“The praise to Allah, thou art come! Our lord has asked for thee. Murjânah was just going to dispatch a messenger. Come! Come at once! There is no time to lose. He has refused to take a potion which I had prepared. He will not let a charm be hung upon him. He resigns his life to Allah. It is the end.”
Murjânah Khânum sat beside the bed, holding the old man’s hand. About the walls crouched many black-robed women, waiting in silence, like a flock of vultures.
“Here is the wife of Yûsuf,” said Murjânah, giving place to Barakah.
The Pasha spoke in French. His voice was faint.
“Madame,” he said, “I am about to die, and I am glad to be allowed to say adieu to you. Very often have I thought of you and of your life among us. I feel a very grave responsibility. I trust that you have been, upon the whole, content?”
Barakah declared herself quite happy, and he said, “Thank God!”
“But you will not leave us yet; you will recover,” she exclaimed.
“No, no, my cherished daughter. My last hour has sounded. I have lived to see my lifework all undone. The Christians always sought a war with El Islam. We kept a calm face under insults, even made concessions, as one gives a rabid dog a stick to worry.” For a moment the worn face resumed its light of humour. “But now the war has come. … Those rash fanatics! …”
There rose a murmur in the room.
“The Grand Mufti comes,” announced Murjânah Khânum.
“Forgive me, dear madame. It is an old and cherished friend,” the dying man suspired, with a faint smile. “Adieu! Adieu!”
And Barakah, with all the women save Murjânah Khânum, hurried out into the passage. At the door a tall and stately man brushed past her. His head was so erect beneath the massive turban, his long robe fell so straight from well-squared shoulders, that it astonished her to see his beard as white as snow. He passed into the room. The door was shut.
A minute later, Murjânah Khânum uttered a loud cry; the Mufti came forth sobbing, with head bowed; the black-cowled women scurried shrieking to the death-room, where they instantly began the dance of death. They leapt and pirouetted, waving arms above their heads, with frenzied cries. Barakah was gazing horror-stricken at the sight, when someone took her hand and whispered, “Come away!”
It was Murjânah.
“I cannot bear these customs,” she confessed. “The women of the country keep them in defiance of religion. It is useless to protest; one has to suffer. I am very tired, my dear; for I have not slept for many nights. Indeed, my weariness and grief are such that I can hardly look for rest save in the grave.”
Barakah took coffee in Murjânah’s room, and tried to comfort her. She too was sad. But her despair was turned to joy when that same day Muhammad rushed into her arms. He had been called by telegram. She held him back from her and gazed at him until he blushed and hung his head. The uniform, the high-crowned fez, the sword, the snowy gloves, embellished him. When she had gazed her fill, she made him tell her of the camp, his friends, his duties; and, started on that theme, he talked for hours.
“If only I could be transferred to the Canal!” he sighed. “That is the real centre of the war. The fighting where I am is empty show, and I am kept from taking part in it. Day after day, I have to teach recruits, dull fellahin, who know not right from left. Instruction seems to make them stupider. I beat and beat them, till my arm aches. By my sword and valour, I could often kill them! Think, O my mother!—El Islam is menaced, armed infidels have set foot in our land, and these men, Muslims, will not learn their exercises!”
His mother laughed at his impetuosity. She told his grandfather’s last words to her, and how he feared the English would take hold of Egypt.
“There is no fear of that, inshallah!” cried Muhammad. “Our faithful host will sweep them off like fleas. I wish I had been there to reassure the dear one. May Our Lord have mercy on him!”
The funeral of Muhammad Pasha Sâlih was among the greatest ever known, although the town was empty. The harassed population flocked to pay respect to one who had denounced Arâbi—a demonstration which could not be punished since sons of the dead man—nay, half his family—acclaimed the tyrant. In the front of the procession were led sheep and bullocks to be slaughtered at the tomb, their meat distributed among the needy in the name of the deceased. Then came hired chanters of the Koran, then half the male inhabitants of Cairo, walking, flanked by two thin lines of soldiers, then the male relations, then a choir of boys shrieking an ode in honour of the Prophet. Immediately behind these moved the lidless coffin, carried on men’s shoulders, with its coloured pall, and then the females of the family in shuttered carriages. A crowd of black-cowled women of the city, whose wailing sounded birdlike in the open air, brought up the rear.
The train, a mile long, wound out in the blinding sunlight over the sandhill to the city of the dead, from which at its approach the kites and crows went up, affrighted. There ensued a period of forced inaction, which to Barakah in the haremlik at the mausoleum seemed interminable. The ceaseless chanting in the tomb, the wailing of the crowd outside, attacked her nerves. Muhammad was to leave again that evening, and every minute she was parted from him seemed an hour. He was kept upon the men’s side of the tomb; nor would she see him till they reached the house again; she had first to drive home in the
