The streets by night were full of people, in striking contrast with
their emptiness at noon that day. The mosques were all alight inside,
and from the glimpse which Barakah obtained through open doorways
appeared crowded.
She saw men making towards them through the press, embracing precious
bundles, with the look of fugitives.
“Their fear is of the English,” said the donkey-boy. “Who knows what
they will do by way of punishment?”
But the look on all the faces when a ray of light revealed them, the
note of the vast murmur lapping the whole city, was rather of relief
and comfort than anxiety. To hide away their treasures was a mere
precaution which only madmen would neglect in presence of a conquering
host; but men were thankful for the coming of the English, which meant
an end to anarchy and wild suspense.
“Wallahi, they are warriors,” one orator was declaiming at a street
corner. “The fight was far away at daybreak, and now behold them
here among us in the citadel. Wallahi, they are mighty! They smite
hard--one blow and all is said. Wallahi, they are not of those who
loiter. They appeared among us like a vision of the rising night; they
demanded the keys of our strong places as of right divine. The people
in the street stood still and gaped on them, rubbing their eyes to
ascertain that they were not asleep. May Allah make them merciful. The
praise to Allah!”
The donkey-boy, who had been looking at the lady’s eyes at frequent
intervals as if in expectation of a change of purpose, asked at length:
“Whither shall I conduct thee, O my mistress? Is it not thy wish to
return to the house?”
“I have no house,” was her reply. “Did I not tell thee? To the El Afîfi
cemetery!”
“Not by night! Hear reason, O my lady!” he besought her. “Tell me where
thou dwellest, that I may conduct thee thither!”
“I go to the cemetery, as I told thee. It is necessary. If thou art
weary of my service, I will pay thee and go out alone.”
Barakah’s tone grew plaintive, almost tearful. The resolution in her
words was mere bravado. She knew that she was utterly dependent on
this friendly youth, whose company alone kept up her courage. From
the moment of her turning back she had felt stupid, useless, relying
on this boy to bring her to the cemetery, where she hoped to die. It
seemed a certainty that if she prayed her utmost, full as her heart
was, the vexed soul must leave the body, and the prayer by sheer
brute force become acceptable. At thought of being baulked of her
self-sacrifice, the boy’s help failing, she began to whimper.
“Nay, dearest lady, weep not!” he entreated. “By Allah, thou shalt
neither walk nor go alone. I will conduct thee thither; but it may be
necessary that we wait till morning, since the way is lonely and the
haunt of ginn. See here, before us is my mother’s house. Deign to go in
and rest awhile, and take refreshment, while I feed the donkey. I will
make inquiries. If it is possible to go to-night, I swear to take thee.
If not, thou canst rest here until the dawn.”
They had stopped before a doorway in a narrow alley. He went a little
way into the gloom and whispered:
“O my mother!”
“Is it thou, Selîm?” came back the answer.
“O my mother, come at once! I have a lady, a great lady in disguise.
She has run mad through grief in these bad times, and wants to go out
to the cemetery. Receive her in thy house a minute, feed her, talk to
calm her; while I discover if the way is safe.”
“The cemetery! Go not thither. Best come in and sleep.”
“The lady is distraught with grief. I reverence her like a parent.
She is absent from the world; she does not hear us. I think that she
is going to the tombs to pray. It were a good deed to conduct her
thither.”
“True, wallahi! May Allah heal her soul, the poor one! These be
dreadful times!”
A woman came out to the doorway, holding up an earthen lamp.
“Deign to enter, O my sweet,” she called seductively.
Selîm assisted his employer to dismount.
“Go in and rest,” he whispered. “My mother and my sister are alone in
there. Thou canst unveil. The dwellings of the poor are all haramlik.
In a little while I shall return and call thee from without. I go but
to make sure the ways are safe.”
The room in which she found herself was small and stuffy. It was
lighted only by the little lamp the woman carried. Barakah was glad to
loose her veil awhile. She refused the food, but drank the water, which
the women offered, and listened to their cordial blessings with a sense
of dreaming. Her prayer was that the boy might not decide to wait till
morning. Desire to reach the tomb at once absorbed her life. Deprived
of it, she would have had no further being. Her prayer now took the
Christian form, and now the Muslim; the two religions growing tangled
in her tired mind. At length the boy’s voice sounded:
“Deign to come, O lady. The ways are thronged, they tell me, as in
Ragab. To-night is not as other nights, it is well seen.”
With praise to Allah she went out once more. But with its object now
assured, her mind grew dull. It was as if suspense alone had held it
wakeful. It lost the comprehension of its purpose, regained it with an
effort, and then let it go.
They passed beneath an ancient gateway. The city was behind them.
Still there was no solitude. Groups of people crossed the sand in all
directions. It was a moonless night. The many lanterns moving in the
darkness seemed reflections of the stars which shone like gems of many
facets in the silky sky. Barakah saw them both alike as golden insects
swarming in the cup of a great purple flower. At moments, her head
swimming, she mistook the earth for sky, and had the sense of moving
upside down.
“There is the cemetery,” said her guide. His whisper seemed to her a
long way off. Nor did she see the city of the dead till they were in
its streets, which loomed mysterious. The very stars looked sinister
above the frowning domes, from which a blacker darkness seemed to
emanate. The many crescents looked like horns against the sky. Bats
flitted past her; from the distance came a jackal’s howl. What had she
come to do there? She could not remember. “To pray,” she told herself,
but that meant nothing. She strove with all her might to recollect.
Then in a flash remembrance came to her; it bore her on, excited, to
the mausoleum. She dismounted, and then, upon the threshold, she
forgot once more. She entered, shuddering, too dazed to question why
the gate was left ajar, and turned instinctively towards the women’s
quarters. A step or two and she stood still in deadly terror, hardly
venturing to breathe. There was a light upon the men’s side; beasts
were tethered in the court; she heard a sound of digging and men’s
voices. Her thought was, “They expect me, and have dug a grave.” As
soon as fear would let her, she fled back to where the guide was
waiting.
“There are people. We must fly! Make haste!” she whispered.
He helped her to remount, and they retraced their steps. The solemn
thoughts which had possessed her mind gave place to rattle of dry bones
and impish laughter. A merry dance was going on within her brain, as
mad as could be, though her senses were quite clear--clearer than ever
they had been before, she knew exultantly. She rode out from the place
of tombs across the sandhills towards the city.
“Hist!” said her companion suddenly, and stopped the donkey,
hanging on to its tail to prevent braying. “There are men without a
lantern--robbers! I hear voices.”
She strained her ears in the direction pointed.
“Am I not acknowledged sheykh of all the thieves?” some unseen man
amid the darkness was exclaiming angrily. “Was it not I alone who had
the wisdom to foresee that every man would seek to hide his wealth
this night? It is light work for you; they fly like conies at a shout,
leaving their treasure, and the light for you to count it. Why then
grumble that I sit here and receive the gold? Some one must hold it
for fair distribution. Say, have I ever wronged a man among you of one
small piaster? See, yonder comes another lantern. Go, do your work, and
say no more to me.”
“Stay, O my lady! For the love of Allah,” moaned Selîm. “They are
robbers, murderers, the worst of ruffians.”
But Barakah had urged the donkey forward; the laughter in her brain
deriding fear. She headed straight towards the voices, waving her
left arm and shouting madly. She heard a shriek of “The afrîtah!
Help, O Allah!” and saw men running as if fiends pursued them. Her
next sensation was a dive into the sand. The ass had stumbled. Selîm
assisted her to rise, and murmured reassuring words which made her cry.
Remembrance of her little daughter overcame her. She had prayed to
Christ to guard her child before she recollected that the prayer was
useless. There was no mercy for disciples of the Arab prophet. She
reeled and would have fallen had not Selîm caught her. As it was, she
sank upon the ground, refusing to remount or take another step.
The boy, resigned, sat down beside her, holding his donkey by the
halter-rope. They were upon the trodden plain below the citadel. Lying
upon her back, she saw a blackness rising till it took the shape of
bastions, walls, towers, surmounted by a dome and needle-pointed
minarets. Gazing at this and at the stars she fell asleep.
When she awoke it was still night. The donkey-boy was snoring on the
ground hard by. A chill and a strange silence hung about her. The stars
above were throbbing violently as if about to burst in showers of
light. Her grief returned upon her like an ague. “O Lord, have mercy on
me!” she exclaimed, and groaned aloud.
“What ails thee, O my sister?” said a voice so sweet, so unexpected in
its nearness, that it stopped her heart.