g. All aboard? Everything ready? Is she a-drawing? Anchor
a-peak? All right. Get her up...."

Section 12

"Arif Bey, where is my wife? I come back to Beirut. I find my house
deserted. My servants gone. Where is Fenzile? Is she here?"

"No, son."

"Is she dead?"

"No--no, son, I wish she were...."

"Then where is she gone? With whom?"

"Trebizond. Stamboul. Cairo. I don't know where."

"With whom?"

"With--oh, don't bother yourself, son. Forget her."

"With whom? I must know."

"With--do you remember that wrestler you crippled, the wrestler from
Aleppo?"

"With Ahmet Ali! Impossible! I all but killed him."

"She went, though...."

"No, uncle, no. If he had been strong she might, but,--"

The old Druse chief shook his head, smiled in his beard, a little,
bitter, wise smile.

"You were never sick with her, never poor."

"No, never sick, never poor."

"Well, he was sick and poor, so she went with him."

"Then she loved him all along."

"No, son Zan, she loved you--until you threw him. She might have been
amused at seeing him pass the house, laugh a little, be flattered....
Such a big fool, and she a little woman.... But she would never have
left you...."

"But she did."

"Well ... after the fall, he had no friends ... the Christians despised
him, the Moslems hated him.... There was no train to follow him ... he
went on crutches.... He passed her door and looked, and looked.... What
could she do but come out.... It was her fault, after all.... And she
was very tender-hearted...."

"Tender-hearted?"

"Didn't you know?"

"No, I never knew."

"She used to cry when the leaves fell from the trees.... You didn't know
your wife well?"

"No, sir, I did not."

"Well, she is gone, Zan.... Where, one doesn't know.... What will become
of her, one doesn't know. Destiny is like a blind camel. He doesn't know
against what he stumbles. We do not see him come.... Only when the harm
is done, do we say: We might have listened for the tinkle of his
bell.... Eh, one is young and does everything and sees nothing. One is
old and sees everything and does nothing. There is no mystery ... only
ignorance...."

"You say she was very tender-hearted, my uncle. I didn't know.... I
thought of her as something else...."

"Son Zan, you had better forget her in another woman. Listen son, I will
give you Aziyed in marriage, my own daughter. She is just as pretty and
younger and not so foolish as Fenzile."

"Oh, n