Of the rich stock of Kerry's mind, I still made use. If, during our day's labor, he had the energy and patience to give me my fill of instruction, his fee was enough palm toddy to get mildly drunk. If he sulked or gibed or ranted, he must confront the night cold and ghastly sober. Often he complained that he had taught me all he knew, but by delving a little deeper I uncovered another layer of learning, or broke into a storehouse he had forgotten, or found a hidden vein.
So I myself could wait a great deal longer without taking harm. If after two years, or three, or five, I must at last abandon hope of an answer to my message, there were other chances, however hopeless they seemed now, that a desperate and cunning man might take. But on the first dark of July i, 1807, as our dust-smeared file neared the open door of the stockade, I went dizzy and must brace my knees against falling when the guard Ibrim stopped us, spoke to the attendant guard, and then approached Kerry and me.
"You two Christian dogs step out of file," he told Kerry in Arabic.
"We are your protected, effendi," Kerry replied.
"Ker-ree, foul Giour though you are, you know our tongue," Ibrim declared when the file had trudged on.
"Aye, O Caputan."
"Then speak what I bid you unto the Yanki called Sittash, in the tongue you two employ, adding nothing and leaving nothing out."
"Allah bear witness!"
"When Suliman ibn Ali, Sheik el Beni Kabir, was on Malta many years ago, he had business with a Yanki with dun hair and blue eyes, whose given name sounded not unlike that of Omar ibn Al-Khattab, faithful servant of the Prophet whom may Allah bless."
"Bless him, O Allah!"
"The business being uncompleted, the great Sheik spoke of him to the Yankis treating with our Pasha, who told him tliis man had been lost at sea. But it came to Suliman in a dream that it was not so, and it became his kismet to search for him more diligently, whereby he heard from the Reis Effendi of a Yanki of his description becoming our Pasha's slave and sent hither. Therefore in his journey from the capital to Kufurustan, he has come seven marches out of his way to see if he is the one. Ask this Yanki his given name."
Keny turned to me. "It may be death and it may be luck. You'll have to decide for yourself."
"Homer," I answered, slurring it so that it sounded almost exactly like the Arabic pronunciation of Omar.
"There is no majesty or might save in Allah!" Ibrim proclaimed. "Ker-ree, tell the Yanki Omar to come with me to the Well of Fatima's Tears by which the great Sheik has pitched his tent, and there he may speak to him in a tongue that they both know."
My chains jangled in the dark. The dull red of a distant fire swiftly turned bright gold. We came to a large and luxurious pavilion. Ibrim spoke to a wild-looking Arab sentinel who vanished within. At once the door curtain was again drawn back and Suliman emerged, followed by an unbridled, unsaddled horse. The sentinel held high a thornwood torch that threw a garish light.
I recognized him instantly. I could hardly believe he had changed so little in this long time. He was more richly dressed, his beard slightly more gray, a linen turban had replaced the high wool cap, but his slight form and bony face were the perfect reality of a long-dimmed image. But there was more than this to read in his countenance and unconscious actions. In them I somehow saw myself, as though I were looking in a mirror.
He gazed at me first in disbelief, then in sore trouble. As the beautiful sable-brown mare nudged him for pettings, he spoke in an undertone to Ibrim.
"Is this Omar known as Sittash?"
"Yea, O Sheik. Isn't he the one?"
"It comes to me that he's the one, but he's greatly changed."
"Men change greatly in the Sepulcher of Wet Bones, or they die."
"Allah have mercy!" He turned and addressed me in a gentle voice.
"Do you speak Arabic?" he asked in that tongue.
"In secret only," I answered in English.
"I will try—I forget—most all. Speak truth, by the bread and salt. I make speak to Reis Effendi. He put you with trust to me. If I take you to my oasis, work on stud farm—must you—you must swear before your God not to escape. So?"
There it was, this soon, as solid and tall as a mountain. But there might be a pass...
"In my great need I must speak."
"Speak, my son."
"Will you take two more?"
"Nay, I cannot."
"One more?"
"Nay, nay. Not once in Yussuf's reign did man come forth from Sepulcher of Wet Bones. It be Yussuf's pride. If Reis Effendi need not my tribe against Egyptians, he would not let one go. And when I die, you must go back."
"You can't take me unless I swear?"
"No, my son."
"Tell the guard I must speak to the other Yankees about the business you had with me—say I've forgotten some point of it. Say you want me to return in an hour."
Suliman did so. Ibrim marched me back to the stockade, but long before I arrived, it had come to me to speak only to 'Giny Jim, and there was not much need of that. I did not want Sparrow to see my face by torchlight.
Jim was still at the date racks with his friend Zimil. We stood together in the warm dark, Ibrim in easy sound of our voices. I told him quickly how it was.
"You know I can git along all right," he said when I was through.
"Yes, I know that."
"Dis here is what you've got to figga. Whiles you can't break no oath to him who stood by you, maybe you can make friends among 'em sheiks, and send letters by the drivers, and such as that. Maybe you can git 'em to help git Sparrow and me out. You might even git a letter to the President of U. S. A. Wouldn't 'at help Sparrow more'n stayin' here wif him?"
"Where would Sparrow be, by the time help came—if it ever comes?"
"If you order me to, Cap'n, I'll answer 'at true."
"It's my order."
"His bones would be dry up yonder on de hill."
"You can lay to that."
"Worse 'n 'at, when his time come to die, you wouldn't be wif him. I'd be wif him, if I could, but I can't put courage in his heart like you kin, so when Old Man come for him, he could look Him in de face. Wifout you, he'd die 'fraid and shamed, not brave and proud."
"So you see what that means, James Porter." I called him by his real name without thinking.
"Aye, suh, I see plain."
I turned away, and still in Ibrim's care, trudged back to Suliman's pavilion. The sable-brown mare, excluded now from her master's tent and lying like a dog outside its door, heard the distant rattle of my chains and sprang up. "Is it he, Kobah?" Suliman called in Arabic to his pet. "Ah, my ears bring the sorrow-laden sound."
He came forth, and in tlie torchlight his face looked drawn.
"You—not—stay—the hour," he said in careful English.
"Nay, sir, I didn't."
"I fear your answer, but give it me."
"I can't go with you now, O Sheik."
"How soon can you go, if ever?"
"When I've lost one of my last two shipmates."
"How you give me word? My caravans can pass, only short out of way between Tripoli and Gjaria, summer and winter."
"Did you notice the rook's nest in the big acacia tree above the wadi as you came down to the oasis?"
He turned and spoke quickly in some dialect of the desert to the wild-looking Bedouin torch-bearer. The man nodded and salaamed.
"Hamyd marked it."
"It's been here as long as we have. If it's missing, I can go with you."
"Then, Omar, I bid you farewell."
He touched his hand to his forehead and his heart, tears flowing down his brown cheeks. In spite of my rattling chains, I made the same noble gesture, but my eyes stayed dry and burning from having lost the power to weep.