CHAPTER XXII. The Caimmacam

THE CAIMMACAM

Though the reason of our coming, the Sheykh Yusuf, had deserted us, we rode into the town and spent the night there, finding lodgings at a khan upon the outskirts of the place, of which the yard was shaded by a fine old carob tree. While we were having breakfast the next morning in a kind of gallery which looked into the branches of that tree, and through them and a ruined archway to the road, crowded just then with peasants in grey clothing coming in to market, Suleyman proposed that he and I should go and call upon the Caimmacam, the local Governor. I had spent a wretched night. The place was noisy and malodorous. My one desire was to be gone as soon as possible, and so I answered:

'I will call on no one. My only wish to see him was upon account of that old rogue who ran away from us.'

'The man was certainly ungrateful--curse his father!' said Rashid.

'The man is to be pitied, being ignorant,' said Suleyman. 'His one idea was to defend his house and land by combat. He did not perceive that by the course of law and influence he might defend them more effectually, and for ever. He probably did not imagine that your Honour would yourself approach the Governor and plead with him.'

'I shall see nobody,' I answered crossly. 'We return at once.'

'Good,' said Rashid. 'I get the horses ready.'

'And yet,' said our preceptor thoughtfully, 'his Excellency is, they say, a charming man; and this would be a golden opportunity for us to get acquainted with him and bespeak his favour. Thus the Sheykh Yusuf, though himself contemptible, may be of service to us. Already I have told the people here that we have come on an important errand to the Governor. Rashid, too, as I know, has spoken of the matter in a boastful way. If, after that, we should depart in dudgeon without seeing him, there would be gossip and perhaps--God knows--even political disturbance. The Governor, coming to hear of it, might reasonably feel aggrieved.'

He argued so ridiculously, yet so gravely, that in the end I was obliged to yield. And so, a little before ten o'clock, we sauntered through the narrow streets to the Government offices--a red-roofed, whitewashed building near which soldiers loitered, in a dusty square.

There we waited for a long while in an ante-room--spacious, but rather dingy, with cushionless divans around the walls, on which a strange variety of suitors sat or squatted. Some of these appeared so poor that I admired their boldness in demanding audience of the Governor. Yet it was one of the most wretched in appearance who was called first by the turbaned, black-robed usher. He passed into an inner room: the door was shut.

Then Suleyman went over to the usher, who kept guard upon that door, and held a whispered conversation with him. I know not what he said; but, when the wretched-looking man came out again, the usher slipped into the inner room with reverence and, presently returning, bowed to us and bade us enter. I went in, followed by Suleyman, who swelled and strutted like a pouter pigeon in his flowing robes.

The Caimmacam was a nice-looking Turk of middle-age, extremely neat in his apparel and methodical in his surroundings. He might have been an Englishman but for the crimson fez upon his brow and a chaplet of red beads, with which he toyed perpetually. He gazed into my eyes with kind inquiry. I told him that I came with tidings of a grave disturbance in his district, and then left Suleyman to tell the story of Sheykh Yusuf and his neighbours and the battle we had witnessed in the olive grove before his house.

Suleyman exhausted all his powers of language and of wit, making a veritable poem of the episode. The Governor did not appear profoundly interested.

'Sheykh Yusuf! Who is he?' he asked at the conclusion of the tale.

I explained that the Sheykh Yusuf was a landowner, whose acquaintance we had made through my desire to buy some property.

'Your Honour thinks of settling here among us?' cried his Excellency, with sudden zest, appearing quite enraptured with the notion. He asked then if the French tongue was intelligible to me, and, hearing that it was, talked long in French about my project, which seemed to please him greatly. He said that it would be a blessing for his district to have a highly civilised, enlightened being like myself established in it as the sun and centre of improvement; and what a comfort it would be to him particularly to have an educated man at hand to talk to! He hoped that, when I had set up my model farm--for a model it would be, in every way, he felt quite sure of that, from my appearance and my conversation--I would not limit my attention solely to the work of agriculture, but would go on to improve the native breeds of sheep and oxen. He heard that splendid strains of both were found in England. He wished me to import a lot of English bulls and rams, assuring me of the assistance of the Government in all that I might do in that direction, since the Sultan ('His Imperial Majesty' he called him always) took the greatest interest in such experiments.

All this was very far from my original design, which was to lead as far as possible a quiet life. But I promised to give thought to all his Excellency's counsels.

He made me smoke two cigarettes and drink a cup of coffee which his secretary had prepared upon a brazier in a corner of the room; and then, with a sweet smile and deprecating gestures of the hands, he begged me to excuse him if he closed the interview. It was a grief to him to let me go, but he was very busy.

I rose at once, and so did Suleyman.

'But what of the Sheykh Yusuf?' I exclaimed, reminding him.

'Ah, to be sure!' rejoined the Governor with a slight frown. 'Of what religion is he?'

'I suppose a Druze.'

'And the people who attacked him so unmercifully?'

'Are Druzes too.'

'Ah, then, it is all in the family, as the saying goes. And, unless some deputation from the Druze community appeals to me, I should be ill-advised to interfere in its affairs. Our way of government is not identical with that which is pursued with such conspicuous success in highly civilised and settled countries like your own. We leave the various communities and tribes alone to settle their internal differences. It is only where tribe wars on tribe, religion on religion, or their quarrels stop the traffic on the Sultan's highway that we intervene. What would you have, mon ami? We are here in Asia!'

With these words, and a smile of quite ineffable indulgence for my young illusions, his Excellency bowed me out.

In the ante-room Suleyman drew close to my left ear and whispered sharply:

'Give me four mejidis.'

'Whatever for?' I asked in deep amazement.

'That I will tell you afterwards. The need is instant.'

I produced the four mejidis from a trouser-pocket, and, receiving them, he went back to the door by which the usher stood, and whispered to the man, who went inside a moment and came back with the private secretary of the Caimmacam. The compliments which passed between them seemed to me interminable.

I paced the pavement of the waiting-room, the only figure in the crowd whose attitude bespoke impatience. The others sat or squatted round the walls in perfect resignation, some of them smoking, others munching nuts of various kinds, of which the shells began to hide the floor adjacent to them. A few of the suppliants had even had the forethought to bring with them bags full of provisions, as if anticipating that their time of waiting might endure for several days.

At last, when I was growing really angry with him, Suleyman returned and told me:

'All is well, and we can now be going, if your Honour pleases.'

'I do please,' I rejoined indignantly. 'Why have you kept me waiting all this while? I never wished to come at all into this place, and Allah knows that we have done no good by coming. We have spoilt a morning which we might have spent upon the road.'

'Allah, Allah!' sighed Suleyman long-sufferingly. 'Your Honour is extremely hard to please. Did not his Excellency talk to you exclusively, with every sign of the most lively pleasure for quite half an hour; whereas he scarcely deigned to throw a word to me, although I wooed his ear with language calculated to seduce the mind of kings? I have some cause to be dejected at neglect from one so powerful; but you have every cause to be elated. He is now your friend.'

'I shall never see him in my life again most likely!' I objected.

'Nay, that you cannot tell,' replied my mentor suavely. 'To be acquainted with a person in authority is always well.'