AN ENCOUNTER WITH FANATICS
It was long after sunrise when we awoke next morning; the raft was
still tied up and the men showed no signs of moving.
"Hi!" shouted X to Hassan through the felt wall, "why haven't we
started?"
"The Mudir has not arrived yet, Effendi."
We waited another ten minutes.
"Hi! Hassan, has the Mudir come?"
"No, Effendi, he will come soon."
We turned over and had another doze.
"Hi! Hassan, if the Mudir has not come we shall go without him. Send
Ali to say we must start now."
"Yes, Effendi, he will go."
Turkish acquiescence, especially when very polite, is suspicious. I got
out of bed and peeped through the door. Ali was sitting on the bank
chatting with a local Zaptieh.
"Hi! Hassan, send Ali at once."
"Yes, yes, Effendi, this minute he goes."
From my point of observation I reported that neither Hassan nor Ali
were making any move in the matter, so we decided to dress and become
strenuous about it.
I relieved my feelings at intervals by trying to express in my best
Turkish to Hassan, through the wall, what I thought of the Mudir who
dared to keep great English Pashas waiting beyond the accustomed two
hours which one concedes to Eastern ideas of punctuality.
Before we had finished dressing a sudden rocking of the raft and
general bustle outside announced our departure. Through the window I
took a last look at Tekreet and thanked my lucky stars that departure
from it meant also deliverance from the Evil One.
"Do you think the Mudir will be angry with us for leaving him behind?"
I said.
"Let us hope not," said X, as we emerged from the hut for breakfast;
"we owe him something for ridding us of the Evil One."
The words were hardly out of my mouth before we became aware of the
Evil One himself, sitting between the oars in his usual place. He
greeted us with a bland smile. Beside him, instead of Jedan, sat a
grinning boy.
We turned on Ali for an explanation.
"Ach, Effendi, he is good now; he will not speak: he will not say a
word; he is changed: he is now a good kalekji. The ladies can now sleep
at night."
The Evil One nodded affably at us and put his finger on his sealed
lips. The grinning boy understood Turkish. "I am a good kalekji,
Effendi; I do not talk, I never say a word."
We had become sufficiently Oriental to reconcile ourselves to the
dictates of Destiny; there was no getting rid of him now, so we had to
be content with threats of no baksheesh if a word was uttered on the
way to Baghdad.
We caught sight of a stranger in the men's hut.
"Who is that?" I said.
"The Mudir, Effendi."
"How long has he been there?"
"Since sunrise, Effendi."
"Why did you say he had not come?"
"Ach, Effendi, the kalekjis' bread was not ready; they could not go
without bread."
So all this time the local magnate had been sitting listening to our
abuse of his person. There is only one way to live in the East, and
that is to accept it. Its ways are stronger than your ways, especially
when you come out freshly armed with the ardour of the West. Your best
reasoning is worsted by gracious irrelevancy; your protesting attacks
are turned by acquiescing politeness; and the East moves on its
smiling, unalterable way.
The country below Tekreet began to have a more civilised look; there
were plantations of cucumbers and melons on the banks and roughly
constructed windlasses for raising the water in skins into irrigating
channels. We passed several ruined villages, and caught sight in the
distance of the remains of an old castle.
At noon, after floating about three or four miles, we arrived within
sight of Samarah, a town which was made conspicuous by the huge blue
dome of its mosque and which, we learnt later on, was a place of
pilgrimage for Mahomedans of the Shieah sect. We drew up opposite it to
land the Mudir, and Hassan announced his intention of landing also to
replenish the store of charcoal.
"Then I'll get off too," said X, "I want to see inside that mosque."
X had a mania for looking at mosques; we had seen inside hundreds and
she never seemed to get tired of them. I connected the process chiefly
with having to unlace your boots, a proceeding I detest, and dawdle
over cold floors in your stocking feet. Then you had to remember to
cross your hands in front; if you put them behind your back or in your
pockets you were a marked infidel.
The raft was run along the shore and we walked up to the town. It was
enclosed by a high mud wall which was defended by towers and bastions.
We entered through a large gateway and found ourselves amongst a
collection of falling mud houses lining the usual dirty, narrow
streets. Hassan went in search of charcoal, and we, accompanied by Ali
Chous, strolled on to the mosque. We were followed by the usual crowd
of curious-minded inhabitants, but being by this time quite used to
these attentions, we did not notice them particularly. X was in front,
and advanced towards the low line of chains which barred the entrance
to the building; she was in the act of stepping over the chains when an
excited-looking fanatic rushed at her and hurled her across the street
with what appeared to be effusive execrations. In one moment we were
hemmed in by an angry, buzzing mob; there was no mistaking the glaring
menaces of their expressions and the significant handling of the long
knives worn by all natives in their belts. We realised in a flash that
we had unwittingly aroused the dangerous side of Eastern fanaticism.
Resistance was out of the question; a sign of fear would have been
fatal. All day-dreams were at an end: I recalled the vague forebodings
the storm had first aroused in me. Was it only the day before that X
had said she felt like floating to Eternity and I had maintained that
we should be hurled into Oblivion? Were we only joking then? Now we
were face to face with grim reality. Hassan's words rang in my ears,
"Kim bilior? Allah bilior!" (Who knows? God knows!) We stopped and
looked over the crowd. Ali Chous, our only protector, stood beside us
white and trembling, appealing to some of the leading men, who
hesitated and glared at us in wavering suspicion. Hassan was nowhere in
sight.
"Let's stroll on as far as the end of the street," said X.
"Yes," I answered, "that seems a good idea."
"Don't let's hurry," she said.
"No," I replied, "we have plenty of time."
The crowd made way for us as we turned from the mosque, and we walked
on beyond it up through the bazaars. The men had begun to fight and
wrangle amongst themselves, the narrow street was tightly packed, and
the crowd surged up behind us as we walked on. We were in the covered
part of the bazaars; the usual bright-coloured keffiyehs hung outside;
gaudy cotton coats of Eastern make lay on the top of bales of
Manchester prints and flannelettes; there was the leather stall, with
gorgeous beaded bridles and handsomely embroidered native saddles; and
next it was the boot bazaar, with none of our blackness about it, but a
mass of red and yellow sandals. We had seen it all, just the same, in a
score of similar villages, but I took it all in this time as I had
never taken it in before.
"What a funny baby's garment that is," said X.
The crowd behind were beginning to push.
"Yes," I said, "I wonder how it gets outside the baby."
An angry buzz arose just behind us; were they going to stick us in the
back? We both disdained to turn our heads to see.
"I hope Hassan will think of getting some spinach," I said, "there was
some in the vegetable bazaar."
"He knows you like it," X answered, "he is sure to get it."
We had come to the end of the row of stalls; we slowly turned and faced
the mob.
"This is the obvious moment for annihilation," I thought to myself, "I
wonder why I'm not afraid."
I was waiting in momentary expectation of death, but at the same time I
could not realise that we were going to be killed. I did not seem to be
able to take in what being killed was--I felt very indifferent, and
noticed that I had lost a button off my coat. But the crowd made way
for us and we sauntered back. Further down we met Hassan.
"What is all this crowd about?" he said.
X told him; he made no answer and we walked on together.
We got outside the gates of the town but were still a few minutes' walk
from the river.
"I'm tired," said X; "let's rest here a minute," and she lay down on
the ground.
I looked round. There was still a noisy crowd at the gates of the town,
and we were being followed out by some of the rowdier members. I had a
vague idea that it would have been more comfortable to lie down on the
raft, but there was no accounting for tastes, and it was all in the
day's work. I sat down beside X. There was a white stone a few yards
away, larger than the others which lay about; I picked up a handful of
the smaller stones.
"Best out of ten," I said to myself; "if I hit we get off, if I don't
hit we are done for. There is no current about this, it's all chance,"
and I started lazily throwing at the large stone. Hassan stood by
smoking. I missed the first, and the second, and the third. Ali Chous
looked uneasily at the crowd beginning to straggle out towards us. The
fourth hit, and the fifth; the sixth missed. Two more misses and we
should be done for. Ali Chous begged us to come on. The seventh and the
eighth hit, the ninth missed. The next throw would settle the question.
Two men had come up and stood looking at us.
"Let's come on now," said X, sitting up.
"One minute," I said, and I carefully picked out a nice round pebble.
It hit.
"What a baby you are!" said X.
We boarded the raft and pushed off. It was a lovely calm evening. The
current was straight enough for us to glide quietly along with no
assistance from the oars; the last traces of the setting sun slowly
disappeared, and gradually the stars reflected twinkling points of
silver in the black water, dancing brightly in the moving current. A
silence as of death reigned over everything; the blackness of death
peered out of the deep waters; the slow but surely moving current was
drifting us on relentlessly towards an uncertainty suggesting death.
And with it there was a tremendous sense of stillness and peace.
I was sitting very near the edge looking into the dark waters.
"I don't want to die yet," I said.
"You are such a time taking things in," said X, "that you would not be
aware that you were dead until so long after the event that it would
hardly matter to you. You weren't afraid, were you?"
"No," I answered. We were silent for a while, then Hassan spoke.
"If you had crossed the chain," he said, "there would have been no more
Pashas for me to travel with. Inside is the tomb of the last Imam of
the race of Ali, and no Christian may look upon it and live." I looked
again into the deep waters and began to take it all in--what I had seen
in the men's faces, and how they would have done it. Hassan put a rug
over me; I had shivered. I wasn't cold. It was all over, we were safe;
but I was knowing what it was to be afraid.