CHAPTER XXVII
Between the fourth and fifth hour after noon of that same day Iskender once more approached the house of the missionaries, this time with extreme precaution, keeping as far as might be hidden in the folds of the land, and, when obliged of necessity to cross a space of ground exposed to view, crawling on his belly, with his tarbûsh, which, being scarlet, was conspicuous, doffed and rolled up tightly in one hand. It was important for the enterprise he had in view that no one of the house should see him coming.
Having reached the garden boundary undiscovered, he stole round it, crouching, with his ear to the wall. Soon he caught the sound of voices, and, guided by them, reached a point quite near the speakers whence he could hear every word they were saying. The Emîr had just concluded what must have been a long petition, and now the uncle spoke:
"Need we have it all over again?" he inquired irritably. "You know I would not cross you in your present state, unless I were convinced it is for your own good. As I have before observed, she is a good many years your senior; she has neither birth nor money, nor anything uncommon in good looks. If, in eight months' time, you still desire it, I shall have no longer any right to forbid your marrying. But it shall not be now."
The tamarisks just there were a sufficient screen. Noiselessly Iskender surmounted the low wall and parted with his hands their feathery boughs till he could see the disputants. The uncle's face was richly bronzed, in striking contrast with his light blue eyes and heavy white moustache. Clad in a white suit, with a white pith helmet on his head, he appeared to Iskender like a portrait just begun, of which only the hands and the flesh of the face had yet been coloured by the artist. Of figure he was broad and upright, without a symptom of decrepitude unless it might be the stout cane he used in walking. The Emîr looked fragile and infirm beside him, pale with the trace of illness, and bowed by his present dejection.
"Pshaw! Bless my soul!" pursued the uncle, with a lively flourish of his cane. "Why, every man falls in love with his nurse if she's at all personable; it is a phase of convalescence. I could tell you of a dozen cases, within my own personal knowledge, out in India; but I never saw a happy marriage come of it. Now come, I only ask you to wait eight months until you are of age—you can't call that request unreasonable—and to stop all communications for the same period. It will give both you and the lady time to think about it, and save you both from rash and ill-considered action. Our good host here and the elder ladies quite agree with me. Now sit down on this bench and rest, while I go and get my notebook with the dates of sailing."
With that the old man went into the house, leaving the Emîr alone, resting forlornly on the garden-seat beneath a flowering tree and staring at the ground. Iskender parted the growth of tamarisks and stood out before him.
The Emîr gave a start and a faint cry, with eyes dilated. Iskender pounced on his hand and, murmuring words of love, essayed to kiss it. It was snatched from him.
"What the devil are you doing here? Get out, I say!" The Frank spoke low and angrily, with a glance at his hands which cursed their present helplessness. "If I were not so confoundedly weak, I would send you flying over that wall!… Oh, yes, I suppose I forgive you, and all that. Only I don't want to speak to you, or see your face. You've got to be a kind of nightmare to me. I daresay I misjudged you; I don't pretend to understand you; in some ways you behaved quite well and honestly. Only I can't endure the sight of your face, the sound of your confounded voice. Get out, I tell you."
But Iskender came close, and, despite his efforts to repel, leaned over him and whispered in his ear:
"Just listen, sir! I bring her to you where you like—to England?—to America?—anywhere you tell me. Gif to me a bit of writing, for me to show to her—you know!—to Miss Hilda, her you luf! The old man is a fery wicked deffil to wish to sebarate you."
"So you have been listening, have you?" said the Frank, with a mirthless laugh. "Just as if you hadn't done enough already in the way of meddling with my affairs. Go! and may I never see your face again. You will make haste and begone if you're wise. My uncle will be back in half a jiffy."
But Iskender was too astonished by these words, and the listless manner of their utterance, to trust his understanding. He went on entreating:
"Just a word in your handwriting, sir, so she can know it's all right. I bring her to you anywhere at my exbense. God knows I do anything to blease you! I treat her honourably, sir; I be her servant like as I'f been yours. All that I told you about me and her was nothin'; I was just a silly boy. I resbect her, sir; I be her slave; you trust me. By God, I treat her like as if she was the Blessed Firgin! It will cost you nothin', sir; I bray you do not doubt——"
But he got no further, being suddenly collared from behind, and beaten with a cane which stung like hornets. Screaming under the punishment, and struggling hard, he at last succeeded in breaking away just as Costantîn came running round a corner of the house and terrified faces appeared at its lower windows. He heard his assailant, panting, exclaim, "That's the only argument the beggars understand. We learnt that in India," as he (Iskender) dashed through the hedge of tamarisks and cleared the low wall at a bound.
With mouth full of sobs, he ran across the sandhills, every salient object, every shadow, swelling and sinking with the horror of each breath he drew. It was not that the old afrit, the uncle of the Emîr, had beaten him, nor that his back was sore, but that the Emîr himself had refused his services, which so appalled him. He felt like the spectator of some ghastly crime. Surely no man really in love would question by what means he got his dear, so only that she was brought to him with despatch and decency. It was a catastrophe hardly less than that of the gold. Even in love—the fierce, unreasoning passion of a youth for a maid—it seemed a Frank must differ from a son of the Arabs. Once more Iskender had erred in attributing to the Emîr his own sensations, and been punished for it as for an offence unthinkable. Once more he gazed into a soundless gulf, impossible to bridge; and was appalled.
Seeing a convenient hollow close before him, he plunged into it, and had flung himself down to think and fetch his breath, before he knew that it was already occupied. A sudden burst of music with the strains of the English National Hymn was the first announcement he received of the proximity of Khalîl, the concertina-player, and of his own uncle Abdullah.
"Welcome, O Iskender," said Khalîl, when the tune had finished with becoming gravity. "I come out here to play my music undisturbed. And Abdullah follows me through love of the strange sounds, which soothe his mind's disease."
"May Allah preserve thee in happiness, O son of my brother!" said Abdullah gloomily. "But thy folly has brought ruin to my house. Our Lord destroy those children of iniquity who slandered me in the ears of Kûk."
"Take heart, O my soul! Be not so downcast!" pleaded the musician, who was all urbanity, doing the honours of his one accomplishment there in that lonely hollow of the sands for all the world as though it had been a fine reception-room, and they his guests. "Stay, and I will play to you both the air of 'Yenki-dûdal'—a noble air, none like it, and of wide renown. So shall Abdullah cease from brooding on misfortune."
This Frankish music hurrying to an end, of a rhythm monotonous as the hoof-beats of a galloping horse, seemed very ugly to Iskender. How different from the delicious waywardness of Eastern airs, whose charm is all by the bye, in precious dawdlings and digressions! It revealed to him the mind of his Emîr. Gradually, as he listened to it, grief fell from him; and in its stead rose hatred for a race that measured all things, even the sweet sounds of music, even love. He remembered only that his back was sore.