AL FAIZI SAYS GOOD-BYE.
Wall, the very next day, follerin’ and ensuin’ after our visit to the Escuriel, Martin gin orders for the march.
We wuz to git back to London at the rapidest rate possible, and from thence embark for home.
Home! sweet sound! No word ever did, or ever can, sound so sweet as that word “home” duz hearn on a foreign shore. And though the journey seemed long and perilous and full of fatigue and danger, yet Josiah and I hearn it with joy.
So after a journey that seems, to look back on’t, like a confused dream of wonderful sights, and strange ones, rumatiz, car whistles, big hotels, cold beds, dyspeptic food, groans, sithes, beautiful views seen from flyin’ trains, talk in a strange language goin’ on round me, murmured words from a pardner, better left onsaid, dreams of home sot in a frame of foreign seenery, tired eyes and lims, dizzy flyin’ through space, headache, etc., etc., etc., after this dream we found ourselves in London.
We parted with Al Faizi in London. It wuz on the eve of our departure. Our tickets reposed in Martin’s vest-pocket, so I spoze, and our ship wuz to sail on the morrer.
The lamps wuz lit in our room, and their meller glow lit up the form of my companion, clad in his dressin’-gown and layin’ outstretched on the couch.
I myself wuz a-rubbin’ my spectacles with shammy-skin.
I see the minute that Al Faizi come in that he looked sort o’ agitated and riz up like. And anon I understood the reason—he had come to bid us good-bye.
I felt mean—mean as a dog. I hated to have him go, though Common Sense told me, and, of course, I didn’t spoze that I could in the common nater of things lug round a heathen with me everywhere I went all my life; but still I felt bad.
After the first compliments wuz spoke, and he told us that he wuz a-goin’, and we told him that we hated to have him go, and, etc., he sez:
“I have sought for the ways of love and truth all through these Western lands—and now—”
He paused, and only his dark, sad eyes spoke for quite a spell. Finally I sez:
“And now?”
“I go back to my own country—I have many things to teach my people.”
“Then you have learnt some good things in my country and on our tower?” sez I, glad and proud to hear him say so.
But his soft voice resoomed—“I have to teach them many things—to avoid.”
“I GO BACK TO MY OWN COUNTRY—I HAVE MANY THINGS TO TEACH MY PEOPLE—TO AVOID.”
I felt deprested agin. “But,” sez I, wantin’ to git some closter view of his mind—wantin’ to like a dog, for I hadn’t had, I can truly say, any more clear view on’t than if we had lived some milds apart, sez I, “you must have seen some things in this land worthy your approvin’ of—these lofty cathedrals built to the honor of the Lord. To be sure,” sez I, “the poor are a-flockin’ round ’em like a herd of freezin’ and starvin’ animals. But look at the free schools and the great charities, mighty and fur reachin’ in their influence.”
“Yes,” sez Al Faizi, “I have seen some things in your land that I will teach them to do. I have seen sweet charities—the sick and unfortunate cared for; great free schools; crowds of little children helped to better lives.”
“Yes,” sez I, “a great many rich men and wimmen give their money like water to help the poor and unfortunate. To be sure,” sez I, “the poverty and the crime is caused, most of it, by ourselves, and Uncle Sam bein’ so sot on that license business of hisen.” Sez I, “We cause the evils we relieve in a great measure—but then—”
I see that Al Faizi wuz a-lookin’ at me with that same calm, sweet smile, and I’ll be hanged if it seemed as if I could go on a-drivin’ them metafors right in front of it. It made me feel curous as a dog, and curouser to think on’t.
There it wuz, he a-settin’ right by me, and I couldn’t git a full, clear view of what wuz a-goin’ on in his mind, his idees and emotions, no more’n I can see the high trees in our orchard in a heavey snow-storm.
I spoze I showed my deep chagrin in my face, for he hastened to add:
“Everywhere I see strivings after the Good—the Perfect Life. The nations are feeling after God. But I see His truth covered up by a network of man-made lies; and shadows of darkness, cast from human comprehension, veil and shadow the sweet, just face of the Good. But evermore my heart burns within me, and I long for the perfect way.”
Right here my Josiah spoke up in this unappropos moment, and sez:
“I hate to say good-bye, Fazer, but if you ever come up our way from Hindoostan, or Egypt, or Africa, or wherever you are a-stayin’, you must be sure to stop and stay overnight with us.”
Adrian come in at that minute, and when I told him that Al Faizi was a-biddin’ us good-bye, and wuz a-goin’ away, he put both arms around his neck and nestled his head aginst him. Al Faizi pressed him clost to his heart and bent his head low over him, and when he let him go, sunthin’ bright shone amongst the curls and waves of Adrian’s gold-brown locks, that Alice loved so well.
Custom and pride makes folks reticent and keep their griefs to themselves, but as long as human hearts are made as they be now, they will ache. Love’s arrers are sharp winged; when they fly they don’t take any note of where they are a-goin’, and the pain is keen and sharp when they hit—bittersweet at any time, and sometimes bitter without the sweet. The good Lord go with Al Faizi and comfort him, so I sez to myself.
He took both of my hands in his little brown ones, and it seemed as if he would never let ’em go.
“I will never forget you!” he cried; “you have had for me the kind heart and kind deeds of a mother.”
I thought to myself that he might jest as well sed a “sister” while he wuz about it, but then I laid it to the excitement of the occasion—I wuz excited myself and felt bad. I hated to have him go, and when he wuz a-goin’ to let go of my hands I didn’t know. I wuz a-thinkin’ that if he offered to kiss me I didn’t know what I should do—it wuzn’t nothin’ I wanted, leavin’ Josiah out of the question, but I didn’t know what he would take it into his head to do. But he didn’t offer nothin’ of the kind, which I wuz glad enough on. But he gin my hands a long, hard clasp, and sez he:
“Farewell!” And then he let go. He looked bad, sorrerful as death. And I sez, onbeknown to me:
“Won’t you wait and bid good-bye to Alice?”
“No,” sez he; “I leave with you my farewell to her. May heaven bless her!” sez he.
“Amen!” sez I.
It wuz some as if we wuz to protracted meetin’, only more strange-like, and mebby not quite so protracted, but curouser.
Sez I, with a real good axent—“My heart will go with you, Al Faizi; I shall think of you when you’re fur away, some as I do of my own boy—knowin’ that you are doin’ your best for your own soul, and for everybody round you.”
“I go to my own people,” sez he sadly. “Forevermore will I work to help them to the right way—help them to understand the teachings of the Lord Christ. Nowhere else do I find such a pure religion as His. In my own home, far away beyond the dark waters”—and he made that gester of his towards the East—“I will work till I die to bring my people to know this great love, this mighty King. And there also I will pray that your people, too, may follow His teachings, and the people in the great countries I have visited with you, that these lands may renounce their false ways, and follow His gentle and lovely guidance, and be led into His truth. I will give my life for this,” sez he.
His tone wuz sweet and tender. It sounded to me sunthin’ like the autumn winds a-rustlin’ the leaves over the grave of the one you love.
I wuz almost a-cryin’, and sez I:
“Shan’t we ever see you agin?”
He pinted upwards, his eyes wuz full of the love and passion of devotion, of Christian feelin’.
“We will meet in that great land,” sez he.
I wuz dretful riz up and glad and deprested and sorry all to one time. I felt queer.
But Josiah had to holler most the last minute. Sez he, “What are you a-goin’ to do with that book of yourn, Fazer?”
“I will use it to help teach my people—to avoid the mistakes of civilization.”
Josiah sez, “Good for you, Fazer!”
And I sez, “I always felt that we ort to have missionaries come over here to teach us how to behave.”
But his face had no triumph in it—no look of reproach, only that sweet smile rested on it that made his face look better than any face I ever see, or ever expect to see.
And agin he took my hand in his little brown one; agin he said “Farewell,” and he wuz indeed gone.
I didn’t git over it all day.
I felt some as if the meetin’-house to Jonesville should dissapear mysteriously, as if sunthin’ good had vanished, and some as if my boy Thomas J. should go off out of my sight for some time.
Adrian mourned for him several hours. Alice wuz writin’ a letter home, and didn’t hardly seem to know that he wuz gone, and Martin wuz glad, I believe. He had never took to him for a minute.
Wall, I will hang up a thick moreen curtain between my readers and the voyage homewards.
It needs a thick curtain to hide the fraxious, querilous complaints and the actin’s of my pardner, the howlin’s of the wind and waves, and the usual discomforts of a sea voyage.
There are times when Heaven knows I wuz glad to hide behind it myself.
Yes, I will cower down behind the thick folds, knowin’ that I am doin’ the best I can for myself and the world at large. Yes, I will let ’em droop down over our voyage through the wild waves, our arrival in our own dear native land, our feelin’s when we see the shore we loved dawn on us out of the mist, and when we sot our feet on the sile of the Continent that wears Jonesville like a pearl of great price on its tawny old bosom.
I will also let its thick folds screen us in our partin’ from Martin and the children, and our lonely but short journey by our two selves.
And I will only loop that curtain back in graceful folds as we draw nigh to Jonesville—Mecca of our hearts’ hopes and love.