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+Project Gutenberg's The Valley of the Kings, by Marmaduke Pickthall
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Valley of the Kings
+
+Author: Marmaduke Pickthall
+
+Release Date: March 3, 2008 [EBook #24744]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: Someone leaned above him to inspect his work.  Chap X.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WAYFARERS LIBRARY
+
+
+
+The
+
+VALLEY of the KINGS
+
+
+
+Marmaduke Pickthall
+
+
+
+
+
+J.M.DENT & SONS. Ltd.
+
+LONDON
+
+1914
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+VALLEY OF THE KINGS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+"Woe on you, mothers of nothing!  May the scourge of Allah flay you as
+you go!"
+
+The mother of Iskender held the doorway of her little house in a
+posture of spitting defiance.  Rancour, deep-rooted and boundless,
+ranged in her guttural snarl.  Her black eyes burned to kill, their
+thick brows quite united by the energy of her frown as she gazed across
+a sand-dell, chary of vegetation but profuse in potsherds, towards the
+white walls and high red roof of the Mission-house seen above a wave of
+tamarisks on the opposite dune.  The hedge of prickly pear defining her
+small domain did not obstruct the view, for it consisted largely of
+gaps, by one of which a group of three Frankish ladies had just gone
+from her.  She could see their white-clad forms, under sunshades, down
+there in the hollow, battling ungracefully with the sand for foothold.
+With one hand raised as a screen from the declining sun, the mother of
+Iskender clenched the other, and shook it down the pathway of those
+ladies so that the bracelets of coloured glass tinkled upon her strong
+brown arm.
+
+"Ha, Carulin, most ancient virgin, thy stalk is a crane's!  There is
+neither flesh nor blood in thee, but only gristle and dry skin.  Thy
+heart is gall and poison. . . .  O Jane, thou art a fruit all husk;
+half man, yet lacking man's core, half maid, yet lacking woman's pulp!
+In thee is no fount of joy, no sweetness.  Did love of our Blessed
+Saviour and the Sacred Book bring the pair of you to this land?  By
+Allah, not so; well I know it!  It was the love of change, of
+adventure; and what is that in a virgin save the hope of men?  And now,
+seeing none have desired you, your longing is turned to hatred of all
+things sweet!  My son is bad, you declare; it is a grace for him to be
+allowed to sweep your house.  But the son of Costantin--that sly-eyed
+devil!--he is good: of him you make a clergyman, a grand khawajah!
+Have I not washed these twenty years for you and the false priest whose
+things you are?  Was I not among the first to profess your damning
+heresy?  The house of Costantin are converts of last year.  Let Allah
+judge between us this day."
+
+She paused a moment, the better to gesticulate a frantic reverence to
+the ladies, now on the opposite slope, who were waving hands to her.
+
+"O poor little Hilda!  Thou art a ripe fruit that whispers 'Pluck me.'
+But those two sexless devils guard thee sleeplessly.  Thou wast not
+angry when Iskender kissed thy mouth.  Is it likely, since thou didst
+incite him to it by previously stroking his hand?  But the rest, thy
+keepers. . . .  Holy Mother of God! . . .  When shall I hear the last
+of my son's guilt!  Iskender is vile, Iskender is worthless, Iskender
+is the son of all things evil.  Ah, if the great lady, the mother of
+George, had been here, you would never have dared to use the poor lad
+so, for she loved him from a babe.  But alas! she is away in your
+native land, watching the education of her many children.  You and the
+priest, her husband, were gentler in your ways while she was here.  But
+since she left, you have become true devils.  Aye, you are right,
+forsooth, and the whole world of nature is quite wrong.  May Allah set
+the foot of Iskender upon the necks of you, O false saints!"
+
+With a parting menace of the fist, she turned indoors, still snarling.
+After the sun-glare on the sands, the room was darkness.  Doorway and
+unshuttered casement framed each its vision of relentless light; but no
+ray entered.
+
+The place consisted of a single chamber, which, with door and window
+open as at present, became a draughtway for what air there was.  A
+curtain veiled one corner, where the beds were stowed in daytime, with
+whatever else was unpresentable through dirt or breakage: for the
+ladies of the Mission valued tidiness above all virtues, and claimed
+the right to inspect the abode of their washerwoman and pet proselyte.
+The mother of Iskender courted their inspection, being secured against
+complete surprise by the position of her house upon an eminence whence
+approaching visitors could be descried a long way off.  To-day she had
+run to meet them with delighted cries; but old Carulin had met the
+welcome in the dullest manner, stalking on into the house, where,
+instated in the only chair, with hands crossed on the handle of her
+parasol, she proceeded to give judgment on Iskender, while Jane and
+Hilda, standing one on either side, contributed their sad Amen to all
+she said.
+
+"We are more grieved than we can express, Sarah," the old devil
+concluded in her creaking voice; "more especially on your account, who
+are a Christian woman.  It is solely out of regard for you that we are
+prepared to take him as a servant, provided he repents and mends his
+ways.  We cannot have him associating with men like that Elias."
+
+She spoke as the mouthpiece of the missionary, the dispenser of wealth
+and preferment.  Sarah was obliged to thank the Lord for her kindness,
+instead of tearing her eyes out, or treading her dog-face level with
+the ground.  Yet Iskender was robbed of his birthright.  It had always
+been known that one boy of the little congregation would be made a
+clergyman; and Iskender was clearly designated, his parents having been
+the first converts, and himself the spoilt child of the Mission till
+six months ago.  Furthermore, he was fatherless, a widow's only son.
+Yet Asad son of Costantin was put before him.  Asad had a father--aye,
+and a clever one--a father who dwelt at the Mission-house, and was
+always at the ladies' ears with cunning falsehoods.  If only Iskender's
+father--the righteous Yacub--had been still alive!  . . .
+
+Thus brooding on her wrongs, with lips still murmurous, the mother of
+Iskender brushed a hand across her eyes, and looked about her.  There
+was the chair still standing in the middle of the room where Carulin
+had sat.
+
+Snatching up the defiled thing, she swung it to its usual place beside
+the wall, banging it down with spiteful energy enough to break it.
+Having stooped to make sure that it was not actually broken, she
+brushed her eyes again, and wept a little.  Then, on a sudden thought,
+she sprang to the curtained corner, and, groping among mattresses and
+sweat-stained coverlets which the ladies from the Mission never dared
+turn over, brought forth a picture of the Blessed Virgin which Iskender
+had made for her with the help of a paint-box given to him by the Sitt
+Hilda on his eighteenth birthday.  This she set upon a stool against
+the wall and, crossing herself, knelt down before it.  Here was one at
+least to whom she could expose her wrongs, secure of sympathy--a woman
+of almighty influence bound to her in the common tie of motherhood.
+
+Was not Iskender clever, handsome, good?  For what could any one prefer
+that lanky, pig-eyed son of Costantin the gardener--the convert of a
+day, whereas Iskender had been a Protestant from his birth?  Naturally,
+she had looked for some reward of her long adherence.  But lo; they
+thrust her aside, exalting in her stead the mother of Asad son of
+Costantin.  They would never have dared to do it if the wife of the
+missionary, the excellent mother of George, had not been absent with
+her children in the land of the English.
+
+At the first planting of the Mission here upon the sandhills, it had
+seemed to many Christians of the town to promise escape from the
+repressive shadow of the Muslim, and the protection of a foreign flag
+which bore the Cross.  O sad delusion!  That cold priest, those
+bloodless women, considered nothing but their own comfort.  To that
+they made every convert minister; their notion being to patronise and
+not to raise; witness Allah how she herself had slaved for them, obeyed
+and flattered them, for twenty years!  By the Gospel, it was black
+ingratitude that the son of Costantin should be set apart for their
+priesthood, be made an Englishman, a grand khawajah, whilst Iskender
+was offered employment--mark the kindness!--as a scullion and a sweeper
+in their house--Iskender, who had been their favourite till a month ago!
+
+How had he fallen?  Ah, that was a joke indeed!  Listen, O Holy Miriam
+and all saints!  It was because one hot afternoon, at their
+Bible-class, he had kissed the pretty Sitt Hilda, who sat close to him,
+teaching.  Forgetting he was no longer a child, she had caressed his
+hand approvingly; that was Hilda's tale.  A likely one, forsooth!  And
+the lad quite sick for love of her, as an infant of the female sex must
+have perceived blindfold!  Already, before that, they had begun to
+persecute the lad, finding fault with his painting, his idleness, his
+language, his smoking--Allah knows with what besides!--so that he was
+vexed in mind, no longer quite himself.  From his birth he had been a
+sensitive boy, always responsive to a touch of kindness.  He was in
+love with the Sitt Hilda, and his mind was clouded; she touched him
+fondly, and he kissed her mouth.  It was all quite natural.  As well
+blame flowers for opening to the sun!  Iskender was immoral, was he?
+Then what should be said of those who set such ripe and tempting fruit
+before a youth of the ravenous age, simply to punish him if he made a
+bite?  Ah, they were moral, doubtless!  But Our Lady Miriam and the
+Host of Heaven thought otherwise, they might be sure!
+
+And if, in the month which had elapsed since then, he had turned his
+back on prayer-meetings and haunted taverns of the town, whose fault
+was that?  His new associates were not depraved.  Their only crime was
+that they were not Protestants.  Even Elias Abdul Messih, the cause of
+all this outcry, was a respectable man, only scatter-brained and
+light-hearted.  He was a Christian, not a Muslim or an idolater, so
+what was there to justify such bitter chiding?
+
+The missionaries called it a crime in Iskender that he idled abroad,
+trying to make a likeness of the things he saw with his pencils and
+paints--the gift of the Sitt Hilda, mark that well!  It was all their
+own doing, yet so wrong!  Did he smoke a cigarette, it was a sin!  Did
+he call in talk upon the name of Allah--a sin most deadly! . . .
+
+"Peace on this house!" said a man's complacent voice at the doorway.
+
+Still on her knees, the mother of Iskender turned and peered at the
+disturber, pressing both hands to her temples.  In her confusion on the
+start the greeting gave her she failed at first to recognise the figure
+standing forth against the sand-glare, which, now that evening drew on,
+had the colour of ripe wheat.
+
+"O mother of Iskender, how is thy health to-day?" pursued the visitor;
+and then she knew him for the brother of her dead husband.
+
+"Is it thyself, Abdullah?"  She rose up to greet him.  "My soul has
+grief this day on account of Iskender.  They treat him shamefully over
+yonder--worse than a dog!"
+
+Abdullah rejected her offer of the only chair in favour of a cushion by
+the wall.  He was an elderly man of most respectable appearance, being
+clad in a blue zouave jacket and pantaloons, both finely braided, a
+crimson sash at his waist, and on his head a low-crowned fez with long
+blue tassel hanging to the neck.  He wore top boots and held a whip,
+though he had not come riding.  The skin of his face had withered in
+loose folds, leaving the bushy grey moustache and brows unduly
+prominent, a crowd of wrinkles round his large brown eyes giving an
+effect of intelligence to orbs whose real expression was a calm
+stupidity in keeping with the general dignity of his demeanour.
+
+"Even the son of Costantin--that dirt!--is preferred before him.  In
+this minute I was kneeling to our gracious Lady on his behalf."
+
+"Praise to her!" exclaimed Abdullah, crossing himself.  "There is none
+like her in a difficulty, as I, of all men living, have best cause to
+know, since she gave me all that I possess."
+
+"Allah increase thy wealth!" said Sarah hastily, fearing the story she
+had heard a thousand times.
+
+Years ago the respectable Abdullah had been no better than a sot and
+wastrel, having contracted the habit of drunkenness at Port Said, where
+he spent three years as porter in a small hotel.  He had squandered all
+his savings and had drunk himself to the verge of madness, when one
+summer night, as he lay on the floor of his house (as he himself
+expressed it) "between drunk and sober," the Mother of God appeared to
+him, "all white and blinding like the sand at noon."  The vision, after
+gazing on him a space, stretched out its hand and vanished.  That was
+all.  But Abdullah arose with new heart.  Thenceforth he honoured
+himself, whom God had honoured.  The change in him was plain for all to
+see, and he proclaimed the cause of it aloud with streaming eyes.  The
+Orthodox Church confirmed the miracle, which made a noise at the time.
+The Patriarch himself wrote the seer a long letter.  People who had
+long since washed their hands of the drunken reprobate vied one with
+another to help the known favourite of Heaven.  Abdullah obtained good
+employment, first in an hotel at Jerusalem, then with an English
+traveller of importance.  Now, for some years, he had been a trusted
+dragoman in the pay of a mysterious power called Cook.  His religious
+vogue had passed, his story and the miracle involved were quite
+forgotten of the multitude.  But Abdullah himself remembered, viewing
+his respectability at the present day with the same feelings of awe and
+reverence with which he had received it at the first.  It was the
+mantle of the Blessed Virgin, her gift to him.  In it lay all his hope
+for this world and the next.
+
+"It is of Iskender that I come to speak," he said, having pulled out
+his moustache to the utmost and swallowed twice with solemn gulps
+preliminary to the announcement.  "It hurts my soul to see him wasting
+time----"
+
+"Enough! enough, I say!"  The woman screamed aloud to drown his words.
+"Am I not already killed with such bad talk, deafened with it, maddened
+with it every day from morn till night.  Ah, by the Gospel, it has
+grown past bearing!  They will no longer make a priest of our Iskender;
+that honour is for the son of Costantin;--low, cunning devil!  Iskender
+may now, as a favour, sweep their house.  Here, in this very room, on
+yonder chair, the abandoned Carulin sat and told me the fine news--to
+me, the mainstay of the Mission, who have not missed a prayer-meeting
+for twenty years----"
+
+"Allah is merciful!" ejaculated the dragoman.  Though himself a staunch
+supporter of the Holy Orthodox Church, he had a regard for the
+Protestant, as the faith of the wealthy English.  He had looked forward
+to the welcoming smile of English travellers when he told them that his
+nephew was a Protestant clergyman.  This rejection of Iskender was
+therefore a disappointment to him.  Nevertheless, since God so willed
+it, there were other occupations that the boy could follow.  More
+insupportable by far was the screaming fury of this woman, which, he
+feared, might lead her to disgrace her relatives by overt rudeness
+towards the English missionaries.  He said:
+
+"The flush of anger well becomes thee.  By Allah, it enriches thy dark
+beauty, like the bloom on purple grapes."
+
+The mother of Iskender started and blushed hotly, struck in the face by
+such audacious flattery.  She exclaimed:
+
+"Be silent, imbecile!  Are such words for the ear of one like me?  Keep
+thy fine phrases for the tourist ladies, who know the fashion, and can
+answer thee."
+
+"Nay, the daughters of our land nowadays rival the foreign ladies in
+wit and fashion," said Abdullah gravely, pursuing his advantage.  "I
+myself assisted at a wedding in Beyrut where the ladies talked and
+jested freely with the gentlemen, with roars of laughter in the
+Frankish manner.  Ah, that was a sight!  A hundred carriages, all
+festively bedecked, conveyed the guests to church, with cracking of
+whips and shoutings to clear a way.  All the women were arrayed in
+splendid dresses brought from Fransa, and grand big hats with ostrich
+plumes and flying ribbons.  A sight, I tell thee, equal to anything to
+be seen in Baris or Lundra."
+
+"Thou seest such things!"  The mother of Iskender pouted, envious.
+"Here there is never anything to call a show.  Even when Daud el Barudi
+married, there were no fine dresses.  Every woman present wore the
+head-veil.  I fain would try a Frankish hat myself; but the ladies will
+not let me--curse their father!"
+
+"They fear to be outshone," put in Abdullah, and continued quickly,
+apprehending a fresh storm: "Now, as concerns Iskender, I have a
+project for thee.  It was for that I came here, not to blame the lad.
+Know that a young Englishman arrived yesterday at the Hotel Barudi, in
+search of amusement, it would seem, for when Selim Barudi inquired how
+long he wished to stay, he replied it might be all his life if the
+place pleased him.  From that and the plenteousness of his luggage I
+conclude him to be the son of a good house--no less than an Emir, by
+Allah--though why he comes here out of season Allah knows!  Elias and
+the rest have not got wind of him.  He as yet knows no one in the land
+except the two Barudis and myself, who met him at their house an hour
+ago.  My plan is to present our dear one to him----"
+
+At this point Iskender's mother interrupted him with sudden outcry as
+of one possessed:
+
+"Aha, O cruel priest!  O soured virgins!  Let the son of Costantin be
+your dog if he will.  My son shall tread on all your faces, the friend
+of an Emir."
+
+She shook her fist towards the Mission, seen in fierce sunlight through
+the shadowed doorway.
+
+"Hush, woman!" cried Abdullah in an agony.  Her foolish words set wasps
+about his head.  "For the love of Allah, let Iskender anger no man, but
+be supple, politic, and so respected.  Now that he is cast off by your
+Brutestants, there is nothing for it but he must become a dragoman.
+The Englishman of whom I spoke is but a step.  He has need of all men's
+favour, and must court it diligently. . . .  Where is the boy himself?
+I thought to find him."
+
+"Ask me not where he is!"  The woman raised her hands despairingly.
+"He went out early this morning with his paint-things, and has not
+returned.  May his house be destroyed!  He is the worst of sons.  He
+shuns all counsel, and does nothing that one asks of him.  How often
+have I begged him to renounce his painting, or to go with me to the
+Mission and make show of penitence.  As well instruct the sand.  It is
+likely he will scout this plan of thine.  Oh, what have I ever done to
+be thus afflicted?  Why, why has he not the wit of Asad son of
+Costantin?"
+
+"Let us go out and meet him," proposed old Abdullah, still bent on
+diverting her mind from its maddening grievance.  "He cannot be far
+off, and to smell the air is pleasant at this hour."
+
+The mother of Iskender flung her cares aside.  To walk out by the side
+of so respectable a man, at an hour when many people took the air upon
+the sandhills, was to gain distinction.  She draped a black lace shawl
+upon her head, while Abdullah strode to the doorway and stared out,
+flicking his boots with his whip.  Then, gathering up the skirt of her
+flowered cotton gown in one hand, she placed the other in Abdullah's
+arm, ready crooked to receive it.
+
+"It is the fashionable way," she tittered as they set forth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Beyond the ancient town and its dark green orange gardens, between the
+tilled plain and the shore, the sandhills roll away to north and south,
+with here a dwelling, there a patch of herbage.  To Iskender, lying
+prone on the crest of the highest dune, caught up into the laugh of
+sunset, their undulations appeared flushed and softly dimpled, like the
+flesh of babes.  Returning homeward, hungry, from a day of much
+adventure, he had espied from this eminence a camp of nomads in a
+certain hollow, and at once forgot his supper in desire to sketch it.
+He had settled to the work with such complete absorption that Elias
+Abdul Messih, his companion, for once grew tired of the sound of his
+own voice, and left him, with a sigh for his obtuseness.  And Iskender
+was glad to be rid of him, to lie alone and nurse his secret joy; for
+he had this day made the acquaintance of an Englishman, whose
+affability restored his pride of life.  Might Allah bless that
+light-haired youth, for he was the very lord of kindness, and beautiful
+as an angel from Allah.  His cheeks had the same rose-bloom as the Sitt
+Hilda's, while his blue eyes danced and sparkled like sea-waves in
+sunlight.  How different from the priest of the Mission, whose gaze was
+of green ice!  Moreover, he had praised Iskender's painting and taught
+him a trick of colouring, which consisted in washing the page yellow
+and letting it dry before setting to work on it.  The artist had never
+been so happy since the day, six months ago, when the missionary had
+declared against his sketching as mere waste of time.  The ladies of
+the Mission, who had fostered it, obsequious to the edict, then
+condemned it strongly.  His mother, too, turned round and blamed him
+for it.  Only the Sitt Hilda still was kind, comforting him in secret,
+till his love leapt up.  And then came outer darkness.  Iskender was a
+profligate, and driven forth.
+
+Debarred from Christian society, hardly less than Muslim, by his
+English education and his Protestantism, he was a pariah in his own
+land.  This very morning, sketching a gateway in the town, he had been
+beaten by some Muslim boys and called an idol-maker; and, traversing a
+Christian hamlet among the gardens, had been reviled and pelted by its
+Orthodox inhabitants.  For company he had been obliged to consort with
+English-speaking touts and dragomans, who welcomed his proficiency in
+the foreign tongue; and these he hated, for they mocked his art.  The
+one exception was Elias Abdul Messih.  Elias could read Arabic fluently
+(a feat beyond Iskender, who had been schooled in English), and from
+trips to Beyrut and the towns of Egypt had brought back any number of
+miraculous romances, which he read and read again until they turned his
+brain.  Impersonating the chief characters, he dwelt in a world of
+magical adventure, and spoke from thence to ears that understood not.
+For this he was named the Liar and the Boaster, and, though well liked,
+derided.  He had taken a fancy to Iskender, and often sat beside the
+artist while he sketched.
+
+His talk revealed new worlds to the pupil of the English missionaries,
+who hitherto had looked to England as the realm of romantic
+ambition--the land where, by simply entering holy orders, a poor son of
+the Arabs could attain to wealth and luxury.  Now, for the first time,
+he was shown the wonders of the East.  Elias, in his tales, despised
+the Christians, his own folk, anathematised the Jews, and praised the
+Muslims, till Iskender longed to embrace the doctrine of Muhammad, and
+become a freeman of the land of old romance.  But when he said as much,
+Elias shook his head.  It was known that every Muslim would be damned
+eternally.
+
+Moved by the example of this friend, Iskender's brain conceived wild
+dreams of greatness, enabling him in imagination to enslave the wicked
+missionaries and carry off his blushing love amid applause.  He told
+Elias that his father, Yacub, had left a treasure buried in the ground,
+which he would dig up some day, and astound mankind; and Elias accepted
+the statement as quite probable.  But such fancies were of no real
+comfort to Iskender, being rendered feverish by his sense of wrong.  He
+had known no solace till this day at noon, when the English youth from
+the hotel had smiled on him.  Now, once again, he looked to England as
+of old--to England where great honours were conferred on painters.
+
+With a final dab at the sky, he held his picture off from him, to mark
+the effect.  In love with the figure of a camel belonging to the camp,
+which was chewing the cud superbly in the foreground, he had at
+unawares so magnified the creature that it bestrode the whole page of
+his drawing-book; while the camp itself, the sandhills, some scattered
+houses and a palm-tree in the distance, the very sky, seemed no more
+than the pattern of a carpet upon which it stood.  There was something
+wrong, he perceived--something to do with that perspective which,
+despite instructions from the Sitt Hilda, he could never rightly
+comprehend.
+
+But his pride in the monster camel condoned everything.  He just
+lengthened all the tent-ropes a little with his smallest paint-brush,
+thereby imparting to the black pavilions a look of spiders squashed by
+the triumphant beast, and laid aside his work, well pleased.  There
+were many groups abroad, of people enjoying the cool evening; he saw
+them stalking ghostlike in the coloured light; but they kept to the
+bound sand of the trodden pathways, and if any one descried him on his
+perch, none laboured up to see what he was after.
+
+At ease upon the ground, with chin on palm, he tried to judge what
+colours would be needed in order faithfully to reproduce the sunset
+glow.  He compared that glow to the insurgent blood ever ready to
+mantle in the cheeks of the Sitt Hilda; but this was a warmer,
+swarthier flush than ever dyed the white skin of a Frank.  Then,
+looking east, he watched the blue increase on the horizon, its drowsy
+glimmer radiating thoughts of rest, as if a hovering spirit whispered
+"Hush!"  A star glanced out above the distant palm-tree; in that
+direction it was night already behind the crimsoned earth.  A flash
+from the grand glass windows of the Mission, ruddy with the last of
+daylight, caused him to wag his head and sigh:
+
+"Would to Allah I were rich like one of them!"  The English youth from
+the hotel had laughed at missionaries.  Though here so great and
+powerful, it seemed they were little thought of in their own country.
+When Iskender eagerly inquired whether a famous painter would take rank
+before them, the Englishman had said: "Yes, rather!" with his merry
+laugh.
+
+"O Allah, help me," was Iskender's prayer now, "that I may travel to
+the countries of the Franks, and reap the honour they accord to
+painters!"
+
+This with a fond glance at his drawing-book, which contained a
+camel--ah, but a camel such as Allah made him!--a camel worthy to be
+framed in gold and hung in king's palaces!
+
+"Is--ken--der!"  A shrill, trailing cry disturbed his reverie; when,
+looking forth in the direction of the sound, he saw in a dell beneath,
+where ran a footpath, a man and a woman standing still amid the
+shadows, gazing up at him.
+
+"Ya Iskender!  Make haste, descend, come down to us!"  The call came
+again more peremptorily.
+
+The voice was his mother's.  Muttering, "May her house be destroyed!"
+he emptied the pannikin of paint-foul water which he had carried with
+him all day long, picked up his drawing-book, and obeyed.  As he
+prepared to descend, the last red gleam forsook the sand-crests,
+leaving them ashy white.
+
+"Make haste, O shameless loiterer.  We bring thee news--fine news!
+Praise Allah who assigned to thee Abdullah for an uncle--one so kind,
+so considerate, so thoughtful for thy welfare.~.~.~.  But first I must
+tell thee how the three ladies came in thy absence to inform me of
+their intention to educate the son of Costantin to be a clergyman;
+whilst thou, whose mother has washed for them these twenty years, art
+required to sweep their house."
+
+"What matter!" rejoined Iskender, with a listless shrug.  "My ambition
+is to visit the country of the Franks and gain the honour of a mighty
+painter."
+
+His mother stretched out her hands to heaven, screaming:
+
+"Hear him, Allah!  Is he not bewitched?  Desire of the lady Hilda has
+made him mad.  O Holy Maryam, O Mar Jiryis and all saints, condemn
+those who have led him thus to ruin.  Hear him now; he would make
+pictures!  Well, to Allah the praise; but it is their doing!~.~.~.
+Now, for the love of Allah, put such toys aside and hear Abdullah's
+generous plan for thy advancement.  Know that a young Englishman has
+lately come to the Hotel Barudi----"
+
+"I know that well," Iskender grunted irritably.  "He is my friend.
+This day he spent two hours with me."
+
+"Thy friend!~.~.~.  O merciful Allah!" cried his mother.
+
+"Thou knowest him?" exclaimed Abdullah, much affronted.
+
+"Come, cease thy dreaming, tell the story, mad-man!"  His mother shook
+his arm and screamed at him.  "Art possessed with thy dumb devil.
+Speak!  What sayest thou?"
+
+"May thy father perish!" cried Iskender, startled.
+
+"Curse thy religion!" retorted his mother hotly.  "Is thy uncle dirt to
+be thus disregarded?  Ask his pardon, O my dear!"
+
+Abdullah the dragoman laughed at that, and suggested they had best be
+moving, for the night was near.  A trace of grievance lingered in his
+voice and manner, for he loved ceremonies, and had looked forward to a
+formal presentation of his nephew to the English nobleman.
+
+"Come, tell the story of thy day!" he too insisted.  At first it had
+not been a happy one, Iskender told them.  He had tried to paint the
+beauty of the sea between two dunes, but it turned to a blue gate on
+yellow gate-posts; then a boat turned upside down upon the beach, but
+the portrait made resembled nothing earthly.  Then the Englishman had
+taught him a new way, and things went well, and he had drawn a
+camel.~.~.~.
+
+He was opening his sketch-book to display the masterpiece; but his
+mother shrieked:
+
+"Who cares to hear all that.  Tell of the Englishman; how came he with
+thee?"
+
+"They stoned me," he replied indifferently; "and I was running from
+them, weeping, when he met me, and I cried to him in English to protect
+me.  He had compassion on me, and admired my pictures----"
+
+Iskender became aware that his companions were no longer listening, so
+stopped abruptly.  His uncle seemed to think some miracle had happened,
+for he heard him praising Allah and the Holy Virgin, the while his
+mother kept exclaiming in her shrill-pitched tones.  His mind strayed
+far from them, occupying itself with distant features of the landscape.
+All the earth was now obscure: stars sparkled in the dome of the sky.
+From a high, sandy neck their path surmounted, he beheld the minarets
+of the town, seeming to cut the sky above the sharp sea-line.  The
+timbre of his mother's voice made for inattention like the monotonous
+shrill note of the cicada; and he had at all times a trick of
+projecting his wits into the scene around him, whence it needed a shout
+to re-collect them, as she knew to her grievance.  She shouted now, and
+punched him in the back:
+
+"Forget not to tell the Emir that thou art a Brutestant, which is half
+an Englishman."
+
+Jarred in his bones by her shrillness, he exclaimed:
+
+"Merciful Allah!  Is my mother mad?  The Emir!  In the name of angels,
+what Emir?"
+
+"O Holy Maryam!  Am I not unblessed in such a son?  What wonder that
+the priest and the ladies favour the son of Costantin--may his house be
+destroyed!--who has at least the grace to listen when one speaks to
+him.~.~.~.  Thou goest in the morning to the Hotel Barudi, to visit
+formally this English youth, who is an Emir in his own country, and
+proffer thy services.  Thou wilt present thyself before him, not as now
+in a soiled kaftan, but in thy best.  Give him to know how thy mother
+is esteemed by the missionaries, how thou art thyself a Brutestant of
+the English Church."
+
+"Whist!" said Abdullah warningly.
+
+Some one was hurrying towards them down the path.
+
+"Who is it?" breathed the mother of Iskender.
+
+It was Elias, who was looking for his friend.
+
+"No word to him, or all is lost!" hissed old Abdullah.
+
+But Elias for the moment had no ears.  After parting from Iskender he
+had been seized with a new and vivid inspiration, and felt the need of
+his accustomed listener.  Dragging his friend aside he whispered
+breathlessly:
+
+"I am in great haste.  A lady--ah, a beauty!--waits for me--a Muslimeh,
+I do assure thee--one of the most closely guarded.  I go now to the
+tryst.  It is to risk my life; but what care I, for love has maddened
+me.  I would not tell a living soul save thee; but if I die in the
+adventure, thou wilt pray for me.  I sought thee in thy house, but
+found thee not."
+
+"May Allah guard and prosper thee!" replied Iskender.
+
+But by then his friend was gone, driven on by the fierce wind of his
+imagining towards the house-door, not far distant, where his wife stood
+looking for him.  Iskender could not prevent a lump from rising in his
+throat at the vision of requited love, however perilous.  From a dream
+of the Sitt Hilda he was roused by his mother saying:
+
+"Thou must sup with us, O Abdullah!  After all thy kindness to
+Iskender, thou canst scarce refuse me."
+
+They were at the house.
+
+With a polite show of reluctance Abdullah entered, and sat down beside
+the wall, while Iskender helped his mother spread the feast for him.
+Then, when all was ready, the young man wrapped some morsels in a piece
+of bread, and carried them out beyond the threshold, to be alone.
+Squatting there, he was once more happy in thoughts of the fair young
+Englishman who, though a prince, had shown such kindness towards him.
+By Allah, he would give his life for that sweet youth.  He asked no
+better than to serve him always.
+
+The highest lobes of the cactus hedge before him were like great hands
+shorn of fingers thrust against the sky.  Through a gap he beheld the
+lights of the Mission--fierce hostile eyes intent upon his thoughts.
+The wail and bark of a jackal came from the landward plain.
+
+"Praise to Allah!"  The voice of his mother raised for a moment above
+its monotone caused him to turn and look into the house.
+
+They had made an end of eating in there and were now arranging the
+programme of Iskender's conduct towards the young Emir.  His uncle sat
+cross-legged by the wall, puffing slowly at a narghileh, his mother
+opposite to him, in the same posture, also with a narghileh, not
+smoking for the moment, but leaning forward with one hand out, talking
+eagerly.  A saucer-lamp stood on the floor between them, among remnants
+of the feast; it caused their faces to look ghastly, lighted thus from
+below, and sent their shadows reeling up the wall.  The woman declaimed
+untiringly with gestures of demonstration, and the man kept acquiescing
+by a nod which set the tassel of his fez in motion.
+
+The dull sententiousness of the dragoman and his mother's shrill, rash
+judgments were alike irritating to Iskender.  They claimed to
+understand the foreigners perfectly; and in truth they knew enough of
+the foibles of the lords of gold to secure to themselves a livelihood.
+They had never, either of them, loved a Frank.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Next morning Iskender was disturbed at daybreak by the movements of his
+mother in the house.  With her black locks all dishevelled, she was
+putting out his grandest clothes and dusting them in the feeble
+lamp-light.
+
+"Though shalt wear this sweet suit which thy father left thee," she
+croaked out when she knew he was awake.  "That and thy new tarbush and
+the great umbrella.  Wallah, thou wilt fill men's eyes.  Now rise, and
+make haste with thy washing."
+
+He rose accordingly and, having dedicated his works to God, dipped a
+hand-bowl in the earthen jar which served as cistern, and carried it
+out on to the sand before the threshold.  There the rising colour of
+the dawn bewitched him; he was reminded of a certain trumpet-flower
+which bloomed at Easter on the Mission walls--a flower with purple
+petals and the gleam of gold in its heart; and, all on fire to register
+the rare impression, he left his bowl of water on the sand and
+re-entered the house to fetch his book and paint-box.  But his mother
+tried to wrest them from him, cursing him for a maniac, and before he
+could shake her off the colours of the sky had changed completely.  The
+little disappointment made life vain.  In a pet, he overturned the
+basin of water, robbed of the heart to wash his face and hands.  Then,
+as his mother still kept screaming for him, he went indoors and donned
+the clothes which she had laid ready.  Even then she would not let him
+be, but pulled and patted at the garments till he lost his temper, and
+made a rush for the door.  A horrified shriek recalled him.  The
+umbrella!  He had forgotten that!  His mother thrust it on him.
+Gathered up into a bunch and tied, not folded, it in shape resembled a
+charged distaff of unusual size.  With it tucked beneath his arm, the
+youth escaped at last into the rosy sunlight.
+
+Up on the well-marked road which runs out to the Mission from the town
+he encountered Costantin, the missionary's servant, driving a donkey
+burdened with two jars of water up towards the house.  Costantin
+remarked upon his finery, and asked where he was going.  He showed an
+amiable inclination to stop and talk.  But Iskender hurried on, merely
+explaining that he was going to be a great painter in the land of the
+English.  Costantin stood scratching his head and staring after him.
+
+The road soon left the sandhills and meandered through thick
+orange-groves, full of shade and perfume and the hum of bees.  Here he
+advanced with circumspection, and at a turn of the way stood still to
+reconnoitre.
+
+From that point he could see a Christian village, dignified in the
+distance by two palm-trees put up like sunshades over its squat mud
+hovels.  The tiny church stood apart, quite overshadowed by an ancient
+ilex.  It was there that he had been pelted yesterday; but at present
+all looked safe.  Only two human beings were in sight--the priest, one
+Mitri, eminent in black robe and tower-like headdress, sat in thought
+beneath the oak-tree, and a child in a sky-blue kirtle sprawled at play
+upon the threshold of one of the houses.  The coo of doves and cluck of
+hens, the only voices, sounded peaceful in the sun-filled air.
+Iskender moved on, trusting hard in Allah to save his Sunday clothes
+from base defilement.
+
+The priest Mitri, seated in the shade, was playing an innocent game
+with two pebbles, which he threw into the air and caught alternately,
+when Iskender, approaching humbly, wished him a happy day.  He returned
+the greeting mechanically, then, seeing who it was, let fall his
+playthings and stared solemnly at the disturber.  Iskender became
+uncomfortably conscious of his festive raiment, more especially of the
+umbrella, which seemed to fascinate Mitri.
+
+For release from the embarrassment of being silently devoured by eyes
+as fierce and prominent as a bull's, he paused before the priest and
+asked his blessing.  At that the staring orbs betrayed amazement; their
+owner raised a hand to stroke his long black beard.  The child in the
+sky-blue shift had left its play to observe the encounter.  Standing up
+against the darkness of the doorway it revealed the figure of a slim
+young girl.
+
+Still gazing fixedly at the suppliant, who stood trembling before him,
+the priest seemed to ponder the request.  Then suddenly he sprang to
+his feet, crying: "Come with me!" and, seizing Iskender's arm, dragged
+the terrified youth into the church, of which the door stood open.  In
+there the sudden gloom, combined with a stale smell of incense,
+overpowered the victim.
+
+"Prostrate thy sinful self!" the priest enjoined.
+
+Iskender fell upon his face obediently.  To perform the prostration he
+was obliged to discard for a moment the great umbrella.  When he rose
+from his knees the priest had hold of it.
+
+"Wherefore dost thou require a blessing of me?"
+
+Iskender confessed that he was about to present himself before a
+certain great one, in the hope of patronage, and felt the need of
+Heaven's favour to support his worthlessness.
+
+"What is his name, this great one?"
+
+"That I know not.  The man in question is the young Inklizi who honours
+the hotel of Musa el Barudi.  I know only that he is a great Emir, and
+hates the missionaries."
+
+"Then he must be of the High Church of that land, which yet holds
+faithful, christening by immersion, and scorning the interpolation of
+the swine of Rome.  May he be a guide to thee, poor unbaptized one.
+Now, for the blessing, give me ten piasters!"
+
+"Ten piasters!" gasped Iskender.
+
+The enraged ecclesiastic pinched the objector's ear, and twisted it
+until its owner writhed in anguish.  "For a heretic like thee it should
+be thrice as much.  Remember I have power to bind as well as to loose.
+Insult this place again with heathen haggling, and by the keys of
+heaven and of hell, I curse thee leprous."
+
+Iskender fell on his knees and howled for mercy.
+
+"I have no money with me," he explained most piteously.
+
+"Is that in truth the case?"  The priest let go his ear, and seemed to
+meditate.  Iskender was aware of the girl in the sky-blue robe gazing
+in at the doorway.  Her presence added to his ignominy.  "No matter!
+Thou shalt pay the price another time, and in the meanwhile I shall
+keep this fine umbrella."
+
+"Alas, it is not mine!"  Iskender wrung his hands.
+
+But Mitri had already withdrawn into the inner darkness of the
+sanctuary, whence he emerged directly, but without the umbrella.
+Something white and glittering now adorned his shoulders.
+
+As he came towards Iskender, the light from the doorway picking him out
+from the surrounding gloom, he seemed to bear with him a mystic
+radiance.  The young man knelt instinctively and pressed his forehead
+to the ground; while the voice of the priest, now grown tender and
+melodious, seemed to warble far above him like a voice from heaven.  An
+angel stood in the place of his late tormentor.
+
+"It is not thy fault that thou art a Brutestant," said Mitri kindly,
+when the blessing was concluded.  "Come to me sometimes; let us talk
+things over.  I discern in thee some mind to know the truth."
+
+"Is he indeed a Brutestant, my father?"  The girl in the sky-blue shirt
+had stolen close to them.  "Ah, woe is me that one so goodly should go
+the way of everlasting punishment!"
+
+She wore no garment but the long straight kirtle.  Her hair, brought
+low round either temple to be plaited in a tail behind, increased the
+shadow of her eyes--great thoughtful eyes, which made the childish face
+divine.  Iskender, smitten dumb with admiration, at that moment thought
+of Protestantism as a foul crone.
+
+"May thy house be destroyed, O Nesibeh, shameless girl!" the priest
+rebuked her.  "What have this youth's looks to do with thee?  Thou art
+grown too big to be allowed such freedom.  It is time thou didst assume
+the veil, and with it modesty."  He took his daughter's hand and
+fondled it, none the less, adding: "Whence this religious fervour, soul
+of mischief?"
+
+It was with a sigh that Iskender parted from them and he went slowly,
+often turning to look back at the little church beneath the oak-tree,
+till his road debouched into a crowded highway, where the long intent
+procession of the fellahin conveying the produce of their fields to
+market on the backs of camels, mules and asses, on the heads of women,
+reminded him of his own errand.  He then made haste to the hotel of
+Musa el Barudi.
+
+The two sons of Musa, Daud and Selim, clad in robes of striped silk,
+and high red fezzes, sat out on stools, one on either side of the
+doorway, to feel the morning sun and chat with wayfarers.  Behind them,
+against the doorpost, leaned a tall negro in white robe and turban, who
+held a broom in his hand, but seemed to have done with sweeping.
+Iskender approached this group with low obeisance.
+
+"Is his Highness the Emir within?"
+
+The black alone condescended to heed the inquiry.  He replied with the
+broadest of grins:
+
+"May Allah heal thy intelligence.  Art possessed with a devil, or a
+joker merely?"
+
+"I mean the young khawajah who resides here all alone," Iskender
+explained, replying to the negro, though his eyes kept looking from
+Daud to Selim, whose perfect impassivity surprised him.  He grieved for
+the loss of his umbrella, which would have compelled more respect.
+
+"Ah," grinned the negro, seeing light.  "He is at breakfast."
+
+"Then with permission, I will wait till he comes forth."
+
+"What is this youth?" cried Daud irritably, without looking.
+
+"Bid him depart!" said Selim, moving impatiently in his seat as though
+a fly annoyed him.
+
+Of a sudden both the brothers rose and bowed profoundly, laying hand to
+breast, and lips, and brow, as a Muslim notable passed up the street on
+horseback.  Then they sank down again, and the obsequious smile died
+away on their faces, leaving them cold and haughty as before.
+
+"The great khawajah is my very good friend.  He loves me dearly,"
+proffered Iskender in his own excuse.  "By Allah, he is the nicest of
+men!  He will be overjoyed to find me here this morning."
+
+The scornful eyes of Daud glanced on him for a brief moment, while
+Selim, in his turn, questioned:
+
+"Who is this?"
+
+"Is it not the son of one Yacub, a muleteer, who sold his soul years
+ago to the English missionaries.  It seems such renegades are well
+paid, for behold the raiment of this youth.  What wouldst thou here, O
+dog, son of a dog?"
+
+"I ask but to see my friend the Emir, who loves me dearly--by Allah, I
+speak but the truth!" pleaded Iskender, near to tears.
+
+"Now by the sword of St. George," vociferated Daud, roused at last,
+"none of thy species enters my father's door.  Ours is an honourable
+house, respected far and near.  If any of our clients needs a guide or
+servant, we know where to send for one who may be trusted.  We tolerate
+no lickspittle-rogues, no beggars.  Remember the abominations of thy
+father and the extraordinary unchastity of thy mother, and take thy
+shameful face elsewhere away from us."
+
+"O my kind lords!" Iskender began to protest; but just then Selim, who
+had been silently working himself into a fury while his brother spoke,
+sprang up, and snatching the broom from the black servant's hand,
+discharged it at Iskender's head with all his strength.  The son of
+Yacub, by a lucky move, escaped the missile; but seeing the negro
+stepping forth to recover his broom, stayed to make no retort.
+
+Having retired to the opposite side of the street, which was in shadow,
+he sat down on the doorstep of a Frankish shop, and waited.  He saw his
+friend of yesterday come forth at last, Selim and Daud rising for his
+passage.  As he paused upon the steps to taste the sunny air, Iskender
+caught his eye and ran to greet him.  The Emir was gracious, asking how
+he did, and at once proposing they should walk together.  Iskender gave
+the sons of Musa a triumphant glance.
+
+"Where are your sketching things?" the Frank inquired; and hearing they
+were left behind, would go and fetch them.  They sauntered together
+through the gardens out on to the sandhills, till within a
+stone's-throw of Iskender's home; when the Englishman lay down on a
+patch of withered herbage, saying he would wait there till his friend
+returned.
+
+Iskender passed the broken hedge at a bound and stood before his mother
+in the doorway.  She screamed to Allah for protection, in the first
+surprise.
+
+"Come, O my mother!  Come and look!" he cried, and dragged her to a
+point whence they could see the young Emir, lying flat on his back, his
+straw hat covering his face, for the sun was strong.  "It is himself,"
+Iskender whispered, dashing on into the house; while his mother made
+wild reverence in the Frank's direction, quite oblivious of the fact
+that the object of her bows and servile gestures could not, from the
+circumstances of his position, see them.
+
+"Make all speed, O beloved!" she implored Iskender.  "It is not well
+that his Highness should remain extended in the hot sun.  Allah forbid
+that he should get a sunstroke, for his life is precious.  May our Lord
+preserve him for a blessing to us!"  But while she spoke her son was
+out of hearing.
+
+Returning towards the town, the two friends had to pass the Christian
+village by the ilex-tree, and the Emir, who had seen Iskender stoned
+there, insisted on his sketching the small church, vowing to punish all
+who dared molest him.  Remembering the priest's daughter, he was fain,
+and went to Mitri's house to ask for water.  The girl herself appeared
+in answer to his call, but, seeing who it was, ran back in terror,
+crying: "O mother, help!  It is the Brutestant."  Whereat a slattern
+dame came forth instead of her, and filled his can for him, with every
+blessing.
+
+Soon after, as he sat at work beneath the oak, the priest himself
+appeared.  Iskender rose and presented the Emir, who welcomed the
+introduction with his ready smile.
+
+"So the blessing worked, the praise to Allah!" was Mitri's comment.  He
+made the Englishman enter his house and drink coffee, then took him
+into the church.  The door stood open.  Iskender caught some fragments
+of the priest's discourse, from which it appeared that he was
+displaying vestments and a holy relic.  When they emerged, the Frank
+was thrusting money on the priest, who declined to take it, till
+Iskender shouted:
+
+"It is for the poor."
+
+"For the poor, it is well."  Mitri smiled and accepted the offering.
+Then, with a knowing glance at the son of Yacub, he once more vanished
+into the church, to reappear next minute with the great umbrella.
+"Thou hast redeemed the pledge, my son," he said, as he restored it to
+its lord, and winked discreetly.  "But what have we here?  By Allah,
+thou art a complete painter, a professor of the art!  There am I, like
+life.  There is my house, the church, the palm-trees.  O young man,
+thou art a devil at this work.  A pity thou art a Brutestant, else thou
+couldst make a trade of it, and make us pictures of the Blessed for our
+churches.  Come, O Nesibeh, see the pretty picture."
+
+Iskender fixed his gaze upon the sketch.  He dared not look up, for the
+girl was at his shoulder.  The whole population of the place, his foes
+but yesterday, now gathered round him, praising Allah for his wondrous
+talent; while the Emir denounced the bad quality of the paint-box, gift
+of the Sitt Hilda, and swore to have a proper one sent out from
+England.  Iskender's heart was like to burst with pride and happiness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+It wanted but an hour of sunset when Iskender parted from the Frank.
+His very brain was laughing, and he trod on air as he strode off,
+hugging the great umbrella.  At noonday he had had his meal at the
+hotel (no matter though it was flung to him in the entry as to a dog)
+and afterwards had walked again with the Emir, showing his Honour the
+chief buildings of the town.  Not a few of his acquaintance had beheld
+his glory, among them Elias the great talker.  No doubt but that the
+fame of it was noised abroad.  In no hurry to go home, for his mother
+had already heard the tidings, he bent his steps towards a tavern where
+the dragomans were wont to assemble at that hour.
+
+Leaving the road of red-roofed foreign houses in which was the hotel,
+he crossed a stable-yard, and then a rubbish-heap, and passed through
+tunnels to the main street of the town, a narrow, shaded way leading
+down to the shore.  Here, what with spanning arches and the merchants'
+awnings, it was dark already; the business of the shops appeared
+belated; the sunlit sea beyond was like a vision.  Dodging his way
+through the crowd, avoiding bales and groaning camels, he traversed
+half the street, then turned in at a gateway worthy of the noblest
+mosque.
+
+Within was a kind of cloister, three parts ruined, which had once, it
+was said, appertained to a Christian church.  On one side the outer
+wall had fallen, allowing a view through shadowy arches of the sunset
+on the sea; on the other, just within the colonnade, an enterprising
+cook had placed his brazier and all else that is required to make a
+tavern.  Wherever the ground was clear of debris stools were set, and
+men sat talking, smoking slow narghilehs.  The fragrance of coffee
+stewing filled the place, mixed with the peculiar odour of a charcoal
+fire.
+
+Here the English-speaking dragomans used to meet together at the cool
+of the day, to practise the tongue of their profession and discuss the
+news.  Clad in the gayest Oriental clothing to attract the foreigner,
+their talk was all of Europe and its social splendours.  At the moment
+of Iskender's entrance, a man named Khalil was gravely playing English
+music-hall airs on a concertina, having acquired the art by instruction
+from an English sailor at Port Said.
+
+Iskender advanced self-consciously, knowing himself the hero of the
+hour.  And in the twinkling of an eye the music ceased; he was
+surrounded.  Elias, a saffron sash at his waist, a scarlet dust-cloak
+streaming from his shoulders, flung an arm around his dear friend's
+neck, and cried:
+
+"I saw thee!  Thou art in luck, my dear; for thy man is of the noblest.
+I know him well by sight, for he is of the intimate friends of my lady."
+
+This had reference to an illusion of Elias, who always maintained that
+he was the lover of an English princess, and had spent a whole year as
+her guest among the nobles of that distant land.
+
+"Thou shalt present me to him, O my soul," cried a man in yet more
+gorgeous raiment, "that I may judge of his character, and teach thee
+how to work him to the best advantage."
+
+"Aye, it behoves thee to present thy friends," rejoined another.  "He
+is a generous man, it is known; they say he gave a sovereign to our
+father Mitri."
+
+Iskender promised freely.  He saw his uncle beckoning to him, and
+obeyed the gesture, breaking loose from the throng of courtiers.
+Abdullah removed his stool to a distant spot among the ruins, whither
+the servant of the tavern carried two narghilehs.  He made his nephew
+sit and smoke with him, then asked:
+
+"What news?"
+
+"The best--thanks to Allah," replied Iskender.  "The Emir has shown
+great love for me, and is having a grand new paint-box sent from the
+land of the English."
+
+"Pshaw!" said Abdullah, a shade of annoyance on his brow.  "Put away
+such playthings, which lead nowhere.  Let thy whole study be to please
+his Honour.  In dealing with all travellers the first thing is to keep
+them interested; for if their mind is dull a single moment they blame
+the dragoman and give him a bad report.  Thou art conversant with the
+Sacred Book.  Quote from it freely in connection with common sights;
+as, for instance, if thou seest people ploughing, refer straightway to
+Mar Elias who ploughed with twelve yoke of oxen before him; if a woman
+fetching water from the spring, mention her with whom Our Saviour
+talked beside Samaria.  Things common among us are strange to them.
+To-morrow take thy patron to the bath, and conduct him through all its
+stages.  Thence bring him to my house, where thou shalt find a meal
+which will not fail to please him.  To sit on the floor as we do, and
+eat with fingers from one dish, affords delight to foreigners.  Above
+all things, keep him for thine own.  I say nought against thy taking
+him this day to Mitri, though the visit has made a noise.  Our father
+Mitri is an upright man.  But these----"
+
+He jerked his thumb in the direction of the other dragomans, now
+howling in chorus to the strains of the concertina.
+
+"----These are all rivals--enemies.  In the season thy Emir would seem
+as nothing to them; but now he is the only game in sight.  Avoid them;
+lead thy lord away from them.  Thy coming here this evening was a
+fault.  Go now and quietly, lest they trap thee somehow.  I expect thee
+at my house at noon to-morrow."
+
+Iskender saw the wisdom in these words.  He shot a glance over his
+shoulder at the other dragomans.  They were still busy singing to the
+concertina.  Touching his uncle's hand, he stepped out through the open
+arches and scrambled down over rocks and fallen masonry to the
+sea-beach, whence he made his way home through the twilight.  His
+mother had heard of his introducing his Emir to the priest Mitri, and
+blamed the folly of it, till she learnt how thereby he had redeemed the
+great umbrella.  Even then she still declared it was a pity.  It would
+put the missionaries in a perfect fury, since an Orthodox priest was
+the devil in their eyes; and was certain to rouse the cupidity of other
+people.  Allah had blessed Iskender with the friendship of a mighty
+prince.  She bade him keep the blessing to himself, not let it waste
+away in gifts to strangers.
+
+Her words confirmed the counsel of the wise Abdullah.  Iskender
+resolved to follow it to the letter.  But when, presenting himself
+before his lord next morning, he announced the programme for the day,
+the Frank raised unforeseen objections.  He would in no case visit the
+bath, he said, having heard that they used dirty water there.  It was
+with difficulty that Iskender won him to view Abdullah's invitation
+with some favour.
+
+Abdullah's house was in the town itself, hard by the shore.  It stank
+in the approach, as the Frank was not slow to remark; but within all
+was swept and perfumed for the occasion.  Borrowed mats strewed the
+floor.  Two candles burned upon a little shelf, before a picture of the
+Blessed Virgin placed there in remembrance of the famous vision.  And
+the host omitted no formula of politeness that had ever been used by a
+son of the Arabs to felicitate and set at ease an honoured guest.  The
+Emir, completely reassured, smiled graciously.  The food, when it
+appeared, was tasty and abundant, and his Honour seemed to like it.
+But Iskender knew that it was of the cheapest: the whole feast had not
+cost his uncle ten piasters.  When the Emir, at taking leave, put two
+mejidis in Abdullah's hand, he bit his lip and cursed the old man's
+guile.
+
+Thenceforth he determined to keep all English-speaking persons at a
+distance, since their whole endeavour seemed to be to cheat his loved
+Emir.  But it was not so easy to discard his old acquaintance.
+
+That same evening, after parting from his patron, he ran right into the
+arms of a pair of merry fellows, who announced their playful purpose to
+detain him.  Both wore their fezzes at a rakish angle, both had a
+rosary dangling fashionably from the left hand, both talked and laughed
+uproariously--secure in their employment by a foreign tourist agency
+from the disgust of the Muslim population, whose scowls shadowed them.
+Elias Abdul Messih was one of them.  The other, who boasted a very
+large hooked nose, like a parrot's beak, which reduced the rest of his
+face to insignificance, was Yuhanna Mahbub, a famous bully.
+
+"Now we have thee!" cried Elias, laughing loudly.  "By Allah, it is
+rude in thee to shun thy friends."
+
+"Is it true that the Emir gives thee an English pound every day?"
+inquired Yuhanna.
+
+"He is good enough to treat me as a brother, and has sworn, of his
+benevolence, to make my fortune," Iskender modestly admitted.
+
+"Pshaw!  Promises--I know them!" sneered Yuhanna.  "Coined money is the
+only thing I put my faith in."
+
+"We crave a boon of thee," pursued Elias coaxingly.  "Bring the
+khawajah to the house of Karlsberger to-morrow afternoon.  We will make
+a feast in his honour and thine.  Say yes, O my soul!"
+
+"Aye, promise," snarled Yuhanna, "or we shall know thou hast a mind to
+slight us, and take steps accordingly."
+
+Iskender promised, with intent to fail them, for the Emir's protection
+made their threat quite harmless.  He pursued his way down a sandy road
+through the orange-gardens, which looked black beneath the sunset--of
+unusual splendour owing to the presence in the sky of ragged clouds.  A
+fellah who passed remarked that rain was coming.
+
+"Art on the way to visit me?"  A hand fell suddenly upon Iskender's
+shoulder.  A tall black-clad form had overtaken him, unheard by reason
+of the muffling sand.  It was the priest Mitri.  "Or dost thou fear to
+incur the anger of the English missionaries?  By Allah, thou art wrong
+to fear them.  Their religion is of man's devising; its aim is worldly
+comfort, which will fail them at the Last Day; whereas ours is the
+faith of Christ and the Holy Apostles, the same for which thy fathers
+suffered ages before the invention of the Brutestant heresy.  It is the
+faith of the true Romans who reigned in the city of Costantin, when
+Rome had reaped the reward of her heathen iniquity and lay in ruins, a
+haunt of brigands and wild beasts.  Is it not a sin that, after the
+lapse of so many ages, people calling themselves Christians, people who
+have never suffered hardship for their faith as we do, come hither and
+wage war upon the Church in her bound and crippled state, seducing the
+feeble and the avaricious by the spectacle of their wealth and the
+prospect of foreign protection?  These heretics--and the Muscovites,
+our co-religionists, alas! with them--conspire against the Sultan, who
+is our sole defender.  With the Muslimin we have in common language,
+country, and the intercourse of daily life.  Therefore, I say, a Muslim
+is less abominable before Allah than a Latin or a Brutestant."
+
+The priest stopped speaking suddenly and embraced Iskender, kissing him
+repeatedly on both cheeks.  At the same moment a little cavalcade went
+ambling by, which solved the riddle of his strange behaviour.  Iskender
+caught a scowl of disapproval from the Sitt Carulin, a glance of
+agonised appeal from the Sitt Hilda, and then a malicious grin from old
+Costantin, as he ran by on foot, prodding with his staff the hindmost
+jackass, on which the Sitt Jane sat up with face averted.  The three
+ladies were clad in white with mushroom hats and fluttering face-veils.
+Their bodies bulged now here, now there, like sacks of grain, obedient
+to the motion of the trotting donkeys.
+
+"There they go, mothers of all contention, shameless meddlers!" said
+Mitri, peering after them in the twilight.  "Ha, ha!  I angered them,
+the praise to Allah.  I made them tremble for their nursling!"
+
+Iskender made no answer, feeling angry with the priest.  At that
+reproachful glance of the Sitt Hilda, all his childhood had risen up
+and testified against him.  His heart was stricken with profound
+compunction.  He broke away from Mitri as soon as possible, refusing an
+invitation to enter his house and argue with him, and sped on across
+the sandhills to his own home.  There, in the little house, a lamp was
+lighted; his mother stood at the doorway looking out for him.
+Breathless, he informed her of his encounter with the Mission ladies,
+and the priest's vile trick to shame him.
+
+"Aha," she laughed, "a famous joker is our father Mitri.  I would give
+much to have seen the faces of those harridans!  Nevertheless, may his
+house be destroyed, for he has done me an ill-turn with his foolery.
+The ladies are certain to come here tomorrow, deafening me with the
+outcry of their poisonous spite.  For thee, it recks not, thou hast thy
+Emir.  In sh' Allah thou wilt soon get money from him.  Then thou canst
+laugh at the malevolence of these hypocrites!"
+
+But Iskender was not to be so easily consoled.  He lay awake that
+night, a prey to poignant self-disgust, remembering in turn his happy
+childhood at the Mission, his love for the Sitt Hilda, and his recent
+frowardness, each with a vividness that hurt his brain.  Even the
+patronage of a great Emir seemed nothing worth as compared with the
+affection of those who had brought him up.  The Emir spoke lightly of
+religion; he despised the missionaries; it might well be he was wicked,
+a servant of the Evil One, a creature of that outer darkness into which
+he (Iskender) had fallen through his own fault.  Then he thought of the
+priest Mitri, and of the beautiful child who for a moment had ensnared
+his fancy; and was overwhelmed with pity for himself.  He belonged to
+nobody.  The missionaries loved him so little that they were content to
+cast him off for small offences; while for the Orthodox he remained a
+Protestant, a filthy thing.  In his thirst for comfort he was driven
+back on dreams of greatness, of buried treasure some day to be found,
+which would cause the English and the natives of the land alike to
+grovel in the dirt before him.  Warmed by such thoughts he fell asleep
+at last.
+
+When he awoke in the morning his mind was healed.  He viewed the
+Mission with the old resentment, and placed his every hope in the Emir.
+On his way to the hotel he saw the daughter of Mitri throwing crumbs to
+the church pigeons, and blew a kiss to her with words of love, only to
+laugh loud when, picking up a stone, she cursed his father.  At the
+entering-in of the town he was accosted by Elias, who sprang suddenly
+from the shade of a cactus-hedge.  Yuhanna followed, yawning.  It was
+clear that they had been lying in wait.
+
+"This afternoon, at the house of Karlsberger; forget not," Elias cried.
+"We have ordered a fine feast in thy friend's honour."
+
+"Fail us not, or it shall be the worse for thee," put in Yuhanna.
+
+Iskender swore obedience to their will and hurried on, mentally
+resolved to hire horses and take his Emir for a ride until the evening.
+It would be easy to say the Frank had willed it so, in which case none
+could blame him.  With this in mind he entered the hotel.  But again
+his Emir proved refractory.  The air that morning oppressed him, he
+declared, and the sons of Musa said that it was going to rain.  He
+proposed a stroll to some near spot among the gardens, where he could
+read while his companion sketched.
+
+Iskender still had hope to foil the dragomans.  He led his patron in a
+direction opposite to that where he had left Elias.  But, looking back,
+he saw two figures shadowing them, and knew the game was up.
+
+In fact, no sooner had they found a cool retreat than Elias and Yuhanna
+sauntered up, hailing Iskender with delight as loving comrades.  He was
+obliged to present them to his Emir, and from the moment of
+introduction they had words for no one else, inquiring how his Honour
+liked the place, and asking if he knew this and that great lord of the
+English with whom they, by their own accounts, stood high in favour.
+They presented their invitation with every circumstance of respect, and
+the Emir accepted it; and then, by the veriest accident, the eyes of
+Yuhanna happened to light upon the ousted youth.
+
+"Ah," he exclaimed, "you like this little one, our dear Iskender!  A
+good boy, sir, only don't know much yet.  Baints fery nicely, for a
+young 'un.  He show you, sir, the way this afternoon."
+
+A tear fell splash upon Iskender's drawing-book.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The house of Karlsberger stood in a hollow of the southern sandhills,
+only discoverable on a close approach, so that the sight of its red
+roof, something like an extinguisher, came always as a surprise.
+
+Its owner was of the number of those Jewish immigrants who, lured by
+the offer of perpetual charity, had of late years come in their
+thousands to occupy lands provided by their rich co-religionists.  But
+the life of a husbandman soon palled on Karlsberger, accustomed to
+trade upon the vices of a European city; and his wife, a former harlot,
+shared his disgust.  As soon as he could gather money enough he had
+left agriculture to the dullards, and built this house near the town as
+a rendezvous for all who loved the flavour of depravity.  For the
+dragomans and their kind the house of Karlsberger stood for the fashion
+and gay life of Europe.
+
+Thither Iskender conducted his lord in the manner of a reluctant
+follower rather than a guide.  He had said all he could to dissuade the
+Frank from going, had exaggerated the ill repute of the place, and
+called the dragomans low, drunken blackguards; but all in vain.  The
+Emir was bent on going; and his slave went with him miserably, feeling
+sure that the kindness he had himself inspired would not survive the
+introduction to a set of dashing fellows, whose profession it was to
+win the hearts of foreigners.  The air was sultry, the expanse of sand
+glared hatefully beneath a sky veiled all over with thin cloud.  All
+nature, in accordance with his mood, seemed glum and spiteful.
+
+In sight of the house he pointed to it without a word.  It looked in
+truth a pretty place for a great prince to visit.  With a gloomy
+satisfaction Iskender noticed filth about the threshold, and shabby
+garments spread to dry upon the window-sill.
+
+Sounds of talk and laughter came from the open door.  They ceased
+directly the Emir was seen by those within; and some dozen men,
+assembled in a narrow room, rose as one and saluted.  The room had been
+roughly cleaned for the occasion, the dust and filth of the floor
+having been swept into the four corners, where it lay in heaps.  The
+ceiling and the white-washed walls were grimy, and dust made a bloom on
+the ragged curtains of the window, looped pretentiously; a three-legged
+table all but filled the room, leaving just room for one to pass around
+it.  His lord was ushered to the seat of honour, a sofa covered with a
+fabric which had once been plush, but now resembled draggled sealskin;
+while Iskender went quite unnoticed till the wife of Karlsberger--a
+bulky slattern, who kept shuffling in and out with plates and
+glasses--perceived his need, and placed a stool for him.  Through
+confusion and annoyance he caught nothing of the conversation till
+Elias, in a mincing voice, announced:
+
+"The grub quite ready."
+
+The Englishman laughed at that; upon which Elias, dancing up to him,
+exclaimed:
+
+"You are a good fellow; I see that.  I like you, and so blease to see
+you here."
+
+All then drew close to the table, on which were set forth many tempting
+viands, including mottled discs of German sausage, anchovies, pickled
+gherkins, and huge chunks of Frankish bread.  A bottle of rum and a
+bottle of gin stood one at each end of the board, attended by glasses
+of all shapes and sizes.
+
+"Allow me to helb you, sir--a bit of sausage?" cried Elias, seizing a
+knife and presenting it at the dish in question.  The Emir laughed
+again, which was the signal for an obsequious roar.  He said he would
+prefer some bread and anchovy, and could help himself.  He accepted a
+little of the rum for politeness' sake, and then professed himself
+satisfied.  After some outcry on his lack of appetite the rest of the
+party fell to with avidity.  The presence of his uncle, which he now
+realised for the first time, relieved Iskender from the fear of
+personal indignity.  He, too, attacked the victuals with good appetite,
+but refused the spirits, strong in the example of Abdullah's
+abstinence.  The work of eating was soon done, and every one sat back
+for conversation.  There was much ostentatious picking of teeth, and
+noises of repletion came from all sides.  Tongues were loosed, and vied
+one with another to display deep knowledge of the English speech and
+manners.  The company abounded in expressions such as "old chap,"
+"never say die," and "right you are!" which Iskender, from his
+education, knew to be inappropriate.  Every one too, except Abdullah,
+made believe to revel in the gin and rum, out of compliment to the
+guest, whose national drink it was; but Iskender was not deceived by
+their hilarity.  Sitting at the opposite end of the room to his patron,
+he saw the wry faces which were turned away at every sip.  Elias, quite
+beside himself with adulation, and intoxicated already by the success
+of his facetious sallies, drank and drank again with convivial gestures.
+
+"Ha, ha!" he cried, "I'm feelin' deflish habby.  So fery nice to be
+with English beeble.  The English are our friends; they're Christians
+like what we are.  Blease God, they take this country like they taken
+Egybt, and gif the Turks an' Muslims good old Hell!  Ha, ha! we're
+English, we are, just the same.  The Turks all done for--no dam' good.
+The Christians kick 'em all the time.  They got to lick our boots,
+that's sure.  The English they soon string up the rotten ole Sultan,
+first they christen 'im jus' for luck----"
+
+His words were drowned in cries of horrified protest; his neighbours at
+the table flung themselves upon the rash talker, stopping his mouth
+forcibly with their hands; while old Abdullah rose up in authority and
+loudly denounced such sentiments as high treason, with glances at the
+open door as at an audience.  Iskender could see the Frank was quite
+bewildered; he sat smiling on all that occurred without intelligence.
+Elias, when let go, was laughing heartily.
+
+"Well, I neffer!" he observed.  "Who's afraid?"
+
+Just then Khalil, the concertina-player, a dull-eyed, fattish man, who
+had kept silence, suddenly drew all eyes upon himself by picking up his
+instrument from the floor and playing a few chords softly.
+
+"All right, Khalil!  Come along then!  Neffer say die, ole chabbie!"
+Elias encouraged him.
+
+"I blay you 'Bob goose the Whistle,'" said the musician seriously, and
+at once struck up a jerky Frankish tune, with eyes intently fixed on
+the Emir, garnering his every smile and sign of pleasure.  When his
+Honour showed a disposition to sing the words of the refrain, he played
+more loudly than before in triumph.  All present flung back their heads
+and bawled in discord, producing a din so horrible that the Jew
+Karlsberger, with his wife and child, appeared from an inner room with
+scared white faces.
+
+"Merciful Allah, make less noise!" the Israelite besought the
+revellers.  "If a Muslim were to hear you, I am ruined."
+
+At that Elias rose with dignity and swaggering towards the Jew with a
+Frankish elegance which the depth of his potations made unsteady,
+seized the landlord by the breast of his gaberdine.  He lifted an
+admonishing finger, saying:
+
+"You hold your row, Mr. Karlsberger.  You go to Blazes, my fery good
+friend!"
+
+The Jew, who knew no English, accepted the assurance and retired.
+
+The musician struck into another tune, but soon desisted, finding his
+art forgotten in a general clamour of conversation, every one
+addressing the Frank, who, after looking from one to another at a loss,
+gave ear to Yuhanna Mahbub, who sat next him.  Yuhanna, like Elias, had
+partaken of the rum and gin.  He struck a vein of amorous reminiscence,
+and began boasting of his conquests among English ladies.  Abdullah
+sharply bade him hold his tongue.
+
+"He is a boaster, sir, and neffer did nothing what he say he did," said
+that respectable man in explanation to the visitor.  "If he really done
+such things, he neffer sbeak about them, that sure; he know he get the
+sack for such a shame."
+
+"Shame!" chorused Elias with a reproachful shake of the head.  "Hear,
+hear!  Order, order!  By God, you are a nasty beast, Yuhanna."
+
+As he spoke he poured out rum into a tumbler, without looking, till the
+glass was half full.
+
+Iskender, seeing the disgust in the Frank's face deepen, waxed
+exultant.  It was time to leave now, while that look endured.  He
+caught his uncle's eye.  The old man nodded.
+
+"It is time that we dispersed," he said in Arabic, "unless we wish to
+get wet through.  See how the sky has clouded over while we sat here.
+Remember, it is the year's first rain, which means a deluge."
+
+"He speaks truth"--"Rain is coming"--"See the clouds," cried one and
+another, peering out on the world.  The company obeyed the motion of
+its acknowledged sheykh, all save Elias, who had got beyond the reach
+of all authority.
+
+"You think I'm goin' yet, you silly ole fool!" he cried in English.
+"No dam' jolly fear!  I haf not yet talk to my friend, this nice kind
+mister!"
+
+And holding in one hand the glass half full of rum, he staggered to the
+sofa, till then sacred to the Emir, and sank down on it with a
+contented hiccup.
+
+"My dear luffed friend, now we talk a little.  The rest, they go to
+Hell," he said; and tried to kiss the Frank.
+
+He measured his length on the floor, the tumbler was broken, the rum
+spilt.  In a moment the whole room was in an uproar.  All who could get
+near enough tendered abject apologies to the guest for their
+companion's rudeness; while those debarred by concourse from that
+privilege, consoled themselves by kicking and punching the prostrate
+Elias, who wept aloud, still crying: "My friend!  My dearest friend!"
+In the midst of this tumult, Khalil struck up the English National
+Hymn, a carefully reserved effect which he was unwilling to forgo.
+
+At length the Emir won his way to the door, where Iskender was waiting
+for him, too happy in the turn events had taken to shake his head or
+say "I told you so."  They were joined by old Abdullah.  Indoors,
+behind them, the shrieks of the Jew and his spouse were now heard high
+above the furious talking and the strains of the concertina.
+
+"He come to you to-morrow, sir, and lie down on the floor and lick your
+boots; I'll see to that," said Abdullah with determination.
+
+"Curse it all!  I lost my temper!" said the Frank with a nervous laugh.
+
+"We best make haste, sir," said Abdullah, pointing eastward.
+
+The sky inland was black as ink and formless; the sand looked white as
+sun-bleached bone by contrast; the dark green wave of the
+orange-gardens appeared pale; a palm-tree in the distance stood up wan
+against the impending cloud.  Presently a flash of lightning made them
+quicken step; big drops of water fell like bullets round them.  Before
+they could reach the hotel the rain came down in sheets, beating up the
+sand like smoke, and they were drenched to the skin.  The Emir lent his
+henchman some dry clothes and insisted on his remaining till the storm
+passed over.  Iskender knew that it might last for days.  He dispatched
+a ragamuffin, who had sought shelter in the hotel entry, with a message
+to relieve his mother's mind; and soon found himself arrayed in clothes
+too large for him, sitting in a drawing-room only less luxurious than
+that of the Mission, looking at some English pictures, while the Frank
+wrote letters.  Truly, it seemed, he had been born to honour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+When Iskender rose next morning from the bed on the floor of the
+entrance-hall which he had been permitted to share with the black
+servant, he saw a woeful figure in the doorway.  A man, wrapped in a
+great cloak of camel's hair, sat staring out dejectedly at the
+daylight, which was greenish grey, the whole air seeming turned to
+falling water.  A hood drawn low upon his brow concealed his face,
+except the smouldering anguish of the eyes, when he turned at sound of
+movements in the hall behind him.
+
+Elias--for he it was--sprang up and made the bound required to bring
+him within reach of his friend's hand, which he forthwith seized and
+carried to his lips, cringing low and moaning:
+
+"O my horror!  O my bitter shame!  For the love of Allah, speak for me
+with his noble Highness!  Thou knowest how I always loved thee, and
+stood thy friend when others scoffed at thee.  Persuade thy Emir to
+forgive me and keep silence, or I shall lose my employment, and my wife
+and little ones will come to want!"
+
+Iskender's heart leapt up in thanks to Allah for thus abasing one who
+had conspired against him.  He pressed the suppliant's hand in both his
+own.
+
+"Now Allah witness how I always loved thee!" he murmured with a gaze of
+fond compassion.  "It hurt my soul to see thee siding with my enemies,
+scheming to supplant me in the favour of my dear lord."
+
+"By Allah, thy thoughts wrong me!" cried Elias with wild earnestness.
+"Ask Yuhanna, ask Khalil!  My efforts were against them all, on thy
+behalf.  How canst thou think such harm of one who loves thee?"
+
+The speaker burst into a passion of tears.
+
+"Weep not, O my dear!" Iskender murmured soothingly.  "In sh' Allah,
+all may yet be well, though I will not disguise from thee that my lord
+is angry."
+
+"Obtain but a hearing for me; that is all I ask.  My tears shall wash
+his feet; my groans, my heartfelt penitence will surely move him."
+
+"Thou knowest that I will do all in my power to save thee.  But, alas!
+my influence is not boundless.  By naming thy name in his presence, and
+seeming anxious to excuse thy fault, I fear to draw a measure of his
+Honour's wrath upon myself.  Last evening he was full of rage against
+thee, vowing to see thee a beggar in the gate of the town.  And he has
+sworn at the first opportunity to make complaint of thy behaviour to
+the English consul."
+
+At mention of the consul Elias collapsed utterly.  He sank down on the
+marble pavement, huddled up in his cloak, his chin upon his breast,
+moaning like one insensible through stress of pain.  Complaint to the
+consul meant his life-long ruin as a dragoman, since he depended on the
+English for his daily bread.
+
+At length he cried:
+
+"Thou must, thou shalt, befriend me!  I adjure thee by Him who took our
+flesh upon Him, by the Holy Cross!  Allah will reward thee, and I
+myself will be thy slave till death."
+
+Pouncing once more upon Iskender's hand, he pressed two large coins
+down upon the open palm.
+
+"What is this, O my soul?" cried the youth in amazement, after looking
+to make sure the coins were silver.  "Are such things needed between me
+and thee?"
+
+He pulled out his silver watch--the gift of the wife of the missionary,
+the excellent mother of George, which she had caused to be sent
+expressly from the land of the English--and gazed long and pensively at
+the face of it.  Though he had risen later than his custom, deceived by
+the darkness of the rain prolonging night, it wanted still an hour of
+the Emir's waking.  He said:
+
+"His Honour is still in his chamber; he objects to be disturbed while
+dressing.  Nevertheless, since thy cause is urgent, I will crave an
+audience."
+
+"Our Lord reward thee," sobbed Elias gratefully.
+
+Iskender repaired to the hotel kitchen, and spent some minutes talking
+to the cook, who was his friend, before he returned and said:
+
+"His Highness will not hear me.  At mention of thy name he shut his
+ears."  Then, when Elias burst into a fit of weeping that seemed like
+to strangle him, he added: "But he was in the act of bathing his whole
+body, which he does daily in cold water.  It may be that the coldness
+of the water made him angry.  After a little, I will try again."
+
+"May Allah prolong thy life!  From this day forth Elias is thy servant.
+I will give thee my gold ring with the large carbuncle, if thou bring
+this business to a good result."
+
+After a decent interval, Iskender paid another visit to the kitchen
+and, returning, said:
+
+"He gave no answer to my knock, and I feared to enrage him by repeated
+knocking.  I will return presently."
+
+Elias promised him a dagger of rare workmanship.
+
+"He bade me go away, though not in anger," was the next report.
+
+Elias promised him a pistol with jewelled mountings; and after that a
+saddle with rich tassels, a holy book, some silver buttons, and a young
+mare of the noblest desert breed.  Thus time passed pleasantly, till
+the sons of Musa emerged from their sleeping apartment.  Iskender dare
+not pursue the game with them about; but humbly presented Elias,
+explaining the reason of his presence.  They at once offered themselves
+to plead the cause of the sufferer, who was a friend of theirs.
+
+But the son of Yacub was beforehand with them.  He sped straight to the
+bedroom of the Frank, who by good luck was up and dressed, and informed
+him of the penitence of Elias, begging forgiveness for that broken man.
+The Emir consented with a laugh.  Together they went down into the
+hall, where Iskender presented the suppliant to his Emir, in the face
+of the sons of Musa, and of all the servants who came crowding to the
+sight.
+
+Elias fell down flat before the great one and embraced his feet.  He
+seemed unconscious when the Frank addressed him.  It was by the
+exertions of the sons of Musa and the group of servants that the
+despairing wretch at length received assurance of forgiveness.  With
+tears of joy he kissed the hand of his preserver; then, suddenly
+flinging open the vast cloak, which he had till now kept close around
+him, he revealed a splendid whip of rhinoceros-hide, mounted and ringed
+with silver.  Iskender felt cruelly defrauded; it was with difficulty
+that he suppressed a cry of rage; for had he so much as guessed that
+such a thing was hid beneath the cloak of the blubberer, he would long
+ago have had it for his own.  Elias thrust that whip upon the Frank,
+who would fain have refused it; but, the sons of Musa and the servants
+joining the donor in entreaties, he at last gave way.
+
+When his patron went to breakfast, Iskender received many compliments.
+His manifest ascendency over the mind of the Englishman had made a
+favourable impression even on the sons of Musa.  This was as it should
+be.  But it did not please him, as the day wore on, to find that Elias,
+out of gratitude for his forgiveness, intended to remain in close
+attendance on the Emir.
+
+Divested of his cloak, his slim but manly figure cased in showy
+garments, his moustache curled ferociously up to the eyes, his fez
+tilted jauntily to one side, Elias appeared to Iskender's jealousy the
+most attractive of men.  And as he recovered spirits, his talk showed
+the lively sparkle which enchanted travellers.
+
+It being impossible to get out, the Emir brought down a book, and read
+to them in the entrance-hall.  The tale was one of wild adventures in
+the search for treasure.  It fascinated Iskender.  But Elias was
+reminded by one of the incidents of a lion he had slain upon Mount
+Sinai; and the Frank shut up the book to hear his story.  Elias
+described all the fortunes of the fight with singular realism, opening
+his mouth very wide and roaring when momentarily impersonating the
+lion.  The Frank showed great amusement; Iskender was vexed with him
+for encouraging the silly liar.  He gave praise to Allah when Elias
+departed for the night.
+
+But his bugbear returned next morning, as the Frank emerged from
+breakfast, claiming praise for his devotion in coming through such
+weather.  The wady to the north of the town was now a raging torrent,
+he informed them.  With his own eyes he had seen ten righteous men torn
+off their feet and carried clean away.  More than a hundred camels had
+been swept far out to sea.
+
+"He is a big liar, sir," Iskender whispered in the ear of his lord, who
+appeared unduly stricken by these tidings; and in proof of the
+assertion, he referred the matter to the sons of Musa, who said that a
+donkey laden with vegetables had been washed away.  Elias, in no wise
+disconcerted, thanked God that things were no worse.  But Iskender
+triumphed, informed by the Frank's sneer that he had struck a
+death-blow at his rival's influence.  That done, he felt all kindness
+for the handsome dragoman, now his manifest inferior, and encouraged
+him to show off for the Emir's amusement.  He even, in the course of
+the day, assured his patron that Elias was not a bad man.
+
+That evening the rain diminished sensibly; in the course of the night
+it ceased.  The dawn next day was cloudless when Iskender set out early
+for his mother's house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+"May Allah keep thee!  Here is a nice to-do!"  His mother, who had
+spied Iskender from afar, stood in a gap of the cactus hedge with arms
+akimbo.  "Was ever woman blessed with such a son?  The Father of Ice
+was here before the rain, he and the Sitt Jane with him.  They spoke
+against thee ceaselessly for two hours, till my poor back ached with
+standing there and bowing, and my head swam round with listening to
+their tiresome iterations.  Had I not heard it all before a thousand
+times--thy idleness, thy kissing the Sitt Hilda, thy choice of low
+companions in the town?  And then thy friends--Elias, what a wretch!
+Once, years ago, when conducting a party of travellers, he pushed his
+horse among the ladies, who were on their donkeys.  Unheard-of
+insolence!  He shouted--actually shouted at English ladies--to make
+way; of course, they paid no heed to such impertinence, and then he
+rode among them.  Ma sh' Allah!  And Mitri too!  To hear them talk of
+Mitri, any one would suppose the poor, good priest some dreadful ghoul.
+. . .  All that was empty talk, however spiteful, and Allah knows I am
+well seasoned to it.  But when they came to speak of thy Emir, and
+swore to turn his mind against thee, I saw danger.  What ailed thy wits
+that thou must needs tell Costantin a tale of thy going to the land of
+the English to study the art of painting at thy lord's expense?  They
+have it that thou wouldst defraud the good young man. . . .  Ah!  Allah
+knows I have my fill of troubles."
+
+She paused from sheer exhaustion, pressing a hand to her heart.
+
+Iskender laughed at her concern, assuring her that his favour with the
+Emir was now established past all fear of assault.  Exultant from his
+recent triumphs, and flushed from a walk through air which the rain had
+left pure and invigorating, he did in truth believe himself beyond the
+grasp of adversity.  His mother's woe seemed senseless.  When he told
+of the wicked plot of the dragomans, and how signally it had failed
+through Allah's mercy, it angered him to see her wag her head with
+boding looks.  She could not realise the victory his words implied.
+
+"Think, O my mother!" he cried out impatiently.  "These three days have
+I been his guest and chosen comrade, sitting with him at all
+hours--aye, even in the seat of honour in the guest-room, in my
+slippers--admitted to the secret of his every thought.  It is well seen
+that he loves me truly.  Give praise to Allah, therefore, and throw
+grief aside."
+
+But his mother still looked rueful as she shuffled about the room
+getting food--a bowl of curds, some olives, and a slab of bread--to set
+before him.
+
+"All that is well enough," she grumbled audibly, "but to what end?  By
+Allah, I perceive no profit in it.  Thy need is money, not mere
+compliments.  Better get him to appoint thee monthly wages as his
+servant."
+
+"Merciful Allah! is my mother mad?" exclaimed Iskender, teeth on edge
+with irritation.  The woman's lack of understanding rasped his soul.
+"He loves me as a friend, an equal, not a slave.  And what are the
+paltry wages of a servant as compared with the friendship of a mighty
+prince?  In the end he is certain to provide for me honourably; he will
+make me a great painter, as I said to Costantin."
+
+"In sh' Allah, it may prove so," replied his mother; "but I doubt it
+greatly.  Thou wast ever one to follow distant dreams, neglecting the
+good that lay within hand's reach.  Were Elias or Yuhanna in thy place,
+no doubt at all but they would make some money.  There is a chance when
+making purchases or hiring horses for his Honour.  But thou art capable
+of scorning every gain--nay, even of bestowing all thy goods!--for the
+sake of a fine friendship which may leave thee naked."
+
+"By Allah, I will hear no more of this!"  Iskender started to his feet,
+past patience.  "Know that my love for my Emir equals his love for me.
+He is my soul; how then should I defraud him?  I shall buy for him as
+for myself; he shall admire my honesty--it is the virtue most esteemed
+among the Franks--and be assured that in the end he will reward it."
+
+His mother sighed profoundly, and spread out her hands.
+
+"Thou art young, O my son, nor hast thou my experience.  It is true
+that the Franks hate guile or any cleverness; but I never heard of one
+of them rewarding honesty.  For them it is a thing of course,
+unnoticed.  I warrant thou wilt get no credit for it.  Moreover, Allah
+knows thou needest money; for, if the missionary's wrath goes on
+increasing, I cannot keep thee here.  I must either turn thee out or
+lose a good appointment which enables me to lay by something every year
+for thy future fortune.  They grow to hate thee so that soon they will
+refuse to send their dirty garments to be washed where thou dost dwell.
+. . .  Wouldst leave me now already, when I have not seen thee for
+three days?  May thy house be destroyed!  Stop, in the name of Allah;
+stop, I say!  Was ever mother cursed with such a son?"
+
+But by then Iskender had passed through the cactus hedge, and was
+running down into the sandy hollow.  The clear, cool air at once
+restored his exultation, and his mother's words became a buzz of flies
+which he had left behind.  The sky was dreamy blue; the sandhills rose
+against it shapely like the backs and flanks of couchant lions.  The
+red roof of the Mission on its ridge seemed placed there by some
+childish whim--a thing incongruous.  As Iskender fixed his gaze on it,
+he saw a figure coming thence with speed--a figure in dark Frankish
+clothes beneath the red tarbush, which he recognised as that of Asad
+son of Costantin.  A minute later he was called by name, and saw the
+same shape running fast towards him.
+
+"O my soul!" cried Asad, panting, as he drew near.  "What are these
+tidings that we hear of thee?  Why wilt thou show thyself to
+disadvantage?"  Pausing to gather breath, he caught Iskender's hand and
+pressed it to his heart.  "What is this talk of thy friendship with the
+priest Mitri?  Wouldst thou for ever forfeit the goodwill of those
+above?"  He jerked his head towards the Mission, hidden from where they
+stood by the brow of the sandhill.  "Only think!  To whom in all the
+land can we look for support and encouragement unless to these people
+who have brought us up?  The Orthodox have neither wealth nor
+influence.  Wert thou to join them, I fail to see how it could profit
+thee.  In this land there is no hope for a Christian unless by foreign
+protection.  And of all the races of foreigners the English are the
+richest and the most powerful.  By Allah, thou wast a fool ever to
+anger them; thou shouldst have hid thy thoughts and bowed to their will
+in all things, even as I do.  Thou seest they will make of me a priest,
+a grand khawajah.  They would have done the same for thee hadst thou
+behaved with common prudence.  If not a priest, thou mayest still
+become a well-paid schoolmaster by their protection.  Thou wouldst do
+well, therefore, to forsake this Mitri, who has nothing to offer.  Be
+advised, I entreat thee!"
+
+Asad was a tall, lean youth, lantern-jawed, and of a serious
+countenance, in age a few months younger than Iskender.  His complexion
+was swarthier than the common, and his eyes, like the eyes of his
+father Costantin, were furtive, with a cast of malice.  The boys had
+always been on friendly terms, in spite of standing jealousy between
+their parents.  But to-day the patronage in Asad's speech incensed
+Iskender.  What need had he, the Emir's right-hand, of compassion and
+advice from any whipper-snapper?  He replied with sarcasm:
+
+"May Allah repay thy kindness, O my dear!  Had I known thy mind had
+such anxiety on my account I should certainly have sent a messenger to
+reassure thee.  Believe me, all thy fears for my welfare are quite
+groundless, for never had I such good cause to praise the Lord as at
+this present.  Behold me in the road to wealth and honour, possessing
+the favour of an English nobleman, for whom these missionaries are mere
+specks of dirt.  My kind lord vows that I have talent as a maker of
+likenesses, and wishes me to receive the best instruction in that art.
+For a beginning, he has sent express to the land of the English for
+better instruments and materials than I could here obtain.  Indeed,
+there is no cause to fear for me.  The praise to Allah!"
+
+"Praise to Allah!" echoed Asad sneeringly, stung to reprisals by
+Iskender's tone.  "But concerning that Emir of thine I have a word to
+say.  They have heard up there how thou hast fastened on him like a
+leech, and dost boast to all men that his wealth is thine.  I myself
+heard the Father of Ice declare that thy designs were iniquitous and
+must be thwarted.  He himself will go to the Emir and tell him thy
+whole history, which is nothing good; so thou hadst best beware.  By
+Allah, thou dost wrong to take this tone with me, who came as a friend
+to warn thee!"
+
+"I thank thee," rejoined Iskender loftily.  "But have no fear, I say
+again, for my Emir esteems and loves me far too well to give ear to
+lying tales made up by mischief-makers.  Moreover, he abhors the
+missionaries with such utter loathing that I think he would defile the
+beard of the Father of Ice did the poor wretch dare approach him.  Thou
+supposest the missionaries to be all-powerful, as I did once.  But,
+believe me, they are nothing thought of in their own land.  My Emir
+would hardly deign to notice things so low.  Now I must leave thee, O
+my dear, for my lord awaits me."
+
+He began the ascent of the sandhill.
+
+"Well, remember I have warned thee!" shouted Asad after him.
+
+Relieved of the irritant of the lank youth's voice and presence,
+Iskender felt dismay at his own boastfulness, and repented of it humbly
+before Allah.  He knew that a jealous eye is fixed upon the heart of
+every man to mark when pride leaps up and straightway blight it.  To
+show elation was to court calamity.  However, he repeated divers
+formulas reputed potent to avert the evil; and when, from a high point
+of the dunes, he saw the minarets and the square roofs of the town
+standing forth clear and white with the blue sea for background, beyond
+the gardens freshened by the rain, he clean forgot misgivings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+The love Iskender bore to his Emir transfigured every detail of
+familiar life.  The walk to the hotel each morning was a joy through
+expectation, the return each evening a delight through memory.  The
+vestibule in which he waited his lord's pleasure, with its marble
+pavement and its painted walls, a few cane chairs and tables, and a
+great clock ticking steadily, became the entrance-hall of paradise.  Of
+nights the thought of sitting there next morning caused his pulse to
+quicken.  The sons of Musa and the negro doorkeeper shared in the
+radiance of his loved one's neighbourhood.  It was easier for his mind
+to pasture on accessories than to conjure up the Emir's own presence,
+which left the memory blind as with excess of light.  At times he would
+recall with a thrill the lofty brow with short fair hair reposing on
+its summit as lightly as tamarisks upon the crest of a dune, the
+laughing sea-blue eyes with golden lashes, or it might be the smooth
+curves of mouth and chin.  But the face as a whole escaped him, though
+he never tired of studying it, and was always trying to produce its
+likeness; now with pencil upon paper, now with finger in the sand.  No
+artist in the world could hope to show the beauty of that face as he
+beheld it, the glow its smile diffused through all his being.  Even his
+mother's shrieks to him to get money from the Emir enhanced his
+rapture, making his own pure love shine forth more brightly.
+
+A week's fine weather followed on the rain.  The Emir rode out on
+horseback every day, with Iskender at his right hand, and Elias, who
+was a showy rider, circling round them.  Iskender had told Elias
+plainly:
+
+"The Emir is mine.  I found him; and shall keep him all my own."
+
+"It is known he is thine," the elder had made answer with all
+deference.  "Allah forbid that I should seem to rival thee!  But his
+Honour has been merciful to me, and my soul is bound to him and thee in
+gratitude.  Moreover, nowadays I have much spare time, which I can
+scarcely hope to spend more profitably than in the society and
+conversation of so exalted and refined a nobleman.  He is thine and
+shall remain so.  Only drive me not away!"
+
+Iskender acceded to this petition the more readily that his Emir, he
+could see, regarded the most exquisite of dragomans simply as a
+standing joke.  They laughed together at his superstition and his
+boastfulness.  But their butt was really serviceable in small ways,
+knowing where to hire good horses at the lowest price, and pointing out
+in the course of their rides objects of interest of the very existence
+of which Iskender had been ignorant.
+
+Never had the son of Yacub known such happiness as he tasted in those
+rides across the plain which basked in sunshine, with violet mountains
+before them and a gleam of the sea behind.  Here they traversed a
+mud-village plumed with palms, its narrow ways alive with dogs, and
+fowls, and children, where Iskender shouted, "Way for the Emir!" till
+men and women bowed their heads and praised him; there an olive-grove
+profuse of dappled shade, where they were content to let their horses
+walk at ease.  In their saddle-bags was much good food from the hotel,
+which they devoured at noon in some secluded spot; when Elias would
+discourse to them of strange vicissitudes, of beggars suddenly uplifted
+to the height of honour, and the Emir, reclining lazily, would smile
+and wink privately at Iskender, who, at every such mark of preferment,
+longed to kiss his feet.  No marvel yet related by Elias could compare
+with his own good fortune in Iskender's eyes.
+
+One evening, on their return to the hotel, when two stable-boys were
+leading off the tired horses, and Iskender, with Elias, stood waiting
+to take leave of his kind lord, the negro brought a little card to the
+Emir, who eyed it strangely.
+
+"It is that missionary-man you hate so," he informed Iskender.  "What
+in the name of Moses made him call on me?"
+
+"Ha, ha!  'Name of Moses!'" laughed Elias, who was daily adding to his
+store of English idioms.  "By gum, that's good!"
+
+Iskender inwardly thanked Allah Most High for his mercy in directing
+the Father of Ice to call while the Emir was out.  He thought no more
+of it.  They rode again the next day and the next; his happiness went
+on, unshadowed, till a certain morning when the Frank announced, with a
+yawn, that he supposed he must return the visit of the missionary.
+This he gave as a reason for not riding on that day.  He would write
+off arrears of letters in the morning, and in the afternoon would walk
+out to the Mission.
+
+Iskender's jaw fell.  It had never occurred to him as even remotely
+possible that his Emir would stoop to enter the abode of people he had
+always mentioned with such fine contempt.  The picture of his loved one
+seated in the well-known drawing-room, an object of attention to the
+ladies, hobnobbing with the Father of Ice--his Emir, whom he had come
+to regard as the very counterblast of that house and all it stood
+for--gave him a sense of being upside down.  The Frank laughed at his
+dismay, inquiring:
+
+"Why so surprised?  I must return the poor man's call in mere
+politeness."
+
+"They hate me very much there," said Iskender miserably.  "I fear they
+tell you things not true about me."
+
+"I know the truth from you, don't I?  Let them say what they like!"
+
+Iskender went forth from his presence, pondering this reassurance,
+which contained no comfort for him, since he had given his lord to
+understand that he had received his education at the Mission as an
+independent paying pupil, and had quite concealed the fact that his
+mother was a washerwoman.  The Emir, if he thought at all of the
+matter, supposed him a youth of substance.  How could he think
+otherwise, when he heard Iskender offer to defray the cost of horses,
+and saw him daily bring some present in his hand?  Now he would learn
+the truth.
+
+Elias was standing in the doorway talking to Daud son of Musa when his
+friend came out.  He noticed his glum looks, and asked the cause.
+
+"My Emir is going to visit that accursed missionary, who hates me and
+will work my ruin if he can."
+
+"Why then remain a Brutestant among such enemies?  Return to the
+Orthodox Church, and thou shalt find friends enough."
+
+The mighty Daud deigned for once a glance at Iskender.  The house of
+Musa were fanatics in religion.
+
+Elias took Iskender's hand and went out with him.
+
+"The news is bad for me, too," he said ruefully, "for they hate me
+also--curse their religion!"
+
+"What matter for thee?  He is not thy Emir.  For me, it is the risk of
+life itself."
+
+Iskender broke away from him at the first chance, and walked back to
+his home upon the sandhills.  His mother screamed surprise at sight of
+him.
+
+"My Emir is busy," he explained, assuming cheerfulness as a good shield
+from questions, which might easily have probed too far into his cause
+for grief.  For the same reason he forbore all mention of the purposed
+visit of his Emir to the Mission.  "I am free to-day, and so returned
+to see if I could help thee in the house."
+
+Receiving his offer of help in sober earnest, she sent him presently
+upon an errand to the house of Costantin; but on the way there, with
+the Mission full in sight, its red tiles glaring fiercely in the
+noon-day sun, it occurred to him that his Emir would surely fall in
+love with the Sitt Hilda.  Rent by the twofold anguish of the thought,
+he wandered aimless for an hour, and then returned, to gape at mention
+of an errand.  His mother hurled a saucepan at his head.
+
+"May thy house be destroyed!" she screamed.  "Nay, go not now.  It is
+too late!  Within this minute I have seen Costantin take the road to
+the town.  O Lord, what have I done to be thus afflicted?"
+
+Iskender then sat down before the threshold, and fell to drawing
+pictures in the sand, smoking cigarette after cigarette without
+contentment, till he knew by the shadow of the prickly-pears that the
+afternoon was well advanced; when he changed his position for one
+commanding the approach to the Mission, lit a fresh cigarette and began
+his watch.
+
+"Thou dost smoke enough for twenty men!" his mother scolded.  "Thou art
+always asking me for cash to buy the stuff, even now when thou hast thy
+Emir!  Take from him, he will be none the wiser.  Thou hast no more
+intelligence than a sheep."
+
+Iskender heard her not.  He had caught sight of the figure of a Frank
+moving briskly along the ridge of the opposite dune.  It seemed but a
+second ere it passed into the Mission, and was lost to sight.  Iskender
+fell face downwards, making some idle play with the sand for his
+mother's benefit, the while his heart went out in prayer to Allah.  It
+seemed an age ere the Emir came forth.  From where he lay Iskender
+could not distinguish so much as the colour of his clothes, yet he
+fancied he could see his heart was sad or angry.  Having watched him
+out of sight, he sprang up suddenly and strode off towards the Mission
+in the hope of news.  As luck would have it he met Asad son of
+Costantin.
+
+"I was on my way to tell thee."  That youth of promise grinned from ear
+to ear at the sudden encounter.  He had to apply his mind for a minute
+to a stick of sugar-cane he was sucking before he could compose a
+countenance suitable to the bearer of ill tidings.  "The Father of
+Ice--curse his father!--has done what I told thee he would do, has
+ruined thee with thy Emir.  He made thee out the lowest of the low, and
+told his Honour of thy boast that thou wouldst use his money as thy
+own, even to the extent of making him pay for thy education as a
+painter in the English schools.  He told him it was wrong for him to
+ride on horseback beside one like thee--for whom to ride an ass were
+signal honour.  Ah, I assure thee by Allah he has done it thoroughly.
+I have the story from the maid who carried tea to them.  She listened
+by the door at my request, because I knew how nearly it concerned thee."
+
+By way of consolation Asad offered to his friend a length of sugar-cane
+he had himself sucked three parts dry.  It was accepted blindly.
+Iskender knew not what he did or said.  He wandered by the sea till it
+was dark, and then went home and passed a sleepless night in dreams of
+wealth, by which alone it seemed his love could be cleansed from all
+appearance of self-interest.  Before his mother awoke in the morning he
+slipped out, and walked into the town, where he loitered down by the
+quay, kicking his heels, until it was time to present himself at the
+hotel and learn his fate.
+
+"The khawajah has announced his will to ride alone to-day, and for an
+hour only," said Selim the son of Musa, who stood sunning himself in
+the doorway.
+
+The words struck like bullets on Iskender's heart, they so cruelly
+confirmed the tale of Asad son of Costantin.
+
+Elias arrived, and asked him how he did.  Iskender made known his
+tidings in a voice half-choked by grief.
+
+"Was any word said against me?" asked the dragoman eagerly.
+
+Iskender shook his head.
+
+"The praise to Allah!  Take heart, O my soul!  If I am still in favour,
+I can plead for thee."
+
+"Thou in his favour!  Thou art nought to him!" replied Iskender with a
+sudden burst of spite.
+
+Elias was about to answer angrily when the subject of their speech
+appeared.  Both sprang to their feet expectantly.  But the Emir, with a
+blunt "Good-morning," passed them by and mounted the horse which stood
+in waiting before the door.  They watched him ride away, then turned
+and gazed into each other's eyes.  Both agreed that there was nothing
+for it but to sit down again and await further revelations of the will
+of Allah.
+
+When the Emir returned, after less than an hour's absence, his temper
+had improved, for he laughed at a joke of Elias, and suffered them both
+to accompany him to his room.  Elias pushed home his advantage, telling
+a succession of funny stories in exaggerated broken English.  The Emir
+laughed heartily, and talked with him.  Iskender, abashed by the
+uncertainty of finding favour, dared not risk a word; and his loved one
+never even looked at him.
+
+"You come with me, sir, this afternoon.  I show you sefral things you
+neffer seen!" said Elias, when the bell had rung for lunch.
+
+The Emir consented.
+
+"You see, he hears me!" cried the dragoman with exultation, when he and
+Iskender were once more alone together.  "Confide in me, and I will
+lead him back towards thee!"
+
+The touch of patronage entombed Iskender.  His Emir, to be led to him
+by Elias!  But "Weep not, O my soul!" the latter begged him.  "Come
+with us this afternoon and I will bring thee forward."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The son of Yacub longed to be alone and weep his fill, but could not
+leave Elias in possession.  It was as a dumb and piteous plea against
+the usurpation of Elias, and not from any hope of reinstatement, that
+he attended the Emir that afternoon, when the dragoman led them among
+the stinking alleys of the town, under archways and through private
+houses, pointing out sites of interest which Iskender felt sure were of
+his own invention; and he very soon wished that he had kept away.  For
+Elias, according to his promise, "brought him forward," begging the
+Emir to have compassion on him, because he was a good boy and devoted
+to his Honour's service.  Iskender could only mutter, shamefaced, when
+the Frank addressed him.
+
+"Why did you deceive me?  I thought you were well off, or I should
+never have accepted all those presents.  Now you must please accept a
+trifle from me."
+
+Iskender found in his hand a piece of gold, and saw Elias nodding and
+grimacing.  He murmured words of thanks perfunctorily, the while he
+gnashed his teeth with secret rage.  Such kindness was an outrage to
+his love, being given at the bidding, in the presence, of the rogue
+Elias.  The cup of his humiliation overflowed.
+
+"Now all is well," Elias told him afterwards.  "Be thankful that thou
+hast a friend like me.  He smiled on thee; he gave thee money.  Thou
+art back in favour."
+
+Iskender was obliged to thank him kindly.  What his soul needed was to
+be alone with his Emir, to throw himself at his feet, and win his true
+forgiveness.  The casual kind word with a fee was worse than nothing in
+the realm of love.  But Elias, as if of fixed intent to thwart him,
+stood always in the way, annihilating the unhappy youth with
+condescension, bidding him cheer up and amuse his Honour.  Iskender
+heard his rattle with a stupid admiration which the Emir's applauding
+laughter made quite envious.  He himself had fallen to the level of a
+mere serving-lad, to run his Honour's errands and be tipped
+occasionally.
+
+His mother judged that things were thriving with him, since he brought
+home money; and he did not undeceive her, wishing to keep his grievous
+fall a secret as long as possible; though soon, he feared, it must be
+evident to all the world.  Already Yuhanna and the other dragomans
+jeered at him in the streets, acclaiming the triumph of Elias, their
+own comrade.  He thought of invoking the aid of his uncle Abdullah, but
+that respectable man was for the moment absent on Cook's business.
+There seemed no hope of success by his own efforts, for in the presence
+of the Emir he could not now think clearly, nor find a word to please.
+Distress of longing set a cloud upon his brow, a weight upon his
+tongue, which was not lightened when Elias chaffed him for a dull
+companion.
+
+It was only when alone that he regained his normal wit; and then his
+soul leapt up in envy of the brilliant dragoman.  Elias was clever; he
+had seen the world; his position as a dragoman would bear inspection.
+No wonder that the Frank preferred him to the son of a poor
+washerwoman, whose lowliness Elias himself was always emphasising.
+Thus attacked, and without defence, since there was no denying that his
+origin was humble, Iskender's pride took refuge in its old imaginings.
+Walking to the hotel, he would picture himself a king's son in
+disguise, or else the owner of enormous treasure; would smile, and
+clench his hands, and step exultantly; would think:
+
+"If the Emir but knew me as I really am!"  But, approaching the Emir,
+such fancies vanished.  They were of no use because no one would
+believe them.  It took Elias to give truth to wondrous stories by
+judiciously eschewing points that could be verified.  Iskender, in
+great anguish, prayed to Allah to destroy Elias, or at least to teach
+His servant a true story, that he might outshine the miscreant.
+Dazzled by the triumph of that splendid liar, he thought of
+story-telling as the only way to the Emir's good graces; and lay awake
+whole nights constructing fables which the first faint light of dawn
+showed to be worthless.
+
+An appeal to the good nature of his rival failed irrevocably.  When
+Iskender entreated to be left alone with his Emir, were it but for five
+minutes, Elias stiffened, crying:
+
+"Curse thy father!  What means this plaintive whisper in my ear?  Thy
+Emir!  He was thine by his own will, and has tired of thee.  Now he is
+my Emir.  It is natural he should prefer the society of a grown man who
+has dwelt in England, and acquired the manner of its nobles, to that of
+a loutish, sullen boy, untravelled, ignorant!  Behold, I have stood thy
+friend.  But for me, he would have cast thee off entirely. . . .  Leave
+thee alone with him?  No, by Allah, that I will not--and have thee
+telling wicked lies against me."
+
+Iskender turned away in great unhappiness, deeming his last hope gone.
+
+That night he lay awake and thought of wealth as the only power that
+could confound his enemies.  At last he fell asleep and dreamt of
+gold--nothing but gold; small rounded pebbles of it clothed the ground
+for miles.  It was more, ten thousand times, than all the wealth of all
+the kingdoms put together.  The sky above was black as pitch, though
+something told him that the hour was noon; the gold put out the sun.
+"All mine!" he thought, and was preparing to gather it, but some one
+stopped him with an iron hand; and then he woke, to hear his mother's
+snores and see the flicker of the night-light on the rafters.
+
+His first sensations were of disappointment as though great wealth had
+really lain within his grasp.  But presently as he pondered on the
+vision, his heart leapt up with exultation at the thought that here was
+the nucleus of a story, marvellous as any that Elias had related, and
+true, for who save Allah had surveyed the whole wide world, and could
+deny the existence somewhere of a plain all gold.  Moreover, it would
+be a story after the Emir's own heart, concerning, as it would, the
+search for treasure.
+
+"If I say that I myself beheld the place, it will be false," thought
+Iskender to himself, "because I am young and every one knows that I
+have never travelled.  But suppose I say my father saw it, then it will
+be true, for my father is dead and he travelled far in his day, and
+Allah alone knows what he saw or did not see."
+
+The rest of that night was spent upon the story, considering in what
+manner it should be revealed, with what precautions and what vows of
+secrecy.  As it shaped itself in his mind it seemed a fortune hardly
+less than that he had beheld in sleep.  He rose at daybreak,
+thought-worn but light of heart.  As it happened, that morning, his
+mother sent him to the Mission with a message concerning some mistake
+she had discovered in the tale of the last week's washing.  He had to
+wait the pleasure of the ladies, to carry a message from them to his
+mother, and bring back her answer; so that it was past the usual hour
+when he reached the hotel.  He met the Emir and Elias going out
+together.
+
+"His Excellency has graciously consented to honour with his presence an
+orange-garden which belongs to me," said the dragoman to Iskender in
+Arabic.  "The weather is fine, like summer; the fruit ripens.  It will
+be pleasant reclining in the shade."
+
+The whole world swam before Iskender's eyes around the handsome figure
+of Elias, whose scarlet dust-cloak seemed a flame of fire.  What was a
+plain of gold in the truest of stories to compare with an orange-garden
+actually existent close at hand?  He had prepared to vanquish Elias in
+one sphere, and the coward leapt into another where he could not reach
+him.  Never till now had he heard that Elias owned a garden.  This was
+the end.  Iskender resigned a contest so unequal.  He heard the Emir
+invite him to go with them, but shook his head, quite unable to
+articulate a reply.  The despair of his mother, the hateful triumph of
+the missionaries, the derisive laughter of the dragomans, came before
+his mind.  Some one, passing by, gave a chuckle.  He sprang to
+self-consciousness with the impression that the whole world laughed.
+The doorway of the hotel was near.  He fled through it, pretending that
+he had come to claim the sketching things he was wont to leave in
+charge of the doorkeeper.  With those in his hands he hurried forth
+again, glad to escape the negro's friendly grin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+Half-blind with tears and rendered witless by despair, Iskender had
+walked half the distance to his mother's house before he realised that
+he had no desire to go there.  A pool of shade by the roadside
+inviting, he sat down in it, and gave the rein to grief.  It was with a
+mild surprise that, when his sense returned, he found himself under the
+ilex-tree before the little church which Mitri served.  Afraid of
+interruption he looked round uneasily.  But no one was in sight, and he
+was loth to move.  He opened his sketch-book for a suggestion of
+employment in case any one should espy him, and returned to sorrow.
+
+From the group of hovels close at hand came women's voices and the
+cluck of hens; over his head, among the branches of the oak-tree, doves
+were cooing.  The plumes of the two palm-trees hung dead still amid the
+sunshine! the shade in which he sat was quite unruffled.  A train of
+camels sauntered by along the sandy road, with clanging bells, their
+driver chanting softly to himself.  Iskender's heart went out in
+yearning to the peaceful scene.  He envied the dwellers in those low
+mud-hovels, who led their simple lives with praise to Allah; envied the
+poor camel-driver singing in the sunshine as he jogged along.  Alas for
+him, he had no part with these, but was a Protestant, a stranger in his
+native land, a monstrous creation of those English who had cast him
+off, a byword, a bad joke.  The iridescent plumage of some pigeons,
+which, emboldened by his stillness, came strutting and pecking on the
+ground before him, drew his gaze; and, half-unconsciously, he began to
+trace their likeness on the page before him.  While thus engaged he
+heard a stealthy tread behind him, and felt a breath on his neck as
+some one leaned above him to inspect his work.  In a flash he
+remembered the beautiful child, the daughter of Mitri, and his heart
+beat fiercely.  The violent change of emotion paralysed him for some
+seconds; then he turned round suddenly and made a grab.  The girl
+suppressed a scream, and tried to run, but he had caught her arm.  With
+joyful eagerness, though the tears of despair were still wet on his
+face, he pleaded:
+
+"Why wouldst fly from me, my soul?  Why art thou here if not to talk
+with me?"
+
+"The picture," she murmured angrily, pulling against him hard, with
+face averted.
+
+"The picture is it?  Only stay till it is finished, and I will give it
+thee with pleasure."
+
+"No, no, I tell thee; let me go or I will tear thy eyes out!  Art thou
+not a Brutestant, a dog?  Thy touch is defilement.  How canst thou
+continue in that lying faith?  Art thou not scared each night at the
+thought of the devils and the eternal fires?"
+
+She gave up resistance, and stood surveying him with great round eyes
+of horror, fascinated by the sight of a creature doomed to everlasting
+torment.  The feel of her slight brown wrist was like a snake for
+coolness.  Iskender ventured to caress it with his fingers.  But at the
+touch she snatched it from him angrily, and sprang to a safe distance.
+
+"Thou hast been weeping; why?" she asked with a cool directness, which
+was like a sword-thrust in Iskender's heart.  His woe broke out afresh.
+
+"O Lord!" he blubbered.  "I have none to love me.  My Emir, whom I love
+truly, casts me off.  The Brutestants, who brought me up, despise me.
+The Christians call me dog!"
+
+"O man, stop crying, for it frightens me."  Nesibeh came again and
+leaned over him.  "Be sure thy sorrow is from the hand of Allah to
+punish thy errors and disgust thee with them.  My father says that
+calamities are often sent as warnings to the reprobate.  Be thou
+warned, O my dear, and return to the Church.  Then our Lord will be
+pleased with thee, and make men love thee."
+
+"And thou--wilt thou too love me, or still call me dog?"  Iskender
+seized her hand again, though she resisted furiously.  But the words
+were cut in his mouth by a heavy hand which smote him sideways,
+deafening one ear; and when he recovered from sensations of a general
+earthquake, it was to find himself alone with Mitri.
+
+The priest stood smiling down on him with folded arms.
+
+"What means this, O son of a dog?" he said through clenched teeth.
+"Dost thou take us, by chance, for Brutestants, for shameless heathens?
+Praise be to Allah, we are quite unused to Frankish manners.  Respect
+our daughters as thou wouldst the daughters of the Muslim, or harm will
+come to thee."
+
+At those words all his former misery returned upon Iskender.  He buried
+his face in his sleeve.
+
+The anger of the priest turned to astonishment.  After staring for a
+minute, he sat down beside the youth and, putting his arm round his
+neck, inquired:
+
+"What ails thee, O my dear?  It cannot be that thou dost weep so
+bitterly because I struck thee, nor yet for penitence in the matter of
+my daughter.  Such things afflict not thus the mind of youth.  Come,
+tell me what it is!  Open thy heart.  Who knows but, in Allah's mercy,
+I may be of help to thee?"
+
+Iskender lifted his eyes for one swift glance at his would-be consoler,
+then hid them once more in his hands.  The expression of the priest's
+strong face commanded confidence, and he felt the need of a friend.
+After a second's hesitation, he confessed all: how he had deceived the
+Emir at first as to his worldly station, how that deception had given
+the missionaries power to set his lord against him, and then how Elias,
+by unheard of perfidy, with diabolical arts, had taken possession of
+the Emir, and prevented Iskender's obtaining the private audience which
+would have put things right.
+
+The priest heard him to the end, then eyed him curiously.
+
+"Allah is merciful!" he observed.  "See what it is to be an infidel.
+Had this happened to me I should simply have turned away with a shrug
+and 'Praise to Allah.'  But this youth has been taught to put his trust
+in worldly things, and when these fail, as fail they always do, he
+comes near to kill himself."
+
+"I am no longer a Brutestant!" rejoined Iskender vehemently.  "Allah
+knows I hate the race of them!  But I have not yet told thee all my
+cause of grief--all the perfidy of the fiend Elias.  It was bad enough
+when I supposed him poor like me.  Now it seems he is the owner of an
+orange-garden.  I knew it not until this morning.  He has taken my Emir
+away to feast there in the shade.  How can I ever compete with a rich
+landowner?"
+
+"I ask pardon of Allah!  An orange-garden?  Elias own an orange-garden?
+Never, in this low world!  Now whither has he led the good khawajah?"
+Mitri laid a finger between his eyebrows, and thought deeply.  Anon his
+face brightened.  "If I give thee thy revenge upon Elias," he demanded,
+"wilt thou swear by the Incarnation to forsake the errors of the
+Brutestants, and come to me henceforth for instruction in the way of
+right?"
+
+"I have done already with the Brutestants," replied Iskender, all alert
+in an instant at the suggestion of a bargain; "but as to joining the
+Orthodox, my mind is not yet clear."
+
+"By the help of Allah, I will clear it for thee.  Come and reason with
+me; that is all I ask.  Swear to do this or I will not help thee."
+
+Iskender swore with secret alacrity, having the girl Nesibeh in his
+mind's eye.
+
+"That is well.  Now I think I know the trick that rogue is playing.  I
+have seen him in the company of one Muhammad, who tends the
+orange-garden belonging to a member of our Church, the rich Aziz; and
+Aziz is gone these two days upon business to El Cuds.  But his brother
+remains with us, praise to Allah, and it is but a step from here to go
+and warn him.  I too have a debt against Elias, who invited me to bless
+his house, yet never paid me.  So dry thy tears, my son, and come with
+me."
+
+The priest went in among the hovels, while Iskender gathered up his
+sketching things, with hope revived.  It being noon, the brother of
+Aziz was in his house.  It was plain he did not share his brother's
+wealth, for his abode was of the humblest, and in dress and bearing he
+was a poor fellah.  His dark face brightened wonderfully when he heard
+what the priest required of him.  He seized his staff and called out
+all the neighbours, who burst out laughing when they learned the nature
+of his business.  When Iskender joined them, however, there were looks
+askance; one said to another, "Is not this the Brutestant, the son of
+Yacub?  What hand has he in this affair?  It were a sin for us to vex a
+true believer for the pleasure of a child of filthy dogs," till the
+priest cried, "Welcome him, for he accepts the truth," when all gave
+praise to Allah.  One tall fellah forthwith embraced Iskender, and
+began at once to tell him of the joys of Heaven.
+
+The brother of Aziz then led the way down a narrow path among
+fruit-trees to his brother's garden, which was not far off.  The crowd
+of neighbours followed.  Arrived at the gate, he ordered the women and
+children to remain there, while himself and Mitri, with six turbaned
+men all armed with big tough staves, crossed themselves devoutly,
+murmured "Bismillah," put the right foot first, and stole in very
+quietly.
+
+Iskender followed at a distance, contrary to the command of Mitri, who
+had bidden him wait without with the women and children, till he saw
+them stop and whisper together, when he struck off independently.
+Pressing his way through the dark foliage, hung with yellowing globes
+and sweet with the scent of orange-flowers, he reached a secret place
+whence he could watch what happened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+On a carpet spread in the shade which fringed some open ground beside
+the sakieh, Elias and the Frank reclined at ease.  Within hand's reach
+of them was placed a heap of oranges and sweet lemons, representing
+every variety which the garden produced; and between them reposed a
+tray on which were seen the remains of a choice repast.  A creeper with
+a wealth of crimson flowers, wreathing a rough arbour built to shade
+the sakieh, contrasted the dark foliage of the fruit-trees.  The sky
+was pure blue and cloudless.  There was a hum of insects in the air.
+The man Muhammad, keeper of the garden, sat on his heels at a
+respectful distance from the feasters, watching for a signal to remove
+the tray.  All at once this man sprang up, his mouth fell open.  With a
+great oath he fled among the trees.  Whereupon the brother of Aziz and
+his company threw off concealment, and came forward boldly with loud
+talk and laughter.  Elias gazed upon them, stupefied.  Before he could
+get on his feet, they closed around him.  Iskender heard the priest cry:
+
+"Woe to him who withholds from the Church her dues!"
+
+Mitri, with the brother of Aziz, then paid respect to the Emir,
+engaging his attention while Elias was being led away.  Guided by the
+outcry of the prisoner, Iskender followed his captors on a parallel
+line among the orange-trees.  He heard the howls of derision with which
+the women hailed the appearance of the boaster, and their demand that
+he should be well beaten to reward his impudence.  Iskender drew close
+to them and peeped out through the leaves.
+
+"Beat me?  Nay, that you dare not!" cried Elias.  "The lives of all of
+you would not suffice my vengeance.  Wait, wait till I get hold of my
+good sword!"
+
+"Thy sword, if thou hast one, is of wood, O braggart!" laughed one of
+his captors, at the same time giving him a shove which sent him reeling
+up against another of the band, who straight returned him.
+
+"Nay, nay," he protested, in his passage through the air.  "By Allah, I
+possess one, of the finest steel.  Ask Mitri, ask Iskender; they have
+seen it!"
+
+Then, as they continued their rough game with him, he screamed out:
+
+"Are you Christian men or devils thus to maltreat me on account of a
+few oranges for which I paid the guardian?"
+
+"Nay, O beloved!  Allah witness, it is not the oranges we begrudge
+thee, but the honour thou didst take unto thyself feloniously."
+
+"Aha, thou art the owner of this place, and we thy servants!"
+
+"Oranges!  Let him have his fill of them!"
+
+A woman snatched an orange from the nearest tree, and flung it full in
+his face.  He opened his mouth to remonstrate, but another orange
+stopped it on the instant.  With a fearful oath he gave up the
+argument, and ran for his life, amid a roar of laughter.
+
+Then Iskender came out upon the pathway, and walked along it till he
+reached the sakieh.  As prearranged with Mitri, he feigned great
+surprise at sight of the Emir, exclaiming:
+
+"I thought you said the garden of Elias.  This is the garden of Aziz
+abu Suleyman."
+
+"Something queer has happened," said his patron, showing great
+uneasiness.  "These people have been trying to explain to me, but I
+can't understand them."
+
+Iskender looked to the priest for elucidation.  After a short
+conference apart with him, he was in a position to inform his lord,
+who, learning the deception put on him, was very angry.  His Honour was
+for leaving the place at once; but Mitri and the brother of Aziz would
+not let him depart as if in dudgeon.
+
+The little crowd of men, women, and children, having finished with
+Elias, now drew near, and sat or lay in a half circle at a respectful
+distance from the group upon the carpet.  The brother of Aziz flung
+oranges to them; and both he and Mitri asked for tidings of the
+boaster, which Iskender was called upon to translate for the Frank's
+behoof.  The downfall of Elias seemed complete.  But the victor could
+not take much joy in it, for the face of his Emir still showed nothing
+but annoyance.
+
+If only Mitri and the rest would now retire, he thought impatiently, he
+might throw himself at the feet of his dear lord.  As it was, he was
+forced to make his petition lamely, calmly, shorn of all that outward
+self-abasement which the case demanded.  It was something, however, to
+be sure of privacy, to know himself alone with his Emir in knowledge of
+the English tongue.
+
+"Oh, sir," he faltered, "forgif me, do, or I shall die of grief.  You
+'f neffer been the same to me since goin' to the Mission.  I luf you,
+sir, enough to gif my life.  I thought you would hate me if you knew my
+mother was a washin'-woman!  It break my heart ef'ry time you gif me
+money; I luf to gif you things, not take things from you.  If the
+missionaries tell you contrary, they're dam' liars.  Elias thinks of
+money; but not me, because I luf you truly.  I'll be a slafe to you.
+Do blease belief me!"
+
+His lord was deeply moved.  He said, "That's all right," and gave his
+hand to Iskender, who all at once beheld the beauty of the trees and
+sky, the wealth of crimson flowers above the sakieh.  But when the
+suppliant pressed it to his lips, the Frank seemed angry, cried, "Don't
+be idiotic!" and glanced round him nervously.
+
+"I luf you, sir!" pursued Iskender passionately.  "By God, I neffer
+tell you lies again.  You trust me, sir, and just be kind to me.  It
+kills me when you luf that false Elias."
+
+"Oh, that's all right," was the impatient answer.  "I shall trust you
+for the future.  Can't you talk of something else?"
+
+Then it dawned upon Iskender that his Honour did not like this talk of
+love.  At a loss, he changed his tone, but not the subject, giving his
+patron the true history of his difference with the missionaries, which
+arose from his boyish passion for the Sitt Hilda.
+
+"Is that the young one?  Not a bad-looking girl, if she dressed
+properly!" threw in the Emir; and again Iskender was at a loss, for he
+could not conceive how dress could do otherwise than hide a woman's
+beauty.  He returned to his own case.
+
+"I luf you, sir, and neffer, neffer will deceif you more."
+
+"Oh, shut up, can't you?" said the Frank disgustedly; but presently,
+when they had taken leave of Mitri and the brother of Aziz, he grasped
+Iskender's arm in friendly wise.  As they strolled together down a
+sandy path among the gardens, whose dark rich green encroached upon a
+sky of living blue, the scent of orange-flowers pervading the still
+air, and the murmur of innumerable bees enforcing languor, Iskender
+walked in heaven.
+
+"You trust me now, dear sir?"
+
+"Yes, yes, I trust you.  I shall never forgive Elias for that dirty
+trick."
+
+"It is only just what I did always tell you.  He is an imbudent fellow,
+and a most horrible liar," returned Iskender lightly, grudging Elias
+even his lord's anger.
+
+A pause ensued.  Iskender had no more to say, yet dreaded silence,
+recalling his uncle's advice to him to keep the Frank amused--advice
+which he had so lately seen confirmed in the case of Elias, the amusing
+talker.  He knew that his patron's mind, unless engaged, was sure to
+revert to the adventure of the orange-garden, and recall his rival, of
+whom he wished to obliterate the very thought.
+
+Then, of a sudden, while he racked his brain, he was seized with
+recollection of his vision of the night before.  It returned to him
+from without, by no effort of his own; and was first announced to his
+consciousness by the sensation of a sudden flush from head to foot.
+Here was a subject able to engross the Emir's whole interest, to the
+exclusion of Elias from his thoughts for ever.
+
+"Sir," he said, "I wish to sbeak to you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+The solemnity of Iskender's voice claimed grave attention.  The Emir
+recalled his gaze from far-off things, and fixed it upon the speaker
+with some awe.
+
+Both stood stock still.
+
+"If you blease, sir, I think I tell you better sittin' down."
+
+Iskender had espied a Muslin tomb among the leaves ahead, a small white
+cube, with egg-shaped dome atop of it, having in its shade a place for
+the repose of wayfarers.  Thither he conducted the Emir, and both sat
+down.  Iskender toyed with his fingers in the crevices of its rough
+pavement.  He wished to enjoy his love alone as long as possible; and
+the walk from thence to the hotel was but a short one.  From a
+garden-hedge before them, two cypress-trees stood sharply out against
+the jewel sky.
+
+"I wish to sbeak to you, sir, about something which I neffer told to
+anybody.  My mother knows, but no one else.  Will you bromise, blease,
+to keeb it secret, what I'm goin' to tell you?"
+
+"Yes, rather!  Fire away," said the Emir.
+
+"Well, sir, I know of a blace where gold is found more blenty than the
+oranges in that garden we now come from."
+
+"You don't?  You're joking!"  The Emir stared at him.
+
+"I do, sir.  You know, there's lots of country neffer been exblored
+away there to the south and east, behind the Jordan.  No one effer goes
+there.  My father went there once--he was a muleteer and traffeled all
+about in those days--and in the desert, far away from any houses, he
+found a blace where bits of gold were lyin' on the ground quite thick
+like bebbles in a mountain wady."
+
+"But your father was not rich," the Frank objected.
+
+"No, sir; and just because he was not rich, he could not go again and
+fetch the gold.  It wants horses and camels, and many men and arms to
+make afraid the Bedouins.  My father saw that blace with his own eyes,
+and before he died he wrote a baber teach me how to get there.  He told
+me he got a big biece of gold, enough to make him rich, but had to drob
+it after a bit, it was so heffy."
+
+"How far is the place from here?"
+
+"Nine days or ten, I think.  When I get home I look in the baber which
+my father left and see for certain."
+
+"But perhaps your father was mistaken, and the stuff he found was not
+gold at all."
+
+"That might be."  Iskender grasped his chin reflectively, admitting
+that he had not thought of that contingency.  "But father was a knowing
+man," he added; "he looked close at things.  Though he was only a boor
+common man, he had traffeled a great deal, and I think he'd know gold
+when he saw it."
+
+"I must say I should like to go and see," exclaimed the Emir, now
+warming to the subject.
+
+"You'd better not, sir, till you make sure of brotection.  The desert
+beeble don't like strangers hangin' round.  And the Guffernment would
+stob you, if they got to know.  I thought I'd tell you, sir, because
+you're kindest friend I effer had.  Then by-and-by you get some friends
+to join you, and go with a strong barty; and then, when you've got much
+gold, you think: Iskender made me a nice bresent.  I hobe you think so.
+I know I am only a boor common man, like dirt to you.  But I luff you
+truly, sir, and wish to gif you something."
+
+"Don't talk such rubbish," said the Emir impatiently.  "Of course we
+should share alike, and go together, if at all.  By Jove, it would be
+fun!" and he began to shadow forth the expedition, Iskender helping him
+with tempting details.  To Iskender the vision of riding for days
+together alone with his beloved seemed all glorious.  Sitting there
+beside the Muslim tomb, with the Emir talking to him like a brother in
+the excitement of their common dream, he lost the thought of time, and
+was surprised to see the fires of evening in the sky, and the shadows
+of the two tall cypress-trees extending right across the sandy road.
+
+"We must find out more about that place," said the Emir with a great
+yawn as he rose and stretched himself.  "We must make inquiries.  Other
+people must at least have heard of it.
+
+"Oh, sir, I beg you not!" the son of Yacub cried in sudden terror.
+"You bromised faithfully to keeb my secret!"
+
+"Of course, you stupid!" came the laughing assurance.  "We can make
+inquiries without telling any one."
+
+At the door of the hotel they found Elias waiting.  He stood forth and
+greeted the Emir quite unabashed, convulsed with laughter at the
+latter's cold amazement.
+
+"You thinkin' of that business in the garden?  Neffer fear, sir!  That
+was all a dam' bad joke of that briest-fellow, Mitri--I'll be efen with
+him yet, by Jingo!--all to pay me out because I neffer gif him nothing
+when he bless my house.  He is a funny man, sir--that briest is!  He
+makes me laugh fit to sblit with his awful silly jokes."
+
+Yet while thus joyously ascribing his late discomfiture to the Orthodox
+priest, his manner towards Iskender showed new deference, clearly
+indicating that he saw the young man's hand in the business, and
+recognised his master in guile.  Iskender was greatly shocked when his
+Emir allowed that proven rogue to enter with them.  What was his horror
+when, arrived in the bedroom, his Highness lightly asked Elias if he
+had ever heard of a place in the interior where gold lay on the surface
+of the ground.
+
+His lord shot a glance at Iskender to reassure him on the score of
+secrecy.  But the poor youth gnashed his teeth and clenched his hands.
+He saw his credit hanging on a thread, his new-found favour on the
+point of leaving him, Elias avenged, triumphant.  The dragoman had
+travelled far and wide; he was sure to ridicule the tale, and prove
+convincingly that no such place existed.  He could hardly suppress a
+cry when Elias, instead of laughing, pulled a grave face and solemnly
+affirmed:
+
+"I know it well."
+
+"Have you been there?" inquired the Emir, himself astonished.  "I heard
+of it to-day by chance, and am curious to know the whole story of it."
+
+"Not I myself.  But I know one man what went there.  He left this bart
+of the country, though; may be dead, by Jofe, for what I know!"
+
+Interrogated further, Elias declared that the name of the place was
+well known.  It was Wady 'l Muluk, the Valley of the Kings; though why
+he could not say, unless it were because the kings of old, who were
+certainly richer than kings are nowadays, derived their gold from
+thence.  Many persons had, at divers times, set out to find that place;
+but few had reached it, for the reason that no one knew the road
+exactly, and the desert tribes were fond of killing travellers.
+
+"Don't you make no mistake!" he concluded.  "The Wady 'l Muluk, he's
+there all right, only a job to find him.  If you want to hear about
+him, I tell you what, dear sir, I ask some beebles."
+
+"I should be obliged if you would," said the Frank.
+
+Iskender was still in the stupefied state of one who wakes to find his
+dream made real.  After such evidence from Elias, an unprepared,
+impartial person, there was no longer any room for doubt but that the
+gold of his vision actually existed.  He felt a trifle jealous of the
+witness for knowing more about it than he did himself.  A servant
+summoning the Emir to dinner, he went out into the twilight with Elias,
+who still treated him with the gravest deference.  As they walked away
+together, the dragoman still talking of the wonders of the place of
+gold, Iskender could not help informing him that he had certain
+knowledge of the whereabouts of that valley, away in the eastern
+wilderness, beyond the Jordan.
+
+"Thou sayest?  Now may Allah bless thee!" muttered Elias, with
+immediate reverence.  "Allah witness how I always loved thee.  I
+understand now why his Honour questioned me with so much mystery.  You
+are going there together.  The Emir will furnish forth the expedition
+and become thy partner.  Allah witness how I always loved thee.
+Bitterly do I repent my conduct towards thee of the last few days, and
+Allah knows thou hast had ample vengeance.  Thou art too strong for me.
+Henceforth I am thy friend and loving servant.  Take me also, I beseech
+thee, O my soul.  I can be useful to thee from my wide experience in
+travel; and of the spoil I would claim no more than an alms or
+gleaning.  Fear not that I shall breathe a word to any man.  Elias is
+renowned for his discretion.  Say yes, O beloved!  For the love of
+Allah, let me go with you."
+
+Iskender said yes, though with mental reservations.  The concession set
+Elias upon heights of glory.  He kissed Iskender on both cheeks at
+parting, and swore by Allah that the love he felt for him transcended
+that which he bore his own father and mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+Iskender followed the sandy road through the gardens.  It was dark, and
+the forms of one or two men who passed him made him tremble, they
+sprang so suddenly out of the gloom, noiseless, their footfalls
+deadened by the soft sand.  The events of the day had left on him a
+strong impression of the supernatural, and now he felt that witchcraft
+was abroad, expected each minute that some evil claw would pounce on
+him out of the gloom.  The very stars of heaven looked uncanny.  Cold
+sweat came out upon his forehead; his legs dragged weakly though he
+longed to run.  Two palm-trees standing out against the sky told him he
+was approaching the abode of Mitri; the church, the hovels, even the
+ilex-tree, were swallowed up in the dark cloud of the gardens which
+rolled mysterious on every side.  Presently he saw a light among the
+dwellings.  It occurred to him to call at the priest's house, and
+render thanks for his intervention in the matter of Elias.  He longed
+to speak to some one, any one, for rescue from the grinning terror of
+the night.
+
+He knocked at the door with loud blessings.  It was opened, with a
+sudden gush of light.  The priest peered out into the gloom.
+
+"Is it thou, O my son?" he cried, recognising at length the voice that
+praised his kindness.  "No, Allah be my witness, I will accept nothing
+from thee--neither thanks nor anything else, save thy conversion.  Hast
+come to seek instruction in accordance with thy promise?  Alas!  I
+cannot bid thee enter, for my wife and children are abed; the hour is
+late.  What ails thee that thou tremblest?  Art afraid of the powers of
+darkness, poor Brutestant without a saint to guard thee?  Wait, I will
+take my staff and bear thee company.
+
+"By Allah, thou hast every cause to fear," he continued, stepping forth
+beside Iskender.  "Thy errors give the devils power to harm thee.  The
+Franks are not afraid; for in each one of them there sits a devil far
+more powerful than those outside.  But thou, poor innocent dupe, are
+left defenceless.  Surely the falsehood of their teaching must be
+evident to a youth of thy intelligence?"
+
+"Nay, O my father, though my soul abhors them, I still discern much
+good in their beliefs."  Iskender, freed from fear, could argue
+lightly.  That morning, when he gave his word to Mitri, he had felt
+alone and helpless.  Now, in repossession of his Emir, with boundless
+wealth in prospect, the question of his change of faith seemed
+unimportant.  That the Orthodox creed was the way of salvation, he had
+no doubt; his mother had always said so; but there seemed plenty of
+time in which to save his soul.  He added: "How can their faith be
+false, seeing it is founded on the Holy Scriptures?"
+
+"They quote the Scriptures, it is true," retorted Mitri, "but without
+rule or guidance, each in the pride of his own understanding--the
+devils do the same!--so that no two Brutestants believe alike.  They
+reject all those sacred traditions which lead back to Christ.  Their
+only union is in hatred of the Church.  They exist for themselves
+alone, to the hurt of others, just like stinging insects.  And Allah
+alone knows why they were ever created, unless it be as a kind of
+hornet to molest the faithful.  Consider, O my dear, how transient this
+life is; its prosperity departs with the breath.  Think on the anguish
+of those who, attracted by the wealth and luxury of these missionaries,
+forsake the truth of God, when they stand before His Throne of Judgment
+at the Last Day!"
+
+Iskender listened, but was unimpressed.  His mind had wandered back to
+the events of the day; and at that moment Wady 'l Muluk was more
+apparent to his mind than the Last Judgment.  He murmured:
+
+"I will ponder what thou sayest."
+
+"Again bethink thee, thou who hast the gift of making likenesses and
+colouring them so that they resemble living things, what fame awaits
+thee as a maker of sacred pictures for our churches and our dwellings!"
+
+"True, I must think of that," replied Iskender.  He meant, in case he
+failed by any chance to find the valley full of gold, whose wealth
+would raise him to the social rank of his Emir.
+
+"Well, go in peace, my son; may Allah guide thee!"
+
+With the blessing Mitti [Transcriber's note: Mitri?] kissed Iskender on
+the brow, and pressed his hand.  They were then quite near the little
+house upon the sandhill; could see light streaming from its open door
+and, silhouetted on the light, Iskender's mother looking out for him.
+
+"Mercy on us!" she exclaimed, when her son came bounding through a gap
+of the cactus hedge.  "Praise be to Allah thou art still alive and
+well!  I have kept a bowl of lentils hot for thee, which is more than
+thy deserts, O shameless one!  O my despair, ever to have borne such a
+son!  When--when wilt thou learn discretion?  Why didst thou express a
+hope that thy Emir would foul the beard of the Father of Ice, and that
+in the hearing of the son of Costantin?  Here have the ladies been
+again to-day, railing against thee as the worst of malefactors.  By
+Allah, I can keep thee here no longer.  Yet whither canst thou go,
+unhappy boy, for now I learn that thou hast angered thy Emir?  Thy
+uncle, the respectable Abdullah, has been here in great trouble for
+thee.  He has this day returned from Beyrut, that great, splendid city,
+and I thought that he had come to tell me of its progress and high
+fashion.  But no, it was for thee he came.  In the town, on landing he
+had heard the tidings of thy downfall.  Why hast thou hid the truth
+from me these many days?  I could have fallen lifeless when I heard him
+say that thou art nothing, that Elias is the friend of thy Emir.
+Whence came that money thou didst show me?  Was it stolen?  Tell me, O
+unfortunate!  I am thy loving mother, and shall not condemn thee."
+
+Iskender laughed at her concern.
+
+"It is true," he said, "that my Emir did for a time prefer Elias.  But
+now, praise to Allah, all is well again!"  And he proceeded to relate
+what had happened that morning in the orange-garden.
+
+"May Allah reward our father Mitri!" his mother exclaimed.  "But I
+would not have thee go too far in friendship with him, on account of
+the missionaries, who may yet forgive thee.  To-day when I condemned
+thy conduct fiercely, their hearts, I could see, were touched with pity
+for thee.  Now if I drive thee forth, and vow never more to look on
+thee, there is a chance they will forgive thee quite.  It is certain
+that they do not love Asad as they loved thee.  By Allah, I should like
+to see my son a mighty clergyman.  Then I would wear fine Frankish hats
+in their despite; and thou couldst wed the Sitt Hilda, though she is
+old for thee.  To-morrow, therefore, seek some new abode. . . .  Allah
+cut short thy life!  Thy wits are wandering.  Is the matter of my
+speech so light, O misbegotten?"
+
+Iskender, who was half-way through the mess of lentils, protested with
+his mouth full that he had heard and would obey.  But his tone was so
+indifferent as to increase his parent's wrath.  To one deep in thought
+of the valley of gold, her words seemed trash.  She stormed unceasingly
+till they had both lain down to rest and the night-light was burning
+fitfully on the ground between them.  Then at last came peace; she
+snored aloud; while Iskender thought of the valley full of gold, whose
+true existence had been miraculously revealed to him, and then of the
+career as a church painter offered to him by the priest Mitri.
+Anything was better than to be the fatted slave of the missionaries,
+who, he felt sure, hated him.  His desire was to be loved.
+
+In the morning early he returned to the house of Mitri.  As he reached
+it a noise of chanting in the little church informed him that the
+priest was at his duties; so he squatted down in the shade of the
+ever-green oak, and waited till the service should be ended.  Presently
+a group of brown-legged boys came tumbling out, smiting one another and
+shouting the minute they had passed the threshold.  A few girls
+followed, all discreetly veiled, in one of whom he recognised Nesibeh;
+and then some older people, turbaned men and white-veiled women, among
+them one blind sheykh with hands outstretched; and finally, after an
+interval, the priest himself.  Iskender sprang to him, and kissed his
+hand.
+
+"I seek a boon of thee, O lord of kindness!"
+
+"In the name of Allah!"  Mitri seized the suppliant's hands and pressed
+them to his heart.  "Say on; I listen."
+
+Iskender told him how the hatred of the missionaries had reached such a
+pitch that his mother was obliged to cast him out.  He had come to the
+priest, his best friend, for advice in this dilemma, thinking that he
+might recommend him to a lodging.
+
+"Now may Allah house thee!" said Mitri with a thoughtful frown.  "Allah
+knows thy mother does great wrong thus to cast thee abroad, a young
+unmarried man; unless she wishes to debauch thee utterly.  For who but
+the worst of characters would take thee in, to share the intimacy of
+their wives and daughters, except it might be as a traveller, and for a
+single night?  Wallah, I am at a loss how to advise thee.  There is not
+at present among us an old childless couple, nor yet a bachelor, whose
+dwelling thou couldst share.  By the Holy Gospel, I see no resort for
+thee except a khan. . . .  I have it!"--his perplexity was lightened
+suddenly, and he raised his eyes, till then downcast.  "Thou shalt
+lodge at the hotel of Musa el Barudi, where thy patron dwells.  Musa is
+of my congregation, and he loves me well; while, as for Selim and Daud,
+his two sons, I taught them their duties and chastised their youthful
+conduct.  Wait here, and I will write a word to them, how thou art
+tired of the vain beliefs of the Brutestants, and wouldst tread the
+path of Salvation."
+
+"Write all that pleases thee, our father!"
+
+Iskender waited to receive the missive; and then, with blessings on the
+priest and all belonging to him, sped with it to the hotel.  To be near
+his sweet Emir both night and day fulfilled his dearest wish.
+
+The sons of Musa had not yet risen when he entered the hall; and the
+black doorkeeper, accustomed to see him come in every day without leave
+or question, betrayed astonishment when asked to bear a letter to them.
+
+"To which of the twain?" he asked, with a dubious grin.
+
+"By Allah, that I care not; for see, by the superscription, the message
+is to both alike."
+
+"I will show it to the Khawajah Selim," the negro muttered, and went
+off, holding the paper wrapped in his white robe.
+
+He returned almost immediately, on his heels Selim the son of Musa, who
+cried gladly:
+
+"Thou art welcome and thrice welcome, O my dear!  The praise to Allah,
+and good luck to thee!  Our father Mitri must be mad with joy; for thou
+art the first that ever came from them to him, while they have stolen
+many from his flock, though not of late.  The Holy Orthodox Church
+invites no proselyte, so the more credit to the man who comes to her.
+She resembles some old-fashioned, quiet merchant, too dignified to
+compete with Frankish cheapjacks.  Our house is thy house; dwell here
+as long as is convenient to thee, and may Allah preserve thee always."
+
+Iskender murmured his thanks, standing reverently, with hands folded
+away and eyes downcast.  Then, when Selim had gone back to his
+dressing, he crossed his legs upon the pavement of the hall and mused
+on his good fortune, praising Allah.
+
+Elias came into the hall and greeted him.
+
+"I have news for thee," he whispered; and Iskender, remembering the
+Valley of the Kings, gave eager ear; but just then Selim, the son of
+Musa, called from an inner room:
+
+"Iskender is a convert, O Elias.  He returns to the bosom of the
+Church.  The praise to Allah!"
+
+"Is it true?" cried Elias, starting back and staring at the youth.
+Perceiving no denial, he embraced him fondly, crying: "Our Lord bless
+thee!  Allah knows I always loved the soul of thee, though the
+Brutestant stank in my nose; now from this day forth I am thy brother.
+By the Most High, thou shalt lodge nowhere but in my house."
+
+"May Allah reward thy hospitality, O Elias," cried again the son of
+Musa.  "The honour thou wouldst have is mine already."
+
+"A pity!" sighed Elias, seeming really disappointed.
+
+But the next minute, hearing steps upon the stairs, he brightened up,
+and said in Iskender's ear:
+
+"The Emir descends!  Ah, I assure thee by the Holy Gospel, I have news
+for both of you."
+
+The Frank stayed only long enough for salutations, then passed again
+from sight, going to breakfast.  But though they were long alone,
+without a listener, Elias refused to impart the matter of his news,
+bidding Iskender wait till the Emir gave audience.
+
+"Ah, I assure thee, news of price!" he repeated, hugging himself, with
+big round eyes of mystery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+The news, when Elias did at last reveal it, was simply another of his
+wondrous stories.  The Frank, however, listened to it with some
+interest as the three walked out together.
+
+In the watches of the night Elias had remembered how years ago a
+muleteer, by name Mansur, had brought a piece of gold to show him
+secretly.  This man had been upon a journey to the Wady Musa with some
+English gentlemen of the kind who seek adventure in wild places.  Out
+in the desert, far away from any house, he had the misfortune to be
+separated from his company, and wandered alone for three days in vain
+attempts to rejoin them.  At dusk one evening he found himself in a
+wild ravine, its cliff-walls honeycombed with caves, in one of which he
+chose to pass the night.  No sooner had he lain down than he imagined
+that he heard unearthly music; but by dint of repeating the name of
+Allah the trouble left him, and he went to sleep.
+
+In the middle of the night he woke with a start, to find the cavern
+lighted up, and full of people talking angrily.  By their pointed ears,
+domed heads, and slanting eyes he knew them for the dwellers
+underground.  Fear paralysed and kept him silent; which was lucky, for
+he learnt presently that their wrath concerned him.  They were there,
+it seemed, to guard a treasure-ground against intruders; and were
+debating in what manner they should kill him, when Mansur, who was a
+Christian, lifted up his voice and cried:
+
+"In the name of Allah, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!"  They vanished
+instantly with horrid yells.
+
+In the morning, when Mansur arose and went to the cave-mouth, he saw
+that the bottom of the ravine was strewn with lumps of gold.  In
+delight he ran and gathered of the stuff as much as his bags would
+hold, and then set forth.  But he had forgotten to give thanks to Allah
+for the burden; and in consequence of the omission it was not made
+light to him.  For relief he was forced to thrust a hand into his
+placket, to pull out lump after lump and drop it on the road, till
+there remained but one piece, small as compared with the rest, but
+still enough to make his fortune in the world of common men.
+
+Allah blessed his journey, and he reached his home at last.  There,
+after a consultation with his wife, he resolved to submit the nugget to
+some man renowned for probity and wisdom.  He brought it, therefore, to
+Elias, who believed it to be gold, but, loth to trust his judgment,
+advised Mansur to show it to a certain jeweller of high repute, as well
+for virtue as for craftsmanship; and Mansur did so.  The jeweller asked
+Mansur to leave it with him for a day or two, that he might apply
+certain tests, and when asked for a receipt, appeared so hurt, called
+so loudly upon Allah and the neighbourhood to attest his honesty, and
+in all respects bore himself so nobly, that Mansur retired convinced
+that he had left his treasure in clean hands.
+
+But when he returned after two days, that jeweller informed him that it
+was not gold.  Mansur then asked for it to be returned, saying that if
+it were only brass it would be worth preserving.  The merchant replied
+that he had thrown it away, and told the muleteer to go and hunt for it
+upon the rubbish-heaps outside the city gate.  Mansur then called him
+thief.  The jeweller cried "Ya Muslimin!" and roused the neighbours,
+who fell upon Mansur, and beat him soundly, leaving him for dead.  But
+before he lost consciousness he heard the jeweller exhorting the
+multitude not to spare him, for that he had stolen a lump of fine gold
+from the Sultan's treasury.
+
+"What you think of that?" said Elias, when he had made an end.
+
+"A truly wonderful story," rejoined the Emir.
+
+Their walk had ended on the sea-beach, where they now, all three, lay
+stretched upon the sand.  The Emir, with his straw hat tipped over his
+eyes, threw a stone from time to time into the azure ripples, as dark
+in contrast with their foam as ink on paper.  There was a moment's
+silence.  Iskender whispered in his lord's ear:
+
+"It is all a lie.  He made it up last night."
+
+"There may be some truth in it; you never know!" replied the Emir in
+the same tone.  He added aloud for Elias, who was staring fixedly out
+on the sea, still entranced by the vision he had just related:
+
+"If the place is guarded by nothing more terrible than your genis, I
+should like to go there."
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Elias.  "That's all tommy-rot about the jinnis."
+Nevertheless he glanced around in haste, and muttered an exorcist
+formula beneath his breath.  "The Bedouins they're more real to be
+afraid of.  But neffer say die; you square them easy with a few
+dollars.  Iskender, he know the way there, so all serene!"
+
+"I told Elias all about it, sir, last night," said Iskender sheepishly,
+in reply to a glance of surprise.
+
+"Yes, sir, he tell me, and I'm goin' to helb you all I can.  Trust
+Elias, sir, he knows his way about!"
+
+"Well," said the Emir after a little meditation, "I feel inclined for
+the adventure, provided always that it doesn't cost too much."
+
+"We soon see what that's a-going to cost."
+
+In a trice Elias whipped out from his breast a greasy pocket-book,
+stuffed with testimonials from travellers, which, by the violence of
+their owner's haste to begin calculations, were scattered on the sand.
+As there was no wind, Elias let them lie there for the present, and
+holding the pocket-book close to his nose, fell to dotting down Arabic
+numerals on the tablet allotted to memoranda.
+
+Iskender glared at him.  The wretch who yesterday had been crushed and
+all-submissive, to-day aspired to take command of an expedition the
+very idea of which was all Iskender's.
+
+"This was gif me by one American gentleman," Elias remarked of the
+pocket-book.  "Well, come along then!  You take camels or mules?
+Camels hold the most, but mules much nicer.  We say fifty mules.  Then
+you want a cook, and a waiter, and 'bout ten muleteers, and five--six
+big tents.  I think you do it easy, grub an' all, sir, for 'bout five
+hundred bound."
+
+"Good Lord!" ejaculated the Emir.
+
+"Well, I do it for less, much less, but you be uncomfortable."
+
+Iskender, then awaking from his trance of horror, grasped the
+dragoman's arm and shook it angrily.
+
+"What do we want with fifty mules, O ass?" he asked in Arabic.  "One
+mule would carry enough to make us all as rich as Musa el Barudi."
+
+"By Allah, thou art an ass thyself!  Is it not well to bring away the
+most we can," returned the visionary, sore dismayed; when, seeing how
+their talk apart made the Frank suspicious, he relapsed into English
+with a genial smile:
+
+"Yes, fifty too dam' many; we take ten.  A friend of mine got three
+nice tents--a bit old, but neffer mind!  He let you haf 'em cheab,
+because he luf me.  Then three horses for you and me and 'Skender.  How
+far you say it is?"  He turned to Iskender.  "You know the way."
+
+"About nine days from here, accordin' to the baber which my father
+wrote.  My mother kebt it to this day."
+
+"Well, sir, I think you get there under one hundred bound, and once you
+got the gold you not care a dam' what it coss comin' back."
+
+"No," said the Frank firmly.  "I want to know the expenses there and
+back, and I can't afford more than fifty pounds for the whole
+expedition."
+
+At this unlooked-for ultimatum Elias opened his eyes very wide and
+sucked his pencil, staring ruefully at his scattered testimonials.  He
+declared it to be "no go."
+
+But Iskender, seeing the opportunity for self-assertion, stood by the
+Frank, undertaking recklessly to arrange the whole expedition, on a
+smaller scale, for the sum stipulated.
+
+Elias shrugged to the ears.
+
+"Be careful to keep this secret," he said sullenly in Arabic.  "By
+Allah, if the others, who dislike thee already, get to know of it, they
+will go mad with rage and probably take thy life.  Abdullah, thy uncle,
+himself would wish to slay thee.  For a missionary or a resident in the
+country, and out of season, it might pass.  But this is a lord of
+wealth, a prince, the best sort of traveller!"
+
+"Canst thou not perceive, O my dear, that the desire of his Honour is
+for rough adventure, and not luxury?  And verily, to travel in the
+style of thy proposal would simply be to invite every bravo of the
+wilds to come and rob us."
+
+This Iskender uttered in a tone of high impatience, and he was pleased
+to observe, out of the corners of his eyes, that his patron approved of
+that tone being used towards one who had designed to overcharge him.
+
+"Well, Allah reward thee; for thou canst make no profit on it, that is
+certain," said Elias with another shrug, and after that kept silence
+for some minutes, resigning all part in the discussion.  But soon, as
+that discussion grew more animated, and the vision of the sea of gold
+came dazzlingly before his eyes, he forgot his dudgeon and chimed in
+once more, thus tacitly accepting the leadership of Iskender, who was
+satisfied.
+
+"When shall we start?" asked the Emir at last.
+
+"Wheneffer you blease, dear sir," replied Iskender.
+
+But Elias thought profoundly, visibly, with finger laid to brow.
+
+"I think you better wait a bit, Iskender," he said presently.  "I tell
+you why.  Just now there's no trafellers comin' to the country, so the
+dragomans just stand around and jolly well watch all what you do.  We
+go now, it make a talk.  Wait a month or two, in the name o' Moses,
+then there's lots o' trafellers; they think about makin' money, and go
+hang!  I shan't want no trafellers this year.  No jolly fear, by
+George!  I stick to you.  Like that they think you got a brober
+dragoman and all serene!"
+
+This was sound advice, and, as it was proffered with the right
+humility, Iskender commended it to his beloved.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+On the day following that council on the sea-beach, something happened
+which pushed the Valley of the Kings into the background for a time.
+This was the arrival from the land of the English of a fine new
+paint-box, which the Emir presented to his henchman with most gracious
+words.  With this beside him and his sketch-book on his knees Iskender
+heard the talk around him with but half an ear, and, when referred to
+answered without thinking, thus assenting to propositions and accepting
+responsibilities the onus of which dismayed him when he came to realise
+it.  For instance Elias earnestly desired to know if Iskender could
+have included the services of a first-rate cook in his estimate for the
+expedition.  The best of cooks, he vowed, was necessary for the honour
+and contentment of their dearest lord.  How was it to be done?
+
+Iskender with eyes intent upon a spot of colour newly laid, with brush
+in air, replied:
+
+"Have no fear, O beloved.  I shall find a man; and, if not, I myself
+will do the cooking."
+
+"But canst thou?"
+
+"By Allah, I am a known professor of the art."  And again when Elias
+spoke of other services certain to be required upon the journey,
+Iskender undertook, in default of trained servants, himself to make the
+bed and wait upon the Frank at table.
+
+The Emir was greatly pleased by this alacrity of the absorbed artist;
+seeing which, Elias cried:
+
+"No, no, by God, you can't do all the work, I help you, 'Skender.  Let
+me wait at table."
+
+Iskender saw Elias waiting on their lord alone, breathing his pleasure
+in the great man's ear!  Yet he assented gratefully.  Elias was not to
+go with them at all, he had firmly resolved; but there was no need to
+tell him so just now, in this time of preparation when his experience
+was sure to be useful.  In Iskender's mind the Valley of the Kings was
+little more than a romantic pretext for a ride alone with his Emir.
+But Elias thought of nothing but the gold.  His eyes seemed to have
+grown larger in these days, and were fixed wide open to contain the
+vision.  He treated Iskender with a kind of worship as the repository
+of that precious secret, showed great care for his health, and was in
+all things his loyal helper.  But the young man did not trust him.  He
+kept the details of the expedition to himself as organiser; and, though
+Elias pestered him with questions concerning the whereabouts of that
+desirable valley, he would reveal nothing.  By dint of thus withholding
+information, he himself acquired the firm conviction that there was
+really information to withhold.
+
+It was not till more than a week after the coming of the famous
+paint-box that Iskender found time to go again to the house of Mitri.
+Repairing thither in the glow of a fine evening, following a rainy day,
+he was surprised, as he drew near the place, to see his mother talking
+with Mitri in the doorway.  She was wrapped from head to foot in a
+great shawl, and seemed in some trepidation, casting frequent glances
+up and down the road.  In so doing she caught sight of Iskender, and
+raised hands to heaven.  She ran to meet him.
+
+"What is this?" she cried.  "Day after day have I been here to seek
+thee, because the whole world says that thou hast joined the Orthodox,
+and my heart yearned towards thee; but I dared not go openly to the
+hotel where thou art known to lodge, having sworn to the missionaries
+that I would never see thee more.  Here, too, I am in terror of my
+life, for if it were known that I held intercourse with Mitri, they
+would cast me off.  Well, thou hast no more hope from them, thanks to
+thy rashness.  Why couldst thou not shun the priest here, as I told
+thee to?  Now, with all the Orthodox boasting of thy conversion, thou
+art more than ever accursed in their sight.  Even at me they look
+askance, I fancy, as if I had a finger in the mess.  Come indoors where
+we can talk privately.  The worthy priest will let me enter with thee.
+What made thee go and change thy faith just now?"
+
+"I have not yet changed it, O my mother.  I do but hear the reasoning
+of our father Mitri."
+
+"Well, that is something.  I will tell them that."  She held her tongue
+suddenly, finding herself within the hearing of Mitri, who, however,
+took no notice of her, but welcomed Iskender fatherly and bade him
+enter.  She entered with them unrebuked, and sat by while they argued,
+feasting her eyes upon her son's good looks.  The girl Nesibeh came
+occasionally to the door of the inner room, and exchanged mischievous
+glances with Iskender, who was on the watch for her.  His mother's eyes
+were quick to notice this, and, leaning to his ear, she whispered:
+
+"Cunning devil!  Thy plan is not amiss, for she is comely, and her
+father stands well with the highest in the land.  Thou wilt mix with
+the Barudis and the rich Aziz."
+
+Iskender shook her hand from off his arm, and brushed her words away as
+stinging insects, in terror lest the priest should overhear.  The
+priest rebuked her for the interruption.  But she continued unabashed,
+and sat on smiling to herself, and nodding at Iskender when she caught
+his eye.
+
+After that Iskender went to the priest's house every evening, and his
+mother often stole so far to meet him, hurrying, chin on shoulder, in
+evident terror of pursuit by the missionaries.  She endured all Mitri's
+reprobations with a shrug, content so long as he allowed her to embrace
+her boy.
+
+"Poor people must eat bread.  Our Blessed Lord knows that and will make
+allowance for me," was her reply to the accusation of hypocrisy.  But
+she now seconded Mitri's designs upon Iskender, gratified by the notion
+of an alliance with the priest's family.  "It is different with him,"
+she admitted, "since they have cast him out.  Let Iskender follow the
+guidance of the Spirit.  Doubtless the congregation will take care of
+his future, for he has forfeited a great career for conscience' sake."
+
+Iskender, however, still held back, from no conscientious reluctance,
+but merely to prolong a hesitation which he found delicious as giving
+him value in the eyes of the girl Nesibeh.  Her delight when any of his
+objections went down before her father's reasoning and the triumphant
+private glance she shot at him made a joy not lightly to be forgone.
+When all his veritable doubts had been demolished, he invented others
+to prolong this happiness.  He cherished definite hopes, dream-like as
+was the nature of his mental process, of obtaining her for his own,
+when he returned full of treasure from Wady 'l Muluk.  The big priest,
+it was clear, had conceived a liking for him, and had come to count on
+his visits of an evening, loving an argument; her mother always blessed
+him when he came and went, and baked choice sweetmeats for his
+delectation.
+
+It was not long before Iskender received evidence that the question of
+his change of faith possessed a lively interest for others besides the
+priest Mitri and his lovely daughter.  One day, returning from a walk
+with the Emir, he heard that the missionary had been inquiring for him
+in his absence; and the following evening, on the road to Mitri's
+house, he was overtaken by the Father of Ice in person, who got down
+off his horse and addressed him very kindly.
+
+Why did Iskender never come to church nowadays? why had he not been to
+visit the ladies? why had he refused their offer of employment in the
+house, which would probably have led to better things, perhaps to his
+appointment as assistant master in one of the Mission schools?  Even
+now it was not too late to reconsider; they, on their side, were quite
+willing to forget bygones.  It had grieved them much to hear that
+Iskender was drifting into bad company, and entering on a vicious
+course of life; still more to learn that he showed an inclination to
+forget the enlightened religious teaching which he had received in
+childhood.
+
+His words moved Iskender more than he desired to show, arousing in his
+mind a thousand happy memories, reproachful now.  He replied in Arabic
+with the sullenness that masks emotion:
+
+"I am a son of the Arabs, and I return to my own kind.  Allah knows I
+am nothing to be considered."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked the missionary in a colder tone.
+
+"Your Honour and the ladies could not make of me an Englishman.  It is
+for that you cast me off."
+
+"We tried to make of you a Christian man."  The missionary's face grew
+stern, and his ice-green eyes gave forth a sword-flash.  "Well, go your
+way; God grant it lead not to perdition!"  He nodded his head in the
+direction of the two palm-trees which marked in the dusk the
+whereabouts of Mitri's house.
+
+Iskender, glancing in the same direction, discerned the tall black
+figure of the father of Nesibeh in the road, looking out for him.  The
+idea of evil in connection with the jolly priest suddenly struck him as
+perverse and ludicrous.  He laughed in the face of the missionary.
+
+"My friends are no worse than your friends.  And which of us will be
+lost, which saved, will not be known until the last judgment.  May Our
+Lord forgive your Honour for such bad thoughts."
+
+In a white rage, the Father of Ice remounted his horse and rode away,
+disregarding the ironical salute of Mitri, who stood out before his
+door, awaiting the arrival of his catechumen.
+
+"What didst thou say to the hog to make him snort like that?" was the
+priest's first question of Iskender; and, when the youth informed him,
+"By Allah, it was a true word," he chuckled heartily.  "They think all
+men should be on one pattern--the pattern of their wondrous selves,
+whom they esteem perfection.  They suppose that what is good for their
+race must be good for all the others, thus ignoring the providence of
+Allah, Who made the peoples of the earth to differ in appearance,
+speech, and manners.  They know nothing of our beliefs and ways of
+thought, so call them wicked, since they are not theirs.  They condemn
+men freely, sitting in the seat of judgment, unaware that they
+themselves will be judged at the last day.  By Allah, there is only one
+of all that breed whom one can talk to as a human being--I mean the
+little preacher Ward, who runs their errands.  He has not been here for
+three months or more.  From much travelling among the villages, he
+knows the customs of our people and respects them.  Moreover, he is
+modest, while the rest are arrogant. . . .  But, merciful Allah, what
+is this I see?  What ails thee, madwoman?"
+
+The mother of Iskender, stealing forth from the priest's house, had
+cast herself upon her son, with fearful moans:
+
+"O Holy Virgin!  O my terror!  Please God, he did not see me where I
+stood in the doorway!  Some one has informed him where I go--it must be
+Costantin, the spy and liar--and now he rides at dusk to try and catch
+me.  I shall not come here again; it is too dangerous.  Come thou to
+the house sometimes quite late at night.  Farewell, O beloved, and may
+Allah keep thee!"
+
+"Allah is greatest!" ejaculated Mitri, with a shrug and a gruff laugh,
+as he watched her flight along the twilight road.  "Now let us enter
+and dispute together."
+
+But the shock of his encounter with the missionary had left Iskender
+with no wits for argument.  He took leave earlier than usual; and, as
+he walked back to the hotel in the dark, he realised that the last
+vestige of his Protestantism had that evening been demolished.  His
+baptism would follow as a matter of course, in the mind of Mitri; and
+he was by no means prepared to receive it, since the priest, for the
+triumph of his congregation, was certain to demand a public ceremony,
+and Iskender feared the scorn of his Emir, whom he imagined to be
+something of a sceptic.
+
+Moreover, it would entail a full confession of his inmost thoughts,
+which, with Wady 'l Muluk in mind, he could not face; and at least it
+ought to be postponed till after the great Fast, which the Orthodox
+observe with cruel rigour.
+
+To stave off the ordeal he saw himself forced to invent a new set of
+doubts and objections.  On his next visit to the house of Mitri, he
+owned himself convinced of the vanity of the Protestant faith, but
+hinted at an inclination towards the Catholic.  The big priest stared
+at him with mouth agape.
+
+"Curse thy father!" he exclaimed.  "Wouldst thou turn from bad to
+worse, and rush straight to Jehennum.  Thou hast studied history, so
+knowest that the Latins are our ancient enemies.  They slew us with the
+Muslims when their armies took by storm the Holy Places, and enslaved
+the remnant of us in a cruel slavery.  They have statues, rank idols,
+in their churches; and is it not the worst idolatry to concentrate the
+power which belongs of right to the whole Body of Christ, and adore it
+in the person of one living man?  Their lips have corrupted the creed:
+they have no baptism, so can have no orders.  Their Pope of Rome
+himself is nothing but an unbaptized layman.  Speak of that again, and
+I will drive thee from my house with beatings!"
+
+Iskender, greatly alarmed, made haste to explain that he had spoken in
+jest.  He had caught an angry look from the girl Nesibeh.
+
+"Jest not upon what concerns thy soul's salvation," said the priest,
+letting his wrath evaporate.  "Thou knowest not what harm those Latins
+do us, tempting souls astray.  They allow proselytes to retain our
+beliefs, our language, and our form of service, so only that they
+acknowledge the supremacy of the hound of Rome, which means perdition,
+truly, in the next world, but foreign protection in this.  It is little
+wonder that they have seduced many. . . .  What hinders thee from
+receiving at my hands the inestimable boon of baptism?"
+
+Iskender murmured that he still had doubts.  The angry glances of the
+girl Nesibeh made him shame-faced.
+
+"Show me thy doubts that I may straight resolve them."
+
+Iskender was muttering that he must think them out, that they were not
+yet quite clear in his mind, when Nesibeh cried from the inner room:
+
+"Hear him not, O my father!  The low dog is mocking thee.  Force him to
+be baptized, or drive him forth!"
+
+"Silence, shameless one!" the priest cried sternly; nevertheless he
+took her suggestion and, turning to Iskender, whose brow was throbbing
+painfully, inquired: "Hast thou one good reason to desire delay?"
+
+"Yes, O our father!"  Iskender blurted out the truth at last.  "I know
+not how my patron would regard it.  On him I depend entirely for the
+present.  I have heard him scoff at all who change the faith that they
+were born in.  Wait a little, I beseech thee, until he is gone!"
+
+"Is that in truth all?" replied Mitri, fully satisfied.  "The right is
+with thee.  We must wait awhile.  But Allah grant thou die not in the
+interval."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+The season recommended by Elias as most favourable for their adventure
+now drew near.  Each steamer that touched at the port disgorged a
+little crowd of travellers.  The Emir being no longer alone in the
+hotel, his radiance suffered eclipse.  Other Franks of distinction came
+and went continually; dragomans, splendidly attired, hung about the
+entrance, tugging at their moustachios, tapping their riding-boots with
+silver-mounted whips, and spitting superbly, as became men whose
+special province it was to order the lords of gold about like dogs.
+Merchants and pedlars, as many as could get permission from the sons of
+Musa, spread out their wares on the floor of the hall, and smiled
+allurement on the visitors.  The servants of Cook and other Powers of
+Europe and America strutted about and gave command like princes.
+
+Iskender, for his footing in the house, helped the servants wherever an
+extra hand was required, and in that way learnt to wait at table, to
+polish boots and brush clothes, and acquired some inkling of the art of
+cooking.  The positive need of these attainments for the coming journey
+made him quick to learn.  The Emir himself admired his general
+usefulness, and the sons of Musa paid him money for his services.  As a
+result of all this bustle there were fewer visits to the house of
+Mitri, while the book and paint-box were perforce laid by.
+
+The excitement of Elias grew with every day.  He never tired of asking
+whether all was ready, of reminding Iskender of the need of this or
+that small comfort, and urging him to fix a date for their departure.
+Indeed his eagerness became a visible disorder, and, seeing him mingle
+freely with the other dragomans, Iskender went in hourly fear of
+indiscretions.  One noon when, after a spell of work in the hot
+kitchen, he had rushed to the outer door to breath the air, he fell
+upon a group of persons splendidly arrayed, who welcomed his appearance
+with unfriendly glee.  Yuhanna Mahbub, the bully, seized his arm, and
+threatened him with his whip not altogether playfully.
+
+"Confess the truth!" he commanded, with his cruel grin.  "Thy journey
+with the Emir is not for pastime.  Thou hast a secret; it is useless to
+deny it, for we know the fact from thy partner Elias.  I, with others
+of thy friends, resent this great preferment of Elias.  Reveal thy
+secret now immediately, and if it is of worth, I too will go with thee."
+
+"What words are these?" Iskender cried out in extreme amazement.  "A
+secret!  I possess a secret!  It is some lying fable of that mad Elias!"
+
+"That, Allah knows, is possible," put in a bystander.  "Elias is the
+very prince of fable-mongers."
+
+Yuhanna still kept grinning in Iskender's face.
+
+"Wilt thou swear by the Blessed Sacrament that thou knowest nothing of
+the whereabouts of any treasure?"
+
+"Art mad?  How should I know of any treasure?"
+
+"Swear by the Blessed Sacrament!  Nought else will serve; and if
+hereafter it should prove that thou art perjured, I will beat thy
+filthy soul from out thy body."
+
+"By the Blessed Sacrament I swear!" replied Iskender.
+
+"That is well!" Yuhanna curled his long moustachios.  "Then why does
+Elias refuse every other engagement?  It is not likely thy Emir will
+pay him much."
+
+"By the same pledge I know not!  Ask the man himself!"
+
+"Thou seest, 'Hanna, as I told thee, it is all a lie," laughed a
+bystander, the same who had before spoken.
+
+Iskender escaped from them, bearing the conscience of a perjured
+wretch.  He called Allah Most High to witness how the sin was forced on
+him.  It was some comfort to reflect that he was still technically a
+Protestant, so might be taken to have sworn by the sacrament of that
+sect which he knew to be without Divine significance.  But all the same
+his crime was very heinous.
+
+Early in the morning following this grave event, Iskender was engaged
+in sweeping out the entrance-hall, when his uncle strode in out of the
+sunlight, of which he seemed an offshoot in his splendour of apparel.
+More respectable than ever through pride in the command of a company of
+high-born English bent on sight-seeing, he addressed his nephew from
+the height of condescension:
+
+"O son of my brother, I start this day upon a journey of ten days with
+my party, and would say a word to thee before I go.  Elias tells me
+that both thou and he propose to ride forth with the young khawajah,
+and show him something of the land.  That is well.  Elias, though
+sometimes foolish, has experience; and I have told him to instruct thee
+fully in our business.  Go not too far, for travel in wild places is
+too arduous for one so young; and Elias has little acquaintance with
+the desert ways, and that little disastrous, he and all his party
+having been captured and held to ransom by the Bedu, because he forgot
+to pay the tribes their proper dues.  Be cautious and observant.  In
+sh' Allah we shall all return in safety."
+
+"In sh' Allah!" echoed Iskender in great astonishment; for it had that
+minute occurred to him that he had no real knowledge of the whereabouts
+of the place to which he had undertaken to conduct his patron, beyond
+what Elias had implied, that it was somewhere in the neighbourhood of
+Wady Musa.  His first sentiment on the discovery was one of
+thankfulness, because he had not sworn falsely in his oath to Yuhanna.
+
+His next was one of self-abasement before Allah.  Was not His mercy
+boundless, like His power?  During the few days which remained before
+the start, he spent much time in prayer, and offered votive candles to
+be burnt in Mitri's little church beneath the ilex-tree.  Why should he
+not find his way to the Valley of Gold, by the blessing of the All
+Powerful?  Did not his vision of the place, and the strange
+concatenation of chances which had led him on to the adventure, seem to
+indicate that he was destined to find it?  Even if he failed, the Emir,
+he told himself, would have had a pleasant outing, and could not in the
+nature of things be very angry.  Thus he lulled his fears.
+
+The one thing left to trouble him was the adherence of Elias, and he
+tried by every means to throw him off.
+
+"We cannot afford a horse for thee," he told the dragoman.  "Allah
+knows I have enough to do to make the money suffice for the bare
+necessaries."
+
+"What did I tell thee?" said Elias cheerfully.  "When thou hast hired a
+cook and baggage animals, I know, by Allah, there is nothing left.  No
+matter, I will hire a horse on my own account."
+
+Iskender next informed his friend in confidence that there was no real
+intention of going to the Valley of the Kings.  It was all a joke
+between himself and the Emir.
+
+"Ha, wouldst thou leave me out?" exclaimed Elias, with a laugh.  "No,
+no, my soul.  I am not to be gulled so easily!"
+
+Iskender despaired of ever getting rid of him, when Elias himself
+unexpectedly afforded him the opportunity.  Two days before the start,
+the Emir asked for an account of the arrangements, and Iskender gave
+it, in the presence of Elias.  His Honour was to ride the horse which
+he had lately bought; Elias would provide his own.  Iskender himself
+would act as cook and waiter and his Honour's body-servant, and also
+assist in his functions the single muleteer, who provided three mules
+and one horse.  A good-sized tent, a little the worse for wear, a
+collapsible bed, a table, a chair, and cooking utensils completed an
+outfit of which the whole cost amounted to little more than half the
+sum which the Frank had assigned as a limit.
+
+The Emir was greatly pleased; not so Elias.  When Iskender had made an
+end, the dragoman flung up his hands.
+
+"That only!" he cried to heaven; "and for an Emir, a great one, like
+our friend here!"
+
+It was a crime unheard of, an abomination!  Their beloved would die of
+discomfort in a single night.  No, that should never be, so long as he
+(Elias) enjoyed life and health, with some slight credit among honest
+people.  He would himself provide two upright men, a cook and a waiter,
+at his own expense.  He knew them well.  They had retired from
+business, but they loved him dearly and would come forward willingly,
+he felt sure, to save so excellent a prince from vile indignity.
+
+This outpour of his indignation was addressed to Iskender in fierce
+Arabic.  When his proposal was translated, the Emir pooh-poohed it,
+declaring Iskender's arrangement to be all he could desire.  Elias
+then, in a frenzy, fell down at his feet, imploring him with tears to
+reconsider.
+
+"Beeble'll think we're some common fellows and be rude to us," he
+moaned.  "Neffer mind the exbense, sir; that not matter a blow.  These
+beeble friends o' mine, they come for nothin' 't all.  You gif them
+what you dam' blease!"
+
+His agony was terrible to witness.  Iskender had the feelings of a
+murderer as he looked on.  Their patron stroked his small moustache and
+smiled uneasily.
+
+"You not go like that, sir!" pursued Elias, starting up.  "It is a
+shame for you!  I go to the consul now direc'ly; make him a-stob you!
+Now I'm off!  My friends of which I sbeak lif long way off; but I be
+back with them in two days, the time you start.  Bromise to wait till
+then!  All right!  Ta-ta!"  With a final casting-up of hands to heaven,
+the enthusiast was gone.
+
+"We had better start at once, or he'll spoil everything," said the
+Englishman, when he recovered from his astonishment.  It was precisely
+what his henchman had been thinking.  By no word had they pledged
+themselves to abide his return.
+
+Iskender went at once to hasten the preparations.  But their muleteer
+proved sulky on the sudden change of plans; and it was only as the
+result of a dispute which lasted the whole afternoon that Iskender
+wrung from him an assurance that all would be ready when the sun next
+rose.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Iskender, having roused his dear Emir, went out to inspect the train.
+It was then some half-hour later than the time appointed; yet neither
+mules nor man were in sight, only the horse of the Emir, with its neat
+leather saddle and bridle, was being led up and down before the hotel
+by a bare-legged boy.  In a rage Iskender hastened to the khan whence
+at the recommendation of Elias he had hired his muleteer.  There his
+reproaches caused extreme amazement.  The man, he was told, had
+received his order as for the following day.  He was not on the
+premises, and his house was some way off.
+
+An idle witness of the youth's despair volunteered to go and fetch the
+defaulter; he set off at a run, but was gone for more than an hour.
+Iskender tired of waiting, and strode back angrily to the hotel.
+Tidings of his dilemma having gone abroad, he was escorted by a little
+crowd of the curious, among them some muleteers who were loud in their
+offers of service.  From a distance he beheld the missionary, with back
+towards him, conversing with his patron at the door, and quickened
+step; but before he could come up the dialogue, whatever it concerned,
+was ended, and his enemy had moved on.
+
+"Not about you this time," his beloved laughed; "though he declares
+that you are none of you to be trusted out of sight.  He has just been
+warning me against our friend Elias, who, he says, once played a trick
+upon some tourists--bribed the Bedouins to take them prisoner, and let
+him rescue them.  I assured him that Elias was not going with us; but
+he seemed to doubt my word, and I shall begin to doubt it myself unless
+those mules turn up.  What has become of them?"
+
+"The man bretends I told him for to-morrow.  That is a lie, because I
+sboke as blain as anythin'.  I think it some trick of that Elias to
+detain us here."
+
+By that time all the unemployed muleteers in the town had joined the
+growing crowd that watched their conference.  One man had gone so far
+as to bring a good-looking mule ready saddled with him, as a sample of
+what he could provide.  Iskender paid no heed to the prayers of all
+these suppliants, whispered confidentially by those in front, shouted
+with fierce gesticulations from those behind, any more than he gave ear
+to the counsel of the sons of Musa that he should employ one of them.
+He still had hopes of the person he had first engaged, who appeared at
+length, but without any mules, and in a state of indignation even
+greater than Iskender's.
+
+The clash of words when they met electrified the whole street; the
+mouths of the rival muleteers, now mere onlookers, grinned all
+together, showing milk-white teeth.  Accused of laziness, of breach of
+contract, the delinquent hurled back the accusations in Iskender's
+face.  He said he knew his business, and was not going to start without
+proper orders.  The Khawajah Elias, the responsible dragoman, was away,
+and might Allah end his life immediately if he set forth without him at
+the call of a beardless boy.
+
+So the truth was out.  Iskender reported to his patron that the man was
+a mere creature of Elias.
+
+"There's nothing for it," said the Emir with a shrug.  "We must engage
+another man."
+
+"But I baid this one already some money."
+
+"Never mind.  It will cost us more than that if we wait for Elias!"
+
+So that muleteer was dismissed and retired, conscientiously objecting
+in terms abusive and obscene; while the man who had had the wit to
+bring a mule already saddled was promptly engaged in his place.  This
+individual had attracted the Frank from the first by his cheerful
+looks, and the way he kept aloof from the group that pestered, only
+smiling now and then to the Englishman and patting his mule
+significantly.  He now showed great alacrity, kissing first the Emir's
+hand, then Iskender's, asking where the tent and other baggage might be
+found, and promising by the cloak of the Prophet, to have all in
+perfect readiness within an hour.  The other candidates then fell away,
+one or two volunteering to help the winner with his preparations, the
+majority sitting down on their heels in the shadows of neighbouring
+walls to watch the outcome of it all, the actual start.
+
+The new muleteer was punctual to his word.  But by the time the laden
+mules came up, luncheon was ready, and the sons of Musa insisted on the
+Frank's partaking of the meal.  An invitation, the first he had ever
+received, to join them at their private table, reconciled Iskender to
+this new delay.  He told the muleteer to go on in advance, indicating
+the road he was to take and naming a good place for that night's
+encampment; and saw the mules start off with jangling bells, leaving
+behind the horse he was to ride, which was tethered in the yard of the
+hotel.
+
+After the meal the Frank was lazy with repletion, and asked to rest
+awhile; so that the afternoon was far advanced before they got on
+horseback.  The Frank was then for a gallop; but Iskender warned him
+that that pace was not for travel, and kept him down to the walk.
+Passing the house of Mitri, he looked for the girl Nesibeh, hoping she
+would see him riding at his lord's right hand, but in vain.
+
+After an hour's journey, having left the orange-gardens far behind,
+they forsook the highway and followed a bridle-path through fields.
+Big scarlet tulips shone among the green cornstems.  Here and there
+upon the fertile plain stood forth a grove of olives, their foliage
+looking nearly white by contrast with its own dark shadow; a village of
+mud-houses set upon a knoll and plumed with palms, with attendant barns
+and ovens shaped like beehives; a man with oxen ploughing or a camel
+browsing in the custody of a small child.  The breeze grew fresher as
+the sun declined.  The colours of a dove's breast played upon the
+barren heights which walled the land to eastward.  The sun sank lower
+and lower; shadows grew upon the plain; the sea-coast sandhills became
+clearly outlined; soon rays went up like fire from off the sea, and the
+whole rampart of the eastern heights became empurpled; then a shadow
+rose, a cold breeze roughed the corn, and presently the evening star
+shone out in a soft sky.
+
+It was dark when they reached the appointed halting-place, in a wady of
+the foothills, close to a village which possessed a spring of water.
+They found their tent well-pitched, a good fire burning in the shelter
+of a cunning wind-screen, and the kettle boiling.  They had tea at
+once, and afterwards Iskender went to cook the supper.  His lord soon
+followed with desire to help.
+
+"It's splendid fun!" he cried.  "You are a trump, Iskender!"
+
+Iskender answered nothing, but gave praise to Allah.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+About the third hour of a cloudless day Elias Abdul Messih crossed the
+sandhills from the northward, traversed the gardens, and approached the
+town.  He was riding a showy horse, which he caused to prance whenever
+any one was looking; and had assumed the panoply of the fashionable
+dragoman.  His slim but manly figure well became a tight and
+many-buttoned vest of murrey velvet, a zouave jacket of blue silky
+cloth, and baggy trousers of the same material, whose superfluous
+lengths were tucked away in riding-boots of undressed leather.  A
+scarlet dust-cloak streamed from off his shoulders.  The tassel of his
+fez, worn far back on the head and dinted knowingly fluttered on the
+breeze; the tassels on his bridle led a dance.
+
+In his wake followed two fat, middle-aged men, set one behind the other
+on a donkey's back, of whom the hindmost held a rope which led four
+mules laden with all the requisites of Frankish travel.
+
+Elias flourished in his hand the silver-mounted whip of rhinoceros-hide
+which he had long ago reclaimed from the Emir.  The pride of a leader
+of men informed his bearing as he brought his train at last through the
+crowded market, shouting loftily to clear a way.
+
+Arrived at the khan where he was accustomed to hire beasts of burden,
+he was preparing to dismount, when a man ran out and, stooping, kissed
+his stirrup.  It was the muleteer who had been first retained by
+Iskender.
+
+"May Allah keep thee, O my dear!" exclaimed Elias, cheered by such
+worship in a public place.  "What news in the town to-day?"
+
+The muleteer raised hands and eyes to heaven.
+
+"Grave news, O my lord Elias.  They sent me about my business, and are
+gone without thee."
+
+"Merciful Allah!" cried Elias, stupefied.  "Gone, sayest thou?  They
+are gone, the miscreants? . . .  But it is impossible.  Gone, sayest
+thou?  When and how did they go?"
+
+In vain did he strive to discredit the muleteer's story, throwing doubt
+on every point as it arose; it was only to remove all ground for doubt
+concerning it.
+
+"Merciful Allah!" he exclaimed again, in tones of horror.  "May their
+fathers be destroyed, their mothers ravished.  Wait till I catch thee,
+O thou pig Iskender!  The good Emir will perish of discomfort; for that
+treacherous boy is ignorant of all things that pertain to travel.  Y'
+Allah!  Let us make all speed to overtake those wretched ones!"
+
+But his companions, Aflatun the cook and Faris the waiter, were in no
+such hurry.  They were hungry from much riding on an empty stomach, and
+flatly refused to proceed another step until replenished.  Cursing
+their greed, Elias was forced to resign himself.  He indulged in
+eating, as he told himself, to pass the time; but afterwards, when it
+came to coffee and narghilehs, he squandered more than an hour in
+boasting with what speed he would catch up the fugitives, how suddenly
+and effectually he would repay the beast Iskender.  It was Aflatun the
+cook who reminded him at length that time wore on.  Once on horseback,
+his eagerness again became active, and, in a measure, practical.  He
+knew the direction Iskender had proposed to take, and, stopping before
+the hotel for a minute, he learnt from the sons of Musa the name of the
+first halting-place.
+
+Amused by his indignation at the start without him, those old friends
+mocked him, crying:
+
+"They have fled from thee.  Sooner than endure thy converse any longer,
+they have thrown themselves on the mercy of Allah.  They would rather
+face wild beasts and savage warriors than have thy sweet voice always
+at their ears."
+
+Cursing the ancestry of such heartless jokers, Elias rowelled his
+horse's flanks with the sharp corners of his stirrups, and went off at
+a furious gallop.  Through the orange-gardens, out on to the plain, he
+sped like the wind, until his steed gave signs of fainting and he had
+to stop.  Looking back along the way he had come, he could not see his
+companions and their string of mules, though the ground was open and
+the air quite clear.  Evidently they had not yet left the gardens.
+With horrid malediction of their religion and parentage he rode on at a
+foot's pace.
+
+At the third hour after noon he reached the spot where Iskender and the
+Frank had passed the night, and stood staring at the ashes of their
+fire with teeth and hands tightly clenched.  A fellah from the
+neighbouring village told him they had set out very early that morning
+with the avowed intention of making a long day's march.
+
+These tidings sent Elias raging mad.  They were fleeing towards the
+valley full of gold, of which Iskender, alone of all men, knew the
+whereabouts; and he, Elias, their predestined chief, was left behind!
+His fiery spirit craved to mount at once and gallop day and night till
+he rejoined those treasure-seekers; but the frailty of his horse
+precluded any such transports, and the snail-like pace of his adherents
+bound him down.  At present he was obliged to wait for Aflatun and
+Faris and the baggage animals, while conscious of the fugitives
+receding rapidly, sucked in irresistibly to a whirlpool of living
+light, his mind's image of the object of desire.
+
+Having procured some barley and chopped straw for his horse, he left
+the beast in charge of some of the villagers, and climbed alone to the
+summit of a rock hard by, which commanded the plain.  His retinue
+appeared, a great way off, mere dots upon a certain cornfield.  The sun
+was high when he first descried them; it had touched the sea before
+they came in hail.
+
+"Make haste, accursed sluggards!  Yallah!  Onward!  They fly before us!
+We must march all night," he cried in anguish.
+
+But they said:
+
+"Wait a little!  All the beasts are tired.  We will not march through
+the night.  In truth we are minded to have done with this mad business,
+which is the same as hunting the shadow of a flying bird.  Allah alone
+knows whether we shall catch those people; but we ourselves are able to
+perceive that we are tired and hungry."
+
+"May Allah shorten your days!" roared Elias furiously.  "Would you fail
+me now and betray me, O treacherous dogs?"
+
+They still refused to travel through the night; and when he persisted
+in requiring it of them, took umbrage, and vowed that they would leave
+him then and there.  For hours he remonstrated with them, but they only
+ate and drank and smoked, then slept, unheeding.  He lay down by their
+side, but could not sleep.
+
+At the first breath of dawn they were still snoring, when Elias rose,
+prepared his horse, and rode away.  After all he felt well rid of such
+unsoulful hogs.  He could travel much more quickly by himself; and the
+fewer reached the Valley of the Kings the better, for some are thieves,
+and gold corrupts true men.  So he rode on, pushing his mount to the
+utmost, in and out among the stony hills, inquiring at every village
+and of all he met in the way for tidings of the Frank and his
+companion.  In the heat of the day he paused for an hour, to bait and
+water his horse, which, nevertheless, was quite worn out ere sunset.
+Elias was forced to dismount and lead him slowly.
+
+The mountain slopes were hung with vineyards, fields and gardens.
+Sauntering groups appeared upon the path, which now began to assume the
+aspect of a proper road.  Rounding a shoulder of the terraced hill,
+Elias had a view of the chief town of the region, clothing half the
+mountainside, beneath its famous mosque.  He determined to enter the
+place and make inquiries, though the Muslim mob, he knew, was fierce
+and dangerous.
+
+Going straight to the house of a Christian of his own Church, he asked
+for hospitality, which was granted to him in Allah's name.  Having
+cared for the horse, he went indoors and told his errand, seeking
+tidings of the chase; and presently his host went out to make
+inquiries.  He returned to declare, upon authority of an officer of the
+watch, that no party resembling that described had entered the town.
+
+Now Iskender had named this city many times as lying in the direct road
+to the seat of treasure.  His avoidance of it, therefore, must have
+been of purpose to elude Elias--his best, his truest friend!  The
+outraged dragoman called God to witness.  It was evident that Iskender
+meant to be the only one to find the golden valley.  Having used his
+money as the means to get there, he would doubtless make away with the
+Emir.  Elias wept at picture of the cruel fate which awaited that
+unsuspecting nobleman.  However, he himself was not yet beaten.  He
+still had hopes that, by minute inquiry, he might come upon their
+tracks and overtake them.
+
+But when the morrow came his horse was useless.  Having money, he went
+out to hire another.  But while he was about the business, soldiers
+came to him and asked to be shown the permission by which he travelled.
+He produced a document, but it was out of date.  They told him so.  In
+some alarm, he swore by Allah he was in the service of an English
+prince as mighty as the Sultan.  They straightway asked to see the
+prince in question; and Elias had to own that he was not forthcoming.
+Then they laughed him to scorn--the dragoman without a tourist.  One
+took a fancy to the knife that decked his waist-band.  Another admired
+his whip, and promptly took it.  His pistol too was gone.  In vain he
+looked for help or sympathy; the crowd of fierce-eyed, turbaned Muslims
+only jeered at his despair.  At a threat to put him in prison, he flung
+them all the money he possessed, then cast himself upon the ground with
+face buried in his arms.  Seeing he was finished, his tormentors left
+him thus; and the crowd, when they were gone, advised him friendly,
+bidding him look to Allah for redress.
+
+Scared in his very soul, Elias rose at last and crept back to the house
+of his co-religionist.  There he sat and moaned through all that day,
+refusing food and every other comfort.  Disarmed and penniless, he
+could proceed no further in that lawless region.  It was all Iskender's
+fault--the cunning devil!  The valley of the gold seemed now his legal
+birthright, of which he had been defrauded by a wicked malefactor, who,
+not content with that, was leading out the good Emir to kill him in the
+desert.  Iskender had bribed Aflatun and Faris; Iskender had lamed his
+horse; Iskender had set on the soldiers to despoil him.  By the time he
+started on his homeward way, the world was poisoned by Iskender's
+wickedness; he could not look at rock, or myrtle-bush, or wayside
+flower without groans and gnashing of teeth; and wherever he reposed at
+noon, or spent the night, he told his wrongs.  The story ran before him
+through the countryside.  When he came at last to his own door, it was
+to find a crowd awaiting him, anxious to know the truth of strange
+reports.  Several of the dragomans were there, including Abdullah,
+uncle of Iskender, who questioned Elias in no peaceful tone.
+
+Awed by the sternness of so respectable a man, Elias dissembled his
+rage, and spoke in sorrow:
+
+"Alas! it is too true.  Allah knows, it grieves my soul to relate it.
+Iskender, whom I loved as my own eyes, has led the good Emir into the
+wilderness, meaning to rob him there and take his life."
+
+"It is a lie!" cried Abdullah furiously.  "Take back those words this
+instant, or thy blood shall pay for it.  Allah knows thou wast ever the
+chief of liars."
+
+"That is true," agreed the bystanders.
+
+"That is true, perhaps," Elias owned; "yet in this case I speak the
+truth.  Those two had learnt the hiding-place of a great treasure, and
+Iskender means to have the whole of it.  I had secret warning of his
+wicked purpose, and went to bring good honest men to defeat it.  But
+he, suspecting what I was about, persuaded the Emir to start without
+me.  Moreover, he dismissed the muleteer whom I had chosen, engaging in
+his stead a murderous ruffian.  My soul died within me when I heard of
+their departure.  Allah witness how I strove to overtake them.  But the
+rogue had set every one upon the road against me.  I was delayed at
+every turn, flouted and finally robbed of my weapons and all my money."
+He exhibited his empty belt.  "So I returned, despairing.  May God have
+mercy on that kind Emir, and let his soul find peace."
+
+These words, and still more the heart-broken manner of their utterance,
+made a profound impression upon all who heard them.  They were received
+as true by every one there except Abdullah, who talked of hiring
+ruffians to assassinate the wicked slanderer.  He swore at once to
+clear his nephew's honour.  But his excitement was regarded with mere
+pity, as natural to a man afflicted in so near a relative.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Abdullah's furious indignation with Elias was complicated by a strain
+of keen anxiety upon his own account.  Though most of the story seemed
+absurd to his intelligence, there remained enough of possible and even
+probable to justify dismay in so respectable a man.  It seemed more
+than likely that his nephew, that unlucky boy, had led a British
+subject into lawless regions quite unknown to him; if harm ensued there
+would be trouble with the consul; and the power called Cook was so
+careful for its dragomans that the mere relationship to one whose face
+was blackened might involve dismissal.  The bare idea of this
+contingency swamped Abdullah's intellect in pure amazement, for since
+his vision of the Blessed Virgin years ago he had believed that the
+breath of scandal could not come near him.  He crossed himself
+repeatedly and muttered prayers.  But these misgivings were secreted
+from the world, before which he appeared as the intrepid champion of
+his absent nephew, prepared to refute the story in its entirety.
+
+His first thought was to make Elias eat his words either by bribes or
+violence; but a little reflection sufficed to show it worthless.  For,
+once pronounced, those words were all men's utterance; the town, the
+countryside, was now ablaze, and Elias but a fuse that had done its
+work.  Abdullah demanded on behalf of Iskender that all who professed
+any knowledge of the matter should be called and questioned in the
+hearing of the group of dragomans.  The proprietor and servants of the
+khan, who had beheld Iskender's mad excitement on the morning of the
+start, the discarded muleteer, Aflatun and Faris, who still lingered in
+the town in hopes to recover their expenses from Elias, with others
+quite unknown, bore witness to the suspicious manner of the young man's
+flight, and the dance he had led each and all of them.  Abdullah gnawed
+his heavy grey moustache, with eyes downcast, when Elias turned towards
+him with expressive hands.
+
+From the scene of this inquiry, which was the tavern in the ruined
+cloister, looking through shadowed arches on the purple sea, a
+professional errand led Abdullah to the hotel of Musa el Barudi.  The
+sons of Musa sat on stools before the door, as did also the priest
+Mitri, taking coffee with them.  "What news?" they asked.  Abdullah hid
+his face.  Could it be that they had not yet heard those wicked lies
+about Iskender?  He enlightened them forthwith with fervent crossings
+of himself and prayers to Allah; and confessed that he was at his wits'
+end, since all the evidence obtainable tended strongly to confirm the
+insane story.  The laughter of his hearers did him good.  They
+ridiculed the very notion of Iskender's guile; and they were men of
+position, respectable men, whose opinion was worth having, while the
+rest were riff-raff.  Abdullah went home greatly comforted.
+
+But the story spread and grew in all the land, with variations and most
+wonderful additions.  People came to Abdullah for the rights of it, and
+were visibly disappointed and incredulous at receiving a flat denial.
+They wanted the true story to replace the false, and Abdullah knew no
+more than that Elias was a liar.  He sat still in his house for hours
+together, gnawing his thick moustache and staring at the ground.  Then
+he bethought him to call on the mother of Iskender, who might have
+knowledge of her son's true purpose in this mad excursion.  If he had
+abstained from visiting her till now, it was in the hope to keep from
+her a scandal which was sure to wound her.  Now the time had come to
+try her value as a witness.  Though the weather was bad, he could not
+wait for sunshine, but, taking his umbrella, walked out on to the
+sandhills through the pelting rain.  His boots were caked with mud when
+he reached the little house; he would not enter therefore, but spoke
+from the doorway, sheltered by his umbrella.  It seemed she had nothing
+to tell him.  It was only from the voice of common rumour that she knew
+that her precious son had left the town, and since then reports had
+reached her which made her wash her hands of him for ever.  When those
+reports came to the ears of the missionaries, as they were sure to do,
+it would ruin his mother in their eyes for ever.
+
+"Take no thought for him, O Abdullah!" she cried furiously.  "He is no
+son of mine, but a changeling of the children of the Jann.  Doubtless
+my true son, whom I loved and nursed, is with the devils somewhere in
+the Jebel Kaf.  Allah knows he was too good for me; my pride in him was
+too great!  And so they took him, and put a miscreant, a devil, in his
+place.  They say he has a mighty treasure written in his name, so that
+none but he can free it from the spell that guards it; that shows us
+what he really is, for who but a jinni, a vile changeling, would hide
+so glad a secret from his loving mother?  Thou sayest, Has he killed
+the good Emir?  He may have done so, for I say he is no child of mine;
+he is a devil.  Tell all the world my son is lost to me, carried off to
+the Jebel Kaf or some lone ruin; and a jinni masquerades in his
+likeness, doing evil."
+
+She screamed her parrot-scream; she could not talk.  It was one of her
+black days when the world was turned to madness.  Abdullah retired from
+the vain attempt to get some sense from her with hopelessness increased
+instead of lessened.
+
+That same evening, as he sat in his house, enjoying a ray of pallid
+sunshine sent through the branches of a leafless fig-tree which
+stretched its gnarled, grey twisted arms before his door, Yuhanna
+Mahbub came to him with an angry brow.
+
+"What is this I hear about Iskender?" he inquired.  "Within this hour I
+have returned with my party from El Cuds.  He has gone with the Emir to
+find a treasure; is it true?  I came at once to thee, his near
+relation.  For know that he swore to me by the Blessed Sacrament, in
+the presence of witnesses, that he knew nothing of any treasure, nor
+was his trip with the Emir concerned with aught save pleasure.  This I
+tell thee that thou blame me not hereafter if I take dire vengeance on
+the perjured dog."
+
+"Wait a little, O 'Hanna," said Abdullah pacifically, "thou wilt learn,
+in sh' Allah, that he did not swear falsely.  All this scandal is the
+produce of Elias, whom all men know for the very father of lies.  Wait,
+I tell thee, and the poor lad's innocence will be seen."
+
+"Aye, wait I must perforce, for he is absent.  Were he here among us, I
+should not have had recourse to thee unless as bearer of his dead body.
+He swore, I tell thee, by the Blessed Sacrament!  Shall such a wretch
+live on, to practise sacrilege?"
+
+"May Allah, of his mercy, show the truth to us," replied Abdullah,
+while Yuhanna went off, breathing threats against the perjurer.  He
+prayed to God that his nephew might not have sworn falsely and so
+incurred the punishment of everlasting fire.  Yet there was much
+treasure lying undiscovered in the land, and it might be that his
+nephew had got wind of some of it.  He knew not what to think, but
+spent most of the night in prayer, prostrate before that tiny picture
+of the Mother of God which he had set up to commemorate his radiant
+vision.
+
+In the morning came the finishing blow.  He stood in the doorway,
+watching his chickens pecking amid the wet litter of refuse round the
+trunk of the fig-tree, when the sound of a horse's hoof-beats reached
+his ears, and presently from a narrow opening in the neighbouring wall
+emerged a Frank in black clothes, black, leaf-shaped hat and yellow
+riding-boots--the Father of Ice in person.  The missionary dismounted,
+tied his horse by the head-rope to a loose stone of the wall, and came
+forward, stooping to escape the branches of the fig-tree.
+
+"Welcome, sir!" exclaimed Abdullah, smiling and bowing, though his mind
+misgave him.  "My house a boor one, sir, but at your service."
+
+"Good day to you," replied the missionary coldly, and passed in before
+him.
+
+"I have come about this shocking business of your nephew," he observed,
+declining to sit down, though Abdullah brought forth cushions.  "The
+news reached me only yesterday, and I have been this morning to see
+that man Elias.  His story seems quite clear, in spite of all the
+nonsense about buried treasure.  The young Englishman doubtless took a
+considerable sum of money with him, and Iskender has beguiled him by
+the story of the treasure, meaning to rob him, if not worse."
+
+"Oh, sir, it's all a lie, by God!" exclaimed Abdullah; but the Father
+of Ice paid no attention to him.
+
+"I grieve to think of that misguided boy.  He was like a child of our
+own at the Mission, till bad companions led him into evil ways.  Of
+course, now he must pay the penalty of his transgression.  You natives
+must be taught once more that the life and property of British subjects
+are not to be lightly made away with.  I wrote to the consul last
+night, directly I had news of this atrocious affair.  Iskender, poor
+misguided boy, will bear the punishment.  But in my opinion, and in the
+sight of God, there are others more to blame than he in the matter.  I
+mean those who led him astray, who first suggested to him a life of
+fraud and peculation."  The missionary looked straight into Abdullah's
+eyes with the sternness of a righteous judge.  "It is of no use to deny
+your own part in it, for I have spoken with the mother of the wretched
+lad, and she has told me how you were the first to propose that he
+should attach himself to this young English visitor with a view to
+making money, how you egged him on and taught him all the tricks of the
+trade.  Are you not ashamed of yourself, an old man, with death close
+before you?  But all you natives are alike conscienceless, blind to the
+truth as if a curse from God was on you.  Be sure that I, for one, am
+not blind to your guilt in this affair, and that I shall mention it to
+Cook's agent at the first opportunity.  You have led the boy to
+renounce his faith, and now to crime!  I hope you are proud of your
+handiwork!  Good-day!"
+
+Abdullah found not a word.  He stood staring at his feet, stunned and
+trembling.  The whole structure of his pride caved in on him.  He, the
+Sheykh of the Dragomans, the respectable of respectables, made so by
+especial favour of the Blessed Virgin, to hear such words from one of
+those very English whose esteem upheld him!  He soiled his face with
+mud and camel's dung and sat in his house, lamenting, refusing every
+comfort that his wife or the sympathising neighbours could devise to
+offer.  Some two hours after noon there came a storm with terrifying
+flashes.  The thunder shook the house, the solid earth.  At one moment
+the gnarled and twisted branches of the fig-tree were seen black
+against a sharp illumination, the next smoke-grey and weird amid the
+inky gloom.  They seemed like snakes approaching stealthily, and then
+like loathsome arms intent to seize his soul.  The storm gave place to
+steady rain; the world was lightened somewhat, but without relief.
+Abdullah, though a prey to all the horrors, sat there quite still till
+evening, when suddenly the force of life returned to him.  He rushed
+out to the nearest tavern, called for arac, and drank heavily.  The
+honour which had resulted from his vision now seemed torn from him; and
+since She withdrew her favour, he was free to break his vow.  That
+night, returning home, he snatched the sacred picture from its shelf
+and trod it under foot, to his wife's terror.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Southward and eastward rode Iskender with his loved Emir.  Crags
+succeeded crags; the sky was turquoise.  At noon the very gorges held
+no shade; but in the morning and the evening there were halls of
+coolness, while the sunlight made the heights as bright as flower-beds.
+Wild-flowers shone everywhere among the rocks; and in the open places
+blew wide fields of them.  Whenever they came to a village, and pitched
+their tent beside the well, the inhabitants bustled out to do them
+service in return for stale scraps of news from the outer world; and
+Iskender told them of the greatness and the power of his Emir, till
+they esteemed it a rich reward merely to peep through the hangings of
+the tent at such a potentate.  Even supposing that they never found the
+Valley of the Kings, this ramble together through delightful solitudes
+was worth the money spent, it seemed to him.  The valley full of gold
+was a pretext only, giving the taste of purpose to their doings and
+clothing them in the glamour of romance.  And his patron seemed to view
+it in the same reasonable light, for he evinced no hurry, but when they
+reached some pleasant spot, would waste a day there, prowling among the
+gullies with his gun, while Iskender sketched.  If the worst came to
+the worst, Iskender considered, he could always declare in anguished
+tones that he had lost the way--a matter of no wonder in the pathless
+desert.  And he still trusted that Allah, of His boundless mercy, would
+lead them straight to the gold.
+
+But one night there came a sudden storm of wind and rain when they were
+encamped upon the summit of a rocky mound at the junction-place of two
+wild gorges.  Their tent was blown away, and they were drenched to the
+skin.  It was found impossible to raise the tent again because of the
+strong wind hurtling through the ravines.  The rain soon ceased,
+however; they managed to protect the fire, and sat close round it,
+trying to make a joke of the disaster.  But in the morning the Emir's
+face had changed its colour, he kept shivering till his teeth
+chattered, and was very cross.  Happily they had with them a supply of
+quinine.  Iskender, who knew something of the ways of English people,
+administered a dose at once.  He was for going back, seeing that the
+theatre of these misfortunes was a place remote from any dwelling; he
+warned his friend that they would find no village in the waste before
+them--nothing but scattered wells, and chance encampments of the Bedu,
+who might or might not prove friendly.  But the Emir announced his
+fixed intention to go on, whatever happened; and when Iskender ventured
+to remonstrate, told him angrily to hold his tongue.  Was it likely he
+was going to turn back now, having come so far?  He drank some whisky
+neat, and then felt strong enough to mount his horse.
+
+They went forward miserably in the chill, wet morning.  The sky was
+nowhere seen; damp mists obscured every feature of the landscape.  The
+muleteer, with head wrapped up in a shawl, intoned a kind of dirge,
+pausing sometimes to ask Allah to improve his plight.  The Emir's teeth
+chattered and he cursed at intervals.  But most hapless of all three
+was Iskender, who now knew that his lord was bent on finding the gold,
+and valued the pleasant days already spent, their adventures by the
+way, their friendly converse, solely as conducing to that end.
+
+About the fourth hour the sun made itself felt; the mists began to
+disperse, and depths of blue appeared.  The afternoon was fine and, in
+the sunshine, the Emir recovered cheerfulness.  He apologised for his
+ill temper of the morning to Iskender, who strove to regard the stern
+resolve he had expressed to see the Valley of the Kings as likewise
+part of the attack of fever; but his mind misgave him.
+
+That evening, after supper, the Emir remarked that they had come an
+eight days' journey at the lowest estimate, so, by the guide's own
+showing, must be near the place.  He spread out his map between them,
+and asked Iskender to point out its exact position.  Forced to decide
+that instant, or arouse his friend's distrust, the poor youth breathed
+a heart-felt prayer to Allah for direction and, after some show of
+examining the chart, laid finger firmly on a certain spot.  The Emir
+then marked the place in pencil with a tiny cross, and reckoned up the
+distance by the scale provided.
+
+"It is quite near," he cried.  "We ought to be there to-morrow before
+midday."
+
+He talked of nothing else till sleeptime.  Iskender listened with an
+anxiety that was physical pain.  He wished to Allah that Elias had been
+there to assure him that the place had real existence.  Lying on the
+ground, wrapped in his coverlet, he spent the night in prayer.  Allah
+is all-powerful; at His mercy all things are and are not; even if the
+valley lay not where Iskender had placed it, Allah could convey it
+thither in the twinkling of an eye; even if no such place existed in
+the world, Allah could create it as easily as a man can yawn.  By
+dwelling thus in imagination on that Boundless Power, he gained at
+length a certain comfort in dependence such as the baser sort of slaves
+enjoy.
+
+This mood of resignation was still upon him when he rose at daybreak.
+There remained nothing possible for him to do; and in the fresh
+morning, when the rocks in sight presented each its separate mass of
+living colour, he could not believe that the Emir would quarrel with
+him, even if he knew the worst.  The Emir was a rich man; what did he
+want with gold?  And had not Iskender proved himself his faithful
+servant?  Surely the great one felt some love for him, sufficient to
+condone a little fiction which had been kept up simply for his Honour's
+pleasure.
+
+But the Frank had his map before him in the saddle, and he more than
+once dismounted to consult the compass on his watch-chain.
+
+After three hours they reached a plain of alternating sand and rocks,
+where nothing grew except some prickly shrub.  On one side, not far
+off, a lake was seen, with many palm-trees mirrored in its tranquil
+waters.  The Frank stared at it in amazement, remarking that it was not
+in the map.  Iskender guessed it was mirage, and was soon confirmed in
+that opinion by the gradual disappearance of both lake and palm-trees.
+But the vision tended to reassure him, seeming a word from the Most
+High.  If Allah, he thought, could thus imprint a perfect likeness of
+trees and water on the hot, still air, He would have no difficulty in
+painting a few rocks golden.
+
+The sun was fierce.  For miles they saw no shade, but only strange
+rock-ledges rising no higher than a doorstep above the sand, which grew
+low, prickly shrubs.  A range of hills before them seemed hopelessly
+remote.  Near the middle of this waste, the Emir drew rein.
+
+"The valley should be here," he said with finger on the map; and
+Iskender in the tension of his nerves was going to shout out "Praise to
+Allah," for the sand just there was full of shining particles; when the
+next words came and froze him to the marrow: "There's no valley;
+nothing but this beastly plain.  Are you a liar?"
+
+A trace of kindness or dry humour in his tone would have compelled
+Iskender to confess the truth, with self-accusal.  As it was, he cried:
+
+"Haf batience!  Wait a minute!  I had counted wrong.  See, there are
+mountains!  Surely the wady will be there among them."  Inwardly he
+prayed Allah to make good his words, to save him from the scorn of one
+he loved so truly.
+
+"Well, come on!" said the Emir, with a shrug; and they toiled in
+silence towards the range of hills.
+
+"You, who know the way, point out this valley," said the Emir as to a
+dog, when they were near enough to observe the configuration of those
+heights.
+
+Iskender pointed to what seemed an opening; but knew that his gesture
+carried no conviction.  The Frank's cold looks askance at him deprived
+him of the power to play his part.
+
+"We shall see," said the Emir, urging his horse forward.  At the
+entrance to the wady he dismounted, and Iskender, who was then some way
+behind, could hear derisive laughter.  It was no valley at all.  The
+shadow of a big projecting rock had been mistaken in the distance for
+an opening.  The Frank was sitting calmly in that shadow when his
+friend came up.
+
+"I can see no gold here," he observed politely; "but you have better
+eyes.  Look well about you!"
+
+Three parts unconscious, the unhappy youth obeyed.  Alighting off his
+horse, he scanned the heights above, the ground at his feet, the sandy
+plain on which their mules were seen at a great distance.
+
+"No gold! no gold!" he murmured idiotically.
+
+"Give up this acting!" cried the Frank with vehemence.  "Confess it was
+all a lie!  Say why you brought me here.  We are man to man just now,
+and may as well arrange our business before your friend the muleteer
+comes up.  That missionary told me to look out for villainy."
+
+Iskender bit the dust and wept aloud, calling on Allah to attest his
+innocence.  To be accused of acting, when his heart was broken; to be
+suspected of a purpose hostile to his patron, when he would have shed
+his blood to bring a smile to that beloved face!
+
+"Confess!" the Emir repeated; and, hearing the voice of the Father of
+Ice, Iskender lied, as he had always lied, through fear, to that stern,
+upright man.
+
+"No, it is true, sir, but we went wrong somehow.  My God, it is true,
+sir; Elias said so too!"
+
+"Elias is a liar. . . .  Confess now that you never knew the way, and
+that your father never in his life saw any valley such as that you've
+so often described to me."
+
+But Iskender would not admit that he had lied at all; to do so would
+have been to justify his patron's cruel scorn.  Indeed, the fiction of
+the gold had grown so natural that he believed, even now, that it was
+partly true.
+
+"You never knew the way; your father never left you any paper.  It is
+pretty certain that he couldn't read or write.  What a fool I was not
+to think of that before!  If there were such a paper you would have it
+with you.  Show it me!" the Emir insisted.
+
+Iskender appealed to Heaven against his lord's unreason.  Was it likely
+that his mother, to whom it of right belonged, would let so important a
+document out of her own keeping?  He had read it through and copied it,
+but lost the copy yesterday, he knew not how.  It was owing to that
+loss that he had missed the way.  His memory had played some devil's
+trick to shame him.  The sand at his feet, the plain, the rocks beside
+him seemed all flame, reminding him poignantly of his vision of the
+place of gold.  The air upon his face and hands was the breath of an
+oven, the sky a blackness overhead.
+
+The Emir rose and walked towards his horse.  The contemptuous movement
+stung Iskender like a lash in the face.  He clutched at his patron's
+raiment, sobbing and blubbering, imploring forgiveness for his one
+mistake.  The Emir beat him off with his whip, and, springing into the
+saddle, rode off slowly.  Leading his own horse by the bridle, Iskender
+followed after him, with piteous appeals.  Nothing mattered save their
+mutual affection.  What was truthfulness as compared with human love?
+Appalled by the prospect of life, if deprived of his lord's regard, he
+put forward his limitless devotion as a claim for kindness, and fancied
+that his friend was listening, not unmoved.  It was with disappointment
+that he heard again, in icy tones:
+
+"You knew from the first that it was all a lie."
+
+Nay, he protested, how could he be certain?  He had not been alone in
+declaring that the gold was there; Elias had said so too.  Why should
+he alone be made responsible?
+
+The Emir deigned not so much as to look on his despair.
+
+Returning thus across the plain, they met the mules.  The driver's
+mouth fell open at the Frank's command to turn back, just when they
+were near the limit of that arid waste and all the beasts were tired.
+It was some time before this man, Mahmud, had mind for aught beyond his
+own complaints; but when at length he realised that Iskender, his good
+friend, was in disgrace, he also made entreaty for his pardon.  The
+Emir, with him on one side and Iskender on the other, took alarm.  He
+laid his hand on the revolver at his belt, and commanded both to keep
+their distance.
+
+Mahmud with a shrug dropped behind, calling out to Iskender that it was
+the sun, and asking Allah to restore the poor khawajah; but Iskender
+still adhered to his beloved lord, wishing that he would carry out his
+threat and shoot him dead.  Then perchance his righteous anger would be
+turned to sorrow; he would regret the blind devotion of his willing
+slave.
+
+A sudden shout from the muleteer made them both look round.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+A swarm of mounted Arabs, shadows in the sun-haze, was careering
+towards them, leaving a dust-cloud trailing on the distant plain.
+Their lance-points glittered.  They were nearing rapidly.  Iskender
+stood gaping, awestruck at the sight, when a whip-lash scored his face.
+
+"You infernal scoundrel!" snarled the Emir through his clenched teeth.
+"So this is why you've brought me all this way.  They made it worth
+your while, no doubt.  I might have guessed.  That missionary warned me
+plain enough."
+
+Iskender nursed his wounded face, and writhed with pain.  For the
+moment he could neither hear nor think nor see.
+
+The wild horsemen galloped in a herd to within a hundred yards of the
+travellers, when they fanned out neatly and surrounded them.  The Frank
+had plucked out his revolver.
+
+"Don't do that, sir, for God-sake!" Iskender shrieked.  "You make them
+cross."
+
+Still with hands pressed to his wounded face he blessed the assailants
+loudly, and asked how they did.  For answer they told him to make his
+companion drop the pistol; which, when the order was conveyed to him,
+the Amir did sullenly.  The Arabs then rode near, and stared in the
+faces of their captives.
+
+They were a ragged-looking troop, clad every one in armour, were it but
+of leather.  Queer helmets showed beneath their dirty head-shawls, and
+a few wore tattered coats of mail of high antiquity.  Only their fierce
+bold eyes, strong spears, and clean-limbed horses kept the laugh from
+them.  Their husky speech was full of words and phrases strange to
+Iskender.
+
+When all had satisfied their curiosity, the throng rode off, leaving a
+sufficient guard to follow with the prisoners.  Iskender learnt that
+they were surprised to find so small a company.  Having heard of the
+approach of a great prince of the English, their chief expected to
+receive a visit from his Highness, with supplication in due form for
+leave to journey through his territory.  When he learnt that the Emir
+had entered his realm without so much as a salam aleykum, he resolved
+to make the mannerless cub his guest by force.  For this purpose he had
+sent forth all his braves in war trim, supposing that the English chief
+had power to match his insolence, only to surprise a train which a
+blind man could have taken single-handed!
+
+Bitterly did Iskender curse his own vain-glory which had led him to
+boast at every village of his patron's greatness, and the absolute
+power which he wielded in the land of his birth.  He was separated now
+from his dear one in the cavalcade, catching only an occasional glimpse
+of his back, which had a sullen hunch.  He forgot the pain of his own
+face in fears for him.
+
+At the end of an hour's slow riding, the barren waste gave place to
+slopes of coarse grass, where a number of camels, sheep, and goats were
+feeding peacefully.  The camp of the Bedu appeared--a little town of
+black tents in a hollow, from which shouts, neighs, and much barking of
+dogs proceeded.  Once there, Iskender lost sight of his Emir, who, as
+the prisoner of importance, was taken straight to the chief's tent.  He
+himself was left standing with Mahmud among the tent ropes, in some
+peril from the heels of tethered stallions.  A smell of hairy beasts
+defiled the air.  Dark-skinned women and children came to stare at
+them.  The girls expressed compassion for Iskender's wounded face, and
+cried shame on the man who had disfigured it, supposing him to be one
+of their own people.  The muleteer, a Muslim, made profession of his
+faith, attesting the Unity of God and the Mission of Muhammad loudly,
+in the evident persuasion that his hour had come.
+
+Iskender wondered what his lord was undergoing, and then as the day
+grew cooler, gave up thinking altogether, happy to lie down and rest.
+The women told him he was free to walk about, but for long he felt no
+call to use the privilege.  At last, however, seeing his horse was
+tethered close at hand, he went and took from the saddle-bags his book
+and paint-box, and began to make a likeness of the scene; the women
+gathered round and cried: "Ma sh' Allah!"  They took the lines and
+spots for magic writing, and gathered shyly round them, half expecting
+apparitions.
+
+He was in this employment when men came in haste and dragged him to the
+chief's tent.  He managed to stow the paint-box in his trousers, but
+the book was lost.
+
+"Allah have mercy on thee, O Iskender!" groaned Mahmud, as he was led
+away.  "They have slain the khawajah; now they come for thee.  Well I
+am a Muslim, and resign my cause to God!"
+
+In the tabernacle of the chief, superior only in size to the rest of
+the tents, the elders of the tribe were set in council, the Emir before
+them.  At the moment of Iskender's entrance there was a puzzled look
+upon each bearded face, directed towards the Frank in perfect courtesy.
+The arrival of an interpreter was hailed with exclamations of relief.
+
+Iskender, having made obeisance, was invited to take a place in the
+circle.  From the join of two camel's hair curtains screening an inner
+tent, he fancied he could see bright eyes of women peeping.
+
+"Is this the great Emir, of whom report has reached us?" he was asked.
+"And if so, how comes he to travel with so small a retinue?"
+
+The Frank's eyes dwelt upon Iskender's face with an intensity of
+distrust that neighboured actual hatred.  He still believed his friend
+in league with the marauders.
+
+"It is true; he is an Emir of the noblest, O my lords," Iskender
+answered; "but, may it please your Honours, he has not that wealth to
+which his rank entitles him.  Indeed, for one in his position, he is
+poor."
+
+The chieftains of the Bedu nodded comprehension, for poor Emirs were
+not unknown among them.  They murmured of compassion saying:
+
+"May Allah make him very rich and powerful!"
+
+But one objected:
+
+"Why then does he travel?  The rich among the Franks come hither for
+adventure and to rest their stomachs after too much feasting; their
+learned come to find out ancient ruins, and study the writings of the
+idolaters which are found here and there among the rocks.  But why
+should this poor noble youth have wandered hither?"
+
+"Aye, answer us that, O Nazarene!  Why, why, and for what reason?" came
+the chorus.
+
+Iskender found himself at a loss, being loth to revive his lord's anger
+by naming the valley of the gold in his hearing; he was looking up and
+down in the vain search for inspiration, when the Emir himself came
+unexpectedly to his relief.  With an ironical glance at the
+interpreter, the Englishman mustered all his Arabic and, turning to a
+sheykh who was his neighbour, asked:
+
+"Is there a wady named Wady 'l Muluk?"
+
+"Wady 'l Muluk!" cried all the elders in surprise; and then, in the
+twinkling of an eye, their foreheads cleared from all bewilderment.
+Wady 'l Muluk!  Ah to be sure!  The vale in which lay scattered all the
+treasure of the ancient kings.  So that was what his Honour came to
+seek!
+
+Iskender was no less perplexed than was his lord by all this outcry,
+when the chief of all the tribe leaned towards him, saying:
+
+"I understand.  He seeks the Valley of the Kings," and touched his
+forehead meaningly.  "May Allah heal him!  The Lord forbid that we
+should plunder such a one, or detain him beyond his pleasure.  All such
+are favoured of Allah!  Be our guests from now."
+
+And he gave his orders for a feast to be prepared.
+
+All the old men fell to petting and caressing the Emir, grieving to
+think that one so young and comely was spoilt for the commerce of life
+by a deranged intelligence.  Iskender, too, they treated as a friend.
+Their original intention, they confessed, had been to hold his Honour
+up to ransom; but now they offered gifts instead of claiming them.
+
+Iskender, the moment he could do so with politeness, went out and
+searched the camp till he regained his sketch-book.  Mahmud, the
+muleteer, called to him from the mouth of a tent where he was feasting
+as the guest of a tall Bedawi.  He proclaimed the safety of their lives
+a miracle, attributable solely to the fact that he himself had not
+ceased to assert the Unity of God from the moment he was taken captive
+till men came and blessed him.  All gave praise to Allah.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+In the morning, Iskender's face had swollen where his lord had whipped
+it, half-closing one of the eyes.  The chiefs of the Arabs cried out at
+sight of it and asked to know the cause of its disfigurement when their
+guests prepared to set forth in the morning under the escort of two
+armed and mounted tribesmen.  He put them off with the story of a fall
+from his horse.  The Frank glanced but once at his handiwork; and then
+looked down and bit his lip, contrition and annoyance at war in his
+demeanour.  After riding long in gloomy silence, he inquired:
+
+"What made them change?"
+
+Iskender, wishing to take all the credit of the deliverance to himself,
+and at the same time to avoid mention of Wady 'l Muluk, replied:
+
+"I told them you are mad."
+
+"You told them what?" exclaimed the Emir from frozen heights of anger.
+
+"That you are mad, sir."
+
+A storm of abuse, couched in language he had never heard among the
+missionaries, stupefied Iskender, who had expected compliments upon his
+cleverness.
+
+"You dared to tell them I was mad."  The Emir seemed thunderstruck.  He
+presently announced his resolve to return at once to captivity; but
+Iskender with a courage unexpected by himself, assured him that would
+be to prove his madness.  The palpable truth of this contention angered
+the Frank, like a blow.  He flushed crimson and turned upon Iskender
+with whip raised.
+
+"Leave me, you infernal fool," he cried.  "Clear out, I say!  Let me
+never see your cursed face again! . . .  Don't grin, you ape!  Get out
+of my sight, or I shall murder you."
+
+Iskender turned his horse and rode off slowly with many a backward
+glance of pure dismay.  Who would have dreamt that his Emir, the
+easiest of men, could ever be transformed into this raging tyrant?  The
+tragedy of his own disgrace seemed insignificant beside the wreck of
+his dear lord's intelligence.  For the Emir was mad, not a doubt of it;
+Iskender had not lied in his report to the Arab sheykh.  He went back
+till he met the baggage animals, then turned his horse and rode beside
+Mahmud.  The latter paused in his journey-chant to ask:
+
+"What news, O my dear?"
+
+"The Emir has driven me away," Iskender blubbered.  "He wishes never to
+see my face again."
+
+"May Allah cure him of his illness!  It is sure he is possessed with
+devils more than one!  Be not so mournful, O my soul!  After an hour,
+in sh' Allah, he will have forgotten anger."
+
+"In sh' Allah!" Iskender echoed, weeping bitterly.
+
+The muleteer resumed his road-song, and they fared along through a land
+of sunbaked rocks, where spots of shade were welcome to the eye as
+springs of water, the mule-bells clanging ceaselessly, until they
+scaled a ridge whence the whole rough sea of uplands could be surveyed.
+Their Arab guides had stopped here, clearly wishing to return, and were
+trying to make the Emir understand their purpose by shouting in his
+ears.
+
+"Go thou, Mahmud, and hear what they have to say.  Inquire the road of
+them and point it out to the Emir," Iskender murmured.
+
+He himself stopped short, fearing his lord's fresh anger.  The Emir had
+descried him, however, and came riding towards him.
+
+"What are you following for?  Didn't I say that I had done with you?"
+
+"Oh, sir!"  Iskender burst into a flood of tears.  "Haf mercy!  Drife
+me not away!  I luf you so! and how can I leaf you in this wilderness.
+You loose your way, and I--I die of fear!"
+
+His tears and piteous words only displeased his lord the more.  But it
+seemed to be the livid weal upon his face that quite incensed the
+Frank.  The moment his eyes fell on that, his wrath leapt past all
+bounds.
+
+"You lying, cringing cur!" he yelled.  "Get out, I tell you!  The sight
+of you's enough to drive one mad.  If I catch you following again, I'll
+give you such a thrashing as you never had in all your life."
+
+With that he gnashed his teeth and rode away.
+
+Iskender remained where he was.  The two Bedawis, departing, wished
+good luck to him, but swore that, for their part, they had liefer feed
+on prickly shrubs than serve so mad a master.  He could hear Mahmud
+objecting to go on without him, and the Frank commanding, threatening,
+till with a shrug the muleteer gave way, and shouted: "Straight on!"
+for Iskender's guidance.  The clangour of the bells broke out anew.
+
+Iskender waited till the little train was lost to sight, then followed
+miserably.  His love was very ill, there was no doubt, and needed
+better tendance than Mahmud, with the best intentions, could afford
+him.  The muleteer could only, at the best, cook country food, while
+cleanliness and comfort were unknown to him.  He could not make a bed
+or clean a riding-boot.  Iskender clenched his teeth and swore it
+should not be.  At all risks his sick lord must be made comfortable.
+So when, at sundown, he came in sight of the tent, he dismounted and
+tethered his horse out of sight, then walked up boldly.  Mahmud was at
+the fire behind the wind screen.
+
+"Welcome, O my eyes!" he whispered, giving place.  "Allah knows I
+cannot cook a Frankish supper; yet his Honour will not hear of thy
+return.  Now, praise to Allah, he is sound asleep, being tired from the
+journey.  Make no noise, however, for, if he found thee here, he might
+well shoot thee.  He is very mad indeed; may Allah heal him!"
+
+Iskender stayed and cooked a tempting meal out of the provisions given
+by the Arab sheykh.  Then taking food and water for himself and his
+horse, he returned to his hiding-place, where, in the shelter of a
+rock, he spent that night.
+
+In the dawn he listened for the sounds of starting, and heard the
+mule-bells die away before he mounted.  He had saved a piece of bread,
+a date or two, on which he broke his fast at noon; and not long after
+saw the tent shine forth, white in the yellow landscape, beside the
+flat roofs of a village terracing a steep hillside.  He recognised the
+place as one of those where they had rested happily upon the outward
+way.  The sheykh received him in his house; his horse was cared for.
+Towards sunset he approached the tent.  Mahmud, from afar off,
+signalled that the coast was clear.
+
+"The Emir has wandered off among the rocks," he told Iskender.  "There
+is no cooking to be done this evening, he has no appetite except for
+fruit and arac.  His sickness tightens hold, it is well seen.  Enter
+now, I pray thee, and make straight the bed.  I cannot do it in the
+manner thou didst teach me.  I myself must go into the village and buy
+fruit of some kind."
+
+Iskender made the bed with loving touches, full of thoughts of his dear
+lord.  He was finishing the work, when a shadow came across the sunset
+at the tent-mouth.  The Emir stood there as one transfixed with horror.
+Iskender clasped his hands, and drooped his eyes.  An oath rang forth,
+a fierce hand clutched his throat, a whip descended on his back and
+limbs; it burnt like fire.  Iskender, maddened, closed with his
+assailant, wrenched the whip from his hand and flung him off.  The Emir
+fell heavily.  Iskender flung away the whip, and fled in terror.
+
+What had he done?  The Emir was weak through illness.  His known
+inferior in strength had thrown him easily.  Iskender would have shed
+his life-blood to recall the blow, would have borne the beating to the
+end unflinching.  He prayed to Allah that no hurt had come to his
+beloved.  Returning after dark, he interrogated Mahmud, who assured him
+the Emir was just the same, no worse, no better.  That was some small
+comfort.
+
+Sadly he followed in his loved one's track, through places which had
+seen his former glory, secreting himself always in the village next to
+which the tent was pitched, and stealing forth at evening, when the
+Emir rested, to cook the supper and consult Mahmud.
+
+"His madness grows much worse," the man informed him.  "He throws
+things at my head and often beats me, because I cannot do things that
+are not my business, or fail to understand his words.  My soul is angry
+sometimes, and I long to show my strength; but behind the weakest of
+these Franks there is the consul standing; and indeed it were a sin for
+any man to punish one so afflicted.  His face is yellow, his hands
+shake.  I often fear that he is going to die!"
+
+"Allah forbid!" exclaimed Iskender fervently.  It was his daily prayer
+that they might reach the town and its conveniences before his sickness
+quite disabled the Emir.  It seemed as if this prayer was to be
+answered.  They had returned to within a few hours of their
+starting-place, and had pitched their tent upon the coastland plain at
+the foot of the hills, when Iskender one morning, in his hiding-place,
+listened in vain for the accustomed noise of starting.  Alarmed at
+length, he quitted cover, and drew near the tent.  Mahmud sat out
+before it in the sunshine, cross-legged, and staring gravely at his
+mules, which were browsing the coarse grass.  From time to time he
+pushed his turban back to scratch his head with a perplexed expression.
+
+"Allah is merciful!" he exclaimed at sight of his friend.  "The Emir
+still lags a-bed.  He will not hear me, though three times I have
+coughed from soft to loud in his presence, and knocked the chair
+against the table with progressive noise.  His sleep seems troubled,
+for I hear him utter unknown words.  God grant that he may awake
+refreshed and free from madness!"
+
+Iskender advanced on tip-toe to the tent and entered its deep shadow.
+The Emir turned on the small camp-bed and spoke his name
+affectionately.  With a bursting heart Iskender flung himself upon the
+ground, confessing all things, asking pardon for his crimes.  It was
+long ere he realised that his beloved was not present, that what had
+greeted him so friendly was the demon of delirium.  His very marrow
+froze on the discovery.
+
+Then, in that moment of his greatest need, his thoughts flew straight
+to his old foes, the missionaries.  Though harsh and arrogant in times
+of health, they had not their like in the land for kindness when a man
+was ill.  He told Mahmud to take the horse of the Emir and ride for his
+life to the Mission.
+
+Having seen the messenger depart he went back into the tent, and sat
+down on the ground beside the sick-bed.  He sullied his face with
+earth, and moaned to Allah.  When some fellahin from the village near
+at hand became spectators of his grief, he asked them to provide fresh
+milk, a lot of it, having heard that milk was salutary in the treatment
+of a feverish illness.  The milk was brought to him, with scorn of
+payment.  He gave a cupful to the Emir, and repeated the dose at
+intervals thereafter, with ceaseless prayers to Allah for his lord's
+recovery.
+
+It was the third hour after noon when he heard foreign voices and the
+tramp of several beasts before the tent.  The priest of the Mission
+entered gravely with the Sitt Carulin.  The Sitt Hilda followed,
+looking fresh and tempting despite the sorrow painted on her face.
+Iskender sprang to greet them, giving praise to Allah; at such a time
+he had no thought of bygones; but the ladies turned from him in
+disgust; the Father of Ice bade him begone and hide his infamy.  Going
+out in obedience to that harsh command he found a litter with two mules
+waiting in charge of Mahmud, in addition to the thoroughbred horse of
+the missionary and the donkeys of the two ladies, which were guarded by
+Costantin, the father of Asad.
+
+"May Allah comfort thee, O Iskender!" exclaimed the muleteer fervently.
+
+"May Allah have mercy on thee, rather," chuckled Costantin malignantly;
+"for thou art like to suffer death for this last exploit!"
+
+Iskender scarcely heard.  He ran until he was out of their sight, and
+then lay down among some rocks and wept his fill.  When he returned
+towards the camp an hour later, meaning to make himself useful
+unobtrusively, it was to find nothing left on the spot where all his
+interest in life had been so lately concentrated except an empty tin
+and some bits of paper.  That, and the ashes of their last night's
+fire!  He stood a long while staring fixedly at these memorials.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+More from subconscious attraction than from impulse Iskender trudged
+for hours across the wide coast plain till he reached the sandhills and
+beheld the house of the missionaries.  It was then towards midnight,
+and the moon was rising.  He sat and watched that house, with scarcely
+a movement, till the dawn came up, and the moon became a symbol in the
+lighted sky.  With the cries of waking birds, with the return of
+colour, his blood flowed warm again.  He arose, and turned towards his
+mother's house.  The sun appearing as he reached the cactus hedge, he
+paused a moment to survey the well-known scene in that moment of
+transfiguration, when the sea caught light, and shadows stretched
+themselves luxuriously.  He felt the paint-box at his breast with hope
+revived.
+
+Through the open door he could see that his mother was at prayers,
+kneeling before the picture of the Blessed Virgin which he had painted
+for her long ago before he knew the way of it.  From time to time she
+lowered herself upon her hands until her forehead touched the ground.
+He stood without upon the sand till she had finished.
+
+Her first expression was of glad thanksgiving, as she ran and clasped
+him to her breast; then, in a trice, her voice resumed its ancient
+scold, with an addition of real anger.
+
+"May thy life be cut short!  What devil brought thee hither, of all
+places in the world the one where thy foes are most sure to seek thee?
+Fly, I tell thee!  Fly, O accursed malefactor!  They have complained
+against thee to the consul."
+
+Iskender begged for food, which she could not refuse, though she
+produced it unwillingly, and stood over him while he ate, adjuring him,
+for the love of Allah, to make haste.
+
+"O my terror, my despair!" she wailed.  "All the slaves of power are
+out in search of thee.  They have been here already, threatening me
+with torture.  And the missionaries also have been here each day,
+maligning thee, and forcing me to join the hue and cry.  They have spat
+their venom also on Abdullah, thy paternal uncle, even blackening his
+face with Kuk!  The poor good man has been forced to return to his
+drunkenness.  Have I not grief enough already that thou must needs fly
+hither and increase my terrors?  What ailed thee to mislead the young
+Emir?  I warrant thou hast made no profit by it.  And that fine
+treasure written to thy name, predestined for thee, hast brought back
+any of it, luckless boy?"
+
+"I missed the way, O my mother.  The Emir fell ill; we were captured by
+the Bedu; all things warred against me."
+
+"So I could have told thee!  It is a judgment on thee for keeping
+secrets from thy loving mother! . . .  For the love of Christ, make
+haste, have done with eating.  If Costantin or one of the ladies were
+to catch thee here, or if the soldiers come and slay thee before my
+eyes!"
+
+Something of her anxiety communicated itself to him.  With the rest of
+the food in his hands he departed hastily.  But after running for,
+perhaps, a hundred paces, he shrugged his shoulders and resigned his
+cause to Allah.  On all hands homely objects wooed his gaze: a lone
+fig-tree down in a hollow, among whose branches he had perched and
+dreamed as a small boy; the path, now scarce defined, by which he went
+to school, choosing always to rush up the steepest part of the dune
+through excess of energy; the tamarisks round the Mission, and its high
+red roof; minarets and a dome of the town peering above the dark green
+wave of gardens.  All looked so pleasant in the early sunlight, it
+forbade him to feel concern for his own fortunes.  Even though, by
+cruel misconstruction of his motives, he were disgraced for life, all
+this remained to him.  In attaching his desires to this he ran no risk
+of being wounded, as he had been by the human things he sought to love.
+
+Strolling thus in reverie, he came upon the house of Mitri with
+surprise.  The thought of the priest as a protector at once occurred to
+him; for Mitri was a favourite with the Muslim rulers, and the Orthodox
+Patriarch, his ecclesiastical head, could oppose a power almost
+consular to any attempt to persecute a member of his flock.
+
+On the sunlit open space before the church, in the centre of which rose
+the ilex-tree, pigeons and a few lean fowls were pecking and dusting
+their wings, with rapturous coos and chuckles.  No one appeared at the
+doors of the hovels, all of which stood open, nor did any voice but
+that of hens proceed from thence.  But through the door-way of the
+little church came a sound of high monotonous chanting, interrupted at
+regular intervals by loud ejaculations from an audience.
+
+Iskender pulled off his boots, and went in.  The little nave was full
+of people, some standing, a few kneeling, the most part lying prostrate
+on the beaten earth which served instead of pavement.  Through the door
+of the sanctuary, he could see the priest Mitri, gorgeously arrayed,
+serving at the altar, bright with many candles which leaned this way
+and that without the least arrangement.  Now he walked all round it
+swinging a little censer, now stopped before a largeish book upon a
+stand, reciting all the time in nasal tones.  Nor was this all his
+business; for, except when the curtain was drawn at the moment of the
+Sacred Mystery, he kept an eye on the behaviour of some little boys who
+sat demurely on the doorstep of the sanctuary, and, catching one of
+them at some mischief, interrupted the service to fetch him a cuff on
+the ear and ejaculate, "Curse thy father, child of Satan!"  Among those
+of the congregation who lay face to the earth, Iskender presently
+recognised Elias; and close to him, both standing, were Selim and Daud,
+sons of Musa.  No one seemed to have remarked his entrance.
+
+The service ended, all pressed forward to kiss the hand of the
+celebrant, and, having done so, one by one, streamed forth into the
+sunlight.  Iskender soon thought himself alone in the church watching
+the priest put out the altar-lights.  But suddenly out of the darkest
+corner a man rose up and made a step towards the sanctuary, with arms
+outstretched in fierce appeal; then cried aloud and, burying his face
+in his hands, ran stumbling out.  Despite the untrimmed beard, the
+dirty clothes, Iskender recognised Abdullah, and a shudder ran through
+all his bones.
+
+The priest, having disrobed, at length emerged from the sanctuary in
+his everyday costume of black cassock and tall cylindrical headpiece;
+when Iskender knelt before him with choice blessings, and implored his
+aid.  In the shadow, with eyes yet dazzled from the radiance of the
+tapers he had just extinguished, Mitri could not make out who it was,
+but holding the suppliant's hands led him up to the light.  "Ma sh'
+Allah!" he exclaimed when he identified Iskender; and holding his hands
+more tightly, took him to his own house.
+
+There, having sent his wife out on an errand, he called for Iskender's
+tale without delay, saying:
+
+"I am much distressed on thy account; for the whole world speaks evil
+against thee.  It is said that thou hast robbed and slain the English
+Emir who trusted thee.  A lie, no doubt; but still I fear for thee, for
+the common voice outcries the truth down here.  Moreover, it is said
+that thou hast sworn falsely by the Blessed Sacrament; Yuhanna Mahbub
+has vowed to kill thee for it.  That is a heinous sin if it be true.
+Answer that first, before we proceed further.  Art thou indeed so
+perjured?"
+
+"No, O our father.  By Allah, I swore truly when I said I knew of no
+treasure, as will appear from the full confession I now make to thee,"
+Iskender answered, with eyes full of tears.  He was going to embark
+upon his story when the figure of a woman closely shawled appeared
+before them in the doorway.
+
+"May Allah reward thee, O our father Mitri," cried his mother, as,
+stooping, she kissed the priest's black robe.  "In pity save Iskender
+from those hounds of hell!  All that they speak against him is a lie.
+It was the Frank led him astray, not he the Frank.  I guessed he would
+fly straight to thee, the known friend and protector of the wronged,
+and my soul desired to be with him and hear his story."
+
+Relieved of the fear of the missionaries which pervaded her own abode,
+she now embraced her son and, sitting beside him, took his hand in hers.
+
+"Proceed with the story, O my son!" said Mitri.
+
+When all was told the woman wept aloud, exclaiming:
+
+"Woe upon us!  It is worse than was supposed.  Iskender is a loser.
+Iskender is most innocent of all men living.  Oh, who will show the
+truth to those who hate him?  He has shown himself a fool--a perfect
+fool!"
+
+Therewith she rose to go, explaining that she dared not stay another
+minute for fear the ladies of the Mission should go to the house in her
+absence, and grow angry and suspicious at not finding her.  It was
+their usual morning for the visit.  Once more she embraced her son,
+exclaiming:
+
+"This is upon us from the hand of Allah, unto whom be praise!  Yet--by
+the Gospel!--I had thought thee more intelligent!"
+
+Having made sure from the threshold that no one from the Mission was in
+sight, she shuffled off along the burning road.
+
+For some time Mitri sat immersed in thought; while Iskender, on whom
+the business of narration had brought back despair, hid his face in his
+arm.  At length the priest pronounced:
+
+"In all thy conduct as related I discern no grievous sin, but only
+folly and a youth's wild fancies.  The Franks will call thee sinful and
+a liar; but they, I think, have never known the youth which we
+experience--the warmth, the wonder and the dreams of it.  The lad who
+has been taught to read, or fed with stories, is dazzled by the vision
+of the world, its sovereignties, its wealth, its strange encounters.
+He pictures himself a ruler or a lord of riches, and invents a store of
+marvels for his own delight; and that because he would admire himself,
+and cannot do so in the daily tasks and mean surroundings of his actual
+life.  I myself, when at the seminary, considered the Patriarch's
+throne as mine of right, and should not have been greatly surprised to
+find myself installed there with my copy-book in my hand.  But
+by-and-by the world enlarged.  Its distances and depths appeared more
+clearly.  I perceived how, in order to become a Patriarch, I must lead
+the monastic life, renouncing homely joys; and even thus stood little
+chance of gaining my desire, since all the chief among the monks are
+foreign Greeks who despise us sons of the Arab, and would keep us down.
+The face of a girl I loved soon exorcised ambition; and behold me a
+small parish priest, a friend and equal of poor fellahin.  Now thy
+dream was to be a Frank in all save birth, to associate with thy Emir
+on equal terms.  To that end all thy follies were invented.  The wish
+was foolish only, but to put it into practice, that was fatal to
+thee--a crime in all men's eyes!  'O dreamer, sit still in thy chamber,
+thou art a prince: air thy princeship, men will teach thee thou art an
+ass!'  The world defames thee, as is only natural.  It would have done
+the same for me, had I, a poor young student, actually claimed the
+honours of a Patriarch.  Allah made thee a son of the Arabs.  Accept
+the part allotted, and give up aping that which thou canst never be.
+The charge of perjury at any rate, is groundless as against thee.  I
+will send word to Yuhanna, lest he harm thee.  And now the moral is: I
+wish to help thee, but cannot well do so whilst thou art a heretic.
+Promise to let me baptize and anoint thee without more ado, and Allah
+witness I will make thy cause my own."
+
+For the first time since their meeting in the church, the priest here
+smiled.
+
+"I swear it," said Iskender; "though Allah knows I care not what
+becomes of me.  I pray thee, tell my uncle Abdullah what I have told to
+thee, that his mind may be healed."
+
+"That is useless, O my son; for I have reasoned with him.  His grief is
+neither for thy deeds nor what is said of thee, but for some words
+thrown at him by the English missionary.  He set such store by his
+respectability and the esteem in which the Franks all held him, that
+now, in his humiliation, none but Allah can relieve his mind."
+
+While thus expounding, the priest took up his staff and exchanged his
+thin house slippers for stout walking ones.  With the last words he
+departed, bidding Iskender wait till he returned.
+
+The youth sat still in dejection, hypnotised by the bright edge of
+sunlight on the threshold, seeing nothing else.  He believed himself
+alone, when a hand touched one of his--a hand as cool and lissom as a
+serpent's skin.  The daughter of Mitri knelt on the ground beside him.
+She kissed his hand, and pressed it to her childish bosom.
+
+"May Allah comfort thee!" she whispered.  "Look not so miserable, I
+entreat thee, for it makes me cry.  When my father sent my mother out,
+I hid behind the oven, and so heard thy tale.  If it is true, thou
+didst well; and if it is false, I care not, thou didst well!  Praise to
+Allah, thou art no longer a Brutestant; thou art one of us, and I can
+call thee brother."
+
+Up to this point her voice was full of love; but when, awake at last,
+he tried to draw her to him, she cursed his ancestry and broke away.
+She had supposed him quite disabled by misfortune.  Running fast across
+the space of sunlight, she sat down in the shade of the oak-tree, where
+he could still see her in the frame of the doorway, and fell to singing
+softly to herself.
+
+She was still sitting there, at play with some glass beads, when her
+father returned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+"Praise be to Allah!" exclaimed Mitri, striding in and sitting down
+beside Iskender.  As soon as he recovered breath, he told his story.
+
+He had seen the secretary of the caimmacam, and from him had learnt
+that the English consul was Iskender's chief accuser.  Having no
+influence to oppose to so powerful an adversary except that of the
+Patriarch, Mitri had decided in his mind to make appeal to His
+Beatitude, who was sure to feel kindly disposed towards a convert from
+Protestantism; when a message was brought to the functionary, whose
+manner changed at once.  A telegram just received from the consul
+himself declared the young man guiltless of the crimes imputed to him.
+So pursuit was at an end.
+
+Iskender thanked the priest, and praised his name.  In the warmth of
+kindly treatment after many hardships, he cast aside reserve and
+caution as mere winter garments, and, the girl Nesibeh being still
+before his eyes, kissed Mitri's hand and owned his passion for her.
+Already he loved Mitra as a father.  He prayed to Allah he might some
+day be in truth his son.  That was his dearest wish, the one hope left
+to him.  The priest regarded him with pure amazement for a space, then
+burst out laughing.
+
+"Thou son of a dog!" he cried.  "What words are these?  Is this the
+season for such talk?  The girl is young to marry.  And thou art
+overbold, a youth with nothing!  If thy mind is still the same, say
+three years hence, then let thy mother approach her mother, who, I
+think, would scorn such wealth as thou couldst offer.  Now to talk
+sense.  Thou canst no longer lodge at the hotel, though Selim and Musa
+have maintained thy innocence, and, for themselves, would still have
+welcomed thee.  But Musa, their father, has forbidden it.  He says, and
+justly, that thy dwelling there would bring discredit on the house just
+now, when every traveller has the tale of thy misdeeds and hates thy
+name.  Come, and I will show thee thy lodging in the house of an old
+couple on whom Allah has bestowed male offspring only.  It is but a
+step from here."
+
+Again Iskender thanked the priest and kissed his hand.  For the first
+time in his life he felt at home in his own land.  The whole of the
+Orthodox community were henceforth his brethren.
+
+On the next day Elias came to visit him, without malice for the past or
+the slightest recollection of ever in his life having slandered his
+good friend, now his brother in the faith.  All his thoughts were of
+Wady 'l Muluk.  Had Iskender been there?  No?  Well, how was that?
+Iskender confessed that he had lost the description of its whereabouts,
+and his memory had played him false.  They had been very near to the
+place, of that he felt sure; but the Emir lost patience and refused to
+search any further.  So, for lack of a little perseverance, all was
+lost, and the whole expensive journey made for nothing.
+
+Elias listened with devout belief.
+
+"A pity!" he explained.  "But take heart, O my soul; thou and I will go
+together one of these days and examine that whole region.  We shall
+find it yet, in sh' Allah!"
+
+So obliging was his friendliness that he insisted on being a witness of
+Iskender's baptism upon the morrow.  His presence, with the scarlet
+dust-cloak and the silver-mounted whip, astride of a prancing charger,
+reflected glory on the little group of peasants who trudged out to the
+nearest river, the priest with them.  On the return there was a feast
+set forth in the house of Mitri, and great rejoicing of the whole
+community.  Elias was in boisterous spirits, boasting and telling
+strange stories; the sons of Musa discussed politics and the price of
+money with the rich Aziz; the priest made childish jokes and laughed at
+them; while the remainder of the party, mere turbaned fellahin,
+swarthy-faced and rough-handed, ate heartily and applauded all that was
+said.  The only death's-head present was Abdullah.  Dismissed by Cook
+as a result of the aspersions of the missionary, he now proclaimed his
+intention to start business on his own account.  But men shook their
+heads and winked aside when he talked of it.  The testimonials which he
+vaunted as his stock-in-trade had been given to an elderly man of
+dignity and pronounced decorum, not to this mouthing sheykh of the
+dirty raiment and the visage ploughed by dissipation.  On the present
+occasion he had no appetite for solid food, but sat apart morosely,
+tasting from time to time with manifest disrelish the light drinks
+provided.  It seemed he wished to go, but lacked the strength of mind
+required to detach his person from so large a company.  His head and
+hands kept trembling, and he muttered to himself.
+
+Merriment was at its height when there came a knock at the door.  The
+priest Mitri opened, and exclaimed in glad surprise:
+
+"Honour us, O khawajah!  Come in!  Fear not!  All my guests are honest
+people, and the occasion of our feast concerns thee nearly.  We have
+this day reclaimed a Brutestant from the way of perdition.  Would to
+Allah I might baptize thee also, O light of my eyes!"
+
+The belated visitor would have drawn back at glimpse of so large a
+gathering, but Mitri took him by the arm and brought him in.  It was
+the preacher Ward, the humblest of all missionaries, who was sent about
+the country on the errands of the proud ones; a modest, pious man, who
+spoke good Arabic and scorned not to converse upon a footing with the
+natives of the land.
+
+All rose upon his entrance.  Old Abdullah straightened his frame to
+something of its former majesty, and said:
+
+"Good efenin', sir!"
+
+"I have come too late, I find," the small white-bearded clergyman
+remarked to Mitri, who had forced him to be seated and set food before
+him.  "I knew not that the baptism had taken place.  My desire was only
+to ascertain that Iskender was earnest in this change of faith, and not
+impelled by anger at a treatment he conceived to be unjust."
+
+"By Allah, no, he is the most sincere of converts!" responded Mitri
+with his jolly laugh.  "Have I anything to tempt a proselyte?  Look
+round this room--with one beyond it, it is all my house--and compare it
+with the dwelling of the Father of Ice.  Ah, no, my friend: this is a
+true conversion!"
+
+"I ask you to belief, sir, that I haf nothin' to do with it," said old
+Abdullah angrily in English.  "I suffer much from unkind thin's beeble
+say about me.  They haf ruined me in my brofession."
+
+Mitri silenced the old man.  With a Protestant missionary for his
+guest, the priest thought all words wasted that were not employed on
+controversial subjects.
+
+"Thou art a good man, O khawajah," he observed politely but with a
+certain malice.  "Thou alone of all thy tribe wouldst deign to enter my
+poor house without arrogance, and sit down with my friends and
+neighbours in this kindly way; more especially this evening, when our
+gladness is at your expense.  Tell me, I beseech thee, in what sense
+the others of your kind serve Allah by building palaces in the land,
+displaying a luxury unknown among us, and so tempting the weak and
+worthless of the Church to gather round them in the hope of gain.  The
+Muslimin are unassailable, being the rulers; and the Latins are too
+strong and clever for them; so because their Honours must convert some
+one, being paid and sent here for the purpose, they take example from
+the Latins and turn on us, who are weak and not well educated.  But how
+do they serve Allah in all this?  Explain to me, O my soul!"
+
+The visitor stroked his thin white beard.
+
+"Are the schools nothing?  Are the hospitals nothing?" he inquired.
+
+"By Allah, it is true, they are much!" came in chorus from the company.
+
+"But the charity might be greater if it were dissociated from attempts
+at perversion," submitted Mitri with a show of deep humility.
+
+The missionary reflected for a moment before he said gently:
+
+"Your ideas and ours are widely different.  When I was young I thought
+with others of my kind, and preached conversion zealously and from the
+heart.  But now that I am old I sometimes think as you do, and ask
+myself what good there is in making proselytes.  But Allah is above all
+of us; He alone sees the end.  We strive, and others strive, for
+special objects, an all fail, or else find disappointment in success;
+but Allah uses our success and failure, and with them gains an object
+which we never saw.  Look back, O my friend, a score of years, and tell
+me: Is not the intercourse between the divers sects and religions in
+this country more friendly than it used to be; has not each more regard
+for the other, while adhering more strongly than ever to its own creed?
+Is not this to be ascribed to the missionaries, who pass from one to
+the other, and cause them to compare their views, or at least
+investigate them; who, by their very attacks, as you call them, have
+done good, by forcing the attacked to look to their position and
+resources?  The Muslimin, the very Jews, have grown more tolerant; they
+never stone me now as heretofore.  Strange indeed if, where faith
+assails faith in the name of Allah, Allah Himself should by that means
+produce general toleration, and an end to proselytising!  Yet that is
+what is happening, it seems to me.  The assaults of the Catholics and
+the Protestants upon your Church have revived her.  Her priests are
+better in their lives; they begin to be educated; and, as a
+consequence, she holds her ground.  I submit to thee that we have made
+few, if any, converts from you in the last ten years."
+
+"That is true," said Mitri, greatly interested; "and by my life thou
+speakest like an angel.  Nevertheless, there is but one true Church on
+earth; would that I might convince thee of her authority! . . .  But
+thou eatest nothing!  Taste this sweetstuff, I entreat thee; it is
+quite a delicacy!"
+
+The rest of the company, finding the argument beyond them, were talking
+among themselves in lower tones.  Only Abdullah, as a sometime
+dragoman, kept near the missionary, interrupting his speech with
+senseless scraps of English, all eagerness to translate for him the
+words of Mitri, till the latter stopped him with a curt "Be silent,
+fool!"  And Iskender also hung upon the missionary, waiting an
+opportunity to inquire for the young Emir.  On a pause he thrust in his
+question; when the missionary, who had been smiling at a joke of
+Mitri's, became of a sudden very grave.
+
+"He lies at the gate of death," was his answer.  "The doctor doubts if
+he will pass this night; but if he sees to-morrow's light, it means
+that he will live, in sh' Allah!"
+
+"May Allah preserve the poor young man!" said Mitri, and resumed the
+controversy.
+
+But Iskender heard no more.  He slipped out, unobserved, into the
+night, and stole down the sandy road through cloud-like orange-groves
+to where the sandhills rolled beneath the stars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Iskender walked all round the low garden-wall of the Mission, staring
+through the feathery cloud of the tamarisks at the upper windows of the
+house, till he saw a light in one of them, when he sat down on his
+heels and watched it doggedly.  He feared the blame which would attach
+to himself were the Emir to die; still more the reproaches of his own
+mind; but above all things he was conscious of a return of his old
+devotion to the fair-haired stranger.  He recalled the Frank's many
+kindnesses--in particular the splendid paint-box, which remained
+Iskender's own--and, sobbing, prayed from the heart that he might live.
+The hooting of an owl, or the bark of some dog in the distance, alone
+broke the stillness, of which the rustle of the tamarisks seemed part,
+so faint and vague it was.  At moments, looking up at the stars, he
+could have deemed them living creatures, for they seemed to throb in
+time with his own grief.
+
+He knew not how long he had sat there in the darkness unafraid, when
+the light in the room was moved.  A chill smote his heart.  He jumped
+over the wall and drew nearer, in the hope to catch some word of what
+was going on in there.  Inside the hedge of tamarisk the air was sweet
+with flower scents, which floated thick and separate on the still air,
+like oil on water.  He came beneath the window.  The light was once
+more steadfast; so again he sat down on his heels and waited.
+Presently the tamarisks were distributed by a cold breeze; they sighed
+aloud; the stagnant perfumes of the garden were confused and scattered;
+a whiteness came upon the wall before him, and the windows in it gave a
+pallid gleam.  Having no desire to be caught lurking there by one of
+the servants, he was on the point of departing, when the light in the
+window was again moved, and while he stood in wonder what such
+movements of the light portended, a door close by him opened, and the
+Sitt Hilda came out into the garden.  She was weeping silently, with no
+attempt to hide her tears.  Iskender sprang to her.
+
+"He is dead?" he moaned in Arabic.  "May Allah have mercy on him!"
+
+"He lives, the praise to Allah!" she replied, and with the words she
+wept more copiously, and turned from him to smell the clustered flowers
+of a certain creeping plant against the wall.
+
+Echoing "Praise to Allah!" he withdrew.
+
+She had not recognised him, had heard his question as the voice of
+Nature.  It seemed to him that she had not answered it, but merely
+sighed aloud her own thanksgiving.
+
+"She loves him!" thought Iskender, with a flush of sympathy.
+
+He found strange rapture in the knowledge of her passion for the fair
+Emir, in the prospect of a union of those two whom he had loved most of
+all people in his former life.  They seemed in a sense his creatures,
+and their love his handiwork.  If only he could help them to obtain
+their heart's desire, could serve their happiness by any means, and get
+forgiveness, he felt that he could enter on his new life without one
+regret.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Each morning and evening Iskender walked upon the sandhills until he
+met with some one coming from the Mission who could give him the latest
+tidings of the Emir.  His mother spied him once from her house-door,
+and indulged in furious gesticulations to the effect that he must fly
+for his life.  When he gave no heed she shook her fist at him, and
+opened her mouth wide to utter something, the sense of which was lost
+in the distance.  She even came to his lodging, stealthily as of wont,
+and implored him never to walk again so near the Mission.  It stopped
+her breath, and caused her deathlike palpitations to behold him there.
+The hatred of those children of abomination was so rank against him,
+that they might hurt his body.  At the least they would wound his soul
+with indignities which she could not bear to think of for her boy.
+
+"Hilda is the only one of them with any kindness; and she, I know, is
+always in the sickroom; she never now goes out beyond the garden.  The
+mother of George is absent; the preacher Ward has gone again.  The
+others!  They are known for devils, and they hate thee!  What madness
+in thee to approach their house!"
+
+When Iskender only laughed, she wrung her hands despairingly, and asked
+her Maker for deliverance from such a madman.  Her apprehensions
+proved, however, quite unfounded.
+
+The ladies Carulin and Jane were touched by Iskender's solicitude, and
+noticed him when passing on the road.  Costantin the gardener answered
+his demands, though grudgingly; and Asad told him all he wished to
+know.  The last named even condescended to remonstrate with Iskender on
+his change of faith, displaying the interest of a cultivated observer
+in the motions of some curious wild creature.
+
+"I am a son of the Arabs," was Iskender's invariable answer, "and have
+no wish to seem to be a Frank.  My religion teaches me to remove my
+hopes and ambitions from this world; and Allah knows I have experienced
+enough of its vicissitudes.  All I ask now is leave to live and die in
+peace."
+
+"That is beautiful, what thou sayest!" Asad would rejoin with his
+superior smile.  "But wait a month or so till thou hast survived thy
+present grievance; then wilt thou wish that thou hadst done as I have.
+For, only think!  I am to be sent to the land of the English to perfect
+my studies.  There I shall take care to ingratiate myself with the
+great ones of their Church, and to wed some noble lady of their race;
+that, when I return hither, these people may be forced to treat me with
+respect, and no longer as their servant and inferior.  I shall be a
+great khawajah, receiving perhaps two hundred English pounds every
+year, whereas thou canst hope to be no more than a humble toiler at
+some trade or other.  With the exercise of but a little self-control,
+thou mightst have been all this instead of me.  Hadst thou but heard
+the voice of my good counsel, much might have been preserved to thee.
+Even now I would have helped thee for old friendship's sake.  In the
+day of my power which is to come, in sh' Allah, it would have been easy
+to procure for thee the post of a teacher in some school or of
+lay-reader in some lesser mission.  But thy espousal of a barbarous
+superstition, which no civilised and cultured person can so much as
+tolerate, has put it quite beyond my power to serve thee."
+
+Iskender hardly listened to such talk.  His mind found business in its
+own devices.  He would have chosen to avoid the speaker altogether; but
+even Asad's unconcerned announcements, sandwiched in between gibes at
+the Orthodox faith were better than no tidings of his former patron.
+And Asad always lay in wait for him, delighting to dazzle one so
+downcast with the vision of his own high future.  One morning he said:
+
+"The uncle of the convalescent is expected to arrive to-day.  He has
+come all the way from Lundra on hearing of his dear one's illness.  It
+seems that thy sometime patron was ordered by the physicians to visit
+Masr, his health being weak.  Growing weary of that land, where he knew
+no one, and wishing to extend his travels, he came on here and made the
+friends we know.  This uncle, who is his nearest relative, cared not
+whither he went, so only that he was gaining health and strength; but
+hearing that his beloved lay at death's door, he hastened hither, mad
+with grief and rage.  The Father of Ice has received from him a
+thousand costly telegrams, which demonstrate sufficiently his mind's
+disorder.  It were well for thee to keep out of his way, for he will
+certainly vow thy destruction when he has heard the story."
+
+After this warning Iskender saw no more of Asad for three days, the
+clergyman-designate being called upon to help in the housework.  But he
+continued to walk near the Mission at sunrise and sunset; and at last,
+one evening, going there as usual, he found Asad sitting, Frank-wise,
+on a chair before the gate, devouring chunks of the sweetment called
+baclaweh, which the cook had given him.  Espying the son of Yacub from
+afar, the friendly youth sprang up in great alarm and waved him off
+with frantic gestures, sweets in hand.
+
+"Allah preserve thee, O Iskender; go back, O rash one!  Did not I tell
+thee not to come again?  Only to approach the house is certain death.
+The uncle of the poor sick man has sworn to drink thy blood, or at all
+events to beat thee senseless, in payment for the way thou didst
+beguile his nephew."  Asad sat down again upon the chair, and ate
+another mouthful, then pursued: "The young man now is so much better
+that he is able, with assistance, to pace the garden.  Yesterday it was
+the Sitt Hilda who supported him; but to-day it is the furious uncle,
+and the Sitt Hilda has red eyes.  The uncle thinks her not well-born
+enough, or else too poor, to mate with his dear nephew.  The young man
+has tired himself with pleading; but the old man locks his heart.  And
+I am glad, for I myself would not object to marry Hilda when I am in
+holy orders.  She is plump and shy and has fresh ripe-fruit cheeks that
+I should like to bite.  Thou thyself didst love her once, I am aware;
+and Allah knows thou mightst in the end have enjoyed her by the
+exercise of a little self-control, by waiting humbly, as I do, till
+they made a priest of thee.  At least, if I succeed in getting her, the
+Father of Ice, to whom she is like a daughter, will no longer be able
+to despise me, and keep me in dependence."
+
+In spite of his first announcement of tremendous danger, Asad detained
+Iskender by the gate for nearly an hour, talking with him openly in
+full sight of the house.  His discourse was chiefly of women,
+concerning whom he developed ideas purely cynical.  He said that the
+daughters of the country were the more appetising, but that he himself
+would choose a daughter of the English to increase his consequence.  If
+she possessed wealth or good looks, so much the better; but she must be
+English, and of an honourable house.  As an English missionary, with an
+English wife of good family, how he would lord it here on a stipend of
+two hundred pounds a year!  Iskender, being deep in thought of
+something else, made an excellent listener.  Asad presented him with a
+small piece of baclaweh.
+
+"At what hour does the Emir take his pleasure in the garden?" Iskender
+asked at parting from that child of promise; leaving Asad to suppose he
+put the question out of caution, to the end that he himself might shun
+the Mission at that hour.
+
+"Between the fourth and fifth after noon," was the reply.  "But avoid
+the house altogether, if thy life is precious to thee!  The foe, I tell
+thee, is a seasoned warrior, a drinker of blood from his birth."
+
+From all that Asad had let fall, two facts shone forth: that the Emir
+was mad in love with the Sitt Hilda, and that he was oppressed by his
+cruel uncle.  Iskender mused on these, seeing a chance to help him and
+obtain forgiveness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+Between the fourth and fifth hour after noon of that same day Iskender
+once more approached the house of the missionaries, this time with
+extreme precaution, keeping as far as might be hidden in the folds of
+the land, and, when obliged of necessity to cross a space of ground
+exposed to view, crawling on his belly, with his tarbush, which, being
+scarlet, was conspicuous, doffed and rolled up tightly in one hand.  It
+was important for the enterprise he had in view that no one of the
+house should see him coming.
+
+Having reached the garden boundary undiscovered, he stole round it,
+crouching, with his ear to the wall.  Soon he caught the sound of
+voices, and, guided by them, reached a point quite near the speakers
+whence he could hear every word they were saying.  The Emir had just
+concluded what must have been a long petition, and now the uncle spoke:
+
+"Need we have it all over again?" he inquired irritably.  "You know I
+would not cross you in your present state, unless I were convinced it
+is for your own good.  As I have before observed, she is a good many
+years your senior; she has neither birth nor money, nor anything
+uncommon in good looks.  If, in eight months' time, you still desire
+it, I shall have no longer any right to forbid your marrying.  But it
+shall not be now."
+
+The tamarisks just there were a sufficient screen.  Noiselessly
+Iskender surmounted the low wall and parted with his hands their
+feathery boughs till he could see the disputants.  The uncle's face was
+richly bronzed, in striking contrast with his light blue eyes and heavy
+white moustache.  Clad in a white suit, with a white pith helmet on his
+head, he appeared to Iskender like a portrait just begun, of which only
+the hands and the flesh of the face had yet been coloured by the
+artist.  Of figure he was broad and upright, without a symptom of
+decrepitude unless it might be the stout cane he used in walking.  The
+Emir looked fragile and infirm beside him, pale with the trace of
+illness, and bowed by his present dejection.
+
+"Pshaw!  Bless my soul!" pursued the uncle, with a lively flourish of
+his cane.  "Why, every man falls in love with his nurse if she's at all
+personable; it is a phase of convalescence.  I could tell you of a
+dozen cases, within my own personal knowledge, out in India; but I
+never saw a happy marriage come of it.  Now come, I only ask you to
+wait eight months until you are of age--you can't call that request
+unreasonable--and to stop all communications for the same period.  It
+will give both you and the lady time to think about it, and save you
+both from rash and ill-considered action.  Our good host here and the
+elder ladies quite agree with me.  Now sit down on this bench and rest,
+while I go and get my notebook with the dates of sailing."
+
+With that the old man went into the house, leaving the Emir alone,
+resting forlornly on the garden-seat beneath a flowering tree and
+staring at the ground.  Iskender parted the growth of tamarisks and
+stood out before him.
+
+The Emir gave a start and a faint cry, with eyes dilated.  Iskender
+pounced on his hand and, murmuring words of love, essayed to kiss it.
+It was snatched from him.
+
+"What the devil are you doing here?  Get out, I say!"  The Frank spoke
+low and angrily, with a glance at his hands which cursed their present
+helplessness.  "If I were not so confoundedly weak, I would send you
+flying over that wall! . . .  Oh, yes, I suppose I forgive you, and all
+that.  Only I don't want to speak to you, or see your face.  You've got
+to be a kind of nightmare to me.  I daresay I misjudged you; I don't
+pretend to understand you; in some ways you behaved quite well and
+honestly.  Only I can't endure the sight of your face, the sound of
+your confounded voice.  Get out, I tell you."
+
+But Iskender came close, and, despite his efforts to repel, leaned over
+him and whispered in his ear:
+
+"Just listen, sir!  I bring her to you where you like--to England?--to
+America?--anywhere you tell me.  Gif to me a bit of writing, for me to
+show to her--you know!--to Miss Hilda, her you luf!  The old man is a
+fery wicked deffil to wish to sebarate you."
+
+"So you have been listening, have you?" said the Frank, with a
+mirthless laugh.  "Just as if you hadn't done enough already in the way
+of meddling with my affairs.  Go! and may I never see your face again.
+You will make haste and begone if you're wise.  My uncle will be back
+in half a jiffy."
+
+But Iskender was too astonished by these words, and the listless manner
+of their utterance, to trust his understanding.  He went on entreating:
+
+"Just a word in your handwriting, sir, so she can know it's all right.
+I bring her to you anywhere at my exbense.  God knows I do anything to
+blease you!  I treat her honourably, sir; I be her servant like as I'f
+been yours.  All that I told you about me and her was nothin'; I was
+just a silly boy.  I resbect her, sir; I be her slave; you trust me.
+By God, I treat her like as if she was the Blessed Firgin!  It will
+cost you nothin', sir; I bray you do not doubt----"
+
+But he got no further, being suddenly collared from behind, and beaten
+with a cane which stung like hornets.  Screaming under the punishment,
+and struggling hard, he at last succeeded in breaking away just as
+Costantin came running round a corner of the house and terrified faces
+appeared at its lower windows.  He heard his assailant, panting,
+exclaim, "That's the only argument the beggars understand.  We learnt
+that in India," as he (Iskender) dashed through the hedge of tamarisks
+and cleared the low wall at a bound.
+
+With mouth full of sobs, he ran across the sandhills, every salient
+object, every shadow, swelling and sinking with the horror of each
+breath he drew.  It was not that the old afrit, the uncle of the Emir,
+had beaten him, nor that his back was sore, but that the Emir himself
+had refused his services, which so appalled him.  He felt like the
+spectator of some ghastly crime.  Surely no man really in love would
+question by what means he got his dear, so only that she was brought to
+him with despatch and decency.  It was a catastrophe hardly less than
+that of the gold.  Even in love--the fierce, unreasoning passion of a
+youth for a maid--it seemed a Frank must differ from a son of the
+Arabs.  Once more Iskender had erred in attributing to the Emir his own
+sensations, and been punished for it as for an offence unthinkable.
+Once more he gazed into a soundless gulf, impossible to bridge; and was
+appalled.
+
+Seeing a convenient hollow close before him, he plunged into it, and
+had flung himself down to think and fetch his breath, before he knew
+that it was already occupied.  A sudden burst of music with the strains
+of the English National Hymn was the first announcement he received of
+the proximity of Khalil, the concertina-player, and of his own uncle
+Abdullah.
+
+"Welcome, O Iskender," said Khalil, when the tune had finished with
+becoming gravity.  "I come out here to play my music undisturbed.  And
+Abdullah follows me through love of the strange sounds, which soothe
+his mind's disease."
+
+"May Allah preserve thee in happiness, O son of my brother!" said
+Abdullah gloomily.  "But thy folly has brought ruin to my house.  Our
+Lord destroy those children of iniquity who slandered me in the ears of
+Kuk."
+
+"Take heart, O my soul!  Be not so downcast!" pleaded the musician, who
+was all urbanity, doing the honours of his one accomplishment there in
+that lonely hollow of the sands for all the world as though it had been
+a fine reception-room, and they his guests.  "Stay, and I will play to
+you both the air of 'Yenki-dudal'--a noble air, none like it, and of
+wide renown.  So shall Abdullah cease from brooding on misfortune."
+
+This Frankish music hurrying to an end, of a rhythm monotonous as the
+hoof-beats of a galloping horse, seemed very ugly to Iskender.  How
+different from the delicious waywardness of Eastern airs, whose charm
+is all by the bye, in precious dawdlings and digressions!  It revealed
+to him the mind of his Emir.  Gradually, as he listened to it, grief
+fell from him; and in its stead rose hatred for a race that measured
+all things, even the sweet sounds of music, even love.  He remembered
+only that his back was sore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+That night Iskender still endured distress of mind.  Anger and fierce
+hatred of the Franks overcame him whenever he recalled what had
+happened in the Mission garden, and the recurring smart of his wounds
+prevented his forgetting it for more than a minute at a time.  But in
+the morning, when pain had given place to a bruised stiffness, he
+recovered the resignation which had been his before the preacher Ward
+came with the tidings of his Emir's great danger.  For the first time
+since his return from the search for Wady 'l Muluk he took out his
+paints and sketch-book, and went and sat beneath the ilex-tree,
+awaiting inspiration.  But the buzz of flies, of bees, and other
+insects inseparable from the creamy morning sunlight set his mind
+afloat, and prevented its settling on any one object.
+
+In this happy state of indecision he was found by Asad son of
+Costantin.  That high-minded youth had come, as he explained, at no
+small peril to himself, solely to warn his dear one to beware of ever
+coming near the Mission.  The indignation of the missionary and the
+ladies with his conduct of the day before was intense; and no wonder,
+for from the excitement consequent upon that scene in the garden the
+Frank was back in bed again as ill as ever.  All, to the very servants,
+blamed Iskender; while as for the uncle of the sufferer, that ancient
+blood-drinker had sworn to cut the son of Yacub into little pieces, and
+give his meat to dogs--a form of punishment, Asad explained, which the
+terrible old man had practised daily while in India at the expense of
+the native inhabitants of that unhappy country.
+
+"Wallah, he is a veritable ghoul; he is more blood-thirsty than the
+worst among the Turks.  Did I not warn thee of his state of feeling?
+What ailed thee thus to rush into his arms?"
+
+To all this Iskender's sole reply was:
+
+"Allah is bountiful!"
+
+"But wherefore risk thy body in his presence?  Tell me, O my soul, what
+imp possessed thee?" pleaded Asad in his most seductive tone.  His
+curiosity was real, and very great.  "All demand to know.  That old
+ghoul vows he caught thee begging money of thy former patron--the Emir,
+we used to call him, who is no more an Emir than I am, it turns out,
+but only the son of a merchant in the city of Lundra--but I cannot
+believe that he speaks truth in this.  Inform me of thy motives, tell
+what really happened; then I can defend thee.  Is not my discretion
+known?  Have I not always stood thy friend?  By Allah, I will keep the
+matter secret, if that is thy desire.  Tell me, me only, O my soul--thy
+brother Asad!"
+
+Still Iskender only answered: "Allah is bountiful!"  In truth the
+tidings of the Emir's relapse concerned him not at all.  He murmured in
+his soul, "May Allah heal him!" as he would have prayed on hearing of a
+stranger's illness, but with no sense of guilt or responsibility.  To
+have opened his heart to Asad would have been to risk destroying this
+blissful state of indifference.  He feared to revive his emotions of
+the day before; so confined himself to pious exclamations.
+
+Asad's inquisitiveness, however, was of a hardy kind.  Again and yet
+again did he return to the charge, pleading, remonstrating, even
+threatening; holding out every inducement he could think of; even
+offering the fine penknife with three blades and an ivory handle, which
+had been given to him only yesterday by the Sitt Jane.  He held this
+treasure up before his patient's eyes, opening the blades one by one to
+display the glory of it.  But Iskender still sat on composedly, smiling
+into distance, like a graven image.  Finding he could elicit nothing,
+Asad grew angry.
+
+"Thou art still at thy childish toys, I see," he sneered as he at last
+withdrew.  "Much they will profit thee!  Ma sh' Allah!  I can see how
+thou wilt envy me hereafter when I am a grand khawajah, and thou art
+dirt in the road!"  Having attained a safe distance, he let fly his
+farewell shaft: "Cursed be thy religion, O dog son of a dog!"
+
+Iskender then glanced round in the hope that some others of the
+Orthodox communion might have heard the insult, in which case it would
+have fared extremely ill with the son of Costantin.  His heart leapt
+with joy at the sight of Elias close at hand armed with his fine
+silver-mounted riding-whip.  But instead of pursuing Asad, who had
+taken to his heels, and of whipping the life out of him, Elias
+contented himself with throwing a stone and celebrating in a loud voice
+the immodesty of Asad's mother and the revolting manner of his
+conception and birth.  That done, he came and sat beside Iskender.
+
+"I have killed a man for cursing our holy religion before now," he
+remarked, smiling; and proceeded to give an outline of the murder.  But
+this was not the object of his coming.  He had obtained command of a
+party of American travellers, men bound for Wady Musa, and, remembering
+that the valley of the gold lay somewhere in the same direction, had
+come to ask Iskender to join the expedition in the quality of cook.
+These khawajat knew nothing of the country, Elias could conduct them by
+what road he chose; might even keep them encamped in one spot for days,
+if necessary, while he and his dearest friend explored the
+neighbourhood.
+
+"Say yes, O my soul!" he entreated.  "It is an opportunity that may not
+occur again.  In sh' Allah, we shall come back each as rich as the
+Sultan's Majesty.  Without thee, I am nothing; for thou alone art in
+possession of the knowledge to ensure success.  We set forth to-morrow.
+Make all thy preparations now directly, and come with us!"
+
+Iskender refused, vowing by Allah Most High that he had had enough of
+desert travelling to last a lifetime.  At that the chagrin of Elias was
+pitiful to witness.  He saw the valley full of gold, which the second
+before had seemed quite close to him, removed by this reply a great way
+off.  But when Iskender offered to describe its whereabouts to the best
+of his remembrance, and to make over all his rights in it to him
+(Elias), confiding in his far-famed generosity, the seer's lips parted
+and his eyes started out from his head with astonishment and delight.
+Whipping out his grand pocket-book, he took down hurried notes while
+Iskender thoughtfully reviewed his route with the Emir, naming every
+village and outstanding mark upon the road, as also the precise point
+at which he believed that he had gone astray.
+
+"It was there that my memory failed me.  I should have borne more to
+the southward.  But even as it was, we must have been within an hour of
+the place, when the Emir--curse his father!--gave the fatal order to
+turn back.  Forget not, O my soul, to bribe the chief of the Arabs in
+that district, who is surnamed Son of the Lion; or he will certainly
+oppress thy party as he did mine."
+
+Elias, having replaced his note-book, flung both arms around Iskender's
+neck and kissed him on the mouth repeatedly.  Tears rolled from his
+eyes.  He whispered fiercely:
+
+"Never will I forget this deed of kindness; I will pay thee half the
+treasure--by my head I swear it, by my honourable reputation, by my
+hope of life hereafter!  Allah knows I always loved thee!  May Allah
+destroy those wicked people who spread abroad foul lies concerning
+thee.  Only let them dare to come within reach of my two hands!"
+
+The transport past, he sat beside Iskender, with arm about his neck.
+Some girls at a round game in the shadow of the church caught his
+wandering eye.  He called his friend's attention to the good looks of
+Nesibeh, who was one of them.  Iskender turned his head and threw a
+careless glance in the direction indicated.
+
+"Thou hast not seen her properly.  Wait a minute! . . .  O Nesibeh!  O
+my pearl!  Come hither! . . .  Ah, the rogue has fled to hiding; she
+has slipped inside the church; and the rest, her playmates, are flying,
+each to her mother's side, as if my sweet-toned voice had been a lion's
+roar!  A year ago she would have flung herself into my arms, and sat
+upon my knee and begged for stories.  But now she wears the veil, she
+is a woman, and therefore must be captious like the rest of them.  In
+thy grace I depart, having much to put in order for to-morrow's
+journey."
+
+Once more he flung both arms around Iskender's neck, kissing him on
+both cheeks and on the mouth, and vowing by Our Lady, and by the three
+Archangels, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, to repay him half the
+treasure of the Valley of the Kings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+Left alone, Iskender took up a position in which he could watch the
+open door of the church without seeming to do so.  Then, as soon as he
+beheld Nesibeh peeping out, he opened his paint-box, laid his
+sketch-book on his knee, and made believe to set to work in earnest,
+crooning a facetious song the while, to complete the deception.  His
+object was to tempt or provoke the girl to come to him.  For days past
+she had withstood all his allurements, taking to her heels at his
+approach.  He desired an explanation of such queer behaviour, and,
+having learnt that frankness was of no avail, resorted now to subtlety.
+
+After a space of apparent absorption in his work, he hazarded a glance
+out of the corners of his eyes, and was glad to see that she was
+drawing nearer.  From the glimpse thus obtained he judged her
+discontented, sullen, even angry, and suspected some hostility to be
+the object of her stealing up behind him.  But he was quite unprepared
+for what actually happened.  A large stone, flung at close quarters
+with all the strength of her young arms, struck him fairly between the
+shoulders, just where the bruises resultant from yesterday's beating
+most thickly congregated.  It knocked all the breath out of his body.
+The shock, however, stood him in good stead; since it prevented his
+acting on the first angry impulse of retaliation, and at the same time
+gave him a look of genuine anguish.  In a trice she was at his side,
+weeping and imploring his forgiveness.
+
+"Say thou art not badly hurt--say it, I implore thee.  By my life, I
+should die if I had injured thee."
+
+Iskender did his best to personate the last agony, writhing and rolling
+his eyes, and clutching at the air with palsied hands.  In despair of
+soothing one in that condition, she changed mood swiftly and became
+defiant.
+
+"No matter," she sneered.  "Thou art not hurt to death; and by Allah
+thou deservest any suffering in return for the shame and humiliation
+thou hast put upon me.  What was that Frank--curse his religion!--to
+thee, that thou must go every hour only to watch the house where he lay
+ill?  He had cast thee off, when I came and comforted thee.  Yet is he
+dearer!  O the disgrace to me to have offered my love and to be thus
+rejected!  Would to Allah I had never seen thy dirty, ugly, wicked--thy
+accursed face!  It is the face of a pig, of an afrit; so now thou
+knowest!  What had I ever done to harm thee that, after speaking to me
+of love and asking for me, thou didst turn thy back and spurn me for
+the sake of a vile foreigner who has blackened thy face and made of
+thee a byword for infamy?  I heard thee ask my father; and I heard his
+answer.  There was hope for thee.  Why has thy mother never come to
+talk with mine?  By Allah, I will take that stone again and kill thee
+with it; for it seems that I am nothing in thy eyes, O misbegotten!"
+
+Iskender knew not how to answer, for her reproach was righteous; yet he
+loved her dearly.  He was released from this embarrassment by the
+return of Mitri, who had been into the town to visit a sick man.  He
+had drawn quite near before the bickering pair perceived him.  Nesibeh
+made as if to fly indoors; but the priest called her back rather
+sternly.
+
+"Art afraid of me, thy father, child of mischief?  By the Gospel thou
+hast cause to fear, O shameless, O deceitful.  But wait a minute, I
+command thee, and hear what I have to say to this young man."
+
+The girl obeyed demurely, standing by, with hands folded in the fall of
+her white headveil while her father addressed Iskender.
+
+"It is known, O my son, that I have conceived a fondness for thee; and
+so it seems has this wild girl of mine.  The mother of Nesibeh, too,
+speaks well of thee, because thou dost run her errands, and art fond of
+playing with the younger children--things which seem naught to me, but
+please her greatly.  I say not that I will not give Nesibeh to thee,
+some day in the future, if thou walkest straight.  At present she is
+very young; and thou hast yet no trade by which to gain a livelihood.
+Now I have been thinking; Allah has bestowed on thee a rare and
+wondrous gift, which is, to make flat likenesses of all things that
+thine eyes behold.  There lives in El Cuds a sheykh of my
+acquaintance--a righteous man, and steadfast in the faith--who earns
+his living, and a fat one, by no other means.  He makes the icons and
+religious pictures for many of our monasteries and great churches.
+Often, in old days, when I was at the seminary, have I watched him
+shape the blue and crimson robes and spread the gold like butter.  I
+will write a word to him and, maybe, pay a trifle, that he may receive
+thee as his disciple.  Devote thyself to his instruction and soon, with
+the grace of Allah, thou wilt far surpass him in accomplishment.  Then,
+after a year or two, return and speak to us of marriage.  We shall hear
+thee favourably.  Have I said well, O my daughter?"
+
+The child was silent.  The weight of her father's words had stilled and
+solemnised her, removing every trace of coquetry.  Her head was bowed
+as at the benediction; she was sobbing.  Mitri patted her head and bade
+her run indoors.
+
+"There is yet another reason," he told Iskender privately, "why I would
+defer the nuptials for a year or two.  Did thy wedding with my daughter
+follow close on thy conversion, scoffers would see in it a clear
+inducement, would say that I bribed thee with my flesh and blood; and
+that would grieve me.  Go away, therefore, for a reasonable time; let
+the noise of thy conversion die away; and all is said."
+
+So it was arranged.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+On the day when the Emir set sail for England in the custody of his
+forbidding uncle, Iskender, with the sum of two mejidis in his pouch,
+set out on foot for the Holy City.  On his way to join a horde of
+Russian pilgrims with whom, by Mitri's advice, he was to walk for
+safety, he saw the carriage belonging to the Hotel Barudi, conveying
+the two Englishmen to the gate of the town.  The carriage passed him
+from behind; its inmates must have had him long in view, the road being
+empty; yet the Emir deigned never a glance at him, but laughed and
+talked, as if enchanted, with the horrible old ghoul who sat beside
+him.  Iskender called down curses on their race, and hastened on to
+find his Russian pilgrims.
+
+These were peasants, men and women, for the most part old, with faces
+gnarled and knotted like the trunks of ancient olives, and pale eyes
+which had a patient, rapt expression as if they saw Heaven opened, but
+a long way off.  They took no notice of Iskender there beside them,
+though his adherence was conspicuous as a flower among grey rocks, but
+trudged onward, singing hymns in a strange tongue.
+
+The general rate of advance was very slow, so many aged, feeble folk
+were of the company; but some three hours after noon of the third day,
+having toiled long through a wilderness of stony hills, they saw the
+city.  Men and women kissed the ground, weeping and crying aloud.  The
+priests in charge of the pilgrims struck up a psalm of thanksgiving.
+
+Iskender left them at these devotions, passing on into the city.  There
+he lost all purpose and the count of time in rapture with the colours
+of the motley throng, which budded in the night of long, dark tunnels
+and blossomed in the open alleys, full of shade.  The sense of an
+infinitude of burning light, resting above, gave to the shadow and its
+bedded splendours something magical, reminding Iskender of his childish
+fancies of what it must be like to live at the bottom of the sea.  He
+had stood for a long while glued to the pavement of a certain entry,
+outside the jostling crowd, gazing entranced at the shop of a
+coppersmith across the way--where, in the darkness of a kind of cave,
+the burnished wares gave forth a bluish gleam like negro faces--when
+some one smote his chest.
+
+There was Yuhanna the dragoman, his old enemy, grinning down at him,
+for once quite friendly.
+
+"Shrink not, O my son, fear nothing," he said, laughing, when Iskender
+half retreated.  "Thou didst not perjure thyself, it seems, that time
+thou knowest, so I have no grudge against thee.  And now thou hast
+joined the Church, thou art my brother.  I heard the blessed news from
+one I met upon the road.  Art thou not happy to be now a child of
+light, delivered from the prospect of everlasting damnation?  Wallah,
+it is bad to be Brutestant."
+
+He gave Iskender's arm a cunning twist, just enough to suggest the
+torture in reserve for heretics; and then, detaining his hand inquired
+the nature of his business in the city.  Thus reminded of his errand
+which had quite escaped him, Iskender confessed that he was in search
+of the shop of one Ibrahim abu Yusuf, a painter of religious pictures.
+Yuhanna told him it was close at hand, and, having treated him to a cup
+of coffee and some sticky sweet-stuff, showed him the way, which could
+hardly have been found without direction.  Through a deserted alley,
+down first one dark, stinking passage, then another, Iskender reached a
+crazy door and, knocking on it twice, was told to enter.
+
+The room within was small and very dark.  It had only one window, high
+up in the wall, and even that looked out upon a covered way.  When
+Iskender entered, the artist was in the act of rising from his knees,
+having been on the floor at work upon a picture.  He was a wizened
+elder with a fine white beard, clad in a soiled kaftan, black turban
+and big black-rimmed spectacles.  Lighting a candle-end he read the
+letter of the priest Mitri, and, having read, embraced his new
+disciple.  He took off his spectacles, brushed them, wiped his eyes
+repeatedly, and then knelt again to his painting, bidding Iskender
+watch the way of it.  When the youth suggested that more light was
+needed, Ibrahim abu Yusuf shook his head decidedly.  This room, he
+explained, had been chosen precisely on account of its obscurity, which
+meant seclusion.  Were he to ply his trade in the light of day, the
+Muslim zealots of the city would speedily tear him in pieces as an
+idol-maker.  "Though some of them make pictures also," he explained,
+"not here but in Esh-Sham and other places.  They quote in excuse some
+fetwah of the learned.  I have no appeal; for did I quote their fetwah
+they would call it blasphemy."  The room, he said, possessed advantages
+for health as well as privacy.  Its window gave upon the market of the
+shoemakers, and, when it stood open, admitted the smell of leather,
+than which nothing in the world is more wholesome and invigorating.
+Iskender was glad to learn that he was not required to sleep there, but
+in the private house of his master, whither he was conducted at the end
+of the day's work.  The old man and his wife seemed pleased to have him
+in the room of their only son, an adventurous youth who had gone with
+merchandise to America to seek his fortune.
+
+The Sheykh Ibrahim took great pains with his pupil's instruction, and
+taught him divers little tricks which saved much trouble.
+
+"But times are bad!" he would suspire in moments of depression.  "Once
+it was a profitable trade; all the pictures required used to be wrought
+and purchased in the land.  But now the majority of the clergy buy them
+ready-made from Europe.  That the Franks have a pretty, life-like trick
+is undeniable; yet I think our ancient style, stiff and conventional as
+they call it, is far more reverent.  There is no one left to practise
+it, nowadays, except myself, and here and there a religious in the
+monasteries."
+
+Yet, for all the old man's moan, there seemed no lack of business; and
+Iskender wished that he had half the money which he saw paid into his
+master's hand.  Monks and nuns and priests, and even prelates, found
+their way to the cell of the painter; and Iskender's work was highly
+thought of by such visitors.  The old man was laughingly told to look
+to his laurels, for the young one at his side had almost Frankish
+talent.
+
+"Heed them not, O my soul!" said Abu Yusuf.  "They speak as fools who
+know not.  That the Frankish way has merits, all must allow; but ours,
+I do maintain, is more devotional.  Let it be one thing or the other;
+that is all I ask.  And I would have thee purge thy style, once and for
+all, of just those lifelike touches which these fools admire."
+
+Iskender, of sheer laziness, was content to humour the old man; and
+soon acquired such skill in practice that he could have wrought with
+his eyes shut, as the Sheykh Abu Yusuf virtually did, for he was almost
+blind.  Every morning, before setting to work, he hastened to the
+Church of the Resurrection and said a prayer there, kneeling at the
+tomb of Christ, ere studying the paintings which adorn its dim old
+walls.  At the end of a year and a half his work was in greater demand
+than that of his master.  The latter, recognising that his hand was
+failing and his sight would soon be gone, offered to sell him the
+business.  But Iskender had no money for the purchase.  He consented,
+however, to a scheme of partnership; and, proud of his achievements,
+sent a letter to the priest Mitri, announcing his return to claim his
+bride.  After four days came the priest's reply, to the effect that
+preparations were being made for the wedding; upon receipt of which
+Iskender set forth on his journey, mounted upon an ass, and accompanied
+by two wealthy Christian merchants of El Cuds, new friends of his, who
+valued his acquaintance.  Their escort won him standing in his native
+town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+The bridal was attended with festivities.  The little Christian village
+re-echoed with the ululation of the crowd of women forming the bride's
+procession, as they paraded their joy among the hovels before going to
+the church.  And when, after the ceremony, the train came forth, carrying
+Nesibeh to a house not her father's, the zagharit broke out afresh, and
+guns and pistols were discharged.  Much feasting of a solid kind ensued
+at the bridegroom's expense, in a house which had been ceded to him for
+the purpose.  Elias was there in gorgeous raiment, telling all who would
+give ear a strange romance of how he had once been all but married to a
+royal princess.  Khalil, the concertina-player, was a thought aggrieved
+that Mitri forbade him to make music in the church itself, but forgot his
+dudgeon when the crowd trooped out again.  For hours he played on
+indefatigably, repeating his whole repertory of Frankish discords at
+least a score of times, and telling all who asked that he had acquired
+his skill in foreign music by instruction from the greatest living master
+of the art--a certain English mariner named William.
+
+Of Iskender's family not one was present.  His mother dared not
+adventure, for fear of the missionaries; and his uncle Abdullah lay at
+that time ill in his house as the result of a wound received in a drunken
+brawl.
+
+It was not until two days later, when Iskender was beginning to overcome
+the shyness of his young bride, that his mother came to bless him.
+
+"Ah, thou hast won for thyself a pearl of price, my son, a gem desired of
+many!" she whispered in his ear, when she had embraced Nesibeh.  "Be
+careful of her goings, guard her closely; for it has reached my ears that
+she is ripe for naughtiness.  May Allah, of his mercy, bless the pair of
+you, and grant you honoured increase."
+
+Congratulation, however, was only part of her purpose in the visit, as
+soon appeared.
+
+"My son," she cried excitedly, "the great lady, the mother of George, has
+come hither from the land of the English, for a few weeks only, having
+left the children.  She had ever a fondness for thee, and has asked to
+see thee, as I hear from the servants at the Mission.  Even when informed
+of all thy misdoings by the Father of Ice, her husband, she smiled in his
+face, they tell me, and still protested she would like to see thee.  So I
+threw this shawl over my head, and came to fetch thee to the house.  The
+mother of George loves thee, as I said before; and her husband denies her
+nothing, both because she comes of a good house, while he is the son of
+low people, and for the sake of the many children she has borne him.  By
+the Gospel, I perceive a chance for thee to retrieve the past, if only
+thou wilt deign to be a little politic and respect their foibles.  For
+Asad son of Costantin is in the land of the English, and the report of
+his doings displeases the Father of Ice.  It is said that he shows a
+tendency towards the High Church in that country, which for the time is
+uppermost, and has found some favour with its dignitaries; which means he
+is accursed in the eyes of our friends here. . . .  What art thou doing?
+Come, make haste, I say!"
+
+Iskender, on his knees upon the floor, was looking through a little pile
+of paintings, his own work.
+
+"I would take in my hand a gift for the mother of George," he explained;
+"a specimen of my art, that she may see what proficiency I have attained
+in it.  It was she who first encouraged me to draw and paint--she and,
+after her, the Sitt Hilda.  I should like them both to see the beauty of
+my present paintings."
+
+"Now Allah forbid!" exclaimed his mother in alarm.  "Verily thou art mad
+to think of it.  They view with horror all religious pictures, regarding
+them as idols, in their ignorance, like the Muslimin!  Here is a chance
+to recover all their favour, to supplant Asad, to become a priest of
+their religion, a rich khawajah; and lo! thou wouldst spoil it all by
+showing them a holy image!  When thou askest aught of the Devil, make not
+the sign of the Cross.  Be wise, my son; and come at once!"
+
+But Nesibeh, who had till now stood speechless by, here flung herself
+between them, threatening to tear the eyes out of the mother of Iskender.
+She swore that she would never let her husband visit the home of unbelief
+in the company of one so wicked.  If he went at all, let him take the
+holy picture to protect his spirit from pernicious influence.
+
+"Tush! tush! thou silly babe," the elder woman chid her, "were it not
+better for thee to have for husband a rich khawajah than a wretched
+painter of religious pictures?  Thou wouldst wear fine Frankish clothes
+of wondrous texture and hats, I tell thee, hats with waving feathers.
+Thou wouldst sit at ease all day, with maids to wait on thee."
+
+"I want none of it," screamed Nesibeh.  "These are devil's wiles.  May
+Allah blast thy life, unnatural woman, thus to tempt thy son to sell his
+soul, his part in everlasting life, for earthly gain."
+
+Iskender took her in his arms and silenced her; then turned to pacify his
+mother, who was much incensed.  Had she thought for herself at all?  Was
+not all her endeavour to secure prosperity and a high position for
+Iskender, and, of course, his bride?  What right had this chit of a girl,
+who knew nothing of the world, nor the shifts that folks are forced to
+who would live in it comfortably, to call her husband's mother an
+unnatural woman for displaying a little forethought?  And Allah knew it
+was a grievous pity, for her adherence would have clinched the matter.
+They would have given Iskender anything on earth to secure the conversion
+of the daughter of the Orthodox priest.  Appeased at length, she asked to
+see the picture.  It was a simple fancy of Iskender's, done in leisure
+moments, of angels fighting devils in mid-air, with clouds like solid
+cushions spread to fall on.
+
+"Aye, that may pass," she admitted grudgingly, "the fiends at all events,
+for they believe in them."
+
+In a dream, Iskender, at his mother's side, approached once more the
+Mission on the sandhills, traversed the garden and the clean cool hall,
+and entered the reception-room with its soft carpets, polished chairs and
+tables, which had presented to his childish mind the life of palaces.
+There sat the ladies with their work-baskets, each in her special chair,
+exactly as of yore.  There was the canary in its cage, and there was the
+dog in Hilda's lap as usual.  The mother of George came forward and shook
+hands with him, then made him sit beside her and recount his doings.
+Conscious of independent standing, he was fearless and behaved with
+dignity; he even asked for news of the Emir without confusion.  The other
+ladies chatted kindly of his marriage, praising the beauty of the bride,
+whom they knew only by sight; even the Father of Ice shook hands with
+him, and hoped with a smile that he was well and thriving.  It surprised
+him much to see his mother making frequent reverence, to hear her asking
+pardon in his name.
+
+Having inquired for George and the rest of the children, each by name,
+and assured himself of their welfare, he conceived that he had said
+enough, and wished to go.  It was then that he made his offering,
+producing the little picture and placing it in the lady's hand with
+conscious pride.  The effect was quite other than he had expected.  The
+ladies Carulin and Jane turned from it with a pitying smile; Hilda
+remarked, "I prefer your earlier work;" the missionary indulged in a curt
+laugh; while the mother of George herself, the blest recipient, was dumb,
+till, seeing trouble in Iskender's eyes, she forced a smile and exclaimed:
+
+"A curious picture!  I shall certainly preserve it among my treasures."
+
+Outside the house again, his mother punched Iskender in the back and spat
+at him, calling him fool and marplot, cursing all his ancestry.
+
+"Hast thou no sense, no perspicacity?  When all went well, what need to
+show thy picture?  Why bring a picture that had angels in it?  I saw them
+shudder and go yellow at the sight of those white, holy ones.  Couldst
+thou not paint a picture all of devils, or else of things without
+religious meaning?  And what possessed thee to inquire concerning the
+health of that bad Emir, who spurned the love of the Sitt Hilda?  Thou
+knewest nothing of the story?  Say that again, unblushing liar!--when I
+myself informed thee on our way up thither.  Merciful Allah!  So thou
+heardest nothing; thy wits went wandering off, as always, to thy
+painting, or the pleasures of thy bride; and, for the lack of a little
+attention, mere politeness, the hopes of our house lie ruined.  Naturally
+poor Hilda thought thy question was designed to taunt her.  I saw how red
+she went, though thou didst not.  But for that she would certainly have
+praised thy picture.  Now she hates thee.  Well, no doubt it is from
+Allah!  But none the less it is hard for me to bear, with the wife of
+Costantin for ever dinning in my ear her son's achievements.  And why, if
+thou must be a painter, dost thou not go to Beyrut, that great
+fashionable city, superior to any in Europe, where folks have taste, and
+thou couldst make a fortune by thy art?  Thy bride could help thee in the
+world of fashion, for her father is well known and has rich friends among
+the Orthodox.  But where is the use in talking to a man like thee?  Thou
+hast no spirit, no ambition."
+
+Iskender did not argue.  His mother's note of angry lamentation, in
+strange accordance with his feelings at that moment, condoned the
+sharpness of her words, which hardly reached him.  The failure of the
+missionaries to see the merit in his work showed ignorance, but was their
+own affair; the omission to say "thank you" for his gift was downright
+rudeness.  Their open contempt of his little masterpiece rankled hot in
+his mind.  He vowed before Allah never again to seek to please a Frank
+and risk such insult.  Henceforth he would cleanse his mouth whenever he
+so much as passed in the street near one of that accursed race.
+
+With pride he called himself a Nazarene, a native Christian of the land,
+preferring the insolent domination of the Muslim, his blood-relative, to
+the arrogance of so-called Christian strangers.
+
+Returning home, he told Nesibeh of his determination to start next
+morning early for the Holy City.  His bride was glad, for she had feared
+much from his visit to the missionaries, and longed to remove him far
+from their hellish wiles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+Two years later, when Allah had given him a male child by Nesibeh,
+Iskender visited his wife's father in the spring-time.  He arrived on
+foot leading the donkey, on which his wife sat with the baby in her
+arms.  An excited group stood out beneath the ilex-tree.  They shouted
+"Praise to Allah!"  The mother of Iskender ran and seized the baby, and
+rocking it in her arms, poured forth her hoard of tidings.  Asad ebn
+Costantin was married--had Iskender heard?--to a great lady of the
+English, a virgin strictly guarded, the only child of rich and honoured
+parents.  Ah, the cunning devil!  The people there at the Mission were
+furious, he might believe; the more so that Asad was bringing his bride
+to visit them as an equal--he, the son of Costantin, who fetched the
+water!  Ah, they were well repaid for their treatment of Iskender; and
+they knew it!
+
+But Mitri broke in, crying:
+
+"Hast thou brought the picture?"
+
+"Be sure I have!" replied Iskender cheerfully.  Opening one of the
+saddlebags he produced it, wrapped in a linen cloth, which he removed.
+A howl of delight went up from all the company.
+
+"Ma sh' Allah!  It is Mar Jiryis himself!"  "May we be helped through
+him!"  "Now our church will wear a richer and more modish look!"
+exclaimed one and another.
+
+It was indeed the crowning triumph of his art, which Iskender brought
+as an offering to the little church of St. George beneath the oak-tree,
+which he regarded as the fountain of Heaven's favours towards him.  For
+the form and posture of the saint he had gone to one of those grand
+English newspapers which the Emir had given to him years ago.  He had
+taken thence the likeness of a mounted officer slashing downward with
+his sabre, while his charger, dragged back on its haunches, pawed the
+air convulsively.  A uniform of gold embellished this equestrian
+figure, which was framed in coils of Dragon, green and black; while the
+Dragon, in its turn, was framed in a fine decorative gush of blood,
+pure scarlet, which swirled and eddied round the combatants, springing
+visibly from the monster's many wounds.
+
+"It is a feast for the eyes!" cried Mitri, when he had gazed his fill.
+There were tears on his cheeks as he turned and kissed Iskender.  "The
+saint will be pleased, in sh' Allah!  To-night it shall honour my
+house.  To-morrow we will carry it in procession seven times round the
+church before we enter.  It is all arranged.  Khalil will be there with
+his music, which is lawful anywhere except in church.  In sh' Allah, we
+will have a ceremony such as has not been seen in this place for many a
+year.  I have spoken to the caimmacam and to the learned at the Mosque
+about it; and they say we may do what we like among ourselves, but must
+desist if any Muslim passing by should make objection.  To-morrow is
+high festival with us!"
+
+Accordingly, next morning, there was concourse at the house of the
+Orthodox priest.  Within, upon a kind of altar, the picture was
+displayed with tapers burning.  Each new arrival paid respect to it.
+Abdullah, who had strayed in aimless with the crowd, stood fixed before
+it as if petrified, in horror of the dragon's hideous face.  Then, with
+a fervent "God protect us all!" the spell was broken and he hurried out.
+
+"A miracle!" cried Mitri joyously.  "Our picture has already scared a
+sinner."
+
+Some one in the room inquired tremulously whether dragons such as that
+portrayed were still to be found in the world?
+
+"No, praise be to Allah!" replied Mitri.  All laughed at the simplicity
+of the questioner, except Elias, who solemnly averred that such
+existed, that he himself had seen one crunching a poor one-eyed black
+man in its cruel jaws.
+
+"He has seen a crocodile, perhaps, in Masr," Yuhanna laughingly
+suggested, with a hand on the shoulder of the visionary.  But Elias
+protested vehemently, swearing by Allah that he knew a crocodile when
+he saw one.  The monster in dispute had been no crocodile, as witness
+its possession of two wings, like the wings of a bat, only fifty times
+larger, and a voice which could be heard for many miles.  There was one
+blessing, however, about all such creatures; that they had power only
+over unbaptized people.  This last touch pleased the majority of his
+audience, causing them to praise Allah, and inclining them to accept
+the truth of the whole story on religious grounds.  Elias was preparing
+to support it with some cognate marvel, when Mitri announced that the
+procession was being formed.  At the same moment, a few prelusory notes
+of the concertina were heard without.  The house soon emptied.
+
+Out in the heavy sunlight, hens fled clucking from the sudden tumult,
+pigeons circled overhead and cooed distractedly, children were driving
+dogs away with stones and curses.  Khalil, the musician, stood to lead
+the way, making his concertina speak occasionally as a protest against
+further waiting.  Iskender was to follow next to him as donor of the
+honoured picture; then the males of the congregation by twos and
+threes, many of them carrying lighted tapers; and, last of all, the
+priest fully robed, bearing the sacred picture at his breast.  Groups
+of white-veiled women, mere spectators, waited in the shadow of the
+hovels, or beneath the oak-tree.
+
+"Play that tune that thou didst play at our wedding, O Khalil," cried
+Nesibeh to the musician, who was chafing for the start.
+
+"Which tune may that be of all tunes, O lady?  I played you all I knew
+on that most blessed day!"  Khalil was very grave and ceremonious, this
+being the greatest hour of all his life.  "Is it this?"  He broke into
+"God save the Queen."
+
+"No, no; it goes like this!"  Nesibeh strove to shadow forth the
+Frankish air.  Do what she would, she could not keep from smiling, for
+pleasure in her husband's great success.
+
+"Ah, yes, I know thy meaning now.  That is a tune indeed--a tune of
+playful triumph without arrogance, well suited to the occasion.  It was
+taught to me by an English mariner in Bur' Said, and is entitled 'Bob
+gus the wissal.'"
+
+"Play it, O Khalil!  Play it all the time; for it is merry and it makes
+us laugh!" cried Nesibeh, clapping her hands.
+
+"Ready!" cried Mitri from the house; and Khalil stepped out with
+triumph, flourishing his concertina, flinging its strains out far and
+wide; his head, his whole body carried this way and that with the
+violence of his exertions.  Elias and other excitables cut strange
+capers or embraced each other.  The more serious rendered praise to
+Allah; the women looking on gave forth their joy-cries; and Mitri,
+bringing up the rear of the procession, smiled a blessing on their
+enthusiasm over the picture held against his breast.  They had
+compassed the church five times to the tune of "Pop goes the Weasel,"
+and were coming round again when a carriage which they had not heard
+approaching drew up beneath the ilex-tree.  Its occupants were a
+Frankish clergyman dressed in black, and a lady dressed in white with a
+white sunshade.  They watched the procession curiously with pitying
+smiles.  Iskender from a distance was struck by the clergyman's
+complexion, which seemed darker than is usual among Europeans; then
+when he passed the front of the church and got close view of him, he
+saw that it was Asad son of Costantin.  In a flash he remembered things
+he had forgotten, recalled a standpoint that had once seemed all
+desirable.  He perceived how ludicrous this joyful marching round must
+seem to English eyes; and for a moment felt ashamed for himself and his
+friends.  But the next minute, having turned the corner of the church,
+he met his young wife's smile, and grew once more exultant.  The lady
+in the carriage beside Asad was very ugly, and no longer young.
+Proudly he followed the musician round again, and, once more abreast of
+the carriage, returned the contemptuous smile of the son of Costantin.
+And then the music ceased, as the procession passed into the darkness
+of the little church.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Valley of the Kings, by Marmaduke Pickthall
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