 | The Seed of the Faith |  |
Wharton, Edith. "The Seed of the Faith."
Scribner's Magazine 65 (Jan. 1919): 17-33.
I
THE blinding June sky of Africa hung over the town. In the doorway of an Arab coffee-house a young man stood listening to the remarks exchanged by the patrons of the establishment, who lay in torpid heaps on the low shelf bordering the room.
The young man's caftan was faded to a dingy brown, but the muslin garment covering it was clean, and so was the turban wound about his shabby fez.
Cleanliness was not the most marked characteristic of the conversation, to which he lent a listless ear. It was no prurient curiosity that fixed his attention on this placid exchange of obscenities; he had lived too long in Morocco for obscenities not to have lost their savor. But he had never quite overcome the fascinated disgust with which he listened, nor the hope that one among the talkers would suddenly reveal some sense of a higher ideal of what, at home, the earnest women he knew used solemnly to call a Purpose. He was sure that, some day, such a sign would come, and then—
Meanwhile, at that hour, there was nothing on earth to do in Eloued but to stand and listen. . .
The bazaar was beginning to fill up. Looking down the vaulted tunnel which led to the coffee-house the young man watched the thickening throng of shoppers and idlers. The fat merchant whose shop faced the end of the tunnel had just ridden up and rolled off his mule, while his black boy unbarred the door of the niche hung with embroidered slippers where the master throned. The young man in the faded caftan, watching the merchant scramble up and sink into his cushions, wondered for the thousandth time what he thought about all day in his dim stifling kennel, and what he did when he was away from it . . . for no length of residence in that dark land seemed to bring one nearer to finding out what the heathen thought and did when the eye of the Christian was off him.
Suddenly a wave of excitement ran through the crowd. Every head turned in the same direction, and even the camels bent their frowning faces and stretched their necks all one way, as animals do before a storm. A wild hoot had penetrated the bazaar, howling through the long white tunnels and under the reed-woven roofs like a Djinn among dishonored graves. The heart of the young man began to beat.
"It sounds," he thought, "like a motor. . ."
But a motor at Eloued! There was one, every one knew, in the Sultan's Palace. It had been brought there years ago by a foreign Ambassador, as a gift from his sovereign, and was variously reported to be made entirely of aluminum, platinum, or silver. But the parts had never been put together, the body had long been used for breeding silk-worms—a not wholly successful experiment—and the acetylene lamps adorned the Pasha's gardens on state occasions. As for the horn, it had been sent as a gift, with a choice panoply of arms, to the Caid of the Red Mountain; but as the india-rubber bulb had accidentally been left behind, it was certainly not the Caid's visit which the present discordant cries announced. . .
"Hullo, you old dromedary! How's the folks up-state?" cried a ringing voice; the awe-struck populace gave way, and a young man in linen duster and motor-cap, slipping under the interwoven necks of the astonished camels, strode down the tunnel with an air of authority and clapped a hand on the dreamer in the doorway.
"Harry Spink!" the other gasped in a startled whisper, and with an intonation as un-African as his friend's. At the same instant he glanced over his shoulder, and his mild lips formed a cautious "sh."
"Who'd you take me for—Gabby Delys?" asked the newcomer gayly; then, seeing that this topical allusion hung fire: "And what the dickens are you 'hushing' for, anyhow? You don't suppose, do you, that anybody in the bazaar thinks you're a native? D'ye'ever look at your chin? Or that Adam's apple running up and down you like a bead on a billiard-marker's wire? See here, Willard Bent. . ."
The young man in the caftan blushed distressfully, not so much at the graphic reference to his looks as at the doubt cast on his disguise.
"I do assure you, Harry, I pick up a great deal of . . . of useful information . . . in this way. . ."
"Oh, get out," said Harry Spink cheerfully. "You believe all that still, do you? What's the good of it all, anyway?"
Willard Bent passed a hand under the other's arm and led him through the coffee-house into an empty room at the back. They sat down on a shelf covered with matting and looked at each other earnestly.
"Don't you believe any longer, Harry Spink?" asked Willard Bent.
"Don't have to. I'm travelling for rubber now."
"Oh, merciful heaven! Was that your automobile?"
"Sure."
There was a long silence, during which Bent sat with bowed head gazing on the earthen floor, while the bead in his throat performed its most active gymnastics. At last he lifted his eyes and fixed them on the tight red face of his companion.
"When did your faith fail you?" he asked.
The other considered him humorously. "Why—when I got onto this job, I guess."
Willard Bent rose and held out his hand.
"Good-by. . . I must go. . . If I can be of any use . . . you know where to find me. . ."
"Any use? Say, old man, what's wrong? Are you trying to shake me?" Bent was silent, and Harry Spink continued insidiously: "Ain't you a mite hard on me? I thought the heathen was just what you was laying for?"
Bent smiled mournfully. "There's no use trying to convert a renegade."
"That what I am? Well—all right. But how about the others? Say—let's order a lap of tea and have it out right here."
Bent seemed to hesitate; but at length he rose, put back the matting that screened the inner room, and said a word to the proprietor. Presently a scrofulous boy with gazelle eyes brought a brass tray bearing glasses and pipes of kif, gazed earnestly at the stranger in the linen duster, and slid back behind the matting.
"Of course," Bent began, "a good many people know I am a Baptist missionary"—("No?" from Spink, incredulously)—"but in the crowd of the bazaar they don't notice me, and I hear things. . ."
"Golly! I should suppose you did."
"I mean, things that may be useful. You know Mr. Blandhorn's idea. . ."
A tinge of respectful commiseration veiled the easy impudence of the drummer's look. "The old man still here, is he?"
"Oh, yes, of course. He will never leave Eloued."
"And the missus—?"
Bent again lowered his naturally low voice. "She died—a year ago—of the climate. The doctor had warned her; but Mr. Blandhorn felt a call to remain here."
"And she wouldn't leave without him?"
"Oh, she felt a call, too . . . among the women. . ."
Spink pondered. "How many years you been here, Willard?"
"Ten next July," the other responded, as if he had added up the weeks and months so often that the reply was always on his lips.
"And the old man?"
"Twenty-five last April. We had planned a celebration . . . before Mrs. Blandhorn died. There was to have been a testimonial offered . . . but, owing to her death, Mr. Blandhorn preferred to devote the sum to our dispensary."
"I see. How much?" said Spink sharply.
"It wouldn't seem much to you. I believe about fifty pesetas. . ."
"Two pesetas a year? Lucky the Society looks after you, ain't it?"
Willard Bent met his ironic glance steadily. "We're not here to trade," he said with dignity.
"No—that's right, too." Spink reddened slightly. "Well, all I meant was—look at here, Willard, we're old friends, even if I did go wrong, as I suppose you'd call it. I was in this thing near on a year myself, and what always tormented me was this: What does it all amount to?"
"Amount to?"
"Yes. I mean, what's the results? Supposing you was a fisherman. Well, if you fished a bit of river year after year, and never had a nibble, you'd do one of two things, wouldn't you? Move away—or lie about it. See?"
Bent nodded without speaking. Spink set down his glass and busied himself with the lighting of his long, slender pipe. "Say, this mint-julep feels like old times," he remarked.
Bent continued to gaze frowningly into his untouched glass. At length he swallowed the sweet decoction at a gulp, and turned to his companion.
"I'd never lie . . ." he murmured.
"Well—"
"I'm—I'm still—waiting. . ."
"Waiting—?"
"Yes. The wind bloweth where it listeth. If St. Paul had stopped to count . . . in Corinth, say. As I take it"—he looked long and passionately at the drummer—"as I take it, the thing is to be St. Paul."
Harry Spink remained unimpressed. "That's all talk—I heard all that when I was here before. What I want to know is: What's your bag? How many?"
"It's difficult—"
"I see: like the pigs. They run around so!"
Both the young men were silent, Spink pulling at his pipe, the other sitting with bent head, his eyes obstinately fixed on the beaten floor. At length Spink rose and tapped the missionary on the shoulder.
"Say—s'posin' we take a look around Corinth? I got to get onto my job to-morrow, but I'd like to take a turn round the old place first."
Willard Bent rose also. He felt singularly old and tired, and his mind was full of doubt as to what he ought to do. If he refused to accompany Harry Spink, a former friend and fellow worker, it might look like running away from his questions. . .
They went out together.
| The Seed of the Faith | |