“Now Allah avert that curse, for the man is my mother’s son,” said Shems-ud-dìn sadly.
“Ma sh’ Allah! Is it truth thou speakest? Then Allah forgive me! Let it be as though I had said nothing. I guessed not, O my lord, that he was the son of any honorable house. Most of these officials are the sons of nothing. Why comes he not to sit with thee? May Allah teach him the way of the upright!”
The speaker, a good old man, by name Yûsûf, a dealer in cotton goods, sucked hard at his narghileh. From that hour no one of the sedate circle referred to the great man on board, or betrayed the slightest interest in the doings of the Frankish passengers. Time glided smoothly for Shems-ud-dìn in their company, though few words passed, and those of abstract wisdom. It seemed matter for praise to Allah that there was no chatterer among them. And ever the steamboat panted on over that silken sea, tossing back its mane of dingy smoke along the furrow it had plowed. Only when the panting ceased awhile, did the faithful quit the pose of resignation, uncross their legs, rise, stretch themselves, and praise God for the view of some white town that rimmed the sea, with minarets and distaff cypresses, and fertile gardens on the hill beyond.
At length, near dawn of the fifth day, Shems-ud-dìn awoke to find the ship at rest on the bosom of a wide bay. Already a whiteness played upon the ripples. Already, above high mountains in the east, appeared a blushing streak, a fluttering pulse of light that throbbed and spread till shapes grew clear in silhouette upon the shore line, here a palm tree, there a dwelling; and still the sky to seaward was night blue and spangled with stars.
Shems-ud-dìn knelt down and prayed with fervor, prostrating himself many times. The sun rose, and its rays struck upon his two hands held before his face as he prayed. There were the heights of Lebanon, towers of darkness up against a glory. By the mercy of Allah, he beheld those heights once more. His heart was full.
Later, when the sun rode high and many boats had put forth from the shore, he embarked in one of them with his friends of the voyage, and was rowed to the customhouse. There, engaged in the civilities preliminary to the gift of a coin, he was surprised by Milhem. He leaped at the sound of his brother’s voice hailing him with words of love, and the flush of pleasure overcame him. The Bey showed a paper to the officers, who straight made reverence. Shems-ud-dìn and his friends were free to go where they chose.
“I have saved thee and those quaint worthies a mejidi apiece. Art thou not grateful?” laughed Milhem, as they issued forth into the morning sunlight.
Instantly their ears were assailed with the shouts of carriage drivers, and a mob of porters pressed on them, shouting also and gesticulating, shouldering one another roughly in the strife for employment. The Bey had one arm round his brother’s neck. With the other he signaled to the most importunate of the carriage drivers, who shook his reins in triumph; the while he continued:
“Praise to Allah, that ordeal is ended. May all the Franks rot painfully, and their fathers be consumed with fire! But it is the will of the Sultàn that we mix with them and learn their ways. For me, to hear is to obey. What am I but a servant?... I proceed to the city Esh-Shâm by the coach this evening. That Greek dog, my secretary, follows with the baggage. There I obtain my soldiers from the Wâly—a hundred only, not half enough to overawe those wild beasts. Go thou, upon arrival in that city, to the khan of Ahmed Effendi, the same who was the steward of our father’s property. I shall seek thee there.... Allah be with thee now and always, O my beloved!”