Page images
PDF
EPUB

caught his eye was the terrace opening out of the room, and the stupendous view.

The terrace hung over a green chasm where the two converging gorges met at the foot of the crag of Bala Bala. Matthews looked down as from the prow of a ship into the tumbled country below him, through which a river flashed sinuously toward the far-away haze of the plains. The sound of water filling the still, clear air, the brilliance of the morning light, the wildness and remoteness of that mountain aery, so different from anything he had yet seen, added a new strangeness to the impressions of which the young man had been having many.

"What a pity to spoil it with a railroad!" he could not help thinking as he leaned over the parapet of the terrace.

"Sahib!" suddenly whispered Abbas behind him.

Matthews turned, and saw in the doorway of the terrace a personage who could be none other than his host. In place of the kola of his people this personage wore a great white turban, touched with gold. The loose, blue aba enveloping his large figure was also embroidered in gold. Not the least striking detail of his appearance, however, was his beard, which had a pronounced tendency toward scarlet. His nails were likewise reddened with henna, reminding Matthews that the hands belonging to the nails were rumored to bear even more sinister stains. The bottomless, black eyes peering out from under the white turban lent surprising credibility to such rumors. But there was no lack of graciousness in the gestures with which those famous hands saluted the visitor and pointed him to a seat of honor on the rug beside the Father of Swords. The Father of Swords furthermore pronounced his heart uplifted to receive a friend of Ganz Sahib, that prince among the merchants of Shuster. Yet he did not hesitate to express a certain surprise at discovering in the friend of the prince among the merchants of Shuster one still in the flower of youth, who at the same time exhibited the features of good fortune and the lineaments of prudence. And he inquired as

to what sorrow had led one so young to fold the carpet of enjoyment and to wander so far from his parents.

Matthews, disdaining the promptings of Abbas, who stood apart like a statue of obsequiousness, each hand stuck into the sleeve of the other, responded as best he might. In the meantime tea and candies were served by a black hat on bended knee, who also produced a pair of ornate pipes. The Father of Swords marveled that Matthews should abandon the delights of Shuster in order to witness his poor celebrations of the morrow in honor of the coronation. And had he felt no fear of robbers during his long night ride from Dizful? After this he asked if the young firengi was of the company of those who dug for the poisoned water of Bakhtiyari-land, or whether perchance he was of the people of the chain.

oners.

These figures of speech would have been too dark for Matthews if Abbas had not hinted something about oil rigs. He accordingly confessed that he had nothing to do with either of the two enterprises. The Father of Swords then expatiated on those who caused the Lurs to seize the hand of amazement with the teeth of chagrin by dragging through their valleys a long chain, as if they meant to take prisThese unwelcome firengis were also to be known by certain intriguing inventions on three legs into which they would gaze by the hour. Were they warriors threatening devastation, or were they magicians spying into the future and laying a spell upon the people of Luristan? Their own account of themselves the Father of Swords found far from satisfactory, claiming, as they did, that they proposed to build a road of iron whereby it would be possible for a man to go from Dizful to Khoramabad in a day. In one day! For the rest, what business had the people of Dizful, too many of whom were Arabs, in Khoramabad, a city of Lurs? Let the men of Dizful remain in Dizful, and those of Khoramabad continue where they were born. As for him, his white mules needed no road of iron to carry him about his affairs.

[graphic][subsumed]

Matthews, recalling his own thoughts as he leaned over the parapet of the terrace, spoke consolingly to the Father of Swords concerning the people of the chain. The Father of Swords listened to him, drawing meditatively at his water-pipe. He thereupon inquired if Matthews was acquainted with another friend of the prince among the merchants of Shuster, himself a firengi by birth, though recently persuaded of the truths of Islam; and not like this visitor of good omen, in the bloom of youth, but bearded and hardened in battles, bearing the scars of them on his face.

Matthews began to go over in his mind the short list of Europeans he had met on the Karun, till he suddenly bethought him of that extraordinary barge he had encountered-could it be only a couple of days ago?

"Magin Sahib?" he asked. "I know him, if he is the one who travels in the river in a mehala not like other mehalas, rowed by Lurs."

"That is a musk which discloses itself by its scent, and not what the perfumers impose upon us,'" quoted the Father of quoted the Father of Swords. “This man,” he continued, "our friend and the friend of our friend, warned me that they of the chain are sons of oppression, destined to bring sorrow to the Lurs. Surely my soul is tightened, not knowing whom I may believe."

"Rum bounder!" said Matthews to himself. He began to find more in this interview than he had expected. He was tickled at his host's flowery forms of speech, and after all rather sympathized with the suspicious old ruffian. Yet it was not for him to fail in loyalty toward the "people of the chain." Several of them he knew, as it happened, and they had delighted him with their wild yarns of surveying in Luristan. So he managed no more than to achieve an appearance of slightly offended dignity.

Considering which out of those opaque eyes, the Father of Swords clapped those famous hands and commanded a responsive black-hatted servant to bring him his new chest. At that Matthews pricked up

interested ears indeed. The chest, however, proved to be nothing at all like the one out of which the Brazilian had taken his gold anklet. It was small and painted green, though handsomely enough provided with triple locks of beaten iron. The Father of Swords unlocked them deliberately, withdrew from an inner compartment a round tin case, and from that a roll of parchment, which he pressed to his lips with great solemnity. He then handed it to Matthews.

He was one to take things as they came and not to require, even east of Suez, the spice of romance with his daily bread. But it was not every day that he squatted on the same rug with a scarlet-bearded old cutthroat of a mountain chief. So it was that his more or less casual lark visibly took on a new and curious color as he unrolled a gaudy emblazonment of eagles at the top of the parchment; for below the eagle he came upon what he darkly made out to be a species of treaty, inscribed neither in the Arabic nor in the Roman, but in the German character, between the Father of Swords and a more notorious war lord. And below that was signed, sealed, and imposingly paraphed the signature of one Julius Magin. This was indeed a novel aspect for a Brazilian, however versatile, to reveal.

Guy Matthews permitted himself a smile.

"You do not kiss it?" observed the Father of Swords, as it were with a shade of fatherly admonition.

"In my country-" Matthews began.

"But it is, may I be your sacrifice," interrupted the Father of Swords, "a letter from the shah of the shahs of the firengis!" It was evident that he was both impressed and certain of impressing his hearer. "He has promised eternal peace to me and to my people."

The Englishman in Matthews permitted him a second smile.

"The Father of Swords," he said, "speaks a word which I do not understand. I am a firengi, but I have never heard of a shah of the shahs of the firengis. In Islam are there not many who rule? And among

them what firengi can say who is the greatest? So also is it in Firengistan. As for this paper, it is written in the tongue of a king smaller than the one whose subject I am, whose crown has been worn by few fathers. But the name at the bottom of the paper is not his It is not even a name known to the firengis when they speak among themselves of the great of their lands. Where did you see him?"

The Father of Swords stroked his scarlet beard, and looked at his young visitor with more of a gleam in the dull black of his eyes than Matthews had hitherto noticed.

"Truly is it said, 'Fix not thy heart on what is transitory, for the Tigris will continue to flow through Bagdad after the race of califs is extinct.' You make it clear to me that you are of the people of the chain."

"If I were of the people of the chain," protested Matthews, "there is no reason why I should hide it. The people of the chain do not steal secretly through the valleys of Pusht-i-Kuh, telling the Lurs lies and giving them papers in the night. I am not one of the people of the chain, but the king of the people of the chain is also my king. And he is a great king, lord of many lands and many seas, who has no need of secret messengers, hostlers and scullions of whom no one has heard, to persuade strangers of his greatness."

"Your words do not persuade me," cried the Father of Swords. "A wise man is like a jar in the house of the apothecary, silent, but full of virtues. If the king who sent me this letter has such hostlers and such scullions, how great must be his khans and vizirs! And why do the Turks. trust him? Why do the other firengis allow his ships in Bushir and Basra? Or why do not the people of the chain better prove the character of their lord? But

the hand of liberality is stronger than the arm of power. This king against whom you speak heard me draw the sigh of affliction from the bosom of uncertainty. He deigned to regard me with the eye of patronage, sending me good words and promises of peace and friendship. He will

not permit the house of Islam to be troubled. From many indeed we have heard it."

"Ah," exclaimed Matthews, "now I understand why you have not kept your promises to the people of the chain!" He rubbed his thumb against his forefinger in the gesture of the East that signifies the payment of money.

"Why not?" demanded the Father of Swords, angrily. "The duty of a king is munificence, or why should there be a way to pass through my mountains? Has it ever been said of the Lur that he stepped back before a stranger? That is for the shah in Teheran, who has become the bondman of the Russian. Let the people of the chain learn that my neck does not know how to bow. And what guest are you to sprinkle my sore with the salt of harsh words? A boy who comes here no one knows why, on hired horses, with only one follower to attend him!"

Matthews flushed.

"Salman Taki Khan," he retorted, "it is true that I come to you humbly, having no beard, and your beard is already white, and you can call out thirty thousand men to follow you. Yet a piece of gold will make you believe a lie! And know that whether I give you back this paper to put into your chest, or whether I spit on it and tear it in pieces and throw it to the wind of that valley, it is one!"

To which the Father of Swords made emphatic enough rejoinder by snatching the parchment away, rising to his feet, and striding out of the room without a word

THE festivities in honor of the shah's coronation took place at Bala Bala with due solemnity. Among the black tents. there was much plucking of plaintive strings, there was more stuffing of mutton and pilau, and after dark many little rockets, improvised out of gunpowder and baked clay, traced brief arabesques of gold against the black of the underlying gorges. The castle celebrated in the same simple way. The stuffing, to be sure, was more prolonged and recondite, while dancers imported from Dizful swayed and snapped.

their fingers, singing for the pleasure of the Father of Swords.

The eyes of the Father of Swords glimmered perceptibly when they rested on the unannounced visitor for whom he fished out, with his own hennaed fingers, the fattest morsels of mutton and the juiciest sweets, a personage not unknown to this record, whether as Senhor Magin of Brazil or as the emissary of the shah of the shahs of Firengistan. For not only had he felt impelled to say good-by a second time to his friend Adolf Ganz, prince among the merchants of Shuster; he had even postponed his voyage down the Karun long enough to make one more journey overland to Bala Bala. And he heard there, not without interest, the story of the short visit and the sudden flight of the young Englishman he had accidentally met on the river.

As for Matthews, he celebrated the coronation at Dizful in bed. And by the time he had slept off his fag, Bala Bala and the Father of Swords and the green chest and the ingenious Magin looked to him more than ever like figures of myth. He was too little of the timber out of which journalists, romancers, or diplomats are made to take them very seriously. So he remained in Dizful.

The moon of those Arabian nights was nearing its first quarter when Dizful treated Matthews to a fresh discovery. It contained, Abbas informed him with some mystery after one of his prolonged visits to the bazaar, another firengi. This firengi's servant, moreover, had given Abbas explicit directions as to the whereabouts of the firengi's house, in order that Abbas might give due warning, as is the custom of the country, of a call from Matthews. Whereat Matthews made the surprising announcement that he had not come to Dizful to call on firengis. The chief charm of Dizful for him, as a matter of fact, was that he there felt himself free of the social obligations under which he had lain rather longer than he liked. But if Abbas was able to resign himself to this new proof of the eccentricity of his master, the unknown firengi apparently was

not. At all events, Matthews soon made another discovery as to the possibilities of Dizful. An evening or two later, as he loitered on the bridge watching a string of loaded camels, a respectable-looking old gentleman in a black aba addressed him in French. French in Dizful! And it appeared that this remarkable Elamite was a Jew who had picked up in Bagdad the idiom of Paris! He went on to describe himself as the "agent" of a distinguished foreign resident who, the linguistic old gentleman gave Matthews to understand, languished for a sight of the new-comer, and was unable to understand why he had not already been favored with a call. His pain was the deeper because the new-comer had recently enjoyed the hospitality of this distinguished foreign resident on a little yacht on the river.

"The unmitigated bounder!" exclaimed Matthews, unable to deliver himself of that sentiment in French, and turning upon the stupefied old gentleman a rude. Anglo-Saxon back. "He has cheek enough for anything."

He had enough, at any rate, to knock the next afternoon, unannounced, on Matthews's gate, to follow Matthews's servant into the house without waiting to hear whether Matthews would receive him, to present himself at the door of the dim underground serdab where Matthews lounged in his pajamas till it should be cool enough to go out, to make Matthews. the most ceremonious of bows, and to give that young man a half-amused, half-annoyed consciousness of being put at his ease. The advantage of position, Matthews had good reason to feel, was with him. He knew more about the bounder than the bounder thought, and it was not he who had knocked at the bounder's gate. What annoyed him, what amused him, what despite himself impressed him, was to see how the bounder ignored advantages of position. Matthews had forgotten, too, what an imposing person Magin really was. And measuring his tall figure, listening to his deep voice, looking at his light eyes and his two sinister scars and the big shaved dome of a head which

« PreviousContinue »