III
THE SECRET OF ISMAIL
I
Mustapha Mirza knew it--Mustapha Mirza, the blind Persian who makesshoes hard by the Bab ez-Zuwela and in the very shadow of the minaretsof Muayyad; Hassan es-Siwa of the Street of the Carpet-sellers in theMuski, Hassan, who, where another man has hands, has but hideousstumps, knew it, and because of him it was that Abdul Moharli soughtit--Abdul the mendicant who crouches on the steps of the Blue Mosquemuttering, guttural, inarticulate, and pointing to the tonguelesscavity of his mouth. Now I know it; but not from Abdul Moharli: mayAllah, the Great, the Compassionate, defend me!
I say "May Allah defend me," yet I am no Moslem; I have no spot ofEgyptian blood in my veins. No, I am a pure Greek of Cos, of Cos thehome of the loveliest women in the world; and my mother was one ofthese, whilst my father was a Cretan, and a true descendent of Minos.My story perhaps will not be believed, for always it has been my fateto be maligned. You will ask, perhaps, what I was doing in the MaziDesert between Beni Suef and the Red Sea, but I reply that my cottoninterests--for I have cotton interests in the Delta--often lead mefar afield. You do not understand the cotton industry or thisexplanation would be unnecessary. It is only those who do notunderstand the cotton industry that speak of _hashish_. _Hashish!_I leave it to the Egyptians and the Jews to deal in _hashish_; I amneither a Jew nor an Egyptian, but a Greek of Cos, who would not soilhis hands with such a trade--no.
Upon my business, then, my legitimate business, I found myself witha small company of servants encamped by the Wadi Araba. At the WadiAraba I had a commercial acquaintance, a sheikh of the Mazi Arabs.Those villains who say that he was a "go-between," that my businesswas not with him, but through him with a port of the Red Sea, dare notsay as much to my face; for there is a law in the land--even in theland of Egypt, now that the British hold power here.
I had reached the point, then, whereat it was my custom to meet mybusiness acquaintance and to discuss certain affairs in which we wereinterested. My servants had erected the tent in which I was to sleep,and the camels lay in a little limestone valley to the west, theireyes mild because they knew that the day's work was ended; for it isa foolish mistake to suppose that the eye of a camel is mild at anyother time. The camel knows the secret name of Allah--and that name isRest.
The violet after-glow, which is the most wonderful thing in Nature,crowned the desert with glory right away to the porphyry mountains.I stood at my tent door looking westward to the Nile. I stood lookingout upon the waste of the sands, the eternal sands which are a beltabout Egypt; and my thoughts running fleetly before me, crossed thedesert, crossed the Nile, and came to rest in the verdant, fertileFayum, its greenness sweet to look upon in the heat of such anevening, its palms fashioned in ebony black against the wondrous sky.Yes, I, who am a Greek, love the Fayum more than any spot on earth;the modern clamor and dust of Cairo are hateful to me, although mybusiness often takes me there, and also to Alexandria, the mostEuropean city in the East, and to me the most detestable. But mybusiness is in the Delta and it is a good business, so why shouldI complain?
I stood at my tent door, and I thought of many things, though littleof the matters which had brought me there; a faint cool breeze fannedmy brow, and about me was that great peace which comes to Egypt withthe touch of night. My servants were silent in their encampment, andthe shrieking of the camels had ceased. About me, then, all wassleeping; only I was awake, only I was there to receive Abdul Moharliand his secret--the secret of Ismail.
By the pattering of his bare feet upon the sand, I first learned ofhis coming, but for a long time I could not see him, for his way ledhim through the valley where the camels slept, and a mound obscuredmy view. But presently I heard his panting breaths and his littledelirious cries of fear, which were like sobs, and presently, again,I saw him staggering over the slope. At the sight of me he uttered onelast gasping cry and fell forward on his face unconscious--like a deadman.
I hurried to him, stooped and raised him. His face was dreadful tolook upon. His eyes were sunken in his skull, and his flesh shrivelledas by long fasting. His beard was filthy, knotted and unkempt, and hishair a black mat streaked with dirty gray. He was thin as a mummy andthe bones protruded through his skin. He was as one who is dying fromexcess of _hashish_.
Ah! I know how they look, those poor fools who poison themselves withthe Indian hemp. I wonder Allah does not strike down the villain whoplaces that poison within their reach. I use the term "Allah" becausemy business brings me much in contact with the natives, but I am noMoslem, as I have related. Father Pierre of Alexandria can tell youhow devoted a Christian I am.
Drink and food revived him somewhat; and as I sat beside him in mytent that night he babbled to me, half deliriously; he raved, and toanother it might have seemed the fancies of a poor madman which hepoured into my ears. For he spoke of a secret oasis and of a sheikhwho had lived since the days of Sultan Kalaun; of a treasure vast asthat of Suleyman--and of magic, black magic; of the transmuting ofgold and the making of diamonds.
But I, who am a Greek, and one who has lived all his life betweenAlexandria and the Red Sea; I who know the Garden of Egypt as anotherknows the palm of his hand--I detected in this delirium the shadow ofa truth. To me it became evident that this wretched being who hadfled, a hunted thing, over the trackless desert for many days andnights--it became evident to me, I say, that he spoke of the far-famedsecret of Ismail.
You would ask: What is the secret of Ismail? I would tell you, ask itof Hassan the Handless, of Mustapha, the blind Persian of the Babez-Zuwela; better still, ask it of any son of the Fayum, of any man ofthe Mazi. None of them will answer you, for none save Hassan andMustapha knows the strange truth--Hassan and Mustapha, and AbdulMoharli ... and no one of these three knows all, nor will reveal whathe knows.
Ah! how my heart leapt and how my eyes must have gleamed in thedarkness of the tent, yet how cold a fear clutched at the life withinme. The night seemed suddenly to become a thin curtain veiling eyesthat watched, the empty desert a hiding-place for unseen multitudesthat listened; the faint breeze raising the flap of the tent, ever sogently, ever so softly, assumed the shape of a malignant hand thatreached for my throat, that sought to stifle me ere the secret, thedeathly secret of Ismail should be mine.
Abdul Moharli was the name of this wanderer; and as he spoke to me,gulping down great draughts of water between the words, ever heglanced to right and left, over his shoulder and all about him.
"It is four days from here," he whispered hoarsely; "due south in thedirection of the porphyry quarries and the Mountain of Smoke. Thereis a tiny village and all the inhabitants are of the race of Said Ebnal As, being descendants of the companion of the prophet. I had longsupposed that this race of heretics was extinct; but it is not so, Omy benefactor; with these eyes, have I seen the houses wherein theydwell. By the strategy of which I have spoken did I penetrate to theirsecret dwelling-place and win their unsuspecting love."
And then, clutching me to him with his bony hands, he spoke in hushedand fearful tones of the house of the Sheikh Ismail Ebn al As. It wasthe fabled treasure of this holy man which had been the lodestonedrawing Abdul Moharli out into the desert. Something of his fear, ofhis constant apprehension seized upon me too; and as he glancedtremblingly first over this shoulder and then over that, so likewisedid _I_ glance, until I seemed to crouch in a world of spies listeningto a secret greater than that of the Universe.
I pronounced the _Takbir_, "Great is the Lord!"--a superstitiouscustom which I have acquired from my business acquaintances. I madethe sign of the Cross and called upon the name of the Holy Virgin.Almost I feared to listen further, yet I lacked the courage toabstain.
"Not with mine eyes have I beheld the treasure of Ismail," hewhispered to me, this shadow of a man, this living mummy, those sameeyes rolling in their sunken sockets; "nor with mine ears have Iheard it named. These hands have never touched it; yet the secret ofIsmail is _my_ secret."
So far he had proceeded and no
further, when a slight noise, that wasnot of my imagination, came from immediately outside the tent. On theinstant I sprang forth ... but no one was there and nothing nowdisturbed the solitude of the desert about me. A moment I stood,peering to left and right, into the void of the velvet dusk; no morethan a moment, I can swear, yet long enough for that dreadful thingto happen--that thing which sometimes haunts my dreams.
Shrill and awful upon the silence it burst; the scream of a strickenman. It stabbed me like a knife; and as a creature of clay I stood,unable to stir or think. It died away, in a long wail of pain, thatgave place to a guttural, inarticulate babbling--a choking, sobbingsound indescribable, but that may not be forgotten once it has beenheard.
No living thing, as I can testify, entered or left the tent; so farthe evidence of my senses bears me. But that one had entered and leftit, unseen, I learned, when, throwing off this palsy of horror, Istaggered back to the side of the one who knew the secret of Ismail.
He lay writhing upon the ground; blood issued from his mouth. Thetongue of Abdul Moharli had been torn out!
II
Three weeks later I had my first sight of the secret oasis. The fatefrom which Abdul had fled had overtaken him as I have related, in mytent, and from that moment until we parted company--for this poorwretch survived his mutilation--not another hint could I glean fromhim respecting the discovery for which he had paid so terrible aprice.
In the first place, he lacked the accomplishment of writing and inthe second place his fear of the vengeance of Ismail had become averitable madness. I left him at Beni Suef, filled with adetermination to probe this mystery for myself. Suitably prepared forsuch an undertaking I set out alone from Der Byad, and undertook thefour days' journey which I had planned.
In a little gorge, arid, shadeless, in which only a few stuntedtamarisks grew, but affording a sort of hiding-place for myself andmy camel, I made my base of operations. Provisions of a sort I hadplenty, but for water I must depend on the secret oasis, which Iestimated to be not more than four miles distant. In the dead of nightI set out, making for a series of mounds or hillocks rising up fromthe rocky face of the plateau. Cautiously I ascended their slopes,ever watchful and with eagerly beating heart; and it was lying proneupon the crest of the greatest of these that I first saw the villageand the oasis.
There was nothing extraordinary in the appearance of the village; itpresented to the eye the usual group of small, squat houses clingingto the trunks of the palm trees and surrounding a shrine or mosqueboasting a wooden minaret. There were tilled fields and palm grovesto the left of the village and a large house surrounded by white wallsembracing extensive gardens. My spirits rose high. Within that houselay the secret of Ismail.
I determined to approach from the left, where I should be able totake advantage of the far-cast shadows of the palm groves and ofthe direction of the faint breeze; for most of all I feared the dogs,without which no Arab village is complete. Sure enough, although Ihad elected to approach the left of the village and although I crawledlaboriously upon hands and knees, the accursed brutes apparentlyscented me or heard me and made night hideous with their clamor.
Flat upon the ground I lay, awaiting the dogs who bore down upon mesnarling, their fangs bared. I had come prepared for this; but,mysteriously, at a point by the end of the palm grove and some twentyyards away from me, the pack halted, and after a time became silent.This was unaccountable but fortunate; and after waiting a while longerto learn if anyone had been aroused by the outcry, I advanced towardsthe wall of the garden, passing stealthily from palm to palm.
I observed that the mosque was a more important building than I hadsupposed, with a tomb on the right of the entrance surmounted by awhite dome. A passage leading to the courtyard, which presented acharming picture in the moonlight, its fountain overshadowed byacacias, reminded me very much of that in the Mosque of Muayyad inCairo. As in the latter, a double arcade surrounded it on three sidesand the columns were of some kind of marble and sculptured withinscriptions in Arabic. I had a glimpse of a blue-tiled sanctuary,through a fine _mushrabiyeh_ screen beneath the pointed arches.Arabesques in colored glass rendered the windows very beautiful tolook upon. Nothing stirred within the village, as I crept along thenarrow lane separating the mosque from the wall of the garden. Beyondprospecting the ground, I had no definite plans for to-night; but Fatehad willed it that I was to become more deeply involved in the affairthan I had designed or intended.
A side door opened from the garden at a spot nearly opposite thelittle wooden platform which served as the minaret of the mosque; andthe mud bricks of the porch were so broken and decayed by time that Iperceived here an opportunity of mounting to the top of the wall, anopportunity of which I instantly availed myself.
Yes, in spite of my peaceful calling (I have explained that I havecotton interests in the Delta) my life has not been unadventurous norhave I ever hesitated to incur risk where profit might be gained.Therefore, having climbed to the top of the wall, unmolested, andperceiving at a spot some little distance to the right a sort oftrellis overgrown with purple blossom, I did not hesitate to make forit and to descend into the garden. I had just completed the descent,and stood looking cautiously about me, when a sound disturbed thesilence--a sound so entirely unexpected, in that place, at such anhour, that it turned my blood cold, bringing to my mind all thosestories of the black magic for which the people of this oasis werefamed.
It was the sound of a woman singing; and although the song she sangwas a familiar Arab love song and the voice of the singer was sweet,if very mournful, the effect, as I have said, was weird to a degree.
_Ashik yekul l'il hammam hat le genahak yom_ (A lover said to a dove, "Lend me your wings for a day," etc.)
Overcoming the fear and astonishment which momentarily had deprivedme of action, I advanced with the utmost caution in the direction fromwhence this mysterious singing seemed to proceed. Passing an angle ofthe house, where the stucco wall ran sheerly up to a _mushrabiyeh_window, I perceived before me a smaller, detached building in the formof a sort of pavilion. Some fine acacias overhung its white andglistening dome, in which were little windows of colored glass.Concealed in the shadow of the house, I stood looking towards thissmaller building, observing with astonishment that it possessed amassive, bronze-mounted door.
Indeed, in many respects, and in spite of the charming picture whichits jeweled appearance presented, it might well have been the tomb ofsome holy Sheikh. But seated on an old-fashioned _mastabah_ beforethe entrance were two huge negroes of most ferocious aspect, armedwith scimitars which glittered evilly in the light of the moon!
I drew back sharply into the shelter of the projecting wall. One ofthe negroes seemed to slumber, but the wicked black eyes of hiscompanion were widely open and he revealed his ivory teeth in afrightful leer. The beating of my heart almost suffocated me, for Iascribed that ghastly grimace to the fact that the negro had detectedmy presence and was already gloating over the pleasing prospect of myswift and bloody despatch. For many agonized moments I lurked there,one hand clutching the stucco wall and the other resting upon the buttof a new Colt magazine pistol which I had taken the precaution topurchase in Alexandria a week earlier.
When again I ventured to protrude my head, I learned how groundlessmy fears had been; I realized that the loathsome contortion of thenegro's countenance represented a smile of appreciation. He waslistening to the unseen singer whose voice now stole again upon thesilence of the night! His blubber lips drooped open cavernously andhis fierce little eyes blinked in stupid rapture.
It appeared to me, now, that the sweet voice proceeded from somesubterranean place: I thought that I was listening to the song of a_ginneyeh_. I remembered how the Sheikh Ismail was reputed to be theson of an _Efreet_ and an Arabian princess, and to have lived in thatoasis for generations, since the reign of the Sultan Mohammed Nasiribn-Kalaun, who had expelled him from Cairo as a magician. He was saidto possess the secrets of Geber and of Avicenna--the great Ibn Sin
a ofBokhara; to possess the Philosophers' Stone and the _Elixir Vitae_. Inthis pavilion with the bronze door I beheld the magician'streasure-house, guarded, within, by a _ginneyeh_ and, without, byghouls or black _Efreets_!
You will understand that these childish superstitions sometimesovercome me, because I have lived so long among those who believethem; but to me, a Greek, possessing the consolation of the truereligion, it was only momentary, this cold fear which belongs toignorance and is bred in the blood of the Moslem but finds no placein the heart of a true Christian.
And now the Fates again took a hand in the game. The pack of curs inthe distant palm grove set up a sudden tempest of sound, so that theyseemed to have become possessed of a million devils. It was adisturbance infinitely louder and more prolonged than that with whichthe dogs had greeted my appearance, and I had barely time to throwmyself flat in the depths of a black and friendly shadow ere the twonegroes, monstrous in the moonlight, passed me silently and trottedoff in the direction from whence the uproar proceeded. You will say,no doubt, that a madness as great as that of the dogs possessed me;but because what I tell you is true, you must not be surprised to findit strange.
Allowing the negroes time to reach the gate for which I divined themto be making, I ran across the moon-bathed garden to the door of thepavilion.
You must understand that my madness was not entirely without method;for I had a vague plan in my mind: it was to ascertain the characterof the lock upon the bronze door (for you must know that I am skilledin the craft of the locksmith), and then, passing beyond the pavilion,which I was assured was the treasure-house of Ismail, to make myescape over the garden wall at some point to the west and return tomy base in the desert ravine armed with a knowledge of the enemy'sdispositions.
But, as I have said, the Fates took a hand. The sweet-voiced singerceased her song as I approached the pavilion; and, at the moment thatI set foot upon the lower step, her voice--by Allah! whose Name beexalted, it was sweet as honey!--addressed to me these words:
"O my master, at last thou art come! Here is the key! enter ere theyreturn."
Whilst I stared blankly upward to the open lattice from whence theinvisible speaker thus addressed me, an antique key wrapped in a pieceof perfumed silk, fell almost upon my head!
III
Dazed though I was by the complete unexpectedness of this happeningI doubt if I should have had the temerity to pursue the matter furtherthat night but for the sound of fleetly running footsteps of which atthis moment I became aware.
My escape was cut off! If I endeavored to pass around the pavilion inaccordance with my original plan I should undoubtedly be perceived. Myonly hope lay in accepting the invitation so singularly given. Withtrembling hands I fitted the key to the cumbersome lock, opened thedoor, and entered the pavilion. My presence of mind had not completelydeserted me and before closing the door I withdrew the key.
I found myself in a saloon of extraordinary magnificence, furnishedwith mattresses covered with silk and lighted by hanging lamps and bycandles, and having at its upper end a couch of alabaster decoratedwith pearls and canopied by curtains of satin peacock-blue. From acarved wooden archway draped with cloth of gold there leaped forth agirl of such surpassing loveliness that her image must forever residein my heart together with those of the saints.
Conceive all the dark-eyed beauties of Oriental poetry, of Hafiz, ofOmar, of Attar, and from each distil the very essence of femaleloveliness; though you combine them all in one rapturous vision ofdelight you will have conceived but a feeble shadow of shadows of thiswondrous reality who now stood panting before me, her red lips partedand her bosom tumultuous.
I think if the light in her eyes had been for me I could gladly havedied for her and found death sweet; but as her gaze met mine apitiful change took place in that lovely countenance. Her color fledand she swayed and almost fell.
"Oh," she whispered, "thou art not my beloved! O Allah! this is somesnare that Ismail hath set for my feet! Who art thou? who art thou?"
But because of the excess of the loveliness of the speaker, from whomI could not remove my eyes, and because as I stood in that perfumedapartment it seemed to me that I was no longer a real man, but afigment of some _Efreet's_ dream, I found myself incapable of bothspeech and action.
Yet I was speedily to know that the Fates, which had thrust me intothat saloon--nay, which had brought me across the desert to thatsecret oasis--were not yet wearied of their sport.
A soft call, a lover's signal (for no true Believer will whistle atnight, since to do so is to summon the evil _ginn_) sounded fromimmediately outside the bronze door, followed by a muffled rappingupon the door itself!
"Said, my beloved!" cried the girl wildly, and ran towards the door.
At that very moment, and whilst I stood there like a man of clay,I heard the negro guardians returning to their posts; I heard theclatter of their sandals and I heard their guttural cries of rage!Uttering a long tremulous sigh, the beautiful occupant of the pavilionfell swooning upon the floor.
A loud imperious voice now rose above the sounds of conflict which hadcommenced outside the pavilion; I heard the sound of many runningfeet, and--my blood turned to ice--that of a key being inserted in thelock of the bronze door! Power of action returned to me, though Iconfess that I now grew sick with dread. Only one hiding-place waspossible: the first I could reach.
I leaped across the lovely form extended upon the floor and dropped,almost choking with emotion, behind the alabaster couch. I had barelygained this cover when the door was hurled open and a tall,excessively gaunt, and hawk-faced old man entered, his eyes blazing,his thin nostrils quivering, and his lean hands opening and closing athis sides in a sort of clutching movement horribly suggestive andterrifying.
He was followed by the two negroes, who were dragging between them ayoung Egyptian of prepossessing appearance down whose pale face bloodwas pouring from a wound in the brow.
Several other persons, principally servants of the _harem_, broughtup the rear.
Towering over the recumbent body of the girl, the terrible old man--inwhom I could not fail to recognize the Sheikh Ismail--glared down ather for some moments in passionate silence; then he made as if tospurn her with his foot; then he clutched his long white beard withboth hands and plucked at it frenziedly, whilst tears began to coursedown his furrowed cheeks, which had the frightful appearance of thoseof a mummy.
"O light of mine eyes!" he exclaimed; "O shame of my house! Oreproach of my white hairs!"
He recovered himself by dint of a stupendous effort and turning afiery glance upon the captive:
"Cast him down upon the floor," he cried, "that I may spit upon him,who is a scorn among swine and the son of a disease!"
To my unspeakable horror, the Sheikh then strode across the saloon andseated himself upon the alabaster couch! I almost choked with fear; Ifelt my teeth beginning to chatter and the beating of my heart soundedin my ears like the throb of a _darabukeh_. The Sheikh, fortunatelyignorant of my proximity, thus addressed the unfortunate young man wholay at his feet:
"Know, O disgrace of thy mother, that thy death hath been decidedupon, and it shall visit thee in a most painful and unfortunatemanner. O thou spawn of offal, learn that I have been aware of thymalevolent intentions since first thou didst seek to penetrate into mysecret. What! am I heir to all the wisdom of the ages, that I shouldremain ignorant of the presence of such as thee, O thou gnat's egg, inmy house? When the partner in thine infamy didst steal the key of thedoor from me, thinkest thou that mine eyes were blind to the theft, Othou foredoomed carrion? It was in order that thy culpability shouldbe made manifest that I permitted thee to enter. Thy double stratagemfor quelling and then exciting the dogs, in order that the guardsmight be drawn from their posts, was known to me, and the negroes hadreceived my orders to run to the gate in seeming accordance withthine accursed desires, O filthy insect!"
Throughout the time that this dreadful old man thus addressed hisvictim, the latter crouched
upon the floor, apparently paying no heedto his words but keeping an agonized glance fixed upon the lovely formof the girl. I was now in a condition of such profound and dejectedfear as I had never known before and trust I may never know again. TheSheikh continued:
"Learn of the fate of some of those who sought the secret of Ismailbefore thee. One there was, Mustapha Mirza, a Persian, who came hitherto despoil me. With his eyes did he behold my treasure. To-day _hehath no eyes_! And there was one Hassan of the Khan Khalil. He daredto lay violent hands upon the treasure of my house--the 'treasure' notof gold nor jewels but of fairest flesh and blood. To-day _he hath nohands_! Wouldst like to know of Abdul Moharli, who learned much ofthis "secret" of mine, and would have spoken of it? His tongue I threwto the carrion crows! _Thou_, O sink of iniquity, hast not only seenwith thine eyes, heard with thine ears and laid thy filthy hands uponthe treasure of Ismail: thou hast approached thy foul lips to thispeach of Allah's garden! thou hast...."
He choked in his utterance and seemed upon the point of hurlinghimself upon the young man before him: but again he recovered hiscomposure after a great effort and proceeded:
"The unpleasant punishments visited upon those others shall likewisefall to thy portion, since thou hast committed like crimes; but thisshall only be in order to prepare thee for a most protracted andpainful death. Bear him forth into the courtyard."
As one who dreams an evil dream, I saw the company stream out of thesaloon, the wretched prisoner in their midst. When at last the bronzedoor was reclosed and I found myself alone with the swooning girl, Icould scarce believe that even this respite was mine.
I offered a prayer to St. Antony of the Thebaeid--_my_ patron saint--asI listened to the sound of their receding footsteps; when I wasaroused from the lethargy of fear into which I had fallen by a distantscream--a long wailing cry....
* * * * *
I have often asked myself: How did I make my escape from that dreadfulvillage? You will remember that I had the purloined key of the bronzedoor in my possession? Then it was to this in the first place that Iowed my preservation. To regain the garden was a simple matter, forthe Sheikh and his bloodthirsty following were engaged in thecourtyard of the house, but to St. Antony be all praise for thecircumstance that the little door opposite the mosque had been leftopen--possibly by the unhappy Said,--and to St. Antony be all praisethat a second time I avoided the dogs....
Dawn found me staggering down into that friendly ravine whichsheltered my camel. I was utterly exhausted, for I bore a burden, buttriumphant, delirious with joy and rapture, because my burden was sosweet. You may question me of these matters, and I shall reply: As wellas my cotton interests I have now another interest in the Delta--thelovely "Secret" of the Sheikh Ismail Ebn al As![D]
[D] Readers of _Tales of Abu Tabah_ will recognize Mizmuna, "The Lady of the Lattice," the story of whose recovery by the bereaved Sheikh has already been related.