A PIGLET ACTS FOR GARRAM
The Liman wagged a skinny forefinger under the nose of Goshi, the stout
trader. “Since he brought us both to shame, it is we who should bring
this heretic Garram to account.”
Goshi, made tolerant, perhaps, by his girth and his wealth, looked
round the dimly lighted room as if in search of an excuse and did not
seem to notice the wagging forefinger. The little earthenware saucer
with cotton wick and vegetable oil, which served as a flickering lamp,
occupied his attention for lack of anything more thrilling in the small
bare hut with its rough mud walls and its flat ceiling which barely
cleared his head as he stood.
“It is for this purpose that I summoned you,” the harsh, weak voice
of the Liman continued; “for, though it is the duty of all good
Mohammedans of the city to punish such _kafurchi_ [heathenness]”--he
almost spat the word--“with death, yet the softness of this generation
is such that no longer can we stone infidels to death publicly or
convert them at the point of the sword.”
[Illustration: It was like a snake, swaying]
Goshi’s attention had been caught by the black shadows of the Liman’s
arm sawing up and down the wall. It was like a venomous snake swaying,
about to strike. The trader’s round face showed its disgust. If he
could have caught Garram in that headlong pursuit in the market
place, he would have given him, weapons or no weapons, a detailed
and most effective spanking. For the trader was as brave as he was fat.
But that was more than three months ago. His only feeling now was a
poignant regret that he had arrived a moment or so too late to witness
the Liman’s own discomfiture. He grunted vaguely in reply.
The Liman’s cracked and excited voice went on. “We wait now only for
the Ladan and two friends who can be trusted. Then I will unfold my
plan. We must act quickly, for each moon sees Garram, this child of the
Devil, more firmly established with the people and in deeper favor with
the Emir himself.”
Goshi looked at the matting covered door as if considering a way out.
The exhibition of hate made by the skinny old religious enthusiast was
not to his taste. But his dislike of underhand deals made him wait. If
he knew the plan, he might later be of assistance to the mischievous
young hunter, whom he had grown rather to admire. To free himself from
the obsession of that shadowy snake he took the lamp from the niche in
the wall and set it on the black polished floor.
Then, with whispered greeting and sidelong glances the three remaining
conspirators entered. In this half-ruined hut, in the corner of the
Liman’s compound, they still appeared fearful of being overheard.
As the Liman’s voice again sawed away in exhortation Goshi’s attention
wandered. He could have sworn he heard the flat roof of mud and timber
creak as if under a footstep. Then there was a small sound like the
leap of a heavy cat onto a neighboring roof. In a pause in the harangue
a faint scuffle outside came to his ears, and a muffled squeal which
puzzled him. Could there be a small pig, such as he had sometimes seen
in his travels, in this town?
“Three days ago I spoke with the Emir himself concerning this same
Garram and his evil ways, his levity, and his lack of true belief in
Allah. The Emir was nearly persuaded by me. But when later this child
of the Devil went away, the Father of our People sent for me and
called me many evil names, saying I had driven away this boy who had
become to him as a son. Alas that the Father of our country should call
a heretic and unbeliever ‘Son’!” The vengeful bigot paused for effect.
“And now that he has returned safe, and bringing with him Ibrahim, whom
he saved from death, not only people of the market place and common
people, but even courtiers and nobles of the land call a blessing on
him when he passes.”
Goshi was still but vaguely attending, waiting for the time when the
real plot should be unfolded. The gentle thud as of a leaping cat was
approaching again. He could hear the roof give a faint creak.
“Shaitan the Evil One,” the Liman was haranguing away, “Shaitan aids
Garram, the son of Shaitan, for does not the Devil always help his
own? Shaitan----” With a crash the roof opened and a small black
shape fell with a gentle bump among the conspirators, overturning and
extinguishing the lamp. Overhead a boy’s leg scrambled wildly for a
foothold in the hole in the roof, pulled itself up. A gentle thud told
that the owner of the leg had alighted safely on the ground outside the
hut. In the darkness Goshi grinned. He had recognized Garram’s foot
just as the light went out. But he alone had seen.
The room was in plain panic. Something small but terrible was circling
the hut at an increasing pace, ever and anon encountering a pair of
thin religious shanks. Then the owners of the shanks, without time even
to commend themselves to Allah and his Prophet, sat down with a vigor
that persuaded the small piglet that this was their way of trying to
catch him.
Terror of this unknown thing circling in the dark upon the ground
forced the Liman and his friends to their feet as rapidly as possible
after each fall. Goshi, who alone realized the situation, lay still
where he had fallen--as still as his rocking laughter would permit.
Determined not to be caught by these people who seemed trying to sit
on him, the small pig increased his speed and the plotters had barely
time to scramble to their feet before being felled again. Breathless
invocations ceased, as no breath remained to the plotters. The only
sounds were Goshi’s demoniacal laughter out of the darkness and the
continual thud-thud of falling bodies.
Goshi, after a short time, could not have risen. Weak with laughter he
groveled. First the feet of the piglet, passing over him, tickled him
in the ribs. Then, as the small beast put more into it to increase his
speed, the hoofs seemed to nudge him in the side, as if asking him to
share in the joke. There was a yell of terror as the conspirators found
what they took to be another and unexpected devil added to the first
one. But it was only the same small pig seeking variety by turning to
go round in the opposite direction.
One of the men made a temporary escape by seeking to hang from a roof
beam. This had much to commend it. Unfortunately he let go again just
as another had been bowled over beneath him. The Liman, by the voice,
was the lower one, and feeling the weight of something still heavier
dropping from the sky and the darkness robbed him of what little of his
wits remained. Partly running, partly on all fours, he began to circle
the hut, terror lending him marvelous speed.
His gasping yells sounded scarcely human to the other conspirators, and
this final addition to the pig’s solo procession turned an excellent
imitation madhouse into a realistic pandemonium. No longer were the
evil spirits content with cleanly felling them and permitting them to
rise again. Now when they fell, a second mass, even more terrifying,
would fall upon them, strike them evilly with thin, flail-like limbs,
and seem about to devour them as it gobbled wildly. It was only the
Liman striving to surmount obstructions in his path, whooping and
mewing as he sought breath and words for his feelings.
[Illustration]
Then, to the fat trader’s keen regret, the small black pig found the
doorway with its light matting cover and disappeared as suddenly as
he had come. To the trader’s ears came the sound of a scuffle, as
Garram, waiting outside the door for his pet, caught him and went
his way. Gradually the disturbance in the hut died down, till only
Goshi’s shaking sobs of laughter broke the silence. But even the best
conspirators need breath to conspire properly. The weakness of the
plotters, and their fear of the devil which they believed they had
invoked, made further mischief that night improbable. Goshi found his
way through the door which only darkness and blind terror had hidden
before. The four conspirators tried to get through it together, jammed,
but one by one followed him to the edge of the Liman’s compound, where
they parted.
Goshi weakly zigzagged his way through the deserted market place,
pausing, from time to time, to the scandal of the lean scavenging
dogs, as hooting, snorting laughter caught him anew. “Wallahi! What an
event!” he leaned up against a stall and informed a cat and two dogs.
“How can I tell the story properly on the morrow when I heard only
sounds and could not see the faces of the pious as they played on the
ground with a piglet and to amuse it hung like bats from the roofing?”
His voice, worn to a whisper with much laughing, had a determined ring
to it. “But justice shall be done to the story, though I perjure myself
and swear to blue flames of hell or bright moonlight through the roof.
Better the latter, since the Liman will have put the hell flames into
his own story.”
He wove homeward through the night.
A STORY OF STORIES
[Illustration]