"Then ... then she was yours from the first, and while I hated you
because I thought you had come between us, it was really I ... I who ...
Allah! Allah!"
Gordon having finished, a silence ensued, and then Ishmael, looking at
the photograph which was still in his trembling hands, said, in a
pitiful voice--
"God sees all, and when He tears the scales from our eyes--what are we?
The children of one Father fighting in the dark!"
Then he rose to his feet, a broken man, and approaching Gordon, he tried
to kneel to him; but in a moment Gordon had prevented him, and was
holding out his hand.
Nervously, timidly, reluctantly, he took it, and said, in a voice that
had almost gone--
"God will reward thee for this, my brother--for kissing the hand of him
who came to smite thy face."
With that he turned and staggered towards the door. Gordon opened it,
and at the same moment called to his servant--
"Orderly, show the Sheikh to the gate, please."
"Yes, Colonel."
"No, I beg of you, no," said Ishmael, and, while Gordon stood watching
him, he went heavily down the stairs.
*CHAPTER XIX*
That night at the house of the Chancellor of El Azhar Ishmael was
missing. Owing to the state of his health the greatest anxiety was
experienced, and half the professors and teachers of the University were
sent out to search. They scoured the city until morning without finding
the slightest trace of him. Then the servant who had attended upon him
remembered that shortly before his disappearance he had asked if the
English Colonel who had lately been pardoned by his King still lived on
the Citadel.
This led to the discovery of his whereabouts, and to some knowledge of
his movements. On leaving Gordon's quarters he had crossed the
courtyard of the fortress to the mosque of Mohammed Ali. It was then
dark, and only the Sheikh in charge had seen him when, after making his
ablutions, he entered by the holy door.
It was certain that he had spent the entire night in the mosque. The
muezzin, going up to the minaret at midnight, had seen a white figure
kneeling before the kibleh. Afterwards, when traditions began to gather
about Ishmael's name, the man declared that he saw a celestial light
descending upon the White Prophet as of an angel hovering over him.
There was a new moon that night, and perhaps its rays came down from the
little window that looks towards Mecca.
The muezzin also said that at sunrise, when he went up to the minaret
again, the Prophet was still there, and that an infinite radiance was
then around him as of a multitude of angels in red and blue and gold.
There are many stained glass windows in the mosque of Mohammed Ali, and
perhaps the rising sun was shining through them.
Certainly Ishmael was kneeling before the kibleh at eleven o'clock in
the morning when the people began to gather for prayers. It was Friday,
and the last of the days kept in honour of the birthday of the Prophet,
therefore there was a great congregation.
The Khedive was present. He had come early, with his customary
bodyguard, and had taken his usual place in the front row close under
the pulpit. The carpeted floor of the mosque was densely crowded. Rows
and rows of men, wearing tarbooshes and turbans and sitting on their
haunches, extended to the great door. The gallery was full of women,
most of them veiled, but some of them with uncovered faces.
The sun, which was hot, shone through the jewelled windows and cast a
glory like that of rubies and sapphires on the alabaster pillars and
glistening marble walls. Three muezzins chanted the call to prayers,
two from the minarets facing towards the city, the other from the
minaret overlooking the inner square of the Citadel where a British
sentinel in khaki paced to and fro.
While the congregation assembled, one of the Readers of the mosque,
seated in a reading-desk in the middle, read prayers from the Koran in a
slow, sonorous voice, and was answered by rather drowsy cries of "Allah!
Allah!" But there was a moment of keen expectancy and the men on the
floor rose to their feet, when the voice of the muezzin ceased and the
Reader cried--
"God is Most Great! God is Most Great! There is no god but God.
Mohammed is His Prophet. Listen to the preacher."
Then it was seen that the white figure that had been prostrate before
the kibleh had risen, and was approaching the pulpit. People tried to
kiss his hand as he passed, and it was noticed that the Khedive put his
lips to the fringe of the Imam's caftan.
Taking the wooden sword from the attendant, Ishmael ascended the pulpit
steps. When he had reached the top of them he was in the full stream of
the sunlight, and for the first time his face was clearly seen.
His cheeks were hollow and very pale; his lips were bloodless; his black
eyes were heavy and sunken, and his whole appearance was that of a man
who had passed through a night of sleepless suffering. Even at sight of
him, and before he had spoken, the congregation were deeply moved.
"Peace be upon you, O children of the Compassionate," he began, and the
people answered according to custom--
"On you be peace, too, O servant of Allah."
Then the people sat, and, sitting himself, Ishmael began to preach.
It was said afterwards that he had never before spoken with so much
emotion or so deeply moved his hearers; that he was like one who was
speaking out of the night-long travail of his soul; and that his words,
which were often tumultuous and incoherent, were not like sentences
spoken to listeners, but like the secrets of a suffering heart uttering
themselves aloud.
Beginning in a low, tired voice, that would barely have reached the
limits of the mosque but for the breathlessness of the people, he said
that God had brought them to a new stage in the progress of humanity.
Islam was rising out of the corruption of ages. Egypt was having a new
birth of freedom. God had whitened their faces before the world, and in
His wisdom He had willed it that the oldest of the nations should not
perish from the earth.
"Ameen! Ameen!" replied a hundred vehement voices, whereupon Ishmael
rose from his seat and raised his arm.
It was an hour of glory, but let them not be vainglorious. Let them not
think that with their puny hands they had won these triumphs. Allah
alone did all.
"Beware of boasting," he cried, "it is the strong drink of ignorance.
Beware of them that would tell you that by any act of yours you have
humbled the pride or lowered the strength of the great nation under
whose arm we live. Only God has changed its heart. He has given it to
see that the true welfare of a people is moral, not material. And now,
steadily, calmly, out of the spirit that has always inspired its laws,
its traditions and its faith, it shows us mercy and justice."
"Ameen! Ameen!" came again, but less vehemently than before.
Then speaking of Gordon without naming him, Ishmael reminded his people
that some of the great nation's own sons had helped them.
"One there is who has been our warmest friend," he cried. "To him, the
pure of heart, the high of soul, although he is a soldier and a great
one, may Peace herself award the crown of life! Christian he may be,
but may God place His benediction upon him to all eternity! May the God
of the East bless him! May the God of the West bless him! May his name
be inscribed with blessings from the Koran on the walls of every
mosque!"
This reference, plainly understood by all, was received with loud and
ringing shouts of "Allah! Allah!"
Then Ishmael's sermon took a new direction. For thirteen centuries the
children of men, forgetting their prophets, Mohammed and Jesus and
Moses, had been given over to idolatry. They had worshipped a god of
their own fashioning. That god was gold. Its temples were great cities
given up to material pursuits, and under them were the dead souls of
millions of human beings. Its altars were vast armies which spilled the
rivers of blood which had to be sacrificed to its lust. As men had
become rich they had become barbarous, as nations had become great they
had become pagan. Islam and Christianity alike had had to fight against
some of the powers of darkness which called themselves civilisation and
progress. But a new era had begun, and the human heart was raising its
face to God.
"Once again a voice has gone out from Mecca, from Nazareth, from
Jerusalem, saying, 'There is no god but God.' Once again a voice has
gone out from the desert, crying, 'Thou shalt have no other god but
Me!'"
At this the people were carried out of themselves with excitement, and
loud shouts again rang through the mosque.
Then Ishmael spoke of the future. The world had been in labour, in the
throes of a new birth, but the end was not yet. Had he promised them
that the Kingdom of Heaven would come when they entered Cairo? Let him
bend his knee in humility and ask pardon of the Merciful. Had he said
the Redeemer would appear? Let him fall on his face before God. Not
yet! Not yet!
"But," he cried, leaning out of the pulpit, with a look of inspiration
in his upturned eyes, "I see a time coming when the worship of wealth
will cease, when the governments of the nations will realise that man
does not live by bread alone; when the children of men will see that the
things of the spirit are the only true realities, worth more than much
gold and many diamonds, and not to be bartered away for the shows of
life; when the scourge of war will pass away; when, divisions of faith
will be no more known; when all men, whether black or white, will be
brothers, and in the larger destiny of the human race the world will be
One.
"That time is near, O brothers," cried Ishmael, "and many who are with
us to-day will live to witness it."
"You, Master, you!" cried a voice from below, whereupon Ishmael paused
for a perceptible moment, and then said, in a sadder voice--
"No; with the eyes of the body I shall not see that time."
Loud shouts of affectionate protest came from the people.
"God forbid it!" they cried.
"God _has_ forbidden it," said Ishmael. "I pass out of your lives from
this day forward. Our paths part. You will see me no more."
Again came loud shouts of protest--not unusual in a mosque--with voices
calling on Ishmael to remain and lead the people.
"My work here is done," he answered. "The little that God gave me to do
is finished. And now He calls me away."
"No, no!" cried the people.
"Yes, yes," replied Ishmael; and then in simple, touching words he told
them the story of the Prophet Moses--how, by reason of his sin, he was
forbidden to enter the Promised Land.
"Many of us have our promised land which we may never enter," he said.
"This is mine, and here I may not stay."
The protests of the people ceased; they listened without breathing.
"Yet Moses was taken up into a high mountain, and from there he saw what
lay before his people; and from a high mountain of my soul I see the
Promised Land which lies before you. But to me a voice has come which
says, 'Enter thou not!'"
The people were now deeply moved.
"We are all sinners," Ishmael continued.
"Not thou, O Master," cried several voices at once.
"Yes, I more than any other, for I have sinned against you and against
the Merciful."