But Iskender came close, and, despite his efforts to repel, leaned over him and whispered in his ear:
"Just listen, sir! I bring her to you where you like—to England?—to America?—anywhere you tell me. Gif to me a bit of writing, for me to show to her—you know!—to Miss Hilda, her you luf! The old man is a fery wicked deffil to wish to sebarate you."
"So you have been listening, have you?" said the Frank, with a mirthless laugh. "Just as if you hadn't done enough already in the way of meddling with my affairs. Go! and may I never see your face again. You will make haste and begone if you're wise. My uncle will be back in half a jiffy."
But Iskender was too astonished by these words, and the listless manner of their utterance, to trust his understanding. He went on entreating:
"Just a word in your handwriting, sir, so she can know it's all right. I bring her to you anywhere at my exbense. God knows I do anything to blease you! I treat her honourably, sir; I be her servant like as I'f been yours. All that I told you about me and her was nothin'; I was just a silly boy. I resbect her, sir; I be her slave; you trust me. By God, I treat her like as if she was the Blessed Firgin! It will cost you nothin', sir; I bray you do not doubt——"
But he got no further, being suddenly collared from behind, and beaten with a cane which stung like hornets. Screaming under the punishment, and struggling hard, he at last succeeded in breaking away just as Costantîn came running round a corner of the house and terrified faces appeared at its lower windows. He heard his assailant, panting, exclaim, "That's the only argument the beggars understand. We learnt that in India," as he (Iskender) dashed through the hedge of tamarisks and cleared the low wall at a bound.
With mouth full of sobs, he ran across the sandhills, every salient object, every shadow, swelling and sinking with the horror of each breath he drew. It was not that the old afrit, the uncle of the Emîr, had beaten him, nor that his back was sore, but that the Emîr himself had refused his services, which so appalled him. He felt like the spectator of some ghastly crime. Surely no man really in love would question by what means he got his dear, so only that she was brought to him with despatch and decency. It was a catastrophe hardly less than that of the gold. Even in love—the fierce, unreasoning passion of a youth for a maid—it seemed a Frank must differ from a son of the Arabs. Once more Iskender had erred in attributing to the Emîr his own sensations, and been punished for it as for an offence unthinkable. Once more he gazed into a soundless gulf, impossible to bridge; and was appalled.
Seeing a convenient hollow close before him, he plunged into it, and had flung himself down to think and fetch his breath, before he knew that it was already occupied. A sudden burst of music with the strains of the English National Hymn was the first announcement he received of the proximity of Khalîl, the concertina-player, and of his own uncle Abdullah.
"Welcome, O Iskender," said Khalîl, when the tune had finished with becoming gravity. "I come out here to play my music undisturbed. And Abdullah follows me through love of the strange sounds, which soothe his mind's disease."
"May Allah preserve thee in happiness, O son of my brother!" said Abdullah gloomily. "But thy folly has brought ruin to my house. Our Lord destroy those children of iniquity who slandered me in the ears of Kûk."