Oriental Encounters Part 6

After an hour we came in sight of a large khan outside a mud-built village on the sh.o.r.e. Before it was a crowd, including several soldiers. As we drew near, Rashid inquired the meaning of the throng.

'A great calamity,' he was informed. 'A man, a foreigner, is dying, killed by highwaymen. One of his companions, a poor servant, is already dead.'

We both dismounted, and Rashid pushed in to learn more of the matter.

Presently a soldier came to me.

'Your Honour is an Englishman?' he questioned. 'Praise be to Allah! I am much relieved. This other also is an Englishman, they tell me. He is severely wounded, at the gate of death.'

I went with him at once to see the sufferer, who seemed relieved to hear me speak, but could not answer. Rashid and I did what we could to make him comfortable, giving the soldiers orders to keep out the crowd. We decided to ride on and send a doctor, and then report the matter to a British consul.

'He was going down to start some kind of business in the city over there,' the leader of the soldiers told me, nodding towards the south.

'He had a largeish company, with several camels. But near the village of ---- he was attacked by the Circa.s.sians, and was so foolish as to make resistance. They took everything he had of worth--his arms, his money--and killed a camel-driver, besides wounding him. It happened yesterday before the storm. They say I should take vengeance for him.

What am I--a corporal with six men--to strive with Huseyn Agha and his cavalry! It needs a regiment.'

He went grumbling off. Rashid and I were staring hard at one another; for the village named was that where we had spent the night, and Huseyn Agha's roasted fowls were in our saddle-bags.

Rashid, as I could see, was troubled upon my account. He kept silence a good while. At last he said:

'It is like this, my lord. Each man must see with his own eyes and not another's. People are as one finds them, good or bad. They change with each man's vision, yet remain the same. For us those highway robbers are good people; we must bless them; having cause to do so. This other man is free to curse them, if he will. Good to their friends, bad to their enemies. What creature of the sons of Adam can condemn them quite?'

CHAPTER VIII

POLICE WORK

Having to dress for dinner on a certain evening, I took off my money-belt, and quite forgot to put it on again. It happened to contain twelve English pounds. I left it lying on the table in the hotel bedroom. When I came back in the small hours of the morning it was gone. Rashid--who slept out at a khan in charge of our two horses--came in at eight o'clock to rouse me. Hearing of my loss, he gave me the worst scolding I have ever had, and then went out to blow up the hotel proprietor.

It was, for once, a real hotel with table d'hote, hall-porter, and a palm-lounge--everything, in fact, excepting drains. The owner was a fat, brown individual, whom I had generally seen rec.u.mbent on a sofa in his office, while someone of his many sons did all the work. But that he could show energy upon occasion I now learnt. Hearing from Rashid that I, a guest in his hotel, had suffered robbery, he sprang on to his feet and danced with rage.

When I arrived upon the scene, which was the palm-lounge--an open courtyard shaded by an awning--he was flourishing a monstrous whip, with dreadful imprecations, literally foaming at the mouth. I begged him to do nothing rash, but he seemed not to hear me. With the squeal of a fighting stallion, he rushed off to the servants' quarters, whence presently there came heartrending shrieks and cries for mercy.

His sons, in fear of murder, followed him, and added their remonstrance to the general din. The women of his house appeared in doorways, weeping and wringing their hands.

Rashid seemed gratified by this confusion, regarded as a tribute to our greatness, his and mine.

'Be good enough to go away,' he told me. 'The scene is quite unworthy of your dignity. I will take care that all is done to raise your honour.'

I remained, however. Presently, the host returned, perspiring freely, mopping his brown face with a crimson handkerchief. He smiled as one who has had healthy exercise.

'It is no use,' he told me, with a shrug. 'I beat them well, and every one of them confessed that he alone, and not another, was the thief.

Each, as his turn came, wished to stay my hand at any cost.'

He sank down on a sofa which was in the court. 'What further is your Honour's will?' he asked. 'I will beat anyone. The story is so bad for the hotel. I should be ruined if it reached the ears of Cook or Baedeker.'

The cries of those unhappy servants having shamed me, I told him that I was content to count the money lost rather than that harmless folk should suffer for my carelessness. Rashid protested, saying twelve pounds was no trifle, although I might, in youthful folly, so regard it. He, as my servant, had to guard my wealth.

'The gold is lost. It is the will of Allah. Let it be,' I answered irritably.

'Thou wilt not tell the English consul?' cried the host, with sudden eagerness. 'Thou wilt refrain from saying any word to Cook or Baedeker to bring ill-fame and ruin on the place? Our Lord augment thy wealth and guard thee always! May thy progeny increase in honour till it rules the world!'

'But something must be done,' Rashid remonstrated. 'A crime has been committed. We must find the culprit.'

'True,' said the host, 'and I will help with all my strength. The consul would not help at all. He would but frighten the police, with the result that they would torture--perhaps hang--a man or two, but not the man who stole your belt of money. Our police, when not alarmed, are clever. Go to them and give a little money. They will find the thief.'

'I go this minute,' said Rashid.

I bade him wait. Knowing his way of magnifying me and my possessions, I thought it better to be present at the interview, lest he should frighten the police no less than would the intervention of a consul.

We went together through the shady markets, crossing here and there an open s.p.a.ce of blinding sunlight, asking our way at intervals, until at last we entered a large whitewashed room where soldiers loitered and a frock-coated, be-fezzed official sat writing at a desk. This personage was very sympathetic.

'Twelve pounds!' he cried. 'It is a serious sum. The first thing to be done is to survey the scene of crime. Wait, I will send with you a knowing man.'

He called one of the soldiers, who stepped forward and saluted, and gave him charge of the affair.

'You can place confidence in him. He knows his business,' he a.s.sured me, bowing with extreme politeness, as we took our leave.

With the soldier who had been a.s.signed to us we sauntered back to the hotel. The man abounded in compa.s.sion for me. He said it was the worst case he had ever heard of--to rob a man so manifestly good and amiable of so great a sum. Alas! the badness of some people. It put out the sun!

At the hotel he spent a long while in my room, searching, as he said, for 'traces.' Rashid, the host and all his family, and nearly all the servants, thronged the doorway. After looking into every drawer, and crawling underneath the bed, which he unmade completely, he spent some minutes in debating whether the thief had entered by the window or the door. Having at last decided for the door, he turned to me and asked if there was anybody I suspected. When I answered 'no,' I saw him throw a side-glance at Rashid, as if he thought him fortunate in having so obtuse a master. As he was departing, Rashid, at my command, gave him a silver coin, for which he kissed my hand and, having done so, said:

'I know a clever man, none like him for such business. I will send him to your presence in an hour.'

Three hours pa.s.sed. I had finished luncheon, and was sipping coffee in the lounge, when a sleek personage in gorgeous robes was brought to me. He had a trick of looking down his nose at his moustache, the while he stroked it, with a gentle smirk.

'Your Excellency has been robbed,' he murmured in a secret tone, 'and you would know the robber? There is nothing simpler. I have discovered many thieves. I think it likely that I know the very man. I will disguise myself as an old woman or a begging dervish. There are many ways. But, first, your Honour must bestow on me an English pound.

That is my fee. It is but little for such services.'

I answered languidly that the affair had ceased to thrill me; I wished to hear no more about the money or the thief. He stayed a long while, wheedling and remonstrating, depicting his own subtlety in glowing terms; but in the end departed with despairing shrugs and backward glances, hoping that I might relent.

Rashid, who had been out to tend the horses, came presently and asked if I had seen the great detective. When I described our interview, he nearly wept.

'The people here think me the thief,' he told me. 'They say nothing, but I feel it in their bearing towards me. And now you give up seeking for the culprit! Am I to bear this shame for evermore?'

Here was a new dilemma! No way out of it appeared to me, for even if we did employ the great detective, our chance of finding the delinquent seemed exceeding small. I was thinking what could possibly be done to clear Rashid, when a familiar figure came into the court and strolled towards us. It was Suleyman! I had imagined him three hundred miles away, at Gaza, in the south of Palestine. Loud were our exclamations, but his calm rebuked us. I never knew him show excitement or surprise.

He heard our story with deliberation, and shook his head at the police and the detective.

'No use at all,' he scoffed. 'The one man for your purpose is the Chief of the Thieves. I know him intimately.'

'Ma sh'Allah! Is there then a guild of thieves?'

'There is.'

'The Sheykh of the Thieves must be the greatest rogue. I do not care to have to do with him.'

'You err,' remarked Suleyman, with dignity. 'Your error has its root in the conviction that a thief is evil. He may be evil as an individual; all men are apt to be who strive for gain; but as a member of a corporation he has pride and honour. With Europeans, it is just the opposite. They individually are more honourable than their governments and corporations. The Sheykh of the Thieves, I can a.s.sure you, is the soul of honour. I go at once to see him. He can clear Rashid.'