3. The Desertion of Mahommed Selim

The business began during Ramadan; how it ended and where was in the
mouth of every soldier between Beni Souef and Dongola, and there was not
a mud hut or a mosque within thirty miles of Mahommed Selim's home, not a
khiassa or felucca dropping anchor for gossip and garlic below the
mudirieh, but knew the story of Soada, the daughter of Wassef the
camel-driver.

Soada was pretty and upright, with a full round breast and a slim figure.
She carried a balass of water on her head as gracefully as a princess a
tiara. This was remarked by occasional inspectors making their official
rounds, and by more than one khowagah putting in with his dahabeah where
the village maidens came to fill their water-jars. Soada's trinkets and
bracelets were perhaps no better than those of her companions, but her
one garment was of the linen of Beni Mazar, as good as that worn by the
Sheikh-Elbeled himself.

Wassef the camel-driver, being proud of Soada, gave her the advantage of
his frequent good fortune in desert loot and Nile backsheesh. But Wassef
was a hard man for all that, and he grew bitter and morose at last,
because he saw that camel-driving must suffer by the coming of the
railway. Besides, as a man gets older he likes the season of Ramadan
less, for he must fast from sunrise to sunset, though his work goes on;
and, with broken sleep, having his meals at night, it is ten to one but
he gets irritable.

So it happened that one evening just at sunset, Wassef came to his hut,
with the sun like the red rim of a huge thumb-nail in the sky behind him,
ready beyond telling for his breakfast, and found nothing. On his way
home he had seen before the houses and cafes silent Mussulmans with
cigarettes and matches in their fingers, cooks with their hands on the
lids of the cooking pots, where the dourha and onions boiled; but here
outside his own doorway there was no odour, and there was silence within.

"Now, by the beard of the Prophet," he muttered, "is it for this I have
fed the girl and clothed her with linen from Beni Mazar all these years!"
And he turned upon his heel, and kicked a yellow cur in the ribs; then he
went to the nearest cafe, and making huge rolls of forcemeat with his
fingers crammed them into his mouth, grunting like a Berkshire boar. Nor
did his anger cease thereafter, for this meal of meat had cost him five
piastres--the second meal of meat in a week.

As Wassef sat on the mastaba of the cafe sullen and angry, the village
barber whispered in his ear that Mahommed Selim and Soada had been
hunting jackals in the desert all afternoon. Hardly had the barber fled
from the anger of Wassef, when a glittering kavass of the Mouffetish at
Cairo passed by on a black errand of conscription. With a curse Wassef
felt in his vest for his purse, and called to the kavass--the being more
dreaded in Egypt than the plague.

That very night the conscription descended upon Mahommed Selim, and by
sunrise he was standing in front of the house of the Mamour with twelve
others, to begin the march to Dongola. Though the young man's father went
secretly to the Mamour, and offered him backsheesh, even to the tune of a
feddan of land, the Mamour refused to accept it. That was a very peculiar
thing, because every Egyptian official, from the Khedive down to the
ghafhr of the cane-fields, took backsheesh in the name of Allah.

Wassef the camel-driver was the cause. He was a deep man and a strong;
and it was through him the conscription descended upon Mahommed
Selim--"son of a burnt father," as he called him--who had gone shooting
jackals in the desert with his daughter, and had lost him his breakfast.
Wassef's rage was quiet but effective, for he had whispered to some
purpose in the ear of the Mamour as well as in that of the dreaded kavass
of conscription. Afterwards, he had gone home and smiled at Soada his
daughter when she lied to him about the sunset breakfast.

With a placid smile and lips that murmured, "Praise be to God," the
malignant camel-driver watched the shrieking women of the village
throwing dust on their heads and lamenting loudly for the thirteen young
men of Beni Souef who were going forth never to return--or so it seemed
to them; for of all the herd of human kine driven into the desert before
whips and swords, but a moiety ever returned, and that moiety so battered
that their mothers did not know them. Therefore, at Beni Souef that
morning women wept, and men looked sullenly upon the ground--all but
Wassef the camel-driver.

It troubled the mind of Wassef that Mahommed Selim made no outcry at his
fate. He was still more puzzled when the Mamour whispered to him that
Mahommed Selim had told the kavass and his own father that since it was
the will of God, then the will of God was his will, and he would go.
Wassef replied that the Mamour did well not to accept the backsheesh of
Mahommed Selim's father, for the Mouffetish at the palace of Ismail would
have heard of it, and there would have been an end to the Mamour. It was
quite a different matter when it was backsheesh for sending Mahommed
Selim to the Soudan.

With a shameless delight Wassef went to the door of his own home, and,
calling to Soada, told her that Mahommed Selim was among the conscripts.
He also told her that the young man was willing to go, and that the
Mamour would take no backsheesh from his father. He looked to see her
burst into tears and wailing, but she only stood and looked at him like
one stricken blind. Wassef laughed, and turned on his heel; and went out:
for what should he know of the look in a woman's face--he to whom most
women were alike, he who had taken dancing-girls with his camels into the
desert many a time? What should he know of that love which springs once
in every woman's heart, be she fellah or Pharaoh's daughter?

When he had gone, Soada groped her way blindly to the door and out into
the roadway. Her lips moved, but she only said: "Mahommed--Mahommed
Selim!" Her father's words knelled in her ear that her lover was willing
to go, and she kept saying brokenly: "Mahommed--Mahommed Selim!" As the
mist left her eyes she saw the conscripts go by, and Mahommed Selim was
in the rear rank. He saw her also, but he kept his head turned away,
taking a cigarette from young Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, as they passed
on.

Unlike the manner of her people, Soada turned and went back into her
house, and threw herself upon the mud floor, and put the folds of her
garment in her mouth lest she should cry out in her agony. A whole day
she lay there and did not stir, save to drink from the water-bottle which
old Fatima, the maker of mats, had placed by her side. For Fatima thought
of the far-off time when she loved Hassan the potter, who had been
dragged from his wheel by a kavass of conscription and lost among the
sands of the Libyan desert; and she read the girl's story.

That evening, as Wassef the camel-driver went to the mosque to pray,
Fatima cursed him, because now all the village laughed secretly at the
revenge that Wassef had taken upon the lover of his daughter. A few
laughed the harder because they knew Wassef would come to feel it had
been better to have chained Mahommed Selim to a barren fig-tree and kept
him there until he married Soada, than to let him go. He had
mischievously sent him into that furnace which eats the Fellaheen to the
bones, and these bones thereafter mark white the road of the Red Sea
caravans and the track of the Khedive's soldiers in the yellow sands.

When Fatima cursed Wassef he turned and spat at her; and she went back
and sat on the ground beside Soada, and mumbled tags from the Koran above
her for comfort. Then she ate greedily the food which Soada should have
eaten; snatching scraps of consolation in return for the sympathy she
gave.

The long night went, the next day came, and Soada got up and began to
work again. And the months went by.

II

One evening, on a day which had been almost too hot for even the seller
of liquorice-water to go by calling and clanging, Wassef the camel-driver
sat at the door of a malodorous cafe and listened to a wandering welee
chanting the Koran. Wassef was in an ill-humour: first, because the day
had been so hot; secondly, because he had sold his ten-months' camel at a
price almost within the bounds of honesty; and thirdly, because a score
of railway contractors and subs. were camped outside the town. Also,
Soada had scarcely spoken to him for three days past.

In spite of all, Soada had been the apple of his eye, although he had
sworn again and again that next to a firman of the Sultan, a ten-months'
camel was the most beautiful thing on earth. He was in a bitter humour.
This had been an intermittent disease with him almost since the day
Mahommed Selim had been swallowed up by the Soudan; for, like her mother
before her, Soada had no mind to be a mat for his feet. Was it not even
said that Soada's mother was descended from an English slave with red
hair, who in the terrible disaster at Damietta in 1805 had been carried
away into captivity on the Nile, where he married a fellah woman and died
a good Mussulman?

Soada's mother had had red-brown hair, and not black as becomes a fellah
woman; but Wassef was proud of this ancient heritage of red hair, which
belonged to a field-marshal of Great Britain--so he swore by the beard of
the Prophet. That is why he had not beaten Soada these months past when
she refused to answer him, when with cold stubbornness she gave him his
meals or withheld them at her will. He was even a little awed by her
silent force of will, and at last he had to ask her humbly for a savoury
dish which her mother had taught her to make--a dish he always ate upon
the birthday of Mahomet Ali, who had done him the honour to flog him with
his own kourbash for filching the rations of his Arab charger.

But this particular night Wassef was bitter, and watched with stolid
indifference the going down of the sun, the time when he usually said his
prayers. He was in so ill a humour that he would willingly have met his
old enemy, Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, and settled their long-standing
dispute for ever. But Yusef came not that way. He was lying drunk with
hashish outside the mosque El Hassan, with a letter from Mahommed Selim
in his green turban--for Yusef had been a pilgrimage to Mecca and might
wear the green turban.

But if Yusef came not by the cafe where Wassef sat glooming, some one
else came who quickly roused Wassef from his phlegm. It was Donovan
Pasha, the young English official, who had sat with him many a time at
the door of his but and asked him questions about Dongola and Berber and
the Soudanese. And because Dicky spoke Arabic, and was never known to
have aught to do with the women of Beni Souef, he had been welcome; and
none the less because he never frowned when an Arab told a lie.

"Nehar-ak koom said, Mahommed Wassef," said Dicky; and sat upon a bench
and drew a narghileh to him, wiping the ivory mouthpiece with his
handkerchief.

"Nehar-ak said, saadat el Pasha," answered Wassef, and touched lips,
breast, and forehead with his hand. Then they shook hands, thumbs up,
after the ancient custom. And once more, Wassef touched his breast, his
lips, and his forehead.

They sat silent too long for Wassef's pleasure, for he took pride in what
he was pleased to call his friendship with Donovan Pasha, and he could
see his watchful neighbours gathering at a little distance. It did not
suit his book that they two should not talk together.

"May Allah take them to his mercy!--A regiment was cut to pieces by the
Dervishes at Dongola last quarter of the moon," he said.

"It was not the regiment of Mahommed Selim," Dicky answered slowly, with
a curious hard note in his voice.

"All blessings do not come at once--such is the will of God!" answered
Wassef with a sneer.

"You brother of asses," said Dicky, showing his teeth a little, "you
brother of asses of Bagdad!"

"Saadat el basha!" exclaimed Wassef, angry and dumfounded.

"You had better have gone yourself, and left Mahommed Selim your camels
and your daughter," continued Dicky, his eyes straight upon Wassef's.

"God knows your meaning," said Wassef in a sudden fright; for the
Englishman's tongue was straight, as he well knew.

"They sneer at you behind your back, Mahommed Wassef. No man in the
village dare tell you, for you have no friends, but I tell you, that you
may save Soada before it is too late. Mahommed Selim lives; or lived last
quarter of the moon, so says Yusef the ghaffir. Sell your ten-months'
camel, buy the lad out, and bring him back to Soada."

"Saadat!" said Wassef, in a quick fear, and dropped the stem of the
narghileh, and got to his feet. "Saadat el basha!"

"Before the Nile falls and you may plant yonder field with onions,"
answered Dicky, jerking his head towards the flooded valley, "her time
will be come!"

Wassef's lips were drawn, like shrivelled parchment over his red gums,
the fingers of his right hand fumbled in his robe.

"There's no one to kill--keep quiet!" said Dicky, But Wassef saw near by
the faces of the villagers, and on every face he thought he read a smile,
a sneer; though in truth none sneered, for they were afraid of his
terrible anger. Mad with fury he snatched the turban from his head and
threw it on the ground. Then suddenly he gave one cry, "Allah!" a vibrant
clack like a pistol-shot, for he saw Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, coming
down the road.

Yusef heard that cry of "Allah!" and he knew that the hour had come for
settling old scores. The hashish clouds lifted from his brain, and he
gripped his naboot of the hard wood of the dom-palm, and, with a cry like
a wolf, came on.

It would have been well for Wassef the camel-driver if he had not taken
the turban from his head, for before he could reach Yusef with his
dagger, he went down, his skull cracking like the top of an egg under a
spoon.

III

Thus it was that Soada was left to fight her battle alone. She did not
weep or wail when Wassef's body was brought home and the moghassil and
hanouti came to do their offices. She did not smear her hair with mud,
nor was she moved by the wailing of the mourning women nor the chanters
of the Koran. She only said to Fatima when all was over: "It is well; he
is gone from my woe to the mercy of God! Praise be to God!" And she held
her head high in the village still, though her heart was in the dust.

She would have borne her trouble alone to the end, but that she was
bitten on the arm by one of her father's camels the day they were sold in
the marketplace. Then, helpless and suffering and fevered, she yielded to
the thrice-repeated request of Dicky Donovan, and was taken to the
hospital at Assiout, which Fielding Bey, Dicky's friend, had helped to
found.

But Soada, as her time drew near and the terror of it stirred her heart,
cast restless eyes upon the whitewashed walls and rough floors of the
hospital. She longed for the mud hut at Beni Souef, and the smell of the
river and the little field of onions she planted every year. Day by day
she grew harder of heart against those who held her in the hospital--for
to her it was but a prison. She would not look when the doctor came, and
she would not answer, but kept her eyes closed; and she did not shrink
when they dressed the arm so cruelly wounded by the camel's teeth, but
lay still and dumb.

Now, a strange thing happened, for her hair which had been so black
turned brown, and grew browner and browner till it was like the hair of
her mother, who, so the Niline folk said, was descended from the English
soldier-slave with red hair.

Fielding Bey and Dicky came to see her in hospital once before they
returned to Cairo; but Soada would not even speak to them, though she
smiled when they spoke to her; and no one else ever saw her smile during
the days she spent in that hospital with the red floor and white walls
and the lazy watchman walking up and down before the door. She kept her
eyes closed in the daytime; but at night they were always open--always.
Pictures of all she had lived and seen came back to her then--pictures of
days long before Mahommed Selim came into her life. Mahommed Selim! She
never spoke the words now, but whenever she thought them her heart shrank
in pain. Mahommed Selim had gone like a coward into the desert, leaving
her alone.

Her mind dwelt on the little mud hut and the onion field, and she saw
down by the foreshore of the river the great khiassas from Assouan and
Luxor laden with cotton or dourha or sugar-cane, their bent prows hooked
in the Nile mud. She saw again the little fires built along the shore and
atop of the piles of grain, round which sat the white, the black, and the
yellow-robed riverine folk in the crimson glare; while from the banks
came the cry: "Alla-haly, 'm alla-haly!" as stalwart young Arabs drew in
from the current to the bank some stubborn, overloaded khiassa. She heard
the snarl of the camels as they knelt down before her father's but to
rest before the journey into the yellow plains of sand beyond. She saw
the seller of sweetmeats go by calling--calling. She heard the droning of
the children in the village school behind the hut, the dull clatter of
Arabic consonants galloping through the Koran. She saw the moon--the full
moon-upon the Nile, the wide acreage of silver water before the
golden-yellow and yellow-purple of the Libyan hills behind.

She saw through her tears the sweet mirage of home, and her heart
rebelled against the prison where she lay. What should she know of
hospitals--she whose medicaments had been herbs got from the Nile valley
and the cool Nile mud? Was it not the will of God if we lived or the will
of God if we died? Did we not all lie in the great mantle of the mercy of
God, ready to be lifted up or to be set down as He willed? They had
prisoned her here; there were bars upon the windows, there were watchmen
at the door.

At last she could bear it no longer; the end of it all came. She stole
out over the bodies of the sleeping watchmen, out into the dusty road
under the palms, down to the waterside, to the Nile--the path leading
homewards. She must go down the Nile, hiding by day, travelling by
night--the homing bird with a broken wing-back to the but where she had
lived so long with Wassef the camel-driver; back where she could lie in
the dusk of her windowless home, shutting out the world from her
solitude. There she could bear the agony of her hour.

Drinking the water of the Nile, eating the crumbs of dourha bread she had
brought from the hospital, getting an onion from a field, chewing shreds
of sugarcane, hiding by day and trudging on by night, hourly growing
weaker, she struggled towards Beni Souef. Fifty--forty--thirty--ten--five
miles! Oh! the last two days, her head so hot and her brain bursting, and
a thousand fancies swimming before her eyes, her heart fluttering,
fluttering--stopping, going on--stopping, going on.

It was only the sound of the river--the Nile, Mother of Egypt, crooning
to her disordered spirit, which kept her on her feet. Five miles, four
miles, three miles, two, and then--she never quite remembered how she
came to the hut where she was born. Two miles--two hours of incredible
agony, now running, now leaning against a palm tree, now dropping to her
knees, now fighting on and on, she came at last to the one spot in the
world where she could die in peace.

As she staggered, stumbled, through the village, Yusef, the drunken
ghaffir, saw her. He did not dare speak to her, for had he not killed her
father, and had he not bought himself free of punishment from the Mudir?
So he ran to old Fatima and knocked upon her door with his naboot,
crying: "In the name of Allah get thee to the hut of Wassef the
camel-driver!"

Thus it was that Soada, in her agony, heard a voice say out of the
infinite distance: "All praise to Allah, he hath even now the strength of
a year-old child!"

IV

That night at sunset, as Soada lay upon the sheepskin spread for her,
with the child nestled between her arm and her breast, a figure darkened
the doorway, and old Fatima cried out:

"Mahommed Selim!"

With a gasping sound Soada gathered the child quickly to her breast, and
shrank back to the wall. This surely was the ghost of Mahommed
Selim--this gaunt, stooping figure covered with dust.

"Soada, in the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful, Soada,
beautiful one!"

Mahommed Selim, once the lithe, the straight, the graceful, now bent,
awkward, fevered, all the old daring gone from him, stood still in the
middle of the room, humbled before the motherhood in his sight.

"Brother of jackals," cried old Fatima, "what dost thou here? What dost
thou here, dog of dogs!" She spat at him.

He took no notice. "Soada," he said eagerly, prayerfully, and his voice,
though hoarse, was softer than she had ever heard it. "Soada, I have come
through death to thee--Listen, Soada! At night, when sleep was upon the
barrack-house, I stole out to come to thee. My heart had been hard. I had
not known how much I loved thee--"

Soada interrupted him. "What dost thou know of love, Mahommed Selim? The
blood of the dead cries from the ground."

He came a step nearer. "The blood of Wassef the camel-driver is upon my
head," he said. "In the desert there came news of it. In the desert, even
while we fought the wild tribes, one to ten, a voice kept crying in my
ear, even as thou hast cried, 'What didst thou know of love, Mahommed
Selim!' One by one the men of Beni Souef fell round me; one by one they
spoke of their village and of their women, and begged for a drop of
water, and died. And my heart grew hot within me, and a spirit kept
whispering in my ear: 'Mahommed Selim, think of the village thou hast
shamed, of Soada thou hast wronged! No drop of water shall cheer thy soul
in dying!'"

Fatima and Soada listened now with bated breath, for this was the voice
of one who had drunk the vinegar and gall of life.

"When the day was done, and sleep was upon the barrack-house, my heart
waked up and I knew that I loved Soada as I had never loved her. I ran
into the desert, and the jackals flew before me--outcasts of the desert,
they and I. Coming to the tomb of Amshar the sheikh, by which was a well,
there I found a train of camels. One of these I stole, and again I ran
into the desert, and left the jackals behind. Hour after hour, day and
night, I rode on. But faintness was upon me, and dreams came. For though
only the sands were before me, I seemed to watch the Nile
running--running, and thou beside it, hastening with it, hastening,
hastening towards thy home. And Allah put a thorn into my heart, that a
sharp pain went through my body--and at last I fell."

Soada's eyes were on him now with a strange, swimming brilliancy.

"Mahommed--Mahommed Selim, Allah touched thine eyes that thou didst see
truly," she said eagerly. "Speak not till I have done," he answered.
"When I waked again I was alone in the desert, no food, no water, and the
dead camel beside me. But I had no fear. 'If it be God's will,' said I,
'then I shall come unto Soada. If it be not God's will, so be it: for are
we not on the cushion of His mercy, to sleep or to wake, to live or to
die?'"

He paused, tottering, and presently sank upon the ground, his hands
drooped before him, his head bent down. Old Fatima touched him on the
shoulder.

"Brother of vultures didst thou go forth; brother of eagles dost thou
return," she said. "Eat, drink, in the house of thy child and its
mother."

"Shall the unforgiven eat or drink?" he asked, and he rocked his body to
and fro, like one who chants the Koran in a corner of El Azhar,
forgetting and forgotten.

Soada's eyes were on him now as though they might never leave him again;
and she dragged herself little by little towards him, herself and the
child--little by little, until at last she touched his feet, and the
child's face was turned towards him from its mother's breast.

"Thou art my love, Mahommed Selim," she said. He raised his head from his
hands, a hunger of desire in his face.

"Thou art my lord," she added: "art thou not forgiven? The little one is
thine and mine," she whispered. "Wilt thou not speak to him?"

"Lest Allah should strike me with blindness and dry up the juice of my
veins, I will not touch thee or the child until all be righted. Food will
I not eat, nor water drink until thou art mine--by the law of the
Prophet, mine."

Laying down the water-jar, and the plate of dourha bread, old Fatima
gathered her robe about her, and cried as she ran from the house:
"Marriage and fantasia thou shalt have this hour."

The stiffness seemed to pass from her bones as she ran through the
village to the house of the Omdah. Her voice, lifting shrilly, sang the
Song of Haleel, the song of the newly married, till it met the chant of
the Muezzin on the tower of the mosque El Hassan, and mingled with it,
dying away over the fields of bersim and the swift-flowing Nile.

That night Mahommed Selim and Soada the daughter of Wassef the
camel-driver were married, but the only fantasia they held was their own
low laughter over the child. In the village, however, people were little
moved to smile, for they knew that Mahommed Selim was a deserter from the
army of the Khedive at Dongola, and that meant death. But no one told
Soada this, and she did not think; she was content to rest in the
fleeting dream.

"Give them twenty-four hours," said the black-visaged fat sergeant of
cavalry come to arrest Mahommed Selim for desertion.

The father of Mahommed Selim again offered the Mamour a feddan of land if
the young man might go free, and to the sergeant he offered a she-camel
and a buffalo. To no purpose. It was Mahommed Selim himself who saved his
father's goods to him. He sent this word to the sergeant by Yusef the
drunken ghaffir: "Give me to another sunset and sunrise, and what I have
is thine--three black donkeys of Assiout rented to old Abdullah the
sarraf."

Because with this offer he should not only have backsheesh but the man
also, the fat sergeant gave him leave. When the time was up, and Mahommed
Selim drew Soada's face to his breast, he knew that it was the last look
and last embrace.

"I am going back," he said; "my place is empty at Dongola."

"No, no, thou shalt not go," she cried. "See how the little one loves
thee," she urged, and, sobbing, she held the child up to him.

But he spoke softly to her, and at last she said: "Kiss me, Mahommed
Selim. Behold now thy discharge shall be bought from the palace of the
Khedive, and soon thou wilt return," she cried.

"If it be the will of God," he answered; "but the look of thine eyes I
will take with me, and the face of the child here." He thrust a finger
into the palm of the child, and the little dark hand closed round it. But
when he would have taken it away, the little hand still clung, though the
eyes were scarce opened upon life.

"See, Mahommed Selim," Soada cried, "he would go with thee."

"He shall come to me one day, by the mercy of God," answered Mahommed
Selim.

Then he went out into the market-place and gave himself up to the fat
sergeant. As they reached the outskirts of the village a sorry camel came
with a sprawling gallop after them, and swaying and rolling above it was
Yusef, the drunken ghaffir, his naboot of dom-wood across his knees.

"What dost thou come for, friend of the mercy of God?" asked Mahommed
Selim.

"To be thy messenger, praise be to God!" answered Yusef, swinging his
water-bottle clear for a drink.

V

In Egypt, the longest way round is not the shortest way home, and that
was why Mahommed Selim's court-martial took just three minutes and a
half; and the bimbashi who judged him found even that too long, for he
yawned in the deserter's face as he condemned him to death.

Mahommed Selim showed no feeling when the sentence was pronounced. His
face had an apathetic look. It seemed as if it were all one to him. But
when they had turned him round to march to the shed where he was to be
kept, till hung like a pig at sunrise, his eyes glanced about restlessly.
For even as the sentence had been pronounced a new idea had come into his
mind. Over the heads of the Gippy soldiers, with their pipestem legs, his
look flashed eagerly, then a little painfully--then suddenly stayed, for
it rested on the green turban of Yusef, the drunken ghaffir. Yusef's eyes
were almost shut; his face had the grey look of fresh-killed veal, for he
had come from an awful debauch of hashish.

"Allah! Allah!" cried Mahommed Selim, for that was the sound which always
waked the torpid brain of Yusef since Wassef the camel-driver's skull had
crackled under his naboot.

Yusef's wide shoulders straightened back, his tongue licked his lips, his
eyes stared before him, his throat was dry. He licked his lips again.
"Allah!" he cried and ran forward.

The soldiers thrust Yusef back. Mahommed Selim turned and whispered to
the sergeant.

"Backsheesh!" he said; "my grey Arab for a word with Yusef the ghaffir."

"Malaish!" said the sergeant; and the soldiers cleared a way for Yusef.

The palms of the men from Beni Souef met once, twice, thrice; they
touched their lips, their breasts, their foreheads, with their hands,
three times. Then Mahommed Selim fell upon the breast of Yusef and
embraced him. Doing so he whispered in his ear:

"In the name of Allah, tell Soada I died fighting the Dervishes!"

"So be it, in God's name!" said Yusef. "A safe journey to you, brother of
giants."

Next morning at sunrise, between two dom-palms, stood Mahommed Selim; but
scarce a handful of the soldiers sent to see him die laughed when the
rope was thrown over his head. For his story had gone abroad, and it was
said that he was mad--none but a madman would throw away his life for a
fellah woman. And was it not written that a madman was one beloved of
Allah, who had taken his spirit up into heaven, leaving only the
disordered body behind?

If, at the last moment, Mahommed Selim had but cried out: "I am mad; with
my eyes I have seen God!" no man would have touched the rope that hanged
him up that day.

But, according to the sacred custom, he only asked for a bowl of water,
drank it, said "Allah!" and bowed his head three times towards Mecca--and
bowed his head no more.

Before another quarter was added to the moon, Yusef, the drunken ghaffir,
at the door of Soada's hut in Beni Souef, told old Fatima the most
wonderful tale, how Mahommed Selim had died on his sheepskin, having
killed ten Dervishes with his own hand; and that a whole regiment had
attended his funeral.

This is to the credit of Yusef's account, that the last half of his
statement was no lie.