Read Ebook: Hassan; or The Child of the Pyramid: An Egyptian Tale by Murray Charles Augustus Sir

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Ebook has 1499 lines and 114093 words, and 30 pages

"Was that horseman my father?"

"What kind of look was it?" said Hassan hastily, interrupting her.

"I cannot describe it," said Khadijah. "It might be love, it might be sorrow; but my heart told me it was the look of a father."

"What was the horseman like?" said Hassan.

"I had not time nor opportunity to examine closely either his features or his dress," replied Khadijah; "and were he to come into the tent now I should not know him again. But he seemed a tall, large man, and I guessed him to be a Mameluke."

Khadijah's narrative had deeply interested and agitated Hassan's feelings. As he left the tent and emerged into the open air, he mentally exclaimed, "Sheik S?leh is not my father; but Allah be praised that I am not the son of a fellah. Unknown father, if thou art still on earth, I will find and embrace thee."

During the whole of that day he continued silent and thoughtful. He cared not to touch food, and towards evening he strolled beyond the borders of the encampment, lost in conjecture on his mysterious birth and parentage. Ambition began to stir in his breast, and visions of horsetails and diamond-hilted swords floated before his eyes. While engaged in these day-dreams of fancy, he had unconsciously seated himself on a small mound near where Temimah, the eldest daughter of the Sheik, was tending some goats, which she was about to drive back to the tents. With the noiseless step and playful movement of a kitten, she stole gently behind him, and covering his eyes with her hands, said, "Whose prisoner are you now?"

"Temimah's," replied the youth; "what does she desire of her captive?"

"Tell me," said the girl, seating herself beside him, "why is my brother sad and silent to-day; has anything happened?"

"Much has happened," replied Hassan, with a grave and abstracted air.

"Come now, my brother," said Temimah, "this is unkind; what is this secret that you keep from your sister?"

"One which will cause me to leave you," answered Hassan, still in the same musing tone.

"Leave us!" she exclaimed. "Where to go, and when to return? Do not speak these unkind words. You know how our father loves you--how we all love you. Brother, why do you talk of leaving us?" While thus speaking, Temimah threw her arms round his neck and kissed his eyes, while tears stood in her own.

Touched by her affection and her sorrow, Hassan replied in a gentler tone--

"Temimah, I have no father, no mother, no sister here." He then told her the story of his infancy, as related by her mother, showing that he could claim no relationship in blood to the Sheik S?leh and his family. As he continued his narrative, poor Temimah's heart swelled with contending emotions. She learned that the playmate and companion of her childhood, the brother of whom she was so proud, and to whom she looked for support in all her trials, and whom she loved she knew not how much, was a stranger to her in blood. A new and painful consciousness awoke within her. Under the influence of this undefined sensation, her arm dropped from Hassan's neck, but her hand remained clasped in his, and on it fell her tears hot and fast, while she sobbed violently.

Temimah was more than a year younger than Hassan, yet her heart whispered to her secret things, arising from the late disclosure, which were unknown to his. Although the idea of parting from her gave him pain, he could still caress her, call her sister, and bid her not to grieve for a separation which might be temporary, while she felt that henceforth she was divided by an impassable gulf from the brother of her childhood.

Slowly they returned to the encampment, and Temimah took the earliest opportunity of retiring into her tent to talk with her own sad heart in solitude.

Did she love him less since she learnt that he was not her brother? Did she love him more? These were the questions which the poor girl asked herself with trembling and with tears; her fluttering heart gave her no reply.

After these events it is not to be wondered at if Hassan permitted but a few days to elapse ere he presented himself before Sheik S?leh, and expressed his wish to leave the tents of the Oul?d-Ali, in order to seek for his unknown parents: the Sheik being prepared for this request, and having made up his mind to acquiesce in it, offered but a faint opposition, notwithstanding his unwillingness to part with one whom he had so long considered and loved as a son.

Hassan thanked his foster-father, who forthwith desired a scribe to be called to write from his dictation the required letter, which bore the address, "To my esteemed and honoured friend, Hadji Ismael, merchant in Alexandria."

The simple preparations requisite for Hassan's departure were soon made, and all the articles found upon him when he had been left at the foot of the pyramid, and which had been carefully preserved by Khadijah, were made over to him, and secured within the folds of his girdle and his turban; a horse of the Sheik's was placed at his disposal, and he was to be accompanied by two of the tribe, charged with the purchase of coffee, sugar, and sundry articles of dress.

When the day fixed for his departure arrived, his foster-parents embraced him tenderly, and the Sheik said to him, "Remember, Hassan, if ever you wish to return, my tent is your home, and you will find in me a father."

Temimah, foolish girl, did not appear; she said she was not well; but she sent him her farewell and her prayers for his safety through her little sister, who kissed him, crying bitterly. Thus did Hassan take leave of the tents of the Oul?d-Ali, and enter on the wide world in search of a father who had apparently little claim on his affection; but youth is hopeful against hope, so Hassan journeyed onward without accident, until he reached Alexandria, where his two companions went about their respective commissions, and he proceeded to deliver his letter to Hadji Ismael, the merchant.

Hassan had no difficulty in finding the house of Hadji Ismael, the wealthy Arab merchant, situated in a quarter which was then near the centre of the town, though only a few hundred yards distant from the head of the harbour, known as the Old Port.

Alexandria being now as familiar to the world of travellers and readers as Genoa or Marseilles, a description of its site and appearance is evidently superfluous; only it must be remembered that at this time it wore something of an oriental aspect, which has since been obliterated by the multitude of European houses which have been constructed, and the multitude of European dresses which crowd its bazaars.

The great square, which is now almost exclusively occupied by the residences of European consuls and merchants, was then an open area in which soldiery and horses were exercised; and in place of the scores of saucy donkey-boys who now crowd around the doors of every inn, dinning into the ear of steamboat and railroad travellers their unvarying cry of "Very good donkey, sir," and fighting for customers with energy equal to that of Liverpool porters, there were then to be seen long strings of way-worn camels wending their solemn way through the narrow streets, whilst others of their brethren were crouched before some merchant's door, uttering, as their loads were removed, that wonderful stomachic groan which no one who has heard it can ever forget, and which is said to have inspired and taught to the sons of Ishmael the pronunciation of one of the letters of their alphabet--a sound which I never heard perfectly imitated by any European.

Harsh and dissonant as may be the voice of the camel to our Frankish ears, it was infinitely less so to those of Hassan than were the mingled cries of the Turks, Italians, and Greeks assembled in the courtyard of Hadji Ismael's house, busily employed in opening, binding, and marking bales and packages of every size and class. Pushing his way through them as best he might, he addressed an elderly man whom he saw standing at the door of an inner court, and whom he knew by his dress to be a Moslem, and after giving him the customary greeting, he asked if he could have speech of Hadji Ismael. Upon being informed that the youth had a letter which he was charged to deliver to the merchant in person, the head clerk desired Hassan to follow him to the counting-house.

On reaching that sanctum, Hassan found himself in a dimly lighted room of moderate dimensions, the sides of which were lined with a goodly array of boxes; at the farther end of the room was seated a venerable man with a snow-white beard, who was so busily employed in dictating a letter to a scribe that he did not at first notice the entrance of his chief clerk, who remained silently standing near the door with his young companion; but when the letter was terminated the merchant looked up, and motioned to them to advance. Mohammed, so was the chief clerk named, told him that the youth was bearer of a letter addressed to him by one of his friends among the Arabs. On a signal from Hadji Ismael, Hassan, with that respect for advanced age which is one of the best and most universal characteristics of Bedouin education, came forward, and having kissed the hem of his robe, delivered the letter, and retiring from the carpet on which the old man was sitting, stood in silence with his arms folded on his breast.

The Hadji having read the letter slowly and carefully through, fixed his keen grey eyes upon Hassan, and continued his scrutiny for some seconds, as if, before addressing him, he would scan every feature of his character. The survey did not seem to give him dissatisfaction, for assuredly he had never looked upon a countenance on which ingenuous modesty, intelligence, and fearlessness were more harmoniously combined.

"You are welcome," said the old man, breaking silence; "you bring me news of the health and welfare of an old friend--may his days be prolonged."

"And those of the wisher," replied the youth.

"Your name is Hassan, I see," continued the Hadji. "How old are you?"

"Just sixteen years," he replied.

"Sixteen years!" exclaimed the Hadji, running his eye over the commanding figure and muscular limbs of the Arab youth. "It is impossible! Why, Antar himself at sixteen years had not a body and limbs like that. Young man," he continued, bending his shaggy grey brows till they met, "you are deceiving me."

"I never deceived any one," said the youth haughtily; but his countenance instantly resumed its habitual frank expression, and he added, "If I wished to learn to deceive, it is not likely that I should begin with the most sagacious and experienced of all the white-beards in Alexandria."

"True," said the old man, smiling; "I did you wrong. But, Mashallah, you have made haste in your growth. If your brain has advanced as rapidly as your stature, you might pass for twenty summers. What can you do?"

"Little," replied Hassan. "Almost nothing."

"Nay, tell me that little," said the merchant good-humouredly; "with a willing heart 'twill soon be more."

"And I doubt not, from what my friend the Sheik writes, your hand is no stranger to the sword or lance; but, my son, all these acquirements, though useful in the desert, will not avail you much here--nevertheless, we will see. Inshallah, your lot shall be fortunate; you have a forehead of good omen. God is great--He makes the prince and the beggar--we are all dust."

To this long speech of the worthy merchant Hassan only replied by repeating after him, "God is great."

Hadji Ismael then turned to his chief clerk, and told him that, as the youth was a stranger in the town and intrusted to him by an old friend, he was to be lodged in the house, and arrangement to be made for his board.

It would seem that Hassan's forehead of good omen had already exercised its influence over the chief clerk, for he offered without hesitation to take the youth under his own special charge, and to let him share his meals; an arrangement which was very agreeable to Hassan, who had begun to fear that he would be like a fish out of water--he, a stranger in that confused mass of bricks and bales, ships and levantines.

On a signal from the merchant, Mohammed Aga retired with his young companion, and while showing him the storerooms and courts of the house, drew him to speak of his life in the desert, and listened to his untutored yet graphic description with deepening interest.

Although born in Alexandria, the old clerk was of Turkish parentage, and had followed his professional duties with such assiduity and steadiness that he had never visited the interior of Egypt. He had frequent transactions with Arabs from the neighbourhood on the part of his master, but he usually found that, however wild and uncivilised they might appear, they were sharp and clever enough in obtaining a high price for the articles which they brought on sale; but a wild young Bedouin, full of natural poetry and enthusiasm, was an animal so totally new to the worthy clerk, that his curiosity, and ere long his interest, was awakened to a degree at which he was himself surprised. Hassan, notwithstanding his extreme youth, was gifted with the intuitive sagacity of a race accustomed to read, not books, but men; his eye, bright and keen as that of a hawk, was quick at detecting anything approaching to roguery or falsehood in a countenance on which he fixed it, and that of Mohammed Aga inspired him with a sympathetic confidence which was not misplaced.

On the following morning the merchant had no sooner concluded his prayers and ablutions than he sent for Mohammed Aga, and asked his opinion of the newly arrived addition to their household.

"You say truly," replied his master; "he is not a youth to sit on a mat in the corner of a counting-house, or to go with messages from house to house, where knowledge of the Frank languages is required. But Allah has provided a livelihood for all His creatures: destiny sent the youth hither, and his fate is written."

"Praise be to God!" said the clerk; "my master's words are words of wisdom and truth. A visit to the holy cities has opened the eyes of his understanding: doubtless he will discover the road which fate has marked out for this youth to travel; for it is written by the hand of the Causer of Causes."

"True," replied the merchant, "there is no power or might but in Him; nevertheless, a wise writer has said, 'When the shades of doubt are on thy mind, seek counsel of thy bed: morning will bring thee light.' I did so the past night, and see, I have found that Allah has sent me this Arab youth in a happy hour. Inshallah! his fortune and mine will be good. Do you not remember that I have an order to collect twenty of the finest Arab horses, to be sent as a present from Mohammed Ali to the Sultan? Neither you nor I have much skill in this matter, and those whom I consult in the town give me opinions according to the amount of the bribe they may have received from the dealer. We will make trial of Hassan, and, Inshallah! our faces will be white in the presence of our Prince."

"Inshallah!" said the clerk joyfully, "my master's patience will not be put to a long trial, for there are in the town three horses just arrived from Bahirah, which have been sent on purpose that you might purchase them on this commission. Does it please you that after the morning meal we should go to the Meid?n and see them?"

"Be it so," said the Hadji. And Mohammed Aga, retiring to his own quarters, informed Hassan of the service on which it was proposed to employ him. The eyes of the youth brightened when he learnt that his vague apprehensions of a life of listless confinement were groundless, and that he was about to be employed on a duty for the discharge of which he was fitted by his early training and habits.

Mohammed observed the change in his countenance, and thought it prudent to warn him against the wiles and tricks to which he would be exposed among the Alexandrian dealers, kindly advising him to be cautious in giving an opinion, as his future prospects might depend much upon his first success. Hassan smiled, and thanked his new friend; he then added--

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