Part 18 (2/2)

He wanted color. He wanted simplicity of life. Killing there was in Syria, great killing too. But it was the sort of killing one understood and could forgive. A Druse disliked a Maronite Christian, so he went quietly and knifed him. Another Maronite resented that, and killed a Druse; and they were all at it, h.e.l.l-for-leather. But it was pa.s.sion and fanaticism, not high-flown words and docile armies and the tradesmen sneaking up behind.... Ave, war!

And he was sick of the d.a.m.ned Mersey fog, and he was sick of the drunkenness of Scotland Road, and he was sick of the sleet las.h.i.+ng Hoylake links. He was sick of Pharisaical importers who did the heathen in the eye on Sat.u.r.day and on Sunday in their blasted conventicles thumped their black-covered craws in respectable humility.... In Little Asia religion was a pa.s.sion, not a smug hypocrisy; and though the heathen was dishonest, yet it was not the mathematical reasoned dishonesty of the Christian. It was a childish game, like horse-coping.... And in the East they did not blow gin in your face, smelling like turpentine....

And he was sick of the abominable homes, the horsehair furniture with the anti-maca.s.sars--Lord! and they called themselves clean.... He wanted the spotlessness of the Syrian courtyard.... The daubs on the British walls, sentimental St. Bernard dogs and dray-horses with calves' eyes, brought him to a laughing point when he thought of the subtlety of color and line in strange Persian rugs....

And he was sick of British women, with their knuckled hands, their splayed feet. Their abominable dressing, too, a bust and a brooch and a hooped skirt--their grocers' conventions, prudish, almost obscene, avoiding of the natural in word, deed, or thought.... He wanted Fenzile, with her eyes, _vert de mer_, her full childish face, her slim hands with the orange-tinted finger nails, her silken trousers, her little slippers of silver and blue.... Her soft arms, her back-thrown head, her closed lids.... And the fountain twinkling in the soft Syrian night, while afar off some Arab singer chanted a poem of Lyla Khanim's:

”_Beni ser-mest u hayran eyleyen ol yar; janim dir_.... The world is a prison and my heart is scarred.... My tears are like a vineyard's fountain, O absent one....”

And here was Beirut again: here the snowy crest of Lebanon, here the roadstead crowded with craft; here the mulberry groves. Here the sparkling sapphire sea; here the turf blazing with poppies; here the quiet pine road to Damascus; here the forests, excellent with cedars.

Here the twisting unexpected streets. Here his own quiet house, with the courtyard and its fountain. Here the hum of the bazaars, here the _ha-ha_ of the donkey boys, here the growling camels. Here the rugs on the wall; here the little orange-trees. Here the two negress servants, clean, efficient. Here color, and peace, and pa.s.sion. Here Fenzile....

And this d.a.m.ned wrestler from Aleppo must go and spoil it all.

-- 4

He might have s.h.i.+pped with one of the great American clippers racing around Cape Hope under rolling topsails, and become in his way as well known as Donald Mackay was, who built and mastered the _Sovereign of the Seas_, with her crew of one hundred and five, four mates and two boatswains. He might have had a s.h.i.+p like Phil Dumaresq's _Surprise_, that had a big eagle for her figurehead. He might have clipped the record of the _Flying Cloud_, three hundred and seventy-four miles in one day, steering northward and westward around Cape Horn. He might have had a s.h.i.+p as big as the _Great Republic_, the biggest s.h.i.+p that ever took the seas. He might have had one of the East Indiamen, and the state of an admiral. He might have had one of the new adventurers in steel and steam.

But fame and glory never allured him, and destiny did not call him to be any man's servant. He was content to be his own master with his own s.h.i.+p, and do whatsoever seemed to him good and just to do. If they needed him and his boat anywhere, he would be there. When they needed boats to America, he was there. But if they didn't need him, he was not the one to thrust himself. Let destiny call.

Success, as it was called, was a thing of destiny. When destiny needed a man, destiny tapped him on the shoulder. Failure, however, was a man's own fault. There was always work to do. And it was up to every man to find his work. If there was no room for him in a higher work it was no excuse for his not working in a lower plane. There would be no failures, he thought, if folk were only wise. If a man came a cropper in a big way, it was because he had rushed into a work before Destiny, the invisible infallible nuncio of G.o.d, had chosen her man. Or because he was dissatisfied, ambition and ability not being equal. Or because he was lazy.

Always there was work to do, as there was work for him now. Clouds of sail and tubby steamboats went the crowded tracks of the world's waters, not to succor and help but for gain of money. And Lesser Asia was neglected, now that the channel of commerce to the States was opened wide. Syria needed more than sentimental travelers to the Holy Land. It needed machinery for its corn-fields and its mines. It needed prints and muslins from the Lancas.h.i.+re looms. It needed rice and sugar. And it had more to give than a religious education. Fine soap and fruit and wine and oil and sesame it gave, golden tobacco, and beautiful craftmans.h.i.+p in silver and gold, fine rugs from Persia. Bra.s.s and copper and ornamental woodcarving from Damascus, mother of cities; walnuts, wheat, barley, and apricots from its gardens and fields. Wool and cotton, gums and saffron from Aleppo, and fine silk embroidery.

Others might race past Java Head to China for tea and opium. Others might make easting around the Horn to the gold-fields of California.

Others might sail up the Hooghly to Calicut, trafficking with mysterious Indian men. Others might cross to the hustle and welter of New York, young giant of cities, but Campbell was content to sail to Asia Minor.

He brought them what they needed and they sent color and rime to prosaic Britain, has.h.i.+sh to the apothecaries, and pistachios from Aleppo, cambric from Nablus and linen from Bagdad, and occasionally for an antiquary a Damascene sword that rang like a silver bell.

For others the glory and fame to which destiny had called them. For others the money that they grubbed with blunted fingers from the dross-heaps of commerce. But for Campbell what work he could do, well done--and Lesser Asia ...

-- 5

Of all the seas he had sailed it seemed to Shane that Mediterranean had more color, more life, more romance than any. Not the battles round the Horn, not the swinging runs to China, not the starry southern seas had for him the sense of adventure that Mediterranean had. Mediterranean was not a sea. It was a home haven, with traditions of the human house. Here Sennacherib sailed in the great galleys the brown Sidonian s.h.i.+pwrights had made for him. Here had been the Phenicians with their brailed squaresail. Here had been the men of Rhodes, sailors and fighters both.

Here the Greek penteconters with their sails and rigging of purple and black. Here the Cypriotes had sailed under the lee of the islands Byron loved and where Sappho sang her songs like wine and honey, sharp wine and golden honey. Here had the Roman galleys splashed and here the great Venetian boats set proud sail against the Genoese. Here had the Lion-heart sailed gallantly to Palestine. Here had Icarus fallen in the blue sea. Here had Paul been s.h.i.+pwrecked, sailing on a s.h.i.+p of Andramyttium bound to the coast of Asia, crossing the sea which is off Cilicia and Pamphylia, and trans-s.h.i.+pping at Myra. How modern it all sounded but for the strange antique names.

”And when we had sailed slowly many days”--only a seaman could feel the pathos of that--”and scarce were come over against Cnidus, the wind not suffering us, we sailed under Crete, over against Salmone;

”And, hardly pa.s.sing it, came unto a place which is called The Fair Havens--”

Was Paul a sailor, too, Campbell often wondered? The bearded Hebrew, like a firebrand, possibly epileptic, not quite sane, had he at one time been brought up to the sea? ”Sirs,” he had said, ”I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading and s.h.i.+p, but also of our lives.” There spoke a man who knew the sea--not a timid pa.s.senger. But the master of the s.h.i.+p thought otherwise and yet Paul was right. And then came ”a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon.”

And that was the Levanter of to-day, Euraquilo, they call it--h.e.l.l let loose. Then came furious seas, and the terrors of a lee sh.o.r.e; the frapping of the s.h.i.+p and the casting overboard of tackle, the jettisoning of freight--

”And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.” Somehow the absolute fidelity of the sea-life of the story went to Campbell's heart, and the figure of Paul the mariner was clearer than the figure of Paul the Apostle.

”Howbeit, we must be cast upon a certain island.

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