the bazaar was seething. it seemed impossible that two more people should penetrate the throng of beggars, pilgrims, traders, slave-women, water-sellers, hawkers of dates and sweetmeats, leather-gaitered country-people carrying bunches of hens head-downward, jugglers’ touts from the market-place, jews in black caftans and greasy turbans, and scrofulous children reaching up to the high counters to fill their jars and baskets. but every now and then the arab “look out!” made the crowd divide and flatten itself against the stalls, and a long line of donkeys loaded with water-barrels or bundles of reeds, a string of musk-scented camels swaying their necks like horizontal question marks, or a great man perched on a pink-saddled mule and followed by slaves and clients, swept through the narrow passage without other peril to the pedestrians than that of a fresh exchange of vermin.
as the two young men drew back to make way for one of these processions, willard bent lifted his head and looked at his friend with a smile. “that’s what mr. blandhorn says we ought to remember — it’s one of his favourite images.”
“what is?” asked harry spink, following with attentive gaze the movements of a young jewess whose uncovered face and bright head-dress stood out against a group of muffled arab women.
instinctively willard’s voice took on a hortatory roll.
“why, the way this dense mass of people, so heedless, so preoccupied, is imperceptibly penetrated — ”
“by a handful of asses? that’s so. but the asses have got some kick in ’em, remember!”
the missionary flushed to the edge of his fez, and his mild eyes grew dim. it was the old story: harry spink invariably got the better of him in bandying words — and the interpretation of allegories had never been his strong point. mr. blandhorn always managed to make them sound unanswerable, whereas on his disciple’s lips they fell to pieces at a touch. what was it that willard always left out?
a mournful sense of his unworthiness overcame him, and with it the discouraged vision of all the long months and years spent in the struggle with heat and dust and flies and filth and wickedness, the long lonely years of his youth that would never come back to him. it was the vision he most dreaded, and turning from it he tried to forget himself in watching his friend.
“golly! the vacuum-cleaner ain’t been round since my last visit,” mr. spink observed, as they slipped in a mass of offal beneath a butcher’s stall. “let’s get into another soukh — the flies here beat me.”
they turned into another long lane chequered with a criss-cross of black reed-shadows. it was the saddlers’ quarter, and here an even thicker crowd wriggled and swayed between the cramped stalls hung with bright leather and spangled ornaments.
“say! it might be a good idea to import some of this stuff for fourth of july processions — knights of pythias and secret societies’ kinder thing,” spink mused, pausing before the brilliant spectacle. at the same moment a lad in an almond-green caftan sidled up and touched his arm.
willard’s face brightened. “ah, that’s little ahmed — you don’t remember him? surely — the water-carrier’s boy. mrs. blandhorn saved his mother’s life when he was born, and he still comes to prayers. yes, ahmed, this is your old friend mr. spink.”
ahmed raised prodigious lashes from seraphic eyes and reverently surveyed the face of his old friend. “me ‘member.”
“hullo, old chap . . . why, of course . . . so do i,” the drummer beamed. the missionary laid a brotherly hand on the boy’s shoulder. it was really providential that ahmed — whom they hadn’t seen at the mission for more weeks than willard cared to count — should have “happened by” at that moment: willard took it as a rebuke to his own doubts.
“you’ll be in this evening for prayers, won’t you, ahmed?” he said, as if ahmed never failed them. “mr. spink will be with us.”
“yessir,” said ahmed with unction. he slipped from under willard’s hand, and outflanking the drummer approached him from the farther side.
“show you souss boys dance? down to old jewess’s, bab-el-soukh,” he breathed angelically.
willard saw his companion turn from red to a wrathful purple.
“get out, you young swine, you — do you hear me?”
ahmed grinned, wavered and vanished, engulfed in the careless crowd. the young men walked on without speaking.
