Little Najib remains under the influence of anæsthetics for two days––for two days he is in a trance. And on the third, the fever mounts to the danger line and descends again––only after he had stretched his little arm and breathed his last!
And Khalid and Najma and Shakib take him out to the desert and bury him in the sand, near the tent round which he used to play. There, where he stepped his first step, lisped his first syllable, smacked his first kiss, and saw for the first time a star in the heaven, he is laid; he is given to the Night, to the Eternity which Khalid does not fear. And yet, what tears, Shakib tells us, he shed over that little grave.
But about the time the second calamity approaches, when Najma begins to decline and waste away from 348 grief, when the relapse sets in and carries her in a fortnight downward to the grave of her child, Khalid’s eyes are as two pieces of flint stone on a sheet of glass. His tears flow inwardly, as it were, through his cracked heart....
Like the poet Saadi, Khalid once sought to fill his lap with celestial flowers for his friends and brothers; and he gathered some; but, alas, the fragrance of them so intoxicated him that the skirt dropt from his hand....
We are again at the Mena House, where we first met Shakib. And the reader will remember that the tears rushed to his eyes when we inquired of him about his Master and Friend. “He has disappeared some ten days ago,” he then said, “and I know not whither.” Therefore, ask us not, O gentle Reader, what became of him. How can we know? He might have entered a higher spiritual circle or a lower; of a truth, he is not now on the outskirts of the desert: deeper to this side or to that he must have passed. And passing he continues to dream of “appearance in the disappearance; of truth in the surrender; of sunrises in the sunset.”
Now, fare thee well in either case, Reader. And whether well or ill spent the time we have journeyed together, let us not quarrel about it. For our part, we repeat the farewell words of Sheikh Taleb of Damascus: “Judge us not severely.” And if we did not study to entertain thee as other Scribes do, it is because we consider thee, dear good Reader, above 349 such entertainment as our poor resources can furnish, Wassalmu aleik!
IN . FREIKE . WHICH . IS . IN . MOUNT . LEBANON
SYRIA . ON . THE . TWELFTH . DAY . OF
JANUARY . 1910 . ANNO . CHRISTI . AND . THE
FIRST . DAY . OF . MUHARRAM . 1328 . HEGIRAH
THIS . BOOK . OF . KHALID . WAS . FINISHED
