Chapter II: Part ONE: The Book of His Luck (1)

“_There were some of them who made a covenant with God: Verily, if He gives us of His abundance, we will give alms and become righteous people._”—ALCORAN.

I

The house of Saïd the fisherman nestled among the sandhills of the seashore at a long stone’s throw from the town, in whose shadow it lay at sunset. Within, it was a single room, very dirty, the abode of many aged smells; without, a squat cube with walls of stone and roof of mud sun-baked and rolled to a seemly flatness. Hard by was a fig-tree, the nearest to the sea in all that coast. Here, in a crotch of the branches, Saïd would place his mattress in the stifling summer nights and snore two deep bass notes in peace and coolness, while his wife trumpeted a treble from her couch upon the house-top. Here, when the day’s work was done, he would squat in the shade, drawing leisurely at his narghileh, with the sound of bubbling water to cool him at every puff.

He was not a great fisherman, such as is to be found in Europe, with a sailing-boat of his own, who will go far out to sea with his nets. If there were any such in all the coasts of Arabistan, Saïd had never heard of them. Sometimes he would row out in a friend’s boat to a little distance from the shore and drop his nets, a great circle of bobbing cork and driftwood to mark their whereabouts. But mostly he would go to some river-mouth or promontory where flat-topped rocks stretched far into the sea, promising safe foothold. And there, mother-naked, save for a huge turban, he would paddle and flounder all day long with his cast-net, sometimes alone, sometimes with several comrades.

At times, when the catch had been good, he would go into the city with a crate of fish and take his stand in the market-place, in a corner which from long use he had come to call his own. There he would cry in a loud voice, beseeching Allah to put a craving for fish into the hearts of the passers-by. And Allah often lent a kindly ear to his prayer, for he seldom went home but with an empty basket.

It was one evening as he was wending homeward, dragging his empty basket with him across the sand, that the first gust of misfortune struck him.

The sun drew near to his setting, though as yet the sky was innocent of red. Shadows lengthened eastwards across the sand, of the colour of a periwinkle flower. A number of dogs were lying replete about the body of a dead donkey at the edge of the ripples, panting drowsily with their tongues out. They blinked at him as he passed, and their bellies heaved uneasily. They were too full to snarl. A sense of well-being was upon him. He stopped to draw forth a little bag from the girdle of his robe. It contained the gains of the day. He let go the empty basket and squatted down upon the sand, telling out the money piece by piece into his lap. His eyes gloated over the pile.

He held the fingers of his left hand wide apart and touched them one by one with the forefinger of his right. His brows puckered with the effort to reckon how much he could afford to lay by in that hole in the floor of his house which held his savings.

So far as he could count, it needed but one more day like this to make up the price of the coffee-house he had it in his mind to buy. Then he would leave the fishing business to Abdullah, his friend and partner, and customers would know him thenceforth as Saïd Effendi. That was but the first step in the path of his ambition. Presently he would be a Bey—an Emìr, perhaps. He would lie all day upon a cushioned couch, smoking from a narghileh of rare workmanship. And when Abdullah came to beg him to buy fish, he would seize him by both ears and spit in his face.

Of a sudden the sound of loud shouting broke upon his reverie.

“Oäh! Oäh! Look to thyself, son of a dog!”

He was aware of two horsemen galloping madly down upon him from a gap in the sandhills—Turkish officers of the garrison by their uniform. They were close upon him. He leapt to his feet and sprang aside just in time to save himself from being knocked down and trampled under their horses’ hoofs. He heard them laugh aloud and curse him as they sped by, blinding him for the moment in a cloud of sand.

“May their house be destroyed!” he snarled, looking after them and showing his fangs like a dog that is angry. Then he remembered the money which had been in his lap when their shouts startled him, and there was no longer any room for anger in his heart.

A wild light of hope and fear in his eyes, he flung himself full length upon the ground and fell to groping and sifting with trembling hands. But the wild rush of the horses had played the whirlwind with the sand, scattering it hither and thither and dinting it deep with hoof-prints. After many minutes of burrowing and seeking he had found only two small copper coins; and already the sun was sinking behind the city and its headland, whose shadow was within a hand’s-breadth of him. A long train of camels passed him going towards the gate, the drivers cheerful at sight of their journey’s end.

“What seekest thou, young man?” cried one of them as he passed the fisherman.

Saïd raised himself to a kneeling posture and spread his hands over his eyes.

“Away, scoffer!” he cried sternly. “Who art thou that thou shouldst question a pious man at his prayers?” Then, after an interval of meditation, he prostrated himself so that his forehead touched the sand and forthwith resumed his search, earnestly beseeching Allah to guide his fingers aright and to keep all prying strangers at a distance.

The shadow was now upon him. All the west was a blaze of red gold, so that every roof, every dome, every palm-tree upon the sky-line stood outlined clear and black. It was time to give over this frantic groping and clutching which gave such meagre results. He sat up and, squatting on his heels, began a more orderly and less haphazard search, taking one handful of sand at a time, sifting it between his fingers and laying it on one side upon a heap. After more than an hour’s experience of this process he had recovered some twenty small coins, amounting perhaps to a fifth part of the sum he had lost.

Night fell: the stars shone out, blackening the bulk of the dead ass, a few paces distant, which the dogs, reinforced by stray comrades from the city, were beginning to worry anew. The ripples, breaking in luminous foam upon the beach, murmured sadly in his ears. Hunger began to get hold of him. Hasneh would be wondering what had happened, and that savoury mess of lentils and oil would be baked to a cinder. Why should he not go home, eat and drink, and return to his search later on? It was not likely that the sand would be again disturbed that night. He could come back early in the morning and collect the rest of his scattered fortune. His basket would mark the exact spot.

So thinking, he rose and went homewards. A faint light streamed from the door and window of his dwelling. Hasneh was in there with the lentils. His heart warmed at the thought, making the neighbouring void colder and more empty by contrast. As he drew near to the house a sound of wailing grew in his ears—such wailing as he had heard at funerals of the rich, where mourners were well paid for it.

His first thought was of the lentils, that they were spoilt. His next, not without relief, that someone was dead within the house. But there was no one to die except Hasneh herself, and she it was who was wailing, as he had sometimes heard her scold, in a shrill cadence. His desire to learn the truth lent wings to his feet. In a few long strides he gained the threshold.

His woman lay stretched upon the floor within—a heap of clothes from which those ghastly moans and howls proceeded, mingled with curses on some unknown being of the male sex. For a moment Saïd stood frozen in the doorway. Then the sight of something black and shrivelled in a pan upon the brazier sent angry blood coursing through every vein in his body. That something had once been a savoury mess of lentils baked in oil, the lust of which had drawn him from his search among the sand. He sprang to a corner of the room, seized a great staff which leaned against the wall, and fell to belabouring the woman with all the strength of his arm. Her droning wail changed all at once to a lively shriek. She leapt to her feet and closed with him, trying vainly to wrest the stick from his hand.

“May Allah cut short thy life!” she cried. “What have I done to deserve this of thee?”

“The lentils are spoilt!” retorted Saïd, furiously, wrenching his arm free of her and bringing the stick down heavily on her back. “May thy house be destroyed!”

“Madman!” she screamed. “Thou speakest of lentils when an enemy has robbed thee, ruined thee! Look!”

She pointed to a hole in the floor which had been hidden by her body when Saïd entered. Little mounds of fresh sand on the brink of it showed that hands had lately been at work there.

As Saïd’s eyes followed the line of her forefinger his jaw fell and the anger died out of his face. His stick clattered on the ground. Some thief had found out the place where his treasure was hidden, had come in his absence and unearthed the savings of ten long years.

He peered into the hole to assure himself that it was quite empty. Not a single para had been let fall or overlooked by the miscreant. His eyes became dull and filmy as those of a blind man. His face grew livid as the face of a corpse. He fell back against the wall of the room.

Supposing that the shock of her news had killed him, Hasneh began to wail anew, beating her breast and plucking at her robe to tear it. Her voice revived Saïd somewhat.

“Be silent,” he muttered—“thou thief! Thou alone wast in the secret of the hiding-place.”

“Thy life is my life; thy fortune, my fortune,” replied the woman, with indignation. “If thou prosperest, I prosper; and I have a part in thy loss. Listen now to the truth, nor judge me hastily unheard.

“Having prepared the lentils, I sat awaiting thy return, when my heart became sad within me. And I thought, if I uncover the hiding-place and fill my eyes with the sight of that which is good to see, there is no sin. So I took the piece of a broken vessel and scraped until the heap of coins was laid bare to mine eyes. So my heart had peace.

“And as I sat gazing upon my husband’s wealth which is mine, the voice of Abdullah called from without; ‘Behold the great fish, the giant of the deep, whose back is like Lebanon and his fins as the winnowing fans of Allah, with which he makes the winds to blow and stirs the sea to madness! It is Saïd who has brought it to land. It lies by the white stone where the nets of Saïd are spread out to dry. Run, O Hasneh, and thou shalt see that which no woman has ever seen.’

“At that I gathered up my raiment and ran out of the house, expecting to find Abdullah; but I found no man. I went all about the house, but I found not Abdullah nor any other. Then I trembled and fear came upon me. But the news of the great fish drew me onward, until I came to the white stone and found it lonely as ever and the sea-fowl undisturbed upon it. Then I knew that an evil spirit had cried in the voice of Abdullah to lead me astray. So I ran back with all speed along the shore. When I came to the house the hole was as thou seest it and all the money gone.”

Her last words were almost drowned in a flood of tears.

Saïd trembled and cold sweat stood in pearls upon his forehead.

“An evil spirit has done this,” he murmured hoarsely. “Oh, that my enemy had been a man!”

He fell to bemoaning his fate, cursing the day that he was born, and calling upon Allah to have mercy upon his faithful servant. The house that had been rifled by an evil spirit seemed dreadful and unfamiliar. The night which wrapped it about was filled with hideous faces, which glowered at him and mocked him through door and lattice. At length he exclaimed: “Abide here, Hasneh, and keep watch. If thou hearest a voice or seest any evil sight, cry aloud upon the name of Allah and thou shalt be safe.”

With that he stepped out into the night, and, girding up his robe, sped across the sand to the city, black on the starlight, where a few scattered lights shone faintly.

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 afrìt 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. To-morrow, 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.

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 hind-quarters 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.

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 sun-baked 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 Hassen. 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 new-comer after the proper civilities had been exchanged.

To which Saïd replied, in every case, “There is nothing new to-day.”

“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 saddle-bow, dealt a vicious blow at Saïd’s head with the butt of it. The daylight swam blood-red 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.

V

When Saïd again became conscious of his surroundings he was in the house of Muhammed abu Hassan, lying on a couch. Hasneh and another woman were bending over him. The latter drew her veil hastily across her face as his eyes blinked at her in bewilderment. Hasneh uttered a cry of delight.

Saïd looked about him wondering. Sullen, scowling faces filled the doorway, blotting out the sunlight. A sound of muttered oaths was in the room. Of a sudden he remembered all that had befallen him and staggered to his feet.

“I am ruined!” he cried. “They have taken my donkey—all that I have. May Allah cut short their lives.”

Responsive curses came from the group in the doorway, and Muhammed replied,—

“We are sad for thee, effendi. The journey to Es-Shâm is long and wearisome for one that goes on foot. Yet art thou more happy than we. Thou wilt have the inheritance of thy brother who is dead. Thou wilt have wealth wherewith to buy horses and asses, as many as thou needest. But they have taken all that was ours. Curse their father! Of all our beasts there remain but a camel, and a mule which is on the point of dying.”

Saïd’s hand was pressed to his forehead. His face had the inward look of one reviewing things past. At length he asked eagerly, “What is the hour?”

“It is near the third hour since noon,” replied Muhammed after a brief glance at the shadow of his dwelling.

The fisherman turned to his woman. “Ready, O Hasneh?” he asked.

“Ready” was the meek rejoinder.

“But thou art yet weak from the blow which the soldier—burn his house!—gave thee,” Muhammed, as host, was bound to protest. “My house is thy house. Rest here till evening. The first hours of night are pleasant for travelling.”

But Saïd, remembering the words of Abdullah, was resolute. Pursuers might come upon him at any time. With profusion of thanks to Muhammed for his kindness he took up his staff and set out once more. Hasneh followed, her bundle poised upon her head.

They passed out from the village down a steep slope, where big red anemones shone amid ragged grass, across a stony wady with a trickle of water among the pebbles, and entered a grove of olive-trees. Here Saïd lay down in the shade. He was still dizzy from the stunning blow he had received, and the strength seemed to run out of his legs. He complained bitterly of thirst; whereupon Hasneh produced those oranges which had been thrown at them in the morning from the bosom of her robe. Having devoured two of them, Saïd wiped his dripping mouth upon his sleeve and felt refreshed. He was preparing to resume his way when the sound of a man’s voice close at hand stayed him.

“Praise be to Allah, who has placed such fools in the world! I asked for bread, and he gave me meat as well. And when I had finished eating he gave me money for my journey. A madman—may Allah reward him!”

The sun through the leafage cast a chequer-work of golden light and blue shadow upon the ground. The speaker came towards them, walking slowly between the gnarled trunks, with eyes upturned. It was a hale old man of sixty years or more, tall and upright. His body was clad in a loose robe, whose colour had once been blue, reaching to a little below the knee. His bare feet and shins were grey with dust. Upon his head was a battered and tasselless fez, with a dirty rag wound round it by way of turban. Happening to let his eyes fall a minute from their heavenly contemplation, he became aware of the presence of fellow-creatures and his whole demeanour changed in a second. His form seemed to shrivel and grow less. His head sank down upon his breast, his eyes writhed upward so that only the whites of them were visible, and his whole body was distorted to a semblance of the last agony.

Stretching forth a trembling hand he besought the pity of his hearers for a poor old wretch who found himself alone and without money in a strange land.

“Allah will give to you!” he whined. “For the love of Allah, help me or I die!… O Lord!… Allah will give to you!… By the Coràn, I am at the gate of death!… Allah will give to you!… My sons were killed by the Bedawin; my daughters were ravished before my eyes!… Allah is bountiful!… O Lord!… I myself have a hand that is withered!… O Lord!… My house was destroyed by an earthquake; a thief came in the night and stole my mare from me!… Allah will give to you!… My children were slain before my eyes!… O Lord!…”

It is likely that he would have gone on whining in this strain for an hour or more had not Saïd broken in,—

“Allah will give to thee! I am poor even as thou art. I, too, have been robbed and my house brought to ruin. I, too, was once a rich man, having flocks and herds, houses and vineyards, ay, and the half of a city belonging to me. And now there is no difference between me and thee. Allah will give to thee; I have nothing.”

In a twinkling the old beggar resumed his natural shape. His head rose, his body straightened, the pupils of his eyes came again into sight.

“Is it true?” he said in a friendly tone, squatting down in the shade beside the fisherman. “Then I tell thee thou art happy. All to gain; nothing to lose. There is no trade like ours. All the day long we cringe, we flatter, we weep, and none can resist us. And afterwards, when the evening is come, we laugh and are merry, with eating and drinking, with music and women. Behold, I love thee, for thy likeness to my son, Mansûr, who forsook me. I feel as a father toward thee. Is it a long time that ruin is upon thee?”

“But a few hours, O my uncle,” replied Saïd, bitterly.

The old rascal threw up his hands and cast his sly eyes skyward.

“Ah, it is sad at the first, and thou art downhearted—it is natural. But after a few days—a week—a month, thou wilt not envy the greatest in the land.”

Saïd was not pleased to have his misfortunes thus lightly treated as part of the common lot of mankind. He made haste to explain.

“With another man it would have been a small thing. He would have lost a camel, or perhaps a house. But as for me, I was a great man—the greatest in all the city. Men ran to kiss my robe as I walked abroad. I had camels and horses, asses and mules, more than a man can count in an hour. It is no common loss that makes me sad.”

“I suffer with thee,” said the beggar, with a reminiscent shake of his head. “I also was lord of great wealth. In those days men knew me by the name of Mustafa Bek. Now I am only Mustafa, the old beggar. Allah is greatest!”

But Saïd was not to be outdone.

“But yesterday men kissed the ground between my feet,” he said, with a shake of the head the counterpart of the other’s. “I was called the Emìr Saïd, and none dared come near me save with forehead to the earth. Allah is greatest!”

“I had twenty men whose only pleasure was to do my bidding,” said the beggar in his turn, “and the beauty of my three wives made the fair ones of Paradise jealous.”

“All the men of the city were as slaves before me,” said Saïd; “and if I had a desire towards any girl, I had but to command her father and she was given to me.”

“And how wast thou deprived of all this?” asked his rival, curiously. “Such things do not fade away like stars at the sun’s rising. By Allah, they do not go out like a lamp for a puff of wind.”

“My city was by the seashore,” faltered Saïd, after a moment’s hesitation. “Last evening, at the hour of sunset, the waters rose and swallowed up all that was mine. I and this woman alone remain alive of all that were in the city.”

The beggar rose to his feet with a laugh.

“Thou hast yet much to learn, O Emìr,” he said scornfully, yet with a certain indulgence. “The sea rises not once in a hundred years, and then all the world knows of it. Yesterday, at the hour of sunset, I stood by the shore and beheld the sea calm and undisturbed as usual. Thou hast much to learn, my son.”

“May thy house be destroyed!” muttered Saïd, grinding his teeth with mortification. “How far is it to the next village, old man?”

“Perhaps an hour—maybe an hour and a half—Allah knows!—perhaps two hours.”

“Who was that of whom thou wast speaking at the first?” asked Saïd with some eagerness. “He gave thee meat, thou wast saying, and money for thy journey. Doubtless it is some great one whose house is open to poor wayfarers?”

“I spoke but of a Frank who passed me in the way,” said the old man, with a chuckle at the recollection. “He was dressed all in black, and rode upon a fine horse. I knew him for one of those who preach to the Christians and would have all men believe in three gods. I saw him a long way off and, when he drew near, I flung myself down in the way, swearing horribly, and crying out that Allah had forsaken me. Thereat he got down from his horse and tried to comfort me with soft speaking and hard words from the book of his religion. But I cursed the louder and let him know that I was very hungry; whereupon he drew out a paper from his saddle-bags, wherein was bread and meat, which he gave to me.

“When I had made an end of eating I began to weep and told him a grievous tale of how my house had been burned and all my children killed by Turkish soldiers. This I said knowing that a Frank loves always to hear evil of the Turks. He wept with me as he listened. He gave me money—as much as a man could earn by the labour of a week. Then he mounted and rode away, his face sad from the tale which I had told him. May Allah reward the unbelieving fool!”

“Y’Allah! Let us depart at once,” cried Saïd, eagerly. “Perhaps we may overtake him before the night.”

“Did I not tell thee that he rides upon a horse, and that a fine one?” said the beggar. “Thou canst never hope to overtake him. He told me that he was going two days journey on the way to Es-Shâm, to the place where he dwells. Whither goest thou?”

“To Es-Shâm,” cried Saïd, gleefully. “I will visit him and tell the tale of my great loss. Allah be with thee!”

Saïd set forward through the olive grove at a great pace, Hasneh shuffled after him with her usual docility—the good beast of burden, ready to stand or go on at her master’s word. As for the beggar, he stood looking after them until they were lost to sight among the tree trunks. He chuckled often as he went his way, repeating the word “Emìr” with scornful emphasis.

Sunset fires were blazing high in the west when Saïd and Hasneh drew near to the village of which the beggar had told them. It was a small place, built of stone, crowning the utmost slope of the mountain seaward. To reach it they had to climb a pebbly road, which wound upwards serpent-wise among terraces of fig and olive-trees. At the entering in of the village grew a giant sycamore, about whose trunk the elders of the place were squatting in solemn conclave, smoking. Saïd saluted them politely as they drew near.

“What news?” asked a reverend sheykh, who seemed the head man of the place.

“There is war,” replied Saïd, with a low obeisance. “Soldiers scour the country for horses and mules. I know it well, alas! for they have taken my mare—curse their fathers!—a thoroughbred worth fifty Turkish pounds, by Allah!—and I am forced to pursue my journey on foot.”

“Allah restore her to thee,” rejoined the sheykh, fervently. “We guessed that all was not well in the land, for this afternoon, as my son was ploughing on the hillside yonder, he beheld a company of soldiers ride across the plain, and many beasts of burden with them. Thanks be to Allah, we are warned in time. Ere the rising of the sun all our cattle shall be in a safe place among the hills, save a few that are sick, which they can take if it please them.”

Saïd, seeking tidings of the missionary, was told that he had ridden through the place about the third hour after noon, and must be sleeping at Beyt Ammeh, a mountain village four hours distant.

“Is there a guest-chamber in this village where I and my woman may pass the night?” asked Saïd, in some anxiety.

“Thy news is timely and thou art welcome,” replied the sheykh. “My house is thy house. Deign to follow me.”

With that he rose and led the way to a house which was larger by a room than other houses of the village. This room was built on the roof and had the appearance of a tower when seen from a distance. Within, it was a small chamber, softly carpeted, with a cushioned divan running round the walls, destined for the lodging of guests of distinction. Saïd would never have been admitted to its precincts but for that fabulous mare of his worth fifty Turkish pounds.

Here, having partaken of a feast such as he had seldom enjoyed, he spent the night, a pale sky flaked with stars watching his slumbers through open door and lattice.

VI