"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.