What puzzled the authorities was the contradictory descriptions given of the bandit by such as had the good fortune, having met with him, to escape his murderous rapacity; and as well the unaccountable coincidence of his having shed blood at two distant spots at the same hour. This was a point in favor of the popular conclusion that the terrible highwayman was an incarnation of the devil, who held court in some dismal recess on the shores of the Dead Sea, a fit abode for the dark designs of Satan. The inference was further strengthened by the fact that Othman’s crimes were invariably associated with the gloomiest nights in the valley of the Jordan, that he dealt with Moslem and infidel alike without a shade of partiality, and treated his victims with fiendish malice.
The pseudo Eblis, however, in reality rejoiced in the comforts of a snug home in the Plain of Engedi, where a small hamlet finds sustenance in the scanty vegetation of the cheerless oasis, hemmed in by the bleakest of wildernesses made up of mountains which look as though they have passed through fire,—of pestiferous marshes, rugged cliffs, deep gorges, a rocky beach, or little vales covered with saline incrustations, all forming the frame to the most depressed and deadest of seas on the face of the earth. The region is sufficiently bleak, miasmatic and impregnated with sulphur to have suggested to Milton his infernal “sights of woe, regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace and rest can never dwell, hope never comes that comes to all.”
Othman’s plain habitation was kept neat by a devoted wife, and enlivened by an affectionate son, Yezed, a boy in the early twenties, who fed on the Koran’s revelations imparted to him, with traditional embellishments, by the muezzin of the small mosque, the only public building of the settlement. With an eye to business, Othman had established his headquarters here, but extended his operations as far as his fleet horse could carry him during the darker hours, on pathways known to him alone.
A cultivated patch of grain and vegetables, a cow, a few sheep and a couple of asses, were supposed to supply the necessaries of Othman’s household. There was little about the robber’s life to stir the envy of his neighbors, except this fiery steed El Barak, so named in allusion to the lightning speed of the Prophet’s horse that carried him from heaven to heaven, up to the throne of Allah. El Barak was a lamb in the hands of his master or Yezed, but a terror to strangers whose approaches the brute resented with a ferocious fury. That the horse had been taught to dash against people and trample them down nobody suspected.
Othman was the most pleasant of neighbors, bothered himself about nobody’s business, and was counted among the most harmless of the villagers, deriving a small revenue from his ability to act as guide to such as were curious to explore the mysteries of the desolation around the Dead Sea. This was the plausible reason for the keeping of El Barak.
But the time had arrived when the secret could no longer be withheld from Yezed. The son had to be familiarized with his father’s business, and the mettle of the lad had to undergo a test. Was he worthy of his sire? Yezed knew whole surahs of the Koran by heart, and delighted his mother’s ear with their recitation. The youth was a dreamer, the muezzin having stocked his memory with the most fabulous of Islam’s traditions. Othman did not like his son’s visionary spirit, but there was hope in Yezed’s great fondness for horses and his expressed wish to own one of El Barak’s temper. His wish was gratified. A powerful courser was Yezed’s pleasant surprise on his twenty-first birthday, and the Arabs of Engedi began to suspect that Othman was a much richer man than he appeared. In a few weeks Yezed bestrode his horse like the experienced horseman he in fact already was, and was asked by his father to accompany him to a place he intended to visit the coming evening. A dervish had passed through the village during the day and had casually told the people that a party of foreigners would pass some miles south of Engedi, their object being to see Jebel Usdum, a towering ridge of rock-salt extending many miles, its crystalline crest sparkling like diamonds in the beam of tropical sunshine, and looking fantastically weird in the face of the moon. Othman was alert to the opportunity, and the departing sun threw its mellow ray on two riders, who had just issued from Engedi. They soon left the fertile stretch behind them and advanced between the lifeless tide of the melancholy sea on one side and the barren, dreary range of cliffs on the other.
The ebbing daylight gave the sterile outlook an air of inexpressible gloom, a leaden haze having gathered on the sea which looked more like a vast basin of stagnant oil than water with not a stir of life to break the deadly silence except the hoof-beat of the horses. Othman, who thus far had not uttered a word, suddenly stopped his horse, threw a side glance at Yezed who likewise drew in his reins, so that the horsemen faced each other. Yezed’s imagination had been enkindled by the sight of the sinking orb; he thought of the unfading glories of Jannat al Naïm, the Prophet’s Garden of Delight.
“Yezed, I am thinking that thou hast passed thy twenty-first year and art as helpless as a child; thou hast no ambition, not a wish to fire thee to a manly deed. If I died this coming night what would become of thee and thy mother?” began Othman, eying the unsophisticated youth sharply.
“Yezed wished to own a horse, his father made him happy,—what else shall Yezed wish? If one is happy he has no wish. Thou die to-night? Why should it come to pass? But even while thou art alive Yezed is willing to work for his mother and his father, who should live for pleasure and for prayer,” answered the son contentedly.
“Ah, Yezed knows too little of this world, has no desire to be rich and strong, that is why he has no other wish. What joy is it to spend one’s days in such a waste as this?” cried Othman, disappointed at his son’s indifference to things for which he had no use. “Does not this region look like a place good for the dead?”