Whilst He Plied All Manner Of
Questions, His Black Slave Furtively Stared At Everything In And About
The Room.
But we had found time to cover the runaway with grass, and
the old gentleman departed, after a fruitless search.
There was,
however, a grim smile about his mouth which boded no good.
That evening, returning home from the Hammam, I found the house in an
uproar. The boy Mohammed, who had been miserably mauled, was furious
with rage; and Shaykh Nur was equally unmanageable, by reason of his
fear. In my absence the father had returned with a posse comitatus of
friends and relatives. They questioned the
[p.271] youth, who delivered himself of many circumstantial and
emphatic mis-statements. Then they proceeded to open the boxes; upon
which the boy Mohammed cast himself sprawling, with a vow to die rather
than to endure such a disgrace. This procured for him some scattered
slaps, which presently became a storm of blows, when a prying little
boy discovered Omar Effendi’s leg in the hiding-place. The student was
led away unresisting, but mildly swearing that he would allow no
opportunity of escape to pass. I examined the boy Mohammed, and was
pleased to find that he was not seriously hurt. To pacify his mind, I
offered to sally out with him, and to rescue Omar Effendi by main
force. This, which would only have brought us all into a brunt with
quarterstaves, and similar servile weapons, was declined, as had been
foreseen. But the youth recovered complacency, and a few well-merited
encomiums upon his “pluck” restored him to high spirits.
The reader must not fancy such escapade to be a serious thing in
Arabia. The father did not punish his son; he merely bargained with him
to return home for a few days before starting to Egypt. This the young
man did, and shortly afterwards I met him unexpectedly in the streets
of Cairo.
Deprived of my companion, I resolved to waste no time in the Red Sea,
but to return to Egypt with the utmost expedition. The boy Mohammed
having laid in a large store of grain, purchased with my money, having
secured all my disposable articles, and having hinted that, after my
return to India, a present of twenty dollars would find him at Meccah,
asked leave, and departed with a coolness for which I could not
account. Some days afterwards Shaykh Nur explained the cause. I had
taken the youth with me on board the steamer, where a bad suspicion
crossed his mind. “Now, I understand,” said the boy Mohammed to his
fellow-servant, “your master is a Sahib from India; he hath laughed at
our beards.”
[p.272] He parted as coolly from Shaykh Nur. These worthy youths had
been drinking together, when Mohammed, having learned at Stambul the
fashionable practice of Bad-masti, or “liquor-vice,” dug his “fives” into Nur’s
eye. Nur erroneously considering such exercise likely to induce
blindness, complained to me; but my sympathy was all with the other
side.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 180 of 331
Words from 93169 to 93678
of 175520
