CHAPTER XXV.—“The garrison was divided into two companies” (Selìm

loquitur). Ahmed Pasha sent some troops under the command of two colonels into the streets. They soon applied to him for instructions, under the impossibility of keeping the peace without resorting to violence. He ordered them in writing to fire upon the people. One of the colonels in command of the _regulars_ obeyed his order and dispersed the mob, proving thus that the evil might have been checked. The other colonel, who had charge of the _irregulars_, was won over by a Mussulman sheikh, who adjured him in the name of the Prophet and their common religion to join them and clear the holy city of Damascus of infidels. He went over to the insurgents with his troops. (Skene, as above.) For further particulars of the massacre, _see_ Skene, already quoted, Churchill: _Druzes and Maronites_, and _Ten Years in Mount Lebanon_, and the newspapers of the latter half of 1860.

GLOSSARY OF ARAB EXPRESSIONS AND NAMES OF PLACES

_Abd_ = A servant, a slave, much used with an epithet of the Deity in the formation of proper names, as Abdullah, the servant of God; Abdul Cader, the servant of the Powerful, and so forth.

_Abu_ = Father of. A man assumes his son’s name with this prefix as an honourable title, letting his own name be almost forgotten.

_Afrìt_ = A devil, a jinni (pl. afærìt).

_Ayûb_ = Job.

_Bara_ = Para. } _Basha_ = Pasha.} The Arabs have no letter “P” and cannot pronounce it.

_Bedelíeh askerieh_ = Tax in lieu of military service, levied on unbelievers.

_Cabil_ = Cain.

_Caimmacàm_ = A local governor, inferior to the provincial governor (Wâly or Mutesarrif) and appointed by him.

_Damashe-ush-Shâm_ (or simply Es-Shâm) = Damascus. Shâm in this name is generally taken to mean “Left” in contrast with “Yemen” meaning “Right.” But it has more likely to do with Shem (Ar. Shâm); Syria is called Es-Shâm or Birr-ush-Shâm.

_Daûd_ = David.

_Dejìl_ = Antichrist.

_Dìn_ = Religion, faith—_e. g._, dìn Muhammed = El Islâm.

_Durzi_ = A Druze (pl. Drûz).

_Ebn_ = Son—_e. g._, ebn Ali = the son of Ali.

_Effendi_ = A title of respect given generally to Mahometans.

_El Ajem_ = Persia.

_Eljizar_ = Algiers or Algeria (often confused with Eljezireh = Mesopotamia).

_El Khalìl_ = An epithet of the patriarch Abraham appropriate to his city of Hebron.

_Emìr_ = Prince, an hereditary and purely Arab title of nobility, having nothing to do with the Turkish gamut of dignities which, like the Russian, are purely official. It is given, for instance, to all the kindred of the Prophet, in addition to the epithet Sherìf (= honourable, holy).

_Fellah_ = A husbandman, a peasant (pl. fellahìn).

_Fulân_ = An imaginary person (_cp._ Span. Don Fulano) as we say Mr. So-and-so.

_Habil_ = Abel.

_Haleb_ = Aleppo, surnamed the White (Esh-Shahbah).

_In sh’Allah_ = (lit., if God will) I hope.

_Isa_ = Jesus (Mahometan).

_Iskendería_ = Alexandria.

_Istanbûl_ = Constantinople.

_Jebel Târic_ = Gibraltar.

_Jinni_ = A geni, a fallen angel dwelling on earth and sharing with man the chance of salvation (pl. jin or jân).

_Kâfir_ = Infidel, heathen.

_Khawaja_ = A title of respect given exclusively to unbelievers.

_Kibleh_ = The point towards which the face is turned at prayers (for Jews, Jerusalem, for Mahometans, Mecca).

_Lûndra_ = London.

_Marûni_ = A Maronite (pl. Mowarni).

_Masr_ = Egypt.

_Ma sh’ Allah_ = (What does God wish!) the commonest exclamation of surprise.

_Mehkemeh_ = A court of law presided over by the Cadi.

_Miriam_ = Mary.

_Mufti_ = A religious judge in every city.

_Mûsa_ = Moses.

_Muslim_ = A Mahometan (pl. Muslimûn).

_Mutesarrif_ = A governor of a province, less than a Wâly in dignity, but, like a Wâly, dependent directly on the Sultàn.

_Nabuli_ = Naples.

_Neby_ = Prophet.

_Nûh_ = Noah.

_Oäh_ = A cry equivalent to “Look out!”

_Rûm_ = Greece.

_Sheykh_ = An old man; hence (age implying precedence) a chief, the headman of a tribe, a village, or indeed of any community.

_Suleyman_ = Solomon.

_Tarabulus_ = Tripoli (Tarabulus-Esh-Shâm, Tripoli of Syria; not Tarabulus el Gharb, Tripoli in Barbary).

_The Chief of Mountains_ (Jebel-ush-Sheikh) = Mount Hermon.

_The City of Peace_ (Medinat us Salam) = Baghdad.

_The Mountain_ (El Jebel) = Lebanon.

_The Sunset-Land_ (El Maghrib, el Gharb) = The north coast of Africa west or Egypt: The Barbary States.

_Wâly_ = The governor-general of a province, appointed directly by the Sultàn (or at least from Constantinople) and for a period of five years.

_Wilayet_ = The province governed by a Wâly.

_Yafez_ = Japheth.

_Y Allah!_ = (O God) the commonest of all exclamations, meaning whatever you please, oftenest with a sense of “Make haste!” or “Forward!”

_Yesua_ = Jesus (Christian).

PART II

THE BOOK OF HIS FATE

“_O ye men, it is not the great king, nor the multitude of men, neither is it wine that excelleth; who is it then that ruleth them, or hath the lordship over them? Are they not women?_”—1 ESDRAS.

[Illustration]

I

About the third hour of a summer’s day, Saïd the Merchant strolled lazily in the streets of Damashc-ush-Shâm. A bare-legged servant, whose brown heels peeped in and out of a pair of large red slippers, held a sunshade obsequiously over his head. The parasol was white with a green lining. It amounted to a badge of the highest consequence, and Saïd was faint for pride of it.

More than ten years of ease and good living had greatly increased his bulk. He had gained that appearance of mixed dignity and benevolence which the habit of a full belly imparts to a man. Many there were who louted low to him in the way; he acknowledged their presence by the slightest scooping motion of his hand. But a notable of the city riding by upon a grey horse, heralded by an outrunner with cries of “Oäh!” scattering the crowd to right and left, Saïd was foremost of all to bow his head and touch his lips and brow in token of reverence.

He entered the shelter of a roofed bazaar and the sunshade was presently put down. The cool shadow, bringing relief from the blinding glare outside, disposed all men to dawdle. Brisk movement, the hoarse cry of impatience and the peevish oath gave way all at once to sighs, murmurs of praise to Allah, and much wiping of faces. Saïd, however, thanks to the parasol, was not much heated, and he sauntered on leisurely as before. His ample form, richly clad, and his disdainful bearing wrung a salutation even from strangers. Such of the bystanders as knew his quality blessed him loudly by name. And he said in his heart,—

“Can it be that I was once Saïd the Fisherman—a thing despised of all men to spit upon? Now behold, I am Saïd the Merchant, in the height of prosperity and honour, so that they bow low before me in the market, and even men of family deem it no dishonour to kiss my hand. Surely I am great and glorious, and my wealth is established upon a sure foundation. Allah is great and bountiful, and I, His servant, am much indebted to Him.”

The next minute he made a rapid sign with his hand and he muttered a formula reputed potent, lest that jealous eye which is ever fixed upon the heart of man should mark his boastfulness and lay a snare for him.

The bare-legged servant, very proud of a new tarbûsh he was wearing for the first time, now walked a few steps in advance of his master to clear the way. The shadow was inky upon the crowd. Motes danced golden in a bar of light where a rift in the barn-like roof let in a sunbeam. The divers hues of the multitude, and the rich array of stuffs displayed in the doorways on either hand, were cool and restful as reflections in water.

Striking into another bazaar which ran at right angles to that he had hitherto threaded, Saïd turned in at a low doorway of humble seeming, bidding the servant await him there. He traversed a narrow passage and, crossing a filthy court in sunlight, mounted some worn stone steps. At the top of the flight was a crazy door. He knocked, crying,—

“Open, O Selìm! It is I, the master! Make haste, lazy one! Know that I am busy to-day and have little time to spare!”

The sound of the voice had not died away ere the door swung inward with a great creaking, and Selìm appeared in the entrance. He pounced on Saïd’s hand and kissed it.

“Welcome, O my master!” he exclaimed, as he made fast the door behind his patron. “It was in this minute that I wished to speak with thee concerning certain carpets of thine which have arrived with the caravan of Ali Effendi and now lie at the great khan awaiting thy orders. Is it thy wish that I go there after noon?… How is the health of thy son, Suleyman? Mayst thou be blest in him!”

Saïd sat down cross-legged upon the raised platform of stone which formed a kind of daïs at one end of the room. With a look of concentration he began to roll a cigarette, leaving Selìm’s questions unanswered for a minute. The delicate tracery of the lattice at his back sifted and subdued the light while admitting what breeze there was.

It was pleasant to lounge there, in the place of honour of the large, cool room, and let his eye range over the piles of rich carpets, roll upon roll, which almost concealed the walls. It was pleasant, sitting thus, to inhale the smoke of a cigarette, or, better still, of a narghileh. The whole of his life passed before him at such times, like a tale of the Thousand and One Nights. But for evidence of the piles of carpets, and the presence of Selìm, moving to and fro among them, he would sometimes have doubted the truth of it all, so marvellous it seemed. It was pleasant to recall the old life with Hasneh in the little house among the sandhills by the seashore, to curse again the treachery of Abdullah, to review his wanderings and all the wondrous chances of the great slaughter. Even the weeks of terror which followed those days of bloodshed, when the Saving Faith seemed humbled for ever and the power of the infidels was paramount in the land, were sweet in the memory. He looked back to them as to a dream of delights, for they had passed, dream-like, in the first, full rapture of possession after long months of yearning. Engrossed by bliss, dazed with a delicious languor of soul and body, he had heard talk of executions, of shooting and hanging of true believers, only as one hears whose ears are stuffed with wool. Sad tidings had reached him in the little pleasure-house he had hired among the gardens at the foot of the great brown hills. One day Hasneh had returned from her marketing, half dead for horror, with the news that Ahmed Pasha had been led out and shot that morning. In the space of a week or two, more than three hundred of the faithful were hanged, so that the Sultàn’s envoy, who introduced and, as some said, invented that shameful and unclean way of death, was named of all men Father of a Rope. There were accounts of a French army in Mount Lebanon, slaying every Druze they met, were it man, woman or child. It was said they had sworn to wipe out the Drûz utterly from the face of the earth, because they had dared to be victorious over the Maronites, who were reckoned as French subjects for the nonce. But Saïd, though cursing the French and all unbelievers by rote, had, in fact, felt but little concern for the calamities of his neighbours. The death of Ahmed Pasha had been of direct benefit to him, for it set Selìm free to be his agent in those commercial enterprises on which he soon began to employ his capital.

Ferideh, tamed at last, and submissive to his pleasure, Hasneh re-found and willing to wait upon him hand and foot, his treasure bestowed in a safe place; he had been feverishly happy throughout that time of trouble and disgrace. The true Faith was sure to triumph in the end. Meanwhile he had not neglected to pray to Allah five times a day, had eaten no pork, and had been careful to avoid handling any unclean thing.

From the height of wealth and honour to which his native shrewdness, under Allah, and a run of the rarest good luck had conspired to raise him, he could con over his life with some of that enjoyment a traveller knows in recounting hardships past. For a long while he sat musing with a far-away look in his eyes—a look having no concern with the pile of Meccan prayer-mats on which he seemed intent. The smoke of his cigarette curled lazily upward in the tempered gloom. A little crowd of flies hung buzzing over his head. At length, the silence growing irksome, Selìm hazarded,—

“How is thy health, O Saïd?”

“Praise be to Allah! And thy health?” was the mechanical reply. Then, starting from his brown study and brushing the flies from his face,—

“We have a fine store of carpets, O father of Mûsa—none like it in all the city. For how much, thinkest thou, could we sell all that is now on our hands?”

Selìm stroked his beard and his forehead puckered thoughtfully. After some inward reckoning he named a large sum of money as a fair estimate. Saïd’s face grew rapturous.

“Now listen, O Selìm,” he said, bending towards his henchman and speaking in low, eager tones. “It is in my mind to buy the house of Mahmud Effendi—thou knowest it?—which is towards the Jewish quarter. He asks a vast sum for it—a fortune, by Allah! But it is known that he needs money, that his creditors harass him for payment. Wait a little, and he will be glad to accept much less. Nevertheless, it is a fine house and a costly; the price of it will amount to more than I have in my hand. I am minded to sell all these carpets and to part with this upper room. In time to come it shall be said of Suleyman: his father is a great Effendi, who dwells in a palace.

“Now, O my brother, I know thee for a wise man whose advice it is good to take; and thou wast ever careful for my welfare. Counsel me, I pray thee, and tell me what comes to thy mind on this matter.”

Selìm stared aghast at his employer. Dismay made his eye-balls dilate and his jaw drop.

“To hear is to obey,” he faltered at length. “It is for thee to order and dispose of what is thine. I am but thy servant to hear and bow my head. Nevertheless, O Saïd, O my brother, O father of kindness, what is it that thou purposest? To sell a thriving business like this, which yields more and more profit with each year, were the dream of a madman! And why dost thou so covet the house of Mahmud? I fear an evil spirit prompts thee in this matter, seeking to engulf thy fortune. Hast thou not already a fine house enough—one well becoming the lord of thy wealth? Hast thou not a beautiful woman for wife, one who is mistress of thy fancy, who has already borne a son to inherit thy honour? Hast thou not also another wife who loves thee, and maidens to wait on thy harìm? Hast thou not two men-servants and a doorkeeper, without counting Selìm and all his father’s house, who are ever ready to do thy behests? Sure, if ever man was happy, thou art happy; if ever Allah favoured any man, He has favoured thee. The higher a person rises, the closer do envy and ill-will and hatred beset him on every side. The more conspicuous he becomes, the more he has need of money. Hear a story, O my brother.

“Know that there was once a man who owned a she-camel, which fed him with her milk and earned money for him by her labour. But the man was not content. Going one day to the city he beheld in the shop of a certain merchant a collar of gold. And he said in his soul, ‘O my soul, if I had but that collar I should certainly be happiest of all the sons of Adam.’ The thought of it robbed him of sleep by night, and in the day-time it was ever present to his mind. At last he bethought him of the camel, and he said in his heart, ‘A collar of gold for a camel is a famous bargain. Every poor fellah has a camel belonging to him, but only the greatest wear collars of gold.’

“On the morrow he arose and drove his beast to the city, and there sold her, together with the pack-saddle and the halter, a bag of corn and a vessel of oil which happened to be with him in the house. Then he went straight to the merchant’s, and, having assured himself that the collar was there, he inquired the price. At first the trader laughed and eyed him askance, for the poorness of his clothes. But afterwards, finding that he had money with him, he deigned to name a sum. It was more than the man could pay; yet, being an astute fellow and good at a bargain, he at length obtained the collar.

“With it clasped round his neck he strutted about the streets, deeming himself an Emìr. It was not for a long while he became aware that men were pointing after him and laughing in their beards. Then shame came upon him, and he wished to hide the ornament; but he could not, it was so big and his robe so scanty and ragged. He tried to unclasp it, but he knew not the trick of it, the merchant having made it fast for him. He sped to the shop, wishing to give it back and receive his money again; but the merchant drove him away with curses and threatening words. He dared not have recourse to any worker in metal lest the price of his release should be more than he could afford, and, in default of payment, the collar should be taken from him.

“By the time he had eaten and drunk and had paid his lodging for one night, he had no money left. On the third day he was driven to beg in the gate of the city. But those who passed in and out mocked him, thinking he was a joker or one that begged for a wager or a vow. And this became a proverb in the land: The beggar with the collar of gold craves a mite of thee, O muleteer.

“Full of distress he prayed Allah, if it might be, to take away that plague from him and give him back his camel. Soon he prayed more earnestly that Allah would cut off his life. His prayer was heard; for certain wicked men of the city had cast greedy eyes upon the collar. They lay in wait for him in a lonely place, and there slew him. But being powerless to unclasp the collar, they cut off his head and drew it from the neck still fastened.

“Now, O my brother, the drift of my story is clear and needs no explaining. I think it no wise thing to sell all thy stock-in-trade that thou mayst buy a fine palace. Remember that he who bartered the camel for the collar of gold had shame and misery and a ghastly death into the bargain.”

During the tale Saïd’s face had become overcast. As Selìm ceased speaking his displeasure broke out. Frowning, and with a peevish gesture,—

“Thou speakest folly and thy words are far from the purpose!” he cried. “What have I got to do with thy poor man and his camel? Behold, I am rich, as thou well knowest. Even when I shall have paid the price of the house there will yet be money left in my hand wherewith to trade anew. Because I speak of selling this shop and these carpets, thou art afraid of thy own meat and drink, lest thy livelihood be taken from thee. Thou makest believe to rede me a friendly counsel, whereas thy mind is wholly set upon thy private advantage. I had thought to make thee a handsome present—enough to keep thee in comfort and honour all thy days; but now, since thou choosest to cross me, I know not what I shall do.”

Stung by the accusation of self-seeking, Selìm bounded to his feet.

“Now, Allah pardon thee, O Saïd,” he exclaimed in a low voice broken by emotion. “Surely thou art possessed with a devil to think this evil of me! In all the years that I have served thee in this place, hast thou ever found me wanting in my duty? Have I not ever loved thee as a dear brother, while serving thee faithfully as my lord? Hast thou ever known me to seek my own advantage to thy prejudice in the price of a single prayer-mat? Do I not bring up my children to bless thee as their father’s benefactor?… These words which thou hast spoken wound my inmost heart. Behold, am I not thy thing, to take up or to cast aside? If I likened thee by chance to a poor fellah, who had but one camel, Allah be my witness, it was because I knew no other story to meet thy case. Fables ever deal in extremes; I meant thee no insult, as thou knowest well. I did but give thee the best advice that I had out of the little store of wisdom which is mine. O Saïd—O my dear! I have loved thee with a great affection ever since the day thou didst hire me to be thy servant, and didst give me that rich garment—the root of my honour—which I still cherish in my house. That is long ago, when Mûsa, my first-born, was yet at his mother’s breast. Now Mûsa is almost a man to wear the turban, yet I love thee with the same love still. It will grieve me to forsake this upper chamber, where I have sat cool through the heat of many a day; while the bees and the flies and the wasps made a drowsy moaning, and the voice of the water-carrier came to me out of the street like a wild bird’s cry. It is natural, is it not? that I should grieve somewhat at thought of leaving a place where I have spent many years in peace of mind and body. And the little room adjoining, where all my children save Mûsa have been born, is dear to me for the cries of the young ones and the voice of the anxious mother crooning soft to them. But thou gavest, and it is thine to take away. O Saïd, O my brother, seek not to quarrel with me after all these years!”

The pathos of this appeal touched some answering chord in the merchant’s heart, for the lines of his face softened and his eyes filled with tears. At last, when Selìm had made an end of speaking, and stood gazing at him with eyes full of entreaty, Saïd started up and, going over to him, fell on his neck. Surely an evil spirit had prompted him to doubt for a minute the good faith of his more than brother. He asked forgiveness of the harsh words uttered in haste. But he had set his heart on purchasing the house of Mahmud Effendi, and the unlooked-for dissension had angered him.

Deeply moved by his patron’s tears, Selìm gave way completely; vowing to be faithful to him in all things, whatever he should require. He called Allah to witness that he had not meant to oppose Saïd’s will, but only to help him with advice, that nothing might be done rashly or without due consideration.

“What is the hour?” asked Saïd at length, with a startled glance at the tracery of light and shadow thrown from the lattice upon wall and floor.

“It is between the fourth and the fifth, O my master,” Selìm pronounced, after reference to the same dial. “With thy leave, I will call for coffee, if, indeed, thou must depart so soon.” At his shout of “Mûsa!” a sturdy boy, clad in a robe of striped cotton, close buttoned at the neck, and having for head-dress an ancient and weather-beaten fez, appeared from an inner room. The shrill tones of a woman scolding and the piteous howl of an infant came through the same door with him, out of the gloom on which he stood revealed.

“O Mûsa, bring coffee and that quickly, for our master has little time!” said Selìm.

The two elders took counsel together how to dispose of shop and merchandise to the best advantage. There were debts of long standing to be collected, or, where the debtor was too great and powerful, to be forgiven with as much circumstance as possible. Selìm undertook all the more tiresome business of the settlement, leaving for his master that lighter part which could be transacted over a glass of sherbet and a narghileh. Saïd thanked him, as for a matter of course, and heartily cursed the buzzing swarm of flies which infested the room. Then, when he had swallowed a cupful of coffee, he arose and set out for the house of Mahmud Effendi.

He thought of the joy Ferideh would have in that palace, and his heart beat faster; for, after more than ten years of possession, he still doted on the daughter of Yuhanna.

II

Mahmud Effendi sat in the audience-hall of his great house, in the highest seat. Door and windows open on the court showed a vine-covered trellis, a few orange-trees grouped about a marble basin, and the opposite wall of the quadrangle in dazzling sunshine. Draughts of lukewarm air brought the pleasant sound of leaves rustling and water trickling to freshen the deep shade of the room, which would else have been gloomy and oppressive.

Mahmud Effendi was a man of thirty summers, unhealthily white and fat, with dark creases under his eyes. He wore a long morning robe of striped silk, a high fez and a finely-embroidered turban; but a pair of Frankish boots of patent leather were most obvious as he lolled in the cushioned seat of honour. As a member of the Council of Notables, and one who had spent a year at Istanbûl to complete his education, he usually donned the Turkish frock-coat and dark trousers on state occasions. It was told of him that he could sit on a chair stiffly, like a Frank, for minutes together without a symptom of uneasiness, could wield a knife and fork cunningly and speak with the tongue of unbelief. But in the freedom of his own dwelling, with his kinsfolk and servants obsequious about him, he was the true Arab grandee, scornful and unmannerly.

On the morning in question the couches of the presence-chamber were well filled. On the daïs reclined a number of the great man’s relatives and cronies, grouped in order of their rank; while the body of the hall was sprinkled with the men of the household and other dependants, together with sundry persons who presented themselves every morning with praiseworthy constancy, for no other purposes than to make their names and faces familiar to one in authority.

The walls of the room were a mosaic-work of marble of different colours, the words of the Fatiha, or opening chapter of the Coràn, running all round under the ceiling by way of frieze. At all points the name of Allah met the eye, cunningly obscured and twisted into puzzling monograms; and further veiled by such epithets as the Merciful, the Praiseworthy, the Powerful, and so forth. The pavement, too, was of mosaic, where it could be seen for rugs. A wide stone bench or divan, which ran along the foot of the walls, was cushioned upon the daïs, bare elsewhere. Before the lord of the house, on a soft carpet from Persia, stood a stool, or little table of dark-stained wood inlaid upon the top and sides with arabesque patterns of mother-of-pearl. It bore an inkstand, a reed pen, and a bulky scroll of parchment covered with close writing in a clerkly hand.

Mahmud Effendi was restless and spoke little. No sooner was one cigarette lighted for him by an attentive neighbour than he flung it away, with an oath of impatience, and began to roll another. Conversation in the room was carried on by low whispers, and eyes kept straying anxiously to the door.

“This man—what is his name?—this Saïd is late!” exclaimed the great one, fretfully, with a yawn. “Is it meet, I ask you, that my father’s son should be kept waiting by the child of a dog?”

“It is true! He is late; curse his religion! May the fire, the mother of hospitality, be quenched on his hearth, and his father’s grave be perfectly defiled!” Glad of the chance to lift up their voices, all present cursed the tardy one most heartily.

It was but yesterday that Nasr, the son of his mother’s sister, had come to Mahmud with news that a certain merchant, reputed lord of boundless wealth, was minded to buy the palace at any price. The man, whose name was Saïd, would present himself, said the informant, betimes on the morrow. Nasr spent most of his life in the taverns of the city. He was a famous gossip and no mean liar. But in this case Mahmud, in sore straits for money, had gladly believed his tidings and had summoned all the heads of his kindred to support him at the interview. Now, seeing that the morning was fast wearing away and no one came, he began to have an inkling that his cousin had lied to him, knowing his instant need to sell the house and wishing to please him and gain honour for himself by bringing agreeable news. He bent ominous brows on the unconscious Nasr, who sat fourth removed from him on the seat of honour; and was on the point of upbraiding him fiercely with the deceit, when a murmur of satisfaction, first raised by a group of servants at the door, spread throughout the assembly. A man’s voice was heard at the gate, crying,—

“Peace be upon this house, and the mercy of Allah, and His blessings!”

Mahmud Effendi straightened himself in his seat. The elders upon the daïs composed their limbs and faces on decorous lines. The menials in the body of the hall fell bowing into two rows, forming a lane for the passage of the new-comer.

Having slipped off his shoes at the threshold, Saïd the merchant entered the presence-chamber with a mien of the utmost deference. His servant followed bearing the white parasol with the green lining, as it had been a rod of office. Leaving his body-guard among the folk of the household, Saïd advanced to the daïs. All the great ones who sat there arose at his approach, and his humble salutation was returned twentyfold. Mahmud Effendi came a little way to meet him, and, after the brief and languid struggle enjoined by politeness, yielded his hand to be kissed. Then he led the guest to a vacant seat on his right, and called loudly for refreshments. With his own hand he made a cigarette for Saïd, and insisted on lighting it for him with a match borrowed from the uncle who sat on his left. Then he renewed inquiries concerning the visitor’s health, scanning his face earnestly for any sign of disorder; while all the rest of the company put the same or like questions after him in chorus.

Quite overwhelmed by the honour paid to him, Saïd could only bow repeatedly, murmuring blessings upon his host and all belonging to him. But when two serving-men drew near barefooted, each carrying a large and curiously-wrought brass tray laden with glasses of several kinds of sherbet, Mahmud’s attention was called away for a minute and he found time to regain composure.

He glanced craftily round upon that numerous gathering, whose presence there, he shrewdly guessed, was planned to abash and outface him. But the mental resolve to prove a match for them all found no expression in face or attitude.

At length, when all the empty glasses were replaced on the trays and the servants had retired with them, a silence ensued which Saïd deemed favourable for the opening of his business. With a cringing twist of his body, he begged the ear of Mahmud Effendi, who gave heed to him with the gravest condescension.

It was noised abroad in the markets.—The common people are all gossips, scandalmongers, by Allah! and publishers of every silly rumour.—It was noised abroad that his Excellency was desirous of selling that great palace, where he had the honour to behold his Eminence in the extremity of welfare and good health. The report—which was of course an idle one, unworthy the credence of a man of sense—had at length reached the ears of his Honour’s devoted servant. Though at once perceiving it to be a foolish fable, such as low people, muleteers and others who frequent the bazaars, spread abroad for love of mischief; yet it had so far carried weight with him that, being at present in search of a fine house and having by the blessing of Allah some little wealth at his disposal, he had allowed his mind to dwell on the thought of this great palace, to desire it. He had therefore ventured to wait upon his Grace, in order to make sure that the report that he had heard was groundless, and, in case there should be a measure of truth in it, to inquire what price his Worship was pleased to demand. He was aware that it ill became him, a small man and of no account in the city, thus to thrust himself forward in the presence of his Highness and of his Highness’s illustrious kindred there assembled. To aspire to possess that fine house was the last presumption in one of his mean quality. As for the notion of supplanting, or in any sense replacing, his Excellency, it was far from his mind. Can the fox claim fellowship with the lion? And yet it is no sin if the fox come to dwell in the lion’s den, after the noble beast has forsaken it, needing change; provided he do so meekly, with a proper sense of his own unworthiness, giving praise and thanks at all times to Allah for his great good fortune.

He (Saïd) was a merchant, whose business, by the grace of Allah, had thriven with him; and, whereas a great one of the city, having much property but little ready money, would pay the price hardly and by many instalments, he was prepared to bring the whole sum at once in his hands and place it in the hands of his Excellency. A small sum paid down in its entirety was worth more than the promise of great riches. Wherefore—his voice became a coaxing whine and his smile waxed eloquent of deprecation—wherefore he had dared hope that his Highness would deign to abate something of the price in his favour; if he were indeed minded to sell the house, which was most unlikely. Might Allah preserve his Excellency’s life for ever, and increase the goods of his Excellency to the crowning point of his prosperity.

Mahmud Effendi listened to all this long speech with courteous attention, as did all who sat upon the daïs, taking their cue from him. Having heard Saïd patiently to an end, he raised a hand to his beard and stared round upon the faces of his kindred with the dazed look of a man taken quite by surprise. After a pause long enough to fully impress the visitor with a sense of his amazement, he spoke slowly and falteringly, as one striving to muster his wits.

“Allah pardon! It was a false report thou heardest, O my uncle. Men are wont to speak idly in the markets, and their tongues wag ever most glibly of those who sit in high places. I marvel only that a man of thy penetration should have paid any heed to their talk. The wish to sell my house is very far from me; nay, it was but in this hour I was taking counsel with the heads of my father’s house about a plan for adorning the women’s apartments with a screen of Cairene lattice-work, and to inlay the walls of the court with devices of marble. At the moment of thy entering I was reading in that scripture thou seest upon the table, which is an exact account of all that the house contains and the value of it. If thou doubtest the truth of what I say, inquire of any man here, and he shall certify thee.

“By my beard, I am amazed at thy speech, for to sell this house, which belonged to my father and my father’s father before me, was never further from my thoughts than it is to-day.

“And yet … now that thou hast put it in my mind, I know not that I should altogether refuse to sell, were one to make me a tempting offer. As thou sayest, a large sum in the hand is better than the like sum paid in slow instalments. Moreover, a man like me has many liabilities to which one of thy condition is not subject. Thou receivest money every day, and thy wealth is with thee in the house; whereas the fortune I inherit is vested in lands and houses, which cannot be moved, and which it is tiresome to sell; and withal I must always be spending. Thou art eloquent, O my uncle, and thy talk sways my mind a little. Having no instant need of money, nor indeed any enduring wish to sell at all, I shall not certainly part with this fine house for less than its utmost value. Nevertheless, since the whim is upon me, I am curious to know what price thou wouldst offer!”

He did not wait for Saïd’s answer, but very carelessly shouted an order for coffee to be served at once.

All his kindred raised hands and eyes ceilingwards, calling Allah to witness their astonishment at what they had just heard. Mahmud Effendi to think of selling his house! Surely the great man spoke in jest! If he were indeed serious, then the sun might shortly be expected to rise in the west! They murmured together in amazement and concern.

Saïd, with eyes fixed upon one of his host’s Frankish boots, appeared lost in reflection. At length he faltered,—

“O my lord, know that I am a small man, wholly unworthy to compete with thee in any way. Who am I that I should presume to set a price on that which belongs to thy Highness? Deign to name such a sum as thou deemest just, and I, thy servant, will say whether I can afford to pay it. I am a small man and my wealth limited. Notwithstanding, having a great regard for thy Grace, I shall endeavour by all means to content thee.”

“Truly thou askest no easy thing of me,” muttered Mahmud, with puckered forehead. “It is hard to compute the price of that which has never been sold nor valued for sale. If I were really earnest in this matter, I should say, Bring valuers, one for thee and one for me. Let them go over all the premises and make each his estimate. But, as it is, wishing only to know what thou wouldst give, I know not what to say. I would rather that some other gave an opinion in my stead, lest thou shouldst say, Of course, he extols that which is his own. Now behold, there are many honourable persons here present, who know the house perfectly and all it contains. If it please thee, let them confer together and we will abide by their judgment.”

But Saïd put in humbly,—

“Nay, O my lord, I cannot engage to pay whatever price the arbiters may lay upon me. My wealth, alas! has limits. Allah keep thy Grace ever in safety; that which I ask of thee is only reasonable.”

“Of course, it shall be as thou choosest,” said Mahmud, carelessly.

While the coffee was being passed round, the umpires spoke earnestly together in low tones, now glancing at Saïd, now at their kinsman, with manifest impartiality. At last they resumed their seats and their former languid postures. An aged man, uncle to Mahmud on the father’s side, had been chosen spokesman. He now rose to make known the verdict.

The sum he named made Saïd wince, though he was prepared for almost any extravagance. Mahmud himself could not refrain from throwing an admiring glance round upon his relations. The merchant smiled painfully and stroked his beard.

“Well, what sayest thou, O my uncle?” said Mahmud, in a voice of encouragement. “Remember, thou hast not yet seen all the house, and this is not the only fine room in it. Observe the walls a little, I pray thee, what excellent workmanship is there! By the Coràn, I think it a low estimate. What sayest thou?”

Saïd, though secretly gnawing his underlip, made shift to smile. Shrugging his shoulders and spreading his hands wide in deprecation:

“The price exceeds my fortune,” he murmured. “I cannot bid more than a third of it.”

“Never!” cried Mahmud, in extreme disgust, fending off the insulting offer with his hand. “Never!” cried all his kindred in chorus, eyeing Saïd as though he had done every one of them a mortal injury.

A long and chilly pause ensued, until Mahmud, having managed to bring his outraged feelings into subjection, renewed his inquiries after the visitor’s health in the cause of hospitality. But there was a marked change in his manner, and Saïd, perceiving that he was no longer welcome, made haste to depart. The lofty courtesy of his company had daunted him during the whole interview. That sudden change from the sunshine of condescension to the frost of contempt sent him forth bewildered into the scorching street. But ere he had made many paces from the outer gate he was again master of his wits.

Walking in the shade of the white parasol with the green lining, he reviewed the whole scene with a chuckle. With patience, he felt sure of getting the house at very nearly his own price. He had made a not unreasonable offer. In a very few days, he foresaw, Mahmud would summon him once more to his presence; and then the haggling would begin in earnest. It might last a month, it might last a year. All depended on the temper of the great man’s creditors. In any case, he felt sure of his bargain in the end; and the memory of that splendid presence-chamber made his brain swim with ambition.

III

The house of Saïd the Merchant was so set in the heart of the city that for strangers and country people, who had not the clue to the labyrinth, it was a day’s work to find it. The approach from the nearest bazaar was by an archway infested with dogs and beggars, down a winding lane, and through a gate in the wall. Even after the gate was passed, callers were forced to ask their way, for one passage gave access to three several dwellings, and who, uninspired, could tell which door to choose? As one stood on its roof and looked out over the town, it seemed an easy feat to scramble thence to the minaret of Isa, half a mile distant, without once descending to the level of the streets. You would have deemed Es-Shâm hewn of a single stone, so hard it was to mark where one building ended and another began. It was on the house-top that Saïd was wont to say his prayers at nightfall, and often in the day-time, with face turned duly southward towards the kibleh. Often, too, he would cause a servant to bring an ewer of water to him upon the roof, and there, in sight of the many who sought refreshment in the evening air, he would perform the lesser washings of preparation, without which no prayer of man is acceptable to Allah.

He had a very large and precious copy of the Coràn, so exquisitely written that each word was a monogram for a learned scribe to decipher; for Saïd it was quite illegible. This manuscript, bound in finely-chased leather, was carried every Friday by a servant to the mosque, together with a cushion. It was a small place of worship frequented by poor people, to whom a merchant was a great man. As soon as Saïd was comfortably seated on the cushion, the volume was placed in his hands. Opening it at random, he would recite some passage which he knew by heart, in a very loud, nasal voice, and to the edification of all who sat there on the bare stones, waiting for the coming of the preacher.

He was known to give alms of all his substance, and it was understood he would make the pilgrimage as soon as ever his house and business could be set in order. No wonder that he was reckoned a holy man, esteemed and reverenced of all his neighbours; the roof of his house being high and conspicuous, and little of his devotions done in private.

His abode consisted of a small square court, elaborately paved; three sides of which were taken up by the living rooms and offices, the fourth being filled by a blind wall of the next house, in which was the entrance door. The court was no larger than a large chamber, and the house was small to match it, but convenient and more roomy than it promised to be. Hard by the entrance was a little chamber with a vaulted ceiling, where the doorkeeper lived, and facing it, across the court, yawned the doorway of a large cellar or storehouse beneath the women’s apartments, where cooking and other work of the household was done.

It was in this place that Hasneh sat on a morning, grinding with one of her maidens at the handmill; while another who, being high in favour with Ferideh, thought herself entitled to do as she pleased, sat idly looking on, burying her hand in a sackful of wheat, and letting the grains glide through her fingers. The sound of grinding was loud in room and courtyard, relieved by the voices of the women chanting shrilly at their task. Now and then one would cease singing and let go the handle, to draw her veil closer as a protection from the flies; only to burst out afresh in song, and fall again to the turning with renewed strength.

Out in the sunshine, the doorkeeper, a burly negro, could be seen dozing with head against the wall. The heat and the glare, abhorred of others, were dear to him. He basked in them languorously, with closed eyes, stretching himself like a cat and showing his white teeth.

“Our lord is late to-day,” said Hasneh, excitedly, pausing to push back a fold of her robe which was in the way. “Allah grant no ill has befallen him. I have to speak with him when he returns.”

“Thou hast to speak with him, sayest thou?” said the maid who sat idle, in languid amazement. “Is it thy errand, pray, or another’s?”

“There is a word from Nûr, the old woman, and something I must add to it of my own knowledge.”

“It is plain thou hast little understanding, O mother of nothing!” said the girl, jeeringly. “Our lord holds thee of no more account than an old sandal, and the words of thy mouth are as the voice of a fly in his ears. If Nûr desired a hearing for her message, she would surely have addressed herself to the lady Ferideh, or to me, that am her handmaid. This errand of which thou boastest is some slight message of compliment such as men bandy in the streets and count not. Or it may be”—the girl tittered—“thou hast something of moment to tell concerning thyself. Nûr is reputed skilful in such matters. How is thy health, O honoured lady? Say, art thou once more with child, O mother of a thousand?”

Hasneh let go the handle of the mill and sprang to her feet. Ever since Ferideh had borne a son her life had been full of bitterness. Never a day passed without some cruel jest at her expense. The child she would have loved for his father’s sake was trained by his mother to strike her and spit at her. From the time he first began to lisp, Suleyman had been taught to call her Childless Mother, Mother of Wind, and a host of other unkind names; and the maidens, aping their mistress, were for ever nettling her with the like taunts. Anger, as she had learnt by long experience, only gave point to their amusement; and she had schooled herself to be patient under their gibes. But this morning, with a biting retort on the tip of her tongue, she gave full vent to her pent-up spite.

“Daughter of a dog!” she screamed. “May thy father’s grave be defiled and thy race perish utterly from off the earth! Thou art made on the pattern of thy mistress, and she is a harlot! Our master is deceived when he thinks her at the bath all the morning. Ah, I have learnt a thing by the mouth of Nûr—a thing which, whispered in Saïd’s ear, will cause the downfall of this fine lady who lies all day long among soft cushions, and fears to soil the whiteness of her fingers. Saïd may kill her in his wrath—such deeds are common!… No, I warrant thee, the message I bear to Saïd is no vain compliment—by Allah, no! It is of weight to crush thy mistress and thee, and a hundred like thee. Go tell Ferideh that I have enough of her taunts, that I will abide them no more! Give her my peace, I pray thee, and call her by the name she has earned for herself! To be childless by the will of Allah is no sin; but for a woman to be faithless to her husband is a crime in the sight of God and man. Let her despise me because I am without issue, because my hands are rough with work while she lies at ease; it is well—very well! Praise be to Allah, I am not as she is—curse her father!”

Hasneh spat at the girl, who blenched before her. Then, still trembling with the tension of her outburst, she sat down with what countenance she might, and turned her handle of the mill so furiously that her helper was obliged to expostulate.

“What is there?” cried the negro, sleepily, from his basking-place in the yard. “Allah destroy you women! A man can enjoy no length of peace for the noise of you. It seems that a warm day of summer, when it is pleasant to rest and praise Allah, is the same to you as a winter’s day of rain and wind. You quarrel at all times, jabbering at the pitch of your voices. Be quiet, I say, and cease bickering, or I will throw my great staff at you!”

“Hold peace thyself, O Ibrahìm, and be more courteous in thy speech!” retorted Hasneh, highly, from her task, without looking at him or turning her head.

Conscious of having knowledge which would ruin her enemy, elated from the triumph of her late denunciation, she was inclined to be arrogant. She fondly believed that the shame of Ferideh would mean her own reinstatement; and clearly the handmaids were of a like opinion, for their bearing towards her was wholly changed. The girl, Ferideh’s pet, whose ill-natured jest had called forth that storm of her wrath, sat shrinking and abashed, and seized an early occasion to slip away. Her fellow-worker at the mill was become obsequious, full of attentions.

She exulted in the thought that Saïd would be restored to her at last; forgetting that she grew old, that the day of her charm was passed and the light of youth quenched in her eye. She recalled bright moments of her life; the last days of maidenhood, when Saïd led a bride to his dwelling on the seashore; her meeting with him after long separation in the gateway of the lonely khan, in the first pallor of the dawning. Then, as they sat together, the sun rising upon the desert, he had vowed that she alone was mistress of his fancy, and should rule in his harìm. His heart had warmed to her then, and she had been very happy. But Ferideh, the Christian’s daughter, had cast a spell upon him, weaning his love from her. Now it was in her power to make him hate Ferideh, and, when the first mad rage of jealousy should be spent, he would surely come to his old wife for comfort. Her heart made a song of passing sweetness rhythmic with the grinding of the mill.

She was indulging in such dreams as these when the tones of her lord’s voice, cursing the doorkeeper for a sleepy pig, scion of a race of dogs, caused her to start. She rose quickly and, disposing her shroud-like clothing as decently as the hurry would allow, stepped out to meet him in the sunlight. Her companion remained by the mill, gaping after her with eyes of awe.

Saïd strode aimlessly into the yard, followed by his bare-legged escort and the sunshade. Seeing Hasneh come towards him, he greeted her carelessly and straightway turned his back; but she ran, and, falling on her knees, caught the skirt of his cloak.

“Allah bless thee!” he cried testily, striving to draw away. “Come to me at another time when I have leisure. For the present I am very busy …. O Ferideh, what wouldst thou, light of my eyes? I come to rest awhile with thee till the heat of the day be over …. Let go my robe, woman, lest my anger light on thee!”

In her eager haste to be heard, Hasneh had had no eyes save for Saïd only. She did not see Ferideh issue forth from the door of the women’s quarters, nor the face of the favourite handmaid peeping from the projecting lattice of the upper storey. Now suddenly, as Saïd ceased speaking, she found herself face to face with her adversary; and the shock robbed her of speech. Ferideh had come forth hurriedly, unveiled. Her eyes were steely bright, her mouth was a thin line of dire rage and determination.

Hasneh still clung to the merchant’s robe, but her gaze was fixed on her rival’s face, fascinated with a kind of horror. Saïd strove to free himself but could not.

“If, indeed, thou hast anything to say, speak, woman, and make an end!” he exclaimed, with rising anger. “If thou art dumb, as thou seemest to be, unhand me—dost hear?—and that speedily, or it shall be the worse for thee!”

“O Saïd, O my beloved, hear me but a minute!” she gasped, aiming to kill Ferideh with her eyes. “It is no good news that I bring thee, O my soul. Know that Nûr visited thee this morning, and, finding thee from home—”

She fared no further, for Ferideh sprang on her and closed her mouth. Though, from glaring in her rival’s eyes, Hasneh had seen what was coming and was half prepared to meet it, the shock all but bore her to the ground. It forced her to quit hold of Saïd’s garment, and, kneeling as she was, pressed her back and down on her heels.

“Merciful Allah! What does this mean?” cried the lord of the house, surprised out of all countenance. “Allah destroy you both! Speak, O Ferideh! What has Hasneh done to thee that thou shouldst so misuse her?”

“Thou askest what she has done!… O my dear lord, she is a liar, a backbiter and a breeder of all mischief! She hates me, as thou must surely have observed, with a great hatred, because I have borne a son to thee while she is childless. She had a quarrel in this same hour with Sàadeh, my handmaid, wherein she called me every foul name and swore to poison thy mind against me, she cared not by what falsehood. Every day she does something to my hurt or annoyance, and Sàadeh tells me that she has vowed to kill Suleyman, thy son and mine. There is no safety with her in the house …. Do I not right to stop her mouth with my hand lest she speak a lie in thy ears? A false tongue is powerful to make mischief, and, Allah pardon! I die only to think thou mightest have believed her tale. O my beloved, hasten to my chamber, where I will explain to thee the whole matter.”

One of her hands closed Hasneh’s mouth while with the other she held her rival’s throat in a tight clutch, forcing her backwards so that she was nearly powerless. Even when Saïd sharply bade her let go if she would not strangle the woman, she still clung to her hold.

“Speak, O Ibrahìm,” quoth Saïd, turning to the doorkeeper, who, with the bare-legged henchman, stood looking on aghast. “Heardest thou aught of this quarrel of which the lady speaks?”

“Yes, surely,” replied the negro, with a candid grin. “There is no doubt but that the mother of Suleyman—may she be blessed in him!—speaks truth; for I myself was disturbed a while ago by a great din, and heard with my own ears the lady Hasneh utter foul insults. But of a truth I wonder not that she grows spiteful, for she is the butt and laughing-stock of the other women. They name her Mother of Wind and jeer at her for no reason. It is no wonder, I say, if she try in her turn to hurt them a little, for to my knowledge they use her very ill. No one should laugh at a camel for his crookedness, nor at a woman because she is childless. These are as Allah Most High was pleased to make them; it is no fault of their own if they are not otherwise.”

Saïd waved him off impatiently.

“Enough,” he said. “I perceive clearly that the right is with thee, Ferideh. Now leave off fighting with that woman and come with me into the house. It is a sin that thou shouldst be so unveiled in the sight of men.”

Ferideh gave her enemy a final push, so that she fell heavily on her side. Exultant, with bright eyes and face aglow, she followed her lord into the gloom and coolness of the house. A reaction shook her from head to foot, inwardly, as the seeds of grass are shaken. As she crossed the threshold of an inner door, the voice of Hasneh was lifted shrill to denounce her. The words were of hatred unmeasured for bitterness. They let her know all that she had escaped. Looking soft-eyed into her lord’s face, with hand caressing his arm,—

“Said I not that she had a grudge against me?” she murmured. “Hear now the words of her mouth, how evil they are. Hadst thou listened to the voice of her spite, thou hadst believed her tale, perhaps, and then, alas! I had lost thy love, O prince of my soul! Did I not well to silence her in time?”

“Thou didst well,” whispered Saïd, fervently, drawing near and circling her with an arm. “But Allah have pity! thy hand bleeds. The palm of it is bitten through. Behold the blood is on my robe—and thine likewise! Thou hast great courage, O my beloved. By the Coràn, I, who am a man, and reputed no coward, had screamed for a wound like this.”

Smiling tenderly, “I felt it not,” she murmured, seeking his eyes. “I care not what befalls me so that I be still mistress of thy fancy, O stream of my life!”

He tore a strip of his own clothing and swathed her hand in it. Full of care for her, he did not quit her chamber until the evening.

After a frantic attempt to pursue her rival, which was easily frustrated by the two serving-men, Hasneh returned to the storehouse. She found it empty, for the work of grinding was done and the maid was flown to join her fellow in another place, to chat over the scene and debate its meaning. For a great while she sat there heart-broken. Once Suleyman ran in upon her out of the sunlight, to kick her, spit upon her, and slap her repeatedly with his tiny hands; cursing her religion, her parentage, and calling down all evil upon her for the hurt done to his mother. But, as she seemed not to heed, the child soon wearied, and, with a last kick, trotted out again into the court. She could hear him pestering the doorkeeper, telling the tale of her misdeeds with a child’s exaggeration of detail. Then he went back to his mother or to join the maids, and there was quiet once more.

At length, when the day was far spent, she drew her veil, and, gliding unobserved by the drowsy negro, bent her steps towards the cellar of Nûr.

IV

“O my loved one, I tell thee there is no end to her hate of me; and Nûr is as her mouthpiece in this matter. Thou wouldst know the reason? That I cannot tell thee, for I myself have not ascertained it. But one thing is sure: she would fain destroy me and mine. For my life I fear her, and for the life of Suleyman, the hope of thy father’s house. It may be that she cannot bear to see me preferred to her in the secret of thy love, to know that I shall rule a part of this great mansion thou art minded to buy. She would kill me, thinking to make thee all her own once more. Laugh with me, O my soul!—she thinks she yet has charms to tempt and hold thee …. She will say all things to turn the favour I have found in thy sight to loathing; and, if speech avail not, she will certainly compass my death and the death of Suleyman, thy darling. This day she has tried one way and failed. It is likely she will next bring Nûr hither, as it were to confirm her report, to tell thee lies of her teaching. Thou wilt not hearken to her, O my lord? Swear to give no heed to the words of her mouth—the words of my enemy, whose creature she is! O Saïd, swear this to me by the spirit of thy religion! For the sake of the son I have borne to thee, set my mind at rest! My heart grows sick for fear I should lose thy favour by which alone I live. Swear that thy understanding shall lend no weight to their calumnies, that I may know I have yet a little grace in thy sight! And ah! swear to put away this wicked woman—to cast her forth as an evildoer from thy house. Does she not daily, hourly, plot my death and the death of thy son? Is she not therefore guilty of blood? O Saïd, O my beloved, O spring of life to me, scorn not my prayer or I shall know that thy desire is clean gone from me!”

Saïd fondled Ferideh’s head as she lay in the crook of his arm upon the couch. He swore eagerly, as a lover swears, that he was deaf thenceforth to all that might be said against her. But with regard to Hasneh, he would ponder the matter at length and decide what was best to be done.

At that she cried out that he loved her not, and made as if to break away; but his strong arm held her fast. Pouting, with reproachful eyes,—

“What is this?” she whispered. “Art thou then weary of me and has that foul hag thy favour, that thou shakest so thy head and wilt not vouchsafe me a plain answer? Does she not plot to murder me and my child?—Ay, and it may be thee also, O sun that warms me! My prayer is for thy happiness and the lives of all who love thee. Cast her forth, I beseech thee, as thou carest for me.”

She hung upon him with strained throat and bosom crushed. Her eyes languished into his, striving to cast that spell upon him which made his heart like melted wax for her will’s moulding. For a brief space his purpose wavered. The faintness of strong desire came upon him as a mist confusing his brain, so that he saw things dimly. But he mastered himself; and his face took on a look of tender firmness, such as one uses to chide a well-loved daughter.

“Allah witness, I would do all things to preserve thee, O Ferideh, O garden of my delight! But this one thing I cannot; to cast out a woman who has been mine since first I wore the turban, and who has given proof of faithfulness in many trials and hardships. To do this would be a crime in the sight of Allah, and all my neighbours would cry shame upon me. It may well be that she is jealous, but thou in thy anger dost think too ill of her. Nevertheless jealousy is an evil spirit to possess man or woman. It makes a virtue of foul sin, and is mother to the lust of blood. I will have her watched narrowly, I promise, so that her malice shall not harm thee. Moreover, I swear I will never speak friendly to her from this hour forth, since she is hateful to thee, O full moon of my nights. But cast her forth I cannot, lest all good men should forsake me.”

He thought directly of Selìm, that upright servant, before whose outspoken criticism and advice he had quailed more than once despite his show of assurance. Selìm was a good Muslim, a man pious and devout both in practice and at heart. Had he been born to wealth and eminence he would have been revered of all men for a saint, even as Ismaìl Abbâs, the Sherìf. Saïd, coveting above all things a reputation for sanctity, had come, almost without knowing it, to model his behaviour on that of his bailiff. Whenever a question of conduct confronted him, he would refer it mentally to Selìm, conjuring up a bearded face, with mild eyes looking shrewdly from under a high, turbaned forehead. This time the brow of the vision was knitted in strong disapproval and the eyes were keen of reproach.

Though far from content with his answer, Ferideh understood that it was final. She hung back from him, and, resting her chin in her hand, sulked awhile with downcast eyes and jutting underlip. The change from girlhood had taken nothing from her charm. The full, round lines of bust and limbs, scarcely blurred by her under robe of silk gauze, might coarsen to fatness by-and-by, but showed as yet no more than a pleasing softness. The skin of her face and neck were waxen white, except the cheeks, which were painted. Paint also was responsible for the extreme redness of her lips, which made them like a wound. Her grey eyes, artificially brightened, languished under long black lashes; and her hair was glossy with unguents.

Saïd’s passion for her, instead of abating, had grown with the years. Hasneh had given him her whole heart at one gift, and he had soon wearied of her. But with Ferideh he was haunted by a suspicion of something withheld, of some inner shrine still barred to him. There was a reserve in all her tenderness. Though never felt at the moment, it struck him always in the retrospect. Looking back upon the times when she had been most yielding and full of endearments, he recognised its presence then as ever. And the feeling of something beyond kept his ardour alive, as the fire leaps always to fresh fuel.

The scene of their talk was an upper chamber, lighted discreetly by a deep-bayed lattice projecting over the yard. The vault of the ceiling was shaped like a sea-urchin; and from the height of its dome a curious lamp of bronze hung by a chain of the like metal. In one corner, near the door, stood a bed, decked with a white coverlid cunningly embroidered with gold, and veiled by mosquito curtains of the finest gauze. It was a true Frankish bed—just such another as that Saïd had coveted years ago, in the house of the missionary. Its iron frame was supported on six legs, and above it at each corner stood a brass knob flanking the rail. He had bought it of a Greek merchant for the price first asked, so instant was his desire of it, and the money burning his hand. Two or three large stools inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a great chest or press of the same workmanship, a large divan, wide as the bed, and made as soft with gaily-coloured cushions—these and a number of vessels and trays of earthenware, copper, brass and even silver, set in a row beside the entry, made up the furniture of the room. The walls had once been painted in a chequered pattern, but the paint had worn or peeled off for the most part, and none had cared to renew it. The pair were alone.

“What part has Nûr in this business?” asked Saïd at length, breaking a thoughtful silence. “She has ever been most friendly to me—and to thee likewise, O my soul; since it is by her aid that I am lord of thy fancy. It cannot be that she is turned my enemy …. By Allah, no! it is impossible.”

Ferideh slipped from the couch and knelt at his feet. She reached out her arms to draw him down to her, gazing tenderly into his face.

“O my great lord,” she murmured, with a playful fondness, “thou art a man and wise, while I am but a woman and of no understanding. Yet must I be thy seer, it seems, to point out to thee the cause of many things thy wisdom cannot fathom. Know then, O breath of my life, that mightier than jealousy, more misleading than strong drink, more heady than the perfume of a fair woman, is the greed for money. Now Nûr is the very mother of avarice, and, since her lot is not as the lot of other women, she can have her will of what belongs to her. A maid or a wife may hoard money, but she is sure it will never profit her. With this old woman it is otherwise. The thirst for more grows on her with the years. I doubt not but thou didst fully requite her for her service to thee in the year of the great war, when—may Allah preserve thee for ever, O father of kindness!—thou didst stoop to rescue me, thy handmaid, from the ruin of my father’s house. I say, I am sure thou didst reward her nobly. Yet, now that she beholds thee rich and high in honour, she remembers it as little and grumbles openly.

“O my beloved, the cause of all this coil is thy distrust of me. I am not jealous of Hasneh—Allah forbid! Yet it grieves me to think that thou hast a secret with her which is concealed from me. I mean the secret of the place where thy store is hidden. Nûr knows well that Hasneh is in thy confidence; it is for this that she courts her favour. I, thy servant, am the main obstacle in her way, wherefore she, as well as Hasneh, schemes to remove me; well knowing that I suspect the Mother of Wind, and keep strict watch on her and all who visit her. I know not what reward she holds out to Hasneh, but it must be a great one; for Sàadeh tells me that the eyes of the childless one brighten strangely when she speaks apart with her, and all her bearing is of one who clinches a rare bargain. Now, my lord, thou knowest all—as much as I have been able to gather of the plot. May Allah preserve thy life to me for ever, and may all who hate thee perish utterly!”

V

Saïd’s anger burst forth like a torrent after rain.

Even Ferideh’s life was of less moment than his precious hoard. He called down every kind of shame and disaster upon Nûr and all her kind. Though his understanding discounted the tale of Hasneh’s complicity, his savage rage of the moment made no distinctions. He had no doubt but that Nûr had beguiled his woman to let her into the secret of the hiding-place; and he cursed Hasneh with all the venom of threatened greed.

A slight hubbub arose in the court below, but he heeded it not, though Ferideh strained her ears to listen.

“By Allah, I must at once remove my treasure to some other place; and henceforth I will trust thee, and thee only, O Ferideh,” he muttered in a kind of frenzy. “It may be they have filched from it already. Praise to Allah, thou hast warned me in time! At present there is but a small sum in the house; but, after a few days, when my shop and stock-in-trade shall have been sold, the whole head of my wealth must lie here for a while, until I have closed the bargain with Mahmud; for I have sworn never to trust a usurer with my fortune. Mahmud is obstinate and makes a brave show of holding out, but I know privately that his need is urgent; and he must shortly come to terms. By the Holy Coràn; by Allah Most High, I shall henceforth trust thee only, O my soul! Now listen ….”

She sat at his feet with veiled eyes, but her whole posture told of the keenest attention. The chatter of voices in the yard was no more to her now than the droning buzz of flies which filled the room, and which from long use was accounted silence.

“Thou knowest the roof of this chamber, how it towers above the rest of the house, and the flight of steps leading up to it. Beside the steps, on the right of one ascending, there is a stone like to other stones in the wall, seemingly firmly set as they. Thou mayst know it by the mark of a chisel near its centre. It is a cheat, being but a thin slab—the door of a kind of cupboard. This night I must move my money thither, and if thou canst contrive to join me by stealth, I will teach thee the trick of it. It was made by the owner of the place for his own ends. He showed it me as giving his house an advantage over others; but hitherto I have not used it, considering that Ibrahìm, the doorkeeper, had dwelt long on the premises and might well have an inkling of its whereabouts. But now that my own hiding-place is discovered, I must place the money there. Henceforth thou and no other art in the secret. Allah reward thee, that thou hast warned me in time!”

Ferideh kissed his hand and fondled it, her face shadowed by the tresses she had loosed to charm him. A sweet perfume rose from her, enervating him. He stretched his hands to raise her.

But, even as he leaned forward, the door was pushed open and Suleyman ran in with a burst of laughter.

The little boy was arrayed as a miniature Turkish soldier—a fancy dress Saïd had seen in the shop of a tailor, and had brought home with him to please Ferideh. The doorkeeper had fashioned him a tiny wooden sword, which he wore proudly stuck in his belt. With a spoilt child’s confidence he flew straight to Saïd, laughing, childlike, for no cause whatever. Scrambling upon the couch, he seated himself cross-legged, still laughing, ere he deigned to speak.

“O my father,” he piped. “It is Nûr, the old woman, who is come to see thee. She waits below with the Mother of Wind, whom I have beaten stoutly—I promise thee, by Allah—for making my mother’s hand bleed. She—I mean not that wicked one, but Nûr—she bade me say that she would speak with thee alone. Now I love Nûr well, because she brings me sweets from the shop of Kheyr-ud-dìn, and Kheyr-ud-dìn, as thou thyself hast said, O my father, is the lord of all for candies. See, O my mother, what she has brought me to-day!”

He opened his hand to show a sample of the sweetmeat called “baclawi,” which is a kind of pastry sandwich, filled with spices, sugar, and a dough of sweet nuts, the whole perfectly soaked in honey. The hand displayed was sticky, so he licked it; rubbing his belly with the other to convey a gluttonous joy.

“Up, O Suleyman!” cried Saïd, fiercely. “Run, bid this old woman come hither, to this room, if she has aught of importance to say to me. Tell her besides that I have no secret from the mother of my delight!”

The little boy slipped down from the sofa and stood a minute staring up at him, the half smile of his parted lips begging but a little encouragement to become a guffaw. Then, awed by the sternness of the eyes meeting his, he ran to do the errand as fast as his short legs could carry him.

Ferideh snatched up a shroud-like garment and a veil which hung over the end of the couch, and made haste to don them. Then she knelt to Saïd and kissed his hand, pressing her forehead to it, as a servant craving protection. He fell to stroking her head-dress, a great storm in his throat choking speech.

They heard footfalls on the stair, and a sound of laboured breathing. Then the tall figure of Nûr, which the years had bowed a little, stood in the doorway; and a deep, unquavering voice said,—

“Peace be upon thee, O Saïd, child of my soul! and upon thee also, O daughter of Yuhanna.”

Ferideh returned the salutation mechanically; but the wrath of her lord broke through the habit of a lifetime. Without one word of compliment or blessing, he rushed upon the visitor and cursed her for a thief and a liar, the mother of all mischief. She stood aghast as one thunderstruck, staring at him, while he heaped insult upon insult, sparing no taunt that might wound her. He reviled her with her way of life, calling her all the foul names his throat could frame or his lips utter. He spat upon her for a robber, and would have smitten her face where the eyes shone through the veil, had not Ferideh rushed forward screaming to stay his arm.

For long Nûr remained speechless under his abuse; but by degrees, the lash of his tongue stinging her, she waxed furious. The words of her mouth scarcely reached Saïd save as a stream that strove and failed to drown the torrent of his cursing. Yet a few of them remained with him long after as a menace. “I have loved thee ever as my own child, O Saïd, lord of ingratitude. I would have served thee with my life. And yet thou returnest me no greeting when I bless thee, neither dost thou wait to hear my tale, but assailest me suddenly with evil words, heaping dishonour upon me. Thou art a fool thus to outrage one who never drew near thee with any other purpose than to promote thy welfare …. Get me gone, forsooth! Yes, truly I will get me gone, and that for ever, from this house and the pig its owner. Allah witness, I wash my hands of the dirt of thee. It is well seen thou art the son of low people, O fisherman, who breakest every law of behaviour in thy own house. See how he winces, how the mean soul thinks shame that he was once poor by the will of Allah! Ah, there are many things thou didst bind me not to tell which now shall be made known in the city! How gottest thou that wealth, the root of all thy honour? Didst thou not take it from the old man, the beggar who called thee son? And did he not plunder it from the house of Yuhanna, father to this woman, whom he slew with his own hand? Was there not the Sultàn’s order that restitution should be made, even to the full amount of all that was looted from the Nazarenes? and hast thou made any? Have I not been thy preserver a hundred times, when a word of my mouth could have ruined thee? Even now, when I publish the truth, thou shalt hardly escape a heavy penalty. It may be they will deprive thee of all that thou hast; for the Wâly is needy and loves money, and thy name and honour stand not high enough to acquit thee ….

“Allah knows I loved thee as though thou hadst been my own child, and because I loved thee I have been a shield to thee these many years; but now all ties are broken betwixt me and thee. All I know concerning thee shall be noised abroad; and thou hast told me much that ill becomes a believer. Thy neighbours shall turn from thee with loathing when they learn how thou didst use thy more than father, when he lay dead; making off at once with the money, and leaving thy duty of burial and grief to be done by others. Oh, may Allah blast thy life and blind thee, thou hypocrite who wouldst be called a saint! I came hither, a friend, to warn thee of a peril threatening thee: I go hence, thy foe till death, the friend of thy haters, O dog, son of a dog!”

She was gone and the sound of her retreating steps died upon the stairs. But odd phrases of her speech, which had come to him through the thunder of his own rage, rang yet in Saïd’s brain, like the catch of an evil song, and rankled there. He frowned and his eyes grew haggard. A hush seemed to have fallen upon the house; or was it only that he was deaf from the late uproar? He pictured the servants whispering together in corners, and hoped to Allah no word of Nûr’s had reached them. He heard the voice of the doorkeeper raised in a farewell compliment, and the slam of the closing gate behind someone who had passed out; and he was thankful to know that she was gone.

Ferideh laughed scornfully, looking at the empty doorway as if she still saw the bowed figure filling it, wrapped in its shroud of blue with tarnished fringe of gold. Then, marking her lord’s gloom, she knelt down at his feet and put up her arms to him.

“Praise be to Allah!” she murmured. “Now I surely know that I have favour in thy sight, because thou hast refused to hear the tale of this wicked woman, which is a lie even as the words she spake but now concerning thee are all lies. Seem not so sad, O my dear, for she is powerless to hurt thee seeing thou art set high in wealth and honour, and all men know thee for a good man and an upright. For the sake of the kindness thou hast shown me in this matter, and because thou hast deigned to reveal to me the secret place of thy treasure, I am now more fully thine than ever before. What thanks can I render thee, O my soul? Behold, my inmost secret heart is thine, and I have no desire apart from thee. Take me in thy arms, O sun that warms me! Kiss me, O my beloved!” …

Whereat Saïd became as one of no understanding.

VI

On an evening Saïd went forth alone into the gardens, to the coffee-house of Rashìd, which was on the river bank. He was sure to find Selìm there at that hour; and he walked eagerly, having blithe news to tell. At last Mahmud Effendi had humbled himself, and Saïd was master of the bargain, though in no haste to conclude it. One more interview with the needy grandee and he would own the finest freehold palace in the city. Moreover, thanks to his address in beating down the price, he would have plenty of money left when it was paid. The surplus he would employ in trade and usury, to such advantage that he would soon be the richest man in the province and highest in honour. He saw himself a member of the Council of Notables, enthroned at the Wâly’s right hand, advising the Governor in all things.

The sometime fisherman hugged himself at the prospect. As he emerged from the eastern gate the last rays of sunlight, glanced from the dark hill-tops, were melting the leafage to amber and pale gold. A rich purple gloom gathered in the east, under a sky of amethyst melting to palest green. Down the narrow road, between stone walls more or less ruined, which led to the pleasure-groves by the riverside, men in flowing robes were sauntering by groups of two and three. Their moving shadows were long, oblique and very blue. Most of them dangled chaplets, whose beads they shifted lazily one by one. A few of the more exquisite held flowers of strong perfume to their nostrils, at which they smelt rapturously with a deep breath like a sigh.

The blaze on the hill-tops died suddenly, leaving a glow as of live coal. All things took on soft, dead tints. Shadows grew faint, ashy grey all at once. The sky basked in an afterthought of glory, growing tender for the stars.

A low doorway of the kind which is usual in walled vineyards admitted to the garden, or rather wilderness, in which was the tavern of Rashìd. Saïd bowed his head to pass the lintel, and then stood still in astonishment. In a space pretty clear of the bushes, which formed thickets on every side, there were four tents pitched. Three of them were large marquees; the fourth, a mere canvas screen about a fire, was observed closely by a gathering of curious loafers. Hobbled horses grazed where they could. In the mouth of the largest tent a party of Franks, lounging on chairs of loose structure, were enjoying the cool of the evening. The sound of their laughter reached Saïd, like the beating on a tin for emptiness. From the point of the tent where they sat drooped a small flag of red, white and blue, oddly striped. Saïd knew the pattern of it. It was the same which fluttered on the first day of every week over the dwelling of the English Consul. “Travellers from the land of the English,” he thought, and marvelled at the folly of men who, having wealth and honour in their own country, and being neither merchants nor pilgrims, would thus wander forth in discomfort.

Taking stock of the encampment, he drew near to the tavern. Two or three persons who knew him rose and saluted at his approach. He returned their greeting in a preoccupied manner and passed on to Selìm, who had carried his stool apart and sat against the trunk of a walnut-tree which overhung the stream. Rashìd himself was forward to bring a seat for the merchant and to ask what he would be pleased to drink.

“What news, O my master?” asked Selìm, settling down once more to the enjoyment of his smoke.

“Good news—excellent!” rejoined the other, with a complacent purse of his lips. “Praise be to Allah, one may say that the bargain is concluded.”

“Now, by my beard, I am happy with thee. May Allah make thee blest in it!”

There followed silence between them for a little while; Saïd reviewing his cleverness with a gratified smirk, Selìm gravely watching the dark swirl of the eddies in their bed of pale stones.

“I needs must call in all my money by the third day of next week,” murmured Saïd, as one who thinks aloud.

Selìm knitted his forehead, calculating.

“To hear is to obey,” he said ruefully. “Nevertheless, there is much business and the time is short. Two weeks would scarcely suffice for all that must be done, and behold, thou givest me but a few days. He who sells in a hurry sells at a loss. If, as thou sayest, thou hast made an easy bargain, it cannot surely be that thou wilt need the whole of thy wealth. O my brother, I counsel thee to put off the sale of thy merchandise for at least a little time!”

“It cannot be,” said Saïd, peevishly. “I must know the true sum of my wealth. To buy a fine palace and not to know exactly what was left to him were the action of a fool! The man who did so would be a laughing-stock, and rightly despised …. By Allah, it would be sweet to hold it all before me—all the great wealth which is mine—to pass my fingers through it as one does through dry grains of corn; to reckon it over and over and know that it is with me in the house. Praise to Allah, who has made me rich!”

“Now, Allah forgive thee, O my brother, for thou settest too great store by thy money. Thy heart and thy soul are in it. At that time evil befalls a man when most he vaunts his honour and is puffed up because of it. It is not right for one to keep too close an account of his goods. A man’s fortune is like his vineyard: the heart of it is his own, but every wayfarer has a share in the outlying parts which skirt the highway. Who would deny a bunch of grapes to the thirsty? And if he pluck for himself, would any be found to blame him? So the heart of thy fortune is thine by Allah’s leave; yet thou shalt not take too exact an account of it, lest from always saying ‘I have so-and-so much’ thou set thy wealth between thee and Allah Most High. When a man has a field of corn he will suffer God’s poor to glean in it at the harvest time. Likewise, when a man is blessed with riches even as thou art, it is seemly that, in taking account, he leave an undefined portion for the poor. Nothing of all a man has is his own, but he must pay a part of it in alms to God. If he omit to do this, Allah Himself shall call him niggard and shall soon strike him down, as unworthy, from his high estate. O my brother, all this while that I have been thy servant it has been in my mind that I would rather be a simple hireling, as I am, than the lord of great riches, as thou art. Many snares are in the path of the great, but—praise be to Allah!—the way of the humble is plain.”

“Thou speakest vainly,” said Saïd, snapping him up; “and thy words have no point for me. All this which thou tellest me so solemnly, as if it were some new piece of wisdom, I have known and observed from childhood. With what one fault canst thou tax me, I should like to know!… Do I not give alms to the utmost of all that is mine? Do I not always praise Allah at the appointed hours? Have I ever omitted to purify myself according to the law? By Allah, I wish to know for what cause thou scoldest me!”

Selìm pleaded,—

“Nay, O my master, be not angry with me. Allah forbid that I should venture to chide thee at all. I know well that thou art in all things a just man, and I myself have great reason to bless thee. I call Allah to witness that, from the time thou didst bestow on me that rich garment which I still treasure in my house, I have held thee always as a dear brother. It was but as a brother that I spoke to thee, fearing lest thou shouldst make for thyself an enemy whom none may withstand. And in truth I think thou holdest too much by the outward duty of the law, which, as his Honour Ismaìl Abbâs says, is to its spirit as the word is to its meaning, or the shell of a nut to the kernel. Moreover—”

But Saïd stopped his ears.

“Enough! Enough!… Thou wilt provide that the goods and the shop be sold, and the money brought to me on the second day; I command thee: it is finished. And now, with thy leave, we will speak of other matters.”

After that Selìm was silent a great while, while Saïd puffed defiantly at his narghileh.

The stars were bright by this time, though the sky above the western horizon was still pale green and lustrous. A single dome of the city, seen through a gap of the foliage, seemed to shine beyond the dark walls with a spiritual whiteness all its own. The moon, a thin crescent like the paring of a finger-nail, hung just above it, salient as a jewel on that silky sky. A bird cried drowsily from the upper branches. The wailing voice of a singer came from some other pleasure-house down the stream. The eddies sang and murmured as they sped by.

Anon Saïd picked up his stool and drew near to the tavern.

He had remarked the grouping of those who sat there about some person in their midst, and had caught several deep-breathed “Ma sh’Allah’s,” betokening amazement. Undoubtedly there was some story-teller whose fables might serve to while away an hour and dispel the gloom which Selìm’s sanctimonious croaking had cast upon him. He imparted the conjecture to his henchman, who followed, nothing loth.

They set their stools within the circle of light shed by a clumsy lantern which hung from a joist of the roof; their coming hardly noticed by the other customers, so absorbed were they in listening to the words of him who sat in their midst. Those nearest them, on the outskirts, turned their heads for a second and that was all. Rashìd, grown very fat with the years, was leaning against the doorpost of the inner room. His eyes ranged over the seated crowd before him and his lip curled in scorn.

Saïd beckoned him to draw near.

“Who is the narrator, O my uncle?” he whispered. “Is it anyone of whom one has heard? Are his stories worth heeding?”

“Faugh! It is no narrator, effendi, but only a braggart Nazarene who, having acquired a smattering of the learning of the Franks, is become a dragoman. It is a shame that true believers are found to flatter him by giving ear. By the Coràn, it angers me to see it! He is a great liar, as thou shalt presently hear.”

Having imparted this to the merchant in an undertone, the taverner returned to his doorpost. The rays of the lantern brought the faces of some of the listeners into warm relief; but the story-teller had his back to the light. He wore a fez set rakishly on one side, and for the rest was very gaily dressed in the Turkish fashion. He seemed consumedly proud of a whip of rhinoceros hide mounted and ringed with silver, for he kept it constantly before the eyes of his audience, illustrating every remark with a flourish. The man’s attitude was boastful and assuming, blent, however, with pride at sitting thus on equal terms with men of the dominant creed. Without, in the blue gloom of the garden, the camp-fire and the light of a lamp within the largest tent shone bleared and ruddy. Black shapes were seen moving athwart them from one to the other; the travellers were being served with their evening meal.

“And that city—that Lûndra of which thou speakest—is it a great city like this of ours, or a small place like Hama or Zahleh?” asked an old man of poor appearance.

The dragoman laughed loud and long.

“O Allah!… O Lord!… How you make me laugh, you men who have seen no land but that you were born in! I tell you that if the city Es-Shâm were five times as great as it is, it would not amount to the half of that great city Lûndra of the English.”

At that there was great outcry of wonder and unbelief. “Ma sh’Allah!” cried some and held their peace, aghast. “Allah pardon!” cried others. “Was there ever such a liar? We are simple men and unlearned—that is true—but this thing passes belief!”

“By the Holy Gospel, I speak truth,” insisted the dragoman, with vehemence. “May Allah cut off my life if that which I say exceeds the truth by one little. I am likely to know; for I went to the city of Lûndra and sojourned there half a year by favour of an English lady—no less than a princess, by Allah!—who loved me and would have me with her in the house.”

“Ah, the women! Tell us, I pray thee, O Khawaja, what the women are like,” said a young and handsome Muslim with a chuckle of self-conceit.

The dragoman grew rapturous.

“The women, mean you? Ah, how can I describe them!… And yet I promise thee it is not from want of knowledge that my tongue fails me. The girls of that nation are white and often plump. Their hair varies in colour from black to the hue of clean gold. They are cold and difficult to men of their own race, for whom they are used to care nothing; but they are warm and easy of access to foreigners, and especially to us sons of the Arab, whose blood is as fire in our veins, whose speech is impassioned poetry: so different from the men of their nation, in whom the blood is a stagnant pool and the tongue a sluggard. When I was in Lûndra, fair women followed me in the streets to beseech my company. I speak not, you understand, of the loose women of that city, who are very fine and numerous, but of the wives and daughters of men of substance. There were even some who offered me money to go with them. I tell you, any son of an Arab of an agreeable presence could have his pick of the women of that land, from the wife of the greatest Emìr to the daughter of the meanest fellah.”

“By the prophet, I have a mind to visit that country,” said the young Muslim with a fatuous laugh.

“Now in this party which I conduct at present”—the dragoman pointed with his whip in the direction of the tents—“there is a girl—ah! I tell you—a pearl—a delight.” He held out his hand, pressing the tip of his thumb on that of the extended forefinger: the common gesture of those who would describe something too nice for words. “She loves me, and comes forth to me every night while her parents sleep. She entreats me always to marry her; but I am doubtful whether to do so or not. Her father, you must know, is rich—a great lord. It would be honourable to wed the daughter of such an one. Perhaps—Allah knows!—I shall yield at last to her prayers. Hist!” …. He sank his voice swiftly. “Hither comes the very girl. No doubt she strays in search of me. Observe now, I pray you!”

Saïd stood up so that he could look over the intervening heads. Every neck was craned, and all eyes peered in one direction.

A young girl of about sixteen years, clad in the close-fitting garb of the Frankish women was sauntering towards the tavern, eyeing the scene there with dreamy curiosity. She wore no head-dress save her thick fair hair, which hung free down to her shoulders, where it was gathered in and confined by a ribbon. In spite of her unveiled, undraped state, which, to the mind of the onlookers, was little better than nakedness, she moved freely, without a trace of embarrassment, until she grew aware of the gaze of so many prying eyes, when she averted her face and stepped more consciously. She passed just within the sphere of the lantern, so that a faint, warm light played on the outlines of her figure, hinting rather than revealing its slender grace. Her hands clasped behind her neck threw her bosom forward, strengthening the curve of it. Saïd had often seen Frankish women and had marvelled at their lack of modesty, but he had never beheld one so fair, so young and so perfectly shameless. Believing the tale of the Nazarene, he envied the good fortune of that son of a dog.

She was passing by with a timid glance when she caught sight of the dragoman, who to that end had thrust himself forward. She smiled and nodded graciously to him, saying something kind in her own language. The man replied in a tone of familiarity which conveyed all he meant that it should to the minds of his hearers.

“Aha!” said he, as soon as she was out of earshot. “Aha! She is a peerless gem. By-and-by, when her parents sleep, she will steal out to seek me. By Allah, her mouth overflows with honey. The taste of it makes me drunken.”

The young Muslim stared after the maiden; then, turning,—

“Now, by my life, thou art in luck’s way,” he said. “It is well seen how fair she is! But her father is surely a man of no understanding, and her mother must be like unto him, to let her thus wander without a covering.”

“There is one law for the daughter of an Arab, another for the child of a Frank,” said the dragoman, sententiously. “As for me, I have dwelt so much among foreigners that a veiled woman is almost a strange thing to me. And, in truth, I know no cause why a woman should veil her face any more than a man, unless she be extremely frightful or loathsome to view.”

The tavern-keeper here spoke for the first time, and severely,—

“Young man, thou speakest folly, being a stranger to the Faith that saves. It is a law from of old that every woman shall hide her face from the sight of men. Know that sinful Cabil ebn Adam did lust after his twin sister, Abdul Mughis, and for her sake slew Habil, his brother, who was a good man and dear to Allah. Wherefore it was ordained that all women should hide their shape, that mere lust of the eyes might never more induce so great a crime. Allah is just and merciful!”

At that the garrulous talker was abashed, and his audience looked strange upon him. In the interest they took in his conversation they had all but forgotten the difference of creed. A pause fraught with mutual shyness ensued. Then the dragoman called for more arak and launched forth once more, though with somewhat less of assurance, feeling lonely all at once.

Saïd abode in the little tavern until the first watch of the night was almost spent. He was unaccountably interested in all that the rascal had to tell of that distant land of the English, where the sun was seldom seen, and the women were at once so lovely and so kind to strangers. He questioned the narrator shrewdly as to the state and manner of trade in those parts, and was pleased with the answers he got. It seemed that the finer merchandise of the East—as silks and rich carpets, spices and sweet perfumes—were much prized by the Franks. The way of life there was easy, he learnt, for one who had money and was warmly clad. He felt attracted, and hoped to visit that land.

He imparted this desire to Selìm as they walked back together to the city whose walls rose black before them under a sky pale with stars. But Selìm was chary of sympathy.

“It is true what the drunkard told concerning the Frankish women, how they love men of the East,” he said gravely. “Lo, is there not the English princess in our midst—she who dwells in the house called the House of the English Garden, which is beyond the Christian quarter? She submitted herself to a young man of the Bedawin, and is become his wife. It is true what the dog said. But as for thee, thou hast not yet performed the great pilgrimage; and that must be done ere thou canst think of migrating to a land of unbelief.”

“Perhaps the right is with thee,” rejoined Saïd, moodily. “Yet, from what the infidel said, it must be a pleasant land to dwell in—none like it under Heaven! Didst mark the girl, how sweet she was? By Allah, it is a shame that the son of a dog should have her …. I charge thee make all speed with the business of which we spoke. Allah keep thee in peace, and may thy night be happy!”

They kissed and parted at the city gate.

VII

Early on the morning of the second day of the week Saïd strode through the bazaars towards that familiar upper room which was his shop and which would soon be no longer his. His servant walked a little in advance of him, using the furled parasol as a staff to admonish such of the crowd as were slow to make way. All the ways were thronged with noisy folk. The whole city hummed of life. Rifts in the crazy roof admitted a sunbeam here and there—a bar of light, hazy with dancing motes, which transfigured wayfarers for a moment, causing the colours of their raiment to bloom, and fade as suddenly.

Many of the traders who sat cross-legged behind the stalls bordering the causeway were well known to Saïd. He used his right hand to salute them as he passed; his left hung limp, telling the amber beads of a chaplet. Pleasant odours assailed his nostrils, for many vendors of perfumery had their shops in the lane he was threading.

He was light at heart. The full tale of his fortune was to be told into his hands that day, and on the morrow he would dazzle Mahmud with a part of it. He remembered how Selìm had ever striven to dissuade him from taking this sure path to glory; and his lip curled with the blandest scorn. Selìm was a good man and pious; he could be trusted to the utmost at all times. But he lacked the fire and enterprise which exalt one above others. Calling to mind the fable of the beggar and the collar of gold, Saïd quaked with inward laughter. It tickled him to think that such a story had been told for his instruction—to him, the wiliest of men living.

A woman, cowled and veiled, stood in the way before him, conversing with a tall Christian. The man was dressed in the Turkish fashion, with a tight vest of murrey-colour buttoned down the front, a blue zouave jacket, and a sack for trousers. The woman was shrouded in dull crimson—a common choice of colour. They blocked Saïd’s path in spite of the servant’s cry of “Oäh!” He observed them pretty narrowly in passing, thinking shame that the wife of a Muslim should converse with an unbelieving pig. When he was a little way beyond them the voice of the woman startled him. For a moment he could have sworn that it was Ferideh speaking. He turned sharply to look back, but the conversation was over and the woman lost to sight in the throng.

He felt uneasy. It was the hour when Ferideh and her handmaid were wont to visit the bath. He had sometimes remarked upon the length of time she spent there, and had heard her excuses. Could it be that she was deceiving him? The more he thought of it the less likely it seemed. She had been most docile of late, fulfilling his heart’s desire gladly in all things. Besides Ibrahìm, the doorkeeper, was there to watch her, and he at any-rate was trusty; he would never suffer her to go forth alone. A little reflection showed his fear groundless.

A loud shout to clear the way disturbed his musing. He looked and saw a rider drawing near, well seen above the press of foot-passengers. The crowd parted, making way for an old man of exceeding fatness mounted upon an ass, which was kept at an ambling pace by the vigorous prods of one who walked behind, using his staff for a goad.

“May thy day be happy, O Abu Khalìl!” cried Saïd, merrily. “Whither away so early?”

The fat taverner, who of all men was used to be most friendly to Saïd, for once seemed alarmed to encounter him. He returned the merchant’s greeting falteringly, as one aghast at some sight of terror. He neither reined in his steed nor showed the least wish to parley, but rather urged the donkey to greater speed by vicious digs with the sharp corners of the iron stirrups.

“Cut short thy life!” cried Saïd after him. “What ails thee, old man? Surely thou art possessed with a devil!… Allah keep thee, O Camr-ud-dìn; what is amiss with thy father?”

The young man stood still to scowl at the speaker. Then, seized with sudden anger, he threatened Saïd with his stick.

“My father is a just man and honourable, and thinks shame to speak with a murderer!” he hissed. “Who was it that slew his father shamefully for the sake of gain? Thou knowest not who it was, I warrant! The blood of Mustafa, my father’s friend, is between us, O thou false saint!”

He spat on the ground for very loathing, and so ran on to catch up the donkey which, curbed only by the weak hands of Abu Khalìl, was making sad havoc of the crowd.

Saïd had shrunk back, fearing violence. For some time he strove to collect his wits. Roused at length by the servant’s inquiries touching his health, he became aware that people were staring at him.

“By Allah, it is a lie!” he gasped. “May Allah strike me dead if one word of what the dog said is true!”

The bystanders thought him raving. They murmured of compassion one to another. The servant took his arm respectfully to lead him home; but Saïd, recovering his balance, shook him off and ordered him angrily to lead on. He was glad to be sure that few, if any, had observed the true cause of his discomfiture.

As he pursued his way through the shaded markets like passages in a vast house, he pondered the words of Camr-ud-dìn with mingled anger and distress. It was not hard to guess the source of the libel. Nûr had sworn to make him rue the day he flouted her, and this foul slander was undoubtedly the first-fruits of her spite. The lie was chosen with devilish cunning. He could by no means disprove it, for there had been no eyewitness to the manner of Mustafa’s death. His only course was one of flat and obstinate denial, and even then many were sure to think he spoke false.

But in the very midst of gloomy forebodings a droll memory came to make him chuckle. He grinned broadly, and his eyes twinkled under brows still lowering. It had often been told him how, at the burying of Mustafa, Abu Khalìl had all but met his death through excess of mourning. The faithful have the custom to put a little soap in their mouths when attending a funeral, that the foam on their lips may vouch for the frenzy of their grief. Now Abu Khalìl, being an elderly man and wheezy, had managed to swallow his piece of soap at the very outset, before it was well melted. It had stuck in his throat, choking him; so that he flung himself on the ground, spitting, coughing and struggling in mortal terror. All those who walked with him, ascribing these antics to respect for the deceased, looked on admiringly; until Camr-ud-dìn, divining the true cause, rolled his father over and thrust a finger down his throat, when they saw the fun of it and fell a-quaking, exaggerating the gravity of their faces to mask the untimely mirth convulsing them.

He had always felt friendly towards Abu Khalìl, and to know the old man’s mind estranged from him was of itself a cruel blow. He consoled himself, however, with the reflection that on the morrow he would be the peer of princes, owning a great palace, and so out of reach of the malice of these low people.

No sooner did he arrive at the shop than all cares were drowned in the instant bliss of counting out a great sum of money all his own. His entire wealth was there before him, bestowed in leathern bags whose fulness was a joy to see. He abode in that upper room, drinking sherbet, smoking and gloating over his riches till the fall of night, when, with the help of Selìm and his son, he conveyed the treasure privately to the hiding-place prepared for it in his own house. The delight of possessing so much made him generous, and Selìm’s faithfulness was suitably rewarded. Saïd sat late upon the house-top that night, looking out over the city and up at the moon, a great pride choking him and bringing tears to his eyes.

VIII

The moon was near the full. The city, precise in clear light and velvet shadow, seemed a fantasy of carven stone with its domes great and little, graceful minarets tapering like spindles, and the jutting cubes of its upper chambers. Seen thus from above, it had no life save that which the glow from some high lattice hinted, or a group of black forms motionless upon some terraced roof. The half-circle of the hills closed the distance, as it were the dark rim of a cup filled to the brim with moonlight.

Saïd’s eyes strayed from the precision of the near buildings to the floating mystery beyond. He was dreaming a fair dream, and the realism of keen outlines hurt his eyes. He sat there in the hollow of the night, and its silence talked with him; while the city murmured weary as a shell, so faintly that it seemed a hush made audible. He was alone with Allah: the thought hallowed his selfish ecstasy. Exultant, he lifted up his heart in thanksgiving to God, who had endowed Saïd the Fisherman with sharp wits beyond his fellows, so that, by the blessing of the Most High, he was now risen to be Saïd the Merchant, lord of a great palace, and of money enough. He hugged himself for a clever one. By the Coràn, there was none like him in all the world!

A sound of weeping rose from within the house. It had long been audible, but he perceived it suddenly and with a start. It came from the chamber where, by his order, Hasneh was confined. She had been in durance except when at work ever since the day of her attack on Ferideh. Always she prayed to be allowed to speak with her lord, were it but for a minute, but Saïd had been peremptory in refusal. The voice of her distress broke jarringly upon his dream. His heart smote him so that he frowned and cursed her under his breath. The next impulse was to go down and speak kindly to her, to silence the one note discordant with his happiness. But he was mindful of his promise to Ferideh, and, moreover, was loth to move lest, by so doing, he should break the spell of his lonely musing. He contented himself with a vow to treat her better in the future. The new house, which would be his on the morrow, was roomy enough to accommodate many women. Hasneh should have a separate lodging in it, and, it might be, a handmaid to wait on her.

Having given this sop to his conscience, he was falling again into his waking dream of pride, when he became conscious of a soft footfall on the roof behind him. Turning, he beheld Ferideh, her veil thrown back, coming towards him with outstretched hands.

“O father of Suleyman!—O my lord!—O my dear!” she besought him. “Thou hast taken no food since the early morning, and now it is sleep-time. Thou art surely famished and faint with the fatigue of the day. Come down, I pray thee, and partake of that which with my own hands I have made ready for thee! Ever since the sunset Suleyman has been crying for thee—hardly could I coax him to sleep. Come now, O star of my soul, and delay not to take refreshment!”

“Good—I come!” said her lord, brushing away the last mists of reverie with the back of his hand. “Allah increase thy wealth, O mother of Suleyman! Now, indeed, I perceive that I am hungry, though the thing had escaped my mind. I will gladly go down with thee into the house for an hour, but after I have eaten I must return hither. No sleep will seal my eyes this night for the care of my treasure which is here bestowed. Wherefore I purpose to wrap me in a cloak and abide here till daybreak.”

“Now, of a truth, thy speech is not of wisdom,” said Ferideh, chiding, as she followed him down the stone flight which climbed by the wall. “By watching thou wilt but weary thyself to no purpose; for who is likely to rob thee, O light of my eyes? I alone, of all in the house, am privy to the secret of thy treasure, and I shall be with thee through the night. Nay, by Allah, if thou thinkest indeed that vigil must be kept, I myself will watch instead of thee. Thou hast toiled all the day while I have been lazy; wherefore thy servant is now the better fitted for this duty.”

Saïd was touched by her devotion. He blessed her, but bade her speak no more on the subject for his mind was made up.

In the best chamber of the harìm a meal was set forth on a large tray of brass, beside which was spread a square of carpet. There was a savoury mess of rice and chicken meat, another of beans fried in oil; a large earthen bowl brimmed with a syrup compounded of honey and the pressed juice of grapes, in which were whole grapes floating. Two loaves were there, as flat as pancakes, besides a little heap of figs, very tempting in their purple ripeness. At sight of these dainties Saïd’s hunger strengthened apace. He took stock of them, enjoying the foretaste, while Ferideh fetched a vessel of water, a basin and a napkin from the antechamber. His washings done, he crossed his legs upon the mat, and, leaning forward, plunged a ravenous hand into the mess. Ferideh waited upon him clingingly. Her fingers had a trick of caressing whatever they touched, of dwelling lightly for a moment as if reluctant to quit hold. To watch her through the open door, bending languidly over a brazier where coffee was stewing, lifting things and setting them down with that strange touch of hers, thrilled Saïd unaccountably.

“Art thou still minded to keep lonely watch upon the house-top to-night?” she said archly, when, having cleared away the fragments of the feast, she came to nestle against him.

He answered,—

“Nay, by Allah; I have no mind to do aught save content thee. Nevertheless, after I have spent an hour at thy side and thy eyes grow heavy with sleep, it may well be I shall repair again to the terrace. Understand, O my pearl, that my mind is anxious out of all reason. And to watch upon the house-top in the cool night air seems better than to be wakeful in a narrow room.”

She turned her shoulder upon him, pouting, but held her peace. His arm circled her lovingly. Of a sudden she started away and clapped her hands in childish glee.

“O my dear, I have something good for thee!” she cried, “something sweet for thee to taste. Merciful Allah! I had quite forgotten it until this minute. Wait but a little and I will bring thee a glassful hither!”

She ran from the room and shortly returned, carrying in her hand a glass filled with some amber fluid. She offered it to him.

“What stuff is this?” asked Saïd, cautiously, taking the glass in his hand and holding it up between him and a candle which burned on the wooden press by the wall, so that a ray shone through it.

“Know, O lord of all my doings, that I, thy servant, was idle after noon of this day, and I grew weary of being idle. So I called Sàadeh to me and took counsel what to do. And it happened, by the grace of Allah, that there were many figs with us in the house—of the gift of Rashìd the taverner, thy friend, who sent us yesterday three basketfuls. And it came into my mind to make a new dainty—I mean a sherbet of figs. So we made careful choice of the fruit and crushed it with sugar in a little water and set it in a pan to boil. And afterwards, when the mixture was cool again, we sipped and found it very good. And I said in my soul, O soul, my idleness has been well employed for I have devised a new dainty for the mouth of my beloved. Now taste, I pray, and tell me how thou findest!”

Saïd sniffed at the contents of the glass and made a wry face.

He said,—

“The smell of it is not good. It is perhaps some trick thou wouldst put upon me for laughter’s sake. Allah grant it be no unclean thing or fierce drug to madden me. It were a sin to make me drink wine who am preparing for the pilgrimage.”

But Ferideh’s gaze of stricken love reassured him. Once more he held the potion up to the light and looked through it.

“Sherbet of figs, saidst thou? Allah have pity? Surely it cannot be. Figs are all too fleshy to yield clear syrup like this.”

Ferideh’s voice quavered a little as she replied,—

“We strained it through a piece of new muslin, and when all which would run through was collected, we took the cloth with what remained therein and wrung it out over the basin. Thus we obtained much syrup. O my dear lord, it is cruel to tease me so; being as if thou didst doubt my care for thee, which Allah forbid! I beseech thee drink and tell me: Is it not good?”

Saïd sipped at the lip of the glass, then worked his tongue reflectively.

“It is not unpleasant,” he admitted. “But, by my beard, I perceive no taste of figs in it, but rather of walnuts, I should say, or something of that kind. It is sweet, however, and I am fain to drink it if by so doing, I may pleasure thee.”

At that she drew closer, with tender looks and soft speech inflaming him. When he had emptied and set down the glass she locked her hands behind his neck. She knelt close to him upon the ground, her bosom strained to his chest so that he felt its warmth. Her head was thrown somewhat back, that her eyes might look into his. The poise of her head, with the trail of her body along the ground, suggested a snake in act to strike its prey.

He clasped her to him. “Allah is great!” he muttered; more as a convenient explosive than for any bearing the words had upon the case. He marvelled vaguely at the change which had taken place in her during the last few weeks. Formerly it had been hard to win the least endearment from her, but now she lavished tenderness upon him at all times. Once her words of love, when uttered, were spiritless, as though she had them by rote; now they were impassioned even beyond his own. Referring this new fire of hers to the circumstances attending Hasneh’s disgrace, he wondered that so slight a thing should have power to change the whole nature of a woman.

She went on speaking feverishly, gazing ever into his eyes as if she expected something to appear there which was long in coming.

A strange slumber stole upon Saïd. At first it was but a pleasant languor. Then he grew dizzy. Things dilated and dwindled unaccountably. He heard himself murmur, “O garden of my delight!” … and then all was a blank. He knew no more until he awoke in broad daylight to find Selìm bending over him with an anxious face.

“What is the hour?” he inquired drowsily, putting a hand to his forehead. There was pain like a keen dagger in either temple.

“It is near noon, O my brother,” said his henchman with a rueful grin. “I come from the house of Mahmud, where thou hast long been expected. Merciful Allah! What ails thee? Never before have I known thee lag abed. Know, O my master, that Mahmud Effendi is furious at thy delay. He believes that thou hast a set purpose to insult him. All his father’s house are gathered there to witness the sale. O my eyes, come quickly and bring the money humbly in thy hand, for they are very angry and would fain do thee dishonour; but the money will appease them. This is a strange humour of thine, to sleep on the bare floor when there is a fine bed at hand.”

Saïd sprang to his feet and looked about him, searching every corner with his glance.

“Where is Ferideh?” he cried distractedly.

“Allah alone knows, if thou knowest not!” retorted Selìm in great surprise. “When I came hither it was told me that thou and she were together in this chamber, that the door was made fast with a key for a token that you would not be disturbed. Knowing what grave business awaited thee, I presumed to break open the door. Thine was a heavy sleep, O my brother, for thou heardest not the crash of it. It has taken me so long to waken thee that I began to be afraid, counting thee for dead.”

Saïd did not stay to parley. Like a madman he rushed out of the room, through the antechamber, and up the flight of stone steps that led to the roof.

His hiding-place had been rifled. With brutal carelessness the robber had omitted to replace the slab of stone. The hole lay open, quite empty.

Saïd rent his clothes and shrieked for rage and despair. Then he ran down the outer steps into the court so furiously that he fell heavily at the bottom, striking his head upon the pavement. His cap and turban fell off, but he knew it not. He rose, a wild figure, with face all bruised and bleeding, with bare head close-shaven so that the ears stuck out monstrously, and ran forward shouting,—

“Where is Ferideh? I command you, tell me where the lady Ferideh is!…”

But the cowering servants had no tidings of her.

“Where Suleyman? Where Sàadeh?”

But there was no answer, only a cringing protestation of innocence from one and all.

His brain reeled. He stretched out his hands vaguely for support, and with a faint cry, “Allah! Allah!” fell lifeless on the pavement.

Cries of distress and horror rent the air. Selìm bent sadly over the form of his sworn brother. Ibrahìm the doorkeeper brought the turban and tarbûsh he had picked up and placed them reverently on his master’s head. Hasneh, who had found freedom in the general confusion, flung herself across the body in a passion of grief.

Saïd was carried back into the chamber where he had slept so long and laid upon the Frankish bed which had been his pride. A leech was called in, who bled him freely. By the evening he was able to get up and take count of his misfortunes. He sat on the bare stones with torn raiment and ashes on his head, crying ever, “O Allah, have pity!… O Lord, take my life also!” so that men wept to hear him.

By the evening, too, his story was known throughout the city. Men thronged to see but the house of a man who had lost his wealth and wife and son in a single night; and Ibrahìm the doorkeeper became a person of great importance. Saïd the Merchant and Ayûb the Prophet were commonly named in the same breath together; and vows of vengeance were freely made against the man, whatsoever his quality, who had caused this great wrong to be done in the city.

IX

Selìm, quite distraught with grief for his master’s adversity, sought the Wâly, the chief of the police, the Mufti, and whomsoever of the great men of the city he thought could succour him. For two days he knew no rest, but was ever on the run from his own lodging to the Seraï or the castle, and back again to Saïd’s house. His efforts were not in vain. Seeing that the whole city was moved by the outrage, the authorities were strenuous in their endeavours to find the culprits. A description of Ferideh and her child, with such conjectures as to the appearance of her paramour as could be formed from what Hasneh had to tell, were sent post-haste to Beyrût and Hama, to Tarabulus, to Homs, to Haleb, and to various out-posts on the desert frontier. Thoughts of the great sum of money the criminals had with them turned each sleepy official to a hungry wolf. They were certain to be taken, the head of the irregular troops told Saïd; it was a question of a few days at the most. He boasted that he had made the whole country a net for them, and waited but a sign to haul in and take them fast in its toils. His confidence was of great comfort to Saïd, the more so that he could appreciate the metaphor. He vowed the half of his wealth to those who should recover it for him; and he cried night and day upon the name of Allah, with lamentation and every kind of self-abasement, so that all men marvelled at his piety.

At first, as has been said, the Government was very eager in pursuit of the offenders, sparing no pains to ensure their capture. But by-and-by, when many days had passed and all search proved fruitless, zeal began to flag. It was said that the criminals were clean gone out of the country, or else they must surely have been taken, with the hue-and-cry raised everywhere. If it was Allah’s will that they should escape, where was the use in further bothering about them? The man Saïd was left penniless, or nearly so; and that is an ill day’s work which is done for thanks only.

The ruined merchant went from house to house, from public office to public office, exhorting, entreating, urging the need of fresh exertions. But, bringing nothing with him, he met with deafness. He found high officials dozing frankly over narghilehs, and came away disheartened, bemoaning his lot, to return on the morrow and get angry words. Doors were closed against him. Those in authority refused to see him any more, and he fared no better with the underlings, having no money to give.

Weary and heartsick, he at length gave up all hope of redress, and turned his mind to the ordering of his affairs. This was no easy matter, for the waste of the household had been great. Saïd, though shrewd and even stingy in all business concerns, was fond of display as tending to his own aggrandisement, and this passion he had of late indulged to the utmost. His infatuation, too, with Ferideh had cost him a pretty penny. Debts of long standing, which had been trifles overlooked in the day of prosperity, were heavy burdens now that there was nothing to meet them. And the creditors clamoured for their money—the whole sum of it; they would not hear of a compromise.

The house was his until the end of the year; but, empty and dismantled, it was a gloomy dwelling-place, having a dismal echo of bygone joys. He saw himself obliged to sell all that was best of the furniture, and the superfluity of rich clothing he had purchased in his grandeur. He dismissed the servants, all save Ibrahìm, the doorkeeper, who refused to leave, having grown attached to the house and taking great blame to himself for the flight of Ferideh, but stayed on without care of wages. He was reduced to beggary, without even the collar of gold of Selìm’s parable to distinguish him from others in the same plight. More than once it had entered his mind to steal away to the coast, and take ship, he cared not whither. But he thought himself a marked man. For aught he knew, there were spies set to watch his every movement. He dreaded that mysterious net of which the Chief of Police had told him, and, dreading, stayed to face his creditors. But the tale of his distress is not all told. There would have been some satisfaction in haunting the taverns of the city and dinning the tale of his misfortunes into all men’s ears. The horrified “Ah!” and uplifted hands of his listeners would have stroked his vexed soul soothingly. But even this dismal gratification was denied him. A story, whose source he guessed too surely, began to pass from mouth to mouth. It was commonly said that Saïd—who now, for the first time since his rise, began to be known as the Fisherman—had obtained his money in the confusion of the great slaughter by murdering an old man and a pious Muslim, his adopted father. Men looked askance at him in the markets. In vain did Selìm speak everywhere on his master’s behalf, giving the lie direct to evil tongues; the voice of slander was silenced only in his presence, and the rumour gained ground until all men knew it. Many of Saïd’s old acquaintances drew aside their raiment and passed him with averted faces. Mahmud Effendi, who had paid him a formal visit of condolence in the early days of his downfall, when all men pitied him, now rode by him in the street with scarcely an acknowledgment of his low obeisance. He skulked like a dog through the streets, seeing knowledge and belief of the rumour in all eyes.

His sole resort in those days was the tavern of Rashìd without the city walls. There he was always welcome to what refreshment he chose, and no word of the libel was ever uttered in his hearing. Selìm, too, took care that he should want for nothing, but provided for his needs secretly, through Hasneh, without himself appearing as the giver.

The month of Ramadan came; and Saïd, in awe of the strong hand which had laid him low, disposed himself to fast as he had never fasted before. All day long he abode in the house, touching neither bite nor sup, praying by turns and lamenting his evil day. He entered willingly into conversation with no one, lest, beguiled into a moment’s forgetfulness, he should swallow his spittle, and so break his fast according to the vow he had taken.

One evening, towards the close of the sacred month, he sat upon the house-top, waiting for the gun to be fired. The sun was set, and the light in the sky was as the fire of precious stones—a light apart from sun, moon or stars. The first dusk of night gathered upon the fasting city. Saïd’s heart expired in prayer to Allah, for the stress of thirst and hunger was almost more than he could bear. Hasneh crouched near him, watching him patiently with tender eyes. Thus she would sit all the day through, grateful for a glance, a word, though it were of anger or impatience.

The dull boom of a cannon shook the whole city, echoing like far-off thunder from the encircling hills; and immediately, as if by magic, lights appeared in the galleries of the high minarets, about the domes of the mosques, and in every window. The fast of Ramadan was ended with the day, and the feast of Ramadan would endure through the night.

“Praise be to Allah!” murmured Saïd with a mighty gulp. He took a cigarette which lay beside him on the roof, set it between his lips and lighted it, while Hasneh fetched meat and drink from within the house. He ate ravenously and drank half a pitcherful of water. With what remained he washed himself and then performed his devotions, facing south, with eyes that seemed to see the holy place of Mecca, so rapt was their look. Then, with a brief word of thanks to Hasneh, he descended to the courtyard and passed out into the streets.

On all hands there was music and laughter, the sounds of feasting and all manner of savoury smells. The illuminations of lamps and candles in every dwelling made the ways nearly as bright as in the day-time. Wherever shadow was, thither slunk the dogs which, with the vultures, keep Ramadan all the year round. In passing the open door of a tavern he heard words which staggered him.

“Where is the son of Mustafa, since thou sayest he had a son? Why does he delay to avenge his father’s death? This Saïd has thriven too long by the profits of his crime. ‘I mounted him behind me, and lo, he has put his hands in the saddle-bags’—thou knowest the proverb. Thanklessness is common in the world, but to slay a benefactor is surely the blackest of crimes. It is for the son of Mustafa to stand forth and claim his life or the blood-money. Where is he, O Camr-ud-dìn? He must be a coward or a scoundrel to tarry so long!”

The voice of Camr-ud-dìn was uplifted in answer, but Saïd did not wait to hear what he said. He hurried on his way, a prey to this new fear. Through all these years it had escaped his memory that Mustafa had a son, Mansûr, begotten of his own body. He trembled. It was time that he shook the dust of Es-Shâm from his feet for ever.

As he made his way through the crowd in a bright bazaar he was aware of the unfriendly looks of many, and could have sunk into the ground for shame. To avoid recognition he crept along by the wall, yet even thus men’s eyes found him out and followed him.

Said one, “What shall be done to him who slew his father? O lord! Shall he not be stoned to death?”

“Nay, hold thy hand!” quoth another in a tone of rebuke; “the thing is not proven against him.”

Saïd hurried on in deadly fear. If he could only win clear of the more populous streets he might reach the gardens without danger of molestation. He caught sight of a group of young men whom he knew for his enemies. They were of ill repute in all the city for their wildness. To them it were as light a thing to stone a man to death as to pelt a dog or mob a Jew for pastime. They stood together before the blazing stall of a sweet merchant, barring his way. He turned with intent to flee, and, in doing so, ran against an old man, richly apparelled, who had that moment issued from a doorway. In great confusion, Saïd blurted out a form of apology. The sheyk’s green turban proclaimed him a holy man, and his dress bespoke him some great one high in honour. He turned swiftly to look at Saïd, and revealed the white beard and kindly face of Ismaìl Abbâs, the Sherìf. He smiled at the encounter.

“Peace on thee, O fisherman,” he said courteously. “How is thy health? And how do thy nets fare all this long time that thou hast neglected them? Whither goest thou?”

Saïd was bowed almost to the ground.

“Allah keep thee in safety, O Emìr! I was going to the tavern of Rashìd, which is on the river-bank, but I have many enemies—Allah witness, they have no cause to hate me!—and the way is hardly safe for me to go thither. It was in the act to turn back that I ran against thy Worship, may Allah pardon me the rudeness!”

Ismaìl Abbâs cast a shrewd glance round upon the bystanders. Many had stayed to observe this meeting of saint and sinner in the public street, and amazement, not unmixed with concern, was written on their faces. The holy man took Saïd’s hand to lead him, saying loudly,—

“Now, by my beard, thou goest not to the tavern of Rashìd, nor anywhere else, but home with me to partake of the feast which I have caused to be spread for my friends.”

It was as if the Prophet himself had taken Saïd by the hand and said, “This is a friend of mine: vex him at your peril.” All whom they passed in the way made low reverence to the great and saintly man, and Saïd had a part in their greetings. Of all the dwellers in Damashc-ush-Shâm, Ismaìl Abbâs was esteemed most highly, both on account of his great learning and righteousness, and for his family, which was among the noblest of the city. To be seen walking with him, holding his hand as a bosom friend, did more to establish Saïd’s innocence in the minds of the populace than any number of witnesses in a court of law. When at length they gained a quiet place, Saïd burst out weeping, and would have prostrated himself to kiss his saviour’s feet had not that good man prevented him.

“Nay, Allah forbid that thou shouldst fall down before me!” said Ismaìl Abbâs, a little testily. “If thou hast anything to be thankful for, give praise where praise is due. I have done no more for thee than I would have done for a dog in distress; for the very dogs have living souls, as some have said.”

He led Saïd on by quiet ways, and, as they went, he asked him strange questions out of all reason; as,—

“Hast thou a wife left to thee in the day of thy misfortune?”

“There remains to me my old woman, O Emìr—she who was with me from the beginning, the first that ever I had.”

“Then be kind to her, as thou regardest thy salvation. Remember that, in the last day, the weak shall take their vengeance upon the strong, the unarmed upon the armed, the unhorned cattle upon the horned cattle. For Allah is just, and in the end He will make the balance level.”

And again,—

“Thou that art a fisherman, and knowest the ways of the sea, tell me, What does a mariner when shipwrecked on the coast of his own country?”

Saïd reflected a minute, supposing it had been a riddle.

“By my beard, I suppose that he will praise Allah, and then he will return with speed to his own place.”

“Good,” replied the great man; “the case is thine. A while ago thou didst set out in the hope to gain honour; but now behold thou art shipwrecked. Out of thy mouth I counsel thee, Take thy woman with thee and go home, return to thy native place and to thy fishing, and perchance we shall find thee money wherewith to buy nets and a house.”

This advice did not please Saïd. He dreaded the triumph of Abdullah, who must by this time be among the greatest of his native town. However, he said nothing openly to his benefactor, but feigned to fall in gladly with the plan.

At the house of Ismaìl Abbâs there was much company, for the host was renowned for hospitality, and many loved him. All present used Saïd friendly, wishing him a blessed feast, and not scorning to sit at meat with him. Throughout the night there was good cheer and the wisest discourse; for above all things save piety, Ismaìl Abbâs prized wisdom and learning, and his friends were chosen for their qualities rather than wealth or rank. Towards morning, when men rose to go, the Sherìf took Saïd apart to speak with him alone. He advised him strongly to go back to his first trade of a fisherman. Es-Shâm was full of his enemies, an evil story being current there concerning him. He (Ismaìl) had judged it false from the first; and yet many were found to put faith in it. It behoved Saïd to leave the city as soon as the sacred month should expire.

This last counsel fell in timely with the fisherman’s own wishes, and he promised humbly to follow it. Then, having received his host’s blessing, and a handsome present of money wherewith to buy nets and a house, Saïd took his leave, kissing his patron’s hand repeatedly, and calling upon Allah to reward his kindness.

It wanted but four hours of daybreak and the sounds of revelry were growing faint and rare. Many of the candles had guttered and gone out, and those which remained burned dimly and awry. The stars resumed their sway and a slumbrous calm wrapped the city. There would be peace now until an hour before sunrise, when most men would rise and eat again, to fortify themselves against the long day’s fast. Saïd met several parties wending homeward from carousals. He himself went not home, but to the dwelling of Selìm, where there were lights burning. The mother of Mûsa opened to his knocking. She peered hard at him. “Praise be to Allah!” she cried, flinging up her hands. “Deign to enter, O my lord! It is indeed the master! Come, O Selìm! Behold, his Eminence is restored to us in safety. Know, O Effendi, that Selìm has been greatly troubled this night on thy account, because thou camest not to the tavern of Rashìd though he sat there long awaiting thee. He feared some evil had befallen thee; but now we behold thee safe, thanks to Allah!”

Selìm rushed forward with the like expressions of joy and gratitude. It was some time before Saïd could make himself heard, for the stir of his entrance had awakened the children, who screamed and roared in chorus. But at last, by the exertions of Mûsa and his mother, the din subsided, and he said,—

“After five days I leave Es-Shâm for ever, and Hasneh with me. By the grace of Allah, I have now a little money with which we shall journey to the sea-coast, and there take ship, I care not whither, so that it be far from this city of falsehood.”

Selìm received the news with a cheerful face.

“It is but a minute since I spoke to the same purpose,” he said; “is it not so, O mother of Mûsa? Of a truth, since thy ruin this city displeases me and, thanks to thee under Allah, I am well provided with money, which can serve us both. I thought to go into Masr—what sayest thou? I have a brother who migrated thither in the time of Ibrahìm Basha, when Masr was as one country with Es-Shâm. He is well established in the city of Iskendería, and from time to time he sends a word to me by travelling merchants. He declares it to be a pleasant land, favourable for every kind of trade. We will journey together, by thy leave; Allah grant us a safe voyage and prosperity in the end!”

At that Saïd seized both hands of his friend and kissed them, blessing Selìm for a good man and a faithful—none like him in all the world!

So it came to pass, one early morning, that Saïd and Hasneh left the great city, in the company of Selìm and all his family, by the same road which Saïd had followed at his coming, nearly twelve years before. At the brow of the hill, beside the shrine which is there, they turned to look their last upon that place of gardens. Saïd’s eyes brooded long and lovingly over it, as though it had been indeed the early paradise he was leaving; and it was with a choking voice that at last he bade Selìm lead on.

X

The little company journeyed but slowly, for the sake of the women and children. The weather was hot and breathless, as it often is at the extreme end of summer, when the air begins to grow heavy with the first storm. Selìm had provided two donkeys to carry the baggage, and also to give a spell of rest to anyone who grew weary. One bore the weight of his household treasures, and his wife with her young baby rode upon it when she chose. Saïd generally bestrode the other, which was laden with his goods, while Hasneh walked meekly beside; though sometimes, feeling the need to stretch his legs, he would alight and bid her take his place for a time. Often he would take up one of Selìm’s children to ride with him; and Selìm himself, with Mûsa, made shift to carry the others when they tired.

At first their way lay through mountains, barren and treeless, except for certain favoured nooks, where there was water and deep shade of fruit-trees. Through the heat of the day the landscape seemed to bronze, so massive it was and sullen under the burning sky. A rare terebinth, growing high up among the cliffs, was rusty black, and cast a shadow uncouth as the rocks themselves. But in the early morning, what with the young sunlight and the dewy shade, every boulder had a charm and freshness of its own, so that the little band sang blithely at setting out. And towards sundown, when the peaks were all purple and gold, and the level spaces coloured like flower-beds, they drank in the coolness of the evening with sighs of relief.

They crossed the plain called El Bica’a, with its scattered villages, and all through one afternoon they moved along in the growing shadow of Lebanon. Ere noon of the next day they paused on the crest of the mountain and beheld the coast-plain far below them languishing in a haze of heat. The sea beyond was like a burnished sheet of silver. Saïd’s heart leapt at the familiar sheen of it, but the sight brought no enduring pleasure. His native land was very dear to his soul now that the time drew near when he must quit it. They were now on the Sultàn’s highway—a great white coach-road, the work of a Frankish company, whose zigzag windings could be traced as a wan and crumpled ribbon down all the mountain-side. Carriages dashed past them, filled for the most part with Christians in semi-Frankish dress, forcing the group of wayfarers to the roadside, blinding and choking them with a cloud of dust.

The sun was near his setting when they reached the level of the plain. On all sides there were gardens plumed with date-palms, and fine stone dwellings bosomed in leafage. Seaward, across the plantations, loomed a dark belt of pines. A flight of bee-eaters wheeling in the flush of sunset seemed like dead leaves the sport of a wind. The road lay straight before them, stained with sunset light. There was much people in carriages and on horseback—townsfolk of Beyrût—come forth to taste the sweets of evening. Shadows were long and grey-blue to eastward.

The sight of the palm-trees and the diffused fragrance moved Saïd deeply. He knew that the sea was at hand—the sea which he had known from babyhood, whose voice was a home voice to him. Yet at that time he loathed the thought of it, his heart yearning to the sweet gardens and the peaceful life of a husbandman.

Weary and footsore they entered the city of Beyrût, and it seemed to Saïd that he was already in a strange land. The Frankish garb was almost as common in the streets as the dress of the country, and four men out of every five he saw were Christians. He had been there once before on an errand of commerce, but the foreign character of the town had not struck him then as now. Nearly all the houses had red-tiled roofs, and the shops were of a pattern unfamiliar to him. The streets were wide and ablaze with lights. Wheeled carriages, each drawn by a pair of horses and driven by one who sat aloft with frenzied shouting and cracking of a whip, were frequent here though in the capital they were still esteemed a fine rarity. He began to be afraid for the future. If he felt thus lonely in a seaport town of his own country, how could he bear to dwell in a foreign land? He made his uneasiness known to Selìm, who bade him be of good cheer, for that Beyrût stood alone, the lord of all the world for iniquity and unbelief. In Masr he would find it quite otherwise; there the faithful outnumbered the infidels as ten to one.

Selìm was well acquainted with the city, having often visited it in the days when he was a muleteer. He led his company by quiet and tortuous ways to the Muslim quarter, where there was less of a foreign appearance to trouble Saïd. They took their lodging at a khan which overlooked an ancient burying-ground tufted with black cypresses. Hard by was a mosque whose squat, ungainly minaret stood up against the last green of evening. An owl hooted in some bush of the graveyard. The place had a wistful sadness in the gathering night.

After they had washed and prayed, Saïd and Selìm took Mûsa with them to the guest-chamber, where they ate apart, the women being entertained elsewhere in the house by their own kind. The room was filled with men of all conditions, from the rich merchant with his saddle-bags beside him to the servant who sat or rose at his master’s nod, and the muleteer squatting shamefaced by the door. A portly man of middle age sat with his back against the wall, sucking luxuriously at a narghileh. His bright, shifty eyes were keenly observant of all that went on. He looked earnestly at Saïd and watched him all the while he was eating. At length, when the coffee was brought, he coiled the tube and mouthpiece about the vessel of his pipe and crossed the room.

“Peace be upon thee, O Saïd, O my dear!” he said heartily. “Allah be praised that I behold thy face once more! How is thy health? If Allah will, it is the best possible!”

Surprised by the warmth of this greeting in a place where he was a stranger, Saïd eyed the man narrowly as he rose in acknowledgment. Surely it could not be!—And yet, who else?… In dismay and amazement he recognised his sometime friend and partner, Abdullah the fisherman. He stepped aside with him.

“How goes thy business all this long time, O father of Azìz?” he asked, when the perfunctory compliments had given him time to recover from the shock of the encounter.

“Praise be to Allah, not ill; I cannot complain, for I am now high in honour in our city. It is a small city—that is true—but what eminence may be attained therein I have attained. There is talk of recommending me to the Mutesarrif to be Caimmacàm, when the time comes to make a change. Of a truth, if they choose me not I know not of whom they will make choice, for there is none in all those parts to vie with me in wealth and consequence.”

He bragged with assurance, but his dress belied his words, for he was meanly clad.

“As for thee, O my soul, how fares it with thee?” he inquired in his turn.

“By the grace of Allah, I thrive,” said Saïd, casting up his eyes fervently. “By the Coràn, I am happiest of men. All that belongs to wealth and honour and prosperity is mine, and I am risen to the supreme height of my desire. And behold all this is come to me because of that foul trick thou didst play me years ago, O sly robber that thou art!”

“Whoever robbed thee it was not I—Allah be my witness! No, by my beard, it was some other, and that a devil in all likelihood,” murmured Abdullah, blandly, as if disclaiming an honour one would thrust on him. “But say, where dwellest thou, O my eyes?”

“In Es-Shâm—in the great city, O my dear, where I own a fine house such as a prince might envy. By Allah, I am become a great one in that city, which is the first of all cities in the world. All the notables are my friends, and the Wâly himself disdains not to seek my advice in the affairs of state. Allah is bountiful!”

“Allah is bountiful indeed,” said Abdullah, regarding Saïd with a new interest. “But tell me, art thou that Saïd the Merchant whose name is in all men’s mouths?”

“I am in truth that great one,” was the reply; “but I know not what thing thou hast heard, for many lies are spoken concerning me.”

“Listen, and thou shalt hear all I know. It is but a few hours since I met one who was just returned from the country of Rûm. And in that country he heard the story of Saïd, a merchant of Damashc-ush-Shâm, who was robbed by the woman whom most he favoured. She caused him to drink a potion wherein was a strong drug, pretending that it was a sherbet of figs. Her lover, a young Nazarene of the same city, is cunning in pharmacy, having studied here in Beyrût and also among the Franks to become a chemist. It is he who gave her the drug and taught her how to administer it. Her lord trusted her in all things, and she was in the secret of his wealth, so she robbed him easily of all that he had, and took her little son and fled away with that Nazarene while he slept. The cunning of the Christian—may Allah destroy him!—had caused him to make himself a French subject long ago, in the year of the great slaughter when all was confusion. He had a passport and Frankish clothes in waiting. To make more sure, the dragoman of the consulate—who was the son of his aunt on the mother’s side—journeyed with them in the public coach to this city, where the people of the custom-house, supposing them to be Franks, let them pass unquestioned, the child with them. They tell me this Nazarene hates the child, which is natural, being the work of another than himself. He would fain be rid of the burden, but the woman will not part with it. So they took ship and came at last to the country of Rûm, where they now dwell in the largest city, in the best manner, with all luxury. Their story is known to all men, and the laugh is ever against Saïd the Merchant of Damashc-ush-Shâm …. The Christians are all wild beasts, by Allah—foul and wicked things, unclean and accurst. But surely thou art not the man they tell of? Allah forbid! It is impossible!”

All this was bitter as death to Saïd. His teeth and hands clenched. For a moment he thought of nothing but to pursue those two who had wronged him over sea and land, to slay them, if it might be, in each other’s arms. He saw his son attired as a Christian, despised and ill-treated by the pig, his enemy. He gnashed his teeth with the knowledge that men made mock of him, that his name was become a byword of scoffing to unbelievers in distant lands. But he swallowed the gall of his anguish as best he could. When he spoke it was with a scornful countenance.

“O my eyes, a part of thy tale is true, but not all. That son of a pig, that Christian of whom thou tellest did certainly carry off a woman of mine, but what is that?—I can afford to replace her. As for the child, I have been concerned for him, but now that I know whither they are gone I will inform the Government, and it shall go ill with me but I will recover him. The woman did in truth rob me of a sum of money; but she was not fully in my confidence. There were two hoards, thou understandest, hidden in two separate places. She mistook the lesser for the greater, and so, far from being ruined, as she fondly supposed, I am now, by the blessing of Allah, even more prosperous and higher in honour than I was before. Allah is just!”

“Praise be to Allah!” said Abdullah, feelingly. “I rejoice with thee”; and upon that he wished Saïd a happy night and withdrew, saying that he must hie to bed, as he was to start betimes on the morrow on his journey home. So these two, so long asunder, met once more on friendly terms and lied freely one to the other, neither doubting his fellow’s words.

Saïd slept ill that night. Divers projects turned in his brain, distracting him. Every forward course seemed grievous, fraught with danger. There was but one bright point in all his weary musings as he tossed to and fro upon his pallet—the face of a girl he had seen once in a garden—an English girl and mistress to the son of a pig, a dragoman. He recalled all that he had heard of the land of the English, and ever he swore, with Allah’s leave, he would contrive to go there ere he died.

Selìm was abroad early in the morning, for there was much to be done, and in his loving care for his former master he took all charge of it upon himself. First, he visited sundry taverns and places of resort, publishing the news that he had two fine donkeys for sale. By the third hour there was a small crowd gathered at the stable, and the sale, when it took place, was in the nature of an auction, one man bidding above another. When that was done and the beasts had been led away by their purchasers, Selìm betook himself to the Seraï to get permission to leave the country, and have the passports put in order. He was so long absent on this business that Saïd, who waited him at the khan, began to be uneasy. When at last he did return, the expression of his face was woebegone in the extreme. Saïd cried out in alarm to know what was amiss. Whereupon the faithful fellow wrung his hands, and tears rolled down his cheeks.

“O Saïd! O my brother! Allah be my witness, I have striven long with prayer and argument to turn their hearts; but in vain. Ah, woe is me, to be the bearer of such ill tidings! Know, O my beloved, that the men of the Government gave me free leave to depart with my family; as thou knowest, I have a letter which Ismaìl Abbâs—may Allah requite his honour!—procured for me from the Wâly. But thee they will by no means suffer to quit the land, both because thou hast no such letter, and for some other cause which is hid from me. All my entreaties, all my reasons were unavailing; thou art forbidden to travel further by order of the Government.”

Fear came into Saïd’s eyes as he heard. Heretofore the Government had seemed to him remote as the sky is, something impassive, neither friend nor foe. He had stood in the same vague awe of it that a simple man has of some mighty engine whose working is a mystery to him. Now that he suddenly found it his enemy, the shock was like an earthquake destroying old landmarks. He remembered the dark net of which the Chief of Police had spoken, and felt himself already caught in its meshes.

“I must leave the country, and that at once!” he muttered fearfully. “In the old days I was known for a strong swimmer. Say, O Selìm, is there no ship far out in the bay, beyond call of the Custom House, to which I can swim by night?”

“There is an English ship, O my brother—a steamer which comes hither at times with merchandise. She will depart, they tell me, to-morrow after sunrise. She lies to-night in the bay, but far out; thou couldst hardly swim so far. If thou trustest indeed to escape by swimming, wait two days, I pray thee, until our steamer arrives, so we may yet journey together.”

Saïd caught at the words “an English ship.” In a flash he had a vision of fair forms, and faces full of love, in a light subdued and gentle—the light, as he conceived it, of cloudy Lûndra. The next moment he was reminded of the woman who was a clog upon him, and he broke out fretfully,—

“There is Hasneh, … O Lord!… How may I be rid of Hasneh? I must escape at once; this very night I must swim out to the English steamer, and she alone hinders me.”

Selìm heard him with mild surprise.

“She will go with me to Masr, as was at first arranged,” he said soothingly. “Let thy mind have rest concerning her. My passport is so worded that she may journey with us unquestioned. The mother of Mûsa will be glad to have her company in a strange land, for they love one another, and Hasneh is very skilful in all housework. Be assured, O my brother! By Allah’s leave, thou shalt find her safe when thou rejoinest us yonder. But alas! how can I part from thee, O my soul! As long as I live I am thy servant, for the sake of the kindness thou hast ever shown me, from the day thou didst give me that rich garment, the root of my honour, to this hour. Couldst thou not swim as well to one ship as to another? and what are two days that they should have power to ruin thee? I will find out some private place where thou mayst be snugly hid. Allah forbid that ever I should part from thee!”

But a great unreasoning fear possessed Saïd, and nothing which Selìm could say might change his purpose. The father of Mûsa blubbered like a baby. Saïd himself was deeply moved, but otherwise, the dread of this instant peril swaying him. Moreover, a thought of the fair ones awaiting him in that distant land of the English helped somewhat to soften the parting on his side. He spent the rest of daylight in preparing for his venture. By the agency of Selìm he procured a stout leathern bag of handy size, wherein he stowed all such of his belongings as seemed indispensable. Of the things which remained over he gave some to Hasneh and some to Selìm, according to their nature and use. Towards evening Selìm went forth to make inquiries, whilst Saïd did somewhat to comfort Hasneh. After a very little while he came back in a hurry, and with a face full of concern.

“It may not be, O my brother,” he said, “thou canst by no means swim to the steamer. Know that there has lately been much emigration—of Christians for the most part, and Drûz out of the mountain. It is their custom to do even as thou purposedst; and to check the tide of them, a watch is set upon the beach at night with orders to fire on all who take the water. Allah have pity! I know not what is to be done.”

Saïd paced the paved yard of the khan, raging like a hunted beast at bay, while Hasneh, in hopes that she might not lose him after all, sobbed with relief. At length he stopped short in his prowl, and, lifting hands and eyes to heaven, “Allah succour me!” he muttered fiercely. “I will take the risk of it.”

XI

About an hour after sundown Saïd took a sad farewell of his friends, and, all alone, went forth to the shore. He wore an ample cloak of haircloth to conceal the leathern sack he carried. As he made his way through the concourse of the streets his heart thumped so loudly against his ribs that he thought all men not deaf to hear it. On the sea-beach, where the din of the city mingled as a distant murmur with the sigh of the ripples, the clamour of it filled his brain.

The wide bay lay smooth and glassy, fringed along the shore with points of yellow light shining among dark forms of trees and bushes. The mountains rose in outline beyond, ending seaward in a bluff promontory, the lights of many villages plainly seen upon the nearer slopes. A dusky gloom was on all the land—the velvet of a moth’s wings. The lamps of the shipping had dancing pendants in the water.

Saïd tried to seem careless, as if he strolled for pleasure. It was dark and he met no one after he had won clear of the town; but his fancy peopled every wall and garden, every shrub of tamarisk to landward, with soldiers on the look-out; and in spite of all his endeavours the manner of his going betrayed uneasiness. The cry of a mariner wafted across the still water was startling, as if one had called him by name.

He could see the English steamer, a dark mass, with a funnel and three masts, lying motionless a good way out. A red light in the bows shed a sparkle of rubies in the near water. He strove to judge of the distance, seeking that part of the shore which would most favour his project.

A ruined wall ran out a little way on to the sand. On the side remote from the town he sat down and strove to think. A great pulse throbbed in his brain, so that his whole frame was shaken with it. The sea and the lights and the mountains swam before his eyes; the very wall seemed to rock as he leaned against it. The sharp yelp of a dog among the gardens rang bewilderingly in his ears.

At length, his mind growing clearer, he lighted a cigarette and smoked it to the end. Then he got up and took off his garments one by one, throwing some away, and binding others with a sash to the well-filled leather-bag. When he was naked he sat down again, and, holding the bundle pressed on his cap and turban, set to work to lash it to his head with strips torn from his cast-off raiment. By vigorous shaking he made sure it was quite firm, then he stole to the end of the wall and peered cautiously forth.

Two men were approaching—soldiers with rifles on their shoulders. The wall alone had prevented him from hearing their voices. The place he had chosen was sheltered and convenient for keeping watch upon the shore to northward. It was most likely that they were making for it. There was not a second to be lost.

With a bound he ran swiftly across the sand and splashed in the water, dropping at once on his hands and knees. He heard a shout, followed in the same minute by the report of a gun. A shot whizzed past him; it played duck and drake along the surface, striking up little plumes of spray. A second followed, but it was wider of the mark, and by that time Saïd was out of his depth, swimming strongly. He ducked frequently to baffle the marksmen. A bullet, the last which was fired, hit the bundle and remained bedded in it.

At first he struck out blindly, thinking only of his life; but afterwards, when the bullets ceased to whirr, he made boldly for the steamer, which might then have been three-quarters of a mile distant in a straight line. He could hear the soldiers yelling and hallooing on the beach, but had little fear that a boat would put out to intercept him, for the harbour was a long way off on the left and he had passed few craft in his walk along the sands. Even supposing that those in the guard-house on the quay heard the cries of their comrades and understood them, it would take them some time to get afloat; and a man’s head, though with a bundle lashed to it, was no easy thing to mark on all the wide expanse of darkling water.

With the joy of his narrow escape yet full upon him he revelled in the freedom of the cool water. The little waves smote him friendly and the stars twinkled at him out of the pale sky. As a boy, it had been his delight to swim out, wherever a ship came to anchor off his native town, and perform all kinds of antics in the sea, diving for the coins that voyagers threw to him and catching them in his mouth as they sank. In those days people had marvelled at his prowess in the water, accounting him half a fish; and it pleased him, now that he was middle-aged and bulky, to know that he had still the trick of it. He frolicked, swimming now frogwise, now on this side, now on that. He turned over on his back and paddled along for a few strokes in that position. Then, righting himself, he splashed forward, hand over hand, like a dog. But ere long he grew weary of such fancies and settled down to a steady and enduring stroke which should carry him to his goal.

The steamer was yet a pretty long way off when he began to doubt if he would ever reach it. The smart of the brine blurred his eyes. The surface of the sea seemed now all starlight, anon black as pitch. He was sadly out of condition and had spent the flower of his energy in wantoning. Wishing to husband what strength remained to him, he slackened speed somewhat. He grew numb. His eyes were blind to everything except the steamer; and that seemed very big, ten times its natural size, filling all the horizon. His limbs lost feeling; stern resolve alone upheld him and kept him moving. The ship loomed nearer all of a sudden. He plunged forward, floundering rather than swimming, his mouth and nose full of salt water at every stroke. It towered above him very near indeed; but all his life was gone. He knew in his heart that he could never reach it. The veins of his forehead were bursting, his eyes were very dim. All kinds of incongruous memories thronged his brain. “Allah is just,” he thought, “and this is the end of me.” But, a second later, he had caught hold of a rope which fell from the steamer’s prow, and hung by it, clinging for dear life.

“Praise be to Allah!” he murmured, quaking from head to foot. Presently he raised a feeble shout. A face looked down at him, then more faces—a crowd of them. Questions were shouted, but he could make nothing of the jargon spoken. “There is much money with me!” he cried in Arabic. “I would go to the great city, Lûndra of the English!”

At that there was a great shout of laughter, and another rope was flung to him, which he caught, and with which he was hauled on board. Queer Frankish faces grinned at him, grotesque as masks, all red and many quite devoid of hair. The light of a fixed lantern sufficed to show them to him. Rough hands smote his dripping shoulders hard in applause, their owners roaring with laughter. In truth, he cut an odd figure as he stood there stark naked and streaming wet, a great bundle bound to his head with strips of calico. But to Saïd it was no laughing matter. He sprang to anger under their blows, glaring round on them with curses, and showing his teeth. But they laughed all the more at his resentment, slapping their knees and hugging themselves for glee.

The press about him gave way suddenly. A man came forward, clad in some sort of a uniform, with a gold badge on his cap. He spoke in a stern voice to the sailors and they fell back sheepishly. It seemed they made excuses, pointing to Saïd where he stood naked and shivering, his feet very conscious of the smooth planks. This man, whom Saïd took to be the lord of the ship, then addressed him in a childish sort of Arabic, asking to know what he wanted; whereupon Saïd told a grievous tale of tyranny and wrong, such as might justify any man in flight from his native land. He repeated his statement that he had plenty of money, adding that he would gladly pay the price of his passage to Lûndra. The officer eyed him doubtfully for a minute. Then, with a face of compassion, he gave a gruff order to one who stood near, and Saïd was led away to a small chamber, dim with the savoury fumes of cooking, where was a fire burning.

XII

Next morning there was a great bustle on board the steamer. Saïd awoke in his narrow bunk to a noise of splashing and scrubbing overhead. The door of the sort of cupboard where he lay stood open; now and then a man’s shadow darkened it in passing.

It did not take long to remember where he was. The adventure of the previous night recurred vividly to his mind, seeming a madman’s to the sanity of early morning. He marvelled at the daring of it, and then, looking forward, his heart grew sick with forebodings. What future awaited him in the land of the English? It was a country favourable for all manner of trade, but he carried no merchandise with him. He had money, it was true, but when the price of his journey had been deducted from it only a small sum would be left. The fair women and girls, so easy to conquer, the chief attraction of that distant shore, seemed not so very desirable after all.

The great red face of a mariner looked in upon him with the roar of some savage beast. Its grin was friendly and its appearance cheered Saïd somewhat, so that, when it was withdrawn, he shook off his listlessness and got up. As he did so, his clothes and the leathern bag which held his treasure fell on the floor, covering it almost completely, so little space was there. Being naked, he had been hurried to bed overnight and had quite forgotten his bundle. Someone must have brought the things and laid them upon him while he slept. The garments had the crispness of linen dried at the fire.

An agony of fear seized him lest the sack should have been rifled and his money taken out. Naked save for his skull-cap and turban, he knelt down in the narrow space between wall and bunk, and with trembling hands loosened the mouth of the bag; but a little groping reassured him. He smiled, drawing forth a small but heavy pouch with a string attached, which he made haste to hang as an amulet about his neck; first shutting the door so that no one passing by could observe him. “Allah is bountiful!” he murmured.

By the time he reached the deck the engines were panting like some huge beast held in leash that frets to go free. A crowd of little boats clung to the steamer’s side, waiting to see the last of her. Already the sun stood high above the ridge of Lebanon, and his beams made a dazzle on the dancing blue sea. The whiteness of the town, relieved by high red roofs, drew the eye to the southern horn of the bay, where the waves lapped its walls. Suburbs half hidden in foliage stretched all along the shore at the foot of the hills. Palm-trees rose conspicuous, singly and by clumps of two and three. The huge mountains, as yet in shadow, filled all the background, seeming very near indeed. Snow gleamed on the high, long crest of Jebel Sunnìn. The balm of the land and its murmur were wafted on the breeze.

Saïd’s heart went out to his native country. The sing-song shouting of the sailors, the clank of a chain, the creaking swing of a windlass—all the noise attendant on weighing anchor sounded cruel and callous in his ears. It jeered him as the voice of fate made audible. His past was slipping from him irrevocably with every pant of the mighty engines, with every puff of the funnel, which began to belch forth dense clouds of whitish smoke that tossed seaward before it like the blown mane of a horse.

The hiss and roar of the safety-valve ceased of a sudden. In place of panting there was a dull, strong throb which was felt in every plank and plate of the ship. The smoke from the funnel wavered a moment, as if doubtful which direction to take, then streamed out steadily over the stern, casting a ribbon of shadow on the churned-up waters in the wake. The little boats fell away from the side with men standing up in them, waving good-bye. They dwindled, were left far behind, and ever the throbbing grew to fuller purpose, as though the ship had a soul, an imprisoned jinni toiling with bitter sobs.

Saïd was shortly led below to a breakfast of weird bread in which was no sustenance, of butter whose exceeding yellowness and bitter, saltish flavour filled him with distrust, of coffee such as he had never tasted and hoped to Allah he might never taste again. There was meat also, but that he would not touch, believing it to be pig’s flesh or something unclean. He did not dwell long upon the meal, but when he returned on deck the city and the shore-line had already sunk out of sight; only the crests of Lebanon stood up sheer out of the sea with white streaks of snow among them, the wake of the ship stretching, an ever-widening path, to their feet.

For hours Saïd sat cross-legged in the lee of a cabin, watching those summits dwindle and grow dreamy in the distance, till at last they were no more than a thin cloud on the horizon. The sailors smiled and spoke friendly to him as they went about their work. He sat in the shade, with hot sunshine all about him, and the eternal lapping of a sea, dead blue as lapis lazuli, sounded pleasant in his ears. “O Allah! O Lord, have mercy!” was his soul’s bitter cry as the coasts of Es-Shâm sank beneath the sea-line. And yet he felt not half so wretched as he had expected.

That night a heavy thunderstorm burst, and all the next day the sky was overcast with rain driving in torrents before a cold wind. It was the beginning of winter, and Saïd shunned the bleakness of the upper deck. Having paid an instalment of his passage-money in advance, he was looked upon with unmixed liking by the crew as an honest fellow and a queer customer. Yet Saïd resented the rough kindness of the sailors, as touching his dignity. When they smote him, as their manner was, in all goodwill, he would sometimes round upon them with a snarl, making them laugh as if their hearts would break, and seeming only to increase their kindness for him. They used his word, “Lûndra,” against him as a nickname; and at first he would nod and grin when they uttered it, repeating it after them until they roared. But afterwards, hearing it everywhere and at all hours of the day, he grew sick of the sound of it.

There were two other passengers on board—men of consequence, with whom he had nothing to do. But one of them, a young man, with flaxen hair and moustache, and the bloom of a ripe peach on either cheek, had a smattering of Arabic and was fain to air it a little. After the storm was passed and the fine weather had resumed its sway, he often joined Saïd as he sat upon the deck and struggled to converse with him. It was a little hard sometimes to understand what he said, for all his verbs were in the imperative mood.

One morning when the steamer rode at anchor off a seaport of the kingdom of Rûm, Saïd ventured to ask this person how long it would be before they reached that great city, Lûndra of the English. Looking out over the crisp, blue waves to a white town at the foot of violet mountains, with cypresses rising gaunt among its buildings and olives silvering all the slope behind, it seemed to him that they were yet a long way distant from that sunless land of which the dragoman had spoken.

“Two weeks and more,” was the answer, “but know, O effendi, that this ship goes not to Lûndra but to Liverpool, which is distant from it a day’s journey on the iron road.”

“Merciful Allah!” Saïd exclaimed. “Hear now my story, O khawaja, and judge between these men and me. When I asked them they told me that the steamer went to Lûndra, and I gave them much money on that understanding. Of a truth the people of this ship are all liars; there is no vestige of truth found in them. May their house be destroyed and the fire quenched on their father’s hearth!”

“Nay, O effendi, they meant not to deceive thee. The country of the English is a small country, and the iron road brings distant places close together. Liverpool is reckoned the haven of Lûndra almost as Beyrût is the port of Damascus, and the journey takes not so long. It was no lie they told thee.”

“Without doubt the right is with thee, O khawaja,” said Saïd with a semblance of conviction; but in his heart he felt bitterly that he had been beguiled. Lûndra was the city of his dreams, the abode of wealth and luxury, the paradise of fair women partial to strangers. “Lifferbûl” was quite a different place. He had heard the name of it before, but baldly, as of a town like another, without splendour or charm. Thenceforth, aware of a plot to inveigle him thither, he saw something sinister in the jovial comradeship of the sailors, though cunning made him seem their friend. At length, when one morning he awoke to find the steamer at anchor in a fair bay whose shores were clothed with a city and its suburbs, his airy scheme became an instant purpose. The name of the place, he knew, was Nabuli. To southward rose a lonely peak which smoked at the top like a heap of ashes smouldering. Ships were there of every sort and size, a great multitude of them, dotting the sparkling waters. Surely, among them all, there must be one that was bound for the greatest city of the earth. When he had prayed and broken his fast he took his leathern sack privily under his robe and went on deck.

A boat manned by certain of the crew was just putting off for land. Saïd shouted to the men in it, explaining by eloquent signs and grimaces that he had a mind to view the town. They laughed up at him, roaring and beckoning to him to make haste; so without more ado he climbed down among them and was rowed ashore.

In the confusion of landing, amid the busy throng upon the quays, he contrived to escape from his fellowship. For some time he dodged hither and thither, taking advantage of every turning to put more walls between himself and those he supposed in pursuit. His outlandish garb and the hurry he was in turned many heads of the passers-by to look after him. At last, finding himself again by the seaside, but at a point remote from his landing-place, he fell to scanning the faces of all he met, seeking someone to question.

Seeing a man of peaceful demeanour stand alone by a pile of bales he inquired of him in Arabic how he might best get to Lûndra. “Lûndra?” repeated the other after him with a vacant look and a shake of the head. He smiled, however, showing white teeth, and, motioning Saïd to stay, called to a knot of men who lounged hard by. They turned their faces at the call, and, seeing one so strangely clad, drew near out of curiosity. One of them, who at first sight appeared a Frankish sailor, shouted a salutation in pure Arabic spoken with the accent of Masr.

Saïd ran to him eagerly, his question on his lips. He told a fine story, how he was a great merchant bound for Lûndra whither his wares were gone before, how an unforeseen accident, which he was at pains to specify, had forced him to leave his ship, and how he would be deeply obliged to anyone who would direct him to another. His hearer, taken with the narrative, made ready offer of his service.

From this new friend Saïd learnt that there were at least two vessels in the harbour on the eve of departing for Lûndra. The Egyptian pointed out a huge steamer in the offing, and, upon Saïd shaking his head at that, showed him a sailing-ship moored to the quay close by. The great merchant stroked his beard and thought a minute. Then he nodded with deliberation, and begged the sailor to bear him company and support him at the bargain.

At first the lord of the ship looked askance at them and spoke roughly to the interpreter. But by dint of long parley and a little earnest-money he at last changed his tone and agreed to take a passenger. Saïd thought him an evil man to look at, for he had only one eye and his face was red, inflamed with boils and spots. His voice was harsh and rasping, and he spoke to men as one speaks to a dog. Saïd confided his feelings to his new friend, who only shrugged his shoulders, declaring that the Franks were all like that, unmannerly, possessed with the foulest of devils. As for the man’s appearance, it was from the hand of Allah, and so no blame attached to him.

The ship was not to sail till the evening, so Saïd had some time on his hands. The Egyptian led him to a tavern in a narrow street, where high houses all but shut out the sky. The place was kept by the son of an Arab, and most of the customers were Orientals. Saïd, on his friend’s introduction, was treated with much honour; and he sat there, drinking cup after cup of the coffee he loved, enjoying a narghileh, until the afternoon was far spent, when the Egyptian led him back to the ship. Before he slept that night he could hear the waves lapping against the vessel’s side, and knew that he was speeding on his way to Lûndra. His dreams were all of fair women languishing in a chastened gloom.

XIII

It was not long ere Saïd regretted the step he had so blindly taken and wished himself back on board the steamer, let it bear him to Lifferbûl or to the world’s end. Skipper and crew of his new transport were altogether of a coarser type. Though the men grinned as they passed him in their work, the laugh was at him, not to him, and it filled him with distrust.

Day by day the ship leapt or glided with full sails on an endless waste of waters. To Saïd, as he squatted on the deck smoking cigarettes bought from the captain at what seemed to him a ruinous price, it occurred sometimes that the vessel was not moving at all, but was still with the waves racing past her. The fancy amused him and he would indulge it for minutes at a time until he was almost persuaded that it was so; it needed a glance at the strained canvas overhead, and another at the passing water, to dispel the illusion. He thought if Allah would grant a man wings like the birds he saw, how pleasant it would be to make long voyages, swooping down when weary to close wings and rest, letting the sea rock him for a little space. He considered the fishes of the deep, how they swim ever under water, yet, by the great mercy of Allah, are not drowned. “Allah is great!” was the outcome of all his musings.

But, as the days wore on, he grew very tired of sitting alone. He would keep near the sailors and try to ingratiate himself with them; even their unfailing rudeness and the horse-tricks they played him seemed better than sheer loneliness. The shifts he was forced to make in order to say his prayers undisturbed were a heavy burden on his conscience. Very earnestly he besought Allah to pardon any omissions in a place where clean water was hard to come by, where there was no sand and but little dust to serve for a substitute. Allah was merciful, he reflected, and would forgive his shortcomings, taking the circumstances into account.

Day by day the world grew sadder and less familiar. Skies lost their lustre, the sea darkened and waxed fierce, the very sun shone pale. Coasts, when sighted, were black and low-lying on the edge of leaden waters heaving in eternal unrest. It turned cold—more bleak than any winter. Saïd rubbed his eyes, supposing that there was a film on them which made the world seem dim. He realised that the land of the English was near, the land of cloud of which the dragoman had spoken; but the knowledge brought no gladness. He grew homesick, longing for a known face, for the sight of a palm-tree, for a train of camels passing in the blinding sunshine with sweet jangle of bells, for a word in his native tongue.

The very welkin lowered unfriendly, like a menace. The wind howled as a hungry beast of prey; the waves ravened as they leapt against the ship. All things, animate and inanimate, were hostile, and he saw their fury personal to himself. To make matters worse, a gale arose, and he became helpless through sickness. Utter despair got hold of him; he prayed ever that Allah might take his life ere he should retch again. He could take no food, but a little drink. The sailors came and mocked his wretchedness; but he was too prostrate to care for their jeers, only begging them to kill him where he lay.

After the illness he was feeble and shaky for a day or two, and felt the cold more keenly than before, though every garment he possessed was upon him, and a tarpaulin, which a sailor in savage pity flung to him, wrapped over all like a great shawl. The queer figure he cut as he tottered about shivering was the butt and derision of the whole crew.

The wind abated and the sea calmed. The sun, a mere ghost, looked down through worn places of the cloud-rack, like a pale face pressed to a rain-smeared pane. A long, wavy line of cliffs, dirty-white, blurred and indistinct in a perpetual mist, was pointed out to him as the land of the English. He saw it vaguely as one sees whose sight is dim with tears. All his hope centred in the little money-bag at his chest; there was comfort in thinking that he had enough to pay the price of a return voyage to the land of sunlight. Not for a day would he sojourn in this region of eternal gloaming, but would seek out a ship at once and take passage in her. There was sure to be some good Muslim at the landing-place who would direct him for the love of Allah and the Faith that saves.

The cliffs were gone and the ship moved along by a low, marshy coast. Here and there a group of dwellings, a lighthouse, a lonely hut broke the sullen monotony of the shore-line blackly. There was land on both sides now—flat and dreary, shadowed, grim and inhuman as Jehennum itself. Saïd wondered what kind of men could dwell in that wilderness meant for the damned. The waterway was dotted with ships great and small. The sun was shining, but so faintly that he hardly knew it. A few wan snakes at play upon the ripples were all the brightness it gave.

Anon the gloom deepened in spite of the feeble sun and became of a dull, yellowish brown. The shore drew nearer on either hand. They entered a great river, populous with all manner of craft—by far the greatest Saïd had ever seen. After noon, as they still glided on, the face of the sun took on a reddish hue, and the water glinted cold and coppery to its lifeless rays. The world seemed dead, and the stir of human life upon it loathsome as the foul brood of corruption. The river wound between two banks of fog, on which strange shapes of roof and chimney, tower and steeple, and the masts of ships appeared carven or painted by a tremulous hand. From all sides clouds of smoke arose, feeding the gloom and blending with it perpetually. It was as if the whole land smouldered. Ships were moored along the wharves, at the foot of huge buildings frowning like precipices. Here and there a large steamer, lying out towards mid-stream, had a swarm of small craft—lighters, wherries and row boats—about her, clinging to her, trailing from her like driftwood: a floating island, long and black upon the burnished water.

A mighty clamour filled all the gloom and seemed a part of it. The beat of hammers rang out so thunderous that Saïd trembled to guess what made it. There was a constant hiss of escaping steam, the throbbing of huge engines, the creak and rattle of cranes culminating now and then in a long roar, the whistle and hoot of steamers, sounds of puffing and the swish of paddle-wheels, shouts and cries of human kind. Smells found their way out on to the river and dwelt there, in spite of a light breeze blowing up from the sea—smells of the furnace and the tan-yard, of pitch and resin, and the prevailing pungent smoke. The taste in Saïd’s mouth was a mixture of smoke and brine. He was choked, deafened, wholly bewildered.

One of the sailors, the most villainous-looking of all, who had of late made friendly overtures to him in the shape of devilish grins and murderous digs in the ribs, drew near and smote the tarpaulin.

“Lûndra!” he said, leering into Saïd’s face.

“Lûndra!” echoed the passenger with a series of nods and a bright display of teeth, explaining that he understood. At that the mariner laughed hoarsely and began a lively pantomime, twitching Saïd’s robe, pointing to the shore, slapping his own chest, and then making as if he would embrace the fisherman. Saïd was slow to see the drift of all this; the whole show had to be repeated a second time. But at last he gathered that this sailor of the evil countenance was his sincere well-wisher and would take charge of him when the time came to disembark.

The sun, swathed in smoke-wreaths, was already setting in crimson when, amid hoarse shouts of greeting and command, the frenzied blowing of a whistle and much flinging about of ropes and chains, the ship drew up to a wharf-side. The river flowed as turbid blood, parting a dark wilderness of masts and rigging, of endless, shapeless buildings. Here and there a pane of glass or other polished surface caught a beam and sprang to lurid flame. Westward, over against the sun, a great black dome brooded over the misty roofs. The din of the city had a note of weariness, like the sighing of a great multitude.

He shrank from landing. At least the ship was known to him, familiar in its every part; whereas this boundless, black city, whose sweat was filthy smoke, frightened him as a living monster lying in wait to devour. Surely it was the realm of Eblis, the abode of evil spirits and of souls in torment. For a long while he watched the business of the wharf, his brain ahum with doubt and bewilderment, so that he could not read or unravel his thoughts.

The skipper came and spoke gruffly to him, pointing to the gangway. He dragged the tarpaulin from Saïd’s shoulders and flung it aside upon a heap of cordage. The Arab saw plainly that there was no choice left for him. Trembling and shrinking, in his flowing Eastern dress of many colours, he hurried across the plank, looking back to the ship, the scene of so much anguish for him, with longing as to a well-loved home.

The quay on which he found himself was a narrow one, oppressed and shadowed by a great warehouse. It reminded him faintly of a strip of beach at the foot of a steep cliff. He could see no way from it except through the great doors which yawned like caverns, showing bales of merchandise piled within. He felt quite helpless, imprisoned, cut off from everywhere yet within sound of a multitude. Yellow light streamed from every aperture of the building before him, making shapes of men fiendish as they moved in black outline across it. The lapping of the ripples against the piles, which is the same song all the world over, sounded more friendly than the voices of his kind speaking sternly and abruptly in a foreign tongue. Worst of all, no one heeded him. A chance look, a grin, a shrug of the shoulders, and he was passed by, dismissed from the minds of those busy workers. There was something very sinister in such absorption. Feeling dazed, he stood still, not knowing which way to look, the voice of the city in his ears—the sullen roar of a vast, unfriendly throng.

A mighty stroke on the back roused him from torpor. The sailor, who some two hours before had accosted him on the deck, stood at his side, speaking rapidly in a scolding tone. Then he laughed, and smote him once more between the shoulders. Linking arms, he led him away by a little passage Saïd had not perceived at the extreme end of the quay.

The streets were broad and open to the sky; they were lighted by lanterns set on high poles. The houses were tiny compared with the big warehouses of the river-bank, and were separated by spaces of blank wall, over which the masts and spars of ships rose ghostly. The sailor led Saïd to a house which stood, a blaze of light, at a place where three roads met. Pushing open a swing-door, he dragged him into a room full of men.

The brightness almost blinded Saïd, coming, as he did, out of the dark, and the noise deafened him. A number of red-faced Franks, seated on benches at wooden tables, were laughing and talking at the top of their voices. In his dazed condition he saw them vaguely as a multitude of strangers hostile to him. The atmosphere of the room, charged with the fumes of tobacco and strong drink, was hard to breathe; only the warmth and the light pleased him. Full of distrust of that noisy company, he would fain have drawn back, but his friend restrained him, forcing him to a seat at one of the tables.

He was aware of a crowd of faces close to his, of hands tweaking his raiment, of a buzz of curiosity ending in a mighty burst of laughter. Then a glass was set before him, full of some amber fluid. It had an evil smell and he loathed it. Remembering the potion given him by Ferideh, he had no doubt but that this was in the same nature. At best it was wine, a forbidden thing. They made instant signs to him to drink, but he pushed it from him, shaking his head vehemently and calling out that it was a sin. At that they laughed the more, and he began to fear, reading mischief in their eyes. A man of giant build caught hold of him and kept his hands, while another flung his head back and forced open his mouth. Saïd kicked with all his might, but his feet were powerless between the legs of the table. While he was yet struggling, the liquor was poured down his throat, and one held his mouth shut until he had swallowed every drop, although he came nigh to choking. Then he was released amid a roar of merriment.

A second glass was presently set before him and, sooner than submit to further violence, he made shift to empty it with a wry face. The stuff, though nasty in the mouth, had a pleasant effect, diffusing unhoped-for warmth through all his body. Soon he was joining in the general laugh against himself. Just as he finished one glass there was another full to his hand.

Instead of enemies he found himself among friends. He could have wept for the joy he had in beholding them. In a broken voice he told them all his troubles, about Ferideh and his love for her, about her elopement and the evil days he had known in Damashc-ush-Shâm, where he had been a great merchant, none like him in all that city—no, by Allah, nor in any city of the earth! It was the bald truth he was telling them—by the beard of the Prophet, he was an honest man, a man of consequence, and no liar! Whatever he said, they laughed madly; he thought it so kind of them to laugh. His eyes filled with tears as he thought on all their kindness.

His head swam queerly, and his eyes grew somewhat dim. He fancied he saw a woman somewhere in the room and, with a hazy remembrance of his purpose in coming to Lûndra, held out his arms to her enticingly. The laughter grew ever more boisterous. It was very rude of them to laugh, he considered. The Franks were fools, every one of them—accursed unbelievers having no knowledge of Allah or of Muhammed His apostle. He stood up, balancing himself with difficulty, and rated them soundly, cursing them for a lot of pigs and adjuring Allah Most High to destroy their houses and slay their parents. The next minute, he knew not how, he was sprawling face downwards on the floor, and his hands and clothing were coated with sawdust. They crowded about him, slapping their thighs and hallooing with glee. He cursed them again, declaring that they were bad men full of strong drink, and thereupon endeavoured to recite to them a passage of the Coràn. But one caught hold of his leg and proceeded to drag him round the room, while another sat on him, using him as a sort of carriage. He had no breath to resent the horseplay, but could only pant beneath the weight of the man on his back, emitting from time to time a feeble chuckle.

By-and-by they lifted him to a sitting posture and gave him more of the burning fluid to drink. He sat for a little while swaying to and fro, an insane grin on his swarthy face. Seeing his cap and turban lie at some distance upon the floor, he conceived an indistinct notion of trying to reach them upon his hands and knees; but they were so far off he fell asleep on the way.

XIV

Saïd awoke to a headache and violent sickness. Supposing himself on the sea in a tempest, he marvelled at the quiet all about him. Presently he sat up and essayed to rub his eyes, but sudden dizziness caused him to fall back again with a groan. His couch was hard and wooden, like the planked deck of a ship, strewn, however, with something soft and powdery, like sand or sawdust. The place where he lay was dark and had a nauseous smell. He was distressed with thirst. “Water!—Water!” he moaned. “In the name of Allah, bring me a little water!—”

But the tones of his voice rang lonely in an empty room.

Events of the previous night loomed on his mind, as forms seen gigantic through mist. Sore shame and anguish fell upon him, illumined in a moment by a sudden terror. His money, his last ray of hope—where was it? He felt in the bosom of his robe, fingering his hairy chest frantically. The pouch and the string which held it were gone—stolen! He fumbled in every part of his clothing and scoured the floor with his hands; but in vain. “O Allah, All-merciful!—” He beat his breast with hoarse cries of rage and despair.

From a trance of grief, embittered by feverish thirst, he was roused by the noise of footsteps in an adjoining room. A light shone yellow through a glass hatch in the wall of partition, throwing long shadows of bottles upon the pane. He could hear a swishing noise, as of someone sweeping diligently with a broom. His eyes, sharpened by the habit of darkness, saw every part of the chamber in which he lay. It was the same to which the sailor had brought him. At sight of the tables and benches his shame redoubled so that he wept aloud. He picked up his tarbûsh and turban, which had been kicked under a trestle, and made haste to put them on. It degraded him to know that he had played the buffoon, bare-headed, in the sight of unbelievers. The sound of his lamentation filled the room.

A door opened and a woman looked in upon him. She held a candle aloft in one hand, while with the other she screened her eyes from the flame. The light reddened between her fingers and shed a warm glow on her dirty face. She yawned as one not yet wide awake, and spoke crossly to him. He stretched out his hands, beseeching her by gestures to give him to drink; but she only grew angry, and setting down the candlestick upon a bench, shook her fist in his face and nodded significantly towards the door. Saïd strove to reason with her, craving only a little water to quench the thirst ravaging him; but she cried out and pushed him from her. The noise of approaching footsteps and a man’s voice came to second her endeavours. Hearing those sounds and dreading fresh violence at the hands of the lord of the house, Saïd suffered the dirty woman to unbar the door for him, and fled out precipitately into the sharp air of the morning.

Having made a few paces, he turned with a shiver to look back at the place he was leaving. It was a two-storeyed house, flanked with two chimneys. A board upon the face of it seemed to be painted with characters or symbols, but he could not see much in the dark with only a distant lamp to help him. It stood in a region of blind walls and scattered dwellings of dilapidated appearance. There was a flagstaff on the roof, which made Saïd think it was a consulate. Beyond, the masts and rigging of great ships seemed drawn with a pencil upon the first pale mist of dawn. In the gloom of the door by which he had come forth he descried the form of a big man in act to watch him; and he shuffled hurriedly away, his face pinched with the cold.

He walked aimlessly forward, not knowing which way to take, desirous only to escape from that wicked quarter to some part of the city where men of honour dwelt, where he might happen on a Muslim in the streets. More than once he found his way blocked by a dingy wall and had to retrace his steps. Many men passed him, clad in soiled garments and carrying tools or sacks. They stared, turning their faces after him; but, being sleepy for the most part, they did not hinder or molest him. Day broke at his back, suffusing the dun mist wanly. It showed a thin dust like salt whitening the ground, the house-tops, and along the coping of the walls. The air was biting; it stung his nostrils so that he smelt blood. To get a little warmth, he tucked his hands beneath his robe and stamped his slippered feet hard upon the pavement.

In the shelter of an entry he found a little dry dust, with which he rubbed his face, hands and feet preparatory to saying his prayers. In the midst of his devotions, however, heavy footfalls sounded in the street, and a tall man, darkly-clad, with a strange form of hat and a cudgel stuck in his belt, spoke roughly and hit him on the back. He rose to his feet, expostulating, but the man made urgent signs to him to move on, and his mien was so full of authority that Saïd dared not disregard the bidding of his outstretched hand. “Allah pardon!” he muttered as he went his way, feeling that the day had begun badly.

Presently he came into a spacious street, so long that he could not see the end of it. The sun, just risen, looking sickly through the wreathing vapours, shed a milky stain on the roadway and parts of the buildings, casting the faintest of grey shadows. But for gilt signs on some of the houses, Saïd would scarcely have known that it shone at all. He strode on with his back to the light, wrapped close in his long robe, trembling with cold, very conscious of the inquisitive gaze of other wayfarers. The road was thronged with carriages, great and small, of shapes unknown to him. Some were like wheeled houses, crowded with people inside and upon the roof. These queer conveyances pleased him by their gay colours, which he admired, as he did also certain hoardings decked with painted paper—as much as a hopeless and utterly destitute man can admire anything.

Suddenly hoots and yells of derision struck his ears, and he became aware of a horde of ragged urchins following him, capering, grimacing, and howling with all the strength of their lungs. They picked things out of the gutter to throw at him, bespattering his raiment with filthy refuse. He rounded upon them with a snarl, showing white eyes and teeth; whereat they fled helter-skelter, only to return again and pester him the moment his back was turned. He looked appealingly at the passers-by for help; but they laughed for the most part, though some of the women had eyes of pity, and a man who seemed to rank superior to the multitude stopped and spoke sternly to the pursuers. Saïd was beginning to despair of ever getting rid of them, when the rabble suddenly dispersed of its own accord, flying this way and that like small fry at the approach of some big fish of prey. Looking in astonishment for the cause of his deliverance, he beheld a man in a tall, dome-shaped hat and dark clothing, having a bludgeon in his belt, so like the party who had cut short his orisons, that Saïd believed it was the same. He saw in this individual, drawing near with deliberate tread and solemn bearing, a high officer of the irregular troops charged with the maintenance of peace and order. He bowed low to the personage and invoked blessings on him in passing.

In the relief of being unmolested for a while, his spirits rose, and he felt almost happy. The streets grew ever more crowded as he advanced. The road was filled with two streams of wheeled vehicles, going in opposite directions. The throng on the footway jostled and elbowed him roughly, giving no more heed than the sea gives to a piece of driftwood. It surprised him to see no horsemen nor pack-animals, not so much as a train of mules. All was busy, yet orderly. Though the press of the traffic was so great that the wheels of one vehicle grated those of another, and the nose of a carriage-horse was in the back of a cart in front, there was no frenzied shouting, such as might have been expected, no gesticulation on the part of drivers, but only a dull rumble and roar akin to thunder.

A display of familiar dainties in a vast window caught his eyes and held them for a while. He flattened his nose against the pane, gloating on oranges and lemons, bananas and pomegranates, dried figs and dates and raisins, with grins of delightful recognition. He stood a long time gazing at them, shouldered impatiently by wayfarers. It was with a sigh that at last he turned away and pursued his endless walk.

Many women and girls passed him, clad in the immodest fashion of the Franks, which excites a man by its cunning suggestion of the form beneath. They wore strange headgear, such as never man saw. Some were young and beautiful, so that Saïd leered at them meaningly. One fair girl of provoking charm, who was walking with an elder woman, laughed at him and touched her companion’s arm. At that Saïd tingled in every vein, believing that she wished for him. All that the dragoman had told concerning the beauties of Lûndra surged gladly in his brain. His pulse quickened; he forgot that it was cold. Turning, he overtook the two women and walked at the young one’s side, grinning into her face, and speaking words of love in Arabic. She shrank from him, pale with fright, and clung to the older woman’s arm; but he kept close to her, wooing her hotly with every term of endearment. They hastened their steps, so that he had to run to keep up with them. All at once they stopped short, and the old woman, who wore a fine cloak of fur and a head-dress of many colours, spoke earnestly with a tall man clad in the sombre uniform already known to Saïd, having a high, dome-shaped hat and a leather truncheon in his belt. He stepped forward and seized the fisherman by the shoulders, shaking him and speaking sternly to him in a tone there was no gainsaying. Then, as the women made their escape, he pointed imperiously up the street and gave Saïd a push in that direction. The Muslim, completely taken aback, obeyed mechanically, the policeman following him a little way to mark his behaviour.

All day long he strayed on purposeless, growing more and more weary, a prey to thirst, and hunger, and intense cold. After noon the gloom deepened, the puny sun becoming quite obscured in cloud. He found a large piece of Frankish bread in a gutter, which he ate ravenously; and a little later, by good luck came to a drinking-fountain with a cup fixed to a chain for the service of poor wayfarers. Feeling refreshed, he prepared to face the night, and looked about for some sheltered place where he might sleep undisturbed. In a square court surrounded by high houses there was a sort of garden planted with sorry trees and shrubs, black with the prevailing soot, having seats and paved walks, and in the midst a great idol upon a pedestal. He stretched himself on one of the benches and composed his limbs to rest. But the cold was so great that he dared not fall asleep, but was fain to get up and walk again lest he should stiffen and die.

The streets by night were even more bewildering than in the day-time. The long vistas of yellow lamps, branching endlessly one out of another, confused his brain. Every wheeled vehicle had monstrous bright eyes to frighten him. The mist of light was blinding—the eternal mist of cloud by day, of fire by night, from which the dull roar of traffic seemed inseparable. The crowd where no man saluted other, no one looked friendly at his neighbour, but every face was grim with a set purpose, seemed awful to him. He feared it with the fear of evil spirits. The cries which assailed his ears were mournful as a wailing for the dead.

At length, after hours of wandering, he found an archway giving access to a quiet court and flung himself down in its gloom, too weary to know or care that the stones were icy cold. But it seemed that he had scarcely fallen asleep ere he was awakened by the flash of a lantern in his face. A gruff voice made a humming in his ears, and the form of a policeman loomed tremendous in his heavy eyes—a dark form holding the light which dazed him. He struggled to his feet, and seeing the enemy in the act to step forward and seize him, made off through the archway and down the sounding street as fast as his stiff limbs would carry him.

After that he dared not lie down again, but wandered on, sometimes resting on a doorstep, sometimes leaning against a wall or some railings, until a pallor of dawn appeared in the east. He found a quiet place where he said his prayers undisturbed, and soon after, by the grace of Allah, lighted on another crust of bread—a huge chunk on which he broke his fast. Then, when the day was fully come, he entered a public garden enclosed with palings and lay down upon the first seat he came to.

How long he slept he could not tell, for when he awoke the sky was completely overcast, and the brown fog had no point of brightness to indicate the sun’s whereabouts. But the place where he lay was noisy with the play of ragged children, some of whom fled pell-mell as his eyes opened on them. His limbs were numbed so that, setting foot to the ground, he had to support himself by the back of the seat; and it was long ere he could walk safely.

As he issued from the garden he espied a well-known object amid the hurrying crowd on the footway of a great thoroughfare—a scarlet tarbûsh. With the strength of hope renewed, he ran as fast as he could to overtake its wearer. He came up with him, panting a salutation. But the face turned to him was not the face of the son of an Arab, but darker and of an olive tint not far removed from mouse-colour, the eyes set closer together. The reply to his salutation was in an unknown language; it was the speech of an unbeliever, in which the name of Allah did not occur. With a gesture of apology, expressive also of the deepest despair, Saïd fell back from him.

He got little heart-breaking reminders of the East from the form of a building here and there, and from homely objects in the shop windows. The sullen roar of the city was terrible in his ears, seeming now the voice of a cruel monster, now the growl of thunder—always hostile and inhuman. His eyes, unused to the subdued light, unable to appreciate its half tints, met a grey-brown horror everywhere. The women, too, dressed to provoke desire, had a share in his loathing of the scene. He would have liked to kill them for the involuntary thrill they gave.

Men and women with great baskets crouched by the edge of the roadway, selling flowers. Some of the foot-passengers stopped to buy them. Saïd met people with nosegays in their hands, and it surprised him that they did not smell at them as folks used to in the East; but on reflection it seemed likely that in this land of gloom and disappointment the blossoms had no smell or, if any, a foul one. He saw the sign of the cross often in all sorts of places, and spat on the ground for hatred of it, cursing the religion of the country secretly under his breath.

His brain grew confused. He was hunting for the sunlight which was lost. Little patches of colour drew his eyes and caused him a moment’s rejoicing as for a treasure found at last. But each disillusion left him more despairing. Of a sudden, at the turning of a street, a blare of trumpets smote his ears, together with the rhythmic beat of a drum. In the heart of an eager, hurrying crowd, of like hue with the houses, the fog and the mud of the roadway, marched a company of soldiers clad in gorgeous scarlet—a hundred of them moving as one man. Their brightness and the marvel of their going attracted Saïd. He followed them spellbound, yet with a kind of horror such as one has of jin in the night-season. He knew nothing of the crowd’s roughness. The moving streak of red glowed like a flower-bed in that sombre street—like a bed of wild anemones amid the dull rocks of his native land. He battled to get near to them, but could not. To his mind, unhinged by fatigue and exposure, it was clear that, if only he could win to walk with them he would be saved. They were his life, his destiny, and they were slipping from him.

At length he lost sight of them altogether and the blackest despair took hold of him. He wandered into a region of quiet streets. The air had grown perceptibly warmer since the morning, and now a fine rain began to fall. Of a sudden, as it seemed to him, lamps were lighted; it was night. The sky lowered as a vast cloud; it was like a close lid oppressing him. Here was a maze in a box, shut out from sun, moon and stars, and he was doomed to roam in it for ever. All at once he felt deadly cold; the next minute he was burning from head to foot. It occurred to him to pray to Allah; but where was the use of prayer when he was already condemned and in torment? He ceased to fight against his lot.

A host of evil spirits beset him, gibbering, snapping their fingers, grinning, and mocking his wretched plight. Things faded and grew dim. He knew the horror of a great army coloured like blood, thousands moving in silence as one man. Shrieking, he clung to some railings for protection, vaguely aware that a crowd was gathering about him in a place which, a minute before, had been quite deserted. Then he was back again in his native land.

XV

Saïd raved of palm-trees and gardens, the great sunshine and the inky shadows. He saw again the little house among the sandhills beside a calm blue sea. There were his nets spread to dry upon the beach. There was his fig-tree with the gnarled boughs and trunk, and the big leaves wide apart. There was the fringe of tamarisks along the shore, and the little city with its dome and minaret, clear-cut upon the vivid sky. He heard the distant music of bells, as some train of camels or mules passed slowly among the landward gardens ….

Suddenly there was a dun fog, effacing the vision and wrapping him in its gloom. Lamps without number shone blurred through the darkness. There was a sullen roar. He cried aloud in fear, but the sound of his voice was strange to him—a new terror. He grew aware of a bright and silent army, streaming ever out of darkness into darkness across the narrow range of his sight; tens of thousands moving as one man. Their colour entranced Saïd, but the order of their going chilled him with an eerie dread. He was awe-stricken, in the presence of a force beyond man’s control. He felt that, if he could only draw near and walk with them, he would be informed of all things concerning his lot; but his limbs were frozen where he stood. He cried out upon the name of Allah ….

The fog melted away, the throng with it.

“Dìn! Dìn! Dìn Muhammed!”… He was in the streets of Damashc-ush-Shâm, frenzied with the sunlight and the shouting. He slew and slew, until he waded in the blood of unbelievers. All at once he was confronted with an old man whose name was known to him. Unthinking, he flew at his throat and strangled him, flinging the body aside into an entry. Then he fell a prey to the bitterest anguish, perceiving that he had killed Mustafa, his adopted father. His wail tore the blue sky, as it had been a curtain, and dun fog poured in through the rent. Again he was beset with darkness, and the shiver of the silent host was upon him. He saw well-known faces in the ranks:—Abdullah, Selìm, Hasneh, Ibrahìm the doorkeeper, Ferideh, Ismaìl Abbâs, Mustafa, Nûr, Mahmud Effendi. All the people he had ever known passed in endless review before him. They were changed to the likeness of devils, and moved in silence all together, as though one will actuated them ….

Presently he was sitting alone on the deck of a ship. Anon, he was drowning in the sea. Then he led a bride to his house on the sands, but ere he could reach it the fog came upon him. Once more there was brown twilight and that nameless horror ….

* * * * *

It was late afternoon. Wintry sunlight, enfeebled by the smoke-clouds, made lurid ripples on the bare white walls of a spacious room lined with sick-beds. At one end there was a comfortable fire burning in a recess of the wall, before which three women in white caps and aprons sat at a table, conversing in low tones. The ward was full of tossings, groans and sobs of pain, relieved by the subdued laughter of the nurses at their table; the roar of the city coming as a murmur from without.

Saïd opened his eyes upon the scene, but there was no light of understanding in them. He strove to raise himself on his elbows, but fell back upon the pillows with a moan. When next he looked there was a woman at his bedside watching him. She held a steaming bowl whose contents she kept stirring with a spoon. Her face showed neither pity nor sympathy, but all her movements were deft and gentle.

While she was busy feeding him, propping his back upon a heap of pillows, two men entered the room together and came straight to where he lay. One of them, who was dressed all in black, his face smooth save for a great tuft of hair on either jaw, hailed Saïd courteously in Arabic, inquiring after his health and commending him warmly to the mercy of Allah. Sitting down on a chair by the bed he informed the invalid that he had been for many years a missionary among the Arabs, and wished to know if he could serve him in any way. The sound of his native language seemed to gladden the sick man, for he listened intently, a dreamy smile on his face; but he answered nothing to the purpose, though his lips formed words. After many fruitless efforts to chain his attention, the visitor sighed and departed. He returned on the following days to meet with the same disappointment. Saïd always listened eagerly, sometimes his face wore a puzzled look, sometimes he smiled; but he never answered a word articulate. His silence was the more surprising that the nurses declared him to be very talkative when left alone, often muttering and exclaiming to himself for minutes together.

As the days wore on his strength came slowly back to him. He was able to sit up, then to walk a little way with the arm of a nurse. But he took no delight in anything, seeming bewildered, as if stunned from a blow. His eyes dwelt long and puzzled on every object, as though they would fathom its meaning and could not. The doctor, going his round one morning, took him by the shoulder and gazed searchingly into his eyes. He made as if he would strike Saïd’s face, watching the patient carefully.

“An idiot,” he pronounced. “The man’s mind is gone.”

When next the person in black came to the hospital, he sat not with Saïd, but with the doctor. The Arab was gaining strength with every day. He could not remain much longer in a place devoted to sick people. It seemed desirable that the poor fellow should be sent back to the East, where there was just a chance that he might recover his wits. The missionary undertook to lay the case before the society whose minister he was. He had little doubt but that the matter could be easily arranged. At shaking hands, the doctor begged that he might be informed if the sea-voyage and return of familiar scenes wrought any noteworthy change in his patient. The case was a rare one, and its peculiar circumstances interested him.

Ten days later, Saïd left the hospital, supported by the man in black and another man, and was driven in a close carriage to the docks. There was a film on his eyes so that he could see nothing clearly. His companions talked much by the way, but a dull roar in his ears made their speech seem remote. He muttered often to himself; but whenever the missionary addressed him, he became intent at once, listening with strained attention, a faint smile on his face.

His brain was still full of visions, of scenes slowly changing. But from being an actor in them he was become a peaceful spectator, regarding them with the interest one has in a pageant. They were pleasant for the most part, succeeding one another with a dream’s inconsequence. Sometimes they were even funny, making him laugh aloud. But there were times when a cloud shadowed him suddenly and he shuddered, conscious of a vast army moving evenly and in silence, held together as one man by some mysterious force beyond his ken.

XVI

Day by day the air grew warmer. Sky and sea put off their gloom, shining ever bluer and more lustrous as the sun gained in strength. Day by day, as he sat on the deck of a great steamer, looking out over the restless waves, Saïd had glimpses of remembered things, at first dimly, growing clearer as time went on. Once more he knew the difference of day and night, could tell when it was morning, or high noon, or evening; and he observed the hours appointed for prayer and thanksgiving to Allah. Scales seemed to fall from his eyes so that he saw distinctly, and sought the meaning of what he saw. The roaring in his ears dwindled to stray murmurs, letting him hear the voices and sounds about him as something more than mere senseless jabber.

Much of his past life came back, as a tale heard long ago; but it had no significance for him. Knowing that it concerned him nearly, it distressed him that he could not guess its import. He had the same trouble with regard to all that passed on board the steamer. Everything was very hard to understand. He would puzzle for hours over some trivial detail of the scene, knowing it familiar, yet powerless to grasp its meaning. The outer shell of form and colour held his mind and prevented it from penetrating any deeper. Worst of all, he was conscious of this flaw in his vision, though he strove in vain to better it.

Yet, in spite of drawbacks, his heart was glad because of the great sunlight and its dazzle on the sea. He would smile and laugh for no reason, and would croon old songs to himself where he sat apart in the lee of a cabin. Words came to his lips, which somehow suited his frame of mind; and he was pleased, recognising their fitness, but the words, like everything else, had no meaning for him.

Sometimes, glancing down at his clothing, he was almost convinced that it was not himself at all, but someone else whom he had never known. The close-fitting trousers which strained at the knees when he sat cross-legged, the loose-hanging black coat with needless buttons upon the sleeves, the Frankish boots so tiresome to put off and on, the hat of plaited straw, bound about the crown with a black ribbon—all were strange, and vexed him with misty doubts of his identity. He would turn from the contemplation of them with a sigh, content simply to bask in the warmth and the brightness, leaving the riddle of his existence unsolved for the present.

The people of the ship were very kind to him. On all sides he saw smiling, friendly faces. One man in particular came often to sit with him; who always wore black clothes and dwelt in a part of the steamer whither Saïd was not allowed to go. He spoke in a familiar tongue, and the fisherman returned his greetings naturally, as an echo answers; but when he talked at any length his speech became mere words, having form and even colour, but no sense. One early morning this person came to the place where Saïd slept, and awoke him. He led him up on to the deck and showed a city resting on the dimpled bosom of the sea, with minarets and domes and a lighthouse, and great buildings dark beside the rising sun. And Saïd laughed for joy, he knew not why.

The vessel entered a fine harbour, where there was much shipping. As the sun got higher, the sea grew vivid blue and the sands of the coast had the colour of a ripe orange. There was green of foliage beyond the houses, the sky towards the horizon was soft and pearly. Hundreds of little boats plied upon the dancing water between large vessels which lay inert and supine, like sleeping monsters. The men and boys in them were gaily clad, with red caps, light turbans and clothing of divers colours. Homely shouts were in the air.

Saïd’s heart went out to the brightness of that merry scene. He hated his companion all at once with a fierce and unreasoning hatred. He would gladly have slain him where he stood smiling indulgently at the idiot’s glee. He loathed the steamer and all on board. He longed to be free of them, to escape on shore and mix with those men in bright apparel, who were his own people.

The noise of the engines ceased with the pulse of the screw; and almost directly there was a swarm of rowing-boats to the steamer’s side. In one of these, Saïd discerned a Frank sitting, dressed all in black on the pattern of the man at his side, of the man he hated. He scowled at this new blot in the sunlight; and his eyes chose that boat out of all others, following it closely. He saw the Frank step out and mount the ladder to the deck. A minute later he shrank back with a snarl. The evil one had come near, and was staring at him, grasping the hand of the other man in black and speaking with him as an old friend. Presently he essayed to take Saïd’s arm to lead him, but the latter sprang aside and, scrambling hot-foot down the ladder, was first in the boat.

During the brief passage to the shore, his new enemy strove to engage him in conversation; but Saïd, absorbed in watching the boatmen and listening greedily to their talk, had a deaf ear for him. Arrived at the landing-place, however, he submitted to be led through the lively crowd. He was as one demented, laughing for no apparent reason and shouting salutations to all he met. His excitement made no distinction between true believers and infidels, but beamed alike upon all who wore bright clothing. People turned in astonishment to look after one, who, though clad in all respects like a poor Frank, and walking with a well-known missionary, yet swore by the Coràn and accosted everyone in Arabic with a marked Syrian intonation.

Feasting his eyes on the warm hues of the crowd and its animation, Saïd felt that he was at home again. Great joy engrossed him to the exclusion of all else in the world. He forgot the existence of the man in black, ignored even his own existence; content to wander on through the merry, noisy streets, no matter who his guide. But at a point where several ways met, the missionary tried to draw him out of the sunshine, and the colours, and the shouting, into a shadowed, silent street, where the houses were large and of Frankish build, with big glass windows. He pulled Saïd’s sleeve and spoke earnestly to him. The fisherman stared at him without comprehension, a fool’s laugh dying in his throat. His glance followed the guide’s stretched-out hand. Something in the aspect of the houses made him shiver. In a flash he had the vision of a vast dun cloud and a devilish blood-coloured throng moving silently through its heart. That road led somehow to it, and the man in black, the false guide, was suborned to drag him thither. With the cry of a wild beast, he sprang upon the astonished missionary and gripped his throat, forcing him to the ground. It was in his mind to strangle him there and then, and so make an end of the gloom, the silent horror and all the hideous nightmare he personified. But a concourse of people clothed in bright colours diverting his eyes, he quitted his hold and stood up.

“Dìn Muhammed!” he said, and burst out laughing.

At that the faces of the crowd changed their looks of menace for those of concern.

“Run, O my uncle!” … “Make haste!” … “By this way!” … “Save thyself!” …

Friendly cries came from all hands. And Saïd, without knowing why, leapt forward with a shout of exultation, and ran he cared not whither.

His Frankish hat had fallen and was forgotten. His head, which had not known the razor for many weeks, bristled with a shock of white hair. His beard, white also, was long and unkempt. Women in shrouds of indigo, with queer cylinders between their eyes, ran from him with screams of terror. Brown-limbed children tumbled headlong into doorways, yelling for their lives. Men in flowing robes flattened themselves against the wall as he passed, and stood to stare after him, exclaiming together. Soldiers, set to keep order in the streets, retired trembling to their hutches, and asked a blessing on that awful runner. An old man with white hair and beard bounding forward like a boy, shouting and laughing as he ran …. The apparition was new to the men of Iskendería, and they wondered what it might portend. Surely, thought they, it is a madman, or some true prophet sent from Allah! Did ever man see the like? Verily the end of all things draws nigh!

Saïd sped on, laughing in pure joy of the sunshine and the shadows, the bright hues and merry sounds of a life familiar to him. Swarthy faces looked out at him from dark thresholds of taverns and shops. There were donkeys, mules, camels, laden with sacks and bales and panniers. There was nothing sad, nothing to recall the cloud and its fear, save only a few Franks here and there; and even they failed to anger him, being clad not in dull raiment but in white. The sunshine on the multi-coloured crowd, the chattering and gesticulation, the blue sky, the air, the very smells were friendly, redolent of home.

In a place where there was less traffic he slackened his pace, panting, and found himself bathed in sweat. For the first time he grew aware of the sun’s beams scorching his uncovered head, and instinctively he sought the shade of a wall, near the shop of a petty trader.

His own cries and laughter rang yet in his ears, but hollow and senseless. In the plum-coloured shade he sat down to rest, his eyes dwelling on the sunlit buildings opposite. Their tint against the sapphire sky made him think of barren, stony hills—the sun-burnt hills of Es-Shâm. Of a sudden, there was a swimming in his head. Sickness seized him, forcing him to vomit. He groaned aloud, calling heart-broken on the name of Allah and bewailing his evil day. The merchant reclining at ease in the coolness of his shop hard by, hearing the sound of lamentation, came forth to see who made it. He was a tall, bearded man of middle life, wearing a high fez and embroidered turban; and his robe of mixed silk and cotton was green and crimson striped. Seeing an old man sit there bare-headed, he reproved him gravely for his folly, vowing by Allah that if he got a sunstroke he could blame no one but himself.

Saïd raised despairing eyes to the speaker—eyes which saw nothing but his own immediate wretchedness. He heard the voice of Selìm cry,—

“Merciful Allah!… O my master!… O my eyes! O my dear! Is it indeed thyself, and in this shameful plight?… O mother of Mûsa, get food and drink! Let Hasneh make ready a pleasant bed! Behold Saïd, my beloved, is returned to us at the point of death, having white hair and the clothes of a Frank. Praise be to Allah that he is returned to us! May Allah spare him to us, and grant him peace and good health once more!”

Saïd heard Selìm’s voice and was glad to hear it. It sounded familiar, and he knew it friendly. “Praise be to Allah!” he murmured naturally. But his mind had no real knowledge of Selìm, and the words were but empty sound.

XVII

When Saïd recovered of his sunstroke, he was the honoured guest of the little household. Selìm’s love for him, born years before of gratitude for the gift of a stolen garment, was now doubled with the respect for one of unsound mind. The whole house was Saïd’s, the shop also and all it contained. Selìm or his wife would have waited on him all day long had Hasneh not forestalled them. Mûsa was told off to shadow him when he walked abroad, lest any evil should befall him. His head and the hair of his body were shorn duly according to the law, and he was arrayed in good clothes, which the master of the house bought for him at no small cost.

At the hour of the evening meal, when men are sociable in the relief of the day’s task done, Selìm would often tell his children and any chance guest the story of his acquaintance with Saïd. He would lift the brown dressing-gown with the red braiding out of the chest where it was kept, and tears would stand in his eyes as he showed it to the little circle, handling it reverently as a priceless relic. He would glance ruefully at the fisherman where he sat cross-legged, muttering often to himself and making strange play with his hands.

The young ones loved better to hear of the great slaughter and how bravely Ahmed Pasha met his death. They would clamour for their father to act the scene for them, showing where the Sultàn’s envoy stood, where the Wâly, where the file of soldiers who shot him down. Mûsa clenched teeth and hands at the point where the soldiers shirked their work, and for a time doggedly refused to fire. He vowed that he would rather be killed himself than slay an old man and a pious Muslim to pleasure infidels. They loved that story best for the fighting and bloodshed that were in it; but Selìm liked most to tell of Saïd the Fisherman and his great goodness.

Every morning, having broken his fast, Saïd roamed forth out of the city to a place he had discovered, where there were palm-trees beside a sandy road, and whence, through the dusty leaves of a garden, he got a glimpse of yellow sands and the dark blue sea. There, sitting cross-legged in the shade, he was happy all day long, laughing and crooning to himself, receiving homage from the poorer class of wayfarers—camel-drivers and muleteers, beggars and gipsies, snake-charmers and itinerant merchants—who respected the fine robe and the embroidered turban with which Selìm had invested him.

He loved to watch the long trains of camels winding with the road, and would strain his ears to hold the music of their bells when it grew faint and died in the distance. It pleased him to see big men and fat go jogging by upon small donkeys, their legs distended because of full saddle-bags, their feet not far from the ground. The blue-robed peasant women made eyes at him as they walked with swaying bodies, sleek brown arms raised like twin handles of a vase to steady the burdens on their heads. Sometimes rich men on prancing horses, sometimes a carriage dashed past him, heralded by an outrunner with girt-up loins. He took a childish pleasure in saluting these great ones, prizing a chance smile from one of them more than the effusion of humbler passengers. All was passionate, highly-coloured of the East. Every wayfarer was merry or furious, laughing or cursing, sullen or smiling, in the depth of despair or the height of glee, hot and heady as the sunlight itself. But sometimes, in a minute, a deep gloom would fall on him, isolating him so that he seemed to sit alone, aware of the silent march of a great bright army. At such moments he knew that the mystery was eternal, that it had been going on unguessed through all the time he had forgotten, and must go on irrevocably until the last day. He shuddered when the fit left him, and it was long ere he could shake off the horror of it.

Sometimes Hasneh would accompany him to his favourite spot and sit near him in the shade, delighting in his childlike gladness. But the wife of Selìm could seldom spare her from the house; more often it was Mûsa who dogged Saïd’s footsteps and lay hid in the garden close to where he sat. The lad got amusement out of his allotted task by imagining great perils for his father’s guest, seeing himself as rescuer dashing like a young hurricane to save him, scattering a hundred well-armed men like chaff. When the sun was set and the smoke from hidden dwellings curled blue upon the delicate flush of evening or yellowish on the dove-grey which followed, Saïd would rise and turn his face homeward; he loved to spend the live-long day in the open, detesting the imprisonment of four walls.

For months, for years, he led this peaceful kind of life, without care or thought, conscious only of the appearance of things, their outward shape and colour, troubled only at long intervals by the ghost of a memory. But there came a time of disturbance, when the crowd in the streets wore anxious looks, and men formed knots together, speaking excitedly with fierce eyes. Selìm, fearing a tumult, thought it wise to confine his guest within doors lest he should come to harm. His loving care would not trust the fisherman out of his sight. This imprisonment fretted Saïd, to whom the sunshine and the fresh air of the gardens were become as daily food. He grew very cross and irritable, and Hasneh, into whose charge he was given, had to bear the brunt of all ill-humour which could hear no reason.

Once when a great uproar arose in the city Saïd’s eyes flamed suddenly and he sprang to his feet. For a moment there was understanding in his face; but the fire died as suddenly as it leapt up, and he fell back into the old, listless bad temper. For more than a month he was constrained by Selìm’s order, going out only occasionally, when the master of the house had leisure to accompany him. He was kept in the house in deep shadow, with nothing bright to look at, and time hung very heavy on his hands.

One day Selìm closed his shop and came to sit in the room with his family. He spoke seldom, and was very grave. A neighbour with a scared face looked in on them from time to time, bringing tidings or feeling the need of company. Through long hours there was booming of cannon, followed by explosions near at hand, the crash and roar of falling masonry. Saïd strained ears to hearken, and his face wore a puzzled expression, such as is often seen on faces of the blind. The firing ceased towards evening, and Selìm, praising Allah, went out to gather tidings, but refused to take Saïd with him.

The next day there was no more booming, but towards noon the city was filled with shouting and tumult. The whole household running out to learn the cause of the din, Saïd was left unguarded for a few minutes. They had hidden away his outer garments, thinking that his love of finery would prevent him from going abroad without it. But he was a match for them. He knew where to find a robe—an old garment of outlandish fashion, prettily bound with soiled red braid, which had often been spread out before his eyes of evening, when there were guests present. He opened the chest and took it out, smoothing it lovingly with a furtive glance to make sure that no one saw. Then he put it on, chuckling.

Thus attired, he stole to the door and peeped out. Hasneh and the mother of Mûsa were talking with some other women a good way off. Selìm himself was nowhere to be seen. Girding up his loins, Saïd took to his heels, laughing as he ran. Clouds of smoke blurred the sky before him above the roofs; his eyes dwelt on them curiously as they did always on a new thing. There was a noise of shouting in the air.

Suddenly on turning a corner he found himself in a yelling, furious mob, all rushing in one direction. Fierce eyes, brandished weapons, curses and a roar of shouting. It was as though a door swung open in Saïd’s brain, admitting light into a chamber long shut up. Understanding flashed in his eyes.

“Dìn Muhammed!” he cried, and rushed forward with the rest, only more fiercely, with more of frenzy. Even in that turmoil men looked at him and, looking, made way for him to pass. There was something awful in his face, a light of madness or inspiration beyond their ken. He was a prophet and would bring them good fortune. They pressed on behind him, shouting louder than before. On he ran, tearing a way through the crowd. At length he led them, was at their head, still rushing on.

All at once cries of warning and terror arose. The crowd surged backward, forsaking him. A sudden fear came upon him, a shudder … the noiseless horror!… A bright host, moving together as one man, appeared out of a side street, and formed a wall before him. He pressed both hands to his temples, staring wildly. There was a word of command, short and incisive as a pistol-shot. All the sunlight was filled with yells of rage and fright. Again the word of command, followed by a line of flashes and a loud report which burst his head.

“Dìn! Dìn! Dìn!…”

He flung up his arms. His eyes seemed to turn over in their sockets, as he fell backwards on the ground. So the garment of the Christian missionary became the death-robe of a martyr for El Islâm, and the sunlight swam blood-red at the last.

TIME TABLE

1871 (end of October) Saïd left Damascus.

1882 (11th of June) Riot and Massacre of Europeans at Alexandria.

1882 (11th of July) Bombardment of Alexandria.

1882 (12th of July) Egyptian forces under Arabi evacuated the town, setting fire to European quarter and letting loose upon it gangs of plunderers. Saïd met his death in this riot.

A NOTE ON THE TYPE IN WHICH THIS BOOK IS SET

_The type in which this book has been set (on the Linotype) is Caslon Old Face, a faithful and authentic reproduction from the original patterns of William Caslon I. Historically considered, Caslon’s old face types are the most important contribution the English speaking world has ever made to the art of typography. No other face has ever attained to so lasting and general a popularity. Caslon’s types were made to read. Even their apparent imperfections contribute to this effect being, in fact, the result of a deliberate artistry which sought above all else for legibility in the printed page._

SET UP, ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y. · PAPER MANUFACTURED BY THE TICONDEROGA PULP AND PAPER CO., TICONDEROGA, N. Y., AND FURNISHED BY W. F. ETHERINGTON & CO., NEW YORK · BOUND BY H. WOLFF. ESTATE, NEW YORK.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

- Typos and errors in punctuation were corrected.

- Inconsistent hyphenation has been normalized.

- Inconsistent diacritics have been normalized.

- Text between _underscores_ indicates italics.

- A Table of Contents was created for this edition.

- New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.