The highest lobes of the cactus hedge before him were like great hands shorn of fingers thrust against the sky. Through a gap he beheld the lights of the Mission—fierce hostile eyes intent upon his thoughts. The wail and bark of a jackal came from the landward plain.
"Praise to Allah!" The voice of his mother raised for a moment above its monotone caused him to turn and look into the house.
They had made an end of eating in there and were now arranging the programme of Iskender's conduct towards the young Emîr. His uncle sat cross-legged by the wall, puffing slowly at a narghîleh, his mother opposite to him, in the same posture, also with a narghîleh, not smoking for the moment, but leaning forward with one hand out, talking eagerly. A saucer-lamp stood on the floor between them, among remnants of the feast; it caused their faces to look ghastly, lighted thus from below, and sent their shadows reeling up the wall. The woman declaimed untiringly with gestures of demonstration, and the man kept acquiescing by a nod which set the tassel of his fez in motion.
The dull sententiousness of the dragoman and his mother's shrill, rash judgments were alike irritating to Iskender. They claimed to understand the foreigners perfectly; and in truth they knew enough of the foibles of the lords of gold to secure to themselves a livelihood. They had never, either of them, loved a Frank.
CHAPTER III
Next morning Iskender was disturbed at daybreak by the movements of his mother in the house. With her black locks all dishevelled, she was putting out his grandest clothes and dusting them in the feeble lamp-light.
"Though shalt wear this sweet suit which thy father left thee," she croaked out when she knew he was awake. "That and thy new tarbûsh and the great umbrella. Wallah, thou wilt fill men's eyes. Now rise, and make haste with thy washing."
He rose accordingly and, having dedicated his works to God, dipped a hand-bowl in the earthen jar which served as cistern, and carried it out on to the sand before the threshold. There the rising colour of the dawn bewitched him; he was reminded of a certain trumpet-flower which bloomed at Easter on the Mission walls—a flower with purple petals and the gleam of gold in its heart; and, all on fire to register the rare impression, he left his bowl of water on the sand and re-entered the house to fetch his book and paint-box. But his mother tried to wrest them from him, cursing him for a maniac, and before he could shake her off the colours of the sky had changed completely. The little disappointment made life vain. In a pet, he overturned the basin of water, robbed of the heart to wash his face and hands. Then, as his mother still kept screaming for him, he went indoors and donned the clothes which she had laid ready. Even then she would not let him be, but pulled and patted at the garments till he lost his temper, and made a rush for the door. A horrified shriek recalled him. The umbrella! He had forgotten that! His mother thrust it on him. Gathered up into a bunch and tied, not folded, it in shape resembled a charged distaff of unusual size. With it tucked beneath his arm, the youth escaped at last into the rosy sunlight.
Up on the well-marked road which runs out to the Mission from the town he encountered Costantîn, the missionary's servant, driving a donkey burdened with two jars of water up towards the house. Costantîn remarked upon his finery, and asked where he was going. He showed an amiable inclination to stop and talk. But Iskender hurried on, merely explaining that he was going to be a great painter in the land of the English. Costantîn stood scratching his head and staring after him.