IV

As for Saïd, he urged his steed across the sand as fast as the weight on its back and the looseness of the ground would allow. His arm rose and fell continually with a backward sweep, and the hindmost part of the donkey rang wooden to the thwack of his stick. A constant growl of curses rolled upwards from his throat. Hasneh, her bosom heaving, her breath coming and going in short pants, struggled to keep up with him.

As they proceeded the soil became firmer under foot; creeping branches of the wild vine, rank grasses and sundry big-leafed plants, bound the sand together. Soon they came into a road with a hedge of prickly pear on either side, fencing an orange garden. Through gaps in the hedge golden globes shone amid dark foliage with here and there a spray of white blossom. The air was cloyed with a fragrance from which the hum of bees seemed inseparable. A gate by the wayside stood open. Within were two men busy packing a great heap of oranges into square wooden boxes. Saïd shouted a salutation as he sped by, and in return they pelted him with the fruit⁠—a dozen at least⁠—which Hasneh stayed to gather up into the bosom of her robe. The scarlet flowers of a pomegranate tree flamed among the leafage on their right hand.

A little while and the gardens were left behind. The wide plain rolled in smooth waves before them, away to the foot of the mountains, with a shimmer of grey olives in the distance.

At the end of an hour, during the whole of which Saïd ceased not for a minute from beating his donkey, they drew near to a village which stood upon a hill, three fine palm-trees tapering skyward from among its squat dwellings of sunbaked mud. Here the fisherman proposed to rest awhile till the heat of the day should be passed. Hasneh praised Allah for the respite.

As they entered the narrow pathway, choked with offal, which ran between the hovels, a man’s voice called to them from a doorway⁠—

“Deign to enter, O Saïd! Honour my house with thy presence!”

The speaker came forth and bowed low, holding a hand to his forehead. He was a huge, loutish fellow, who had seen thirty summers and more. He had a bushy black beard, and big brown eyes of rare stupidity. His long garment and his turban had grown old upon him. He came sometimes to the market to sell the produce of his fields. Saïd had seen him there and spoken with him more than once. He was called Muhammed abu Hassan, and bore the reputation of a good-tempered, lazy fellow.

The fisherman, nothing loth, alighted, and having touched the hand of his host in salutation, proceeded to tie up his ass to the doorpost. That done, he slipped off his shoes and allowed himself to be ushered into the house. Hasneh squatted down humbly at the threshold of the door.

Their host set to work to kindle some charcoal upon a stone in one corner of the room, grumbling all the while because his woman was not there to do it for him. She was at work in the tobacco-fields, it appeared, with others of the village.

Somehow⁠—it must have been by magic, or the laden ass tethered outside may have had something to do with it⁠—it soon became known in all the village that a stranger had arrived from the city and was the guest of Muhammed abu Hassan. Men dropped in, one by one, feigned surprise at sight of Saïd and of each other, and squatted down with their back to the wall.

“What news?” was the first question of a newcomer after the proper civilities had been exchanged.

To which Saïd replied, in every case, “There is nothing new today.”

“It is said that there will be war between the Turks and the Franks?” said an old man, reverend and very dirty, in a tone three parts of assertion, one part of inquiry.

“I have heard nothing of it,” Saïd answered, rolling a cigarette between thumb and forefinger.

“Allah grant that there be no war!” cried an aged sheykh, with face wrinkled as a withered olive, in a quavering voice. “I remember, when the last war was, they sent suddenly and seized every horse, mule, and donkey in our village for the soldiers to ride. Only a horse and two asses were restored to us when all was over. And after two days the horse died.”

There broke forth a chorus of guttural curses upon wars and soldiers.

At last the business of grinding and stewing the coffee was accomplished. Two small cups were passed round the circle from hand to hand, Muhammed filling and refilling them until all had partaken. Even Hasneh, sitting patient and submissive on the doorsill, was not forgotten in the end.

“Whither goest thou?” asked Muhammed of his guest, when at last he had leisure for conversation.

“To Damashc-ush-Shâm,” replied Saïd, and hesitated. He dared not tell the true reason of his leaving home, lest he should forfeit the esteem of his hearers. A man who bewails his misfortunes before strangers is a fool and rightly despised; but he who exalts himself is sure of honour. He added⁠—

“I go to Es-Shâm, to the house of my brother, who is dead. He was a great man and rich. Moreover, his woman was barren. I go to claim the inheritance.”

The murmur of congratulation which this fiction called forth had scarcely died away when a clatter of hoofs rang through the village. Faint shouts and cries came from the distant field where the women were at work.

“The soldiers! The soldiers are upon us!” cried Hasneh from her post at the threshold.

Every man sprang to his feet and rushed to the door, Saïd with the rest. Five Turkish soldiers and a young officer rode at a foot’s pace up the narrow path between the hovels. Remembering the words which Abdullah had spoken that morning, Saïd’s teeth chattered. Doubtless the Pasha was informed of his flight and these men had been sent to take him.

“Where is the house of the sheykh of the village?” cried the officer as he rode by.

A score of turbaned heads were bowed, a score of brown hands saluted, and a score of voices proffered directions in divers tones of self-abasement. Saïd was reassured. Had the officer been looking for him he would not surely have asked for the house of the sheykh. The next moment his heart sank again and a cry of dismay broke from his lips. One of the troopers, in passing, bent down, and, severing the cord by which the donkey was tethered with one stroke of a knife, caught the end deftly as it fell, and rode on, leading with him all that remained of Saïd’s worldly goods. With a shriek of rage and despair, the wretched man broke through the crowd and sprang forth into the blinding sunlight. A few fierce bounds and he had overtaken the plunderer. He strove to wrest the rope from his grasp.

“Stay! Stay!” he cried. “Let me but take off the sacks! It is all that I have!”

For answer he received a blow on the wrist which forced him to quit hold.

“Pig!” cried the soldier, angrily. “The Sultàn has need of thy beast for his soldiers; and I that am his soldier have need of those sacks for myself. Dost understand? Let go, son of a dog!”

Saïd, baffled in his design upon the rope, was now struggling frantically to wrench the sacks from the donkey’s back.

The cavalcade had come to a standstill before the house of the sheykh, and the other soldiers looked on good-humouredly, laughing now at their comrade, now at the fisherman, with perfect impartiality. Their laughter stung the plunderer to frenzy. He unslung the carbine from his back, and, leaning over the saddlebow, dealt a vicious blow at Saïd’s head with the butt of it. The daylight swam bloodred before the fisherman’s eyes. His head seemed to dilate and there was a singing in his ears. He fell forward, senseless, upon the ground.