Saïd found her tall and upright, strong and masterful as a man. She was quite old in spite of the enamel mask of pink and white which hid her wrinkles. Darkening matter artfully rubbed under her eyes to give them a languishing look could not altogether conceal the crow’s-feet beneath, and the eyes themselves had the hard, unnatural lustre of jewels, very different from the sparkle of youth. Her brown fingers, which she did not whiten until after noon, were loaded with rings, of which the large common stones—sard and coarse amethyst, onyx and amber—stood out like bunions. Bracelets and armlets of tarnished brass and silver rattled and clanked like fetters with every movement of her limbs; strings of glass beads and amulets of all kinds adorned her scraggy neck and her bosom. She was kneeling just then by the brazier, with swelled cheeks fanning a feeble glow that was loth to become a fire. She wore no veil, being at home, but the hood of her blue garment, richly embroidered with gold thread, which she could draw across her face when bashfulness was required of her.
The old beggar sat with Saïd on the threshold of a dark inner room, of whose furniture no more was discernible through the doorway than a cushioned divan running round the walls. He was talking eagerly and fondling Saïd’s hand, touching now his leg, now his arm, as if he gloried in the strength of his new ally.
“Now thou knowest why I have chosen thee and no other,” he was saying. “I loved thee on that day when first I saw thee because of thy likeness to my son, Mansûr. Since then I have been to thy city, where all men tell of thy flight as a strange thing. It was not known whither thou wast fled nor why, nor to what purpose. But I, being shrewd, asked them: Who profits by his departure? and they told me, ‘Abdullah abu Azìz, for the house and the fig-tree and the nets of Saïd are fallen to him.’ (Ah, he is a clever one—that Abdullah!—one who will surely rise to honour. I sat once in a tavern where he spoke of thee as a dear brother he had lost.) I perceived clearly that this Saïd the Fisherman of whom they talked was no other than the Emìr Saïd with whom I conversed by the way. I thought much of thee for the sake of my son, Mansûr, who forsook me, and also because I knew thee destitute. When a man has nothing he is not particular what work he undertake if only there be profit in it, and I stood greatly in need of such an one to help me in the business which thou wottest of. By my head, when I saw thee last evening in the street my heart leapt with joy as if thou hadst been in truth my son. Allah is merciful!
“Now, hear the story why I hate Yuhanna the Nazarene. Attend now and judge whether I have not cause enough to execrate him. Many years ago I slew my sister with this right hand.” He sank his voice to a whisper with a meaning glance at the old woman. “She would have become even as Nûr there, I tell thee, had I suffered her to live. He lured her to the city, and then, after he was sated, he cast her out and placed her in a house of shame of which he was owner. But I found her. We were but poor fellahìn of no honour or account, yet not one of all my family but would have done as I did. I slew her and she bared her own breast to the knife.
“It was in the days of Ibrahìm Basha the Egyptian—a good time, by Allah, though one must not say so now that the Turks are again our masters. But there was strict justice for all men then, a Christian being the equal of a Muslim in the eyes of the Government. I went to the house of the Qadi and I kissed the earth between his feet, and I told him all my story as if it had been a figment of my own brain. I asked him: ‘What would your honour do if it had been his sister?’ and he replied, ‘By Allah, I would slay her and destroy that infidel with all his father’s house.’
“I answered: ‘Good, O my Lord: the first I have accomplished; the second I will perfect ere I die.’ At first he was angry at the fraud, for he had supposed me a professed taleteller; but afterwards he laughed, and called me a rogue, and bade me mind to do nothing which the law forbids.
“The dog Yuhanna and the old jackal, his father, were rich after the manner of unbelievers, that is to say secretly and by foul means. Acting as the agents of a notable of this city they lent money to us villagers wherewith to buy seed and took the greater part of the harvest in payment. Between them and the tithe-farmer there was little left for us on our threshing-floors. They lent money also to the great ones of the Government and claimed no payment at all, thus gaining protection and influence beyond all others of their accursed race. After the abduction of Lulu, my sister, they conceived a hatred for my father’s house. They persecuted us—may Allah quench the fire on their hearth!
