I had decided to buy land and settle down in Syria; and had obtained consent from home upon condition that I did not spend more than a certain sum of money, not a large one, which, Suleymân had told me, would be quite sufficient for the purpose. He pointed out how lands, at present desert, and to be bought for a mere song, could be rendered profitable for the cost of bringing water to them. There was such a tract of land adjacent to the village where he had a house, with water running under it at no great depth. Rashîd, my servant, did not like this notion of converting deserts into gardens. He called it simple waste of time and labour, when gardens ready made were going cheap. There was a nice estate, with two perennial springs within its boundaries, near his village in the north. His people would be proud and gratified if I would honour their poor dwelling whileinspecting it. Suleymân lamented that his house was quite unworthy of my occupation, but proposed to have a fine pavilion pitched outside it, if I would deign to grace the village as his guest.
'Depend upon it,' said an Englishman whom I consulted on one of my rare visits to the city, 'the land they recommend belongs to their relations. They will sell it you for twenty times the market value, and then adhere to you like leeches till they've sucked you dry.' He added: 'I advise you to give up the whole idea,' but I was used to that advice, and firm against it.
His warning against native counsellors, however, weighed with me to this extent, that I determined to ignore the lands they recommended in their neighbourhood. Each was at first cast down when I announced this resolution. But presently Rashîd exclaimed: 'No matter where we dwell. I still shall serve thee'; and Suleymân, after smoking his narghîleh a long while in silence, said: 'Each summer I will visit thee and give advice.'
All three of us then set to work upon inquiries. Innumerable were the sheykhs who seemed to bein money difficulties and wished to sell their land. Some owners journeyed forty miles to come and see me, and explain the great advantage of their property. But, knowing something of the Land Code, I inquired about the tenure. I wanted only 'mulk' or freehold land; and 'wakf' (land held in tail or mortmain) of various and awful kinds is much more common. At last a sheykh came who declared his land was 'mulk,' and certain of our neighbours, men of worth, testified of their certain knowledge that he spoke the truth.
The village where the property was situated was a long day's journey from our own. A fortnight after my discussion with the owner Suleymân and I set out on our way thither, having sent Rashîd ahead of us to find a decent lodging, since it was our intention to remain there several days.
The village was arranged in steps upon a mountain side, the roofs of houses on the lower level serving as approach to those above. On all the steep slopes round about it there were orchards, with now and then a flat-roofed house among the trees.
Rashîd came out to meet us, accompanied bycertain of the elders, among whom I looked in vain for the owner of the land we were to visit. My first inquiry was for him. Rashîd replied: 'He is unpopular. I went to the chief people of the village'—he waved his hand towards the persons who escorted him—'and they have set apart a house and stable for your Honour's use.'
The house turned out to be a single room, cube-shaped, and furnished only with some matting. The stable, part of the same building, was exactly like it, except that it was open at one end.
We had our supper at a tavern by the village spring, surrounded by a friendly crowd of fellâhîn. Again I looked for the old gentleman whom I had come to see, and whispered my surprise at not beholding him. Rashîd again replied: 'He is unpopular.'
Returning to the house with me, Rashîd arranged my bed; put candle, matches, cigarettes within my reach; fastened the shutters of two windows; and retired, informing me that he and Suleymân were sleeping at the dwelling of the headman of the place.
I had got into my bed upon the floor when therecame a knocking on the solid wooden shutters which Rashîd had closed. I went and opened one of them a little way. It was moonlight, but the window looked into the gloom of olive trees. A voice out of the shadows questioned:
'Is it thou, the Englishman?'
It was the owner of the land, who then reproached me in heartbroken tones because I had not let him know the hour of my arrival, that he and his three sons might have gone forth upon the road to meet me. The owners of the place where now I lodged were his chief enemies. He begged me to steal forth at once and come with him. When I refused, he groaned despairingly and left me with the words:
'Believe not anything they say about us or the property.'
I closed the shutter and went back to bed. But it was hot. I rose again and opened both the windows so as to secure whatever breeze there was, and, after a long spell of angry tossing due to sandflies, fell asleep. When I awoke the room was full of daylight and a murmur which I first mistook for that of insects, but soon found out tobe the voice of a considerable crowd of human beings. At every window was a press of faces and of women's head-veils, and children raised upon their mothers' shoulders. I heard a child's sad wail: 'O mother, lift me up that I, too, may behold the unbeliever!'
I made haste to cover myself somehow, for in my sleep I had kicked off the bedclothes, and commanded all those women to be gone immediately. They merely grinned and wished me a good day, and then discussed my personal appearance, the whiteness of my skin, and more particularly my pyjamas, with much interest. This went on till Rashîd appeared upon the scene, bringing my india-rubber bath and a kerosene tin full of water. He closed and bolted all the shutters firmly, with stern reflections on the lack of shame of my admirers.
I told him of the visit of the owner of the land.
He answered as before: 'He is unpopular.'
I asked the reason, and he told me:
'There are in this part of the country two factions which have existed from old time. All the people in this village are adherents of one faction,except that old man and his children, who uphold the other. The people would not mind so much if he kept silent, but he gibes at them and vaunts his party upon all occasions. They intend to kill him. That is why he wants to sell. It is good to know this, since it gives us an advantage.'
Suleymân arrived. We all three breakfasted on slabs of country bread and a great bowl of curds, and then went out to view that old man's land. The sheykh—whose name was Yûsuf—and his sons were there to show us round, and, though the property was not extensive, they contrived to keep us there till noon, when a round meal was spread for us beneath some trees. And after that was finished, the sheykh availed himself of some remark of mine to start the whole perambulation once again.
At last it came to mention of the price, which seemed to me excessive, and I said so to my friends.
Rashîd replied: 'Of course! The business has not yet begun. To-morrow and the next day we shall view the land again; and after that we shall arrange for the appointment of two valuers, onefor us and one for him, who will inspect the land, first separately, then together; and after that we shall appoint an arbiter who will remonstrate with the owner of the land; and after that——'
'But the business will take months.'
'That is the proper way, unless your Honour wishes to be cheated.'
'What is your opinion?' I inquired of Suleymân.
'The land is good, and capable of much improvement,' he replied, 'and all the trees go with it, which is an advantage. Also the source of water will be all our own.'
Suleymân repeated this remark in presence of the crowd of villagers whom we found awaiting our return before my house. At once there rose a cry: 'That Yûsuf is a liar. Some of the trees do not belong to him. The water, too, does not originate upon his property, but on the hill above, so can be cut from him.'
Suleymân was talking with the village headman. When he returned to me his face was grave.
'What is it?' I inquired. 'Has the Sheykh Yûsuf been deceiving us?'
He shook his head with a disgusted frown before replying:
'No, it is these others who are lying through dislike of him. Is your heart set upon the purchase of that land?'
'By no means.'
'That is good; because this village is a nest of hornets. The headman has long marked that land out for his own. Were we to pay Sheykh Yûsuf a good price for it, enabling him to leave the neighbourhood with honour, they would hate us and work for our discomfort in a multitude of little ways. We will call upon the Sheykh to-morrow and cry off the bargain, because your Honour caught a touch of fever from the land to-day. That is a fair excuse.'
We proffered it upon the morrow, when the Sheykh Yûsuf received it with a scarce veiled sneer, seeming extremely mortified. Directly after we had left him, we heard later, he went down to the tavern by the village spring and cursed the elders who had turned my mind against him in unmeasured terms; annoying people so that they determined there and then to make an end of him.
Next morning, when we started on our homeward way, there was a noise of firing in the village, and, coming round a shoulder of the hill in single file we saw Sheykh Yûsuf seated on a chair against the wall of his house, and screened by a great olive tree, the slits in whose old trunk made perfect loopholes, blazing away at a large crowd of hostile fellâhîn. He used, in turn, three rifles, which his sons kept loading for him. He was seated, as we afterwards found out, because he had been shot in the leg.
I was for dashing to his rescue, and Rashîd was following. We should both have lost our lives, most probably, if Suleymân had not shouted at that moment, in stentorian tones: 'Desist, in the name of the Sultan and all the Powers of Europe! Desist, or every one of you shall surely hang!'
Such words aroused the people's curiosity. The firing ceased while we rode in between them and their object; and Suleymân assured the villagers politely that I was the right hand and peculiar agent of the English Consul-General, with absolutely boundless power to hang and massacre.
Upon the other hand, we all three argued withSheykh Yûsuf that he should leave the place at once and lay his case before the Governor.
'We will go with him,' said Suleymân to me, 'in order that your Honour may be made acquainted with the Governor—a person whom you ought to know. His property will not be damaged in his absence, for they fear the law. The heat of war is one thing, and cold-blooded malice is another. It is the sight and sound of him that irritates them and so drives them to excess.'
At length we got the Sheykh on horseback and upon the road; but he was far from grateful, wishing always to go back and fight. We could not get a civil word from him on the long ride, and just before we reached the town where lived the Governor he managed to escape.
Rashîd flung up his hands when we first noticed his defection. 'No wonder that he is unpopular,' he cried disgustedly. 'To flee from us, his benefactors, after we have come so far out of our way through kindness upon his account. It is abominable. Who, under Allah, could feel love for such a man?'
Though the reason of our coming, the Sheykh Yûsuf, had deserted us, we rode into the town and spent the night there, finding lodgings at a khan upon the outskirts of the place, of which the yard was shaded by a fine old carob tree. While we were having breakfast the next morning in a kind of gallery which looked into the branches of that tree, and through them and a ruined archway to the road, crowded just then with peasants in grey clothing coming in to market, Suleymân proposed that he and I should go and call upon the Caïmmacâm, the local Governor. I had spent a wretched night. The place was noisy and malodorous. My one desire was to be gone as soon as possible, and so I answered:
'I will call on no one. My only wish to see him was upon account of that old rogue who ran away from us.'
'The man was certainly ungrateful—curse his father!' said Rashîd.
'The man is to be pitied, being ignorant,' said Suleymân. 'His one idea was to defend his house and land by combat. He did not perceive that by the course of law and influence he might defend them more effectually, and for ever. He probably did not imagine that your Honour would yourself approach the Governor and plead with him.'
'I shall see nobody,' I answered crossly. 'We return at once.'
'Good,' said Rashîd. 'I get the horses ready.'
'And yet,' said our preceptor thoughtfully, 'his Excellency is, they say, a charming man; and this would be a golden opportunity for us to get acquainted with him and bespeak his favour. Thus the Sheykh Yûsuf, though himself contemptible, may be of service to us. Already I have told the people here that we have come on an important errand to the Governor. Rashîd, too, as I know, has spoken of the matter in a boastful way. If, after that, we should depart in dudgeon without seeing him, there would be gossip and perhaps—God knows—even political disturbance. TheGovernor, coming to hear of it, might reasonably feel aggrieved.'
He argued so ridiculously, yet so gravely, that in the end I was obliged to yield. And so, a little before ten o'clock, we sauntered through the narrow streets to the Government offices—a red-roofed, whitewashed building near which soldiers loitered, in a dusty square.
There we waited for a long while in an ante-room—spacious, but rather dingy, with cushionless divans around the walls, on which a strange variety of suitors sat or squatted. Some of these appeared so poor that I admired their boldness in demanding audience of the Governor. Yet it was one of the most wretched in appearance who was called first by the turbaned, black-robed usher. He passed into an inner room: the door was shut.
Then Suleymân went over to the usher, who kept guard upon that door, and held a whispered conversation with him. I know not what he said; but, when the wretched-looking man came out again, the usher slipped into the inner room with reverence and, presently returning, bowed to us and bade us enter. I went in, followed by Suleymân, whoswelled and strutted like a pouter pigeon in his flowing robes.
The Caïmmacâm was a nice-looking Turk of middle-age, extremely neat in his apparel and methodical in his surroundings. He might have been an Englishman but for the crimson fez upon his brow and a chaplet of red beads, with which he toyed perpetually. He gazed into my eyes with kind inquiry. I told him that I came with tidings of a grave disturbance in his district, and then left Suleymân to tell the story of Sheykh Yûsuf and his neighbours and the battle we had witnessed in the olive grove before his house.
Suleymân exhausted all his powers of language and of wit, making a veritable poem of the episode. The Governor did not appear profoundly interested.
'Sheykh Yûsuf! Who is he?' he asked at the conclusion of the tale.
I explained that the Sheykh Yûsuf was a landowner, whose acquaintance we had made through my desire to buy some property.
'Your Honour thinks of settling here among us?' cried his Excellency, with sudden zest,appearing quite enraptured with the notion. He asked then if the French tongue was intelligible to me, and, hearing that it was, talked long in French about my project, which seemed to please him greatly. He said that it would be a blessing for his district to have a highly civilised, enlightened being like myself established in it as the sun and centre of improvement; and what a comfort it would be to him particularly to have an educated man at hand to talk to! He hoped that, when I had set up my model farm—for a model it would be, in every way, he felt quite sure of that, from my appearance and my conversation—I would not limit my attention solely to the work of agriculture, but would go on to improve the native breeds of sheep and oxen. He heard that splendid strains of both were found in England. He wished me to import a lot of English bulls and rams, assuring me of the assistance of the Government in all that I might do in that direction, since the Sultan ('His Imperial Majesty' he called him always) took the greatest interest in such experiments.
All this was very far from my original design,which was to lead as far as possible a quiet life. But I promised to give thought to all his Excellency's counsels.
He made me smoke two cigarettes and drink a cup of coffee which his secretary had prepared upon a brazier in a corner of the room; and then, with a sweet smile and deprecating gestures of the hands, he begged me to excuse him if he closed the interview. It was a grief to him to let me go, but he was very busy.
I rose at once, and so did Suleymân.
'But what of the Sheykh Yûsuf?' I exclaimed, reminding him.
'Ah, to be sure!' rejoined the Governor with a slight frown. 'Of what religion is he?'
'I suppose a Druze.'
'And the people who attacked him so unmercifully?'
'Are Druzes too.'
'Ah, then, it is all in the family, as the saying goes. And, unless some deputation from the Druze community appeals to me, I should be ill-advised to interfere in its affairs. Our way of government is not identical with that which is pursued withsuch conspicuous success in highly civilised and settled countries like your own. We leave the various communities and tribes alone to settle their internal differences. It is only where tribe wars on tribe, religion on religion, or their quarrels stop the traffic on the Sultan's highway that we intervene. What would you have, mon ami? We are here in Asia!'
With these words, and a smile of quite ineffable indulgence for my young illusions, his Excellency bowed me out.
In the ante-room Suleymân drew close to my left ear and whispered sharply:
'Give me four mejîdis.'
'Whatever for?' I asked in deep amazement.
'That I will tell you afterwards. The need is instant.'
I produced the four mejîdis from a trouser-pocket, and, receiving them, he went back to the door by which the usher stood, and whispered to the man, who went inside a moment and came back with the private secretary of the Caïmmacâm. The compliments which passed between them seemed to me interminable.
I paced the pavement of the waiting-room, the only figure in the crowd whose attitude bespoke impatience. The others sat or squatted round the walls in perfect resignation, some of them smoking, others munching nuts of various kinds, of which the shells began to hide the floor adjacent to them. A few of the suppliants had even had the forethought to bring with them bags full of provisions, as if anticipating that their time of waiting might endure for several days.
At last, when I was growing really angry with him, Suleymân returned and told me:
'All is well, and we can now be going, if your Honour pleases.'
'I do please,' I rejoined indignantly. 'Why have you kept me waiting all this while? I never wished to come at all into this place, and Allah knows that we have done no good by coming. We have spoilt a morning which we might have spent upon the road.'
'Allah, Allah!' sighed Suleymân long-sufferingly. 'Your Honour is extremely hard to please. Did not his Excellency talk to you exclusively, with every sign of the most livelypleasure for quite half an hour; whereas he scarcely deigned to throw a word to me, although I wooed his ear with language calculated to seduce the mind of kings? I have some cause to be dejected at neglect from one so powerful; but you have every cause to be elated. He is now your friend.'
'I shall never see him in my life again most likely!' I objected.
'Nay, that you cannot tell,' replied my mentor suavely. 'To be acquainted with a person in authority is always well.'
'Why did you want those four mejîdis?' I inquired severely.
Suleymân shrugged up his shoulders and replied:
'I had to pay the proper fees, since you yourself showed not a sign of doing so, to save our carefully established honour and good name.'
'You don't mean that you gave them to the Caïmmacâm?'
'Allah forbid! Consider, O beloved, my position in this matter. To put it in the form of parables: Suppose a king and his vizier should pay a visit to another king and his vizier. If there were presents to be made, I ask you, would not those intended for the king be offered personally by the king, and those for the vizier by the vizier? It will be obvious to your Honour, upon slight reflection, that if, in our adventure of this morning,a present to the Governor was necessary or desirable, you personally, and no other creature, should have made it.'
'Merciful Allah!' I exclaimed. 'He would have knocked me down.'
'He would have done nothing of the kind, being completely civilised. He would merely have pushed back your hand with an indulgent smile, pressing it tenderly, as who should say: "Thou art a child in these things, and dost not know our ways, being a stranger." Yet, undoubtedly, upon the whole, your offer of a gift, however small, would have confirmed the good opinion which he formed at sight of you.
'But let that pass! Out of the four mejîdis which you gave me so reluctantly (since you ask for an account) I presented one to the usher, and three to his Excellency's private secretary, in your name. And I have procured it of the secretary's kindness that he will urge his lord to take some measures to protect that ancient malefactor, the Sheykh Yûsuf.'
'If I had tipped the Governor, as you suggest that I ought to have done,' I interruptedvehemently, 'do you mean to say he would have taken measures to protect Sheykh Yûsuf?'
'Nay, I say not that; but he would at least have had complete conviction that your Honour takes a lively interest in that old churl—a person in himself unpleasant and unworthy of a single thought from any thinking or right-minded individual. Thus, even though he scorned the money, as he would no doubt have done, the offer would have told him we were earnest in our application, and he might conceivably have taken action from desire to do a pleasure to one whom, as I said before, he loved at sight.'
'The whole system is corrupt,' I said, 'and what is worse, unreasonable.'
'So say the Franks,' replied Suleymân, shrugging his shoulders up and spreading wide his hands, as though before a wall of blind stupidity which he knew well could never be cast down nor yet surmounted. 'Our governors, our judges, and the crowd of small officials are not highly paid, and what they do receive is paid irregularly. Then all, whether high or low, must live; and it is customary in our land to offer giftsto persons in authority, because a smile, God knows, is always better than a frown from such an one. We are not like the Franks, who barter everything, even their most sacred feelings, even love. It gives us pleasure to make gifts, and see them welcomed, even when the recipient is someone who cannot in any way repay us for our trouble, as a Frank would say.'
'But to sell justice; for it comes to that!' I cried, indignant.
'Who talks of selling justice? You are quite mistaken. If I have to go before a judge I make a gift beforehand to his Honour, whose acceptance tells me, not that he will give a verdict in my favour—do not think it!—but merely that his mind contains no grudge against me. If he refused the gift I should be terrified, since I should think he had been won completely by the other side. To take gifts from both parties without preference, making allowance, when there is occasion, for the man who is too poor to give; and then to judge entirely on the merits of the case; that is the way of upright judges in an Eastern country. The gifts we make are usually small, whereas the fees which lawyerscharge in Western countries are exorbitant, as you yourself have told me more than once and I have heard from others. And even after paying those enormous fees, the inoffensive, righteous person is as like to suffer as the guilty. Here, for altogether harmless men to suffer punishment in place of rogues is quite unheard-of; though occasionally one notorious evildoer may be punished for another's crime when this is great and the real criminal cannot be found and there is call for an example to be made upon the instant. This generally happens when a foreign consul interferes, demanding vengeance for some slight offence against his nationals. Things like that take place occasionally when the court is flustered. But in its natural course, believe me, Turkish justice, if slow-moving, is as good as that of Europe and infinitely less expensive than your English law.'
I made no answer, feeling quite bewildered.
Suleymân was always serious in manner, which made it very hard to tell when he was joking or in earnest. Among the natives of the land, I knew, he had the reputation of a mighty joker, but I had learnt the fact from the applause of others. I nevershould have guessed from his demeanour that he jested consciously.
He also held his peace until we reached our hostelry. There, some half-hour later, when I had given orders for our horses to be ready for a start directly after luncheon—a decision against which Suleymân protested unsuccessfully, declaring it would be too hot for riding—I overheard him telling the whole story of our visit, including the donation of the four mejîdis, to Rashîd, who was lazily engaged in polishing my horse's withers.
'That secretary is a man of breeding,' he was saying, in a tone of warm approval; 'for I noticed he was careful to receive the present in his left hand, which he placed behind his back in readiness, with great decorum. Nor did he thank me, or give any token of acknowledgment beyond a little friendly twinkle of the eyes.'
At once I pounced on this admission, crying: 'That shows that he regarded the transaction as unlawful! And your remark upon it shows that you, too, think it so.'
Suleymân looked slowly round until his eyes met mine, not one whit disconcerted, though untilI spoke he had not known that I was anywhere in earshot.
'Your Honour is incorrigible,' he replied, with a grave smile. 'I never knew your like for obstinacy in a false opinion; which shows that you were born to fill some high position in the world. Of course they all—these fine officials, great and small—regard it as beneath their dignity to take a present which they sorely need. To take such presents greedily would be to advertise their poverty to all the world. And Government appointments swell a man with pride, if nothing else—a pride which makes them anxious to be thought above all fear of want. For that cause, they are half-ashamed of taking gifts. But no one in this country thinks it wrong of them to do so, nor to oblige the giver, if they can, in little ways. It would be wrong if they betrayed the trust reposed in them by their superiors, or were seduced into some act against their loyalty or their religion. But that, praise be to God, you will not find. It is only in small matters such as acts of commerce or politeness, which hardly come within the sphere of a man's conscience, that they are procurable, and no onein this country thinks the worse of them, whatever people say to you, a foreigner, by way of flattery. It is very difficult for foreigners to learn the truth. Your Honour should be thankful that you have Suleymân for an instructor—and Rashîd, too,' he added as an after-thought, seeing that my bodyservant stood close by, expecting mention.
And after more than twenty years' experience of Eastern matters, I know now that he was right.
Our road, the merest bridle-path, which sometimes altogether disappeared and had to be retrieved by guesswork, meandered on the side of a ravine, down in the depths of which, in groves of oleander, there flowed a stream of which we caught the murmur. The forest was continuous on our side of the wadi. It consisted of dense olive groves around the villages and a much thinner growth of ilex in the tracts between. The shade was pleasant in the daytime, but as night came on its gloom oppressed our spirits with extreme concern, for we were still a long way off our destination, and uncertain of the way.
The gloom increased. From open places here and there we saw the stars, but gloom filled the ravine, and there was little difference between the darkness underneath the trees and that outside in open spaces of the grove. We trusted to ourhorses to make out the path, which sometimes ran along the verge of precipices.
I cannot say that I was happy in my mind. Rashîd made matters worse by dwelling on the risks we ran not only from abandoned men but ghouls and jinnis. The lugubrious call of a hyæna in the distance moved him to remark that ghouls assume that shape at night to murder travellers. They come up close and rub against them like a loving cat; which contact robs the victims of their intellect, and causes them to follow the hyæna to its den, where the ghoul kills them and inters their bodies till the flesh is ripe.
He next expressed a fear lest we might come upon some ruin lighted up, and be deceived into supposing it a haunt of men, as had happened to a worthy cousin of his own when on a journey. This individual, whose name was Ali, had been transported in the twinkling of an eye by jinnis, from somewhere in the neighbourhood of Hamá to the wilds of Jebel Câf (Mount Caucasus), and had escaped a hideous and painful death only by recollection of the name of God. He told me, too,how he himself, when stationed at Mersîn, had met a company of demons, one fine evening in returning from an errand; and other tales which caused my flesh to creep.
The groves receded. We were in an open place where only a low kind of brushwood grew, when suddenly my horse shied, gave a fearful snort, and sturdily refused to budge another inch. I let him stand until Rashîd came up. He thought to pass me, but his horse refused as mine had done.
'It is no doubt some jinni in the way,' he whispered in a frightened tone; then, calling out: 'Dastûr, ya mubârak' (Permission, blessed one!), he tried to urge his horse, which still demurred. So there we were, arrested by some unseen hand; and this became the more unpleasant because a pestilential smell was in the place.
'Better return!' muttered Rashîd, with chattering teeth.
'Give me a match!' I said distractedly. 'My box is empty.'
'Better return!' he pleaded.
'A match, do you hear?' I cried, made cross by terror.
He gave the match, and I believe I shouted as I struck it. For a brief space it made a dazzle in my eyes, preventing me from seeing anything, and then went out.
'There is something lying in the path!' Rashîd was gibbering.
I got down off my horse and lit a second match, which I took care to shelter till the flame was strong. A human arm lay in the path before us.
My horror was extreme, and grew uncanny when the match expired. But the ghastly object had restored his courage to Rashîd, who even laughed aloud as he exclaimed:
'The praise to Allah! It is nothing which can hurt us. No doubt some murder has been here committed, all unknown. The Lord have mercy on the owner of that arm! We will report the matter to some high official at our journey's end.'
We turned our horses to the right and made a long detour, but scarcely had they found the path again when mine (which led the way) demurred once more.
'Another piece,' exclaimed Rashîd excitedly.He got down off his horse to look. 'Nay, many pieces. This, by Allah, is no other than a battlefield unknown to fame.'
'How can a battle take place without public knowledge?' I inquired, incredulous.
'The thing may happen when two factions quarrel for unlawful cause—it may be over stolen gains, or for some deadly wrong which cannot be avowed without dishonour—and when each side exterminates the other.'
'How can that happen?' I exclaimed again.
Rashîd could not at once reply, because in our avoidance of those human relics we found ourselves on broken ground and among trunks of trees, which called for the address of all our wits. But when the horses once more plodded steadily, he assured me that the thing could happen, and had happened often in that country, where men's blood is hot. He told me how a band of brigands once, in Anti-Lebanon, had fought over their spoils till the majority on both sides had been slain, and the survivors were so badly wounded that they could not move, but lay and died upon the battlefield; and how the people of two villages, both men andwomen, being mad with envy, had held a battle with the same result. I interrupted him with questions. Both of us were glad to talk in order to get rid of the remembrance of our former fear. We gave the rein to our imaginations, speaking eagerly.
Reverting to the severed limbs which we had seen, Rashîd exclaimed:
'Now I will tell your Honour how it happened. A deadly insult had been offered to a family in a young girl's dishonour. Her father and her brothers killed her to wipe out the shame—as is the custom here among the fellâhîn—and then with all their relatives waylaid the men of the insulter's house when these were cutting wood here in the forest. There was a furious battle, lasting many hours. The combatants fought hand-to-hand with rustic weapons, and in some cases tore each other limb from limb. When all was done, the victors were themselves so sorely wounded that they were able to do nothing but lie down and die.'
'How many do you think there were?' I asked, believing.
'To judge by scent alone, not one or two; but,Allah knows, perhaps a hundred!' said Rashîd reflectively.
'It is strange they should have lain there undiscovered.'
'Not strange, when one remembers that the spot is far from any village and probably as far from the right road,' was his reply.
This last conjecture was disquieting; but we were both too much excited for anxiety.
'It is an event to be set down in histories,' Rashîd exclaimed. 'We shall be famous people when we reach the village. Such news is heard but once in every hundred years.'
'I wish that we could reach that village,' was my answer; and again we fell to picturing the strange event.
At length we heard the barking of a dog in the far distance, and gave praise to Allah. A half-hour later we saw lights ahead of us. But that did not mean that the village was awake, Rashîd explained to me, for among the people of that country 'to sleep without a light' is to be destitute. A little later, Rashîd hammered at a door, whilesavage dogs bayed round us, making rushes at his heels.
'Awake, O sons of honour!' was his cry. 'A great calamity!' And, when the door was opened, he detailed the story of an awful fight, in which both parties of belligerents had been exterminated. 'They are torn limb from limb. We saw the relics,' he explained. 'If you have any doubt, question my lord who is out here behind me—a great one of the English, famed for his veracity.'
And I was ready to confirm each word he said.
In a very little while that village was astir.
It was the seat of a mudîr who had two soldiers at his beck and call. The great man was aroused from sleep; he questioned us, and, as the result of the inquiry, sent the soldiers with us to survey the battlefield. A crowd of peasants, armed with quarter-staves and carrying lanterns, came with the party out of curiosity. Our horses having had enough of travel, we went back on foot amid the noisy crowd, who questioned us incessantly about the strange event. The murmur of our going filled the wood and echoed from the rocks above. By the time we reached the place where we had seenthe human limbs, the dawn was up, to make our lanterns useless.
Rashîd and I were certain of the spot. We came upon it with a thrill of apprehension.
But there was nothing there.
'I seek refuge in Allah!' gasped Rashîd in pious awe. 'I swear by my salvation it was here we saw them. The name of God be round about us! It is devilry.'
Our escort was divided in opinion, some thinking we had been indeed the sport of devils, others that we lied. But someone sniffed and said:
'There is a smell of death.'
There was no doubt about the smell at any rate. Then one of the mudîr's two soldiers, searching in the brushwood, cried: 'I have the remnant of an arm.'
And then an old man of the village smote his leg and cried:
'O my friends, I see it! Here is neither lies nor devilry.'
Laughing, he seized me by the arm and bade me come with him. We went a little way into the wood, and there he showed me three Druze tombsdeep in the shade of ilex trees—small buildings made of stone and mud, like little houses, each with an opening level with the ground, and a much smaller opening, like a window, at the height of a man's elbow.
'Thou seest?' cried my tutor. 'Those are graves. The openings on the ground were made too large, and jackals have got in and pulled the bodies out. The men who made those graves are foolish people, who have wandered from the truth. They think the spirits of the dead have need of food and light, and also of a hole for crawling in and out. I heard thee ask thy servant for a match just now. Come, I will show thee where to find one always.'
He led me to the nearest tomb, and thrust my hand into the little hole which served as window. It touched a heap of matches which he bade me take and put into my pocket, saying:
'It is not a theft, for the matches have been thrown away, as you might say. Those foolish people will suppose the dead have struck them. They used to put wax candles and tinder-boxes with them in the niches, but when these sulphurmatches came in fashion, they preferred them for economy. When I am working in this wood I take no fire with me, being quite sure to find the means of lighting one. Praise be to Allah for some people's folly!'
I thanked him for the wrinkle, and went back to join Rashîd, who was exclaiming with the others over our deception. But everyone agreed that the mistake was natural for men bewildered in the darkness of the night.