There was a King in Egypt Part 71

There was nothing in the ethics or the moral code of the Prophet with which he disagreed; the excellence of his teachings as laid down in the Koran was extraordinarily far-reaching and comprehensive. Michael's whole being for the moment was filled with the devotion and abandonment of Islam. Mohammed's mission was to turn the hearts of his people to the worship of the one and only G.o.d; his desire, like Akhnaton's, was to throw down the false G.o.ds from the altars, and reinstate the simple and undivided worship of the Creator in men's hearts and minds. To Michael, his teachings had always been the teachings of a great and inspired reformer. At that moment, when the spell of Islam was baptizing him, he forgot that Mohammed's G.o.d was not the Sweet Singer in the spring-time, or the bright eye of the daisy in June, or the laughter of the babbling brooks. The beauty of G.o.d, to the Moslem, consists in His unity, His majesty, His grandeur and His lofty attributes. Michael overlooked the difference. He loved to walk with G.o.d in the cornfields, to speak to Him when he visited the lotus-gardens on the Nile. The Moslem succeeds in abandoning himself to G.o.d's will, but he fails to enjoy Him in the scent of the hawthorn, or hear His voice in the whisper of the pines.

The Moslem city was pouring into his veins the beauty of its spiritual calm; the hour was kind to its imperfections, its hidden sores were forgotten.

His feet mechanically descended the flights of stone steps which had raised him above the level of the street and had placed him under the shadow of the ancient doorway of the mosque. Without asking himself where he was going, or what he intended to do, he walked in the direction of el-Azhar.

As he threaded his way through the narrow streets, darkness was quickly obliterating the dirt and unsightliness which was visible in the noonday. His mind was vexed with a thousand questions. Why did a Western civilization and the Protestant religion make human beings restless and questioning? Why were they for ever desiring the things which are withheld? Why had his life and his interests suddenly tottered to the ground? Surely it was because he had not learned to put the things of the spirit above things material? If he resigned his will to Islam, would he in return be granted the calm philosophy of a Moslem, who accepts his condition and his disappointments as the unquestionable and far-seeing decree of the Cause of all causes?

Drifting and dreaming, Michael wandered on, the summer heavens above him, the mediaeval city surrounding him. The hot day's work was over; men and women were enjoying in their Oriental fashion the cooler and sweeter air of the late evening. Portly figures of elderly men were descending the high steps which raise the mosque-doors from the level of the street; narrow, two-wheeled carts, of immense length, packed full of black bundles--Egyptian women closely veiled--were taking tired workers back to their homes in the suburbs. Darkness, which falls so quickly and early in the East, even in mid-summer, was bringing relief to sun-tired eyes.

Reaction was affecting Michael very strongly. It had only set in when the absence of the Iretons from Cairo had suddenly opened up a chasm of distrust and doubt before his feet. In his desolate wandering through the city, Margaret seemed very far away. Indeed, he had never felt any a.s.surance of her sympathy and presence since he had recovered from his illness. He had nerved and braced himself to make the supreme effort which he knew would be demanded of him if he was to reach the Valley; he had made it wholly unaided by any subconscious sense of her spiritual presence. His a.s.surance of her unchanged confidence in his devotion had left him. It was to his material, not spiritual, will-power and determination that he owed his victory over the physical exhaustion which he had experienced.

He scarcely thought of Margaret as he wandered on; in his mood of self-pity he felt abandoned. Every minute he was drawing nearer and nearer to the gates of el-Azhar. Unconsciously he desired that when he reached the gate which led into the Court of the Perfection of Peace, it would open, and strong arms would gather him up as they had gathered him up in the Libyan Desert, and drown his restlessness and doubts in their strength; that he might spend his future at rest under the shadow of the Everlasting Arms--The G.o.d of Akhnaton, the G.o.d of Jesus, the G.o.d of Mohammed, His Arms encompa.s.s and enfold the world.

At the gates of el-Azhar Michael paused and listened. The praises of Allah, and man's love for Him, went up from a hundred devout voices.

The pillared courtyard looked vast and solemn; the soft air of the summer night vibrated with the sonorous chanting of students and professors. The peace of G.o.d which pa.s.seth all understanding beautified the mediaeval building, which has been for long centuries the centre of culture and learning for the scattered Moslem world. It baptized Michael's fevered soul as the waters of Jordan baptized those who were converts of the forerunner of Jesus. Centuries of meditation and player have left their divine influence on the place.

All sacred enclosures hold the gift of healing. Michael had felt it in the temples of Egypt, in the temples of the Greeks, in the mosques.

The things of the spirit remain in them, the thoughts which have been born by communion with the soul.

Impulsively Michael lifted the iron handle of the bell; it hung from a long chain which lay against a square column, one of the two posts at the outer gate. Here was the rest he was seeking, the beauty of divine meditation.

As he lifted the handle and his palm pressed it with the tightening grasp necessary for pulling it, he let it drop. Something made him drop it. He had ardently desired to ring it; it was not the lateness of the hour, or the nervousness which he might well have felt at taking a step which would lead him into fresh perplexity and doubt, which had made him pause. He had dropped it because he was compelled to, and as he dropped it, he knew that he would never again ring it for the same purpose. His super-self had triumphed; it had dominated his actions.

Suddenly the overwhelming significance of the step which he had been about to take so rashly made him tremble and feel apprehensive. He turned round quickly, as if he expected to see the hand which had stayed him. No one was there.

He stood tense, perfectly still, listening. Only the prayers from the courts of Islam came to his ears. Mingled with their solemnity, came with vivid clearness the picture of himself, seated on the marble floor of the courtyard, pretending that he was one in heart and soul with the others. He could see their devotion, their bridled intellects, their impersonal minds, strange peoples of every Oriental nation--black Nubians, pale Arabs, flat-featured Mongolians--all sincere and honest in this one thing at least, their absolute belief in, and surrender to Islam. He saw himself, a Western, with a Western mind; ha saw himself a hypocrite and charlatan. He saw the deadly monotony of the life which only a moment before had seemed the Way of Perfect Peace. His old friend, who had given him such wonderful counsel, would have read into his heart: he would have seen there the vast difference which lay between Michael's sincere beliefs and the beliefs which he was professing.

Resolutely he turned his back on the university-mosque. He would visit his friend at a more suitable hour, and ask him to explain to him some of the things that had happened. He would ask him if he was aware that his desert journey had, in a material sense at least, ended in failure, if his seer's vision had enabled him to discover what had happened to the treasure.

On his way back to the European quarter of Cairo he rested for a short time by the roadside, in a strange little cemetery of poor Moslem tombs. It lay exposed to the turmoil and dust of a rough road, a sun-baked spot in the daytime; at night it was grimly mysterious. The memorial stones--the humbler for the women, of course, the grander ones, with turbans cut in the grey stone, for the men--had sunk into the ground until they stood at strange angles. The rough white stones had become grey with age, and many of them were sadly broken.

A donkey-boy, who had perchance taken some portly Turkish merchant back to his home in the country after his day's work in the city, came hurrying down the hill. It was steep, and loose stones covered the path. When he reached the dilapidated cemetery he pulled up his suffering animal. Michael, from his hidden corner, watched the boy fling himself from the donkey's back; the animal remained motionless, while its rider, in his one garment--a short white shirt, which only reached to the knees of his tanned legs--stepped in amongst the gravestones. Finding the one he sought, he said a short prayer beside it in devout tones, then hastened back to his donkey. When he started down the hill and the tired beast stumbled, he belaboured it with a heavy stick and cursed it. His foul language rang out into the stillness; it echoed among the stones under which lay the bones of his ancestor--or was it, perhaps, the bones of some humble saint, whose favour he was inciting?

The little incident was as ill.u.s.trative of the effects of Islam as the peace within the courts of el-Azhar.

Michael sat in the cemetery, which had seemed to him to be of no more consequence than a heap of stones by the wayside, awaiting the roadmender's hammer. Yet, with the strange inconsequence of Orientals, it was evidently a sacred spot. It had its pilgrims and its uses.

This city cemetery brought to his mind the drifting sand of the open desert, and the ever-increasing mound which Nature was piling up over the bones of the holy man, which lay in an ocean of sweet silence and expanse.

CHAPTER XXIII

Early the next morning Michael again stood at the gate of the university-mosque, but it was a different Michael to the Michael of the night before. The unseen hand which had stopped him when he was about to ring the bell did not have to interfere a second time. He rang it resolutely, thinking calm thoughts, and despising himself for his foolish mood of the night before.

When the gate was opened to him, he pa.s.sed in and hurried across the blinding brightness of the open courtyard. He made haste to reach the shelter of the colonnade; he was in no drifting humour; he was again a.s.serting his capacity for being practical about the unpractical. He did not even allow himself to dwell on the memories which the scene recalled of the day when he had visited his friend, before he determined to leave the Valley and go into the Libyan Desert.

When he reached the portion of the building where the old African student lived, his steps slackened. What if he was dead? He was an old man for a mid-African, and his physique had been greatly exhausted by continued chastening of the flesh.

When he was well within sight of his cell he saw the lean, gaunt figure of the hermit-student standing inside the iron-barred gate; he was straining his eyes into the distance; he was looking for someone.

When Michael was near enough to address him, which he did in tones of pleasure and respect, the African opened the gate slowly and not without difficulty, his trembling hands thinner and more bloodless even than they had been when Michael had visited him before.

After the proper greetings were exchanged, the African invited Michael to enter, and asked him if he would lend a patient ear to what he had to tell him.

"I am an old man," he said. "I can see the end of this existence--it is not far off. It is well that you have come."

When Michael expressed his sorrow, the tired eyes flashed.

"Do not grieve, my son. When the righteous servant of G.o.d sees death face to face, he does not contend with his G.o.d--that is to oppose His will, that is not in accordance with total resignation."

Michael said that his grief was for himself, not for his friend; his words were an apology. The old man had seated himself in a humble att.i.tude on the floor in front of Michael; with the never-failing courtesy of an Oriental, he was not forgetful of the etiquette which prescribes for the seating of oneself in the presence of a superior.

There is always a position of honour in a native room, and this, even in his cell, the zealot of Islam reserved for his professors and for his honoured guests, if they were his social superiors.

When they were seated and the tired old man had rested for a few moments, he said, in the lengthy and flowery style of Orientals:

"I looked for you, my son; your coming was foretold. I have long and eagerly awaited it."

"Were you watching for me?" Michael asked. "I saw you at the door of your cell. I am glad I came."

"Even as you came, I looked for you. The Lord of Kindness knows the desires of our hearts; He grants all those which in His mercy He deems fit."

"You desired to see me, O my father?"

"_Aiwah_, for long I have desired it."

A rosary was in his hands; he pulled the beads slowly along the string.

Michael had learned to banish impatience in the presence of natives.

"I have been in great tribulation," he said. "Did you know that? I am even yet sorely troubled."

The African answered with his eyes.

"O Lord, give us in our affliction the contentment of mind which may give us patience."

"My peace of mind has gone, O my father. I feel that my feet have strayed far from the way of peace. I came to hear your counsel."

The old man's eyes flamed with the fire of righteousness. "My son," he said, "the Lord has revealed to His dying servant the things which as yet you know not. You speak of peace where there is no peace, for I have seen the Armageddon of G.o.d's enemies; I have seen the world washed in the blood of those who know not Islam; I have seen the heathen nations of the earth blind with rage. Why do these nations of the earth so furiously rage together? I tell you, O my son it is because they have not the love of G.o.d in their hearts."

Michael was silent. The old man's words conveyed very little to him, for as yet there was no rumour of the war which was breeding in Europe.

The internal troubles in Ireland, distressing as they were, were not of a nature to be spoken of with such appalling gravity. The old man's anxiety and sincerity were unmistakable, but what did he mean? While he sat in silence, wondering what the seer had in his mind, Michael saw that his dark eyes were far away. His att.i.tude was that of one who had detached himself from his surroundings; his spirit was immeasurably removed from his material body. Suddenly he spoke.

"Take heed, my son, for everywhere, even unto the ends of the earth I can see bloodshed and suffering, and an agony of evil such as the world has never seen. I can see nations rising against nations, and the blood of kindred spilt by each other's swords, for they know not G.o.d."

Michael, not without a feeling of mental irritation, listened to the African's foretelling. It seemed to him the imaginings of a zealot's weakening brain. This war which he foretold was to Michael an impossible thing amongst civilized nations, but he listened patiently to all that he had to say. Blood which was to pour like a river over the Western world, was to be spilt for the cause of Truth; it was to be the punishment and final agony of the unbelievers; war was to spread over the world like a deadly plague. G.o.d in His wisdom had willed it, for it was to be a proof that the infidels, who had flourished like the green bay-tree, were at last to suffer the vengeance of G.o.d. This war, which he saw as clearly as astrologers see the stars and the moon in the heavens through their scientific instruments, was ordained by Allah, it was the work of His hand, it was His terrible revelation to mankind of the falseness of the doctrines preached by those who called themselves the followers of Christ. For nearly two thousand years they had fed the nations on lies and set up images which were abhorrent to the one and only G.o.d. They had, to suit their own doctrines and dogmas, perverted the meaning of the words of Jesus; they had made the name of Christ a byword to all true believers. The sin of hate and the l.u.s.t for blood, which was to fill the hearts of all Christian countries, was to be a token to all true believers that the teachings of Christians had been vain and fruitless. They had lived without G.o.d in their hearts; now even the example of the Prophet Jesus they laughed to scorn.

"G.o.d is alone in His personal attributes, He has no partner, He is neither a Son nor a Father, for there is none of His kind."

Knowing the religious fervour of devout Moslems, Michael listened to his warning, but without the interest which he would have felt if he had had the slightest inkling of the agony which was so soon to convulse Europe. He thought that as the African's end was not far off, he was becoming more troubled and desirous for the conversion of the world to Islam. He said to himself, "If he knows nothing about my experience in the desert and my failure to find the treasure, I will give no second thought to this imaginary war of nations." While he listened to his strange and fervent warnings, he determined to find out if he knew what had happened. When the African paused, he said: