403/ CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library PR 6031.1 165 V2 The valley of the kings. 3 1924 013 662 220 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013662220 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS BY MARMADUKE PICKTHALL AUTHOR OF " SAID THE FI5HERM AN," " CHILDREN OF THE NILE," ETC, ' To lie is the salt of a man, but shame to him who believes." — Arabic proverb. LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1909 Mi COPYRIGHT IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 3 The Valley of the Kings CHAPTER I " Woe on you, mothers of nothing ! May the scourge of Allah flay you as you go ! " The mother of Iskender held the doorway of her little house in a posture of spitting defiance. Rancour, deep-rooted and boundless, ranged in her guttural snarl. Her black eyes burned to kill, their thick brows quite united by the energy of her frown as she gazed across a sand -dell, chary of vegetation but profuse in potsherds, towards the white walls and high red roof of the Mission-house seen above a wave of tamarisks on the opposite dune. The hedge of prickly pear defining her small domain did not obstruct the view, for it consisted largely of gaps, by one of which a group of three Frankish ladies had just gone from her. She could see their white-clad forms, under I 2 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS sunshades, down there in the hollow, battling ungracefully with the sand for foothold. With one hand raised as a screen from the declining sun, the mother of Iskender clenched the other, and shook it down the pathway of those ladies so that the bracelets of coloured glass tinkled upon her strong brown arm. " Ha, Carulin, most ancient virgin, thy stalk is a crane's ! There is neither flesh nor blood in thee, but only gristle and dry skin. Thy heart is gall and poison. . . . O Jane, thou art a fruit all husk ; half man, yet lacking man's core, half maid, yet lacking woman's pulp ! In thee is no fount of joy, no sweetness. Did love of our Blessed Saviour and the Sacred Book bring the pair of you to this land ? By Allah, not so ; well I know it ! It was the love of change, of adventure ; and what is that in a virgin save the hope of men ? And now, seeing none have desired you, your longing is turned to hatred of all things sweet ! My son is bad, you declare ; it is a grace for him to be allowed to sweep your house. But the son of Costantin — that sly-eyed devil! — he is good : of him you make a clergyman, a grand khawajah ! Have I not washed these THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 3 twenty years for you and the false priest whose things you are ? Was I not among the first to profess your damning heresy ? The house of Costantin are converts of last year. Let Allah judge between us this day." She paused a moment, the better to gesticu- late a frantic reverence to the ladies, now on the opposite slope, who were waving hands to her. "O poor little Hilda! Thou art a ripe fruit that whispers ' Pluck me.' But those two sexless devils guard thee sleeplessly. Thou wast not angry when Iskender kissed thy mouth. Is it likely, since thou didst incite him to it by previously stroking his hand ? But the rest, thy keepers. . . . Holy Mother of God ! , . . When shall I hear the last of my son's guilt ! Iskender is vile, Iskender is worthless, Iskender is the son of all things evil. Ah, if the great lady, the mother of George, had been here, you would never have dared to use the poor lad so, for she loved him from a babe. But alas ! she is away in your native land, watching the education of her many children. You and the priest, her husband, were gentler in your ways while she was here. But since 4 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS she left, you have become true devils. Aye, you are right, forsooth, and the whole world of nature is quite wrong. May Allah set the foot of Iskender upon the necks of you, O false saints ! " With a parting menace of the fist, she turned indoors, still snarling. After the sun -glare on the sands, the room was darkness. Doorway and unshuttered casement framed each its vision of relentless light ; but no ray entered. The place consisted of a single chamber, which, with door and window open as at present, became a draughtway for what air there was. A curtain veiled one corner, where the beds were stowed in daytime, with what- ever else was unpresentable through dirt or breakage : for the ladies of the Mission valued tidiness above all virtues, and claimed the right to inspect the abode of their washerwoman and pet proselyte. The mother of Iskender courted their inspection, being secured against complete surprise by the position of her house upon an eminence whence approaching visitors could be descried a long way off To-day she had run to meet them with delighted cries ; but old Carulin had met the welcome in the chillest THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 5 manner, stalking on into the house, where, instated in the only chair, with hands crossed on the handle of her parasol, she proceeded to give judgment on Iskender, while Jane and Hilda, standing one on either side, contributed their sad Amen to all she said. " We are more grieved than we can express, Sarah," the old devil concluded in her creaking voice ; " more especially on your account, who are a Christian woman. It is solely out of regard for you that we are prepared to take him as a servant, provided he repents and mends his ways. We cannot have him associ- ating with men like that Elias." She spoke as the mouthpiece of the missionary, the dispenser of wealth and prefer- ment. Sarah was obliged to thank the Lord for her kindness, instead of tearing her eyes out, or treading her dog-face level with the ground. Yet Iskender was robbed of his birthright. It had always been known that one boy of the little congregation would be made a clergyman ; and Iskender was clearly designated, his parents having been the first converts, and himself the spoilt child of the Mission till six months ago. Furthermore, he 6 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS was fatherless, a widow's only son. Yet Asad son of Costantin was put before him. Asad had a father — aye, and a clever one — a father who dwelt at the Mission-house, and was always at the ladies' ears with cunning falsehoods. If only Iskender's father — the righteous Yacub — had been still alive ! . . . Thus brooding on her wrongs, with lips still murmurous, the mother of Iskender brushed a hand across her eyes, and looked about her. There was the chair still standing in the middle of the room where Carulin had sat. Snatching up the defiled thing, she swung it to its usual place beside the wall, banging it down with spiteful energy enough to break it. Having stooped to make sure that it was not actually broken, she brushed her eyes again, and wept a little. Then, on a sudden thought, she sprang to the curtained corner, and, groping among mattresses and sweat-stained coverlets which the ladies from the Mission never dared turn over, brought forth a picture of the Blessed Virgin which Iskender had made for her with the help of a paint-box given to him by the Sitt Hilda on his eighteenth birthday. This She set upon a stool against the wall and, THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 7 crossing herself, knelt down before it. Here was one at least to whom she could expose her wrongs, secure of sympathy — a woman of almighty influence bound to her in the common tie of motherhood. Was not Iskender clever, handsome, good ? For what could any one prefer that, lanky, pig- eyed son of Costantin the gardener — the convert of a day, whereas Iskender had been a Protestant from his birth? Naturally, she had looked for some reward of her long adherence. But lo ! they thrust her aside, exalting in her stead the mother of Asad son of Costantin. They would never have dared to do it if the wife of the missionary, the excellent mother of George, had not been absent with her children in the land of the English. At the first planting of the Mission here upon the sandhills, it had seemed to many Christians of the town to promise escape from the repressive shadow of the Muslim, and the protection of a foreign flag which bore the Cross. O sad delusion ! That cold priest, those bloodless women, considered nothing but their own comfort. To that they 8 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS made every convert minister ; their notion being to patronise and not to raise ; witness Allah how she herself had slaved for them, obeyed and flattered them, for twenty years ! By the Gospel, it was black ingratitude that the son of Costantin should be set apart for their priesthood, be made an Englishman, a grand khawajah, whilst Iskender was offered employment — mark the kindness ! — as a scullion and a sweeper in their house — Iskender, who had been their favourite till a month ago ! How had he fallen ? Ah, that was a joke indeed ! Listen, O Holy Miriam and all saints ! It was because one hot afternoon, at their Bible-class, he had kissed the pretty Sitt Hilda, who sat close to him, teaching. Forgetting he was no longer a child, she had caressed his hand approvingly ; that was Hilda's tale. A likely one, forsooth ! And the lad quite sick for love of her, as an infant of the female sex must have perceived blindfold ! Already, before that, they had begun to persecute the lad, finding fault with his painting, his idleness, his language, his smok- ing—Allah knows with what besides ! — so that he was vexed in mind, no longer quite himself. THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 9 From his birth he had been a sensitive boy, always responsive to a touch of kindness. He was in love with the Sitt Hilda, and his mind was clouded ; she touched him fondly, and he kissed her mouth. It was all quite natural. As well blame flowers for opening to the sun ! Iskender was immoral, was he ? Then what should be said of those who set such ripe and tempting fruit before a youth of the ravenous age, simply to punish him if he made a bite ? Ah, they were moral, doubtless ! But Our Lady Miriam and the Host of Heaven thought otherwise, they might be sure ! And if, in the month which had elapsed since then, he had turned his back on prayer- meetings and haunted taverns of the town, whose fault was that? His new associates were not depraved. Their only crime was that they were not Protestants. Even Elias Abdul Messih, the cause of all this outcry, was a respectable man, only scatter-brained and light-hearted. He was a Christian, not a Muslim or an idolater, so what was there to justify such bitter chiding ? The missionaries called it a crime in Iskender that he idled abroad, trying to make a likeness io THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS of the things he saw with his pencils and paints — the gift of the Sitt Hilda, mark that well ! It was all their own doing, yet so wrong ! Did he smoke a cigarette, it was a sin ! Did he call in talk upon the name of Allah — a sin most deadly ! . . . " Peace on this house ! " said a man's com- placent voice at the doorway. Still on her knees, the mother of Iskender turned and peered at the disturber, pressing both hands to her temples. In her confusion on the start the greeting gave her she failed at first to recognise the figure standing forth against the sand-glare, which, now that evening drew on, had the colour of ripe wheat. "O mother of Iskender, how is thy health to-day ? " pursued the visitor ; and then she knew him for the brother of her dead husband. "Is it thyself, Abdullah ? " She rose up to greet him. " My soul has grief this day on account of Iskender. They treat him shame- fully over yonder — worse than a dog ! " Abdullah rejected her offer of the only chair in favour of a cushion by the wall. He was an elderly man of most respectable appearance, being clad in a blue zouave jacket and panta- THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS II loons, both finely braided, a crimson sash at his waist, and on his head a low-crowned fez with long blue tassel hanging to the neck. He wore top boots and held a whip, though he had not come riding. The skin of his face had withered in loose folds, leaving the bushy grey moustache and brows unduly prominent, a crowd of wrinkles round his large brown eyes giving an effect of intelligence to orbs whose real expression was a calm stupidity in keeping with the general dignity of his demeanour. " Even the son of Costantin — that dirt ! — is preferred before him. In this minute I was kneeling to our gracious Lady on his behalf." " Praise to her ! " exclaimed Abdullah, cross- ing himself. " There is none like her in a difficulty, as I, of all men living, have best cause' to know, since she gave me all that I possess." " Allah increase thy wealth ! " said Sarah hastily, fearing the story she had heard a thousand times. Years ago the respectable Abdullah had been no better than a sot and wastrel, having con- tracted the habit of drunkenness at Port Said, 12 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS where he spent three years as porter in a small hotel. He had squandered all his savings and had drunk himself to the verge of madness, when one summer night, as he lay on the floor of his house (as he himself expressed it) " be- tween drunk and sober," the Mother of God appeared to him, " all white and blinding like the sand at noon." The vision, after gazing on him a space, stretched out its hand and vanished. That was all. But Abdullah arose with new heart. Thenceforth he honoured himself, whom God had honoured. The change in him was plain for all to see, and he pro- claimed the cause of it aloud with streaming eyes. The Orthodox Church confirmed the miracle, which made a noise at the time. The Patriarch himself wrote the seer a long letter. People who had long since washed their hands of the drunken reprobate vied one with another to help the known favourite of Heaven. Abdullah obtained good employment, first in an hotel at Jerusalem, then with an English traveller of importance. Now, for some years, he had been a trusted dragoman in the pay of a mysterious power called Cook. His religious vogue had passed, his story and the miracle THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 13 involved were quite forgotten of the multitude. But Abdullah himself remembered, viewing his respectability at the present day with the same feelings of awe and reverence with which he had received it at the first. It was the mantle of the Blessed Virgin, her gift to him. In it lay all his hope for this world and the next. " It is of Iskender that I come to speak," he said, having pulled out his moustache to the utmost and swallowed twice with solemn gulps preliminary to the announcement. "It hurts my soul to see him wasting time " " Enough ! enough, I say ! " The woman screamed aloud to drown his words. " Am I not already killed with such bad talk, deafened with it, maddened with it every day from morn till night. Ah, by the Gospel, it has grown past bearing ! They will no longer make a priest of our Iskender; that honour is for the son of Costantin — low, cunning devil ! Iskender may now, as a favour, sweep their house. Here, in this very room, on yonder chair, the abandoned Carultn sat and told me the fine news— to me, the mainstay of the Mission, who have not missed a prayer-meeting for twenty years " 14 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS " Allah is merciful ! " ejaculated the drago- man. Though himself a staunch supporter of the Holy Orthodox Church, he had a regard for the Protestant, as the faith of the wealthy English. He had looked forward to the welcoming smile of English travellers when he told them that his nephew was a Protestant clergyman. This rejection of Iskender was therefore a disappointment to him. Never- theless, since God so willed it, there were other occupations that the boy could follow. More insupportable by far was the screaming fury of this woman, which, he feared, might lead her to disgrace her relatives by overt rudeness towards the English missionaries. He said : " The flush of anger well becomes thee. By Allah, it enriches thy dark beauty, like the bloom on purple grapes." The mother of Iskender started and blushed hotly, struck in the face by such audacious flattery. She exclaimed : " Be silent, imbecile ! Are such words for the ear of one like me ? Keep thy fine phrases for the tourist ladies, who know the fashion, and can answer thee." "Nay, the daughters of our land nowadays THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 15 rival the foreign ladies in wit and fashion," said Abdullah gravely, pursuing his advantage. " I myself assisted at a wedding in Beyrout where the ladies talked and jested freely with the gentlemen, with roars of laughter in the Frankish manner. Ah, that was a sight ! A hundred carriages, all festively bedecked, conveyed the guests to church, with cracking of whips and shoutings to clear a way. All the women were arrayed in splendid dresses brought from Fransa, and grand big hats with ostrich plumes and flying ribbons. A sight, I tell thee, equal to anything to be seen in Bads or Lundra." "Thou seest such things!" The mother of Iskender pouted, envious. " Here there is never anything to call a show. Even when Daud el Barudi married, there were no fine dresses. Every woman present wore the head- veil. I fain would try a Frankish hat myself; but the ladies will not let me — curse their father ! " " They fear to be outshone," put in Abdullah, and continued quickly, apprehending a fresh storm : " Now, as concerns Iskender, I have a project for thee. It was for that I came here, not to blame the lad. Know that a young 16 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS Englishman arrived yesterday at the Hotel Barudi, in search of amusement, it would seem, for when Selim Barudi inquired how long he wished to stay, he replied it might be all his life if the place pleased him. From that and the plenteousness of his luggage I conclude him to be the son of a good house — no less than an Emir, by Allah— though why he comes here out of season Allah knows ! Elias and the rest have not got wind of him. He as yet knows no one in the land except the two Barudis and myself, who met him at their house an hour ago. My plan is to present our dear one to him " At this point Iskender's mother interrupted him with sudden outcry as of one possessed : " Aha, O cruel priest ! O soured virgins ! Let the son of Costantin be your dog if he will. My son shall tread on all your faces, the friend of an Emir." She shook her fist towards the Mission, seen in fierce sunlight through the shadowed doorway. " Hush, woman ! " eried Abdullah in an agony. Her foolish words set wasps about his head. " For the love of Allah, let Iskender THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 17 anger no man* but be supple, politic, and so respected. Now that he is cast off by your Brutestants, there is nothing for it but he must become a dragoman. The Englishman of whom I spoke is but a step. He has need of all men's favour, and must court it diligently. . . . Where is the boy himself? I thought to find him." " Ask me not where he is ! " The woman raised her hands despairingly. "He went out early this morning with his paint-things, and has not returned. May his house be destroyed ! He is the worst of sons. He shuns all counsel, and does nothing that one asks of him. How often have I begged him to renounce his painting, or to go with me to the Mission and make show of penitence. As well instruct the sand. It is likely he will scout this plan of thine. Oh, what have I ever done to be thus afflicted ? Why, why has he not the wit of Asad son of Costantin ? " " Let us go out and meet him," proposed old Abdullah, still bent on diverting her mind from its maddening grievance. "He cannot be far off, and to smell the air is pleasant at this hour." 2 18 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS The mother of Iskender flung her cares aside. To walk out by the side of so respectable a man, at an hour when many people took the air upon the sandhills, was to gain distinction. She draped a black lace shawl upon her head, while Abdullah strode to the doorway and stared out, flicking his boots with his whip. Then, gathering up the skirt of her flowered cotton gown in one hand, she placed the other in Abdullah's arm, ready crooked to receive it. " It is the fashionable way," she tittered as they set forth. CHAPTER II Beyond the ancient town and its dark green orange gardens, between the tilled plain and the shore, the sandhills roll away to north and south, with here a dwelling, there a patch of herbage. To Iskender, lying prone on the crest of the highest dune, caught up into the laugh of sunset, their undulations appeared flushed and softly dimpled, like the flesh of babes. Returning homeward, hungry, from a day of much adventure, he had espied from this eminence a camp of nomads in a certain hollow, and at once forgot his supper in desire to sketch it. He had settled to the work with such complete absorption that Elias Abdul Messih, his companion, for once grew tired of the sound of his own voice, and left him, with a sigh for his obtuseness. And Iskender was glad to be rid of him, to lie alone and nurse his secret joy ; for he had this day made the '9 20 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS acquaintance of an Englishman, whose affability restored his pride of life. Might Allah bless that light-haired youth, for he was the very lord of kindness, and beautiful as an angel from Allah. His cheeks had the same rose- bloom as the Sitt Hilda's, while his blue eyes danced and sparkled like sea-waves in sunlight. How different from the priest of the Mission, whose gaze was of green ice ! Moreover, he had praised Iskender's painting and taught him a trick of colouring, which consisted in washing the page pale yellow and letting it dry before setting to work on it. The artist had never been so happy since the day, six months ago, when the missionary had declared against his sketching as mere waste of time. The ladies of the Mission, who had fostered it, obsequious to the edict, then condemned it strongly. His mother, too, turned round and blamed him for it. Only the Sitt Hilda still was kind, com- forting him in secret, till his love leapt up. And then came outer darkness. Iskender was a profligate, and driven forth. Debarred from Christian society, hardly less than Muslim, by his English education and his Protestantism, he was a pariah in his own land. THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 21 This very morning, sketching a gateway in the town, he had been beaten by some Muslim boys and called an idol-maker ; and, traversing a Christian hamlet among the gardens, had been reviled and pelted by its Orthodox in- habitants. For company he had been obliged to consort with English-speaking touts and dragomans, who welcomed his proficiency in the foreign tongue ; and these he hated, for they mocked his art. The one exception was Elias Abdul Messih. Elias could read Arabic fluently (a feat beyond Iskender, who had been schooled in English), and from trips to Beyrut and the towns of Egypt had brought back any number of miraculous romances, which he read and read again until they turned his brain. Impersonating the chief characters, he dwelt in a world of magical adventure, and spoke from thence to ears that understood not. For this he was named the Liar and the Boaster, and, though' well liked, derided. He had taken a fancy to Iskender, and often sat beside the artist while he sketched. His talk revealed new worlds to the pupil of the English missionaries, who hitherto had looked to England as the realm of romantic 22 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS ambition — the land where, by simply entering holy orders, a poor son of the Arabs could attain to wealth and luxury. Now, for the first time, he was shown the wonders of the East. Elias, in his tales, despised the Christians, his own folk, anathematised the Jews, and praised the Muslims, till Iskender longed to embrace the doctrine of Muhammad, and be- come a freeman of the land of old romance. But when he said as much, Elias shook his head. It was known that every Muslim would be damned eternally. Moved by the example of this friend, Isken- der's brain conceived wild dreams of greatness, enabling him in imagination to enslave the wicked missionaries and carry off his blushing love amid applause. He told Elias that his father, Yacub, had left a treasure buried in the ground, which he would dig up some day, and astound mankind ; and Elias accepted the state- ment as quite probable. But such fancies were of no real comfort to Iskender, being, rendered feverish by his sense of wrong. He had known no solace till this day at noon, when the English youth from the hotel had smiled on him. Now, once again, he looked to England as of old — to THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 23 England where great honours were conferred on painters. With a final dab at the sky, he held his picture off from him, to mark the effect. In love with the figure of a camel belonging to the camp, which was chewing the cud superbly in the foreground, he had at unawares so magnified the creature that it bestrode the whole page of his drawing-book ; while the camp itself, the sandhills, some scattered houses and a palm-tree in the distance, the very sky, seemed no more than the pattern of a carpet upon which it stood. There was something wrong, he perceived — something to do with that perspective which, despite in- structions from the Sitt Hilda, he could never rightly comprehend. But his pride in the monster camel condoned everything. He just lengthened all the tent- ropes a little with his smallest paint-brush, thereby imparting to the black pavilions a look of spiders squashed by the triumphant beast, and laid aside his work, well pleased. There were many groups abroad, of people enjoying the cool evening ; he saw them stalking ghost- like in the coloured light ; but they kept to the 24 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS bound sand of the trodden pathways, and if any one descried him on his perch, none laboured up to see what he was after. At ease upon the ground, with chin on palm, he tried to judge what colours would be needed in order faithfully to reproduce the sunset glow. He compared that glow to the insurgent blood ever ready to mantle in the cheeks of the Sitt Hilda ; but this was a warmer, swarthier flush than ever dyed the white skin of a Frank. Then, looking east, he watched the blue in- crease on the horizon, its drowsy glimmer radiating thoughts of rest, as if a hovering spirit whispered " Hush ! " A star glanced out above the distant palm-tree ; in that direction it was night already behind the crimsoned earth. A flash from the grand glass windows of the Mission, ruddy with the last of daylight, caused him to wag his head and sigh : " Would to Allah I were rich like one of them!" The English youth from the hotel had laughed at missionaries. Though here so great and powerful, it seemed they were little thought of in their own country. When Iskender eagerly inquired whether a famous painter would take rank before them, the THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 25 Englishman had said : " Yes, rather ! " with his merry laugh. "O Allah, help me," was Iskender's prayer now, " that I may travel to the countries of the Franks, and reap the honour they accord to painters ! " This with a fond glance at his drawing-book, which contained a camel — ah, but a camel such as Allah made him ! — a camel worthy to be framed in gold and hung in king's palaces ! " Is — ken — der ! " A shrill, trailing cry disturbed his reverie ; when, looking forth in the direction of the sound, he saw in a dell beneath, where ran a footpath, a man and a woman standing still amid the shadows, gazing up at him. " Ya Iskender ! Make haste, descend, come down to us ! " The call came again more peremptorily. The voice was his mother's. Muttering, " May her house be destroyed ! " he emptied the pannikin of paint-foul water which he had carried with him all day long, picked up his drawing-book, and obeyed. As he prepared to descend, the last red gleam forsook the sand-crests, leaving them ashy white. 26 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS " Make haste, O shameless loiterer. We bring thee news — fine news ! Praise Allah who assigned to thee Abdullah for an uncle —one so kind, so considerate, so thoughtful for thy welfare. ... But first I must tell thee how the three ladies came in thy absence to inform me of their intention to educate the son of Costantin to be a clergyman ; whilst thou, whose mother has washed for them these twenty years, art required to sweep their house." " What matter ! " rejoined Iskender, with a listless shrug. " My ambition is to visit the country of the Franks and gain the honour of a mighty painter." His mother stretched out her hands to heaven, screaming : " Hear him, Allah! Is he not bewitched? Desire of the lady Hilda has made him mad. O Holy Maryam, O Mar Jiryis and all saints, condemn those who have led him thus to ruin. Hear him now ; he would make pictures ! Well, to Allah the praise ; but it is their doing! . . . Now, for the love of Allah, put such toys aside and hear Abdullah's generous plan for thy advancement. Know that a THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 27 young Englishman has lately come to the Hotel Barudi " " I know that well," Iskender grunted irritably. "He is my friend. This day he spent two hours with me." "Thy friend! . . . O merciful Allah!" cried his mother. "Thou knowest him?" exclaimed Abdullah, much affronted. " Come, cease thy dreaming, tell the story, madman ! " His mother shook his arm and screamed at him. " Art possessed with thy dumb devil. Speak ! What sayest thou ? " " May thy father perish ! " cried Iskender, startled. "Curse thy religion!" retorted his mother hotly. "Is thy uncle dirt to be thus dis- regarded ? Ask his pardon, O my dear ! " Abdullah the dragoman laughed at that, and suggested they had best be moving, for the night was near. A trace of grievance lingered in his voice and manner, for he loved ceremonies, and had looked forward to a formal presentation of his nephew to the English nobleman. 28 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS " Come, tell the story of thy day ! " he too insisted. At first it had not been a happy one, Iskender told them. He had tried to paint the beauty of the sea between two dunes, but it turned to a blue gate on yellow gate-posts ; then a boat turned upside down upon the beach, but the portrait made resembled nothing earthly. Then the Englishman had taught him a new way, and things went well, and he had drawn a camel. . . . He was opening his sketch-book to display the masterpiece ; but his mother shrieked : " Who cares to hear all that. Tell of the Englishman ; how came he with thee ?" " They stoned me," he replied indifferently ; "and I was running from them, weeping, when he met me, and I cried to him in English to protect me. He had compassion on me, and admired my pictures " Iskender became aware that his companions were no longer listening, so stopped abruptly. His uncle seemed to think some miracle had happened, for he heard him praising Allah and the Holy Virgin, the while his mother kept exclaiming in her shrill-pitched tones. His THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 29 mind strayed far from them, occupying itself with distant features of the landscape. All the earth was now obscure : stars sparkled in the dome of the sky. From a high, sandy neck their path surmounted, he beheld the minarets of the town, seeming to cut the sky above the sharp sea-line. The timbre of his mother's voice made for inattention like the monotonous shrill note of the cicada ; and he had at all times a trick of projecting his wits into the scene around him, whence it needed a shout to re-collect them, as she knew to her grievance. She shouted now, and punched him in the back : " Forget not to tell the Emir that thou art a Brutestant, which is half an Englishman." Jarred in his bones by her shrillness, he exclaimed : " Merciful Allah ! Is my mother mad ? The Emir! In the name of angels, what Emir?" "O Holy Maryam ! Am I not unblessed in such a son ? What wonder that the priest and the ladies favour the son of Costantin — may his house be destroyed ! — who has at least the grace to listen when one speaks to him. 30 THE VALLEY OF THE KIN(iS . . . Thou goest in the morning to the Hotel Barudi, to visit formally this English youth, who is an Emtr in his own country, and proffer thy services. Thou wilt present thyself before him, not as now in a soiled kaftan, but in thy best. Give him to know how thy mother is esteemed by the missionaries, how thou art thyself a Brutestant of the English Church." " Whisht ! " said Abdullah warningly. Some one was hurrying towards them down the path. "Who is it?" breathed the mother of Iskender. It was Elias, who was looking for his friend. " No word to him, or all is lost ! " hissed old Abdullah. But Elias for the moment had no ears. After parting from Iskender he had been seized with a new and vivid inspiration, and felt the need of his accustomed listener. Dragging his friend aside he whispered breathlessly : " I am in great haste. A lady— ah, a beauty ! — waits for me — a Muslimeh, I do assure thee — one of the most closely guarded. I go now to the tryst. It is to risk my life ; but what care I, for love has maddened me. THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 31 I would not tell a living soul save thee ; but if I die in the adventure, thou wilt pray for me. I sought thee in thy house, but found thee not." " May Allah guard and prosper thee ! " re- plied Iskender. But by then his friend was gone, driven on by the fierce wind of his imagining towards the house-door, not far distant, where his wife stood looking for him. Iskender could not prevent a lump from rising in his throat at the vision of requited love, however perilous. From a dream of the Sitt Hilda he was roused by his mother saying : "Thou must sup with us, O Abdullah! After all thy kindness to Iskender, thou canst scarce refuse me." They were at the house. With a polite show of reluctance Abdullah entered, and sat down beside the wall, while Iskender helped his mother spread the feast for him. Then, when all was ready, the young man wrapped some morsels in a piece of bread, and carried them out beyond the threshold, to be alone. Squatting there, he was once more happy in thoughts of the fair young English- 33 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS man who, though a prince, had shown such kindness towards him. By Allah, he would give his life for that sweet youth. He asked no better than to serve him always. The highest lobes of the cactus hedge before him were like great hands shorn of fingers thrust against the sky. Through a gap he beheld the lights of the Mission — fierce hostile eyes intent upon his thoughts. The wail and bark of a jackal came from the landward plain. "Praise to Allah!" The voice of his mother raised for a moment above its monotone caused him to turn and look into the house. They had made an end of eating in there and were now arranging the programme of Iskender's conduct towards the young Emir. His uncle sat cross-legged by the wall, puffing slowly at a narghileh, his mother opposite to him, in the same posture, also with a narghileh, not smoking for the moment, but leaning for- ward with one hand out, talking eagerly. A saucer-lamp stood on the floor between them, among remnants of the feast ; it caused their faces to look ghastly, lighted thus from below, and sent their shadows reeling up the wall. The woman declaimed untiringly with gestures THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 33 of demonstration, and the man kept acquiescing by a nod which set the tassel of his fez in motion. The dull sententiousness of the dragoman and his mother's shrill, rash judgments were alike irritating to Iskender. They claimed to understand the foreigners perfectly ; and in truth they knew enough of the foibles of the lords of gold to secure to themselves a liveli- hood. They had never, either of them, loved a Frank. CHAPTER III Next morning Iskender was disturbed at day- break by the movements of his mother in the house. With her black locks all dishevelled, she was putting out his grandest clothes and dusting them in the feeble lamp-light. " Thou shalt wear this sweet suit which thy father left thee," she croaked out when she knew he was awake. " That and thy new tarbush and the great umbrella. Wallah, thou wilt fill men's eyes. Now rise, and make haste with thy washing." He rose accordingly and, having dedicated his works to God, dipped a hand-bowl in the earthen jar which served as cistern, and carried it out on to the sand before the threshold. There the rising colour of the dawn bewitched him ; he was reminded of a certain trumpet- flower which bloomed at Easter on the Mission walls — a flower with purple etals and the 34 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 35 gleam of gold in its heart ; and, all on fire to register the rare impression, he left his bowl of water on the sand and re-entered the house to fetch his book and paint-box. But his mother tried to wrest them from him, cursing him for a maniac, and before he could shake her off the colours of the sky had changed completely. The little disappointment made life vain. In a pet, he overturned the basin of water, robbed of the heart to wash his face and hands. Then, as his mother still kept screaming for him, he went indoors and donned the clothes which she had laid ready. Even then she would not let him be, but pulled and patted at the garments till he lost his temper, and made a rush for the door. A horrified shriek recalled him. The umbrella ! He had forgotten that ! His mother thrust it on him. Gathered up into a bunch and tied, not folded, it in shape resembled a charged distaff of unusual size. With it tucked beneath his arm, the youth escaped at last into the rosy sunlight. Up on the well-marked road which runs out to the Mission from the town he en- countered Costantin, the missionary's servant, driving a donkey burdened with two jars of 36 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS Water up towards the hduse. Costantitt re- marked upon his finery, and asked where he was going; He showed an amiable inclination to stop and talk. But Iskender hurried on, merely explaining that he was going to be a great painter in the land of the English. Costanttn stood scratching his head and staring after him. The rOad soon left the sandhills and mean- dered through thick orange-groves, full of shade and perfume and the hum of bees. Here he advanced with circumspection, and at a turn of the way stood still to reconnoitre. From that point he cOuld see a Christian village, dignified in the distance by two palm- trees put up like sunshades over its squat mud hovels. The tiny church stood apart, quite overshadowed by an ancient ilex; It was there that he had been pelted yester- day ; but at present all looked safe. Only two human beings were in sight — the priest, one Mitri, eminent in black robe and tower- _ like headdress, sat in thought beneath the oak-tree, and a child in a sky-blue kirtle sprawled at play upon the threshold of one of the houses. The coo of doves and cluck THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 37 of hens, the only voices, sounded peaceful in the sun-filled air. Iskender moved on, trusting hard in Allah to save his Sunday clothes from base defilement. The priest Mitri, seated in the shade, was playing an innocent game with two pebbles, which he threw into the air and caught al- ternately, when Iskender, approaching humbly, wished him a happy d a y- He returned the greeting mechanically, then, seeing who it was, let fall his playthings and stared solemnly at the disturber. Iskender became uncom- fortably conscious of his festive raiment, more especially of the umbrella, which seemed to fascinate Mitri. For release from the embarrassment of being silently devoured by eyes as fierce and pro- minent as a bull's, he paused before the priest and asked his blessing. At that the staring orbs betrayed amazement ; their owner raised a hand to stroke his long black beard. The child in the sky-blue shift had left its play to observe the encounter. Standing up against the darkness of the doorway it revealed the figure of a slim young girl. Still gazing fixedly at the suppliant, who 38 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS stood trembling before him, the priest seemed to ponder the request. Then suddenly he sprang to his feet, crying : " Come with me ! " and, seizing Iskender's arm, dragged the terrified youth into the church, of which the door stood open. In there the sudden gloom, combined with a stale smell of incense, over- powered the victim. "Prostrate thy sinful self!" the priest enjoined. Iskender fell upon his face obediently. To perform the prostration he was obliged to dis- card for a moment the great umbrella. When he rose from his knees the priest had hold of it. " Wherefore dost thou require a blessing of me?" Iskender confessed that he was about to present himself before a certain great one, in the hope of patronage, and felt the need of Heaven's favour to support his worthlessness. " What is his name, this great one ? " " That I know not. The man in question is the young Inklizi who honours the hotel of Musa el Barudi. I know only that he is a great Emir, and hates the missionaries." fHE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 39 " Then he must be of the High Church of that land, which yet holds faithful, christening by immersion, and scorning the interpolation of the swine of Rome. May he be a guide to thee, poor unbaptized one. Now, for the blessing, give me ten piasters ! " " Ten piasters ! " gasped Iskender. The enraged ecclesiastic pinched the ob- jector's ear, and twisted it until its owner writhed in anguish. " For a heretic like thee it should be thrice as much. Remember I have power to bind as well as to loose. Insult this place again with heathen haggling, and by the keys of heaven and of hell, I curse thee leprous." Iskender fell on his knees and howled for mercy. " I have no money with me," he explained most piteously. "Is that in truth the case ? " The priest let go his ear, and seemed to meditate. Iskender was aware of the girl in the sky-blue robe gazing in at the doorway. Her presence added to his ignominy. " No matter ! Thou shalt pay the price another time, and in the mean- while I shall keep this fine umbrella." 4Q THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS " Alas, it is not mine !" Iskender wrung his hands. But Mitri had already withdrawn into the inner darkness of the sanctuary, whence he" emerged directly, but without the umbrella. Something white and glittering now adorned his shoulders. As he came towards Iskender, the light from the doorway picking him out from the surround- ing gloom, he seemed to bear with him a mystic radiance. The young man knelt instinc- tively and pressed his forehead to the ground j while the voice of the priest, now grown tender and melodious, seemed to warble far above him like a voice from heaven. An angel stood in the place of his late tormentor. " It is not thy fault that thou art a Brutes- tant," said Mitri kindly, when the blessing was concluded. " Come to me sometimes ; let us talk things over. I discern in thee some mind to know the truth." " Is he indeed a Brutestant, my father ? " The girl in the sky-blue shirt had stolen close to them, " Ah, woe is me that one so goodly should go the way of everlasting punishment ! " She wore no garment but the long straight THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 41 kirtle. Her hair, brought low round either temple to be plaited in a tail behind, increased the shadow of her eyes— great thoughtful eyes, which made the childish face divine. Iskender, smitten dumb with admiration, at that moment thought of Protestantism as a foul crone. " May thy house be destroyed, O Nesibeh, shameless girl ! " the priest rebuked her. ■' What have this youth's looks to do with thee ? Thou art grown too big to be allowed such freedom. It is time thou didst assume the veil, and with it modesty." He took his daughter's hand and fondled it, none the less, adding: "Whence this religious fervour, soul of mischief ?" It was with a sigh that Iskender parted from them ; and he went slowly, often turning to look back at the little church beneath the oak- tree, till his road debouched into a crowded highway, where the, long intent procession of the fellahin conveying the produce of their fields to market on the backs of camels, mules and asses, on the heads of women, reminded him of his own errand. He then made haste to the hotel of Musa el Barudi. 42 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS The two sons of Musa, Daud and Selim, clad in robes of striped silk, and high red fezzes, sat out on stools, one on either side of the doorway, to feel the morning sun and chat with wayfarers. Behind them, against the doorpost, leaned a tall negro in white robe and turban, who held a broom in his hand, but seemed to have done with sweeping. I skender approached this group with low obeisance. " Is his Highness the Emir within ? " The black alone condescended to heed the inquiry. He replied with the broadest of grins : " May Allah heal thy intelligence. Art possessed with a devil, or a joker merely ? " " I mean the young khaw&jah who resides here all alone," Iskender explained, replying to the negro, though his eyes kept looking from Daud to Sellm, whose perfect impassivity surprised him. He grieved for the loss of his umbrella, which would have compelled more respect. " Ah," grinned the negro, seeing light. " He is at breakfast." " Then, with permission, I will wait till he comes forth." THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 43 " What is this youth ? " cried Daud irritably, without looking. " Bid him depart ! " said Selim, moving impatiently in his seat as though a fly annoyed him. Of a sudden both the brothers rose and bowed profoundly, laying hand to breast, and lips, and brow, as a Muslim notable passed up the street on horseback. Then they sank down again, and the obsequious smile died away on their faces, leaving them cold and haughty as before. " The great khawajah is my very good friend. He loves me dearly," proffered Iskender in his own excuse. " By Allah, he is the nicest of men ! He will be overjoyed to find me here this morning." The scornful eyes of Daud glanced on him for a brief moment, while Selim, in his turn, questioned : " Who is this ? " " Is it not the son of one Y&cub, a muleteer, who sold his soul years ago to the English missionaries. It seems such renegades are well paid, for behold the raiment of this youth. What wouldst thou here, O dog, son of a dog ? " 44 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS " I ask but to see my friend the Emir, who loves me dearly — by Allah, I speak but the truth !" pleaded Iskender, near to tears. " Now by the sword of St. George," vociferated Daud, roused at last, " none of thy species enters my father's door. Ours is an honourable house, respected far and near. If any of our clients needs a guide or servant, we know where to send for one who may be trusted. We tolerate no lickspittle-rogues, no beggars. Remember the abominations of thy father and the extraordinary unchastity of thy mother, and take thy shameful face elsewhere away from us." "O my kind lords!" Iskender began to protest ; but just then Selim, who had been silently working himself into a fury while his brother spoke, sprang up, and snatching the broom from the black servant's hand, dis- charged it at Iskender's head with all his strength. The son of Yacub, by a lucky move, escaped the missile ; but seeing the negro stepping forth to recover his broom, stayed to make no retort. Having retired to the opposite side of the street, which was in shadow, he sat down on THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 45 the doorstep of a Frankish shop, and waited. He saw his friend of yesterday come forth at last, Seltm and Daud rising for his passage. As he paused upon the steps to taste the sunny air, Iskender caught his eye and ran to greet him. The Emir was gracious, asking how he did, and at once proposing they should walk together. Iskender gave the sons of Musa a triumphant glance. "Where are your sketching things?" the Frank inquired ; and hearing they were left behind, would go and fetch them. They sauntered together through the gardens out on to the sandhills, till within a stone's-throw of Iskender's home ; when the Englishman lay down on a patch of withered herbage, saying he would wait there till his friend returned. Iskender passed the broken hedge at a bound and stood before his mother in the doorway. She screamed to Allah for pro- tection, in the first surprise. " Come, O my mother ! Come and look ! " he cried, and dragged her to a point whence they could see the young Emir, lying flat on his back, his straw hat covering his face, for the sun was strong. "It is himself," Iskender 46 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS whispered, dashing on into the house ; while his mother made wild reverence in the Frank's direction, quite oblivious of the fact that the object of her bows and servile gestures could not, from the circumstances of his position, see them. " Make all speed, O beloved ! " she implored Iskender. "It is not well that his Highness should remain extended in the hot sun. Allah forbid that he should get a sunstroke, for his life is precious. May our Lord preserve him for a blessing to us ! " But while she spoke her son was out of hearing. Returning towards the town, the two friends had to pass the Christian village by the ilex- tree, and the Emir, who had seen Iskender stoned there, insisted on his sketching the small church, vowing to punish all who dared molest him. Remembering the priest's daughter, he was fain, and went to Mitri's house to ask for water. The girl herself appeared in answer to his call, but, seeing who it was, ran back in terror, crying: " O mother, help! It is the Brutestant." Whereat a slattern dame came forth instead of her, and filled his can for him, with every blessing. THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 47 Soon after, as he sat at work beneath the oak, the priest himself appeared. Iskender rose and presented the Emir, who welcomed the introduction with his ready smile. " So the blessing worked, the praise to "Allah ! " was Mitri's comment. tie made the Englishman enter his house and drink coffee, then took him into the church. The door stood open. Iskender caught some fragments of the priest's discourse, from which it appeared that he was displaying vestments and a holy relic. When they emerged, the Frank was thrusting money on the priest, who declined to take it, till Iskender shouted : " It is for the poor." " For the poor, it is well." Mttri smiled and accepted the offering. Then, with a knowing glance at the son of Yacub, he once more vanished into the church, to reappear next minute with the great umbrella. " Thou hast redeemed the pledge, my son," he said, as he restored it to its lord, and winked discreetly. " But what have we here ? By Allah, thou art a complete painter, a professor of the art! There am I, like life. There is my house, the church, the palm-trees. O 48 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS young man, thou art a devil at this work. A pity thou art a Brutestant, else thou couldst make a trade of it, and make us pictures of the Blessed for our churches. Come, O Nesibeh, see thd pretty picture." Iskender fixed his gaze upon the sketch. He dared not look up, for the girl was at his shoulder. The whole population of the place, his foes but yesterday, now gathered round him, praising Allah for his wondrous talent ; while the Emir denounced the bad quality of the paint-box, gift of the Sitt Hilda, and swore to have a proper one sent out from England. Iskender's heart was like to burst with pride and happiness. CHAPTER IV It wanted but an hour of sunset when Iskender parted from the Frank. His very brain was laughing, and he trod on air as he strode off, hugging the great umbrella. At noon- day he had had his meal at the hotel (no matter though it was flung to him in the entry as to a dog), and afterwards had walked again with the Emir, showing his Honour the chief buildings of the town. Not a few of his acquaintance had beheld his glory, among them Elias the great talker. No doubt but that the fame of it was noised abroad. In no hurry to go home, for his mother had already heard the tidings, he bent his steps towards a tavern where the dragomans were wont to assemble at that hour. Leaving the road of red-roofed foreign houses in which was the hotel, he crossed a stable-yard, and then a rubbish-heap, and 49 4 50 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS passed through tunnels to the main street of the town, a narrow, shaded way leading down to the shore. Here, what with spanning arches and the merchants' awnings, it was dark already ; the business of the shops appeared belated J the sunlit sea beyond was like a vision. Dodging his way through the crowd, avoiding bales and groaning camels, he traversed half the street, then turned in at a gateway worthy of the noblest mosque. Within was a kind of cloister, three parts ruined, which had once, it was said, appertained to a Christian church. On one side the outer wall had fallen, allowing a view through shadowy arches of the sunset on the sea ; on the 1 other, just within the colonnade, an enterprising cook had placed his brazier and all else that is required to make a tavern. Wherever the ground was clear of debris stools were set, and men sat talking, smoking slow narghilehs. The fragrance of coffee stewing filled the place, mixed with the peculiar odour of a charcoal fire. Here the English-speaking dragomans used to meet together at the cool of the day, to THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 51 practise the tongue of their profession and discuss the news. Clad in the gayest Oriental clothing to attract the foreigner, their talk was all of Europe and its social splendours. At the moment of Iskender's entrance, a man named Khalil was gravely playing English music-hall airs on a concertina, having acquired the art by instruction from an English sailor at Port Said. Iskender advanced self-consciously, knowing himself the hero of the hour. And in the twinkling of an eye the music ceased ; he was surrounded. Elias, a saffron sash at his waist, a scarlet dust-cloak streaming from his shoulders, flung an arm around his dear friend's neck, and cried : " I saw thee ! Thou art in luck, my dear ; for thy man is of the noblest. I know him well by sight, for he is of the intimate friends of my lady." This had reference to an illusion of Elias, who always maintained that he was the lover of an English princess, and had spent a whole year as her guest among the nobles of that distant land. " Thou shalt present me to him, O my soul," 52 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS cried a man in yet more gorgeous raiment, " that I may judge of his character, and teach thee how to work him to the best advantage." "Aye, it behoves thee to present thy friends," enjoined another. "He is a generous man, it is known ; they say he gave a sovereign to our father Mitri." Iskender promised freely. He saw his uncle beckoning to him, and obeyed the gesture, breaking loose from the throng of courtiers. Abdullah removed his stool to a distant spot among the ruins, whither the servant of the tavern carried two narghilehs. He made his nephew sit and smoke with him, then asked : " What news ? " "The best — thanks to Allah," replied Isken- der. " The Emir has shown great love for me, and is having a grand new paint-box sent from the land of the English." "Pshaw!" said Abdullah, a shade of annoy- ance on his brow. " Put away such playthings, which lead nowhere. Let thy whole study be to please his Honour. In dealing with all travellers the first thing is to keep them inter- ested ; for if their mind is dull a single moment THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 53 they blame the dragoman and give him a bad report. Thou art conversant with the Sacred Book. Quote from it freely in connection with common sights ; as, for instance, if thou seest people ploughing, refer straightway to Mar Elias who ploughed with twelve yoke of oxen before him ; if a woman fetching water from the spring, mention her with whom Our Saviour talked beside Samaria. Things common among us are strange to them. To-morrow take thy patron to the bath, and conduct him through all its stages. Thence bring him to my house, where' thou shalt find a meal which will not fail to please him. To sit on the floor, as we do, and eat with fingers from one dish, affords delight to foreigners. Above all things, keep him for thine own. I say nought against thy taking him this day to Mitri, though the visit has made a noise. Our father Mitri is an upright man. But these " He jerked his thumb in the direction of the other dragomans, now howling in chorus to the strains of the concertina. " These are all rivals^ — enemies. In the season thy Emir would seem as nothing to 54 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS them ; but now he is the only game in sight. Avoid them ; lead thy lord away from them. Thy coming here this evening was a fault. Go now and quietly, lest they trap thee some- how. I expect thee at my house at noon to-morrow." Iskender saw the wisdom in these words. He shot a glance over his shoulder at the other dragomans. They were still busy singing to the concertina. Touching his uncle's hand, he stepped out through the open arches and scrambled down over rocks and fallen masonry to the sea-beach, whence he made his way home through the twilight. His mother had heard of his introducing his Emir to the priest Mitri, and blamed the folly of it, till she learnt how thereby he had redeemed the great umbrella. Even then she still declared it was a pity. It would put the missionaries in a perfect fury, since an Orthodox priest was the devil in their eyes ; and was certain to rouse the cupidity of other people. Allah had blessed Iskender with the friendship of a mighty prince. She bade him keep the blessing to himself, not let it waste away in gifts to strangers. THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 53 Her words confirmed the counsel of the wise Abdullah. Iskender resolved to follow it to the letter. But when, presenting himself before his lord next morning, he announced the programme for the day, the Frank raised unforeseen objections. He would in no case visit the bath, he said, having heard that they used dirty water there. It was with difficulty that Iskender won him to view Abdullah's invitation with some favour. Abdullah's house was in the town itself, hard by the shore. It stank in the approach, as the Frank was not slow to remark ; but within all was swept and perfumed for the occasion. Borrowed mats strewed the floor. Two candles burned upon a little shelf, before a picture of the Blessed Virgin placed there in remembrance of the famous vision. And the host omitted no formula of politeness that had ever been used by a son of the Arabs to felicitate and set at ease an honoured guest. The Emir, completely reassured, smiled graciously. The food, when it appeared, was tasty and abundant, and his Honour seemed to like it. But Iskender knew that it was of the cheapest : the whole feast had not cost 56 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS his uncle ten piasters. When the Emir, at taking leave, put two mejidis in Abdullah's hand, he bit his lip and cursed the old man's guile. Thenceforth he determined to keep all English-speaking persons at a distance, since their whole endeavour seemed to be to cheat his loved Emir. But it was not so easy to discard his old acquaintance. That same evening, after parting from his patron, he ran right into the arms of a pair of merry fellows, who announced their playful purpose to detain him. Both wore their fezzes at a rakish angle, both had a rosary dangling fashionably from the left hand, both talked and laughed uproariously — secure in their employ- ment by a foreign tourist agency from the disgust of the Muslim population, whose scowls shadowed them. Elias Abdul Messih was one of them. The other, who boasted a very large hooked nose, like a parrot's beak, which reduced the rest of his face to insignificance, was Yuhanna Mahbub, a famous bully. " Now we have thee ! " cried Elias, laughing loudly. " By Allah, it is rude in thee to shun thy friends." THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 57 " Is it true that the Emir gives thee an English pound every day ? " inquired Yuhanna. "He is good enough to treat me as a brother, and has sworn, of his benevolence, to make my fortune," Iskender modestly ad- mitted. " Pshaw ! Promises — I know them! " sneered Yuhanna. " Coined money is the only thing I put my faith in." v " We crave a boon of thee," pursued Eliks coaxingly. " Bring the khawajah to the house of Karlsberger to-morrow afternoon. We will make a feast in his honour and thine. Say yes, O my soul ! " " Aye, promise," snarled Yuhanna, " or we shall know thou hast a mind to slight us, and take steps accordingly." Iskender promised, with intent to fail them, for the Emir's protection made their threat quite harmless. He pursued his way down a sandy road through the orange-gardens, which looked black beneath the sunset — of unusual splendour owing to the presence in the sky of ragged clouds. A fellah who passed remarked that rain was coming. " Art on the way to visit me ? " A hand 58 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS fell suddenly upon Iskender's shoulder. A tall black-clad form had overtaken him, unheard by- reason of the muffling sand. It was the priest Mttri. "Or dost thou fear to incur the anger of the English missionaries ? By Allah, thou art wrong to fear them. Their religion is of man's devising ; its aim is worldly comfort, which will fail them at the Last Day ; whereas ours is the faith of Christ and the Holy Apostles, the same for which thy fathers suffered ages before the invention of the Brutestant heresy. It is the faith of the true Romans who reigned in the city of Costantin, when Rome had reaped the reward of her heathen iniquity and lay in ruins, a haunt of brigands and wild beasts. Is it not a sin that, after the lapse of so many ages, people calling themselves Christians, people who have never suffered hardship for their faith as we do, come hither and wage war upon the Church in her bound and crippled state, seducing the feeble and the avaricious by the spectacle of their wealth and the prospect of foreign protection ? These heretics — and the Muscovites, our co-religionists, alas ! with them, — conspire against the Sultan, who is our sole defender. With the Muslimin we have in THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 59 common language, country, and the intercourse of daily life. Therefore, I say, a Muslim is less abominable before Allah than a Latin or a Brutest&nt." The priest stopped speaking suddenly and embraced Iskender, kissing him repeatedly on both cheeks. At the same moment a little cavalcade went ambling by, which solved the riddle of his strange behaviour. Iskender caught a scowl of disapproval from the Sitt Carulin, a glance of agonised appeal from the Sitt Hilda, and then a malicious grin from old Costantin, as he ran by on foot, prodding with his staff the hindmost jackass, on which the Sitt Jane sat up with face averted. The three ladies were clad in white with mushroom hats and fluttering face-veils. Their bodies bulged now here, now there, like sacks of grain, obedient to the motion of the trotting donkeys. "There they go, mothers of all contention, shameless meddlers ! " said Mitri, peering after them in the twilight. " Ha, ha ! I angered them, the praise to Allah. I made them tremble for their nursling ! " Iskender made no answer, feeling angry 60 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS with the priest. At that reproachful glance of the Sitt Hilda, all his childhood had risen up and testified against him. His heart was stricken with profound compunction. He broke away from Mitri as soon as possible, refusing an invitation to enter his house and argue with him, and sped on across the sand- hills to his own home. There, in the little house, a lamp was lighted ; his mother stood at the doorway looking out for him. Breathless, he informed her of his encounter with the Mission ladies, and the priest's vile trick to shame him. " Aha," she laughed, " a famous joker is our father Mitri. I would give much to have seen the faces of those harridans ! Nevertheless, may his house be destroyed, for he has done me an ill-turn with his foolery. The ladies are certain to come here to-morrow, deafening me with the outcry of their poisonous spite. For thee, it recks not, thou hast thy Emir. In sh' Allah thou wilt soon get money from him. Then thou canst laugh at the malevolence of these hypocrites ! " But Iskender was not to be so easily consoled. He lay awake that night, a prey to poignant THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 61 self-disgust, remembering in turn his happy childhood at the Mission, his love for the Sitt Hilda, and his recent frowardness, each with a vividness that hurt his brain. Even the patronage of a great Emir seemed nothing worth as compared with the affection of those who had brought him up. The Emir spoke lightly of religion ; he despised the missionaries ; it might well be he was wicked, a servant of the Evil One, a creature of that outer darkness into which he (Iskender) had fallen through his own fault. Then he thought of the priest Mitri, and of the beautiful child who for a moment had ensnared his fancy ; and was overwhelmed with pity for himself. He belonged to nobody. The missionaries loved him so little that they were content to cast him off for small offences ; while for the Ortho- dox he remained a Protestant, a filthy thing. In his thirst for comfort he was driven back on dreams of greatness, of buried treasure some day to be found, which would cause the English and the natives of the land alike to grovel in the dirt before him. Warmed by such thoughts he fell asleep at last. 6 2 THE VALLEY QF THE KINGS When he awoke in the morning his mind was healed. He viewed the Mission with the old resentment, and placed his every hope in the Emir. On his way to the hotel he saw the daughter of Mitri throwing crumbs to the church pigeons, and blew a kiss to her with words of love, only to laugh loud when, picking up a stone, she cursed his father. At the entering-in of the town he was accosted by Elias, who sprang suddenly from the shade of a cactus-hedge. Yuhanna followed, yawn- ing. It was clear that they had been lying in wait. " This afternoon, at the house of Karls- berger ; forget not," Elias cried. " We have ordered a fine feast in thy friend's honour." " Fail us not, or it shall be the worse for thee," put in Yuhanna. Iskender swore obedience to their will and hurried on, mentally resolved to hire horses and take his Emir for a ride until the evening. It would be easy to say the Frank had willed it so, in which case none could blame him. With this in mind he entered the hotel. But again his Emir proved refractory. The air THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 63 that morning oppressed him, he declared, and the sons of Musa said that it was going to rain. He proposed a stroll to some near spot among the gardens, where he could read while his companion sketched. Iskender still had hope to foil the dragomans. He led his patron in a direction opposite to that where he had left Elias. But, looking back, he saw two figures shadowing them, and knew the game was up. In fact, no sooner had they found a cool retreat than Elias and Yuhanna sauntered up, hailing Iskender with delight as loving comrades. He was obliged to present them to his Emir, and from the moment of introduction they had words for no one else, inquiring how his Honour liked the place, and asking if he knew this and that great lord of the English with whom they, by their own accounts, Stood high in favour. They presented their invitation with every circumstance of respect, and the Emir accepted it ; and then, by the veriest accident, the eyes of Yuhanna happened to light upon the ousted youth. " Ah," he exclaimed, " you like this little one, our dear Iskender! A good boy, sir, 64 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS only don't know much yet. Baints fery nicely, for a young 'un. He show you, sir, the way this afternoon." A tear fell splash upon Iskender's drawing- book. CHAPTER V The house of Karlsberger stood in a hollow of the southern sandhills, only discoverable on a close approach, so that the sight of its red roof, something like an extinguisher, came always as a surprise. Its owner was of the number of those Jewish immigrants who, lured by the offer of perpetual charity, had of late years come in their thousands to occupy lands provided by their rich co-religionists. But the life of a husbandman soon palled on Karlsberger, accustomed to trade upon the vices of a European city ; and his wife, a former harlot, shared his disgust. As soon as he could gather money enough he had left agriculture to the dullards, and built this house near the town as a rendezvous for all who loved the flavour of depravity. For the dragomans and their kind the house of Karls- 6 * 5 66 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS berger stood for the fashion and gay life of Europe. Thither Iskender conducted his lord in the manner of a reluctant follower rather than a guide. He had said all he could to dissuade the Frank from going, had exaggerated the ill repute of the place, and called the drago- mans low, drunken blackguards ; but all in vain. The Emir was bent on going ; and his slave went with him miserably, feeling sure that the kindness he had himself in- spired would not survive the introduction to a set of dashing fellows, whose profession it was to win the hearts of foreigners. The air was sultry, the expanse of sand glared hatefully beneath a sky veiled all over with thin cloud. All nature, in accordance with his mood, seemed glum and spiteful. In sight of the house he pointed to it without a word. It looked in truth a pretty place for a great prince to visit. With a gloomy satisfaction Iskender noticed filth about the threshold, and shabby garments spread to dry upon the window-sill. Sounds of talk and laughter came from the open door. They ceased directly the Emir THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 67 was seen by those within ; and some dozen men, assembled in a narrow room, rose as one and saluted. The room had been roughly cleaned for the occasion, the dust and filth of the floor having been swept into the four corners, where it lay in heaps. The ceiling and the white-washed walls were grimy, and dust made a bloom on the ragged curtains of the window, looped pretentiously ; a three-legged table all but filled the room, leaving just room for one to pass around it. His lord was ushered to the seat of honour, a sofa covered with a fabric which had once been plush, but now resembled draggled sealskin ; while Iskender went quite unnoticed till the wife of Karls- berger — a bulky slattern, who kept shuffling in and out with plates and glasses — perceived his need, and placed a stool for him. Through confusion and annoyance he caught nothing of the conversation till Elias, in a mincing voice, announced : " The grub quite ready." The Englishman laughed at that ; upon which Elias, dancing up to him, exclaimed : " You are a good fellow ; I see that. I like you, and so blease to see you here." 68 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS All then drew close to the table, on which were set forth many tempting viands, in- cluding mottled discs of German sausage, anchovies, pickled gherkins, and huge chunks of Frankish bread. A bottle of rum and a bottle of gin stood one at each end of the board, attended by glasses of all shapes and sizes. " Allow me to helb you, sir — a bit of sausage ? " cried Elias, seizing a knife and presenting it at the dish in question. The Emir laughed again, which was the signal for an obsequious roar. He said he would prefer some bread and anchovy, and could help him- self. He accepted a little of the rum for politeness' sake, and then professed himself satisfied. After some outcry on his lack of appetite the rest of the party fell to with avidity. The presence of his uncle, which he now realised for the first time, relieved Iskender from the fear of personal indignity. He, too, attacked the victuals with good appetite, but refused the spirits, strong in the example of Abdullah's abstinence. The work of eating was soon done, and every one sat back for conversation. There was THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 69 much ostentatious picking of teeth, and noises of repletion came from all sides. Tongues were loosed, and vied one with another to display deep knowledge of the English speech and manners. The company abounded in expressions such as "old chap," "never say die," and " right you are ! " which Iskender, from his education, knew to be inappropriate. Every one too, except Abdullah, made believe to revel in the gin and rum, out of compliment to the guest, whose national drink it was ; but Iskender was not deceived by their hilarity. Sitting at the opposite end of the room to his patron, he saw the wry faces which were turned away at every sip. Elias, quite beside himself with adulation, and intoxicated already by the success of his facetious sallies, drank and drank again with convivial gestures. "Ha, ha!" he cried, "I'm feelin' deflish habby. So fery nice to be with English beeble. The English are our friends ; they're Christians like what we are. Blease God, they take this country like they taken Egybt, and gif the Turks an' Muslims good old Hell ! Ha, ha ! we're English, we are, just the same. The Turks all done for — no dam' good. The 70 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS Christians kick 'em all the time. They got to lick our boots, that's sure. The English they soon string up the rotten ole Sultan, first they christen 'im jus' for luck " His words were drowned in cries of horrified protest ; his neighbours at the table flung them- selves upon the rash talker, stopping his mouth forcibly with their hands ; while old Abdullah rose up in authority and loudly denounced such sentiments as high treason, with glances at the open door as at an audience. Iskender could see the Frank was quite bewildered ; he sat smiling on all that occurred without intelligence. Elias, when let go, was laughing heartily. "Well, I neffer!" he observed. "Who's afraid?" Just then Khalil, the concertina-player, a dull-eyed, fattish man, who had kept silence, suddenly drew all eyes upon himself by picking up his instrument from^the floor and playing a few chords softly. "All right, Khalil! Come along then! Neffer say die, ole chabbie ! " Elias en- couraged him. " I blay you ' Bob goose the Whistle,' " said THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 71 the musician seriously, and at once struck up a jerky Frankish tune, with eyes intently fixed on the Emir, garnering his every smile and sign of pleasure. When his Honour showed a disposition to sing the words of the refrain, he played more loudly than before in triumph. All present flung back their heads and bawled in discord, producing a din so horrible that the Jew Karlsberger, with his wife and child, appeared from an inner room with scared white faces. " Merciful Allah, make less noise ! " the Israelite besought the revellers. " If a Muslim were to hear you, I am ruined." At that Elias rose with dignity and, swag- gering towards the Jew with a Frankish elegance which the depth of his potations made unsteady, seized the landlord by the breast of his gaberdine. He lifted an ad- monishing finger, saying : " You hold your row, Mr. Karlsberger. You go to Blazes, my fery good friend ! " The Jew, who knew no English, accepted the assurance and retired. The musician struck into another tune, but soon desisted, finding his art forgotten in a 72 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS general clamour of conversation, every one addressing the Frank, who, after looking from one to another at a loss, gave ear to Yuhanna Mahbub, who sat next him. Yuhanna, like Elias, had partaken of the rum and gin. He struck a vein of amorous reminiscence, and began boasting of his conquests among English ladies. Abdullah sharply bade him hold his tongue. " He is a boaster, sir, and neffer did nothing what he say he did," said that respectable man in explanation to the visitor. " If he really done such things, he neffer isbeak about them, that sure ; he know he get the sack for such a shame." "Shame!" chorused Elias with a reproach- ful shake of the head. " Hear, hear ! Order, order! By God, you are a nasty beast, Yuhanna." As he spoke he poured out rum into a tumbler, without looking, till the glass was half full. Iskender, seeing the disgust in the Frank's face deepen, waxed exultant. It was time to leave now, while that look endured. He caught his uncle's eye. The old man nodded. THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 73 "It is time that we dispersed," he said in Arabic, "unless we wish to get wet through. See how the sky has clouded over while we sat here. Remember, it is the year's first rain, which means a deluge." " He speaks truth " — " Rain is coming " — "See the clouds," cried one and another, peering out on the world. The company obeyed the motion of its acknowledged sheykh, all save Elias, who had got beyond the reach of all authority. " You think I'm goin' yet, you silly ole fool!" he cried in English. "No dam' jolly fear! I haf not yet talk to my friend, this nice kind mister ! " And holding in one hand the glass half full of rum, he staggered to the sofa, till then sacred to the Emir, and sank down on it with a contented hiccup. " My dear luffed friend, now we talk a little. The rest, they go to Hell," he said ; and tried to kiss the Frank. He measured his length on the floor, the tumbler was broken, the rum spilt. In a moment the whole room was in an uproar. All who could get near enough tendered 74 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS abject apologies to the guest for their com- panion's rudeness ; while those debarred by concourse from that privilege, consoled them- selves by kicking and punching the prostrate Elias, who wept aloud, still crying : " My friend ! My dearest friend ! " In the midst of this tumult, Khalil struck up the English National Hymn, a carefully reserved effect which he was unwilling to forgo. At length the Emh* won his way to the door, where Iskender was waiting for him, too happy in the turn events had taken to shake his head or say " I told you so." They were joined by old Abdullah. Indoors, behind them, the shrieks of the Jew and his spouse were now heard high above the furious talking and the strains of the concertina. "He come to you to-morrow, sir, and lie down on the floor and lick your boots ; I'll see to that," said Abdullah with determination. " Curse it all ! I lost my temper ! " said the Frank with a nervous laugh. " We best make haste, sir," said Abdullah, pointing eastward. The sky inland was black as ink and formless ; the sand looked white as sun- THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 75 bleached bone by contrast ; the dark green wave of the orange-gardens appeared pale ; a palm-tree in the distance stood up wan against the impending cloud. Presently a flash of lightning made them quicken step ; big drops of water fell like bullets round them. Before they could reach the hotel the rain came down in sheets, beating up the sand like smoke, and they were drenched to the skin. The Emir lent his henchman some dry clothes and in- sisted on his remaining till the storm passed over. Iskender knew that it might last for days. He dispatched a ragamuffin, who had sought shelter in the hotel entry, with a message to relieve his mother's mind ; and soon found himself arrayed in clothes too large for him, sitting in a drawing-room only less luxurious than that of the Mission, looking at some English pictures, while the Frank wrote letters. Truly, it seemed, he had been born to honour. CHAPTER VI When Iskender rose next morning from the bed on the floor of the entrance-hall which he had been permitted to share with the black servant, he saw a woeful figure in the door- way. A man, wrapped in a great cloak of camel's hair, sat staring out dejectedly at the daylight, which was greenish grey, the whole air seeming turned to falling water. A hood drawn low upon his brow concealed his face, except the smouldering anguish of the eyes, when he turned at sound of movements in the hall behind him. Elias— for he it was — sprang up and made the bound required to bring him within reach of his friend's hand, which he forthwith seized and carried to his lips, cringing low and moaning : "O my horror! O my bitter shame! For the love of Allah, speak for me with his noble 76 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 77 Highnessl Thou knowest how I always loved thee, and stood thy friend when others scoffed at thee. Persuade thy Emtr to forgive me and keep silence, or I shall lose my employment, and my wife and little ones will come to want ! " Iskender's heart leapt up in thanks to Allah for thus abasing one who had conspired against him. He pressed the suppliant's hand in both his own. "Now Allah witness how I always loved thee ! " he murmured with a gaze of fond compassion. "It hurt my soul to see thee siding with my enemies, scheming to supplant me in the favour of my dear lord." " By Allah, thy thoughts wrong me ! " cried Elias with wild earnestness. " Ask Yuhanna, ask Khalil ! My efforts were against them all, on thy behalf. How canst thou think such harm of one who loves thee ? " The speaker burst into a passion of tears. " Weep not, O my dear ! " Iskender mur- mured soothingly. " In sh' Allah, all may yet be well, though I will not disguise from thee that my lord is angry." " Obtain but a hearing for me ; that is all I 78 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS ask. My tears shall wash his feet ; my groans, my heartfelt penitence will surely move him." " Thou knowest that I will do all in my power to save thee. But, alas ! my influence is not boundless. By naming thy name in his presence, and seeming anxious to excuse thy fault, I fear to draw a measure of his Honour's wrath upon myself. Last evening he was full of rage against thee, vowing to see thee a beggar in the gate of the town. And he has sworn at the first opportunity to make complaint of thy behaviour to the English consul." At mention of the consul Elias collapsed utterly. He sank down on the marble pave- ment, huddled up in his cloak, his chin upon his breast, moaning like one insensible through stress of pain. Complaint to the consul meant his life-long ruin as a dragoman, since he depended on the English for his daily bread. At length he cried : " Thou must, thou shalt, befriend me ! I adjure thee by Him who took our flesh upon Him, by the Holy Cross! Allah will reward thee, and I myself will be thy slave till death." Pouncing once more upon Iskender's hand, THE VALJLEY OF THE KINGS 79 he pressed two large coins down upon the open palm. " What is this, O my soul ? " cried the youth in amazement, after looking to make sure the coins were silver. " Are such things needed between me and thee ? " He pulled out his silver watch — the gift of the wife of the missionary, the excellent mother of George, which she had caused to be sent expressly from the land of the English — and gazed long and pensively at the face of it. Though he had risen later than his custom, deceived by the darkness of the rain pro- longing night, it wanted still an hour of the Emir's waking. He said : "His Honour is still in his chamber ; he objects to be disturbed while dressing. Never- theless, since thy cause is urgent, I will crave an audience." " Our Lord reward thee," sobbed Elias gratefully. Iskender repaired to the hotel kitchen, and spent some minutes talking to the cook, who was his friend, before he returned and said : " His Highness will not hear me. At mention of thy name he shut his ears." Then, 8o THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS when Elias burst into a fit of weeping that seemed like to strangle him, he added : " But he was in the act of bathing his whole body, which he does daily in cold water. It may be that the coldness of the water made him angry. After a little, I will try again." "May Allah prolong thy life! From this day forth Elias is thy servant. I will give thee my gold ring with the large carbuncle, if thou bring this business to a good result." After a decent interval, Iskender paid another visit to the kitchen and, returning, said : " He gave no answer to my knock, and I feared to enrage him by repeated knocking. I will return presently." Elias promised him a dagger of rare work- manship. "He bade me go away, though not in anger," was the next report. Elias promised him a pistol with jewelled mountings ; and after that a saddle with rich tassels, a holy book, some silver buttons, and a young mare of the noblest desert breed. Thus time passed pleasantly, till the sons of Musa emerged from their sleeping apartment. THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 81 Iskender dared not pursue the game with them about ; but humbly presented Elias, explaining the reason of his presence. They at once offered themselves to plead the cause of the sufferer, who was a friend of theirs. But the son of Yacub was beforehand with them. He sped straight to the bedroom of the Frank, who by good luck was up and dressed, and informed him of the penitence of Elias, begging forgiveness for that broken man. The Emir consented with a laugh. Together they went down into the hall, where Iskender presented the suppliant to his Emir, in the face of the sons of Musa, and of all the servants who came crowding to the sight. Elias fell down fiat before the great one and embraced his feet. He seemed unconscious when the Frank addressed him. It was by the exertions of the sons of Musa and the group of servants that the despairing wretch at length received assurance of forgiveness. With tears of joy he. kissed the hand of his preserver ; then, suddenly flinging open the vast cloak, which he had till now kept close around him, he revealed a splendid whip of rhinoceros-hide, mounted and ringed with silver. 6 82 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS Iskender felt cruelly defrauded ; it was with difficulty that he suppressed a cry of rage ; for had he so much as guessed that such a thing was hid beneath the cloak of the blubberer, he would long ago have had it for his own. Elias thrust that whip upon the Frank, who would fain have refused it ; but, the sons of Musa and the servants joining the donor in entreaties, he at last gave way. When his patron went to breakfast, Iskender received many compliments. His manifest ascendency over the mind of the Englishman had made a favourable impression even on the sons of Musa. This was as it should be. But it did not please him, as the day wore on, to find that Elias, out of gratitude for his forgiveness, intended to remain in close attend- ance on the Emir. Divested of his cloak, his slim but manly figure cased in showy garments, his moustache curled ferociously up to the eyes, his fez tilted jauntily to one side, Elias appeared to Iskender's jealousy the most attractive of men. And as he recovered spirits, his talk showed the lively sparkle which enchanted travellers. It being impossible to get out, the Emir THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 83 brought down a book, and read to them in the entrance-hall. The tale was one of wild adventures in the search for treasure. It fascinated Iskender. But Elias was reminded by one of the incidents of a lion he had slain upon Mount Sinai ; and the Frank shut up the book to hear his story. Elias described all the fortunes of the fight with singular realism, opening his mouth very wide and roaring when momentarily impersonating the lion. The Frank showed great amusement ; Iskender was vexed with him for encouraging the silly liar. He gave praise to Allah when Elias departed for the night. But his bugbear returned next morning, as the Frank emerged from breakfast, claiming praise for his devotion in coming through such weather. The wady to the north of the town was now a raging torrent, he informed them. With his own eyes he had seen ten righteous men torn off their feet and carried clean away. More than a hundred camels had been swept far out to sea. " He is a big liar, sir," Iskender whispered in the ear of his lord, who appeared unduly stricken by these tidings ; and in proof of the 84 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS assertion, he referred the matter to the sons of Musa, who said that a donkey laden with vegetables had been washed away. Elias, in no wise disconcerted, thanked God that things were no worse. But Iskender triumphed, informed by the Frank's sneer that he had struck a death-blow at his rival's influence. That done, he felt all kindness for the hand- some dragoman, now his manifest inferior, and encouraged him to show off for the Emir's amusement. He even, in the course of the day, assured his patron that Elias was not a bad man. That evening the rain diminished sensibly ; in the course of the night it ceased. The dawn next day was cloudless when Iskender set out early for his mother's house. CHAPTER VII " May Allah keep thee ! Here is a nice to- do!" His mother, who had spied Iskender from afar, stood in a gap of the cactus hedge with arms akimbo. " Was ever woman blessed with such a son ? The Father of Ice was here before the rain, he and the Sitt Jane with him. They spoke against thee ceaselessly for two hours, till my poor back ached with standing there and bowing, and my head swam round with listening to their tiresome iterations. Had I not heard it all before, a thousand times — thy idleness, thy kissing the Sitt Hilda, thy choice of low companions in the town? And then thy friends — Elias, what a wretch ! Once, years ago, when conducting a party of travellers, he pushed his horse among the ladies, who were on their donkeys. Unheard-of insolence ! He shouted^actually shouted at English ladies — 85 86 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS to make way ; of course, they paid no heed to such impertinence, and then he rode among them. Ma sh' Allah ! And Mitri too ! To hear them talk of Mitri, any one would suppose the poor, good priest some dreadful ghoul. . . . All that was empty talk, however spiteful, and Allah knows I am well seasoned to it. But when they came to speak of thy Emir, and swore to turn his mind against thee, I saw danger. What ailed thy wits that thou must needs tell Costanttn a tale of thy going to the land of the English to study the art of painting at thy lord's expense ? They have it that thou wouldst defraud the good young man. . . . Ah ! Allah knows I have my fill of troubles." She paused from sheer exhaustion, pressing a hand to her heart. Iskender laughed at her concern, assuring her that his favour with the Emir was now established past all fear of assault. Exultant from his recent triumphs, and flushed from a walk through air which the rain had left pure and invigorating, he did in truth believe himself beyond the grasp of adversity. His mother's woe seemed senseless. When he THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 87 told of the wicked plot of the dragomans, and how signally it had failed through Allah's mercy, it angered him to see her wag her head with boding looks. She could not realise the victory his words implied. " Think, O my mother ! " he cried out im- patiently. " These three days have I been his guest and chosen comrade, sitting with him at all hours — aye, even in the seat of honour in the guest-room, in my slippers — admitted to the secret of his every thought. It is well seen that he loves me truly. Give praise to Allah, therefore, and throw grief aside." But his mother still looked rueful as she shuffled about the room getting food — a bowl of curds, some olives, and a slab of bread — to set before him. "All that is well enough," she grumbled audibly, "but to what end? By Allah, I perceive no profit in it. Thy need is money, not mere compliments. Better get him to appoint thee monthly wages as his servant." " Merciful Allah ! is my mother mad ? " exclaimed Iskender, teeth on edge with irrita- tion. The woman's lack of understanding 88 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS rasped his soul. " He loves me as a friend, an equal, not a slave. And what are the paltry wages of a servant as compared with the friendship of a mighty prince ? In the end he is certain to provide for me honour- ably ; he will make me a great painter, as I said to Costantin." " In sh' Allah, it may prove so," replied his mother ; " but I doubt it greatly. Thou wast ever one to follow distant dreams, neglecting the good that lay within hand's reach. Were Elias or Yuhanna in thy place, no doubt at all but they would make some money. There is a chance when making purchases or hiring horses for his Honour. But thou art cap- able of scorning every gain — nay, even of bestowing all thy goods ! — for the sake of a fine friendship which may leave thee naked." "By Allah, I will hear no more of this!" Iskender started to his feet, past patience. " Know that my love for my Emir equals his love for me. He is my soul ; how then should I defraud him ? I shall buy for him as for myself; he shall admire my honesty — it is the virtue most esteemed among the THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 89 Franks — and be assured that in the end he will reward it." His mother sighed profoundly, and spread out her hands. " Thou art young, O my son, nor hast thou my experience. It is true that the Franks hate guile or any cleverness ; but I never heard of one of them rewarding honesty. For them it is a thing of course, unnoticed. I warrant thou wilt get no credit for it. Moreover, Allah knows thou needest money ; for, if the missionary's wrath goes on increasing, I cannot keep thee here. I must either turn thee out or lose a good appointment which enables me to lay by something every year for thy future fortune. They grow to hate thee so that soon they will refuse to send their dirty garments to be washed where thou dost dwell. . . . Wouldst leave me now already, when I have not seen thee for three days ? May thy house be destroyed ! Stop, in the name of Allah ; stop, I say ! Was ever mother cursed with such a son ? " But by then Iskender had passed through the cactus hedge, and was running down into the sandy hollow. The clear, cool air at once restored his exultation, and his mother's words go THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS became a buzz of flies which he had left behind. The sky was dreamy blue ; the sandhills rose against it shapely like the backs and flanks of couchant lions. The red roof of the Mission on its ridge seemed placed there by some childish whim — a thing incongruous. As Iskender fixed his gaze on it, he saw a figure coming thence with speed — a figure in dark Frankish clothes beneath the red tarbush, which he recognised as that of Asad son of Costantin. A minute later he was called by name, and saw the same shape running fast towards him. " O my soul ! " cried Asad, panting, as he drew near. " What are these tidings that we hear of thee?' Why wilt thou show thyself to disadvantage ? " Pausing to gather breath, he caught Iskender's hand and pressed it to his heart. " What is this talk of thy friend- ship with the priest Mitri ? Wouldst thou for ever forfeit the goodwill of those above ? " He jerked his head towards the Mission, hidden from where they stood by the brow of the sandhill. " Only think ! To whom in all the land can we look for support and encourage- ment unless to these people who have brought THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 91 us up. The Orthodox have neither wealth nor influence. Wert thou to join them, I fail to see how it could profit thee. In this land there is no hope for a Christian unless by foreign protection. And of all the races of foreigners the English are the richest and the most powerful. By Allah, thou wast a fool ever to anger them ; thou shouldst have hid thy thoughts and bowed to their will in all things, even as I do. Thou seest they will make of me a priest, a grand khawajah. They would have done the same for thee hadst thou behaved with common prudence. I f not a priest, thou mayest still become a well-paid school- master by their protection. Thou wouldst do well, therefore, to forsake this Mitri, who has nothing to offer, Be advised, I entreat thee ! " Asad was a tall, lean youth, lantern-jawed, and of a serious countenance, in age a few months younger than Iskender. His com- plexion was swarthier than the common, and his eyes, like the eyes of his father Costantin, were furtive, with a cast of malice. The boys had always been on friendly terms, in spite of standing jealousy between their parents. But to-day the patronage in Asad's speech 92 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS incensed Iskender. What need had he, the Emir's right-hand, of compassion and advice from any whipper-snapper ? He replied with sarcasm : " May Allah repay thy kindness, O my dear ! Had I known thy mind had such anxiety on my account I should certainly have sent a messenger to reassure thee. Believe me, all thy fears for my welfare are quite groundless, for never had I such good cause to praise the Lord as at this present. Behold me in the road to wealth and honour, possess- ing the favour of an English nobleman, for whom these missionaries are mere specks of dirt. My kind lord vows that I have talent as a maker of likenesses, and wishes me to receive the best instruction in that art. For a beginning, he has sent express to the land of the English for better instruments and materials than I could here obtain. Indeed, there is no cause to fear for me. The praise to Allah ! " " Praise to Allah ! " echoed Asad sneeringly, stung to reprisals by Iskender's tone. " But concerning that Emir of thine I have a word to say. They have heard up there how thou the; valley of the kings 93 hast fastened on him like a leech, and dost boast to all men that his wealth is thine. I myself heard the Father of Ice declare that thy designs were iniquitous and must be thwarted. He himself will go to the Emir and tell him thy whole history, which is nothing good ; so thou hadst best beware. By Allah, thou dost wrong to take this tone with me, who came as a friend to warn thee ! " " I thank thee," rejoined Iskender loftily. " But have no fear, I say again, for my Emir esteems and loves me far too well to give ear to lying tales made up by mischief-makers. Moreover, he abhors the missionaries with such utter loathing that I think he would defile the beard of the Father of Ice did the poor wretch dare approach him. Thou supposest the missionaries to be all-powerful, as I did once. But, believe me, they are nothing thought of in their own land. My Emir would hardly deign to notice things so low. Now I must leave thee, O my dear, for my lord awaits me." He began the ascent of the sandhill. " Well, remember I have warned thee ! " shouted Asad after him. Relieved of the irritant of the lank youth's 94 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS voice and presence, Iskender felt dismay at his own boastfulness, and repented of it humbly before Allah. He knew that a jealous eye is fixed upon the heart of every man to mark when pride leaps up and straightway blight it. To show elation was to court calamity. However, he repeated divers formulas reputed potent to avert the evil ; and when, from a high point of the dunes, he saw the minarets and the square roofs of the town standing forth clear and white with the blue sea for background, beyond the gardens freshened by the rain, he clean forgot misgivings. CHAPTER VIII The love Iskender bore to his Emir trans- figured every detail of familiar life. The walk to the hotel each morning was a joy through expectation, the return each evening a delight through memory. The vestibule in which he waited his lord's pleasure, with its marble pavement and its painted walls, a few cane chairs and tables, and a great clock ticking steadily, became the entrance-hall of paradise. Of nights the thought of sitting there next morning caused his pulse to quicken. The sons of Musa and the negro doorkeeper shared in the radiance of his loved one's neighbour- hood. It was easier for his mind to pasture on accessories than to conjure up the Emir's own presence, which left the memory blind as with excess of light. At times he would recall with a thrill the lofty brow with short fair hair reposing on its summit as lightly 95 96 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS as tamarisks upon the crest of a dune, the laughing sea-blue eyes with golden lashes, or it might be the smooth curves of mouth and chin. But the face as a whole escaped him, though he never tired of studying it, and was always trying to produce its likeness ; now with pencil upon paper, now with finger in the sand. No artist in the world could hope to show the beauty of that face as he beheld it, the glow its smile diffused through all his being. Even his mother's shrieks to him to get money from the Emir enhanced his rapture, making his Own pure love shine forth more brightly. A week's fine weather followed on the rain. The Emir rode out on horseback every day, with Iskender at his right hand, and Elias, who was a showy rider, circling round them. Iskender had told Elias plainly : " The Emir is mine. I found him ; and shall keep him all my own." " It is known he is thine," the elder had made answer with all deference. " Allah forbid that I should seem to rival thee ! But his Honour has been merciful to me, and my soul is bound to him and thee in THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 97 gratitude. Moreover, nowadays I have much spare time, which I can scarcely hope to spend more profitably than in the society and conversation of so exalted and refined a nobleman. He is thine and shall remain so. Only drive me not away ! " Iskender acceded to this petition the more readily that his Emir, he could see, regarded the most exquisite of dragomans simply as a standing joke. They laughed together at his superstition and his boastfulness. But their butt was really serviceable in small ways, knowing where to hire good horses at the lowest price, and pointing out in the course of their rides objects of interest of the very existence of which Iskender had been ignorant. Never had the son of Yacub known such happiness as he tasted in those rides across the plain which basked in sunshine, with violet mountains before them and a gleam of the sea behind. Here they traversed a mud-village plumed with palms, its narrow ways alive with dogs, and fowls, and children, where Iskender shouted, " Way for the Emir ! " till men and women bowed their heads and praised him ; there an olive-grove profuse of 7 98 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS dappled shade, where they were content to let their horses walk at ease. In their saddle- bags was much good food from the hotel, which they devoured at noon in some secluded spot ; when Elias would discourse to them of strange vicissitudes, of beggars suddenly up- lifted to the height of honour, and the Emir, reclining lazily, would smile and wink privately at Iskender, who, at every such mark of preferment, longed to kiss his feet. No marvel yet related by Elias could compare with his own good fortune in Iskender's eyes. One evening, on their return to the hotel, when two stable-boys were leading off the tired horses, and Iskender, with Elias, stood waiting to take leave of his kind lord, the negro brought a little card to the Emir, who eyed it strangely. " It is that missionary-man you hate so," he informed Iskender. " What in the name of Moses made him call on me ? " "Ha, ha! 'Name of Moses!'" laughed Elias, who was daily adding to his store of English idioms. " By gum, that's good ! " Iskender inwardly thanked Allah Most High THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 99 for his mercy in directing the Father of Ice to call while the Emir was out. He thought no more of it. They rode again the next day and the next ; his happiness went on, unshadowed, till a certain morning when the Frank an- nounced, with a yawn, that he supposed he must return the visit of the missionary. This he gave as a reason for not riding on that day. He would write off arrears of letters in the morning, and in the afternoon would walk out to the Mission. Iskender's jaw fell. It had never occurred to him as even remotely possible that his Emir would stoop to enter the abode of people he had always mentioned with such fine contempt. The picture of his loved one seated in the well-known drawing-room, an object of atten- tion to the ladies, hobnobbing with the Father of Ice — his Emir, whom he had come to regard as the very counterblast of that house and all it stood for — gave him a sense of being upside down. The Frank laughed at his dismay, inquiring : " Why so surprised ? I must return the poor man's call in mere politness." " They hate me very much there," said ioo THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS Iskender miserably. " I fear they tell you things not true about me." " I know the truth from you, don't I ? Let them say what they like ! " Iskender went forth from his presence, pondering this reassurance, which contained no comfort for him, since he had given his lord to understand that he had received his education at the Mission as an independent paying pupil, and had quite concealed the fact that his mother was a washerwoman. The Emir, if he thought at all of the matter, supposed him a youth of substance. How could he think otherwise, when he heard Iskender offer to defray the cost of horses, and saw him daily bring some pre- sent in his hand ? Now he would learn the truth. Elias was standing in the doorway talking to Daud son of Musa when his friend came out. He noticed his glum looks, and asked the cause. ** My Emir is going to visit that accursed missionary, who hates me and will work my ruin if he can." "Why then remain a Brutestint among THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 101 such enemies ? Return to the Orthodox Church, and thou shalt find friends enough." The mighty Daud deigned for once a glance at Iskender. The house of Musa were fanatics in religion. Elias took Iskender's hand and went out with him. " The news is bad for me too," he said ruefully, " for they hate me also — curse their religion ! " "What matter for thee? He is not thy Emir. For me, it is the risk of life itself." Iskender broke away from him at the first chance, and walked back to his home upon the sandhills. His mother screamed surprise at sight of him. " My Emir is busy," he explained, assuming cheerfulness as a good shield from questions, which might easily have probed too far into his cause for grief. For the same reason he forbore all mention of the purposed visit of his Emir to the Mission. " I am free to-day, and so returned to see if I could help thee in the house." Receiving his offer of help in sober earnest, she sent him presently upon an errand to the 102 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS house of Costantin ; but on the way there, with the Mission full in sight, its red tiles glaring fiercely in the noonday sun, it occurred to him that his Emir would surely fall in love with the Sitt Hilda. Rent by the twofold anguish of the thought, he wandered aimless for an hour, and then returned, to gape at mention of an errand. His mother hurled a saucepan at his head. " May thy house be destroyed ! " she screamed. " Nay, go not now. it is too late ! Within this minute I have seen Costantin take the road to the town. O Lord, what have I done to be thus afflicted ? " Iskender then sat down before the threshold, and fell to drawing pictures in the sand, smoking cigarette after cigarette without contentment, till he knew by the shadow of the prickly-pears that the afternoon was well advanced ; when he changed his position for one commanding the approach to the Mission, lit a fresh cigarette and began his watch. " Thou dost smoke enough for twenty men ! " his mother scolded. " Thou art always asking me for cash to buy the stuff, even THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 103 now when thou hast thy Emir! Take from him, he will be none the wiser. Thou hast no more intelligence than a sheep." Iskender heard her not. He had caught sight of the figure of a Frank moving briskly along the ridge of the opposite dune. It seemed but a second ere it passed into the Mission, and was lost to sight. Iskender fell face downwards, making some idle play with the sand for his mother's benefit, the while his heart went out in prayer to Allah. It seemed an age ere the Emir came forth. From where he lay Iskender could not distin- guish so much as the colour of his clothes, yet he fancied he could see his heart was sad or angry. Having watched him out of sight, he sprang up suddenly and strode off towards the Mission in the hope of news. As luck would have it he met Asad son of Costantin. " I was on my way to tell thee." That youth of promise grinned from ear to ear at the sudden encounter. He had to apply his mind for a minute to a stick of sugar-cane he was sucking before he could compose a countenance suitable to the bearer of ill tidings. " The Father of Ice — curse his father ! — has 104 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS done what I told thee he would do, has ruined thee with thy Emir. He made thee out the lowest of the low, and told his Honour of thy boast that thou wouldst use his money as thy own, even to the extent of making him pay for thy education as a painter in the English schools. He told him it was wrong for him to ride on horseback beside one like thee — for whom to ride an ass were signal honour. Ah, I assure thee by Allah he has done it thoroughly. I have the story from the maid who carried tea to them. She listened by the door at my request, because I knew how nearly it concerned thee." By way of consolation Asad offered to his friend a length of sugar-cane he had himself sucked three parts dry. It was accepted blindly. Iskender knew not what he did or said. He wandered by the sea till it was dark, and then went home and passed a sleepless night in dreams of wealth, by which alone it seemed his love could be cleansed from all appearance of self-interest. Before his mother awoke in the morning he slipped out, and walked into the town, where he loitered down by the quay, kicking his heels, THE VALLEY OF THE KT^GS 105 until it was time to present himself at the hotel and learn his fate. " The khawajah has announced his will to ride alone to-day, and for an hour only," said Seltm the son of Musa, who stood sunning himself in the doorway. The words struck like bullets on Iskender's heart, they so cruelly confirmed the tale of Asad son of Costantin. Elias arrived, and asked him how he did. Iskender made known his tidings in a voice half-choked by grief. "Was any word said against me?" asked the dragoman eagerly. Iskender shook his head. " The praise to Allah ! Take heart, O my soul ! If I am still in favour, I can plead for thee." " Thou in his favour ! Thou art nought to him ! " replied Iskender with a sudden burst of spite. Elias was about to answer angrily when the subject of their speech appeared. Both sprang to their feet expectantly. But the Emir, with a blunt " Good-morning," passed them by and mounted the horse which stood in waiting 106 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS before the door. They watched him ride away, then turned and gazed into each other's eyes. Both agreed that there was nothing for it but to sit down again and await further revelations of the will of Allah. When the Emir returned, after less than an hour's absence, his temper had improved, for he laughed at a joke of Elias, and suffered them both to accompany him to his room. Elias pushed home his advantage, telling a succession of funny stories in exaggerated broken English. The Emir laughed heartily, and talked with him. Iskender, abashed by the uncertainty of finding favour, dared not risk a word ; and his loved one never even looked at him. " You come with me, sir, this afternoon. I show you sefral things you neffer seen ! " said Elias, when the bell had rung for lunch. The Emir consented. " You see, he hears me ! " cried the drago- man with exultation, when he and Iskender were once more alone together. " Confide in me, and I will lead him back towards thee ! " THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 107 The touch of patronage entombed Iskender. His Emir, to be led to him by Elias ! But " Weep not, O my soul ! " the latter begged him. " Come with us this afternoon and I will bring thee forward." CHAPTER IX The son of Yacub longed to be alone and weep his fill, but could not leave Elias in possession. It was as a dumb and piteous plea against the usurpation of Elias, and not from any hope of reinstatement, that he attended the Emir that afternoon, when the dragoman led them among the stinking alleys of the town, under archways and through private houses, pointing out sites of interest which Iskender felt sure were of his own invention ; and he very soon wished that he had kept away. For Elias, according to his promise, " brought him forward," begging the Emir to have compassion on him, because he was a good boy and devoted to his Honour's service. Iskender could only mutter, shamefaced, when the Frank addressed him. " Why did you deceive me ? I thought you were well off, or I should never have 1 08 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 109 accepted all those presents. Now you must please accept a trifle from me." Iskender found in his hand a piece of gold, and saw Elias nodding and grimacing. He murmured words of thanks perfunctorily, the while he gnashed his teeth with secret rage. Such kindness was an outrage to his love, being given at the bidding, in the presence, of the rogue Elias. The cup of his humiliation overflowed. " Now all is well," Elias told him afterwards. " Be thankful that thou hast a friend like me. He smiled on thee ; he gave thee money. Thou art back in favour." Iskender was obliged to thank him kindly. What his soul needed was to be alone with his Emir, to throw himself at his feet, and win his true forgiveness. The casual kind word with a fee was worse than nothing in the realm of love. But Elias, as if of fixed intent to thwart him, stood always in the way, annihilating the unhappy youth with con- descension, bidding him cheer up and amuse his Honour. Iskender heard his rattle with a stupid admiration which the Emir's applaud- ing laughter made quite envious. He himself no THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS had fallen to the level of a mere serving-lad, to run his Honour's errands and be tipped occasionally. His mother judged that things were thriving with him, since he brought home money ; and he did not undeceive her, wishing to keep his grievous fall a secret as long as possible ; though soon, he feared, it must be evident to all the world. Already Yuhanna and the other dragomans jeered at him in the streets, acclaiming the triumph of Elias, their own comrade. He thought of invoking the aid of his uncle Abdullah, but that respectable man was for the moment absent on Cook's business. There seemed no hope of success by his own efforts, for in the presence of the Emir he could not now think clearly, nor find a word to please. Distress of longing set a cloud upon his brow, a weight upon his tongue, which was not lightened when Elias chaffed him for a dull companion. It was only when alone that he regained his normal wit ; and then his soul leapt up in envy of the brilliant dragoman. Elias was clever ; he had seen the world ; his position as a dragoman would bear inspection. No THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS in wonder that the Frank preferred him to the son of a poor washerwoman, whose lowliness Elias himself was always emphasising. Thus attacked, and without defence, since there was no denying that his origin was humble, Iskender's pride took refuge in its old imaginings. Walking to the hotel, he would picture himself a king's son in disguise, or else the owner of enormous treasure ; would smile, and clench his hands, and step ex- ultantly ; would think : " If the Emir but knew me as I really am ! " But, approaching the Emir, such fancies vanished. They were of no use because no one would believe them. It took Elias to give truth to wondrous stories by judiciously eschewing points that could be verified. Iskender, in great anguish, prayed to Allah to destroy Elias, or at least to teach His servant a true story, that he might out- shine the miscreant. Dazzled by the triumph of that splendid liar, he thought of story- telling as the only way to the Emir's good graces ; and lay awake whole nights' con- structing fables which the first faint light of dawn showed to be worthless. An appeal to the good nature of his rival ii2 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS failed irrevocably. When Iskender entreated to be left alone with his Emir, were it but for five minutes, Elias stiffened, crying : " Curse thy father ! What means this plaintive whisper in my ear? Thy Emir! He was thine by his own will, and has tired of thee. Now he is my Emir. It is natural he should prefer [the society of a grown man who has dwelt in England, and acquired the manner of its nobles, to that of a loutish, sullen boy, untravelled, ignorant ! Behold, I have stood thy friend. But for me, he would have cast thee off entirely. . . . Leave thee alone with him ? No, by Allah, that I will not — and have thee telling wicked lies against me." Iskender turned away in great unhappiness, deeming his last hope gone. That night he lay awake and thought of wealth as the only power that could confound his enemies. At last he fejl asleep and dreamt of gold — nothing but gold ; small rounded pebbles of it clothed the ground for miles. It was more, ten thousand times, than all the wealth of all the kingdoms put together. The sky above was black as pitch, though something told him that the hour was noon ; the gold put THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 113 out the sun. " All mine ! " he thought, and was preparing to gather it, but some one stopped him with an iron hand ; and then he woke, to hear his mother's snores and see the flicker of the night-light on the rafters. His first sensations were of disappointment as though great wealth had really lain within his grasp. But presently, as he pondered on the vision, his heart leapt up with exultation at the thought that here was the nucleus of a story, marvellous as any that Elias had related, and true, for who save Allah had surveyed the whole wide world, and could deny the existence somewhere of a plain all gold. Moreover, it would be a story after the Emir's own heart, concerning, as it would, the search for treasure. " If I say that I myself beheld the place, it will be false," thought Iskender to himself, " because I am young and every one knows that I have never travelled. But suppose I say my father saw it, then it will be true, for my father is dead and he travelled far in his day, and Allah alone knows what he saw or did not see." The rest of that night was spent upon the story, considering in what manner it should be revealed, with what precautions and what vows 8 U4 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS of secrecy. As it shaped itself in his mind it seemed a fortune hardly less than that he had beheld in sleep. He rose at daybreak, thought- worn but light of heart. As it happened, that morning, his mother sent him to the Mission with a message concerning some mistake she had discovered in the tale of the last week's washing. He had to wait the pleasure of the ladies, to carry a message from them to his mother, and bring back her answer ; so that it was past the usual hour when he reached the hotel. He met the Emir and Elias going out together. " His Excellency has graciously consented to honour with his presence an orange-garden which belongs to me," said the dragoman to Iskender in Arabic. "" The weather is fine, like summer ; the fruit ripens. It will be pleasant reclining in the shade." The whole world swam before Iskender's eyes around the handsome figure of Elias, whose scarlet dust-cloak seemed a flame of fire. What was a plain of gold in the truest of stories to compare with an orange-garden actually existent close at hand? He had prepared to vanquish Elias in one sphere, THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 115 and the coward leapt into another where he could not reach him. Never till now had he heard that Elias owned a garden. This was the end. Iskender resigned a contest so unequal. He heard the Emir invite him to go with them, but shook his head, quite unable to articulate a reply. The despair of his mother, the hateful triumph of the mission- aries, the derisive laughter of the dragomans, came before his mind. Some one, passing by, gave a chuckle. He sprang to self- conscious- ness with the impression that the whole world laughed. The doorway of the hotel was near. He fled through it, pretending that he had come to claim the sketching things he was wont to leave in charge of the doorkeeper. With those in his hands he hurried forth again, glad to escape the negro's friendly grin. CHAPTER X Half-blind with tears and rendered witless by despair, Iskender had walked half the distance to his mother's house before he realised that he had no desire to go there. A pool of shade by the roadside inviting, he sat down in it, and gave the rein to grief. It was with a mild surprise that, when his sense returned, he found himself under the ilex'tree before the little church which Mttri served. Afraid of interruption he looked round uneasily. But no one was in sight, and he was loth to move. He opened his sketch-book for a suggestion of employment in case any one should espy him, and re- turned to sorrow. From the group of hovels close at hand came women's voices and the cluck of hens ; over his head, among the branches of the oak-tree, doves were cooing. The plumes 116 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 117 of the two palm-trees hung dead still amid the sunshine ; the shade in which he sat was quite unruffled. A train of camels saun- tered by along the sandy road, with clanging bells, their driver chanting softly to himself. Iskender's heart went out in yearning to the peaceful scene. He envied the dwellers in those low mud-hovels, who led their simple lives with praise to Allah ; envied the poor camel-driver singing in the sunshine as he jogged along. Alas for him, he had no part with these, but was a Protestant, a stranger in his native land, a monstrous creation of those English who had cast him off, a byword, a bad joke. The iridescent plumage of some pigeons, which, emboldened by his stillness, came strutting and pecking on the ground before him, drew his gaze ; and, half- unconsciously, he began to trace their likeness on the page before him. While thus engaged he heard a stealthy tread behind him, and felt a breath on his neck as some one leaned above him to inspect his work. In a flash he remembered the beautiful child, the daughter of Mttri, and his heart beat fiercely. The violent change of emotion paralysed him for n8 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS some seconds; then he turned round suddenly and made a grab. The girl suppressed a scream, and tried to run, but he had caught her arm. With joyful eagerness, though the tears of despair were still wet on his face, he pleaded : " Why wouldst fly from me, my soul ? Why art thou here if not to talk with me ? " " The picture," she murmured angrily, pulling against him hard, with face averted. " The picture, is it ? Only stay till it is finished, and I will give it thee with pleasure." "No, no, I tell thee ; let me go or I will tear thy eyes out! Art thou not a Brutestant, a dog ? Thy touch is defilement. How canst thou continue in that lying faith ? Art thou not scared each night at the thought of the devils and the eternal fires ? " She gave up resistance, and stood surveying him with great round eyes of horror, fascinated by the sight of a creature doomed to ever- lasting torment. The feel of her slight brown wrist was like a snake for coolness. Iskender ventured to caress it with his fingers. But at the touch she snatched it from him angrily, and sprang to a safe distance. THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 119 " Thou hast been weeping ; why ? " she asked with a cool directness, which was like a sword-thrust in Iskender's heart. His woe broke out afresh. " O Lord ! " he blubbered. " I have none to love me. My Emir, whom I love truly, casts me off. The Brutestants, who brought me up, despise me. The Christians call me dog!" " O man, stop crying, for it frightens me." Nesibeh came again, and leaned over him. " Be sure thy sorrow is from the hand of Allah to punish thy errors and disgust thee with them. My father says that calamities are often sent as warnings to the reprobate. Be thou warned, O my dear, and return to the Church. Then our Lord will be pleased with thee, and make men love thee." "And thou — wilt thou too love me, or still call me dog ? " Iskender seized her hand again, though she resisted furiously. But the words were cut in his mouth by a heavy hand which smote him sideways, deafening one ear ; and when he recovered from sensations of a general earthquake, it was to find himself alone with Mitri. 120 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS The priest stood smiling down on him with folded arms. " What means this, O son of a dog ? " he said through clenched teeth. " Dost thou take us, by chance, for Brutestants, for shameless heathens ? Praise be to Allah, we are quite unused to Frankish manners. Respect our daughters as thou wouldst the daughters of the Muslim, or harm will come to thee." At those words all his former misery re- turned upon Iskender. He buried his face in his sleeve. The anger of the priest turned to astonish- ment. After staring for a minute, he sat down beside the youth and, putting his arm round his neck, inquired : " What ails thee, O my dear ? It cannot be that thou dost weep so bitterly because I struck thee, nor yet for penitence in the matter of my daughter. Such things afflict not thus the mind of youth. Come, tell me what it is ! Open thy heart. Who knows but, in Allah's mercy, I may be of help to thee?" Iskender lifted his eyes for one swift glance THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 121 at his would-be consoler, then hid them once more in his hands. The expression of the priest's strong face commanded confidence, and he felt the need of a friend. After a second's hesitation, he confessed all : how he had deceived the Emir at first as to his worldly station, how that deception had given the missionaries power to set his lord against him, and then how Elias, by unheard of per- fidy, with diabolical arts, had taken posses- sion of the Emir, and prevented Iskender's obtaining the private audience which would have put things right. The priest heard him to the end, then eyed him curiously. " Allah is merciful ! " he observed. " See what it is to be an infidel. Had this happened to me I should simply have turned away with a shrug and ' Praise to Allah.' But this youth has been taught to put his trust in worldly things, and when these fail, as fail they always do, he comes near to kill him- self." " I am no longer a Brutestant ! " rejoined Iskender vehemently. " Allah knows I hate the race of them ! But I have not yet told 122 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS thee all my cause of grief — all the perfidy of the fiend Elias. It was bad enough when I supposed him poor like me. Now it seems he is the owner of an orange-garden. I knew it not until this morning. He has taken my Emir away to feast there in the shade. How can I ever compete with a rich landowner ? " " I ask pardon of Allah ! An orange- garden ? Elias own an orange-garden ? Never, in this low world ! Now whither has he led the good khawajah ? " Mltri laid a finger between his eyebrows, and thought deeply. Anon his face brightened. " If I give thee thy revenge upon Elias," he demanded, "wilt thou swear by the Incar- nation to forsake the errors of the Brutestants, and come to me henceforth for instruction in the way of right ? " " I have done already with the Brutes- tants," replied Iskender, all alert in an instant at the suggestion of a bargain ; " but as to joining the Orthodox, my mind is not yet clear." " By the help of Allah, I will clear it for thee. Come and reason with me : that is all THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 123 I ask. Swear to do this or I will not help thee." Iskender swore with secret alacrity, having the girl Nesibeh in his mind's eye. " That is well. Now I think I know the trick that rogue is playing. I have seen him in the company of one Muhammad, who tends the orange-garden belonging to a member of our Church, the rich Aziz ; and Aziz is gone these two days upon business to El Cuds. But his brother remains with us, praise to Allah, and it is but a step from here to go and warn him. I too have a debt against Elias, who invited me to bless his house, yet never 'paid me. So dry thy tears, my son, and come with me." The priest went in among the hovels, while Iskender gathered up his sketching things, with hope revived. It being noon, the brother of the rich Aziz was in his house. It was plain he did not share his brother's wealth, for his abode was of the humblest, and in dress and bearing he was a poor fellah. His dark face brightened wonderfully when he heard what the priest required of him. He seized his staff and called out all the neighbours, 134 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS who burst out laughing when they learned the nature of his business. When Iskender joined them, however, there were looks askance ; one said to another, "Is not this the Brutestant, the son of Yacub ? What hand has he in this affair ? It were a sin for us to vex a true believer for the pleasure of a child of filthy dogs," till the priest cried, " Welcome him, for he accepts the truth," when all gave praise to Allah. One tall fellah forthwith embraced Iskender, and began at once to tell him of the joys of Heaven. The brother of Aziz then led the way down a narrow path among fruit-trees to his brother's garden, which was not far off. The crowd of neighbours followed. Arrived at the gate, he ordered the women and children to remain there, while himself and Mttri, with six turbaned men all armed with big tough staves, crossed themselves devoutly, murmured " Bismillah," put the right foot first, and stole in very quietly. Iskender followed at a distance, contrary to the command of Mitri, who had bidden him wait without with the women and children, till he saw them stop and whisper together, THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 125 when he struck off" independently. Pressing his way through the dark foliage, hung with yellowing globes and sweet with the scent of orange-flowers, he reached a secret place whence he could watch what happened. CHAPTER XI On a carpet spread in the shade which fringed some open ground beside the sakieh, Elias and the Frank reclined at ease. Within hand's reach of each of them was placed a heap of oranges and sweet lemons, representing every variety which the garden produced ; and between them reposed a tray on which were seen the remains of a choice repast. A creeper with a wealth of crimson flowers, wreathing a rough arbour built to shade the sakieh, contrasted the dark foliage of the fruit-trees. The sky was pure blue and cloudless. There was a hum of insects in the air. The man Muhammad, keeper of the garden, sat on his heels at a respectful distance from the feasters, watching for a signal to remove the tray. All at once this man sprang up, his mouth fell open. With a great oath he fled among the trees. Where- 126 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 127 upon the brother of Aziz and his company threw off concealment, and came forward boldly with loud talk and laughter. Elias gazed upon them, stupefied. Before he could get on his feet, they closed around him. Iskender heard the priest cry : " Woe to him who withholds from the Church her dues ! " Mttri, with the brother of Aziz, then paid respect to the Emir, engaging his attention while Elias was being led away. Guided by the outcry of the prisoner, Iskender followed his captors on a parallel line among the orange- trees. He heard the howls of derision with which the women hailed the appearance of the boaster, and their demand that he should be weil beaten to reward his impudence. Iskender drew close to them and peeped out through the leaves. " Beat me ? Nay, that you dare not ! " cried Elias. " The lives of all of you would not suffice my vengeance. Wait, wait till I get hold of my good sword ! " " Thy sword, if thou hast one, is of wood, O braggart ! " laughed one of his captors, at the same time giving him a shove which sent 128 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS him reeling up against another of the band, who straight returned him. '* Nay, nay," he protested, in his passage through the air. " By Allah, I possess one, of the finest steel. Ask Mitri, ask Iskender ; they have seen it ! " Then, as they continued their rough game with him, he screamed out : " Are you Christian men or devils thus to maltreat me on account of a few oranges for which I paid the guardian ? " " Nay, O beloved ! Allah witness, it is not the oranges we begrudge thee, but the honour thou didst take unto thyself feloniously." "Aha, thou art the owner of this place, and we thy servants ! " " Oranges ! Let him have his fill of them!" A woman snatched an orange from the nearest tree, and flung it full in his face. He opened his mouth to remonstrate, but another orange stopped it on the instant. With a fearful oath he gave up the argument, and ran for his life, amid a roar of laughter. Then Iskender came out upon the pathway, and walked along it till he reached the sakieh. THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 129 As pre-arranged with Mitri, he feigned great surprise at sight of the Emir, exclaiming : " I thought you said the garden of Elias. This is the garden of Aziz abu Suleyman," " Something queer has happened," said his patron, showing great uneasiness. " These people have been trying to explain to me, but I can't understand them." Iskender looked to the priest for elucidation. After a short conference apart with him, he was in a position to inform his lord, who, learning the deception put on him, was very angry. His Honour was for leaving the place at once ; but Mitri and the brother of Aziz would not let him depart as if in dudgeon. The little crowd of men, women, and children, having finished with Elias, now drew near, and sat or lay in a half circle at a respectful distance from the group upon the carpet. The brother of Aziz flung oranges to them ; and both he and Mitri asked for tidings of the boaster, which Iskender was called upon to translate for the Frank's behoof. The downfall of Elias seemed complete. But the victor could not take much joy in it, for the face of his Emk still showed nothing but annoyance. 9 130 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS If only Mitri and the rest would now retire, he thought impatiently, he might throw himself at the feet of his dear lord. As it was, he was forced to make his petition lamely, calmly, shorn of all that outward self-abasement which the case demanded. It was something, how- ever, to be sure of privacy, to know himself alone with his Emir in knowledge of the English tongue. " Oh, sir," he faltered, " forgif me, do, or I shall die of grief. You 'f neffer been the same to me since goin' to the Mission. I luf you, sir, enough to gif my life. I thought you would hate me if you knew my mother was a washin'-woman ! It break my heart ef'ry time you gif me money ; I luf to gif you things, not take things from you. If the missionaries tell you contrary, they're dam liars. Elias thinks of mOney ; but not me, because I luf you truly. I'll be a slafe to you. Do blease belief me ! " His lord was deeply moved. He said, " That's all right," and gave his hand to Iskender, who all at once beheld the beauty of the trees and sky, the wealth of crimson flowers above the sakieh. But when the THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 131 suppliant pressed it to his lips, the Frank seemed angry, cried, " Don't be idiotic ! " and glanced round him nervously. " I luf you, sir!" pursued Iskender passion- ately. " By God, I neffer tell you lies again. You trust me, sir, and just be kind to me. It kills me when you luf that false Elias." " Oh, that's all right," was the impatient answer. " I shall trust you for the future. Can't you talk of something else ? " Then it dawned upon Iskender that his Honour did not like this talk of love. At a loss, he changed his tone, but not the subject, giving his patron the true history of his differ- ence with the missionaries, which arose from his boyish passion for the Sitt Hilda. "Is that the young one ? Not a bad-looking girl, if she dressed properly!" threw in the Emir ; and again Iskender was at a loss, for he could not conceive how dress could do other- wise than hide a woman's beauty. He returned to his own case. " I luf you, sir, and neffer, neffer will deceif you more." " Oh, shut up, can't you ?" said the Frank disgustedly ; but presently, when they had 132 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS taken leave of Mitri and the brother of Aziz, he grasped Iskender's arm in friendly wise. As they strolled together down a sandy path among the gardens, whose dark rich green encroached upon a sky of living blue, the scent of orange-flowers pervading the still air, and the murmur of innumerable bees enforcing languor, Iskender walked in heaven. " You-trust me now, dear sir ? " "Yes, yes, I trust you. I shall never forgive Elias for that dirty trick." " It is only just what I did always tell you. He is an imbudent fellow, and a most horrible liar," returned Iskender lightly, grudging Elias even his lord's anger. A pause ensued. Iskender had no more to say, yet dreaded silence, recalling his uncle's advice to him to keep the Frank amused — advice which he had so lately seen confirmed in the case of Elias, the, amusing talker. He knew that his patron's mind, unless engaged, was sure to revert to the adventure of the orange-garden, and recall his rival, of whom he wished to obliterate the very thought. Then, of a sudden, while he racked his brain, he was seized with recollection of his THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 133 vision of the night before. It returned to him from without, by no effort of his own ; and was first announced to his consciousness by the sensation of a sudden flush from head to foot. Here was a subject able to engross the Emir's whole interest, to the exclusion of Elias from his thoughts for ever. " Sir," he said, " I wish to sbeak to you." CHAPTER XII The solemnity of Iskender's voice claimed grave attention. The Emir recalled his gaze from far-off things, and fixed it upon the speaker with some awe. Both stood stock still. " If you blease, sir, I think I tell you better sittin' down." Iskender had espied a Muslim tomb among the leaves ahead, a small white cube, with egg-shaped dome atop of it, having in its shade a place for the repose of wayfarers. Thither he conducted the Emir, and both sat down. Iskender toyed with his fingers' in the crevices of its rough pavement. He wished to enjoy his love alone as long as possible ; and the walk from thence to the hotel was but a short one. From a garden-hedge before them, two cypress- trees stood sharply out against the jewel sky. »34 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 135 " I wish to sbeak to you, sir, about some- thing which I nefifer told to anybody. My mother knows, but no one else. Will you bromise, blease, to keeb it secret, what I'm goin' to tell you ? " " Yes, rather ! Fire away," said the Emir. " Well, sir, I know of a blace where gold is found more blenty than the oranges in that garden we now come from." " You don't ? You're joking ! " The Emir stared at him. " I do, sir. You know, there's lots of country neffer been exblored away there to the south and east, behind the Jordan. No one efifer goes there. My father went there once — he was a muleteer and traffeled all about in those days — and in the desert, far away from any houses, he found a blace where bits of gold were lyin' on the ground quite thick like bebbles in a mountain wady." " But your father was not rich," the Frank objected. " No, sir; and just because he was not rich, he could not go again and fetch the gold. It wants horses and camels, and many men and arms to make afraid the Bedouins. My father 136 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS saw that blace with his own eyes, and before he died he wrote a baber teach me how to get there. He told me he got a big biece of gold, enough to make him rich, but had to drob it after a bit, it was so hefty." "How far is the place from here ? " " Nine days or ten, I think. When I get home I look in the baber which my father left and see for certain." "But perhaps your father was mistaken, and the stuff he found was not gold at all." " That might be." Iskender grasped his chin reflectively, admitting that he had not thought of that contingency. " But father was a knowing man," he added; "he looked close at things. Though he was only a boor common man, he had traffeled a great deal, and I think he'd know gold when he saw it." " I must say I should like to go and see," exclaimed the Emir, now warming to the subject. " You'd better not, sir, till you make sure of brotection. The desert beeble don't like strangers hangin' round. And the Guffernment would stob you, if they got to know. I thought I'd tell you, sir, because you're kindest friend THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 137 I effer had. Then by-and-by you get some friends to join you, and go with a strong barty ; and then, when you've got much gold, you think : Iskender made me a nice bresent. I hobe you think so. I know I am only a boor common man, like dirt to you. But I luff you truly, sir, and wish to gif you something." " Don't talk such rubbish," said the Emir impatiently. " Of course we should share alike, and go together, if at all. By Jove, it would be fun ! " and he began to shadow forth the expedition, Iskender helping him with tempting details. To Iskender the vision of riding for days together alone with his beloved seemed all glorious. Sitting there beside the Muslim tomb, with the Emir talking to him like a brother in the excitement of their common dream, he lost the thought of time, and was surprised to see the fires of evening in the sky, and the shadows of the two tall cypress-trees extending right across the sandy road. " We must find out more about that place," said the Emir with a great yawn as he rose and stretched himself. " We must make 138 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS inquiries. Other people must at least have heard of it." " Oh, sir, I beg you not ! " the son of Yacub cried in sudden terror. " You bromised faith- fully to keeb my secret ! " " Of course, you stupid ! " came the laughing assurance. " We can make inquiries without telling any one." At the door of the hotel they found Elias waiting. He stood forth and greeted the Emir quite unabashed, convulsed with laughter at the latter's cold amazement. " You thinkin' of that business in the garden ? Neffer fear, sir ! That was all a dam' bad joke of that briest-fellow, Mitri — I'll be efen with him yet, by Jingo ! — all to pay me out because I neffer gif him nothing when he bless my house. He is a funny man, sir — that briest is ! He makes me laugh fit to sblit with his awful silly jokes." Yet while thus joyously ascribing his late discomfiture to the Orthodox priest, his manner towards Iskender showed new deference, clearly indicating that he saw the young man's hand in the business, and recognised his master in guile. Iskender was greatly shocked when his THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 139 Emir allowed that proven rogue to enter with them. What was his horror when, arrived in the bedroom, his Highness lightly asked Elias if he had ever heard of a place in the interior where gold lay on the surface of the ground. His lord shot a glance at Iskender to re- assure him on the score of secrecy. But the poor youth gnashed his teeth and clenched his hands. He saw his credit hanging on a thread, his new-found favour on the point of leaving him, Elias avenged, triumphant. The dragoman had travelled far and wide ; he was sure to ridicule the tale, and prove convincingly that no such place existed. He could hardly suppress a cry when Elias, instead of laughing, pulled a grave face and solemnly affirmed : " I know it well." " Have you been there ? " inquired the Emtr, himself astonished. " I heard of it to-day by chance, and am curious to know the whole story of it." " Not I myself. But I know one man what went there. He left this bart of the country, though; may be dead, by Jofe, for what I know ! " Interrogated further, Elias declared that the 140 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS name of the place was well known. It was Wady '1 Muluk, the Valley of the Kings; though why he could not say, unless it were because the kings of old, who were certainly richer than kings are nowadays, derived their gold from thence. Many persons had, at divers times, set out to find that place ; but few had reached it, for the reason that no one knew the road exactly, and the desert tribes were fond of killing travellers. " Don't you make no mistake ! " he con- cluded. " The Wady '1 Muluk, he's there all right, only a job to find him. If you want to hear about him, I tell you what, dear sir, I ask some beebles." " I should be obliged if you would," said the Frank. Iskender was still in the stupefied state of one who wakes to find his dream made real. After such evidence from Elias, an unprepared, impartial person, there was no longer any room for doubt but that the gold of his vision actually existed. He felt a trifle jealous of the witness for knowing more about it than he did himself. A servant summoning the Emtr to dinner, he went out into the twilight THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 141 with Elias, who still treated him with the gravest deference. As they walked away together, the dragoman still talking of the wonders of the place of gold, Iskender could not help informing him that he had certain knowledge of the whereabouts of that valley, away in the eastern wilderness, beyond the Jordan. " Thou sayest ? Now may Allah bless thee ! " muttered Elias, with immediate reverence. " Allah witness how I always loved thee. I understand now why his Honour questioned me with so much mystery. You are going there together. The Emir will furnish forth the expedition and become thy partner. Allah witness how I always loved thee. Bitterly do I repent my conduct towards thee of the last few days, and Allah knows thou hast had ample vengeance. Thou art too strong for me. Henceforth I am thy friend and loving servant. Take me also, I beseech thee, O my soul. I can be useful to thee from my wide experience in travel ; and of the spoil I would claim no more than an alms or gleaning. Fear not that I shall breathe a word to any man, Elias is re- 142 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS nowned for his discretion. Say yes, O beloved! For the love of Allah, let me go with you." Iskender said yes, though with mental reservations. The concession set Elias upon heights of glory. He kissed Iskender on both cheeks at parting, and swore by Allah that the love he felt for him transcended that which he bore his own father and mother. CHAPTER XIII Iskender followed the sandy road through the gardens. It was dark, and the forms of one or two men who passed him made him tremble, they sprang so suddenly out of the gloom, noiseless, their footfalls deadened by the soft sand. The events of the day had left on him a strong impression of the super- natural, and now he felt that witchcraft was abroad, expected each minute that some evil claw would pounce on him out of the gloom. The very stars of heaven looked uncanny. Cold sweat came out upon his forehead ; his legs dragged weakly though he longed to run. Two palm-trees standing out against the sky told him he was approaching the abode of Mitri ; the church, the hovels, even the ilex- tree, were swallowed up in the dark cloud of the gardens which rolled mysterious on every side, Presently he saw a light among 143 144 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS the dwellings. It occurred to him to call at the priest's house, and render thanks for his intervention in the matter of Elias. He longed to speak to some one, any one, for rescue from the grinning terror of the night. He knocked at the door with loud blessings. It was opened, with a sudden gush of light. The priest peered out into the gloom. " Is it thou, O my son ? " he cried, recognising at length the voice that praised his kindness. " No, Allah be my witness, I will accept nothing from thee — neither thanks nor anything else, save thy conversion. Hast come to seek instruction in accordance with thy promise ? Alas ! I cannot bid thee enter, for my wife and children are abed ; the hour is late. What ails thee that thou tremblest? Art afraid of the powers of darkness, poor Brutestant without a saint to guard thee ? Wait, I will take my staff and bear thee company. " By Allah, thou hast every cause to fear," he continued, stepping forth beside Iskender. " Thy errors give the devils power to harm thee. The Franks are not afraid ; for in each one of them there sits a devil far more THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 145 powerful than those outside. But thou, poof innocent dupe, art left defenceless. Surely the falsehood of their teaching must be evident to a youth of thy intelligence ? " " Nay, O my father, though my soul abhors them, I still discern much good in their beliefs." Iskender, freed from fear, could argue lightly. That morning, when he gave his word to Mttri, he had felt alone and helpless. Now, in repossession of his Emir, with boundless wealth in prospect, the question of his change of faith seemed unimportant. That the Orthodox creed was the way of salvation, he had no doubt ; his mother had always said so ; but there seemed plenty of time in which to save his soul. He added : "How can their faith be false, seeing it is founded on the Holy Scriptures?" " They quote the Scriptures, it is true," retorted Mitri, " but without rule or guidance, each in the pride of his own understanding — the devils do the same ! — so that no two Brutestants believe alike. They reject all those sacred traditions which lead back to Christ. Their only union is in hatred of the Church. They exist for themselves alone, 10 146 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS to the hurt of others, just like stinging insects. And Allah alone knows why they were ever created, unless it be as a kind of hornet to molest the faithful. Consider, O my dear, how transient this life is ; its prosperity de- parts with the breath. Think on the anguish of those who, attracted by the wealth and luxury of these missionaries, forsake the truth of God, when they stand before His Throne of Judgment at the Last Day ! " Iskender ; listened, but was unimpressed. His mind had wandered back to the events of the day; ^and at that moment Wady '1 Muluk was more apparent to his mind than the Last Judgment. He murmured : " I will ponder what thou sayest." " Again bethink thee, thou who hast the gift of making likenesses and colouring them so that they resemble living things, what fame awaits thee as a maker of sacred pictures for our churches and our dwellings ! " " True, I must think of that," replied Iskender. He meant, in case he failed by any chance to find the valley full of gold, whose wealth would raise him to the social rank of his Emir. THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 147 " Well, go in peace, my son ; may Allah guide thee ! " With the blessing Mitri kissed Iskender on the brow, and pressed his hand. They were then quite near the little house upon the sand- hill ; could see light streaming from its open door and, silhouetted on the light, Iskender's mother looking out for him. " Mercy on us ! " she exclaimed, when her son came bounding through a gap of the cactus hedge. " Praise be to Allah thou art still alive and well ! I have kept a bowl of lentils hot for thee, which is more than thy deserts, O shameless one ! O my despair, ever to have borne such a son ! When — when wilt thou learn discretion ? Why didst thou express a hope that thy Emir would foul the beard of the Father of Tee, and that in the hearing of the son of Costantin ? Here have the ladies been again to-day, railing against thee as the worst of malefactors. By Allah, I can keep thee here no longer. Yet whither canst thou go, unhappy boy, for now I learn that thou hast angered thy Emir? Thy uncle, the respectable Abdullah, has been here in great trouble for thee. He has this day returned 148 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS from Beyrut, that great, splendid city, and I thought that he had come to tell me of its progress and high fashion. But no, it was for thee he came. In the town; on landing, he had heard the tidings of thy downfall. Why hast thou hid the truth from me these many days ? I could have fallen lifeless when I heard him say that thou art nothing, that Elias is the friend of thy Emtr. Whence came that money thou didst show me? Was it stolen ? Tell me, O unfortunate ! I am thy loving mother, and shall not condemn thee." Iskender laughed at her concern. "It is true," he said, "that my Emir did for a time prefer Elias. But now, praise to Allah, all is well again ! " And he proceeded to relate what had happened that morning in the orange-garden. " May Allah reward our father Mitri ! " his mother exclaimed. " But I would not have thee go too far in friendship with him, on account of the missionaries, who may yet forgive thee. To-day when I condemned thy conduct fiercely, their hearts, I could see, were touched with pity for thee. Now if I drive THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 149 thee forth, and vow never more to look on thee, there is a chance they will forgive thee quite. It is certain that they do not love Asad as they loved thee. By Allah, I should like to see my son a mighty clergyman. Then I would wear fine Frankish hats in their despite ; and thou couldst wed the Sitt Hilda, though she is old for thee. To-morrow, there- fore, seek some new abode. . . . Allah cut short thy life ! Thy wits are wandering. Is the matter of my speech so light, O misbegotten ? " Iskender, who was half-way through the mess of lentils, protested with his mouth full that he had heard and would obey. But his tone was so indifferent as to increase his parent's wrath. To one deep in thought of the valley of gold, her words seemed trash. She stormed unceasingly till they had both lain down to rest and the night-light was burning fitfully on the ground between them. Then at last came peace ; she snored aloud ; while Iskender thought of the valley full of gold, whose true existence had been miraculously revealed to him, and then of the career as a church painter offered to him by the priest Mitri. Anything was better than to be the 150 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS fatted slave of the missionaries, who, he felt sure, hated him. His desire was to be loved. in the morning early he returned to the house of Mitri. As he reached it a noise of chanting in the little church informed him that the priest was at his duties ; so he squatted down in the shade of the evergreen oak, and waited till the service should be ended. Presently a group of brown-legged boys came tumbling out, smiting one another and shouting the minute they had passed the threshold. A few girls followed, all discreetly veiled, in one of whom he recognised Nesfbeh ; and then some older people, turbaned men and white- veiled women, among them one blind sheykh with hands outstretched ; and finally, after an interval, the priest himself. Iskender sprang to him, and kissed his hand. " I seek a boon of thee, O lord of kind- ness ! " " In the name of Allah ! " Mitri seized the suppliant's hands and pressed them to his heart. " Say on ; I listen." Iskender told him how the hatred of the missionaries had reached such a pitch that his THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS 151 mother was obliged to cast him out. He had come to the priest, his best friend, for advice in this dilemma, thinking that he might recom- mend him to a lodging. "Now may Allah house thee!" said Mitri with a thoughtful frown. " Allah knows thy mother does great wrong thus to cast thee abroad, a young unmarried man ; unless she wishes to debauch thee utterly. For who but the worst of characters would take thee in, to share the intimacy of their wives and daughters, except it might be as a traveller, and for a single night? Wallah, I am at a loss how to advise thee. There is not at present among us an old childless couple, nor yet a bachelor, whose dwelling thou couldst share. By the Holy Gospel, I see no resort for thee except a khan. ... I have it ! " — his perplexity was lightened suddenly, and he raised his eyes, till then downcast. " Thou shalt lodge at the hotel of Musa el Barudi, where thy patron dwells. Musa is of my congregation, and he loves me well ; while, as for Selim and Daud, his two sons, I taught them their duties and chastised their youthful conduct. Wait here, and I will write a word to them, 152 THE VALLEY OF THE KINGS how thou art tired of the vain beliefs of the Brutestants, and wouldst tread the path of Salvation." " Write all that pleases thee, our father ! " Iskender waited to receive the missive ; and then, with blessings on the priest and all belonging to