[Footnote 57: The African uses the word "Ma" as mother, (_a_) to name a woman after her eldest son, _e.g._ Mrs. Livingstone was called Ma-Robert; and (_b_) as in this case, for a woman whom they respect.]
Book Four: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT
CHAPTER XXIII
SONS OF THE DESERT
_Abdallah and Sabat_
(Time of Incidents, about 1800-1810)
_Two Arab Wanderers_
One day, more than a hundred years ago, two young Arabs, Abdallah and Sabat, rode on their camels toward a city that was hidden among the tawny hills standing upon the skyline.
The sun was beginning to drop toward the edge of the desert away in the direction of the Red Sea. The shadows of the long swinging legs of the camels wavered in grotesque lines on the sand. There was a look of excited expectation in the eyes of the young Arabs; for, by sunset, their feet would walk the city of their dreams.
They were bound for Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed, the Holy City toward which every man of the Mohammedan world turns five times a day as he cries, "There is no G.o.d but Allah, and Mohammed is the prophet of Allah." To have worshipped in Mecca before the sacred Kaaba and to have kissed the black stone in its wall--this was to make Paradise certain for them both. Having done that pilgrimage these two Arabs, Sabat and Abdallah, would be able to take the proud t.i.tle of "Haji"
which would proclaim to every man that they had been to Mecca--the Holy of Holies.
So they pressed on by the valley between the hills till they saw before them the roofs and the minarets of Mecca itself. As darkness rushed across the desert and the stars came out, the tired camels knelt in the courtyard of the Khan,[58] and Sabat and Abdallah alighted and stretched their cramped legs, and took their sleep.
These young men, Sabat and Abdallah, the sons of notable Arab chiefs, had struck up a great friendship. Now, each in company with his chum, they were together at the end of the greatest journey that an Arab can take.
As the first faint flush of pink touched the mountain beyond Mecca, the cry came from the minaret: "Come to prayer. Prayer is better than sleep. There is no G.o.d but Allah."
Sabat and Abdallah were already up and out, and that day they said the Mohammedan prayer before the Kaaba itself with other pilgrims who had come from many lands--from Egypt and Abyssinia, from Constantinople and Damascus, Baghdad and Bokhara, from the defiles of the Khyber Pa.s.s, from the streets of Delhi and the harbour of Zanzibar.
We do not know what Abdallah looked like. He was probably like most young Arab chieftains, a tall, sinewy man--brown-faced, dark-eyed, with hair and a short-cropped beard that were between brown and black.
His friend Sabat was, however, so striking that even in that great crowd of many pilgrims people would turn to look at him. They would turn round, for one reason, because of Sabat"s voice. Even when he was just talking to his friend his voice sounded like a roar; when he got excited and in a pa.s.sion (as he very often did) it rolled like thunder and was louder than most men"s shouting. As he spoke his large white teeth gleamed in his wide mouth. His brown face and black arched eyebrows were a dark setting for round eyes that flashed as he spoke.
His black beard flowed over his tawny throat and neck. Gold earrings swung with his agitation and a gold chain gleamed round his neck. He wore a bright silk jacket with long sleeves, and long, loose-flowing trousers and richly embroidered shoes with turned-up toes. From a girdle round his waist hung a dagger whose handle and hilt flashed with jewels.
Abdallah and Sabat were better educated than most Arabs, for they could both read. But they were not men who could stay in one place and read and think in quiet. When they had finished their worship at Mecca, they determined to ride far away across the deserts eastward, even to Kabul in the mountains of Afghanistan. So they rode, first northward up the great camel-route toward Damascus, and then eastward.
In spite of robbers and hungry jackals, through mountain gorges, over streams, across the Syrian desert from oasis to oasis, and then across the Euphrates and the Tigris they went, till they had climbed rung by rung the mountain ranges that hold up the great plateau of Persia.
At last they broke in upon the rocky valleys of Afghanistan and came to the gateway of India--to Kabul. They presented themselves to Zeman Shah, the ruler of Afghanistan, and he was so taken with Abdallah"s capacity that he asked him to be one of his officers in the court.
So Abdallah stayed in Kabul. But the restless, fiery Sabat turned the face of his camel westward and rode back into Persia to the lovely city of Bokhara.
_Abdallah the Daring_
In Kabul there was an Armenian whose name we do not know: but he owned a book printed in Arabic, a book that Abdallah could read. The Armenian lent it to him. There were hardly any books in Arabic, so Abdallah took this book and read it eagerly. As he read, he thought that he had never in all his life heard of such wonderful things, and he could feel in his very bones that they were true. He read four short true stories in this book: they were what we call the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. As he read, Abdallah saw in the stories Someone who was infinitely greater than Mohammed--One who was so strong and gentle that He was always helping children and women and people who were ill; so good that He always lived the very life that G.o.d willed; and so brave that He died rather than give in to evil men--our Lord Jesus Christ.
"I worship Him," said Abdallah in his heart. Then he did a very daring thing. He knew that if he turned Christian it would be the duty of Mohammedans to kill him. Why not keep quiet and say nothing about his change of heart? But he could not. He decided that he must come out in the open and confess the new Captain of his life. He was baptized a Christian.
The Moslems were furious. To save his life Abdallah fled on his camel westward to Bokhara. But the news that he had become a Christian flew even faster than he himself rode. As he went along the streets of Bokhara he saw his friend Sabat coming toward him. As a friend, Sabat desired to save Abdallah; but as a Moslem, the cruel law of Mohammed said that he must have him put to death. And Sabat was a fiery, hot-tempered Moslem.
"I had no pity," Sabat told his friends afterward. "I delivered him up to Morad Shah, the King."
So Abdallah was bound and carried before the Moslem judges. His friend Sabat stood by watching, just as Saul had stood watching them stone Stephen nearly eighteen centuries earlier.
"You shall be given your life and be set free," they said, "if you will spit upon the Cross and renounce Christ and say, "There is no G.o.d but Allah.""
"I refuse," said Abdallah.
A sword was brought forward and unsheathed. Abdallah"s arm was stretched out: the sword was lifted--it flashed--and Abdallah"s hand, cut clean off, fell on the ground, while the blood spurted from his arm.
"Your life will still be given you if you renounce Christ and proclaim Allah and Mohammed as His prophet."
This is how Sabat himself described what happened next. "Abdallah made no answer, but looked up steadfastly toward heaven, like Stephen, the first martyr, his eyes streaming with tears. He looked at me," said Sabat, "but it was with the countenance of forgiveness."
Abdallah"s other arm was stretched out, again the sword flashed and fell. His other hand dropped to the ground. He stood there bleeding and handless. He bowed his head and his neck was bared to the sword.
Again the blade flashed. He was beheaded, and Sabat--Sabat who had ridden a thousand miles with his friend and had faced with him the blistering sun of the desert and the snow-blizzard of the mountain--saw Abdallah"s head lie there on the ground and the dead body carried away.
Abdallah had died because he was faithful to Jesus Christ and because Sabat had obeyed the law of Mohammed.
_The Old Sabat and the New_
The news spread through Bokhara like a forest fire. They could hardly believe that a man would die for the Christian faith like that. As Sabat told his friends afterward, "All Bokhara seemed to say, "What new thing is this?""
But Sabat was in agony of mind. Nothing that he could do would take away from his eyes the vision of his friend"s face as Abdallah had looked at him when his hands were being cut off. He plunged out on to the camel tracks of Asia to try to forget. He wandered far and he wandered long, but he could not forget or find rest for his tortured mind.
At last he sailed away on the seas and landed on the coast of India at Madras. The British East India Company then ruled in India, and they gave Sabat a post in the civil courts as mufti, _i.e._ as an expounder of the law of Mohammed. He spent most of his time in a coast town north of Madras, called Vizagapatam.[59] A friend handed to him there a little book in his native language--Arabic. It was another translation of those stories that Abdallah had read in Kabul--it was the New Testament.[60]
Sabat sat reading this New Book. He then took up the book of Mohammed"s law--the Koran--which it was his daily work to explain. He compared the two. "The truth came"--as he himself said--"like a flood of light." He too began to worship Jesus Christ, whose life he had read now for the first time in the New Testament. Sabat decided that he must follow in Abdallah"s footsteps. He became a Christian.[61] He was then twenty-seven years of age.
_The Brother"s Dagger_
In the world of the East news travels like magic by Arab dhow (sailing ship) and camel caravan. Very quickly the news was in Arabia that Sabat had renounced Mohammed and become a Christian. At once Sabat"s brother rose, girded on his dagger, left the tents of his tribe, mounted his camel and coursed across Arabia to a port. There he took ship for Madras. Landing, he disguised himself as an Indian and went up to Vizagapatam to the house where his brother Sabat was living.
Sabat saw this Indian, as he appeared to be, standing before him. He suspected nothing. Suddenly the disguised brother put his hand within his robe, seized his dagger, and leaping at Sabat made a fierce blow at him. Sabat flung out his arm. He spoilt his brother"s aim, but he was too late to save himself. He was wounded, but not killed. The brother threw off his disguise, and Sabat--remembering the forgiveness of Abdallah--forgave his brother, gave him many presents, and sent loving messages to his mother.
Sabat decided that he could no longer work as an expounder of Moslem law: he wanted to do work that would help to spread the Christian Faith. He went away north to Calcutta, and there he joined the great men who were working at the task of translating the Bible into different languages and printing them. This work pleased Sabat, for was it not through reading an Arabic New Testament that all his own life had been changed?
Because Sabat knew Persian as well as Arabic he was sent to help a very clever young chaplain from England named Henry Martyn, who was busily at work translating the New Testament into Persian and Arabic.
So Sabat went up the Ganges to Cawnpore with Henry Martyn.
Sabat"s fiery temper nearly drove Martyn wild. His was a flaming Arab spirit, hot-headed and impetuous; yet he would be ready to die for the man he cared for; proud and often ignorant, yet simple--as Martyn said, "an artless child of the desert."