XVII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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