Chapter VI: Part ONE: The Book of His Luck (5)

Saïd stood a moment in doubt, as one bewildered. Then, finding Selìm in earnest, and seeing no spark of mockery in his eyes, he fell a-blubbering all at once and swooped upon his friend’s hand, kissing it repeatedly, and calling upon Allah to bless him for a good man—none like him in all the world.

XVI

For more than a month the partnership of Saïd with Selìm proved to the profit and contentment of both. But at length Saïd began to tire of it. His mind kept reverting to his roving life as to a period of great happiness.

To sit in the shade of an archway, where two noisy streams of wayfarers elbowed and jostled one another all day long, and cry aloud in praise of paltry wares, seemed a tame, not to say shameful, means of livelihood to one who had sipped of the cup of greatness. The wretched room, too, which he shared with Selìm vexed him with its meanness. It was buried away in the heart of the poorest and most crowded quarter. The approach was through a series of stinking tunnels, where one stirred a sleeping dog with every step, up a worn stairway always slippery with offal. Even at noon the daylight never reached it. The squalor and the evil smells were of no account to Saïd; but to abide in a quarter whose very name was a byword for wretchedness—that it was which disgusted him.

The delight of his partner each night, as by the light of a floating wick he told the trifling gains of the day, was another ground for discontent. What were a few paras to one who had held fourteen English pounds in the hollow of his hand? Of course it was true, as Selìm said with that cheery smile in which his white teeth themselves seemed light of heart, that a little, and a little, and again a little, becomes a great deal. But the slowness and labour of accumulation were irksome to Saïd. At their present rate of profit it would be three years at least before they could think of hiring that shop in the grand bazaar of which Selìm dreamt every night. Meanwhile, he hankered after the reckless life he had left for this; and each day added zest to his longing.

His mind was in this unsettled state as he walked with Selìm one evening homeward from their place of business. The basket carried between them was almost full, for there had been few purchasers. It was the worst day they had yet experienced, so that Saïd’s gloomy silence aroused no wonder in his partner. The ways were still thronged, though the time of dealing was past, and forms loomed grey and shadowy in the waning light. Dogs prowled watchful on the skirts of the crowd, aware that man’s intrusion was almost over, looking forward with dripping jaws to an undisturbed feast of refuse.

An aged man sat in the entry of a little mosque, holding out his hand and moaning persistently. The crowd, which now consisted of men hurrying homeward impatient of all hindrance, thrust the partners and their cumbrous burden very near to him. Of a sudden he lifted up his voice with alarming strength. The piercing whine had notes of triumph and of raillery.

“Allah will give to thee, O Emìr!… Help me for the love of Allah, or I die!… May Allah preserve thy Grace’s life for ever!… See, I have a hand which is withered!… O Lord!… I know thee, O Emìr, how great thou art! (Wait a little!) … Have not mine eyes beheld thy Majesty of old? (Among the olive-trees hast thou forgotten?) … Have mercy, or I die! (Depart from here a little way, watch where I go and follow me!) … O Lord!… There is no compassion left on the earth since the rich and great turn away their eyes from distress!”

The wail for alms was loud, for all the street to hear. Men looked for a prince, and beholding instead a pedlar of mean appearance, grinned and nudged each other as they hurried by. The words in parenthesis were low, for Saïd’s ear alone. Surprised, and a little disconcerted, he drew Selìm into the shadow of a wall, where they stood in no man’s way. Then he let go his handle of the skep and turned to observe the old beggar. Selìm, of course, did likewise, the basket compelling him.

“What ails thee, brother?” he asked in concern. “What is there between thee and that old man? What was it he whispered thee?”

“I met him once long ago,” rejoined Saïd, flurriedly. “He desires to speak with me apart. Maybe he brings news from my city, or of the woman I left sick by the way—Allah knows! Whatever his tidings, I must hear them.”

The beggar had got up and was making his slow way across the street, just where it widened forming a little square or open court before the mosque. His goal seemed to be a passage on the further side, just discernible as black and yawning in the hovering night. Saïd could hear the rascal’s whine as he hobbled through the stream of wayfarers which thinned with every minute, moaning and beseeching Allah like one in the last decrepitude. He saw him gain the passage and disappear down it. Then, hastily begging Selìm to wait for him, he followed.

The entry was pitch dark, so that peering in from the twilight he could see nothing at all. For two seconds Saïd was mortally afraid. The fall of night is an eerie time at best, and a dark tunnel with no perceptible outlet was just the place an afrìt would choose to lurk in. He recalled something devilish in the appearance of the old beggar, and was on the point of taking to his heels when a hand clutched his wrist and stayed him.

“What fearest thou? I am alone!” The voice in his ear was peevish even to anger. “It is well seen thou hast sojourned in the city, for thou hast the courage of a townsman already. Come in here for I must speak with thee!”

The entry grew less frightful to Saïd’s eyes. He suffered himself to be drawn into its gloom. Then in a trice the unseen speaker changed his tone to one of the gladdest welcome. He fell on Saïd’s neck and kissed him repeatedly on both cheeks, in spite of a curse-strengthened warning to keep off.

“Thou art the very image of my son,” he explained with a rapturous laugh. “In truth I am minded to adopt thee as the child of my soul. Now tell me, beloved, how has it fared with thee since last we met? Thou wast carrying a basket, I observed!—art become a trader? Thou silly one! By the time thou art old like me it may be that thou shalt have wealth enough to purchase a rich garment. Out upon thee! Hast exchanged the merry game of life for drudgery?”

Saïd drew a glowing picture of his altered fortunes, desiring to make his listener recognise the gulf fixed between a thriving and respected merchant and one who lives by alms. The embrace rankled in his mind as an indignity. He felt sullied and was eager to rid himself of the stain, which could be done only by greatly humbling his insulter. The old beggar heard him to an end, then he went on eagerly, as if nothing had been said,—

“Now listen!—leave thy paltry business and join with me! I had once a son on thy pattern but I drove him from me because he would wed with a girl whose father was a leper. I am proud and have ever counted lepers as dirt under my feet; so I cursed him and let him go. If thou wilt thou mayst replace him as my partner. Mark well, I do not require thee to beg. Allah be my witness—no! It is for other business that I need thy strength and youth.”

He sank his voice to a whisper, which seemed a snake’s hiss in the darkness. A lantern, borne swiftly past the grey mouth of the passage, illumined his face for a moment and showed it distorted with passion.

“I seek revenge—revenge,” he repeated, clutching Saïd’s arm. “There is in this city a certain dog—an unbeliever, rich and thriving—may his mother’s grave be defiled and his religion perish utterly!—who wronged me years ago. I have waited a long time—too long—for the chance to strike back. I grow old, and he also. It may be I shall die soon, or he may die; and in the grave there is no satisfaction. I tell thee, the time narrows. But I am old and alone; I sometimes fear lest I prove not strong enough. My son—may Allah destroy him!—might have helped me had he not been faithless. Thou canst replace him. I promise thee all good things instead of thy trade. Every month is Ramadan in the life of a man like me. We fast all day and stretch out our hands to chance comers, and when the night is come we feast and are merry. I give thee this choice—a prince’s life or a mule’s; and in the end thou shalt have great riches—the treasure of the Nazarene I told thee of. What sayest thou? Nay, answer not hastily, but go to thy house and ponder this that I have said to thee. To-morrow I shall remain till noon in the cellar of Nûr, the harlot. Go to the coffee-house of Abu Khalìl, which is against the castle—he will direct thee further. Depart with my peace. By my beard, thou art mighty like my son—mighty like Mansûr—may Allah blast him!”

Saïd lingered to question further, bidding Allah witness that to injure a Nazarene would give him the keenest pleasure, but he must have some notion of what would be expected of him. He was curious, too, to know why he, of all the city, had been singled out for confidence; but the old beggar checked him with,—

“To-morrow, when thou hast weighed the matter, I will enlighten thee. Thou calledst thyself Emìr when first I met thee in the olive grove. It may be others shall so call thee after a year or two if thou consent to throw in thy lot with me. Go in safety, O my dear!”

When he emerged again on the rough pavement before the mosque it was to find it deserted save by skulking dogs, and the stars intent upon it. The muezzin had long ago ceased chanting up in the gallery of the minaret. He had turned his face upon the spot where he had left Selìm, when,—

“I am here, O Saïd,” came a low voice from close behind him.

Glancing back he beheld his partner dragging their basket out of the gloom of the near wall, where he had been squatting. He must have overheard all. Saïd turned on him fiercely, ready to fly at his throat.

“What dost thou here? Did I not bid thee await me over yonder? Art thou my keeper, and am I a child that thou must needs dog and spy upon me?”

“Nay, O my brother, be not angry with Selìm! I listened not, though a word reached me now and then. How could I suffer my friend to be alone with a stranger in a place of evil seeming?—I know only that he tempted thee to forsake a thriving business and Selìm who is thy brother, and to cast in thy lot with him who is known for a beggar. Also I heard him appoint the house of a certain woman where thou mightest find him. The house of Nûr is infamous for a place of sin, the chosen resort of the most wicked.” His tone grew sad and reproachful as Saïd took the spare handle of the basket and they set forward once more.

“In what have I failed, O my brother, that thou shouldst desire to leave me? Have we not all things in common? Have I withheld aught from thee that was mine to give? I have great love for thee, O Saïd, because of the days we have toiled together and the nights we have slept side by side. Also I am bound to thee for the sake of that rich robe thy kindness bestowed, which procures me honour in the sight of all men. Heed not, I entreat thee, the words of this stranger, but continue with me. It is slow—not so?—this laying of a little to a little. But in this business of ours, with care wealth is sure at all events in the end, whereas the fortune which he holds out to thee may come suddenly and without pain, but it is not sure. I once heard a wise man say that wealth gained without labour does not profit a man. He that said it was old and had been rich; I believe that he knew.”

They threaded the stinking black tunnels and climbed the foul steps which led to their room. There, having set down the basket in a corner, Selìm busied himself with getting a light and then went out to fetch some supper from a cook-house, leaving his friend sitting thoughtful on a cushion by the wall. After a while Saïd rose and went out also, mounting to the roof of the house by an obscure stairway. Alone under the stars, with the murmur of the city like a floating veil around him, he prayed and gave thanks to Allah, facing southwards to where the dark mountains frowned like a stronghold. When he returned Selìm had ready a mess of lentils such as he loved and smiled to him to fall to.

Saïd fell on his friend’s neck and kissed him.

“By Allah, thou art a good man!” he cried. “Kinder than a brother hast been to me. May Allah blot me out if ever I forsake thee!”

XVII

At sunrise Saïd sat with the old beggar in the vault of Nûr the harlot. A beam of young daylight glanced through the open door on the worn flags of steps which led down from the alley without. A dewy mist of dawn flooded also a kind of small court, like a shaft between the houses, which pertained to the cellar and gave air and light to it through two open arches of masonry. By one of these arches a stone stairway was seen mounting up along the wall to a platform or landing, formed of a single slab, which was the doorstep of an upper chamber. There was a sumptuous room, old Mustafa told Saïd in an ecstatic whisper, softly carpeted and furnished with couches such as the maids of Paradise would not disdain. It was there that lovers of distinction met by Nûr’s contriving and spent happy hours together.

Abu Khalìl, the taverner of whom, according to the advice of Mustafa, Saïd had inquired his way, had wagged his fat head knowingly when questioned concerning this woman.

“The shameful name sticks,” he had said, “being like pitch—very hard to rub off. Yet she is now a recognized matchmaker and has access to every harìm. Young men who would have sight of their betrothed find a friend in her, and ladies who love other than their lords employ her, it may be, as a go-between. I speak not of my own knowledge,” he had added, shaking the dust from his robe. “That is what is said of her …. Thou askest why does she harbour a beggar? Allah knows! It may be she has a liking for Mustafa, who is a queer old man and says things to make one laugh. It may be that he gathers news which is useful to her in her business. There be many who bless her—this is sure. Perhaps a few curse her—that is not known.”

Saïd found her tall and upright, strong and masterful as a man. She was quite old in spite of the enamel mask of pink and white which hid her wrinkles. Darkening matter artfully rubbed under her eyes to give them a languishing look could not altogether conceal the crow’s-feet beneath, and the eyes themselves had the hard, unnatural lustre of jewels, very different from the sparkle of youth. Her brown fingers, which she did not whiten until after noon, were loaded with rings, of which the large common stones—sard and coarse amethyst, onyx and amber—stood out like bunions. Bracelets and armlets of tarnished brass and silver rattled and clanked like fetters with every movement of her limbs; strings of glass beads and amulets of all kinds adorned her scraggy neck and her bosom. She was kneeling just then by the brazier, with swelled cheeks fanning a feeble glow that was loth to become a fire. She wore no veil, being at home, but the hood of her blue garment, richly embroidered with gold thread, which she could draw across her face when bashfulness was required of her.

The old beggar sat with Saïd on the threshold of a dark inner room, of whose furniture no more was discernible through the doorway than a cushioned divan running round the walls. He was talking eagerly and fondling Saïd’s hand, touching now his leg, now his arm, as if he gloried in the strength of his new ally.

“Now thou knowest why I have chosen thee and no other,” he was saying. “I loved thee on that day when first I saw thee because of thy likeness to my son, Mansûr. Since then I have been to thy city, where all men tell of thy flight as a strange thing. It was not known whither thou wast fled nor why, nor to what purpose. But I, being shrewd, asked them: Who profits by his departure? and they told me, ‘Abdullah abu Azìz, for the house and the fig-tree and the nets of Saïd are fallen to him.’ (Ah, he is a clever one—that Abdullah!—one who will surely rise to honour. I sat once in a tavern where he spoke of thee as a dear brother he had lost.) I perceived clearly that this Saïd the Fisherman of whom they talked was no other than the Emìr Saïd with whom I conversed by the way. I thought much of thee for the sake of my son, Mansûr, who forsook me, and also because I knew thee destitute. When a man has nothing he is not particular what work he undertake if only there be profit in it, and I stood greatly in need of such an one to help me in the business which thou wottest of. By my head, when I saw thee last evening in the street my heart leapt with joy as if thou hadst been in truth my son. Allah is merciful!

“Now, hear the story why I hate Yuhanna the Nazarene. Attend now and judge whether I have not cause enough to execrate him. Many years ago I slew my sister with this right hand.” He sank his voice to a whisper with a meaning glance at the old woman. “She would have become even as Nûr there, I tell thee, had I suffered her to live. He lured her to the city, and then, after he was sated, he cast her out and placed her in a house of shame of which he was owner. But I found her. We were but poor fellahìn of no honour or account, yet not one of all my family but would have done as I did. I slew her and she bared her own breast to the knife.

“It was in the days of Ibrahìm Basha the Egyptian—a good time, by Allah, though one must not say so now that the Turks are again our masters. But there was strict justice for all men then, a Christian being the equal of a Muslim in the eyes of the Government. I went to the house of the Cadi and I kissed the earth between his feet, and I told him all my story as if it had been a figment of my own brain. I asked him: ‘What would your honour do if it had been his sister?’ and he replied, ‘By Allah, I would slay her and destroy that infidel with all his father’s house.’

“I answered: ‘Good, O my Lord: the first I have accomplished; the second I will perfect ere I die.’ At first he was angry at the fraud, for he had supposed me a professed taleteller; but afterwards he laughed, and called me a rogue, and bade me mind to do nothing which the law forbids.

“The dog Yuhanna and the old jackal, his father, were rich after the manner of unbelievers, that is to say secretly and by foul means. Acting as the agents of a notable of this city they lent money to us villagers wherewith to buy seed and took the greater part of the harvest in payment. Between them and the tithe-farmer there was little left for us on our threshing-floors. They lent money also to the great ones of the Government and claimed no payment at all, thus gaining protection and influence beyond all others of their accursed race. After the abduction of Lulu, my sister, they conceived a hatred for my father’s house. They persecuted us—may Allah quench the fire on their hearth! Ah, they were clever!”

He raised eyes and hands to the vaulted roof and remained thus a minute lost in admiration of their subtlety.

“There came a bad harvest. They clamoured for immediate payment of the seed they had advanced to us, pretending to act merely as bailiffs for Muhammed Effendi, but the mind of the unbeliever was well seen in what followed. Our houses became the property of the notable, so they said, the property of Muhammed Effendi, but in practice theirs. My father and my brethren lived on in the village; they were like trees which have struck deep root in the ground, which to transplant is to kill. But I, being young and full of pride, chose rather to roam the land as a beggar than to feed as a slave from the hand of my enemy. I have had much joy of life since then, yet have I never forgotten the shame of my house nor the oath which I swore solemnly before the Cadi himself. And now that the allotted hour grows nigh, behold, Allah sends thee to me in the nick of time. By my beard, I blame thee not for forsaking thy woman; it seems to me that thou didst well to get rid of her. What use, I ask, in keeping her since thou sayest she was barren? And thou art more serviceable to me as a lone man. Allah is just!” He thought fit to embrace his new adherent and slobber over him in a very fatherly way, much to Saïd’s annoyance.

“Enough! enough!” muttered the fisherman, pushing him off. “Of a surety I will aid thee in this business. But tell me, I pray thee, O my uncle, how came thy hand to be withered.”

The old beggar threw back his head and laughed so that the whole roof of his mouth was displayed and its horse-shoe of broken yellow teeth. The subject considered, such merriment was frightful to Saïd; it made him shudder. The woman started up in alarm to her full height, and, with an oath, pronounced him mad.

“Ah, ha, ha! I have a withered hand. It is curious—not so? Know then that it befell me in this wise: While I was yet new to the work I met a beggar who had his arm withered to the shoulder like the dead branch of a tree. He told me that it brought him great wealth and marvelled much how I could move pity, being whole and in the best of health. Inquiring if he had been born like that, he laughed at me for a simpleton. He said it is easy—nothing easier in all the world; and he promised to teach me the way of it. I had thought to take service as a muleteer or otherwise, but the talk of his riches and his merry life changed my mind. We were together two days and became friends. On the third day we reached the town and he sought out a certain dervìsh and brought me to him. I went in whole and sound even as thou art; I came forth with this hand in the state thou seest. It is a trick—no more. At first one has to be careful lest the blood should flow back to it; but that is all. It has been my stock-in-trade, the head of my wealth.”

Of a sudden he bent down and pinched Saïd’s leg rapturously. “Aha, what a leg! Behold, O Nûr, how stout and strong it is! I know one in the city who would treat it for thee—up to the knee! By Allah, that is all I ask—only to the knee! Ah, it would look sweet—beautiful! It would bring tears to any man’s eyes when he compared it with its brother, and on one so young. Only up to the knee; what sayest thou? I tell thee, my dear, there is wealth in it—money—much money! But no, alas! it cannot be; for all thy strength may be needed in the work of vengeance.”

There was something foul and inhuman about this rhapsody which made Saïd kick and edge away with loathing as from the touch of a ghoul. The old beggar eyed him reproachfully.

“Ah, now thou art very like Mansûr—very like my son!” he murmured, with a remembering shake of his head. “Mansûr would never consent to have so much as a finger treated, though I besought him with tears for hours together. The young are ever so boastful of strength and blind to their own advantage. And now, O my soul, if thou art ready I will show thee the house of Yuhanna the Nazarene that thou mayest know it among others for the house of an enemy.”

He rose and went to where Nûr was munching bread and olives, with jaws cramped by the stiff coat of paint on her cheeks. He whispered a few words to her, while Saïd stretched himself and yawned, glad to breathe free of a place which the queer behaviour of his new friend had rendered distasteful. Then together they mounted the broken stairs and issued forth into the dewy shadow in which the newly-risen sun steeped the narrow roadway.

XVIII

Mustafa led on by unfrequented tunnels and passages avoiding as far as might be the main streets, where professional pride obliged him to put on an appearance of extreme feebleness and whine despairingly as one in the clutch of a devil. At last, in a narrow lane between high walls, with never a lattice, he stopped before a low door which was open.

“This is the house of the pig—the house of Yuhanna!” he whispered. “I will enter—it is the beggar’s privilege. Do thou follow as far as thou canst without being seen!”

A narrow passage turned at right angles after a few yards, so that the interior of the house could not be looked into from the street. This notion of an entrance the wealthier Christians and Jews had borrowed from their Muslim neighbours. With the latter it secured the harìm from wanton intrusion when taking air in the courtyard, as common politeness prompts every visitor to cry aloud on crossing a threshold. In the case of the former it served chiefly to screen the inner luxury of the house from envious eyes, and so preserve its owner from extortion or robbery. In each instance plenty of rubbish and offal was strewn at the outer gate and the passage maintained in as foul a state as possible, as a blind to the tax-gatherer going his round of observation, that the house might be assessed at a low rate.

On turning the corner Saïd was quite unprepared for the scene of splendour which burst upon his sight. There was a small quadrangle of two storeys high, its walls inlaid with arabesque figures as a frieze under the roof and as medallions between the windows. The pavement, worn uneven in places, was arranged in a chequer of black and white stone. A few lemon-trees in the centre formed a bower over a tank of clear water fed by a freshet that flowed through the midst of the court in a toy channel. But what charmed him and held his eyes, to the exclusion of all other beauties, was a girl twelve or thirteen years of age, with black hair plaited in two long tresses, and a skin like cream. She was playing with a baby boy in the rich shadow beyond the space of sunlight. A creeping plant upon the wall behind her had large green leaves and trumpet-flowers of gorgeous purple. A pair of white butterflies flirted above her head just where the sunlight veiled the shadow in golden dust.

Her laughter, ringing clear and silvery in Saïd’s ears, seemed part of the spell which held him motionless there, at the angle of the passage, with a new hunger in his eyes. He licked his lips, which were parched of a sudden, and tingled from head to foot.

The old beggar tottered across the open space of sunshine, making a great clatter with his staff upon the pavement.

“Allah will give to thee, O my lady! I am a poor man and very old …. Have pity!… O Lord!… See, I have a hand that is withered! Allah will give to thee!… For the love of Allah, help me or I die. O mistress of beauty, O daughter of kindness, turn not thy face from my misery!… O Lord!… Allah will give to thee!”

Saïd watched every movement of the girl ravenously, feeling uplifted by a great yearning. He saw her start in terror at the first sound of the old rascal’s plaint; but fear changed swiftly to compassion, and, with a gesture bidding him wait, she disappeared in the gloom of a doorway. His eyes remained steadfast on the place where she had last been.

The old beggar stooped down as if to fondle the little child, but in reality to pinch him spitefully. A howl of pain uprose, which the honeyed words of Mustafa, spoken soothingly in a loud and whining voice, were powerless to abate.

Presently the girl returned, followed closely by an old woman, who seemed a servant. With a smile which caught at Saïd’s breath she put some money in the old man’s palm and bade him go in peace. Mustafa kissed her lily hand repeatedly, while the old serving-woman took the baby in her arms and strove to quiet it. Then he hobbled away, ceasing not to praise Allah in a loud voice, calling down all blessings on the illustrious lady’s head, till he was in the gloom of the passage close to Saïd, when he muttered, with virulence,—

“May the girl be ravished! May her father be slain before her eyes, and her little brother butchered in her arms! Allah witness, I have waited long enough. The hour of the ruin of this house draws nigh.”

“She is a darling—a pearl!” breathed Saïd in his ear. “I am sick for love of her. As one athirst in the desert craves a cup of water, so is my desire for her. O my soul! O my eyes! O my beloved!”

They were out in the street by this time. The narrow way was very quiet, the sun beating down fiercely upon it. There was no one in sight.

The old beggar stopped short and confronted Saïd, striking his stick on the paving-stones.

“Thou sayest well,” he hissed, surprise and glee together in his eyes, “very well! By Allah’s leave thou shalt enjoy her—if it were my last word, thou shalt possess her; so the dishonour of my father’s house shall be fitly avenged. Allah reward thee, O Saïd! child of my soul. A young man’s passion sees further at times than an old man’s forethought. Wait a little while in patience. The faithful grow mad against these pagans, who sit in high places by favour of the Franks they serve. I see the wrath of Islâm gather like a storm-cloud black and low over the dwellings of the infidels. I hear the voice of the thunder afar off. The heavens quiver because of the white lightning. A little while and the storm will burst to overwhelm the whole race of them.”

Leaning on his staff, the old man lifted pious eyes to the strip of living blue stretched like an awning above the high white walls. There was something noble in his bearing as a prophet denouncing the wicked. For the first time Saïd felt in awe of him.

“If Allah will thou shalt have her, I say! Of a truth thou lackest not understanding. I who am wise had never thought of it in all the years that I ponder the matter. Now thou art dearer to me than Mansûr—dearer than my own son! Have a little patience and I warrant thee thou shalt have her. Only forget not, when thy desire is spent, to put her away into a house of shame. Forget not that, I say, for it is the crowning point! So shall my vengeance be perfect. Praise be to Allah!”

“May Allah increase thy wealth,” said the fisherman, moistening his lips. “By the Coràn, I care nothing for the treasure of the Christian pig so that I may have his daughter.”

“Thou shalt have her and half of the treasure as well,” said Mustafa, rapturously, as they moved forward; “and when I die the whole of the treasure will fall to thee. Let Mansûr cleave to his leprous wife; I wash my hands of the dirt of him, for he is no more my son. In truth, I am very happy. I must not stretch out my hand to-day, for glad laughter would come in the midst of my plaint, and who would give to a joyful beggar? Come with me to the house of Abu Khalìl, where the coffee is worth a Turkish pound each cupful ….”

He broke off and collapsed in a second from a hale and upright old man to a starving wretch with one foot in the grave. His withered hand thrust out before him, he tottered along, leaning heavily upon the staff; and his piteous moans wrung their meed of compassion from the heart of every passer-by. Saïd followed a few paces in his rear. Thus they traversed the junction of three busy markets—a place thronged to overflowing with a hustling, multi-coloured crowd, through which a train of camels laden with pelts were pushing a slow way, not without frantic shouting on the part of their drivers.

Striking into a dark and deserted by-way, Mustafa resumed his natural shape. Saïd was inclined to be loud in his admiration of these rapid changes; but the old beggar dismissed all such flattery by a majestic wave of his hand.

“It is habit, O my son! After well-nigh forty years of practice thou couldst do it as well as I—perhaps better—Allah knows!”

XIX

Abu Khalìl, the fat taverner, sat in the doorway of his shop, blinking at the sunlight on the rough stones of the castle wall. Piercing cries of importunate salesmen, warning shouts of donkey-boys and muleteers—all the hubbub of the neighbouring market reached him as a hum of insects. He nodded with it after the manner of the very fat, to whom the world’s bustle is a perpetual lullaby.

A few dogs lay stretched in the sun’s eye as if they had a mind to be well roasted throughout. Beneath a dirty awning, spread to shelter a stall of candies and sherbet, a white-turbaned negro, its owner, was dozing in the yellow shade beside his wares, his cheek reposing on a certain dainty of white sugar, fine-spun and silky, which hung tangled tresses over the end of a wooden case. A tod of hyssop, springing from a rift in the old stonework, had dusty leaves and looked sickly in contrast with its pendant of deep shadow. A green lizard slumbered on a jutting stone. Abu Khalìl blinked at all these things until they mixed in rosy haze before his eyes. The lizard seemed to fall upon the awning, the negro and his sweetmeats were lifted up to meet it, the hyssop swelled to a great tree, and Abu Khalìl’s head dropped forward with a grunt of surrender.

When Saïd and the old beggar came upon him he was fast asleep and snoring. His fat chin formed three several folds upon his breast, his hands were clasped loosely upon his well-filled girdle. He looked up with a start as their shadows fell short and black on the cobbles before him; but it was more likely the clap of their slippers which awakened him. With a noise between a camel’s groan and the puff of a swimmer he half-rose to welcome them. The huge mass moved grudgingly, forming strange creases at the joints.

“May thy day be happy, O Mustafa! How is business?” he muttered sleepily, and fell back at once to the restful posture which suited his bulk. His glance of recognition at Saïd was keener, being mixed with curiosity.

“So thou didst find thy way, effendi? I am happy.” His eyes expressed an indolent wish to know what could have drawn a young man whose beard was nicely trimmed, who was clad in a decent robe of striped silk not very greasy, to consort with that aged scapegrace.

“What is there to eat?” asked Mustafa, choosing a seat within the tavern. “This day is a festival with me, for I have recovered my son who was lost. So I said to my soul: O Soul, we must rejoice and be lazy until the evening, because it has pleased Allah to restore my son to me who have been long desolate. Furthermore I said: O Soul, we will repair to the house of Abu Khalìl, the illustrious—may Allah preserve him to us!—where the coffee is worth a Turkish pound the cupful, and the smell of the fried beans would make a prince hungry. Ah, beans are excellent, O my uncle, and it is near noon. What hast thou in the house?”

The fat host returned thanks for the flattering terms in which this demand was couched by half-rising as before, saluting, and wagging his head humbly. He called upon Allah to shower all blessings on the head of his friend Mustafa, to make him happy in his son; and then in the same breath—a long one for him—shouted crossly to someone within, by the name of Camr-ud-dìn, to pound coffee with all speed and prepare a mess of beans to fry. Then the spark of excitement died down and he became torpid once more.

Saïd and his adopted father were earnest in their discussion of the beans when they appeared. The bowl might have been licked out by dogs, so clean they left it. Each drank two cupfuls of the famous coffee and accepted the offer of a narghileh. And then their words became ever less frequent, until they went the way of Abu Khalìl, falling fast asleep one after the other.

For hours they dozed on by fits and starts. The place was very quiet except for a distant murmur from without, soothing as the sough of reeds in the wind, and an occasional din of pots and pans from the inner closet, where Camr-ud-dìn and his mother were always at work.

When at last Saïd became wide awake it was towards evening and the tavern was crowded. With strained knuckles he rubbed the cobwebs of a dream from his eyes and let off the remains of sleep in a mighty yawn. Mustafa had removed his stool to a little distance, so as to be within earshot of a group whose talk appeared to interest him greatly.

A young man, who seemed of consequence, was holding forth to a half-circle of humble admirers hanging upon his words with mouths agape. His turban, finely embroidered, bound a fez which, if not new, was certainly newly-blocked. His overcoat of emerald green, falling loose to his heels when he stood upright, was edged all over with fur. It was now flung carelessly open, displaying a robe of striped silk, own brother to that which Saïd wore, though the relationship was somewhat obscured in the latter’s case by dirt. The gravity with which he stroked his beard, at the same time letting his keen brown eyes range over the faces of his hearers, was very impressive. The confidence of his speech, and the rhetorical flourishes with which he emphasised each point, spoke him a lawyer, and might have spared him the frequent statement of his calling. Following the example of his companion, Saïd hitched forward his stool to listen. “I that am a lawyer and know what right is—I tell you,” the orator was saying, “that this state of things cannot endure. It is not to be borne. In the olden time, when the infidels were duly held in subjection under us, was there any strife?—I ask you, was there any such bitter hatred as there is nowadays? The fault lies with the Franks, who play the rulers in this land and presume to guide the hand of the Government. Is the Sultàn the servant of any man that they should thus lord it in his dominions? But two months since occurred a flagrant instance of their meddling, when a judgment of his Eminence, the Mufti, against a certain Nazarene was set aside as a thing of naught by the Wâly’s order. And for what reason?”

The lawyer spread out his hands and smiled fiercely.

“And why? Think you that his Excellency, the Wâly, would incline to act thus of his own volition? Never! It was because certain of the Frankish consuls went to him and said in his ear that Fulân was under foreign protection. Is the pride of Islâm dead that such things are borne with meekness? Is the tiger become a lamb?… I ask all of you here—Who is the governor of Damashc-ush-Shâm?—and you tell me, his Excellency, Ahmed Basha, his honour, the Wâly. I say no! and again no! Ahmed Basha—may Allah preserve him!—and all who bear rightful authority over us are but the servants of the Franks …. Behold they gather upon us like vultures, they contend which shall have the greatest share of the spoil—that is, of the wealth of Islâm. Woe is me, for the end of all things draws nigh! The cross is set above the crescent, the feet above the head. If any oppose them they cry aloud to their masters, the powers of Europe, and great ships are sent across the sea to lay waste our coasts; as was done, you may remember, not two years since at Jedda, where the townsfolk had risen as one man to exterminate the Christians. O Allah, Most High, how long must these things be? How long wilt Thou suffer the heathen to triumph over Thy faithful?”

He paused with hands and eyes upraised. A fierce murmur of applause spread to the uttermost corners of the room. All the idlers had left their talk to listen. One or two that were unbelievers slunk out at the door, thankful for the excitement which allowed them to escape unheeded.

“The Turks themselves are not much better than the Franks,” said a short man, hardily. “They say that the Sultàn is a pagan secretly. It is sure that his likeness—a thing forbidden and accursed—hangs over his head where he sleeps. Ah, if we sons of the Arab had but a Khalìfa of our own race we would shake off the Franks as a waking man brushes fleas from his raiment!”

An awe-stricken hush followed this bold utterance. All looked to the lawyer, whose eyes were wrathful on the rash man who dared to speak treason in his presence in a public place. Himself had no great cause to love the Turks, but spies were everywhere, and it was always wise to speak good of the authorities. Besides, he hoped one day to obtain the post of Cadi, and to that end was anxious to stand well with the Government. Very sternly, therefore, he bade that madman hold his peace. The rebuke he thought fit to administer was thickly interspersed with praise of all the Sultàn’s delegates, from Ahmed Pasha, the nervous old general set to rule over a turbulent province, to himself who hoped some day to be Cadi. Then, when the seditious one had no more treason left in him, but was become limp all over and hung his head, he took up the burden of his previous speech.

“These Christians wax rich. They multiply beyond measure while our numbers dwindle by reason of the thousands of our young men who are slain in war. The Christians furnish no men to the army; they swoon at sight of a sword or a gun. Yet they murmur because a tax is required of them in place of soldiers. They go weeping to their consuls because each of them is obliged to pay—it may be twelve piastres a year. Of old, as is well known, all the world that is under the hand of the Sultàn was divided into two houses—the House of Islâm and the House of War. Now the Nazarenes, being dwellers in the House of War, had to pay, each man, a small sum yearly for his life. It was just, for are they not the vanquished and their lives duly forfeit to Islâm. Now, by favour of the Government, that tax is remitted, and the bedelíeh askerieh laid on them instead. Yet they grumble, saying that the tax—a very light one—is too heavy for them to bear. Are they not rich? Do they not thrive and grow fat among us by trade and usury? The Frankish consuls, I tell you, are the root of their discontent. They stir them up to anger us, that there may be an excuse to destroy us. The Franks move us all as pieces in a game. They pit us one against another and stand by, ready to fall upon the conqueror and overcome him while he is weary. O day of misfortune! O day of ruin for the Faith!

“You have heard how a Nazarene did lately pollute the harìm of a respected Muslim in this city. The culprit—Jurji by name—is now in prison awaiting his doom. Of right he should die, for a man’s house is a sacred place and a breach of hospitality is the blackest of all crimes in the sight of Allah. Yet it is known that a Frankish consul—one who has the ear of the Wâly—is active on his behalf. He may be released without punishment. What say you to that? Is so great a wrong to be borne tamely? Since these things are so, were it not seemly that the faithful should rise as one man against the heathen and slay every living soul of them, and burn their houses with fire? Allah is just!”

The sun had set behind the mountains and twilight was stealing on the street without. The shadow in the tavern from being blue and limpid was become black and opaque. The coo of the doves floated on a tired murmur. Through the open door the negro merchant was seen to take down his awning, bestow his wares carefully in a battered packing-case, and finally to invert the trestle which served him for a stall, and laying the case and the folded awning between the legs, drag it away with him. The wall which closed the outlook was pale and dead-looking, the bush of hyssop making a dark blot upon it. Abu Khalìl was awake at last. He stood by the threshold of the inner room, trimming a lantern with ponderous leisure.

The old beggar leaned forward with flaming eyes. He laid his sound hand on the delicate woof of the lawyer’s sleeve.

“I am with thee, effendi!” he cried. “Whenever the cry of the Faith is raised, Mustafa will be ready! I will spare none of them!” he yelled with sudden frenzy—“not one! Old men and young, women and little ones, shall die, and in their death I will spit upon them and spurn them with my foot. But the girls, effendi”—he sank his voice to an eager whisper—“the girls should not be slain. There are sweet ones among them—not so, Saïd, my son? They whose fathers hate and revile the Faith shall give birth to true believers. Each one of them shall suckle a Muslim at her white breasts. I am with thee I say! But wait, thou hast not heard what was done to my sister, nor yet the oath which I swore before the Cadi in the time of Ibrahìm Basha the Egyptian. Aha, that is a good story—capital!…”

With a gesture of contempt and impatience, in which there was a leaven of terror, the lawyer shook himself free of the old man’s grasp.

“Thou art mad!” he exclaimed. “What have I in common with thee?” Then a little ashamed of the fear he had shown, he continued, in a very firm voice,—

“Am I he that gives orders to the faithful? I do but utter that which every believer knows to be true. You have heard how it has been foretold that when the first of the sevens shall fall the ruin of Islâm will begin; when time shall invert the second it shall be completed. Are we not now in the year 1277 of the Hejra? The first of the sevens is about to fall, and with the third year hence the second will fall in its turn. In the insolence of the Nazarenes and the growing power of their protectors we see the seed of destruction. If the sun of the Faith must set—which Allah forbid!—I say let its setting be like unto its rising long ago! Let flames of burning houses lick the sky, and the blood of the idolaters flow like a great river. I foresee war. It breaks out in the Mountain, where the Mowarni openly declare themselves to be subject to the French alone. They grow boastful and overrate their strength. Soon they will provoke the Drûz, who, though less numerous than they, are braver by a great deal and better skilled in warfare. Who but Allah can foresee the end of it? But I, being a lawyer and learned, tell you that as a spark falling amid a heap of touchwood, so is a little war in a land of discontent. Though but ten men rise boldly against the heathen, in a few days there will be slaughter from Haleb to Oman! Allah be with you! May your evening be happy, O my friends!”

With a slight reverence to the company, which called forth a storm of compliment and blessing, he rose, and gathering his furred garment about him sauntered forth into the twilight.

Abu Khalìl had lighted the lantern by this time, and it hung from a hook beside the inner door. Its ruddy beams shone on swarthy faces of excitement, turned one to another in the flow of talk which comes, like a sigh of relief, after the strain of a thrilling story. To most men there it was nothing but a tale they had just heard; a little more stirring, perhaps, than other tales, because it told of a future they might all see instead of a past which they had never known. They speedily dispersed once more into groups, chatting eagerly of more homely topics.

It was night—the time when devils lurk in every dark entry and keep festival in every ruined dwelling. One man told a gruesome story of how his brother once slew a jinni by accident. It happened in that very city, in a street not a hundred paces from where they were sitting. Even at that early hour the flesh of every listener crept deliciously, and close-shorn heads put forth bristles under turbans.