It was the twelfth day of the sacred month Ramadan, in the year of the flight of the Prophet four hundred and ninety,—according to the Christian reckoning in the month of August, one thousand and ninety-six,—that Iftikhar Eddauleh sat over his sherbet in the palace El Halebah, which is by the Syrian city of Aleppo. Now good Moslems were not presumed to enjoy food or drink from rise to set of sun during the sacred month, therefore the grand prior of the Ismaelians sat shaded on the liwan, a raised hall opening off the great court of the palace. Here, with the door covered by Indian tapestries, and with silken carpets of Kerman deadening the footfalls of each soft-stepping Persian slave, the great man could lie upon his purple couch, and let his eye rove from the bright, inlaid stones of the alabaster walls to the ceiling beams of gilded teak. Without the sun beat hot, the parching south wind from the desert swept sand-dust in the eyes of man and beast; but within all was cool, darkened, fragrant with frankincense from the smouldering brazier.
Iftikhar was in that mood of sleepy indolence to which men wonted to a life of restless action are often prone. He was clad only in a loose under-mantle of green cotton; and while he dozed a dark-eyed maid of Dekkan was bathing his feet with perfumed water from a porcelain basin. A second maid stood by the couch, and often, as the master languidly held out his cup, refilled it with the sweet rose sherbet from a brass cooler of snow. Iftikhar drank again, and again, speaking not a word; till at last the first Hindoo, having borne away the bowl, stood at his head with a great fan of bright feathers. So far as speech or expression was in question, his ministers might have been moving statues, so noiseless, so mechanical, was every action.
Presently Iftikhar began communing with himself, as was his wont, half aloud. "One year in Syria; Wallah! truly if prosperity is not my destiny, all the jinns deceive. I have been to Alamont, the 'Vulture's Nest,' have seen Hassan ben-Sabah, Lord of the Ismaelians, and all the 'devoted' have been bidden to obey my word as they would the 'Cid of the Mountain.' At my nod ten thousand daggers flash, ten thousand riders go forth. Let emir or sultan offend:—he lies down on his bed, his memlouks about; he awakes—in paradise; for in all Islam who may escape our daggers? Mashallah!—let others boast; what may not I, Iftikhar, accomplish? I, who was left a foundling in the great Cairo mosque El-Azhar, and was reared by the compassionate Imam Abdul Aziz? Power, riches, glory—there shall be no bound to my fortune!"
The Egyptian leaped up and began to pace the floor.
"Much yet to do," ran he on; "I have Hassan Sabah's pledge that I shall be his successor. Every barrier must be plucked down betwixt the Ismaelians and empire over all Islam, such as Harun or Mansur never held. 'All is permitted, naught feared,'—such is our watchword, taught the initiated at the grand lodge in Cairo. Let him who stands in our way be snuffed out like a rushlight,—Barkyarok the arch-sultan, the Bagdad kalif, who is Barkyarok's puppet—all—all!"
As the Egyptian spoke, a huge negro, shining with great earrings, and, save for a red cincture, clothed only in his ebony, glided from behind the curtained door. In his hand was a naked cimeter of startling length. Never a word he said, but only pointed with his weapon to the passage, then salaamed.
"The dervish Kerbogha?" asked Iftikhar, stopping his pacings.
The negro, who was a mute, only bowed almost to the floor.
"Bid him enter." The giant salaamed a third time, and was gone. An instant later a stranger entered. His robe was spotless white, but the shoes and belt were red. He was a man just in the turn of life, with a powerful military frame, the nose of a hawk, and a hawk's keen eye; a grizzled beard, very thick, that swept his breast; his head crowned with a peaked felt hat, also white. The sun had long since tanned his skin to a rich bronze; there were scars on cheeks, forehead, hands. He strode with the springing step of one who loved hardship for hardship's sake; and no second glance was needed to tell that power and command were second nature.
Iftikhar bowed very ceremoniously, thrusting one hand in his bosom, and the stranger doing the like, while the formula was exchanged: "Peace be on you." "On you be peace, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings."