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No marvel yet related by Elias could compare with his own good fortune in Iskender's eyes. One evening, on their return to the hotel, when two stable-boys were leading off the tired horses, and Iskender, with Elias, stood waiting to take leave of his kind lord, the negro brought a little card to the Emîr, who eyed it strangely. "It is that missionary-man you hate so," he informed Iskender.
How canst thou think such harm of one who loves thee?" The speaker burst into a passion of tears. "Weep not, O my dear!" Iskender murmured soothingly. "In sh' Allah, all may yet be well, though I will not disguise from thee that my lord is angry." "Obtain but a hearing for me; that is all I ask. My tears shall wash his feet; my groans, my heartfelt penitence will surely move him."
"O mother of Iskender, how is thy health to-day?" pursued the visitor; and then she knew him for the brother of her dead husband. "Is it thyself, Abdullah?" She rose up to greet him. "My soul has grief this day on account of Iskender. They treat him shamefully over yonder worse than a dog!" Abdullah rejected her offer of the only chair in favour of a cushion by the wall.
The girl Nesîbeh came occasionally to the door of the inner room, and exchanged mischievous glances with Iskender, who was on the watch for her. His mother's eyes were quick to notice this, and, leaning to his ear, she whispered: "Cunning devil! Thy plan is not amiss, for she is comely, and her father stands well with the highest in the land. Thou wilt mix with the Barûdis and the rich Azîz."
How far you say it is?" He turned to Iskender. "You know the way." "About nine days from here, accordin' to the baber which my father wrote. My mother kebt it to this day." "Well, sir, I think you get there under one hundred bound, and once you got the gold you not care a dam' what it coss comin' back." "No," said the Frank firmly.
The dull sententiousness of the dragoman and his mother's shrill, rash judgments were alike irritating to Iskender. They claimed to understand the foreigners perfectly; and in truth they knew enough of the foibles of the lords of gold to secure to themselves a livelihood. They had never, either of them, loved a Frank.
As prearranged with Mîtri, he feigned great surprise at sight of the Emîr, exclaiming: "I thought you said the garden of Elias. This is the garden of Azîz abu Suleymân." "Something queer has happened," said his patron, showing great uneasiness. "These people have been trying to explain to me, but I can't understand them." Iskender looked to the priest for elucidation.
Was not all her endeavour to secure prosperity and a high position for Iskender, and, of course, his bride? What right had this chit of a girl, who knew nothing of the world, nor the shifts that folks are forced to who would live in it comfortably, to call her husband's mother an unnatural woman for displaying a little forethought?
The feel of her slight brown wrist was like a snake for coolness. Iskender ventured to caress it with his fingers. But at the touch she snatched it from him angrily, and sprang to a safe distance. "Thou hast been weeping; why?" she asked with a cool directness, which was like a sword-thrust in Iskender's heart. His woe broke out afresh. "O Lord!" he blubbered. "I have none to love me.
Go away, therefore, for a reasonable time; let the noise of thy conversion die away; and all is said." So it was arranged. On the day when the Emîr set sail for England in the custody of his forbidding uncle, Iskender, with the sum of two mejîdis in his pouch, set out on foot for the Holy City.
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