There Was,
However, A Grim Smile About His Mouth Which Boded No Good.
That evening, returning home from the Hammam, I found the house in an
uproar.
The boy Mohammed, who had been miserably mauled, was furious
with rage; and Shaykh Nur was equally unmanageable, by reason of his
fear. In my absence the father had returned with a posse comitatus of
friends and relatives. They questioned the
[p.271] youth, who delivered himself of many circumstantial and
emphatic mis-statements. Then they proceeded to open the boxes; upon
which the boy Mohammed cast himself sprawling, with a vow to die rather
than to endure such a disgrace. This procured for him some scattered
slaps, which presently became a storm of blows, when a prying little
boy discovered Omar Effendi’s leg in the hiding-place. The student was
led away unresisting, but mildly swearing that he would allow no
opportunity of escape to pass. I examined the boy Mohammed, and was
pleased to find that he was not seriously hurt. To pacify his mind, I
offered to sally out with him, and to rescue Omar Effendi by main
force. This, which would only have brought us all into a brunt with
quarterstaves, and similar servile weapons, was declined, as had been
foreseen. But the youth recovered complacency, and a few well-merited
encomiums upon his “pluck” restored him to high spirits.
The reader must not fancy such escapade to be a serious thing in
Arabia. The father did not punish his son; he merely bargained with him
to return home for a few days before starting to Egypt.
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