XII

Next morning there was a great bustle on board the steamer. Saïd awoke in his narrow bunk to a noise of splashing and scrubbing overhead. The door of the sort of cupboard where he lay stood open; now and then a man’s shadow darkened it in passing.

It did not take long to remember where he was. The adventure of the previous night recurred vividly to his mind, seeming a madman’s to the sanity of early morning. He marvelled at the daring of it, and then, looking forward, his heart grew sick with forebodings. What future awaited him in the land of the English? It was a country favourable for all manner of trade, but he carried no merchandise with him. He had money, it was true, but when the price of his journey had been deducted from it only a small sum would be left. The fair women and girls, so easy to conquer, the chief attraction of that distant shore, seemed not so very desirable after all.

The great red face of a mariner looked in upon him with the roar of some savage beast. Its grin was friendly and its appearance cheered Saïd somewhat, so that, when it was withdrawn, he shook off his listlessness and got up. As he did so, his clothes and the leathern bag which held his treasure fell on the floor, covering it almost completely, so little space was there. Being naked, he had been hurried to bed overnight and had quite forgotten his bundle. Someone must have brought the things and laid them upon him while he slept. The garments had the crispness of linen dried at the fire.

An agony of fear seized him lest the sack should have been rifled and his money taken out. Naked save for his skullcap and turban, he knelt down in the narrow space between wall and bunk, and with trembling hands loosened the mouth of the bag; but a little groping reassured him. He smiled, drawing forth a small but heavy pouch with a string attached, which he made haste to hang as an amulet about his neck; first shutting the door so that no one passing by could observe him. “Allah is bountiful!” he murmured.

By the time he reached the deck the engines were panting like some huge beast held in leash that frets to go free. A crowd of little boats clung to the steamer’s side, waiting to see the last of her. Already the sun stood high above the ridge of Lebanon, and his beams made a dazzle on the dancing blue sea. The whiteness of the town, relieved by high red roofs, drew the eye to the southern horn of the bay, where the waves lapped its walls. Suburbs half hidden in foliage stretched all along the shore at the foot of the hills. Palm-trees rose conspicuous, singly and by clumps of two and three. The huge mountains, as yet in shadow, filled all the background, seeming very near indeed. Snow gleamed on the high, long crest of Jebel Sunnìn. The balm of the land and its murmur were wafted on the breeze.

Saïd’s heart went out to his native country. The singsong shouting of the sailors, the clank of a chain, the creaking swing of a windlass⁠—all the noise attendant on weighing anchor sounded cruel and callous in his ears. It jeered him as the voice of fate made audible. His past was slipping from him irrevocably with every pant of the mighty engines, with every puff of the funnel, which began to belch forth dense clouds of whitish smoke that tossed seaward before it like the blown mane of a horse.

The hiss and roar of the safety-valve ceased of a sudden. In place of panting there was a dull, strong throb which was felt in every plank and plate of the ship. The smoke from the funnel wavered a moment, as if doubtful which direction to take, then streamed out steadily over the stern, casting a ribbon of shadow on the churned-up waters in the wake. The little boats fell away from the side with men standing up in them, waving goodbye. They dwindled, were left far behind, and ever the throbbing grew to fuller purpose, as though the ship had a soul, an imprisoned jinni toiling with bitter sobs.

Saïd was shortly led below to a breakfast of weird bread in which was no sustenance, of butter whose exceeding yellowness and bitter, saltish flavour filled him with distrust, of coffee such as he had never tasted and hoped to Allah he might never taste again. There was meat also, but that he would not touch, believing it to be pig’s flesh or something unclean. He did not dwell long upon the meal, but when he returned on deck the city and the shoreline had already sunk out of sight; only the crests of Lebanon stood up sheer out of the sea with white streaks of snow among them, the wake of the ship stretching, an ever-widening path, to their feet.

For hours Saïd sat cross-legged in the lee of a cabin, watching those summits dwindle and grow dreamy in the distance, till at last they were no more than a thin cloud on the horizon. The sailors smiled and spoke friendly to him as they went about their work. He sat in the shade, with hot sunshine all about him, and the eternal lapping of a sea, dead blue as lapis lazuli, sounded pleasant in his ears. “O Allah! O Lord, have mercy!” was his soul’s bitter cry as the coasts of Es-Shâm sank beneath the sea-line. And yet he felt not half so wretched as he had expected.

That night a heavy thunderstorm burst, and all the next day the sky was overcast with rain driving in torrents before a cold wind. It was the beginning of winter, and Saïd shunned the bleakness of the upper deck. Having paid an instalment of his passage-money in advance, he was looked upon with unmixed liking by the crew as an honest fellow and a queer customer. Yet Saïd resented the rough kindness of the sailors, as touching his dignity. When they smote him, as their manner was, in all goodwill, he would sometimes round upon them with a snarl, making them laugh as if their hearts would break, and seeming only to increase their kindness for him. They used his word, “Lûndra,” against him as a nickname; and at first he would nod and grin when they uttered it, repeating it after them until they roared. But afterwards, hearing it everywhere and at all hours of the day, he grew sick of the sound of it.

There were two other passengers on board⁠—men of consequence, with whom he had nothing to do. But one of them, a young man, with flaxen hair and moustache, and the bloom of a ripe peach on either cheek, had a smattering of Arabic and was fain to air it a little. After the storm was passed and the fine weather had resumed its sway, he often joined Saïd as he sat upon the deck and struggled to converse with him. It was a little hard sometimes to understand what he said, for all his verbs were in the imperative mood.

One morning when the steamer rode at anchor off a seaport of the kingdom of Rûm, Saïd ventured to ask this person how long it would be before they reached that great city, Lûndra of the English. Looking out over the crisp, blue waves to a white town at the foot of violet mountains, with cypresses rising gaunt among its buildings and olives silvering all the slope behind, it seemed to him that they were yet a long way distant from that sunless land of which the dragoman had spoken.

“Two weeks and more,” was the answer, “but know, O effendi, that this ship goes not to Lûndra but to Liverpool, which is distant from it a day’s journey on the iron road.”

“Merciful Allah!” Saïd exclaimed. “Hear now my story, O khawaja, and judge between these men and me. When I asked them they told me that the steamer went to Lûndra, and I gave them much money on that understanding. Of a truth the people of this ship are all liars; there is no vestige of truth found in them. May their house be destroyed and the fire quenched on their father’s hearth!”

“Nay, O effendi, they meant not to deceive thee. The country of the English is a small country, and the iron road brings distant places close together. Liverpool is reckoned the haven of Lûndra almost as Beyrût is the port of Damascus, and the journey takes not so long. It was no lie they told thee.”

“Without doubt the right is with thee, O khawaja,” said Saïd with a semblance of conviction; but in his heart he felt bitterly that he had been beguiled. Lûndra was the city of his dreams, the abode of wealth and luxury, the paradise of fair women partial to strangers. “Lifferbûl” was quite a different place. He had heard the name of it before, but baldly, as of a town like another, without splendour or charm. Thenceforth, aware of a plot to inveigle him thither, he saw something sinister in the jovial comradeship of the sailors, though cunning made him seem their friend. At length, when one morning he awoke to find the steamer at anchor in a fair bay whose shores were clothed with a city and its suburbs, his airy scheme became an instant purpose. The name of the place, he knew, was Nabuli. To southward rose a lonely peak which smoked at the top like a heap of ashes smouldering. Ships were there of every sort and size, a great multitude of them, dotting the sparkling waters. Surely, among them all, there must be one that was bound for the greatest city of the earth. When he had prayed and broken his fast he took his leathern sack privily under his robe and went on deck.

A boat manned by certain of the crew was just putting off for land. Saïd shouted to the men in it, explaining by eloquent signs and grimaces that he had a mind to view the town. They laughed up at him, roaring and beckoning to him to make haste; so without more ado he climbed down among them and was rowed ashore.

In the confusion of landing, amid the busy throng upon the quays, he contrived to escape from his fellowship. For some time he dodged hither and thither, taking advantage of every turning to put more walls between himself and those he supposed in pursuit. His outlandish garb and the hurry he was in turned many heads of the passersby to look after him. At last, finding himself again by the seaside, but at a point remote from his landing-place, he fell to scanning the faces of all he met, seeking someone to question.

Seeing a man of peaceful demeanour stand alone by a pile of bales he inquired of him in Arabic how he might best get to Lûndra. “Lûndra?” repeated the other after him with a vacant look and a shake of the head. He smiled, however, showing white teeth, and, motioning Saïd to stay, called to a knot of men who lounged hard by. They turned their faces at the call, and, seeing one so strangely clad, drew near out of curiosity. One of them, who at first sight appeared a Frankish sailor, shouted a salutation in pure Arabic spoken with the accent of Masr.

Saïd ran to him eagerly, his question on his lips. He told a fine story, how he was a great merchant bound for Lûndra whither his wares were gone before, how an unforeseen accident, which he was at pains to specify, had forced him to leave his ship, and how he would be deeply obliged to anyone who would direct him to another. His hearer, taken with the narrative, made ready offer of his service.

From this new friend Saïd learnt that there were at least two vessels in the harbour on the eve of departing for Lûndra. The Egyptian pointed out a huge steamer in the offing, and, upon Saïd shaking his head at that, showed him a sailing-ship moored to the quay close by. The great merchant stroked his beard and thought a minute. Then he nodded with deliberation, and begged the sailor to bear him company and support him at the bargain.

At first the lord of the ship looked askance at them and spoke roughly to the interpreter. But by dint of long parley and a little earnest-money he at last changed his tone and agreed to take a passenger. Saïd thought him an evil man to look at, for he had only one eye and his face was red, inflamed with boils and spots. His voice was harsh and rasping, and he spoke to men as one speaks to a dog. Saïd confided his feelings to his new friend, who only shrugged his shoulders, declaring that the Franks were all like that, unmannerly, possessed with the foulest of devils. As for the man’s appearance, it was from the hand of Allah, and so no blame attached to him.

The ship was not to sail till the evening, so Saïd had some time on his hands. The Egyptian led him to a tavern in a narrow street, where high houses all but shut out the sky. The place was kept by the son of an Arab, and most of the customers were Orientals. Saïd, on his friend’s introduction, was treated with much honour; and he sat there, drinking cup after cup of the coffee he loved, enjoying a narghileh, until the afternoon was far spent, when the Egyptian led him back to the ship. Before he slept that night he could hear the waves lapping against the vessel’s side, and knew that he was speeding on his way to Lûndra. His dreams were all of fair women languishing in a chastened gloom.