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The Valley of the Kings

by Marmaduke William Pickthall · English · Gutenberg #24744 · 355,698 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Valley of the Kings

Author: Marmaduke William Pickthall


        
Release date: March 3, 2008 [eBook #24744]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24744

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


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[Frontispiece: Someone leaned above him to inspect his work.  Chap X.]






THE WAYFARERS LIBRARY



The

VALLEY of the KINGS



Marmaduke Pickthall





J.M.DENT & SONS. Ltd.

LONDON

1914




THE

VALLEY OF THE KINGS


CHAPTER I

"Woe on you, mothers of nothing!  May the scourge of Allah flay you as
you go!"

The mother of Iskender held the doorway of her little house in a
posture of spitting defiance.  Rancour, deep-rooted and boundless,
ranged in her guttural snarl.  Her black eyes burned to kill, their
thick brows quite united by the energy of her frown as she gazed across
a sand-dell, chary of vegetation but profuse in potsherds, towards the
white walls and high red roof of the Mission-house seen above a wave of
tamarisks on the opposite dune.  The hedge of prickly pear defining her
small domain did not obstruct the view, for it consisted largely of
gaps, by one of which a group of three Frankish ladies had just gone
from her.  She could see their white-clad forms, under sunshades, down
there in the hollow, battling ungracefully with the sand for foothold.
With one hand raised as a screen from the declining sun, the mother of
Iskender clenched the other, and shook it down the pathway of those
ladies so that the bracelets of coloured glass tinkled upon her strong
brown arm.

"Ha, Carûlîn, most ancient virgin, thy stalk is a crane's!  There is
neither flesh nor blood in thee, but only gristle and dry skin.  Thy
heart is gall and poison. . . .  O Jane, thou art a fruit all husk;
half man, yet lacking man's core, half maid, yet lacking woman's pulp!
In thee is no fount of joy, no sweetness.  Did love of our Blessed
Saviour and the Sacred Book bring the pair of you to this land?  By
Allah, not so; well I know it!  It was the love of change, of
adventure; and what is that in a virgin save the hope of men?  And now,
seeing none have desired you, your longing is turned to hatred of all
things sweet!  My son is bad, you declare; it is a grace for him to be
allowed to sweep your house.  But the son of Costantîn--that sly-eyed
devil!--he is good: of him you make a clergyman, a grand khawâjah!
Have I not washed these twenty years for you and the false priest whose
things you are?  Was I not among the first to profess your damning
heresy?  The house of Costantîn are converts of last year.  Let Allah
judge between us this day."

She paused a moment, the better to gesticulate a frantic reverence to
the ladies, now on the opposite slope, who were waving hands to her.

"O poor little Hilda!  Thou art a ripe fruit that whispers 'Pluck me.'
But those two sexless devils guard thee sleeplessly.  Thou wast not
angry when Iskender kissed thy mouth.  Is it likely, since thou didst
incite him to it by previously stroking his hand?  But the rest, thy
keepers. . . .  Holy Mother of God! . . .  When shall I hear the last
of my son's guilt!  Iskender is vile, Iskender is worthless, Iskender
is the son of all things evil.  Ah, if the great lady, the mother of
George, had been here, you would never have dared to use the poor lad
so, for she loved him from a babe.  But alas! she is away in your
native land, watching the education of her many children.  You and the
priest, her husband, were gentler in your ways while she was here.  But
since she left, you have become true devils.  Aye, you are right,
forsooth, and the whole world of nature is quite wrong.  May Allah set
the foot of Iskender upon the necks of you, O false saints!"

With a parting menace of the fist, she turned indoors, still snarling.
After the sun-glare on the sands, the room was darkness.  Doorway and
unshuttered casement framed each its vision of relentless light; but no
ray entered.

The place consisted of a single chamber, which, with door and window
open as at present, became a draughtway for what air there was.  A
curtain veiled one corner, where the beds were stowed in daytime, with
whatever else was unpresentable through dirt or breakage: for the
ladies of the Mission valued tidiness above all virtues, and claimed
the right to inspect the abode of their washerwoman and pet proselyte.
The mother of Iskender courted their inspection, being secured against
complete surprise by the position of her house upon an eminence whence
approaching visitors could be descried a long way off.  To-day she had
run to meet them with delighted cries; but old Carûlîn had met the
welcome in the dullest manner, stalking on into the house, where,
instated in the only chair, with hands crossed on the handle of her
parasol, she proceeded to give judgment on Iskender, while Jane and
Hilda, standing one on either side, contributed their sad Amen to all
she said.

"We are more grieved than we can express, Sarah," the old devil
concluded in her creaking voice; "more especially on your account, who
are a Christian woman.  It is solely out of regard for you that we are
prepared to take him as a servant, provided he repents and mends his
ways.  We cannot have him associating with men like that Elias."

She spoke as the mouthpiece of the missionary, the dispenser of wealth
and preferment.  Sarah was obliged to thank the Lord for her kindness,
instead of tearing her eyes out, or treading her dog-face level with
the ground.  Yet Iskender was robbed of his birthright.  It had always
been known that one boy of the little congregation would be made a
clergyman; and Iskender was clearly designated, his parents having been
the first converts, and himself the spoilt child of the Mission till
six months ago.  Furthermore, he was fatherless, a widow's only son.
Yet Asad son of Costantîn was put before him.  Asad had a father--aye,
and a clever one--a father who dwelt at the Mission-house, and was
always at the ladies' ears with cunning falsehoods.  If only Iskender's
father--the righteous Yâcûb--had been still alive!  . . .

Thus brooding on her wrongs, with lips still murmurous, the mother of
Iskender brushed a hand across her eyes, and looked about her.  There
was the chair still standing in the middle of the room where Carûlîn
had sat.

Snatching up the defiled thing, she swung it to its usual place beside
the wall, banging it down with spiteful energy enough to break it.
Having stooped to make sure that it was not actually broken, she
brushed her eyes again, and wept a little.  Then, on a sudden thought,
she sprang to the curtained corner, and, groping among mattresses and
sweat-stained coverlets which the ladies from the Mission never dared
turn over, brought forth a picture of the Blessed Virgin which Iskender
had made for her with the help of a paint-box given to him by the Sitt
Hilda on his eighteenth birthday.  This she set upon a stool against
the wall and, crossing herself, knelt down before it.  Here was one at
least to whom she could expose her wrongs, secure of sympathy--a woman
of almighty influence bound to her in the common tie of motherhood.

Was not Iskender clever, handsome, good?  For what could any one prefer
that lanky, pig-eyed son of Costantîn the gardener--the convert of a
day, whereas Iskender had been a Protestant from his birth?  Naturally,
she had looked for some reward of her long adherence.  But lo; they
thrust her aside, exalting in her stead the mother of Asad son of
Costantîn.  They would never have dared to do it if the wife of the
missionary, the excellent mother of George, had not been absent with
her children in the land of the English.

At the first planting of the Mission here upon the sandhills, it had
seemed to many Christians of the town to promise escape from the
repressive shadow of the Muslim, and the protection of a foreign flag
which bore the Cross.  O sad delusion!  That cold priest, those
bloodless women, considered nothing but their own comfort.  To that
they made every convert minister; their notion being to patronise and
not to raise; witness Allah how she herself had slaved for them, obeyed
and flattered them, for twenty years!  By the Gospel, it was black
ingratitude that the son of Costantîn should be set apart for their
priesthood, be made an Englishman, a grand khawâjah, whilst Iskender
was offered employment--mark the kindness!--as a scullion and a sweeper
in their house--Iskender, who had been their favourite till a month ago!

How had he fallen?  Ah, that was a joke indeed!  Listen, O Holy Miriam
and all saints!  It was because one hot afternoon, at their
Bible-class, he had kissed the pretty Sitt Hilda, who sat close to him,
teaching.  Forgetting he was no longer a child, she had caressed his
hand approvingly; that was Hilda's tale.  A likely one, forsooth!  And
the lad quite sick for love of her, as an infant of the female sex must
have perceived blindfold!  Already, before that, they had begun to
persecute the lad, finding fault with his painting, his idleness, his
language, his smoking--Allah knows with what besides!--so that he was
vexed in mind, no longer quite himself.  From his birth he had been a
sensitive boy, always responsive to a touch of kindness.  He was in
love with the Sitt Hilda, and his mind was clouded; she touched him
fondly, and he kissed her mouth.  It was all quite natural.  As well
blame flowers for opening to the sun!  Iskender was immoral, was he?
Then what should be said of those who set such ripe and tempting fruit
before a youth of the ravenous age, simply to punish him if he made a
bite?  Ah, they were moral, doubtless!  But Our Lady Miriam and the
Host of Heaven thought otherwise, they might be sure!

And if, in the month which had elapsed since then, he had turned his
back on prayer-meetings and haunted taverns of the town, whose fault
was that?  His new associates were not depraved.  Their only crime was
that they were not Protestants.  Even Elias Abdul Messîh, the cause of
all this outcry, was a respectable man, only scatter-brained and
light-hearted.  He was a Christian, not a Muslim or an idolater, so
what was there to justify such bitter chiding?

The missionaries called it a crime in Iskender that he idled abroad,
trying to make a likeness of the things he saw with his pencils and
paints--the gift of the Sitt Hilda, mark that well!  It was all their
own doing, yet so wrong!  Did he smoke a cigarette, it was a sin!  Did
he call in talk upon the name of Allah--a sin most deadly! . . .

"Peace on this house!" said a man's complacent voice at the doorway.

Still on her knees, the mother of Iskender turned and peered at the
disturber, pressing both hands to her temples.  In her confusion on the
start the greeting gave her she failed at first to recognise the figure
standing forth against the sand-glare, which, now that evening drew on,
had the colour of ripe wheat.

"O mother of Iskender, how is thy health to-day?" pursued the visitor;
and then she knew him for the brother of her dead husband.

"Is it thyself, Abdullah?"  She rose up to greet him.  "My soul has
grief this day on account of Iskender.  They treat him shamefully over
yonder--worse than a dog!"

Abdullah rejected her offer of the only chair in favour of a cushion by
the wall.  He was an elderly man of most respectable appearance, being
clad in a blue zouave jacket and pantaloons, both finely braided, a
crimson sash at his waist, and on his head a low-crowned fez with long
blue tassel hanging to the neck.  He wore top boots and held a whip,
though he had not come riding.  The skin of his face had withered in
loose folds, leaving the bushy grey moustache and brows unduly
prominent, a crowd of wrinkles round his large brown eyes giving an
effect of intelligence to orbs whose real expression was a calm
stupidity in keeping with the general dignity of his demeanour.

"Even the son of Costantîn--that dirt!--is preferred before him.  In
this minute I was kneeling to our gracious Lady on his behalf."

"Praise to her!" exclaimed Abdullah, crossing himself.  "There is none
like her in a difficulty, as I, of all men living, have best cause to
know, since she gave me all that I possess."

"Allah increase thy wealth!" said Sarah hastily, fearing the story she
had heard a thousand times.

Years ago the respectable Abdullah had been no better than a sot and
wastrel, having contracted the habit of drunkenness at Port Said, where
he spent three years as porter in a small hotel.  He had squandered all
his savings and had drunk himself to the verge of madness, when one
summer night, as he lay on the floor of his house (as he himself
expressed it) "between drunk and sober," the Mother of God appeared to
him, "all white and blinding like the sand at noon."  The vision, after
gazing on him a space, stretched out its hand and vanished.  That was
all.  But Abdullah arose with new heart.  Thenceforth he honoured
himself, whom God had honoured.  The change in him was plain for all to
see, and he proclaimed the cause of it aloud with streaming eyes.  The
Orthodox Church confirmed the miracle, which made a noise at the time.
The Patriarch himself wrote the seer a long letter.  People who had
long since washed their hands of the drunken reprobate vied one with
another to help the known favourite of Heaven.  Abdullah obtained good
employment, first in an hotel at Jerusalem, then with an English
traveller of importance.  Now, for some years, he had been a trusted
dragoman in the pay of a mysterious power called Cook.  His religious
vogue had passed, his story and the miracle involved were quite
forgotten of the multitude.  But Abdullah himself remembered, viewing
his respectability at the present day with the same feelings of awe and
reverence with which he had received it at the first.  It was the
mantle of the Blessed Virgin, her gift to him.  In it lay all his hope
for this world and the next.

"It is of Iskender that I come to speak," he said, having pulled out
his moustache to the utmost and swallowed twice with solemn gulps
preliminary to the announcement.  "It hurts my soul to see him wasting
time----"

"Enough! enough, I say!"  The woman screamed aloud to drown his words.
"Am I not already killed with such bad talk, deafened with it, maddened
with it every day from morn till night.  Ah, by the Gospel, it has
grown past bearing!  They will no longer make a priest of our Iskender;
that honour is for the son of Costantîn;--low, cunning devil!  Iskender
may now, as a favour, sweep their house.  Here, in this very room, on
yonder chair, the abandoned Carûlîn sat and told me the fine news--to
me, the mainstay of the Mission, who have not missed a prayer-meeting
for twenty years----"

"Allah is merciful!" ejaculated the dragoman.  Though himself a staunch
supporter of the Holy Orthodox Church, he had a regard for the
Protestant, as the faith of the wealthy English.  He had looked forward
to the welcoming smile of English travellers when he told them that his
nephew was a Protestant clergyman.  This rejection of Iskender was
therefore a disappointment to him.  Nevertheless, since God so willed
it, there were other occupations that the boy could follow.  More
insupportable by far was the screaming fury of this woman, which, he
feared, might lead her to disgrace her relatives by overt rudeness
towards the English missionaries.  He said:

"The flush of anger well becomes thee.  By Allah, it enriches thy dark
beauty, like the bloom on purple grapes."

The mother of Iskender started and blushed hotly, struck in the face by
such audacious flattery.  She exclaimed:

"Be silent, imbecile!  Are such words for the ear of one like me?  Keep
thy fine phrases for the tourist ladies, who know the fashion, and can
answer thee."

"Nay, the daughters of our land nowadays rival the foreign ladies in
wit and fashion," said Abdullah gravely, pursuing his advantage.  "I
myself assisted at a wedding in Beyrût where the ladies talked and
jested freely with the gentlemen, with roars of laughter in the
Frankish manner.  Ah, that was a sight!  A hundred carriages, all
festively bedecked, conveyed the guests to church, with cracking of
whips and shoutings to clear a way.  All the women were arrayed in
splendid dresses brought from Fransa, and grand big hats with ostrich
plumes and flying ribbons.  A sight, I tell thee, equal to anything to
be seen in Barîs or Lûndra."

"Thou seest such things!"  The mother of Iskender pouted, envious.
"Here there is never anything to call a show.  Even when Daûd el Barûdi
married, there were no fine dresses.  Every woman present wore the
head-veil.  I fain would try a Frankish hat myself; but the ladies will
not let me--curse their father!"

"They fear to be outshone," put in Abdullah, and continued quickly,
apprehending a fresh storm: "Now, as concerns Iskender, I have a
project for thee.  It was for that I came here, not to blame the lad.
Know that a young Englishman arrived yesterday at the Hotel Barûdi, in
search of amusement, it would seem, for when Selîm Barûdi inquired how
long he wished to stay, he replied it might be all his life if the
place pleased him.  From that and the plenteousness of his luggage I
conclude him to be the son of a good house--no less than an Emîr, by
Allah--though why he comes here out of season Allah knows!  Elias and
the rest have not got wind of him.  He as yet knows no one in the land
except the two Barûdis and myself, who met him at their house an hour
ago.  My plan is to present our dear one to him----"

At this point Iskender's mother interrupted him with sudden outcry as
of one possessed:

"Aha, O cruel priest!  O soured virgins!  Let the son of Costantîn be
your dog if he will.  My son shall tread on all your faces, the friend
of an Emîr."

She shook her fist towards the Mission, seen in fierce sunlight through
the shadowed doorway.

"Hush, woman!" cried Abdullah in an agony.  Her foolish words set wasps
about his head.  "For the love of Allah, let Iskender anger no man, but
be supple, politic, and so respected.  Now that he is cast off by your
Brûtestânts, there is nothing for it but he must become a dragoman.
The Englishman of whom I spoke is but a step.  He has need of all men's
favour, and must court it diligently. . . .  Where is the boy himself?
I thought to find him."

"Ask me not where he is!"  The woman raised her hands despairingly.
"He went out early this morning with his paint-things, and has not
returned.  May his house be destroyed!  He is the worst of sons.  He
shuns all counsel, and does nothing that one asks of him.  How often
have I begged him to renounce his painting, or to go with me to the
Mission and make show of penitence.  As well instruct the sand.  It is
likely he will scout this plan of thine.  Oh, what have I ever done to
be thus afflicted?  Why, why has he not the wit of Asad son of
Costantîn?"

"Let us go out and meet him," proposed old Abdullah, still bent on
diverting her mind from its maddening grievance.  "He cannot be far
off, and to smell the air is pleasant at this hour."

The mother of Iskender flung her cares aside.  To walk out by the side
of so respectable a man, at an hour when many people took the air upon
the sandhills, was to gain distinction.  She draped a black lace shawl
upon her head, while Abdullah strode to the doorway and stared out,
flicking his boots with his whip.  Then, gathering up the skirt of her
flowered cotton gown in one hand, she placed the other in Abdullah's
arm, ready crooked to receive it.

"It is the fashionable way," she tittered as they set forth.




CHAPTER II

Beyond the ancient town and its dark green orange gardens, between the
tilled plain and the shore, the sandhills roll away to north and south,
with here a dwelling, there a patch of herbage.  To Iskender, lying
prone on the crest of the highest dune, caught up into the laugh of
sunset, their undulations appeared flushed and softly dimpled, like the
flesh of babes.  Returning homeward, hungry, from a day of much
adventure, he had espied from this eminence a camp of nomads in a
certain hollow, and at once forgot his supper in desire to sketch it.
He had settled to the work with such complete absorption that Elias
Abdul Messîh, his companion, for once grew tired of the sound of his
own voice, and left him, with a sigh for his obtuseness.  And Iskender
was glad to be rid of him, to lie alone and nurse his secret joy; for
he had this day made the acquaintance of an Englishman, whose
affability restored his pride of life.  Might Allah bless that
light-haired youth, for he was the very lord of kindness, and beautiful
as an angel from Allah.  His cheeks had the same rose-bloom as the Sitt
Hilda's, while his blue eyes danced and sparkled like sea-waves in
sunlight.  How different from the priest of the Mission, whose gaze was
of green ice!  Moreover, he had praised Iskender's painting and taught
him a trick of colouring, which consisted in washing the page yellow
and letting it dry before setting to work on it.  The artist had never
been so happy since the day, six months ago, when the missionary had
declared against his sketching as mere waste of time.  The ladies of
the Mission, who had fostered it, obsequious to the edict, then
condemned it strongly.  His mother, too, turned round and blamed him
for it.  Only the Sitt Hilda still was kind, comforting him in secret,
till his love leapt up.  And then came outer darkness.  Iskender was a
profligate, and driven forth.

Debarred from Christian society, hardly less than Muslim, by his
English education and his Protestantism, he was a pariah in his own
land.  This very morning, sketching a gateway in the town, he had been
beaten by some Muslim boys and called an idol-maker; and, traversing a
Christian hamlet among the gardens, had been reviled and pelted by its
Orthodox inhabitants.  For company he had been obliged to consort with
English-speaking touts and dragomans, who welcomed his proficiency in
the foreign tongue; and these he hated, for they mocked his art.  The
one exception was Elias Abdul Messîh.  Elias could read Arabic fluently
(a feat beyond Iskender, who had been schooled in English), and from
trips to Beyrût and the towns of Egypt had brought back any number of
miraculous romances, which he read and read again until they turned his
brain.  Impersonating the chief characters, he dwelt in a world of
magical adventure, and spoke from thence to ears that understood not.
For this he was named the Liar and the Boaster, and, though well liked,
derided.  He had taken a fancy to Iskender, and often sat beside the
artist while he sketched.

His talk revealed new worlds to the pupil of the English missionaries,
who hitherto had looked to England as the realm of romantic
ambition--the land where, by simply entering holy orders, a poor son of
the Arabs could attain to wealth and luxury.  Now, for the first time,
he was shown the wonders of the East.  Elias, in his tales, despised
the Christians, his own folk, anathematised the Jews, and praised the
Muslims, till Iskender longed to embrace the doctrine of Muhammad, and
become a freeman of the land of old romance.  But when he said as much,
Elias shook his head.  It was known that every Muslim would be damned
eternally.

Moved by the example of this friend, Iskender's brain conceived wild
dreams of greatness, enabling him in imagination to enslave the wicked
missionaries and carry off his blushing love amid applause.  He told
Elias that his father, Yâcûb, had left a treasure buried in the ground,
which he would dig up some day, and astound mankind; and Elias accepted
the statement as quite probable.  But such fancies were of no real
comfort to Iskender, being rendered feverish by his sense of wrong.  He
had known no solace till this day at noon, when the English youth from
the hotel had smiled on him.  Now, once again, he looked to England as
of old--to England where great honours were conferred on painters.

With a final dab at the sky, he held his picture off from him, to mark
the effect.  In love with the figure of a camel belonging to the camp,
which was chewing the cud superbly in the foreground, he had at
unawares so magnified the creature that it bestrode the whole page of
his drawing-book; while the camp itself, the sandhills, some scattered
houses and a palm-tree in the distance, the very sky, seemed no more
than the pattern of a carpet upon which it stood.  There was something
wrong, he perceived--something to do with that perspective which,
despite instructions from the Sitt Hilda, he could never rightly
comprehend.

But his pride in the monster camel condoned everything.  He just
lengthened all the tent-ropes a little with his smallest paint-brush,
thereby imparting to the black pavilions a look of spiders squashed by
the triumphant beast, and laid aside his work, well pleased.  There
were many groups abroad, of people enjoying the cool evening; he saw
them stalking ghostlike in the coloured light; but they kept to the
bound sand of the trodden pathways, and if any one descried him on his
perch, none laboured up to see what he was after.

At ease upon the ground, with chin on palm, he tried to judge what
colours would be needed in order faithfully to reproduce the sunset
glow.  He compared that glow to the insurgent blood ever ready to
mantle in the cheeks of the Sitt Hilda; but this was a warmer,
swarthier flush than ever dyed the white skin of a Frank.  Then,
looking east, he watched the blue increase on the horizon, its drowsy
glimmer radiating thoughts of rest, as if a hovering spirit whispered
"Hush!"  A star glanced out above the distant palm-tree; in that
direction it was night already behind the crimsoned earth.  A flash
from the grand glass windows of the Mission, ruddy with the last of
daylight, caused him to wag his head and sigh:

"Would to Allah I were rich like one of them!"  The English youth from
the hotel had laughed at missionaries.  Though here so great and
powerful, it seemed they were little thought of in their own country.
When Iskender eagerly inquired whether a famous painter would take rank
before them, the Englishman had said: "Yes, rather!" with his merry
laugh.

"O Allah, help me," was Iskender's prayer now, "that I may travel to
the countries of the Franks, and reap the honour they accord to
painters!"

This with a fond glance at his drawing-book, which contained a
camel--ah, but a camel such as Allah made him!--a camel worthy to be
framed in gold and hung in king's palaces!

"Is--ken--der!"  A shrill, trailing cry disturbed his reverie; when,
looking forth in the direction of the sound, he saw in a dell beneath,
where ran a footpath, a man and a woman standing still amid the
shadows, gazing up at him.

"Ya Iskender!  Make haste, descend, come down to us!"  The call came
again more peremptorily.

The voice was his mother's.  Muttering, "May her house be destroyed!"
he emptied the pannikin of paint-foul water which he had carried with
him all day long, picked up his drawing-book, and obeyed.  As he
prepared to descend, the last red gleam forsook the sand-crests,
leaving them ashy white.

"Make haste, O shameless loiterer.  We bring thee news--fine news!
Praise Allah who assigned to thee Abdullah for an uncle--one so kind,
so considerate, so thoughtful for thy welfare.~.~.~.  But first I must
tell thee how the three ladies came in thy absence to inform me of
their intention to educate the son of Costantîn to be a clergyman;
whilst thou, whose mother has washed for them these twenty years, art
required to sweep their house."

"What matter!" rejoined Iskender, with a listless shrug.  "My ambition
is to visit the country of the Franks and gain the honour of a mighty
painter."

His mother stretched out her hands to heaven, screaming:

"Hear him, Allah!  Is he not bewitched?  Desire of the lady Hilda has
made him mad.  O Holy Maryam, O Mar Jiryis and all saints, condemn
those who have led him thus to ruin.  Hear him now; he would make
pictures!  Well, to Allah the praise; but it is their doing!~.~.~.
Now, for the love of Allah, put such toys aside and hear Abdullah's
generous plan for thy advancement.  Know that a young Englishman has
lately come to the Hotel Barûdi----"

"I know that well," Iskender grunted irritably.  "He is my friend.
This day he spent two hours with me."

"Thy friend!~.~.~.  O merciful Allah!" cried his mother.

"Thou knowest him?" exclaimed Abdullah, much affronted.

"Come, cease thy dreaming, tell the story, mad-man!"  His mother shook
his arm and screamed at him.  "Art possessed with thy dumb devil.
Speak!  What sayest thou?"

"May thy father perish!" cried Iskender, startled.

"Curse thy religion!" retorted his mother hotly.  "Is thy uncle dirt to
be thus disregarded?  Ask his pardon, O my dear!"

Abdullah the dragoman laughed at that, and suggested they had best be
moving, for the night was near.  A trace of grievance lingered in his
voice and manner, for he loved ceremonies, and had looked forward to a
formal presentation of his nephew to the English nobleman.

"Come, tell the story of thy day!" he too insisted.  At first it had
not been a happy one, Iskender told them.  He had tried to paint the
beauty of the sea between two dunes, but it turned to a blue gate on
yellow gate-posts; then a boat turned upside down upon the beach, but
the portrait made resembled nothing earthly.  Then the Englishman had
taught him a new way, and things went well, and he had drawn a
camel.~.~.~.

He was opening his sketch-book to display the masterpiece; but his
mother shrieked:

"Who cares to hear all that.  Tell of the Englishman; how came he with
thee?"

"They stoned me," he replied indifferently; "and I was running from
them, weeping, when he met me, and I cried to him in English to protect
me.  He had compassion on me, and admired my pictures----"

Iskender became aware that his companions were no longer listening, so
stopped abruptly.  His uncle seemed to think some miracle had happened,
for he heard him praising Allah and the Holy Virgin, the while his
mother kept exclaiming in her shrill-pitched tones.  His mind strayed
far from them, occupying itself with distant features of the landscape.
All the earth was now obscure: stars sparkled in the dome of the sky.
From a high, sandy neck their path surmounted, he beheld the minarets
of the town, seeming to cut the sky above the sharp sea-line.  The
timbre of his mother's voice made for inattention like the monotonous
shrill note of the cicada; and he had at all times a trick of
projecting his wits into the scene around him, whence it needed a shout
to re-collect them, as she knew to her grievance.  She shouted now, and
punched him in the back:

"Forget not to tell the Emîr that thou art a Brûtestant, which is half
an Englishman."

Jarred in his bones by her shrillness, he exclaimed:

"Merciful Allah!  Is my mother mad?  The Emîr!  In the name of angels,
what Emîr?"

"O Holy Maryam!  Am I not unblessed in such a son?  What wonder that
the priest and the ladies favour the son of Costantîn--may his house be
destroyed!--who has at least the grace to listen when one speaks to
him.~.~.~.  Thou goest in the morning to the Hotel Barûdi, to visit
formally this English youth, who is an Emîr in his own country, and
proffer thy services.  Thou wilt present thyself before him, not as now
in a soiled kaftan, but in thy best.  Give him to know how thy mother
is esteemed by the missionaries, how thou art thyself a Brûtestânt of
the English Church."

"Whist!" said Abdullah warningly.

Some one was hurrying towards them down the path.

"Who is it?" breathed the mother of Iskender.

It was Elias, who was looking for his friend.

"No word to him, or all is lost!" hissed old Abdullah.

But Elias for the moment had no ears.  After parting from Iskender he
had been seized with a new and vivid inspiration, and felt the need of
his accustomed listener.  Dragging his friend aside he whispered
breathlessly:

"I am in great haste.  A lady--ah, a beauty!--waits for me--a Muslimeh,
I do assure thee--one of the most closely guarded.  I go now to the
tryst.  It is to risk my life; but what care I, for love has maddened
me.  I would not tell a living soul save thee; but if I die in the
adventure, thou wilt pray for me.  I sought thee in thy house, but
found thee not."

"May Allah guard and prosper thee!" replied Iskender.

But by then his friend was gone, driven on by the fierce wind of his
imagining towards the house-door, not far distant, where his wife stood
looking for him.  Iskender could not prevent a lump from rising in his
throat at the vision of requited love, however perilous.  From a dream
of the Sitt Hilda he was roused by his mother saying:

"Thou must sup with us, O Abdullah!  After all thy kindness to
Iskender, thou canst scarce refuse me."

They were at the house.

With a polite show of reluctance Abdullah entered, and sat down beside
the wall, while Iskender helped his mother spread the feast for him.
Then, when all was ready, the young man wrapped some morsels in a piece
of bread, and carried them out beyond the threshold, to be alone.
Squatting there, he was once more happy in thoughts of the fair young
Englishman who, though a prince, had shown such kindness towards him.
By Allah, he would give his life for that sweet youth.  He asked no
better than to serve him always.

The highest lobes of the cactus hedge before him were like great hands
shorn of fingers thrust against the sky.  Through a gap he beheld the
lights of the Mission--fierce hostile eyes intent upon his thoughts.
The wail and bark of a jackal came from the landward plain.

"Praise to Allah!"  The voice of his mother raised for a moment above
its monotone caused him to turn and look into the house.

They had made an end of eating in there and were now arranging the
programme of Iskender's conduct towards the young Emîr.  His uncle sat
cross-legged by the wall, puffing slowly at a narghîleh, his mother
opposite to him, in the same posture, also with a narghîleh, not
smoking for the moment, but leaning forward with one hand out, talking
eagerly.  A saucer-lamp stood on the floor between them, among remnants
of the feast; it caused their faces to look ghastly, lighted thus from
below, and sent their shadows reeling up the wall.  The woman declaimed
untiringly with gestures of demonstration, and the man kept acquiescing
by a nod which set the tassel of his fez in motion.

The dull sententiousness of the dragoman and his mother's shrill, rash
judgments were alike irritating to Iskender.  They claimed to
understand the foreigners perfectly; and in truth they knew enough of
the foibles of the lords of gold to secure to themselves a livelihood.
They had never, either of them, loved a Frank.




CHAPTER III

Next morning Iskender was disturbed at daybreak by the movements of his
mother in the house.  With her black locks all dishevelled, she was
putting out his grandest clothes and dusting them in the feeble
lamp-light.

"Though shalt wear this sweet suit which thy father left thee," she
croaked out when she knew he was awake.  "That and thy new tarbûsh and
the great umbrella.  Wallah, thou wilt fill men's eyes.  Now rise, and
make haste with thy washing."

He rose accordingly and, having dedicated his works to God, dipped a
hand-bowl in the earthen jar which served as cistern, and carried it
out on to the sand before the threshold.  There the rising colour of
the dawn bewitched him; he was reminded of a certain trumpet-flower
which bloomed at Easter on the Mission walls--a flower with purple
petals and the gleam of gold in its heart; and, all on fire to register
the rare impression, he left his bowl of water on the sand and
re-entered the house to fetch his book and paint-box.  But his mother
tried to wrest them from him, cursing him for a maniac, and before he
could shake her off the colours of the sky had changed completely.  The
little disappointment made life vain.  In a pet, he overturned the
basin of water, robbed of the heart to wash his face and hands.  Then,
as his mother still kept screaming for him, he went indoors and donned
the clothes which she had laid ready.  Even then she would not let him
be, but pulled and patted at the garments till he lost his temper, and
made a rush for the door.  A horrified shriek recalled him.  The
umbrella!  He had forgotten that!  His mother thrust it on him.
Gathered up into a bunch and tied, not folded, it in shape resembled a
charged distaff of unusual size.  With it tucked beneath his arm, the
youth escaped at last into the rosy sunlight.

Up on the well-marked road which runs out to the Mission from the town
he encountered Costantîn, the missionary's servant, driving a donkey
burdened with two jars of water up towards the house.  Costantîn
remarked upon his finery, and asked where he was going.  He showed an
amiable inclination to stop and talk.  But Iskender hurried on, merely
explaining that he was going to be a great painter in the land of the
English.  Costantîn stood scratching his head and staring after him.

The road soon left the sandhills and meandered through thick
orange-groves, full of shade and perfume and the hum of bees.  Here he
advanced with circumspection, and at a turn of the way stood still to
reconnoitre.

From that point he could see a Christian village, dignified in the
distance by two palm-trees put up like sunshades over its squat mud
hovels.  The tiny church stood apart, quite overshadowed by an ancient
ilex.  It was there that he had been pelted yesterday; but at present
all looked safe.  Only two human beings were in sight--the priest, one
Mîtri, eminent in black robe and tower-like headdress, sat in thought
beneath the oak-tree, and a child in a sky-blue kirtle sprawled at play
upon the threshold of one of the houses.  The coo of doves and cluck of
hens, the only voices, sounded peaceful in the sun-filled air.
Iskender moved on, trusting hard in Allah to save his Sunday clothes
from base defilement.

The priest Mîtri, seated in the shade, was playing an innocent game
with two pebbles, which he threw into the air and caught alternately,
when Iskender, approaching humbly, wished him a happy day.  He returned
the greeting mechanically, then, seeing who it was, let fall his
playthings and stared solemnly at the disturber.  Iskender became
uncomfortably conscious of his festive raiment, more especially of the
umbrella, which seemed to fascinate Mîtri.

For release from the embarrassment of being silently devoured by eyes
as fierce and prominent as a bull's, he paused before the priest and
asked his blessing.  At that the staring orbs betrayed amazement; their
owner raised a hand to stroke his long black beard.  The child in the
sky-blue shift had left its play to observe the encounter.  Standing up
against the darkness of the doorway it revealed the figure of a slim
young girl.

Still gazing fixedly at the suppliant, who stood trembling before him,
the priest seemed to ponder the request.  Then suddenly he sprang to
his feet, crying: "Come with me!" and, seizing Iskender's arm, dragged
the terrified youth into the church, of which the door stood open.  In
there the sudden gloom, combined with a stale smell of incense,
overpowered the victim.

"Prostrate thy sinful self!" the priest enjoined.

Iskender fell upon his face obediently.  To perform the prostration he
was obliged to discard for a moment the great umbrella.  When he rose
from his knees the priest had hold of it.

"Wherefore dost thou require a blessing of me?"

Iskender confessed that he was about to present himself before a
certain great one, in the hope of patronage, and felt the need of
Heaven's favour to support his worthlessness.

"What is his name, this great one?"

"That I know not.  The man in question is the young Inklîzi who honours
the hotel of Mûsa el Barûdi.  I know only that he is a great Emîr, and
hates the missionaries."

"Then he must be of the High Church of that land, which yet holds
faithful, christening by immersion, and scorning the interpolation of
the swine of Rome.  May he be a guide to thee, poor unbaptized one.
Now, for the blessing, give me ten piasters!"

"Ten piasters!" gasped Iskender.

The enraged ecclesiastic pinched the objector's ear, and twisted it
until its owner writhed in anguish.  "For a heretic like thee it should
be thrice as much.  Remember I have power to bind as well as to loose.
Insult this place again with heathen haggling, and by the keys of
heaven and of hell, I curse thee leprous."

Iskender fell on his knees and howled for mercy.

"I have no money with me," he explained most piteously.

"Is that in truth the case?"  The priest let go his ear, and seemed to
meditate.  Iskender was aware of the girl in the sky-blue robe gazing
in at the doorway.  Her presence added to his ignominy.  "No matter!
Thou shalt pay the price another time, and in the meanwhile I shall
keep this fine umbrella."

"Alas, it is not mine!"  Iskender wrung his hands.

But Mîtri had already withdrawn into the inner darkness of the
sanctuary, whence he emerged directly, but without the umbrella.
Something white and glittering now adorned his shoulders.

As he came towards Iskender, the light from the doorway picking him out
from the surrounding gloom, he seemed to bear with him a mystic
radiance.  The young man knelt instinctively and pressed his forehead
to the ground; while the voice of the priest, now grown tender and
melodious, seemed to warble far above him like a voice from heaven.  An
angel stood in the place of his late tormentor.

"It is not thy fault that thou art a Brûtestânt," said Mîtri kindly,
when the blessing was concluded.  "Come to me sometimes; let us talk
things over.  I discern in thee some mind to know the truth."

"Is he indeed a Brûtestânt, my father?"  The girl in the sky-blue shirt
had stolen close to them.  "Ah, woe is me that one so goodly should go
the way of everlasting punishment!"

She wore no garment but the long straight kirtle.  Her hair, brought
low round either temple to be plaited in a tail behind, increased the
shadow of her eyes--great thoughtful eyes, which made the childish face
divine.  Iskender, smitten dumb with admiration, at that moment thought
of Protestantism as a foul crone.

"May thy house be destroyed, O Nesîbeh, shameless girl!" the priest
rebuked her.  "What have this youth's looks to do with thee?  Thou art
grown too big to be allowed such freedom.  It is time thou didst assume
the veil, and with it modesty."  He took his daughter's hand and
fondled it, none the less, adding: "Whence this religious fervour, soul
of mischief?"

It was with a sigh that Iskender parted from them and he went slowly,
often turning to look back at the little church beneath the oak-tree,
till his road debouched into a crowded highway, where the long intent
procession of the fellâhîn conveying the produce of their fields to
market on the backs of camels, mules and asses, on the heads of women,
reminded him of his own errand.  He then made haste to the hotel of
Mûsa el Barûdi.

The two sons of Mûsa, Daûd and Selîm, clad in robes of striped silk,
and high red fezzes, sat out on stools, one on either side of the
doorway, to feel the morning sun and chat with wayfarers.  Behind them,
against the doorpost, leaned a tall negro in white robe and turban, who
held a broom in his hand, but seemed to have done with sweeping.
Iskender approached this group with low obeisance.

"Is his Highness the Emîr within?"

The black alone condescended to heed the inquiry.  He replied with the
broadest of grins:

"May Allah heal thy intelligence.  Art possessed with a devil, or a
joker merely?"

"I mean the young khawâjah who resides here all alone," Iskender
explained, replying to the negro, though his eyes kept looking from
Daûd to Selîm, whose perfect impassivity surprised him.  He grieved for
the loss of his umbrella, which would have compelled more respect.

"Ah," grinned the negro, seeing light.  "He is at breakfast."

"Then with permission, I will wait till he comes forth."

"What is this youth?" cried Daûd irritably, without looking.

"Bid him depart!" said Selîm, moving impatiently in his seat as though
a fly annoyed him.

Of a sudden both the brothers rose and bowed profoundly, laying hand to
breast, and lips, and brow, as a Muslim notable passed up the street on
horseback.  Then they sank down again, and the obsequious smile died
away on their faces, leaving them cold and haughty as before.

"The great khawâjah is my very good friend.  He loves me dearly,"
proffered Iskender in his own excuse.  "By Allah, he is the nicest of
men!  He will be overjoyed to find me here this morning."

The scornful eyes of Daûd glanced on him for a brief moment, while
Selîm, in his turn, questioned:

"Who is this?"

"Is it not the son of one Yâcûb, a muleteer, who sold his soul years
ago to the English missionaries.  It seems such renegades are well
paid, for behold the raiment of this youth.  What wouldst thou here, O
dog, son of a dog?"

"I ask but to see my friend the Emîr, who loves me dearly--by Allah, I
speak but the truth!" pleaded Iskender, near to tears.

"Now by the sword of St. George," vociferated Daûd, roused at last,
"none of thy species enters my father's door.  Ours is an honourable
house, respected far and near.  If any of our clients needs a guide or
servant, we know where to send for one who may be trusted.  We tolerate
no lickspittle-rogues, no beggars.  Remember the abominations of thy
father and the extraordinary unchastity of thy mother, and take thy
shameful face elsewhere away from us."

"O my kind lords!" Iskender began to protest; but just then Selîm, who
had been silently working himself into a fury while his brother spoke,
sprang up, and snatching the broom from the black servant's hand,
discharged it at Iskender's head with all his strength.  The son of
Yâcûb, by a lucky move, escaped the missile; but seeing the negro
stepping forth to recover his broom, stayed to make no retort.

Having retired to the opposite side of the street, which was in shadow,
he sat down on the doorstep of a Frankish shop, and waited.  He saw his
friend of yesterday come forth at last, Selîm and Daûd rising for his
passage.  As he paused upon the steps to taste the sunny air, Iskender
caught his eye and ran to greet him.  The Emîr was gracious, asking how
he did, and at once proposing they should walk together.  Iskender gave
the sons of Mûsa a triumphant glance.

"Where are your sketching things?" the Frank inquired; and hearing they
were left behind, would go and fetch them.  They sauntered together
through the gardens out on to the sandhills, till within a
stone's-throw of Iskender's home; when the Englishman lay down on a
patch of withered herbage, saying he would wait there till his friend
returned.

Iskender passed the broken hedge at a bound and stood before his mother
in the doorway.  She screamed to Allah for protection, in the first
surprise.

"Come, O my mother!  Come and look!" he cried, and dragged her to a
point whence they could see the young Emîr, lying flat on his back, his
straw hat covering his face, for the sun was strong.  "It is himself,"
Iskender whispered, dashing on into the house; while his mother made
wild reverence in the Frank's direction, quite oblivious of the fact
that the object of her bows and servile gestures could not, from the
circumstances of his position, see them.

"Make all speed, O beloved!" she implored Iskender.  "It is not well
that his Highness should remain extended in the hot sun.  Allah forbid
that he should get a sunstroke, for his life is precious.  May our Lord
preserve him for a blessing to us!"  But while she spoke her son was
out of hearing.

Returning towards the town, the two friends had to pass the Christian
village by the ilex-tree, and the Emîr, who had seen Iskender stoned
there, insisted on his sketching the small church, vowing to punish all
who dared molest him.  Remembering the priest's daughter, he was fain,
and went to Mîtri's house to ask for water.  The girl herself appeared
in answer to his call, but, seeing who it was, ran back in terror,
crying: "O mother, help!  It is the Brûtestânt."  Whereat a slattern
dame came forth instead of her, and filled his can for him, with every
blessing.

Soon after, as he sat at work beneath the oak, the priest himself
appeared.  Iskender rose and presented the Emîr, who welcomed the
introduction with his ready smile.

"So the blessing worked, the praise to Allah!" was Mîtri's comment.  He
made the Englishman enter his house and drink coffee, then took him
into the church.  The door stood open.  Iskender caught some fragments
of the priest's discourse, from which it appeared that he was
displaying vestments and a holy relic.  When they emerged, the Frank
was thrusting money on the priest, who declined to take it, till
Iskender shouted:

"It is for the poor."

"For the poor, it is well."  Mîtri smiled and accepted the offering.
Then, with a knowing glance at the son of Yâcûb, he once more vanished
into the church, to reappear next minute with the great umbrella.
"Thou hast redeemed the pledge, my son," he said, as he restored it to
its lord, and winked discreetly.  "But what have we here?  By Allah,
thou art a complete painter, a professor of the art!  There am I, like
life.  There is my house, the church, the palm-trees.  O young man,
thou art a devil at this work.  A pity thou art a Brûtestânt, else thou
couldst make a trade of it, and make us pictures of the Blessed for our
churches.  Come, O Nesîbeh, see the pretty picture."

Iskender fixed his gaze upon the sketch.  He dared not look up, for the
girl was at his shoulder.  The whole population of the place, his foes
but yesterday, now gathered round him, praising Allah for his wondrous
talent; while the Emîr denounced the bad quality of the paint-box, gift
of the Sitt Hilda, and swore to have a proper one sent out from
England.  Iskender's heart was like to burst with pride and happiness.




CHAPTER IV

It wanted but an hour of sunset when Iskender parted from the Frank.
His very brain was laughing, and he trod on air as he strode off,
hugging the great umbrella.  At noonday he had had his meal at the
hotel (no matter though it was flung to him in the entry as to a dog)
and afterwards had walked again with the Emîr, showing his Honour the
chief buildings of the town.  Not a few of his acquaintance had beheld
his glory, among them Elias the great talker.  No doubt but that the
fame of it was noised abroad.  In no hurry to go home, for his mother
had already heard the tidings, he bent his steps towards a tavern where
the dragomans were wont to assemble at that hour.

Leaving the road of red-roofed foreign houses in which was the hotel,
he crossed a stable-yard, and then a rubbish-heap, and passed through
tunnels to the main street of the town, a narrow, shaded way leading
down to the shore.  Here, what with spanning arches and the merchants'
awnings, it was dark already; the business of the shops appeared
belated; the sunlit sea beyond was like a vision.  Dodging his way
through the crowd, avoiding bales and groaning camels, he traversed
half the street, then turned in at a gateway worthy of the noblest
mosque.

Within was a kind of cloister, three parts ruined, which had once, it
was said, appertained to a Christian church.  On one side the outer
wall had fallen, allowing a view through shadowy arches of the sunset
on the sea; on the other, just within the colonnade, an enterprising
cook had placed his brazier and all else that is required to make a
tavern.  Wherever the ground was clear of débris stools were set, and
men sat talking, smoking slow narghîlehs.  The fragrance of coffee
stewing filled the place, mixed with the peculiar odour of a charcoal
fire.

Here the English-speaking dragomans used to meet together at the cool
of the day, to practise the tongue of their profession and discuss the
news.  Clad in the gayest Oriental clothing to attract the foreigner,
their talk was all of Europe and its social splendours.  At the moment
of Iskender's entrance, a man named Khalîl was gravely playing English
music-hall airs on a concertina, having acquired the art by instruction
from an English sailor at Port Said.

Iskender advanced self-consciously, knowing himself the hero of the
hour.  And in the twinkling of an eye the music ceased; he was
surrounded.  Elias, a saffron sash at his waist, a scarlet dust-cloak
streaming from his shoulders, flung an arm around his dear friend's
neck, and cried:

"I saw thee!  Thou art in luck, my dear; for thy man is of the noblest.
I know him well by sight, for he is of the intimate friends of my lady."

This had reference to an illusion of Elias, who always maintained that
he was the lover of an English princess, and had spent a whole year as
her guest among the nobles of that distant land.

"Thou shalt present me to him, O my soul," cried a man in yet more
gorgeous raiment, "that I may judge of his character, and teach thee
how to work him to the best advantage."

"Aye, it behoves thee to present thy friends," rejoined another.  "He
is a generous man, it is known; they say he gave a sovereign to our
father Mîtri."

Iskender promised freely.  He saw his uncle beckoning to him, and
obeyed the gesture, breaking loose from the throng of courtiers.
Abdullah removed his stool to a distant spot among the ruins, whither
the servant of the tavern carried two narghîlehs.  He made his nephew
sit and smoke with him, then asked:

"What news?"

"The best--thanks to Allah," replied Iskender.  "The Emîr has shown
great love for me, and is having a grand new paint-box sent from the
land of the English."

"Pshaw!" said Abdullah, a shade of annoyance on his brow.  "Put away
such playthings, which lead nowhere.  Let thy whole study be to please
his Honour.  In dealing with all travellers the first thing is to keep
them interested; for if their mind is dull a single moment they blame
the dragoman and give him a bad report.  Thou art conversant with the
Sacred Book.  Quote from it freely in connection with common sights;
as, for instance, if thou seest people ploughing, refer straightway to
Mâr Elias who ploughed with twelve yoke of oxen before him; if a woman
fetching water from the spring, mention her with whom Our Saviour
talked beside Samaria.  Things common among us are strange to them.
To-morrow take thy patron to the bath, and conduct him through all its
stages.  Thence bring him to my house, where thou shalt find a meal
which will not fail to please him.  To sit on the floor as we do, and
eat with fingers from one dish, affords delight to foreigners.  Above
all things, keep him for thine own.  I say nought against thy taking
him this day to Mîtri, though the visit has made a noise.  Our father
Mîtri is an upright man.  But these----"

He jerked his thumb in the direction of the other dragomans, now
howling in chorus to the strains of the concertina.

"----These are all rivals--enemies.  In the season thy Emîr would seem
as nothing to them; but now he is the only game in sight.  Avoid them;
lead thy lord away from them.  Thy coming here this evening was a
fault.  Go now and quietly, lest they trap thee somehow.  I expect thee
at my house at noon to-morrow."

Iskender saw the wisdom in these words.  He shot a glance over his
shoulder at the other dragomans.  They were still busy singing to the
concertina.  Touching his uncle's hand, he stepped out through the open
arches and scrambled down over rocks and fallen masonry to the
sea-beach, whence he made his way home through the twilight.  His
mother had heard of his introducing his Emîr to the priest Mîtri, and
blamed the folly of it, till she learnt how thereby he had redeemed the
great umbrella.  Even then she still declared it was a pity.  It would
put the missionaries in a perfect fury, since an Orthodox priest was
the devil in their eyes; and was certain to rouse the cupidity of other
people.  Allah had blessed Iskender with the friendship of a mighty
prince.  She bade him keep the blessing to himself, not let it waste
away in gifts to strangers.

Her words confirmed the counsel of the wise Abdullah.  Iskender
resolved to follow it to the letter.  But when, presenting himself
before his lord next morning, he announced the programme for the day,
the Frank raised unforeseen objections.  He would in no case visit the
bath, he said, having heard that they used dirty water there.  It was
with difficulty that Iskender won him to view Abdullah's invitation
with some favour.

Abdullah's house was in the town itself, hard by the shore.  It stank
in the approach, as the Frank was not slow to remark; but within all
was swept and perfumed for the occasion.  Borrowed mats strewed the
floor.  Two candles burned upon a little shelf, before a picture of the
Blessed Virgin placed there in remembrance of the famous vision.  And
the host omitted no formula of politeness that had ever been used by a
son of the Arabs to felicitate and set at ease an honoured guest.  The
Emîr, completely reassured, smiled graciously.  The food, when it
appeared, was tasty and abundant, and his Honour seemed to like it.
But Iskender knew that it was of the cheapest: the whole feast had not
cost his uncle ten piasters.  When the Emîr, at taking leave, put two
mejidis in Abdullah's hand, he bit his lip and cursed the old man's
guile.

Thenceforth he determined to keep all English-speaking persons at a
distance, since their whole endeavour seemed to be to cheat his loved
Emîr.  But it was not so easy to discard his old acquaintance.

That same evening, after parting from his patron, he ran right into the
arms of a pair of merry fellows, who announced their playful purpose to
detain him.  Both wore their fezzes at a rakish angle, both had a
rosary dangling fashionably from the left hand, both talked and laughed
uproariously--secure in their employment by a foreign tourist agency
from the disgust of the Muslim population, whose scowls shadowed them.
Elias Abdul Messîh was one of them.  The other, who boasted a very
large hooked nose, like a parrot's beak, which reduced the rest of his
face to insignificance, was Yuhanna Mahbûb, a famous bully.

"Now we have thee!" cried Elias, laughing loudly.  "By Allah, it is
rude in thee to shun thy friends."

"Is it true that the Emîr gives thee an English pound every day?"
inquired Yuhanna.

"He is good enough to treat me as a brother, and has sworn, of his
benevolence, to make my fortune," Iskender modestly admitted.

"Pshaw!  Promises--I know them!" sneered Yuhanna.  "Coined money is the
only thing I put my faith in."

"We crave a boon of thee," pursued Elias coaxingly.  "Bring the
khawâjah to the house of Karlsberger to-morrow afternoon.  We will make
a feast in his honour and thine.  Say yes, O my soul!"

"Aye, promise," snarled Yuhanna, "or we shall know thou hast a mind to
slight us, and take steps accordingly."

Iskender promised, with intent to fail them, for the Emîr's protection
made their threat quite harmless.  He pursued his way down a sandy road
through the orange-gardens, which looked black beneath the sunset--of
unusual splendour owing to the presence in the sky of ragged clouds.  A
fellah who passed remarked that rain was coming.

"Art on the way to visit me?"  A hand fell suddenly upon Iskender's
shoulder.  A tall black-clad form had overtaken him, unheard by reason
of the muffling sand.  It was the priest Mîtri.  "Or dost thou fear to
incur the anger of the English missionaries?  By Allah, thou art wrong
to fear them.  Their religion is of man's devising; its aim is worldly
comfort, which will fail them at the Last Day; whereas ours is the
faith of Christ and the Holy Apostles, the same for which thy fathers
suffered ages before the invention of the Brûtestânt heresy.  It is the
faith of the true Romans who reigned in the city of Costantîn, when
Rome had reaped the reward of her heathen iniquity and lay in ruins, a
haunt of brigands and wild beasts.  Is it not a sin that, after the
lapse of so many ages, people calling themselves Christians, people who
have never suffered hardship for their faith as we do, come hither and
wage war upon the Church in her bound and crippled state, seducing the
feeble and the avaricious by the spectacle of their wealth and the
prospect of foreign protection?  These heretics--and the Muscovites,
our co-religionists, alas! with them--conspire against the Sultan, who
is our sole defender.  With the Muslimin we have in common language,
country, and the intercourse of daily life.  Therefore, I say, a Muslim
is less abominable before Allah than a Latin or a Brûtestânt."

The priest stopped speaking suddenly and embraced Iskender, kissing him
repeatedly on both cheeks.  At the same moment a little cavalcade went
ambling by, which solved the riddle of his strange behaviour.  Iskender
caught a scowl of disapproval from the Sitt Carûlîn, a glance of
agonised appeal from the Sitt Hilda, and then a malicious grin from old
Costantîn, as he ran by on foot, prodding with his staff the hindmost
jackass, on which the Sitt Jane sat up with face averted.  The three
ladies were clad in white with mushroom hats and fluttering face-veils.
Their bodies bulged now here, now there, like sacks of grain, obedient
to the motion of the trotting donkeys.

"There they go, mothers of all contention, shameless meddlers!" said
Mîtri, peering after them in the twilight.  "Ha, ha!  I angered them,
the praise to Allah.  I made them tremble for their nursling!"

Iskender made no answer, feeling angry with the priest.  At that
reproachful glance of the Sitt Hilda, all his childhood had risen up
and testified against him.  His heart was stricken with profound
compunction.  He broke away from Mîtri as soon as possible, refusing an
invitation to enter his house and argue with him, and sped on across
the sandhills to his own home.  There, in the little house, a lamp was
lighted; his mother stood at the doorway looking out for him.
Breathless, he informed her of his encounter with the Mission ladies,
and the priest's vile trick to shame him.

"Aha," she laughed, "a famous joker is our father Mîtri.  I would give
much to have seen the faces of those harridans!  Nevertheless, may his
house be destroyed, for he has done me an ill-turn with his foolery.
The ladies are certain to come here tomorrow, deafening me with the
outcry of their poisonous spite.  For thee, it recks not, thou hast thy
Emîr.  In sh' Allah thou wilt soon get money from him.  Then thou canst
laugh at the malevolence of these hypocrites!"

But Iskender was not to be so easily consoled.  He lay awake that
night, a prey to poignant self-disgust, remembering in turn his happy
childhood at the Mission, his love for the Sitt Hilda, and his recent
frowardness, each with a vividness that hurt his brain.  Even the
patronage of a great Emîr seemed nothing worth as compared with the
affection of those who had brought him up.  The Emîr spoke lightly of
religion; he despised the missionaries; it might well be he was wicked,
a servant of the Evil One, a creature of that outer darkness into which
he (Iskender) had fallen through his own fault.  Then he thought of the
priest Mîtri, and of the beautiful child who for a moment had ensnared
his fancy; and was overwhelmed with pity for himself.  He belonged to
nobody.  The missionaries loved him so little that they were content to
cast him off for small offences; while for the Orthodox he remained a
Protestant, a filthy thing.  In his thirst for comfort he was driven
back on dreams of greatness, of buried treasure some day to be found,
which would cause the English and the natives of the land alike to
grovel in the dirt before him.  Warmed by such thoughts he fell asleep
at last.

When he awoke in the morning his mind was healed.  He viewed the
Mission with the old resentment, and placed his every hope in the Emîr.
On his way to the hotel he saw the daughter of Mîtri throwing crumbs to
the church pigeons, and blew a kiss to her with words of love, only to
laugh loud when, picking up a stone, she cursed his father.  At the
entering-in of the town he was accosted by Elias, who sprang suddenly
from the shade of a cactus-hedge.  Yuhanna followed, yawning.  It was
clear that they had been lying in wait.

"This afternoon, at the house of Karlsberger; forget not," Elias cried.
"We have ordered a fine feast in thy friend's honour."

"Fail us not, or it shall be the worse for thee," put in Yuhanna.

Iskender swore obedience to their will and hurried on, mentally
resolved to hire horses and take his Emîr for a ride until the evening.
It would be easy to say the Frank had willed it so, in which case none
could blame him.  With this in mind he entered the hotel.  But again
his Emîr proved refractory.  The air that morning oppressed him, he
declared, and the sons of Mûsa said that it was going to rain.  He
proposed a stroll to some near spot among the gardens, where he could
read while his companion sketched.

Iskender still had hope to foil the dragomans.  He led his patron in a
direction opposite to that where he had left Elias.  But, looking back,
he saw two figures shadowing them, and knew the game was up.

In fact, no sooner had they found a cool retreat than Elias and Yuhanna
sauntered up, hailing Iskender with delight as loving comrades.  He was
obliged to present them to his Emîr, and from the moment of
introduction they had words for no one else, inquiring how his Honour
liked the place, and asking if he knew this and that great lord of the
English with whom they, by their own accounts, stood high in favour.
They presented their invitation with every circumstance of respect, and
the Emîr accepted it; and then, by the veriest accident, the eyes of
Yuhanna happened to light upon the ousted youth.

"Ah," he exclaimed, "you like this little one, our dear Iskender!  A
good boy, sir, only don't know much yet.  Baints fery nicely, for a
young 'un.  He show you, sir, the way this afternoon."

A tear fell splash upon Iskender's drawing-book.




CHAPTER V

The house of Karlsberger stood in a hollow of the southern sandhills,
only discoverable on a close approach, so that the sight of its red
roof, something like an extinguisher, came always as a surprise.

Its owner was of the number of those Jewish immigrants who, lured by
the offer of perpetual charity, had of late years come in their
thousands to occupy lands provided by their rich co-religionists.  But
the life of a husbandman soon palled on Karlsberger, accustomed to
trade upon the vices of a European city; and his wife, a former harlot,
shared his disgust.  As soon as he could gather money enough he had
left agriculture to the dullards, and built this house near the town as
a rendezvous for all who loved the flavour of depravity.  For the
dragomans and their kind the house of Karlsberger stood for the fashion
and gay life of Europe.

Thither Iskender conducted his lord in the manner of a reluctant
follower rather than a guide.  He had said all he could to dissuade the
Frank from going, had exaggerated the ill repute of the place, and
called the dragomans low, drunken blackguards; but all in vain.  The
Emîr was bent on going; and his slave went with him miserably, feeling
sure that the kindness he had himself inspired would not survive the
introduction to a set of dashing fellows, whose profession it was to
win the hearts of foreigners.  The air was sultry, the expanse of sand
glared hatefully beneath a sky veiled all over with thin cloud.  All
nature, in accordance with his mood, seemed glum and spiteful.

In sight of the house he pointed to it without a word.  It looked in
truth a pretty place for a great prince to visit.  With a gloomy
satisfaction Iskender noticed filth about the threshold, and shabby
garments spread to dry upon the window-sill.

Sounds of talk and laughter came from the open door.  They ceased
directly the Emîr was seen by those within; and some dozen men,
assembled in a narrow room, rose as one and saluted.  The room had been
roughly cleaned for the occasion, the dust and filth of the floor
having been swept into the four corners, where it lay in heaps.  The
ceiling and the white-washed walls were grimy, and dust made a bloom on
the ragged curtains of the window, looped pretentiously; a three-legged
table all but filled the room, leaving just room for one to pass around
it.  His lord was ushered to the seat of honour, a sofa covered with a
fabric which had once been plush, but now resembled draggled sealskin;
while Iskender went quite unnoticed till the wife of Karlsberger--a
bulky slattern, who kept shuffling in and out with plates and
glasses--perceived his need, and placed a stool for him.  Through
confusion and annoyance he caught nothing of the conversation till
Elias, in a mincing voice, announced:

"The grub quite ready."

The Englishman laughed at that; upon which Elias, dancing up to him,
exclaimed:

"You are a good fellow; I see that.  I like you, and so blease to see
you here."

All then drew close to the table, on which were set forth many tempting
viands, including mottled discs of German sausage, anchovies, pickled
gherkins, and huge chunks of Frankish bread.  A bottle of rum and a
bottle of gin stood one at each end of the board, attended by glasses
of all shapes and sizes.

"Allow me to helb you, sir--a bit of sausage?" cried Elias, seizing a
knife and presenting it at the dish in question.  The Emîr laughed
again, which was the signal for an obsequious roar.  He said he would
prefer some bread and anchovy, and could help himself.  He accepted a
little of the rum for politeness' sake, and then professed himself
satisfied.  After some outcry on his lack of appetite the rest of the
party fell to with avidity.  The presence of his uncle, which he now
realised for the first time, relieved Iskender from the fear of
personal indignity.  He, too, attacked the victuals with good appetite,
but refused the spirits, strong in the example of Abdullah's
abstinence.  The work of eating was soon done, and every one sat back
for conversation.  There was much ostentatious picking of teeth, and
noises of repletion came from all sides.  Tongues were loosed, and vied
one with another to display deep knowledge of the English speech and
manners.  The company abounded in expressions such as "old chap,"
"never say die," and "right you are!" which Iskender, from his
education, knew to be inappropriate.  Every one too, except Abdullah,
made believe to revel in the gin and rum, out of compliment to the
guest, whose national drink it was; but Iskender was not deceived by
their hilarity.  Sitting at the opposite end of the room to his patron,
he saw the wry faces which were turned away at every sip.  Elias, quite
beside himself with adulation, and intoxicated already by the success
of his facetious sallies, drank and drank again with convivial gestures.

"Ha, ha!" he cried, "I'm feelin' deflish habby.  So fery nice to be
with English beeble.  The English are our friends; they're Christians
like what we are.  Blease God, they take this country like they taken
Egybt, and gif the Turks an' Muslims good old Hell!  Ha, ha! we're
English, we are, just the same.  The Turks all done for--no dam' good.
The Christians kick 'em all the time.  They got to lick our boots,
that's sure.  The English they soon string up the rotten ole Sultan,
first they christen 'im jus' for luck----"

His words were drowned in cries of horrified protest; his neighbours at
the table flung themselves upon the rash talker, stopping his mouth
forcibly with their hands; while old Abdullah rose up in authority and
loudly denounced such sentiments as high treason, with glances at the
open door as at an audience.  Iskender could see the Frank was quite
bewildered; he sat smiling on all that occurred without intelligence.
Elias, when let go, was laughing heartily.

"Well, I neffer!" he observed.  "Who's afraid?"

Just then Khalîl, the concertina-player, a dull-eyed, fattish man, who
had kept silence, suddenly drew all eyes upon himself by picking up his
instrument from the floor and playing a few chords softly.

"All right, Khalîl!  Come along then!  Neffer say die, ole chabbie!"
Elias encouraged him.

"I blay you 'Bob goose the Whistle,'" said the musician seriously, and
at once struck up a jerky Frankish tune, with eyes intently fixed on
the Emîr, garnering his every smile and sign of pleasure.  When his
Honour showed a disposition to sing the words of the refrain, he played
more loudly than before in triumph.  All present flung back their heads
and bawled in discord, producing a din so horrible that the Jew
Karlsberger, with his wife and child, appeared from an inner room with
scared white faces.

"Merciful Allah, make less noise!" the Israelite besought the
revellers.  "If a Muslim were to hear you, I am ruined."

At that Elias rose with dignity and swaggering towards the Jew with a
Frankish elegance which the depth of his potations made unsteady,
seized the landlord by the breast of his gaberdine.  He lifted an
admonishing finger, saying:

"You hold your row, Mr. Karlsberger.  You go to Blazes, my fery good
friend!"

The Jew, who knew no English, accepted the assurance and retired.

The musician struck into another tune, but soon desisted, finding his
art forgotten in a general clamour of conversation, every one
addressing the Frank, who, after looking from one to another at a loss,
gave ear to Yuhanna Mahbûb, who sat next him.  Yuhanna, like Elias, had
partaken of the rum and gin.  He struck a vein of amorous reminiscence,
and began boasting of his conquests among English ladies.  Abdullah
sharply bade him hold his tongue.

"He is a boaster, sir, and neffer did nothing what he say he did," said
that respectable man in explanation to the visitor.  "If he really done
such things, he neffer sbeak about them, that sure; he know he get the
sack for such a shame."

"Shame!" chorused Elias with a reproachful shake of the head.  "Hear,
hear!  Order, order!  By God, you are a nasty beast, Yuhanna."

As he spoke he poured out rum into a tumbler, without looking, till the
glass was half full.

Iskender, seeing the disgust in the Frank's face deepen, waxed
exultant.  It was time to leave now, while that look endured.  He
caught his uncle's eye.  The old man nodded.

"It is time that we dispersed," he said in Arabic, "unless we wish to
get wet through.  See how the sky has clouded over while we sat here.
Remember, it is the year's first rain, which means a deluge."

"He speaks truth"--"Rain is coming"--"See the clouds," cried one and
another, peering out on the world.  The company obeyed the motion of
its acknowledged sheykh, all save Elias, who had got beyond the reach
of all authority.

"You think I'm goin' yet, you silly ole fool!" he cried in English.
"No dam' jolly fear!  I haf not yet talk to my friend, this nice kind
mister!"

And holding in one hand the glass half full of rum, he staggered to the
sofa, till then sacred to the Emîr, and sank down on it with a
contented hiccup.

"My dear luffed friend, now we talk a little.  The rest, they go to
Hell," he said; and tried to kiss the Frank.

He measured his length on the floor, the tumbler was broken, the rum
spilt.  In a moment the whole room was in an uproar.  All who could get
near enough tendered abject apologies to the guest for their
companion's rudeness; while those debarred by concourse from that
privilege, consoled themselves by kicking and punching the prostrate
Elias, who wept aloud, still crying: "My friend!  My dearest friend!"
In the midst of this tumult, Khalîl struck up the English National
Hymn, a carefully reserved effect which he was unwilling to forgo.

At length the Emîr won his way to the door, where Iskender was waiting
for him, too happy in the turn events had taken to shake his head or
say "I told you so."  They were joined by old Abdullah.  Indoors,
behind them, the shrieks of the Jew and his spouse were now heard high
above the furious talking and the strains of the concertina.

"He come to you to-morrow, sir, and lie down on the floor and lick your
boots; I'll see to that," said Abdullah with determination.

"Curse it all!  I lost my temper!" said the Frank with a nervous laugh.

"We best make haste, sir," said Abdullah, pointing eastward.

The sky inland was black as ink and formless; the sand looked white as
sun-bleached bone by contrast; the dark green wave of the
orange-gardens appeared pale; a palm-tree in the distance stood up wan
against the impending cloud.  Presently a flash of lightning made them
quicken step; big drops of water fell like bullets round them.  Before
they could reach the hotel the rain came down in sheets, beating up the
sand like smoke, and they were drenched to the skin.  The Emîr lent his
henchman some dry clothes and insisted on his remaining till the storm
passed over.  Iskender knew that it might last for days.  He dispatched
a ragamuffin, who had sought shelter in the hotel entry, with a message
to relieve his mother's mind; and soon found himself arrayed in clothes
too large for him, sitting in a drawing-room only less luxurious than
that of the Mission, looking at some English pictures, while the Frank
wrote letters.  Truly, it seemed, he had been born to honour.




CHAPTER VI

When Iskender rose next morning from the bed on the floor of the
entrance-hall which he had been permitted to share with the black
servant, he saw a woeful figure in the doorway.  A man, wrapped in a
great cloak of camel's hair, sat staring out dejectedly at the
daylight, which was greenish grey, the whole air seeming turned to
falling water.  A hood drawn low upon his brow concealed his face,
except the smouldering anguish of the eyes, when he turned at sound of
movements in the hall behind him.

Elias--for he it was--sprang up and made the bound required to bring
him within reach of his friend's hand, which he forthwith seized and
carried to his lips, cringing low and moaning:

"O my horror!  O my bitter shame!  For the love of Allah, speak for me
with his noble Highness!  Thou knowest how I always loved thee, and
stood thy friend when others scoffed at thee.  Persuade thy Emîr to
forgive me and keep silence, or I shall lose my employment, and my wife
and little ones will come to want!"

Iskender's heart leapt up in thanks to Allah for thus abasing one who
had conspired against him.  He pressed the suppliant's hand in both his
own.

"Now Allah witness how I always loved thee!" he murmured with a gaze of
fond compassion.  "It hurt my soul to see thee siding with my enemies,
scheming to supplant me in the favour of my dear lord."

"By Allah, thy thoughts wrong me!" cried Elias with wild earnestness.
"Ask Yuhanna, ask Khalîl!  My efforts were against them all, on thy
behalf.  How canst thou think such harm of one who loves thee?"

The speaker burst into a passion of tears.

"Weep not, O my dear!" Iskender murmured soothingly.  "In sh' Allah,
all may yet be well, though I will not disguise from thee that my lord
is angry."

"Obtain but a hearing for me; that is all I ask.  My tears shall wash
his feet; my groans, my heartfelt penitence will surely move him."

"Thou knowest that I will do all in my power to save thee.  But, alas!
my influence is not boundless.  By naming thy name in his presence, and
seeming anxious to excuse thy fault, I fear to draw a measure of his
Honour's wrath upon myself.  Last evening he was full of rage against
thee, vowing to see thee a beggar in the gate of the town.  And he has
sworn at the first opportunity to make complaint of thy behaviour to
the English consul."

At mention of the consul Elias collapsed utterly.  He sank down on the
marble pavement, huddled up in his cloak, his chin upon his breast,
moaning like one insensible through stress of pain.  Complaint to the
consul meant his life-long ruin as a dragoman, since he depended on the
English for his daily bread.

At length he cried:

"Thou must, thou shalt, befriend me!  I adjure thee by Him who took our
flesh upon Him, by the Holy Cross!  Allah will reward thee, and I
myself will be thy slave till death."

Pouncing once more upon Iskender's hand, he pressed two large coins
down upon the open palm.

"What is this, O my soul?" cried the youth in amazement, after looking
to make sure the coins were silver.  "Are such things needed between me
and thee?"

He pulled out his silver watch--the gift of the wife of the missionary,
the excellent mother of George, which she had caused to be sent
expressly from the land of the English--and gazed long and pensively at
the face of it.  Though he had risen later than his custom, deceived by
the darkness of the rain prolonging night, it wanted still an hour of
the Emîr's waking.  He said:

"His Honour is still in his chamber; he objects to be disturbed while
dressing.  Nevertheless, since thy cause is urgent, I will crave an
audience."

"Our Lord reward thee," sobbed Elias gratefully.

Iskender repaired to the hotel kitchen, and spent some minutes talking
to the cook, who was his friend, before he returned and said:

"His Highness will not hear me.  At mention of thy name he shut his
ears."  Then, when Elias burst into a fit of weeping that seemed like
to strangle him, he added: "But he was in the act of bathing his whole
body, which he does daily in cold water.  It may be that the coldness
of the water made him angry.  After a little, I will try again."

"May Allah prolong thy life!  From this day forth Elias is thy servant.
I will give thee my gold ring with the large carbuncle, if thou bring
this business to a good result."

After a decent interval, Iskender paid another visit to the kitchen
and, returning, said:

"He gave no answer to my knock, and I feared to enrage him by repeated
knocking.  I will return presently."

Elias promised him a dagger of rare workmanship.

"He bade me go away, though not in anger," was the next report.

Elias promised him a pistol with jewelled mountings; and after that a
saddle with rich tassels, a holy book, some silver buttons, and a young
mare of the noblest desert breed.  Thus time passed pleasantly, till
the sons of Mûsa emerged from their sleeping apartment.  Iskender dare
not pursue the game with them about; but humbly presented Elias,
explaining the reason of his presence.  They at once offered themselves
to plead the cause of the sufferer, who was a friend of theirs.

But the son of Yâcûb was beforehand with them.  He sped straight to the
bedroom of the Frank, who by good luck was up and dressed, and informed
him of the penitence of Elias, begging forgiveness for that broken man.
The Emîr consented with a laugh.  Together they went down into the
hall, where Iskender presented the suppliant to his Emîr, in the face
of the sons of Mûsa, and of all the servants who came crowding to the
sight.

Elias fell down flat before the great one and embraced his feet.  He
seemed unconscious when the Frank addressed him.  It was by the
exertions of the sons of Mûsa and the group of servants that the
despairing wretch at length received assurance of forgiveness.  With
tears of joy he kissed the hand of his preserver; then, suddenly
flinging open the vast cloak, which he had till now kept close around
him, he revealed a splendid whip of rhinoceros-hide, mounted and ringed
with silver.  Iskender felt cruelly defrauded; it was with difficulty
that he suppressed a cry of rage; for had he so much as guessed that
such a thing was hid beneath the cloak of the blubberer, he would long
ago have had it for his own.  Elias thrust that whip upon the Frank,
who would fain have refused it; but, the sons of Mûsa and the servants
joining the donor in entreaties, he at last gave way.

When his patron went to breakfast, Iskender received many compliments.
His manifest ascendency over the mind of the Englishman had made a
favourable impression even on the sons of Mûsa.  This was as it should
be.  But it did not please him, as the day wore on, to find that Elias,
out of gratitude for his forgiveness, intended to remain in close
attendance on the Emîr.

Divested of his cloak, his slim but manly figure cased in showy
garments, his moustache curled ferociously up to the eyes, his fez
tilted jauntily to one side, Elias appeared to Iskender's jealousy the
most attractive of men.  And as he recovered spirits, his talk showed
the lively sparkle which enchanted travellers.

It being impossible to get out, the Emîr brought down a book, and read
to them in the entrance-hall.  The tale was one of wild adventures in
the search for treasure.  It fascinated Iskender.  But Elias was
reminded by one of the incidents of a lion he had slain upon Mount
Sinai; and the Frank shut up the book to hear his story.  Elias
described all the fortunes of the fight with singular realism, opening
his mouth very wide and roaring when momentarily impersonating the
lion.  The Frank showed great amusement; Iskender was vexed with him
for encouraging the silly liar.  He gave praise to Allah when Elias
departed for the night.

But his bugbear returned next morning, as the Frank emerged from
breakfast, claiming praise for his devotion in coming through such
weather.  The wady to the north of the town was now a raging torrent,
he informed them.  With his own eyes he had seen ten righteous men torn
off their feet and carried clean away.  More than a hundred camels had
been swept far out to sea.

"He is a big liar, sir," Iskender whispered in the ear of his lord, who
appeared unduly stricken by these tidings; and in proof of the
assertion, he referred the matter to the sons of Mûsa, who said that a
donkey laden with vegetables had been washed away.  Elias, in no wise
disconcerted, thanked God that things were no worse.  But Iskender
triumphed, informed by the Frank's sneer that he had struck a
death-blow at his rival's influence.  That done, he felt all kindness
for the handsome dragoman, now his manifest inferior, and encouraged
him to show off for the Emîr's amusement.  He even, in the course of
the day, assured his patron that Elias was not a bad man.

That evening the rain diminished sensibly; in the course of the night
it ceased.  The dawn next day was cloudless when Iskender set out early
for his mother's house.




CHAPTER VII

"May Allah keep thee!  Here is a nice to-do!"  His mother, who had
spied Iskender from afar, stood in a gap of the cactus hedge with arms
akimbo.  "Was ever woman blessed with such a son?  The Father of Ice
was here before the rain, he and the Sitt Jane with him.  They spoke
against thee ceaselessly for two hours, till my poor back ached with
standing there and bowing, and my head swam round with listening to
their tiresome iterations.  Had I not heard it all before a thousand
times--thy idleness, thy kissing the Sitt Hilda, thy choice of low
companions in the town?  And then thy friends--Elias, what a wretch!
Once, years ago, when conducting a party of travellers, he pushed his
horse among the ladies, who were on their donkeys.  Unheard-of
insolence!  He shouted--actually shouted at English ladies--to make
way; of course, they paid no heed to such impertinence, and then he
rode among them.  Ma sh' Allah!  And Mîtri too!  To hear them talk of
Mîtri, any one would suppose the poor, good priest some dreadful ghoul.
. . .  All that was empty talk, however spiteful, and Allah knows I am
well seasoned to it.  But when they came to speak of thy Emîr, and
swore to turn his mind against thee, I saw danger.  What ailed thy wits
that thou must needs tell Costantîn a tale of thy going to the land of
the English to study the art of painting at thy lord's expense?  They
have it that thou wouldst defraud the good young man. . . .  Ah!  Allah
knows I have my fill of troubles."

She paused from sheer exhaustion, pressing a hand to her heart.

Iskender laughed at her concern, assuring her that his favour with the
Emîr was now established past all fear of assault.  Exultant from his
recent triumphs, and flushed from a walk through air which the rain had
left pure and invigorating, he did in truth believe himself beyond the
grasp of adversity.  His mother's woe seemed senseless.  When he told
of the wicked plot of the dragomans, and how signally it had failed
through Allah's mercy, it angered him to see her wag her head with
boding looks.  She could not realise the victory his words implied.

"Think, O my mother!" he cried out impatiently.  "These three days have
I been his guest and chosen comrade, sitting with him at all
hours--aye, even in the seat of honour in the guest-room, in my
slippers--admitted to the secret of his every thought.  It is well seen
that he loves me truly.  Give praise to Allah, therefore, and throw
grief aside."

But his mother still looked rueful as she shuffled about the room
getting food--a bowl of curds, some olives, and a slab of bread--to set
before him.

"All that is well enough," she grumbled audibly, "but to what end?  By
Allah, I perceive no profit in it.  Thy need is money, not mere
compliments.  Better get him to appoint thee monthly wages as his
servant."

"Merciful Allah! is my mother mad?" exclaimed Iskender, teeth on edge
with irritation.  The woman's lack of understanding rasped his soul.
"He loves me as a friend, an equal, not a slave.  And what are the
paltry wages of a servant as compared with the friendship of a mighty
prince?  In the end he is certain to provide for me honourably; he will
make me a great painter, as I said to Costantîn."

"In sh' Allah, it may prove so," replied his mother; "but I doubt it
greatly.  Thou wast ever one to follow distant dreams, neglecting the
good that lay within hand's reach.  Were Elias or Yuhanna in thy place,
no doubt at all but they would make some money.  There is a chance when
making purchases or hiring horses for his Honour.  But thou art capable
of scorning every gain--nay, even of bestowing all thy goods!--for the
sake of a fine friendship which may leave thee naked."

"By Allah, I will hear no more of this!"  Iskender started to his feet,
past patience.  "Know that my love for my Emîr equals his love for me.
He is my soul; how then should I defraud him?  I shall buy for him as
for myself; he shall admire my honesty--it is the virtue most esteemed
among the Franks--and be assured that in the end he will reward it."

His mother sighed profoundly, and spread out her hands.

"Thou art young, O my son, nor hast thou my experience.  It is true
that the Franks hate guile or any cleverness; but I never heard of one
of them rewarding honesty.  For them it is a thing of course,
unnoticed.  I warrant thou wilt get no credit for it.  Moreover, Allah
knows thou needest money; for, if the missionary's wrath goes on
increasing, I cannot keep thee here.  I must either turn thee out or
lose a good appointment which enables me to lay by something every year
for thy future fortune.  They grow to hate thee so that soon they will
refuse to send their dirty garments to be washed where thou dost dwell.
. . .  Wouldst leave me now already, when I have not seen thee for
three days?  May thy house be destroyed!  Stop, in the name of Allah;
stop, I say!  Was ever mother cursed with such a son?"

But by then Iskender had passed through the cactus hedge, and was
running down into the sandy hollow.  The clear, cool air at once
restored his exultation, and his mother's words became a buzz of flies
which he had left behind.  The sky was dreamy blue; the sandhills rose
against it shapely like the backs and flanks of couchant lions.  The
red roof of the Mission on its ridge seemed placed there by some
childish whim--a thing incongruous.  As Iskender fixed his gaze on it,
he saw a figure coming thence with speed--a figure in dark Frankish
clothes beneath the red tarbûsh, which he recognised as that of Asad
son of Costantîn.  A minute later he was called by name, and saw the
same shape running fast towards him.

"O my soul!" cried Asad, panting, as he drew near.  "What are these
tidings that we hear of thee?  Why wilt thou show thyself to
disadvantage?"  Pausing to gather breath, he caught Iskender's hand and
pressed it to his heart.  "What is this talk of thy friendship with the
priest Mîtri?  Wouldst thou for ever forfeit the goodwill of those
above?"  He jerked his head towards the Mission, hidden from where they
stood by the brow of the sandhill.  "Only think!  To whom in all the
land can we look for support and encouragement unless to these people
who have brought us up?  The Orthodox have neither wealth nor
influence.  Wert thou to join them, I fail to see how it could profit
thee.  In this land there is no hope for a Christian unless by foreign
protection.  And of all the races of foreigners the English are the
richest and the most powerful.  By Allah, thou wast a fool ever to
anger them; thou shouldst have hid thy thoughts and bowed to their will
in all things, even as I do.  Thou seest they will make of me a priest,
a grand khawâjah.  They would have done the same for thee hadst thou
behaved with common prudence.  If not a priest, thou mayest still
become a well-paid schoolmaster by their protection.  Thou wouldst do
well, therefore, to forsake this Mîtri, who has nothing to offer.  Be
advised, I entreat thee!"

Asad was a tall, lean youth, lantern-jawed, and of a serious
countenance, in age a few months younger than Iskender.  His complexion
was swarthier than the common, and his eyes, like the eyes of his
father Costantîn, were furtive, with a cast of malice.  The boys had
always been on friendly terms, in spite of standing jealousy between
their parents.  But to-day the patronage in Asad's speech incensed
Iskender.  What need had he, the Emîr's right-hand, of compassion and
advice from any whipper-snapper?  He replied with sarcasm:

"May Allah repay thy kindness, O my dear!  Had I known thy mind had
such anxiety on my account I should certainly have sent a messenger to
reassure thee.  Believe me, all thy fears for my welfare are quite
groundless, for never had I such good cause to praise the Lord as at
this present.  Behold me in the road to wealth and honour, possessing
the favour of an English nobleman, for whom these missionaries are mere
specks of dirt.  My kind lord vows that I have talent as a maker of
likenesses, and wishes me to receive the best instruction in that art.
For a beginning, he has sent express to the land of the English for
better instruments and materials than I could here obtain.  Indeed,
there is no cause to fear for me.  The praise to Allah!"

"Praise to Allah!" echoed Asad sneeringly, stung to reprisals by
Iskender's tone.  "But concerning that Emîr of thine I have a word to
say.  They have heard up there how thou hast fastened on him like a
leech, and dost boast to all men that his wealth is thine.  I myself
heard the Father of Ice declare that thy designs were iniquitous and
must be thwarted.  He himself will go to the Emîr and tell him thy
whole history, which is nothing good; so thou hadst best beware.  By
Allah, thou dost wrong to take this tone with me, who came as a friend
to warn thee!"

"I thank thee," rejoined Iskender loftily.  "But have no fear, I say
again, for my Emîr esteems and loves me far too well to give ear to
lying tales made up by mischief-makers.  Moreover, he abhors the
missionaries with such utter loathing that I think he would defile the
beard of the Father of Ice did the poor wretch dare approach him.  Thou
supposest the missionaries to be all-powerful, as I did once.  But,
believe me, they are nothing thought of in their own land.  My Emîr
would hardly deign to notice things so low.  Now I must leave thee, O
my dear, for my lord awaits me."

He began the ascent of the sandhill.

"Well, remember I have warned thee!" shouted Asad after him.

Relieved of the irritant of the lank youth's voice and presence,
Iskender felt dismay at his own boastfulness, and repented of it humbly
before Allah.  He knew that a jealous eye is fixed upon the heart of
every man to mark when pride leaps up and straightway blight it.  To
show elation was to court calamity.  However, he repeated divers
formulas reputed potent to avert the evil; and when, from a high point
of the dunes, he saw the minarets and the square roofs of the town
standing forth clear and white with the blue sea for background, beyond
the gardens freshened by the rain, he clean forgot misgivings.




CHAPTER VIII

The love Iskender bore to his Emîr transfigured every detail of
familiar life.  The walk to the hotel each morning was a joy through
expectation, the return each evening a delight through memory.  The
vestibule in which he waited his lord's pleasure, with its marble
pavement and its painted walls, a few cane chairs and tables, and a
great clock ticking steadily, became the entrance-hall of paradise.  Of
nights the thought of sitting there next morning caused his pulse to
quicken.  The sons of Mûsa and the negro doorkeeper shared in the
radiance of his loved one's neighbourhood.  It was easier for his mind
to pasture on accessories than to conjure up the Emîr's own presence,
which left the memory blind as with excess of light.  At times he would
recall with a thrill the lofty brow with short fair hair reposing on
its summit as lightly as tamarisks upon the crest of a dune, the
laughing sea-blue eyes with golden lashes, or it might be the smooth
curves of mouth and chin.  But the face as a whole escaped him, though
he never tired of studying it, and was always trying to produce its
likeness; now with pencil upon paper, now with finger in the sand.  No
artist in the world could hope to show the beauty of that face as he
beheld it, the glow its smile diffused through all his being.  Even his
mother's shrieks to him to get money from the Emîr enhanced his
rapture, making his own pure love shine forth more brightly.

A week's fine weather followed on the rain.  The Emîr rode out on
horseback every day, with Iskender at his right hand, and Elias, who
was a showy rider, circling round them.  Iskender had told Elias
plainly:

"The Emîr is mine.  I found him; and shall keep him all my own."

"It is known he is thine," the elder had made answer with all
deference.  "Allah forbid that I should seem to rival thee!  But his
Honour has been merciful to me, and my soul is bound to him and thee in
gratitude.  Moreover, nowadays I have much spare time, which I can
scarcely hope to spend more profitably than in the society and
conversation of so exalted and refined a nobleman.  He is thine and
shall remain so.  Only drive me not away!"

Iskender acceded to this petition the more readily that his Emîr, he
could see, regarded the most exquisite of dragomans simply as a
standing joke.  They laughed together at his superstition and his
boastfulness.  But their butt was really serviceable in small ways,
knowing where to hire good horses at the lowest price, and pointing out
in the course of their rides objects of interest of the very existence
of which Iskender had been ignorant.

Never had the son of Yâcûb known such happiness as he tasted in those
rides across the plain which basked in sunshine, with violet mountains
before them and a gleam of the sea behind.  Here they traversed a
mud-village plumed with palms, its narrow ways alive with dogs, and
fowls, and children, where Iskender shouted, "Way for the Emîr!" till
men and women bowed their heads and praised him; there an olive-grove
profuse of dappled shade, where they were content to let their horses
walk at ease.  In their saddle-bags was much good food from the hotel,
which they devoured at noon in some secluded spot; when Elias would
discourse to them of strange vicissitudes, of beggars suddenly uplifted
to the height of honour, and the Emîr, reclining lazily, would smile
and wink privately at Iskender, who, at every such mark of preferment,
longed to kiss his feet.  No marvel yet related by Elias could compare
with his own good fortune in Iskender's eyes.

One evening, on their return to the hotel, when two stable-boys were
leading off the tired horses, and Iskender, with Elias, stood waiting
to take leave of his kind lord, the negro brought a little card to the
Emîr, who eyed it strangely.

"It is that missionary-man you hate so," he informed Iskender.  "What
in the name of Moses made him call on me?"

"Ha, ha!  'Name of Moses!'" laughed Elias, who was daily adding to his
store of English idioms.  "By gum, that's good!"

Iskender inwardly thanked Allah Most High for his mercy in directing
the Father of Ice to call while the Emîr was out.  He thought no more
of it.  They rode again the next day and the next; his happiness went
on, unshadowed, till a certain morning when the Frank announced, with a
yawn, that he supposed he must return the visit of the missionary.
This he gave as a reason for not riding on that day.  He would write
off arrears of letters in the morning, and in the afternoon would walk
out to the Mission.

Iskender's jaw fell.  It had never occurred to him as even remotely
possible that his Emîr would stoop to enter the abode of people he had
always mentioned with such fine contempt.  The picture of his loved one
seated in the well-known drawing-room, an object of attention to the
ladies, hobnobbing with the Father of Ice--his Emîr, whom he had come
to regard as the very counterblast of that house and all it stood
for--gave him a sense of being upside down.  The Frank laughed at his
dismay, inquiring:

"Why so surprised?  I must return the poor man's call in mere
politeness."

"They hate me very much there," said Iskender miserably.  "I fear they
tell you things not true about me."

"I know the truth from you, don't I?  Let them say what they like!"

Iskender went forth from his presence, pondering this reassurance,
which contained no comfort for him, since he had given his lord to
understand that he had received his education at the Mission as an
independent paying pupil, and had quite concealed the fact that his
mother was a washerwoman.  The Emîr, if he thought at all of the
matter, supposed him a youth of substance.  How could he think
otherwise, when he heard Iskender offer to defray the cost of horses,
and saw him daily bring some present in his hand?  Now he would learn
the truth.

Elias was standing in the doorway talking to Daûd son of Mûsa when his
friend came out.  He noticed his glum looks, and asked the cause.

"My Emîr is going to visit that accursed missionary, who hates me and
will work my ruin if he can."

"Why then remain a Brûtestânt among such enemies?  Return to the
Orthodox Church, and thou shalt find friends enough."

The mighty Daûd deigned for once a glance at Iskender.  The house of
Mûsa were fanatics in religion.

Elias took Iskender's hand and went out with him.

"The news is bad for me, too," he said ruefully, "for they hate me
also--curse their religion!"

"What matter for thee?  He is not thy Emîr.  For me, it is the risk of
life itself."

Iskender broke away from him at the first chance, and walked back to
his home upon the sandhills.  His mother screamed surprise at sight of
him.

"My Emîr is busy," he explained, assuming cheerfulness as a good shield
from questions, which might easily have probed too far into his cause
for grief.  For the same reason he forbore all mention of the purposed
visit of his Emîr to the Mission.  "I am free to-day, and so returned
to see if I could help thee in the house."

Receiving his offer of help in sober earnest, she sent him presently
upon an errand to the house of Costantîn; but on the way there, with
the Mission full in sight, its red tiles glaring fiercely in the
noon-day sun, it occurred to him that his Emîr would surely fall in
love with the Sitt Hilda.  Rent by the twofold anguish of the thought,
he wandered aimless for an hour, and then returned, to gape at mention
of an errand.  His mother hurled a saucepan at his head.

"May thy house be destroyed!" she screamed.  "Nay, go not now.  It is
too late!  Within this minute I have seen Costantîn take the road to
the town.  O Lord, what have I done to be thus afflicted?"

Iskender then sat down before the threshold, and fell to drawing
pictures in the sand, smoking cigarette after cigarette without
contentment, till he knew by the shadow of the prickly-pears that the
afternoon was well advanced; when he changed his position for one
commanding the approach to the Mission, lit a fresh cigarette and began
his watch.

"Thou dost smoke enough for twenty men!" his mother scolded.  "Thou art
always asking me for cash to buy the stuff, even now when thou hast thy
Emîr!  Take from him, he will be none the wiser.  Thou hast no more
intelligence than a sheep."

Iskender heard her not.  He had caught sight of the figure of a Frank
moving briskly along the ridge of the opposite dune.  It seemed but a
second ere it passed into the Mission, and was lost to sight.  Iskender
fell face downwards, making some idle play with the sand for his
mother's benefit, the while his heart went out in prayer to Allah.  It
seemed an age ere the Emîr came forth.  From where he lay Iskender
could not distinguish so much as the colour of his clothes, yet he
fancied he could see his heart was sad or angry.  Having watched him
out of sight, he sprang up suddenly and strode off towards the Mission
in the hope of news.  As luck would have it he met Asad son of
Costantîn.

"I was on my way to tell thee."  That youth of promise grinned from ear
to ear at the sudden encounter.  He had to apply his mind for a minute
to a stick of sugar-cane he was sucking before he could compose a
countenance suitable to the bearer of ill tidings.  "The Father of
Ice--curse his father!--has done what I told thee he would do, has
ruined thee with thy Emîr.  He made thee out the lowest of the low, and
told his Honour of thy boast that thou wouldst use his money as thy
own, even to the extent of making him pay for thy education as a
painter in the English schools.  He told him it was wrong for him to
ride on horseback beside one like thee--for whom to ride an ass were
signal honour.  Ah, I assure thee by Allah he has done it thoroughly.
I have the story from the maid who carried tea to them.  She listened
by the door at my request, because I knew how nearly it concerned thee."

By way of consolation Asad offered to his friend a length of sugar-cane
he had himself sucked three parts dry.  It was accepted blindly.
Iskender knew not what he did or said.  He wandered by the sea till it
was dark, and then went home and passed a sleepless night in dreams of
wealth, by which alone it seemed his love could be cleansed from all
appearance of self-interest.  Before his mother awoke in the morning he
slipped out, and walked into the town, where he loitered down by the
quay, kicking his heels, until it was time to present himself at the
hotel and learn his fate.

"The khawâjah has announced his will to ride alone to-day, and for an
hour only," said Selîm the son of Mûsa, who stood sunning himself in
the doorway.

The words struck like bullets on Iskender's heart, they so cruelly
confirmed the tale of Asad son of Costantîn.

Elias arrived, and asked him how he did.  Iskender made known his
tidings in a voice half-choked by grief.

"Was any word said against me?" asked the dragoman eagerly.

Iskender shook his head.

"The praise to Allah!  Take heart, O my soul!  If I am still in favour,
I can plead for thee."

"Thou in his favour!  Thou art nought to him!" replied Iskender with a
sudden burst of spite.

Elias was about to answer angrily when the subject of their speech
appeared.  Both sprang to their feet expectantly.  But the Emîr, with a
blunt "Good-morning," passed them by and mounted the horse which stood
in waiting before the door.  They watched him ride away, then turned
and gazed into each other's eyes.  Both agreed that there was nothing
for it but to sit down again and await further revelations of the will
of Allah.

When the Emîr returned, after less than an hour's absence, his temper
had improved, for he laughed at a joke of Elias, and suffered them both
to accompany him to his room.  Elias pushed home his advantage, telling
a succession of funny stories in exaggerated broken English.  The Emîr
laughed heartily, and talked with him.  Iskender, abashed by the
uncertainty of finding favour, dared not risk a word; and his loved one
never even looked at him.

"You come with me, sir, this afternoon.  I show you sefral things you
neffer seen!" said Elias, when the bell had rung for lunch.

The Emîr consented.

"You see, he hears me!" cried the dragoman with exultation, when he and
Iskender were once more alone together.  "Confide in me, and I will
lead him back towards thee!"

The touch of patronage entombed Iskender.  His Emîr, to be led to him
by Elias!  But "Weep not, O my soul!" the latter begged him.  "Come
with us this afternoon and I will bring thee forward."




CHAPTER IX

The son of Yâcûb longed to be alone and weep his fill, but could not
leave Elias in possession.  It was as a dumb and piteous plea against
the usurpation of Elias, and not from any hope of reinstatement, that
he attended the Emîr that afternoon, when the dragoman led them among
the stinking alleys of the town, under archways and through private
houses, pointing out sites of interest which Iskender felt sure were of
his own invention; and he very soon wished that he had kept away.  For
Elias, according to his promise, "brought him forward," begging the
Emîr to have compassion on him, because he was a good boy and devoted
to his Honour's service.  Iskender could only mutter, shamefaced, when
the Frank addressed him.

"Why did you deceive me?  I thought you were well off, or I should
never have accepted all those presents.  Now you must please accept a
trifle from me."

Iskender found in his hand a piece of gold, and saw Elias nodding and
grimacing.  He murmured words of thanks perfunctorily, the while he
gnashed his teeth with secret rage.  Such kindness was an outrage to
his love, being given at the bidding, in the presence, of the rogue
Elias.  The cup of his humiliation overflowed.

"Now all is well," Elias told him afterwards.  "Be thankful that thou
hast a friend like me.  He smiled on thee; he gave thee money.  Thou
art back in favour."

Iskender was obliged to thank him kindly.  What his soul needed was to
be alone with his Emîr, to throw himself at his feet, and win his true
forgiveness.  The casual kind word with a fee was worse than nothing in
the realm of love.  But Elias, as if of fixed intent to thwart him,
stood always in the way, annihilating the unhappy youth with
condescension, bidding him cheer up and amuse his Honour.  Iskender
heard his rattle with a stupid admiration which the Emîr's applauding
laughter made quite envious.  He himself had fallen to the level of a
mere serving-lad, to run his Honour's errands and be tipped
occasionally.

His mother judged that things were thriving with him, since he brought
home money; and he did not undeceive her, wishing to keep his grievous
fall a secret as long as possible; though soon, he feared, it must be
evident to all the world.  Already Yuhanna and the other dragomans
jeered at him in the streets, acclaiming the triumph of Elias, their
own comrade.  He thought of invoking the aid of his uncle Abdullah, but
that respectable man was for the moment absent on Cook's business.
There seemed no hope of success by his own efforts, for in the presence
of the Emîr he could not now think clearly, nor find a word to please.
Distress of longing set a cloud upon his brow, a weight upon his
tongue, which was not lightened when Elias chaffed him for a dull
companion.

It was only when alone that he regained his normal wit; and then his
soul leapt up in envy of the brilliant dragoman.  Elias was clever; he
had seen the world; his position as a dragoman would bear inspection.
No wonder that the Frank preferred him to the son of a poor
washerwoman, whose lowliness Elias himself was always emphasising.
Thus attacked, and without defence, since there was no denying that his
origin was humble, Iskender's pride took refuge in its old imaginings.
Walking to the hotel, he would picture himself a king's son in
disguise, or else the owner of enormous treasure; would smile, and
clench his hands, and step exultantly; would think:

"If the Emîr but knew me as I really am!"  But, approaching the Emîr,
such fancies vanished.  They were of no use because no one would
believe them.  It took Elias to give truth to wondrous stories by
judiciously eschewing points that could be verified.  Iskender, in
great anguish, prayed to Allah to destroy Elias, or at least to teach
His servant a true story, that he might outshine the miscreant.
Dazzled by the triumph of that splendid liar, he thought of
story-telling as the only way to the Emîr's good graces; and lay awake
whole nights constructing fables which the first faint light of dawn
showed to be worthless.

An appeal to the good nature of his rival failed irrevocably.  When
Iskender entreated to be left alone with his Emîr, were it but for five
minutes, Elias stiffened, crying:

"Curse thy father!  What means this plaintive whisper in my ear?  Thy
Emîr!  He was thine by his own will, and has tired of thee.  Now he is
my Emîr.  It is natural he should prefer the society of a grown man who
has dwelt in England, and acquired the manner of its nobles, to that of
a loutish, sullen boy, untravelled, ignorant!  Behold, I have stood thy
friend.  But for me, he would have cast thee off entirely. . . .  Leave
thee alone with him?  No, by Allah, that I will not--and have thee
telling wicked lies against me."

Iskender turned away in great unhappiness, deeming his last hope gone.

That night he lay awake and thought of wealth as the only power that
could confound his enemies.  At last he fell asleep and dreamt of
gold--nothing but gold; small rounded pebbles of it clothed the ground
for miles.  It was more, ten thousand times, than all the wealth of all
the kingdoms put together.  The sky above was black as pitch, though
something told him that the hour was noon; the gold put out the sun.
"All mine!" he thought, and was preparing to gather it, but some one
stopped him with an iron hand; and then he woke, to hear his mother's
snores and see the flicker of the night-light on the rafters.

His first sensations were of disappointment as though great wealth had
really lain within his grasp.  But presently as he pondered on the
vision, his heart leapt up with exultation at the thought that here was
the nucleus of a story, marvellous as any that Elias had related, and
true, for who save Allah had surveyed the whole wide world, and could
deny the existence somewhere of a plain all gold.  Moreover, it would
be a story after the Emîr's own heart, concerning, as it would, the
search for treasure.

"If I say that I myself beheld the place, it will be false," thought
Iskender to himself, "because I am young and every one knows that I
have never travelled.  But suppose I say my father saw it, then it will
be true, for my father is dead and he travelled far in his day, and
Allah alone knows what he saw or did not see."

The rest of that night was spent upon the story, considering in what
manner it should be revealed, with what precautions and what vows of
secrecy.  As it shaped itself in his mind it seemed a fortune hardly
less than that he had beheld in sleep.  He rose at daybreak,
thought-worn but light of heart.  As it happened, that morning, his
mother sent him to the Mission with a message concerning some mistake
she had discovered in the tale of the last week's washing.  He had to
wait the pleasure of the ladies, to carry a message from them to his
mother, and bring back her answer; so that it was past the usual hour
when he reached the hotel.  He met the Emîr and Elias going out
together.

"His Excellency has graciously consented to honour with his presence an
orange-garden which belongs to me," said the dragoman to Iskender in
Arabic.  "The weather is fine, like summer; the fruit ripens.  It will
be pleasant reclining in the shade."

The whole world swam before Iskender's eyes around the handsome figure
of Elias, whose scarlet dust-cloak seemed a flame of fire.  What was a
plain of gold in the truest of stories to compare with an orange-garden
actually existent close at hand?  He had prepared to vanquish Elias in
one sphere, and the coward leapt into another where he could not reach
him.  Never till now had he heard that Elias owned a garden.  This was
the end.  Iskender resigned a contest so unequal.  He heard the Emîr
invite him to go with them, but shook his head, quite unable to
articulate a reply.  The despair of his mother, the hateful triumph of
the missionaries, the derisive laughter of the dragomans, came before
his mind.  Some one, passing by, gave a chuckle.  He sprang to
self-consciousness with the impression that the whole world laughed.
The doorway of the hotel was near.  He fled through it, pretending that
he had come to claim the sketching things he was wont to leave in
charge of the doorkeeper.  With those in his hands he hurried forth
again, glad to escape the negro's friendly grin.




CHAPTER X

Half-blind with tears and rendered witless by despair, Iskender had
walked half the distance to his mother's house before he realised that
he had no desire to go there.  A pool of shade by the roadside
inviting, he sat down in it, and gave the rein to grief.  It was with a
mild surprise that, when his sense returned, he found himself under the
ilex-tree before the little church which Mîtri served.  Afraid of
interruption he looked round uneasily.  But no one was in sight, and he
was loth to move.  He opened his sketch-book for a suggestion of
employment in case any one should espy him, and returned to sorrow.

From the group of hovels close at hand came women's voices and the
cluck of hens; over his head, among the branches of the oak-tree, doves
were cooing.  The plumes of the two palm-trees hung dead still amid the
sunshine! the shade in which he sat was quite unruffled.  A train of
camels sauntered by along the sandy road, with clanging bells, their
driver chanting softly to himself.  Iskender's heart went out in
yearning to the peaceful scene.  He envied the dwellers in those low
mud-hovels, who led their simple lives with praise to Allah; envied the
poor camel-driver singing in the sunshine as he jogged along.  Alas for
him, he had no part with these, but was a Protestant, a stranger in his
native land, a monstrous creation of those English who had cast him
off, a byword, a bad joke.  The iridescent plumage of some pigeons,
which, emboldened by his stillness, came strutting and pecking on the
ground before him, drew his gaze; and, half-unconsciously, he began to
trace their likeness on the page before him.  While thus engaged he
heard a stealthy tread behind him, and felt a breath on his neck as
some one leaned above him to inspect his work.  In a flash he
remembered the beautiful child, the daughter of Mîtri, and his heart
beat fiercely.  The violent change of emotion paralysed him for some
seconds; then he turned round suddenly and made a grab.  The girl
suppressed a scream, and tried to run, but he had caught her arm.  With
joyful eagerness, though the tears of despair were still wet on his
face, he pleaded:

"Why wouldst fly from me, my soul?  Why art thou here if not to talk
with me?"

"The picture," she murmured angrily, pulling against him hard, with
face averted.

"The picture is it?  Only stay till it is finished, and I will give it
thee with pleasure."

"No, no, I tell thee; let me go or I will tear thy eyes out!  Art thou
not a Brûtestânt, a dog?  Thy touch is defilement.  How canst thou
continue in that lying faith?  Art thou not scared each night at the
thought of the devils and the eternal fires?"

She gave up resistance, and stood surveying him with great round eyes
of horror, fascinated by the sight of a creature doomed to everlasting
torment.  The feel of her slight brown wrist was like a snake for
coolness.  Iskender ventured to caress it with his fingers.  But at the
touch she snatched it from him angrily, and sprang to a safe distance.

"Thou hast been weeping; why?" she asked with a cool directness, which
was like a sword-thrust in Iskender's heart.  His woe broke out afresh.

"O Lord!" he blubbered.  "I have none to love me.  My Emîr, whom I love
truly, casts me off.  The Brûtestânts, who brought me up, despise me.
The Christians call me dog!"

"O man, stop crying, for it frightens me."  Nesîbeh came again and
leaned over him.  "Be sure thy sorrow is from the hand of Allah to
punish thy errors and disgust thee with them.  My father says that
calamities are often sent as warnings to the reprobate.  Be thou
warned, O my dear, and return to the Church.  Then our Lord will be
pleased with thee, and make men love thee."

"And thou--wilt thou too love me, or still call me dog?"  Iskender
seized her hand again, though she resisted furiously.  But the words
were cut in his mouth by a heavy hand which smote him sideways,
deafening one ear; and when he recovered from sensations of a general
earthquake, it was to find himself alone with Mîtri.

The priest stood smiling down on him with folded arms.

"What means this, O son of a dog?" he said through clenched teeth.
"Dost thou take us, by chance, for Brûtestânts, for shameless heathens?
Praise be to Allah, we are quite unused to Frankish manners.  Respect
our daughters as thou wouldst the daughters of the Muslim, or harm will
come to thee."

At those words all his former misery returned upon Iskender.  He buried
his face in his sleeve.

The anger of the priest turned to astonishment.  After staring for a
minute, he sat down beside the youth and, putting his arm round his
neck, inquired:

"What ails thee, O my dear?  It cannot be that thou dost weep so
bitterly because I struck thee, nor yet for penitence in the matter of
my daughter.  Such things afflict not thus the mind of youth.  Come,
tell me what it is!  Open thy heart.  Who knows but, in Allah's mercy,
I may be of help to thee?"

Iskender lifted his eyes for one swift glance at his would-be consoler,
then hid them once more in his hands.  The expression of the priest's
strong face commanded confidence, and he felt the need of a friend.
After a second's hesitation, he confessed all: how he had deceived the
Emîr at first as to his worldly station, how that deception had given
the missionaries power to set his lord against him, and then how Elias,
by unheard of perfidy, with diabolical arts, had taken possession of
the Emîr, and prevented Iskender's obtaining the private audience which
would have put things right.

The priest heard him to the end, then eyed him curiously.

"Allah is merciful!" he observed.  "See what it is to be an infidel.
Had this happened to me I should simply have turned away with a shrug
and 'Praise to Allah.'  But this youth has been taught to put his trust
in worldly things, and when these fail, as fail they always do, he
comes near to kill himself."

"I am no longer a Brûtestânt!" rejoined Iskender vehemently.  "Allah
knows I hate the race of them!  But I have not yet told thee all my
cause of grief--all the perfidy of the fiend Elias.  It was bad enough
when I supposed him poor like me.  Now it seems he is the owner of an
orange-garden.  I knew it not until this morning.  He has taken my Emîr
away to feast there in the shade.  How can I ever compete with a rich
landowner?"

"I ask pardon of Allah!  An orange-garden?  Elias own an orange-garden?
Never, in this low world!  Now whither has he led the good khawâjah?"
Mîtri laid a finger between his eyebrows, and thought deeply.  Anon his
face brightened.  "If I give thee thy revenge upon Elias," he demanded,
"wilt thou swear by the Incarnation to forsake the errors of the
Brûtestânts, and come to me henceforth for instruction in the way of
right?"

"I have done already with the Brûtestânts," replied Iskender, all alert
in an instant at the suggestion of a bargain; "but as to joining the
Orthodox, my mind is not yet clear."

"By the help of Allah, I will clear it for thee.  Come and reason with
me; that is all I ask.  Swear to do this or I will not help thee."

Iskender swore with secret alacrity, having the girl Nesîbeh in his
mind's eye.

"That is well.  Now I think I know the trick that rogue is playing.  I
have seen him in the company of one Muhammad, who tends the
orange-garden belonging to a member of our Church, the rich Azîz; and
Azîz is gone these two days upon business to El Cuds.  But his brother
remains with us, praise to Allah, and it is but a step from here to go
and warn him.  I too have a debt against Elias, who invited me to bless
his house, yet never paid me.  So dry thy tears, my son, and come with
me."

The priest went in among the hovels, while Iskender gathered up his
sketching things, with hope revived.  It being noon, the brother of
Azîz was in his house.  It was plain he did not share his brother's
wealth, for his abode was of the humblest, and in dress and bearing he
was a poor fellâh.  His dark face brightened wonderfully when he heard
what the priest required of him.  He seized his staff and called out
all the neighbours, who burst out laughing when they learned the nature
of his business.  When Iskender joined them, however, there were looks
askance; one said to another, "Is not this the Brûtestânt, the son of
Yâcûb?  What hand has he in this affair?  It were a sin for us to vex a
true believer for the pleasure of a child of filthy dogs," till the
priest cried, "Welcome him, for he accepts the truth," when all gave
praise to Allah.  One tall fellâh forthwith embraced Iskender, and
began at once to tell him of the joys of Heaven.

The brother of Azîz then led the way down a narrow path among
fruit-trees to his brother's garden, which was not far off.  The crowd
of neighbours followed.  Arrived at the gate, he ordered the women and
children to remain there, while himself and Mîtri, with six turbaned
men all armed with big tough staves, crossed themselves devoutly,
murmured "Bismillah," put the right foot first, and stole in very
quietly.

Iskender followed at a distance, contrary to the command of Mîtri, who
had bidden him wait without with the women and children, till he saw
them stop and whisper together, when he struck off independently.
Pressing his way through the dark foliage, hung with yellowing globes
and sweet with the scent of orange-flowers, he reached a secret place
whence he could watch what happened.




CHAPTER XI

On a carpet spread in the shade which fringed some open ground beside
the sakieh, Elias and the Frank reclined at ease.  Within hand's reach
of them was placed a heap of oranges and sweet lemons, representing
every variety which the garden produced; and between them reposed a
tray on which were seen the remains of a choice repast.  A creeper with
a wealth of crimson flowers, wreathing a rough arbour built to shade
the sakieh, contrasted the dark foliage of the fruit-trees.  The sky
was pure blue and cloudless.  There was a hum of insects in the air.
The man Muhammad, keeper of the garden, sat on his heels at a
respectful distance from the feasters, watching for a signal to remove
the tray.  All at once this man sprang up, his mouth fell open.  With a
great oath he fled among the trees.  Whereupon the brother of Azîz and
his company threw off concealment, and came forward boldly with loud
talk and laughter.  Elias gazed upon them, stupefied.  Before he could
get on his feet, they closed around him.  Iskender heard the priest cry:

"Woe to him who withholds from the Church her dues!"

Mîtri, with the brother of Azîz, then paid respect to the Emîr,
engaging his attention while Elias was being led away.  Guided by the
outcry of the prisoner, Iskender followed his captors on a parallel
line among the orange-trees.  He heard the howls of derision with which
the women hailed the appearance of the boaster, and their demand that
he should be well beaten to reward his impudence.  Iskender drew close
to them and peeped out through the leaves.

"Beat me?  Nay, that you dare not!" cried Elias.  "The lives of all of
you would not suffice my vengeance.  Wait, wait till I get hold of my
good sword!"

"Thy sword, if thou hast one, is of wood, O braggart!" laughed one of
his captors, at the same time giving him a shove which sent him reeling
up against another of the band, who straight returned him.

"Nay, nay," he protested, in his passage through the air.  "By Allah, I
possess one, of the finest steel.  Ask Mîtri, ask Iskender; they have
seen it!"

Then, as they continued their rough game with him, he screamed out:

"Are you Christian men or devils thus to maltreat me on account of a
few oranges for which I paid the guardian?"

"Nay, O beloved!  Allah witness, it is not the oranges we begrudge
thee, but the honour thou didst take unto thyself feloniously."

"Aha, thou art the owner of this place, and we thy servants!"

"Oranges!  Let him have his fill of them!"

A woman snatched an orange from the nearest tree, and flung it full in
his face.  He opened his mouth to remonstrate, but another orange
stopped it on the instant.  With a fearful oath he gave up the
argument, and ran for his life, amid a roar of laughter.

Then Iskender came out upon the pathway, and walked along it till he
reached the sakieh.  As prearranged with Mîtri, he feigned great
surprise at sight of the Emîr, exclaiming:

"I thought you said the garden of Elias.  This is the garden of Azîz
abu Suleymân."

"Something queer has happened," said his patron, showing great
uneasiness.  "These people have been trying to explain to me, but I
can't understand them."

Iskender looked to the priest for elucidation.  After a short
conference apart with him, he was in a position to inform his lord,
who, learning the deception put on him, was very angry.  His Honour was
for leaving the place at once; but Mîtri and the brother of Azîz would
not let him depart as if in dudgeon.

The little crowd of men, women, and children, having finished with
Elias, now drew near, and sat or lay in a half circle at a respectful
distance from the group upon the carpet.  The brother of Azîz flung
oranges to them; and both he and Mîtri asked for tidings of the
boaster, which Iskender was called upon to translate for the Frank's
behoof.  The downfall of Elias seemed complete.  But the victor could
not take much joy in it, for the face of his Emîr still showed nothing
but annoyance.

If only Mîtri and the rest would now retire, he thought impatiently, he
might throw himself at the feet of his dear lord.  As it was, he was
forced to make his petition lamely, calmly, shorn of all that outward
self-abasement which the case demanded.  It was something, however, to
be sure of privacy, to know himself alone with his Emîr in knowledge of
the English tongue.

"Oh, sir," he faltered, "forgif me, do, or I shall die of grief.  You
'f neffer been the same to me since goin' to the Mission.  I luf you,
sir, enough to gif my life.  I thought you would hate me if you knew my
mother was a washin'-woman!  It break my heart ef'ry time you gif me
money; I luf to gif you things, not take things from you.  If the
missionaries tell you contrary, they're dam' liars.  Elias thinks of
money; but not me, because I luf you truly.  I'll be a slafe to you.
Do blease belief me!"

His lord was deeply moved.  He said, "That's all right," and gave his
hand to Iskender, who all at once beheld the beauty of the trees and
sky, the wealth of crimson flowers above the sakieh.  But when the
suppliant pressed it to his lips, the Frank seemed angry, cried, "Don't
be idiotic!" and glanced round him nervously.

"I luf you, sir!" pursued Iskender passionately.  "By God, I neffer
tell you lies again.  You trust me, sir, and just be kind to me.  It
kills me when you luf that false Elias."

"Oh, that's all right," was the impatient answer.  "I shall trust you
for the future.  Can't you talk of something else?"

Then it dawned upon Iskender that his Honour did not like this talk of
love.  At a loss, he changed his tone, but not the subject, giving his
patron the true history of his difference with the missionaries, which
arose from his boyish passion for the Sitt Hilda.

"Is that the young one?  Not a bad-looking girl, if she dressed
properly!" threw in the Emîr; and again Iskender was at a loss, for he
could not conceive how dress could do otherwise than hide a woman's
beauty.  He returned to his own case.

"I luf you, sir, and neffer, neffer will deceif you more."

"Oh, shut up, can't you?" said the Frank disgustedly; but presently,
when they had taken leave of Mîtri and the brother of Azîz, he grasped
Iskender's arm in friendly wise.  As they strolled together down a
sandy path among the gardens, whose dark rich green encroached upon a
sky of living blue, the scent of orange-flowers pervading the still
air, and the murmur of innumerable bees enforcing languor, Iskender
walked in heaven.

"You trust me now, dear sir?"

"Yes, yes, I trust you.  I shall never forgive Elias for that dirty
trick."

"It is only just what I did always tell you.  He is an imbudent fellow,
and a most horrible liar," returned Iskender lightly, grudging Elias
even his lord's anger.

A pause ensued.  Iskender had no more to say, yet dreaded silence,
recalling his uncle's advice to him to keep the Frank amused--advice
which he had so lately seen confirmed in the case of Elias, the amusing
talker.  He knew that his patron's mind, unless engaged, was sure to
revert to the adventure of the orange-garden, and recall his rival, of
whom he wished to obliterate the very thought.

Then, of a sudden, while he racked his brain, he was seized with
recollection of his vision of the night before.  It returned to him
from without, by no effort of his own; and was first announced to his
consciousness by the sensation of a sudden flush from head to foot.
Here was a subject able to engross the Emîr's whole interest, to the
exclusion of Elias from his thoughts for ever.

"Sir," he said, "I wish to sbeak to you."




CHAPTER XII

The solemnity of Iskender's voice claimed grave attention.  The Emîr
recalled his gaze from far-off things, and fixed it upon the speaker
with some awe.

Both stood stock still.

"If you blease, sir, I think I tell you better sittin' down."

Iskender had espied a Muslin tomb among the leaves ahead, a small white
cube, with egg-shaped dome atop of it, having in its shade a place for
the repose of wayfarers.  Thither he conducted the Emîr, and both sat
down.  Iskender toyed with his fingers in the crevices of its rough
pavement.  He wished to enjoy his love alone as long as possible; and
the walk from thence to the hotel was but a short one.  From a
garden-hedge before them, two cypress-trees stood sharply out against
the jewel sky.

"I wish to sbeak to you, sir, about something which I neffer told to
anybody.  My mother knows, but no one else.  Will you bromise, blease,
to keeb it secret, what I'm goin' to tell you?"

"Yes, rather!  Fire away," said the Emîr.

"Well, sir, I know of a blace where gold is found more blenty than the
oranges in that garden we now come from."

"You don't?  You're joking!"  The Emîr stared at him.

"I do, sir.  You know, there's lots of country neffer been exblored
away there to the south and east, behind the Jordan.  No one effer goes
there.  My father went there once--he was a muleteer and traffeled all
about in those days--and in the desert, far away from any houses, he
found a blace where bits of gold were lyin' on the ground quite thick
like bebbles in a mountain wady."

"But your father was not rich," the Frank objected.

"No, sir; and just because he was not rich, he could not go again and
fetch the gold.  It wants horses and camels, and many men and arms to
make afraid the Bedouins.  My father saw that blace with his own eyes,
and before he died he wrote a baber teach me how to get there.  He told
me he got a big biece of gold, enough to make him rich, but had to drob
it after a bit, it was so heffy."

"How far is the place from here?"

"Nine days or ten, I think.  When I get home I look in the baber which
my father left and see for certain."

"But perhaps your father was mistaken, and the stuff he found was not
gold at all."

"That might be."  Iskender grasped his chin reflectively, admitting
that he had not thought of that contingency.  "But father was a knowing
man," he added; "he looked close at things.  Though he was only a boor
common man, he had traffeled a great deal, and I think he'd know gold
when he saw it."

"I must say I should like to go and see," exclaimed the Emîr, now
warming to the subject.

"You'd better not, sir, till you make sure of brotection.  The desert
beeble don't like strangers hangin' round.  And the Guffernment would
stob you, if they got to know.  I thought I'd tell you, sir, because
you're kindest friend I effer had.  Then by-and-by you get some friends
to join you, and go with a strong barty; and then, when you've got much
gold, you think: Iskender made me a nice bresent.  I hobe you think so.
I know I am only a boor common man, like dirt to you.  But I luff you
truly, sir, and wish to gif you something."

"Don't talk such rubbish," said the Emîr impatiently.  "Of course we
should share alike, and go together, if at all.  By Jove, it would be
fun!" and he began to shadow forth the expedition, Iskender helping him
with tempting details.  To Iskender the vision of riding for days
together alone with his beloved seemed all glorious.  Sitting there
beside the Muslim tomb, with the Emîr talking to him like a brother in
the excitement of their common dream, he lost the thought of time, and
was surprised to see the fires of evening in the sky, and the shadows
of the two tall cypress-trees extending right across the sandy road.

"We must find out more about that place," said the Emîr with a great
yawn as he rose and stretched himself.  "We must make inquiries.  Other
people must at least have heard of it.

"Oh, sir, I beg you not!" the son of Yâcûb cried in sudden terror.
"You bromised faithfully to keeb my secret!"

"Of course, you stupid!" came the laughing assurance.  "We can make
inquiries without telling any one."

At the door of the hotel they found Elias waiting.  He stood forth and
greeted the Emîr quite unabashed, convulsed with laughter at the
latter's cold amazement.

"You thinkin' of that business in the garden?  Neffer fear, sir!  That
was all a dam' bad joke of that briest-fellow, Mîtri--I'll be efen with
him yet, by Jingo!--all to pay me out because I neffer gif him nothing
when he bless my house.  He is a funny man, sir--that briest is!  He
makes me laugh fit to sblit with his awful silly jokes."

Yet while thus joyously ascribing his late discomfiture to the Orthodox
priest, his manner towards Iskender showed new deference, clearly
indicating that he saw the young man's hand in the business, and
recognised his master in guile.  Iskender was greatly shocked when his
Emîr allowed that proven rogue to enter with them.  What was his horror
when, arrived in the bedroom, his Highness lightly asked Elias if he
had ever heard of a place in the interior where gold lay on the surface
of the ground.

His lord shot a glance at Iskender to reassure him on the score of
secrecy.  But the poor youth gnashed his teeth and clenched his hands.
He saw his credit hanging on a thread, his new-found favour on the
point of leaving him, Elias avenged, triumphant.  The dragoman had
travelled far and wide; he was sure to ridicule the tale, and prove
convincingly that no such place existed.  He could hardly suppress a
cry when Elias, instead of laughing, pulled a grave face and solemnly
affirmed:

"I know it well."

"Have you been there?" inquired the Emîr, himself astonished.  "I heard
of it to-day by chance, and am curious to know the whole story of it."

"Not I myself.  But I know one man what went there.  He left this bart
of the country, though; may be dead, by Jofe, for what I know!"

Interrogated further, Elias declared that the name of the place was
well known.  It was Wady 'l Mulûk, the Valley of the Kings; though why
he could not say, unless it were because the kings of old, who were
certainly richer than kings are nowadays, derived their gold from
thence.  Many persons had, at divers times, set out to find that place;
but few had reached it, for the reason that no one knew the road
exactly, and the desert tribes were fond of killing travellers.

"Don't you make no mistake!" he concluded.  "The Wady 'l Mulûk, he's
there all right, only a job to find him.  If you want to hear about
him, I tell you what, dear sir, I ask some beebles."

"I should be obliged if you would," said the Frank.

Iskender was still in the stupefied state of one who wakes to find his
dream made real.  After such evidence from Elias, an unprepared,
impartial person, there was no longer any room for doubt but that the
gold of his vision actually existed.  He felt a trifle jealous of the
witness for knowing more about it than he did himself.  A servant
summoning the Emîr to dinner, he went out into the twilight with Elias,
who still treated him with the gravest deference.  As they walked away
together, the dragoman still talking of the wonders of the place of
gold, Iskender could not help informing him that he had certain
knowledge of the whereabouts of that valley, away in the eastern
wilderness, beyond the Jordan.

"Thou sayest?  Now may Allah bless thee!" muttered Elias, with
immediate reverence.  "Allah witness how I always loved thee.  I
understand now why his Honour questioned me with so much mystery.  You
are going there together.  The Emîr will furnish forth the expedition
and become thy partner.  Allah witness how I always loved thee.
Bitterly do I repent my conduct towards thee of the last few days, and
Allah knows thou hast had ample vengeance.  Thou art too strong for me.
Henceforth I am thy friend and loving servant.  Take me also, I beseech
thee, O my soul.  I can be useful to thee from my wide experience in
travel; and of the spoil I would claim no more than an alms or
gleaning.  Fear not that I shall breathe a word to any man.  Elias is
renowned for his discretion.  Say yes, O beloved!  For the love of
Allah, let me go with you."

Iskender said yes, though with mental reservations.  The concession set
Elias upon heights of glory.  He kissed Iskender on both cheeks at
parting, and swore by Allah that the love he felt for him transcended
that which he bore his own father and mother.




CHAPTER XIII

Iskender followed the sandy road through the gardens.  It was dark, and
the forms of one or two men who passed him made him tremble, they
sprang so suddenly out of the gloom, noiseless, their footfalls
deadened by the soft sand.  The events of the day had left on him a
strong impression of the supernatural, and now he felt that witchcraft
was abroad, expected each minute that some evil claw would pounce on
him out of the gloom.  The very stars of heaven looked uncanny.  Cold
sweat came out upon his forehead; his legs dragged weakly though he
longed to run.  Two palm-trees standing out against the sky told him he
was approaching the abode of Mîtri; the church, the hovels, even the
ilex-tree, were swallowed up in the dark cloud of the gardens which
rolled mysterious on every side.  Presently he saw a light among the
dwellings.  It occurred to him to call at the priest's house, and
render thanks for his intervention in the matter of Elias.  He longed
to speak to some one, any one, for rescue from the grinning terror of
the night.

He knocked at the door with loud blessings.  It was opened, with a
sudden gush of light.  The priest peered out into the gloom.

"Is it thou, O my son?" he cried, recognising at length the voice that
praised his kindness.  "No, Allah be my witness, I will accept nothing
from thee--neither thanks nor anything else, save thy conversion.  Hast
come to seek instruction in accordance with thy promise?  Alas!  I
cannot bid thee enter, for my wife and children are abed; the hour is
late.  What ails thee that thou tremblest?  Art afraid of the powers of
darkness, poor Brûtestânt without a saint to guard thee?  Wait, I will
take my staff and bear thee company.

"By Allah, thou hast every cause to fear," he continued, stepping forth
beside Iskender.  "Thy errors give the devils power to harm thee.  The
Franks are not afraid; for in each one of them there sits a devil far
more powerful than those outside.  But thou, poor innocent dupe, are
left defenceless.  Surely the falsehood of their teaching must be
evident to a youth of thy intelligence?"

"Nay, O my father, though my soul abhors them, I still discern much
good in their beliefs."  Iskender, freed from fear, could argue
lightly.  That morning, when he gave his word to Mîtri, he had felt
alone and helpless.  Now, in repossession of his Emîr, with boundless
wealth in prospect, the question of his change of faith seemed
unimportant.  That the Orthodox creed was the way of salvation, he had
no doubt; his mother had always said so; but there seemed plenty of
time in which to save his soul.  He added: "How can their faith be
false, seeing it is founded on the Holy Scriptures?"

"They quote the Scriptures, it is true," retorted Mîtri, "but without
rule or guidance, each in the pride of his own understanding--the
devils do the same!--so that no two Brûtestânts believe alike.  They
reject all those sacred traditions which lead back to Christ.  Their
only union is in hatred of the Church.  They exist for themselves
alone, to the hurt of others, just like stinging insects.  And Allah
alone knows why they were ever created, unless it be as a kind of
hornet to molest the faithful.  Consider, O my dear, how transient this
life is; its prosperity departs with the breath.  Think on the anguish
of those who, attracted by the wealth and luxury of these missionaries,
forsake the truth of God, when they stand before His Throne of Judgment
at the Last Day!"

Iskender listened, but was unimpressed.  His mind had wandered back to
the events of the day; and at that moment Wady 'l Mulûk was more
apparent to his mind than the Last Judgment.  He murmured:

"I will ponder what thou sayest."

"Again bethink thee, thou who hast the gift of making likenesses and
colouring them so that they resemble living things, what fame awaits
thee as a maker of sacred pictures for our churches and our dwellings!"

"True, I must think of that," replied Iskender.  He meant, in case he
failed by any chance to find the valley full of gold, whose wealth
would raise him to the social rank of his Emîr.

"Well, go in peace, my son; may Allah guide thee!"

With the blessing Mîtti [Transcriber's note: Mîtri?] kissed Iskender on
the brow, and pressed his hand.  They were then quite near the little
house upon the sandhill; could see light streaming from its open door
and, silhouetted on the light, Iskender's mother looking out for him.

"Mercy on us!" she exclaimed, when her son came bounding through a gap
of the cactus hedge.  "Praise be to Allah thou art still alive and
well!  I have kept a bowl of lentils hot for thee, which is more than
thy deserts, O shameless one!  O my despair, ever to have borne such a
son!  When--when wilt thou learn discretion?  Why didst thou express a
hope that thy Emîr would foul the beard of the Father of Ice, and that
in the hearing of the son of Costantîn?  Here have the ladies been
again to-day, railing against thee as the worst of malefactors.  By
Allah, I can keep thee here no longer.  Yet whither canst thou go,
unhappy boy, for now I learn that thou hast angered thy Emîr?  Thy
uncle, the respectable Abdullah, has been here in great trouble for
thee.  He has this day returned from Beyrût, that great, splendid city,
and I thought that he had come to tell me of its progress and high
fashion.  But no, it was for thee he came.  In the town, on landing he
had heard the tidings of thy downfall.  Why hast thou hid the truth
from me these many days?  I could have fallen lifeless when I heard him
say that thou art nothing, that Elias is the friend of thy Emîr.
Whence came that money thou didst show me?  Was it stolen?  Tell me, O
unfortunate!  I am thy loving mother, and shall not condemn thee."

Iskender laughed at her concern.

"It is true," he said, "that my Emîr did for a time prefer Elias.  But
now, praise to Allah, all is well again!"  And he proceeded to relate
what had happened that morning in the orange-garden.

"May Allah reward our father Mîtri!" his mother exclaimed.  "But I
would not have thee go too far in friendship with him, on account of
the missionaries, who may yet forgive thee.  To-day when I condemned
thy conduct fiercely, their hearts, I could see, were touched with pity
for thee.  Now if I drive thee forth, and vow never more to look on
thee, there is a chance they will forgive thee quite.  It is certain
that they do not love Asad as they loved thee.  By Allah, I should like
to see my son a mighty clergyman.  Then I would wear fine Frankish hats
in their despite; and thou couldst wed the Sitt Hilda, though she is
old for thee.  To-morrow, therefore, seek some new abode. . . .  Allah
cut short thy life!  Thy wits are wandering.  Is the matter of my
speech so light, O misbegotten?"

Iskender, who was half-way through the mess of lentils, protested with
his mouth full that he had heard and would obey.  But his tone was so
indifferent as to increase his parent's wrath.  To one deep in thought
of the valley of gold, her words seemed trash.  She stormed unceasingly
till they had both lain down to rest and the night-light was burning
fitfully on the ground between them.  Then at last came peace; she
snored aloud; while Iskender thought of the valley full of gold, whose
true existence had been miraculously revealed to him, and then of the
career as a church painter offered to him by the priest Mîtri.
Anything was better than to be the fatted slave of the missionaries,
who, he felt sure, hated him.  His desire was to be loved.

In the morning early he returned to the house of Mîtri.  As he reached
it a noise of chanting in the little church informed him that the
priest was at his duties; so he squatted down in the shade of the
ever-green oak, and waited till the service should be ended.  Presently
a group of brown-legged boys came tumbling out, smiting one another and
shouting the minute they had passed the threshold.  A few girls
followed, all discreetly veiled, in one of whom he recognised Nesîbeh;
and then some older people, turbaned men and white-veiled women, among
them one blind sheykh with hands outstretched; and finally, after an
interval, the priest himself.  Iskender sprang to him, and kissed his
hand.

"I seek a boon of thee, O lord of kindness!"

"In the name of Allah!"  Mîtri seized the suppliant's hands and pressed
them to his heart.  "Say on; I listen."

Iskender told him how the hatred of the missionaries had reached such a
pitch that his mother was obliged to cast him out.  He had come to the
priest, his best friend, for advice in this dilemma, thinking that he
might recommend him to a lodging.

"Now may Allah house thee!" said Mîtri with a thoughtful frown.  "Allah
knows thy mother does great wrong thus to cast thee abroad, a young
unmarried man; unless she wishes to debauch thee utterly.  For who but
the worst of characters would take thee in, to share the intimacy of
their wives and daughters, except it might be as a traveller, and for a
single night?  Wallah, I am at a loss how to advise thee.  There is not
at present among us an old childless couple, nor yet a bachelor, whose
dwelling thou couldst share.  By the Holy Gospel, I see no resort for
thee except a khan. . . .  I have it!"--his perplexity was lightened
suddenly, and he raised his eyes, till then downcast.  "Thou shalt
lodge at the hotel of Mûsa el Barûdi, where thy patron dwells.  Mûsa is
of my congregation, and he loves me well; while, as for Selîm and Daûd,
his two sons, I taught them their duties and chastised their youthful
conduct.  Wait here, and I will write a word to them, how thou art
tired of the vain beliefs of the Brûtestânts, and wouldst tread the
path of Salvation."

"Write all that pleases thee, our father!"

Iskender waited to receive the missive; and then, with blessings on the
priest and all belonging to him, sped with it to the hotel.  To be near
his sweet Emîr both night and day fulfilled his dearest wish.

The sons of Mûsa had not yet risen when he entered the hall; and the
black doorkeeper, accustomed to see him come in every day without leave
or question, betrayed astonishment when asked to bear a letter to them.

"To which of the twain?" he asked, with a dubious grin.

"By Allah, that I care not; for see, by the superscription, the message
is to both alike."

"I will show it to the Khawâjah Selîm," the negro muttered, and went
off, holding the paper wrapped in his white robe.

He returned almost immediately, on his heels Selîm the son of Mûsa, who
cried gladly:

"Thou art welcome and thrice welcome, O my dear!  The praise to Allah,
and good luck to thee!  Our father Mîtri must be mad with joy; for thou
art the first that ever came from them to him, while they have stolen
many from his flock, though not of late.  The Holy Orthodox Church
invites no proselyte, so the more credit to the man who comes to her.
She resembles some old-fashioned, quiet merchant, too dignified to
compete with Frankish cheapjacks.  Our house is thy house; dwell here
as long as is convenient to thee, and may Allah preserve thee always."

Iskender murmured his thanks, standing reverently, with hands folded
away and eyes downcast.  Then, when Selîm had gone back to his
dressing, he crossed his legs upon the pavement of the hall and mused
on his good fortune, praising Allah.

Elias came into the hall and greeted him.

"I have news for thee," he whispered; and Iskender, remembering the
Valley of the Kings, gave eager ear; but just then Selîm, the son of
Mûsa, called from an inner room:

"Iskender is a convert, O Elias.  He returns to the bosom of the
Church.  The praise to Allah!"

"Is it true?" cried Elias, starting back and staring at the youth.
Perceiving no denial, he embraced him fondly, crying: "Our Lord bless
thee!  Allah knows I always loved the soul of thee, though the
Brûtestânt stank in my nose; now from this day forth I am thy brother.
By the Most High, thou shalt lodge nowhere but in my house."

"May Allah reward thy hospitality, O Elias," cried again the son of
Mûsa.  "The honour thou wouldst have is mine already."

"A pity!" sighed Elias, seeming really disappointed.

But the next minute, hearing steps upon the stairs, he brightened up,
and said in Iskender's ear:

"The Emîr descends!  Ah, I assure thee by the Holy Gospel, I have news
for both of you."

The Frank stayed only long enough for salutations, then passed again
from sight, going to breakfast.  But though they were long alone,
without a listener, Elias refused to impart the matter of his news,
bidding Iskender wait till the Emîr gave audience.

"Ah, I assure thee, news of price!" he repeated, hugging himself, with
big round eyes of mystery.




CHAPTER XIV

The news, when Elias did at last reveal it, was simply another of his
wondrous stories.  The Frank, however, listened to it with some
interest as the three walked out together.

In the watches of the night Elias had remembered how years ago a
muleteer, by name Mansur, had brought a piece of gold to show him
secretly.  This man had been upon a journey to the Wady Mûsa with some
English gentlemen of the kind who seek adventure in wild places.  Out
in the desert, far away from any house, he had the misfortune to be
separated from his company, and wandered alone for three days in vain
attempts to rejoin them.  At dusk one evening he found himself in a
wild ravine, its cliff-walls honeycombed with caves, in one of which he
chose to pass the night.  No sooner had he lain down than he imagined
that he heard unearthly music; but by dint of repeating the name of
Allah the trouble left him, and he went to sleep.

In the middle of the night he woke with a start, to find the cavern
lighted up, and full of people talking angrily.  By their pointed ears,
domed heads, and slanting eyes he knew them for the dwellers
underground.  Fear paralysed and kept him silent; which was lucky, for
he learnt presently that their wrath concerned him.  They were there,
it seemed, to guard a treasure-ground against intruders; and were
debating in what manner they should kill him, when Mansur, who was a
Christian, lifted up his voice and cried:

"In the name of Allah, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!"  They vanished
instantly with horrid yells.

In the morning, when Mansur arose and went to the cave-mouth, he saw
that the bottom of the ravine was strewn with lumps of gold.  In
delight he ran and gathered of the stuff as much as his bags would
hold, and then set forth.  But he had forgotten to give thanks to Allah
for the burden; and in consequence of the omission it was not made
light to him.  For relief he was forced to thrust a hand into his
placket, to pull out lump after lump and drop it on the road, till
there remained but one piece, small as compared with the rest, but
still enough to make his fortune in the world of common men.

Allah blessed his journey, and he reached his home at last.  There,
after a consultation with his wife, he resolved to submit the nugget to
some man renowned for probity and wisdom.  He brought it, therefore, to
Elias, who believed it to be gold, but, loth to trust his judgment,
advised Mansur to show it to a certain jeweller of high repute, as well
for virtue as for craftsmanship; and Mansur did so.  The jeweller asked
Mansur to leave it with him for a day or two, that he might apply
certain tests, and when asked for a receipt, appeared so hurt, called
so loudly upon Allah and the neighbourhood to attest his honesty, and
in all respects bore himself so nobly, that Mansur retired convinced
that he had left his treasure in clean hands.

But when he returned after two days, that jeweller informed him that it
was not gold.  Mansur then asked for it to be returned, saying that if
it were only brass it would be worth preserving.  The merchant replied
that he had thrown it away, and told the muleteer to go and hunt for it
upon the rubbish-heaps outside the city gate.  Mansur then called him
thief.  The jeweller cried "Ya Muslimin!" and roused the neighbours,
who fell upon Mansur, and beat him soundly, leaving him for dead.  But
before he lost consciousness he heard the jeweller exhorting the
multitude not to spare him, for that he had stolen a lump of fine gold
from the Sultan's treasury.

"What you think of that?" said Elias, when he had made an end.

"A truly wonderful story," rejoined the Emîr.

Their walk had ended on the sea-beach, where they now, all three, lay
stretched upon the sand.  The Emîr, with his straw hat tipped over his
eyes, threw a stone from time to time into the azure ripples, as dark
in contrast with their foam as ink on paper.  There was a moment's
silence.  Iskender whispered in his lord's ear:

"It is all a lie.  He made it up last night."

"There may be some truth in it; you never know!" replied the Emîr in
the same tone.  He added aloud for Elias, who was staring fixedly out
on the sea, still entranced by the vision he had just related:

"If the place is guarded by nothing more terrible than your genis, I
should like to go there."

"Ha, ha!" laughed Elias.  "That's all tommy-rot about the jinnis."
Nevertheless he glanced around in haste, and muttered an exorcist
formula beneath his breath.  "The Bedouins they're more real to be
afraid of.  But neffer say die; you square them easy with a few
dollars.  Iskender, he know the way there, so all serene!"

"I told Elias all about it, sir, last night," said Iskender sheepishly,
in reply to a glance of surprise.

"Yes, sir, he tell me, and I'm goin' to helb you all I can.  Trust
Elias, sir, he knows his way about!"

"Well," said the Emîr after a little meditation, "I feel inclined for
the adventure, provided always that it doesn't cost too much."

"We soon see what that's a-going to cost."

In a trice Elias whipped out from his breast a greasy pocket-book,
stuffed with testimonials from travellers, which, by the violence of
their owner's haste to begin calculations, were scattered on the sand.
As there was no wind, Elias let them lie there for the present, and
holding the pocket-book close to his nose, fell to dotting down Arabic
numerals on the tablet allotted to memoranda.

Iskender glared at him.  The wretch who yesterday had been crushed and
all-submissive, to-day aspired to take command of an expedition the
very idea of which was all Iskender's.

"This was gif me by one American gentleman," Elias remarked of the
pocket-book.  "Well, come along then!  You take camels or mules?
Camels hold the most, but mules much nicer.  We say fifty mules.  Then
you want a cook, and a waiter, and 'bout ten muleteers, and five--six
big tents.  I think you do it easy, grub an' all, sir, for 'bout five
hundred bound."

"Good Lord!" ejaculated the Emîr.

"Well, I do it for less, much less, but you be uncomfortable."

Iskender, then awaking from his trance of horror, grasped the
dragoman's arm and shook it angrily.

"What do we want with fifty mules, O ass?" he asked in Arabic.  "One
mule would carry enough to make us all as rich as Mûsa el Barûdi."

"By Allah, thou art an ass thyself!  Is it not well to bring away the
most we can," returned the visionary, sore dismayed; when, seeing how
their talk apart made the Frank suspicious, he relapsed into English
with a genial smile:

"Yes, fifty too dam' many; we take ten.  A friend of mine got three
nice tents--a bit old, but neffer mind!  He let you haf 'em cheab,
because he luf me.  Then three horses for you and me and 'Skender.  How
far you say it is?"  He turned to Iskender.  "You know the way."

"About nine days from here, accordin' to the baber which my father
wrote.  My mother kebt it to this day."

"Well, sir, I think you get there under one hundred bound, and once you
got the gold you not care a dam' what it coss comin' back."

"No," said the Frank firmly.  "I want to know the expenses there and
back, and I can't afford more than fifty pounds for the whole
expedition."

At this unlooked-for ultimatum Elias opened his eyes very wide and
sucked his pencil, staring ruefully at his scattered testimonials.  He
declared it to be "no go."

But Iskender, seeing the opportunity for self-assertion, stood by the
Frank, undertaking recklessly to arrange the whole expedition, on a
smaller scale, for the sum stipulated.

Elias shrugged to the ears.

"Be careful to keep this secret," he said sullenly in Arabic.  "By
Allah, if the others, who dislike thee already, get to know of it, they
will go mad with rage and probably take thy life.  Abdullah, thy uncle,
himself would wish to slay thee.  For a missionary or a resident in the
country, and out of season, it might pass.  But this is a lord of
wealth, a prince, the best sort of traveller!"

"Canst thou not perceive, O my dear, that the desire of his Honour is
for rough adventure, and not luxury?  And verily, to travel in the
style of thy proposal would simply be to invite every bravo of the
wilds to come and rob us."

This Iskender uttered in a tone of high impatience, and he was pleased
to observe, out of the corners of his eyes, that his patron approved of
that tone being used towards one who had designed to overcharge him.

"Well, Allah reward thee; for thou canst make no profit on it, that is
certain," said Elias with another shrug, and after that kept silence
for some minutes, resigning all part in the discussion.  But soon, as
that discussion grew more animated, and the vision of the sea of gold
came dazzlingly before his eyes, he forgot his dudgeon and chimed in
once more, thus tacitly accepting the leadership of Iskender, who was
satisfied.

"When shall we start?" asked the Emîr at last.

"Wheneffer you blease, dear sir," replied Iskender.

But Elias thought profoundly, visibly, with finger laid to brow.

"I think you better wait a bit, Iskender," he said presently.  "I tell
you why.  Just now there's no trafellers comin' to the country, so the
dragomans just stand around and jolly well watch all what you do.  We
go now, it make a talk.  Wait a month or two, in the name o' Moses,
then there's lots o' trafellers; they think about makin' money, and go
hang!  I shan't want no trafellers this year.  No jolly fear, by
George!  I stick to you.  Like that they think you got a brober
dragoman and all serene!"

This was sound advice, and, as it was proffered with the right
humility, Iskender commended it to his beloved.




CHAPTER XV

On the day following that council on the sea-beach, something happened
which pushed the Valley of the Kings into the background for a time.
This was the arrival from the land of the English of a fine new
paint-box, which the Emîr presented to his henchman with most gracious
words.  With this beside him and his sketch-book on his knees Iskender
heard the talk around him with but half an ear, and, when referred to
answered without thinking, thus assenting to propositions and accepting
responsibilities the onus of which dismayed him when he came to realise
it.  For instance Elias earnestly desired to know if Iskender could
have included the services of a first-rate cook in his estimate for the
expedition.  The best of cooks, he vowed, was necessary for the honour
and contentment of their dearest lord.  How was it to be done?

Iskender with eyes intent upon a spot of colour newly laid, with brush
in air, replied:

"Have no fear, O beloved.  I shall find a man; and, if not, I myself
will do the cooking."

"But canst thou?"

"By Allah, I am a known professor of the art."  And again when Elias
spoke of other services certain to be required upon the journey,
Iskender undertook, in default of trained servants, himself to make the
bed and wait upon the Frank at table.

The Emîr was greatly pleased by this alacrity of the absorbed artist;
seeing which, Elias cried:

"No, no, by God, you can't do all the work, I help you, 'Skender.  Let
me wait at table."

Iskender saw Elias waiting on their lord alone, breathing his pleasure
in the great man's ear!  Yet he assented gratefully.  Elias was not to
go with them at all, he had firmly resolved; but there was no need to
tell him so just now, in this time of preparation when his experience
was sure to be useful.  In Iskender's mind the Valley of the Kings was
little more than a romantic pretext for a ride alone with his Emîr.
But Elias thought of nothing but the gold.  His eyes seemed to have
grown larger in these days, and were fixed wide open to contain the
vision.  He treated Iskender with a kind of worship as the repository
of that precious secret, showed great care for his health, and was in
all things his loyal helper.  But the young man did not trust him.  He
kept the details of the expedition to himself as organiser; and, though
Elias pestered him with questions concerning the whereabouts of that
desirable valley, he would reveal nothing.  By dint of thus withholding
information, he himself acquired the firm conviction that there was
really information to withhold.

It was not till more than a week after the coming of the famous
paint-box that Iskender found time to go again to the house of Mîtri.
Repairing thither in the glow of a fine evening, following a rainy day,
he was surprised, as he drew near the place, to see his mother talking
with Mîtri in the doorway.  She was wrapped from head to foot in a
great shawl, and seemed in some trepidation, casting frequent glances
up and down the road.  In so doing she caught sight of Iskender, and
raised hands to heaven.  She ran to meet him.

"What is this?" she cried.  "Day after day have I been here to seek
thee, because the whole world says that thou hast joined the Orthodox,
and my heart yearned towards thee; but I dared not go openly to the
hotel where thou art known to lodge, having sworn to the missionaries
that I would never see thee more.  Here, too, I am in terror of my
life, for if it were known that I held intercourse with Mîtri, they
would cast me off.  Well, thou hast no more hope from them, thanks to
thy rashness.  Why couldst thou not shun the priest here, as I told
thee to?  Now, with all the Orthodox boasting of thy conversion, thou
art more than ever accursed in their sight.  Even at me they look
askance, I fancy, as if I had a finger in the mess.  Come indoors where
we can talk privately.  The worthy priest will let me enter with thee.
What made thee go and change thy faith just now?"

"I have not yet changed it, O my mother.  I do but hear the reasoning
of our father Mîtri."

"Well, that is something.  I will tell them that."  She held her tongue
suddenly, finding herself within the hearing of Mîtri, who, however,
took no notice of her, but welcomed Iskender fatherly and bade him
enter.  She entered with them unrebuked, and sat by while they argued,
feasting her eyes upon her son's good looks.  The girl Nesîbeh came
occasionally to the door of the inner room, and exchanged mischievous
glances with Iskender, who was on the watch for her.  His mother's eyes
were quick to notice this, and, leaning to his ear, she whispered:

"Cunning devil!  Thy plan is not amiss, for she is comely, and her
father stands well with the highest in the land.  Thou wilt mix with
the Barûdis and the rich Azîz."

Iskender shook her hand from off his arm, and brushed her words away as
stinging insects, in terror lest the priest should overhear.  The
priest rebuked her for the interruption.  But she continued unabashed,
and sat on smiling to herself, and nodding at Iskender when she caught
his eye.

After that Iskender went to the priest's house every evening, and his
mother often stole so far to meet him, hurrying, chin on shoulder, in
evident terror of pursuit by the missionaries.  She endured all Mîtri's
reprobations with a shrug, content so long as he allowed her to embrace
her boy.

"Poor people must eat bread.  Our Blessed Lord knows that and will make
allowance for me," was her reply to the accusation of hypocrisy.  But
she now seconded Mîtri's designs upon Iskender, gratified by the notion
of an alliance with the priest's family.  "It is different with him,"
she admitted, "since they have cast him out.  Let Iskender follow the
guidance of the Spirit.  Doubtless the congregation will take care of
his future, for he has forfeited a great career for conscience' sake."

Iskender, however, still held back, from no conscientious reluctance,
but merely to prolong a hesitation which he found delicious as giving
him value in the eyes of the girl Nesîbeh.  Her delight when any of his
objections went down before her father's reasoning and the triumphant
private glance she shot at him made a joy not lightly to be forgone.
When all his veritable doubts had been demolished, he invented others
to prolong this happiness.  He cherished definite hopes, dream-like as
was the nature of his mental process, of obtaining her for his own,
when he returned full of treasure from Wady 'l Mulûk.  The big priest,
it was clear, had conceived a liking for him, and had come to count on
his visits of an evening, loving an argument; her mother always blessed
him when he came and went, and baked choice sweetmeats for his
delectation.

It was not long before Iskender received evidence that the question of
his change of faith possessed a lively interest for others besides the
priest Mîtri and his lovely daughter.  One day, returning from a walk
with the Emîr, he heard that the missionary had been inquiring for him
in his absence; and the following evening, on the road to Mîtri's
house, he was overtaken by the Father of Ice in person, who got down
off his horse and addressed him very kindly.

Why did Iskender never come to church nowadays? why had he not been to
visit the ladies? why had he refused their offer of employment in the
house, which would probably have led to better things, perhaps to his
appointment as assistant master in one of the Mission schools?  Even
now it was not too late to reconsider; they, on their side, were quite
willing to forget bygones.  It had grieved them much to hear that
Iskender was drifting into bad company, and entering on a vicious
course of life; still more to learn that he showed an inclination to
forget the enlightened religious teaching which he had received in
childhood.

His words moved Iskender more than he desired to show, arousing in his
mind a thousand happy memories, reproachful now.  He replied in Arabic
with the sullenness that masks emotion:

"I am a son of the Arabs, and I return to my own kind.  Allah knows I
am nothing to be considered."

"What do you mean?" asked the missionary in a colder tone.

"Your Honour and the ladies could not make of me an Englishman.  It is
for that you cast me off."

"We tried to make of you a Christian man."  The missionary's face grew
stern, and his ice-green eyes gave forth a sword-flash.  "Well, go your
way; God grant it lead not to perdition!"  He nodded his head in the
direction of the two palm-trees which marked in the dusk the
whereabouts of Mîtri's house.

Iskender, glancing in the same direction, discerned the tall black
figure of the father of Nesîbeh in the road, looking out for him.  The
idea of evil in connection with the jolly priest suddenly struck him as
perverse and ludicrous.  He laughed in the face of the missionary.

"My friends are no worse than your friends.  And which of us will be
lost, which saved, will not be known until the last judgment.  May Our
Lord forgive your Honour for such bad thoughts."

In a white rage, the Father of Ice remounted his horse and rode away,
disregarding the ironical salute of Mîtri, who stood out before his
door, awaiting the arrival of his catechumen.

"What didst thou say to the hog to make him snort like that?" was the
priest's first question of Iskender; and, when the youth informed him,
"By Allah, it was a true word," he chuckled heartily.  "They think all
men should be on one pattern--the pattern of their wondrous selves,
whom they esteem perfection.  They suppose that what is good for their
race must be good for all the others, thus ignoring the providence of
Allah, Who made the peoples of the earth to differ in appearance,
speech, and manners.  They know nothing of our beliefs and ways of
thought, so call them wicked, since they are not theirs.  They condemn
men freely, sitting in the seat of judgment, unaware that they
themselves will be judged at the last day.  By Allah, there is only one
of all that breed whom one can talk to as a human being--I mean the
little preacher Ward, who runs their errands.  He has not been here for
three months or more.  From much travelling among the villages, he
knows the customs of our people and respects them.  Moreover, he is
modest, while the rest are arrogant. . . .  But, merciful Allah, what
is this I see?  What ails thee, madwoman?"

The mother of Iskender, stealing forth from the priest's house, had
cast herself upon her son, with fearful moans:

"O Holy Virgin!  O my terror!  Please God, he did not see me where I
stood in the doorway!  Some one has informed him where I go--it must be
Costantîn, the spy and liar--and now he rides at dusk to try and catch
me.  I shall not come here again; it is too dangerous.  Come thou to
the house sometimes quite late at night.  Farewell, O beloved, and may
Allah keep thee!"

"Allah is greatest!" ejaculated Mîtri, with a shrug and a gruff laugh,
as he watched her flight along the twilight road.  "Now let us enter
and dispute together."

But the shock of his encounter with the missionary had left Iskender
with no wits for argument.  He took leave earlier than usual; and, as
he walked back to the hotel in the dark, he realised that the last
vestige of his Protestantism had that evening been demolished.  His
baptism would follow as a matter of course, in the mind of Mîtri; and
he was by no means prepared to receive it, since the priest, for the
triumph of his congregation, was certain to demand a public ceremony,
and Iskender feared the scorn of his Emîr, whom he imagined to be
something of a sceptic.

Moreover, it would entail a full confession of his inmost thoughts,
which, with Wady 'l Mulûk in mind, he could not face; and at least it
ought to be postponed till after the great Fast, which the Orthodox
observe with cruel rigour.

To stave off the ordeal he saw himself forced to invent a new set of
doubts and objections.  On his next visit to the house of Mîtri, he
owned himself convinced of the vanity of the Protestant faith, but
hinted at an inclination towards the Catholic.  The big priest stared
at him with mouth agape.

"Curse thy father!" he exclaimed.  "Wouldst thou turn from bad to
worse, and rush straight to Jehennum.  Thou hast studied history, so
knowest that the Latins are our ancient enemies.  They slew us with the
Muslims when their armies took by storm the Holy Places, and enslaved
the remnant of us in a cruel slavery.  They have statues, rank idols,
in their churches; and is it not the worst idolatry to concentrate the
power which belongs of right to the whole Body of Christ, and adore it
in the person of one living man?  Their lips have corrupted the creed:
they have no baptism, so can have no orders.  Their Pope of Rome
himself is nothing but an unbaptized layman.  Speak of that again, and
I will drive thee from my house with beatings!"

Iskender, greatly alarmed, made haste to explain that he had spoken in
jest.  He had caught an angry look from the girl Nesîbeh.

"Jest not upon what concerns thy soul's salvation," said the priest,
letting his wrath evaporate.  "Thou knowest not what harm those Latins
do us, tempting souls astray.  They allow proselytes to retain our
beliefs, our language, and our form of service, so only that they
acknowledge the supremacy of the hound of Rome, which means perdition,
truly, in the next world, but foreign protection in this.  It is little
wonder that they have seduced many. . . .  What hinders thee from
receiving at my hands the inestimable boon of baptism?"

Iskender murmured that he still had doubts.  The angry glances of the
girl Nesîbeh made him shame-faced.

"Show me thy doubts that I may straight resolve them."

Iskender was muttering that he must think them out, that they were not
yet quite clear in his mind, when Nesîbeh cried from the inner room:

"Hear him not, O my father!  The low dog is mocking thee.  Force him to
be baptized, or drive him forth!"

"Silence, shameless one!" the priest cried sternly; nevertheless he
took her suggestion and, turning to Iskender, whose brow was throbbing
painfully, inquired: "Hast thou one good reason to desire delay?"

"Yes, O our father!"  Iskender blurted out the truth at last.  "I know
not how my patron would regard it.  On him I depend entirely for the
present.  I have heard him scoff at all who change the faith that they
were born in.  Wait a little, I beseech thee, until he is gone!"

"Is that in truth all?" replied Mîtri, fully satisfied.  "The right is
with thee.  We must wait awhile.  But Allah grant thou die not in the
interval."




CHAPTER XVI

The season recommended by Elias as most favourable for their adventure
now drew near.  Each steamer that touched at the port disgorged a
little crowd of travellers.  The Emîr being no longer alone in the
hotel, his radiance suffered eclipse.  Other Franks of distinction came
and went continually; dragomans, splendidly attired, hung about the
entrance, tugging at their moustachios, tapping their riding-boots with
silver-mounted whips, and spitting superbly, as became men whose
special province it was to order the lords of gold about like dogs.
Merchants and pedlars, as many as could get permission from the sons of
Mûsa, spread out their wares on the floor of the hall, and smiled
allurement on the visitors.  The servants of Cook and other Powers of
Europe and America strutted about and gave command like princes.

Iskender, for his footing in the house, helped the servants wherever an
extra hand was required, and in that way learnt to wait at table, to
polish boots and brush clothes, and acquired some inkling of the art of
cooking.  The positive need of these attainments for the coming journey
made him quick to learn.  The Emîr himself admired his general
usefulness, and the sons of Mûsa paid him money for his services.  As a
result of all this bustle there were fewer visits to the house of
Mîtri, while the book and paint-box were perforce laid by.

The excitement of Elias grew with every day.  He never tired of asking
whether all was ready, of reminding Iskender of the need of this or
that small comfort, and urging him to fix a date for their departure.
Indeed his eagerness became a visible disorder, and, seeing him mingle
freely with the other dragomans, Iskender went in hourly fear of
indiscretions.  One noon when, after a spell of work in the hot
kitchen, he had rushed to the outer door to breath the air, he fell
upon a group of persons splendidly arrayed, who welcomed his appearance
with unfriendly glee.  Yuhanna Mahbûb, the bully, seized his arm, and
threatened him with his whip not altogether playfully.

"Confess the truth!" he commanded, with his cruel grin.  "Thy journey
with the Emîr is not for pastime.  Thou hast a secret; it is useless to
deny it, for we know the fact from thy partner Elias.  I, with others
of thy friends, resent this great preferment of Elias.  Reveal thy
secret now immediately, and if it is of worth, I too will go with thee."

"What words are these?" Iskender cried out in extreme amazement.  "A
secret!  I possess a secret!  It is some lying fable of that mad Elias!"

"That, Allah knows, is possible," put in a bystander.  "Elias is the
very prince of fable-mongers."

Yuhanna still kept grinning in Iskender's face.

"Wilt thou swear by the Blessed Sacrament that thou knowest nothing of
the whereabouts of any treasure?"

"Art mad?  How should I know of any treasure?"

"Swear by the Blessed Sacrament!  Nought else will serve; and if
hereafter it should prove that thou art perjured, I will beat thy
filthy soul from out thy body."

"By the Blessed Sacrament I swear!" replied Iskender.

"That is well!" Yuhanna curled his long moustachios.  "Then why does
Elias refuse every other engagement?  It is not likely thy Emîr will
pay him much."

"By the same pledge I know not!  Ask the man himself!"

"Thou seest, 'Hanna, as I told thee, it is all a lie," laughed a
bystander, the same who had before spoken.

Iskender escaped from them, bearing the conscience of a perjured
wretch.  He called Allah Most High to witness how the sin was forced on
him.  It was some comfort to reflect that he was still technically a
Protestant, so might be taken to have sworn by the sacrament of that
sect which he knew to be without Divine significance.  But all the same
his crime was very heinous.

Early in the morning following this grave event, Iskender was engaged
in sweeping out the entrance-hall, when his uncle strode in out of the
sunlight, of which he seemed an offshoot in his splendour of apparel.
More respectable than ever through pride in the command of a company of
high-born English bent on sight-seeing, he addressed his nephew from
the height of condescension:

"O son of my brother, I start this day upon a journey of ten days with
my party, and would say a word to thee before I go.  Elias tells me
that both thou and he propose to ride forth with the young khawâjah,
and show him something of the land.  That is well.  Elias, though
sometimes foolish, has experience; and I have told him to instruct thee
fully in our business.  Go not too far, for travel in wild places is
too arduous for one so young; and Elias has little acquaintance with
the desert ways, and that little disastrous, he and all his party
having been captured and held to ransom by the Bedû, because he forgot
to pay the tribes their proper dues.  Be cautious and observant.  In
sh' Allah we shall all return in safety."

"In sh' Allah!" echoed Iskender in great astonishment; for it had that
minute occurred to him that he had no real knowledge of the whereabouts
of the place to which he had undertaken to conduct his patron, beyond
what Elias had implied, that it was somewhere in the neighbourhood of
Wady Mûsa.  His first sentiment on the discovery was one of
thankfulness, because he had not sworn falsely in his oath to Yuhanna.

His next was one of self-abasement before Allah.  Was not His mercy
boundless, like His power?  During the few days which remained before
the start, he spent much time in prayer, and offered votive candles to
be burnt in Mîtri's little church beneath the ilex-tree.  Why should he
not find his way to the Valley of Gold, by the blessing of the All
Powerful?  Did not his vision of the place, and the strange
concatenation of chances which had led him on to the adventure, seem to
indicate that he was destined to find it?  Even if he failed, the Emîr,
he told himself, would have had a pleasant outing, and could not in the
nature of things be very angry.  Thus he lulled his fears.

The one thing left to trouble him was the adherence of Elias, and he
tried by every means to throw him off.

"We cannot afford a horse for thee," he told the dragoman.  "Allah
knows I have enough to do to make the money suffice for the bare
necessaries."

"What did I tell thee?" said Elias cheerfully.  "When thou hast hired a
cook and baggage animals, I know, by Allah, there is nothing left.  No
matter, I will hire a horse on my own account."

Iskender next informed his friend in confidence that there was no real
intention of going to the Valley of the Kings.  It was all a joke
between himself and the Emîr.

"Ha, wouldst thou leave me out?" exclaimed Elias, with a laugh.  "No,
no, my soul.  I am not to be gulled so easily!"

Iskender despaired of ever getting rid of him, when Elias himself
unexpectedly afforded him the opportunity.  Two days before the start,
the Emîr asked for an account of the arrangements, and Iskender gave
it, in the presence of Elias.  His Honour was to ride the horse which
he had lately bought; Elias would provide his own.  Iskender himself
would act as cook and waiter and his Honour's body-servant, and also
assist in his functions the single muleteer, who provided three mules
and one horse.  A good-sized tent, a little the worse for wear, a
collapsible bed, a table, a chair, and cooking utensils completed an
outfit of which the whole cost amounted to little more than half the
sum which the Frank had assigned as a limit.

The Emîr was greatly pleased; not so Elias.  When Iskender had made an
end, the dragoman flung up his hands.

"That only!" he cried to heaven; "and for an Emîr, a great one, like
our friend here!"

It was a crime unheard of, an abomination!  Their beloved would die of
discomfort in a single night.  No, that should never be, so long as he
(Elias) enjoyed life and health, with some slight credit among honest
people.  He would himself provide two upright men, a cook and a waiter,
at his own expense.  He knew them well.  They had retired from
business, but they loved him dearly and would come forward willingly,
he felt sure, to save so excellent a prince from vile indignity.

This outpour of his indignation was addressed to Iskender in fierce
Arabic.  When his proposal was translated, the Emîr pooh-poohed it,
declaring Iskender's arrangement to be all he could desire.  Elias
then, in a frenzy, fell down at his feet, imploring him with tears to
reconsider.

"Beeble'll think we're some common fellows and be rude to us," he
moaned.  "Neffer mind the exbense, sir; that not matter a blow.  These
beeble friends o' mine, they come for nothin' 't all.  You gif them
what you dam' blease!"

His agony was terrible to witness.  Iskender had the feelings of a
murderer as he looked on.  Their patron stroked his small moustache and
smiled uneasily.

"You not go like that, sir!" pursued Elias, starting up.  "It is a
shame for you!  I go to the consul now direc'ly; make him a-stob you!
Now I'm off!  My friends of which I sbeak lif long way off; but I be
back with them in two days, the time you start.  Bromise to wait till
then!  All right!  Ta-ta!"  With a final casting-up of hands to heaven,
the enthusiast was gone.

"We had better start at once, or he'll spoil everything," said the
Englishman, when he recovered from his astonishment.  It was precisely
what his henchman had been thinking.  By no word had they pledged
themselves to abide his return.

Iskender went at once to hasten the preparations.  But their muleteer
proved sulky on the sudden change of plans; and it was only as the
result of a dispute which lasted the whole afternoon that Iskender
wrung from him an assurance that all would be ready when the sun next
rose.




CHAPTER XVII

Iskender, having roused his dear Emîr, went out to inspect the train.
It was then some half-hour later than the time appointed; yet neither
mules nor man were in sight, only the horse of the Emîr, with its neat
leather saddle and bridle, was being led up and down before the hotel
by a bare-legged boy.  In a rage Iskender hastened to the khan whence
at the recommendation of Elias he had hired his muleteer.  There his
reproaches caused extreme amazement.  The man, he was told, had
received his order as for the following day.  He was not on the
premises, and his house was some way off.

An idle witness of the youth's despair volunteered to go and fetch the
defaulter; he set off at a run, but was gone for more than an hour.
Iskender tired of waiting, and strode back angrily to the hotel.
Tidings of his dilemma having gone abroad, he was escorted by a little
crowd of the curious, among them some muleteers who were loud in their
offers of service.  From a distance he beheld the missionary, with back
towards him, conversing with his patron at the door, and quickened
step; but before he could come up the dialogue, whatever it concerned,
was ended, and his enemy had moved on.

"Not about you this time," his beloved laughed; "though he declares
that you are none of you to be trusted out of sight.  He has just been
warning me against our friend Elias, who, he says, once played a trick
upon some tourists--bribed the Bedouins to take them prisoner, and let
him rescue them.  I assured him that Elias was not going with us; but
he seemed to doubt my word, and I shall begin to doubt it myself unless
those mules turn up.  What has become of them?"

"The man bretends I told him for to-morrow.  That is a lie, because I
sboke as blain as anythin'.  I think it some trick of that Elias to
detain us here."

By that time all the unemployed muleteers in the town had joined the
growing crowd that watched their conference.  One man had gone so far
as to bring a good-looking mule ready saddled with him, as a sample of
what he could provide.  Iskender paid no heed to the prayers of all
these suppliants, whispered confidentially by those in front, shouted
with fierce gesticulations from those behind, any more than he gave ear
to the counsel of the sons of Mûsa that he should employ one of them.
He still had hopes of the person he had first engaged, who appeared at
length, but without any mules, and in a state of indignation even
greater than Iskender's.

The clash of words when they met electrified the whole street; the
mouths of the rival muleteers, now mere onlookers, grinned all
together, showing milk-white teeth.  Accused of laziness, of breach of
contract, the delinquent hurled back the accusations in Iskender's
face.  He said he knew his business, and was not going to start without
proper orders.  The Khawâjah Elias, the responsible dragoman, was away,
and might Allah end his life immediately if he set forth without him at
the call of a beardless boy.

So the truth was out.  Iskender reported to his patron that the man was
a mere creature of Elias.

"There's nothing for it," said the Emîr with a shrug.  "We must engage
another man."

"But I baid this one already some money."

"Never mind.  It will cost us more than that if we wait for Elias!"

So that muleteer was dismissed and retired, conscientiously objecting
in terms abusive and obscene; while the man who had had the wit to
bring a mule already saddled was promptly engaged in his place.  This
individual had attracted the Frank from the first by his cheerful
looks, and the way he kept aloof from the group that pestered, only
smiling now and then to the Englishman and patting his mule
significantly.  He now showed great alacrity, kissing first the Emîr's
hand, then Iskender's, asking where the tent and other baggage might be
found, and promising by the cloak of the Prophet, to have all in
perfect readiness within an hour.  The other candidates then fell away,
one or two volunteering to help the winner with his preparations, the
majority sitting down on their heels in the shadows of neighbouring
walls to watch the outcome of it all, the actual start.

The new muleteer was punctual to his word.  But by the time the laden
mules came up, luncheon was ready, and the sons of Mûsa insisted on the
Frank's partaking of the meal.  An invitation, the first he had ever
received, to join them at their private table, reconciled Iskender to
this new delay.  He told the muleteer to go on in advance, indicating
the road he was to take and naming a good place for that night's
encampment; and saw the mules start off with jangling bells, leaving
behind the horse he was to ride, which was tethered in the yard of the
hotel.

After the meal the Frank was lazy with repletion, and asked to rest
awhile; so that the afternoon was far advanced before they got on
horseback.  The Frank was then for a gallop; but Iskender warned him
that that pace was not for travel, and kept him down to the walk.
Passing the house of Mîtri, he looked for the girl Nesîbeh, hoping she
would see him riding at his lord's right hand, but in vain.

After an hour's journey, having left the orange-gardens far behind,
they forsook the highway and followed a bridle-path through fields.
Big scarlet tulips shone among the green cornstems.  Here and there
upon the fertile plain stood forth a grove of olives, their foliage
looking nearly white by contrast with its own dark shadow; a village of
mud-houses set upon a knoll and plumed with palms, with attendant barns
and ovens shaped like beehives; a man with oxen ploughing or a camel
browsing in the custody of a small child.  The breeze grew fresher as
the sun declined.  The colours of a dove's breast played upon the
barren heights which walled the land to eastward.  The sun sank lower
and lower; shadows grew upon the plain; the sea-coast sandhills became
clearly outlined; soon rays went up like fire from off the sea, and the
whole rampart of the eastern heights became empurpled; then a shadow
rose, a cold breeze roughed the corn, and presently the evening star
shone out in a soft sky.

It was dark when they reached the appointed halting-place, in a wady of
the foothills, close to a village which possessed a spring of water.
They found their tent well-pitched, a good fire burning in the shelter
of a cunning wind-screen, and the kettle boiling.  They had tea at
once, and afterwards Iskender went to cook the supper.  His lord soon
followed with desire to help.

"It's splendid fun!" he cried.  "You are a trump, Iskender!"

Iskender answered nothing, but gave praise to Allah.




CHAPTER XVIII

About the third hour of a cloudless day Elias Abdul Messîh crossed the
sandhills from the northward, traversed the gardens, and approached the
town.  He was riding a showy horse, which he caused to prance whenever
any one was looking; and had assumed the panoply of the fashionable
dragoman.  His slim but manly figure well became a tight and
many-buttoned vest of murrey velvet, a zouave jacket of blue silky
cloth, and baggy trousers of the same material, whose superfluous
lengths were tucked away in riding-boots of undressed leather.  A
scarlet dust-cloak streamed from off his shoulders.  The tassel of his
fez, worn far back on the head and dinted knowingly fluttered on the
breeze; the tassels on his bridle led a dance.

In his wake followed two fat, middle-aged men, set one behind the other
on a donkey's back, of whom the hindmost held a rope which led four
mules laden with all the requisites of Frankish travel.

Elias flourished in his hand the silver-mounted whip of rhinoceros-hide
which he had long ago reclaimed from the Emîr.  The pride of a leader
of men informed his bearing as he brought his train at last through the
crowded market, shouting loftily to clear a way.

Arrived at the khan where he was accustomed to hire beasts of burden,
he was preparing to dismount, when a man ran out and, stooping, kissed
his stirrup.  It was the muleteer who had been first retained by
Iskender.

"May Allah keep thee, O my dear!" exclaimed Elias, cheered by such
worship in a public place.  "What news in the town to-day?"

The muleteer raised hands and eyes to heaven.

"Grave news, O my lord Elias.  They sent me about my business, and are
gone without thee."

"Merciful Allah!" cried Elias, stupefied.  "Gone, sayest thou?  They
are gone, the miscreants? . . .  But it is impossible.  Gone, sayest
thou?  When and how did they go?"

In vain did he strive to discredit the muleteer's story, throwing doubt
on every point as it arose; it was only to remove all ground for doubt
concerning it.

"Merciful Allah!" he exclaimed again, in tones of horror.  "May their
fathers be destroyed, their mothers ravished.  Wait till I catch thee,
O thou pig Iskender!  The good Emîr will perish of discomfort; for that
treacherous boy is ignorant of all things that pertain to travel.  Y'
Allah!  Let us make all speed to overtake those wretched ones!"

But his companions, Aflatûn the cook and Fâris the waiter, were in no
such hurry.  They were hungry from much riding on an empty stomach, and
flatly refused to proceed another step until replenished.  Cursing
their greed, Elias was forced to resign himself.  He indulged in
eating, as he told himself, to pass the time; but afterwards, when it
came to coffee and narghîlehs, he squandered more than an hour in
boasting with what speed he would catch up the fugitives, how suddenly
and effectually he would repay the beast Iskender.  It was Aflatûn the
cook who reminded him at length that time wore on.  Once on horseback,
his eagerness again became active, and, in a measure, practical.  

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