Part 11 (1/2)
”Then,” answered Khalil Khayyat, triumphantly, ”the half is mine!”
”Is yours, Khalil?”
”The very half, Salim, is the inheritance of my woe!”
”Khalil,” answered Salim Awad, rising, ”attend!” He smiled, in the way of youth upon the aged, and put an affectionate hand on the old man's shoulder. ”My song,” said he, pa.s.sionately, ”may not be uttered; for in all the world-since of these accidents G.o.d first made grief-there has been no love-sorrow like my despair!”
Then, indeed, Khalil Khayyat knew that this same Salim Awad was a worthy poet. And he was content; for he had known a young man to take of the woe from his own heart and fas.h.i.+on a love-song too sublime for revelation to the unfeeling world-which was surely poetry sufficient to the day. He asked no more concerning the song, but took counsel with Salim Awad upon his journey to Newfoundland, whither the young poet was going, there in trade and travel to ease the sorrows of love. And he told him many things about money and a pack, and how that, though engaged in trade, a man might still journey with poetry; the one being of place and time and necessity, and the other of the free and infinite soul. Concerning the words spoken that night in farewell by these poets, not so much as one word is known, though many men have greatly desired to know, believing the moment to have been propitious for high speaking; but not a word is to be written, not so much as a sigh to be described, for the door was closed, and, as it strangely chanced, there was no ear at the key-hole. But Nageeb Fiani, the greatest player in all the world, entering upon the departure of Salim Awad, was addressed by Khalil Khayyat.
”Nageeb,” said this great poet, ”I have seen a minstrel go forth upon his wandering.”
”Upon what journey does the singer go, Khalil?”
”To the north, Nageeb.”
”What song, Khalil, does the man sing by the way?”
”The song is in his heart,” said Khalil Khayyat.
Abosamara, the merchant, being only rich, had intruded from his own province. ”Come!” cried he, in the way of the rich who are only rich.
”Come!” cried he, ”how shall a man sing with his heart?”
Khalil Khayyat was indignant.
”Come!” Abosamara demanded, ”how shall this folly be accomplished?”
”How shall the deaf understand these things?” answered Khalil Khayyat.
And this became a saying....
Hapless Harbor, of the Newfoundland French sh.o.r.e, gray, dispirited, chilled to its ribs of rock-circ.u.mscribed by black sea and impenetrable walls of mist. There was a raw wind swaggering out of the northeast upon it: a mean, cold, wet wind-swaggering down the complaining sea through the fog. It had the grounds in a frothy turmoil, the sh.o.r.e rocks smothered in broken water, the spruce of the heads s.h.i.+vering, the world of bleak hill and wooded valley all clammy to the touch; and-chiefest triumph of its heartlessness-it had the little children of the place driven into the kitchens to restore their blue noses and warm their cracked hands. Hapless Harbor, then, in a nor'east blow, and a dirty day-uncivil weather; an ugly sea, a high wind, fog as thick as cheese, and, to top off with, a scowling gla.s.s. Still early spring-snow in the gullies, dripping in rivulets to the harbor water; ice at sea, driving with the variable, evil-spirited winds; perilous sailing and a wretched voyage of it upon that coast. A mean season, a dirty day-a time to be in harbor. A time most foul in feeling and intention, an hour to lie snug in the lee of some great rock.
The punt of Salim Awad, double-reefed in unwilling deference to the weather, had rounded Greedy Head soon after dawn, blown like a brown leaf, Salim being bound in from Catch-as-Catch-Can with the favoring wind. It was the third year of his wandering in quest of that ease of the sorrows of love; and as he came into quiet water from the toss and spray of the open, rather than a hymn in praise of the Almighty who had delivered him from the grasping reach of the sea, from its cold fingers, its green, dark, swaying grave-rather than this weakness-rather than this Newfoundland habit of wors.h.i.+p, he muttered, as Antar, that great lover and warrior, had long ago cried from his soul: ”_Under thy veil is the rosebud of my life, and thine eyes are guarded with a mult.i.tude of arrows; round thy tent is a lion-warrior, the sword's edge, and the spear's point_”-which had nothing to do, indeed, with a nor'east gale and the flying, biting, salty spray of a northern sea. But this Salim had come in, having put out from Catch-as-Catch-Can when gray light first broke upon the black, tumultuous world, being anxious to make Hapless Harbor as soon as might be, as he had promised a child in the fall of the year.
This Salim, poet, maker of the song that could not be uttered, tied up at the stage-head of Sam Swuth, who knew the sail of that small craft, and had lumbered down the hill to meet him.
”Pup of a day,” says Sam Swuth.
By this vulgarity Salim was appalled.
”Eh?” says Sam Swuth.
Salim's pack, stowed amids.h.i.+ps, was neatly and efficiently bound with tarpaulin, the infinite mystery of which he had mastered; but his punt, from stem to stern, swam deeply with water gathered on the way from Catch-as-Catch-Can.
”Pup of a day,” says Sam Swuth.
”Oh my, no!” cried Salim Awad, shocked by this inharmony with his mood.
”Ver' bad weather.”
”Pup of a day,” Sam Swuth insisted.