At that Saïd seized both hands of his friend and kissed them, blessing Selìm for a good man and a faithful—none like him in all the world!
So it came to pass, one early morning, that Saïd and Hasneh left the great city, in the company of Selìm and all his family, by the same road which Saïd had followed at his coming, nearly twelve years before. At the brow of the hill, beside the shrine which is there, they turned to look their last upon that place of gardens. Saïd’s eyes brooded long and lovingly over it, as though it had been indeed the early paradise he was leaving; and it was with a choking voice that at last he bade Selìm lead on.
X
The little company journeyed but slowly, for the sake of the women and children. The weather was hot and breathless, as it often is at the extreme end of summer, when the air begins to grow heavy with the first storm. Selìm had provided two donkeys to carry the baggage, and also to give a spell of rest to anyone who grew weary. One bore the weight of his household treasures, and his wife with her young baby rode upon it when she chose. Saïd generally bestrode the other, which was laden with his goods, while Hasneh walked meekly beside; though sometimes, feeling the need to stretch his legs, he would alight and bid her take his place for a time. Often he would take up one of Selìm’s children to ride with him; and Selìm himself, with Mûsa, made shift to carry the others when they tired.
At first their way lay through mountains, barren and treeless, except for certain favoured nooks, where there was water and deep shade of fruit-trees. Through the heat of the day the landscape seemed to bronze, so massive it was and sullen under the burning sky. A rare terebinth, growing high up among the cliffs, was rusty black, and cast a shadow uncouth as the rocks themselves. But in the early morning, what with the young sunlight and the dewy shade, every boulder had a charm and freshness of its own, so that the little band sang blithely at setting out. And towards sundown, when the peaks were all purple and gold, and the level spaces coloured like flowerbeds, they drank in the coolness of the evening with sighs of relief.
They crossed the plain called El Bica’a, with its scattered villages, and all through one afternoon they moved along in the growing shadow of Lebanon. Ere noon of the next day they paused on the crest of the mountain and beheld the coast-plain far below them languishing in a haze of heat. The sea beyond was like a burnished sheet of silver. Saïd’s heart leapt at the familiar sheen of it, but the sight brought no enduring pleasure. His native land was very dear to his soul now that the time drew near when he must quit it. They were now on the Sultàn’s highway—a great white coach-road, the work of a Frankish company, whose zigzag windings could be traced as a wan and crumpled ribbon down all the mountainside. Carriages dashed past them, filled for the most part with Christians in semi-Frankish dress, forcing the group of wayfarers to the roadside, blinding and choking them with a cloud of dust.
The sun was near his setting when they reached the level of the plain. On all sides there were gardens plumed with date-palms, and fine stone dwellings bosomed in leafage. Seaward, across the plantations, loomed a dark belt of pines. A flight of bee-eaters wheeling in the flush of sunset seemed like dead leaves the sport of a wind. The road lay straight before them, stained with sunset light. There was much people in carriages and on horseback—townsfolk of Beyrût—come forth to taste the sweets of evening. Shadows were long and grey-blue to eastward.
The sight of the palm-trees and the diffused fragrance moved Saïd deeply. He knew that the sea was at hand—the sea which he had known from babyhood, whose voice was a home voice to him. Yet at that time he loathed the thought of it, his heart yearning to the sweet gardens and the peaceful life of a husbandman.
Weary and footsore they entered the city of Beyrût, and it seemed to Saïd that he was already in a strange land. The Frankish garb was almost as common in the streets as the dress of the country, and four men out of every five he saw were Christians. He had been there once before on an errand of commerce, but the foreign character of the town had not struck him then as now. Nearly all the houses had red-tiled roofs, and the shops were of a pattern unfamiliar to him. The streets were wide and ablaze with lights. Wheeled carriages, each drawn by a pair of horses and driven by one who sat aloft with frenzied shouting and cracking of a whip, were frequent here though in the capital they were still esteemed a fine rarity. He began to be afraid for the future. If he felt thus lonely in a seaport town of his own country, how could he bear to dwell in a foreign land? He made his uneasiness known to Selìm, who bade him be of good cheer, for that Beyrût stood alone, the lord of all the world for iniquity and unbelief. In Masr he would find it quite otherwise; there the faithful outnumbered the infidels as ten to one.
Selìm was well acquainted with the city, having often visited it in the days when he was a muleteer. He led his company by quiet and tortuous ways to the Muslim quarter, where there was less
