The rest of the company, finding the argument beyond them, were talking among themselves in lower tones. Only Abdullah, as a sometime dragoman, kept near the missionary, interrupting his speech with senseless scraps of English, all eagerness to translate for him the words of Mîtri, till the latter stopped him with a curt "Be silent, fool!" And Iskender also hung upon the missionary, waiting an opportunity to inquire for the young Emîr. On a pause he thrust in his question; when the missionary, who had been smiling at a joke of Mîtri's, became of a sudden very grave.
"He lies at the gate of death," was his answer. "The doctor doubts if he will pass this night; but if he sees to-morrow's light, it means that he will live, in sh' Allah!"
"May Allah preserve the poor young man!" said Mîtri, and resumed the controversy.
But Iskender heard no more. He slipped out, unobserved, into the night, and stole down the sandy road through cloud-like orange-groves to where the sandhills rolled beneath the stars.
CHAPTER XXV
Iskender walked all round the low garden-wall of the Mission, staring through the feathery cloud of the tamarisks at the upper windows of the house, till he saw a light in one of them, when he sat down on his heels and watched it doggedly. He feared the blame which would attach to himself were the Emîr to die; still more the reproaches of his own mind; but above all things he was conscious of a return of his old devotion to the fair-haired stranger. He recalled the Frank's many kindnesses—in particular the splendid paint-box, which remained Iskender's own—and, sobbing, prayed from the heart that he might live. The hooting of an owl, or the bark of some dog in the distance, alone broke the stillness, of which the rustle of the tamarisks seemed part, so faint and vague it was. At moments, looking up at the stars, he could have deemed them living creatures, for they seemed to throb in time with his own grief.
He knew not how long he had sat there in the darkness unafraid, when the light in the room was moved. A chill smote his heart. He jumped over the wall and drew nearer, in the hope to catch some word of what was going on in there. Inside the hedge of tamarisk the air was sweet with flower scents, which floated thick and separate on the still air, like oil on water. He came beneath the window. The light was once more steadfast; so again he sat down on his heels and waited. Presently the tamarisks were distributed by a cold breeze; they sighed aloud; the stagnant perfumes of the garden were confused and scattered; a whiteness came upon the wall before him, and the windows in it gave a pallid gleam. Having no desire to be caught lurking there by one of the servants, he was on the point of departing, when the light in the window was again moved, and while he stood in wonder what such movements of the light portended, a door close by him opened, and the Sitt Hilda came out into the garden. She was weeping silently, with no attempt to hide her tears. Iskender sprang to her.
"He is dead?" he moaned in Arabic. "May Allah have mercy on him!"
"He lives, the praise to Allah!" she replied, and with the words she wept more copiously, and turned from him to smell the clustered flowers of a certain creeping plant against the wall.