He lived in the days of Ismail the Khedive, and was familiarly known as
the Murderer. He had earned his name, and he had no repentance. From
the roof of a hut in his native village of Manfaloot he had dropped a
grindstone on the head of Ebn Haroun, who contended with him for the
affections of Ahassa, the daughter of Haleel the barber, and Ebn Haroun's
head was flattened like the cover of a pie. Then he had broken a cake of
dourha bread on the roof for the pigeons above him, and had come down
grinning to the street, where a hesitating mounted policeman fumbled with
his weapon, and four ghaffirs waited for him with their naboots.
Seti then had weighed his chances, had seen the avenging friends of Ebn
Haroun behind the ghaffirs, and therefore permitted himself to be marched
off to the mudirieh. There the Mudir glared at him and had him loaded
with chains and flung into the prison, where two hundred convicts arrayed
themselves against myriad tribes which, killed individually, made a spot
on the wall no bigger than a threepenny-bit! The carnage was great, and
though Seti was sleepless night after night it was not because of his
crime. He found some solace, however, in provoking his fellow-prisoners
to assaults upon each other; and every morning he grinned as he saw the
dead and wounded dragged out into the clear sunshine.
The end to this came when the father of Seti, Abou Seti, went at night to
the Mudir and said deceitfully: "Effendi, by the mercy of Heaven I have
been spared even to this day; for is it not written in the Koran that a
man shall render to his neighbour what is his neighbour's? What should
Abou Seti do with ten feddans of land, while the servant of Allah, the
Effendi Insagi, lives? What is honestly mine is eight feddans, and the
rest, by the grace of God, is thine, O effendi."
Every feddan he had he had honestly earned, but this was his way of
offering backsheesh.
And the Mudir had due anger and said: "No better are ye than a Frank to
have hidden the truth so long and waxed fat as the Nile rises and falls.
The two feddans, as thou sayest, are mine."
Abou Seti bowed low, and rejoined, "Now shall I sleep in peace, by the
grace of Heaven, and all my people under my date-trees--and all my
people?" he added, with an upward look at the Mudir.
"But the rentals of the two feddans of land these ten years--thou hast
eased thy soul by bringing the rentals thereof?"
Abou Seti's glance fell and his hands twitched. His fingers fumbled with
his robe of striped silk. He cursed the Mudir in his heart for his
bitter humour; but was not his son in prison, and did it not lie with the
Mudir whether he lived or died? So he answered:
"All-seeing and all-knowing art thou, O effendi, and I have reckoned the
rentals even to this hour for the ten years--fifty piastres for each
feddan--"
"A hundred for the five years of high Nile," interposed the Mudir.
"Fifty for the five lean years, and a hundred for the five fat years,"
said Abou Seti, and wished that his words were poisoned arrows, that they
might give the Mudir many deaths at once. "And may Allah give thee
greatness upon thy greatness!"
"God prosper thee also, Abou Seti, and see that thou keep only what is
thine own henceforth. Get thee gone in peace."
"At what hour shall I see the face of my son alive?" asked Abou Seti in
a low voice, placing his hand upon his turban in humility.
"To-morrow at even, when the Muezzin calls from the mosque of El Hassan,
be thou at the west wall of the prison by the Gate of the Prophet's
Sorrow, with thy fastest camel. Your son shall ride for me through the
desert even to Farafreh, and bear a letter to the bimbashi there. If he
bear it safely, his life is his own; if he fail, look to thy feddans of
land!"
"God is merciful, and Seti is bone of my bone," said Abou Seti, and laid
his hand again upon his turban. That was how Mahommed Seti did not at
once pay the price of the grindstone, but rode into the desert bearing
the message of the Mudir and returned safely with the answer, and was
again seen in the cafes of Manfaloot. And none of Ebn Haroun's friends
did aught, for the world knew through whom it was that Seti lived--and
land was hard to keep in Manfaloot and the prison near.
But one day a kavass of the Khedive swooped down on Manfaloot, and twenty
young men were carried off in conscription. Among them was Seti, now
married to Ahassa, the fellah maid for whom the grindstone had fallen on
Ebn Haroun's head. When the fatal number fell to him and it was ordained
that he must go to Dongola to serve in the Khedive's legions, he went to
his father, with Ahassa wailing behind him.
"Save thyself," said the old man with a frown.
"I have done what I could--I have sold my wife's jewels," answered Seti.
"Ten piastres!" said old Abou Seti grimly. "Twelve," said Seti, grinning
from ear to ear. Thou wilt add four feddans of land to that I will
answer for the Mudir."
"Thy life only cost me two feddans. Shall I pay four to free thee of
serving thy master the Khedive? Get thee gone into the Soudan. I do not
fear for thee: thou wilt live on. Allah is thy friend. Peace be with
thee!"