"Bedouin, where are your eyes and ears?" exclaimed Kanana, scornfully.
"Your paltry beggars at the caliph's gate carried my message swiftly. We
had not left the gate of Mecca out of sight when on the road behind us
came Airikat and four followers. While you were struggling to reach the
white camel, they did their best to overtake us both, but we outstripped
them. We kept upon the way till we had passed the nightly caravan. They
would have to rest their horses at the well, and the caravan would halt
there, too. They would inquire for us, and the caravan would answer, 'We
passed the white camel running like the wind toward Tayf.' Enough.
Airikat with his horsemen cannot reach there before the next sunrise,
and when he learns the truth he will be five days behind us. From him
and yonder caravan by the help of Allah we are safe. If you would learn
a lesson, by the way, let it be this: that man can conquer man without a
sword or lance. Sleep on it."
Setting the example, Kanana removed the camel's saddle, fastened his
hind foot to his haunch with the twisted rope so that he could not rise,
and sank upon the sand beside him, laying his head upon the creature's
neck.
The last words which he heard from his driver were: "Master, thou art
mightier than Airikat and all his warriors."
The sun beat fiercely down all day upon his resting-place; but Kanana's
sleep was sweeter than if the cool starlight had been over him, or a
black tent of the Beni Sads; because, for that one day at least, his
head was pillowed upon the white camel's neck.
It was late in the afternoon before he woke, and the sun was setting
when the little caravan was again prepared to start.
They were ready to mount when the driver came to the white camel. He
laid his hand upon the dingy haunch, and said, in a voice that was
strangely pleading for a fierce Bedouin:
"Master, do not crowd him over-hard to-night. He obeys too willingly. He
is tired from a long journey. It is four weeks since he has rested. I
would rather you would kill me than the white camel."
Kanana thought for a moment, then taking his shepherd's staff from the
saddle, he replied:
"You can tell better than I how he should be driven. Mount him, and I
will ride the dromedary."
To the driver this was only Arab sarcasm, and he hesitated till Kanana
silently pointed his staff toward the saddle, and the driver was more
afraid to refuse than to obey.
Kanana turned and mounted the dromedary.
As the camel rose to his feet, a strange temptation sent the blood
tingling to the driver's finger-tips.
The dromedary was unarmed. The messenger of Omar held only a shepherd's
staff. Almost unconsciously his hand clutched the hilt of the Damascus
blade, betraying the fact that it was better used to holding such a
thing than the rope that led the white camel through Mecca.
Quickly the driver looked back, to see Kanana quietly watching him.
Instantly his hand dropped the hilt, but it was too late. Scornfully
Kanana said:
"Lo! every child of Ishmael, from the devout Raschid to the faithful
camel-driver, will serve himself. Nay, keep the hand upon the sword.
Perchance there will be better cause to use it than in defying me. From
here our paths must separate. I promised that to-night I would lay out
your course for you. It is northward, without swerving, for ten nights,
at least."
"And whither goest thou, my master?"
"That only Allah can direct, from day to day. _La Illaha il Allah!_"
"And what is my mission to be?" asked the driver, anxiously.
"It is to seek the Beni Sads; to find the aged chief, the Terror of the
Desert; to say to him, 'Kanana hath fulfilled his vow.' He hath not
lifted the lance against Airikat; but thy white camel is returned to
thee, bearing thy first-born upon his back. Go, and God go with thee!"
"Who art thou?" cried the man upon the white camel, starting from his
seat as the dromedary gave the usual grunt, in answer to the prod, and
moved away.
The Bedouin boy turned in the saddle, tore off the _abbe_ and the mantle
that covered him, and clad in the sheepskin coat and desert turban
answered:
"I am thy brother Kanana, the coward of the Beni Sads!"
IX
FOR ALLAH AND ARABIA
"Kanana! our Kanana!" cried the brother, striking the camel's neck. The
dingy dignity of the great white camel was ruffled by the blow received,
and he expressed his disapproval in a series of grunts before he made
any attempt to start.
"Kanana! Kanana!" the brother called again, seeing the dromedary already
merging into the shadows; but the only response he received was from the
shepherd's staff, extended at arm's length pointing northward.
"My young brother shall not leave me in this way. He has no weapon of
defense and only a little of the grain."
Again he struck the camel a sharp blow as the animal began very slowly
to move forward. The black dromedary was hardly distinguishable from
the night, and was rapidly sinking into the deepening shadows before the
camel was fairly on the way.
"Go!" cried the rider savagely, striking him again, and the camel moved
a little faster; but he made slow and lumbering work, for he was not at
all pleased with his treatment.
The rider's eyes were fixed intently upon the dim outline sinking away
from him. The last he saw of it was the hand and arm, still holding the
extended shepherd's staff, pointing to the north. Then all was lost.
He kept on in that direction for an hour, but it was evident that he had
begun in the wrong way with the camel, and that he was not forcing him
to anything like his speed of the night before.
It was beyond his power to overtake the dromedary, and doubly chagrined
he gave up the race and turned northward.
The path before Kanana was the highway between Persia and Mecca. At some
seasons it was almost hourly traversed, but at midsummer only absolute
necessity drove the Arabs across the very heart of the desert.
In the height of the rainy season there were even occasional pools of
water in the hollows, here and there. Later there was coarse, tough
grass growing, sometimes for miles along the way.
Little by little, however, they disappeared. Then the green of each
oasis shrank toward the center, about the spring or well, and often
before midsummer was over, they too had dried away.
The prospect of loneliness, however, was not at all disheartening to
Kanana. He had no desire to meet with any one, least of all with such
parties as would be apt to cross the desert at this season.
If a moving shadow appeared in the distance, he turned well to one side
and had the dromedary lie down upon the sand till it passed.
The black dromedary was fresh, and the Bedouin boy knew well how to make
the most of his strength while it lasted; but it was for Allah and
Arabia that they crossed the desert, and Kanana felt that neither his
own life nor that of the dromedary could be accounted of value compared
with the demand for haste.
He paid no heed to the usual camping-grounds for caravans, except to be
sure that he passed two of them every night till the dromedary's
strength began to fail.
Each morning the sun was well upon its way before he halted for the day,
and long before it set again he was following his shadow upon the sand.
More and more the dromedary felt the strain. When twelve nights had
passed, the pride of the caliph was anything but a tempting prize, and
Kanana would hardly have troubled himself to turn out for a caravan even
if he had thought it a band of robbers.
The Bedouin boy, too, was thoroughly worn and exhausted. For days they
had been without water, checking their thirst by chewing the prickly
leaves of the little desert vine that is the last sign of life upon the
drying sand. No dew fell at this season, and Kanana realized that it was
only a matter of hours as to how much longer they could hold out.
Morning came without a sign of water or of life, as far as the eye could
reach.
The sun rose higher, and Kanana longed for the sight of a human being as
intensely as at first he had dreaded it.
Nothing but the ghastly bones of men and animals bleaching among the
sand-shrubs showed him that he was still upon the highway to Bashra.
Out of the glaring silver-gray, the fiery sun sailed into the lusterless
blue of the dry, hot sky, leaving the two separated by the eternal belt
of leaden clouds that never rise above a desert-horizon and never
disperse in rain.
Kanana halted only for his morning prayer, and, when it was finished,
the petition that he added for himself was simply "Water! water! O
Allah! give us water."
Each day the heat had become more intense, and to-day it seemed almost
to burn the very sand. As Kanana mounted again and started on, his tired
eyes sought anxiously the glaring billows for some sign of life; but not
a living thing, no shadow even, broke the fearful monotony.
There were gorgeous promises, but they did not deceive the eyes that had
looked so often along the sand. There were great cities rising upon the
distant horizon, with stately domes and graceful minarets such as were
never known throughout the length and breadth of Arabia. And when the
bells ceased tolling in Kanana's ears, he could hear the muezzin's call
to prayer. Then the bells would toll again and he would mutter, "Water!
water! O Allah! give us water."
He had no longer any heart to urge the tired dromedary to a faster pace.
He knew that it would only be to see him fall, the sooner, upon the
sand. The tired creature's head hung down till his nose touched the
earth as he plodded slowly onward.
The sun rose higher. It was past the hour when they always stopped, but
neither thought of stopping. Waiting would not bring the water to them,
and the Bedouin boy knew well that to lie on the desert sand that day
meant to lie there forever.
The dromedary knew it as well as his master, and without a word to urge
him, he kept his feet slowly moving onward, like an automaton, with his
nose thrust forward just above the sand, as though he too were pleading:
"Water! water! O Allah! give us water."
His eyes were closed. His feet dragged along the sand. Kanana did not
attempt to guide him, though he swayed from side to side, sometimes
reeling and almost falling over low hillocks which he made no effort to
avoid.
Kanana could scarcely keep his own eyes open. The glare of the desert
was blinding; but their last hope lay in his watchfulness.
He struggled hard to keep back the treacherous drowsiness, but his head
would drop upon one shoulder, then upon the other. He could have fallen
from the saddle and stretched himself upon the sand to die without a
struggle, had it not been for the caliph's letter in his bosom. Again
and again he pressed his hand upon it to rouse himself, and muttered,
"By the help of Allah, I will deliver it."
Each time that this roused him he shaded his eyes and sought again the
sand before him; but glaring and gray it stretched away to the horizon,
without one shadow save that of the forest of low and brittle
sand-shrubs.
The burning sky grew black above him, and the desert became a fiery red.
The dromedary did not seem like a living thing. He thought he was
sitting upon his perch in the harvest field. The sun seemed cold, as its
rays beat upon his head. He shivered and unconsciously drew the wings
of his turban over his face. No wonder it was cold. It was the early
morning under Mount Hor. Yes, there were all the blue forget-me-nots.
How the stream rippled and gurgled among them!
He started. What was that shock that roused him? Was it the robbers
coming down upon him? He shook himself fiercely. Was he sleeping? He
struggled to spring to his feet, but they were tangled in something.
At last his blood-shot eyes slowly opened and consciousness returned.
The dromedary had fallen to the ground, beside--an empty well.
Kanana struggled to his feet and looked down among the rocks. The bottom
was as dry as the sand upon which he was standing.
He looked back at the dromedary. Its eyes were shut. Its neck was
stretched straight out before it on the sand, its head rested upon the
rocks of the well.
"Thou hast given thy life for Allah and Arabia," Kanana said, "and when
the Prophet returns in his glory, he will remember thee."
He took the sack of camel's food from the saddle and emptied the whole
of it where the dromedary could reach it. Then he cut the saddle-straps
and dragged the saddle to one side. It was all that he could do for the
dumb beast that had served him.
Suddenly he noticed that the sun was setting. All the long day he must
have slept, while the poor dromedary had crept onward toward the well.
It had not been a healthful sleep, but it refreshed him, and combined
with the excitement of waking and working for the dromedary, he found
his tongue less parched than before. Quickly he took a handful of wheat
and began to chew it vigorously; a secret which has saved the life of
many a Bedouin upon the great sea of sand.
For a moment he leaned upon the empty saddle chewing the wheat,
watching the sun sink into the sand and thinking.
"Thirteen days," he muttered. "I said fourteen when I started, but we
have done better than three days in two. If we did not turn from the way
to-day, this well is but one night from Bashra. _O Allah! Mahamoud
rousol il Allah!_ give thy servant life for this one night."
The dromedary had not moved to touch the food beside him, and there was
no hope of further help from the faithful animal. Kanana stood beside it
for a moment, laid his hand gratefully upon the motionless head, then
took up his shepherd's staff and started on.
Sometimes waking, sometimes sleeping as he walked, sometimes thinking
himself far away from the sands of Bashra, sometimes urging himself on
with a realization that he must be near his journey's end, he pressed
steadily on and on, hour after hour.
Sometimes he felt fresh enough to start and run. Sometimes he wondered
if he had the strength to lift his foot and put it forward another time.
Sometimes he felt sure that he was moving faster than a caravan, and
that he should reach Bashra before morning. Sometimes it seemed as
though the willing spirit must leave the lagging flesh behind as he had
left the dromedary, and go on alone to Bashra.
Then he would press the sacred letter hard against his bosom and repeat,
"By the help of Allah I will deliver it!" And all the time, though he
did not realize it, he was moving forward with swift and steady strides,
almost as though he were inspired with superhuman strength.
Far away to the east a little spark of light appeared. It grew and rose,
till above the clouds there hung a thin white crescent; the narrowest
line of moonlight.
Kanana gave a cry of joy, for it was an omen which no Arab could fail to
understand.
Then the air grew cold. The darkest hour before the dawn approached,
and the narrow moon served only to make the earth invisible.
The dread of meeting any one had long ago left Kanana's mind. First he
had feared it. Then he had longed for it. Now he was totally
indifferent. He looked at the sky above him to keep his course. He
looked at the sand beneath his feet; but he did not once search the
desert before him.
Suddenly he was roused from his lethargy. There were shadows just ahead.
He paused, shaded his eyes from the sky and looked forward, long and
earnestly.
"It is not sand-shrubs," he muttered. "It is too high. It is not Bashra.
It is too low. It is not a caravan. It does not move. It has no
beginning and no end," he added, as he looked to right and left.
"It is tents," he said a moment later, and a frown of anxiety gathered
over his forehead. "Have I missed the way? No tribe so large as that
would be tented near Bashra. If I turn back I shall die. If I go
on--_La Illaha il Allah!_" he murmured, and resolutely advanced.
As he drew nearer, the indistinguishable noises of the night in a vast
encampment became plainly audible, but he did not hesitate.
Following the Arab custom for every stranger in approaching a Bedouin
camp, he paused at the first tent he reached, and standing before the
open front repeated the Mussulman salutation.
Some one within roused quickly, and out of the darkness a deep voice
sounded in reply.
Then Kanana repeated:
"I am a wanderer upon the desert. I am far from my people." And the
voice replied:
"If you can lift the lance for Allah and Arabia, you are welcome in the
camp of Kahled the Invincible."
"_La Illaha il Allah!_" cried Kanana. "Guide me quickly to the tent of
Kahled. I am a messenger to him from the great Caliph Omar."
The earth reeled beneath the feet of Kanana as the soldier led the way.
The general was roused without the formality of modern military tactics
or even Mohammedan courtesies. A torch was quickly lighted. Kanana
prostrated himself; then rising, he handed the precious packet to the
greatest general who ever led the hosts of Mohammed.
Kahled the Invincible broke the seal, but before he had read a single
word, the Bedouin boy fell unconscious upon the carpet of the tent.
As the soldiers lifted him, Kanana roused for an instant and murmured:
"By the dry well, one night to the southwest, my black dromedary is
dying of thirst. In Allah's name, send him water! He brought the message
from Mecca in thirteen days!" Then the torch-light faded before his
eyes, and Kanana's lips were sealed in unconsciousness.
X
KANANA'S THIRD MISSION
A vast Mohammedan army, with its almost innumerable followers, was
marching towards Syria, to meet the hosts of the Emperor Heraclius.
Like a pillar of cloud the dust rose above the mighty throng.
Armed horsemen, ten thousand strong, rode in advance.
A veteran guard of scarred and savage men came next, mounted upon huge
camels, surrounding Kahled the Invincible and his chief officers, who
rode upon the strongest and most beautiful of Persian horses.
A little distance behind were thousands of fierce warriors mounted on
camels and dromedaries. Then came another vast detachment of camels
bearing the tents, furniture, and provisions of the army; these were
followed by a motley throng, comprising the families of many of the
tribes represented in the front, while still another powerful guard
brought up the rear.
Behind the body-guard of Kahled and before the war-camels rode a smaller
guard, in the center of which were two camels, bearing a litter between
them.
Upon this litter lay Kanana, shielded from the sun by a goat's-hair
awning; for almost of necessity the army moved by daylight. It started
an hour after sunrise, resting two hours at noon, and halting an hour
before sunset. It moved more rapidly than a caravan, however, and
averaged twenty-five miles a day.
Close behind Kanana's litter walked a riderless dromedary. At the start
it was haggard and worn. Its dark hair was burned to a dingy brown by
the fierce heat of the desert; but even Kahled received less careful
attention, and every day it gathered strength and held its head a little
higher.
The black dromedary was not allowed to carry any burden, but was
literally covered with gay-colored cloths; decorating the pride of Omar
the Great, that had brought the good news from Mecca to Bashra in less
than thirteen days.
Nothing pleasanter could have been announced to that terrible army of
veterans surrounding the valiant Kahled, than that it was to face the
mightiest host which the Emperor Heraclius could gather in all the
north.
There was not one in all that throng who doubted, for an instant, that
Kahled could conquer the whole world if he chose, in the name of Allah
and the Prophet.
Many of the soldiers had followed him since the day, years before, when
he made his first grand plunge into Persia. They had seen him made the
supreme dictator of Babylonia. They had seen him send that remarkable
message to the great monarch of Persia:
"Profess the faith of Allah and his Prophet, or pay tribute to their
servants. If you refuse I will come upon you with a host that loves
death as much as you love life."
Once before had they seen him summoned from his triumphs in Persia,
because all of the Mohammedan generals and soldiers in Syria were not
able to cope with the power of Heraclius. They had seen him invested
with the supreme power by the Caliph Abu-Bekr, Omar's predecessor, and
watched while, single-handed, he fought and conquered the great warrior,
Romanus.
Most of them had been with him before the walls of Damascus, when he
besieged that magnificently fortified city upon one side, and fought and
conquered an army of a hundred thousand men upon the other side, sent
from Antioch, by Heraclius, for the relief of the great city. Then they
witnessed the fall of Damascus, and followed Kahled as he attacked and
put to flight an army outnumbering his by two to one, and equipped and
drilled in the most modern methods of Roman warfare.
They had fought with him in the fiercest battles ever recorded of those
desert lands, and they only knew him as Kahled the Invincible.
After Abu-Bekr had died and Omar the Great had taken his place, the
proud soldiers saw their general unjustly deposed and given such minor
work as tenting about the besieged cities, while others did the
fighting, until he left Syria in disgust.
No wonder they were glad to see him recalled to take his proper place.
They jested without end about the cowards who were frightened because
Heraclius had threatened to annihilate the Mussulmans. And the march was
one grand holiday, in spite of heat and hardships.
As Kanana lay in his litter and listened to these bursts of eloquence in
praise of the general, he was often stirred with ardent patriotism and
almost persuaded to cast his lot among the soldiers; but the same odd
theories which before had prevented his taking up a lance, restrained
him still.
On the fourth day he left the litter and took his seat upon the black
dromedary. Kahled directed that costly garments and a sword and lance be
furnished him, but Kanana prostrated himself before the general and
pleaded: "My father, I never held a lance, and Allah knows me best in
this sheepskin coat."
Kahled frowned, but Kanana sat upon the decorated dromedary precisely as
he left the perch in the harvest-field. He expected to take his place
with the camp-followers in the rear, but found that he was still to ride
in state surrounded by the veteran guard. Indeed, he became a figure so
celebrated and conspicuous that many a warrior in passing, after
prostrating himself before the general, touched his forehead to the
ground before Kanana and the black dromedary.
It might have made a pleasant dream, while sitting upon the perch in the
harvest-field, but the reality disturbed him, and again he began to plan
some means of escape.
He carefully computed the position of the Beni Sad encampment, and
determined the day when the army would pass but a few miles to the east
of it.
One who has not lived upon the desert, and seen it illustrated again and
again, can scarcely credit the accuracy with which a wandering Bedouin
can locate the direction and distance to any point with which he is
familiar; but even then Kanana was at a loss as to how to accomplish his
purpose when the whole matter was arranged for him, and he was supplied
with a work which he could perform for Allah and Arabia, still holding
his shepherd's staff and wearing his sheepskin coat.
The army halted for the night upon the eve of the day when it would pass
near the encampment of the Beni Sads. The tent which Kanana occupied
was pitched next that of Kahled.
He sat upon the ground eating his supper. All about him was the clatter
and commotion of the mighty host preparing for the night, when he heard
an officer reporting to the general that in three days the supply of
grain would be exhausted.
"My father," he exclaimed, prostrating himself before the general, "thy
servant's people, the Beni Sads, must be less than a night's journey to
the north and west. They were harvesting six weeks ago, and must have
five hundred camel-loads of grain to sell. Bid me go to them to-night,
and, with the help of Allah, by the sunrise after to-morrow it shall be
delivered to thy hand."