I see her not, I hear her not, yet I feel the fragrance of her presence like concealed spikenard.
My love is the moon, and I am a solitary cloud wandering over the face of the sky—
A cloud obscure and unnoticed; but let the moon shine upon it, and straightway it is robed in silver.”[[66]]
The following morning Hassan was for some time with Delì Pasha explaining to him the results of his examination of his predecessor’s accounts, and pointing out defalcations and deficiencies in some quarters, and certain sums due, but not collected, in others. Delì Pasha hated accounts and business, but he saw so much earnest zeal in Hassan’s desire to render them clear that he forced himself to give them some attention, and even that little sufficed to make it evident that his former khaznadâr[[67]] had complicated them on purpose to cheat him, and that his present one made them as simple as possible, and compensated for his want of experience by his conscientious industry. Scarcely had he got through the summary which Hassan had drawn up, ere he clapped his young treasurer on the shoulder and broke out into a fit of laughter.
“Hassan,” he said, “you are the cream of khaznadârs, and I am sensible of all the zeal and industry you have shown, but I cannot help laughing when I see my young Bedouin-Antar doing the work of a Coptic clerk.”
“I grant,” said Hassan, smiling, “that the pen is not so familiar to my hand as the lance; but if I know too little, I see plainly that my predecessor knew too much, and I hope that the khazneh will furnish you with more purses this year than the last. It is my wish and duty to do you good service, and be it with lance or pen, Inshallah! I will do it.”
“Would you like a little exercise for your lance?” said Delì Pasha. “I do not mean a jereed game, but a few sharp thrusts and hard blows in earnest.”
“On my head be it—I am ready,” said Hassan, his eyes brightening. “Where is such occupation to be found?”
“I have this morning received a note from the Kiahia,” said Delì Pasha, drawing it out as he spoke from under a cushion of his divan, “and he tells me that a band of the Sammalous tribe have lately come up on a plundering expedition from their own country, near the Bahirah, and have ravaged several villages near Ghizeh, carrying off money and horses. It is said that they are now not very far from the Pyramids. The Kiahia proposes to send eighty horsemen instead of fifty to escort the English party going to-morrow to the Ghizeh Pyramids: forty can remain to guard them, and the remaining forty can make an excursion into the desert and try to find and capture these Sammalous thieves. He adds in his note that he should be glad if you could accompany that party, as you were trained in Bedouin warfare, and he has formed a high opinion of your skill and courage. What say you to the proposal?”
“Most willingly will I go,” replied Hassan, “to have a bout with those rascally Sammalous, who are the enemies of my old tribe the Oulâd-Ali. The very last fight that I saw among the Arabs was with them, and they wounded my adopted father.”