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 s.p.a.ce 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 gla.s.s 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 Beat.i.tude, 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 pa.s.sion 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 p.r.o.nounced decorum, not to this mouthing sheykh of the dirty raiment and the visage ploughed by dissipation. On the present occasion he had no appet.i.te 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 una.s.sailable, 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sails 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 a.s.saults 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 pa.s.s 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, un.o.bserved, 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 cl.u.s.tered 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 pa.s.sion 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.