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Updated: September 27, 2025
He pursued his way down a sandy road through the orange-gardens, which looked black beneath the sunset of unusual splendour owing to the presence in the sky of ragged clouds. A fellah who passed remarked that rain was coming. "Art on the way to visit me?" A hand fell suddenly upon Iskender's shoulder. A tall black-clad form had overtaken him, unheard by reason of the muffling sand.
He now showed great alacrity, kissing first the Emîr's hand, then Iskender's, asking where the tent and other baggage might be found, and promising by the cloak of the Prophet, to have all in perfect readiness within an hour.
They ridiculed the very notion of Iskender's guile; and they were men of position, respectable men, whose opinion was worth having, while the rest were riff-raff. Abdullah went home greatly comforted. But the story spread and grew in all the land, with variations and most wonderful additions.
Divested of his cloak, his slim but manly figure cased in showy garments, his moustache curled ferociously up to the eyes, his fez tilted jauntily to one side, Elias appeared to Iskender's jealousy the most attractive of men. And as he recovered spirits, his talk showed the lively sparkle which enchanted travellers.
They sauntered together through the gardens out on to the sandhills, till within a stone's-throw of Iskender's home; when the Englishman lay down on a patch of withered herbage, saying he would wait there till his friend returned. Iskender passed the broken hedge at a bound and stood before his mother in the doorway. She screamed to Allah for protection, in the first surprise. "Come, O my mother!
By the time he started on his homeward way, the world was poisoned by Iskender's wickedness; he could not look at rock, or myrtle-bush, or wayside flower without groans and gnashing of teeth; and wherever he reposed at noon, or spent the night, he told his wrongs. The story ran before him through the countryside.
It returned to him from without, by no effort of his own; and was first announced to his consciousness by the sensation of a sudden flush from head to foot. Here was a subject able to engross the Emîr's whole interest, to the exclusion of Elias from his thoughts for ever. "Sir," he said, "I wish to sbeak to you." The solemnity of Iskender's voice claimed grave attention.
The words struck like bullets on Iskender's heart, they so cruelly confirmed the tale of Asad son of Costantîn. Elias arrived, and asked him how he did. Iskender made known his tidings in a voice half-choked by grief. "Was any word said against me?" asked the dragoman eagerly. Iskender shook his head. "The praise to Allah! Take heart, O my soul! If I am still in favour, I can plead for thee."
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.
"Wallah, he is a veritable ghoul; he is more blood-thirsty than the worst among the Turks. Did I not warn thee of his state of feeling? What ailed thee thus to rush into his arms?" To all this Iskender's sole reply was: "Allah is bountiful!" "But wherefore risk thy body in his presence? Tell me, O my soul, what imp possessed thee?" pleaded Asad in his most seductive tone.
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