After he had taken two whiffs of his pipe, and the slave had left the room, "Are you prepared? says he; have you brought the needful along with you?" I wished to have occasion to join Soliman, and answered, "My servants are at the outer door, and have the vomit you wanted." "D—n you and the vomit too, says he with great passion, I want money, and not poison. Where are your piastres?" "I am a bad person, said I, Fidele, to furnish you with either. I have neither money nor poison; but I advise you to drink a little warm water to clear your stomach, cool your head, and then lie down and compose yourself, I will see you to-morrow morning." I was going out. "Hakim, says he, infidel, or devil, or whatever is your name, hearken to what I say. Consider where you are; this is the room where Mek Baady, a king, was slain by the hand of my father: look at his blood, where it has stained the floor, which never could be washed out. I am informed you have 20,000 piasters in gold with you; either give me 2000 before you go out of this chamber, or you shall die; I will put you to death with my own hand." Upon this he took up his sword, that was lying at the head of his sofa, and, drawing it with a bravado, threw the scabbard into the middle of the room; and, tucking the sleeve of his shirt above his elbow like a butcher, said, "I wait your answer."
I now stept one pace backwards, and dropt the burnoose behind me, holding the little blunderbuss in my hand, without taking it off the belt. I said, in a firm tone of voice, "This is my answer: I am not a man, as I have told you before, to die like a beast by the hand of a drunkard; on your life, I charge you, stir not from your sofa." I had no need to give this injunction; he heard the noise which the closing the joint in the stock of the blunderbuss made, and thought I had cocked it, and was instantly to fire. He let his sword drop, and threw himself on his back on the sofa, crying, "For God's sake, Hakim, I was but jesting." At the same time, with all his might, he cried, Brahim! Mahomet! El coom! El coom[27]!"—"If one of your servants approach me, said I, that instant I blow you to pieces; not one of them shall enter this room till they bring in my servants with them; I have a number of them armed at your gate, who will break in the instant they hear me fire."
The women had come to the door. My servants were admitted, each having a blunderbuss in his hand and pistols at his girdle. We were now greatly an overmatch for the Shekh, who sat far back on the sofa, and pretended that all he had done was in joke, in which his servants joined, and a very confused, desultory discourse followed, till the Turk, sherriffe Ismael, happened to observe the Shekh's scabbard of his sword thrown upon the floor, on which he fell into a violent fit of laughter. He spoke very bad Arabic, mixed with Turkish, as I have often observed. He endeavoured to make the Shekh understand, that drunkards and cowards had more need of the scabbard than the sword; that he, Fidele, and the other drunkard that came to our house two or three nights before, who said he was Shekh of the Jehaina, were just possessed of the same portion of courage and insolence.
As no good could be expected from this expostulation, I stopt it, and took my leave, desiring the Shekh to go to bed and compose himself, and not try any more of these experiments, which would certainly end in his shame, if not in his punishment. He made no answer, only wished us good night.
CHAP. VI.
Transactions at Teawa continued—A Moullah and Sherriffe arrive from Beyla—News from Ras el Feel and Sennaar—An Eclipse of the Moon—Leave Teawa.
We went to the door, through the several apartments, very much upon our guard, for there was no person to light us out, and we were afraid of some treachery or ambush in the anti-chamber and dark passages; but we met nobody; and were, even at the outer gate, obliged to open the door ourselves. Without the gate there were about twenty people gathered together, but none of them with arms; and, by the half words and expressions they made use of, we could judge they were not the Shekh's friends. They followed us for a little, but dispersed before we arrived at our house. Soliman, my servant, told me by the way, that the Moullah was arrived, and that the Shekh of Beyla's servant, who had come with him, had been at my house ever since I went to Fidele's. Accordingly we found him still there, and explained to him what had happened, and the great distress we had been in from the Moullah's not arriving sooner, as also from receiving no message either from Sennaar or Ras el Feel. He told us, the reason of our servants not joining us was the false information his master the Shekh of Beyla had received from Fidele; that we were coming by the Dender, and not by Teawa, as already mentioned. He now advised us to come up, and shew ourselves in the morning to the Moullah, who would be sitting with Shekh Fidele, administering justice; but to take no particular notice of him, and only observe to what his discourse pointed, and he would bring us word if any thing more was necessary.
I recommended to this servant of the Shekh of Beyla that he should tell the Moullah that he was not to expect I was to open my baggage here, but that I was a man who understood perfectly the value of a favour done me, and should not be in his debt longer than arriving at Beyla, which I wished to reach as soon as possible; nothing can be quicker than these people are on the smallest hint given; we separated, fully satisfied that we were now a sufficient match for the Shekh, even at his own weapons.