The Way of the Spirit

THE WAY OF THE SPIRIT

Achmet bowed and continued: “He says to his dear children that he tells them this story that they may learn by that example how grateful all people should be to Allah. He says that when he was a boy he fell into deep sin, as perhaps some of them have done, but God saved him then, and speaking by the voice of his mother, made him promise to sin no more in that way, which promise he kept, though he had sinned much in other ways. Then God lifted him up, and from a person of no estate made him one of importance, and, God preserving him all the time, he fought in battles and killed people, for which, although it was in the service of his country, he is sorry now. Afterwards he went to his own land and took a wife whom he loved, but before she came to his house he was sent back to this country upon a mission, about which they know. The Sheik of the Sweet Wells attacked that mission and killed all of them except one Abdullah, their lady Tama here, Bakhita who sat below, and himself. Him they tortured, cutting off his foot and putting out his eye, because he would not accept Islam, the false faith.”

“It is so; it is so,” said the great audience, “we found you – but ah! we took vengeance.”

“He says,” went on Achmet, “that of vengeance and forgiveness he will talk to them presently. Their lady Tama here nursed him back to life, and then he returned again to his own land.”

“Must I stay to listen to all this?” said Edith fiercely.

“No need,” answered Tabitha, “you can go back anywhere, but I shall stay to listen. Go on, Achmet.”

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Edith hesitated a moment, then not knowing whither to retreat, and being consumed with burning curiosity, stayed also.

“He returned,” continued Achmet, in his summary, “to find himself disgraced, no longer a man in honour, but one in a very small position, because he was supposed to have neglected his duty, and thereby brought about the death of many, and rubbed the face of the Government in the dirt. He returned also to find that the wealth and rank which would be his by right of inheritance had passed away from him owing to an unexpected birth. Lastly, he returned to find that his wife would have nothing more to do with a man whom mutilations had made ugly, who was poor and without prospects, and at the mention of whose name other men looked aside. He sought his mother, and discovered that she was suddenly dead, so that he was left quite alone in the world. That hour was very bitter; he could scarcely bear to think of it even now.”

Here Rupert’s voice trembled, the multitude of his disciples murmured, and the lady Tama, moved by a sudden impulse, bent towards him as though to place her hand upon his arm in sympathy, then remembering, withdrew it, and muttered some words which he acknowledged with a smile. Now Rupert spoke again, and Achmet, who was a clever interpreter, continued his rendering:

“Zahed says that bitterness overwhelmed him, that faith in God departed, that his loneliness and his shame were such that he felt he could no longer live, that he went to a great river purposing to destroy himself by drowning.”

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Again there was a murmur which covered up the speaker’s voice, and in the midst of it Dick whispered to Edith:

“Rather rough on you to drop in for this yarn, but it is always well to hear both sides of a case.”

She made no answer. Her face was like that of the stone statue against which she leant. Again the unconcerned, brassy voice of the interpreter took up the tale:

“Zahed says that while he prepared for death in the river, in the mist above the water he saw a picture of their and his loved lady’s face, and Allah brought into his mind a promise which he had made to her that if the ties of his duty were broken, he would return to be her brother and friend. Thus he was prevented from committing a great crime – a crime like that the man they had been speaking of committed, and he had returned. As all there could bear witness, he, remembering the oaths which he had sworn to the wife who had rejected him, had been no more to Tama than a brother and a friend. This was not easy, since she and all of them knew that he loved her well, and he believed that she loved him well.”

“Aye, that I do,” broke in Mea, in a voice of infinite tenderness. “I love him more than life, more than anything that is, has been, or shall be. I love him, oh! I love him, as much as he loves me.”

“It is so, we see with our eyes,” said the multitude.

“Well, now, he came to the nut that lay hid in the rough stone of his story. His lot had been hard. They would all of them think it hard that because of their duty their lady and he must live as they lived, one, yet separated, practising the great

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doctrine of Renunciation, having no hope of children to follow after them.”

The audience agreed that it was exceedingly hard.

“They thought so, and so it had been at first, yet it had come to this, they loved their state and did not wish to change it, they who looked forward to other things, and to a life when the righteousness which they practised here would bring them yet closer together than they had ever been. They were quite happy who spent their days without remorse for the past or fear for the future; they for whom death had no terrors, but was rather a gate of joy which they would pass gladly hand-in- hand. That was the nut of the story; bitter as it might be to the taste, it had in it the germ of life. Lo! they had planted it on the earth, and yet even here, although as yet they did not see its flower, it had grown to a very pleasant tree under the shade of which they rested for a while and were content. Let all of them there lay this poor example to their hearts. Let them not be discouraged when God seemed to deal hardly with them, like that poor man, their brother, who was dead by his own hand, since if in their degree they also practised Renunciation, made repentance, and for right’s sake abstained from sin, they would certainly find a reward.

“Some of them had spoken of vengeance, that thirst for vengeance, which the other day had caused another of them to commit murder. Let them flee from the thought of it. Their lady here had practised vengeance upon the bodies of those cruel Arabs who had slain his people and tortured himself, but now neither he nor she were happier on that account. The blood of those misguided men was on their hands, who, if they

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had left them alone, would doubtless have been rewarded according to their deeds, but not through them, or, what was far better, would have lived to repent and find forgiveness. Forgiveness was the command of the merciful God who forgave all that sought it of Him, and it should not be withheld even by the best of them who still had so much to be forgiven.”

“Would you forgive that woman of yours who deserted you, Zahed?” cried Bakhita from below.

“Surely I forgive her,” answered Rupert. “It would be strange if I did not do so, seeing that by her act she has made me happier, I think, than ever a man was before,” and he turned and smiled again at Mea, who smiled back at him.

Then up in that audience stood a blind old teacher, a mystic learned in the law, one who was beloved of the people for his wisdom and his good deeds, and yet perhaps at heart somewhat jealous of the new white prophet to whom they had turned of late.

“Hearken, Zahed!” he said, “I with the others have listened to your address, and I approve its spirit as I deplore the crimes that were its text. Yet it seems to me that you miss the root of the matter. Answer me if I am wrong. God oppressed you; He tried you for His own reasons; He rolled you in the mire; He brought down your soul to hell. The wife of your bosom, she deserted you, when you were in trouble then she struck as only a woman can. She said: ‘Beggar, be gone; remove your rags and hideousness from before me. I will shelter with a richer lord.’ So you went, and what did you? You did not bow yourself before the decree of God, you did not say: ‘I rejoice in the tempest as in the sunshine; I acknowledge that I have deserved it all,

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and I give thanks now that my mouth is empty as I gave them when it was full.’ No; you said – be not angry with me, Zahed, for a spirit is in my lips and I speak for your instruction. You said: ‘I will not bear this pain. My soul is hot, it hisses. I will quench it in the waters of death. I will drug myself with death; I will go to sleep because God my Maker has dealt hardly with me.’

“Then God your Maker bowed Himself down and spoke to you out of heaven, by His magic He spoke to you; He showed you a face upon the waters, the face of one who loved you still, and thereby saved you alive. You came; you found the face which smiled on you; you kept the letter of your oath to the false woman, but you broke its spirit. You loved her, our lady Tama, and she loved you; you said, both of you: ‘We renounce because we love so much. We are good lest in time to come our sin should separate us. To gain much you gave a little, you whose eyes are opened, you who see something of the truth, who know that this life is no more than the oasis of Tama compared to the great stars above, those stars which you will one day travel.’

“Listen to me, Zahed, I speak for your instruction. I do not blame you, nor do I think God will blame you who made you of the mud beneath His feet, not of the light about His head. He will have pity. He will say: ‘Mud, you have done well – for mud.’ But I am His advocate here, to-day it is given to me to be His voice. Answer Him a question now if you can. If not, remain silent and weep because you are still mud. You hold yourself bound to this base woman, who should be beaten with rods, do you not? You acknowledge it openly, who will

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not take another wife. You preach the doctrine of forgiveness to us, do you not? You say that you forgive her. Why? Nay, be silent, now the Voice is in my mouth – not in yours. Speak presently when you have heard it. You forgive her because her wickedness has worked your weal; because she has brought you to love and to honour among men.

“Well, now; hear me and make answer. If that accursed woman, that daughter of Satan, were to come hither to-day, if she were to say to you: ‘I repent, who was wicked. I love, who hated. I put you in mind of the oath you swore. I demand that you leave the sweet lady at your side and the people who worship you, and the gardens that you have made and the wells that you have digged, and return to live with me in a hell of streets upon which the sun never shines, that I may give you children to build up the pillars of your house, and that I may grow great in your shadow.’

“Tell us now, what would you answer her? Would you say: ‘Is not my name Zahed? Therefore I come, I come at once;’ and thereby show us that you are perfect indeed? Or, would you say: ‘Woman, you built the wall, you broke the bridge, you dug the gulf. I am lame, I cannot climb; I am afraid, I dare not swim; I have no wings, I may not fly. I forgive you afar; I do not forgive you at my side. I love you and all mankind, but I will not touch your hand. I give to you the writings of divorce.’ Would you speak thus, and let us see that you are still a man of mud? Answer now the question that God puts to you through my lips, Zahed. Or if you cannot answer, you who preach Renunciation and Forgiveness, here is mud, smear it on your forehead and be silent.”

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Now Mea had been listening, with a great and ever-grow- ing indignation, to this long address, designed to set out one of those test cases which are so dear to Eastern religious thought and methods, and to force a holy man to admit that, after all, he is full of error.

“I at least will answer,” she broke in, before Rupert could speak a word. “Who is this jealous-hearted, white-headed fool that fills the air with sand, like the Campsine blast; that stains the clear pool with dirt, like a thirsty camel; that says the Spirit of God is in his lips, those lips that utter wind and emptiness; that tries to convict of sin where there is no sin, and to show one who is a thousandfold his better, a new path to heaven? Did God then decree when a man has been rolled in mire and washed himself clean again, that he should return to the mire at the bidding of her who befouled him? Did God decree that a man should leave those with whom he lives in innocence, to share the home of his betrayer whom he hates? Is it virtue to be made vile? Is it righteous to clothe oneself in the rags of another’s wickedness? Make reply, you babbler, old in selfconceit, you who think to gain honour by defeating your lord in words as with a garment, and sit upon pride as a sheepskin, and say, wherefore should the true be thrust aside for the false? Wherefore should my heart be widowed, that another who sowed thistles may pluck flowers?”

Now the old teacher plucked his beard and began in wrath: “Do I, a learned man, one who has thought and studied long, come here to wrangle with a hungry woman who covets

the fruit she may not eat – “

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CHAPTER XXII

EDITH AND MEA

Edith had heard it all. Not one bitter taunt, not one rough word had that merciless interpreter glossed over. She had heard herself called “a woman who should be scourged with rods” and “a daughter of Satan.” She had heard herself, while Dick sniggered behind her, and Tabitha strove to repress a smile that she felt to be unholy, compared to mire in which, if a man rolled, he could never be clean again, and to a sower of poisonous weeds, and this by that other hateful woman who had bewitched her husband with her beauty. She could bear no more; for once her bitter anger made her almost heroic. She would face them there and then. She would demand an answer to the question urged in such forcible language by that blind and sardonic Arab, whose pleasure it was to pick the holiness of other men to pieces. She hid herself in the shawl. She pushed herself through the crowd; she stood in front of the platform, then suddenly unveiled.

Mea saw her first; some instinct of intense antipathy caused her to look round and find her rival’s eyes. Suddenly she stiffened, falling into that attitude which she assumed when, as judge, she passed sentence on a criminal. Then she spoke in

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