Saïd rose, and with a cringing salute slunk sullenly away. Selìm, whose face was rueful, was about to follow him, when Ismaìl Abbâs spoke to him.
“If ever thou have need of a friend,” he said, “come to me. And, I counsel thee, seek another partner! Now go, and my peace with thee, for I am busy.”
Selìm kissed the hand that was held out to him with those gracious words, as also the bursting hand of the Mufti and the thin, nervous fingers of the third great one. Then he went to rejoin Saïd, whom he found in the act of slipping on his shoes at the doorsill of the gate.
Saïd’s glance at him was lowering. He thought that the muleteer’s purpose in coming after him could only be to taunt and revile. The uproar of the crowded streets sounded in his ears as the voice of his woman sounds to one awakening from an evil dream. The court of the mosque was a burden of stillness at his back—a calm full of reproach, where the very cooing of the doves and murmur of the scholars told of his shame. Selìm was part of the scene from which he would flee. With a vindictive frown he bade him depart from him. But the faithful fellow drew all the closer, grinning friendly and saying—
“Thou art clever, O Saïd—a perfect devil. That was a capital fraud thou didst put upon me. I, who am accounted no fool, was utterly deceived. With a man of brains like thee for partner Selìm will surely rise to great honour. The money thou gavest me shall buy thy share of the business. Since I may no longer call thee master I name thee friend—brother. And indeed I have cause to love thee, other than thy cleverness; for the rich cloak thou gavest me has this day won me favour in the sight of the great Ismaìl Abbâs. When I was clad as other men are, no great one ever honoured me with his notice. Didst mark how they marvelled that one so well-dressed should be a servant? It was all because of this fine garment, and Selìm is grateful to thee. Now come! I will lead thee to a place where such merchandise as we require is sold cheap.”
Saïd stood a moment in doubt, as one bewildered. Then, finding Selìm in earnest, and seeing no spark of mockery in his eyes, he fell a-blubbering all at once and swooped upon his friend’s hand, kissing it repeatedly, and calling upon Allah to bless him for a good man—none like him in all the world.
XVI
For more than a month the partnership of Saïd with Selìm proved to the profit and contentment of both. But at length Saïd began to tire of it. His mind kept reverting to his roving life as to a period of great happiness.
To sit in the shade of an archway, where two noisy streams of wayfarers elbowed and jostled one another all day long, and cry aloud in praise of paltry wares, seemed a tame, not to say shameful, means of livelihood to one who had sipped of the cup of greatness. The wretched room, too, which he shared with Selìm vexed him with its meanness. It was buried away in the heart of the poorest and most crowded quarter. The approach was through a series of stinking tunnels, where one stirred a sleeping dog with every step, up a worn stairway always slippery with offal. Even at noon the daylight never reached it. The squalor and the evil smells were of no account to Saïd; but to abide in a quarter whose very name was a byword for wretchedness—that it was which disgusted him.
The delight of his partner each night, as by the light of a floating wick he told the trifling gains of the day, was another ground for discontent. What were a few paras to one who had held fourteen English pounds in the hollow of his hand? Of course it was true, as Selìm said with that cheery smile in which his white teeth themselves seemed light of heart, that a little, and a little, and again a little, becomes a great deal. But the slowness and labour of accumulation were irksome to Saïd. At their present rate of profit it would be three years at least before they could think of hiring that shop in the grand bazaar of which Selìm dreamt every night. Meanwhile, he hankered after the reckless life he had left for this; and each day added zest to his longing.
His mind was in this unsettled state as he walked with Selìm one evening homeward from their place of business. The basket carried between them was almost full, for there had been few purchasers. It was the worst day they had yet experienced, so that Saïd’s gloomy silence aroused no wonder in his partner. The ways were still thronged, though the time of dealing was past, and forms loomed grey and shadowy in the waning light. Dogs prowled watchful on the skirts of the crowd, aware that man’s intrusion was almost over, looking forward with dripping jaws to an undisturbed feast of refuse.
An aged man sat in the entry of a little mosque, holding out his hand and moaning persistently. The crowd, which now consisted of men hurrying homeward impatient of all hindrance, thrust the partners and their cumbrous burden very near to him. Of a sudden he lifted up his voice with alarming strength. The piercing whine had notes of triumph and of raillery.
“Allah will give to thee, O Emìr! … Help me for
