Dusk turned to utter darkness. For an interminable period I staggered on through the mire, sprawling, now and then, in a stinking slough. The lapping of waves sounded at last, and I struck a solider footing of sloping sand. Far ahead twinkled a few lights, so far out across the water that, had I not seen the village by day, I had fancied them the illuminated portholes of a steamer at anchor. The beach described a half-circle. The twinkling lights drew on before like wills o’ the wisp. The flat sand gave way to rocks and boulders—the ruins, apparently, of ancient buildings—against which I barked my shins repeatedly.
I had all but given up in despair the pursuit of the fugitive glowworms, when the baying of dogs fell on my ear. An unveiled corner of the moon disclosed a faintly defined path up the sloping beach, which, leading across the sand-dunes, brought up against a fort-like building, pierced in the center by a gateway. Two flickering lights under the archway cast weird shadows over a group of Arabs, huddled in their blankets.
The arrival of any traveler at such an hour was an event to bring astonishment; a mud-bespattered faranchee projected thus upon them out of the blackness of the night brought them to their feet with excited cries. I pushed through the group and plunged into a maze of wretched, hovel-choked alleyways. Silence reigned in the bazaars, but the keeper of one squalid shop was still dozing over his pan of coals between a stack of aged bread-sheets and a simmering kettle of sour-milk soup. I prodded him into semi-wakefulness and, gathering in the gkebis, sat down in his place. He dipped up a bowl of soup from force of habit, then catching sight of me for the first time, generously distributed the jelly-like mixture over my outstretched legs.
The second serving reached me in the orthodox manner. To the nibbling Arabs who had ranged themselves on the edge of the circle of light cast by the shop lamp, a bowl of soup was an ample meal for one man. When I called for a second, they stared open-mouthed. Again I sent the bowl back. The bystanders burst forth in a roar of laughter which the deserted labyrinth echoed back to us a third and a fourth time, and the boldest stepped forward to pat their stomachs derisively.
I inquired for an inn as I finished. A ragged Sampson stepped into the arc of light and crying “taala,” set off to the westward. Almost at a trot, he led the way by cobbled streets, down the center of which ran an open sewer, up hillocks and down, under vaulted bazaars and narrow archways, by turns innumerable.
He stopped at last before a high garden wall, behind which, among the trees, stood a large building of monasterial aspect.
“Italiano faranchee henak,” he said, raising the heavy iron knocker over the gate and letting it fall with a boom that startled the dull ear of night. Again and again he knocked. The muffled sound of an opening door came from the distant building. A step fell on the graveled walk, a step that advanced with slow and stately tread to within a few feet of the gate; then a deep, reverberant voice called out something in Arabic.
I replied in Italian; “I am a white man, looking for an inn.”
The voice that answered was trained to the chanting of masses. One could almost fancy himself in some vast cathedral, listening to an invocation from far back in the nave, as the words came, deep and sharp-cut, one from another: “Non si riceveno qui pellegrini.” The scrape of feet on the graveled walk grew fainter and fainter, a heavy door slammed, and all was still.
The Arab put his ear to the keyhole of the gate, scratched his head in perplexity, and with another “taala” dashed off once more. A no less devious route brought us out on the water front of the back bay. In a brightly lighted café sat a dozen convivial souls over narghilehs and coffee. My cicerone paused some distance away and set up a wailing chant in which the word “faranchee” was often repeated. Plainly, the revelers gave small credence to this cry of Frank out of the night. Calmly they continued smoking and chattering, peering indifferently, now and then, into the outer darkness. The Arab drew me into the circle of light. A roar went up from the carousers and they tumbled pell-mell out upon us.