XIV

“Woe is me!⁠ ⁠… Allah have mercy!⁠ ⁠… I am ruined!⁠ ⁠… all my wealth is gone!⁠ ⁠… I have been robbed by wicked men; may Allah strike them dead for it.⁠ ⁠… Oh, that I knew the thief, that I might kill him!⁠ ⁠… Yesterday, in the evening, I was rich: now I have no resource but to stretch out my hand.⁠ ⁠… But I will have justice⁠—vengeance! I go straight to the Qadi⁠—to the chief of the soldiers⁠—to the Sultàn himself!⁠ ⁠… Up, Selìm! Let us hasten to inform the judge.”

“Woe is me!⁠ ⁠… My heart is very sad for thee, O my master. Alas! did I not counsel thee to leave were it but half of thy wealth behind with the lord of the khan?⁠—but thou wouldst not! I have done all that it is in a man’s power to do. I have sought out the owner of that house of sin. I have threatened him with horrid tortures so that he wept. And now, having achieved nothing, I have come back to mourn with thee in the place which thou namedst, even in this garden by the riverside. The Qadi will not help thee, for thou canst bring nothing in thy hand. Moreover, a part of the profits of that house of sin is paid to a great one of the city for his protection.⁠ ⁠… Think not that I am careless for thy loss. For two hours I was with the master of that house, cursing and threatening. Once I held him by the throat.⁠ ⁠…”

“Aha! That was well done! And what said the pig?”

“Have I not told thee, O my master? He wept bitterly and his sons with him. Then he arose, and also his sons. They took great staves in their hands and ran like madmen through all the place, belabouring the dancing-girls and the old woman who mothers them, and the attendants, and him who keeps the door.”

“Merciful Allah! was there not one who confessed?”

“Alas, my master, thy mind is distraught with grief. Have I not already told thee? not one of them but confessed. The burden of another’s guilt seemed a light and easy thing to bear compared with the great pain of being beaten with a stick. They all cried aloud for mercy, saying, ‘I and none other am the thief!’ It is the same as if none had confessed. Ah, my master, how camest thou to be thus careless of thy money?”

“Woe is me, I am ruined!”

Saïd lifted up his voice and wept, beating his breast and plucking wildly at his new robe as if to tear it. Selìm, seated on his heels, wrapped in the missionary’s dressing-gown, looked on at his master’s despair with a grin of the deepest concern. He laboured to console the sufferer with divers proverbs and wise sayings from of old⁠—crumbs from the plenteous table of Islâm, which the very dogs pick up and pass from mouth to mouth. But the Heaven-taught creed of resignation was hardly Saïd’s at that moment⁠—“A man must bear all things, good and bad, with a calm mind.” “Allah was above all.” It might be He would mete out happiness at the last, as He did of old in the case of Neby Ayûb! “The reward of patience was sure in the end.” Saïd rejected all such crumbs of comfort with a furious shrug. He found them very stale.

With a deaf ear to his servant’s pleading, he flung himself upon the ground, moaning, howling and blubbering. Writhing in his anguish, he called upon Allah Most High to avenge his cause, to slay the robber and destroy that house of sin with all who dwelt there.

The voice of his rage and grief rent the calm of that peaceful garden as a cry from Hell piercing the heart of Paradise. Selìm, the resigned, rolled a cigarette and looked rueful as he squatted in the pleasant shade. All about them along the ground little thickets and tufts of rose-trees swayed pink flowers and fluttered green leaves to the pleasure of a light breeze which drank their sweetness. The river murmured in its stony bed, sparkling over pebbles in the sunlight of midstream, forming deep pools beneath the bank, very willing to dawdle in the shade of the great walnut-trees.

The mourners were quite alone. The voice of the city floated to them out of the distance like the hum of a mighty beehive. A little tavern at no great distance from the bank was deserted save for its owner, and he lay asleep in the shade. It was the fourth hour of the day; and not until the flush of evening have men leisure to go forth and drink the sweet air of the gardens. A stone bridge of a single lofty arch, which bestrode the wady lower down, looked at fragments of its likeness in the eddies and seemed nodding to sleep. The vast blue cope of the firmament paled everywhere towards the horizon in pearly haze. Abundance of leafage compassed the place on every side, but at one point, through a gap in the branches, the old wall of the city was visible, the white cube of an upper chamber peeping over it with a bulging lattice, and a single minaret cleaving the soft distance.

“Be comforted, O my master!” said Selìm, at length, when smoking had brought him to a less gloomy point of view. “Look! the very birds are frightened by the voice of thy grieving.” He pointed to certain which were flitting uneasily from twig to twig with alarmed chirrup and twittering. “It is a great loss, I grant thee. To a small man like me it would be ruin. But for thee, effendi, it is only a mishap⁠—most grievous without doubt, and I suffer with thee. Thou hast lost what was in thy hands to spend; but the head of thy money remains⁠—those lands and that palace of which thou spakest yesterday, and all the wealth belonging to thee in thy own place.”

At these words Saïd writhed as if a serpent had bitten him. The extreme depth into which he was fallen rendered him careless of dishonour in the opinion of this muleteer. There was a ring of peevishness in his bitter cry as he made the avowal⁠—

“It was a lie⁠—the word that I spake to thee. I have nothing but that thou wottest of, which is lost. True, I was a great one formerly. Men pressed to kiss were it only the hem of my robe when I walked abroad. But there was an end to my greatness. My enemy, who hated me, was appointed Caimmacàm, and used his power as governor to my ruin. I was robbed and my robbers were openly screened from vengeance. One night certain of the Council that were my friends came privily to my house⁠—a palace it was, by Allah!⁠—and told me of a plot to slay me. Then I fled away by stealth, riding upon the horse thou sawest, taking only a woman that was dear to me and money sufficient for the journey. The woman fell ill by the way and I left her in the house of one who befriended me. Alas, it may be she is dead ere now!

“Woe is me, I am ruined!⁠ ⁠… Yesterday I was prosperous, having a servant and money enough⁠—now look!⁠—I am a crushed worm and there is none to pity me.⁠ ⁠… Allah, in mercy take my life also!”

And at that his moaning broke out afresh.

“Now, by my beard, thou speakest folly,” said Selìm, gravely. “Thou sayest: ‘Yesterday I had a servant,’ when today thou lackest not a man to do thy bidding. It was not well to hide the truth from me, effendi. It is with a servant the same as with a partner or a woman. Acquaint him fully at the first, for living always with thee he will presently come at the knowledge though thou wouldst conceal it. Am I not bound to thee for one month by token of sixty piastres and this rich garment which thou gavest me? A robe like this is worth much gold, let the Franks laugh if they please. Selìm is not a dog of an infidel that he should forsake his benefactor, whom Allah has smitten.

“Take heart, O my master! Besides the sixty piastres I have other moneys of my own⁠—a little, it is understood⁠—very little. With all that I have I will buy merchandise⁠—small things such as men hawk through the streets in a basket. Deign to share with me, effendi, nor think it shame because I am a muleteer while thou art learned and of a good house. I will find out some shaded place where thou mayst sit at ease behind the basket containing our wares while Selìm praises the goods for sale in a loud voice, luring them that pass by to pause and examine them. Selìm will be thy servant then as now. Only, at the end of the day when there is no more traffic, we shall divide the profits equally as partners. Is it agreed, O my lord? I know well that it is a shame for thee to take part with a man like Selìm in the open street where all may see thee⁠—it is natural. But that is only the beginning. Afterwards, when our wealth increases, we will hire a stall in one of the finest markets; when thou shalt be a great merchant, I promise thee, and Selìm, being thy servant, and also (secretly) thy partner, shall partake of thy prosperity. What sayest thou?”

It was long ere Saïd would let himself be won over to this or any other compromise with misfortune. For hours he held out against his servant’s entreaties, moaning always and signing “No” with hands and head. But as the day wore towards evening and the shadows of the trees and shrubs grew long and blue to eastward, he became less hot in his denial; and at last, having consented to smoke a cigarette, rolled by Selìm and lighted obsequiously for him by that most faithful of followers, he relented altogether. “It shall be as thou desirest,” he agreed with a wave of his hand; and he entered with some keenness upon the discussion of their joint plans for the future.

“And now, O my master,” said Selìm, smiling for joy at the cure he had wrought, “let us repair to the tavern yonder, for thou hast eaten nothing since the sun’s rising. I know the master of the place well; indeed, he and I are sworn brothers. He is renowned in all the city as a cook. Ah, by Allah, his stuffed vegetables have not their like in all the world! Arise, O my lord! I have money should there be need of it.”

The sun being now near to his setting, a number of idlers from the city were seated on little stools in the tavern or in the shadow of a great walnut-tree which confronted it and partly overhung the stream.

A train of mules passing the bridge close by made music with their bells. Quite another kind of music came from the wide porch of the coffeehouse⁠—if porch it can be called, which wanted but one wall to form a room as large again as the actual dwelling. A man, sitting cross-legged on a stone bench or couch beside the inner door, was howling most pitifully with closed eyes and a perpetual rhythmic swaying of his body to and fro; while another, facing him upon a four-legged stool, thrummed an accompaniment on an instrument of two strings. Some of the company kept clapping their hands in time with the melody. Others smiled voluptuously with closed eyes, sighing out a prolonged “A‑a‑ah!” or panting, “O my eyes! O my soul!” in the height of sensual enjoyment. It was a love song of the most rapturous type⁠—one to which no son of an Arab could listen unmoved.

To Saïd’s present mood it appealed very strongly; but instead of inducing languor, as in the case of the other hearers, it brought a warmth of his swarthy cheeks and a brightness to his eyes. The passionate writhing of the singer, his wails, his shrieks, awoke a lively echo in the fisherman’s bosom. Old memories were stirred and, like a heap of dead rose leaves, they gave forth a perfume of days gone by. He recalled the hour when he had led a bride to his house, the madness and the thrill of it. The world was full of maidens fairer and sweeter than she had been.

Absorbed in the music, which seemed to his mind, and to the minds of most men there, to harp upon the keynote of all that is sweet in life, he gave no heed to the dialogue of Selìm and the tavern-keeper carried on in an undertone, though aware that its substance was friendly to the cravings of his appetite. The concluding words, however, spoken somewhat louder as the host moved away, reached his brain.

“May thy prosperity increase, O father of a vegetable marrow! Let them be stuffed as thou alone knowest how to stuff them; and ah! as thou lovest me, forget not to soak the whole perfectly in oil!”

At last the song expired on a shrill, quavering note of long duration. The singer opened his eyes and grinned in acknowledgment of applause. After one deep-drawn sigh of mixed contentment and regret from the whole audience the hum of conversation arose.

Saïd looked westward to where the sun’s chin already leaned on the crest of a ridge of mountains, which seemed the dark wall of a monstrous furnace, for all beyond was flame. He could see the shrine whence he had obtained his first view of the city⁠—a minute black boss against the sky. It was but before yesterday that he had reined in his horse up there.

He was lost in reflections to which the thought gave rise, the commotion caused by the love song in his blood abating gradually to that torpor of resignation which is the frame of mind prescribed to all faithful people, when Selìm plucked his robe and whispered⁠—

“Look, O my master! Hither comes the man who was befooled by the scribe⁠—thou rememberest last night at the khan? See, there is the boy, his brother, with him, and one of sullen bearing, who seems a servant.”

With a start, Saïd glanced in the direction indicated. At the same instant the sun sank totally behind the rugged hills, and the gardens turned blue-grey beneath a burning flush. The party Selìm referred to was close at hand, walking listlessly with dejected looks. Saïd rose respectful as the litigant drew near with his following. He bowed profoundly and went through the usual show of deference, scooping up imaginary dust with his hand and laying it lightly upon his lips and brow.

“May your evening be in all goodness, effendum!” he cried. “Allah willing you are happy in your suit?”

At that the newcomers raised hands and eyes to Heaven, all three at once, pouring forth a torrent of mingled salutations, curses and complaints. It was plain they were losers by the day’s business.

Saïd waited till they were seated, then carried his stool near to them so as to make one of their circle. He expressed his sympathy warmly, inveighing in no measured terms, though in a low tone, against the injustice of things in general and the iniquity of courts of law in particular. He too had suffered grievous things since last he had the pleasure to behold their honours. Robbed in a single night of all he possessed, he could obtain no redress, no justice, not so much as a hearing of his complaint. By Allah, it was mistress of all wickedness, that city!

The defeated plaintiff was warmed by this sympathy of a fellow-sufferer to be communicative. He recounted all his grievances from the very first, which was a dispute with the tithe-farmer for his extortion of three times his due of the crops of a certain village of which he (the speaker) was headman. It was a long story of insult heaped upon injustice, and aggravation upon injury; but Saïd did not mind its length, so busy was he concocting a tale to beat it of his own misfortunes. No sooner did he espy an opening⁠—a very short pause in the other’s narrative sufficed him⁠—than he thrust his fiction into it wedgewise, breaking short the tale of his rival and astounding his three listeners with a brief sketch or outline of such afflictions as never man bore since the days of Ayûb the Bedawi, whom Allah loved and chastened.

“Of a surety thou art more wretched even than I,” said the other, gasping. “Indeed, in a measure I may be called fortunate, for I have found one just man in this city of thieves. He befriended me in the darkest hour of my trouble. But for his kindness I had been in prison at this minute instead of speaking freely with thee here in this pleasant garden. Know that there came one to the court today⁠—an old man, a friend of the Qadi, who sat by him in the seat of honour, where the Mufti sometimes sits. But it was not his reverence the Mufti, whose face I know well.

“When that wicked judgment was given a fine was laid upon me because forsooth I had annoyed that devil of a tithe-farmer with my suit and hindered him in the discharge of his duties. As I had not with me wherewith to pay, I offered to ride at once to my village and return after three days with the money. But at that my enemy⁠—may his house be destroyed!⁠—cried out that I was seeking to escape the penalty. And the judge, he too declared that if I would not pay the money I must go to prison until it was collected on my behalf. Then up rose that old man of whom I spoke but now⁠—a good old man, and a kindly, may Allah requite him!⁠—none like him in all the world! He begged a favour of the Qadi, though what it was I might not hear, for they conversed in whispers and I was far removed from them in the hall. Presently he came down to me and led me aside from the rest of the people. He said that he would not have me go to prison for so light a matter. He would pay the fine for me but I must promise to pay back the money before a year expired. Allah reward him!

“So it happens that I am free. Tomorrow, ere it be light, I shall set out for my home; and within four days from now that just and holy sheykh shall be assured that Habìb ebn Nasr is a good man and no perjurer⁠—”

“Deign to draw near, O my master. The supper is ready,” came the voice of Selìm.

“With thy permission I leave thee,” whispered Saïd hurriedly, divided between the pangs of hunger and a desire to learn more of this wonder of liberality; “but quick! tell me what is his name! I too am poor⁠—in the deepest distress. My need is even greater than was thine. Doubtless he will help me also, hearing my tale. Say, O sheykh, what is his name?⁠—where his house? I will take no rest till I kiss his feet!”

“His name is Ismaìl Abbâs⁠—a Sherìf, of the kindred of the Prophet⁠—that was all he told me. But he is a great one, I assure thee, one whose name and dignities would fill a book. He must be a learned doctor of the religion, for he bade me seek him always in the gate of the great mosque between the third hour and noon.”

“I thank thee,” murmured Saïd, with a thoughtful brow. “May Allah keep thee in safety on thy journey!”

He picked up his stool and rejoined his servant.

“I have good news for thee, O Selìm,” he whispered. “Glad news⁠—splendid! Tomorrow, at the third hour, thou shalt guide me to the great mosque⁠—”

But just then a shrill murmur from the city floated out over the darkening gardens⁠—the chanting from a hundred minarets, the voice of the common conscience bidding all men pray.

Saïd fell on his knees. It grieved him that he had no cloak to spread out for a carpet as he saw others, Selìm among them, do around him. For a space there was silence in and about the tavern, broken only by the fervid muttering of the worshippers and an occasional clatter made with pots and pans by some soulless woman within the dwelling. A single lantern, hanging from a hook in the roof, was already burning though a spirit-blue of daylight still lingered among the trees. It shone on turbaned heads all turned one way, hands blinding eyes for the furtherance of inward searching, lips moving silently; on old and young alike prostrate, with foreheads pressed to the ground; and dimly, in the darkest corner of the hostelry, on the faces of three unbelievers sitting together by the wall, not daring to speak or move. A word at such a time might well have cost a beating.