XIV

Saïd awoke to a headache and violent sickness. Supposing himself on the sea in a tempest, he marvelled at the quiet all about him. Presently he sat up and essayed to rub his eyes, but sudden dizziness caused him to fall back again with a groan. His couch was hard and wooden, like the planked deck of a ship, strewn, however, with something soft and powdery, like sand or sawdust. The place where he lay was dark and had a nauseous smell. He was distressed with thirst. “Water!⁠—Water!” he moaned. “In the name of Allah, bring me a little water!⁠—”

But the tones of his voice rang lonely in an empty room.

Events of the previous night loomed on his mind, as forms seen gigantic through mist. Sore shame and anguish fell upon him, illumined in a moment by a sudden terror. His money, his last ray of hope⁠—where was it? He felt in the bosom of his robe, fingering his hairy chest frantically. The pouch and the string which held it were gone⁠—stolen! He fumbled in every part of his clothing and scoured the floor with his hands; but in vain. “O Allah, All-merciful!⁠—” He beat his breast with hoarse cries of rage and despair.

From a trance of grief, embittered by feverish thirst, he was roused by the noise of footsteps in an adjoining room. A light shone yellow through a glass hatch in the wall of partition, throwing long shadows of bottles upon the pane. He could hear a swishing noise, as of someone sweeping diligently with a broom. His eyes, sharpened by the habit of darkness, saw every part of the chamber in which he lay. It was the same to which the sailor had brought him. At sight of the tables and benches his shame redoubled so that he wept aloud. He picked up his tarbûsh and turban, which had been kicked under a trestle, and made haste to put them on. It degraded him to know that he had played the buffoon, bareheaded, in the sight of unbelievers. The sound of his lamentation filled the room.

A door opened and a woman looked in upon him. She held a candle aloft in one hand, while with the other she screened her eyes from the flame. The light reddened between her fingers and shed a warm glow on her dirty face. She yawned as one not yet wide awake, and spoke crossly to him. He stretched out his hands, beseeching her by gestures to give him to drink; but she only grew angry, and setting down the candlestick upon a bench, shook her fist in his face and nodded significantly towards the door. Saïd strove to reason with her, craving only a little water to quench the thirst ravaging him; but she cried out and pushed him from her. The noise of approaching footsteps and a man’s voice came to second her endeavours. Hearing those sounds and dreading fresh violence at the hands of the lord of the house, Saïd suffered the dirty woman to unbar the door for him, and fled out precipitately into the sharp air of the morning.

Having made a few paces, he turned with a shiver to look back at the place he was leaving. It was a two-storeyed house, flanked with two chimneys. A board upon the face of it seemed to be painted with characters or symbols, but he could not see much in the dark with only a distant lamp to help him. It stood in a region of blind walls and scattered dwellings of dilapidated appearance. There was a flagstaff on the roof, which made Saïd think it was a consulate. Beyond, the masts and rigging of great ships seemed drawn with a pencil upon the first pale mist of dawn. In the gloom of the door by which he had come forth he descried the form of a big man in act to watch him; and he shuffled hurriedly away, his face pinched with the cold.

He walked aimlessly forward, not knowing which way to take, desirous only to escape from that wicked quarter to some part of the city where men of honour dwelt, where he might happen on a Muslim in the streets. More than once he found his way blocked by a dingy wall and had to retrace his steps. Many men passed him, clad in soiled garments and carrying tools or sacks. They stared, turning their faces after him; but, being sleepy for the most part, they did not hinder or molest him. Day broke at his back, suffusing the dun mist wanly. It showed a thin dust like salt whitening the ground, the housetops, and along the coping of the walls. The air was biting; it stung his nostrils so that he smelt blood. To get a little warmth, he tucked his hands beneath his robe and stamped his slippered feet hard upon the pavement.

In the shelter of an entry he found a little dry dust, with which he rubbed his face, hands and feet preparatory to saying his prayers. In the midst of his devotions, however, heavy footfalls sounded in the street, and a tall man, darkly-clad, with a strange form of hat and a cudgel stuck in his belt, spoke roughly and hit him on the back. He rose to his feet, expostulating, but the man made urgent signs to him to move on, and his mien was so full of authority that Saïd dared not disregard the bidding of his outstretched hand. “Allah pardon!” he muttered as he went his way, feeling that the day had begun badly.

Presently he came into a spacious street, so long that he could not see the end of it. The sun, just risen, looking sickly through the wreathing vapours, shed a milky stain on the roadway and parts of the buildings, casting the faintest of grey shadows. But for gilt signs on some of the houses, Saïd would scarcely have known that it shone at all. He strode on with his back to the light, wrapped close in his long robe, trembling with cold, very conscious of the inquisitive gaze of other wayfarers. The road was thronged with carriages, great and small, of shapes unknown to him. Some were like wheeled houses, crowded with people inside and upon the roof. These queer conveyances pleased him by their gay colours, which he admired, as he did also certain hoardings decked with painted paper⁠—as much as a hopeless and utterly destitute man can admire anything.

Suddenly hoots and yells of derision struck his ears, and he became aware of a horde of ragged urchins following him, capering, grimacing, and howling with all the strength of their lungs. They picked things out of the gutter to throw at him, bespattering his raiment with filthy refuse. He rounded upon them with a snarl, showing white eyes and teeth; whereat they fled helter-skelter, only to return again and pester him the moment his back was turned. He looked appealingly at the passersby for help; but they laughed for the most part, though some of the women had eyes of pity, and a man who seemed to rank superior to the multitude stopped and spoke sternly to the pursuers. Saïd was beginning to despair of ever getting rid of them, when the rabble suddenly dispersed of its own accord, flying this way and that like small fry at the approach of some big fish of prey. Looking in astonishment for the cause of his deliverance, he beheld a man in a tall, dome-shaped hat and dark clothing, having a bludgeon in his belt, so like the party who had cut short his orisons, that Saïd believed it was the same. He saw in this individual, drawing near with deliberate tread and solemn bearing, a high officer of the irregular troops charged with the maintenance of peace and order. He bowed low to the personage and invoked blessings on him in passing.

In the relief of being unmolested for a while, his spirits rose, and he felt almost happy. The streets grew ever more crowded as he advanced. The road was filled with two streams of wheeled vehicles, going in opposite directions. The throng on the footway jostled and elbowed him roughly, giving no more heed than the sea gives to a piece of driftwood. It surprised him to see no horsemen nor pack-animals, not so much as a train of mules. All was busy, yet orderly. Though the press of the traffic was so great that the wheels of one vehicle grated those of another, and the nose of a carriage-horse was in the back of a cart in front, there was no frenzied shouting, such as might have been expected, no gesticulation on the part of drivers, but only a dull rumble and roar akin to thunder.

A display of familiar dainties in a vast window caught his eyes and held them for a while. He flattened his nose against the pane, gloating on oranges and lemons, bananas and pomegranates, dried figs and dates and raisins, with grins of delightful recognition. He stood a long time gazing at them, shouldered impatiently by wayfarers. It was with a sigh that at last he turned away and pursued his endless walk.

Many women and girls passed him, clad in the immodest fashion of the Franks, which excites a man by its cunning suggestion of the form beneath. They wore strange headgear, such as never man saw. Some were young and beautiful, so that Saïd leered at them meaningly. One fair girl of provoking charm, who was walking with an elder woman, laughed at him and touched her companion’s arm. At that Saïd tingled in every vein, believing that she wished for him. All that the dragoman had told concerning the beauties of Lûndra surged gladly in his brain. His pulse quickened; he forgot that it was cold. Turning, he overtook the two women and walked at the young one’s side, grinning into her face, and speaking words of love in Arabic. She shrank from him, pale with fright, and clung to the older woman’s arm; but he kept close to her, wooing her hotly with every term of endearment. They hastened their steps, so that he had to run to keep up with them. All at once they stopped short, and the old woman, who wore a fine cloak of fur and a headdress of many colours, spoke earnestly with a tall man clad in the sombre uniform already known to Saïd, having a high, dome-shaped hat and a leather truncheon in his belt. He stepped forward and seized the fisherman by the shoulders, shaking him and speaking sternly to him in a tone there was no gainsaying. Then, as the women made their escape, he pointed imperiously up the street and gave Saïd a push in that direction. The Muslim, completely taken aback, obeyed mechanically, the policeman following him a little way to mark his behaviour.

All day long he strayed on purposeless, growing more and more weary, a prey to thirst, and hunger, and intense cold. After noon the gloom deepened, the puny sun becoming quite obscured in cloud. He found a large piece of Frankish bread in a gutter, which he ate ravenously; and a little later, by good luck came to a drinking-fountain with a cup fixed to a chain for the service of poor wayfarers. Feeling refreshed, he prepared to face the night, and looked about for some sheltered place where he might sleep undisturbed. In a square court surrounded by high houses there was a sort of garden planted with sorry trees and shrubs, black with the prevailing soot, having seats and paved walks, and in the midst a great idol upon a pedestal. He stretched himself on one of the benches and composed his limbs to rest. But the cold was so great that he dared not fall asleep, but was fain to get up and walk again lest he should stiffen and die.

The streets by night were even more bewildering than in the daytime. The long vistas of yellow lamps, branching endlessly one out of another, confused his brain. Every wheeled vehicle had monstrous bright eyes to frighten him. The mist of light was blinding⁠—the eternal mist of cloud by day, of fire by night, from which the dull roar of traffic seemed inseparable. The crowd where no man saluted other, no one looked friendly at his neighbour, but every face was grim with a set purpose, seemed awful to him. He feared it with the fear of evil spirits. The cries which assailed his ears were mournful as a wailing for the dead.

At length, after hours of wandering, he found an archway giving access to a quiet court and flung himself down in its gloom, too weary to know or care that the stones were icy cold. But it seemed that he had scarcely fallen asleep ere he was awakened by the flash of a lantern in his face. A gruff voice made a humming in his ears, and the form of a policeman loomed tremendous in his heavy eyes⁠—a dark form holding the light which dazed him. He struggled to his feet, and seeing the enemy in the act to step forward and seize him, made off through the archway and down the sounding street as fast as his stiff limbs would carry him.

After that he dared not lie down again, but wandered on, sometimes resting on a doorstep, sometimes leaning against a wall or some railings, until a pallor of dawn appeared in the east. He found a quiet place where he said his prayers undisturbed, and soon after, by the grace of Allah, lighted on another crust of bread⁠—a huge chunk on which he broke his fast. Then, when the day was fully come, he entered a public garden enclosed with palings and lay down upon the first seat he came to.

How long he slept he could not tell, for when he awoke the sky was completely overcast, and the brown fog had no point of brightness to indicate the sun’s whereabouts. But the place where he lay was noisy with the play of ragged children, some of whom fled pell-mell as his eyes opened on them. His limbs were numbed so that, setting foot to the ground, he had to support himself by the back of the seat; and it was long ere he could walk safely.

As he issued from the garden he espied a well-known object amid the hurrying crowd on the footway of a great thoroughfare⁠—a scarlet tarbûsh. With the strength of hope renewed, he ran as fast as he could to overtake its wearer. He came up with him, panting a salutation. But the face turned to him was not the face of the son of an Arab, but darker and of an olive tint not far removed from mouse-colour, the eyes set closer together. The reply to his salutation was in an unknown language; it was the speech of an unbeliever, in which the name of Allah did not occur. With a gesture of apology, expressive also of the deepest despair, Saïd fell back from him.

He got little heartbreaking reminders of the East from the form of a building here and there, and from homely objects in the shop windows. The sullen roar of the city was terrible in his ears, seeming now the voice of a cruel monster, now the growl of thunder⁠—always hostile and inhuman. His eyes, unused to the subdued light, unable to appreciate its half tints, met a grey-brown horror everywhere. The women, too, dressed to provoke desire, had a share in his loathing of the scene. He would have liked to kill them for the involuntary thrill they gave.

Men and women with great baskets crouched by the edge of the roadway, selling flowers. Some of the foot-passengers stopped to buy them. Saïd met people with nosegays in their hands, and it surprised him that they did not smell at them as folks used to in the East; but on reflection it seemed likely that in this land of gloom and disappointment the blossoms had no smell or, if any, a foul one. He saw the sign of the cross often in all sorts of places, and spat on the ground for hatred of it, cursing the religion of the country secretly under his breath.

His brain grew confused. He was hunting for the sunlight which was lost. Little patches of colour drew his eyes and caused him a moment’s rejoicing as for a treasure found at last. But each disillusion left him more despairing. Of a sudden, at the turning of a street, a blare of trumpets smote his ears, together with the rhythmic beat of a drum. In the heart of an eager, hurrying crowd, of like hue with the houses, the fog and the mud of the roadway, marched a company of soldiers clad in gorgeous scarlet⁠—a hundred of them moving as one man. Their brightness and the marvel of their going attracted Saïd. He followed them spellbound, yet with a kind of horror such as one has of jin in the night-season. He knew nothing of the crowd’s roughness. The moving streak of red glowed like a flowerbed in that sombre street⁠—like a bed of wild anemones amid the dull rocks of his native land. He battled to get near to them, but could not. To his mind, unhinged by fatigue and exposure, it was clear that, if only he could win to walk with them he would be saved. They were his life, his destiny, and they were slipping from him.

At length he lost sight of them altogether and the blackest despair took hold of him. He wandered into a region of quiet streets. The air had grown perceptibly warmer since the morning, and now a fine rain began to fall. Of a sudden, as it seemed to him, lamps were lighted; it was night. The sky lowered as a vast cloud; it was like a close lid oppressing him. Here was a maze in a box, shut out from sun, moon and stars, and he was doomed to roam in it forever. All at once he felt deadly cold; the next minute he was burning from head to foot. It occurred to him to pray to Allah; but where was the use of prayer when he was already condemned and in torment? He ceased to fight against his lot.

A host of evil spirits beset him, gibbering, snapping their fingers, grinning, and mocking his wretched plight. Things faded and grew dim. He knew the horror of a great army coloured like blood, thousands moving in silence as one man. Shrieking, he clung to some railings for protection, vaguely aware that a crowd was gathering about him in a place which, a minute before, had been quite deserted. Then he was back again in his native land.