“Hadji, the horse is yours: may the bargain be blessed.” As he uttered
the latter words there was a sardonic grin on his countenance which, if
rightly interpreted, meant, “Much good may it do you.”
The bargain being thus concluded, the _dellâl_ thought it would be a
good opportunity to vent the spite which he entertained against Hassan
on the subject of the two grey horses, so he said to the merchant—
“Perhaps this youth, who has been so ready to offer his advice, and who
wished that I or the _sàises_ should mount the bay horse to show his
paces, perhaps he will now do so himself.”
“And why not?” replied Hassan. “It is true that fools have made the
horse foolish and unruly, but Allah made him to carry a rider. If the
Hadji will give me leave, Inshallah! I will ride him now.”
“You have my leave,” said the merchant, “but run no risk of your life
and limbs, my son.”
Hassan smiled, and going quietly forward, took the end of the halter
from the nearest _sàis_, desiring the other at the same time to let go
and leave him alone. He then approached the colt, looking steadfastly
into its eye, and muttering some of the low guttural sounds with which
the Bedouin Arabs coax and caress a refractory horse.
They seemed, however, to have no effect in this instance, for the colt
continued to back, occasionally striking at Hassan with its forefeet.
Never losing his temper, nor for an instant taking his eye off that of
the colt, he followed its retrograde movement, gradually shortening the
halter, and narrowly escaped, once or twice, the blows aimed at him by
its forefeet.
At length the opportunity for which he had long been watching occurred.
As the horse tried to turn its flanks and lash at him with its
hind-feet, in a second, and with a single bound, he was on its back. It
was in vain that the infuriated animal reared, plunged, and threw itself
into every contortion to unhorse its rider. The more it bounded and
snorted under him, the more proudly did his eye and his breast dilate.
In the midst of all these bricks and houses he was again at home.
Shaking his right hand on high, as if he held a lance, and shouting
aloud to give utterance to the boisterous joy within him, he dashed his
heels into the ribs of the horse, and having taken it at full speed
twice round the Meidàn, brought it back trembling in every joint from
fear, surprise, and excitement. “Mashallah!” “Aferin!” (Bravo! bravo!)
burst from every lip in the group. “A Rustum,” cried old Mohammed Aga,
delighted at his young friend’s triumph.
Hassan seemed, however, of opinion that the lesson was not complete—the
horse was mastered, but not yet quieted. So he turned it round, and once
more took it at full speed to the farthest end of the Meidàn; then
leaning forward, patted its neck, played with its ears, and spoke to it
kind and gentle words, as if it could understand him. The subdued animal
appeared indeed to do so, for its violence had disappeared as if by
magic, and when he took it back to the side of the merchant, it stood
there seemingly as pleased as any one of the party.
“I would give that imp of Satan twenty purses a-year to be my partner,”
muttered the _dellâl_ inaudibly to himself, as he turned away and
withdrew with the two rejected greys.
The merchant returned to his house in high spirits, and willingly
acceded to Hassan’s request that he should have sole charge of the new
purchase. Hassan led the horse into the stable, fed and groomed it with
his own hands, and in the course of a few days they were the best
friends imaginable.
These events created no little sensation in Alexandria, and Hassan’s
skill, courage, and his remarkable beauty of form and feature were the
general subject of conversation among those who had witnessed the
merchant’s purchase of the restive horse. All manner of speculations
were afloat as to who or whence he was, for those who had most nearly
observed him declared that, although his dress and language proclaimed
the Bedouin Arab, his features seemed to be those of a Georgian or some
northern race.
Many questions were addressed to Hadji Ismael on the subject by his
friends, but he was either unable or unwilling to satisfy their
curiosity. All that they could learn was that the youth had been sent to
the merchant with a letter of recommendation from his old acquaintance
Sheik Sâleh, and that he was to be employed in the purchase of the
collection of horses to be sent to Constantinople.
Meanwhile Hassan passed his time more agreeably than he had expected,
for he had abundance of liberty and exercise in his new vocation, and
was treated with the greatest kindness and confidence both by the
merchant and by the chief clerk. One remarkable feature they found in
his character, that under no circumstances whatever did he deviate in
the slightest degree from the truth. Whether money was concerned, or the
relation of an event, they always found his statements confirmed, even
in the most minute particular. He seemed, also, to have no care or
thought of the acquisition of money, and these two features of character
were so rare in Alexandria that some of the merchant’s friends, when
speaking of his young _protégé_, were in the habit of shaking their
heads and touching their foreheads significantly with the index-finger,
thereby indicating that probably he was somewhat deranged.
These vague suggestions were confirmed by other traits of his character
very different from other Alexandrian youths of his own age. He was
never seen to enter a drinking-shop, nor to idle and lounge about the
bazaars. When not employed in exercising his horses, one of his
favourite amusements was to go down to the beach for a swim in the sea.
The boundless expanse of salt water was new to him: the more angry the
surf, the more it seemed to please and excite him.
His companion on these bathing excursions was Ahmed, the chief clerk’s
son, a lad of some twenty years of age, to whom, notwithstanding the
difference in their characters, Hassan became much attached. He was
short and slight in figure, with a pale but intelligent countenance, and
remarkable for his studious and industrious habits. Having been for some
time employed as a junior clerk of an English mercantile house (there
were only two at that time in Alexandria), he had not only become a very
good English scholar, but had acquired a fair knowledge of Greek and
Italian. He was a bold and practised swimmer; but on one or two
occasions when he had followed Hassan to enjoy his favourite pastime in
the surf, he had received contusions which stunned him for the moment,
and might have cost him dear, had not the powerful arm of his athletic
comrade been always near and ready to assist him.
This companionship, which soon ripened into friendship, was not without
its corresponding advantage to Hassan. His eager imagination had already
drunk in with avidity the feats of Antar, Sindebad, and other heroes of
Arab story; but his new friend could tell him yet stranger tales of the
regions beyond the sea—regions where from cold the waters grew as hard
as stone, and bore the passage of loaded waggons; where ships, by the
aid of fire, sailed against the wind and stream, and where the
inhabitants of one small island possessed and ruled at a distance of
many thousand miles possessions five times larger and more populous than
those of the great Sultan of Islam.
These narrations, and especially the last, excited so forcibly the
ardent imagination of Hassan, that he was never weary of listening, and
he prevailed upon his new friend one day to take him to the
counting-house where he was employed, that he might see some of these
wonderful islanders. Probably he expected to find in them marvellous
beings, like the giants or jinns of Arab fiction; but after accompanying
his friend to the house of Mr ——, whom he saw through an open door at
the extremity of the counting-house, seated at a table writing letters
and tying up papers, he went out again, with disappointment evidently
written upon his countenance.
“What tales are these which you have been telling me, Ahmed?” said he to
his companion; “by Allah, that is no man at all! He is smaller than I
am; he has not the beard of Hadji, and he has not even a scribe to write
his letters!”
“Hassan,” replied his friend, smiling, “the habits of these islanders
are different from those of Turks and Arabs. The pen is their sword in
commerce, and they like to wield it themselves. Our chief writes on
matters of importance with his own hand; it is good, for no scribe can
betray him; but in the adjoining room he has two or three clerks who
write on his affairs from morning till night.”
Hassan shook his head, thought of the swift horse and the open desert,
and said, “Allah be praised, I am not a merchant of these islanders.”
Nevertheless there was something mysterious about their history which
continued to excite his fancy, and as weeks and months passed on, they
found him, during the leisure hours of evening, employed in learning
English from his friend.
As Turkish was the language habitually spoken in the family of Mohammed
Aga and in other places which Hassan’s avocations led him to frequent,
he soon acquired a sufficient knowledge of it to enable him to
understand and converse in it with tolerable fluency.
During the next three years of our hero’s life he remained in the
employment of Hadji Ismael, who never repented having trusted him
implicitly in every commission with which he had been charged, and had
procured for him a teacher under whose instructions he had learnt to
read Arabic and to write a legible hand; but Hassan, though ready and
quick of apprehension, did not evince any fondness for the study of
books; his pleasures were a ride on the back of a fiery horse or a
crested wave, and listening after sunset to the popular Arab romances of
old, recited by some wandering _ràwi_.[19]
Of these last he was so fond that he knew many of them by heart. Stories
of princes and princesses in disguise, mingled with the mystery hanging
over his own birth, floated in his imaginative brain, but the mystery
remained unravelled. He had kept the secret confined to his own breast,
never even communicating it to his friend Ahmed; nevertheless from him,
from his father, and from all his acquaintance, he had diligently
inquired into the early history of all the Turkish pashas, beys, and
officers in Alexandria, but no known episode of their lives threw any
light upon the object of his search. His passions were strong and
turbulent, but he generally kept them under the control of a determined
will, and the secret conviction that he was the son of “somebody”
imparted to his character a certain pride and reserve which assorted
better with his form and features than with his outward condition of
life.
Connected with the mystery of his birth and with the events related in
the wild tales with which he had fed his youthful imagination, was the
image of a lovely princess whom he had clothed with all the attributes
of beauty ascribed by Arab poetry to such damsels; waking or dreaming,
she was constantly before his eyes: he had given her a name, and he
loved this creature of his imagination with all the ardent fondness of a
young and passionate heart.
If it be true that such visionary dreams of youth are necessarily
followed by disappointment on awaking to the rude realities of life, it
is also true that in some cases, as in his, they preserve those who are
under their influence from the temptations to which that age is exposed.
It is one of the evils of modern education in what we are pleased to
call highly civilised countries to cultivate the understanding at the
expense of the heart. The simplicity, the trusting confidence, the warm
imagination, the love of all that is pure and high and holy, which are
the proper attributes of youth, are sacrificed to what is termed a
practical knowledge of the world, and the result is, that there is now
many a young gentleman at Eton and Oxford who would listen with a sneer
of contempt to a sentiment or a trait of character which would have
drawn a tear of sympathy and admiration from the eye of a Burke or a
Fox, a Pascal or a Newton.
To return from this digression. Hassan loved his imaginary princess;
nevertheless, like a true lover, he put her in the deepest corner of his
heart, and never spoke of her.
A short time afterwards Hassan was sent by the Hadji, in company with
Mohammed Aga, to collect a debt of considerable amount due to him in
Damanhour, a large village distant a day’s journey from the city.
This affair occupied some little time, and might not, perhaps, have been
settled at all had not Mohammed Aga been provided with a handsome
Cashmere shawl and a pretty Damascus handkerchief, in one corner of
which a few gold pieces were secured by a silken cord. The former of
these presents found its way to the Governor, and the latter to his
chief scribe, after which the justice of the claim became as clear as
day, and the debtor was ordered to pay up without delay.
While this affair was in progress, and Mohammed Aga was busy in the
Governor’s divan, Hassan was one day strolling near the village to pass
the time when his ear was arrested by the sound of female cries and
lamentations. Turning his head to the quarter whence the sounds
proceeded, he saw a man with his hands chained together walking between
two soldiers, who occasionally hastened his steps by blows from the
butt-ends of their muskets. Behind them were two women and two children
screaming at the top of their voices—
“Oh! mercy, mercy! Oh! my brother! Oh! my husband! Oh! my father! Mercy,
mercy!”
In front of this lamenting group, and by the side of one of the
soldiers, walked an individual with a paper in his hand, who seemed to
be the man under whose authority the prisoner had been seized, and who
bore the appearance of being one of the _kawàsses_ of the Governor.[20]
“May your day be fortunate, O Aga,” said Hassan, addressing him in the
Turkish language.[21] “What is the fault of this man, and whither are
you taking him?”
“Happily met, Aga,” said the _kawàss_, impressed by the commanding
figure of the young stranger. “This vagabond is now nearly two years in
arrears of his taxes due to the Government; his tents are near the edge
of the desert, and we never could find him. Praise be to Allah, I have
got him now, and to-morrow we shall see whether five hundred good blows
on the soles of his feet will help him to find the two thousand piastres
that he owes.”[22]
The prisoner maintained a dogged silence, never even raising his eyes to
look at the _kawàss_ while speaking; but his wife now rushed forward,
and, throwing herself at Hassan’s feet, cried out—
“Mercy, mercy, young Aga! I and my children—our sister—we are all
ruined. We have none to depend on but him. The sluices of the canal were
not opened; our lands were dried up. We had no crop; we sold our
animals; everything is gone. Speak to the Governor, young Aga; let him
give us time and we will pay all.”
Hassan turned aside his head to hide his emotion, for to misery, and to
woman’s misery above all, his heart was soft as a child’s. Recovering
himself, however, in a moment, he turned to the _kawàss_, saying—
“Would the Governor not excuse or delay the payment of this sum?”
“Surely not,” said the other decidedly. “His Excellency is very angry
with him for the trouble he has already given: the amount is entered in
the accounts, and it must be paid. You are young, sir, and a stranger
here; you do not know the marvellous power of the sticks in bringing to
light hidden money; they are more powerful than the rods of the Cairo
magicians.”
“By Allah!—by the life of your mother!” screamed the poor woman, still
at Hassan’s feet, “we have nothing; they may kill us, but we have no
money to give. For weeks past we have seen no bread, and eaten nothing
but a few dates. We are miserable, O Aga!—look at us—mercy, mercy!” The
emaciated appearance of the whole family bore witness to this part of
the woman’s statement.
“My friend,” said Hassan, turning to the _kawàss_, “I know a merchant in
Damanhour who will perhaps advance this money, and take a bond for
repayment in one or two years. Promise me that you will not report this
man’s seizure till to-morrow at noon: the Governor will be better
pleased with your zeal if you are then able to present him with the
money required than if you beat the man to death without perhaps
obtaining a third of it. Promise, then, that you will wait till
to-morrow at noon.”
“I will wait as you desire,” replied the _kawàss_; “and if you come to
the guard-house where this fellow will be confined, ask for Ibrahim the
_kawàss_.”
During all this time the eyes of the unhappy wife were fixed upon
Hassan’s countenance with an expression of intense anxiety. She had not
understood a syllable of the conversation that had passed between him
and the _kawàss_, but instinct taught her that in some way he was
befriending her husband’s cause; and as the latter moved on with his
guards, she continued to overwhelm him with blessings and prayers
mingled with tears.
“Be of good cheer,” he said to her, now speaking in his own language.
“Inshallah! all will yet go well. Meanwhile take this, and buy some
bread this evening for your children and yourselves;” and as he spoke he
slipped a piece of silver into her hand and turned hastily away.
When the poor woman heard herself addressed in the deep and
not-to-be-mistaken tones of a Bedouin Arab, and felt the money, surprise
and gratitude deprived her for a moment of the powers of speech; and
Hassan was already at some distance when she recovered them, and
throwing herself into her sister’s arms, she exclaimed—
“He will save us!—he will save us!—he is not a Turk!—why did I call him
Aga?—he is of the Sons of the Tent[23]—surely my husband and he have met
before in the desert and been friends—he will save us—the blessing of
Allah be on his head!”
That same evening, at sunset, Mohammed Aga and Hassan were smoking their
pipes and drinking their coffee in front of their lodging, when the
former said to his companion—
“Inshallah! we will return in a day or two to Alexandria. Our affair is
proceeding well: I have collected half the money, and the remainder is
to be paid to-morrow.”
Hassan made no direct reply to this address, but after a pause of a few
minutes he abruptly asked the chief clerk—
“Do you remember how much of my salary is still due to me, in your
hands?”
“Assuredly I do, my son,” said the methodical clerk. “At the beginning
of the year the arrears of salary, added to what the Hadji allowed of
percentage on purchases, amounted to four thousand piastres (£40); then
at the feast you sent a present of a bale of tobacco and a Persian
dagger to your father the Sheik, two pieces of Syrian silk and some
embroidered napkins to your mother, two pieces—”
“Enough, enough!” interrupted Hassan, distressed at this enumeration of
the mementoes which he had sent to his foster-parents; “how much
remained after these presents were paid for?”
“They cost fifteen hundred piastres; so you still have two thousand five
hundred left.”
“That is well,” said Hassan. “I want that money here. Will you give it
me, Mohammed, and repay yourself from the chest in Alexandria?”
“The boy is mad,” said the old clerk, opening his eyes wide with
astonishment. “By the head of your father, tell me for what purpose can
you require all that money at once, here at Damanhour? Are you going to
buy beans and wheat for the market?”
“No,” replied Hassan, with some confusion, “it is not my trade to
purchase grain; but indeed I require that money, and hope you will let
me have it.”
“Allah-Allah!” said the old clerk, as a sudden suspicion shot across his
mind, “you have seen some Damanhour girl who has set your heart on fire!
The songs tell us that the girls are famed for their beauty here: you
have seen a moon-faced one behind a curtain, and you are going to be
married! Wallah-Billah! brimstone and tinder are like wet clay when
compared to the heart of a youth.”
“Indeed,” said Hassan, laughing, “I have seen no moon-faced houri here,
and I have no thoughts of marriage.” He added more gravely, “I want the
money for a purpose which I cannot tell you, though if I did you could
not disapprove it.”
Mohammed Aga, seeing that opposition was useless, and feeling that he
had in truth no right to keep back from Hassan what was his own, counted
out the money to him the same evening, and took his receipt, to be
presented to Hadji Ismael.
The following morning, about three hours after sunrise, when Hassan had
made sure that the chief clerk was busily employed in the Governor’s
divan, he bent his steps to the guard-house, and on asking for Ibrahim
the _kawàss_, was at once admitted to the presence of that important
official.
After the customary salutations, Hassan informed him that the merchant
to whom he had yesterday alluded had agreed to advance the money, and
that he was now prepared to pay the two thousand piastres due by the
Arab, on receiving a discharge in full for the debt, sealed by the
proper officer in the divan.
“That is easily done,” said the _kawàss_; “take a pipe and a cup of
coffee, and in five minutes the paper will be here.”
Having given the requisite instructions to one of his subordinates, he
resumed the conversation with Hassan upon general topics, it being
indifferent to him to know what merchant in Damanhour could be so
foolish as to advance money of which he would never be repaid a
farthing.
In a few minutes the messenger returned, bringing a paper bearing the
seals of the treasurer and chief scribe of the Governor’s divan, and
setting forth that Abou-Hamedi, of the Gemeâl tribe, having discharged
all the taxes and charges due by him up to date, was free to return to
his place of abode.
Hassan having paid the money and placed the document in his girdle,
inquired of the _kawàss_ where the prisoner was confined, and whether he
could see him alone.
“He is in the room at the back of that small yard,” replied the
_kawàss_, “where you see the sentry walking before the door. I will tell
him to open it and come away, as his service is no longer required. You
will not find the Arab alone, because, as you had taken an interest in
him, I allowed his family to remain with him.”
“May your honour increase and your days be long,” said Hassan, saluting
him, and going towards the door of the cell, which the sentry, by desire
of the _kawàss_, opened, and then came away.
On entering the chamber, Hassan found that it was more spacious than he
had expected, and was partially lighted by two apertures near the roof,
secured by cross-bars of iron. The place being considered sufficiently
secure, the manacles had been removed from the hands of the Arab, and he
was seated on the floor, his sister and wife beside him, and his
children at his feet.
No sooner did Hassan enter the room than the wife sprang from her
sitting posture, crying aloud—
“It is he! it is he! we shall be saved yet.”
Abou-Hamedi also arose, and all the rest of the family came crowding
towards Hassan. The Arab, who had been informed the preceding evening by
his wife of our hero’s generous intentions, as well as of his having
provided them with the bread on which they had supped, now expressed to
him with much emotion the gratitude which he felt for the sympathy he
had shown him.
“You are of the desert blood,” he said; “and whether Allah give success
to your endeavours or not, you have our thanks.”
“Brother, you are free,” said Hassan; “free as the winds of the desert.
Here is the Government receipt for your debt, and as you have been
stripped of all, and must have something wherewith to recommence your
toil for a livelihood, here are five hundred piastres; put them in your
girdle. Fate is uncertain, Allah only is enduring; I am now rich, some
day I may be poor and you rich, then you may repay me.”
Words cannot paint the tumultuous joy of the poor women as they crowded
to kiss the hands and feet of Hassan, calling every blessing of heaven
on his head. The wife, however, on looking at her husband’s countenance
as he almost mechanically took the document and the money which Hassan
placed in his hand, was frightened at its strange and wild expression;
no word of satisfaction or gratitude escaped from his lips as, seizing
Hassan by the arm, he drew him to a part of the cell where a stray
sunbeam forced its way through the barred aperture; when it fell on
Hassan’s face, the Arab, scanning his features with eyes almost starting
from their sockets, said—
“Years have passed; the youth has become a man; the eye, the voice, the
form are only his! Speak,” he continued, almost savagely; “do you
remember one who strove to stab you in the Meidàn of Alexandria, and
whom you threw to the ground by a wrestling trick? ’Twas I! and had you
known me yesterday, instead of giving me money and freedom, you would
have gone to that cursed Turk’s divan to feast your eyes with a sight of
my mangled feet.” So saying, he dashed the paper and the money furiously
on the ground.
“Brother,” replied Hassan gravely, “I knew you yesterday at the first
glance as well as you know me now. You were in misfortune and misery,
and all that had passed before was forgotten.”
The evil passions struggled for the mastery in that wild breast: it was
but for a moment; the sight of his children and of the paper which
secured his freedom called up the better feelings of his rude nature,
and casting himself into Hassan’s arms, he wept like a child.
Without having read or heard of the Scriptures, the generous impulse of
Hassan’s heart had taught him how to “heap coals of fire on the head of
an enemy”; and the deadly hatred which Abou-Hamedi had entertained
against him since the day of their first meeting was melted in a moment.
It was difficult for Hassan to tear himself away from the overflowing
gratitude of the Arab’s family. One only, the unmarried sister, had
preserved a continuous silence, as became her condition; but she looked
upon her brother’s preserver with eyes swimming in tears, and when he
bade them farewell and left the room, she felt as if life and sunshine
had departed with him.
Little did Abou-Hamedi know when he thrust into his girdle the five
hundred piastres given him by Hassan, that the latter had not even a
dollar left. He had said, “I am rich,” and in truth rich he was—rich in
youth, and strength, and hope—rich in the esteem and affection of his
employer—above all, rich in the possession of a heart which felt in
giving his all to relieve distress a pleasure unknown to the miser who
has found a treasure.
Hassan remained outside the guard-house talking to the _kawàss_ on
various subjects until he had seen Abou-Hamedi and his family clear of
its precincts, and retiring in the direction of the desert. The Arab,
looking back once at the figure of his preserver, muttered to himself:
“Allah preserve you, brave youth. If ever you meet Abou-Hamedi again
when you are in need, you shall find that he remembers good as well as
evil; but we will leave this cursed district, where sorrow and tyranny
pursue us; we will go to our cousins who have their tents near
Fayoom.”[24]
When Mohammed Aga met his young friend in the evening, he asked whether
he had commenced that wonderful speculation which he kept so secret.
“It is all laid out already,” replied Hassan, smiling.
“Hasty bargains lead to repentance,” said the old clerk, shaking his
head; “pray, what makseb [profit] do you expect to make?”
“It has paid me a good interest already, and I am quite satisfied. Do
not ask me any more about it,” said Hassan, looking rather confused, for
concealment was foreign to his nature.
Mohammed Aga refrained from asking any more questions; but, partly from
curiosity and partly from the interest which he felt in Hassan’s
welfare, he was determined before leaving Damanhour to learn how he had
disposed of his little property. Nor was the task by any means
difficult; for in small towns in the East as well as in the West
everybody knows and talks about everything. The chief clerk, therefore,
had no difficulty on the following day in tracing Hassan to the
guard-house, where he had been seen talking to Ibrahim the _kawàss_. To
find that well-known individual was the work of a few minutes, and a few
more spent with him over a cup of coffee and a pipe drew from him all
that he knew of the transaction, including the release of the Arab
family on Hassan’s paying their debt of two thousand piastres. “You see,
Aga,” added the _kawàss_, concluding his narrative, “it was my duty to
release them when the money was paid, and not to inquire whence it came;
but if you are the merchant whom the young man mentioned as willing to
advance it on any security offered by the Arab, why, I fear——” Here he
looked very significantly at Mohammed, and threw out a long puff of
smoke from his chibouque.
“Then you think the Arab cannot pay back the money?” inquired Mohammed.
“Not a dollar of it,” answered the _kawàss_. “The Governor would have
ordered him the bastinado as an example to others, but two bad seasons
have left the poor devil’s purse as empty as my pipe.” So saying, he
shook out its ashes, and left Mohammed to his own meditations.
“That boy will never have a farthing to bless his grey hairs with! Money
in his hand is like water in a sieve, and yet, and yet,”—here the old
clerk passed the back of his hand across his eyes,—“Allah bless him an
hundredfold.” He walked slowly home, and without saying a word to Hassan
of his meeting with the _kawàss_, he told him that, as the affairs for
which they had come to Damanhour were now settled, they might return to
Alexandria, which they did on the following day.
The morning after their return Mohammed Aga went to the private room of
the merchant to deliver the money which he had collected, and give a
general account of his mission, in doing which he placed in the Hadji’s
hands Hassan’s receipt for two thousand five hundred piastres.
“By your head,” said the merchant to his clerk, “tell me what has the
youth done with that money at Damanhour?”
Mohammed then told him the whole story from beginning to end, as related
by the _kawàss_.
“And what has he left in your hands?” inquired the merchant, walking up
and down the room in evident emotion.
“Nothing,” replied the clerk. “Two thousand five hundred piastres were
due to him; two thousand he paid for the liberation of the Arab, and I
doubt not that he gave him the remainder.”
“Mohammed,” said the merchant, “as he wished to keep this secret, do not
mention it to any one, nor let him know that you have told it to me. If
it were spoken about, it would take from the youth the pleasure he now
derives from it, and what say the traditions of the Prophet (on whose
name be glory and peace!), ‘The good deeds done by the faithful in
secret, He shall reward them openly on the day of judgment.’”
During Hassan’s short absence from Alexandria an English family of the
name of Thorpe had arrived there—Mr Thorpe being an elderly gentleman of
good fortune and education, whose passion for antiquarian pursuit had
induced him to visit the land of the Pyramids, together with his wife
and their delicate daughter. Mr Thorpe had brought a letter of
introduction to the British merchant, who undertook to procure for him a
dragoman to accompany the family on their excursion up the Nile. A Greek
was recommended, by name Demetri, who possessed a fair smattering of all
the languages spoken in the Levant.
Foyster, Mr Thorpe’s valet and confidential servant, having approved of
Demetri, he was forthwith engaged. After a short search a dahabiah was
found, which belonged to a pasha absent on service, and who had left
with his wakeel (agent) a discretionary power to let his boat, which was
large and well decorated. The wakeel, being a Greek, was an acquaintance
of Demetri, which rendered the bargaining easy and satisfactory to both
parties. It was agreed that Mr Thorpe was to pay £250 for the six winter
months, the wakeel refunding from that amount £15 to Demetri, and £15 to
Foyster. Mr Thorpe was informed by the English merchant that the charge
was unusually high; but as in those days there was much difficulty in
finding so large and comfortable a boat, the bargain was concluded and
the ratification duly exchanged.
A few days after, Foyster and Demetri were walking homeward from the
bazaar, where they had been making some purchases for the boat, when
they fell in with Hassan, who was returning towards the house of Hadji
Ismael.
Hassan was well acquainted with Demetri, who had frequently amused his
leisure hours with tales of the countries he had visited, and the
wonderful feats he had performed, in which latter branch the Greek had
drawn more liberally on his invention than on his memory. The youth had
also seen Foyster at the British merchant’s house, and knew him to be an
attendant on the rich English family, whose approaching excursion up the
Nile was already the theme of general conversation. The place where they
met happening to be immediately in front of a coffee-shop, Demetri
proposed that they should rest for a few minutes and take a cup of
coffee. While they were thus occupied—Demetri’s two companions listening
to his flowery description of the wonders of Upper Egypt—a Moghrebi,[25]
of gigantic and herculean proportions, who had probably been indulging
in a forbidden drink more stimulating than coffee, came up, and his
fanaticism being roused at the sight of Foyster’s dress, he cried out to
him, in an angry voice—
“Get up, Christian dog, and give me your seat.”
The valet, not understanding a word, looked at Demetri for an
explanation. The latter, much alarmed, and evidently not desirous of
exhibiting any feat of valour similar to those of which he had often
boasted, said to the Moghrebi—
“He is a stranger, and does not understand your speech.”
“Does he not?” replied the other; “then perhaps he will understand
this,” and so saying he kicked the seat from under Foyster with such
force that the latter fell backwards on the ground.