Merriment was at its height when there came a knock at the door. The priest Mitri opened, and exclaimed in glad surprise:

"Honour us, O khawajah! Come in! Fear not! All my guests are honest people, and the occasion of our feast concerns thee nearly. We have this day reclaimed a Brutestant from the way of perdition. Would to Allah I might baptize thee also, O light of my eyes!"

The belated visitor would have drawn back at glimpse of so large a gathering, but Mitri took him by the arm and brought him in. It was the preacher Ward, the humblest of all missionaries, who was sent about the country on the errands of the proud ones; a modest, pious man, who spoke good Arabic and scorned not to converse upon a footing with the natives of the land.

All rose upon his entrance. Old Abdullah straightened his frame to something of its former majesty, and said:

"Good efenin', sir!"

"I have come too late, I find," the small white-bearded clergyman remarked to Mitri, who had forced him to be seated and set food before him. "I knew not that the baptism had taken place. My desire was only to ascertain that Iskender was earnest in this change of faith, and not impelled by anger at a treatment he conceived to be unjust."

"By Allah, no, he is the most sincere of converts!" responded Mitri with his jolly laugh. "Have I anything to tempt a proselyte? Look round this room—with one beyond it, it is all my house—and compare it with the dwelling of the Father of Ice. Ah, no, my friend: this is a true conversion!"

"I ask you to belief, sir, that I haf nothin' to do with it," said old Abdullah angrily in English. "I suffer much from unkind thin's beeble say about me. They haf ruined me in my brofession."

Mitri silenced the old man. With a Protestant missionary for his guest, the priest thought all words wasted that were not employed on controversial subjects.

"Thou art a good man, O khawajah," he observed politely but with a certain malice. "Thou alone of all thy tribe wouldst deign to enter my poor house without arrogance, and sit down with my friends and neighbours in this kindly way; more especially this evening, when our gladness is at your expense. Tell me, I beseech thee, in what sense the others of your kind serve Allah by building palaces in the land, displaying a luxury unknown among us, and so tempting the weak and worthless of the Church to gather round them in the hope of gain. The Muslimin are unassailable, being the rulers; and the Latins are too strong and clever for them; so because their Honours must convert some one, being paid and sent here for the purpose, they take example from the Latins and turn on us, who are weak and not well educated. But how do they serve Allah in all this? Explain to me, O my soul!"

The visitor stroked his thin white beard.

"Are the schools nothing? Are the hospitals nothing?" he inquired.

"By Allah, it is true, they are much!" came in chorus from the company.

"But the charity might be greater if it were dissociated from attempts at perversion," submitted Mitri with a show of deep humility.

The missionary reflected for a moment before he said gently:

"Your ideas and ours are widely different. When I was young I thought with others of my kind, and preached conversion zealously and from the heart. But now that I am old I sometimes think as you do, and ask myself what good there is in making proselytes. But Allah is above all of us; He alone sees the end. We strive, and others strive, for special objects, an all fail, or else find disappointment in success; but Allah uses our success and failure, and with them gains an object which we never saw. Look back, O my friend, a score of years, and tell me: Is not the intercourse between the divers sects and religions in this country more friendly than it used to be; has not each more regard for the other, while adhering more strongly than ever to its own creed? Is not this to be ascribed to the missionaries, who pass from one to the other, and cause them to compare their views, or at least investigate them; who, by their very attacks, as you call them, have done good, by forcing the attacked to look to their position and resources? The Muslimin, the very Jews, have grown more tolerant; they never stone me now as heretofore. Strange indeed if, where faith assails faith in the name of Allah, Allah Himself should by that means produce general toleration, and an end to proselytising! Yet that is what is happening, it seems to me. The assaults of the Catholics and the Protestants upon your Church have revived her. Her priests are better in their lives; they begin to be educated; and, as a consequence, she holds her ground. I submit to thee that we have made few, if any, converts from you in the last ten years."

"That is true," said Mitri, greatly interested; "and by my life thou speakest like an angel. Nevertheless, there is but one true Church on earth; would that I might convince thee of her authority! . . . But thou eatest nothing! Taste this sweetstuff, I entreat thee; it is quite a delicacy!"

The rest of the company, finding the argument beyond them, were talking among themselves in lower tones. Only Abdullah, as a sometime dragoman, kept near the missionary, interrupting his speech with senseless scraps of English, all eagerness to translate for him the words of Mitri, till the latter stopped him with a curt "Be silent, fool!" And Iskender also hung upon the missionary, waiting an opportunity to inquire for the young Emir. On a pause he thrust in his question; when the missionary, who had been smiling at a joke of Mitri's, became of a sudden very grave.

"He lies at the gate of death," was his answer. "The doctor doubts if he will pass this night; but if he sees to-morrow's light, it means that he will live, in sh' Allah!"

"May Allah preserve the poor young man!" said Mitri, and resumed the controversy.

But Iskender heard no more. He slipped out, unobserved, into the night, and stole down the sandy road through cloud-like orange-groves to where the sandhills rolled beneath the stars.



CHAPTER XXV

Iskender walked all round the low garden-wall of the Mission, staring through the feathery cloud of the tamarisks at the upper windows of the house, till he saw a light in one of them, when he sat down on his heels and watched it doggedly. He feared the blame which would attach to himself were the Emir to die; still more the reproaches of his own mind; but above all things he was conscious of a return of his old devotion to the fair-haired stranger. He recalled the Frank's many kindnesses—in particular the splendid paint-box, which remained Iskender's own—and, sobbing, prayed from the heart that he might live. The hooting of an owl, or the bark of some dog in the distance, alone broke the stillness, of which the rustle of the tamarisks seemed part, so faint and vague it was. At moments, looking up at the stars, he could have deemed them living creatures, for they seemed to throb in time with his own grief.

He knew not how long he had sat there in the darkness unafraid, when the light in the room was moved. A chill smote his heart. He jumped over the wall and drew nearer, in the hope to catch some word of what was going on in there. Inside the hedge of tamarisk the air was sweet with flower scents, which floated thick and separate on the still air, like oil on water. He came beneath the window. The light was once more steadfast; so again he sat down on his heels and waited. Presently the tamarisks were distributed by a cold breeze; they sighed aloud; the stagnant perfumes of the garden were confused and scattered; a whiteness came upon the wall before him, and the windows in it gave a pallid gleam. Having no desire to be caught lurking there by one of the servants, he was on the point of departing, when the light in the window was again moved, and while he stood in wonder what such movements of the light portended, a door close by him opened, and the Sitt Hilda came out into the garden. She was weeping silently, with no attempt to hide her tears. Iskender sprang to her.

"He is dead?" he moaned in Arabic. "May Allah have mercy on him!"

"He lives, the praise to Allah!" she replied, and with the words she wept more copiously, and turned from him to smell the clustered flowers of a certain creeping plant against the wall.

Echoing "Praise to Allah!" he withdrew.

She had not recognised him, had heard his question as the voice of Nature. It seemed to him that she had not answered it, but merely sighed aloud her own thanksgiving.

"She loves him!" thought Iskender, with a flush of sympathy.

He found strange rapture in the knowledge of her passion for the fair Emir, in the prospect of a union of those two whom he had loved most of all people in his former life. They seemed in a sense his creatures, and their love his handiwork. If only he could help them to obtain their heart's desire, could serve their happiness by any means, and get forgiveness, he felt that he could enter on his new life without one regret.



CHAPTER XXVI

Each morning and evening Iskender walked upon the sandhills until he met with some one coming from the Mission who could give him the latest tidings of the Emir. His mother spied him once from her house-door, and indulged in furious gesticulations to the effect that he must fly for his life. When he gave no heed she shook her fist at him, and opened her mouth wide to utter something, the sense of which was lost in the distance. She even came to his lodging, stealthily as of wont, and implored him never to walk again so near the Mission. It stopped her breath, and caused her deathlike palpitations to behold him there. The hatred of those children of abomination was so rank against him, that they might hurt his body. At the least they would wound his soul with indignities which she could not bear to think of for her boy.

"Hilda is the only one of them with any kindness; and she, I know, is always in the sickroom; she never now goes out beyond the garden. The mother of George is absent; the preacher Ward has gone again. The others! They are known for devils, and they hate thee! What madness in thee to approach their house!"

When Iskender only laughed, she wrung her hands despairingly, and asked her Maker for deliverance from such a madman. Her apprehensions proved, however, quite unfounded.

The ladies Carulin and Jane were touched by Iskender's solicitude, and noticed him when passing on the road. Costantin the gardener answered his demands, though grudgingly; and Asad told him all he wished to know. The last named even condescended to remonstrate with Iskender on his change of faith, displaying the interest of a cultivated observer in the motions of some curious wild creature.

"I am a son of the Arabs," was Iskender's invariable answer, "and have no wish to seem to be a Frank. My religion teaches me to remove my hopes and ambitions from this world; and Allah knows I have experienced enough of its vicissitudes. All I ask now is leave to live and die in peace."

"That is beautiful, what thou sayest!" Asad would rejoin with his superior smile. "But wait a month or so till thou hast survived thy present grievance; then wilt thou wish that thou hadst done as I have. For, only think! I am to be sent to the land of the English to perfect my studies. There I shall take care to ingratiate myself with the great ones of their Church, and to wed some noble lady of their race; that, when I return hither, these people may be forced to treat me with respect, and no longer as their servant and inferior. I shall be a great khawajah, receiving perhaps two hundred English pounds every year, whereas thou canst hope to be no more than a humble toiler at some trade or other. With the exercise of but a little self-control, thou mightst have been all this instead of me. Hadst thou but heard the voice of my good counsel, much might have been preserved to thee. Even now I would have helped thee for old friendship's sake. In the day of my power which is to come, in sh' Allah, it would have been easy to procure for thee the post of a teacher in some school or of lay-reader in some lesser mission. But thy espousal of a barbarous superstition, which no civilised and cultured person can so much as tolerate, has put it quite beyond my power to serve thee."

Iskender hardly listened to such talk. His mind found business in its own devices. He would have chosen to avoid the speaker altogether; but even Asad's unconcerned announcements, sandwiched in between gibes at the Orthodox faith were better than no tidings of his former patron. And Asad always lay in wait for him, delighting to dazzle one so downcast with the vision of his own high future. One morning he said:

"The uncle of the convalescent is expected to arrive to-day. He has come all the way from Lundra on hearing of his dear one's illness. It seems that thy sometime patron was ordered by the physicians to visit Masr, his health being weak. Growing weary of that land, where he knew no one, and wishing to extend his travels, he came on here and made the friends we know. This uncle, who is his nearest relative, cared not whither he went, so only that he was gaining health and strength; but hearing that his beloved lay at death's door, he hastened hither, mad with grief and rage. The Father of Ice has received from him a thousand costly telegrams, which demonstrate sufficiently his mind's disorder. It were well for thee to keep out of his way, for he will certainly vow thy destruction when he has heard the story."

After this warning Iskender saw no more of Asad for three days, the clergyman-designate being called upon to help in the housework. But he continued to walk near the Mission at sunrise and sunset; and at last, one evening, going there as usual, he found Asad sitting, Frank-wise, on a chair before the gate, devouring chunks of the sweetment called baclaweh, which the cook had given him. Espying the son of Yacub from afar, the friendly youth sprang up in great alarm and waved him off with frantic gestures, sweets in hand.

"Allah preserve thee, O Iskender; go back, O rash one! Did not I tell thee not to come again? Only to approach the house is certain death. The uncle of the poor sick man has sworn to drink thy blood, or at all events to beat thee senseless, in payment for the way thou didst beguile his nephew." Asad sat down again upon the chair, and ate another mouthful, then pursued: "The young man now is so much better that he is able, with assistance, to pace the garden. Yesterday it was the Sitt Hilda who supported him; but to-day it is the furious uncle, and the Sitt Hilda has red eyes. The uncle thinks her not well-born enough, or else too poor, to mate with his dear nephew. The young man has tired himself with pleading; but the old man locks his heart. And I am glad, for I myself would not object to marry Hilda when I am in holy orders. She is plump and shy and has fresh ripe-fruit cheeks that I should like to bite. Thou thyself didst love her once, I am aware; and Allah knows thou mightst in the end have enjoyed her by the exercise of a little self-control, by waiting humbly, as I do, till they made a priest of thee. At least, if I succeed in getting her, the Father of Ice, to whom she is like a daughter, will no longer be able to despise me, and keep me in dependence."

In spite of his first announcement of tremendous danger, Asad detained Iskender by the gate for nearly an hour, talking with him openly in full sight of the house. His discourse was chiefly of women, concerning whom he developed ideas purely cynical. He said that the daughters of the country were the more appetising, but that he himself would choose a daughter of the English to increase his consequence. If she possessed wealth or good looks, so much the better; but she must be English, and of an honourable house. As an English missionary, with an English wife of good family, how he would lord it here on a stipend of two hundred pounds a year! Iskender, being deep in thought of something else, made an excellent listener. Asad presented him with a small piece of baclaweh.

"At what hour does the Emir take his pleasure in the garden?" Iskender asked at parting from that child of promise; leaving Asad to suppose he put the question out of caution, to the end that he himself might shun the Mission at that hour.

"Between the fourth and fifth after noon," was the reply. "But avoid the house altogether, if thy life is precious to thee! The foe, I tell thee, is a seasoned warrior, a drinker of blood from his birth."

From all that Asad had let fall, two facts shone forth: that the Emir was mad in love with the Sitt Hilda, and that he was oppressed by his cruel uncle. Iskender mused on these, seeing a chance to help him and obtain forgiveness.



CHAPTER XXVII

Between the fourth and fifth hour after noon of that same day Iskender once more approached the house of the missionaries, this time with extreme precaution, keeping as far as might be hidden in the folds of the land, and, when obliged of necessity to cross a space of ground exposed to view, crawling on his belly, with his tarbush, which, being scarlet, was conspicuous, doffed and rolled up tightly in one hand. It was important for the enterprise he had in view that no one of the house should see him coming.

Having reached the garden boundary undiscovered, he stole round it, crouching, with his ear to the wall. Soon he caught the sound of voices, and, guided by them, reached a point quite near the speakers whence he could hear every word they were saying. The Emir had just concluded what must have been a long petition, and now the uncle spoke:

"Need we have it all over again?" he inquired irritably. "You know I would not cross you in your present state, unless I were convinced it is for your own good. As I have before observed, she is a good many years your senior; she has neither birth nor money, nor anything uncommon in good looks. If, in eight months' time, you still desire it, I shall have no longer any right to forbid your marrying. But it shall not be now."

The tamarisks just there were a sufficient screen. Noiselessly Iskender surmounted the low wall and parted with his hands their feathery boughs till he could see the disputants. The uncle's face was richly bronzed, in striking contrast with his light blue eyes and heavy white moustache. Clad in a white suit, with a white pith helmet on his head, he appeared to Iskender like a portrait just begun, of which only the hands and the flesh of the face had yet been coloured by the artist. Of figure he was broad and upright, without a symptom of decrepitude unless it might be the stout cane he used in walking. The Emir looked fragile and infirm beside him, pale with the trace of illness, and bowed by his present dejection.

"Pshaw! Bless my soul!" pursued the uncle, with a lively flourish of his cane. "Why, every man falls in love with his nurse if she's at all personable; it is a phase of convalescence. I could tell you of a dozen cases, within my own personal knowledge, out in India; but I never saw a happy marriage come of it. Now come, I only ask you to wait eight months until you are of age—you can't call that request unreasonable—and to stop all communications for the same period. It will give both you and the lady time to think about it, and save you both from rash and ill-considered action. Our good host here and the elder ladies quite agree with me. Now sit down on this bench and rest, while I go and get my notebook with the dates of sailing."

With that the old man went into the house, leaving the Emir alone, resting forlornly on the garden-seat beneath a flowering tree and staring at the ground. Iskender parted the growth of tamarisks and stood out before him.

The Emir gave a start and a faint cry, with eyes dilated. Iskender pounced on his hand and, murmuring words of love, essayed to kiss it. It was snatched from him.

"What the devil are you doing here? Get out, I say!" The Frank spoke low and angrily, with a glance at his hands which cursed their present helplessness. "If I were not so confoundedly weak, I would send you flying over that wall! . . . Oh, yes, I suppose I forgive you, and all that. Only I don't want to speak to you, or see your face. You've got to be a kind of nightmare to me. I daresay I misjudged you; I don't pretend to understand you; in some ways you behaved quite well and honestly. Only I can't endure the sight of your face, the sound of your confounded voice. Get out, I tell you."

But Iskender came close, and, despite his efforts to repel, leaned over him and whispered in his ear:

"Just listen, sir! I bring her to you where you like—to England?—to America?—anywhere you tell me. Gif to me a bit of writing, for me to show to her—you know!—to Miss Hilda, her you luf! The old man is a fery wicked deffil to wish to sebarate you."

"So you have been listening, have you?" said the Frank, with a mirthless laugh. "Just as if you hadn't done enough already in the way of meddling with my affairs. Go! and may I never see your face again. You will make haste and begone if you're wise. My uncle will be back in half a jiffy."

But Iskender was too astonished by these words, and the listless manner of their utterance, to trust his understanding. He went on entreating:

"Just a word in your handwriting, sir, so she can know it's all right. I bring her to you anywhere at my exbense. God knows I do anything to blease you! I treat her honourably, sir; I be her servant like as I'f been yours. All that I told you about me and her was nothin'; I was just a silly boy. I resbect her, sir; I be her slave; you trust me. By God, I treat her like as if she was the Blessed Firgin! It will cost you nothin', sir; I bray you do not doubt——"

But he got no further, being suddenly collared from behind, and beaten with a cane which stung like hornets. Screaming under the punishment, and struggling hard, he at last succeeded in breaking away just as Costantin came running round a corner of the house and terrified faces appeared at its lower windows. He heard his assailant, panting, exclaim, "That's the only argument the beggars understand. We learnt that in India," as he (Iskender) dashed through the hedge of tamarisks and cleared the low wall at a bound.

With mouth full of sobs, he ran across the sandhills, every salient object, every shadow, swelling and sinking with the horror of each breath he drew. It was not that the old afrit, the uncle of the Emir, had beaten him, nor that his back was sore, but that the Emir himself had refused his services, which so appalled him. He felt like the spectator of some ghastly crime. Surely no man really in love would question by what means he got his dear, so only that she was brought to him with despatch and decency. It was a catastrophe hardly less than that of the gold. Even in love—the fierce, unreasoning passion of a youth for a maid—it seemed a Frank must differ from a son of the Arabs. Once more Iskender had erred in attributing to the Emir his own sensations, and been punished for it as for an offence unthinkable. Once more he gazed into a soundless gulf, impossible to bridge; and was appalled.

Seeing a convenient hollow close before him, he plunged into it, and had flung himself down to think and fetch his breath, before he knew that it was already occupied. A sudden burst of music with the strains of the English National Hymn was the first announcement he received of the proximity of Khalil, the concertina-player, and of his own uncle Abdullah.

"Welcome, O Iskender," said Khalil, when the tune had finished with becoming gravity. "I come out here to play my music undisturbed. And Abdullah follows me through love of the strange sounds, which soothe his mind's disease."

"May Allah preserve thee in happiness, O son of my brother!" said Abdullah gloomily. "But thy folly has brought ruin to my house. Our Lord destroy those children of iniquity who slandered me in the ears of Kuk."

"Take heart, O my soul! Be not so downcast!" pleaded the musician, who was all urbanity, doing the honours of his one accomplishment there in that lonely hollow of the sands for all the world as though it had been a fine reception-room, and they his guests. "Stay, and I will play to you both the air of 'Yenki-dudal'—a noble air, none like it, and of wide renown. So shall Abdullah cease from brooding on misfortune."

This Frankish music hurrying to an end, of a rhythm monotonous as the hoof-beats of a galloping horse, seemed very ugly to Iskender. How different from the delicious waywardness of Eastern airs, whose charm is all by the bye, in precious dawdlings and digressions! It revealed to him the mind of his Emir. Gradually, as he listened to it, grief fell from him; and in its stead rose hatred for a race that measured all things, even the sweet sounds of music, even love. He remembered only that his back was sore.



CHAPTER XXVIII

That night Iskender still endured distress of mind. Anger and fierce hatred of the Franks overcame him whenever he recalled what had happened in the Mission garden, and the recurring smart of his wounds prevented his forgetting it for more than a minute at a time. But in the morning, when pain had given place to a bruised stiffness, he recovered the resignation which had been his before the preacher Ward came with the tidings of his Emir's great danger. For the first time since his return from the search for Wady 'l Muluk he took out his paints and sketch-book, and went and sat beneath the ilex-tree, awaiting inspiration. But the buzz of flies, of bees, and other insects inseparable from the creamy morning sunlight set his mind afloat, and prevented its settling on any one object.

In this happy state of indecision he was found by Asad son of Costantin. That high-minded youth had come, as he explained, at no small peril to himself, solely to warn his dear one to beware of ever coming near the Mission. The indignation of the missionary and the ladies with his conduct of the day before was intense; and no wonder, for from the excitement consequent upon that scene in the garden the Frank was back in bed again as ill as ever. All, to the very servants, blamed Iskender; while as for the uncle of the sufferer, that ancient blood-drinker had sworn to cut the son of Yacub into little pieces, and give his meat to dogs—a form of punishment, Asad explained, which the terrible old man had practised daily while in India at the expense of the native inhabitants of that unhappy country.

"Wallah, he is a veritable ghoul; he is more blood-thirsty than the worst among the Turks. Did I not warn thee of his state of feeling? What ailed thee thus to rush into his arms?"

To all this Iskender's sole reply was:

"Allah is bountiful!"

"But wherefore risk thy body in his presence? Tell me, O my soul, what imp possessed thee?" pleaded Asad in his most seductive tone. His curiosity was real, and very great. "All demand to know. That old ghoul vows he caught thee begging money of thy former patron—the Emir, we used to call him, who is no more an Emir than I am, it turns out, but only the son of a merchant in the city of Lundra—but I cannot believe that he speaks truth in this. Inform me of thy motives, tell what really happened; then I can defend thee. Is not my discretion known? Have I not always stood thy friend? By Allah, I will keep the matter secret, if that is thy desire. Tell me, me only, O my soul—thy brother Asad!"

Still Iskender only answered: "Allah is bountiful!" In truth the tidings of the Emir's relapse concerned him not at all. He murmured in his soul, "May Allah heal him!" as he would have prayed on hearing of a stranger's illness, but with no sense of guilt or responsibility. To have opened his heart to Asad would have been to risk destroying this blissful state of indifference. He feared to revive his emotions of the day before; so confined himself to pious exclamations.

Asad's inquisitiveness, however, was of a hardy kind. Again and yet again did he return to the charge, pleading, remonstrating, even threatening; holding out every inducement he could think of; even offering the fine penknife with three blades and an ivory handle, which had been given to him only yesterday by the Sitt Jane. He held this treasure up before his patient's eyes, opening the blades one by one to display the glory of it. But Iskender still sat on composedly, smiling into distance, like a graven image. Finding he could elicit nothing, Asad grew angry.

"Thou art still at thy childish toys, I see," he sneered as he at last withdrew. "Much they will profit thee! Ma sh' Allah! I can see how thou wilt envy me hereafter when I am a grand khawajah, and thou art dirt in the road!" Having attained a safe distance, he let fly his farewell shaft: "Cursed be thy religion, O dog son of a dog!"

Iskender then glanced round in the hope that some others of the Orthodox communion might have heard the insult, in which case it would have fared extremely ill with the son of Costantin. His heart leapt with joy at the sight of Elias close at hand armed with his fine silver-mounted riding-whip. But instead of pursuing Asad, who had taken to his heels, and of whipping the life out of him, Elias contented himself with throwing a stone and celebrating in a loud voice the immodesty of Asad's mother and the revolting manner of his conception and birth. That done, he came and sat beside Iskender.

"I have killed a man for cursing our holy religion before now," he remarked, smiling; and proceeded to give an outline of the murder. But this was not the object of his coming. He had obtained command of a party of American travellers, men bound for Wady Musa, and, remembering that the valley of the gold lay somewhere in the same direction, had come to ask Iskender to join the expedition in the quality of cook. These khawajat knew nothing of the country, Elias could conduct them by what road he chose; might even keep them encamped in one spot for days, if necessary, while he and his dearest friend explored the neighbourhood.

"Say yes, O my soul!" he entreated. "It is an opportunity that may not occur again. In sh' Allah, we shall come back each as rich as the Sultan's Majesty. Without thee, I am nothing; for thou alone art in possession of the knowledge to ensure success. We set forth to-morrow. Make all thy preparations now directly, and come with us!"

Iskender refused, vowing by Allah Most High that he had had enough of desert travelling to last a lifetime. At that the chagrin of Elias was pitiful to witness. He saw the valley full of gold, which the second before had seemed quite close to him, removed by this reply a great way off. But when Iskender offered to describe its whereabouts to the best of his remembrance, and to make over all his rights in it to him (Elias), confiding in his far-famed generosity, the seer's lips parted and his eyes started out from his head with astonishment and delight. Whipping out his grand pocket-book, he took down hurried notes while Iskender thoughtfully reviewed his route with the Emir, naming every village and outstanding mark upon the road, as also the precise point at which he believed that he had gone astray.

"It was there that my memory failed me. I should have borne more to the southward. But even as it was, we must have been within an hour of the place, when the Emir—curse his father!—gave the fatal order to turn back. Forget not, O my soul, to bribe the chief of the Arabs in that district, who is surnamed Son of the Lion; or he will certainly oppress thy party as he did mine."

Elias, having replaced his note-book, flung both arms around Iskender's neck and kissed him on the mouth repeatedly. Tears rolled from his eyes. He whispered fiercely:

"Never will I forget this deed of kindness; I will pay thee half the treasure—by my head I swear it, by my honourable reputation, by my hope of life hereafter! Allah knows I always loved thee! May Allah destroy those wicked people who spread abroad foul lies concerning thee. Only let them dare to come within reach of my two hands!"

The transport past, he sat beside Iskender, with arm about his neck. Some girls at a round game in the shadow of the church caught his wandering eye. He called his friend's attention to the good looks of Nesibeh, who was one of them. Iskender turned his head and threw a careless glance in the direction indicated.

"Thou hast not seen her properly. Wait a minute! . . . O Nesibeh! O my pearl! Come hither! . . . Ah, the rogue has fled to hiding; she has slipped inside the church; and the rest, her playmates, are flying, each to her mother's side, as if my sweet-toned voice had been a lion's roar! A year ago she would have flung herself into my arms, and sat upon my knee and begged for stories. But now she wears the veil, she is a woman, and therefore must be captious like the rest of them. In thy grace I depart, having much to put in order for to-morrow's journey."

Once more he flung both arms around Iskender's neck, kissing him on both cheeks and on the mouth, and vowing by Our Lady, and by the three Archangels, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, to repay him half the treasure of the Valley of the Kings.



CHAPTER XXIX

Left alone, Iskender took up a position in which he could watch the open door of the church without seeming to do so. Then, as soon as he beheld Nesibeh peeping out, he opened his paint-box, laid his sketch-book on his knee, and made believe to set to work in earnest, crooning a facetious song the while, to complete the deception. His object was to tempt or provoke the girl to come to him. For days past she had withstood all his allurements, taking to her heels at his approach. He desired an explanation of such queer behaviour, and, having learnt that frankness was of no avail, resorted now to subtlety.

After a space of apparent absorption in his work, he hazarded a glance out of the corners of his eyes, and was glad to see that she was drawing nearer. From the glimpse thus obtained he judged her discontented, sullen, even angry, and suspected some hostility to be the object of her stealing up behind him. But he was quite unprepared for what actually happened. A large stone, flung at close quarters with all the strength of her young arms, struck him fairly between the shoulders, just where the bruises resultant from yesterday's beating most thickly congregated. It knocked all the breath out of his body. The shock, however, stood him in good stead; since it prevented his acting on the first angry impulse of retaliation, and at the same time gave him a look of genuine anguish. In a trice she was at his side, weeping and imploring his forgiveness.

"Say thou art not badly hurt—say it, I implore thee. By my life, I should die if I had injured thee."

Iskender did his best to personate the last agony, writhing and rolling his eyes, and clutching at the air with palsied hands. In despair of soothing one in that condition, she changed mood swiftly and became defiant.

"No matter," she sneered. "Thou art not hurt to death; and by Allah thou deservest any suffering in return for the shame and humiliation thou hast put upon me. What was that Frank—curse his religion!—to thee, that thou must go every hour only to watch the house where he lay ill? He had cast thee off, when I came and comforted thee. Yet is he dearer! O the disgrace to me to have offered my love and to be thus rejected! Would to Allah I had never seen thy dirty, ugly, wicked—thy accursed face! It is the face of a pig, of an afrit; so now thou knowest! What had I ever done to harm thee that, after speaking to me of love and asking for me, thou didst turn thy back and spurn me for the sake of a vile foreigner who has blackened thy face and made of thee a byword for infamy? I heard thee ask my father; and I heard his answer. There was hope for thee. Why has thy mother never come to talk with mine? By Allah, I will take that stone again and kill thee with it; for it seems that I am nothing in thy eyes, O misbegotten!"

Iskender knew not how to answer, for her reproach was righteous; yet he loved her dearly. He was released from this embarrassment by the return of Mitri, who had been into the town to visit a sick man. He had drawn quite near before the bickering pair perceived him. Nesibeh made as if to fly indoors; but the priest called her back rather sternly.

"Art afraid of me, thy father, child of mischief? By the Gospel thou hast cause to fear, O shameless, O deceitful. But wait a minute, I command thee, and hear what I have to say to this young man."

The girl obeyed demurely, standing by, with hands folded in the fall of her white headveil while her father addressed Iskender.

"It is known, O my son, that I have conceived a fondness for thee; and so it seems has this wild girl of mine. The mother of Nesibeh, too, speaks well of thee, because thou dost run her errands, and art fond of playing with the younger children—things which seem naught to me, but please her greatly. I say not that I will not give Nesibeh to thee, some day in the future, if thou walkest straight. At present she is very young; and thou hast yet no trade by which to gain a livelihood. Now I have been thinking; Allah has bestowed on thee a rare and wondrous gift, which is, to make flat likenesses of all things that thine eyes behold. There lives in El Cuds a sheykh of my acquaintance—a righteous man, and steadfast in the faith—who earns his living, and a fat one, by no other means. He makes the icons and religious pictures for many of our monasteries and great churches. Often, in old days, when I was at the seminary, have I watched him shape the blue and crimson robes and spread the gold like butter. I will write a word to him and, maybe, pay a trifle, that he may receive thee as his disciple. Devote thyself to his instruction and soon, with the grace of Allah, thou wilt far surpass him in accomplishment. Then, after a year or two, return and speak to us of marriage. We shall hear thee favourably. Have I said well, O my daughter?"

The child was silent. The weight of her father's words had stilled and solemnised her, removing every trace of coquetry. Her head was bowed as at the benediction; she was sobbing. Mitri patted her head and bade her run indoors.

"There is yet another reason," he told Iskender privately, "why I would defer the nuptials for a year or two. Did thy wedding with my daughter follow close on thy conversion, scoffers would see in it a clear inducement, would say that I bribed thee with my flesh and blood; and that would grieve me. Go away, therefore, for a reasonable time; let the noise of thy conversion die away; and all is said."

So it was arranged.



CHAPTER XXX

On the day when the Emir set sail for England in the custody of his forbidding uncle, Iskender, with the sum of two mejidis in his pouch, set out on foot for the Holy City. On his way to join a horde of Russian pilgrims with whom, by Mitri's advice, he was to walk for safety, he saw the carriage belonging to the Hotel Barudi, conveying the two Englishmen to the gate of the town. The carriage passed him from behind; its inmates must have had him long in view, the road being empty; yet the Emir deigned never a glance at him, but laughed and talked, as if enchanted, with the horrible old ghoul who sat beside him. Iskender called down curses on their race, and hastened on to find his Russian pilgrims.

These were peasants, men and women, for the most part old, with faces gnarled and knotted like the trunks of ancient olives, and pale eyes which had a patient, rapt expression as if they saw Heaven opened, but a long way off. They took no notice of Iskender there beside them, though his adherence was conspicuous as a flower among grey rocks, but trudged onward, singing hymns in a strange tongue.

The general rate of advance was very slow, so many aged, feeble folk were of the company; but some three hours after noon of the third day, having toiled long through a wilderness of stony hills, they saw the city. Men and women kissed the ground, weeping and crying aloud. The priests in charge of the pilgrims struck up a psalm of thanksgiving.

Iskender left them at these devotions, passing on into the city. There he lost all purpose and the count of time in rapture with the colours of the motley throng, which budded in the night of long, dark tunnels and blossomed in the open alleys, full of shade. The sense of an infinitude of burning light, resting above, gave to the shadow and its bedded splendours something magical, reminding Iskender of his childish fancies of what it must be like to live at the bottom of the sea. He had stood for a long while glued to the pavement of a certain entry, outside the jostling crowd, gazing entranced at the shop of a coppersmith across the way—where, in the darkness of a kind of cave, the burnished wares gave forth a bluish gleam like negro faces—when some one smote his chest.

There was Yuhanna the dragoman, his old enemy, grinning down at him, for once quite friendly.

"Shrink not, O my son, fear nothing," he said, laughing, when Iskender half retreated. "Thou didst not perjure thyself, it seems, that time thou knowest, so I have no grudge against thee. And now thou hast joined the Church, thou art my brother. I heard the blessed news from one I met upon the road. Art thou not happy to be now a child of light, delivered from the prospect of everlasting damnation? Wallah, it is bad to be Brutestant."

He gave Iskender's arm a cunning twist, just enough to suggest the torture in reserve for heretics; and then, detaining his hand inquired the nature of his business in the city. Thus reminded of his errand which had quite escaped him, Iskender confessed that he was in search of the shop of one Ibrahim abu Yusuf, a painter of religious pictures. Yuhanna told him it was close at hand, and, having treated him to a cup of coffee and some sticky sweet-stuff, showed him the way, which could hardly have been found without direction. Through a deserted alley, down first one dark, stinking passage, then another, Iskender reached a crazy door and, knocking on it twice, was told to enter.

The room within was small and very dark. It had only one window, high up in the wall, and even that looked out upon a covered way. When Iskender entered, the artist was in the act of rising from his knees, having been on the floor at work upon a picture. He was a wizened elder with a fine white beard, clad in a soiled kaftan, black turban and big black-rimmed spectacles. Lighting a candle-end he read the letter of the priest Mitri, and, having read, embraced his new disciple. He took off his spectacles, brushed them, wiped his eyes repeatedly, and then knelt again to his painting, bidding Iskender watch the way of it. When the youth suggested that more light was needed, Ibrahim abu Yusuf shook his head decidedly. This room, he explained, had been chosen precisely on account of its obscurity, which meant seclusion. Were he to ply his trade in the light of day, the Muslim zealots of the city would speedily tear him in pieces as an idol-maker. "Though some of them make pictures also," he explained, "not here but in Esh-Sham and other places. They quote in excuse some fetwah of the learned. I have no appeal; for did I quote their fetwah they would call it blasphemy." The room, he said, possessed advantages for health as well as privacy. Its window gave upon the market of the shoemakers, and, when it stood open, admitted the smell of leather, than which nothing in the world is more wholesome and invigorating. Iskender was glad to learn that he was not required to sleep there, but in the private house of his master, whither he was conducted at the end of the day's work. The old man and his wife seemed pleased to have him in the room of their only son, an adventurous youth who had gone with merchandise to America to seek his fortune.

The Sheykh Ibrahim took great pains with his pupil's instruction, and taught him divers little tricks which saved much trouble.

"But times are bad!" he would suspire in moments of depression. "Once it was a profitable trade; all the pictures required used to be wrought and purchased in the land. But now the majority of the clergy buy them ready-made from Europe. That the Franks have a pretty, life-like trick is undeniable; yet I think our ancient style, stiff and conventional as they call it, is far more reverent. There is no one left to practise it, nowadays, except myself, and here and there a religious in the monasteries."

Yet, for all the old man's moan, there seemed no lack of business; and Iskender wished that he had half the money which he saw paid into his master's hand. Monks and nuns and priests, and even prelates, found their way to the cell of the painter; and Iskender's work was highly thought of by such visitors. The old man was laughingly told to look to his laurels, for the young one at his side had almost Frankish talent.

"Heed them not, O my soul!" said Abu Yusuf. "They speak as fools who know not. That the Frankish way has merits, all must allow; but ours, I do maintain, is more devotional. Let it be one thing or the other; that is all I ask. And I would have thee purge thy style, once and for all, of just those lifelike touches which these fools admire."

Iskender, of sheer laziness, was content to humour the old man; and soon acquired such skill in practice that he could have wrought with his eyes shut, as the Sheykh Abu Yusuf virtually did, for he was almost blind. Every morning, before setting to work, he hastened to the Church of the Resurrection and said a prayer there, kneeling at the tomb of Christ, ere studying the paintings which adorn its dim old walls. At the end of a year and a half his work was in greater demand than that of his master. The latter, recognising that his hand was failing and his sight would soon be gone, offered to sell him the business. But Iskender had no money for the purchase. He consented, however, to a scheme of partnership; and, proud of his achievements, sent a letter to the priest Mitri, announcing his return to claim his bride. After four days came the priest's reply, to the effect that preparations were being made for the wedding; upon receipt of which Iskender set forth on his journey, mounted upon an ass, and accompanied by two wealthy Christian merchants of El Cuds, new friends of his, who valued his acquaintance. Their escort won him standing in his native town.



CHAPTER XXXI

The bridal was attended with festivities. The little Christian village re-echoed with the ululation of the crowd of women forming the bride's procession, as they paraded their joy among the hovels before going to the church. And when, after the ceremony, the train came forth, carrying Nesibeh to a house not her father's, the zagharit broke out afresh, and guns and pistols were discharged. Much feasting of a solid kind ensued at the bridegroom's expense, in a house which had been ceded to him for the purpose. Elias was there in gorgeous raiment, telling all who would give ear a strange romance of how he had once been all but married to a royal princess. Khalil, the concertina-player, was a thought aggrieved that Mitri forbade him to make music in the church itself, but forgot his dudgeon when the crowd trooped out again. For hours he played on indefatigably, repeating his whole repertory of Frankish discords at least a score of times, and telling all who asked that he had acquired his skill in foreign music by instruction from the greatest living master of the art—a certain English mariner named William.

Of Iskender's family not one was present. His mother dared not adventure, for fear of the missionaries; and his uncle Abdullah lay at that time ill in his house as the result of a wound received in a drunken brawl.

It was not until two days later, when Iskender was beginning to overcome the shyness of his young bride, that his mother came to bless him.

"Ah, thou hast won for thyself a pearl of price, my son, a gem desired of many!" she whispered in his ear, when she had embraced Nesibeh. "Be careful of her goings, guard her closely; for it has reached my ears that she is ripe for naughtiness. May Allah, of his mercy, bless the pair of you, and grant you honoured increase."

Congratulation, however, was only part of her purpose in the visit, as soon appeared.

"My son," she cried excitedly, "the great lady, the mother of George, has come hither from the land of the English, for a few weeks only, having left the children. She had ever a fondness for thee, and has asked to see thee, as I hear from the servants at the Mission. Even when informed of all thy misdoings by the Father of Ice, her husband, she smiled in his face, they tell me, and still protested she would like to see thee. So I threw this shawl over my head, and came to fetch thee to the house. The mother of George loves thee, as I said before; and her husband denies her nothing, both because she comes of a good house, while he is the son of low people, and for the sake of the many children she has borne him. By the Gospel, I perceive a chance for thee to retrieve the past, if only thou wilt deign to be a little politic and respect their foibles. For Asad son of Costantin is in the land of the English, and the report of his doings displeases the Father of Ice. It is said that he shows a tendency towards the High Church in that country, which for the time is uppermost, and has found some favour with its dignitaries; which means he is accursed in the eyes of our friends here. . . . What art thou doing? Come, make haste, I say!"

Iskender, on his knees upon the floor, was looking through a little pile of paintings, his own work.

"I would take in my hand a gift for the mother of George," he explained; "a specimen of my art, that she may see what proficiency I have attained in it. It was she who first encouraged me to draw and paint—she and, after her, the Sitt Hilda. I should like them both to see the beauty of my present paintings."

"Now Allah forbid!" exclaimed his mother in alarm. "Verily thou art mad to think of it. They view with horror all religious pictures, regarding them as idols, in their ignorance, like the Muslimin! Here is a chance to recover all their favour, to supplant Asad, to become a priest of their religion, a rich khawajah; and lo! thou wouldst spoil it all by showing them a holy image! When thou askest aught of the Devil, make not the sign of the Cross. Be wise, my son; and come at once!"

But Nesibeh, who had till now stood speechless by, here flung herself between them, threatening to tear the eyes out of the mother of Iskender. She swore that she would never let her husband visit the home of unbelief in the company of one so wicked. If he went at all, let him take the holy picture to protect his spirit from pernicious influence.

"Tush! tush! thou silly babe," the elder woman chid her, "were it not better for thee to have for husband a rich khawajah than a wretched painter of religious pictures? Thou wouldst wear fine Frankish clothes of wondrous texture and hats, I tell thee, hats with waving feathers. Thou wouldst sit at ease all day, with maids to wait on thee."

"I want none of it," screamed Nesibeh. "These are devil's wiles. May Allah blast thy life, unnatural woman, thus to tempt thy son to sell his soul, his part in everlasting life, for earthly gain."

Iskender took her in his arms and silenced her; then turned to pacify his mother, who was much incensed. Had she thought for herself at all? Was not all her endeavour to secure prosperity and a high position for Iskender, and, of course, his bride? What right had this chit of a girl, who knew nothing of the world, nor the shifts that folks are forced to who would live in it comfortably, to call her husband's mother an unnatural woman for displaying a little forethought? And Allah knew it was a grievous pity, for her adherence would have clinched the matter. They would have given Iskender anything on earth to secure the conversion of the daughter of the Orthodox priest. Appeased at length, she asked to see the picture. It was a simple fancy of Iskender's, done in leisure moments, of angels fighting devils in mid-air, with clouds like solid cushions spread to fall on.

"Aye, that may pass," she admitted grudgingly, "the fiends at all events, for they believe in them."

In a dream, Iskender, at his mother's side, approached once more the Mission on the sandhills, traversed the garden and the clean cool hall, and entered the reception-room with its soft carpets, polished chairs and tables, which had presented to his childish mind the life of palaces. There sat the ladies with their work-baskets, each in her special chair, exactly as of yore. There was the canary in its cage, and there was the dog in Hilda's lap as usual. The mother of George came forward and shook hands with him, then made him sit beside her and recount his doings. Conscious of independent standing, he was fearless and behaved with dignity; he even asked for news of the Emir without confusion. The other ladies chatted kindly of his marriage, praising the beauty of the bride, whom they knew only by sight; even the Father of Ice shook hands with him, and hoped with a smile that he was well and thriving. It surprised him much to see his mother making frequent reverence, to hear her asking pardon in his name.

Having inquired for George and the rest of the children, each by name, and assured himself of their welfare, he conceived that he had said enough, and wished to go. It was then that he made his offering, producing the little picture and placing it in the lady's hand with conscious pride. The effect was quite other than he had expected. The ladies Carulin and Jane turned from it with a pitying smile; Hilda remarked, "I prefer your earlier work;" the missionary indulged in a curt laugh; while the mother of George herself, the blest recipient, was dumb, till, seeing trouble in Iskender's eyes, she forced a smile and exclaimed:

"A curious picture! I shall certainly preserve it among my treasures."

Outside the house again, his mother punched Iskender in the back and spat at him, calling him fool and marplot, cursing all his ancestry.

"Hast thou no sense, no perspicacity? When all went well, what need to show thy picture? Why bring a picture that had angels in it? I saw them shudder and go yellow at the sight of those white, holy ones. Couldst thou not paint a picture all of devils, or else of things without religious meaning? And what possessed thee to inquire concerning the health of that bad Emir, who spurned the love of the Sitt Hilda? Thou knewest nothing of the story? Say that again, unblushing liar!—when I myself informed thee on our way up thither. Merciful Allah! So thou heardest nothing; thy wits went wandering off, as always, to thy painting, or the pleasures of thy bride; and, for the lack of a little attention, mere politeness, the hopes of our house lie ruined. Naturally poor Hilda thought thy question was designed to taunt her. I saw how red she went, though thou didst not. But for that she would certainly have praised thy picture. Now she hates thee. Well, no doubt it is from Allah! But none the less it is hard for me to bear, with the wife of Costantin for ever dinning in my ear her son's achievements. And why, if thou must be a painter, dost thou not go to Beyrut, that great fashionable city, superior to any in Europe, where folks have taste, and thou couldst make a fortune by thy art? Thy bride could help thee in the world of fashion, for her father is well known and has rich friends among the Orthodox. But where is the use in talking to a man like thee? Thou hast no spirit, no ambition."

Iskender did not argue. His mother's note of angry lamentation, in strange accordance with his feelings at that moment, condoned the sharpness of her words, which hardly reached him. The failure of the missionaries to see the merit in his work showed ignorance, but was their own affair; the omission to say "thank you" for his gift was downright rudeness. Their open contempt of his little masterpiece rankled hot in his mind. He vowed before Allah never again to seek to please a Frank and risk such insult. Henceforth he would cleanse his mouth whenever he so much as passed in the street near one of that accursed race.

With pride he called himself a Nazarene, a native Christian of the land, preferring the insolent domination of the Muslim, his blood-relative, to the arrogance of so-called Christian strangers.

Returning home, he told Nesibeh of his determination to start next morning early for the Holy City. His bride was glad, for she had feared much from his visit to the missionaries, and longed to remove him far from their hellish wiles.



CHAPTER XXXII

Two years later, when Allah had given him a male child by Nesibeh, Iskender visited his wife's father in the spring-time. He arrived on foot leading the donkey, on which his wife sat with the baby in her arms. An excited group stood out beneath the ilex-tree. They shouted "Praise to Allah!" The mother of Iskender ran and seized the baby, and rocking it in her arms, poured forth her hoard of tidings. Asad ebn Costantin was married—had Iskender heard?—to a great lady of the English, a virgin strictly guarded, the only child of rich and honoured parents. Ah, the cunning devil! The people there at the Mission were furious, he might believe; the more so that Asad was bringing his bride to visit them as an equal—he, the son of Costantin, who fetched the water! Ah, they were well repaid for their treatment of Iskender; and they knew it!

But Mitri broke in, crying:

"Hast thou brought the picture?"

"Be sure I have!" replied Iskender cheerfully. Opening one of the saddlebags he produced it, wrapped in a linen cloth, which he removed. A howl of delight went up from all the company.

"Ma sh' Allah! It is Mar Jiryis himself!" "May we be helped through him!" "Now our church will wear a richer and more modish look!" exclaimed one and another.

It was indeed the crowning triumph of his art, which Iskender brought as an offering to the little church of St. George beneath the oak-tree, which he regarded as the fountain of Heaven's favours towards him. For the form and posture of the saint he had gone to one of those grand English newspapers which the Emir had given to him years ago. He had taken thence the likeness of a mounted officer slashing downward with his sabre, while his charger, dragged back on its haunches, pawed the air convulsively. A uniform of gold embellished this equestrian figure, which was framed in coils of Dragon, green and black; while the Dragon, in its turn, was framed in a fine decorative gush of blood, pure scarlet, which swirled and eddied round the combatants, springing visibly from the monster's many wounds.

"It is a feast for the eyes!" cried Mitri, when he had gazed his fill. There were tears on his cheeks as he turned and kissed Iskender. "The saint will be pleased, in sh' Allah! To-night it shall honour my house. To-morrow we will carry it in procession seven times round the church before we enter. It is all arranged. Khalil will be there with his music, which is lawful anywhere except in church. In sh' Allah, we will have a ceremony such as has not been seen in this place for many a year. I have spoken to the caimmacam and to the learned at the Mosque about it; and they say we may do what we like among ourselves, but must desist if any Muslim passing by should make objection. To-morrow is high festival with us!"

Accordingly, next morning, there was concourse at the house of the Orthodox priest. Within, upon a kind of altar, the picture was displayed with tapers burning. Each new arrival paid respect to it. Abdullah, who had strayed in aimless with the crowd, stood fixed before it as if petrified, in horror of the dragon's hideous face. Then, with a fervent "God protect us all!" the spell was broken and he hurried out.

"A miracle!" cried Mitri joyously. "Our picture has already scared a sinner."

Some one in the room inquired tremulously whether dragons such as that portrayed were still to be found in the world?

"No, praise be to Allah!" replied Mitri. All laughed at the simplicity of the questioner, except Elias, who solemnly averred that such existed, that he himself had seen one crunching a poor one-eyed black man in its cruel jaws.

"He has seen a crocodile, perhaps, in Masr," Yuhanna laughingly suggested, with a hand on the shoulder of the visionary. But Elias protested vehemently, swearing by Allah that he knew a crocodile when he saw one. The monster in dispute had been no crocodile, as witness its possession of two wings, like the wings of a bat, only fifty times larger, and a voice which could be heard for many miles. There was one blessing, however, about all such creatures; that they had power only over unbaptized people. This last touch pleased the majority of his audience, causing them to praise Allah, and inclining them to accept the truth of the whole story on religious grounds. Elias was preparing to support it with some cognate marvel, when Mitri announced that the procession was being formed. At the same moment, a few prelusory notes of the concertina were heard without. The house soon emptied.

Out in the heavy sunlight, hens fled clucking from the sudden tumult, pigeons circled overhead and cooed distractedly, children were driving dogs away with stones and curses. Khalil, the musician, stood to lead the way, making his concertina speak occasionally as a protest against further waiting. Iskender was to follow next to him as donor of the honoured picture; then the males of the congregation by twos and threes, many of them carrying lighted tapers; and, last of all, the priest fully robed, bearing the sacred picture at his breast. Groups of white-veiled women, mere spectators, waited in the shadow of the hovels, or beneath the oak-tree.

"Play that tune that thou didst play at our wedding, O Khalil," cried Nesibeh to the musician, who was chafing for the start.

"Which tune may that be of all tunes, O lady? I played you all I knew on that most blessed day!" Khalil was very grave and ceremonious, this being the greatest hour of all his life. "Is it this?" He broke into "God save the Queen."

"No, no; it goes like this!" Nesibeh strove to shadow forth the Frankish air. Do what she would, she could not keep from smiling, for pleasure in her husband's great success.

"Ah, yes, I know thy meaning now. That is a tune indeed—a tune of playful triumph without arrogance, well suited to the occasion. It was taught to me by an English mariner in Bur' Said, and is entitled 'Bob gus the wissal.'"

"Play it, O Khalil! Play it all the time; for it is merry and it makes us laugh!" cried Nesibeh, clapping her hands.

"Ready!" cried Mitri from the house; and Khalil stepped out with triumph, flourishing his concertina, flinging its strains out far and wide; his head, his whole body carried this way and that with the violence of his exertions. Elias and other excitables cut strange capers or embraced each other. The more serious rendered praise to Allah; the women looking on gave forth their joy-cries; and Mitri, bringing up the rear of the procession, smiled a blessing on their enthusiasm over the picture held against his breast. They had compassed the church five times to the tune of "Pop goes the Weasel," and were coming round again when a carriage which they had not heard approaching drew up beneath the ilex-tree. Its occupants were a Frankish clergyman dressed in black, and a lady dressed in white with a white sunshade. They watched the procession curiously with pitying smiles. Iskender from a distance was struck by the clergyman's complexion, which seemed darker than is usual among Europeans; then when he passed the front of the church and got close view of him, he saw that it was Asad son of Costantin. In a flash he remembered things he had forgotten, recalled a standpoint that had once seemed all desirable. He perceived how ludicrous this joyful marching round must seem to English eyes; and for a moment felt ashamed for himself and his friends. But the next minute, having turned the corner of the church, he met his young wife's smile, and grew once more exultant. The lady in the carriage beside Asad was very ugly, and no longer young. Proudly he followed the musician round again, and, once more abreast of the carriage, returned the contemptuous smile of the son of Costantin. And then the music ceased, as the procession passed into the darkness of the little church.

THE END