The son of a clergyman, Mr. Robert Smythe Hichens, born at Speldhurst, Kent, England, on November 14, 1864, was originally intended to follow a musical career, but after some years abandoned music for journalism. His first long novel was written and published at the age of seventeen. It attracted little or no attention, and has long been out of print. A trip to Egypt in 1893 resulted in a burning desire to become a novelist, and his brilliant satire, "The Green Carnation," followed. The book was written in a month, and at once established its author's name and fame. "The Garden of Allah," of all Mr. Hichens' works the most typical of his genius, appeared in 1905. "The intellectual grip of the story," says one critic, "cannot be denied, for it completely conquers the critical sense, and the ideas of the author insinuate themselves, as it were, among one's inmost thoughts." Yet Mr. Hichens' stories are popular, not only with literary connoisseurs, but also with the general public, inasmuch as they owe their fascination not so much to an extreme refinement of art as to their freshness of imagination and dramatic intensity. This epitome of the "Garden of Allah" has been prepared by Mr. Hichens himself.
I.--The Home of Peace
On an autumn evening, Domini Enfilden leaned on the parapet of a verandah of the Hotel du Désert at Beni-Mora, in Southern Algeria, gazing towards the great Sahara, which was lit up by the glory of sunset. The bell of the Catholic Church chimed. She heard the throbbing of native drums in the village near by. Tired with her long journey from England, she watched and listened while the twilight crept among the palms, and the sandy alleys grew dark.
Thirty-two, an orphan, unmarried, strong, fearless, ardent, but a deeply religious woman and a Catholic, Domini had passed through much mental agony. Her mother, Lady Rens, a member of one of England's oldest Catholic families, but half Hungarian on the mother's side, had run away when Domini was nineteen with a Hungarian musician, leaving her only child with her despairing and abandoned husband. Lord Rens had become a Catholic out of love for his wife. When he was deserted by her, he furiously renounced his faith, and eventually died blaspheming. In vain through many years he had tried to detach his daughter from the religion of her guilty mother, now long since dead. Domini had known how to resist; but the cruel contest had shaken her body and soul.
Now free, alone, she had left England to begin a new life far away from the scene of her misery. Vaguely she had thought of the great desert, called by the Arabs "The Garden of Allah," as the home of peace. She had travelled there to find peace. That day, at the gate of the desert, she had met a traveller, Doris Androvsky, a man of about thirty-six, powerfully built, tanned by the sun. When she was about to get into the train at the station of El Akbara this man had rudely sprung in before her. The train had begun to move, and Domini had sprung into it almost at the risk of her life. Androvsky had not offered to help her, had not said a word of apology. His gaucherie had almost revolted Domini. Nevertheless, something powerful, mournful, passionate, and sincere in his personality had affected her, roused her interest.
Silently they had come into the desert together, strangers, almost at enmity the one with the other. They were now staying in the same hotel in this oasis in the desert of Sahara.
In coming to the hotel, Domini had seen a curious incident. Androvsky, with a guide who carried his bag, was walking before her down the long public garden, when in the distance there appeared the black figure of the priest of Beni-Mora advancing slowly towards them. When Androvsky saw the priest he had stopped short, hesitated, then, despite the protests of his guide, had abruptly turned down a side path and hurried away. He had fled from the man of prayer.
Now, as the twilight fell, Domini thought of this incident, and when she heard Androvsky's heavy tread upon the stairs of the verandah, the sharp closing of the French window of his room, she was filled with a vague uneasiness.
Next day she visited a wonderful garden on the edge of the desert belonging to a Count Anteoni, a recluse who loved the Arabs and spent much of his time among them. There, standing with the count by the garden wall at the hour of the Mohammedan's prayer, she had seen Androvsky again. He was in the desert with a Nomad. The cry of the muezzin went up to the brazen sky. The Nomad fell on his knees and prayed. Androvsky started, gazed, shrank back, then turned and strode away like one horrified by some grievous vision. Domini said to the count, "I have just seen a man flee from prayer; it was horrible."
He answered her, very gravely, "The man who is afraid of prayer is unwise to set foot beyond the palm-trees, for the desert is the garden of Allah."