THE STONING AND FLIGHT
"And whence the subtle thrill of joy in suffering for the Truth," asks
Khalid. "Whence the light that flows from the wounds of martyrs?
Whence the rapture that triumphs over their pain? In the thick of
night, through the alcoves of the mountains, over their barren peaks,
down through the wadi of oblivion, silently they pass. And they dream.
They dream of appearance in disappearance; of triumph in surrender; of
sunrises in the sunset.
"A mighty tidal wave leaves high upon the beach a mark which later on
becomes the general level of the ocean. And so do the great thinkers
of the world,--the poets and seers, the wise and strong and
self-denying, the proclaimers of the Religion of Man. And I am but a
scrub-oak in this forest of giants, my Brothers. A scrub-oak which you
might cut down, but not uproot. Lop off my branches; apply the axe to
my trunk; make of my timber charcoal for the censers of your temples
of worship; but the roots of me are deep, deep in the soil, beyond the
reach of mortal hands. They are even spreading under your tottering
palaces and temples....
"I dream of the awakening of the East; of puissant Orient nations
rising to glorify the Idea, to build temples to the Universal
Spirit--to Art, and Love, and Truth, and Faith. What if I am lost in
the alcoves of the hills, if I vanish forever in the night? The sun
that sets must rise. It is rising and lighting up the dark and distant
continents even when setting. Think of that, ye who gloat over the
sinking of my mortal self.
"No; an idea is never too early annunciated. The good seed will grow
among the rocks, and though the heavens withhold from it the sunshine
and rain. It is because I will it, nay, because a higher Will than
mine wills it, that the spirit of Khalid shall yet flow among your
pilgrim caravans, through the fertile deserts of Arabia, down to the
fountain-head of Faith, to Mecca and Medina," et cetera.
This, perhaps the last of the rhapsodies of Khalid's, the Reader
considering the circumstances under which it was written, will no
doubt condone. Further, however, in the K. L. MS. we can not now
proceed. Certainly the Author is not wanting in the sort of courage
which is loud-lunged behind the writing table; his sufficiency of
spirit is remarkable, unutterable. But we would he knew that the
strong do not exult in their strength, nor the wise in their wisdom.
For to fly and philosophize were one thing, and to philosophize in
prison were another. Khalid this time does not follow closely in the
way of the Masters. But he would have done so, if we can believe
Shakib in this, had not Mrs. Gotfry persuaded him to the contrary. He
would have stood in the Turkish Areopagus at Constantinople, defended
himself somewhat Socratic before his judges, and hung out his tung on
a rickety gibbet in the neighborhood of St. Sophia. But Mrs. Gotfry
spoiled his great chance. She cheated him of the glory of dying for a
noble cause.
"The Turks are not worth the sacrifice," Shakib heard her say, when
Khalid ejaculated somewhat about martyrdom. And when she offered to
accompany him, the flight did not seem shameful in his eyes. Nay, it
became necessary; and under the circumstances it was, indeed,
cowardice not to fly. For is it not as noble to surrender one's self
to Love as to the Turks or any other earthly despotism? Gladly,
heroically, he adventures forth, therefore, and philosophizes on the
way about the light that flows from the wounds of persecution. But we
regret that this celestial stream is not unmixed; it is accompanied by
blood and pus; by distention and fever, and other inward and outward
sores.
In this grievous state, somewhat like Don Quixote after the Battle of
the Mill, our Khalid enters Baalbek. If the reader likes the
comparison between the two Knights at this juncture, he must work it
out for himself. We can not be so uncharitable as that; especially
that our Knight is a compatriot, and is now, after our weary
journeyings together, become our friend.--Our poor grievous friend who
must submit again to the surgeon's knife.
Mrs. Gotfry would not let him go to his mother, for she herself would
nurse him. So, the doctor is called to the Hotel. And after opening,
disinfecting, and dressing the wounds, he orders his patient to keep
in bed for some days. They will then visit the ruins and resume their
journeying to Egypt. Khalid no longer would live in Syria,--in a
country forever doomed to be under the Turkish yoke, faring, nay,
misfaring alike in the New Era as in the Old.
Now, his mother, tottering with age and sorrow, comes to the Hotel,
and begs him in a flood of tears to come home; for his father is now
with the Jesuits of Beirut and seldom comes to Baalbek. And his cousin
Najma, with a babe on her arm and a tale of woe in her eyes, comes
also to invite her cousin Khalid to her house.
She is alone; her father died some months ago; her husband,
after the dethronement of Abd'ul-Hamid, being implicated in
the reaction-movement, fled the country; and his relatives, to
add to her affliction, would deprive her of her child. She is
alone; and sick in the lungs. She coughs, too, the same sharp,
dry, malignant cough that once plagued Khalid. Ay, the same
disease which he buried in the pine forest of Mt. Lebanon, he
beholds the ghost of it now, more terrible and heart-rending
than anything he has yet seen or experienced. The disease which
he conquered is come back in the person of his cousin Najma to
conquer him. And who can assure Khalid that it did not steal
into her breast along with his kisses? And yet, he is not the
only one in Baalbek who returned from America with phthisis. O,
but that thought is horrifying. Impossible--he can not believe
it.
But whether it be from you or from another, O Khalid, there is the
ghost of it beckoning to you. Look at it. Are those the cheeks, those
the eyes, this the body which a year ago was a model of rural charm
and beauty and health? Is this the compensation of love? Is there
anything like it dreamt of in your philosophy? There she is, who once
in the ruined Temple of Venus mixed the pomegranate flower of her
cheeks with the saffron of thy sickly lips. Wasted and dejected broken
in body and spirit, she sits by your bedside nursing her baby and
coughing all the while. And that fixed expression of sadness, so
habitual among the Arab women who carry their punks and their children
on their backs and go a-begging, it seems as if it were an hundred
autumns old, this sadness. But right there, only a year ago, the
crimson poppies dallied with the laughing breeze; the melting rubies
dilated of health and joy.
And now, deploring, imploring, she asks: "Will you not come to me, O
Khalid? Will you not let me nurse you? Come; and your mother, too,
will live with us. I am so lonesome, so miserable. And at night the
boys cast stones at my door. My husband's relatives put them to it
because I would not give them the child. And they circulate all kinds
of calumnies about me too."
Khalid promises to come, and assures her that she will not long remain
alone. "And Allah willing," he adds, "you will recover and be happy
again."
She rises to go, when Mrs. Gotfry enters the room. Khalid introduces
his cousin as his dead bride. "What do you mean?" she inquires. He
promises to explain. Meanwhile, she goes to her room, brings some
sweetmeats in a round box inlaid with mother-of-pearl for Khalid's
guests. And taking the babe in her arms, she fondles and kisses it,
and gives its mother some advice about suckling. "Not whenever the
child cries, but only at stated times," she repeats.
So much about Khalid's mother and cousin. A few days after, when he is
able to leave his room, he goes to see them. His cousin Najma he would
take with him to Cairo. He would not leave her behind, a prey to the
cruelty of loneliness and disease. He tells her this. She is
overjoyed. She is ready to go whenever he says. To-morrow? Please
Allah, yes. But--
Please Allah, ill-luck is following. For on his way back to the Hotel,
a knot of boys, lying in wait in one of the side streets, cast stones
at him. He looks back, and a missile whizzes above his head, another
hits him in the forehead almost undoing the doctor's work. Alas, that
wound! Will it ever heal? Khalid takes shelter in one of the shops; a
cameleer rates the boys and chases them away. The stoning was repeated
the following day, and the cause of it, Shakib tells us, is patent.
For when it became known in Baalbek that Khalid, the excommunicated
one, is living in the Hotel, and with an American woman! the old
prejudices against him were aroused, the old enemies were astirring.
The priests held up their hands in horror; the women wagged their long
tongues in the puddle of scandal; and the most fanatical shrieked out,
execrating, vituperating, threatening even the respectable Shakib, who
persists in befriending this muleteer's son. Excommunicated, he now
comes with this Americaniyah (American woman) to corrupt the
community. Horrible! We will even go farther than this boy's play of
stoning. We present petitions to the kaiemkam demanding the expulsion
of this Khalid from the Hotel, from the City.
From other quarters, however, come heavier charges against Khalid. The
Government of Damascus has not been idle ever since the seditious
lack-beard Sheikh disappeared. The telegraph wires, in all the
principal cities of Syria, are vibrating with inquiries about him,
with orders for his arrest. One such the kaiemkam of Baalbek had just
received when the petition of the "Guardians of the Morals of the
Community" was presented to him. To this, the kaiemkam, in a
perfunctory manner, applies his seal, and assures his petitioners that
it will promptly be turned over to the proper official. But Turk as
Turks go, he "places it under the cushion," when they leave. Which
expression, translated into English means, he quashes it.
Now, by good chance, this is the same kaiemkam who sent Khalid a year
ago to prison, maugre the efforts and importunities and other
inducements of Shakib. And this time, he will do him and his friend a
good turn. He was thinking of the many misfortunes of this Khalid, and
nursing a little pity for him, when Shakib entered to offer a written
complaint against a few of the more noted instigators of the
assailants of his friend. His Excellency puts this in his pocket and
withdraws with Shakib into another room. A few minutes after, Shakib
was hurrying to the Hotel to confer with his brother Khalid and Mrs.
Gotfry.
"I saw the Order with these very eyes," said Shakib, almost poking his
two forefingers into them. "The kaiemkam showed it to me."
Hence, the secret preparations inside the Hotel and out of it for a
second remove, for a final flight. Shakib packs up; Najma is all
ready. And Khalid cuts his hair, doffs his jubbah, and appears again
in the ordinary attire of civilised mortals. For how else can he get
out of Beirut and the telegraph wires throughout Syria are flowing
with orders for his arrest? In a hat and frock-coat, therefore
(furnished by Shakib), he enters into the carriage with Mrs. Gotfry
about two hours after midnight; and, with their whole retinue, make
for Riak, and thence by train for Beirut. Here Shakib obtains
passports for himself and Najma, and together with Mrs. Gotfry and her
dragoman, they board in the afternoon the Austrian Liner for
Port-Said; while, in the evening, walking at the side of one of the
boatmen, Khalid, passportless, stealthily passes through the port, and
rejoins his friends.