‘O my brothers,’ answered the Sheikh of the beggars, ‘let us do nothing unlawful in our haste. For this woman is certainly one of Abdullah’s wives, as you may see by her clothes, and unless he divorces her none of us can take her for ourselves, seeing that she is the wife of a believer. Take the sack from her head, however, and if she deafens us with her screaming we can put it on again. But you must by no means put her to shame by taking the veil from her face, for she may be an honest wife, though her husband be a dog. If she has done well, we shall find it out, and no harm will have come to her; but if she is a sharer in this fellow’s plans, her punishment will be grievous, since she will be the wife of an outcast, having neither beard nor eyebrows and rejected by all men.’
Some of the beggars murmured at this, but most of them praised their Sheikh’s wisdom, and would indeed have feared greatly to break the holy law, being chiefly devout men who prayed daily in the mosque and listened to the Khotbah on Friday. They therefore placed Almasta in one corner of the cellar and Abdullah in another, so that the two could not converse together, and then they took out such food as they had and began to eat their supper, laughing and talking over the jest and anticipating the reward which awaited them for saving Khaled.
In the meanwhile the night was advancing and many of Abdullah’s friends left their houses secretly and gathered in the neighbourhood of the palace to wait for the first signal from within. By threes and by twos and singly they came out of their dwellings, looking to the right and left to see whether they were not the first, as men do who are not sure of being in the right. All had their swords with them, and some their bows also, and some few carried their spears, and they made no secret of their bearing weapons; but under each man’s aba was concealed the largest barley-sack he could find in his house, and concerning this no one of the multitude said anything to his neighbour, for each hoped to get a greater share than the others of the gold and precious stones from the fabulous treasure stored in the palace. Then most of these men sat down to wait, as vultures do before the camel is quite dead. But not long after the middle of the night they were joined by a great throng of Bedouins from Abdullah’s tribe. These had been admitted into the city by the watchman according to the agreement, and passed up the great street from the Hasa gate, in a close body, not speaking and making but little noise with their feet as they walked; yet all of them together could be heard from a distance, because they were so many, and the sound was like the night wind among the branches of dry palm trees. After them, other Bedouins came in from camps both near and far, some of them having made half a day’s journey since sunset; and they surrounded the palace on all sides, and filled the great street, and the street which passes by the mosque towards the Dereyiyah gate and all the other approaches to the open square, sitting down wherever there was room, or leaning against the closed shops of the bazar, or standing up in a thick crowd when they were too closely pressed to be at ease. They talked together from time to time in low tones, but when their voices rose above a whisper some man in authority hushed them saying that the hour was not yet come.
‘By this time Abdullah has slain Khaled,’ said some, ‘and the daughter of the old Sultan is a prisoner.’
‘And by this time,’ said others, ‘Abdullah is surely unlocking the treasure chamber and filling a barley-sack with pearls and rubies. It is certain that he who slays the lion deserves his bride, but we hope that something will be left for us.’
‘Hush!’ said the voice of one moving in the darkness. ‘Be patient. It is not yet time.’
Then, for a space, a deep silence fell on the speakers and they crouched in their places watching the high black walls of the palace and marking the motion of the stars by the highest point of the tower. Before long whispered words were heard again.
‘It would have been more just if Abdullah had opened the gate to us as soon as he had slain Khaled, for then we could have seen what he took. But now, who shall tell us what share of the riches he is hiding away in the more secret vaults?’
‘This is true,’ answered others. ‘And besides, what need have we of Abdullah to help us into the palace? Surely we could have broken down the gates and slain the guards and Khaled himself without Abdullah’s help. Yet we, for our part, would not shed the blood of a man who has always dealt very generously with us, nor do we believe the story of the camels laden secretly in Haïl. However, what is ordained will take place, and we shall undoubtedly receive plentiful gold merely for sitting here to watch the stars through the night.’
‘The story of the camels is not true,’ said a certain man, speaking alone. ‘For I was of the drivers sent with them, and being hungry, we opened one of the bales on the way. By Allah! There was nothing but wheat in it, and it was white and good; but there was nothing else, not so much as a few small coins — —’
Then there was the sound of a blow, and the man who was speaking was struck on the mouth, so that his speech was interrupted.
‘Peace and be silent!’ said a voice. ‘They who speak lies will receive no share with the rest when the time comes.’
But the man who had been struck was the strongest of all his tribe, though he who had struck him did not know it. And the man caught his assailant by the waist in the dark, and wrestled with him violently, being very angry, and broke his forearm and his collar-bone and several of his ribs, and when he had done with him, he threw him over his shoulder so that he fell fainting and moaning three paces away.
‘O you who strike honest men on the mouth in the dark, you have been over-rash!’ he cried. ‘Go home and hide yourself lest I recognise you and break such bones as you have still whole!’
‘This is well done,’ said one of the bystanders in a loud voice. ‘For the story of the camels laden secretly with treasure is a lie. I also was with the drivers and ate of the wheat. Nor do I believe that Khaled is a robber and a Persian.’
‘We do not believe it!’ cried a score of Bedouins together. ‘And if we have come here, it is to get our share like other men, since they tell us that Khaled is dead. But now we believe that Abdullah has shut himself into the palace and means to keep all for himself, and is cheating us.’
These men were none of them of Abdullah’s tribe, but as the voices grew louder, Abdullah’s kinsmen came up, and endeavoured to quiet the growing tumult. The crowd had parted a little and the strong man stood alone in the midst.
‘We pray you to be patient,’ said Abdullah’s men, ‘for the time is at hand and the false dawn has already passed, though you have not seen it, so that before long it will be day. Then the gates will be opened and you shall all go in.’
‘We have no need of your sheikh to open gates for us,’ said the strong man, in a voice that could be heard very far through the crowd. ‘And moreover it will be better for you not to strike any more of us, or, by Allah, we will not only break your bones but shed your blood.’
At this there was a sullen cry and men sprang to their feet and laid their hands upon their weapons. But a youth who had come up with Abdullah’s kinsmen, though not one of them, bent very low over the man who had been thrown down and then spoke out with a loud and laughing voice.
‘Truly they say that crows lead people to the carcases of dogs!’ he said. ‘This fellow is of the family which murdered my father, upon whom may Allah send peace! Nor will I exceed the bounds of moderation and justice.’
Thereupon the young man drew out his knife and immediately killed his father’s enemy as he lay upon the ground, and then he withdrew quickly into the dark crowd so that none knew him. But though there was only the light of the stars and the multitude was great, many had seen the deed and each man stood closer by his neighbour and grasped his weapon to be in readiness. The kinsmen of Abdullah saw that they were separated from their own tribe and drew back, warning the others to keep the peace and be silent, lest they should be cut off from their share of the spoil. But their voices trembled with fears for their own safety, and they were answered by scornful shouts
and jeers.
‘The young man says well that you are crows,’ cried the angry men, ‘for you wish to keep the carcase for yourselves. Come and take it if you are able!’
Now indeed the quarrel which had been begun by the blow struck in the dark spread suddenly to great dimensions, for the words spoken were caught up as grains of sand by the wind and blown into all men’s ears. Many were ready enough to believe that Abdullah cared only for enriching himself and his tribe, and many more who had been persuaded to the enterprise by the hope of gain turned again to their faith in Khaled as the dream of gold disappeared from their eyes. Yet Abdullah’s tribe was numerous, and it was easy to see that if the dissension grew into a strife of arms the fight would be long and fierce on both sides.
Then certain of those who were against Abdullah raised the cry that he had slain Khaled and escaped with the treasure by a secret passage leading under the walls of the city, which passage was spoken of in old tales, though no one knew where to find it. But the multitude believed and pressed forward in a strong body and began to beat against the iron-bound gate of the palace with great stones and pieces of wood. Abdullah’s men came on fiercely to prevent them, but were opposed by many, and as the wing of night was lifted and the dawn drank the stars, the wide square was filled with the clashing of arms and the noise of a terrible tumult.
CHAPTER XII
AT THE TIME when the beggars were carrying away Abdullah and his wife, Khaled was sitting in his accustomed place, silent and heavy at heart, and Zehowah played softly to him upon a barbat and sang a sad song in a low voice. For she saw that gloominess had overcome him and she feared to disturb his mood, though she would gladly have made him smile if she had been able.
A black slave of Khaled’s whom he had treated with great kindness had secretly told him that there was a plan to enter the palace with evil during that night, for the fellow had spied upon those who knew and had overheard what he now told his master. He had also asked whether he should not warn the guards of the palace, in order that a strict watch should be kept, but Khaled had bidden him be silent.
‘Either the guards are conspiring with the rest,’ said Khaled, ‘and will be the first to attack me, or they are ignorant of the plan; and if so how can they withstand so great a multitude? I will abide by my own fate, and no man shall lose his life for my sake unless he desires to do so.’
But he privately put on a coat of mail under his aba, and when he sat down in the harem to await the end he would not let Zehowah take his sword, but laid it upon his feet and sat upright against the wall, looking towards the door.
‘Since I have no soul,’ he said to himself, ‘this is probably the end of all things. But there is no reason why I should not kill as many of these murderers as possible.’
He was gloomy and desponding, however, since he saw that his hour was at hand, and that Zehowah was no nearer to loving him than before. He watched her fingers as she played upon the instrument, and he listened to the soft notes of her voice.
‘It is a strange thing,’ he thought, ‘and I believe that she is not able to love, any more than my sword upon my feet, which is good and true and beautiful, and ever ready to my hand, but is itself cold, having no feeling in it.’
Still Zehowah sang and Khaled heard her song, listening watchfully for a man’s tread upon the threshold and looking to see a man’s face and the light of steel in the shadow beyond the lamps.
‘The night is long,’ he said at last, aloud.
‘It is not yet midnight,’ Zehowah answered. ‘But you are tired. Will you not go to rest?’
‘I shall rest to-morrow,’ said Khaled. ‘To-night I will sit here and look at you, if you will sing to me.’
Zehowah gazed into his eyes, wondering a little at his exceeding sadness. Then she bowed her head and struck the strings of the instrument to a new measure more melancholy than the last, and sang an old song of many verses, with a weeping refrain.
‘Are you also heavy at heart to-night?’ Khaled asked, when he had listened to the end.
‘It is not easy to kindle a lamp when the rain is falling heavily,’ Zehowah said. ‘Your sadness has taken hold of me, like the chill of a fever. I cannot laugh to-night.’
‘And yet you have a good cause, for they say that to-night the earth is to be delivered of a great malefactor, a certain Persian, whose name is perhaps Hassan, a notorious robber.’
Khaled turned away his head, smiling bitterly, for he desired not to see the satisfaction which would come into her face.
‘This is a poor jest,’ she answered in a low voice, and the barbat rolled from her knees to the carpet beside her.
‘I mean no jesting, for I do not desire to disappoint you, since you will naturally be glad to be freed from me. But I am glad if you are willing to sing to me, for this night is very long.’
‘Do you think that I believe this of you?’ asked Zehowah, after some time.
‘You believed it yesterday, you believe it to-day, and you will believe it to-morrow when you are free to make choice of some other man — whom you will doubtless love.’
‘Yet I know that it is not true,’ she said suddenly.
‘It is too late,’ Khaled answered. ‘The more I love you, the more I see how little faith you have in me — and the less faith can I put in you. Will you sing to me again?’
‘This is very cruel and bitter.’ Zehowah sighed and looked at him.
‘Will you sing to me again, Zehowah?’ he repeated. ‘I like your sad music.’
Then she took up the barbat from the carpet, but though she struck a chord she could not go on and her hand lay idle upon the strings, and her voice was still.
‘You are perhaps tired,’ said Khaled after some time. ‘Then lay aside the instrument and sleep.’ He composed himself in his seat, his sword being ready and his eyes towards the door.
But Zehowah shook her head as though awaking from a dream, her fingers ran swiftly over the strings and gentle tones came from her lips. Khaled listened thoughtfully to the song and the words soothed him, but before she had reached the end, she stopped suddenly.
‘Why do you not finish it?’ he asked.
‘If you have told me truth,’ she answered, ‘this is no time for singing and music. But if not, why should I labour to amuse you, as though I were a slave? I will call one of the women who has a sweet voice and a good memory. She will sing you a kasid which will last till morning.’
‘You are wrong,’ said Khaled. ‘There is no reason in what you say.’
But he reflected upon her nature, while he spoke.
‘Surely,’ he thought, ‘there is nothing in the world so contradictory as a woman. I ask of her a song and she is silent. I bid her rest, supposing her to be weary, and she sings to me. If I tell her that I hate her she will perhaps answer that she loves me. Min Allah! Let us see.’
‘You inspire hatred in me,’ he said aloud, after a few moments.
At this Zehowah was very much astonished, and she again let the barbat fall from her knees.
‘You wished me to believe that you loved me, and this not long since,’ she answered.
‘It may be so. I did not know you then.’
He looked towards the door as though he would say nothing further. Zehowah sighed, not understanding him yet being wounded in that sensitive tissue of the heart which divides the outer desert of pride from the inner garden of love, belonging to neither but separating the two as a veil. And when there is a rent in that veil, pride looks on love and scoffs bitterly, and love looks on pride and weeps tears of fire.
‘I am sorry that you hate me,’ she said, but the words were bitter in her mouth as a draught from a spring into which the enemy have cast wormwood, that none may drink of it.
‘Allah is great!’ thought Khaled. ‘This is already an advantage.’
Then Zehowah took up the barbat and began to sing a careless song not like any which Khaled had ever heard. This is the song —
‘The fisherman o
f Oman tied the halter under his arms, The sky was as blue as the sea in winter. The fisherman dived into the deep waters As a ray of light shoots through a sapphire of price. The sea was as blue as the sky, for it was winter. Among the rocks below the water it was dark and cold Though the sky above was as blue as a fine sapphire. The fisherman saw a rough shell lying there in the dark between two crabs, “In that shell there must be a large pearl,” he said. But when he would have taken it the crabs ran together and fastened upon his hand. His heart was bursting in his ribs for lack of breath And he thought of the sky above, as blue as the sea in winter. So he pulled the halter and was taken half-fainting into the boat. The crabs held his hand but he struck them off, And his heart beat merrily as he breathed the wind Blowing over the sea as blue as the sky in winter. “There are no pearls in this ocean,” he said to his companions, “But there are crabs if any one cares to dive.” One of them saw the shell caught between the legs of the crabs, He opened it and found a pearl of the value of a kingdom. “The pearl is mine, but you may eat the crabs,” he said to the fisherman, “Since you say there are no pearls in this ocean, Which is as blue as the sky in winter.” Then the fisherman smote him and tried to take the pearl, But as they strove it fell into the deep water and sank, Where the sea was as blue as the sky in winter. “I will drown you with a heavy weight,” said the fisherman, “for you have robbed me of my fortune.” “I have not robbed you, O brother, for the pearl is again where you found it, In the sea which is as blue as the sky in winter.” Then the fisherman dived again many times in vain Till the drums of his ears were broken and his heart was dissolved for lack of breath. But the pearl is still there, at the bottom of the sea, And the sea is as blue as the sky in winter. This is the kasid of the fisherman of Oman Which Zehowah Bint ul Mahomed el Hamid Has made and sung for her lord, Khaled the Sultan. May Allah send him long life and many such hearts As the one which fell into the ocean When the sky was as blue as the sea in winter.’
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 448
