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.
