§ 2
Through the grilled door, in the opal shade of the walls, Shane saw the wrestler stroll down the street; a big bulk of a man in white robe and turban, olive-skinned, heavy on his feet, seeming more like a prosperous young merchant than a wrestling champion of a vilayet. Yet underneath the white robes Shane could sense the immense arms and shoulders, the powerful legs. Very heavily he moved, muscle-bound a good deal, Shane thought; a man for pushing and crushing and resisting, but not for fast, nervous work, sinew and brain coördinating like the crack of a whip. A Cornish wrestler would turn him inside out within a minute; a Japanese would pitch him like a ball before he had even taken his stance. But once he had a grip he would be irresistible.
"So that's Ahmet Ali."
"Yes, Zan," Fenzile clapped her hands with delight, like a child seeing a circus procession. "Oh, he is a great wrestler. He beat Yussuf Hussein, the Cairene, and he beat a great Russian wrestler who came on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. And he beat a French sailor. And he beat a Tartar. Oh, he is a great wrestler, Ahmet Ali."
The wrestler had come nearer. Behind him came four or five supporters, in cloth white as his. Behind them came a ruck of Syrian youths, effeminate, vicious. Came a croud of donkey-boys, impish, black. The wrestler walked more slowly as he approached to pass the iron doors. And Shane was startled into a sudden smile at the sight of his face—a girl's face, with a girl's eyes. And in his hand was a rose. A wrestler with a rose!
"Why, a man could kill him."
"Oh, no! Oh, no, Zan!" Fenzile said. "He is very strong. He conquered Yussuf Hussein, the Cairene, and Yussuf Hussein could bend horseshoes with his bare hands. He is very strong, very powerful Ahmet Ali."
The wrestler was walking slowly past the house throwing glances through the grill with his full girl's eyes. A quick suspicion came into Campbell's mind. He turned to his wife.
"Does he come past here often?"
"Yes, yes, Zan. Every day."
"Does he stop and look into the court like that, every time?"
"Yes, Zan. Every time," she smiled.
"Do you know whom he's looking for?"
"Yes, Zan. For me."
Campbell's hand shot out suddenly and caught her wrist.
"Fenzile," his voice was cold. "You aren't carrying on with, encouraging this—Ahmet Ali?"
"Zan Cam'el," her child's eyes flashed unexpectedly. "I am no cheap Cairene woman. I am a Druse girl. The daughter of a Druse Bey."
"I am sorry, Fenzile."
She looked at him steadily with her great green eyes, green of the sea, and as he looked at her sweet roundish face, her little mouth half open in sincerity, her calm brow, her brown arch of eyebrow, she seemed to him no more than a beautiful proud child. There was no guile in her.
"You mustn't be foolish, you know, Fenzile."
"Severim Seni. I love only you, Zan. But it is so funny to see him go by, I must always smile. Don't you think it funny, Zan?"
"No, I don't think it at all funny."
"Oh, but it is funny, Zan. A big strong wrestler like that to be foolish over a very little woman. And for a cheap showman of the market-place to be lifting his eyes to a daughter of the Druse emirs. It is funny."
"It isn't funny. And he isn't much of a wrestler anyway."
"Oh, but he is, Zan. He is a very great wrestler. They say he threw and killed a bear."
"O kooltooluk. Hell! I could throw him myself."
She said nothing, turning her head, and reaching for her embroidery.
"Don't you believe me, Fenzile? I tell you I could make mince-meat of him."
"Of course, Zan. Of course you could." And she smiled. But this time it wasn't the delighted smile of a child. It was the grave patient smile of a wise woman. And Shane knew it. Past that barrier he could not break. And on her belief he could make no impress. There was no use arguing, talking. She would just smile and agree. And her ideal of strength and power would be the muscle-bound hulk of the Aleppo man, with the girl's face and the girl's eyes, and the rose in his hand. And Shane, all his life inured to sport, hard as iron, supple as a whip, with his science picked up from Swedish quartermasters and Japanese gendarmes, from mates and crimps in all parts of the world, would always be in her eyes an infant compared to the monstrous Syrian! Not that it mattered a tinker's curse, but—
Oh, damn the wrestler from Aleppo!