Part 3

Shaking his right hand on high, as if he held a lance, and shouting aloud to give utterance to the boisterous joy within him, he dashed his heels into the ribs of the horse, and having taken it at full speed twice round the Meidàn, brought it back trembling in every joint from fear, surprise, and excitement. “Mashallah!” “Aferin!” (Bravo! bravo!) burst from every lip in the group. “A Rustum,” cried old Mohammed Aga, delighted at his young friend’s triumph.

Hassan seemed, however, of opinion that the lesson was not complete—the horse was mastered, but not yet quieted. So he turned it round, and once more took it at full speed to the farthest end of the Meidàn; then leaning forward, patted its neck, played with its ears, and spoke to it kind and gentle words, as if it could understand him. The subdued animal appeared indeed to do so, for its violence had disappeared as if by magic, and when he took it back to the side of the merchant, it stood there seemingly as pleased as any one of the party.

“I would give that imp of Satan twenty purses a-year to be my partner,” muttered the _dellâl_ inaudibly to himself, as he turned away and withdrew with the two rejected greys.

The merchant returned to his house in high spirits, and willingly acceded to Hassan’s request that he should have sole charge of the new purchase. Hassan led the horse into the stable, fed and groomed it with his own hands, and in the course of a few days they were the best friends imaginable.

These events created no little sensation in Alexandria, and Hassan’s skill, courage, and his remarkable beauty of form and feature were the general subject of conversation among those who had witnessed the merchant’s purchase of the restive horse. All manner of speculations were afloat as to who or whence he was, for those who had most nearly observed him declared that, although his dress and language proclaimed the Bedouin Arab, his features seemed to be those of a Georgian or some northern race.

Many questions were addressed to Hadji Ismael on the subject by his friends, but he was either unable or unwilling to satisfy their curiosity. All that they could learn was that the youth had been sent to the merchant with a letter of recommendation from his old acquaintance Sheik Sâleh, and that he was to be employed in the purchase of the collection of horses to be sent to Constantinople.

Meanwhile Hassan passed his time more agreeably than he had expected, for he had abundance of liberty and exercise in his new vocation, and was treated with the greatest kindness and confidence both by the merchant and by the chief clerk. One remarkable feature they found in his character, that under no circumstances whatever did he deviate in the slightest degree from the truth. Whether money was concerned, or the relation of an event, they always found his statements confirmed, even in the most minute particular. He seemed, also, to have no care or thought of the acquisition of money, and these two features of character were so rare in Alexandria that some of the merchant’s friends, when speaking of his young _protégé_, were in the habit of shaking their heads and touching their foreheads significantly with the index-finger, thereby indicating that probably he was somewhat deranged.

These vague suggestions were confirmed by other traits of his character very different from other Alexandrian youths of his own age. He was never seen to enter a drinking-shop, nor to idle and lounge about the bazaars. When not employed in exercising his horses, one of his favourite amusements was to go down to the beach for a swim in the sea. The boundless expanse of salt water was new to him: the more angry the surf, the more it seemed to please and excite him.

His companion on these bathing excursions was Ahmed, the chief clerk’s son, a lad of some twenty years of age, to whom, notwithstanding the difference in their characters, Hassan became much attached. He was short and slight in figure, with a pale but intelligent countenance, and remarkable for his studious and industrious habits. Having been for some time employed as a junior clerk of an English mercantile house (there were only two at that time in Alexandria), he had not only become a very good English scholar, but had acquired a fair knowledge of Greek and Italian. He was a bold and practised swimmer; but on one or two occasions when he had followed Hassan to enjoy his favourite pastime in the surf, he had received contusions which stunned him for the moment, and might have cost him dear, had not the powerful arm of his athletic comrade been always near and ready to assist him.

This companionship, which soon ripened into friendship, was not without its corresponding advantage to Hassan. His eager imagination had already drunk in with avidity the feats of Antar, Sindebad, and other heroes of Arab story; but his new friend could tell him yet stranger tales of the regions beyond the sea—regions where from cold the waters grew as hard as stone, and bore the passage of loaded waggons; where ships, by the aid of fire, sailed against the wind and stream, and where the inhabitants of one small island possessed and ruled at a distance of many thousand miles possessions five times larger and more populous than those of the great Sultan of Islam.

These narrations, and especially the last, excited so forcibly the ardent imagination of Hassan, that he was never weary of listening, and he prevailed upon his new friend one day to take him to the counting-house where he was employed, that he might see some of these wonderful islanders. Probably he expected to find in them marvellous beings, like the giants or jinns of Arab fiction; but after accompanying his friend to the house of Mr ——, whom he saw through an open door at the extremity of the counting-house, seated at a table writing letters and tying up papers, he went out again, with disappointment evidently written upon his countenance.

“What tales are these which you have been telling me, Ahmed?” said he to his companion; “by Allah, that is no man at all! He is smaller than I am; he has not the beard of Hadji, and he has not even a scribe to write his letters!”

“Hassan,” replied his friend, smiling, “the habits of these islanders are different from those of Turks and Arabs. The pen is their sword in commerce, and they like to wield it themselves. Our chief writes on matters of importance with his own hand; it is good, for no scribe can betray him; but in the adjoining room he has two or three clerks who write on his affairs from morning till night.”

Hassan shook his head, thought of the swift horse and the open desert, and said, “Allah be praised, I am not a merchant of these islanders.” Nevertheless there was something mysterious about their history which continued to excite his fancy, and as weeks and months passed on, they found him, during the leisure hours of evening, employed in learning English from his friend.

As Turkish was the language habitually spoken in the family of Mohammed Aga and in other places which Hassan’s avocations led him to frequent, he soon acquired a sufficient knowledge of it to enable him to understand and converse in it with tolerable fluency.

During the next three years of our hero’s life he remained in the employment of Hadji Ismael, who never repented having trusted him implicitly in every commission with which he had been charged, and had procured for him a teacher under whose instructions he had learnt to read Arabic and to write a legible hand; but Hassan, though ready and quick of apprehension, did not evince any fondness for the study of books; his pleasures were a ride on the back of a fiery horse or a crested wave, and listening after sunset to the popular Arab romances of old, recited by some wandering _ràwi_.[19]

Of these last he was so fond that he knew many of them by heart. Stories of princes and princesses in disguise, mingled with the mystery hanging over his own birth, floated in his imaginative brain, but the mystery remained unravelled. He had kept the secret confined to his own breast, never even communicating it to his friend Ahmed; nevertheless from him, from his father, and from all his acquaintance, he had diligently inquired into the early history of all the Turkish pashas, beys, and officers in Alexandria, but no known episode of their lives threw any light upon the object of his search. His passions were strong and turbulent, but he generally kept them under the control of a determined will, and the secret conviction that he was the son of “somebody” imparted to his character a certain pride and reserve which assorted better with his form and features than with his outward condition of life.

Connected with the mystery of his birth and with the events related in the wild tales with which he had fed his youthful imagination, was the image of a lovely princess whom he had clothed with all the attributes of beauty ascribed by Arab poetry to such damsels; waking or dreaming, she was constantly before his eyes: he had given her a name, and he loved this creature of his imagination with all the ardent fondness of a young and passionate heart.

If it be true that such visionary dreams of youth are necessarily followed by disappointment on awaking to the rude realities of life, it is also true that in some cases, as in his, they preserve those who are under their influence from the temptations to which that age is exposed. It is one of the evils of modern education in what we are pleased to call highly civilised countries to cultivate the understanding at the expense of the heart. The simplicity, the trusting confidence, the warm imagination, the love of all that is pure and high and holy, which are the proper attributes of youth, are sacrificed to what is termed a practical knowledge of the world, and the result is, that there is now many a young gentleman at Eton and Oxford who would listen with a sneer of contempt to a sentiment or a trait of character which would have drawn a tear of sympathy and admiration from the eye of a Burke or a Fox, a Pascal or a Newton.

To return from this digression. Hassan loved his imaginary princess; nevertheless, like a true lover, he put her in the deepest corner of his heart, and never spoke of her.

A short time afterwards Hassan was sent by the Hadji, in company with Mohammed Aga, to collect a debt of considerable amount due to him in Damanhour, a large village distant a day’s journey from the city.

This affair occupied some little time, and might not, perhaps, have been settled at all had not Mohammed Aga been provided with a handsome Cashmere shawl and a pretty Damascus handkerchief, in one corner of which a few gold pieces were secured by a silken cord. The former of these presents found its way to the Governor, and the latter to his chief scribe, after which the justice of the claim became as clear as day, and the debtor was ordered to pay up without delay.

While this affair was in progress, and Mohammed Aga was busy in the Governor’s divan, Hassan was one day strolling near the village to pass the time when his ear was arrested by the sound of female cries and lamentations. Turning his head to the quarter whence the sounds proceeded, he saw a man with his hands chained together walking between two soldiers, who occasionally hastened his steps by blows from the butt-ends of their muskets. Behind them were two women and two children screaming at the top of their voices—

“Oh! mercy, mercy! Oh! my brother! Oh! my husband! Oh! my father! Mercy, mercy!”

In front of this lamenting group, and by the side of one of the soldiers, walked an individual with a paper in his hand, who seemed to be the man under whose authority the prisoner had been seized, and who bore the appearance of being one of the _kawàsses_ of the Governor.[20]

“May your day be fortunate, O Aga,” said Hassan, addressing him in the Turkish language.[21] “What is the fault of this man, and whither are you taking him?”

“Happily met, Aga,” said the _kawàss_, impressed by the commanding figure of the young stranger. “This vagabond is now nearly two years in arrears of his taxes due to the Government; his tents are near the edge of the desert, and we never could find him. Praise be to Allah, I have got him now, and to-morrow we shall see whether five hundred good blows on the soles of his feet will help him to find the two thousand piastres that he owes.”[22]

The prisoner maintained a dogged silence, never even raising his eyes to look at the _kawàss_ while speaking; but his wife now rushed forward, and, throwing herself at Hassan’s feet, cried out—

“Mercy, mercy, young Aga! I and my children—our sister—we are all ruined. We have none to depend on but him. The sluices of the canal were not opened; our lands were dried up. We had no crop; we sold our animals; everything is gone. Speak to the Governor, young Aga; let him give us time and we will pay all.”

Hassan turned aside his head to hide his emotion, for to misery, and to woman’s misery above all, his heart was soft as a child’s. Recovering himself, however, in a moment, he turned to the _kawàss_, saying—

“Would the Governor not excuse or delay the payment of this sum?”

“Surely not,” said the other decidedly. “His Excellency is very angry with him for the trouble he has already given: the amount is entered in the accounts, and it must be paid. You are young, sir, and a stranger here; you do not know the marvellous power of the sticks in bringing to light hidden money; they are more powerful than the rods of the Cairo magicians.”

“By Allah!—by the life of your mother!” screamed the poor woman, still at Hassan’s feet, “we have nothing; they may kill us, but we have no money to give. For weeks past we have seen no bread, and eaten nothing but a few dates. We are miserable, O Aga!—look at us—mercy, mercy!” The emaciated appearance of the whole family bore witness to this part of the woman’s statement.

“My friend,” said Hassan, turning to the _kawàss_, “I know a merchant in Damanhour who will perhaps advance this money, and take a bond for repayment in one or two years. Promise me that you will not report this man’s seizure till to-morrow at noon: the Governor will be better pleased with your zeal if you are then able to present him with the money required than if you beat the man to death without perhaps obtaining a third of it. Promise, then, that you will wait till to-morrow at noon.”

“I will wait as you desire,” replied the _kawàss_; “and if you come to the guard-house where this fellow will be confined, ask for Ibrahim the _kawàss_.”

During all this time the eyes of the unhappy wife were fixed upon Hassan’s countenance with an expression of intense anxiety. She had not understood a syllable of the conversation that had passed between him and the _kawàss_, but instinct taught her that in some way he was befriending her husband’s cause; and as the latter moved on with his guards, she continued to overwhelm him with blessings and prayers mingled with tears.

“Be of good cheer,” he said to her, now speaking in his own language. “Inshallah! all will yet go well. Meanwhile take this, and buy some bread this evening for your children and yourselves;” and as he spoke he slipped a piece of silver into her hand and turned hastily away.

When the poor woman heard herself addressed in the deep and not-to-be-mistaken tones of a Bedouin Arab, and felt the money, surprise and gratitude deprived her for a moment of the powers of speech; and Hassan was already at some distance when she recovered them, and throwing herself into her sister’s arms, she exclaimed—

“He will save us!—he will save us!—he is not a Turk!—why did I call him Aga?—he is of the Sons of the Tent[23]—surely my husband and he have met before in the desert and been friends—he will save us—the blessing of Allah be on his head!”

That same evening, at sunset, Mohammed Aga and Hassan were smoking their pipes and drinking their coffee in front of their lodging, when the former said to his companion—

“Inshallah! we will return in a day or two to Alexandria. Our affair is proceeding well: I have collected half the money, and the remainder is to be paid to-morrow.”

Hassan made no direct reply to this address, but after a pause of a few minutes he abruptly asked the chief clerk—

“Do you remember how much of my salary is still due to me, in your hands?”

“Assuredly I do, my son,” said the methodical clerk. “At the beginning of the year the arrears of salary, added to what the Hadji allowed of percentage on purchases, amounted to four thousand piastres (£40); then at the feast you sent a present of a bale of tobacco and a Persian dagger to your father the Sheik, two pieces of Syrian silk and some embroidered napkins to your mother, two pieces—”

“Enough, enough!” interrupted Hassan, distressed at this enumeration of the mementoes which he had sent to his foster-parents; “how much remained after these presents were paid for?”

“They cost fifteen hundred piastres; so you still have two thousand five hundred left.”

“That is well,” said Hassan. “I want that money here. Will you give it me, Mohammed, and repay yourself from the chest in Alexandria?”

“The boy is mad,” said the old clerk, opening his eyes wide with astonishment. “By the head of your father, tell me for what purpose can you require all that money at once, here at Damanhour? Are you going to buy beans and wheat for the market?”

“No,” replied Hassan, with some confusion, “it is not my trade to purchase grain; but indeed I require that money, and hope you will let me have it.”

“Allah-Allah!” said the old clerk, as a sudden suspicion shot across his mind, “you have seen some Damanhour girl who has set your heart on fire! The songs tell us that the girls are famed for their beauty here: you have seen a moon-faced one behind a curtain, and you are going to be married! Wallah-Billah! brimstone and tinder are like wet clay when compared to the heart of a youth.”

“Indeed,” said Hassan, laughing, “I have seen no moon-faced houri here, and I have no thoughts of marriage.” He added more gravely, “I want the money for a purpose which I cannot tell you, though if I did you could not disapprove it.”

Mohammed Aga, seeing that opposition was useless, and feeling that he had in truth no right to keep back from Hassan what was his own, counted out the money to him the same evening, and took his receipt, to be presented to Hadji Ismael.

The following morning, about three hours after sunrise, when Hassan had made sure that the chief clerk was busily employed in the Governor’s divan, he bent his steps to the guard-house, and on asking for Ibrahim the _kawàss_, was at once admitted to the presence of that important official.

After the customary salutations, Hassan informed him that the merchant to whom he had yesterday alluded had agreed to advance the money, and that he was now prepared to pay the two thousand piastres due by the Arab, on receiving a discharge in full for the debt, sealed by the proper officer in the divan.

“That is easily done,” said the _kawàss_; “take a pipe and a cup of coffee, and in five minutes the paper will be here.”

Having given the requisite instructions to one of his subordinates, he resumed the conversation with Hassan upon general topics, it being indifferent to him to know what merchant in Damanhour could be so foolish as to advance money of which he would never be repaid a farthing.

In a few minutes the messenger returned, bringing a paper bearing the seals of the treasurer and chief scribe of the Governor’s divan, and setting forth that Abou-Hamedi, of the Gemeâl tribe, having discharged all the taxes and charges due by him up to date, was free to return to his place of abode.

Hassan having paid the money and placed the document in his girdle, inquired of the _kawàss_ where the prisoner was confined, and whether he could see him alone.

“He is in the room at the back of that small yard,” replied the _kawàss_, “where you see the sentry walking before the door. I will tell him to open it and come away, as his service is no longer required. You will not find the Arab alone, because, as you had taken an interest in him, I allowed his family to remain with him.”

“May your honour increase and your days be long,” said Hassan, saluting him, and going towards the door of the cell, which the sentry, by desire of the _kawàss_, opened, and then came away.

On entering the chamber, Hassan found that it was more spacious than he had expected, and was partially lighted by two apertures near the roof, secured by cross-bars of iron. The place being considered sufficiently secure, the manacles had been removed from the hands of the Arab, and he was seated on the floor, his sister and wife beside him, and his children at his feet.

No sooner did Hassan enter the room than the wife sprang from her sitting posture, crying aloud—

“It is he! it is he! we shall be saved yet.”

Abou-Hamedi also arose, and all the rest of the family came crowding towards Hassan. The Arab, who had been informed the preceding evening by his wife of our hero’s generous intentions, as well as of his having provided them with the bread on which they had supped, now expressed to him with much emotion the gratitude which he felt for the sympathy he had shown him.

“You are of the desert blood,” he said; “and whether Allah give success to your endeavours or not, you have our thanks.”

“Brother, you are free,” said Hassan; “free as the winds of the desert. Here is the Government receipt for your debt, and as you have been stripped of all, and must have something wherewith to recommence your toil for a livelihood, here are five hundred piastres; put them in your girdle. Fate is uncertain, Allah only is enduring; I am now rich, some day I may be poor and you rich, then you may repay me.”

Words cannot paint the tumultuous joy of the poor women as they crowded to kiss the hands and feet of Hassan, calling every blessing of heaven on his head. The wife, however, on looking at her husband’s countenance as he almost mechanically took the document and the money which Hassan placed in his hand, was frightened at its strange and wild expression; no word of satisfaction or gratitude escaped from his lips as, seizing Hassan by the arm, he drew him to a part of the cell where a stray sunbeam forced its way through the barred aperture; when it fell on Hassan’s face, the Arab, scanning his features with eyes almost starting from their sockets, said—

“Years have passed; the youth has become a man; the eye, the voice, the form are only his! Speak,” he continued, almost savagely; “do you remember one who strove to stab you in the Meidàn of Alexandria, and whom you threw to the ground by a wrestling trick? ’Twas I! and had you known me yesterday, instead of giving me money and freedom, you would have gone to that cursed Turk’s divan to feast your eyes with a sight of my mangled feet.” So saying, he dashed the paper and the money furiously on the ground.

“Brother,” replied Hassan gravely, “I knew you yesterday at the first glance as well as you know me now. You were in misfortune and misery, and all that had passed before was forgotten.”

The evil passions struggled for the mastery in that wild breast: it was but for a moment; the sight of his children and of the paper which secured his freedom called up the better feelings of his rude nature, and casting himself into Hassan’s arms, he wept like a child.

Without having read or heard of the Scriptures, the generous impulse of Hassan’s heart had taught him how to “heap coals of fire on the head of an enemy”; and the deadly hatred which Abou-Hamedi had entertained against him since the day of their first meeting was melted in a moment.