II

Close to the gate which is called the sea-gate, by which one goes down to the shore, there was a house, or rather hovel, built against the wall. This was the dwelling-place of Abdullah, Saïd’s bosom friend and partner. Abdullah himself was sitting in the doorway, smoking his narghileh, when Saïd came upon him. He was a fat man, with small bright eyes which were seldom at rest. Within the house a wick, floating in a saucer of grease, threw a fitful light upon the four walls, upon a couch whereon his wife lay huddled, a baby at her breast, upon the disorderly litter of the floor. At sight of his friend Abdullah started to his feet. His eyes were shifty to right and left, as though seeking some way of escape.

“May thy night be happy,” he faltered.

“May thy night be happy and blessed,” replied Saïd, keeping the rule which bids every man return a compliment with interest. Then with a frantic gesture, “I am ruined! An evil spirit is my ill-wisher. My money⁠—all that I had saved these many years⁠—has been stolen. Oh, that a man had been the thief!”

Saïd’s hands clutched murderously at the air and clenched, showing how he would have dealt with a mortal foe.

Abdullah’s composure returned to him at these words. His face was almost cheerful as he exclaimed, “Merciful Allah!”

“Listen, Abdullah,” pursued the other. “In my way homeward from the market I sat down to count over the price of the fish I had sold, when⁠—whizz!⁠—came two horsemen out of the air, and would have ridden over me had not Allah put it into my mind to jump aside. They laughed as they galloped by. They had the faces of jin⁠—you know them!⁠—eyes set slantwise, ears long and leaf-shaped like the ears of a pig. Then I found that all the money I had been counting was scattered in the sand. After long seeking I recovered but a few coins of small value. It grew dark. A train of camels came along the shore. Each camel was as big as a house, with a hump like the dome of a mosque. One of the drivers looked at me and asked me what I did. His eyes were two flames. They seemed to burn through to my heart. But I prayed to Allah and he vanished, the camels with him. I went home, hungry and thirsty, to supper; but I found my wife cast down upon the floor, weeping, and the lentils quite spoilt.

“Then she told me what had happened. As she sat in the house a voice cried to her, for there was a great fish like a mountain lying on the shore by the white stone. She stepped out, but saw no man. She went to the stone, but there was no fish great or small. When she returned to the house she found a hole in the floor at the place where my treasure was hidden. All the money was clean gone. Oh, that my enemy had been a man!”

“Said she aught of the voice which tempted her?” asked Abdullah, with a hint of anxiety. His form was outlined in shadow upon the faint light which streamed from the doorway, so that Saïd could not see his face.

“Yes⁠—a strange thing⁠—she says that the voice was as thy voice, O father of Azìz.”

“There is no doubt that some devil has robbed thee,” said Abdullah, quickly. “Allah be my witness, I have not left my house since noon by reason of a pain in my belly. Is it not true, Nesibeh?”

The woman thus appealed to rose from her couch and came shuffling to the door. “Yes, it is true, by Allah,” she averred. “He has been very ill, I feared he was at the gate of death. But, praise to Allah, the pain has left his belly and he is now in health again. An afreet has robbed thee and has beguiled thy woman with the voice of Abdullah.”

“I am ruined! What can I do?” Saïd cried in a frenzy of despair. “Thou, O Abdullah, art known in all the city for a wise man. Counsel me, I entreat thee!”

Abdullah’s face assumed the stolid expression supposed by the muleteers and camel-drivers whose oracle he was, to betoken wisdom. His eyes became intent upon the inwards of a fish which adorned the ground near his feet. He sucked long and steadily at the mouthpiece of his narghileh, causing the water in the bowl to bubble convulsively and the charcoal in the cup above to give forth a lurid glow. Then he took the tube from his mouth, cleared his throat, spat solemnly, and said⁠—

“A devil has a spite against thee⁠—that is known. He has entered thy house once, he will enter it again. It is likely that he is of those who haunt the waste places of the shore, perhaps the very same who dwells in the ruined shrine among the sandhills. It were well for thee to take thy staff and thy woman and go into some far country⁠—into Masr or into the sunset-land which lies beyond. So thou shalt have peace, being far from the enemy.”

“What a mind!” exclaimed his wife, with hands raised in admiration. “He speaks like a prophet. The mind of Abdullah is not as the mind of other men. He is a devil!”

“Tush, be silent, woman!” said the sage, indulgently.

Saïd squatted down at the threshold beside his friend. He put a hand to his forehead and remained thus thoughtful for some time. Then he said, “Thy advice is good. Tomorrow, at the rising of the sun, I shall depart. But thinkest thou in truth that the evil spirit will not follow me?”

“The jin have their homes like men,” replied Abdullah, sententiously. “They love to spend their lives in one place. In another city thou shalt surely live undisturbed.”

“But I have no money,” Saïd moaned, “without wealth I shall find no place in a strange land.”

Abdullah shook his head sadly.

“I am a poor man,” he said, “but all that I have is thine. Go, Nesibeh, see how much money there is in the house.”

The woman left the doorway and shuffled across the room to the couch where her baby slept. She felt under the coverings and drew forth a small box, which jingled as she shook it.

Raising the lid⁠—

“Alas!” she moaned. “It is a bad day with Abdullah. There are but a few baras.”

“It is a shame to ask my brother to accept so little!” exclaimed her husband.

“A little is much to one who has nothing,” whispered Saïd, eagerly. “Give me but the few baras that are there and may Allah increase thy wealth!”

Nesibeh turned the box upside down over the palm of her hand, and a number of small coins fell from it. Saïd’s brown fingers closed on them like an eagle’s claws. Then he rose to take leave.

“In thy grace, I depart,” he said. “May Allah prosper thee, O father of Azìz.”

“My peace go with thee,” said Abdullah, his voice broken with grief.

Saïd strode away, sad at heart, his mind busy with plans for the future. Hope was all but dead within him, for he had eaten nothing since sunrise. Alone once more and in the darkness, fear fell upon him with renewed strength. All the night was full of ghastly faces, of fiery eyes that glowered upon him. Strange shapes flitted among the sandhills. The sea burned with a pallid light. A fitful moaning was in the air. Pausing for a moment, he fancied the night an endless procession of weird forms⁠—a multitude which moved glidingly, silently, as one man. It filled him with a strange new horror, which yet seemed half familiar, as something remembered from a dream. Well-known sounds, such as the hooting of an owl, the bark of a dog from the city, or the howl of a jackal from some landward garden, were separate terrors.

He had not made many steps from the door of his friend’s house ere the fear of the Unknown which lurks in darkness took hold of him. He girded up his loins and ran across the sand as fast as his brawny legs would carry him. He looked neither to the right nor left till he reached his house. On the threshold a savoury smell attacked his nostrils and hope suddenly revived. Hasneh stood with her back towards him, leaning over the brazier, from which light steam arose enveloping her and filling the house with that peculiarly hopeful smell. “Allah is just!” murmured Saïd, licking his lips.