“Dìn! Dìn! Dìn Muhammed!” … “Death to the enemies of Allah!” … “Who dares protect those whose lives are forfeit to Islâm!” … “Perish Abdul Cader!” … “Death to the traitors of Eljizar.” Raging like a winter-torrent, the crowd surged forward in pursuit. The horsemen were constrained to a foot’s pace, having regard to the women in their midst. The mob was close upon them. Stones and other missiles began to whizz through the air. Of a sudden the whole mass swayed back, every man jostling his neighbour.
Abdul Cader had turned his horse about and was sitting motionless, his eyes ranging sternly over the sea of turbaned heads and swarthy, malignant faces. A last stone, flung at random from the heart of the throng, struck his arm and made him wince. He raised a hand to his tarbûsh, commanding silence. An awestricken hush spread like a breath over the crowd. This man was the established idol of the populace. He was the greatest living hero of Islâm, and at heart they gloried in his intrepidity.
“What is this, O my friends?” His voice rang out clear and measured. “Will you provoke the wrath of Allah against this city? Will you anger Him so that He turn away His face from us forever? It has been told you how I have fought for Islâm—ay, and borne imprisonment and exile for our holy Faith. But I tell you I would rather be the meanest Christian slain this day in the sight of Allah than one of you whose hands are red with his blood. Shame on you, Muslimûn!—Shame on you, I say! Would to Allah I had gone to my grave ere ever this day dawned for the Faith!”
He gazed for a moment, silent on the silent crowd; then, turning, set spurs to his horse and cantered away. But the foremost, among whom was Saïd, saw that his eyes glistened.
“Dìn! Dìn! Dìn Muhammed!” It was the holy man who raised the shout once more, waving his gnarled brown arms above the crowd. “Who dares withstand the justice of Allah? Slay him also, who rescues the condemned of God! Onward! Dìn! Dìn!”
But the words of Abdul Cader had wrought a change in the temper of the multitude. Some there were who lagged behind. Saïd’s thirst for blood was somewhat slaked by this. There was time, he bethought him, to visit Ferideh and snatch a kiss from her before keeping his appointment with Mustafa. He slipped aside into an archway which gave access to a shady passage barely wide enough for two to walk abreast, and made his way by forsaken paths to the prison of his desire. And ever as he went the roar of the tumult was in his ears, now loud and near, now soft and melting in the distance, like the thunder of surf upon a rockbound coast:
“Dìn! Dìn! Dìn Muhammed!”
XXVI
For once Nûr was cross with Saïd. No sooner did she understand the reason of his coming than she lifted up her voice and chid him roundly. Upon his persisting, she threw herself in his way and forbade him to advance another step. The girl was ill enough already without the aggravation of his presence. If he so much as set foot in that upper room, she (Nûr) would cease to befriend him and would let the girl go free.
Cowed by her vehemence, Saïd grumbled that he had no instant wish to harm the maid; but was come just to see how she did; with much more, scarcely audible, about his own property, and kissing, and no sin. Whereupon the old woman became herself again, called him the light of her eyes, and detecting some telltale stains upon his raiment soaked a rag in a vessel of water and made haste to sponge it. The strong perfume of her unguents kept him quiet and submissive while she purified him. His eyes languished and his lips parted as he inhaled it.
Bending close to him over the task—
“It is a kindness I do thee, O my soul!” she said. “Suppose soldiers or other slaves of authority met thee with the marks of blood on thy robe, by thy beard, I think it would fare ill with thee. As for that girl thou lovest, she has been all day like a madwoman. She is deaf to all my comfortable words, and cries ever to Allah that He should take her life. She boasts that she will beat herself to death against a stone of the wall sooner than endure thy embrace; that is why I stayed thee. Today is but the morrow of her disaster. Leave me alone to deal with her, and, after a few days, I warrant thou shalt find her tractable. When she is tame enough I shall send thee word. With thy share of the treasure of which Mustafa speaks, thou mayst well afford to hire a fine house for her. With a fine house and a gift in thy hand what girl could gainsay thee? For thou art handsome, my dear, straight as a palm-tree, strong as a lion. Does the work of slaughter flag that thou comest hither thus early?”
Saïd told her something of the day’s doings, while she, vowing that he must be famished, brought some bread and dried raisins from the inner room. He was in truth pretty hungry, though the fact had escaped his mind. His jaws worked as a busy mill to which grist came unfailingly by great handfuls. Nûr wished him two healths, and, squatting on her heels, kept her painted eyes fixed on him in a kind of dotage.
“I am sorry thou didst lose sight of Mustafa,” she said at length, speaking chiefly to herself. “He was ill yesterday in the evening—very ill, so that I deemed him at the gate of death. Allah restore him to us in safety and good health!”
Saïd’s utterance was somewhat choked, his mouth being crammed with leathery bread.
“Hadst thou been with us in
