Arrived at the palm-tree, all the villagers pressed forward to kiss his hand or, it might be, only the skirt of his wondrous robe. The glory of his raiment had enthralled them at his coming, and in the first rapture of greatness, in the joy of their cringing and flattery, he had promised to see that all their wrongs and grievances were presently redressed.
So he strode on his way with their blessings, turning ever and anon, with a gracious gesture, to look back at the squalid crowd of fellahìn, who stood grouped about the palm-tree, looking after him with hands shading their eyes. His brain was on fire with arrogance. Every herb on which he trod marked a new act of condescension. The whole earth fell down before him. The sun burned for him alone. Trees and shrubs cast their shadows like garments in his path.
But by-and-by, as the village shrank in distance, the vapours besetting his brain began to disperse. His legs were stiff from his race of the forenoon. He longed for a horse to carry him at ease, and the wish did much to sober him. A great one does not travel on foot, neither does he wander from home in the heat of the day without at least a sunshade in his hand, if not a servant to hold it over him. Sudden shame came upon him like an ague. The villagers would discuss his appearance now that he was gone, and remembering that he had neither horse nor servant, not so much as a parasol, would perceive their own folly and curse him for an impostor. At that he quickened his step so as to be far from a place where he must shortly be held in derision.
The violet mountains, which had seemed so far away in the morning, were now nearer to him than those others from whose base he had set out. The sun, a disc of flame, was sinking down on the uttermost rim of the plain. Shadows were no longer dense and inky under every object, but stretched long and blue to eastward, growing with every minute. Far away across the flat Saïd was aware of a thin bright line, vague and dreamy beneath the setting sun. On that side was the sea. He grew sad as he recalled his little house among the sandhills. The cool breeze of evening was stirring the great leaves of his fig-tree even now.
As he pondered on things past a spirit awoke within him and showed him Abdullah in a new light. He stood still, as if gripped by a sudden twinge of pain. Stretching forth his hands to Heaven he bade Allah witness the trust he had ever placed in his friend and partner, and the consequent enormity of the fraud. In the first frenzy he thought to retrace his steps, to walk day and night without respite, until he had slain the treacherous liar. He even took a dreadful oath before Allah to that effect. But his mind soon changed. There was an evil report of him all along the way by which he had come. He felt ashamed because of Hasneh, and feared to see her face again. And the great city lay before him, where Allah alone knew what joys might be in store for him. Nevertheless, he made a vow: that, when he had achieved the greatness of his hopes, he would return to his native town riding upon a horse, with a company of horsemen, his servants, and would cause Abdullah to be whipped in his sight with a lash set thickly with sharp nails; and then, when his enemy lay bleeding and faint at his feet, he would recite the story of his crime aloud for all men to hear. And at last, to make vengeance complete, he would spurn his enemy with his foot and gallop off with his servants in a cloud of dust.
Twilight was closing swiftly into night when Saïd reached a place where was a well in the shade among some olive-trees, and hard by a low, flat-roofed house, from whose open door and window a faint red light flickered upon the trampled ground.
“Praise be to Allah—a khan!” he murmured, espying the forms of two men smoking on stools before the door. Tethered to the nearest tree, a horse, which appeared black in the half light, was munching steadfastly in a wooden trough. The saddle was still on its back, though the girth was unfastened and dangling.
The two who sat smoking by the door rose courteously at the approach of a stranger. Saïd returned their salutation as though it had come from the dirt beneath his feet. He removed a stool to a seemly distance from them and sat down, calling impatiently for food and drink.
“My horse is fallen by the way,” he cried in a loud voice, for the enlightenment of all who might be in the house. “I bade my men stay to tend the beast, having yet hopes that he may recover. A good horse, by Allah, which I bought for fifty Turkish pounds, but I would not part with it for a hundred. In a little while they will be here, if they lose not their way in the darkness, which is very possible, their mind being little as the mind of a sheep.”
At the sound of that high speech the master of the khan appeared—a tall, black shape on the glow of the doorway. Behind him other dark forms were discernible—a cluster of heads, some turbanded, others draped in a shawl bound about the temples with a rope of camel’s hair.
Saïd was not pleased to find the khan so full of people. In such a crowd there might well be some great one who might expose him. The fear was vague but sickening. It was speedily laid to rest. A ray of firelight played on Saïd’s sleeve,
