The saint was dead. At dawn his soul had passed into _Barzakh_, or the
second world, the intermediate state between the present life and the
resurrection.
While administering to him, Abdul's anxious ears heard the ominous
rattle in the dying man's throat, he turned his face Mecca-wards and
reverently closed his eyes. At the same moment the faithful who had
gathered round him--among whom were some of the inhabitants of the
Bedouin village, for the presence of the hermit-saint in the
foreigner's camp was known--in one voice acclaimed ecstatically:
"Allah! Allah! There is no strength nor power but in God. To God we
belong, to Him we must return! God have mercy on him. _La ilaha
illallah_."
His death had taken place one hour before sunrise; it was now one hour
before sunset and Michael was sitting on a little knoll in the desert,
watching the mourners return from the funeral of the holy man. It was
a very simple affair, far different from the splendid ceremony which
would have been accorded him if he had died near a city or of a less
contagious malady. There were no hired mourners, no fine trappings on
the bier, no wild women whose quavering "joy-cries" (_zaghareet_) rent
the air with their shrill voices.
The little procession which followed the emaciated corpse to its last
resting-place in God's wide acre of sand and sky was composed of
sincere mourners. The corpse had been wrapped in white muslin and
enclosed in a white linen bag. When devout pilgrims or pious Moslems
go on a lengthy journey, they usually carry their grave-cloths with
them. The saint had not provided himself with even his shroud. As a
favoured of God, the clothes in which he would be buried would be
forthcoming; he took no thought for the morrow. All his life, by
Allah's guidance, men had provided for his simple wants. A
hermit-saint is never without his devotees. As a _welee_ he was worthy
of a costly funeral, but the nature of his death demanded immediate
burial. His fame would follow after. Michael knew that probably some
day a white tomb, like a miniature mosque, would mark the spot where
his bones had been laid to rest. And to that tomb, a conspicuous
object in the flat desert, with its white dome silhouetted against the
deep blue sky, devout pilgrims would travel, for many generations.
Michael had not attended the funeral. He had consulted Abdul and they
had come to the conclusion that it would be wiser for him, as a
professing Christian, not to be present at the actual religious
ceremony. From a raised spot in the desert he had seen all that had
taken place. In accordance with Moslem superstition, the funeral had
been before sunset. All Moslems dislike a dead body remaining in the
house overnight; it is always, when circumstances permit, buried in the
evening of the day on which death has taken place.
Abdul had told Michael that the dead man would, in all probability,
guide the bearers to the exact spot where they were to bury him; if
they were going in the wrong direction he would impel them to stop.
Michael had watched with interest to see if this would take place, if
the bearers halted or altered their course. Evidently the saint was
pleased with the spot they had selected, for they journeyed on
unhaltingly until they were lost to sight.
And now the little procession was returning, in the fading sunlight.
The holy man's emaciated frame, enclosed in its white bag, lay under
the golden sand of the eastern desert.
This desert burial seemed to Michael a very simple and beautiful method
of disposing of the dead. The dull chanting of the mourners had lent
an emotional note to the scene. It was a sad little incident, but one
totally free from the ordinary melancholy which attends a Western
burial. For a Moslem, death has little horror. A pilgrim in the
desert, when he knows that his death is approaching, either from
fatigue or exhaustion or some disease, will dig his own grave and lay
himself down in it, covering his body up to his neck with sand. There
he will quietly, with Eastern philosophy, await his end. He knows that
the four winds will bring drifting sand to the spot where his body
lies; it will gather and gather, as it does against any excrescence,
until his body is well covered. In the desert many are the ships that
pass in the night.
The saint had been in Michael's camp for a fortnight and during that
time no other member of the party had developed smallpox. Michael was
in blissful ignorance of the fact that the servant whom he had sent
back to Freddy Lampton's hut in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings,
bearing a letter to Margaret, in which he had told her everything that
had happened--not omitting Millicent's visit and her sudden
departure--had never even reached Luxor. He had fallen sick by the way
and had died of smallpox in a desert village. He alone of the whole
party had contracted the disease. The letter which he carried was
burned by the _sheikh_ of the village, a wise and cautious man, who had
been called in to give his advice as to the treatment of the infectious
traveller. A _sheikh's_ duties are many and varied; he is indeed the
father of his village. The traveller had, of course, gone to the
hostel or rest-house for travellers in the village, where he was
entitled to one night's rest and food.
It was during the long, anxious days when the saint hovered between
life and death that the true hospitality of the Bedouin camp was put to
the test. And it was not wanting; whatever was theirs to give they
gave with a beautiful hospitality. It was to them a pleasure and
satisfaction; Allah be praised that they were able to render any
service to the holy man and to help the stranger who had shown him so
great an act of charity. Eggs and milk and the flesh of young kids
they had in abundance, and these offerings they sent to the camp in
such quantities that Michael felt embarrassed and overwhelmed. Michael
knew that they are not a devout people, but in this instance their
instinctive hospitality, stimulated by their superstitions, served in
place of blind obedience to the teachings of the Koran, in which the
rules set forth on the subject of charity are splendid and far-reaching.
The little figure with the silver disc and the protruding "tummy" had
become quite a familiar sight in his camp; it came and went with the
nervous agility of an antelope.
On this evening, as Michael watched the party of mourners drawing
nearer and nearer to the camp, he tried to understand their thoughts.
He knew that each one of them believed exactly the same thing; their
spiritual ideas never strayed one letter from the Koran; their minds
had never thought for themselves--it would have been rank heresy so to
do. They were as certain now as though they had seen it there that the
saint's soul was in Barzakh. It had left this, the first world, the
world of earning and of the "first creation," the world where man earns
his reward for the good or bad deeds which he has done. In Barzakh the
saint would have a bright and luminous body, for such is the reward of
the pious.
Was not this in keeping with the luminous appearance of Meg's vision?
Abdul had often told Michael that he himself had seen in this, the
"first world," the spirits of both evil and right doers, and that the
spirits of the evildoers were black and smoky, whereas the spirits of
the pious were luminous as a full moon.
Michael envied the completeness of their belief, even while he pitied
them. They had evolved nothing for themselves; their salvation was
merely a matter of obeying the teachings of the Koran unquestioningly.
Obedience and surrender were their watchwords. How much better were
Akhnaton's "Love and the Companionship of God"! To walk and talk with
God, how much more enjoyable, how much more edifying to man's higher
self, than the mere obeying of His laws! Even though they prayed,
these simple Moslems, five times a day, they never recognized God's
voice in the song of the birds: they did not know that it was He Who
was singing--the birds were His mediums. In the winds of the desert,
heaven's wireless messengers, they caught no messages. What the Koran
did not specify did not enter into their religion or spiritual
understanding.
Abdul approached his master. The saint was buried and the procession
of the faithful had gone to perform their various tasks; it was now
time to return to practical matters. Michael was amazed at his
cheerful expression. Abdul asked his master if it would suit him to
continue their journey the next day. Would he give instructions?
Michael assented. A little of his ardour had vanished. "Yes, Abdul,"
he said. "I suppose we must be going on our way. It is sad to leave
this camp, where we have witnessed such a wonderful example of humility
and singleness of purpose. Don't you shrink from leaving him to such
utter desolation?"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, but you know there is joy for us all, not sadness.
The beloved ones of God do not die with their physical death, for they
have their means of sustenance with them."
"In the second world, Abdul, is your saint already tasting the joys of
paradise?"
"_Aiwah_, Effendi. Punishments and rewards are bestowed immediately
after death, and those whose proper place is hell are brought to hell,
while those who deserve paradise are brought to paradise."
"Then in the third world, what greater rewards are there than the
pleasures of paradise? Surely that is infinite happiness?"
"The manifestation of the highest glory of God--that is the supreme
reward, Effendi, the meeting of God face to face."
"Then in paradise, in the second world, the saint will not yet see God?"
"_La_, Effendi. The day of resurrection is the day of the complete
manifestation of God's glory, when everyone shall become perfectly
aware of the existence of God. On that day every person shall have a
complete and open reward for his actions. He shall actually see God."
Michael's thoughts flew to the vision of Akhnaton. If the luminous
state was significant of Barzakh, or the second world, perhaps it was
only during that period that the spirits were able to return to earth.
He was never forgetful of the fact that in Eternity time cannot be
measured, yet three thousand years spent in the second world seemed to
his human mind a long time of waiting!
They were walking together towards the camp.
"_Aiwah_, Effendi," Abdul said, "to-morrow we depart at dawn?--the
weather grows hotter."
"Yes, Abdul, at dawn. I will be ready--never fear."
"Has the Effendi ever allowed himself to think that the honourable
_Sitt_ who left him two weeks ago may have journeyed to the hidden
treasure?"
Michael stared. "No, Abdul, no, I have never thought of such a thing."
"The Effendi has a beautiful mind. The beloved saint, whom Allah has
seen fit to remove from our sight, had a heart no more free from evil."
"But, Abdul. . . ." Michael stopped. His mind was suddenly filled
with new thoughts. Abdul's suggestion had opened up a deep chasm of
ugly suspicions; his whole being seemed to have fallen into it. Abdul
waited.
"Madam was terrified--she was flying from the danger of smallpox. She
would think of nothing but of getting safely back to civilization, I
feel certain."
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, but the honourable _Sitt_ has a woman's soul, and a
woman's soul has often been sold for gold and jewels and much fine
raiment."
"That is true, Abdul."
Had not Millicent stooped to the lowest means of trapping him and of
obtaining the information she desired? If she could do the one deed,
why not the other?
But the idea was absurd. She was so totally ignorant of the geography
of the desert. She had had no more idea of where she was going than a
blind kitten. He reminded Abdul of the fact.
"_Aiwah_, Effendi, but the honourable _Sitt_ had a spy in her camp. I
have seen him at his work."
"What could he have discovered? You, I know, never discuss my
affairs--we have never even talked of them together."
Abdul salaamed. "My master's secrets are his servant's."
"Then how could he find out?"
"Tents have ears, Effendi. The saint's voice was weak, but not too
weak for the super-ears of a spy. When the saint told the Effendi,
very secretly and minutely, how to find the hidden treasure, on that
night when he knew that Allah had decreed his death, Abdul was also
playing the part of a spy. He saw the servant of the honourable
_Sitt_, he saw his ear, and how it was placed at a little aperture in
the sick man's tent."
Michael was silent for a few seconds.
"_Ma lesh_! The Effendi need not trouble too much. I did not tell
him--there was nothing to be gained by causing my master unhappiness."
"I am not troubling, Abdul. If it has been so willed that I am to
discover Akhnaton's treasure, even the spy of the cleverest woman on
earth will not prevent it. I am fatalist enough for that, Abdul!"
"The Effendi is wise. Avarice destroys what the avaricious gathers.
Allah will reward the spy according to his merits."
Michael smiled. "I'm afraid it is more my nature than my piety which
makes it easy for me to resign myself to the inevitable."
"_Ma lesh_! The Effendi understates his obedience to God's will--there
is much good in patiently tolerating what you dislike."
"There's another way of expressing the same thing, Abdul--Effendi
Lampton calls it 'drifting.' I am too like the desert sands, he
thinks. I am without ambition, I too easily accept what seems to me
the deciding finger of fate."
"Content is prosperity, Effendi."
"And we say that God helps those who help themselves."
"_Aiwah_." Abdul smiled. "Our rendering of the proverb is more
beautiful--'God helps us so long as we help each other.' The Effendi
showed much charity--he helps others rather than himself."
"My help was unworthy of mention, the merest human sympathy for the
helpless and suffering. Who could have done less?"
"We consider sympathy the next best thing to a proper belief in God,
sympathy for others." Abdul bowed. "The Effendi has much sympathy--he
himself is not aware of how much."
"Thank you, Abdul, but I do believe in God. I believe in Him so fully
and unreservedly that I often wonder why I am not a good man.
Sometimes I am not so bad, or I think I am not, for I am very conscious
of Him, He is very near to me. At other times the world is a
wilderness and God is very far."
"We are never far from God, Effendi. We cannot be. He is closer to us
than the hairs of our head, there is nothing nearer than God."
"I know that, Abdul, I know it, but yet these lapses come. I feel
alone, abandoned, useless, my life purposeless, wasted."
"A man has no choice, Effendi, in settling the aims of his life. He
does not enter the world or leave it as he desires. The true aim of
his life consists in the knowing and worshipping of God and living for
His sake. Our Holy Book says, 'Verily the religion which gives a true
knowledge of God and directs in the most excellent way of His worship
is Islam. Islam responds to and supplies the demands of human nature,
and God has created man after the model of Islam and for Islam. He has
willed it that man should devote his faculties to the love, obedience
and worship of God, for it is for this reason that Almighty God has
granted him faculties which are suited to Islam.'"
Michael listened with reverent attention. He knew that Abdul was
conferring a special favour on him in that he was actually quoting the
very words of the Holy Koran to a Christian. As a matter of fact,
Abdul had ceased to think of Michael as a Christian--from his Moslem
point of view, as an enemy of Islam. He rather considered his
condition as that of one who was searching for the Light and would
eventually enjoy the perfection of Islam. He knew that Michael did not
divide the honours of the one and only God; he believed, as Moslems
believe, that the Effendi Jesus was not the Son of God, but a prophet
to whom God had revealed Himself.
When they parted for the night, Abdul was again the practical servant,
the excellent dragoman. By dawn the camp would be on its way to its
objective, the hills beyond the outline of the lost "City of the
Horizon." Abdul, the visionary and the pious Moslem, was as keen about
reaching Akhnaton's treasure as Pizarro was obsessed with the reports
of the wealth of Peru.
For half of that short night Michael tried unsuccessfully to sleep. He
needed rest, for it had been a trying and eventful day, beginning with
the saint's death and ending with his solemn and picturesque burial.
Sleep was indeed very far from him. His brain was too excited; his
nerves were beginning to feel the strain of the dry desert air. The
moment he closed his eyes he could see the emaciated frame of the dying
saint as he had last seen him, a few hours before his death. He could
hear with extraordinary persistence the cries of "Allah! Allah! There
is no strength nor power but in God. To God we belong, to Him we must
return." The words had never left the desert stillness; the air held
them and repeated them time after time.
He could see Abdul reverently pull the eyelids over the death-glazed
eyes; he could see the weeping mourners perform the last ceremonies for
the dead saint.
Then the scene would change to the one he had watched in the
evening--the white figures, with blue scarves of mourning wound round
their heads, bearing the saint reverently across the golden sands.
How tender it had all been, how vivid the clear, open light of
uninterrupted space and cloudless sky!
And now it was all over. He had met the holy man who was to lead him
to the secret spot where the treasure lay; he had heard from his lips
the account of how he had accidentally come across the crocks of gold,
when he had made for himself a dwelling-place in a cave in the heart of
the hills. The crocks were full of blocks of Nubian gold; the jewels
were in caskets which had fallen to pieces, even before his eyes, when
the winds of the desert had reached them.
Was it all a wonderful dream? Had he really in his possession the
crimson amethyst, of Oriental beauty, which the saint had carried in
his ear? Was it locked in the belt-purse which he wore under his
clothes by day and laid under his pillow by night? He put his hand
below his pillow and opened the purse; no doubt his fingers would feel
the jewel. But what was there to tell him that it was really there,
that he was not the victim of some strange hallucination? Thoughts
were things. Had he thought about this treasure until it had become to
him an actual reality?
Then vision after vision was forced upon his sight--Millicent in her
varying moods, the saint's ecstasies, the now familiar figures of the
Bedouin, bearing their offerings to the sick man, their polite and
beautiful expressions as they laid the eggs and milk at his feet. He
got so tired of the visualizing and recitation of all that he had seen
and heard during the days which he had spent in anxious uncertainty
that he could endure it no longer.
He got up and lit his candle; things would seem more real in the light.
He stretched out his hand for the book which always lay near his bed.
The Open Road, his Bible and this little volume of selected verse
constituted his desert library. He wanted a poem which would
completely transfer his thoughts from the throbbing present, which
would change the arid desert and limitless space into green England,
with its enclosing hedges and leafy woods. His nerves were jaded; they
needed the relaxation of moderation. Knowing almost every poem in the
volume, he quickly found Bliss Carman's "Ode to the Daisies." His mind
recited it even before his eyes saw the words:
"Over the shoulders and slopes to the dune
I saw the white daisies go down to the sea,
A host in the sunshine, an army in June,
The people God sends us to set our hearts free."
He read the next verse and then turned to Wordsworth's immortal lines:
"I wandered lonely as a cloud . . ."
He read the poem through, although he knew each dear, familiar word of
it. Reading it helped his powers of concentration. It was amazing how
quickly the suggestion of the words soothed him. As clearly as he had
seen all the events of the day repeating themselves, he now saw the
host of golden daffodils,
"Beside the lake, beneath the trees."
They obliterated the desert, with its immortal voices, its passionate
appeals. He was no longer wandering lonely as a cloud. He was happy,
he was one with the dancing daffodils, as he watched them
"Tossing their heads in sprightly dance."
To how many weary minds has the poem brought the same solace, the same
spiritual refreshment?
"Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze."
His fingers relaxed their hold on the book. It dropped from his hand.
Margaret stood among the daffodils, Margaret, with her steadfast eyes
and dark-brown head, Margaret calling to him in the breeze.
* * * * * *
At dawn, when Abdul came to wake his master, he found the candle still
burning. It was a little bit of wick floating in melted grease, like a
light in a saint's tomb. The book which the Effendi had been reading
had fallen to the floor.
Abdul looked at his master anxiously. He must have been reading very
late. Why had he not been asleep? He ought to have refreshed himself
for his long journey. For many days past he had looked tired and
anxious.
Abdul folded his hands while he looked at the sleeping Michael.
"_Al hamdu lillah_ (thank God)," he said. "The Effendi has been in
pleasant company."