Oriental Encounters Part 17

'Believe not anything they say about us or the property.'

I closed the shutter and went back to bed. But it was hot. I rose again and opened both the windows so as to secure whatever breeze there was, and, after a long spell of angry tossing due to sandflies, fell asleep. When I awoke the room was full of daylight and a murmur which I first mistook for that of insects, but soon found out to be the voice of a considerable crowd of human beings. At every window was a press of faces and of women's head-veils, and children raised upon their mothers' shoulders. I heard a child's sad wail: 'O mother, lift me up that I, too, may behold the unbeliever!'

I made haste to cover myself somehow, for in my sleep I had kicked off the bedclothes, and commanded all those women to be gone immediately.

They merely grinned and wished me a good day, and then discussed my personal appearance, the whiteness of my skin, and more particularly my pyjamas, with much interest. This went on till Rashid appeared upon the scene, bringing my india-rubber bath and a kerosene tin full of water. He closed and bolted all the shutters firmly, with stern reflections on the lack of shame of my admirers.

I told him of the visit of the owner of the land.

He answered as before: 'He is unpopular.'

I asked the reason, and he told me:

'There are in this part of the country two factions which have existed from old time. All the people in this village are adherents of one faction, except that old man and his children, who uphold the other.

The people would not mind so much if he kept silent, but he gibes at them and vaunts his party upon all occasions. They intend to kill him.

That is why he wants to sell. It is good to know this, since it gives us an advantage.'

Suleyman arrived. We all three breakfasted on slabs of country bread and a great bowl of curds, and then went out to view that old man's land. The sheykh--whose name was Yusuf--and his sons were there to show us round, and, though the property was not extensive, they contrived to keep us there till noon, when a round meal was spread for us beneath some trees. And after that was finished, the sheykh availed himself of some remark of mine to start the whole perambulation once again.

At last it came to mention of the price, which seemed to me excessive, and I said so to my friends.

Rashid replied: 'Of course! The business has not yet begun. To-morrow and the next day we shall view the land again; and after that we shall arrange for the appointment of two valuers, one for us and one for him, who will inspect the land, first separately, then together; and after that we shall appoint an arbiter who will remonstrate with the owner of the land; and after that----'

'But the business will take months.'

'That is the proper way, unless your Honour wishes to be cheated.'

'What is your opinion?' I inquired of Suleyman.

'The land is good, and capable of much improvement,' he replied, 'and all the trees go with it, which is an advantage. Also the source of water will be all our own.'

Suleyman repeated this remark in presence of the crowd of villagers whom we found awaiting our return before my house. At once there rose a cry: 'That Yusuf is a liar. Some of the trees do not belong to him.

The water, too, does not originate upon his property, but on the hill above, so can be cut from him.'

Suleyman was talking with the village headman. When he returned to me his face was grave.

'What is it?' I inquired. 'Has the Sheykh Yusuf been deceiving us?'

He shook his head with a disgusted frown before replying:

'No, it is these others who are lying through dislike of him. Is your heart set upon the purchase of that land?'

'By no means.'

'That is good; because this village is a nest of hornets. The headman has long marked that land out for his own. Were we to pay Sheykh Yusuf a good price for it, enabling him to leave the neighbourhood with honour, they would hate us and work for our discomfort in a mult.i.tude of little ways. We will call upon the Sheykh to-morrow and cry off the bargain, because your Honour caught a touch of fever from the land to-day. That is a fair excuse.'

We proffered it upon the morrow, when the Sheykh Yusuf received it with a scarce veiled sneer, seeming extremely mortified. Directly after we had left him, we heard later, he went down to the tavern by the village spring and cursed the elders who had turned my mind against him in unmeasured terms; annoying people so that they determined there and then to make an end of him.

Next morning, when we started on our homeward way, there was a noise of firing in the village, and, coming round a shoulder of the hill in single file we saw Sheykh Yusuf seated on a chair against the wall of his house, and screened by a great olive tree, the slits in whose old trunk made perfect loopholes, blazing away at a large crowd of hostile fellahin. He used, in turn, three rifles, which his sons kept loading for him. He was seated, as we afterwards found out, because he had been shot in the leg.

I was for dashing to his rescue, and Rashid was following. We should both have lost our lives, most probably, if Suleyman had not shouted at that moment, in stentorian tones: 'Desist, in the name of the Sultan and all the Powers of Europe! Desist, or every one of you shall surely hang!'

Such words aroused the people's curiosity. The firing ceased while we rode in between them and their object; and Suleyman a.s.sured the villagers politely that I was the right hand and peculiar agent of the English Consul-General, with absolutely boundless power to hang and ma.s.sacre.

Upon the other hand, we all three argued with Sheykh Yusuf that he should leave the place at once and lay his case before the Governor.

'We will go with him,' said Suleyman to me, 'in order that your Honour may be made acquainted with the Governor--a person whom you ought to know. His property will not be damaged in his absence, for they fear the law. The heat of war is one thing, and cold-blooded malice is another. It is the sight and sound of him that irritates them and so drives them to excess.'

At length we got the Sheykh on horseback and upon the road; but he was far from grateful, wishing always to go back and fight. We could not get a civil word from him on the long ride, and just before we reached the town where lived the Governor he managed to escape.

Rashid flung up his hands when we first noticed his defection. 'No wonder that he is unpopular,' he cried disgustedly. 'To flee from us, his benefactors, after we have come so far out of our way through kindness upon his account. It is abominable. Who, under Allah, could feel love for such a man?'

CHAPTER XXII

THE CAMMACaM

Though the reason of our coming, the Sheykh Yusuf, had deserted us, we rode into the town and spent the night there, finding lodgings at a khan upon the outskirts of the place, of which the yard was shaded by a fine old carob tree. While we were having breakfast the next morning in a kind of gallery which looked into the branches of that tree, and through them and a ruined archway to the road, crowded just then with peasants in grey clothing coming in to market, Suleyman proposed that he and I should go and call upon the Cammacam, the local Governor. I had spent a wretched night. The place was noisy and malodorous. My one desire was to be gone as soon as possible, and so I answered:

'I will call on no one. My only wish to see him was upon account of that old rogue who ran away from us.'

'The man was certainly ungrateful--curse his father!' said Rashid.

'The man is to be pitied, being ignorant,' said Suleyman. 'His one idea was to defend his house and land by combat. He did not perceive that by the course of law and influence he might defend them more effectually, and for ever. He probably did not imagine that your Honour would yourself approach the Governor and plead with him.'

'I shall see n.o.body,' I answered crossly. 'We return at once.'

'Good,' said Rashid. 'I get the horses ready.'

'And yet,' said our preceptor thoughtfully, 'his Excellency is, they say, a charming man; and this would be a golden opportunity for us to get acquainted with him and bespeak his favour. Thus the Sheykh Yusuf, though himself contemptible, may be of service to us. Already I have told the people here that we have come on an important errand to the Governor. Rashid, too, as I know, has spoken of the matter in a boastful way. If, after that, we should depart in dudgeon without seeing him, there would be gossip and perhaps--G.o.d knows--even political disturbance. The Governor, coming to hear of it, might reasonably feel aggrieved.'

He argued so ridiculously, yet so gravely, that in the end I was obliged to yield. And so, a little before ten o'clock, we sauntered through the narrow streets to the Government offices--a red-roofed, whitewashed building near which soldiers loitered, in a dusty square.

There we waited for a long while in an ante-room--s.p.a.cious, but rather dingy, with cushionless divans around the walls, on which a strange variety of suitors sat or squatted. Some of these appeared so poor that I admired their boldness in demanding audience of the Governor.

Yet it was one of the most wretched in appearance who was called first by the turbaned, black-robed usher. He pa.s.sed into an inner room: the door was shut.

Then Suleyman went over to the usher, who kept guard upon that door, and held a whispered conversation with him. I know not what he said; but, when the wretched-looking man came out again, the usher slipped into the inner room with reverence and, presently returning, bowed to us and bade us enter. I went in, followed by Suleyman, who swelled and strutted like a pouter pigeon in his flowing robes.

The Cammacam was a nice-looking Turk of middle-age, extremely neat in his apparel and methodical in his surroundings. He might have been an Englishman but for the crimson fez upon his brow and a chaplet of red beads, with which he toyed perpetually. He gazed into my eyes with kind inquiry. I told him that I came with tidings of a grave disturbance in his district, and then left Suleyman to tell the story of Sheykh Yusuf and his neighbours and the battle we had witnessed in the olive grove before his house.

Suleyman exhausted all his powers of language and of wit, making a veritable poem of the episode. The Governor did not appear profoundly interested.

'Sheykh Yusuf! Who is he?' he asked at the conclusion of the tale.

I explained that the Sheykh Yusuf was a landowner, whose acquaintance we had made through my desire to buy some property.