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Near by the fellah worked in his onion-field; and on the khiassas loaded with feddan at the shore, just out of the current, and tied up for the night, sat the riverine folk eating their dourha and drinking black coffee. Now Dimsdale noticed that, nearer still, just below the Sefi, on the shore, sat a singing-girl, an a'l'meh, with a darkfaced Arab beside her, a kemengeh in his lap.
What power was there in desert life that could make this poor camel-driver, at the end of a long day of weariness and toil and little food and drink, sing a song of content and cheerfulness? The little needed, the little granted, and no thought beyond save the vision of one who waited in the hut by the onion-field.
Near by the fellah worked in his onion-field; and on the khiassas loaded with feddan at the shore, just out of the current, and tied up for the night, sat the riverine folk eating their dourha and drinking black coffee. Now Dimsdale noticed that, nearer still, just below the Sefi, on the shore, sat a singing-girl, an a'l'meh, with a darkfaced Arab beside her, a kemengeh in his lap.
The man was singing a wild chant of cheerful labour, the soul of the hard-smitten of the earth rising above the rack and burden of the body: "O, the garden where to-day we sow and to-morrow we reap! O, the sakkia turning by the garden walls; O, the onion-field and the date-tree growing, And my hand on the plough-by the blessing of God; Strength of my soul, O my brother, all's well!"
It was Dicky Donovan who cooked Fielding's supper that night, having harried the onion-field and fought the barn-yard fowl, as Fielding had commanded Seti. But next evening at sunset Mahommed Seti came into the fort, slashed and bleeding, with Bashi-Bazouk limping heavily after him.
It was Dicky Donovan who cooked Fielding's supper that night, having harried the onion-field and fought the barn-yard fowl, as Fielding had commanded Seti. But next evening at sunset Mahommed Seti came into the fort, slashed and bleeding, with Bashi-Bazouk limping heavily after him.
She had done so, and meant to have had them made into a table; but somehow that plan fell through, and there they were with all the dirt out of the onion-field upon them; but once when I thought of cleaning them with soap and water, at any rate, she bade me not to do so, for it was Roman dirt earth, I think, she called it but it was dirt all the same.
Twice during three months had the dread servant of the Palace come and driven off their best like sheep to the slaughter. The brave, the stalwart, the bread-winners, were gone; and yet the tax-gatherer would come and press for every impost on the onion-field, the date-palm, the dourha-field, and the clump of sugar- cane, as though the young men, the toilers, were still there.
But Seti was not to be fobbed off. "It is written that the Lord, the Great One, is compassionate and merciful. Wilt thou then, O saadat." Fielding interrupted: "Go, harry the onion-field for dinner. You're a dog of a slave, and a murderer too: you must pay the price of that grindstone!"
What power was there in desert life that could make this poor camel-driver, at the end of a long day of weariness and toil and little food and drink, sing a song of content and cheerfulness? The little needed, the little granted, and no thought beyond save the vision of one who waited in the hut by the onion-field.
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