Edith Wharton

“ We have failed: Africa has beaten us. It has always been my way, as you know, Willard, to face the truth squarely," added the old man who had lived so long in dreams; "and now that this truth has been borne in on me, painful as it is, I must act on it ... act in accordance with its discovery ..."
He drew a long breath, as if oppressed by the weight of his resolution, and sat silent for a moment, fanning his face with a corner of his white draperies.
"And here too—here too I must have your help, Willard," he began presently, his hand again weighing on the young man's arm. ”

“ The echo of Spink's "What's the use?" was in his ears. It was the expression of his own secret doubt. What was the use? If dying could bring any of these darkened souls to the light ... well, that would have been different. But what least sign was there that it would do anything but rouse their sleeping blood-lust?
Willard was oppressed by the thought that had always lurked beneath his other doubts. They talked, he and Mr. Blandhorn, of the poor ignorant heathen—but were not they themselves equally ignorant in everything that concerned the heathen? ”

“ Then, with the strange Oriental elasticity, the immense throng divided, and a new throng poured through it, headed by riders ritually draped, and overhung with banners that seemed to be lifted and floated aloft on the shouts of innumerable throats. It was the Pasha of Eloued coming to pray at the tomb of Sidi Oman.
Into this mass Mr. Blandhorn plunged and disappeared, while Willard Bent, for an endless minute, hung back in the shelter of the passage, the old "What's the use?" in his ears. ”

“ Willard argued, "don't want to persecute anybody. They're not fanatical unless you insult their religion."
Mr. Blandhorn's grasp grew tighter. "Insult their religion! That's it ... to-night you find just the words ..."
Willard felt his arm shake with the tremor that passed through the other's body. "The saints and martyrs insulted the religion of the heathen—they spat upon it, Willard—they rushed into the temples and knocked down the idols. They said to the heathen: 'Turn away your faces from all your abominations,' and after the manner of men they fought with the beasts at Ephesus. ”

“ 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." ”

“ I stood in the doorway of the Mosque, and they saw me ... the people inside saw me ... and no one touched me ... I'm too harmless ... they don't believe in me!"
He broke off, and under his struggling eyebrows Willard saw the tears on his old lids.
The young man gathered courage.
"But don't you see, sir, that's the reason it's no use? We don't understand them any more than they do us; they know it, and all our witnessing for Christ will make no difference."
Mr. Blandhorn looked at him sternly. "Young man, no Christian has the right to say that."
Willard ignored the rebuke. ”

“ Blandhorn had reached the school, had disappeared under its shadowy arcade, and emerged again into the sunlight, clutching a great parchment Koran.
"Ah," thought Willard, "now——!"
He found himself standing at the missionary's side, so close that they must have made one black blot against the white-hot quiver of tiles. Mr. Blandhorn lifted up the Book and spoke.
"The God whom ye ignorantly worship. Him declare I unto you," he cried in halting Arabic.
A deep murmur came from the turbaned figures gathered under the arcade of the Mosque. ”

“ It is our lukewarmness, Willard—it is nothing else. We have not witnessed for Christ as His saints and martyrs witnessed for Him. What have we done to fix the attention of these people, to convince them of our zeal, to overwhelm them with the irresistibleness of the Truth? ”

“ You don't suppose, do you, that anybody in the bazaar thinks you're a native? D'y'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 sat opposite in another arm-chair. Mr. Blandhorn leaned back, breathing heavily, and passing his handkerchief over his face and brow. Now and then he drew out his watch, now and then he said: "The heat is really overwhelming."
Myriem had drifted back to her fig-tree, and the sound of the pestle mingled with the drone of flies on the window-pane. Occasionally the curses of a muleteer or the rhythmic chant of a water-carrier broke the silence; once there came from a neighboring roof the noise of a short catlike squabble ending in female howls ”

“ Ayoub?"
"Ayoub is a poor ignorant creature, hardly more than an animal. Even when he witnessed for Jesus I was not very sure the Word reached him. I refer to—to what Harry Spink said this evening ... It has kept me from sleeping, Willard Bent."
"Yes—I know, sir."
"Harry Spink is a worldly minded man. But he is not a bad man. He did a manly thing when he left us, since he did not feel the call. But we have felt the call, Willard, you and I—and when a man like Spink puts us a question such as he put this evening we ought to be able to answer it. ”

“ It was the kind of noise that, one knew, had been going on for hours before one began to notice it, and would go on, unchecked and unchanging, for endless hours more: like the heat, like the drought—like Africa. ”

“ Blandhorn.
An old man, detaching himself from the group, advanced across the tiles and laid his hand on the missionary's arm. Willard recognized the delegate of the Cadi.
"You must restore the Book," the delegate said gravely to Mr. Blandhorn, "and leave this court immediately; if not——"
He held out his hand to take the Koran. Mr. Blandhorn, in a flash, dodged the restraining arm, and, with a strange new elasticity of his cumbrous body, rolling and bouncing across the court between the dazed spectators, gained the gateway opening on the market-place behind the Mosque. ”

“ II 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!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ Blandhorn had come to Eloued as a young man, extremely poor, and dependent on the pittance which the Missionary Society at that time gave to its representatives. To ingratiate himself among the people (the expression was his own) , and also to earn a few pesetas, he had worked as a carpenter in the bazaar, first in the soukh of the ploughshares and then in that of the cabinet makers. ”

“ Blandhorn's lifetime there had been no reason for such apprehension: they could always count on a few people. Mrs. Blandhorn, who had studied medicine at Ann Arbor, Michigan, had early gained renown in Eloued by her miraculous healing powers. The dispensary, in those days, had been beset by anxious-eyed women who unwound skinny fig-colored children from their dirty draperies; and there had even been a time when Mr. Blandhorn had appealed to the Society for a young lady missionary to assist his wife. But, for reasons not quite clear to Willard Bent, Mrs. ”

“ Willard, his prayer ended, looked up, and saw that the old man's garments were stirred as if by a ripple of air. But the air was quite still, and the disciple perceived that the tremor of the muslin was communicated to it by Mr. Blandhorn's body.
"He's trembling—trembling all over. He's afraid of something. What's he afraid of?" And in the same breath Willard had answered his own question: "He's afraid of what he's made up his mind to do."
V Two days later Willard Bent sat in the shade of a ruined tomb outside the Gate of the Graves and watched the people streaming in to Eloued. ”

“ We'll talk of all this more fully ... when you get back from Mogador. Remember that Mr. Spink will be here before sunrise. I advised him to get away as early as possible on account of the Feast of Sidi Oman. It's always a poor day for foreigners to be seen about the streets."
VI At a quarter before four on the morning of the Feast of Sidi Oman Willard Bent stood waiting at the door of the Mission.
He had taken leave of Mr. Blandhorn the previous night, and stumbled down the dark stairs on bare feet, his bundle under his arm, just as the sky began to whiten around the morning star. ”

“ Willard'll explain. But I wanted to come round to meeting—like old times. Sorry it's over."
The missionary looked at him with a grave candor. "It's not over—it has not begun. The overwhelming heat has probably kept away our little flock."
"I see," interpolated Spink.
"But now," continued Mr. Blandhorn with majesty, "that two or three are gathered together in His name, there is no reason why we should wait.—Myriem! Ayoub!"
He took his place behind the lectern and began: "Almighty and merciful Father——"
IV The night was exceedingly close. ”

“ Willard was looking at him with new eyes. All his majesty seemed to have fallen from him with his Arab draperies. How short and heavy and weak he looked in his scant European clothes! The coat, tightly strained across the stomach, hung above it in loose wrinkles, and the ill-fitting trousers revealed their wearer's impressive legs as slightly bowed at the knees. This diminution in his physical prestige was strangely moving to his disciple. What was there left, with that gone——?
"Oh, do come home, sir," the young man groaned. "Of course they don't care what we do—of course——"
"Ah—" cried Mr. ”

“ Their conversation, formerly confined to parochial matters, now ranged from abstruse doctrinal problems to the question of how to induce Myriem, who had deplorably "relapsed," to keep the kitchen cleaner and spend less time on the roofs. Bent felt that Mr. Blandhorn needed him at every moment, and that, during any prolonged absence, something vaguely "unfortunate" might happen at the Mission.
"I'm glad Spink has come; it will do him good to see somebody from outside," Willard thought, nervously hoping that Spink (a good fellow at bottom) would not trouble Mr. ”