CHAPTER XXI.ZAHEDRupert was disturbed in his mind. No one was less superstitious. He had advanced spiritually beyond the reach of superstition. He had grasped the great fact still not understood by the vast majority of human beings, that the universe and their connection with it is a mighty mystery whereof nine hundred and ninety-nine parts out of a thousand are still veiled to men. These are apt to believe, as Lord Devene believed, that this thousandth part which they see bathed in the vivid, daily sunlight is all that there is to see. They imagine that because only one tiny angle of the great jewel catches and reflects the light, the rest must be dark and valueless. They look upon the point of rock showing above the ocean and forget that in its secret depths lies hid a mountain range, an island, a continent, a world, perhaps, whereof this topmost peak alone appears.With Rupert, to whom such reflections were familiar, it was not so. Yet perhaps, because he remembered that every outward manifestation, however trivial, doubtless has its root in some hidden reason, and that probably the thing we call coincidence does not in truth exist, it did trouble and even alarm him when, riding one morning with Mea down a deep cleft in Tama, he heard upon the cliff, to the right of them, the wild and piercing music of the Wandering Players. Looking up, he saw upon the edge of that cliff those strange musicians, swathed as before in such a fashion that their faces were invisible, three of them blowing on their pipes and two keeping time with the drums, for the benefit, apparently, of the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, since no biped was near to them.He hailed them angrily from the valley, but they took not the slightest notice, only blew more weirdly and beat the louder. He tried to get up to them, but discovered that in order to do so he must ride round for five miles. This he accomplished at last, only to find that they were gone, having probably slipped down the slope of the mountain away into their home, the desert. Indeed, it was reported to him afterwards that some people, accompanied by two donkeys, had been seen in the distance tramping across the sand.“Why are you so vexed, Rupert?” asked Mea, when they descended the cliffs again, after their fruitless search.“I don’t know,” he answered, with a laugh, “but that music is associated with disagreeable recollections in my mind. The first time we heard it, you remember, was just before I lost my foot and eye, and the next time was as I embarked upon the ship on my way to England, an unhappy journey. What have they come for now, I wonder?”“I don’t know,” she answered, with her sweet smile; “but I at least have no cause to fear them. After their first visit I saved you; after their second you came back to me.”“And after their third—?” asked Rupert.“After their third I have said, I do not know; but perhaps it means that we shall take a long journey together.”“If that’s all, I don’t care,” he replied. “What I dread is our taking journeys away from each other.”“I thank you,” she answered, bowing to him gravely, “your words are pleasant to me, and I bless those musicians who made you speak them, as I am sure that our roads branch no more.”So, still smiling at each other like two happy children, they rode on. They visited the salt works which Rupert had established to the enormous benefit of everyone in the oasis.Passing through groves of young date-palms that he had planted, they came to the breeding grounds of camels, mules, and horses, the last of which had attained a great reputation, and having inspected the studs, turned back through the irrigated lands that now each year produced two crops instead of one.“You have done well for us, Rupert,” said Mea, as they headed homewards. “Tama has not been so wealthy since the days of my forefathers, who called themselves kings, and now that the Khalifa is broken and the land has become safe, this is but a beginning of riches.”“I don’t know about that,” he answered, with his jolly laugh, “but I have done very well for myself. Do you know that out of my percentage I have saved more money than I can spend? Now I am going to build a hospital and hire a skilled man to attend to it, for I am tired of playing doctor.”“Yes,” she answered, “I have thought of it before, only I said nothing because it means bringing white folk into the place, and we are so happy without them. Also, our people do not like strangers.”“I understand,” he answered, “but the Europeans have discovered us already. It is impossible to keep them out now that we pay taxes to the Government. You remember that man a few months ago who came to tell me that I am Lord Devene, and that since I became so my wife is making inquiries about me. I would not see him, and you sent him away, but he, or others, will be back again soon.”“And then will you wish to leave with him, Rupert, and take your own place in the West?” she asked anxiously.“Not I,” he answered, “not if they offered to make me a king.”“Well, why should you?” Mea said, with her sweet little laugh, “who are already a king here,” and she touched her breast; “and there,” and she nodded towards some people who bowed themselves before him; “and everywhere,” and she waved her hand at the oasis of Tama in general.“Well,” he answered, “the first is the only crown I want.” Then, having no more words to say, this strange pair, divorced for the kingdom of Heaven’s sake, yet wedded indeed, if ever man and woman have been, for truly their very souls were one, looked at each other tenderly. They had changed somewhat since we saw them last over seven years before. Their strange life had left its seal upon them both. Mea’s face was thinner, the rich, full lips had a little wistful droop; the great, pleading eyes had grown spiritual, as though with continual looking over the edge of the world; the air of mystery which her features always wore had deepened; also, her figure was somewhat less rounded than it appeared in those unregenerate days when she turned herself about before Rupert, and assured him that she was “not so bad.” Yet she was more beautiful now than then, only the beauty was of a different character.Rupert, on the other hand, had greatly improved in looks. The eye that remained to him was quite bright and clear, and the flesh had healed over the other in such a fashion that it only looked as if it were shut. The scars left by the hot irons on his face had almost vanished also. The bleaching of the sun, combined with other causes, had turned his hair from red to an iron grey, to the great gain of his appearance; moreover, the wide, rough beard, which had caused Edith mentally to compare him to Orson as pictured in the fairy books of her youth, was kept short, square, and carefully trimmed. Lastly, his face, like Mea’s, had fined down, till it resembled that of a powerful ascetic, which, in truth, he was. Indeed, although they were so strangely different, they had yet grown like to one another; seen in certain lights, and in their Arab robes, it would have been quite possible to mistake them for brother and sister, as their people called them among themselves.For a long while, to these simple inhabitants of the desert, the relations between the two had been a matter of mystery. They were unable to understand why a man and woman, who were evidently everything to each other, did not marry. At first they thought that Rupert must have taken other wives among the women of the place, but finding that this was not so, secretly they applied to Bakhita to enlighten them. She informed them that because of vows that they had made, and for the welfare of their souls, this pair had agreed to adopt the doctrine of Renunciation.Bakhita spoke with some hidden sarcasm, but as that doctrine, at any rate in theory, is, and for thousands of years has been familiar to the East, her questioners grasped the sense of the saying readily enough, and on the strength of it gave Rupert a new name. Thenceforth among them he was known asZahed,which means the Renouncer—one who, fixing his eyes upon a better, thrusts aside the good things of this world. It is easy for a man who stands upon such a pedestal to be lifted a little higher, at any rate amongst Easterns. Therefore it came about that very shortly Rupert found himself revered as a saint, a holy personage, who was probably inspired by Heaven.As he had no vices that could be discovered; as he neither drank spirituous liquors nor even smoked, having given up that habit; as he lived very simply, and gave largely to the poor; as he was noted for the great cures he worked by his doctoring; as he dispensed justice with an even hand, and by his hard work and ability turned the place into an Eden flowing with milk and honey; and lastly, as his military knowledge and skill in fortification made the oasis practically impregnable to attack, this reputation of his grew with a rapidity that was positively alarming. Had he wished it, it would have been easy for Rupert to assume the character of a Mahdi, and to collect the surrounding tribes under his banner to wage whatever wars he thought desirable. Needless to say, he had no yearnings in that direction, being quite sufficiently occupied in doing all the good that lay to his hand in Tama.Still, as he found that he was expected to address the people upon certain feast days, generally once a month, he took the opportunity, without mentioning its name, to preach his own faith to them, or at any rate the morals which that faith inculcates, with the result that after he had dwelt among them for five years, although they knew it not, the population of Tama, being Coptic by blood and therefore already inclined in that direction, was in many essentials Christian in thought and character. This was a great work for one man to do in so short a time, and as he looked around upon the result of the labours of his hand and heart, Rupert in secret was conscious of a certain pride. He felt that his misfortunes had worked together for good to others as well as to himself. He felt that he had not lived in vain, and that when he died, the seed which he had sown would bear fruit a hundredfold. Happy is the man who can know as much as this, and few there are that know it.It was the day of the new moon, and, according to custom, Rupert was engaged in delivering his monthly address. There had been trouble in Tama. A man who had met with misfortunes after great prosperity had publicly cursed all gods and committed suicide; while another man, cruelly wronged, had taken the law into his own hands, and murdered his neighbour. On these sad examples Rupert discoursed.Rupert and Mea, placed on this occasion upon the platform in the hall of the ancient temple, where they were in the habit of sitting side by side to administer justice, and for other public purposes, did not, as it happened, know of the approach of a party of white travellers that afternoon. It had been reported to them, indeed, that some Europeans—two women and a man, with their servants—were journeying across the desert, but as they did not understand that these wished to come to Tama, Mea contented herself with giving orders that they should receive any food or assistance that they needed, and let the matter slip from her mind.Her servants and the guards of the Black Pass executed this command in a liberal spirit, and when the party, through an interpreter, explained that they wished to visit the oasis, having business with its sheik, presuming that they were expected, they offered no objection, but even conducted them on their way. Only the guards asked whom they meant by the sheik, Zahed, or the lady Tama? as Zahed himself was not in the habit of receiving strangers. They inquired who Zahed might be, and were informed of the meaning of his name, also that he was a holy man, and a greathakimor doctor, and by birth an Englishman, who had been sent by Heaven to bless their people, and who was the “lord of the spirit” of their lady Mea.Edith, from her high perch on the top of a tall camel, an animal which she feared and loathed, looked down at Lady Devene, who, composed as usual, but with her fair skin burnt to the colour of mahogany, sat upon a donkey as upright and as unmoved as though that animal were her own drawing-room chair. Indeed, when it fell down, as it did occasionally, she still sat there, waiting till someone lifted it up again. Tabitha was an excellent traveller; nothing disturbed her nerves. Still she preferred a donkey to a camel; it was nearer the ground, she explained. So, for the matter of that, did Edith, only she selected the latter beast because she thought, and rightly, that on it she looked less absurd.“Tabitha,” she said, “what on earth do you make of all that? Rupert seems to have turned prophet, and to be married to this woman.”“I should not wonder,” answered Lady Devene, looking up at the graceful figure on the camel. “He is good stuff to make a prophet of, but as for being married, they said only that he is lord of the lady’s spirit. Also, they call him the Renouncer, so I do not think that he is married.”Edith, who had gathered that this lady was still young and very good-looking, shook her head gloomily, for already she who had so little right to be so was jealous of Mea.“I expect that only means she has made him renounce some other ones,” she suggested. “Of course, it would seem wonderful to all these creatures if a man had only one wife.”“Ach! we shall see, but at any rate you cannot grumble. It is a matter for his own conscience, not for you who turned the poor man out of doors. Ach! Edith, you must have the heart of a nether millstone. But if you want to know more, tell that wretched Dick to find out. He stopped back to drink some whisky and soda.”Edith opened her white umbrella, although at the moment the sun did not reach her in the pass, and interposed it between Tabitha and herself to indicate that the conversation was finished. She did not appreciate Lady Devene’s outspoken criticism, of which she had endured more than enough during the past six weeks. Nor did she wish to summon Dick to her assistance, for she knew exactly what he would say.Here it may be explained that Dick had not been asked to be a member of this party, but when they embarked on the steamer at Marseilles, they found him there. On being questioned as to the reason of his presence, he stated quite clearly that his interests were too much concerned in the result of their investigations to allow of his being absent from them. So as they could not prevent him, with them he came, accompanied by a little retinue of his own.For the rest of that journey, when she was not stifled by the Campsine wind, which followed them up the pass, or thinking about the joltings of the camel, and other kindred discomforts, Edith remained lost in her own meditations. Rupert was here, of this there could be no manner of doubt, and considering the fashion of their last adieux, what on earth was she to say to him when they met? Also, and this was more to the point, what would he say to her? She was still a very pretty woman, and his wife; those were her only cards; but whether Rupert would respond when she played them remained more than doubtful. His last words to her were that he hated her, that all his nature and his soul rose up in repugnance against her; that even if she swore she loved him, he would not touch her with his finger-tips, and that he would never willingly speak to her again in this world or the next. This was fairly uncompromising, and was it likely that Rupert, that patient, obstinate Rupert, who here, it seemed, was adored by everybody, would of a sudden vary a determination in which he had persisted for more than seven years? Heartily did Edith wish that she had never come upon this wild errand.But she had been forced into it. Dick, whom she now cordially detested and feared, but who unfortunately knew her secrets, had put stories about concerning her which made it necessary for her to act if she would save her own good repute. Rich as she was and beautiful as she was, very few respectable people would have anything to do with her in future, if it became known as a certain fact that she had rejected her own husband when he rose from the dead, merely because he was in trouble, had been physically injured, and for the time lost his prospects of a peerage. This would be too much even for a false and hypocritical world. But oh! she wished that she could be conveyed to the other end of the earth, even if she had to go there through the Campsine, and on this horrible, groaning camel.Their road took a turn, and before them they saw the ruins of a temple, and behind it a prosperous-looking Eastern town surrounded by groves of palms and other trees. Through these they rode till they came to the surrounding brick wall of the temple, where the interpreter told them that the guide said they must dismount, because Zahed was speaking, and the people would beat them if they disturbed him.So they obeyed, and the two of them, accompanied by the interpreter and Dick, who had now arrived, were led through a door in the temple wall into a side chapel, which about half-way down its length opened out of the great hypostyle hall that was still filled with columns, whereof most were standing. At the mouth of this chapel, in the deep shadow behind a fallen column, whence they could see without being seen, they were told to stand still, and did so, as yet quite unnoticed. The sight before them was indeed remarkable.All that great hall was crowded with hundreds of men, women, and children, rather light in colour, and of a high-bred Arab stamp of feature; clad, everyone of them, in clean and flowing robes, the men wearing keffiehs or head-dresses of various colours, whereof the ends hung upon their shoulders, and the women, whose faces were exposed, wimple-like hoods. On a platform raised upon some broken columns at the end of the hall were two figures, those of a man and a woman, between whom sat a grey-snouted little dog, who looked in their direction and snarled until the man reproved it.With a kind of sudden pain, Edith recognised at the first glance that this woman was extraordinarily beautiful, although in a fashion that was new to her. The waving hair, uncovered by any veil, but retained in place by the only emblem of her ancient royalty which Mea still used, a band of dull gold whence, above her brow, rose the uræus, or hooded snake, fell somewhat stiffly upon her shoulders, its thick mass trimmed level at the ends. In it, as in a frame, was set the earnest, mysterious face wherein glowed her large and lovely eyes. Placed there on high, her rounded form wrapped in purest white did not look small, or perhaps the dignity of her mien, her folded hands and upright pose in her chair of state, seemed to add to its stature. She was smiling as she always smiled, the coral-coloured lips were slightly parted, and in the ray of sunlight that fell upon her from the open roof, Edith could distinguish the rows of perfect teeth between them, while her head was turned a little that she might watch her companion with those wonderful and loving eyes. So this was the savage woman of whom she had been told, this ethereal and beautiful being with the wild, sweet face like to the face of an angel.Mastering a desire to choke, Edith followed the woman’s glance to the man at her side, for they sat together like the solemn, stately figures of husband and wife upon the Egyptian stele which years ago Rupert had brought from Egypt. Oh! it was Rupert, without a doubt, but Rupert changed. Could that noble-looking chieftain in the flowing robes of white which hid his feet, and the stately head-dress, also of white, that fell upon his broad shoulders, be the same creature who, clad in his cheap and hideous garments, she had dismissed from her drawing-room in London as repulsive beyond bearing? Then his beard was fiery red and straggling; now it was iron-grey, trimmed square, and massive like his shoulders and his head. Then the eye that remained to him was red and bloodshot; now it was large and luminous. The face also had grown spiritual, like that of his companion, a light seemed to shine upon it which smoothed away its ruggedness. If not handsome, he looked what he was—a leader of men, refined, good, noble, a man to love and to revere.All this Edith understood in a flash, and by the light of that illumination understood also for the first time the completeness of her own wicked folly. There, set above the common crowd, adored and adorable, with his beauteous consort, was the husband whom she had cast away like dirt—for Dick’s sake. He, Dick, was speaking in her ear, and she turned her head and glanced at him. His heavy eyes were staring greedily at the loveliness of Mea; his fat, yellowish cheeks lay in folds above the not too well shaven chin. He wiped his bald head with a handkerchief that was no longer clean, and smelt of cigarettes and whisky.“By Jingo!” Dick was saying, “that little woman is something like, isn’t she? No wonder our pious friend stopped in the Soudan. You are nice-looking, Edith, but you have all your work cut out to get him away from that houri. You had better go home and apply for a divorce on the ground of desertion, just to save your face.”“Be silent,” she whispered, almost in a hiss, and with a fierce flash of her eyes.Must she listen to Dick’s ribaldry at such a moment? Oh! now she was sure of it, it was he whom she hated, not Rupert.Rupert was speaking in Arabic, and in a rich, slow voice that reached the remotest recesses of that immemorial hall, emphasising his words by quiet and dignified motions of his hands. He was speaking, and every soul of that great company, in utter silence and with heads bent in respect, hung upon his wisdom.Tabitha poked the interpreter with the point of her white umbrella and whispered.“Tell me, Achmet,” she said, “what do his lordship say?”Achmet listened, and from time to time interpreted the sense of Rupert’s remarks in a low, rapid voice which none of the audience, who were unaware of their presence, overheard.“The noble lord, Zahed,” he informed them, “talks of gratitude to God, which some of them have forgot; he shows them how they should all be very grateful. He tells them his own story.”“Ach! that is interesting,” said Lady Devene. “Go on, Achmet. I did always want to hear that story.”Achmet bowed and continued: “He says to his dear children that he tells them this story that they may learn by that example how grateful all people should be to Allah. He says that when he was a boy he fell into deep sin, as perhaps some of them have done, but God saved him then, and speaking by the voice of his mother, made him promise to sin no more in that way, which promise he kept, though he had sinned much in other ways. Then God lifted him up, and from a person of no estate made him one of importance, and, God preserving him all the time, he fought in battles and killed people, for which, although it was in the service of his country, he is sorry now. Afterwards he went to his own land and took a wife whom he loved, but before she came to his house he was sent back to this country upon a mission, about which they know. The Sheik of the Sweet Wells attacked that mission and killed all of them except one Abdullah, their lady Tama here, Bakhita who sat below, and himself. Him they tortured, cutting off his foot and putting out his eye, because he would not accept Islam, the false faith.”“It is so; it is so,” said the great audience, “we found you—but ah! we took vengeance.”“He says,” went on Achmet, “that of vengeance and forgiveness he will talk to them presently. Their lady Tama here nursed him back to life, and then he returned again to his own land.”“Must I stay to listen to all this?” said Edith fiercely.“No need,” answered Tabitha, “you can go back anywhere, butIshall stay to listen. Go on, Achmet.”Edith hesitated a moment, then not knowing whither to retreat, and being consumed with burning curiosity, stayed also.“He returned,” continued Achmet, in his summary, “to find himself disgraced, no longer a man in honour, but one in a very small position, because he was supposed to have neglected his duty, and thereby brought about the death of many, and rubbed the face of the Government in the dirt. He returned also to find that the wealth and rank which would be his by right of inheritance had passed away from him owing to an unexpected birth. Lastly, he returned to find that his wife would have nothing more to do with a man whom mutilations had made ugly, who was poor and without prospects, and at the mention of whose name other men looked aside. He sought his mother, and discovered that she was suddenly dead, so that he was left quite alone in the world. That hour was very bitter; he could scarcely bear to think of it even now.”Here Rupert’s voice trembled, the multitude of his disciples murmured, and the lady Tama, moved by a sudden impulse, bent towards him as though to place her hand upon his arm in sympathy, then remembering, withdrew it, and muttered some words which he acknowledged with a smile. Now Rupert spoke again, and Achmet, who was a clever interpreter, continued his rendering:“Zahed says that bitterness overwhelmed him, that faith in God departed, that his loneliness and his shame were such that he felt he could no longer live, that he went to a great river purposing to destroy himself by drowning.”Again there was a murmur which covered up the speaker’s voice, and in the midst of it Dick whispered to Edith:“Rather rough on you to drop in for this yarn, but it is always well to hear both sides of a case.”She made no answer. Her face was like that of the stone statue against which she leant. Again the unconcerned, brassy voice of the interpreter took up the tale:“Zahed says that while he prepared for death in the river, in the mist above the water he saw a picture of their and his loved lady’s face, and Allah brought into his mind a promise which he had made to her that if the ties of his duty were broken, he would return to be her brother and friend. Thus he was prevented from committing a great crime—a crime like that the man they had been speaking of had committed, and he had returned. As all there could bear witness, he, remembering the oaths which he had sworn to the wife who had rejected him, had been no more to Tama than a brother and a friend. This was not easy, since she and all of them knew that he loved her well, and he believed that she loved him well.”“Aye, that I do,” broke in Mea, in a voice of infinite tenderness. “I love him more than life, more than anything that is, has been, or shall be. I love him, oh! I love him, as much as he loves me.”“It is so, we see with our eyes,” said the multitude.“Well, now, he came to the nut that lay hid in the rough stone of his story. His lot had been hard. They would all of them think it hard that because of their duty their lady and he must live as they lived, one, yet separated, practising the great doctrine of Renunciation, having no hope of children to follow after them.”The audience agreed that it was exceedingly hard.“They thought so, and so it had been at first, yet it had come to this, they loved their state and did not wish to change it, they who looked forward to other things, and to a life when the righteousness which they practised here would bring them yet closer together than they had ever been. They were quite happy who spent their days without remorse for the past or fear for the future; they for whom death had no terrors, but was rather a gate of joy which they would pass gladly hand-in-hand. That was the nut of the story; bitter as it might be to the taste, it had in it the germ of life. Lo! they had planted it on the earth, and yet even here, although as yet they did not see its flower, it had grown to a very pleasant tree under the shade of which they rested for a while and were content. Let all of them there lay this poor example to their hearts. Let them not be discouraged when God seemed to deal hardly with them, like that poor man, their brother, who was dead by his own hand, since if in their degree they also practised Renunciation, made repentance, and for right’s sake abstained from sin, they would certainly find a reward.“Some of them had spoken of vengeance, that thirst for vengeance, which the other day had caused another of them to commit murder. Let them flee from the thought of it. Their lady here had practised vengeance upon the bodies of those cruel Arabs who had slain his people and tortured himself, but now neither he nor she were happier on that account. The blood of those misguided men was on their hands, who, if they had left them alone, would doubtless have been rewarded according to their deeds, but not through them, or, what was far better, would have lived to repent and find forgiveness. Forgiveness was the command of the merciful God who forgave all that sought it of Him, and it should not be withheld even by the best of them who still had so much to be forgiven.”“Would you forgive that woman of yours who deserted you, Zahed?” cried Bakhita from below.“Surely I forgive her,” answered Rupert. “It would be strange if I did not do so, seeing that by her act she has made me happier, I think, than ever a man was before,” and he turned and smiled again at Mea, who smiled back at him.Then up in that audience stood a blind old teacher, a mystic learned in the law, one who was beloved of the people for his wisdom and his good deeds, and yet perhaps at heart somewhat jealous of the new white prophet to whom they had turned of late.“Hearken, Zahed!” he said. “I with the others have listened to your address, and I approve its spirit as I deplore the crimes that were its text. Yet it seems to me that you miss the root of the matter. Answer me if I am wrong. God oppressed you; He tried you for His own reasons; He rolled you in the mire; He brought down your soul to hell. The wife of your bosom, she deserted you, when you were in trouble then she struck as only a woman can. She said: ‘Beggar, be gone; remove your rags and hideousness from before me. I will shelter with a richer lord.’ So you went, and what did you? You did not bow yourself before the decree of God, you did not say: ‘I rejoice in the tempest as in the sunshine; I acknowledge that I have deserved it all, and I give thanks now that my mouth is empty as I gave them when it was full.’ No; you said—be not angry with me, Zahed, for a spirit is in my lips and I speak for your instruction. You said: ‘I will not bear this pain. My soul is hot, it hisses. I will quench it in the waters of death. I will drug myself with death; I will go to sleep because God my Maker has dealt hardly with me.’“Then God your Maker bowed Himself down and spoke to you out of heaven, by His magic He spoke to you; He showed you a face upon the waters, the face of one who loved you still, and thereby saved you alive. You came; you found the face which smiled on you; you kept the letter of your oath to the false woman, but you broke its spirit. You loved her, our lady Tama, and she loved you; you said, both of you: ‘We renounce because we love so much. We are good lest in time to come our sin should separate us. To gain much you gave a little, you whose eyes are opened, you who see something of the truth, who know that this life is no more than the oasis of Tama compared to the great stars above, those stars which you will one day travel.’“Listen to me, Zahed, I speak for your instruction. I do not blame you, nor do I think God will blame you who made you of the mud beneath His feet, not of the light about His head. He will have pity. He will say: ‘Mud, you have done well—for mud.’ But I am His advocate here, to-day it is given to me to be His voice. Answer Him a question now if you can. If not, remain silent and weep because you are still mud. You hold yourself bound to this base woman, who should be beaten with rods, do you not? You acknowledge it openly, who will not take another wife. You preach the doctrine of forgiveness to us, do you not? You say that you forgive her. Why? Nay, be silent, now the Voice is in my mouth—not in yours. Speak presently when you have heard it. You forgive her because her wickedness has worked your weal; because she has brought you to love and to honour among men.“Well, now; hear me and make answer. If that accursed woman, that daughter of Satan, were to come hither to-day, if she were to say to you: ‘I repent, who was wicked. I love, who hated. I put you in mind of the oath you swore. I demand that you leave the sweet lady at your side and the people who worship you, and the gardens that you have made and the wells that you have digged, and return to live with me in a hell of streets upon which the sun never shines, that I may give you children to build up the pillars of your house, and that I may grow great in your shadow.’“Tell us now, what would you answer her? Would you say: ‘Is not my name Zahed? Therefore I come, I come at once;’ and thereby show us that you are perfect indeed? Or, would you say: ‘Woman, you built the wall, you broke the bridge, you dug the gulf. I am lame, I cannot climb; I am afraid, I dare not swim; I have no wings, I may not fly. I forgive you afar; I do not forgive you at my side. I love you and all mankind, but I will not touch your hand. I give to you the writings of divorce.’ Would you speak thus, and let us see that you are still a man of mud? Answer now the question that God puts to you through my lips, Zahed. Or if you cannot answer, you who preach Renunciation and Forgiveness, here is mud, smear it on your forehead and be silent.”Now Mea had been listening, with a great and ever-growing indignation, to this long address, designed to set out one of those test cases which are so dear to Eastern religious thought and methods, and to force a holy man to admit that, after all, he is full of error.“I at least will answer,” she broke in, before Rupert could speak a word. “Who is this jealous-hearted, white-headed fool that fills the air with sand, like the Campsine blast; that stains the clear pool with dirt, like a thirsty camel; that says the Spirit of God is in his lips, those lips that utter wind and emptiness; that tries to convict of sin where there is no sin, and to show one who is a thousandfold his better, a new path to heaven? Did God then decree when a man has been rolled in mire and washed himself clean again, that he should return to the mire at the bidding of her who befouled him? Did God decree that a man should leave those with whom he lives in innocence, to share the home of his betrayer whom he hates? Is it virtue to be made vile? Is it righteous to clothe oneself in the rags of another’s wickedness? Make reply, you babbler, old in self-conceit, you who think to gain honour by defeating your lord in words before his people. Make reply, you that wrap yourself with words as with a garment, and sit upon pride as a sheepskin, and say, wherefore should the true be thrust aside for the false? Wherefore should my heart be widowed, that another who sowed thistles may pluck flowers?”Now the old teacher plucked his beard and began in wrath:“Do I, a learned man, one who has thought and studied long, come here to wrangle with a hungry woman who covets the fruit she may not eat?—”“Silence!” broke in Rupert, in his great voice—“silence! Tama, give not way to anger—it is not fitting, and you, my questioner and friend, speak no more words against the lady whom in your heart you love and honour. When that case of which you tell happens, as I pray it may not happen, then I will take counsel with my conscience, and do as it shall bid me. I have said.”Now Rupert turned to Mea to soothe her, for this talk had made her more angry than she had been for years, so angry that in the old days that holy teacher’s life might well have paid its price; while the audience fell to arguing the point among themselves and were so occupied, all of them, that they never saw a woman with a shawl thrown over her head, who thrust her way through them till she stood in front of the platform.
Rupert was disturbed in his mind. No one was less superstitious. He had advanced spiritually beyond the reach of superstition. He had grasped the great fact still not understood by the vast majority of human beings, that the universe and their connection with it is a mighty mystery whereof nine hundred and ninety-nine parts out of a thousand are still veiled to men. These are apt to believe, as Lord Devene believed, that this thousandth part which they see bathed in the vivid, daily sunlight is all that there is to see. They imagine that because only one tiny angle of the great jewel catches and reflects the light, the rest must be dark and valueless. They look upon the point of rock showing above the ocean and forget that in its secret depths lies hid a mountain range, an island, a continent, a world, perhaps, whereof this topmost peak alone appears.
With Rupert, to whom such reflections were familiar, it was not so. Yet perhaps, because he remembered that every outward manifestation, however trivial, doubtless has its root in some hidden reason, and that probably the thing we call coincidence does not in truth exist, it did trouble and even alarm him when, riding one morning with Mea down a deep cleft in Tama, he heard upon the cliff, to the right of them, the wild and piercing music of the Wandering Players. Looking up, he saw upon the edge of that cliff those strange musicians, swathed as before in such a fashion that their faces were invisible, three of them blowing on their pipes and two keeping time with the drums, for the benefit, apparently, of the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, since no biped was near to them.
He hailed them angrily from the valley, but they took not the slightest notice, only blew more weirdly and beat the louder. He tried to get up to them, but discovered that in order to do so he must ride round for five miles. This he accomplished at last, only to find that they were gone, having probably slipped down the slope of the mountain away into their home, the desert. Indeed, it was reported to him afterwards that some people, accompanied by two donkeys, had been seen in the distance tramping across the sand.
“Why are you so vexed, Rupert?” asked Mea, when they descended the cliffs again, after their fruitless search.
“I don’t know,” he answered, with a laugh, “but that music is associated with disagreeable recollections in my mind. The first time we heard it, you remember, was just before I lost my foot and eye, and the next time was as I embarked upon the ship on my way to England, an unhappy journey. What have they come for now, I wonder?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, with her sweet smile; “but I at least have no cause to fear them. After their first visit I saved you; after their second you came back to me.”
“And after their third—?” asked Rupert.
“After their third I have said, I do not know; but perhaps it means that we shall take a long journey together.”
“If that’s all, I don’t care,” he replied. “What I dread is our taking journeys away from each other.”
“I thank you,” she answered, bowing to him gravely, “your words are pleasant to me, and I bless those musicians who made you speak them, as I am sure that our roads branch no more.”
So, still smiling at each other like two happy children, they rode on. They visited the salt works which Rupert had established to the enormous benefit of everyone in the oasis.
Passing through groves of young date-palms that he had planted, they came to the breeding grounds of camels, mules, and horses, the last of which had attained a great reputation, and having inspected the studs, turned back through the irrigated lands that now each year produced two crops instead of one.
“You have done well for us, Rupert,” said Mea, as they headed homewards. “Tama has not been so wealthy since the days of my forefathers, who called themselves kings, and now that the Khalifa is broken and the land has become safe, this is but a beginning of riches.”
“I don’t know about that,” he answered, with his jolly laugh, “but I have done very well for myself. Do you know that out of my percentage I have saved more money than I can spend? Now I am going to build a hospital and hire a skilled man to attend to it, for I am tired of playing doctor.”
“Yes,” she answered, “I have thought of it before, only I said nothing because it means bringing white folk into the place, and we are so happy without them. Also, our people do not like strangers.”
“I understand,” he answered, “but the Europeans have discovered us already. It is impossible to keep them out now that we pay taxes to the Government. You remember that man a few months ago who came to tell me that I am Lord Devene, and that since I became so my wife is making inquiries about me. I would not see him, and you sent him away, but he, or others, will be back again soon.”
“And then will you wish to leave with him, Rupert, and take your own place in the West?” she asked anxiously.
“Not I,” he answered, “not if they offered to make me a king.”
“Well, why should you?” Mea said, with her sweet little laugh, “who are already a king here,” and she touched her breast; “and there,” and she nodded towards some people who bowed themselves before him; “and everywhere,” and she waved her hand at the oasis of Tama in general.
“Well,” he answered, “the first is the only crown I want.” Then, having no more words to say, this strange pair, divorced for the kingdom of Heaven’s sake, yet wedded indeed, if ever man and woman have been, for truly their very souls were one, looked at each other tenderly. They had changed somewhat since we saw them last over seven years before. Their strange life had left its seal upon them both. Mea’s face was thinner, the rich, full lips had a little wistful droop; the great, pleading eyes had grown spiritual, as though with continual looking over the edge of the world; the air of mystery which her features always wore had deepened; also, her figure was somewhat less rounded than it appeared in those unregenerate days when she turned herself about before Rupert, and assured him that she was “not so bad.” Yet she was more beautiful now than then, only the beauty was of a different character.
Rupert, on the other hand, had greatly improved in looks. The eye that remained to him was quite bright and clear, and the flesh had healed over the other in such a fashion that it only looked as if it were shut. The scars left by the hot irons on his face had almost vanished also. The bleaching of the sun, combined with other causes, had turned his hair from red to an iron grey, to the great gain of his appearance; moreover, the wide, rough beard, which had caused Edith mentally to compare him to Orson as pictured in the fairy books of her youth, was kept short, square, and carefully trimmed. Lastly, his face, like Mea’s, had fined down, till it resembled that of a powerful ascetic, which, in truth, he was. Indeed, although they were so strangely different, they had yet grown like to one another; seen in certain lights, and in their Arab robes, it would have been quite possible to mistake them for brother and sister, as their people called them among themselves.
For a long while, to these simple inhabitants of the desert, the relations between the two had been a matter of mystery. They were unable to understand why a man and woman, who were evidently everything to each other, did not marry. At first they thought that Rupert must have taken other wives among the women of the place, but finding that this was not so, secretly they applied to Bakhita to enlighten them. She informed them that because of vows that they had made, and for the welfare of their souls, this pair had agreed to adopt the doctrine of Renunciation.
Bakhita spoke with some hidden sarcasm, but as that doctrine, at any rate in theory, is, and for thousands of years has been familiar to the East, her questioners grasped the sense of the saying readily enough, and on the strength of it gave Rupert a new name. Thenceforth among them he was known asZahed,which means the Renouncer—one who, fixing his eyes upon a better, thrusts aside the good things of this world. It is easy for a man who stands upon such a pedestal to be lifted a little higher, at any rate amongst Easterns. Therefore it came about that very shortly Rupert found himself revered as a saint, a holy personage, who was probably inspired by Heaven.
As he had no vices that could be discovered; as he neither drank spirituous liquors nor even smoked, having given up that habit; as he lived very simply, and gave largely to the poor; as he was noted for the great cures he worked by his doctoring; as he dispensed justice with an even hand, and by his hard work and ability turned the place into an Eden flowing with milk and honey; and lastly, as his military knowledge and skill in fortification made the oasis practically impregnable to attack, this reputation of his grew with a rapidity that was positively alarming. Had he wished it, it would have been easy for Rupert to assume the character of a Mahdi, and to collect the surrounding tribes under his banner to wage whatever wars he thought desirable. Needless to say, he had no yearnings in that direction, being quite sufficiently occupied in doing all the good that lay to his hand in Tama.
Still, as he found that he was expected to address the people upon certain feast days, generally once a month, he took the opportunity, without mentioning its name, to preach his own faith to them, or at any rate the morals which that faith inculcates, with the result that after he had dwelt among them for five years, although they knew it not, the population of Tama, being Coptic by blood and therefore already inclined in that direction, was in many essentials Christian in thought and character. This was a great work for one man to do in so short a time, and as he looked around upon the result of the labours of his hand and heart, Rupert in secret was conscious of a certain pride. He felt that his misfortunes had worked together for good to others as well as to himself. He felt that he had not lived in vain, and that when he died, the seed which he had sown would bear fruit a hundredfold. Happy is the man who can know as much as this, and few there are that know it.
It was the day of the new moon, and, according to custom, Rupert was engaged in delivering his monthly address. There had been trouble in Tama. A man who had met with misfortunes after great prosperity had publicly cursed all gods and committed suicide; while another man, cruelly wronged, had taken the law into his own hands, and murdered his neighbour. On these sad examples Rupert discoursed.
Rupert and Mea, placed on this occasion upon the platform in the hall of the ancient temple, where they were in the habit of sitting side by side to administer justice, and for other public purposes, did not, as it happened, know of the approach of a party of white travellers that afternoon. It had been reported to them, indeed, that some Europeans—two women and a man, with their servants—were journeying across the desert, but as they did not understand that these wished to come to Tama, Mea contented herself with giving orders that they should receive any food or assistance that they needed, and let the matter slip from her mind.
Her servants and the guards of the Black Pass executed this command in a liberal spirit, and when the party, through an interpreter, explained that they wished to visit the oasis, having business with its sheik, presuming that they were expected, they offered no objection, but even conducted them on their way. Only the guards asked whom they meant by the sheik, Zahed, or the lady Tama? as Zahed himself was not in the habit of receiving strangers. They inquired who Zahed might be, and were informed of the meaning of his name, also that he was a holy man, and a greathakimor doctor, and by birth an Englishman, who had been sent by Heaven to bless their people, and who was the “lord of the spirit” of their lady Mea.
Edith, from her high perch on the top of a tall camel, an animal which she feared and loathed, looked down at Lady Devene, who, composed as usual, but with her fair skin burnt to the colour of mahogany, sat upon a donkey as upright and as unmoved as though that animal were her own drawing-room chair. Indeed, when it fell down, as it did occasionally, she still sat there, waiting till someone lifted it up again. Tabitha was an excellent traveller; nothing disturbed her nerves. Still she preferred a donkey to a camel; it was nearer the ground, she explained. So, for the matter of that, did Edith, only she selected the latter beast because she thought, and rightly, that on it she looked less absurd.
“Tabitha,” she said, “what on earth do you make of all that? Rupert seems to have turned prophet, and to be married to this woman.”
“I should not wonder,” answered Lady Devene, looking up at the graceful figure on the camel. “He is good stuff to make a prophet of, but as for being married, they said only that he is lord of the lady’s spirit. Also, they call him the Renouncer, so I do not think that he is married.”
Edith, who had gathered that this lady was still young and very good-looking, shook her head gloomily, for already she who had so little right to be so was jealous of Mea.
“I expect that only means she has made him renounce some other ones,” she suggested. “Of course, it would seem wonderful to all these creatures if a man had only one wife.”
“Ach! we shall see, but at any rate you cannot grumble. It is a matter for his own conscience, not for you who turned the poor man out of doors. Ach! Edith, you must have the heart of a nether millstone. But if you want to know more, tell that wretched Dick to find out. He stopped back to drink some whisky and soda.”
Edith opened her white umbrella, although at the moment the sun did not reach her in the pass, and interposed it between Tabitha and herself to indicate that the conversation was finished. She did not appreciate Lady Devene’s outspoken criticism, of which she had endured more than enough during the past six weeks. Nor did she wish to summon Dick to her assistance, for she knew exactly what he would say.
Here it may be explained that Dick had not been asked to be a member of this party, but when they embarked on the steamer at Marseilles, they found him there. On being questioned as to the reason of his presence, he stated quite clearly that his interests were too much concerned in the result of their investigations to allow of his being absent from them. So as they could not prevent him, with them he came, accompanied by a little retinue of his own.
For the rest of that journey, when she was not stifled by the Campsine wind, which followed them up the pass, or thinking about the joltings of the camel, and other kindred discomforts, Edith remained lost in her own meditations. Rupert was here, of this there could be no manner of doubt, and considering the fashion of their last adieux, what on earth was she to say to him when they met? Also, and this was more to the point, what would he say to her? She was still a very pretty woman, and his wife; those were her only cards; but whether Rupert would respond when she played them remained more than doubtful. His last words to her were that he hated her, that all his nature and his soul rose up in repugnance against her; that even if she swore she loved him, he would not touch her with his finger-tips, and that he would never willingly speak to her again in this world or the next. This was fairly uncompromising, and was it likely that Rupert, that patient, obstinate Rupert, who here, it seemed, was adored by everybody, would of a sudden vary a determination in which he had persisted for more than seven years? Heartily did Edith wish that she had never come upon this wild errand.
But she had been forced into it. Dick, whom she now cordially detested and feared, but who unfortunately knew her secrets, had put stories about concerning her which made it necessary for her to act if she would save her own good repute. Rich as she was and beautiful as she was, very few respectable people would have anything to do with her in future, if it became known as a certain fact that she had rejected her own husband when he rose from the dead, merely because he was in trouble, had been physically injured, and for the time lost his prospects of a peerage. This would be too much even for a false and hypocritical world. But oh! she wished that she could be conveyed to the other end of the earth, even if she had to go there through the Campsine, and on this horrible, groaning camel.
Their road took a turn, and before them they saw the ruins of a temple, and behind it a prosperous-looking Eastern town surrounded by groves of palms and other trees. Through these they rode till they came to the surrounding brick wall of the temple, where the interpreter told them that the guide said they must dismount, because Zahed was speaking, and the people would beat them if they disturbed him.
So they obeyed, and the two of them, accompanied by the interpreter and Dick, who had now arrived, were led through a door in the temple wall into a side chapel, which about half-way down its length opened out of the great hypostyle hall that was still filled with columns, whereof most were standing. At the mouth of this chapel, in the deep shadow behind a fallen column, whence they could see without being seen, they were told to stand still, and did so, as yet quite unnoticed. The sight before them was indeed remarkable.
All that great hall was crowded with hundreds of men, women, and children, rather light in colour, and of a high-bred Arab stamp of feature; clad, everyone of them, in clean and flowing robes, the men wearing keffiehs or head-dresses of various colours, whereof the ends hung upon their shoulders, and the women, whose faces were exposed, wimple-like hoods. On a platform raised upon some broken columns at the end of the hall were two figures, those of a man and a woman, between whom sat a grey-snouted little dog, who looked in their direction and snarled until the man reproved it.
With a kind of sudden pain, Edith recognised at the first glance that this woman was extraordinarily beautiful, although in a fashion that was new to her. The waving hair, uncovered by any veil, but retained in place by the only emblem of her ancient royalty which Mea still used, a band of dull gold whence, above her brow, rose the uræus, or hooded snake, fell somewhat stiffly upon her shoulders, its thick mass trimmed level at the ends. In it, as in a frame, was set the earnest, mysterious face wherein glowed her large and lovely eyes. Placed there on high, her rounded form wrapped in purest white did not look small, or perhaps the dignity of her mien, her folded hands and upright pose in her chair of state, seemed to add to its stature. She was smiling as she always smiled, the coral-coloured lips were slightly parted, and in the ray of sunlight that fell upon her from the open roof, Edith could distinguish the rows of perfect teeth between them, while her head was turned a little that she might watch her companion with those wonderful and loving eyes. So this was the savage woman of whom she had been told, this ethereal and beautiful being with the wild, sweet face like to the face of an angel.
Mastering a desire to choke, Edith followed the woman’s glance to the man at her side, for they sat together like the solemn, stately figures of husband and wife upon the Egyptian stele which years ago Rupert had brought from Egypt. Oh! it was Rupert, without a doubt, but Rupert changed. Could that noble-looking chieftain in the flowing robes of white which hid his feet, and the stately head-dress, also of white, that fell upon his broad shoulders, be the same creature who, clad in his cheap and hideous garments, she had dismissed from her drawing-room in London as repulsive beyond bearing? Then his beard was fiery red and straggling; now it was iron-grey, trimmed square, and massive like his shoulders and his head. Then the eye that remained to him was red and bloodshot; now it was large and luminous. The face also had grown spiritual, like that of his companion, a light seemed to shine upon it which smoothed away its ruggedness. If not handsome, he looked what he was—a leader of men, refined, good, noble, a man to love and to revere.
All this Edith understood in a flash, and by the light of that illumination understood also for the first time the completeness of her own wicked folly. There, set above the common crowd, adored and adorable, with his beauteous consort, was the husband whom she had cast away like dirt—for Dick’s sake. He, Dick, was speaking in her ear, and she turned her head and glanced at him. His heavy eyes were staring greedily at the loveliness of Mea; his fat, yellowish cheeks lay in folds above the not too well shaven chin. He wiped his bald head with a handkerchief that was no longer clean, and smelt of cigarettes and whisky.
“By Jingo!” Dick was saying, “that little woman is something like, isn’t she? No wonder our pious friend stopped in the Soudan. You are nice-looking, Edith, but you have all your work cut out to get him away from that houri. You had better go home and apply for a divorce on the ground of desertion, just to save your face.”
“Be silent,” she whispered, almost in a hiss, and with a fierce flash of her eyes.
Must she listen to Dick’s ribaldry at such a moment? Oh! now she was sure of it, it was he whom she hated, not Rupert.
Rupert was speaking in Arabic, and in a rich, slow voice that reached the remotest recesses of that immemorial hall, emphasising his words by quiet and dignified motions of his hands. He was speaking, and every soul of that great company, in utter silence and with heads bent in respect, hung upon his wisdom.
Tabitha poked the interpreter with the point of her white umbrella and whispered.
“Tell me, Achmet,” she said, “what do his lordship say?”
Achmet listened, and from time to time interpreted the sense of Rupert’s remarks in a low, rapid voice which none of the audience, who were unaware of their presence, overheard.
“The noble lord, Zahed,” he informed them, “talks of gratitude to God, which some of them have forgot; he shows them how they should all be very grateful. He tells them his own story.”
“Ach! that is interesting,” said Lady Devene. “Go on, Achmet. I did always want to hear that story.”
Achmet bowed and continued: “He says to his dear children that he tells them this story that they may learn by that example how grateful all people should be to Allah. He says that when he was a boy he fell into deep sin, as perhaps some of them have done, but God saved him then, and speaking by the voice of his mother, made him promise to sin no more in that way, which promise he kept, though he had sinned much in other ways. Then God lifted him up, and from a person of no estate made him one of importance, and, God preserving him all the time, he fought in battles and killed people, for which, although it was in the service of his country, he is sorry now. Afterwards he went to his own land and took a wife whom he loved, but before she came to his house he was sent back to this country upon a mission, about which they know. The Sheik of the Sweet Wells attacked that mission and killed all of them except one Abdullah, their lady Tama here, Bakhita who sat below, and himself. Him they tortured, cutting off his foot and putting out his eye, because he would not accept Islam, the false faith.”
“It is so; it is so,” said the great audience, “we found you—but ah! we took vengeance.”
“He says,” went on Achmet, “that of vengeance and forgiveness he will talk to them presently. Their lady Tama here nursed him back to life, and then he returned again to his own land.”
“Must I stay to listen to all this?” said Edith fiercely.
“No need,” answered Tabitha, “you can go back anywhere, butIshall stay to listen. Go on, Achmet.”
Edith hesitated a moment, then not knowing whither to retreat, and being consumed with burning curiosity, stayed also.
“He returned,” continued Achmet, in his summary, “to find himself disgraced, no longer a man in honour, but one in a very small position, because he was supposed to have neglected his duty, and thereby brought about the death of many, and rubbed the face of the Government in the dirt. He returned also to find that the wealth and rank which would be his by right of inheritance had passed away from him owing to an unexpected birth. Lastly, he returned to find that his wife would have nothing more to do with a man whom mutilations had made ugly, who was poor and without prospects, and at the mention of whose name other men looked aside. He sought his mother, and discovered that she was suddenly dead, so that he was left quite alone in the world. That hour was very bitter; he could scarcely bear to think of it even now.”
Here Rupert’s voice trembled, the multitude of his disciples murmured, and the lady Tama, moved by a sudden impulse, bent towards him as though to place her hand upon his arm in sympathy, then remembering, withdrew it, and muttered some words which he acknowledged with a smile. Now Rupert spoke again, and Achmet, who was a clever interpreter, continued his rendering:
“Zahed says that bitterness overwhelmed him, that faith in God departed, that his loneliness and his shame were such that he felt he could no longer live, that he went to a great river purposing to destroy himself by drowning.”
Again there was a murmur which covered up the speaker’s voice, and in the midst of it Dick whispered to Edith:
“Rather rough on you to drop in for this yarn, but it is always well to hear both sides of a case.”
She made no answer. Her face was like that of the stone statue against which she leant. Again the unconcerned, brassy voice of the interpreter took up the tale:
“Zahed says that while he prepared for death in the river, in the mist above the water he saw a picture of their and his loved lady’s face, and Allah brought into his mind a promise which he had made to her that if the ties of his duty were broken, he would return to be her brother and friend. Thus he was prevented from committing a great crime—a crime like that the man they had been speaking of had committed, and he had returned. As all there could bear witness, he, remembering the oaths which he had sworn to the wife who had rejected him, had been no more to Tama than a brother and a friend. This was not easy, since she and all of them knew that he loved her well, and he believed that she loved him well.”
“Aye, that I do,” broke in Mea, in a voice of infinite tenderness. “I love him more than life, more than anything that is, has been, or shall be. I love him, oh! I love him, as much as he loves me.”
“It is so, we see with our eyes,” said the multitude.
“Well, now, he came to the nut that lay hid in the rough stone of his story. His lot had been hard. They would all of them think it hard that because of their duty their lady and he must live as they lived, one, yet separated, practising the great doctrine of Renunciation, having no hope of children to follow after them.”
The audience agreed that it was exceedingly hard.
“They thought so, and so it had been at first, yet it had come to this, they loved their state and did not wish to change it, they who looked forward to other things, and to a life when the righteousness which they practised here would bring them yet closer together than they had ever been. They were quite happy who spent their days without remorse for the past or fear for the future; they for whom death had no terrors, but was rather a gate of joy which they would pass gladly hand-in-hand. That was the nut of the story; bitter as it might be to the taste, it had in it the germ of life. Lo! they had planted it on the earth, and yet even here, although as yet they did not see its flower, it had grown to a very pleasant tree under the shade of which they rested for a while and were content. Let all of them there lay this poor example to their hearts. Let them not be discouraged when God seemed to deal hardly with them, like that poor man, their brother, who was dead by his own hand, since if in their degree they also practised Renunciation, made repentance, and for right’s sake abstained from sin, they would certainly find a reward.
“Some of them had spoken of vengeance, that thirst for vengeance, which the other day had caused another of them to commit murder. Let them flee from the thought of it. Their lady here had practised vengeance upon the bodies of those cruel Arabs who had slain his people and tortured himself, but now neither he nor she were happier on that account. The blood of those misguided men was on their hands, who, if they had left them alone, would doubtless have been rewarded according to their deeds, but not through them, or, what was far better, would have lived to repent and find forgiveness. Forgiveness was the command of the merciful God who forgave all that sought it of Him, and it should not be withheld even by the best of them who still had so much to be forgiven.”
“Would you forgive that woman of yours who deserted you, Zahed?” cried Bakhita from below.
“Surely I forgive her,” answered Rupert. “It would be strange if I did not do so, seeing that by her act she has made me happier, I think, than ever a man was before,” and he turned and smiled again at Mea, who smiled back at him.
Then up in that audience stood a blind old teacher, a mystic learned in the law, one who was beloved of the people for his wisdom and his good deeds, and yet perhaps at heart somewhat jealous of the new white prophet to whom they had turned of late.
“Hearken, Zahed!” he said. “I with the others have listened to your address, and I approve its spirit as I deplore the crimes that were its text. Yet it seems to me that you miss the root of the matter. Answer me if I am wrong. God oppressed you; He tried you for His own reasons; He rolled you in the mire; He brought down your soul to hell. The wife of your bosom, she deserted you, when you were in trouble then she struck as only a woman can. She said: ‘Beggar, be gone; remove your rags and hideousness from before me. I will shelter with a richer lord.’ So you went, and what did you? You did not bow yourself before the decree of God, you did not say: ‘I rejoice in the tempest as in the sunshine; I acknowledge that I have deserved it all, and I give thanks now that my mouth is empty as I gave them when it was full.’ No; you said—be not angry with me, Zahed, for a spirit is in my lips and I speak for your instruction. You said: ‘I will not bear this pain. My soul is hot, it hisses. I will quench it in the waters of death. I will drug myself with death; I will go to sleep because God my Maker has dealt hardly with me.’
“Then God your Maker bowed Himself down and spoke to you out of heaven, by His magic He spoke to you; He showed you a face upon the waters, the face of one who loved you still, and thereby saved you alive. You came; you found the face which smiled on you; you kept the letter of your oath to the false woman, but you broke its spirit. You loved her, our lady Tama, and she loved you; you said, both of you: ‘We renounce because we love so much. We are good lest in time to come our sin should separate us. To gain much you gave a little, you whose eyes are opened, you who see something of the truth, who know that this life is no more than the oasis of Tama compared to the great stars above, those stars which you will one day travel.’
“Listen to me, Zahed, I speak for your instruction. I do not blame you, nor do I think God will blame you who made you of the mud beneath His feet, not of the light about His head. He will have pity. He will say: ‘Mud, you have done well—for mud.’ But I am His advocate here, to-day it is given to me to be His voice. Answer Him a question now if you can. If not, remain silent and weep because you are still mud. You hold yourself bound to this base woman, who should be beaten with rods, do you not? You acknowledge it openly, who will not take another wife. You preach the doctrine of forgiveness to us, do you not? You say that you forgive her. Why? Nay, be silent, now the Voice is in my mouth—not in yours. Speak presently when you have heard it. You forgive her because her wickedness has worked your weal; because she has brought you to love and to honour among men.
“Well, now; hear me and make answer. If that accursed woman, that daughter of Satan, were to come hither to-day, if she were to say to you: ‘I repent, who was wicked. I love, who hated. I put you in mind of the oath you swore. I demand that you leave the sweet lady at your side and the people who worship you, and the gardens that you have made and the wells that you have digged, and return to live with me in a hell of streets upon which the sun never shines, that I may give you children to build up the pillars of your house, and that I may grow great in your shadow.’
“Tell us now, what would you answer her? Would you say: ‘Is not my name Zahed? Therefore I come, I come at once;’ and thereby show us that you are perfect indeed? Or, would you say: ‘Woman, you built the wall, you broke the bridge, you dug the gulf. I am lame, I cannot climb; I am afraid, I dare not swim; I have no wings, I may not fly. I forgive you afar; I do not forgive you at my side. I love you and all mankind, but I will not touch your hand. I give to you the writings of divorce.’ Would you speak thus, and let us see that you are still a man of mud? Answer now the question that God puts to you through my lips, Zahed. Or if you cannot answer, you who preach Renunciation and Forgiveness, here is mud, smear it on your forehead and be silent.”
Now Mea had been listening, with a great and ever-growing indignation, to this long address, designed to set out one of those test cases which are so dear to Eastern religious thought and methods, and to force a holy man to admit that, after all, he is full of error.
“I at least will answer,” she broke in, before Rupert could speak a word. “Who is this jealous-hearted, white-headed fool that fills the air with sand, like the Campsine blast; that stains the clear pool with dirt, like a thirsty camel; that says the Spirit of God is in his lips, those lips that utter wind and emptiness; that tries to convict of sin where there is no sin, and to show one who is a thousandfold his better, a new path to heaven? Did God then decree when a man has been rolled in mire and washed himself clean again, that he should return to the mire at the bidding of her who befouled him? Did God decree that a man should leave those with whom he lives in innocence, to share the home of his betrayer whom he hates? Is it virtue to be made vile? Is it righteous to clothe oneself in the rags of another’s wickedness? Make reply, you babbler, old in self-conceit, you who think to gain honour by defeating your lord in words before his people. Make reply, you that wrap yourself with words as with a garment, and sit upon pride as a sheepskin, and say, wherefore should the true be thrust aside for the false? Wherefore should my heart be widowed, that another who sowed thistles may pluck flowers?”
Now the old teacher plucked his beard and began in wrath:
“Do I, a learned man, one who has thought and studied long, come here to wrangle with a hungry woman who covets the fruit she may not eat?—”
“Silence!” broke in Rupert, in his great voice—“silence! Tama, give not way to anger—it is not fitting, and you, my questioner and friend, speak no more words against the lady whom in your heart you love and honour. When that case of which you tell happens, as I pray it may not happen, then I will take counsel with my conscience, and do as it shall bid me. I have said.”
Now Rupert turned to Mea to soothe her, for this talk had made her more angry than she had been for years, so angry that in the old days that holy teacher’s life might well have paid its price; while the audience fell to arguing the point among themselves and were so occupied, all of them, that they never saw a woman with a shawl thrown over her head, who thrust her way through them till she stood in front of the platform.