ENTITLED _MILH_, OR SALT
When his nephews next filed into the presence of Mahmoud at the hour
of public executions their first act was to stand in a line and
salaam; their next to push forward the eldest, who with much catching
up of himself and in the humblest tones, desired to apologize to his
uncle for the interruption of which he had been guilty during their
last audience.
“It is not my fault, Revered Sir,” said he, “that I was born a little
thick-headed in the matter of figures. The whole thing has been
explained to me most fully by my father, my mother, my brothers,
and sundry guests that came in last night after the evening meal:
to which (alas!) we could not afford to invite them. I now see very
clearly where and how a million can become two without breeding, and
I only hope that in the further story of your adventures we shall
find miraculously increasing with every year the fortune which the
Almighty bestowed upon you in reward for your ceaseless efforts to
benefit mankind.”
Having said this the lad bowed once more in deep obeisance, while, at
a signal from one of their uncle’s attendant slaves, all the brothers
sank cross-legged to the floor and assumed expressions of the most
enraptured attention.
“There was no need,” said the old man kindly, “to refer again to this
unfortunate little affair; but since you have done so I am indeed
glad to learn that your difficulties have been explained away. No
doubt your excellent father, my brother, and his guests made it plain
to you that, if anything, my reward had been far below that to which
I was morally entitled. For a man who not only builds for a city a
fine bridge but also, from a pure public spirit, leaves it open and
free to all, is worthy of very high reward indeed at the hands of the
Commonwealth. But, to tell the truth, though I am not indifferent
to success in any task I take up, I was not so much concerned with
the worldly advantage of my increased fortune as with the good I
had done, and with the knowledge that it would add to my glory in
paradise. For it is written: ‘_Three works are remembered on high:
The building of a bridge, the digging of a well, and the pulling down
of poor men’s houses._’
“In the last part of what you said (my dear nephews), I fear you will
be disappointed; for the story I have to tell to-day” (and here his
voice fell to a graver tone) “is one of strange disaster.
“I desire you to bear my losses even more closely in mind than the
previous accounts of my rising fortunes or than those other accounts
which will follow and will show how I recovered my standing in
the world. For it would indeed be a poor service I should do you
young people if I were to leave you under the error that energy and
adventure alone add gold to gold: no, nor even cunning. For there is
also the Will of the Supreme.
“What is the Sleight of Hand or Eye, without Him?” asked the old
Merchant in a rapture (as his youngest nephew cleverly swallowed a
yawn). “Do you hope for gain by the folly of your dupe or even by
your own stupidity? It is far otherwise!
“Our Sacred Books present us with many an example of good men whom
the Infinite Mercy has seen fit to try. It is our conduct under
these ordeals which are the true test of character and the only
foundations of our future and eternal reward. By so much as I
ascribe to the Mercy of Allah whatever goods have befallen me, by so
much do I ascribe to His inscrutable wisdom and kindness even the
sharp reverses of this life. For by these we learn that there is an
element of speculation in all business; that we are surrounded by the
competition of rivals whom we should never despise; that our friends
ever lie in wait to outwit us. It is only by the humble acceptation
of such lessons that we become even more acute in dealing with our
fellow-beings than we were before we had suffered loss.
“However, I will not delay, but proceed at once to the harrowing
tale. For you must now follow your poor uncle through dark and
distressing days.” As he said these words the features of his young
relatives betrayed the utmost concern; none more than those of the
youngest, the great pathos of whose expression oddly assorted with
the innocence of his years.
“You must know, then,” began the old man, “that my prime error at
this moment in my career, was a desire for ease. I thought (I say it
to my shame!) that I had made enough. To use the familiar language
of the market I regarded my present fortune of a million dinars as
my ‘pile.’ To use another phrase which you will come across very
frequently in your maturer years, I was ready to retire.
“Oh, fatal error! Oh, profound ingratitude! Here was I, still in the
vigour of early manhood--for I had but just attained my thirtieth
year, on the full tide of an apparent success, blessed in all my
doings--and yet already with a paltry million in hand so ungrateful
to God as to entertain a shameful temptation to leisure! The result
shall be a warning to you, I hope, and to any who may come across
this recital.
“The insidious poison of content had, all unknown to myself, wormed
its way into my heart. I had (for the moment at least) wearied of
getting the better of others--which should be the chief activity
of a man; I was already toying with such fripperies as the reading
of books, the contemplation of fine manuscripts, the designing of
a house for myself, the planning of gardens, futile conversation
with the learned, and, worst of all, the taking of an interest in
the past. Beyond this foolish bent for acquiring knowledge of dead
things, I descended to the pen! I actually began to write. To the
writing of verse (I humbly thank God!) I never fell, but had not a
sharp chastisement brought me to my senses I might have come to it.
“You know, perhaps, my dear nephews, that there are some men so lost
to all shame that on finding themselves possessed of a considerable
sum they will not embark it in commerce nor even lend it out at
interest to the widow and the orphan, to the teachers of our holy
religion, or to districts struck by famine; indeed, they make no
lucrative employment of it, but, yielding to a base appetite for
repose, they draw upon it as they need until it is wholly exhausted.”
“Oh, how shocking!” piped a shrill voice, interrupting the merchant
in his eloquence. The cry proceeded from the youngest.
“You feel strongly, my little fellow,” said his uncle, “and you are
quite right. I am delighted to find that one so young has already so
sound a sense of our duty in the battle of life. There are, I repeat,
men so despicable that they will put their substance aside, taking
from it what they need from day to day, until one of these two events
befalls them: at the worst they live too long and spend their last
miserable years in destitution: at the best (and it is a poor best)
they live too short, and have the infinite mortification, in the
agony of death, to discover that they might have had some slightly
larger income had they made a more exact calculation.
“I am speaking frankly to you, my nephews (in spite of the difference
in our ages and of the respect you owe me as the head of the family),
when I confess so great a depth of degradation as this. I did not
put this million which I had acquired aside. I used it fruitfully.
But my mind was occupied (even after so many years I blush to recall
it!) in seeking some secure and permanent form of revenue, so that
I should be free henceforth from the labour and risk of buying cheap
and selling dear, and from the duty of hunting the dupe and the
incompetent.
“While I was revolving in my mind how best I might obtain this
leisure there came to me my temptation. For a traveller arriving
in the City of the Bridge let it be known to the merchants of the
place that the King of an Island called Izmar, one day’s sail from
the coast (a kingdom renowned throughout Asia for its fidelity to
the Prophet, the antiquity of its customs, the solidity of its
institutions), required a loan.
“‘For what purpose?’ I asked him.
“‘I know not,’ he answered, ‘but I think it is in order to pay back
another loan which he contracted some years ago in the effort to
pay another loan which his father had contracted when a few years
previously he had been compelled to repay an earlier loan.’
“I admired the scrupulous anxiety of this monarch and was the more
confirmed in the project that was forming in my mind. That very night
I bade farewell, not without grief, to the City of the Bridge. I
sold my slaves and my house at some loss (such was my infatuation!)
and before it was light started out upon a good horse, carrying with
me my million dinars reduced to one hundred thousand pieces of gold
which, in this form, could easily be carried upon a few pack animals
that followed me with their drivers.
“My passage of the sea was easy. I saw, at the rising of the sun,
fine mountains against the South and very soon I discerned at their
base on the shore, the walls, the piers, the minarets of a great
city, its flanks upon the edges of the sea. So did I land under a
good augury.
“Everything in the place, as I passed through it, smiled at my
project. The wealth of the great houses, the busy commerce of the
streets, the port quite filled with shipping from every place, the
sounds of strange tongues (men not only from all Islam, but Nazarenes
also, and Kafir, and merchants of China), the excellent order
everywhere about, all these promised me the security which I desired.
“I put on my best raiment, finely fringed, and all my jewels and
presented myself to the Port-Master as upon a matter of state
business, handing him at the same time, in a lofty manner, a roll
which I begged to have delivered to the Controllers of the Treasury.
The Master of the Port treated me with the reverence my wealth
deserved. I reposed for an hour in the court of his house, resting to
the pleasant trickle of a fountain and waiting the pleasure of the
authorities. At the end of that time a dozen horsemen magnificently
mounted and bearing the insignia of the King formed before the porch
of my host. Their commander set foot to the ground and begged me with
a very low salaam to mount and ride. It would be his privilege, he
said, to hold my bridle.
“It was my design to maintain my state, and thus, in great pomp, was
I led through the busy streets till I came to a vast archway all
emblazoned with holy texts. Passing through this, I came into a more
magnificent court than I had thought men could have built in this
world. Indeed, the folk had made stories of it that it was not of
human handicraft, but that its delicate piers and alabaster columns
and lovely arches, lighter and lighter as they rose to heaven, had
sprung up in a moment at the command of spirits in the days of
Soleiman, from whom the monarchs of this happy island claimed descent.
“My advent was greeted with a flourish of trumpets as though I were
some sort of ambassador, such an effect had my robes and jewels and
letter produced, and, without delay, I was conducted by servants of
the palace into the presence of the Council.
“The morning was already far advanced, the heat increasing, but the
apartment in which I found myself (which was ablaze with the most
costly tiles and hangings of the Indies) was very cool; and again the
pleasant sound of water plashing from a scented fountain refreshed
the air.
“Before the throne stood, in respectful order, the twelve councillors
of the King; and He himself, upon a marble throne, exquisite in
workmanship and venerable with age, sat: a young man of a dreamy,
melancholy, but pleasing countenance, who bowed his head very
slightly at my approach, smiled gently as he did so and welcomed me.
Such was the King. I in my turn cast myself down before him with a
full obeisance until he bade me rise.
“Our business was not long in concluding. The Grand Vizier, who
stepped up and stood on the right hand of the throne, put me
certain questions--Whether I had my treasure with me? Whether I
could produce it by such a date? And so forth. I satisfied him by
signalling to my attendants with their burdens. The packages were
opened before the eyes of the Council and at that sitting all was
arranged. For the terms which I proposed were discovered suitable
enough. I have told you, my dear nephews (and I do confess it again
to my shame), that desire for ease had now taken place in my mind,
whereas further gain should have occupied it. I very modestly asked
for no more than five dinars yearly on the hundred, I told the
Council and his Majesty that for the million dinars which could here
be counted I should ask annually but fifty thousand for revenue, and
that paid on such dates as they thought fit.
“All nodded gravely; the King gently complimented me upon my public
spirit, for now (as he was good enough to say) he regarded me as a
subject.
“He looked round among his councillors as though seeking a
suggestion, when one of them, Tarib by name (whom I distinguished by
his fine intelligent face and felt drawn towards already), said in
a firm voice, ‘The Salt Tax,’ and all, including the King himself,
murmured approval.
“Then did I learn that for many generations past the people of
this wealthy and fortunate realm had paid to the State a fixed tax
upon salt, which amounted yearly, upon the average, to the sum I
had demanded. It was regularly received; for all the salt of this
land came over sea and the toll was levied at the ports of entry. A
Charter was drawn up by the Council in simple terms. It was agreed
by my own wish that my name should not be published to the people,
lest, perhaps, the odium of receiving tribute should attach to one so
recently come among them. But the King assured me, as he signed, that
not odium, but gratitude, was my due: he for his part would never
cease to believe that I had been moved to make so generous an offer
by some particular affection for himself and his people.
“Rooms within the palace were set at my disposal until I should have
time to choose some house in the city, and through the importance of
my connexion with the State I was sworn of the Council with the rest.
“As I read my Charter through all alone in the privacy of my room
I noted with pleasure the short and simple phrasing of this great
commercial people:
“‘_To Mahmoud, his assignees and heirs for ever and ever, so long
as the State shall last, and the Salt Tax be gathered_’
ran the what is called among the mighty ‘The Operative Clause: the
Words of Power.’ I had them by heart in a moment. I could not forbear
to write them down in my own hand more than once, for the pleasure it
gave me.
“Here then was my every wish fulfilled! Here was the best of company,
the most dignified of position, the most charming of climates,
surroundings of wealth, luxury and ease; the culture of a thousand
years; all that our religion permits in art and entertainment. Books
of every language and climate. Stores of good from every sky under
heaven, from every people and of every age. Here, indeed, might I
live my life without further adventure or negotiation. What pleased
me most was to think that I would be able to escape some little
strains I might have to put upon my honour--though not I am glad to
say upon my conscience--in the rude struggle of the outer world.
No one here knew my humble beginnings, or in too much detail the
particular abilities whereby I had so rapidly enriched myself.
“I was now one of the great lords, and very soon the foundation of my
fortune would be lost in the mists of time. Men would easily come to
believe that my fathers had acquired it, sword in hand, when first
the banner of the Prophet was seen upon those hills three hundred
years before.
“I will not detain you with the happy disposition of my time, nor
with more than the statement of my supreme enjoyment. Scrolls from
every land I accumulated in my library, I had about me the most
costly stuffs and upon my person and upon those of my attendants the
rarest gems. My chief delight was to gather at my table a small,
but various, band of intimates; chief of whom was that earnest,
intelligent young man of the Council whom I noted on my first
arrival. Tarib, as I have told you, was his simple name; and I
learned how his father had been no more than a respected merchant
in offal. Dying, he had left his son a sufficient income, and that
son had so added to it by occasions of public service that he had
now risen to one of the highest offices of State. It was his special
function in the Council to represent and to retail to the King
whatever popular movement was abroad, for he was known to every
class in the city. He was the intermediary between King and people,
was regarded in some way as a Tribune: or, as his title went, ‘The
Doubler,’ which term, already centuries old, some derived from his
double function, others from the attitude which etiquette demanded
him to assume to Monarch and subjects alike. Others again put it down
to the emoluments of his post.
“Through him I learned to understand this kindly, industrious and
most loyal people. In my walks with him, and by my regular attendance
at his public addresses, I grew intimate with that character in the
people of Izmat which had led to their great reputation throughout
the world.
“It was their pride that they never shook the State by violent
change, but with gradual and well-weighed reforms adapted themselves
generation by generation to the movement of the world. They thought
disdainfully of nationalities controlled by less powerful traditions;
for a man of great fortune like myself, it was therefore an
ever-pleasing thought--the foundation I might say of my happiness--to
consider the peace and solidity all about me. That portion of the
populace (about one half) which lay upon the verge of starvation were
manfully content with their lot, or, if they showed some beginning of
complaint, were at once appeased when they had pointed out to them
their superiority over the miserable foreigners of the Mainland;
while those who (like myself) were possessed of vast revenues and
lived in great palaces were far too devoted to the Commonwealth to
dream of grumbling at their lot. They would, upon the contrary,
frequently express their devotion to State and King, and prove it by
doing for the common weal, unpaid, as much as three hours’ work in a
day; or even four when there was a press of business.
“Thus, one would maintain the magnificent breed of horses by his
devotion to the chase; another would support the industry of the
goldsmith by his frequent purchase of ornaments; another would, as
a local magistrate, condemn the poorest of his district to various
terms of imprisonment; another, though in no way bound to do so,
would write a book--the description, perhaps, of his tastes in food,
or a recollection of those men and women of the wealthier sort whom
he had met in the course of his useful life. Yet another would
contribute to the health of the State by the continual practice of
commerce, to which these people were very much devoted. There was
hardly one of this rich class in which I now mixed, but had his
chosen work thoroughly accomplished. The content of the poor, the
public spirit of the rich, welded the whole of that society into
a sort of paradise; but most noble of all and most worthy of this
people was this young Tribune Tarib.
“He it was who talked most incessantly and before the largest
gatherings, thus creating a taste for public discussion. He it was
who discussed practical remedies whenever discontent appeared, and
he who worked out every detail in the interesting reports upon the
condition of the starving. To the thousands whom he addressed his
manner never grew stale. His eloquence was sober, his speeches with
praise of Izmat and quotations from the Sacred Books, as also with
known jests--things which this practical people infinitely preferred
to empty theories of the Mainland. So all went well; and I (blind to
the future, alas!) went down that path of statesmanship along which
my friend led me, little knowing whither it would lead me.
“I did not often speak myself at the public meetings so frequently
held (they were indeed the noble pastime of this patriot folk),
lest my foreign accent should hurt my dignity. For I had not yet a
complete command of the language, though it was now two years since
I had become a citizen and subject of the Monarch to whom we were
all so devoted. But I would sit by the side of my friend Tarib and
others as they harangued the populace in the open places of the
city or, upon occasions, in the mosques. On such occasions I would
show by my smiles and applause my approval of all that was said for
the betterment of the poor or the rich, as the case might be, and I
always laughed at the ritual jests, sometimes even before they were
delivered. In this way I grew familiar with most of those in the
capital and with many of the provincial towns, and hoped to conquer
general favour.
“I was present when Ibn Rashn delivered his great harangue to a
vast assembly, denouncing the foreign practice of marrying a fifth
wife--which abomination there was some danger of seeing introduced
into his beloved land. I was present also when the same great and
eloquent man gave his second great harangue, insisting upon the
necessity of fifth wives and carrying that reform by acclamation as
a law. Seated with others on the raised platform which surrounded
the orator I applauded the Grand Vizier in his solemn declaration
against shaving, a thing (said he) abhorrent to every true believer,
and heard the sway of argument for and against the custom; which (I
am glad to say) was afterwards put down with the utmost severity of
the law. But my happiest memories are still of those numerous days
when my intimate the Tribune Tarib--who could never be accused of any
petty thing--poured forth his soul upon the poverty of the commons
and extolled to them the national pride and glory of doing nothing
to change it: in which principles he was applauded with frenzy. This
spirit was peculiar to this happy land and no one expressed it in
wiser or more memorable terms than he who was now my bosom friend.
“But there came a time--I had been in Izmat about three years--when
it was clearly necessary to strike a new note.
“There was at the moment of which I speak some little commotion in
the city on account of a dearth of rice, the diet of the poorer
classes, or at least the diet of the poorer classes when they could
obtain it; for there was a custom deeply rooted in this conservative
people that when the poorer classes could not obtain rice, they
should do without it.
“At this juncture the difficulty had risen to the middle classes, and
these joined with the populace. Ill ease grew general. A complaint of
stringency was abroad, from the ranks of those who starved to death
up to the merchants and the lords themselves. Even the moderately
rich could no longer afford the services of more than a dozen
dancing girls.
“The whole Island was in a ferment and the capital was so disturbed
that one might have thought oneself at times among the degraded
tribes of the Mainland.
“Processions had appeared in the streets, sometimes actually
accompanied by musical instruments of a loud and distressing order.
Banners had been carried, and upon one occasion the litter of no less
a person than the Lord Executioner had been detained for half an hour
in a block caused by the multitudes proceeding to hear a favourite
orator. The Council had taken note of these things and my friend the
Tribune Tarib, the Lord Doubler, was naturally deputed to deal with
them in his own inimitable way.
“He went on foot to the vast meeting that had been convened in the
Mosque of Nasr-ed-din the founder of the Dynasty. We also went with
him thus humbly, the better to please the public eye. With some dozen
others of my rank I sat upon a rug immediately at the foot of the
orator and listened entranced to his impassioned words.
“Never had I heard him more inspired! It was a great volume of sound,
the words in which followed each other in quick succession, often
meaningless but never pedantic, and throughout the speech he was
careful to interpolate short passages which the meanest intellect
could clearly follow and which exactly corresponded to the desires
of his hearers. ‘Why should you starve?’ cried he, ‘while all around
you is wealth? Which the wealthy will be the first to forego.’
Murmurs of applause burst from the lips of the Treasurer and the
Grand Vizier, while I myself--I am not ashamed to say--cried aloud in
my enthusiasm for the sentiment. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘do you lack your
poor pittance of rice while the bloated rich’--and he looked round
at the galleries as though to find them there--‘have their fill of
the tenderest lamb stuffed with pistachio nuts? And who shall blame
them?’ Again there rose a wave of applause in which I joined more
heartily than ever, for the words reminded me of that delicious
viand, which I had, but an hour before, very plentifully consumed.
‘Why,’--he shouted in louder tones--‘Why do you permit yourselves to
be loaded with an intolerable burden of taxation? Which our wealthier
classes bear also in an immoderate degree?’
“At this phrase the exultation of the Lord Chief Treasurer knew
no bounds, and he led the stream of cheering which it so richly
deserved. ‘How long are we to wait for that reform which our
fathers--especially among the gentry--demanded and so nearly
obtained?’ He looked round upon them for a moment in a dramatic
pause, and then said in solemn tones, ‘A tax upon the _worthless
rich_, and more especially’ (yet louder) ‘upon the _alien_ rich
and more especially still’ (his voice now booming like a hammering
of drums) ‘upon the alien rich who stand _idle_ fattening upon
the revenues of the State, this I say....’ But the delirium of
acquiescence aroused by this noble sentiment cut off the rest of
his phrase and drowned his voice for the space in which a man might
recite the prayer for the Caliph.
“Used as I was to this style of public eloquence and the expression
of opinions universal to this happy people (bound up, as I thought,
with the very atmosphere of their race) I naturally expected that
when the dying down of the applause should have allowed him to be
heard we should have that second part of which his speeches had
always consisted--an appeal to the conservative instincts of our
race, to their noble patience and to their dogged tenacity in doing
nothing which had made them the envy of their less-gifted neighbours.
“Bitterly was I undeceived!
“For what were his very next words? I could hardly believe my ears as
those words fell upon me. ‘Why,’ said he in grave and tragic tones,
slowly separating them syllable by syllable, ‘why do you thus remain
ground down by such an iniquity as the tax upon SALT?’
“My heart stood still. I ventured discreetly to touch his foot with
that one of my own which was nearest. He replied by treading heavily
upon my toe, which I interpreted as a signal of secret friendship.
But I was terribly concerned to note that the native Lords around,
squatted upon the same platform as myself, wagged their heads in
unison when this monstrous suggestion was made, and by their murmurs
of agreement interrupted the awful silence which followed.
“That silence did not last for long. Once more, but with stronger
decision, with larger hope, there arose from the vast assembly the
same tumult of applause. Every man rose to his feet. Someone began
to sing, then all sang in unison their famous hymn, which asks in
stirring words and air whether one Hussein shall die and asserts
with the utmost vehemence that if this most unfortunate event
should come to pass no less than twenty thousand inhabitants of the
peninsula province of Bar-el-sul would demand a full explanation of
the occurrence. The words might not seem apposite to a stranger, but
in the dignified and strongly national atmosphere of Izmat their
purport is well understood. They can be suited to almost any occasion
of popular passion, and at this moment most undoubtedly might be
interpreted to mean ‘_To Eblis with the Salt Tax_.’
“I was by this time frozen to my marrow. I was bewildered. I could
hardly doubt the friendship between Tarib and myself. I had shown
him so many favours. Even now, as I looked at him, I found him very
sympathetic--and so familiar! I could not doubt the force of familiar
converse, I could not doubt my hosts and colleagues, the Councillors,
who had for now three years sat with me round His Majesty in Divan
and worked with me as one of the Chief Ministers there.
“The next words slightly, but only slightly, reassured me. They were
more after the style I knew so well, when, in the past, the national
glory in doing nothing had been expressed with peculiar skill. The
Lord Doubler assumed a piteous expression and his mouth, the shape
of which might now be compared to that of a horseshoe, opened. ‘Let
me not stir you up, my friends,’ said he, ‘to a violent anger. We
can leave froth and vindictive folly to the pitiful peoples of the
mainland. We in Izmat, thanks be to Allah, will never lose our
dignity in mere brawling. Let us confine ourselves to constitutional
means, the only ones whereby anything practical can be accomplished.’
Applause also met these sentiments, more subdued, indeed, than that
which we had first heard, but sincere. ‘My friends around me,’ and he
smiled on all the Councillors, including myself, ‘will deliberate,
as we always do, for the public good, and you will find that our
recommendations thus laid before His Majesty, with the ensuing
Proclamation, will be the beginning of better things. We cannot say
that all this evil shall be redressed at once. We are a practical
people, as I think I have remarked before. You have indeed cried to
me for redress; but we are, I say it again, a practical people. We do
not attempt the impossible or tear up the ancient framework of our
State. Step by step is our motto. One thing at a time. The advance
of His Majesty’s subjects in freedom and happiness has increased
in breadth by imperceptible degrees from one decision in the past
to another, as our great poet has so admirably put it; and again,
not once or twice in the far from smooth sequence of our insular
activities has the mere fulfilment of our daily tasks proved an
approach to distinction.’ These verses (which in the original form
noble lines of poetry) made a fitting conclusion to one of those
great speeches which from time to time determined the fate of Izmat.
“We all rose; the audience and the Councillors and the orator himself
united in chanting that portion of the Koran which details Mahomet’s
visit to the moon (a religious exercise dear to this folk). We then
sang an invocation to Allah that he might protect His Majesty the
King and throw any hypothetical enemies of that monarch into the
utmost confusion. Then we filed out of the Mosque in our thousands to
the coolness of the declining day. That great, that historic, that
fatal meeting had occupied four hours!
“The Council was immediately summoned, and their first action, after
their obeisance to the King upon his throne, was to assure me,
individual by individual, that no idea of any attack upon me had been
for one moment intended.
“‘It is, my dear Mahmoud,’ said the Grand Vizier, placing his hand
familiarly upon mine as it lay listless upon my knee, ‘it is the
_principle_ of the matter which we must consider. That is it.’
He pressed my hand on the other side. ‘For yourself, Mahmoud, as
you know, we have a respect which exceeds all bounds, but we must
move with the times. Things are not what they were. Evolution is
better than revolution. If we do not reform ourselves, things will
reform us. Mend it or end it. What did the Sultan Omar say in the
thirty-seventh year of the Flight of the Prophet?’
“These commonplaces fell mournfully upon my ears. I made no attempt
to reply. His Majesty was pleased to say a few sympathetic words. The
Tribune Tarib, who evidently felt embarrassed by my position and by
his memories of our past friendship, most earnestly protested that
his whole object had been to stem the growing dangerous demand--nay,
he would go so far as to say perilous demand; nay more, a minatory
demand; yea, a threatening demand. Had he not stemmed the demand
as he had it would have had tremendous consequences in the way of
demand. The great lord whose special function on the Council was
solemnity and who was known by the title of His Impressiveness,
opened his mouth in the midst of his prodigious beard to say that he
thoroughly agreed with these sentiments.
“For my part I said nothing, but sat mournfully, seeing no issue
and attending the pleasure of those who could do what they would
with me and mine. I heard their debate: I was asked to sign their
conclusions. I did so with a reluctant, unwilling hand; and as I
signed my name in its place and affixed my seal I glanced at the
wording of the Proclamation and felt some relief to discover that
the Salt Tax was not abolished, but only halved, while the loss so
occasioned was to be made good by a tax upon revenue of one dinar in
each hundred--a very moderate amount.
“After this dreadful session (the date will remain engraved upon my
soul to my dying day!--it was the anniversary of the day upon which
my grandfather, your great grandfather, dear boys, had been hanged)
I paced up and down in my courtyard alone, no longer soothed by the
ceaseless whisper of my beloved fountains, in no mood for taking down
any one of my famous scrolls, nor even for toying with the numerous
Circassians whom I had imported at vast expense during the preceding
months. My bosom and my brow were contracted and I was weary of life.
“But after some hours of these mournful reflections some
considerations of hope occurred to me. ‘After all,’ said I to
myself, ‘there must be ups and downs. Many a man has lost a fortune
and recovered it. My income is halved, but what remains is still
ample.’ I could yet call myself an extremely wealthy man--among the
wealthiest in the State. The small tax put upon my revenue I could
not grudge, since it fell also upon the revenues of others.
“But I was to learn what bitter truth there lay behind the
oft-repeated boast of these people that they proceeded step by step,
slowly, one thing at a time, etc., etc., etc. Not a month had passed
but a modification was issued to the first regulation and it was
ordained, in view of certain rumours which had been heard in the
market-place, that the tax on revenue should be of a more complicated
kind. It was to _begin_, indeed, at one dinar in the hundred, but
since it was harsh to apply even this small burden to the poorer
citizens, only those receiving at least one thousand dinars should
pay, and the proportion was to rise rapidly with the larger fortunes
until, for such a man as myself, the proportion reached one quarter
of the total! But worse was to come.
“Yielding to the vigorous popular clamour, the tax was doubled for
those of alien birth. For those whose income was derived in any way
from the revenues of State the tax was doubled again. Exception
was made for the Councillors, for (so ran the Proclamation) their
salaries are paid by his Majesty, and a diminution of them would
but take money with one hand to give it back to the other. I hoped
for one wild moment that I should come within so clear a category.
But no! In a further clause it was specially indicated that this
should apply only to salaries actually paid by the Treasury and not
to annuities guaranteed by, or derived from, the public revenue
directly--and my payment alone was of this kind in all the Council!
“Still more was to follow. An infamous new regulation appeared
whereby a man should pay, not upon that which he actually received,
but upon that which he had received in the course of three years--a
space of time exactly corresponding to my presence in the island
and attaching to my vast income of the past. It was clear that I
was ruined. I made a brief calculation on the night after the last
of these official Acts had been published. After taking this survey
of my remaining wealth (I had already sold the most part of my
movables, and had removed from my great palace to a humble lodging)
I discovered that I had left in my hands, all told, less than one
thousand dinars.
“I knew not how to look upon the world. My whole being seemed to have
departed. I watched the day fading, and with it faded my spirit.
I returned to my poor room and, very late, lost, or half-lost, my
miseries in an imperfect slumber.”
The old man concluded and bowed his head in a solemn silence. His
young nephews appreciating how sacred a thing is death, especially
the death of Money, glided on tiptoe out of the room and vanished.
الوكلاء
AL-WUKALÁ
That is:
THE LAWYERS