On Strike

At sight of Kirby in the tent door the little superintendent veered from his course toward the mine and increased his pace to a run as he bore down upon the American. Najib's swart face was aglow. But his eyes were those of a man who has neglected to sleep. His cheeks still bore flecks of the dust he had thrown on his head when Kirby had explained the wreck of his scheme and of his future. There, in all likelihood, the dust smears would remain until the next rain should wash them off. But, beyond these tokens of recent mental strife, Najib's visage shone like a full moon that is streaked by dun dust clouds.

"Furthermore, howadji!" he hailed his chief as soon as he was within earshot, "the shipment for Alexandretta is on its wayward--over than an hour earlier than it was due to bestart itself. And those poor hell-selected fellaheen are betoiling themselfs grand. Have I done well, oh, howadji?"

"Najib!" stammered Kirby, still dazed.

"And here is that most sweet book of great worthiness and wit, which I borrowed me of you in the night, howadji," pursued Najib, taking from the soiled folds of his abieh a large old volume, bound in stout leather, after the manner of religious or scientific books of a half-century ago. On the brown back a scratched gold lettering proclaimed the gruesome title:

"Martyrs of Ancient and Modern Error."

Well did Kirby know the tome. Hundreds of times, as a child, had he sat on the stone floor of his father's cell-like mission study at Nablous, and had pored in shuddering fascination over its highly coloured illustrations. The book was a compilation--chiefly in the form of multichrome pictures with accompanying borders of text--of all the grisly scenes of martyrdom which the publishers had been able to scrape together from such classics as "Fox's Book of Martyrs" and the like. Twice this past year he had surprised Najib scanning the gruesome pages in frank delight.

"I betook the book to their campfire, howadji, and I smote upon my breast and I bewept me and I wailed aloud and I would not make comfort. Till at last they all awoken and they came out of their huts and they reviled at me for disturbing them as they slept themselfs so happily. Then I spake much to them. And all the time I teared with my eyes and moaned aloudly.

"But," put in Kirby, "I don't see what this--"

"In a presently you shall, howadji. Yesterday I begot your goat. To-day I shall make you to frisk with peacefulness of heart. Those fellaheen cannot read. They are not of an education, as I am. And they know my wiseness in reading. For over than a trillion times I have told them. And they believe. Pictures also they believe. Just as men of an education believe the printed word; knowing full well it could not be printed if it were not Allah's own truth. Well, these folk believe a picture, if it be in a book. So I showed them pictures. And I read the law which was beneath the pictures. They heard me read. And they saw the pictures with their own eyesight. So what could they do but believe? And they did. Behold, howadji!"

Opening the volume with respectful care, Najib thumbed the yellowing pages. Presently he paused at a picture which represented in glaring detail a stricken battlefield strewn with dead and dying Orientals of vivid costume. In the middle distance a regiment of prisoners was being slaughtered in a singularly bloodthirsty fashion. The caption, above the cut, read:

"Destruction of Sennacherib's Assyrian Hosts, by the People of Israel."

"While yet they gazed joyingly on this noble picture," remarked Najib, "I read to them the words of the law about it. I read aloudly, thus: 'This shall be the way of punishing all folk who make strike hereafter this date.' Then," continued Najib, "I showed to them another pretty and splendid picture. See!"

"Martyrdom of John Rogers, His Wife and Their Nine Children."

"And," proclaimed Najib, "of this sweet portrait I read thus the law: 'So shall the wifes and the offsprungs of all strike-makers be put to death; and those wicked strike-makers themselfs along with them.' By the time I had shown them six or fifteen of such pictures and read them the law for each of them, those miserable fellaheen and guards were beweeping themselfs harder and louder and sadder than I had seemed to. Why, howadji, it was with a difficultness that I kept them from running away and enhiding themselfs in the mountains, lest the soldiers of the pasha come upon them at once and punish them for trying to make strike! But I said I would intercede with you to make you merciful of heart toward them, to spare them and not to tell the law what they had so sinsomely planned to do I said I would do this, for mine own sake as well as for theirs, and that I knew I could wake you to pity. But I said it would perchancely soften your heart toward them, if all should work harder to atone themselfs for the sin they had beplotted. Wherefore, howadji, they would consent to sleep no more; but they ran henceforthly and at once to the mine. They have been onto the job ever since. And, howadji, they are jobbing harder than ever I have seen men bejob themselfs. Am I forgiven, howadji?" he finished timidly.

"Forgiven!" yelled Kirby, when he could speak. "Why, you eternal little liar, you're a genius! My hat is off to you! This ought to be worth a fifty-mejidie bonus. And--"

"Instead of the bonus, howadji," ventured Najib, scared at his own audacity, yet seeking to take full advantage of this moment of expansiveness, "could I have this pleasing book as a baksheesh gift?"

"Take it!" vouchsafed Kirby. "The thing gives me bad dreams. Take it!"

"May the houris make soft your bed in the Paradise of the Prophet!" jabbered Najib, in a frenzy of gratitude, as he hugged the treasured gift to his breast. "And--and, howadji, there be more pictures I did not show. They will be of a nice convenience, if ever again it be needsome to make a new law for the mine."

"But--"

"Oh, happy and pretty decent hour!" chortled the little man, petting his beloved volume as if it were a loved child and executing a shuffling and improvised step-dance of unalloyed rapture. "This book has been donationed to me because I was brave enough to request for it while yet your heart was warm at me, howadji. It is even as your sainted feringhee proverb says: 'Never put off till to-morrow the--the--man who may be done, to-day!'"

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