[5]'Yâ takbar jârak, yâ jâri!'—a very common cry of grief in Syria.
[5]'Yâ takbar jârak, yâ jâri!'—a very common cry of grief in Syria.
[6]Something like 'Pooh-pooh to you!' but more insulting.
[6]Something like 'Pooh-pooh to you!' but more insulting.
The sand which had been a rich ochre turned to creamy white, the sea from blue became a livid green, the grass upon the sand-hills blackened and bowed down beneath a sudden gust of wind. The change was instantaneous, as it seemed to me. I had observed that clouds were gathering upon the mountain peaks inland, but I had been riding in hot sunlight, only a little less intense than it had been at noon, when suddenly the chill and shadow struck me. Then I saw the sky completely overcast with a huge purple cloud which bellied down upon the land and sea. The waves which had been lisping all day long gave forth an ominous dull roar. White horses reared and plunged. A wind sang through the grass and thistles of the dunes, driving the sand into my face.
Rashîd, who had been riding far behind, in conversation with our muleteer, came tearing up, andI could hear the shouts of the mukâri urging his two beasts to hurry.
'There is a village on the headland over there—a village of Circassian settlers,' cried my servant, breathless. 'It has a bad name, and I had not thought to spend the night there. But any roof is good in such a storm. Ride fast! We may arrive before the downpour.'
My horse had broken to a canter of his own accord. I urged him to a gallop. We flew round the bay. The village on the headland took shape rapidly—a few cube-shaped, whitewashed houses perched amid what seemed at first to be great rocks, but on a close approach revealed themselves as blocks of masonry, the ruins of some city of antiquity. From time to time a jet of spray shot up above them, white as lilies in the gloom. The sea was rising. I discerned an ancient gateway opening on the beach, and set my horse towards it, while the rain came down in sheets. I saw no more until the ruins loomed up close before me, a blind wall.
'Your right hand!' called Rashîd; and, bearing to the right, I found the gateway. We waitedunderneath its vault until the muleteer, a dripping object, shrouded in a sack, came up with his two mules; and then we once more plunged into the deluge. The path, a very rough one, wavered up and down and in and out among the ruins. There were, perhaps, a dozen scattered houses without gardens or any sign of cultivation round them. Only one of them possessed an upper storey, and towards that, supposing it to be the guest-room, we now picked our way. It stood alone right out upon the promontory, topped by clouds of spray.
A little courtyard gave us partial shelter while Rashîd ran up some rough stone steps and hammered at a door, exclaiming:
'Peace be on this house! My master craves for food and shelter, and we, his servants, ask the same boon of thy goodness. O master of the house, God will reward thy hospitality!'
The door was opened and a man appeared, bidding us all come in, in Allah's name. He was of middle height and thick-set, with a heavy grey moustache. An old-fashioned, low-crowned fez, with large blue tassel, was bound about his brow with an embroidered turban. A blue zouave jacket,crimson vest and baggy trousers of a darker blue completed his apparel, for his feet were bare. In his girdle were a pair of pistols and a scimitar.
He bade us welcome in bad Arabic, showing us into a good-sized room—the upper chamber we had seen from far. Its windows, innocent of glass, were closed by wooden shutters, roughly bolted, which creaked and rattled in the gale. A very fine-looking old man rose from the divan to greet us.
'What countryman art thou? A Turk, or one of us?' he asked, as I removed my head-shawl. 'An Englishman, sayest thou?' He seized my hand, and pressed it. 'An Englishman—any Englishman—is good, and his word is sure. But the English Government is very bad. Three Englishmen in Kars behaved like warrior-angels, fought like devils. And while they fought for us their Government betrayed our country. What? Thou hast heard about it? Praise to Allah! At last I meet with one who can confirm the story. My son here thinks that I invented it.'
I happened to have read of the defence of Kars under the leadership of three heroic Englishmen—General Williams, Captain Teesdale, and DoctorSandwith—and of the betrayal of the Circassian rising under Shamyl at the time of the Crimean war.
The old man was delighted. 'Listen, O my son!' he called out to the person who had let us in. 'It is true what I have often told to thee. This Englishman knows all about it. So does all the world, except such blockheads as thyself and thy companions.'
His son begged to be excused a minute while he put his crops into the barn. Therewith he dragged a sack out of the room. What crops he may have grown I do not know; but this I know—the contents of that sack clanked as he dragged it out.
When he returned, he brought a bowl of eggs cooked in clarified butter, two slabs of bread, and a great jug of water, apologising for the coarseness of the fare. We all supped together, the old man babbling of the days of old with great excitement. His son stared at me with unblinking eyes. At last he said:
'I like thee, O khawâjah. I had once a son about thy age. Say, O my father, is there not a strong resemblance?'
Thereafter he talked quite as much as the old man, giving me the history of their emigration from the Caucasus to escape the yoke of the accursed Muscovite, and enumerating all the troubles which attended their first coming into Syria.
'We are not subjects of the Government,' he told me, 'but allies; and we have special privileges. But the dishonoured dogs round here forget old compacts, and want us to pay taxes like mere fellâhîn.'
We sat up talking far into the night, while the storm raged without, and the rain and the sea-spray pounded on the shutters; and never have I met with kinder treatment. It was the custom for chance comers to have food at evening only and leave betimes next morning. But our host, when I awoke in splendid sunlight, had breakfast ready—sour milk and Arab bread and fragrant coffee—and when I went out to my horse he followed me, and thrust two roasted fowls into my saddle-bags, exclaiming 'Zâd!'—which means 'food for the road.' And much to my abashment he and the oldman fell upon my neck and kissed me on both cheeks.
'Good people! The very best of people! They would take no money. God reward them,' chanted Rashîd, as we rode out of the ruins inland through a garden of wild flowers. The storm had passed completely. Not a cloud remained.
After an hour we came in sight of a large khan outside a mud-built village on the shore. Before it was a crowd, including several soldiers. As we drew near, Rashîd inquired the meaning of the throng.
'A great calamity,' he was informed. 'A man, a foreigner, is dying, killed by highwaymen. One of his companions, a poor servant, is already dead.'
We both dismounted, and Rashîd pushed in to learn more of the matter. Presently a soldier came to me.
'Your Honour is an Englishman?' he questioned. 'Praise be to Allah! I am much relieved. This other also is an Englishman, they tell me. He is severely wounded, at the gate of death.'
I went with him at once to see the sufferer, who seemed relieved to hear me speak, but could notanswer. Rashîd and I did what we could to make him comfortable, giving the soldiers orders to keep out the crowd. We decided to ride on and send a doctor, and then report the matter to a British consul.
'He was going down to start some kind of business in the city over there,' the leader of the soldiers told me, nodding towards the south. 'He had a largeish company, with several camels. But near the village of —— he was attacked by the Circassians, and was so foolish as to make resistance. They took everything he had of worth—his arms, his money—and killed a camel-driver, besides wounding him. It happened yesterday before the storm. They say I should take vengeance for him. What am I—a corporal with six men—to strive with Huseyn Agha and his cavalry! It needs a regiment.'
He went grumbling off. Rashîd and I were staring hard at one another; for the village named was that where we had spent the night, and Huseyn Agha's roasted fowls were in our saddle-bags.
Rashîd, as I could see, was troubled upon myaccount. He kept silence a good while. At last he said:
'It is like this, my lord. Each man must see with his own eyes and not another's. People are as one finds them, good or bad. They change with each man's vision, yet remain the same. For us those highway robbers are good people; we must bless them; having cause to do so. This other man is free to curse them, if he will. Good to their friends, bad to their enemies. What creature of the sons of Adam can condemn them quite?'
Having to dress for dinner on a certain evening, I took off my money-belt, and quite forgot to put it on again. It happened to contain twelve English pounds. I left it lying on the table in the hotel bedroom. When I came back in the small hours of the morning it was gone. Rashîd—who slept out at a khan in charge of our two horses—came in at eight o'clock to rouse me. Hearing of my loss, he gave me the worst scolding I have ever had, and then went out to blow up the hotel proprietor.
It was, for once, a real hotel with table d'hôte, hall-porter, and a palm-lounge—everything, in fact, excepting drains. The owner was a fat, brown individual, whom I had generally seen recumbent on a sofa in his office, while someone of his many sons did all the work. But that he could show energy upon occasion I now learnt. Hearing fromRashîd that I, a guest in his hotel, had suffered robbery, he sprang on to his feet and danced with rage.
When I arrived upon the scene, which was the palm-lounge—an open courtyard shaded by an awning—he was flourishing a monstrous whip, with dreadful imprecations, literally foaming at the mouth. I begged him to do nothing rash, but he seemed not to hear me. With the squeal of a fighting stallion, he rushed off to the servants' quarters, whence presently there came heartrending shrieks and cries for mercy. His sons, in fear of murder, followed him, and added their remonstrance to the general din. The women of his house appeared in doorways, weeping and wringing their hands.
Rashîd seemed gratified by this confusion, regarded as a tribute to our greatness, his and mine.
'Be good enough to go away,' he told me. 'The scene is quite unworthy of your dignity. I will take care that all is done to raise your honour.'
I remained, however. Presently, the host returned, perspiring freely, mopping his brown facewith a crimson handkerchief. He smiled as one who has had healthy exercise.
'It is no use,' he told me, with a shrug. 'I beat them well, and every one of them confessed that he alone, and not another, was the thief. Each, as his turn came, wished to stay my hand at any cost.'
He sank down on a sofa which was in the court. 'What further is your Honour's will?' he asked. 'I will beat anyone. The story is so bad for the hotel. I should be ruined if it reached the ears of Cook or Baedeker.'
The cries of those unhappy servants having shamed me, I told him that I was content to count the money lost rather than that harmless folk should suffer for my carelessness. Rashîd protested, saying twelve pounds was no trifle, although I might, in youthful folly, so regard it. He, as my servant, had to guard my wealth.
'The gold is lost. It is the will of Allah. Let it be,' I answered irritably.
'Thou wilt not tell the English consul?' cried the host, with sudden eagerness. 'Thou wilt refrain from saying any word to Cook or Baedeker to bring ill-fame and ruin on the place? Our Lordaugment thy wealth and guard thee always! May thy progeny increase in honour till it rules the world!'
'But something must be done,' Rashîd remonstrated. 'A crime has been committed. We must find the culprit.'
'True,' said the host, 'and I will help with all my strength. The consul would not help at all. He would but frighten the police, with the result that they would torture—perhaps hang—a man or two, but not the man who stole your belt of money. Our police, when not alarmed, are clever. Go to them and give a little money. They will find the thief.'
'I go this minute,' said Rashîd.
I bade him wait. Knowing his way of magnifying me and my possessions, I thought it better to be present at the interview, lest he should frighten the police no less than would the intervention of a consul.
We went together through the shady markets, crossing here and there an open space of blinding sunlight, asking our way at intervals, until at lastwe entered a large whitewashed room where soldiers loitered and a frock-coated, be-fezzed official sat writing at a desk. This personage was very sympathetic.
'Twelve pounds!' he cried. 'It is a serious sum. The first thing to be done is to survey the scene of crime. Wait, I will send with you a knowing man.'
He called one of the soldiers, who stepped forward and saluted, and gave him charge of the affair.
'You can place confidence in him. He knows his business,' he assured me, bowing with extreme politeness, as we took our leave.
With the soldier who had been assigned to us we sauntered back to the hotel. The man abounded in compassion for me. He said it was the worst case he had ever heard of—to rob a man so manifestly good and amiable of so great a sum. Alas! the badness of some people. It put out the sun!
At the hotel he spent a long while in my room, searching, as he said, for 'traces.' Rashîd, the host and all his family, and nearly all the servants,thronged the doorway. After looking into every drawer, and crawling underneath the bed, which he unmade completely, he spent some minutes in debating whether the thief had entered by the window or the door. Having at last decided for the door, he turned to me and asked if there was anybody I suspected. When I answered 'no,' I saw him throw a side-glance at Rashîd, as if he thought him fortunate in having so obtuse a master. As he was departing, Rashîd, at my command, gave him a silver coin, for which he kissed my hand and, having done so, said:
'I know a clever man, none like him for such business. I will send him to your presence in an hour.'
Three hours passed. I had finished luncheon, and was sipping coffee in the lounge, when a sleek personage in gorgeous robes was brought to me. He had a trick of looking down his nose at his moustache, the while he stroked it, with a gentle smirk.
'Your Excellency has been robbed,' he murmured in a secret tone, 'and you would know therobber? There is nothing simpler. I have discovered many thieves. I think it likely that I know the very man. I will disguise myself as an old woman or a begging dervish. There are many ways. But, first, your Honour must bestow on me an English pound. That is my fee. It is but little for such services.'
I answered languidly that the affair had ceased to thrill me; I wished to hear no more about the money or the thief. He stayed a long while, wheedling and remonstrating, depicting his own subtlety in glowing terms; but in the end departed with despairing shrugs and backward glances, hoping that I might relent.
Rashîd, who had been out to tend the horses, came presently and asked if I had seen the great detective. When I described our interview, he nearly wept.
'The people here think me the thief,' he told me. 'They say nothing, but I feel it in their bearing towards me. And now you give up seeking for the culprit! Am I to bear this shame for evermore?'
Here was a new dilemma! No way out of it appeared to me, for even if we did employ the great detective, our chance of finding the delinquent seemed exceeding small. I was thinking what could possibly be done to clear Rashîd, when a familiar figure came into the court and strolled towards us. It was Suleymân! I had imagined him three hundred miles away, at Gaza, in the south of Palestine. Loud were our exclamations, but his calm rebuked us. I never knew him show excitement or surprise.
He heard our story with deliberation, and shook his head at the police and the detective.
'No use at all,' he scoffed. 'The one man for your purpose is the Chief of the Thieves. I know him intimately.'
'Ma sh'Allah! Is there then a guild of thieves?'
'There is.'
'The Sheykh of the Thieves must be the greatest rogue. I do not care to have to do with him.'
'You err,' remarked Suleymân, with dignity. 'Your error has its root in the conviction that a thief is evil. He may be evil as an individual; all men are apt to be who strive for gain; but as amember of a corporation he has pride and honour. With Europeans, it is just the opposite. They individually are more honourable than their governments and corporations. The Sheykh of the Thieves, I can assure you, is the soul of honour. I go at once to see him. He can clear Rashîd.'
'If he does that, he is the best of men!' exclaimed my servant.
An hour later one of the hotel men, much excited, came to tell me that some soldiers were approaching, who had caught the thief. The host and all his family ran out into the hall. Rashîd and all the servants came from kitchen purlieus. Four soldiers entered with triumphant exclamations, dragging and pushing forward—Suleymân!
The prisoner's demeanour had its usual calm.
'I have regained the belt,' he called to me. 'These men were watching near the house, and found it on me. They would not hear reason. The man who stole the belt—a Greek—has left the city. He gave the Sheykh the belt, but kept the money.'
The soldiers, disappointed, let him go.
'How dost thou know all that?' inquired their leader.
'The Headman of the Thieves informed me of it.'
'Ah, then, it is the truth,' the soldier nodded. 'He is a man of honour. He would not deceive thee.'
I do not claim to understand these things. I but relate them.
One summer, in the south of Syria, amid that tumbled wilderness of cliff and chasm, shale and boulder, which surges all around the Sea of Lot, we had been riding since the dawn without encountering a human being, and with relief at last espied a village, having some trace of cultivated land about it, and a tree.
Rashîd was on ahead. Suleymân had been beside me, but had dropped behind in order to perform some operation on his horse's hoof. As I came down the last incline on to the village level I heard angry shouts, and saw a crowd of fellâhîn on foot mobbing Rashîd. Urging my horse, I shouted to him to know what was happening. At once a number of the villagers forsook him and surrounded me, waving their arms about and talking volubly.
I had gathered, from their iteration of the oneword 'moyeh,' that water was the matter in dispute, even before Rashîd succeeded in rejoining me.
He said: 'I rode up to the spring which flows beneath that arch, and was letting my horse drink from the stone trough of water, when these maniacs rushed up and dragged my horse away, and made this noise. They say the water in the spring is theirs, and no one else has any right to touch it. I offered to make payment, but they would not hear me. I threatened them with vengeance, but they showed no fear. Is it your Honour's will that I should beat a few of them?'
Seeing their numbers, I considered it the wiser plan for us to let them be till their excitement had cooled down, and till Suleymân arrived to help us with advice. Accordingly, I smiled and nodded to the villagers, and rode back up the path a little way, Rashîd obeying my example with reluctance, muttering curses on their faith and ancestry. Then we dismounted and lay down in the shadow of some rocks. It wanted still two hours before the sun would set.
Suleymân came on us, and dismounted at a call from me.
'What is the noise down there?' he questioned, looking at the village with that coolness, like indifference, habitual to his face when meeting problems of importance.
'They will not let us touch the water—curse their fathers!' growled Rashîd. 'Heard anyone the like of such inhospitality? It would but serve them right if we destroyed their houses.'
Suleymân screwed up his eyes, the better to survey the crowd of villagers below, who now sat guard around the spring, and murmured carelessly:
'It is evident that thou hast angered them, O son of rashness. We shall do well to wait before approaching them again with our polite request.'
Therewith he stretched his length upon the ground, with a luxurious sigh, and would, I think, have gone to sleep, had not Rashîd, conceiving himself blamed, thought necessary to relate in full the whole adventure.
'What else could man have done?' he asked defiantly. 'Say in what respect, however trifling, did I act unwisely?'
'By Allah, thou didst nothing wrong, and yetthou mightest have done better, since thy efforts led to failure,' said the sage, benignly. 'Thou art a soldier yet in thought, and thy one method is to threaten. If that avails not, thou art helpless. There are other ways.'
'I offered money,' cried Rashîd indignantly. 'Could man do more?'
'What are those other ways? Instruct us, O beloved!' I put in, to save Rashîd from feeling lonely under blame for ignorance.
'No truly great one ever argues with a crowd. He chooses out one man, and speaks to him, him only,' said Suleymân; and he was going to tell us more, but just then something in the wadi down below the village caught his eye, and he sat up, forgetting our dilemma.
'A marvel!' he exclaimed after a moment spent in gazing. 'Never, I suppose, since first this village was created, have two Franks approached it in a single day before. Thou art as one of us in outward seeming,' he remarked to me; 'but yonder comes a perfect Frank with two attendants.'
We looked in the direction which his finger pointed, and beheld a man on horseback clad inwhite from head to foot, with a pith helmet and a puggaree, followed by two native servants leading sumpter-mules.
'Our horses are in need of water,' growled Rashîd, uninterested in the sight. 'It is a sin for those low people to refuse it to us.'
'Let us first wait and see how this newcomer fares, what method he adopts,' replied Suleymân, reclining once more at his ease.
The Frank and his attendants reached the outskirts of the village, and headed naturally for the spring. The fellâhîn, already put upon their guard by Rashîd's venture, opposed them in a solid mass. The Frank expostulated. We could hear his voice of high command.
'Aha, he knows some Arabic. He is a missionary, not a traveller,' said Suleymân, who now sat up and showed keen interest. 'I might have known it, for the touring season is long past.'
He rose with dignified deliberation and remounted. We followed him as he rode slowly down towards the scene of strife. When we arrived, the Frank, after laying about him vainly with his riding-whip, had drawn out a revolver.He was being stoned. His muleteers had fled to a safe distance. In another minute, as it seemed, he would have shot some person, when nothing under Allah could have saved his life.
Suleymân cried out in English: 'Don't you be a fool, sir! Don't you fire!'
The Frank looked round in our direction, with an angry face; but Suleymân bestowed no further thought on him. He rode up to the nearest group of fellâhîn, crying aloud:
'O true believers! O asserters of the Unity! Bless the Prophet, and inform me straightway what has happened!'
Having captured their attention by this solemn adjuration, he inquired:
'Who is the chief among you? Let him speak, him only!'
Although the crowd had seemed till then to be without a leader, an old white-bearded man was thrust before him, with the cry:
'Behold our Sheykh, O lord of judgment. Question him!'
Rashîd and I heard nothing of the conversation which ensued, except the tone of the two voices,which appeared quite friendly, and some mighty bursts of laughter from the crowd. No more stones were thrown, although some persons still kept guard over the spring.
At length Suleymân returned to us, exclaiming:
'All is well. They grant us leave to take what water we require. The spring has been a trouble to these people through the ages because the wandering tribes with all their herds come here in time of drought and drink it dry. But now they are our friends, and make us welcome.'
He called out to the Frank, who all this while had sat his horse with an indignant air, more angry, as it seemed, to be forgotten than to be assailed:
'It is all right. You take the water and you pay them five piastres.'
'It is extortion!' cried the Frank. 'What right have they to charge me money for the water of this natural spring, which is the gift of God? I will not pay.'
'No matter. I pay for you,' shrugged Suleymân.
I tried to make the missionary—for such he proved to be upon acquaintance—understand thatthe conditions in that desert country made the spring a valued property, and gave a price to every pitcherful of water.
'What! Are you English?' was his only answer, as he scanned my semi-native garb with pity and disgust. 'And who, pray, is that person with you who was rude to me?'
'His name is Suleymân. He is a friend of mine.'
'A friend, I hardly think,' replied the Frank, fastidiously. He was a big man, with a dark complexion and light eyes. 'I am going to camp here to-night. I have a tent. Perhaps you will be good enough to come and sup with me. Then we can talk.'
'With pleasure,' I made answer, taken by surprise.
'Where is your camp?' he asked.
'We haven't got one. We put up in the guest-room if there is one, or under the stars.'
'Well, there's no accounting for tastes,' he murmured, with a sneer.
Rashîd, through all this conversation, had been standing by, waiting to tell me that Suleymân had gone before into the village to the headman's house,where it had been arranged that we should pass the night. Thither we went, when I had finished speaking to the missionary; and there we found Suleymân enthroned among the village elders in a long, low room. He stood up on my entrance, as did all the others, and explained:
'We have a room near by where we can throw our saddle-bags, but it is verminous, and so we will not sleep inside it, but outside—on the roof. For supper we are the invited guests of the good sheykh, and I can tell you he is getting ready a fine feast.'
With deep regret and some degree of shame I told him of my promise to take supper with the missionary. He looked reproach at me, and told the villagers what I had said. They all cried out in disappointment. Suleymân suggested that I should revoke the promise instantly, but that I would not do, to his annoyance; and after that, till it was time for me to go, he and Rashîd were sulky and withdrew their eyes from me. I knew that they were jealous of the Frank, whom they regarded as an enemy, and feared lest he should turn my mind against them.
It was dusk when I set out for the missionary's tent, and starlit night before I reached it—so fleeting is the summer twilight in that land.
Rashîd went with me, as in duty bound, and insisted on remaining with the servants of the missionary by the cook's fire, although I told him to go back repeatedly, knowing how his mouth must water for the headman's feast. The dudgeon which he felt at my desertion made him determined not to let me out of sight, and called for the martyrdom of someone, even let that someone be himself.
The missionary called: 'Come in!' while I was still a good way off the tent. Entering, I found him stretched on a deck-chair, with hands behind his head. He did not rise upon my entrance, but just smiled and pointed to another chair beyond a little folding table laid for supper.
He spoke of the day's heat and the fatigues of travel and the flies; and asked me how I could endure to sleep in native hovels full of fleas and worse.
I told him that, by Suleymân's arrangement, we were to sleep upon the roof for safety. He sniffed.
I then related a discussion I had overheard between Rashîd and Suleymân as to the best way of defeating those domestic pests, thinking to make him laugh. Rashîd had spoken of the virtues of a certain shrub; but Suleymân declared the best specific was a new-born baby. This, if laid within a room for a short while, attracted every insect. The babe should then be carried out and dusted. The missionary did not even smile.
'The brutes!' he murmured. 'How can you, an Englishman, and apparently a man of education, bear their intimacy?'
They had their good points, I asserted—though, I fear, but lamely; for the robustness of his attitude impressed me, he being a man, presumably, of wide experience, and, what is more, a clergyman—the kind of man I had been taught to treat with some respect.
He said no more till we had finished supper, which consisted of sardines and corned beef and sliced pineapple, tomatoes and half-liquid butter out of tins, and some very stale European bread which he had brought with him. Confronted with such mummy food, I thought with longing of the good, fresh meal which I had left behind me at the headman's house. He may have guessed my thoughts, for he observed: 'I never touch their food. It is insanitary'—which I knew to be exactly what they said of his.
The man who waited on us seemed to move in fear, and was addressed by his employer very curtly.
After the supper there was tea, which, I confess, was welcome, and then the missionary put me through a kind of catechism. Finding out who I was, and that we had some friends in common, he frowned deeply. He had heard of my existence in the land, it seemed.
'What are you doing here at all?' he asked severely. 'At your age you should be at college or in training for some useful work.'
'I'm learning things,' I told him rather feebly.
His point of view, the point of view of all my countrymen, imposed itself on me as I sat there before him, deeply conscious of my youth and inexperience.
'What things?' he asked. And then his tongue was loosed. He gave me his opinion of the people of the country, and particularly of my two companions. He had summed them up at sight. They were two cunning rogues, whose only object was to fleece me. He told me stories about Englishmen who had been ruined in that very way through making friends with natives whom they thought devoted to them. One story ended in a horrid murder. He wanted me to have no more to do with them, and when he saw I was attached to them, begged me earnestly to treat them always as inferiors, to 'keep them in their place'; and this I promised, coward-like, to do, although I knew that, in the way he meant, it was not in me.
It seemed that he himself was travelling in these wild places in search of an old Greek inscription, mention of which he had discovered in some book. He half-persuaded me to bear him company.
'You are doing no good here, alone with suchcompanions,' he said, as I at last departed. 'Think over my advice to you. Go back to England. Come with me for the next few days, and share my tents. Then come and stay with me in Jerusalem, and we can talk things over.' There was no doubt of the kindliness of his intention.
I thanked him, and strolled back toward the village in the starlight, Rashîd, who, at my first appearance, had detached himself from a small group which sat around the missionary's kitchen fire, stalking on before me with a lantern.
It seemed a wonder that the village dogs, which had made so great a noise on our arrival in the place so short a while before, now took no notice, seeming to recognise our steps as those of lawful inmates.
At the headman's house Suleymân still sat up talking with the village elders. He expressed a hope that I had much enjoyed myself, but with a hint of grievance which I noticed as a thing expected. Looking round upon those eager, friendly faces, I compared them with the cold face of the missionary, who suddenly appeared to me as a great bird of prey. I hated him instinctively, forhe was like a schoolmaster; and yet his words had weight, for I was young to judge, and schoolmasters, though hateful, have a knack of being in the right.
At last we three went up on to the roof to sleep. We had lain down and said 'good night' to one another, when Suleymân remarked, as if soliloquising:
'Things will never be the same.'
'What do you mean?' I questioned crossly.
'That missionary has spoilt everything. He told you not to trust us, not to be so friendly with persons who are natives of this land, and therefore born inferior.'
I made no answer, and Suleymân went on:
'A man who journeys in the desert finds a guide among the desert people, and he who journeys on the sea trusts seamen. What allegations did he make? I pray you tell us!'
'He told me stories of his own experience.'
'His experience is not, never will be, yours. He is the enemy. A tiger, if one asked him to describe mankind, would doubtless say that they are masters of the guile which brings destruction, deservingonly to be clawed to death. Question the pigeons of some mosque, upon the other hand, and they will swear by Allah men are lords of all benevolence.'
Rashîd broke in: 'His boys, with whom I talked, inform me that he is devoid of all humanity. He never thanks them for their work, however perfect, nor has a word of blessing ever passed his lips. He frowns continually. How can he be the same as one like thee who laughs and talks?'
We had all three sat up, unconsciously. And we continued sitting up, debating miserably under the great stars, hearing the jackals' voices answer one another from hill to hill both near and far, all through that night, drawing ever closer one to another as we approached an understanding.
'An Englishman such as that missionary,' said Suleymân, 'treats good and bad alike as enemies if they are not of his nation. He gives bare justice; which, in human life, is cruelty. He keeps a strict account with every man. We, when we love a man, keep no account. We never think of what is due to us or our position. And when we hate—mayGod forgive us!—it is just the same—save with the very best and coolest heads among us.'
'But you are cunning, and have not our code of honour,' I objected, with satirical intention, though the statement sounded brutal.
'Your Honour says so!' cried Rashîd, half weeping. 'No doubt you are referring to that theft in the hotel, of which you thought so little at the time that you would take no action. That was the doing of a Greek, as was established. Say, can you of your own experience of children of the Arabs say that one of us has ever robbed you of a small para, or wronged you seriously?'
'I cannot,' was my answer, after brief reflection. 'But the experience of other, older men must weigh with me.'
'Let other men judge people as they find them, and do thou likewise,' said Suleymân.
'He urged me to give up this aimless wandering and go with him in search of an old Greek inscription, not far off. Within four days he hopes to see El Cuds again; and thence he urged me to return to England.'
At that my two companions became silent andexceeding still, as if some paralysing fear hung over them. It was the hour immediately before the dawn, and life seemed hopeless. The missionary's voice seemed then to me the call of duty, yet every instinct in my blood was fierce against it.
'Your Honour will do what he pleases,' said my servant mournfully.
'The Lord preserve thee ever!' sighed Suleymân. 'Thou art the leader of the party. Give command.'
A streak of light grew on the far horizon, enabling us to see the outlines of the rugged landscape. A half-awakened wild-bird cried among the rocks below us. And suddenly my mind grew clear. I cared no longer for the missionary's warning. I was content to face the dangers which those warnings threatened; to be contaminated, even ruined as an Englishman. The mischief, as I thought it, was already done. I knew that I could never truly think as did that missionary, nor hold myself superior to Eastern folk again. If that was to be reprobate, then I was finished.
'Saddle the horses. We will start at once,' Itold Rashîd. 'Before the missionary is afoot—towards the East.'
For a moment he sat motionless, unable to believe his ears. Then suddenly he swooped and kissed my hand, exclaiming: 'Praise be to Allah!'
'Praise be to Allah!' echoed Suleymân, with vast relief. 'The tiger in thee has not triumphed. We shall still know joy.'
'I resign myself to be the pigeon of the mosque,' I answered, laughing happily.
Five minutes later we were riding towards the dawn, beginning to grow red behind the heights of Moab.