III
Abu el Haggag’s boat had come and passed, poor starveling representative of the longest pedigree in the world. Here passed of old the Sacred Bark of the gods, carrying the precious images and emblems, the king burning incense before it, the oxen lotus-garlanded for the sacrifice.
And later this sacred bark lent its outward form to the Ark of the Most High God, bearing the simple symbols of justice and mercy, in the long desert wanderings and in the Holy Land.
And now the poor, sordid boat on its little truck passed round; charcoal burned instead of incense. With the feeble tradition the Arabs tell that it was the boat in which Abu the Saint went to see his friends. This is all that is left in their minds of that most ancient idea—this and the golden vision of the boat at midnight on Karnak Lake.
The droning noises of Arab music had died down as Mahmoud ran through Luxor; a few beggars cleared the remnants of the feast of Mohammed Mohassib; while the old man stood smiling in his doorway over the memory of his lordly hospitality. He nodded kindly to Mahmoud running by.
After he passed the house Mahmoud paused; he did not dare to go on this way—highway though it was—for he feared above all the afreet-haunted bridge that he would have to pass. So he turned, and running down a narrow way crossed the empty market-place and came out on the field road.
The light was dying down and the sky was cloudy; there was little mist, but the scent of beanfields hung heavy on the air; the corn-blades rustled as his dress swept them, running. The barking of the village dogs died down behind him into silence, so that he started and nearly fell when a little cue-owl mewed suddenly from a carob-tree.
Down into the cutting, and as he mounted again his heart leaped into his mouth, for a dark figure rose up above the corn. Then he remembered that it was only the great lion-headed statue that sat lonely in the fields, and he took courage again.
When he came to the road he paused, debating. Which of the two ways to the Lake? By the one he would have to pass the spot where that fierce golden bird had turned to look at him yesterday. By the other way he must go up the dark sphinx avenue, a very haunt of afreets. To go on either way was dreadful; to stay here not less so; to go back, he was persuaded now, would be to lose Fatma.
He turned to the left and entered the sphinx avenue. A half-grown moon struggling with the clouds now and again threw straggling and sharp shadows of the palm leaves across his path, but more dreadful was the dry rustling of the leaves on high when a cloud passed; before him loomed the great arch. On each side the sphinxes—crouched like strange creatures with narrow, beak-like noses—seemed in the darkness ready to spring. And that great black nodding palm-tree, surely that was an afreet too, and might catch him. But up the path bordered with horror he still ran.
Now he must turn to the right, before the arch is reached; and but a short way farther pass those four images of great old kings mutilated, but not the less uncanny and fearful in this dim light. They seemed to look down on the little figure still running; but he had passed in safety, and there lay the lake, black and still like the pool of ink in which men saw strange visions.
Mahmoud said his prayer and praise and lay down to sleep by the lake....