"Take heart, O my soul! Be not so downcast!" pleaded the musician, who was all urbanity, doing the honours of his one accomplishment there in that lonely hollow of the sands for all the world as though it had been a fine reception-room, and they his guests. "Stay, and I will play to you both the air of 'Yenki-dûdal'—a noble air, none like it, and of wide renown. So shall Abdullah cease from brooding on misfortune."
This Frankish music hurrying to an end, of a rhythm monotonous as the hoof-beats of a galloping horse, seemed very ugly to Iskender. How different from the delicious waywardness of Eastern airs, whose charm is all by the bye, in precious dawdlings and digressions! It revealed to him the mind of his Emîr. Gradually, as he listened to it, grief fell from him; and in its stead rose hatred for a race that measured all things, even the sweet sounds of music, even love. He remembered only that his back was sore.
CHAPTER XXVIII
That night Iskender still endured distress of mind. Anger and fierce hatred of the Franks overcame him whenever he recalled what had happened in the Mission garden, and the recurring smart of his wounds prevented his forgetting it for more than a minute at a time. But in the morning, when pain had given place to a bruised stiffness, he recovered the resignation which had been his before the preacher Ward came with the tidings of his Emîr's great danger. For the first time since his return from the search for Wady 'l Mulûk he took out his paints and sketch-book, and went and sat beneath the ilex-tree, awaiting inspiration. But the buzz of flies, of bees, and other insects inseparable from the creamy morning sunlight set his mind afloat, and prevented its settling on any one object.
In this happy state of indecision he was found by Asad son of Costantîn. That high-minded youth had come, as he explained, at no small peril to himself, solely to warn his dear one to beware of ever coming near the Mission. The indignation of the missionary and the ladies with his conduct of the day before was intense; and no wonder, for from the excitement consequent upon that scene in the garden the Frank was back in bed again as ill as ever. All, to the very servants, blamed Iskender; while as for the uncle of the sufferer, that ancient blood-drinker had sworn to cut the son of Yâcûb into little pieces, and give his meat to dogs—a form of punishment, Asad explained, which the terrible old man had practised daily while in India at the expense of the native inhabitants of that unhappy country.
"Wallah, he is a veritable ghoul; he is more blood-thirsty than the worst among the Turks. Did I not warn thee of his state of feeling? What ailed thee thus to rush into his arms?"
To all this Iskender's sole reply was:
"Allah is bountiful!"
"But wherefore risk thy body in his presence? Tell me, O my soul, what imp possessed thee?" pleaded Asad in his most seductive tone. His curiosity was real, and very great. "All demand to know. That old ghoul vows he caught thee begging money of thy former patron—the Emîr, we used to call him, who is no more an Emîr than I am, it turns out, but only the son of a merchant in the city of Lûndra—but I cannot believe that he speaks truth in this. Inform me of thy motives, tell what really happened; then I can defend thee. Is not my discretion known? Have I not always stood thy friend? By Allah, I will keep the matter secret, if that is thy desire. Tell me, me only, O my soul—thy brother Asad!"