At length he lost sight of them altogether and the blackest despair took hold of him. He wandered into a region of quiet streets. The air had grown perceptibly warmer since the morning, and now a fine rain began to fall. Of a sudden, as it seemed to him, lamps were lighted; it was night. The sky lowered as a vast cloud; it was like a close lid oppressing him. Here was a maze in a box, shut out from sun, moon and stars, and he was doomed to roam in it forever. All at once he felt deadly cold; the next minute he was burning from head to foot. It occurred to him to pray to Allah; but where was the use of prayer when he was already condemned and in torment? He ceased to fight against his lot.
A host of evil spirits beset him, gibbering, snapping their fingers, grinning, and mocking his wretched plight. Things faded and grew dim. He knew the horror of a great army coloured like blood, thousands moving in silence as one man. Shrieking, he clung to some railings for protection, vaguely aware that a crowd was gathering about him in a place which, a minute before, had been quite deserted. Then he was back again in his native land.
XV
Saïd raved of palm-trees and gardens, the great sunshine and the inky shadows. He saw again the little house among the sandhills beside a calm blue sea. There were his nets spread to dry upon the beach. There was his fig-tree with the gnarled boughs and trunk, and the big leaves wide apart. There was the fringe of tamarisks along the shore, and the little city with its dome and minaret, clear-cut upon the vivid sky. He heard the distant music of bells, as some train of camels or mules passed slowly among the landward gardens. …
Suddenly there was a dun fog, effacing the vision and wrapping him in its gloom. Lamps without number shone blurred through the darkness. There was a sullen roar. He cried aloud in fear, but the sound of his voice was strange to him—a new terror. He grew aware of a bright and silent army, streaming ever out of darkness into darkness across the narrow range of his sight; tens of thousands moving as one man. Their colour entranced Saïd, but the order of their going chilled him with an eerie dread. He was awestricken, in the presence of a force beyond man’s control. He felt that, if he could only draw near and walk with them, he would be informed of all things concerning his lot; but his limbs were frozen where he stood. He cried out upon the name of Allah. …
The fog melted away, the throng with it.
“Dìn! Dìn! Dìn Muhammed!” … He was in the streets of Damashc-ush-Shâm, frenzied with the sunlight and the shouting. He slew and slew, until he waded in the blood of unbelievers. All at once he was confronted with an old man whose name was known to him. Unthinking, he flew at his throat and strangled him, flinging the body aside into an entry. Then he fell a prey to the bitterest anguish, perceiving that he had killed Mustafa, his adopted father. His wail tore the blue sky, as it had been a curtain, and dun fog poured in through the rent. Again he was beset with darkness, and the shiver of the silent host was upon him. He saw well-known faces in the ranks:—Abdullah, Selìm, Hasneh, Ibrahìm the doorkeeper, Ferideh, Ismaìl Abbâs, Mustafa, Nûr, Mahmud Effendi. All the people he had ever known passed in endless review before him. They were changed to the likeness of devils, and moved in silence all together, as though one will actuated them. …
Presently he was sitting alone on the deck of a ship. Anon, he was drowning in the sea. Then he led a bride to his house on the sands, but ere he could reach it the fog came upon him. Once more there was brown twilight and that nameless horror. …
It was late afternoon. Wintry sunlight, enfeebled by the smoke-clouds, made lurid ripples on the bare white walls of a spacious room lined with sickbeds. At one end there was a comfortable fire burning in a recess of the wall, before which three women in white caps and aprons sat at a table, conversing in low tones. The ward was full of tossings, groans and sobs of pain, relieved by the subdued laughter of the nurses at their table; the roar of the city coming as a murmur from without.
Saïd opened his eyes upon the scene, but there was no light of understanding in them. He strove to raise himself on his elbows, but fell back upon the pillows with a moan. When next he looked there was a woman at his bedside watching him. She held a steaming bowl whose contents she kept stirring with a spoon. Her face showed neither pity nor sympathy, but all her movements were deft and gentle.
While she was busy feeding him, propping his back upon a heap of pillows, two men entered the room together and came straight to where he lay. One of them, who was dressed all in black, his face smooth save for a great tuft of hair on either jaw, hailed Saïd courteously in Arabic, inquiring after his health and commending him warmly to the mercy of Allah. Sitting down on a chair by the bed he informed the invalid that he had been for many
