CHAPTER III

In the shadow of one of the walls of the castle of Amasia two boys were resting during the hot noon-tide, for it was near the end of May and the summer sun was already scorching the plains and reducing the size of the Iris as it flowed along the gorge.

Another two years had wrought a change in John and his friend, Ali the Turk. They were fourteen and fifteen respectively, but John had outgrown Ali, both in height and breadth. This slight period had further developed the English boy who now looked sturdy and thickset in comparison with the slim Turk. They had climbed all the morning, starting out before the sun had dried the dew on the ground. Ali's uncle had shown them over the castle, a treat that had been postponed through one cause and another until this day. The excursion had been made at last because the two boys would soon be parted.

In three days' time, John was setting out with his father for England. Of that journey and the wonder that awaited him at the end of it, John had talked for months, and Ali eagerly listened to every detail of the new life his friend would soon be living. England, to Ali, was a country of fabulous wealth, where great lords lived in wonderful houses; most of them were soldiers, and the country in which they lived was so small that open spaces were almost unknown. It was from John that he gained his first conception of a public school, which seemed something very unlike the great schools in Constantinople where his father would send him one day. As the two boys rested in the shade they were busy with their own thoughts. Below them, almost under the high rock where they lay, crouched the town of Amasia. They had a bird's-eye view down the gorge, and across to the opposite precipice walling in the valley. They could see the course of the winding river until it abruptly turned from sight in the bend of the valley; they counted the bridges intersecting its silver stream, and saw behind the trees fringing its banks, the flat-topped houses, the slender minarets, dwarfed by the height from which they looked, and the patternless maze of baths, domes, khan courtyards, and mosques covering the narrow valley. Far up the eastern precipice they could follow the winding highway, climbing like a white ribbon, until it reached even higher than the rock where they lay, and disappeared over the pass leading to Marsovan.

As they watched and half dreamed, they heard the muezzin calling to prayer. Ali straightway arose, and as if John had not been present, performed his elaborate genuflections, bowing his head to the ground. John did not watch Ali closely. On such occasions he always felt a little awkward and hardly knew what he should do. He did not wish to give Ali an impression of irreverence; on the other hand, he was English and a Christian, and felt he had something which he should uphold. He pretended therefore, whenever Ali performed his religious exercises, not to be aware of them. The subject was one they never discussed, each avoiding it with caution.

When Ali had finished, he stood up and looked at John in silence for a minute. His friend lay on his back, one leg crossed over the other, with a brown arm propping up the sunburnt face and head. As if aware that Ali was watching him, John sat upright.

"Ali," he said, "let's have a bathe, I'm baked! Is there any water near?"

"There's a stream half a mile down, it runs into the Iris, I've often bathed there--shall we go?"

"Yes!" cried John, springing up. They set off at a brisk pace over the rocky ground. They found the stream, and as if constructed for bathing there was a deep pool where it turned into a rocky crevice. Eager to cool their sun-weary limbs, the two boys were soon stripped, and splashed and shouted in the clear water. As they swam they seemed like silver fishes in the crystalline stream, and long practice had made them adept swimmers. John who had been looking for a place from which to dive, soon found a jutting rock lower down the stream. Calling to Ali, he mounted it and stood poised for the dive. As he did so, he stood up straight, cutting the brilliant sky with his slim brown body. Ali, looking up stared at his friend, for although only fifteen he had the Asian's keen appreciation of beauty. Behind John's head the sunlight danced in his wind-fluttered hair, it gilded his shoulders and rimmed with silver the outline of his young body, and as the muscles quivered, the wet flesh gleamed like a burnished shield.

As he watched, John raised his arms straight above his head, the slim body was taut for a moment, the muscles contracted, then suddenly relaxed themselves and rippled as the shining figure leapt through the air and fell like a silver arrow into the blue pool below. For a moment the diver disappeared under a broken bubbled surface, and then, spluttering and laughing, John had reappeared. Ali stood on the bank, shivering despite the heat. He was unhappy and could not shake off a heavy sense of doom. What oppressed him he did not quite know, he could only attribute it in some way to John going away from him to a distant land.

Swimming to the side, John climbed the bank and was amazed to find Ali not there. Their clothes lay together all in a heap, so it was impossible for him to have gone far. There was nothing to be heard save the hum of insects and the soft whisper of the grasses as they bent under the breeze. Ali would come back soon, he thought, as he lay down in the grass. It was delicious to feel the wind pass over his body. It touched him as though it delighted in rippling over the flesh and he felt its cool hand play on his shoulders then run swiftly down to his stomach, along his legs and finally make a queer sensation on the soles of his feet. He let his head fall and half-turned on his side. The wind blew down his back and between his legs deliciously. Why didn't Ali come, where had he gone?--it must be nearly two o'clock, they would have a . . . .

When John awoke he had a feeling it was late afternoon. The sky above him was not such a brilliant blue, some of the lustre had gone out of it. The stream sang louder than before, otherwise there was perfect quiet, for the insects had ceased humming. All at once he realised he was naked. Of course, he had been bathing and had slept in the grass, waiting for Ali! Where was Ali? John got up and then gave a low cry. His friend too, was fast asleep at his side. John stretched out his hand to wake him, when he felt something upon his head. It was a wreath, twined out of asphodel, pressed over his brow like a crown. He drew it off with a laugh. Ali had been playing tricks. His laughter woke Ali, who sat up.

"Hadn't we better get dressed?" asked John, standing up. "What's the wreath for?"

"To crown you."

John laughed gaily, and then checked himself, for there was an expression of pain on Ali's face. His friend was now on his knees, his sunburnt body erect, and he was looking at him from under a brow half hidden with hair tousled by the wind. John had never seen Ali look like that before. The eyes were no longer those of a merry lad, but belonged rather to a suffering dumb brute. As John looked down at him, their eyes met, and a low cry escaped Ali's lips.

"What is it, Ali?" John asked, stooping, and his question seemed to loose a floodgate of the emotions, for Ali flung his arms round the boy's ankles, and sobbed as if his heart would break.

Like all males, John hated the sight of tears; it made him feel awkward; he knew not what to say or do. So he just stood still and looked down at the bowed back of his friend. Then, unable to watch Ali's distress any longer, he bent down, and with sheer strength, lifted him on to his feet and held him just as a mother would a troubled child. Somehow, John felt years older, and Ali seemed like a baby--it was strange, because Ali had always been so silent, so reserved, with a kind of hidden strength which had often made John admire him secretly.

"I say, Ali--you mustn't go on like this,--what is the matter?"

"You are going away, John effendi."

"Yes, but I shall come back,--besides why do you worry so?"

"You are my friend, John effendi--I would never leave you--you are more to me than a brother."

"Thanks, Ali--we--we've been great friends, and when I come back--"

"You will come back?"

"Of course I shall! I shall spend my summer holidays at Constantinople with my father. He wants to take you there with him, unless you are there at school. I didn't know you--thought so much--of me, All."

"Have I not always followed you, effendi? You are English, I am a Turk--but we are brothers--and now you are leaving me."

He stood there holding John as if he would hold him thus through time. The English boy, embarrassed, with the British instinctive dislike of emotional display, knew not what to say. He wanted to say something that would express all he felt, his love for his friend, and all the happy times they had had, but no adequate words would come. So he just gave a short, forced laugh, tightened his grip on the other boy, and then turned and picked up his shirt.

"I say, we must get dressed!--it's getting late."

Ali was now calm. The storm had passed. They made their way down the mountain side almost without words. The sun had not set, but the town below was already in deep shadow and they could see the lights glimmering. Now that the inevitable moment of parting was drawing near, John began to feel something of the emotion which Ali had shown by the pool. It was a break in his life, this parting; the first he had ever made. They had been jolly days, and although the future had its glamour, things would never be quite the same again. Ali would grow up, and he would grow up, each in different worlds, with different customs. They would meet in two years, but two years was a long time. Dear old Ali, if only he could take him with him!

They had now reached the fountain at the foot of the steep street where the ways parted. The inevitable moment had come. John took All's hand and gripped it, English fashion.

"Good-bye, Ali--I'll write to you often. We'll meet in two years."

"Insh' Allah--God willing," said Ali gravely. "I will make you a gift, John effendi, will you give me a promise?"

"Yes, Ali--what is it?"

Ali opened his shirt at the neck, and lifted over his head a thin chain. At the end of the chain hung an oval moonstone; on one side it had Turkish characters, on the other the etching of an eye. John had often seen this charm against the evil eye hanging on his friend's neck, but as it no doubt had something to do with his faith, John had refrained from asking any questions.

"See, effendi--I give you this talisman. My father brought it from Mecca. It will keep you from harm, and also you will remember me by it. Will you wear it always?"

The tone was so earnest, and Ali spoke with such gravity that John nodded his head, which he lowered while Ali passed the chain over him until the talisman hung on his breast. For a moment there was an awkward pause. Ali seemed about to say something, but his lips did not move. John feared another outburst; so gripping his friend's hand, he looked into his eyes for the last time.

"Good-bye, Ali!" he said, and was quickly gone into the darkening twilight. Down the street he felt an overmastering impulse to turn and wave to Ali, who, he knew, would stand watching his going, but such an act would only prolong the agony. With a firm resolve he strode on along the way home.

It was dinner time when John reached the house, and he just had time to wash before the gong sounded. Seated at table he was very quiet during the meal, and when coffee had been served and they had passed out onto the verandah where so many happy evenings had been spent, Dean drew John down into his big wicker chair.

"You are very quiet, John--anything the matter?"

"No, father--I was only thinking."

"What of?"

"Oh--of England, and leaving here, and--Ali."

The moon had come up over the precipice and flooded the garden in soft light. They could see the river, like a silver shield where it turned in its course. Not a leaf stirred in the garden, but there were sounds floating about the night. From the orchard came the first notes of a bulbul; more distant, they could hear the musical rippling of the water as it sang in and out among the rocks, and further off, subdued, pulsating with mystery, sounded the low droning of a native drum. It rose and died in the night air with its barbaric note insistently calling. Calling what?--they did not know; perhaps it drew towards it the Moslem spirits, as it had drawn them on that night long ago when Timur came near, red with conquest.

Dean looked down at the boy sitting quietly by him. The moonlight glinted upon something on John's breast. He slowly drew out the chain with its talisman.

"What's this?" he asked, reading the Turkish characters--"Kismet!"

"Ali gave it to me for a keepsake--what does Kismet mean, father?"

"Destiny--all Moslems believe in it."

"Do we?" asked John. Dean paused before replying.

"Some of us do, some of us don't," he said quietly. Then there was silence again, save for the drum calling through the night.

BOOK II

WEST