indignation. "And may the maker of the becurst newspage lie be doubly
afflictioned! May his camels die and his wives cast dust upon his bared
head! For he has befooled me, by what he has here enprinted. My heart
went out with a sweet sorrowfulness for that poor general or for the
folk he bethreatened. Whichever it might chance itself to be. And now
the news person has made a jest of the truth. But he--"
Kirby's attempt at self-control went to pieces. He guffawed. Najib eyed
him sourly; then said in icy reproof:
"It is known to all, howadji, that Sidi-ben-Hassan, the sheikh, was the
wisest of men. And did not Sidi-ben-Hassan make known, in his book, that
'_Laughter is for women and for hyenas_'? Furthermore--"
"I'm sorry I laughed at you, Najib," returned Kirby, with due penitence,
"I don't wonder you got such an idea, from the headline. You see, I have
read the story that goes under it. That's how I happen to know what it
means. It means that several thousand workmen of several allied trades
threatened to go on strike. That will tie up a lot of business, you see;
along a lot of lines. It will mean a general tie-up--a--"
From Najib's blank face, the American saw his more or less technical
explanation was going wide. Still remorseful at having hurt his
factotum's feelings, Kirby laid the paper aside and undertook to
simplify the matter.
"It's like this," said he. "We'll say a gang of men aren't satisfied
with the pay or the hours they are getting. They asked for more money or
for shorter hours; or for both. If the demand is refused, they stop
working. They won't go back to their jobs till they get the cash and the
hours they want. That is known as 'going on strike.' When a number of
concerns are involved in it, it's sometimes called 'a general strike.'
This paper says a general strike is threatened. That means--"
"I apperceive it, howadji!" exclaimed Najib. "I am onward to it, now. I
might have known the printed page cannot lie. But, oh, my heart berends
itself when I think of the sad fate of those poor folk who do the
stroking! Of an assuredly, Allah hath deprived them of wisdom!
"Not necessarily," argued Kirby, wondering at his henchman's outburst of
sympathy for union labourers so many thousand miles away. "They may win,
you know; or, at least, get a compromise. And their unions will support
them while they are out of work. Of course, they may lose. And then--"
"But when they make refusal to do their work," urged Najib, "will not
the soldiers of the pasha cut them to ribbons with the kourbash and
drive them back to their toil? Or if the pasha of that pashalik is a
brutesome man, will not he cast those poor fellaheen into the prison and
beseize their goods? And I answer, howadji, he will. Wherefore my eyes
are tearing, for the men who have so unlucklessly--"
"Hold on!" exhorted Kirby; albeit despairing of opening the mind of a
man whose forebears for thousands of years had lived in a land where the
_corvée_--forced labour--was a hallowed institution; and where the money
of employers could always enlist the aid of government soldiery to keep
the fellaheen at their tasks. "Hold on! That sort of thing is dead and
done with. Even in the East. Chinese Gordon stamped out the last of it,
in Egypt, years ago. If a man doesn't want to work, he can't be forced
to. All his boss can do is to fire him and try to get some one in his
place. When a whole factory of men strike--especially if there are any
big contract orders to fill in a rush--the employers sometimes find it
cheaper to give them what they want than to call in untrained
strikebreakers. On the other hand, sometimes, the boss can bring the men
to terms. It all depends."
Yielding to the human joy of imparting instruction to so interested a
listener, Kirby launched forth into an elaboration of his theme; trying
to expound something of the capital-and-labour situation to his
follower; and secretly wondering at the keen zest wherewith his words
were listened to.
Seldom was Kirby so successful in making Najib follow so long an
oration. And he was pleased with his own new-found powers of explaining
Occidental customs to an Oriental mind.
Now, Logan Kirby knew the tangled Syrian character and its myriad queer
slants, as well as it can be given to a white man to know it. Kirby's
father had been a missionary, at Nablous. He himself had been born
there, and had spent his boyhood at the mission. That was why--after he
had completed his engineering course at Columbia's school of mines and
had served an apprenticeship in Colorado and Arizona--the Cabell
Smelting Company of New York had sent him out to the Land of Moab, as
manager of its new-acquired little antimony mine.
The mine--a mere prospect shaft--was worked by about thirty
fellaheen--native labourers--supervised by a native guard of twelve
Turkish soldiers. Small as was the plant, it was a rich property and it
was piling up dividends for the Cabells. Antimony, in the East, is used
in a score of ways--from its employment in the form of kohl, for the
darkening of women's eyes, to the chemical by-products, always in demand
by Syrian apothecaries.
This was the only antimony mine between Aden and Germany. Its shipments
were in constant demand. Its revenues were a big item on the credit side
of the Cabell ledger.
Kirby's personal factotum, as well as superintendent of the mine, was
this squat little Syrian, Najib, who had once spent two blissfully
useless years with an All Nations Show, at Coney Island; and who there
had picked up a language which he proudly believed to be English; and
which he spoke exclusively when talking with the manager.
Kirby's rare knowledge of the East had enabled the mine to escape ruin a
score of times where a manager less conversant with Oriental ways must
have blundered into some fatal error in the handling of his men or in
dealing with the local authorities.
Remember, please, that in the East it is the seemingly insignificant
things which bring disaster to the feringhee, or foreigner. For example,
many an American or European has met unavenged death because he did not
realize that he was heaping vile affront upon his Bedouin host by eating
with his left hand. Many a foreign manager of labour has lost instant
and complete control over his fellaheen by deigning to wash his own
shirt in the near-by river or for brushing the dirt from his own
clothes. Thereby he has proved himself a labourer, instead of a master
of men. Many a foreigner has been shot or stabbed for speaking to a
native whom he thought afflicted with a fit and who was really engaged
in prayer. Many more have lost life or authority by laughing at the
wrong time or by glancing--with entire absence of interest, perhaps--at
some passing woman.
Yes, Kirby had been invaluable to his employers by virtue of his inborn
knowledge of Syrian ways. Yet, now, he was not enough of an Oriental to
understand why his lecture on the strike system should thrill his
listener.
He did not pause to realize that the idea of strikes was one which
carries a true appeal to the Eastern imagination. It has all the
elements of revenge, of coercion, and of trapping, of wily
give-and-take, and of simple and logical gambling uncertainty, which
characterize the most popular of the Arabian Nights yarns and which have
made those tales remain as Syrian classics for more than ten centuries.
"It is of an assuredly a pleasing and noble plan," applauded Najib when
Kirby finished the divers ramifications of his discourse. "And I do not
misdoubt but what that cruel general betrembled himself inside of his
boots when they threatened to strike. If the stroking ones may not be
lawfully attackled by the pashalik troops, indeed must the general--"
"I told you there wasn't any general!" interrupted Kirby, jarred that
his luminous explanations had still left Najib more or less where it
found him, so far as any lucid idea was concerned. "And I've wasted
enough time trying to ding the notion of the thing into your thick head.
If you've got those shipment items catalogued, go back to the shaft and
check off the inventory. The first load ought to be on the way to the
coast before sunrise to-morrow. Chase!"
As he picked up the duplicate sets of the list and ran over their items
once more, Kirby tried to forget his own silly annoyance at his failure
to make the dull little Syrian comprehend a custom that had never
reached the Land of Moab.
Presently, in his absorption in his work, the American forgot the whole
incident. It was the beginning of a rush period at the mine--the busiest
month in its history was just setting in. The Alexandretta-bound
shipment of the morrow was but the first of twelve big shipments
scheduled for the next twenty-nine days.
The restoration of peace and the shutting out of several Central
European rivals had thrown an unprecedented sheaf of rush orders on the
Cabell mine. It was such a chance as Kirby had longed for; a chance to
show his rivals' customers the quality of the Cabell product and the
speed and efficiency wherewith orders could and would be filled by him.
If he could but fill these new customers' orders in quicker and more
satisfactory fashion than the firms were accustomed to receiving, it
might well mean that the new buyers would stick to the Cabells, after
the other mines should again be in operation.
It was a big chance, as Kirby had explained at some length to Najib,
during the past few weeks. At his behest, the little superintendent had
used every known method to get extra work and extra speed out of the
fellaheen; and, by judicious baksheesh, had even impressed to the toil
several members of the haughty, Turkish guard and certain folk from the
nearest hill village.
As a result, the first shipment was ready for the muleteers to carry
coastward a full week ahead of schedule time. And the contract chanced
to be one for which the eager wholesalers at Alexandretta had agreed to
pay a bonus for early arrival. The men were even now busy getting a
second shipment in shape for transportation by mule train to Tiberias
and thence by railway to Damascus.
The work was progressing finely. Kirby thrilled at the thought. And he
was just a little ashamed of his own recent impatience at Najib, when he
remembered how the superintendent was pushing the relays of consignments
along. After all, he mused, it was no reflection on Najib's intelligence
that the poor little chap could not grasp the whole involved Occidental
strike system in one hasty lecture; and that his simple mind clung to
the delusion that there was some fierce general involved in it. In the
Arabian Nights was there not always a scheming sultan or a baffled
wazir, in every clash with the folk of the land? Was it unnatural that
Najib should have substituted for these the mythical general of whom he
thought he had seen mention in the news headline?
But, soon after dusk, Kirby had reason to know that his words had not
all fallen on barren soil. At close of the working day, Najib had
brought the manager the usual diurnal report from the mine. Now, after
supper, Kirby, glancing over the report again, found a gap of terse yet
complete reports. And occasionally Kirby was obliged to summon his
henchman to correct or amend the day's tally sheet.
Wherefore, the list in his hand, the American strolled down from his own
knoll-top tent toward Najib's quarters. As Najib was superintendent, and
thus technically an official, Kirby could make such domiciliary visits
without loss of prestige, instead of summoning the Syrian to his
presence by handclap of by messenger, as would have been necessary in
dealing with any of the other employees.
Najib's hut lay a hundred yards beyond the hollow where the fellaheen
and soldiers were encamped. For Najib, too, had a dignity to uphold. He
might no more lodge or break bread with his underlings than might Kirby
with him. Yet, at times, preparatory to pattering up the knoll for his
wonted evening chat with the American at the latter's campfire, Najib
would so far unbend as to pause at the fellaheen's camp for a native
discussion of many gestures and much loud talking.
So it was to-night. Just outside the radius of the fellaheen's
firelight, Kirby paused. For he heard Najib's shrill voice uplifted in
speech. And amusedly he halted and prepared to turn back. He had no wish
to break in upon a harangue so interesting as the speaker seemed to find
this one.
Najib's voice was pitched far above the tones of normal Eastern
conversation;--louder and more excited even than that of a professional
story-teller. In Syria it is hard to believe that these professionals
are merely telling an oft-heard Arabian Nights narrative; and not
indulging in delirium or apoplexy.
Yet at a stray word of Najib's, Kirby checked involuntarily his own
retreat; and paused again to look back. There stood Najib, in the center
of the firelit circle; hands and head in wild motion. Around him,
spell-bound, squatted the ring of his dark-faced and unwashed hearers.
The superintendent, being with his own people, was orating in pure
Arabic--or, rather, in the colloquial vernacular which is as close to
pure Arabic as one can expect to hear, except among the remoter
Bedouins.
"Thus it is!" he was declaiming. "Even as I have sought to show you, oh,
addle-witted offspring of mangy camels and one-eyed mules! In that far
country, when men are dissatisfied with their wage, they take counsel
together and they say, one unto the other: 'Lo, we shall labour no more,
unless our hire be greater and our toil hours less!' Then go they to
their sheikh or whomever he be who hath hired them, and they say to him:
'Oh, favoured of Allah, behold we must have such and such wage and such
and such hours of labour!' Then doth their sheikh cast ashes upon his
beard and rend his garments. For doth he not know his fate is upon him
and that his breath is in his nostrils? Yet will they not listen to his
prayers; but at once they make 'strike.'
"Then doth their sheikh betake himself to the pasha with his grievance;
beseeching the pasha, with many rich gifts, that he will throw those
strike-making labourers into prison and scourge their kinsmen with the
kourbash. But the pasha maketh answer, with tears: 'Lo, I am helpless!
What saith the law? It saith that a man may make strike at will; and
that his employer must pay what is demanded!' Now, this pasha is named
'General.' And his heart is as gall within him that he may not accept
the rich gifts offered by the sheikh; and punish the labourers. Yet the
law restraineth him. Then the sheikh, perchance, still refuseth the
demands of his toilers. And they say to him then: 'If you will not
employ us and on the terms we ordain, then shall ye hire none others,
for we shall overthrow those whom you set in our places. And perchance
we shall destroy your warehouses or barns or shops!' This say they, when
they know he hath greatest need of them. Then boweth their master his
head upon his breast and saith: 'Be it even as ye will, my hirelings!
For I must obey!' And he giveth them, of his substance, whatsoever they
may require. And all are glad. And under the new law, even in this land
of ours, none may imprison or beat those who will not work. And all may
demand and receive what wage they will. And--"
And Kirby waited to hear no more. With a groan of disgust at the
orator's imbecility, he went back, up the hill, to his own tent.
There, he drew forth his rickety sea chair and placed it in front of a
patch of campfire that twinkled in the open space in front of the tent
door. For, up there in the hills, the nights had an edge of chill to
them; be the days ever so hot.
Stretching himself out lazily in his long chair, Kirby exhumed from a
shirt pocket his disreputable brier pipe, and filled and lighted it. The
big white Syrian stars glinted down on him from a black velvet sky.
Along the nearer peaks and hollows of the Moab Mountains, the knots of
prowling jackals kept up a running chorus of yapping--a discordant chant
punctuated now and then by the far-away howl of a hunting wolf; or, by
the choking "laugh" of a hyena in the valley below, who thus gave forth
the news of some especially delicious bit of carrion discovered among
the rocks.
And Kirby was reminded of Najib's quoted dictum that "laughter is for
women and for hyenas." The memory brought back to him his squat
henchman's weird jumbling of the strike system. And he smiled in
reminiscent mirth.
The Syrian had been his comrade in many a vicissitude And he knew that
Najib's fondness for him was as sincere as can be that of any Oriental
for a foreigner, an affection based not wholly on self-interest. Kirby
enjoyed his evening powwows with superintendent beside the campfire; and
the little man's amazing faculty for mangling the English tongue.
He rather missed Najib's presence to-night. But he was not to miss it
for long. Just as he was about to knock out his pipe and go to bed, the
native came pattering up the slope on excitedly rapid feet; and squatted
as usual on the ground beside the American's lounging chair. In Najib's
manner there was a scarce-repressed jubilant thrill. His beady eyes
shone wildly. Hardly had he seated himself when he broke the custom of
momentary grave silence by blurting forth:
"Furthermore, howadji, I am the bearer of gladly tidings which will make
you to beshout yourself aloud for joyfulness and leap about and
besclaim: 'Pretty fair!' and other words of a grand rapture. For the
bird will sing gleesome dirges in your heart!"
"Well?" queried Kirby in no especial excitement. "I'm listening. But if
the news is really so wonderful you surely took your time in bringing
it. I've been here all evening, while you've stayed below there, trying
to increase those fellaheens' stock of ignorance. What's the idea?"
"Oh, I prythee you, do not let my awayness beget your goat, howadji!"
pleaded Najib, ever sensitive to any hint of reproof from his master.
"It was that which made the grand tidings. If I had not of been where I
have been this evening--and doing what I have done--there would not be
any tidings at all. I made the tidings myself. Both of them. And I made
them for _you._ Is it that I may now tell them to you, howadji?"
"Go ahead," adjured Kirby, humouring the wistful eagerness of the man.
"What's the news you have for me?"
"It is more than just a 'news,' howadji," corrected Najib with jealous
regard for shades of meaning. "It is a tidings. And it is this: You and
my poor self and the fellaheen and even those hell-selected pashalik
soldiers--we are all to be rich. Most especially _you,_ howadji.
Wealthiness bewaits us all. No longer shall any of us be downward and
outward from povertude. No more shall any of us toil early and
belatedly. We shall all live in easiness of hours and with much payment.
_Inshallah! Alhandulillah!"_ he concluded, his rising excitement for
once bursting the carefully nourished bounds of English and overflowing
into Arabic expletive.
Noting his own lapse into his native language, he looked sheepishly at
Kirby, as though hoping the American had not heard the break. Then, with
mounting eagerness, Najib struck the climax of his narrative.
"To speak with a briefness, howadji," he proclaimed grandiloquently. "We
have all stroked ourselfs!"
"You've all done--what?" asked the puzzled Kirby.
"Not we alone, howadji," amended Najib, "but you also! We would not
berich ourselves and leave you outward in the plan. It is you also who
are to stroke yourself. And--"
"For the love of Heaven!" exclaimed Kirby in sudden loss of patience.
"What are you driving at? What do you mean about 'stroking yourselves'?
Say it in Arabic. Then perhaps I can find what you mean."
"It is not to be said in the Arabic, howadji," returned Najib, wincing
at this slur on his English. "For there is not such a thing in the
Arabic as to make strike. We make strike. Thus I say it we 'stroke
ourselves.' If it is the wrong way for saying it--"
"Strike?" repeated Kirby, perplexed. "What do you mean? Are you still
thinking about what I told you to-day? If you are going--"
"I have bethought of it, howadji, ever since," was the reply. "And it is
because of my much bethoughting that I found my splenderous plan. That
is my tidings. I bethought it all out with tremense clearness and
wiseness. Then I told those others, down yonder. At first they were of a
stupidity. For it was so new. But at last I made them understand. And
they rejoiced of it. So it is all settled most sweetly. You may not fear
that they will not stand by it. As soon as that was made sure I came to
you to tell--"
"Najib!" groaned Kirby, his head awhirl. "_Will_ you stop chewing chunks
of indigestible language, and tell me what you are jabbering about? What
was it you thought over? And what is 'all settled'? What will--"
"The strike, of an assuredly," explained Najib, as if in pity of his
chief's denseness. "To-night we make strike. All of us. That is one
tiding. And you, too, make strike with us. That is the other tiding.
Making two tidings. We make strike. To-morrow we all sleep late. No work
is to be made. And so it shall be, on each dear and nice and happy day,
until Cabell Effendi--be his sons an hundred and his wives true!--shall
pay us the money we ask and make short our hours of toil. Then--"
Kirby sought to speak. But his breath was gone. He only gobbled. Taking
the wordless sound for a token of high approval, Najib hastened on, more
glibly, with his program.
"On the to-morrow's morning, howadji," he said, "we enseech that you
will write a sorrowsome letter to Cabell Effendi, in the Broad Street of
New York; and say to him that all of us have made strike and that we
shall work no more until we have from his hands a writing that our
payment shall be two mejidie for every mejidie we have been capturing
from his company. Also and likewise that we shall work but half time.
And that you, howadji, are to receive even as we; save only that _your_
wage is to be enswollen to three times over than what it is now. And say
to him, howadji, that unless he does our wish in this striking we shall
slay all others whom he may behire in our place and that we shall
dynamitely destroy that nice mine. Remind him, howadji--if perchancely
he does not know of such things--that the law is with us. Say,
moreoverly, that there be many importanceful shipments and contracts
just now. And say he will lose all if he be so bony of head as to refuse
us. Furthermore, howadji, tell him, I prythee you, that we--"
A veritable yell from Kirby broke in on the smug instructions. The
American had recovered enough of his breath to expend a lungful of it in
one profane bellow. In a flash he visualized the whole scene at the
fellaheens' quarters--Najib's crazy explanation of the strike system and
of the supposed immunity from punishment that would follow sabotage and
other violence; the fellaheens' duller brains gradually seizing on the
idea until it had become as much a part of their mucilaginous mentality
as the Koran itself; and Najib's friendly desire that Kirby might share
in the golden benefits of the new scheme.
Yes, the American grasped the whole thing at once; his knowledge of the
East foretelling to him its boundless possibilities for mischief and for
the ruin of the mine's new prosperity. He fairly strangled with the gust
of wrath and impotent amaze which gripped him.
Najib smiled up at him as might a dog that had just performed some
pretty new trick, or a child who has brought to its father a gift. But
the aspect of Kirby's distorted face there in the dying firelight
shocked the Syrian into a grunt of terror. Scrambling to his feet, he
sputtered quaveringly.
"Tame yourself, howadji, I enseech you! Why are you not rejoiceful? Will
it not mean much money for you; and--"
"You mangy brown rat!" shouted Kirby in fury. "What in blazes have you
done? You know, as well as I do, that such an idea will never get out of
those fellaheens' skulls, once it's really planted there. They'll
believe every word of that wall-eyed rot you've been telling them! And
they'll go on a _genuine_ strike on the strength of it. They'll--"
"Of an assuredly, howadji, they will," assented the bewildered Najib. "I
made me very assured of that. Four times I told it all over to them,
until even poor Imbarak--whose witfulness hath been beblown out from his
brain by the breath of the Most High--until even Imbarak understood. But
why it should enrouse you to a lionsome raging I cannot think. I
bethought you would be pleasured--"