Oriental Encounters Part 19

And after more than twenty years' experience of Eastern matters, I know now that he was right.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE BATTLEFIELD

Our road, the merest bridle-path, which sometimes altogether disappeared and had to be retrieved by guesswork, meandered on the side of a ravine, down in the depths of which, in groves of oleander, there flowed a stream of which we caught the murmur. The forest was continuous on our side of the wadi. It consisted of dense olive groves around the villages and a much thinner growth of ilex in the tracts between. The shade was pleasant in the daytime, but as night came on its gloom oppressed our spirits with extreme concern, for we were still a long way off our destination, and uncertain of the way.

The gloom increased. From open places here and there we saw the stars, but gloom filled the ravine, and there was little difference between the darkness underneath the trees and that outside in open s.p.a.ces of the grove. We trusted to our horses to make out the path, which sometimes ran along the verge of precipices.

I cannot say that I was happy in my mind. Rashid made matters worse by dwelling on the risks we ran not only from abandoned men but ghouls and jinnis. The lugubrious call of a hyaena in the distance moved him to remark that ghouls a.s.sume that shape at night to murder travellers.

They come up close and rub against them like a loving cat; which contact robs the victims of their intellect, and causes them to follow the hyaena to its den, where the ghoul kills them and inters their bodies till the flesh is ripe.

He next expressed a fear lest we might come upon some ruin lighted up, and be deceived into supposing it a haunt of men, as had happened to a worthy cousin of his own when on a journey. This individual, whose name was Ali, had been transported in the twinkling of an eye by jinnis, from somewhere in the neighbourhood of Hama to the wilds of Jebel Caf (Mount Caucasus), and had escaped a hideous and painful death only by recollection of the name of G.o.d. He told me, too, how he himself, when stationed at Mersin, had met a company of demons, one fine evening in returning from an errand; and other tales which caused my flesh to creep.

The groves receded. We were in an open place where only a low kind of brushwood grew, when suddenly my horse shied, gave a fearful snort, and st.u.r.dily refused to budge another inch. I let him stand until Rashid came up. He thought to pa.s.s me, but his horse refused as mine had done.

'It is no doubt some jinni in the way,' he whispered in a frightened tone; then, calling out: 'Dastur, ya mubarak' (Permission, blessed one!), he tried to urge his horse, which still demurred. So there we were, arrested by some unseen hand; and this became the more unpleasant because a pestilential smell was in the place.

'Better return!' muttered Rashid, with chattering teeth.

'Give me a match!' I said distractedly. 'My box is empty.'

'Better return!' he pleaded.

'A match, do you hear?' I cried, made cross by terror.

He gave the match, and I believe I shouted as I struck it. For a brief s.p.a.ce it made a dazzle in my eyes, preventing me from seeing anything, and then went out.

'There is something lying in the path!' Rashid was gibbering.

I got down off my horse and lit a second match, which I took care to shelter till the flame was strong. A human arm lay in the path before us.

My horror was extreme, and grew uncanny when the match expired. But the ghastly object had restored his courage to Rashid, who even laughed aloud as he exclaimed:

'The praise to Allah! It is nothing which can hurt us. No doubt some murder has been here committed, all unknown. The Lord have mercy on the owner of that arm! We will report the matter to some high official at our journey's end.'

We turned our horses to the right and made a long detour, but scarcely had they found the path again when mine (which led the way) demurred once more.

'Another piece,' exclaimed Rashid excitedly. He got down off his horse to look. 'Nay, many pieces. This, by Allah, is no other than a battlefield unknown to fame.'

'How can a battle take place without public knowledge?' I inquired, incredulous.

'The thing may happen when two factions quarrel for unlawful cause--it may be over stolen gains, or for some deadly wrong which cannot be avowed without dishonour--and when each side exterminates the other.'

'How can that happen?' I exclaimed again.

Rashid could not at once reply, because in our avoidance of those human relics we found ourselves on broken ground and among trunks of trees, which called for the address of all our wits. But when the horses once more plodded steadily, he a.s.sured me that the thing could happen, and had happened often in that country, where men's blood is hot. He told me how a band of brigands once, in Anti-Lebanon, had fought over their spoils till the majority on both sides had been slain, and the survivors were so badly wounded that they could not move, but lay and died upon the battlefield; and how the people of two villages, both men and women, being mad with envy, had held a battle with the same result. I interrupted him with questions. Both of us were glad to talk in order to get rid of the remembrance of our former fear. We gave the rein to our imaginations, speaking eagerly.

Reverting to the severed limbs which we had seen, Rashid exclaimed:

'Now I will tell your Honour how it happened. A deadly insult had been offered to a family in a young girl's dishonour. Her father and her brothers killed her to wipe out the shame--as is the custom here among the fellahin--and then with all their relatives waylaid the men of the insulter's house when these were cutting wood here in the forest.

There was a furious battle, lasting many hours. The combatants fought hand-to-hand with rustic weapons, and in some cases tore each other limb from limb. When all was done, the victors were themselves so sorely wounded that they were able to do nothing but lie down and die.'

'How many do you think there were?' I asked, believing.

'To judge by scent alone, not one or two; but, Allah knows, perhaps a hundred!' said Rashid reflectively.

'It is strange they should have lain there undiscovered.'

'Not strange, when one remembers that the spot is far from any village and probably as far from the right road,' was his reply.

This last conjecture was disquieting; but we were both too much excited for anxiety.

'It is an event to be set down in histories,' Rashid exclaimed. 'We shall be famous people when we reach the village. Such news is heard but once in every hundred years.'

'I wish that we could reach that village,' was my answer; and again we fell to picturing the strange event.

At length we heard the barking of a dog in the far distance, and gave praise to Allah. A half-hour later we saw lights ahead of us. But that did not mean that the village was awake, Rashid explained to me, for among the people of that country 'to sleep without a light' is to be dest.i.tute. A little later, Rashid hammered at a door, while savage dogs bayed round us, making rushes at his heels.

'Awake, O sons of honour!' was his cry. 'A great calamity!' And, when the door was opened, he detailed the story of an awful fight, in which both parties of belligerents had been exterminated. 'They are torn limb from limb. We saw the relics,' he explained. 'If you have any doubt, question my lord who is out here behind me--a great one of the English, famed for his veracity.'

And I was ready to confirm each word he said.

In a very little while that village was astir.

It was the seat of a mudir who had two soldiers at his beck and call.

The great man was aroused from sleep; he questioned us, and, as the result of the inquiry, sent the soldiers with us to survey the battlefield. A crowd of peasants, armed with quarter-staves and carrying lanterns, came with the party out of curiosity. Our horses having had enough of travel, we went back on foot amid the noisy crowd, who questioned us incessantly about the strange event. The murmur of our going filled the wood and echoed from the rocks above.

By the time we reached the place where we had seen the human limbs, the dawn was up, to make our lanterns useless.

Rashid and I were certain of the spot. We came upon it with a thrill of apprehension.

But there was nothing there.

'I seek refuge in Allah!' gasped Rashid in pious awe. 'I swear by my salvation it was here we saw them. The name of G.o.d be round about us!

It is devilry.'

Our escort was divided in opinion, some thinking we had been indeed the sport of devils, others that we lied. But someone sniffed and said:

'There is a smell of death.'

There was no doubt about the smell at any rate. Then one of the mudir's two soldiers, searching in the brushwood, cried: 'I have the remnant of an arm.'

And then an old man of the village smote his leg and cried:

'O my friends, I see it! Here is neither lies nor devilry.'