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The man's story in several places reminds me of Borrow, where, for instance, after he has realised his unpardonable sin, he runs wild through Wales, "climbing mountains and wading streams, burnt by the sun, drenched by the rain," so that for three years he hardly knew what befel him, living with robbers and Gypsies, and once about to fling himself into the sea from a lofty rock.
The knock was answered by Sadie, with a taper in her hand, and the vizir, who was surprised at her beauty, bowed low before her, and said respectfully, "Madam, we are three merchants who have lately arrived from Moussoul, and, owing to a misadventure which befel us this very night, only reached our inn to find that the doors were closed to us till to-morrow morning.
Spring-times and harvests and long winters came and went, and a blessing seemed to be upon the valley, for men prospered, and no untoward things befel the people. So it was for twenty years, wherein there had been going and coming in quiet. Some had gone upon short mortal journeys and had come back, some upon long immortal voyages, and had never returned.
"I will tell thee," answered the smith, "Know that I was once passionately enamoured of a slave-girl and ofttimes sued her for love-liesse, but could not prevail upon her, because she still held fast by her chastity. Presently there came a year of drought and hunger and hardship; food failed and there befel a sore famine.
She saw what was to do with him and was assured that he had witnessed what befel her when she was a white bird and was trodden by the black bird; yet she discovered naught to him but concealed what ailed her. When he had done her need, he said to her, "O Queen, I would have thee give me leave to go to my uncle's shop, for I long after him and have not seen him these forty days."
Such, then, is the most remarkable event which befel me during my term of office." Then rose the Chief of the Police of Old Cairo and said, "O our lord the Sultan, the most marvellous thing that happened to me, since I became Wali, was on this wise;" and he began The Story of the Chief of the Old Cairo Police.
The same fate at the same time befel the Jews, who had admitted Italian proselytes to their sabbath. In like manner Scipio had to clear the camp before Numantia from soothsayers and pious impostors of every sort. Some forty years afterwards it was even found necessary to prohibit human sacrifices.
I learn from thence, that this day you run a great risk, not indeed of losing your life, but of an inconvenience which will attend you while you live. You are obliged to me for the advice I now give you to take care to avoid it; I should be sorry if it befel you.
Time passed on, and the leader of "the saints" was still but a junior lieutenant, though he had been seventeen years in the army. Thrice were his hopes of promotion raised, and thrice doomed to disappointment. Still he murmured not. "I have only two wishes," he would say. "I pray that in life and death I may glorify God, and that my wife and children may be provided for." Heavy trials befel him.
It will not be in the acts of City Councils nor of obsequious Mayors nor in the State House; the proclamations of Governors, with their failing virtue failing them at critical moments, that generations will study what really befel; but in the plain lessons of Theodore Parker in this hall, in Faneuil Hall and in legislative committee rooms, that the true temper and authentic record of these days will be read.
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