the new-comers, the chairman was about to put the resolution; but a protesting hand from John Fairley stopped him, and in a strange silence the two new-comers mounted the platform. David rose and advanced to meet them. There flashed into his mind that this stranger in Eastern garb was Ebn Ezra Bey, the old friend of Benn Claridge, of whom his uncle had spoken and written so much. The same instinct drew Ebn Ezra Bey to him—he saw the uncle’s look in the nephew’s face. In a breathless stillness the Oriental said in perfect English, with a voice monotonously musical:
“I came to thy house and found thee not. I have a message for thee from the land where thine uncle sojourned with me.”
He took from a wallet a piece of paper and passed it to David, adding: “I was thine uncle’s friend. He hath put off his sandals and walketh with bare feet!” David read eagerly.
“It is time to go, Davy,” the paper said. “All that I have is thine. Go to Egypt, and thee shall find it so. Ebn Ezra Bey will bring thee. Trust him as I have done. He is a true man, though the Koran be his faith. They took me from behind, Davy, so that I was spared temptation—I die as I lived, a man of peace. It is too late to think how it might have gone had we met face to face; but the will of God worketh not according to our will. I can write no more. Luke, Faith, and Davy—dear Davy, the night has come, and all’s well. Good morrow, Davy. Can you not hear me call? I have called thee so often of late! Good morrow! Good morrow! … I doff my hat, Davy—at last—to God!”
David’s face whitened. All his visions had been true visions, his dreams true dreams. Brave Benn Claridge had called to him at his door—“Good morrow! Good morrow! Good morrow!” Had he not heard the knocking and the voice? Now all was made clear. His path lay open before him—a far land called him, his quiet past was infinite leagues away. Already the staff was in his hands and the cross-roads were sinking into the distance behind. He was dimly conscious of the wan, shocked face of Faith in the crowd beneath him, which seemed blurred and swaying, of the bowed head of Luke Claridge, who, standing up, had taken off his hat in the presence of this news of his brother’s death which he saw written in David’s face. David stood for a moment before the great throng, numb and speechless. “It is a message from Damascus,” he said at last, and could say no more.
Ebn Ezra Bey turned a grave face upon the audience.
“Will you hear me?” he said. “I am an Arab.” “Speak—speak!” came from every side.
“The Turk hath done his evil work in Damascus,” he said. “All the Christians are dead—save one; he hath turned Muslim, and is safe.” His voice had a note of scorn. “It fell sudden and swift like a storm in summer. There were no paths to safety. Soldiers and those who led them shared in the slaying. As he and I who had travelled far together these many years sojourned there in the way of business, I felt the air grow colder, I saw the cloud gathering. I entreated, but he would not go. If trouble must come, then he would be with the Christians in their peril. At last he saw with me the truth. He had a plan of escape. There was a Christian weaver with his wife in a far quarter—against my entreaty he went to warn them. The storm broke. He was the first to fall, smitten in ‘that street called Straight.’ I found him soon after. Thus did he speak to me—even in these words: ‘The blood of women and children shed here to-day shall cry from the ground. Unprovoked the host has turned wickedly upon his guest. The storm has been sown, and the whirlwind must be reaped. Out of this evil good shall come. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ These were his last words to me then. As his life ebbed out, he wrote a letter which I have brought hither to one”—he turned to David—“whom he loved. At the last he took off his hat, and lay with it in his hands, and died. … I am a Muslim, but the God of pity, of justice, and of right is my God; and in His name be it said that was a crime of Sheitan the accursed.”
In a low voice the chairman put the resolution. The Earl of Eglington voted in its favour.
Walking the hills homeward with Ebn Ezra Bey, Luke, Faith, and John Fairley, David kept saying over to himself the words of Benn Claridge: “I have called thee so often of late. Good morrow! Good morrow! Good morrow! Can you not hear me call?”
CHAPTER V. THE WIDER WAY
Some months later the following letter came to David Claridge in Cairo from Faith Claridge in Hamley:
David, I write thee from the village and the land of the people
which thou didst once love so well. Does thee love them still?
They gave thee sour bread to eat ere thy going, but yet thee didst
grind the flour for the baking. Thee didst frighten all who knew
thee with thy doings that mad midsummer time. The tavern, the
theatre, the cross-roads, and the cockpit—was ever such a day!
Now, Davy, I must tell of a strange thing. But first, a moment.
Thee remembers the man Kimber smitten by thee at the public-house on
that day? What think thee has happened? He followed to London the
lass kissed by thee, and besought her to return and marry him. This
she refused at first with anger; but afterwards she said that, if in
three years he was of the same mind, and stayed sober and hard-
working meanwhile, she would give him an answer, she would consider.
Her head was high. She has become maid to a lady of degree, who has
well befriended her.
How do I know these things? Even from Jasper Kimber, who, on his
return from London, was taken to his bed with fever. Because of the
hard blows dealt him by thee, I went to make amends. He welcomed
me, and soon opened his whole mind. That mind has generous moments,
David, for he took to being thankful for thy knocks.
Now for the strange thing I hinted. After visiting Jasper Kimber at
Heddington, as I came back over the hill by the path we all took
that day after the Meeting—Ebn Ezra Bey, my father, Elder Fairley,
and thee and me—I drew near the chairmaker’s but where thee lived
alone all those sad months. It was late evening; the sun had set.
Yet I felt that I must needs go and lay my hand in love upon the
door of the empty hut which had been ever as thee left it. So I
came down the little path swiftly, and then round the great rock,
and up towards the door. But, as I did so, my heart stood still,
for I heard voices. The door was open, but I could see no one. Yet
there the voices sounded, one sharp and peevish with anger, the
