III

It was the coolest hour of all the twenty-four when Saïd the fisherman climbed down from his nest in the fig-tree. In spite of the troubles and fears of the evening before he had slept soundly and was refreshed. The eastern sky was whitening to the dawn, and a wave-line of distant mountains was grey and cloudlike upon it. Darkness still lingered on sea and land, but it was a darkness of the earth rather than of the heavens.

From a jar within the threshold of the house he took a little water and went through the form of ablution. Then, facing south, he knelt and fell prostrate several times, thumbs fast behind his ears and hands spread across his eyes as an open book.

As he walked along the shore to the place where he had left his basket overnight, the cry of the first awakened seabird hailed the dawn. The little city with its dome and minarets grew white before him against a sky still dark and studded with stars. A man came down from the sea-gate riding upon an ass. Then came another man with two camels. The folk of the city were astir and going every man about his business.

The place was just as he left it, save that the carcase of the donkey had been dragged a few yards to landward by the hungry tearing of the dogs, and the backbone was now laid bare. He flung himself face downward on the sand and fell at once to his groping and sifting.

The stars shone dead in the west, then vanished altogether. Rosy light stole over land and sea, mantling on the white buildings of the city like the shame in a young girl’s cheek. Then the sun flashed forth above the distant hills and all things had colours of their own once more.

The rays struck warm on Saïd’s back as he lay prone beside his basket. Their touch cheered him like a friend’s hand. He set to work hopefully with the result that, in half an hour, he had recovered many coins, amounting to within a few paras of the sum lost.

By that time there were many people on the beach, some entering, some leaving the city. It was unsafe to prolong the search lest someone, guessing his task, should fall upon him and rob him. He got up, therefore, and walked homeward, trailing his basket along with him.

Hasneh stood in the doorway looking out for him. A donkey, burdened with two sacks, was tethered to a low-bending branch of the fig-tree. He smiled approval as he slipped off his shoes at the door. She had been stretched upon the roof when he set out and snoring loudly. He had been gone but a little while, yet here was the ass laden with all the house that was worth carrying, and the morning’s meal of bread and curds ready to be eaten.

His fast fairly broken, Saïd went out to the fig-tree to see that the girths were firm which held the sacks to the body of the ass. The sunlight danced on the little waves as they pushed shoreward, and made pearls of the dewdrops which yet hung in the shade of some feathery tamarisks behind the house. The sky was a great blue dome over sea and land. His heart turned sick with the thought of quitting the well-known scene, with its familiar voices, to sojourn among strangers in a strange country. Why need he go? The terrors of the night before had no weight with him now. They had faded with the darkness and the stars.

Doubtless his loss was great and hard to bear; but others had suffered worse things. The evil spirit which had robbed him might not return again; and if it did he had but to write the name of Allah upon the doorposts, then upon the shutters of the window, and his house would be safe. He stretched out his hand to loose the burden from the donkey’s back.

“May thy day be happy, O Saïd,” came a complacent voice from behind. Turning, he stood face to face with Abdullah, his partner. “Thou art to depart⁠—not so? I am coming to see if I can serve thee in the work of packing and lading.”

“My mind is changed. Perhaps I go not,” rejoined Saïd, moodily.

“What is this?” exclaimed the other, seeming horror-stricken. “Thou art mad to stay after all that has befallen thee here.”

“What matter! The like or worse may befall me in a strange land. I will stay in the place where I was born, wherein is my father’s grave.”

Once more Saïd put forth his hand to unload the ass, but Abdullah caught his arm.

“I advise thee to thy advantage,” he whispered angrily. “We spoke last night of devils. What are they? Their power is only in the night. There are those who have power to harm thee both by night and day.” He sank his voice as if fearing lest a bird of the air might carry his words to high places. “The Basha has heard of thy wealth which thou pretendest to have lost. Men have told him how thou dost grope in the sand. Remember the fate of Ali ebn Mahmud, who was said to have a treasure hidden in his garden, how they beat and tortured him so that he died!”

Saïd’s jaw fell. “Is this true?” he faltered.

“True, by Allah!” replied the other, his face anxious, his little eyes keenly watchful of his friend’s countenance. “Am I a liar?”

A wild light of terror flamed in Saïd’s orbs. He strode to the door of the house and shouted to Hasneh to make ready for the start. Then he returned and, untying the rope which bound the ass to the tree, bestrode the already laden beast. At the same moment his woman appeared from the house, a great bundle upon her head.

“Allah be with thee!” he cried, striking the ass with his staff, so that it started forward at a shambling trot.

“But what of thy nets, of thy house, of thy fig-tree?” cried Abdullah, wringing his hands.

“Take them⁠—all that I have!” shouted Saïd, without looking back. He was sitting on the hindquarters of the donkey, flourishing a rope which served for bridle, his long brown legs stretched along the sacks, his feet erect beside the beast’s ears. His whole frame jolted with the trotting of his steed. The woman ran behind with one arm raised to keep her bundle from falling.

“Whither away?” shouted Abdullah.

“To Es-Shâm⁠—to Baghdad⁠—to India!⁠—far away! What matter, so that I be out of his reach. May all his race perish!”

Abdullah stood looking after the fugitives until they were lost to sight among the sandhills. Then he took a cigarette from somewhere in the depths of his trousers, lighted it and squatted down in the shade of the fig-tree now his own.