Saïd the Fisherman

The Wooings of Jezebel Pettyfer

Haldane Mac Fall

The Life of Henri Brulard

Henry Beyle-Stendhal

Captain Cook’s Voyages

Andrew Kippis

Hadrian the Seventh

Frederick Baron Corvo

Saïd the Fisherman

Marmaduke Pickthall

The Diaboliques

Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly

Other titles in preparation

Marmaduke Pickthall

Saïd the Fisherman

New York Alfred A. Knopf 1925

Copyright, 1925, by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Part One The Book of His Luck

“There were some of them who made a covenant with God: Verily, if He gives us of His abundance, we will give alms and become righteous people.”—Alcoran.

I

The house of Saïd the fisherman nestled among the sandhills of[Pg 3] the seashore at a long stone’s throw from the town, in whose shadow it lay at sunset. Within, it was a single room, very dirty, the abode of many aged smells; without, a squat cube with walls of stone and roof of mud sun-baked and rolled to a seemly flatness. Hard by was a fig-tree, the nearest to the sea in all that coast. Here, in a crotch of the branches, Saïd would place his mattress in the stifling summer nights and snore two deep bass notes in peace and coolness, while his wife trumpeted a treble from her couch upon the house-top. Here, when the day’s work was done, he would squat in the shade, drawing leisurely at his narghileh, with the sound of bubbling water to cool him at every puff.

He was not a great fisherman, such as is to be found in Europe, with a sailing-boat of his own, who will go far out to sea with his nets. If there were any such in all the coasts of Arabistan, Saïd had never heard of them. Sometimes he would row out in a friend’s boat to a little distance from the shore and drop his nets, a great circle of bobbing cork and driftwood to mark their whereabouts. But mostly he would go to some river-mouth or promontory where flat-topped rocks stretched far into the sea, promising safe foothold. And there, mother-naked, save for a huge turban, he would paddle and flounder all day long with his cast-net, sometimes alone, sometimes with several comrades.

At times, when the catch had been good, he would go into the city with a crate of fish and take his stand in the market-place, in a corner which from long use he had come to call his own. There he would cry in a loud voice, beseeching Allah to put a craving for fish into the hearts of the passers-by. And Allah often lent[Pg 4] a kindly ear to his prayer, for he seldom went home but with an empty basket.

It was one evening as he was wending homeward, dragging his empty basket with him across the sand, that the first gust of misfortune struck him.

The sun drew near to his setting, though as yet the sky was innocent of red. Shadows lengthened eastwards across the sand, of the colour of a periwinkle flower. A number of dogs were lying replete about the body of a dead donkey at the edge of the ripples, panting drowsily with their tongues out. They blinked at him as he passed, and their bellies heaved uneasily. They were too full to snarl. A sense of well-being was upon him. He stopped to draw forth a little bag from the girdle of his robe. It contained the gains of the day. He let go the empty basket and squatted down upon the sand, telling out the money piece by piece into his lap. His eyes gloated over the pile.

He held the fingers of his left hand wide apart and touched them one by one with the forefinger of his right. His brows puckered with the effort to reckon how much he could afford to lay by in that hole in the floor of his house which held his savings.

So far as he could count, it needed but one more day like this to make up the price of the coffee-house he had it in his mind to buy. Then he would leave the fishing business to Abdullah, his friend and partner, and customers would know him thenceforth as Saïd Effendi. That was but the first step in the path of his ambition. Presently he would be a Bey—an Emìr, perhaps. He would lie all day upon a cushioned couch, smoking from a narghileh of rare workmanship. And when Abdullah came to beg him to buy fish, he would seize him by both ears and spit in his face.

Of a sudden the sound of loud shouting broke upon his reverie.

“Oäh! Oäh! Look to thyself, son of a dog!”

He was aware of two horsemen galloping madly down upon him from a gap in the sandhills—Turkish officers of the garrison by their uniform. They were close upon him. He leapt to his feet and sprang aside just in time to save himself from being knocked down and trampled under their horses’ hoofs. He heard them[Pg 5] laugh aloud and curse him as they sped by, blinding him for the moment in a cloud of sand.

“May their house be destroyed!” he snarled, looking after them and showing his fangs like a dog that is angry. Then he remembered the money which had been in his lap when their shouts startled him, and there was no longer any room for anger in his heart.

A wild light of hope and fear in his eyes, he flung himself full length upon the ground and fell to groping and sifting with trembling hands. But the wild rush of the horses had played the whirlwind with the sand, scattering it hither and thither and dinting it deep with hoof-prints. After many minutes of burrowing and seeking he had found only two small copper coins; and already the sun was sinking behind the city and its headland, whose shadow was within a hand’s-breadth of him. A long train of camels passed him going towards the gate, the drivers cheerful at sight of their journey’s end.

“What seekest thou, young man?” cried one of them as he passed the fisherman.

Saïd raised himself to a kneeling posture and spread his hands over his eyes.

“Away, scoffer!” he cried sternly. “Who art thou that thou shouldst question a pious man at his prayers?” Then, after an interval of meditation, he prostrated himself so that his forehead touched the sand and forthwith resumed his search, earnestly beseeching Allah to guide his fingers aright and to keep all prying strangers at a distance.

The shadow was now upon him. All the west was a blaze of red gold, so that every roof, every dome, every palm-tree upon the sky-line stood outlined clear and black. It was time to give over this frantic groping and clutching which gave such meagre results. He sat up and, squatting on his heels, began a more orderly and less haphazard search, taking one handful of sand at a time, sifting it between his fingers and laying it on one side upon a heap. After more than an hour’s experience of this process he had recovered some twenty small coins, amounting perhaps to a fifth part of the sum he had lost.

Night fell: the stars shone out, blackening the bulk of the dead[Pg 6] ass, a few paces distant, which the dogs, reinforced by stray comrades from the city, were beginning to worry anew. The ripples, breaking in luminous foam upon the beach, murmured sadly in his ears. Hunger began to get hold of him. Hasneh would be wondering what had happened, and that savoury mess of lentils and oil would be baked to a cinder. Why should he not go home, eat and drink, and return to his search later on? It was not likely that the sand would be again disturbed that night. He could come back early in the morning and collect the rest of his scattered fortune. His basket would mark the exact spot.

So thinking, he rose and went homewards. A faint light streamed from the door and window of his dwelling. Hasneh was in there with the lentils. His heart warmed at the thought, making the neighbouring void colder and more empty by contrast. As he drew near to the house a sound of wailing grew in his ears—such wailing as he had heard at funerals of the rich, where mourners were well paid for it.

His first thought was of the lentils, that they were spoilt. His next, not without relief, that someone was dead within the house. But there was no one to die except Hasneh herself, and she it was who was wailing, as he had sometimes heard her scold, in a shrill cadence. His desire to learn the truth lent wings to his feet. In a few long strides he gained the threshold.

His woman lay stretched upon the floor within—a heap of clothes from which those ghastly moans and howls proceeded, mingled with curses on some unknown being of the male sex. For a moment Saïd stood frozen in the doorway. Then the sight of something black and shrivelled in a pan upon the brazier sent angry blood coursing through every vein in his body. That something had once been a savoury mess of lentils baked in oil, the lust of which had drawn him from his search among the sand. He sprang to a corner of the room, seized a great staff which leaned against the wall, and fell to belabouring the woman with all the strength of his arm. Her droning wail changed all at once to a lively shriek. She leapt to her feet and closed with him, trying vainly to wrest the stick from his hand.

“May Allah cut short thy life!” she cried. “What have I done[Pg 7] to deserve this of thee?”

“The lentils are spoilt!” retorted Saïd, furiously, wrenching his arm free of her and bringing the stick down heavily on her back. “May thy house be destroyed!”

“Madman!” she screamed. “Thou speakest of lentils when an enemy has robbed thee, ruined thee! Look!”

She pointed to a hole in the floor which had been hidden by her body when Saïd entered. Little mounds of fresh sand on the brink of it showed that hands had lately been at work there.

As Saïd’s eyes followed the line of her forefinger his jaw fell and the anger died out of his face. His stick clattered on the ground. Some thief had found out the place where his treasure was hidden, had come in his absence and unearthed the savings of ten long years.

He peered into the hole to assure himself that it was quite empty. Not a single para had been let fall or overlooked by the miscreant. His eyes became dull and filmy as those of a blind man. His face grew livid as the face of a corpse. He fell back against the wall of the room.

Supposing that the shock of her news had killed him, Hasneh began to wail anew, beating her breast and plucking at her robe to tear it. Her voice revived Saïd somewhat.

“Be silent,” he muttered—“thou thief! Thou alone wast in the secret of the hiding-place.”

“Thy life is my life; thy fortune, my fortune,” replied the woman, with indignation. “If thou prosperest, I prosper; and I have a part in thy loss. Listen now to the truth, nor judge me hastily unheard.

“Having prepared the lentils, I sat awaiting thy return, when my heart became sad within me. And I thought, if I uncover the hiding-place and fill my eyes with the sight of that which is good to see, there is no sin. So I took the piece of a broken vessel and scraped until the heap of coins was laid bare to mine eyes. So my heart had peace.

“And as I sat gazing upon my husband’s wealth which is mine, the voice of Abdullah called from without; ‘Behold the great[Pg 8] fish, the giant of the deep, whose back is like Lebanon and his fins as the winnowing fans of Allah, with which he makes the winds to blow and stirs the sea to madness! It is Saïd who has brought it to land. It lies by the white stone where the nets of Saïd are spread out to dry. Run, O Hasneh, and thou shalt see that which no woman has ever seen.’

“At that I gathered up my raiment and ran out of the house, expecting to find Abdullah; but I found no man. I went all about the house, but I found not Abdullah nor any other. Then I trembled and fear came upon me. But the news of the great fish drew me onward, until I came to the white stone and found it lonely as ever and the sea-fowl undisturbed upon it. Then I knew that an evil spirit had cried in the voice of Abdullah to lead me astray. So I ran back with all speed along the shore. When I came to the house the hole was as thou seest it and all the money gone.”

Her last words were almost drowned in a flood of tears.

Saïd trembled and cold sweat stood in pearls upon his forehead.

“An evil spirit has done this,” he murmured hoarsely. “Oh, that my enemy had been a man!”

He fell to bemoaning his fate, cursing the day that he was born, and calling upon Allah to have mercy upon his faithful servant. The house that had been rifled by an evil spirit seemed dreadful and unfamiliar. The night which wrapped it about was filled with hideous faces, which glowered at him and mocked him through door and lattice. At length he exclaimed: “Abide here, Hasneh, and keep watch. If thou hearest a voice or seest any evil sight, cry aloud upon the name of Allah and thou shalt be safe.”

With that he stepped out into the night, and, girding up his robe, sped across the sand to the city, black on the starlight, where a few scattered lights shone faintly.

II

Close to the gate which is called the sea-gate, by which one goes[Pg 9] down to the shore, there was a house, or rather hovel, built against the wall. This was the dwelling-place of Abdullah, Saïd’s bosom friend and partner. Abdullah himself was sitting in the doorway, smoking his narghileh, when Saïd came upon him. He was a fat man, with small bright eyes which were seldom at rest. Within the house a wick, floating in a saucer of grease, threw a fitful light upon the four walls, upon a couch whereon his wife lay huddled, a baby at her breast, upon the disorderly litter of the floor. At sight of his friend Abdullah started to his feet. His eyes were shifty to right and left, as though seeking some way of escape.

“May thy night be happy,” he faltered.

“May thy night be happy and blessed,” replied Saïd, keeping the rule which bids every man return a compliment with interest. Then with a frantic gesture, “I am ruined! An evil spirit is my ill-wisher. My money—all that I had saved these many years—has been stolen. Oh, that a man had been the thief!”

Saïd’s hands clutched murderously at the air and clenched, showing how he would have dealt with a mortal foe.

Abdullah’s composure returned to him at these words. His face was almost cheerful as he exclaimed, “Merciful Allah!”

“Listen, Abdullah,” pursued the other. “In my way homeward from the market I sat down to count over the price of the fish I had sold, when—whizz!—came two horsemen out of the air, and would have ridden over me had not Allah put it into my mind to jump aside. They laughed as they galloped by. They had the faces of jin—you know them!—eyes set slantwise, ears long and leaf-shaped like the ears of a pig. Then I found that all the money I had been counting was scattered in the sand.[Pg 10] After long seeking I recovered but a few coins of small value. It grew dark. A train of camels came along the shore. Each camel was as big as a house, with a hump like the dome of a mosque. One of the drivers looked at me and asked me what I did. His eyes were two flames. They seemed to burn through to my heart. But I prayed to Allah and he vanished, the camels with him. I went home, hungry and thirsty, to supper; but I found my wife cast down upon the floor, weeping, and the lentils quite spoilt.

“Then she told me what had happened. As she sat in the house a voice cried to her, for there was a great fish like a mountain lying on the shore by the white stone. She stepped out, but saw no man. She went to the stone, but there was no fish great or small. When she returned to the house she found a hole in the floor at the place where my treasure was hidden. All the money was clean gone. Oh, that my enemy had been a man!”

“Said she aught of the voice which tempted her?” asked Abdullah, with a hint of anxiety. His form was outlined in shadow upon the faint light which streamed from the doorway, so that Saïd could not see his face.

“Yes—a strange thing—she says that the voice was as thy voice, O father of Azìz.”

“There is no doubt that some devil has robbed thee,” said Abdullah, quickly. “Allah be my witness, I have not left my house since noon by reason of a pain in my belly. Is it not true, Nesibeh?”

The woman thus appealed to rose from her couch and came shuffling to the door. “Yes, it is true, by Allah,” she averred. “He has been very ill, I feared he was at the gate of death. But, praise to Allah, the pain has left his belly and he is now in health again. An afrìt has robbed thee and has beguiled thy woman with the voice of Abdullah.”

“I am ruined! What can I do?” Saïd cried in a frenzy of despair. “Thou, O Abdullah, art known in all the city for a wise man. Counsel me, I entreat thee!”

Abdullah’s face assumed the stolid expression supposed by the[Pg 11] muleteers and camel-drivers whose oracle he was, to betoken wisdom. His eyes became intent upon the inwards of a fish which adorned the ground near his feet. He sucked long and steadily at the mouthpiece of his narghileh, causing the water in the bowl to bubble convulsively and the charcoal in the cup above to give forth a lurid glow. Then he took the tube from his mouth, cleared his throat, spat solemnly, and said,—

“A devil has a spite against thee—that is known. He has entered thy house once, he will enter it again. It is likely that he is of those who haunt the waste places of the shore, perhaps the very same who dwells in the ruined shrine among the sandhills. It were well for thee to take thy staff and thy woman and go into some far country—into Masr or into the sunset-land which lies beyond. So thou shalt have peace, being far from the enemy.”

“What a mind!” exclaimed his wife, with hands raised in admiration. “He speaks like a prophet. The mind of Abdullah is not as the mind of other men. He is a devil!”

“Tush, be silent, woman!” said the sage, indulgently.

Saïd squatted down at the threshold beside his friend. He put a hand to his forehead and remained thus thoughtful for some time. Then he said, “Thy advice is good. To-morrow, at the rising of the sun, I shall depart. But thinkest thou in truth that the evil spirit will not follow me?”

“The jin have their homes like men,” replied Abdullah, sententiously. “They love to spend their lives in one place. In another city thou shalt surely live undisturbed.”

“But I have no money,” Saïd moaned, “without wealth I shall find no place in a strange land.”

Abdullah shook his head sadly.

“I am a poor man,” he said, “but all that I have is thine. Go, Nesibeh, see how much money there is in the house.”

The woman left the doorway and shuffled across the room to the couch where her baby slept. She felt under the coverings and drew forth a small box, which jingled as she shook it.

Raising the lid,—

“Alas!” she moaned. “It is a bad day with Abdullah. There are but a few baras.”

“It is a shame to ask my brother to accept so little!” exclaimed[Pg 12] her husband.

“A little is much to one who has nothing,” whispered Saïd, eagerly. “Give me but the few baras that are there and may Allah increase thy wealth!”

Nesibeh turned the box upside down over the palm of her hand, and a number of small coins fell from it. Saïd’s brown fingers closed on them like an eagle’s claws. Then he rose to take leave.

“In thy grace, I depart,” he said. “May Allah prosper thee, O father of Azìz.”

“My peace go with thee,” said Abdullah, his voice broken with grief.