The name of Ismaìl Abbâs was become a byword for learning and uprightness, and there were many good stories concerning him, all with a certain quaint salt of proverbial wisdom. But though the servant was glad to air a store of anecdotes he said everything to dissuade his master from an appeal for alms.
He was at no pains to hide the motive of this reluctance, but put it forward humbly as a plea, cringing and with anxious eyes. It was a fear lest Saïd, having once more money in his hand, should abandon their little scheme of partnership for some loftier path to fortune. But the fisherman was firm, and Selìm was at last obliged to yield and consent to be his guide on the morrow.
This experience of his master’s obstinacy left the muleteer moody for some time. He grumbled to himself, shrugging his shoulders and frowning at his feet. Then, seeming to come on a solution, his face brightened.
“He will not give thee much money, O my master. It would be profitable for thee to lay it out in the manner I proposed. Thus we should be able to buy a better stock of goods than with my money only. What sayest thou?”
“Of course,” murmured Saïd, carelessly. “Thou art a good man and a faithful. Be sure I shalt not forsake thee.”
“Good—very good,” said Selìm, gleefully. “With thy leave, effendi, I go to speak with my friend.”
With that he rose, and threading his way among the stools went to the door of the inner room, which framed just then a picture of the tavern-keeper stooping over a charcoal fire and his dilated shadow on the wall beyond. He returned almost immediately and directed Saïd’s attention to the host, who had come forth with a great mattress of many colours in his arms, and was spreading it out in a shadowy corner remote from the guests. Selìm hoped that his honour would not disdain to spend a night in that lowly place. The bed was soft and clean, his friend the taverner could vouch for it. The customers would soon be all gone, when his Excellency could sleep undisturbed till morning.
Saïd was beginning to feel drowsy. He rose with a yawn, bidding Allah bless the house and its master, and, with a reverence in passing to the litigant and his supporters, betook himself straightway to rest. For a minute he lay blinking at the crazy lantern, which burned ever dimmer and more blurred upon his sight. Then he knew no more until, shaken by Selìm, he sat up to behold the gardens fresh and glistening to the sun’s first rays, and the tavern-keeper, a fat man with a good-tempered face and a soiled turban, in the act of setting down a tray of eatables upon the ground beside him.
Some two hours later master and man reentered the city in the comfort attending a hearty meal with a narghileh smoked afterwards for digestion’s sake. As they shouldered their way through the motley crowd in the streets Selìm was fervent in praise of their entertainer. There was no one like Rashìd in all the world. His honour had seen well what a good man he was, and how generous. How overjoyed, too, he had been to see Selìm, his sworn brother since five years. Rashìd also was formerly a muleteer. They had journeyed in the same company to Mosul and Baghdad, and had loved one another from the first meeting. They had friends and enemies in common. Never had a harsh or angry word passed between them. The topic was far from exhausted when they emerged from a narrow alley and found themselves at the splendid gateway of the great mosque. Selìm, however, broke off short in his eulogy to call Saïd’s notice to the dazzling white minaret he had beheld in his first morning’s ramble through the city. Now, as then, doves innumerable were wheeling and cooing around it.
“Dost thou know its name, O my master, and the story concerning it?” He put the question more for form’s sake than as requiring an answer, and went on at once: “This minaret, effendi, is called by the name of Isa ebn Miriam, that great prophet whom the Christians in their blindness worship instead of Allah. Wouldst like to learn why it is so called? It is Selìm who can certify thee. I heard the whole truth, effendi, from a learned dervìsh, in whose company I once journeyed from Urfa as far as Haleb the White.”
Selìm drew his master into the bay of the great gate to avoid a long string of camels, laden with stone, which were approaching with a deafening clangour of bells. There he stood still in the shadow, withdrawn but an arm’s length from the throng and the sunlight, one hand on Saïd’s arm to beg attention, the other pointing to the minaret of Jesus the Prophet, whom the faithful call Ruh’Allah: the Spirit of God.1 The eyes of the passersby dwelt with curiosity upon the pair, but especially upon Selìm, the importance of whose pose combined with the eccentric fashion of his raiment to make him a notable figure.
“Know, O my master, it is foretold that, in the latter days, when the end of all things draws nigh, Dejìl shall appear in a cloud of black smoke, black as pitch, covering the whole world. He is the Messiah whom the Jews expect, and great multitudes of that race will follow him. Then the Beast of the Earth shall appear, bearing in one hand the rod of Mûsa, in the other, the seal of Suleyman. With the rod he will trace a word upon the brow of every true believer; and the foreheads of the infidels he will stamp with the seal. The sun will rise in the west; and the Yehejuj-Mehejuj, that nation of
