XI

Saïd awoke, as soon as it began to be light, to find the chamber already half empty of sleepers. His forehead was clouded as he went down the flight of stone steps into the stable, and threaded his way gingerly among the beasts and merchandise. His mind was busy laying plans for the day. There was much to be done. His horse must first be sold, and then he must look out for a lodging in keeping with his means. He must be on his guard every minute, for the dwellers in towns have ready wits and love to whet them on a stranger.

The ghost of daylight, looking in at the arched doorway, cast a pallor on the stumpy columns, on the humps and heads of camels, on the glossy flanks of horses and mules. He made his way to where his own steed was standing listless, awaiting the morning’s dole of chaff and barley. A soft neigh and a pricking of the ears welcomed him. He smoothed the horse’s mane lovingly, patted its neck and rubbed its nose, whispering all manner of endearment. It was a good beast, and he was sad to part with it.

In the guestroom he found the young man who had spoken so rashly overnight seated on the floor at a meal of bread, curds and olives. A handsome lad of sixteen or thereabouts, whom a strong likeness proclaimed his brother, sat with him, eating from the same tray. At a becoming distance their servant⁠—a swarthy, fierce-eyed fellow, whose weather-beaten tarbûsh had lost its tassel⁠—squatted on his bare heels awaiting their pleasure. Saïd greeted them politely before shouting for something to eat. While a servant who answered his cry was pouring water over his hands and helping to dry them on a dirty cloth, the voice of the young man rose in flowered eloquence.

He was rehearsing the speech he meant to make before the Qadi. It must have been written for him by some learned scribe skilled in all the bewilderment of tangled words; for no plain man could lay hold of its meaning. It was all of one piece from first syllable to last, and as it was recited, or rather intoned, there was no telling where one thought ended and the other began. Saïd’s mouth fell agape with admiration. He listened spellbound, forgetful even of his breakfast. Once or twice the orator, finding himself at a loss, drew a scroll from the bosom of his robe and passed his finger along and down it till he came to the passage. Then he replaced the scroll and went on with renewed fervour. “Capital!” cried the servant, when a complacent grin of his master announced the end. “In all my life I have heard nothing like it. It speaks with the mouth of the Quran, with the voice of an angel. It would melt the heart of the Chief of Mountains, by Allah! Rejoice, O my master, for our cause is won!”

“Good⁠—very good!” said the younger brother, his face eager with impatience. “Is it not the hour when we should repair to the Mehkemeh?”

Saïd also lent his voice to swell the chorus of praise. Such a speech, he protested, would grace the lips of princes. It was polished as a tray of gold, exquisite as a mosaic of divers kinds of precious stones, sweet as the voices of girls singing to the sound of the one-stringed lute. The ear of Allah would not disdain it. This high praise, which was perfectly sincere of its kind, flattered the orator and his boyish brother. Even the surly henchman looked at Saïd with grudging approval. The chief of the party informed him graciously that he had procured the speech of a scribe renowned in all the city for his learning, and that it had cost him a pretty sum of money, which he named. If his enemy could produce a better he would be surprised, and so forth. “Moreover,” he added, with a smile of such doltish cunning that Saïd envied his opponent⁠—“moreover, I have laid out much money already among the servants of authority, and I have here a great sum to be expended in the court itself. It is sure that I shall win.”

“There is no doubt!” his companions chimed in, the one eagerly, the other with a kind of sullen defiance.

“No doubt⁠—not a shred of doubt,” echoed Saïd, his bearing very respectful of a sudden as he heard the jingle of coins in the sack which the young man opened his robe to show him.

His fast fairly broken, he called for the reckoning. The lord of the khan appeared⁠—a very fat man wearing a robe of indigo blue, under which dirty white pantaloons showed to his ankles, the reddest of red slippers, and a girdle of many colours which, instead of restraining his bulk at all, bulged out frankly upon the most obvious part of him. His turban was richly embroidered, but old and dingy. His demeanour was important but polite, as became a substantial host requiring payment of a guest of unknown quality. The amount was twelve piastres, he informed the effendi. After a little fruitless haggling, which only served to hurt the feelings of mine host and turn him to a boulder of dignity, Saïd discharged his debt and took leave of the hopeful litigant and his supporters.

Passing out into the stable he found the bare-legged lad of last night zealously brushing his nag’s mane and flanks. At a word he left work and fetched the saddle and bridle from a heap of trappings in a nook of the wall.

A group of camels were being laden from a heap of bales which stood piled round one of the pillars. The cursing of their drivers, three in number, was very lusty, as they made them kneel, then rise, and kneel again, to get them into position. The foremost of them, already accommodated with a load, stood across the doorway, blocking it. An oath from Saïd, ably seconded by the bare-legged stable-boy, called forth a perfect storm from the camel-drivers, one of whom ran forward and led the unwieldy beast to one side. The horse was taken out on to the causeway. Allah, who was being invoked within the archway to blast and utterly destroy the father, religion, and offspring of the half-dozen camels there lading, was humbly asked to increase Saïd’s wealth as that worthy rode off leaving a trifle in the brown palm of the hostler.

The long, roofed bazaar, from which others just like it branched to right and left, was already busy with people going to their day’s work. A coolness of the empty night still hung in its shadow, but that shadow was no longer grey and thin, but blue and deep, telling of a young sun reddening the roofs above. It was early yet to think of selling his horse; so Saïd rode forward at his ease, bent on viewing the city, taking this turning or that as fancy prompted.

Stalls were opening everywhere in the shady markets. Shutters were opened, bars removed, goods displayed. Merchants were settling themselves in dim nooks like caverns behind their wares. The ways were choked with a humming, gaily-coloured crowd. Cries of “Oäh! Oäh! Look out on your right⁠—on your left!” came in shrill tones or hoarse, as men with asses or mules forced a way through the press. Sweet, languorous odours, wafted from the shop of a vendor of perfumes, a whiff of musk from the shroud of some passing woman, the fragrance of tobacco, a dewy breath of the gardens from a mule’s panniers crammed with vegetables⁠—little puffs of sweetness were alternate in Saïd’s nostrils with the reek of dirty garments and ever-perspiring humanity, with vile stenches from dark entries, where all that is foulest of death and decay was flung to glut the scavenger dogs that slept, full-gorged, by dozens in every archway and along every wall. Saïd inhaled sweet and foul alike with a relish as part of the city’s enchantment.

He looked about him as he rode with wondering delight, shouting always “Oäh! Oäh!” as a warning to the multitude whose din drowned the clatter of hoofs. The greatness and the glory of it surpassed his dreams. Here was a whole bazaar wide, long and lofty, possessed exclusively by the workers in precious metals; another by the sweetmeat sellers; a third by those who inlay wood with mother-of-pearl; a fourth by those who sell rugs⁠—rich carpets of all the hues of the garden, of every make, from Bukhra and Khorassan, from Mecca and Baghdad and El Ajem. In one street he caught glimpses, through mean doorways, of precious stuffs, fine silks embossed and embroidered, the work of a lifetime. In the next there was nothing but the noise of grinding, chiselling and planing as the joiners squatted at their work, with the breath of the crowd in their faces.

He passed out of the shade of the covered bazaars and came at length to a place where the sun shone blinding on the ornate gateway of a mosque. Doves wheeled overhead about a tall and graceful minaret, which tapered dazzling white upon the dazzling blue, pointing to the heart of the great sapphire dome, to the throne of Allah himself. Through the archway he could see a flock of them strutting and pecking on the mosaic pavement of a cloistered court. Their cooing brought the inner stillness to him in spite of the noisy crowd, like a voice in a bubble of silence.

He rode on, rejoicing in the fierce sunlight and the peaceful shadows, in all the busy throng around him.

It began to be very hot, and he had been long riding. The cry of a certain vendor of iced drinks, who was elbowing his way through the crowd, clasping a huge bottle of greenish-yellow fluid and clinking two cups together as cymbals, was like the voice of an angel calling him.

“O snow of the mountain! How pure art thou, and how cold! O juice of the lemon! how refreshing when mingled cunningly with sugar as in my bottle! O drink of paradise, who could refuse thee? May Allah have pity on him who drinks not of this cup!”

Saïd drank of it and smacked his lips afterwards. In truth it was refreshing. He paid the smallest of coins⁠—it was all the ministering angel asked for his elixir⁠—into the dirtiest of hands, and received the parting blessing.

“May Allah have mercy on thy belly!”

Then he bethought him that it was time he took some steps toward selling his horse. He had been quite happy till then, drifting with the tide of inclination, having no aim beyond sightseeing. But the moment he came to harbour a definite purpose he felt crestfallen and ill at ease. The multitude, with which he had but now mingled lovingly as a brother, seemed to fall back from him of a sudden, becoming heartless and indifferent. He felt bewildered as his eyes strayed over numberless eager faces, seeking some person not too busy to answer a question. All at once, even as he drew rein irresolute, his hand was seized and kissed, and a man’s voice hailed him with cheerful deference.

“May thy day be happy, O my master!”

“May thy day be happy and blessed!” returned Saïd, graciously.

It was Selìm, the muleteer who had been his guide to the khan. The encounter was timely. Saïd straightway questioned him as to the best place for a man to go who was wishful to sell a horse to the best advantage. Selìm had the whole day on his hands. On his head, he was at Saïd’s service. He would lead him to a place which had not its like in all the world for horse-selling; it was the lord of all such places, by Allah! He would not conduct the effendi to a low place, of which there were many⁠—no, by his beard, but to the best of all. He had a great respect for the effendi, and, to be sure, the horse was a good horse, deserving to be sold in the best market.

He took Saïd’s bridle and led him out of the throng and the sunlight into a maze of byways, narrow, dark and dirty. There were archways, short tunnels, sleeping dogs and evil smells. Saïd saw many women with their faces uncovered. Most of the men also in this region wore the fez alone, or, if a turban, it was informal, of black or grey. He feasted his eyes on the charms of the maids and matrons with lazy contempt. They were Christians, unbelievers and accursed. Yet men and women walked bravely in the middle of the causeway, and were in no haste to humble themselves before a true believer and one that rode upon a horse.

Referring to his guide for enlightenment⁠—

“This is the Nazarene quarter,” replied the muleteer. “Here, by the mercy of the Sultàn, the infidels are suffered to live apart under a chief of their own religion. It is their ancient privilege, and none grudged it them of old, when the dogs were meek and obedient to the law. In those days they were not abhorred by the faithful, who lived peacefully with them, claiming only the right of the conqueror. But now that they grow fat and insolent, because of the Frankish consuls who pamper them, they are become loathsome as Jews in our sight. The fault is with the consuls, who shield and abet them in whatever they do. The worst of them will tell you that they are French subjects or Muscovite, and will show papers to that effect given them by the consul. Your grace marvels⁠—not so?⁠—to hear a common man discourse of such high matters. Know, O effendi, that Selìm speaks not of his own knowledge”⁠—he twitched the hem of his robe lightly to shake off any dust of responsibility that might cling to it. “He has kept silence in the tavern while wise men spoke, and the ears of Selìm carried something of the matter to his understanding. Moreover, it would be hard to find a man in all the city at present, be he notable or beggar, true believer, or Nazarene, or Jew, who is not possessed with politics as with a devil.”

Saïd, whose ears had given heed, though his eyes were wandering, frowned terribly as his guide ceased speaking. “It were a righteous deed,” he said, “to slay every dog of them and burn their quarter with fire.” There was fierce light in his eyes.

“Ah!” said the muleteer, “but the Franks are powerful and their vengeance would be dire. As thou knowest, the French and English gave aid to the Turks in the late Muscovite war, and in return they claim to govern the Sultàn’s realm instead of him. True believers are but as dogs in their sight, and they would set up a Nazarene in every high place. Allah! have mercy! Alas for the evil day that has dawned for the faith!”

But the light in Saïd’s eyes was no other than the greed of gain. He was a strong man, not without courage. He would gladly slay a man, whether armed or defenceless, a woman, or even a child in the cause of Allah and the Prophet. But he could not forget that these Christians were rich. His mind’s eye saw a heap of gold in the darkness of every squalid entry. Also the women were fine and plump. His lips were yet dry from the sight of a pretty girl who had smiled up at him in passing. Truly, it would be a pleasant and a holy thing to harry these unbelievers with fire and sword.