There was to be a grand fantasia at the castle of the greatest of Druze sheykhs in honour of a visit from the English Consul-General in Syria; and as an Englishman I was invited to be there. It was a journey of a day and a half. Upon the second morning Rashîd and I had not gone far ere we fell in with other horsemen wending in the same direction as ourselves, well mounted and in holiday attire. All greeted us politely, but we kept apart, because they nearly all rode mares while we rode stallions—a fruitful source of trouble and a cause of war.
At length a young man mounted on a stallion overtook us with most cordial greetings. I had met him often. He was the son of a rich landowner in a neighbouring valley, and, I think, the most beautiful human creature I ever saw. That day he was particularly good to look at, hiscomplexion of clear olive slightly flushed, his violet eyes beneath their long dark lashes dancing, his perfect white teeth gleaming with excitement and delight. He wore a cloak, broad striped, of white and crimson, a white frilled shirt of lawn showing above a vest of crimson velvet, fawn-coloured baggy trousers, and soft sheepskin boots. A snow-white turban crowned his whole appearance. His horse was thoroughbred and young, and he controlled its ceaseless dance to admiration. He told me that the stallion was his own, an uncle's gift, and quite the best in all the mountains; although mine, he added out of mere politeness, was undoubtedly a pearl of breeding and high spirit. He hoped with such a steed to gain renown in that day's horsemanship, and, if it might be, win the notice of the Consul-General and his lady.
'My father wished me to take out another horse,' he said; 'but I love this one, and am used to all his ways. I could not do myself full justice on another, nor would Rustem do his best for any other rider.'
He proceeded to discuss the horses which we saw before us on the road, pointing out in each ofthem some defect, and exclaiming: 'I shall excel them all, in sh' Allah! Does not your Honour also think my horse the best?'
I assured him that I did indeed, and all my wishes were for his success, 'because,' said I, 'I know and like you, and I do not know the others.'
'But some thou knowest for a certainty, for all the Mountain will be there. Come, let me name them to thee one by one.' And some of those he named were certainly well known to me.
'When thou seest Hasan, son of Ali, nicely mounted, wilt thou not think he is the better man?'
'No, no, by Allah!' I disclaimed such fickleness. 'Be sure that if good wishes can ensure success, all mine are with thee in to-day's event.'
'Allah increase thy wealth!' he cried in joy, as if I had bestowed on him a gift of price.
There was a crowd of many colours on the well-made road which wanders up through orchards to the village and ends on the meydân before the castle gate. There the crowd halted, making fast their horses to the many rings and tie-holes which were in the walls. Rashîd took charge of my horse and his own, while I went on up steps on to ahigher platform intersected by a stream of ice-cold water plunging down into the valley in a fine cascade whose spray and murmur cooled the air. That rush of water was the greatest luxury in such a land, and the lord of the castle took much pride in its contrivance.
I went up to a door where soldiers and domestics lounged, but was informed: 'Our lord is out of doors.' A soldier pointed to a bunch of trees above the waterfall and overlooking the meydân, where many notables in black frock coat and fez sat out on chairs. He ran on to announce my coming. I was soon a member of the formal group, replying to the usual compliments and kind inquiries.
Coffee was handed round. Then came a tray of different kinds of sherbet, then a tray of eatables. The chiefs around me talked of harvests and the price of land, but, most of all, of horses, since it was a horsey day. The screaming of a stallion came persistently from the meydân—a naughty screaming which foreboded mischief. I recognised the voice. The culprit was my own Sheytân. The screams were so disturbing, so indecent, that several of the great ones round me frowned andasked: 'Whose horse is that?' in accents of displeasure. I was ashamed to own him.
At length the lord of the castle called a servant to his side and whispered, pointing with his hand in the direction whence the screams proceeded. The servant hurried off, but presently returned and whispered something in his master's ear. His master looked at me and nodded gravely. He then addressed me in a deprecating tone, remarking: 'Your Honour's horse is too high-spirited; the crowd excites him. Will you allow him to be tethered in some other place?'
From the excessive smoothness of his manner I could guess that, had I been a native of the land, he would have told me to remove the vicious brute and myself likewise. I rose at once to go and see to it.
'Pray do not give yourself the trouble!' he exclaimed, distressed.
The servant went along with me, and, when we got to the meydân, Rashîd came running. Sheytân was then indeed a terrifying sight, with streaming tail, mane bristling, and a wicked bloodshot eye, tearing at his head-rope, one minute pawing at thewall as if to climb it, the next kicking wildly with his head down. I know little of horses in general, but I knew that particular horse, and he knew me. I went up quietly and talked to him, then loosed the rope and led Sheytân away without much difficulty, Rashîd meanwhile explaining to the servant of the house that no one else could possibly have done it. We tied him at the further end of the meydân.
Then I went back on to the terrace, where the notables had risen and were looking at the youths who were to take part in the fantasia, among them my companion of the road, the young Sheykh Abdul Hamid. These were now on the parade-ground with their horses. My neighbour in the group of great ones said, politely:
'Your Honour should go with them; it is only proper, since their going is to compliment the representative of England. And you are, I see, a very skilful cavalier. The way you quieted that horse of yours was wonderful. We have all been talking of it. Ride with them!'
I begged to be excused. The essence of the fantasia is to show off one's own prowess and one'shorse's paces while careering madly in a widish circle round some given object—an open carriage with some great one in it, or a bridal pair—taking no note of obstacles, dashing over rocks and gulleys and down breakneck slopes, loading and firing off a gun at intervals, in full career. I had tried the feeling of it once at a friend's wedding, and had been far from happy, though my horse enjoyed the romp and often tried to start it afterwards when there was no occasion. Remembering Abdul Hamid and his desire for praise that day, I said:
'There is only one good horseman here—Abdul Hamid, the son of the Sheykh Mustafa. All the rest of us, compared with him, are mere pedestrians.'
I pointed out the youth in question to my neighbour, who was a man of power in the mountains, and he praised the beauty of his form on horseback.
'By Allah, right is with thee,' he assented. 'There is none but he.'
Away they went—Jinblâts, Talhûks, and Abdul Meliks—all in clean white turbans, with coloured cloaks a-stream upon the breeze, on horses gorgeously caparisoned. We waited half anhour—in silence, as it seemed; and then we heard the noise of their return, the shouts, the firing. I swear I saw a horse and man surmount a housetop in the village and then leap down upon the other side. At last, with yells and reckless gunshots and a whirl of dust, the crowd of horsemen came full tilt on the meydân. Their leader—in appearance a mad angel—was my friend, Abdul Hamid. Suddenly he drew his rein, flinging the steed right back upon his haunches. In so doing, looking up at me with a triumphant smile, he somehow missed his balance and pitched clear over his horse's head, just at the very moment when a carriage and pair containing the beaming Consul-General and his lady, with a glorious Cawwâs upon the box, arrived upon the scene. I ran to help him, but another person was before me. A tall old man, whose garb bespoke him an initiated Druze, rushed out among the horses and the dust and beat the wretched lad about the shoulders, heaping curses on that lovely head for bringing shame upon an honoured house before such company. It was the lad's own father, the Sheykh Mustafa. I helped to drag the old man off, and would have gone onto console the son; but just then I beheld Sheytân approaching with a broken head-rope. I contrived to catch him and to mount without attending to the girths; and, once on horseback, I was glad to be there; for quite fifty of the tethered steeds had broken loose in the excitement, and were rushing here and there and fighting in a most alarming way. I have always had a dread of horse-fights, and this was not a single fight; it was a mêlée, fresh horses every minute breaking loose to join it. Right in my way two angry stallions rose up, boxing one another like the lion and the unicorn, and a little boy of ten or thereabouts ran in between and, jumping, caught their head-ropes.
I escaped at last and rode down through the village to the bottom of the valley, where a grove of walnut trees cast pleasant shade beside a stream. There Rashîd found me later in the day. He told me that my disappearance had caused consternation and alarm, the Consul-General and his lady having asked for me. Bidding him remain with the two horses, I went back on foot to the castle, where I stayed only the time necessary to pay my respects.
As I was returning towards the valley, a litterborne between two mules was leaving the meydân. Beside it walked the stern Sheykh Mustafa, and in it, I had little doubt, reclined the beautiful Abdul Hamid.
I asked the serving-man who led the foremost mule if his young lord was seriously hurt. He answered:
'Yes; for he has broken his elbow and his shoulder and his collar-bone. But that is nothing, since he has disgraced our house.'
A bitter wail of 'Woe the day!' came from within the palanquin.
The sun was sinking down over the sea, the mountain wall with all its clefts and promontories wore a cloak of many colours, when we saw before us on a rock a ruined tower. We were looking for some human habitation where we might get food and shelter for the night; but we should have passed by that building, taking it to be deserted, had not we espied a woman's figure sitting out before it in the evening light.
Experience of late had taught us to shun villages, belonging thereabouts to a peculiar sect, whose members made a virtue of inhospitality. At noon that day, when wishing to buy food, we had been met with such amazing insults that Rashîd, my henchman, had not yet recovered from his indignation, and still brooded on revenge. On seeing that the ruined tower had occupants, he said:
'If these refuse us, we will force an entrancemercilessly; for see, they dwell alone, with none to help them.'
He rode before me towards the tower, with shoulders squared and whip upraised.
It surprised me that the woman sitting out before the door appeared indifferent to his approach, until, upon a closer view, I saw that she was old and blind. She must, I thought, be deaf as well, since she had failed to move at sound of hoof beats; which sound brought out an aged man, who shattered Rashîd's plan of vengeance by exclaiming: 'Itfaddalû! (Perform a kindness!' that is, 'Enter!').
'It is thou who doest kindness,' I replied, by rote. 'We are thy suppliants for food and rest this night.'
'All mine is thine,' the old man answered, coming to hold my horse's head, while I dismounted. His wrinkled face was moulded to a patient, sad expression, which became more noticeable when he smiled; and he was always smiling.
I went into the tower and down a flight of much-worn steps, which ended in a heap of fallen masonry.
'Deign to proceed,' called out the tenant from behind me; when, climbing over the obstruction, I found myself in a large room, of which the only furniture consisted in a heap of bedding and some cooking things. Rather to my surprise the place was clean. The old man flung himself upon the ground and blew upon the mass of charcoal in a brazier, and presently a smell of coffee stewing filled the dungeon; for such it doubtless had been in the past, its only window being high above our heads, yet only just above the level of the rock, as I discovered when I went to seek Rashîd, who, by our host's direction, had bestowed the horses in a cavern by the sea. The blind old woman still sat out before the door.
I walked all round the tower and noticed small fields neatly fenced below it on the landward side, and a few hobbled goats upon a strip of herbage near the shore; which, with some fishing-nets spread out upon the rocks to dry, informed me how our host obtained a livelihood.
As I went back towards the door, I met Rashîd bringing our saddlebags. He nodded to the woman, who still sat there motionless, and told me:'She is mad, the poor old creature—but not dangerous. Fear nothing. They are quite good people. It is strange, but he informs me she is not his mother nor his wife, nor anyone by birth allied to him. And yet he waits upon her, helpless as she is.'
Just then, the master of the tower appeared, and, going to the woman, took her hand and raised her. 'Itfaddalû!' he said, with just the same polite alacrity with which he welcomed us on our arrival, as if she, too, had been an honoured guest. We all went down the broken steps into the dungeon. A meal of fish and bread was set before us. The woman took her food apart. The master of the house did not sit down till she was satisfied; and, after supper, he set out a bed for her, and then washed out the vessels, before he came again and sat with us. By that time the old woman was asleep. Two lighted wicks, passed through a piece of cork which floated in a bowl of oil and water, roused the shadows of the vault. A sudden outcry at the far end of the room made us both jump.
'Fear nothing!' said our entertainer. 'She is dreaming. Ah, poor lady! Our Lord repay hergoodness in the next life for all the evil she has borne in this!'
'Is it permissible to ask to hear her story?' said Rashîd.
The old man looked at me with a reluctant smile, as who should say: 'It is a sad tale. Would you really care to hear it?'
I nodded gravely, and, with a deep sigh, he began:
'Many years ago—how many it is now impossible for me to say, for, dwelling here, I have lost count of time—a certain chieftain of the desert Arabs had a son who loved the daughter of his father's enemy. There was no intercourse between the houses, but the young prince of whom I speak contrived to see the maiden and to meet her stealthily, even riding in among the dwellings of her people at risk of his own life and mine; for I must tell you that I am his foster-brother, though not by blood a scion of the desert, and so I served him, as was usual with us, in the quality of an esquire.
'Both tribes were of those Arabs which have villages for their headquarters, without renouncingthe old life of war and wandering. Our village was upon the borders of the Belka, and hers far north towards the Hauran. In those days there were no Turkish military posts beyond the Jordan. The feuds and customs of the tribes were then the only law; though now, they tell me, that that country is made safe for travel.
'There was no means to bridge the gulf which custom fixed between the lovers; and so my foster-brother, being mad with longing for the maid, decided to abduct her and escape into the settled country. I, loving him, applauded all his schemes. The princess Amîneh—for she was the daughter of a sovereign chief—was of a spirit equal to his own. She rode out from her father's town by night upon the best mare of the tribe with but one girl attendant. My lord and I were waiting by a certain well. And then we rode, well knowing that both tribes would hunt us, towards the wilâyet, where there was law and Turkish power to protect us. The princess Amîneh lacked a man's endurance, and her woman suffered greatly from fatigue. Their weakness had to be considered, and there came atime when it was evident that they could go no further without rest.
'We were then within a short day's journey of the nearest Government post, attaining which we should have been in safety. We took refuge in a ruined sheepcote. I was keeping the look-out while all the others slept, when I noticed a small cloud of dust uprising in the distance. I roused my lord, and told him: "The pursuers come." He looked upon the princess and her maiden: they lay fast asleep, exhausted by fatigue.
'"Let be," he said. "There is no hope for us in flight. Lie low. Perhaps they will pass by without perceiving us."
'And so they might have done, God knows, had not our horses neighed, winding the other horses.'
The old man wrung his hands, then hid his eyes with them.
'Never, never can I tell the details of what followed. We fought, and the princess fought beside us, snatching a scimitar which I was wearing from my side. Her boldness helped us somewhat to delay the end, for our assailants were her father's people, and they feared to hurt her. But the endcame; it was from the first inevitable. I was lying helpless on the ground, wounded, but fully conscious, when they slew my lord. At once they hewed his body into fragments, each of which was soon exalted on a spear. The princess, wounded in the face, and pinioned, witnessed that. Her damsel lay inanimate, and at the time I thought her dead. She was my promised bride. Then the Emir approached with a great spear—as I suppose, to kill his daughter, but just then there were loud shouts, and then another battle, in which I heard the war-cry of our tribe. The father of my lord, pursuing also with intent to punish us, had come upon his ancient enemy at unawares. He won the day. The other Arabs broke and fled. The noblest of our braves pursued them; but several of the lewder sort remained behind to torture and dishonour my unhappy lady. I tried to rise and rescue her, but, with the effort, my spirit left my body, and I lay as dead—the praise to Allah!—which is the reason why I am alive to-day.
'So great a fight could not take place so near the guarded country without coming to the knowledge of the Government. Ten Turkish soldiers, armedwith carbines, and an ombashi, coming to the spot next day, discovered us, and carried the survivors to a place of safety. The princess was then, as you yourselves have seen her, except that she was young and now is old. Her damsel had survived the fight without much hurt, by God's protection, having lain upon the ground so still that she was left for dead. When I recovered from my wounds, I married her.
'So tragic was our tale that all men pitied us. The Governor himself protected the princess, and placed her with the women of his household. But she could not be happy in the city, in that kind of life; her soul grew restless, pining. My wife, who visited her every day, was grieved for her; and when I found that it was as she said, I went and asked the Governor's permission to support our lady. Perceiving that she was not happy in his house, he yielded; and we three wandered through the settled country for long months, the people showing kindness to us through compassion, for our tale was known. At last we reached this ruin by the sea, which pleased our lady because, my wife believed, the mountains are so like a wall raisedup between her and the country of her grief. That must be thirty years ago; but she has never wandered since.
'My wife died and I buried her beside the shore; for years I have performed her duties to our lady. The people of these parts are wicked, but they let us be, because they think that we are under some enchantment. My prayer is always that I may survive my lady, for how could she, poor creature, fare alone? So far, we have been very fortunate, praise be to Allah!'
Rashîd was loud in his expressions of amazement at the story, his mind intent upon the central tragedy. He said no word of praise or wonder at our host's self-sacrifice. That he accepted, as a thing of course. This attitude of his, which I observed, prevented me from uttering the words of pity and condolence which were on my tongue; and I am glad those words were never uttered, for they were impertinent, and would have seemed absurd to Orientals, who have not our sentiment.
So, after the conclusion of the tale, we went to bed.
The moon began to shine upon the gardens of Damascus, casting pale shadows, though the daylight had not quite departed, and the sky behind the trees to westward was still green. We were sitting out on stools under the walnut trees, beside a stream which made a pleasant murmur. The air was laden with the scent of unseen roses. Behind us was a little tavern with a lantern lighted in its entrance arch, a solitary yellow eye amid the twilight.
We were the centre of a crowd, as usual when Suleymân was with us. His voice attracted people like a drum, and the matter of his talk had power to hold them. It was a weighty voice of studied modulations, which promised wisdom on the brink of laughter. He generally chose some moral or religious subject for discourse, and illustrated it by what we call 'nawâdir' (rare things) selectedfrom his vast experience of life. By his own account he had journeyed to the world's rim, and had associated not alone with men, but also with jinn and ghouls. On the other hand, he had been to Europe several times, and knew the streets of Paris and of London. Somehow, one never doubted any of his stories while he was telling them, the accents of his voice had such conviction. One was conscious that his tales—even the most extravagant—were true in some mysterious, intrinsic way. This time he chose to speak to us of guilt and innocence, of good and evil works, and their effect on man's salvation. He aired the theory, which roused approving murmurs in the listening circle, that to have a good intention was the chief desideratum for every son of Adam on his journey through the world, no matter though his works might turn out bad or unsuccessful.
'To lie with good intention is better than to tell the truth with bad intention,' he declared.
'To lie is the salt of a man; the shame is to him who believes,' put in Rashîd, my servant, who was great at proverbs.
Suleymân paid no heed to the interruption.
'A sin committed thoughtlessly,' said he, 'is light compared with one which thou hast hatched and planned.'
'Nay, O beloved, a sin is a sin, appointed so by the Most High; and the duty of a man is to avoid it. The hurt to man's salvation is the same, however he approach it,' said an old man in the audience. 'If I cut my hand, is the wound less, is it not rather likely to be more—for being thoughtless?'
There was a murmur of applause as all eyes turned on this objector, whose likeness could not be distinguished in the gloaming.
I spoke in approbation of the view expressed, and the old man, emboldened, laughed:
'To lie is bad, to kill is bad, to steal is bad. Our Lord destroy this rogue of an Intention, which plain men cannot catch nor understand!'
'Nay, listen!' Suleymân became persuasive and profoundly earnest, as was his manner always under opposition. 'Thou hast not altogether caught my meaning. I say a man should trust in the Most High, not think too much beforehand of his ways. By thinking beforehand, he may forma bad intention, since man's thoughts are naturally fallible. Let him think afterwards, thus he will learn to shun such snares in future, and by repentance place a good work to his credit. Men learn wisdom from their sins, not from their righteous deeds. And the consciousness of sin, the knowledge that they may at any moment fall into it, preserves them from the arrogance of goodness.'
'There may be some small grain of sense in what thou sayest,' chuckled the objector, 'but not enough to make sin righteous, nor yet to abrogate the sacred law.'
Suleymân pursued unheeding: 'I have a rare thing, which will show you what I mean.
'A new judge had been appointed to the Holy City. He was departing from Stambûl by ship to take up his appointment. On the quay, a Jew of his acquaintance came to him with reverence, and begged him kindly to convey a basket of bastirma to his (the Jew's) son at the Holy City, which the Jews in their own language call Jerusalem. You all know what bastirma is. It is dried and salted mutton—very tasty—a dish of which the Turks are most inordinately fond. The Cadi graciouslyconsented, bidding his major-domo take the basket, and bestow it carefully among the things. The Jew departed. The Cadi and his party journeyed till they reached their destination, where, upon arrival, they discovered a young Jew inquiring earnestly about a basket of bastirma. The Cadi had forgotten its existence. "Ah, to be sure!" he cried. "I gave it my major-domo for safe keeping."
'He called that servant, and commanded him to give the basket of bastirma to the Jew there waiting. The major-domo bowed his head, folded his hands upon his breast, and said: "I ask forgiveness, O my lord. The basket still remains, but the bastirma was so excellent that, having tasted but a piece of it, I wanted more, so that, in fact, I ate it all upon the journey. I wish to pay the price of it to this young Jew."
'The Cadi thought his servant's offer fair enough, but the young Jew went mad. Flying at the throat of the major-domo, he flung him to the ground, and tried to tear the soul out of his body with his teeth and nails. The Cadi called upon the bystanders for help. The Jew was draggedwith difficulty from his victim. Then the Cadi asked:
'"Why, pray, did you attack my servant in that savage way?"
'"That man," said the Jew, still white with rage, and pointing with his tallow finger at the major-domo, who had risen from the ground—"that man contains my grandfather."
'"What words are these? Explain yourself!" the Cadi cried.
'"Three weeks ago, O gracious Excellency, my grandfather died in Stambûl. It had ever been his dearest wish to be buried in the Holy City, near the scene of judgment; and that wish of his was law on us his offspring. But how could we fulfil it? How, I ask? No skipper, whether Nazarene or Muslim, would receive a dead Jew on his ship for less than the corpse-weight in gold. And we are poor. To take him overland was quite impossible. And so my father and my mother in Stambûl cured his dead limbs, and made of them bastirma, and sent him hither in the way thou knowest. It follows that thy servant has committed a most dreadful crime. Let him be killed, I pray,and buried in the tomb we have prepared, that so my grandfather's great wish may be fulfilled."
'The major-domo was more dead than living as he heard that story. He rent his clothes and fell down on the ground insensible.
'The Cadi answered the young Jew with wisdom, saying: "Thou art entitled to the price of one basket of bastirma, and no more, from this my servant; but he, on his side, has a right to all thou ownest. What wealth can ever compensate him for the haunting fear that on the Last Day he may rise inextricably mingled with thy worthy grandfather? Go, I say, and never venture to approach him any more, or I shall surely act upon this judgment and denude thee quite." The major-domo—'
Cries of 'Miskîn! Miskîn!' (poor fellow!) interrupted the narrative.
One said: 'I once ate pig's flesh by mistake, but this man's plight is much more horrible.'
Suleymân's opponent cried: 'It was a judgment on him, evidently, for his theft of the bastirma. Say, what became of him thereafter, O narrator?'
'The major-domo, who, till then, had been a precious rogue—I knew him intimately from a child, and so can vouch for it—became from that day forth the saintliest of men. He thought about his crime and mourned for it, and deemed himself an unclean beast until he died—may God have mercy on him—and was buried in the Holy City as the Jew desired. He thought of nothing but good deeds, yet without seeking merit, knowing that nothing he could do would ever cleanse him. He became the humblest and the best of men, who had before been arrogant and very wicked. Therefore I say that it is well for men to think of their sins after rather than before committing them.'
'But the intention!—What of the intention, O my master? His intention was not good. He stole!'
'His intention went no further than a basket of bastirma. The Jew was only an unpleasant accident, in respect whereof no guilt attached to him. The case is clear, and yet, although I used to argue with him on the subject, I never could contrive to make him see it. One thing is certain,and will prove to you the worth of good intentions. He only meant to eat a basket of bastirma; therefore he felt great remorse when he devoured a Jew, and so became a saint for Paradise. Had he intended to devour a Jew he could not possibly have felt such great remorse. What say you?'
And everyone agreed that it was so.
Of Suleymân in his capacity of dragoman I saw little but heard much both from himself and others. The English residents in Palestine and Syria—those who knew of him—regarded him as but a doubtful character, if one may judge from their repeated warnings to me not to trust him out of sight. His wisdom and his independent way of airing it did not please everybody as they did me; and reverence in dealing with a fellow-man was not his strong point. By travellers, I gather from innumerable testimonials which he showed me, he was either much beloved or the reverse, though none could say he did not know his business.
His English, though voluminous and comprehensive, was sometimes strange to native English ears. He had read the Bible in a German mission school, and spoke of 'Billiam's donkey' and 'the mighty Simson' where we should speak ofBalaam's ass and Samson. He called the goatskins used for carrying water 'beastly skins,' and sometimes strengthened a mild sentence with an expletive.
I do not think he ever went so far in this way as another dragoman who, riding out from Haifa one fine morning with an English lady, pointed to Mount Carmel and observed:
'Bloody fine hill, madam!'
He knew how to adapt his language to his audience. But it is curious that a man whose speech in Arabic was highly mannered, in English should have cultivated solecisms. That he did cultivate them as an asset of his stock-in-trade I can affirm, for he would invent absurd mistakes and then rehearse them to me, with the question: 'Is that funny? Will that make the English laugh?'
For clergymen he kept a special manner and a special store of jokes. When leading such through Palestine he always had a Bible up before him on the saddle; and every night would join them after dinner and preach a sermon on the subject of the next day's journey. This he would make as comical as possible for their amusement, for clergymen, heoften used to say to me, are fond of laughter of a certain kind.
One English parson he bedevilled utterly by telling him the truth—or the accepted legend—in such a form that it seemed false or mad to him.
As they were riding out from Jaffa towards Jerusalem, he pointed to the mud-built village of Latrûn and said:
'That, sir, is the place where Simpson catch the foxes.'
'Ah?' said the clergyman. 'And who was Simpson?'
'He was a very clever gentleman, and liked a bit of sport.'
'Was he an Englishman?'
'No, sir; he was a Jew. He catch a lot of foxes with some traps; he kill them and he take their skins to Jaffa to the tailor, and he tell the tailor: "Make me one big skin out of these little ones." The tailor make one thundering big fox's skin, big enough for Simpson to get inside of it. Then Simpson, he put on that skin one night, and go and sit out in the field and make the same noise what the little foxes make. The little foxes comeout of their holes to look; they see one big fox sitting there, and they not know it's really Simpson. They come quite near and Simpson catch hold of their tails and tie their tails together. Then they make the noise, and still more foxes come, and Simpson catch hold of their tails and tie their tails together, till he got hundreds and hundreds.'
'Whatever did he do with them?' inquired the parson.
'He set fire to them.'
'What on earth did he do that for?'
'That, sir, was to annoy his wife's relations.'
'And would you believe it,' added Suleymân when he told me the story, 'that foolish preacher did not know that it is in the Bible. He took it all down in his notebook as the exploit of a Jewish traveller. He was the Heavy One.'
The last remark was in allusion to an Arabic proverb of which Suleymân was very fond:
'When the Heavy One alights in the territory of a people there is nothing for the inhabitants except departure.'
Which, in its turn, is an allusion to the following story:
A colony of ducks lived on an island in a river happily until a certain day, when the carcase of an ox came drifting down the current and stuck upon the forepoint of that island. They tried in vain to lift it up or push it off; it was too heavy to be moved an inch by all their efforts. They named it in their speech the Heavy One. Its stench infected the whole island, and kept on increasing until the hapless ducks were forced to emigrate.
Many Heavy Ones fell to the lot of Suleymân as dragoman, and he was by temperament ill-fitted to endure their neighbourhood. Upon the other hand, he sometimes happened on eccentrics who rejoiced his heart. An American admiral, on shore in Palestine for two days, asked only one thing: to be shown the tree on which Judas Iscariot had hanged himself, in order that he might defile it in a natural manner and so attest his faith. Suleymân was able to conduct him to the very tree, and to make the journey occupy exactly the time specified. The American was satisfied, and wrote him out a handsome testimonial.
It must have been a hardship for Suleymân—a man by nature sensitive and independent—to take his orders from some kinds of tourists and endure their rudeness. If left alone to manage the whole journey, he was—I have been told, and I can well believe it—the best guide in Syria, devoting all his energies to make the tour illuminating and enjoyable; if heckled or distrusted, he grew careless and eventually dangerous, intent to play off jokes on people whom he counted enemies. One Englishman, with a taste for management but little knowledge of the country, and no common sense, he cruelly obeyed in all things, with the natural result in loss of time and loss of luggage, sickness and discomfort. That was his way of taking vengeance on the Heavy Ones.
'And yet the man was happy, having had things his own way, even after the most horrid and disastrous journey ever made,' he told me with a sigh. 'Some men are asses.'
One afternoon, when I was riding round the bay from Akka towards the foot of Carmel, supposing Suleymân to be a hundred miles away, I came upon a group of tourists by the river Kishon, on theoutskirts of the palm grove. They had alighted and were grouped around a dragoman in gorgeous raiment, like gulls around a parrot. The native of the land was holding forth to them. His voice was richly clerical in intonation, which made me notice that his audience consisted solely of members of the clergy and their patient women.
'This, ladies and gentlemen,' the rascal was declaiming like a man inspired, 'is that ancient riffer, the riffer Kishon. It was here that the great Brophet Elijah bring the Brophets of Baal after he catch them with that dirty trick which I exblain to you about the sacrifice ub there upon that mountain what you see behind you. Elijah he come strollin' down, quite habby, to this ancient riffer, singin' one little song; and the beoble they lug down those wicked brophets. Then Elijah take one big, long knife his uncle gif him and sharben it ubon a stone like what I'm doin'. Then he gif a chuckle and he look among those brophets; and he see one man he like the look of, nice and fat; and he say: "Bring me that man!" They bring that man; Elijah slit his throat and throw him in the riffer. Then he say: "Bring his brother!"and they bring his brother, and he slit his throat and throw him in the riffer ... till they wasALLgone. Then Elijah clean his knife down in the earth, and when he'd finished laughin' he put ub a brayer.
'That was a glorious massycration, gentlemen!'
The preacher was Suleymân, at struggle with the Heavy Ones. He was not at all abashed when he caught sight of me.
I was staying for some weeks at Howard's Hotel in Jerusalem (Iskender Awwad, the dragoman, had transformed himself into the Chevalier Alexander Howard, a worthy, if choleric, gentleman, and a good friend of mine), and I rode out every day upon a decent pony, which I had discovered in the stables at the back of the hotel. One afternoon a nephew of the stable-owner, who was something of a blood, proposed that we should ride together out towards Bethlehem. His horse was a superb and showy stallion, quite beyond his power to manage properly. My modest steed was fired to emulation, and, once beyond the outskirts of Jerusalem, we tore away. At a corner where the road was narrow between rocks, I do not know exactly how, the big horse cannoned into mine and overturned him. I pitched headlong on some stones.
My first impression was that I had struck a wet spot in that arid wilderness. Then I saw my horseat a great distance, galloping, and heard the nephew of the owner saying that he must pursue it, while I must mount his horse and ride on slowly.
'Not half a mile from here, upon that hill,' he said, 'is Katamûn, the country seat of the Greek Patriarch. There you are certain to find people who will have compassion. Would God that I had never lived to see this day! Would God that I were in the grave instead of you!'
He seemed beside himself with grief and fear on my account; and yet the sense of property remained supreme. His first concern was to retrieve the runaway.
Bewildered and unable to see clearly, I did not mount the horse, which would have mastered me in that condition, but led him slowly up the hill to Katamûn. Upon the top there was a grove of trees, above which peeped some flat roofs and a dome. At length I reached the gate of this enclosure. It was open, and I led the horse along a sort of drive, on which were many chickens and a tethered sheep, which, bolting round a tree at our approach, became inextricably tangled in its rope.
In a court between a little church and other buildings, a grim old woman in a coloured head-veil looked at me out of a doorway. I called to her that I had had an accident, and asked the favour of some washing-water and a bandage. She stared at me in doleful wise, and shook her head.
'Water! Bring me water!' I insisted.
She went indoors and fetched a man of the same breed, whose eyes grew large and dull with horror at the sight of me.
Again I asked to be allowed to wash my head and face.
I heard the woman whisper: 'Shall I bring it?' and the man reply: 'Let be! This blood-stained form is half a corpse already. He will surely die. The horse, perhaps, is stolen. There has been a fight. If we should touch him we might be concerned in it. Wait till the end. Then we will summon his Beatitude, and have our testimony written down to prove our innocence.'
Amazed at their stupidity, I took a step towards them, arguing. They vanished headlong, when I realised for the first time that my appearance was in truth alarming. Perceiving the advantage thatappearance gave me, I pursued them, promising them plagues in this world and perdition in the next unless they brought some water instantly.
The horse, which I was leading all this while, had been as quiet as a lamb; but, frightened by my shouts and gestures, he became unmanageable. I was struggling with him in the doorway of the house when a large and dignified ecclesiastic came upon the scene, the jewelled cross upon his cassock flashing in the sun. In the twinkling of an eye, it seemed to me, he had subdued the horse and tied him to a ring in the wall which I, in my bewilderment, had failed to see; had seized me by the collar of my coat and driven me before him through a kind of tunnel to a second court in which there was a cistern and a pump. He worked that pump and held my head beneath it, cursing the servants for a pack of imbeciles.
The man and woman reappeared, completely tamed. He sent them running, one for stuff to make a bandage, the other for medicaments, but said no word to me until the work was ended, when he grinned and asked: 'Art happy now?'
I told him that I felt a great deal better.
'Good,' he said, and led me by the hand into an upper chamber, richly carpeted, and furnished with a cushioned divan, of which the windows framed a wide view eastward over the Judæan wilderness.
There, sitting comfortably, he asked who I was and of what country; and, hearing that I came from England, questioned me about the High Church and the Low Church in that land, and whether they formed one communion or were separate—a problem which he seemed to think of great importance. He was glad, he said, that I was not a Roman Catholic, a sect which he regarded as the worst of heretics.
But his concern with all these matters seemed perfunctory compared with the delight he took in farming; for when I noticed from the window some sleek cows munching in a small enclosure, he brightened up and told me they were recent purchases. He talked about his poultry and his sheep and goats, all of which he would be pleased to show me if I cared to see them.
Accordingly, when we had drunk some coffee, which completed my revival, he took me out andshowed me round his small demesne. We were standing in the shade of trees, discussing turkeys, when my companion of the road arrived upon the truant horse. He was a member of the Orthodox Greek Church.
What was my amazement when, having tied up the horse, he came with reverent haste and knelt at my companion's feet, kissing his hand with pious and devoted fervour. The grey-bearded priest, with full brown eyes, and hair that curled below the tall black head-dress like a trimming of grey astrakhan, with whom I had been talking so familiarly, was no other than the successor of St. James, the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem. I had supposed him some sub-prior or domestic chaplain. His Beatitude acknowledged my surprise by an ironic grin.
The new arrival, still upon his knees, embarked on a long story, told in lamentable tones, about a man who was in love, and like to die of it, with a young girl who was the sister of his brother's wife. It is forbidden by the canons of the Eastern Church for two brothers to marry two sisters.
'Is there no way by which he may obtain her lawfully?' the suppliant asked.
The Patriarch assumed an air of weariness, and shook his head.
'If he were a Catholic or a Protestant he could obtain her lawfully.'
The Patriarch assumed an air of pitying scorn.
'The case is very hard,' the suppliant moaned, as he rose up from the ground at last and cleaned his knees.
The Patriarch, with a shrug, remarked that it was so. The young man should not have cast eyes upon a maid unlawful to him.
'The only way,' he said, 'is to obtain annulment of the brother's marriage by proving it to be illegal in some way.' With that he left the subject and resumed his talk concerning poultry. My companion of the road was plucking at my sleeve.
I took leave of the Patriarch respectfully, with many thanks. He clapped me on the shoulder, saying: 'Come again! And never seek to wed the sister of thy brother's wife. Your Church does not forbid such marriage—does it?—being still tainted with the Latin heresy. Why does theOrthodox Church forbid it? Because it brings confusion into families, and is indecent.'
He seemed to jest, but the look he gave to my companion as we rode away was stern, I thought, and more than half-contemptuous.
Excepting that my head was bandaged, I felt well again; so we rode on, as we had first intended, towards Bethlehem. Over a rocky land with patches of pink cyclamen, black crows were wheeling in a sky of vivid blue.
We came into the olive groves beneath the hill on which stands the Greek priory of Mâr Elias, when my companion said ingratiatingly: 'If you please, we will call at the monastery and take refreshment. The monks are friends of mine. It was with the object of this visit that I led our ride in this direction.'
As I raised no objection, we tied up our horses in the garden of the monastery and went in. We found the Prior in the middle of a tea-party, a number of Greek neighbours, of both sexes, being gathered in a very comfortably-furnished room.
My friend, ere entering, implored me in a whisper not to tell them that my accident was owing to hisclumsy horsemanship. Instead, he put about some story which I did not clearly overhear—something about a fight with desert Arabs, redounding to my credit, I conclude, from the solicitude which everyone expressed on my account when he had told it. Some of the ladies present insisted on a second washing of my wounds with rose-water, and a second bandaging with finer linen than the Patriarch had used. Some monks, their long hair frizzed coquettishly and tied with ribbon, helped in the work. I did not like the look of them. My friend meanwhile was talking to some pretty girls.
When we rode off again towards Jerusalem he asked me questions about the Anglican and Roman Churches, and seemed to think it a sad defect in the former that it lacked the faculty of dispensation with regard to marriage.
After a space of silence, as we were riding down the hill by the Ophthalmic Hospital, with the Tower of David and the city walls crowning the steep before us, he inquired: 'Did you observe those girls with whom I was conversing—especially the one with pale-blue ribbons. It is her I love.' And, when I complimented him on his goodtaste, he added: 'I think I shall become a Catholic,' and started weeping.
I then learnt from his broken speech that he was himself the hapless lover of his story to the Patriarch. The girl whom I had seen at Mâr Elias was the sister of his brother's wife. I was as sympathetic in appearance as I could be; but somehow all my sympathy was with the Patriarch, who seemed to me the only man whom I had seen that day.