The Weavers, Complete - Gilbert Parker
Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35
"The grace of God be upon thee, David!" How strange it sounded, this
Christian blessing in response to his own Oriental greeting, out in this
Eastern waste. His own name, too. It was as though he had been
transported to the ancient world where "Brethren" were so few that they
called each other by their "Christian" names--even as they did in Hamley
to-day. In Hamley to-day! He closed his eyes, a tremor running through
his body; and then, with an effort which stilled him to peace again, he
moved forward, and was greeted by Ebn Ezra, from whom the third member of
the little group had now drawn apart nearer to the acacia-tree, and was
seated on a rock that jutted from the sand. "What is it?" David asked.
"Wouldst thou not sleep, Saadat? Sleep is more to thee now than aught
thou mayst hear from any man. To all thou art kind save thyself."
"I have rested," David answered, with a measured calmness, revealing to
his friend the change which had come since they parted an hour before.
They seated themselves under the palm-tree, and were silent for a moment,
then Ebn Ezra said:
"These come from the Place of Lepers."
David started slightly. "Zaida?" he asked, with a sigh of pity.
"The monk who passed thee but now goes every year to the Place of Lepers
with the caravan, for a brother of this order stays yonder with the
afflicted, seeing no more the faces of this world which he has left
behind. Afar off from each other they stand--as far as eye can see--and
after the manner of their faith they pray to Allah, and he who has just
left us finds a paper fastened with a stone upon the sand at a certain
place where he waits. He touches it not, but reads it as it lies, and,
having read, heaps sand upon it. And the message which the paper gives is
for me."
"For thee? Hast thou there one who--"
"There was one, my father's son, though we were of different mothers; and
in other days, so many years ago, he did great wrong to me, and not to me
alone,"--the grey head bowed in sorrow--"but to one dearer to me than
life. I hated him, and would have slain him, but the mind of Allah is not
the mind of man; and he escaped me. Then he was stricken with leprosy,
and was carried to the place from whence no leper returns. At first my
heart rejoiced; then, at last, I forgave him, Saadat--was he not my
father's son, and was the woman not gone to the bosom of Allah, where is
peace? So I forgave and sorrowed for him--who shall say what miseries are
those which, minute to minute, day after day, and year upon year, repeat
themselves, till it is an endless flaying of the body and burning of the
soul! Every year I send a message to him, and every year now this
Christian monk--there is no Sheikh-el-Islam yonder--brings back the
written message which he finds in the sand."
"And thee has had a message to-night?"
"The last that may come--God be praised, he goeth to his long home. It
was written in his last hour. There was no hope; he is gone. And so, one
more reason showeth why I should go where thou goest, Saadat."
Casting his eyes toward the figure by the acacia-tree, his face clouded
and he pondered anxiously, looking at David the while. Twice he essayed
to speak, but paused.
David's eyes followed his look. "What is it? Who is he--yonder?"
The other rose to his feet. "Come and see, Saadat," he replied. "Seeing,
thou wilt know what to do."
"Zaida--is it of Zaida?" David asked.
"The man will answer for himself, Saadat." Coming within a few feet of
the figure crouched upon the rock, Ebn Ezra paused and stretched out a
hand. "A moment, Saadat. Dost thou not see, dost thou not recognise him?"
David intently studied the figure, which seemed unconscious of their
presence. The shoulders were stooping and relaxed as though from great
fatigue, but David could see that the figure was that of a tall man. The
head was averted, but a rough beard covered the face, and, in the light
of the fire, one hand that clutched it showed long and skinny and yellow
and cruel. The hand fascinated David's eyes. Where had he seen it? It
flashed upon him--a hand clutching a robe, in a frenzy of fear, in the
court-yard of the blue tiles, in Kaid's Palace--Achmet the Ropemaker! He
drew back a step.
"Achmet," he said in a low voice. The figure stirred, the hand dropped
from the beard and clutched the knee; but the head was not raised, and
the body remained crouching and listless.
"He escaped?" David said, turning to Ebn Ezra Bey.
"I know not by what means--a camel-driver bribed, perhaps, and a camel
left behind for him. After the caravan had travelled a day's journey he
joined it. None knew what to do. He was not a leper, and he was armed."
"Leave him with me," said David.
Ebn Ezra hesitated. "He is armed; he was thy foe--"
"I am armed also," David answered enigmatically, and indicated by a
gesture that he wished to be left alone. Ebn Ezra drew away towards the
palm-tree, and stood at this distance watching anxiously, for he knew
what dark passions seize upon the Oriental--and Achmet had many things
for which to take vengeance.
David stood for a moment, pondering, his eyes upon the deserter. "God
greet thee as thou goest, and His goodness befriend thee," he said
evenly. There was silence, and no movement. "Rise and speak," he added
sternly. "Dost thou not hear? Rise, Achmet Pasha!"
Achmet Pasha! The head of the desolate wretch lifted, the eyes glared at
David for an instant, as though to see whether he was being mocked, and
then the spare figure stretched itself, and the outcast stood up. The old
lank straightness was gone, the shoulders were bent, the head was thrust
forward, as though the long habit of looking into dark places had bowed
it out of all manhood.
"May grass spring under thy footstep, Saadat," he said, in a thick voice,
and salaamed awkwardly--he had been so long absent from life's
formularies.
"What dost thou here, pasha?" asked David formally. "Thy sentence had no
limit."
"I could not die there," said the hollow voice, and the head sank farther
forward. "Year after year I lived there, but I could not die among them.
I was no leper; I am no leper. My penalty was my penalty, and I paid it
to the full, piastre by piastre of my body and my mind. It was not one
death, it was death every hour, every day I stayed. I had no mind. I
could not think. Mummy-cloths were round my brain; but the fire burned
underneath and would not die. There was the desert, but my limbs were
like rushes. I had no will, and I could not flee. I was chained to the
evil place. If I stayed it was death, if I went it was death."
"Thou art armed now," said David suggestively. Achmet laid a hand
fiercely upon a dagger under his robe. "I hid it. I was afraid. I could
not die--my hand was like a withered leaf; it could not strike; my heart
poured out like water. Once I struck a leper, that he might strike and
kill me; but he lay upon the ground and wept, for all his anger, which
had been great, died in him at last. There was none other given to anger
there. The leper has neither anger, nor mirth, nor violence, nor peace.
It is all the black silent shame--and I was no leper."
"Why didst thou come? What is there but death for thee here, or anywhere
thou goest! Kaid's arm will find thee; a thousand hands wait to strike
thee."
"I could not die there--Dost thou think that I repent?" he added with
sudden fierceness. "Is it that which would make me repent? Was I worse
than thousands of others? I have come out to die--to fight and die. Aiwa,
I have come to thee, whom I hated, because thou canst give me death as I
desire it. My mother was an Arab slave from Senaar, and she was got by
war, and all her people. War and fighting were their portion--as they
ate, as they drank and slept. In the black years behind me among the
Unclean, there was naught to fight--could one fight the dead, and the
agony of death, and the poison of the agony! Life, it is done for me--am
I not accursed? But to die fighting--ay, fighting for Egypt, since it
must be, and fighting for thee, since it must be; to strike, and strike,
and strike, and earn death! Must the dog, because he is a dog, die in the
slime? Shall he not be driven from the village to die in the clean sand?
Saadat, who will see in me Achmet Pasha, who did with Egypt what he
willed, and was swept away by the besom in thy hand? Is there in me aught
of that Achmet that any should know?"
"None would know thee for that Achmet," answered David.
"I know, it matters not how--at last a letter found me, and the way of
escape--that thou goest again to the Soudan. There will be fighting
there--"
"Not by my will," interrupted David.
"Then by the will of Sheitan the accursed; but there will be fighting--am
I not an Arab, do I not know? Thou hast not conquered yet. Bid me go
where thou wilt, do what thou wilt, so that I may be among the fighters,
and in the battle forget what I have seen. Since I am unclean, and am
denied the bosom of Allah, shall I not go as a warrior to Hell, where men
will fear me? Speak, Saadat, canst thou deny me this?"
Nothing of repentance, so far as he knew, moved the dark soul; but, like
some evil spirit, he would choose the way to his own doom, the place and
the manner of it: a sullen, cruel, evil being, unyielding in his evil,
unmoved by remorse--so far as he knew. Yet he would die fighting, and for
Egypt "and for thee, if it must be so. To strike, to strike, to strike,
and earn death!" What Achmet did not see, David saw, the glimmer of light
breaking through the cloud of shame and evil and doom. Yonder in the
Soudan more problems than one would be solved, more lives than one be put
to the extreme test. He did not answer Achmet's question yet. "Zaida--?"
he said in a low voice. The pathos of her doom had been a dark memory.
Achmet's voice dropped lower as he answered. "She lived till the day her
sister died. I never saw her face; but I was sent to bear each day to her
door the food she ate and a balass of water; and I did according to my
sentence. Yet I heard her voice. And once, at last, the day she died, she
spoke to me, and said from inside the hut: 'Thy work is done, Achmet. Go
in peace.' And that night she lay down on her sister's grave, and in the
morning she was found dead upon it."
David's eyes were blinded with tears. "It was too long," he said at last,
as though to himself.
"That day," continued Achmet, "there fell ill with leprosy the Christian
priest from this place who had served in that black service so long; and
then a fire leapt up in me. Zaida was gone--I had brought food and a
balass of water to her door those many times; there was naught to do,
since she was gone--"
Suddenly David took a step nearer to him and looked into the sullen and
drooping eyes. "Thou shalt go with me, Achmet. I will do this unlawful
act for thee. At daybreak I will give thee orders. Thou shalt join me far
from here--if I go to the Soudan," he added, with a sudden remembrance of
his position; and he turned away slowly.
After a moment, with muttered words, Achmet sank down upon the stone
again, drew a cake of dourha from his inner robe, and began to eat.
The camel-boy had lighted a fire, and he sat beside it warming his hands
at the blaze and still singing to himself:
"The bed of my love I will sprinkle with attar of roses,
The face of my love I will touch with the balm
With the balm of the tree from the farthermost wood,
From the wood without end, in the world without end.
My love holds the cup to my lips, and I drink of the cup,
And the attar of roses I sprinkle will soothe like the evening dew,
And the balm will be healing and sleep, and the cup I will drink,
I will drink of the cup my love holds to my lips--"
David stood listening. What power was there in desert life that could
make this poor camel-driver, at the end of a long day of weariness and
toil and little food and drink, sing a song of content and cheerfulness?
The little needed, the little granted, and no thought beyond--save the
vision of one who waited in the hut by the onion-field. He gathered
himself together and tuned his mind to the scene through which he had
just passed, and then to the interview he would have with Kaid on the
morrow. A few hours ago he had seen no way out of it all--he had had no
real hope that Kaid would turn to him again; but the last two hours had
changed all that. Hope was alive in him. He had fought a desperate fight
with himself, and he had conquered. Then had come Achmet, unrepentant,
degraded still, but with the spirit of Something glowing--Achmet to die
for a cause, driven by that Something deep beneath the degradation and
the crime. He had hope, and, as the camel-driver's voice died away, and
he lay down with a sheep-skin over him and went instantly to sleep, David
drew to the fire and sat down beside it. Presently Ebn Ezra came to urge
him to go to bed, but he would not. He had slept, he said; he had slept
and rested, and the night was good--he would wait. Then the other brought
rugs and blankets, and gave David some, and lay down beside the fire, and
watched and waited for he knew not what. Ever and ever his eyes were on
David, and far back under the acacia-tree Achmet slept as he had not
slept since his doom fell on him.
At last Ebn Ezra Bey also slept; but David was awake with the night and
the benevolent moon and the marching stars. The spirit of the desert was
on him, filling him with its voiceless music. From the infinite stretches
of sand to the south came the irresistible call of life, as soft as the
leaves in a garden of roses, as deep as the sea. This world was still,
yet there seemed a low, delicate humming, as of multitudinous looms at a
distance so great that the ear but faintly caught it--the sound of the
weavers of life and destiny and eternal love, the hands of the toilers of
all the ages spinning and spinning on; and he was part of it, not abashed
or dismayed because he was but one of the illimitable throng.
The hours wore on, but still he sat there, peace in all his heart, energy
tingling softly through every vein, the wings of hope fluttering at his
ear.
At length the morning came, and, from the west, with the rising sun, came
a traveller swiftly, making for where he was. The sleepers stirred around
him and waked and rose. The little camp became alive. As the traveller
neared the fresh-made fire, David saw that it was Lacey. He went eagerly
to meet him.
"Thee has news," he said. "I see it is so." He held Lacey's hand in his.
"Say, you are going on that expedition, Saadat. You wanted money. Will a
quarter of a million do?" David's eyes caught fire.
From the monastery there came the voices of the monks:
"O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with
gladness, and come before His presence with a song."
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE DARK INDENTURE
Nahoum had forgotten one very important thing: that what affected David
as a Christian in Egypt would tell equally against himself. If, in his
ill-health and dejection, Kaid drank deep of the cup of Mahomet, the red
eyes of fanaticism would be turned upon the Armenian, as upon the
European Christian. He had forgotten it for the moment, but when, coming
into Kaid's Palace, a little knot of loiterers spat upon the ground and
snarled, "Infidel--Nazarene!" with contempt and hatred, the significance
of the position came home to him. He made his way to a far quarter of the
Palace, thoughtfully weighing the circumstances, and was met by Mizraim.
Mizraim salaamed. "The height of thy renown be as the cedar of Lebanon,
Excellency."
"May thy feet tread the corn of everlasting fortune, son of Mahomet."
They entered the room together. Nahoum looked at Mizraim curiously. He
was not satisfied with what he saw. Mizraim's impassive face had little
expression, but the eyes were furtively eager and sinister.
"Well, so it is, and if it is, what then?" asked Nahoum coolly.
"Ki di, so it is," answered Mizraim, and a ghastly smile came to his
lips. This infidel pasha, Nahoum, had a mind that pierced to the meaning
of words ere they were spoken. Mizraim's hand touched his forehead, his
breast, his lips, and, clasping and unclasping his long, snakelike
fingers, he began the story he had come to tell.
"The Inglesi, whom Allah confound, the Effendina hath blackened by a
look, his words have smitten him in the vital parts--"
"Mizraim, thou dove, speak to the purpose!" Mizraim showed a dark
pleasure at the interruption. Nahoum was impatient, anxious; that made
the tale better worth telling.
"Sharif and the discontented ones who dare not act, like the vultures,
they flee the living man, but swoop upon the corpse. The consuls of those
countries who love not England or Claridge Pasha, and the holy men, and
the Cadi, all scatter smouldering fires. There is a spirit in the Palace
and beyond which is blowing fast to a great flame."
"Then, so it is, great one, and what bodes it?"
"It may kill the Inglesi; but it will also sweep thee from the fields of
life where thou dost flourish."
"It is not against the foreigner, but against the Christian, Mizraim?"
"Thy tongue hath wisdom, Excellency."
"Thou art a Muslim--"
"Why do I warn thee? For service done to me; and because there is none
other worth serving in Egypt. Behold, it is my destiny to rule others, to
serve thee."
"Once more thy turban full of gold, Mizraim, if thou dost service now
that hath meaning and is not a belching of wind and words. Thou hast a
thing to say--say it, and see if Nahoum hath lost his wit, or hath a
palsied arm."
"Then behold, pasha. Are not my spies in all the Palace? Is not my
scourge heavier than the whip of the horned horse? Ki di, so it is. This
I have found. Sharif hath, with others, made a plot which hath enough
powder in it to shake Egypt, and toss thee from thy high place into the
depths. There is a Christian--an Armenian, as it chances; but he was
chosen because he was a Christian, and for that only. His name is Rahib.
He is a tent-maker. He had three sons. They did kill an effendi who had
cheated them of their land. Two of them were hanged last week; the other,
caught but a few days since, is to hang within three days. To-day Kaid
goes to the Mosque of Mahmoud, as is the custom at this festival. The old
man hath been persuaded to attempt the life of Kaid, upon condition that
his son--his Benjamin--is set free. It will be but an attempt at Kaid's
life, no more; but the cry will go forth that a Christian did the thing;
and the Muslim flame will leap high."
"And the tent-maker?" asked Nahoum musingly, though he was turning over
the tale in his mind, seeing behind it and its far consequences.
"Malaish, what does it matter! But he is to escape, and they are to hang
another Christian in his stead for the attempt on Kaid. It hath no skill,
but it would suffice. With the dervishes gone malboos, and the faithful
drunk with piety--canst thou not see the issue, pasha? Blood will be
shed."
"The Jews of Europe would be angry," said Nahoum grimly but evenly. "The
loans have been many, and Kaid has given a lien by the new canal at Suez.
The Jews will be angry," he repeated, "and for every drop of Christian
blood shed there would be a lanced vein here. But that would not bring
back Nahoum Pasha," he continued cynically. "Well, this is thy story,
Mizraim; this is what they would do. Now what hast thou done to stop
their doing?"
"Am I not a Muslim? Shall I give Sharif to the Nile?"
Nahoum smiled darkly. "There is a simpler way. Thy mind ever runs on the
bowstring and the sword. These are great, but there is a greater. It is
the mocking finger. At midnight, when Kaid goes to the Mosque Mahmoud, a
finger will mock the plotters till they are buried in confusion. Thou
knowest the governor of the prisons--has he not need of something? Hath
he never sought favours of thee?"
"Bismillah, but a week ago!"
"Then, listen, thou shepherd of the sheep--"
He paused, as there came a tap at the door, and a slave entered hurriedly
and addressed Nahoum. "The effendi, Ebn Ezra Bey, whom thou didst set me
to watch, he hath entered the Palace, and asks for the Effendina."
Nahoum started, and his face clouded, but his eyes flashed fire. He
tossed the slave a coin. "Thou hast done well. Where is he now?"
"He waits in the hall, where is the statue of Mehemet Ali and the lions."
"In an hour, Mizraim, thou shalt hear what I intend. Peace be to thee!"
"And on thee, peace!" answered Mizraim, as Nahoum passed from the room,
and walked hastily towards the hall where he should find Ebn Ezra Bey.
Nearing the spot, he brought his step to a deliberate slowness, and
appeared not to notice the stately Arab till almost upon him.
"Salaam, effendi," he said smoothly, yet with inquisition in his eye,
with malice in his tone.
"Salaam, Excellency."
"Thou art come on the business of thy master?"
"Who is my master, Excellency?"
"Till yesterday it was Claridge Pasha. Hast thou then forsaken him in his
trouble--the rat from the sinking ship?"
A flush passed over Ebn Ezra Bey's face, and his mouth opened with a gasp
of anger. Oriental though he was, he was not as astute as this Armenian
Christian, who was purposely insulting him, that he might, in a moment of
heat, snatch from him the business he meant to lay before Kaid. Nahoum
had not miscalculated.
"I have but one master, Excellency," Ebn Ezra answered quietly at last,
"and I have served him straightly. Hast thou done likewise?"
"What is straight to thee might well be crooked to me, effendi."
"Thou art crooked as the finger of a paralytic."
"Yet I have worked in peace with Claridge Pasha for these years past,
even until yesterday, when thou didst leave him to his fate."
"His ship will sail when thine is crumbling on the sands, and all thou
art is like a forsaken cockatrice's nest."
"Is it this thou hast come to say to the Effendina?"
"What I have come to say to the Effendina is for the world to know after
it hath reached his ears. I know thee, Nahoum Pasha. Thou art a traitor.
Claridge Pasha would abolish slavery, and thou dost receive great sums of
gold from the slave-dealers to prevent it."
"Is it this thou wilt tell Kaid?" Nahoum asked with a sneer. "And hast
thou proofs?"
"Even this day they have come to my hands from the south."
"Yet I think the proofs thou hast will not avail; and I think that thou
wilt not show them to Kaid. The gift of second thinking is a great gift.
Thou must find greater reason for seeking the Effendina."
"That too shall be. Gold thou hadst to pay the wages of the soldiers of
the south. Thou didst keep the gold and order the slave-hunt; and the
soldiers of the Effendina have been paid in human flesh and blood--ten
thousand slaves since Claridge Pasha left the Soudan, and three thousand
dead upon the desert sands, abandoned by those who hunted them when water
grew scarce and food failed. To-day shall see thy fall."
At his first words Nahoum had felt a shock, from which his spirit reeled;
but an inspiration came to him on the moment; and he listened with a
saturnine coolness to the passionate words of the indignant figure
towering above him. When Ebn Ezra had finished, he replied quietly:
"It is even as thou sayest, effendi. The soldiers were paid in slaves got
in the slave-hunt; and I have gold from the slave-dealers. I needed it,
for the hour is come when I must do more for Egypt than I have ever
done."
With a gesture of contempt Ebn Ezra made to leave, seeing an official of
the Palace in the distance. Nahoum stopped him. "But, one moment ere thou
dost thrust thy hand into the cockatrice's den. Thou dost measure thyself
against Nahoum? In patience and with care have I trained myself for the
battle. The bulls of Bashan may roar, yet my feet are shod with safety.
Thou wouldst go to Kaid and tell him thy affrighted tale. I tell thee,
thou wilt not go. Thou hast reason yet, though thy blood is hot. Thou art
to Claridge Pasha like a brother--as to his uncle before him, who
furnished my father's palace with carpets. The carpets still soften the
fall of my feet in my father's palace, as they did soften the fall of my
brother's feet, the feet of Foorgat Bey."
He paused, looking at Ebn Ezra with quiet triumph, though his eyes had
ever that smiling innocence which had won David in days gone by. He was
turning his words over on the tongue with a relish born of long waiting.
"Come," he said presently--"come, and I will give thee reason why thou
wilt not speak with Kaid to-day. This way, effendi."
He led the other into a little room hung about with rugs and tapestry,
and, going to the wall, he touched a spring. "One moment here, effendi,"
he added quietly. The room was as it had been since David last stood
within it.
"In this room, effendi," Nahoum said with cold deliberation, "Claridge
Pasha killed my brother, Foorgat Bey."
Ebn Ezra fell back as though he had been struck. Swiftly Nahoum told him
the whole truth--even to the picture of the brougham, and the rigid,
upright figure passing through the night to Foorgat's palace, the gaunt
Mizraim piloting the equipage of death.