“If thou refusest, unto whom, under Allah, can I look for succor? We can but return whence we came, and my girl will die miserably by the roadside, for her strength fails her.”
“That is likely,” the physician was forced to admit; and the thought seemed to pain him. He frowned and put a hand to his forehead, brushing up his hair beneath the extraordinary form of headdress it pleased him to exhibit. “I cannot receive her in my hospital. It is against the rule, and I am but a servant there. But there is another hospital. Go thither.”
Now it was the strength or infirmity of Zeyd ebn Abbâs, when a spectator, to throw himself into any business with a zeal and enthusiasm surpassing that of the transactors. To him, an excited listener, this curt recommendation of another hospital seemed the last word of arrogance. Feeling the call for a supreme effort at persuasion, he snatched up at haphazard certain of the gifts which strewed the pavement, and ran and laid them at the proud one’s feet, with such earnestness that an earthen pot, which was among them, cracked upon the stones, releasing a sticky greenish fluid.
“O pig! O clumsy one! Woe is me. Thou hast spilt all my honey. May Allah destroy thy house,” roared one of the Circassians, whose present it was.
Then the Frank was seen to smile. O triumph! The Circassians, foremost he whose gift was spoilt, laughed loud for joy of the victory. The Frank smiled; his pride relented; the day was won. To the donor of that honey belonged the glory.
It seemed scarce necessary that the Sheykh Shems-ud-dìn should continue pleading, demonstrating:
“What know I, O hakìm, of another hospital? Is it not enough for us, who are honorable men, to be spurned from the gate of one? Who knows that at the other they will receive the girl, my daughter? The one is for Jews only. It is likely the other will be found to be for Nazarenes only. Thou art a great physician, and thy face is kind. Ah, send us not away! Condescend to treat my child. If she dies, it is from Allah. Do thou but what is in thy power to do, and my blessing on thee. I will pay all thou askest.”
Once more the thoughts of the Frank were seen to trouble him. He would not meet the piteous gaze of Shems-ud-dìn, from whose eyes the tears were now streaming.
“Have you a room?” he asked—“a clean room—very clean—one to which air comes freely, where I could visit her daily, and do what I can for her?”
“Merciful Allah! O my son, have I not said that we are strangers in this city. And a room on this pattern were hard to find. We purpose to lodge at a khan beside the Holy Enclosure.”