The Valley of the Kings - Marmaduke William Pickthall

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the miracle, which made a noise at the time. The Patriarch himself wrote the seer a long letter. People who had long since washed their hands of the drunken reprobate vied one with another to help the known favourite of Heaven. Abdullah obtained good employment, first in an hotel at Jerusalem, then with an English traveller of importance. Now, for some years, he had been a trusted dragoman in the pay of a mysterious power called Cook. His religious vogue had passed, his story and the miracle involved were quite forgotten of the multitude. But Abdullah himself remembered, viewing his respectability at the present day with the same feelings of awe and reverence with which he had received it at the first. It was the mantle of the Blessed Virgin, her gift to him. In it lay all his hope for this world and the next.

      "It is of Iskender that I come to speak," he said, having pulled out his moustache to the utmost and swallowed twice with solemn gulps preliminary to the announcement. "It hurts my soul to see him wasting time——"

      "Enough! enough, I say!" The woman screamed aloud to drown his words. "Am I not already killed with such bad talk, deafened with it, maddened with it every day from morn till night. Ah, by the Gospel, it has grown past bearing! They will no longer make a priest of our Iskender; that honour is for the son of Costantîn;—low, cunning devil! Iskender may now, as a favour, sweep their house. Here, in this very room, on yonder chair, the abandoned Carûlîn sat and told me the fine news—to me, the mainstay of the Mission, who have not missed a prayer-meeting for twenty years——"

      "Allah is merciful!" ejaculated the dragoman. Though himself a staunch supporter of the Holy Orthodox Church, he had a regard for the Protestant, as the faith of the wealthy English. He had looked forward to the welcoming smile of English travellers when he told them that his nephew was a Protestant clergyman. This rejection of Iskender was therefore a disappointment to him. Nevertheless, since God so willed it, there were other occupations that the boy could follow. More insupportable by far was the screaming fury of this woman, which, he feared, might lead her to disgrace her relatives by overt rudeness towards the English missionaries. He said:

      "The flush of anger well becomes thee. By Allah, it enriches thy dark beauty, like the bloom on purple grapes."

      The mother of Iskender started and blushed hotly, struck in the face by such audacious flattery. She exclaimed:

      "Be silent, imbecile! Are such words for the ear of one like me? Keep thy fine phrases for the tourist ladies, who know the fashion, and can answer thee."

      "Nay, the daughters of our land nowadays rival the foreign ladies in wit and fashion," said Abdullah gravely, pursuing his advantage. "I myself assisted at a wedding in Beyrût where the ladies talked and jested freely with the gentlemen, with roars of laughter in the Frankish manner. Ah, that was a sight! A hundred carriages, all festively bedecked, conveyed the guests to church, with cracking of whips and shoutings to clear a way. All the women were arrayed in splendid dresses brought from Fransa, and grand big hats with ostrich plumes and flying ribbons. A sight, I tell thee, equal to anything to be seen in Barîs or Lûndra."

      "Thou seest such things!" The mother of Iskender pouted, envious. "Here there is never anything to call a show. Even when Daûd el Barûdi married, there were no fine dresses. Every woman present wore the head-veil. I fain would try a Frankish hat myself; but the ladies will not let me—curse their father!"

      "They fear to be outshone," put in Abdullah, and continued quickly, apprehending a fresh storm: "Now, as concerns Iskender, I have a project for thee. It was for that I came here, not to blame the lad. Know that a young Englishman arrived yesterday at the Hotel Barûdi, in search of amusement, it would seem, for when Selîm Barûdi inquired how long he wished to stay, he replied it might be all his life if the place pleased him. From that and the plenteousness of his luggage I conclude him to be the son of a good house—no less than an Emîr, by Allah—though why he comes here out of season Allah knows! Elias and the rest have not got wind of him. He as yet knows no one in the land except the two Barûdis and myself, who met him at their house an hour ago. My plan is to present our dear one to him——"

      At this point Iskender's mother interrupted him with sudden outcry as of one possessed:

      "Aha, O cruel priest! O soured virgins! Let the son of Costantîn be your dog if he will. My son shall tread on all your faces, the friend of an Emîr."

      She shook her fist towards the Mission, seen in fierce sunlight through the shadowed doorway.

      "Hush, woman!" cried Abdullah in an agony. Her foolish words set wasps about his head. "For the love of Allah, let Iskender anger no man, but be supple, politic, and so respected. Now that he is cast off by your Brûtestânts, there is nothing for it but he must become a dragoman. The Englishman of whom I spoke is but a step. He has need of all men's favour, and must court it diligently. … Where is the boy himself? I thought to find him."

      "Ask me not where he is!" The woman raised her hands despairingly. "He went out early this morning with his paint-things, and has not returned. May his house be destroyed! He is the worst of sons. He shuns all counsel, and does nothing that one asks of him. How often have I begged him to renounce his painting, or to go with me to the Mission and make show of penitence. As well instruct the sand. It is likely he will scout this plan of thine. Oh, what have I ever done to be thus afflicted? Why, why has he not the wit of Asad son of Costantîn?"

      "Let us go out and meet him," proposed old Abdullah, still bent on diverting her mind from its maddening grievance. "He cannot be far off, and to smell the air is pleasant at this hour."

      The mother of Iskender flung her cares aside. To walk out by the side of so respectable a man, at an hour when many people took the air upon the sandhills, was to gain distinction. She draped a black lace shawl upon her head, while Abdullah strode to the doorway and stared out, flicking his boots with his whip. Then, gathering up the skirt of her flowered cotton gown in one hand, she placed the other in Abdullah's arm, ready crooked to receive it.

      "It is the fashionable way," she tittered as they set forth.

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      Beyond the ancient town and its dark green orange gardens, between the tilled plain and the shore, the sandhills roll away to north and south, with here a dwelling, there a patch of herbage. To Iskender, lying prone on the crest of the highest dune, caught up into the laugh of sunset, their undulations appeared flushed and softly dimpled, like the flesh of babes. Returning homeward, hungry, from a day of much adventure, he had espied from this eminence a camp of nomads in a certain hollow, and at once forgot his supper in desire to sketch it. He had settled to the work with such complete absorption that Elias Abdul Messîh, his companion, for once grew tired of the sound of his own voice, and left him, with a sigh for his obtuseness. And Iskender was glad to be rid of him, to lie alone and nurse his secret joy; for he had this day made the acquaintance of an Englishman, whose affability restored his pride of life. Might Allah bless that light-haired youth, for he was the very lord of kindness, and beautiful as an angel from Allah. His cheeks had the same rose-bloom as the Sitt Hilda's, while his blue eyes danced and sparkled like sea-waves in sunlight. How different from the priest of the Mission, whose gaze was of green ice! Moreover, he had praised Iskender's painting and taught him a trick of colouring, which consisted in washing the page yellow and letting it dry before setting to work on it. The artist had never been so happy since the day, six months ago, when the missionary had declared against his sketching as mere waste of time. The ladies of the Mission, who had fostered it, obsequious to the edict, then condemned it strongly. His mother, too, turned round and blamed him for it. Only the Sitt Hilda still was kind, comforting him in secret, till his love leapt up. And then came outer darkness. Iskender was a profligate, and driven forth.

      Debarred from Christian society, hardly less than Muslim, by his English education and his Protestantism, he was a pariah in his own land. This very morning, sketching a gateway in the town, he had been beaten by some Muslim boys and called an idol-maker; and, traversing a Christian hamlet among the gardens, had been reviled and pelted by its

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