Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-13.pdf/214

For blessed water of the iron pots
That urge his hissing engines. Then he clapped
Palm against palm; and he who entered first
Was his beloved son, to make the grace
Of morning salutation to his sire.
The young man stood, downcast, with folded arms.
Waiting a sign to kiss his father's hand.
But he, the Pacha, setting form aside,
Cried in a passion, scarcely knowing why.
As though a voice burst through him: "Listen, boy!
My hour is come! This is the latest day
Which I shall see on earth!" Whereat the son
Was sorely troubled; for the Faithful know
That words like these, aforetime often said
By men beneath the shadow of their fate,
Have often been fulfilled. And so he asked,
With grave conjecture in his youthful face,
After his father's state. But when he heard
That save the mystic thirst, now happily passed,
The Pacha felt as sound and free from pain
As he who stood before him, with a smile,
The young man prattled of the power of dreams
To vex the spirit,—unremembered dreams,
That left no trace upon the memory
Save a dull haze, with which their breath had blurred
The steadfast mirror. As his issue spoke,
Rather the love than logic in his words
Assured the Pacha, and he laughed aloud
Against his fancies; for the sun was high,
And nature looked so vital that a thought
Of death seemed strange and wholly out of place
That laughing morn, yet dripping with a rain
That fell till sunrise, in the month of June.
So Halil Pacha donned his martial garb,
Blue rich with gold; for 'twas our Sabbath-day,
The Friday of the Franks; and who could say
What ruling Pachas or Ambassadors,
Or thronged dependants, after midday prayer,
Might take their coffee and a pipe with him,
Or watch his face as though they gazed upon
A dial registering their coming fate?
For he was mighty in himself, his state,
His wealth, that gathered as the days went by,
And mightier basking in the Sultan's love.

Now when the morning meal was past, and one
Poured scented water o'er his outstretched hands,
There came a bustle at the door, a sound
Of lifted voices; and the Persian rug,
Broidered with tinted wools, was thrust aside,
And Fatima, a beldame of the place,
Long widowed, mother of a single child,
Thronged after by a crowd of feradjes,
Dyed in the rainbow—galaxies of eyes