CHAPTER XIII. Rashid's Revenge

RASHID'S REVENGE

We were staying with an English friend of mine--a parson, though the least parsonical of men--who had a pleasant little house in a Druze village of Mount Lebanon, and nothing to do but watch, and do his utmost to restrain, the antics of a very wealthy and eccentric lady missionary. He had gone away for a few weeks, leaving us in possession, when another sort of clergyman arrived--a little man with long white beard, sharp nose, and pale, seraphic eyes. He was, or fancied that he was, on duty, inspecting missionary establishments in those mountains. The master of the house had once invited him to stay there if he passed that way. He seemed surprised to find us in possession, and treated us as interlopers, though I was in fact his host, regarding our small dwelling as a clergy house. His gaze expressed an innocent surprise when I sat down to supper with him and performed the honours on the night of his arrival. He gave his orders boldly to my servant, and his demeanour plainly asked what business I had there, though he would never listen to my explanation.

I took the whole adventure philosophically, but rage and indignation took possession of Rashid. And his indignation was increased by the popularity of our insulter with the girls and teachers of the mission-school hard by. Our guest was innocence itself, if silly and conceited. But Rashid watched all his movements, and could tell me that the old 'hypocrite,' as he invariably called him, went to the school each day and kissed the pupils, taking the pretty ones upon his knee, and making foolish jokes, talking and giggling like an imbecile, bestowing sweetmeats. With them--for the most sinful motives, as Rashid averred, and, I suppose, believed--he was all sugar; but when he came back to the house he was as grumpy as could be. Rashid would have destroyed him at a nod from me one evening when he said:

'I think I must have left my glasses over at the school. Will you be good enough to go and ask?'

'Now your Honour knows how we feel when we meet a man like that; and there are many such among the Franks,' my servant whispered in my ear as I went out obediently. 'By Allah, it is not to be endured!'

The parson occupied the only bedroom; and I slept out upon the balcony on his account. Yet he complained of certain of my garments hanging in his room, and flung them out. It was after that revolting episode, when I was really angry for a moment, that Rashid came to me and said:

'You hate this hypocrite; is it not so?'

'By Allah,' I replied, 'I hate him.'

He seemed relieved by the decision of my tone, and then informed me:

'I know a person who would kill him for the sake of thirty English pounds.'

It became, of course, incumbent on me to explain that, with us English, hatred is not absolute as with the children of the Arabs--mine had already reached the laughing stage. He was evidently disappointed, and answered with a weary sigh:

'May Allah rid us of this foul oppression!'

It was a bitter pill for him, whose whole endeavour was for my aggrandisement, to see me treated like a menial by our guest; who, one fine evening, had me summoned to his presence--I had been sitting with some village elders in the olive grove behind the house--and made to me a strange proposal, which Rashid declared by Allah proved his perfect infamy. His manner was for once quite amiable. Leaning back in a deck-chair, his two hands with palms resting on his waistcoat, the fingers raised communicating at the tips, he said, with clerical complacency:

'It is my purpose to make a little tour to visit missionary ladies at three several places in these mountains, and then to go on to Jezzin to see the waterfall. As you appear to know the country and the people intimately, and can speak the language, it would be well if you came too. The man Rashid could wait upon us all.'

Rashid, I knew, was listening at the door.

'Us all? How many of you are there, then?'

He hemmed a moment ere replying:

'I--er--think of taking the Miss Karams with me'--Miss Sara Karam, a young lady of Syrian birth but English education, was head teacher at the girls' school, and her younger sister, Miss Habibah Karam, was her constant visitor--'I thought you might take charge of the younger of the two. The trip will give them both great pleasure, I am sure.'

And they were going to Jezzin, where there was no hotel, and we should have to herd together in the village guest-room! What would my Arab friends, censorious in all such matters, think of that?

I told him plainly what I thought of the idea, and what the mountain-folk would think of it and all of us. I told him that I had no wish to ruin any woman's reputation, nor to be forced into unhappy marriage by a public scandal. He, as a visitor, would go away again; as an old man, and professionally holy, his good name could hardly suffer among English people. But the girls would have to live among the mountaineers, who, knowing of their escapade, would thenceforth scorn them. And as for me----

'But I proposed a mere excursion,' he interpolated. 'I fail to see why you should take this tone about it.'

'Well, I have told you what I think,' was my rejoinder. I then went out and told the story to Rashid, who heartily applauded my decision, which he had already gathered.

I did not see our simple friend again till after breakfast the next morning. Then he said to me, in something of a contrite tone:

'I have been thinking over what you said last night. I confess I had not thought about the native gossip. I have decided to give up the expedition to Jezzin. And it has occurred to me that, as you are not going, I could ride your horse. It would save the trouble and expense of hiring one, if you would kindly lend it.'

Taken fairly by surprise, I answered: 'Certainly,' and then went out and told Rashid what I had done. He wrung his hands and bitterly reproached me.

'But there is one good thing,' he said; 'Sheytan will kill him.'

In all the months that we had owned that horse Rashid had never once before alluded to him by the name which I had chosen. It was ill-omened, he had often warned me. But nothing could be too ill-omened for that hypocrite.

'I do not want to lend the horse at all,' I said. 'And I am pretty sure he could not ride him. But what was I to say? He took me by surprise.'

'In that case,' said Rashid, 'all is not said. Our darling shall enjoy his bath to-day.'

The washing of my horse--a coal-black Arab stallion, as playful as a kitten and as mad--was in the nature of a public festival for all the neighbours. Sheytan was led down to the spring, where all the population gathered, the bravest throwing water over him with kerosene tins, while he plunged and kicked and roused the mountain echoes with his naughty screaming. On this occasion, for a finish, Rashid let go his hold upon the head-rope, the people fled in all directions, and off went our Sheytan with tail erect, scrambling and careering up the terraces, as nimble as a goat, to take the air before returning to his stable.

Our reverend guest had watched the whole performance from our balcony, which, from a height of some three hundred feet, looked down upon the spring. I was up there behind him, but I said no word till he exclaimed in pious horror:

'What a vicious brute! Dangerous--ought to be shot!' when I inquired to what he was alluding.

'Whose is that savage beast?' he asked, with quite vindictive ire, pointing to Sheytan, who was disporting on the terrace just below.

'Oh, that's my horse,' I answered, interested. 'He's really quite a lamb.'

'Your horse! You don't mean that?'

He said no more just then, but went indoors, and then out to the mission school to see the ladies.

That evening he informed me: 'I shall not require your horse. I had no notion that it was so strong an animal when I suggested borrowing it. Old Casim at the school will hire one for me. I should be afraid lest such a valuable horse as yours might come to grief while in my charge.'

That was his way of putting it.

We watched the party start one early morning, the clergyman all smiles, the ladies in a flutter, all three mounted on hired chargers of the most dejected type, old Casim from the school attending them upon a jackass. Rashid addressed the last-named as he passed our house, applying a disgraceful epithet to his employment. The poor old creature wept.

'God knows,' he said, 'I would not choose such service. But what am I to do? A man must live. And I will save my lady's virtue if I can.'

'May Allah help thee!' said Rashid. 'Take courage; I have robbed his eyes.'

I had no notion of his meaning at the time when, sitting on the balcony, I overheard this dialogue; but later in the day Rashid revealed to me two pairs of eyeglasses belonging to our guest. Without these glasses, which were of especial power, the reverend man could not see anything in detail.

'And these two pairs were all he had,' exclaimed Rashid with triumph. 'He always used to put them on when looking amorously at the ladies. The loss of them, please God, will spoil his pleasure.'