The Weavers Part 35

Soolsby's eyes widened; the blurred look of rage and self-reproach in them began to fade away.

"Thee has made a fight, Soolsby, to conquer a thing that has had thee by the throat. There's no fighting like it. It means a watching every hour, every minute--thee can never take the eye off it. Some days it's easy, some days it's hard, but it's never so easy that you can say, 'There is no need to watch.' In sleep it whispers and wakes you; in the morning, when there are no shadows, it casts a shadow on the path. It comes between you and your work; you see it looking out of the eyes of a friend. And one day, when you think it has been conquered, that you have worn it down into oblivion and the dust, and you close your eyes and say, 'I am master,' up it springs with fury from nowhere you can see, and catches you by the throat; and the fight begins again. But you sit stronger, and the fight becomes shorter; and after many battles, and you have learned never to be off guard, to know by instinct where every ambush is, then at last the victory is yours. It is hard, it is bitter, and sometimes it seems hardly worth the struggle. But it is--it is worth the struggle, dear old man."

Soolsby dropped on his knees and caught David by the arms. "How did you know-how did you know?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely. "It's been just as you say.

You've watched some one fighting?"

"I have watched some one fighting--fighting," answered David clearly, but his eyes were moist.

"With drink, the same as me?"

"No, with opium--laudanum."

"Oh, I've heard that's worse, that it makes you mad, the wanting it."

"I have seen it so."

"Did the man break down like me?"

"Only once, but the fight is not yet over with him."

"Was he--an Englishman?"

David inclined his head. "It's a great thing to have a temptation to fight, Soolsby. Then we can understand others."

"It's not always true, Egyptian, for you have never had temptation to fight. Yet you know it all."

"G.o.d has been good to me," David answered, putting a hand on the old man's shoulder. "And thee is a credit to Hamley, friend. Thee will never fall again."

"You know that--you say that to me! Then, by Mary the mother of G.o.d, I never will be a swine again," he said, getting to his feet.

"Well, good-bye, Soolsby. I go to-morrow," David said presently.

Soolsby frowned; his lips worked. "When will you come back?" he asked eagerly.

David smiled. "There is so much to do, they may not let me come--not soon. I am going into the desert again."

Soolsby was shaking. He spoke huskily. "Here is your place," he said.

"You shall come back--Oh, but you shall come back, here, where you belong."

David shook his head and smiled, and clasped the strong hand again. A moment later he was gone. From the door of the but Soolsby muttered to himself:

"I will bring you back. If Luke Claridge doesn't, then I will bring you back. If he dies, I will bring you--no, by the love of G.o.d, I will bring you back while he lives!"

Two thousand miles away, in a Nile village, women sat wailing in dark doorways, dust on their heads, black mantles covering their faces. By the pond where all the people drank, performed their ablutions, bathed their bodies and rinsed their mouths, sat the sheikh-el-beled, the village chief, taking counsel in sorrow with the barber, the holy man, and others. Now speaking, now rocking their bodies to and fro, in the evening sunlight, they sat and watched the Nile in flood covering the wide wastes of the Fayoum, spreading over the land rich deposits of earth from the mountains of Abyssinia. When that flood subsided there would be fields to be planted with dourha and onions and sugar-cane; but they whose strong arms should plough and sow and wield the sickle, the youth, the upstanding ones, had been carried off in chains to serve in the army of Egypt, destined for the far Soudan, for hards.h.i.+p, misery, and death, never to see their kindred any more. Twice during three months had the dread servant of the Palace come and driven off their best like sheep to the slaughter. The brave, the stalwart, the bread-winners, were gone; and yet the tax-gatherer would come and press for every impost--on the onion-field, the date-palm, the dourha-field, and the clump of sugar-cane, as though the young men, the toilers, were still there. The old and infirm, the children, the women, must now double and treble their labour. The old men must go to the corvee, and mend the banks of the Nile for the Prince and his pashas, providing their own food, their own tools, their own housing, if housing there would be--if it was more than sleeping under a bush by the riverside, or crawling into a hole in the ground, their yeleks their clothes by day, their only covering at night.

They sat like men without hope, yet with the proud, bitter mien of those who had known good and had lost it, had seen content and now were desolate.

Presently one--a lad--the youngest of them, lifted up his voice and began to chant a recitative, while another took a small drum and beat it in unison. He was but just recovered from an illness, or he had gone also in chains to die for he knew not what, leaving behind without hope all that he loved:

"How has the cloud fallen, and the leaf withered on the tree, The lemon-tree, that standeth by the door.

The melon and the date have gone bitter to the taste, The weevil, it has eaten at the core The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it.

My music, it is but the drip of tears, The garner empty standeth, the oven hath no fire, Night filleth me with fears.

O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice?

His footsteps hast thou covered with thy flood?

He was as one who lifteth up the yoke, He was as one who taketh off the chain, As one who sheltereth from the rain, As one who scattereth bread to the pigeons flying.

His purse was at his side, his mantle was for me, For any who pa.s.seth were his mantle and his purse, And now like a gourd is he withered from our eyes.

His friends.h.i.+p, it was like a shady wood Whither has he gone?--Who shall speak for us?

Who shall save us from the kourbash and the stripes?

Who shall proclaim us in the palace?

Who shall contend for us in the gate?

The sakkia turneth no more; the oxen they are gone; The young go forth in chains, the old waken in the night, They waken and weep, for the wheel turns backward, And the dark days are come again upon us-- Will he return no more?

His friends.h.i.+p was like a shady wood, O Nile that floweth deeply, hast thou not heard his voice?

Hast thou covered up his footsteps with thy flood?

The core of my heart, the mildew findeth it!"

Another-an old man-took up the strain, as the drum kept time to the beat of the voice with its undulating call and refrain:

"When his footsteps were among us there was peace; War entered not the village, nor the call of war. Now our homes are as those that have no roofs. As a nest decayed, as a cave forsaken, As a s.h.i.+p that lieth broken on the beach, Is the house where we were born. Out in the desert did we bury our gold, We buried it where no man robbed us, for his arm was strong. Now are the jars empty, gold did not avail To save our young men, to keep them from the chains. G.o.d hath swallowed his voice, or the sea hath drowned it, Or the Nile hath covered him with its flood; Else would he come when our voices call. His word was honey in the prince's ear Will he return no more?"

And now the sheikh-el-beled spoke. "It hath been so since Nahoum Pasha pa.s.sed this way four months agone. He hath changed all. War will not avail. David Pasha, he will come again. His word is as the centre of the world. Ye have no hope, because ye see the hawks among the starving sheep. But the shepherd will return from behind the hill, and the hawks will flee away.

"... Behold, once was I in the desert. Listen, for mine are the words of one who hath travelled far--was I not at Damascus and Palmyra and Bagdad, and at Medina by the tomb of Mahomet?"

Reverently he touched the green turban on his head, evidence of his journey to Mahomet's tomb. "Once in the desert I saw afar off an oasis of wood and water, and flying things, and houses where a man might rest.

And I got me down from my camel, and knelt upon my sheepskin, and gave thanks in the name of Allah. Thereupon I mounted again and rode on towards that goodly place. But as I rode it vanished from my sight. Then did I mourn. Yet once again I saw the trees, and flocks of pigeons and waving fields, and I was hungry and thirsty, and longed exceedingly. Yet got I down, and, upon my sheep-skin, once more gave thanks to Allah. And I mounted thereafter in haste and rode on; but once again was I mocked.

Then I cried aloud in my despair. It was in my heart to die upon the sheep-skin where I had prayed; for I was burned up within, and there seemed naught to do but say malaish, and go hence. But that goodly sight came again. My heart rebelled that I should be so mocked. I bent down my head upon my camel that I might not see, yet once more I loosed the sheep-skin. Lifting up my heart, I looked again, and again I took hope and rode on. Farther and farther I rode, and lo! I was no longer mocked; for I came to a goodly place of water and trees, and was saved. So shall it be with us. We have looked for his coming again, and our hearts have fallen and been as ashes, for that he has not come. Yet there be mirages, and one day soon David Pasha will come hither, and our pains shall be eased."

"Aiwa, aiwa--yes, yes," cried the lad who had sung to them.

"Aiwa, aiwa," rang softly over the pond, where naked children stooped to drink.

The smell of the cooking-pots floated out from the mud-houses near by.

"Malaish," said one after another, "I am hungry. He will come again-perhaps to-morrow." So they moved towards the houses over the way.

One cursed his woman for wailing in the doorway; one s.n.a.t.c.hed the lid from a cooking-pot; one drew from an oven cakes of dourha, and gave them to those who had none; one knelt and bowed his forehead to the ground in prayer; one shouted the name of him whose coming they desired.

So was David missed in Egypt.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE TENTS OF CUSHAN

"I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains of the Land of Midian did tremble."