I had been squatting against the wall for fully two hours when an old man in European dress came slowly down the street, mumbling to himself as he ran through his fingers a string of yellow beads. He paused at the gate and pulled out a key. I sprang to my feet and handed him the letter. He read it with something of a scowl, and, motioning me to wait, went inside. I waited a long time.
At last the gate groaned and made way for the ugliest creature in the Arab world. He was a youth of about twenty, as long as a day without bread, and so thin that the light seemed to shine through him. His shoulders were bowed until his head stuck out at right angles to his body. Long yellow teeth protruded from his lips. In his one eye was a wicked gleam. His behavior at once showed him to be one who hated faranchees with a deadly hatred. He wore the headdress of the Bedouin and half a dozen long flowing garments, which hung from his lank form as from a hat-rack.
I understood enough of his snarling remarks to know that he was a family servant, and that he had been sent to lead me to the servants’ quarters. He led the way to a hovel on the opposite side of the street, unlocked a battered door, and let me into a hut furnished with a moth-eaten divan and a pan of live coals. A smartly dressed young native came in soon after, and spoke to me in good French.
“My family is in an unfortunate position,” he explained. “We are friends of the Kawar, and so always the friends of his friends. As we are the only Christians in Gineen, we can give you only servants’ quarters. But you must not stay in Gineen to-night. If you wait until to-morrow you will have to go on alone, and in the mountains are Bedouins who every day catch travelers and fill their eyes and mouths and noses with sand, and drag them around by a rope, and cut them up in small pieces and scatter them all around. You must go to-night with the mail caravan. Then you will be safe.”
“I’ve tramped all day,” I answered; “I will find lodgings in the town if I am troubling your family.”
“Great heavens!” shrieked the young man. “There you would be cut to pieces in an hour! Gineen hates Christians. If you stop here they will beat my family.”
He seemed so worried that I decided to do as he advised. He ordered the crooked servant to bring me supper, and went out.
The queer creature followed his master, and returned with a bowl of lentils. He brought back with him two companions who did not look much better than he did. No sooner had he placed the food on the floor than all three squatted around it, and, clawing at it with both hands, made way with the meal so rapidly that I had to go hungry. When the last scrap had disappeared, the newcomers fell to licking the bowls.
The long and crooked servant began the mournful wail that is the Arab notion of a song. Rocking back and forth where he sat, and thrusting out his long yellow teeth, he fixed a sidewise look upon me and howled for an unbroken two hours. I could tell by the roars of laughter from his mates that the words he sang were no compliment to faranchees.
At about nine o’clock in the evening he turned the other two into the street; then, motioning me to take up my knapsack, he dived out into the night. I managed to keep at his heels, although he dodged among the huts, and even ran around some of them twice in his efforts to shake me off. At last we reached the station for caravans. The keeper of the inn was a bitter enemy of unbelievers, and at first did not want to let me in. He finally made way, however; but he shouted abusive language at me as long as I remained in the building. The servant settled his misshapen form on a heap of straw, and took up his song of mockery where he had left off, while he cast sidelong looks of hatred at me.