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"It was precisely in this spot that the sideboard stood, Roberto! the sideboard that my cousin Johar presented to me. It came from the City of Mexico, and there was not another like it. I shall regret it all my life." "Maria, my dearest, it might have been worse. The silver which adorned it is safe.
One day soon after this there was fierce anger because the mud tower in which Johar was sitting fell in, and Johar was covered with the debris. "This is the Christian's doing," someone cried. "He looked at the tower and bewitched it, so it has fallen." At once the cry was raised, "Kill the Christian kill him kill him! The Christian! The Christian!"
Among the modern Javanese works there appear a number of romances, of which the "Johar Manikam," which is taken from the Arabic, is an example. She was a sort of Javan Una, and the poem tells of her various deliverances from dangers, moral and physical. It commences with a sentence which is subtle enough for the nineteenth-century era. I quote this and the two following lines:
"If I took a Christian to the Jowf," replied the caravan leader, "I am afraid Johar the Chief there would kill me for doing such a thing. I cannot do it." "Yes," another said, turning to Forder, "if you ever want to see the Jowf you must turn Moslem, as no Christian would be allowed to live there many days." "Well," said the Chief, closing the discussion, "I will see more about this to-morrow."
So he said farewell to the Chief Johar, and rode away on a camel with Khy-Khevan. Many things he suffered from fever and hunger, from heat and thirst, and vermin. But at last he reached Jerusalem once more; and his little four-year-old boy clapped hands with joy as he saw his father come back after those long months of peril and hardship.
"The enemy of Allah and the prophet! Unclean! Infidel!" Johar, the great Chief of the Jowf, commanded that Forder should be brought into his presence, and proceeded to question him: "Did you come over here alone?" "Yes," he answered. "Were you not afraid?" "No," he replied. "Have you no fear of anyone?" "Yes, I fear God and the devil." "Do you not fear me?" "No." "But I could cut your head off."
Forder paused and prayed in silence for a few seconds, for he knew that on his answer life or death would depend. "Chief Johar," said Forder, "if you were in the land of the Christians, the guest of the monarch, and if the ruler asked you to become a Christian and give up your religion would you do it?" "No," said Johar proudly, "not if the ruler had my head cut off."
"Que Dios remate tu nombre," exclaimed the Mulatto; "may Allah blot out your name, Joanna, and may he likewise blot out that of your maid Johar. It is more than fifteen minutes that I have been seated here, after having poured out into the tinaja the water which I brought from the fountain, and during all that time I have waited in vain for one single word of civility from yourself or from Johar.
An itinerant minstrel recites the history of Johar Mankain, the Una of Java, who shone like a jewel in the world which could not tarnish the purity and devotion of one whose heart entertained no evil thought.
"Yes," answered Forder, "I know you could. But you wouldn't treat a guest thus." "You must become a follower of Mohammed," said Johar, "for we are taught to kill Christians. Say to me, 'There is no God but God and Mohammed is His prophet' and I will give you wives and camels and a house and palms." Everybody sat listening for the answer.
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