!' I theenk; 'ver' good boy, this--I mus' geeve thee watch
to heem. No, no!' I theenk; 'ver' bad for thee boy. I mus' not spoil
thee ver' good boy. Make thee mon-ee,' I say; 'catch thee feesh, catch
thee swile, then thee watch have be to you!' Ver' good. What happen?
Second year, I have ask about the mon-ee. Ver' good. 'I have got one
eighteen,' you say. Oh my--no good! The watch have be three dollar. Oh
my! Then I theenk: 'I have geeve the good boy thee watch for one
eighteen. Oh no, I mus' not!' I theenk; 'ver' bad for thee boy, an' mos'
ver' awful bad trade.' Then I say, 'I keep thee watch for one year
more.' Ver' good. Thee third year I am have come. Ver' good. What you
say?' 'I have thee two twenty-one,' you say. Ver', ver' good. Thee price
of thee watch have be three dollar? No! Not this year. Thee price have
_not_ be three dollar."
Jamie looked up in hope.
"Why not?" Salim Awad continued, in delight. "Have thee watch be spoil?
No, thee watch have be ver' good watch. Have thee price go down? No;
thee price have not."
Jamie waited in intense anxiety, while Salim paused to enjoy the
mystery.
"Have I then become to spoil thee boy?" Salim demanded. "No? Ver' good.
How then can thee price of thee watch have be two twenty?"
Jamie could not answer.
"Ver' good!" cried the delighted Salim. "Ver', ver' good! I am have tell
you. Hist!" he whispered.
Jamie cocked his ear.
"Hist!" said Salim Awad again.
They were alone--upon a bleak hill-side, in a wet, driving wind.
"I have be to New York," Salim whispered, in a vast excitement of
secrecy and delight. "I am theenk: 'Thee boy want thee watch. How thee
boy have thee watch? Thee good boy _mus'_ have thee watch. Oh, mygod!
how?' I theenk. I theenk, an' I theenk, an' I theenk. Thee boy mus' pay
fair price for thee watch. Ha! Thee Salim ver' clever. He feex thee
price of thee watch, you bet! Eh! Ver' good. How?"
Jamie was tapped on the breast; he looked into the Syrian's wide,
delighted, mocking brown eyes--but could not fathom the mystery.
"How?" cried Salim. "Eh? How can the price come down?"
Jamie shook his head.
"_I have smuggle thee watch!_" Salim whispered.
"Whew!" Jamie whistled. "That's sinful!"
"Thee watch it have be to you," answered Salim, gently. "Thee sin," he
added, bowing courteously, a hand on his heart, "it have be all my own!"
* * * * *
For a long time after Salim Awad's departure, Jamie Tuft sat in the lee
of Bishop's Rock--until indeed, the dark alien's punt had fluttered out
to sea on the perilous run to Chain Tickle. It began to rain in great
drops; the sullen mood of the day was about to break in some wrathful
outrage upon the coast. Gusts of wind swung in and down upon the boy--a
cold rain, a bitter, rising wind. But Jamie still sat oblivious in the
lee of the rock. It was hard for him, unused to gifts, through all his
days unknown to favorable changes of fortune, to overcome his
astonishment--to enter into the reality of this possession. The like had
never happened before: never before had joy followed all in a flash upon
months of mournful expectation. He sat as still as the passionless rock
lifted behind him. It was a tragedy of delight. Two dirty, cracked,
toil-distorted hands--two young hands, aged and stained and malformed by
labor beyond their measure of strength and years to do--two hands and the
shining treasure within them: to these his world was, for the time,
reduced--the rest, the harsh world of rock and rising sea and harsher
toil and deprivation, was turned to mist; it was like a circle of fog.
Jamie looked up.
"By damn!" he thought, savagely, "'tis--'tis--_mine_!"
The character of the exclamation is to be condoned; this sense of
ownership had come like a vision.
"Why, I _got_ she!" thought Jamie.
Herein was expressed more of agonized dread, more of the terror that
accompanies great possessions, than of delight.
"Ecod!" he muttered, ecstatically; "she's mine--she's mine!"
The watch was clutched in a capable fist. It was not to be dropped, you
may be sure! Jamie looked up and down the road. There was no highwayman,
no menacing apparition of any sort, but the fear of some ghostly ravager
had been real enough. Presently the boy laughed, arose, moved into the
path, stood close to the verge of the steep, which fell abruptly to the
harbor water.
"I got t' tell mamma," he thought.
On the way to Jamie's pocket went the watch.
"She'll be that glad," the boy thought, gleefully, "that she--she--she'll
jus' fair _cry_!"
There was some difficulty with the pocket.
"Yes, sir," thought Jamie, grinning; "mamma'll jus' cry!"
The watch slipped from Jamie's overcautious hand, struck the rock at his
feet, bounded down the steep, splashed into the harbor water, and
vanished forever....
* * * * *
A bad time at sea: a rising wind, spray on the wing, sheets of cold
rain--and the gray light of day departing. Salim Awad looked back upon
the coast; he saw no waste of restless water between, no weight and
frown of cloud above, but only the great black gates of Hapless Harbor,
beyond which, by the favor of God, he had been privileged to leave a
pearl of delight. With the wind abeam he ran on through the sudsy sea,
muttering, within his heart, as that great Antar long ago had cried:
"_Were I to say thy face is like the full moon of heaven, wherein that
full moon is the eye of the antelope? Were I to say thy shape is like
the branch of the erak tree, oh, thou shamest it in the grace of thy
form! In thy forehead is my guide to truth, and in the night of thy
tresses I wander astray!_"
And presently, having won Chain Tickle, he pulled slowly to Aunt
Amelia's wharf, where he moored the punt, dreaming all the while of
Haleema, Khouri's daughter, star of the world. Before he climbed the
hill to the little cottage, ghostly in the dusk and rain, he turned
again to Hapless Harbor. The fog had been blown away; beyond the heads
of the Tickle--far across the angry run--the lights of Hapless were
shining cheerily.
"Ver' good sailor--me!" thought Salim. "Ver' good hand, you bet!"
A gust of wind swept down the Tickle and went bounding up the hill.
"He not get me!" muttered Salim between bared teeth.
A second gust showered the peddler with water snatched from the harbor.
"Ver' glad to be in," thought Salim, with a shudder, turning now from
the black, tumultuous prospect. "Ver' mos' awful glad to be in!"
[Illustration: THE DARK, SMILING SALIM, WITH HIS MAGIC PACK, WAS
WELCOME]
It was cosey in Aunt Amelia's hospitable kitchen. The dark, smiling
Salim, with his magic pack, was welcome. The wares displayed--no more for
purchase than for the delight of inspection--Salim stowed them away, sat
himself by the fire, gave himself to ease and comfort, to the delight of
a cigarette, and to the pleasure of Aunt Amelia's genial chattering. The
wind beat upon the cottage--went on, wailing, sighing, calling--and in the
lulls the breaking of the sea interrupted the silence. An hour--two
hours, it may be--and there was the tramp of late-comers stumbling up the
hill. A loud knocking, then entered for entertainment three gigantic
dripping figures--men of Catch-as-Catch-Can, bound down to Wreckers' Cove
for a doctor, but now put in for shelter, having abandoned hope of
winning farther through the gale that night. Need o' haste? Ay; but what
could men do? No time t' take a skiff t' Wreckers' Cove in a wind like
this! 'Twould blow your hair off beyond the Tickle heads. Hard enough
crossin' the run from Hapless Harbor. An' was there a cup o' tea an' a
bed for the crew o' them? They'd be under way by dawn if the wind fell.
Ol' Tom Luther had t' have a doctor _somehow_, whatever come of it!
"Hello, Joe!" cried the one.
Salim rose and bowed.
"Heared tell 't Hapless Harbor you was here-abouts."
"Much 'bliged," Salim responded, courteously, bowing again. "Ver' much
'bliged."
"Heared tell you sold a watch t' Jim Tuft's young one?"
"Ver' good watch," said Salim.
"Maybe," was the response.
Salim blew a puff of smoke with light grace toward the white rafters. He
was quite serene; he anticipated, now, a compliment, and was fashioning,
of his inadequate English, a dignified sentence of acknowledgment.
"Anyhow," drawled the man from Catch-as-Catch-Can, "she won't go no
more."
Salim looked up bewildered.
"Overboard," the big man explained.
"W'at!" cried Salim.
"Dropped her."
Salim trembled. "He have--drop thee--watch?" he demanded. "No, no!" he
cried. "The boy have not drop thee watch!"
"Twelve fathoms o' water."
"Oh, mygod! Oh, dear me!" groaned Salim Awad. He began to pace the
floor, wringing his hands. They watched him in amazement. "Oh, mygod!
Oh, gracious! He have drop thee watch!" he continued. "Oh, thee poor
broke heart of thee boy! Oh, my! He have work three year for thee watch.
He have want thee watch so ver' much. Oh, thee great grief of thee poor
boy! I am mus' go," said he, with resolution. "I am mus' go to thee
Hapless at thee once. I am mus' cure thee broke heart of thee poor boy.
Oh, mygod! Oh, dear!" They scorned the intention, for the recklessness
of it; they bade him listen to the wind, the rain on the roof, the growl
and thud of the breakers; they called him a loon for his folly. "Oh,
mygod!" he replied; "you have not understand. Thee broke heart of thee
child! Eh? W'at you know? Oh, thee ver' awful pain of thee broke heart.
Eh? I know. I am have thee broke heart. I am have bear thee ver' awful
bad pain."
Aunt Amelia put a hand on Salim's arm.
"I am mus' go," said the Syrian, defiantly.
"Ye'll not!" the woman declared.
"I am mus' go to thee child."
"Ye'll not lose your life, will ye?"
The men of Catch-as-Catch-Can were incapable of a word; they were amazed
beyond speech. 'Twas a new thing in their experience. They had put out
in a gale to fetch the doctor, all as a matter of course; but this risk
to ease mere woe--and that of a child! They were astounded.
"Oh yes!" Salim answered. "For thee child."
"Ye fool!"
Salim looked helplessly about. He was nonplussed. There was no
encouragement anywhere to be descried. Moreover, he was bewildered that
they should not understand!
"For thee child--yes," he repeated.
They did but stare.
"Thee broke heart," he cried, "of thee li'l child!"
No response was elicited.
"Oh, dear me!" groaned the poet. "You _mus'_ see. It is a child!"
A gust was the only answer.
"Oh, mygod!" cried Salim Awad, poet, who had wandered astray in the
tresses of night. "Oh, dear me! Oh, gee!"
Without more persuasion, he prepared himself for this high mission in
salvation of the heart of a child; and being no longer deterred, he put
out upon it--having no fear of the seething water, but a great pity for
the incomprehension of such as knew it best. It was a wild night; the
wind was a vicious wind, the rain a blinding mist, the night thick and
unkind, the sea such in turmoil as no punt could live through save by
grace. Beyond Chain Tickle, Salim Awad entered the thick of that gale,
but was not perturbed; for he remembered, rather than recognized the
menace of the water, the words of that great lover, Antar, warrior and
lover, who, from the sands of isolation, sang to Abla, his beloved:
"_The sun as it sets turns toward her and says, Darkness obscures the
land, do thou arise in my absence. And the brilliant moon calls out to
her, Come forth, for thy face is like me when I am at the full and in
all my glory._"
The hand upon the steering-oar of this punt, cast into an ill-tempered,
cold, dreary, evil-intentioned northern sea, was without agitation, the
hand upon the halyard was perceiving and sure, the eye of intelligence
was detached from romance; but still the heart remembered: "_The
tamarisk-trees complain of her in the morn and in the eve, and say,
Away, thou waning beauty, thou form of the laurel! She turns away
abashed, and throws aside her veil, and the roses are scattered from her
soft, fresh cheeks. Graceful is every limb, slender her waist,
love-beaming are her glances, waving is her form. The lustre of day
sparkles from her forehead, and by the dark shades of her curling
ringlets night itself is driven away._"
The lights of Hapless Harbor dwindled; one by one they went out, a last
message of wariness; but still there shone, bright and promising
continuance, a lamp of Greedy Head, whereon the cottage of Skipper Jim
Tuft, the father of Jamie, was builded.
"I will have come safe," thought Salim, "if thee light of Jamie have
burn on."
It continued to burn.
"It is because of thee broke heart," thought Salim.
The light was not put out: Salim Awad--this child of sand and heat and
poetry--made harbor in the rocky north; and he was delighted with the
achievement. But how? I do not know. 'Twas a marvellous thing--thus to
flaunt through three miles of wind-swept, grasping sea. A gale of wind
was blowing--a gale to compel schooners to reef--ay, and to double reef,
and to hunt shelter like a rabbit pursued: this I have been told, and
for myself know, because I was abroad, Cape Norman way. No
Newfoundlander could have crossed the run from Chain Tickle to Hapless
Harbor at that time; the thing is beyond dispute; 'twas a feat
impossible--with wind and lop and rain and pelting spray to fight. But
this poet, desert born and bred, won through, despite the antagonism of
all alien enemies, cold and wet and vigorous wind: this poet won
through, led by Antar, who said: "_Thy bosom is created as an
enchantment. Oh, may God protect it ever in that perfection_," and by
his great wish to ease the pain of a child, and by his knowledge of wind
and sea, gained by three years of seeking for the relief of the sorrows
of love.
"Ver' good sailor," thought Salim Awad, as he tied up at Sam Swuth's
wharf.
'Twas a proper estimate. "Ver' good," he repeated. "Ver' beeg good."
Then this Salim, who had lost at love, made haste to the cottage of
Skipper Jim Tuft, wherein was the child Jamie, who had lost the watch.
He entered abruptly from the gale--recognizing no ceremony of knocking,
as why should he? There was discovered to him a dismal group: Skipper
Jim, Jamie's mother, Jamie--all in the uttermost depths. "I am come!"
cried he. "I--Salim Awad--I am come from thee sea! I am come from thee
black night--I am come wet from thee rain--I am escape thee hands of thee
sea! I am come--I, Salim Awad, broke of thee heart!" 'Twas a surprising
thing to the inmates of that mean, hopeless place. "I am come," Salim
repeated, posing dramatically--"I, Salim--I am come!" 'Twas no more than
amazement he confronted. "To thee help of thee child," he repeated. "Eh?
To thee cure of thee broke heart." There was no instant response. Salim
drew a new watch from his pocket. "I have come from thee ver' mos' awful
sea with thee new watch. Eh? Ver' good. I am fetch thee cure of thee
broke heart to thee poor child." There was no doubt about the efficacy
of the cure. 'Twas a thing evident and delightful. Salim was wet, cold,
disheartened by the night and weather; but the response restored him.
"Thee watch an' thee li'l' chain, Jamie," said he, with a bow most
polite, "it is to you."
Jamie grabbed the watch.
"Ver' much 'bliged," said Salim.
"Thanks," said Jamie.
And in this cheap and simple way Salim Awad restored the soul of Jamie
Tuft and brought happiness to all that household.
* * * * *
And now, when the news of this feat came to the ears of Khalil Khayyat,
the editor, as all news must come, he sought the little back room of
Nageeb Fiani, the greatest player in all the world, with the letter in
his hand. Presently he got his narghile going, and a cup of perfumed
coffee before him on the round, green baize table; and he was very
happy--what with the narghile and the coffee and the letter from the
north. There was hot weather, the sweat and complaint of the tenements;
there was the intermittent roar and shriek of the Elevated trains
rounding the curve to South Ferry; there was the street murmur and gasp,
the noise of boisterous voices and the click of dice in the outer room;
but by these Khalil Khayyat was not disturbed. Indeed not; there was a
matter of the poetry of reality occupying his attention. He called
Nageeb, the little Intelligent One, who came with soft feet; and he bade
the little one summon to his presence Nageeb Fiani, the artist, the
greatest player in all the world, who came, deferentially, wondering
concerning this important message from the poet.
"Nageeb," said Khalil Khayyat, "there has come a letter from the north."
Nageeb assented.
"It concerns Salim," said Khayyat.
"What has this Salim accomplished," asked Nageeb Fiani, "in alleviation
of the sorrows of love?"
Khayyat would not answer.
"Tell me," Nageeb pleaded.
"This Salim," said Khalil Khayyat, "made a song that could not be
uttered. It is well," said Khalil Khayyat. "You remember?"
Nageeb remembered.
"Then know this," said Khalil Khayyat, abruptly, "the song he could not
utter he sings in gentle deeds. It is a great song; it is too great for
singing--it must be lived. This Salim," he added, "is the greatest poet
that ever lived. He expresses his sublime and perfect compositions in
dear deeds. He is, indeed, a great poet."
Nageeb Fiani thought it great argument for poetry; so, too, Khalil
Khayyat.