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Abdalla motioned to the next room, where the blind men ate their evening meal, and out to the dimly lighted streets where thousands of narghilehs and cigarettes made little smoky clouds that floated around white turbans and dark faces. "When they need me, I will speak; when they cry to me, I will unsheathe the sword of Ebn Mahmoud, who fought with Mahomet Ali and saved the land from the Turk."
The pavement, huge shapeless blocks sloping to a central gutter; from this base two-storeyed houses, sometimes plaster, many-coloured, sometimes rough-hewn marble, rise, dirty and ill-finished, to straight, plain, flat roofs; shops guiltless of windows, with signs in Greek letters; dogs, Greeks in blue, baggy, Zouave breeches and a fez, a few narghilehs, and a sprinkling of the ordinary continental shop-boys.
The triple-roomed hall, with fountains in the middle, lighted with coloured lamps; the bubbling of the water in the garden; the sad weird music in the distance; the striking costumes; the hum of the narghilehs; the guttural sound of the conversation; the kawwasses in green, red, blue, and gold, gliding about with trays of sherbet, sweets, and coffee, all combined to make the quaintest scene.
We passed two cafes on the road, impromptu donkey sheds, where we found good Turkish coffee and narghilehs; and there were shady groves, and fields of marigolds, poppies, and such-like. At last I reached the crest of the hill, and beheld Jerusalem beneath me. I reined in my horse, and with my face towards the Sepulchre gazed down upon the city of my longing eyes with silent emotion and prayer.
Cursing their greed, Elias was forced to resign himself. He indulged in eating, as he told himself, to pass the time; but afterwards, when it came to coffee and narghîlehs, he squandered more than an hour in boasting with what speed he would catch up the fugitives, how suddenly and effectually he would repay the beast Iskender. It was Aflatûn the cook who reminded him at length that time wore on.
Eastern curtains veiled the windows, the floor was piled with Persian carpets, and a wide divan heaped with cushions and draped with bright Bedawin rugs ran along one side of the room. There were narghilehs and chibouques, and cups of filigree and porcelain for the dispensing of delectable Arab coffee.
"And now," said the emir, "my little establishment here being about to be broken up, I am going to ask you to accept certain of my effects which for sundry reasons I cannot take with me to my new abode. My jewels, hangings, and costumes, my wife will like, of course. But as she is opposed to smoking, there are six narghilehs and four chibouques which I will never use again.
A lean kitten was scratching at one of the windows, to the great danger of overturning a pair of narghilehs, a tame sea-gull was walking about the court, and two sheep bleated in a stable at the further end. In the kitchen we not only found a variety of utensils, but eggs, salt, pepper, and other condiments.
Often after my reception was over and the sun was setting, we used to ask these two to stay behind the others and have a little supper with us, and we would go up to the roof, where it was prepared, and where mattresses and the cushions of the divans were spread about, and have our evening meal; and after that we would smoke our narghilehs, and talk and talk and talk far into the night, about things above, things on the earth, and things under the earth.
Leaning back, cross-legged, against the cushions, with the inseparable pipe in one's hand, the view of the court, the water-basin, the flowers and lemon trees, the servants and dragomen going back and forth, or smoking their narghilehs in the shade all framed in the beautiful arched entrance, is so perfectly Oriental, so true a tableau from the times of good old Haroun Al-Raschid, that one is surprised to find how many hours have slipped away while he has been silently enjoying it.
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