“Never, never have I seen you look so beautiful!” exclaimed Rucheia.
Much against Fatima’s will, they had dressed her in the clothes she was to wear on the approaching day of her wedding. Many meters of rich satin brocade, of a lovely rose color, fresh from Damascus, had gone to the making of these wedding serouals, (very wide trousers, old Turkish style) which now hung in graceful folds nearly to the ankles. The shoes were covered with gold embroidery. The bodice was of the finest lace-work, of a flower-pattern, and spangled with golden sequins. The head-handkerchief was a harmony of soft colors, interwoven with threads of gold and silver.
The slender figure was loaded with the old family jewelry; great clasps of golden filigree work; heavy earrings, consisting of half-loops of pearls; across the forehead, rows of ancient gold coins; ruby pendants hanging from the neck; bracelets heavy and light, of curious design and workmanship; rings on several of the shapely fingers; one just given to her today, engraved with the family name, and handed down through many generations. And there among them was a tiny golden heart upon a chain.
Rucheia, full of pride, loosened the handkerchief above the chaplet of coins, and let a dark curl or two steal out from beneath the shimmering folds.
She began to make remarks about Abdullah, and the coming happiness of the little bride, which distressed Fatima. Suddenly, to Rucheia’s anger, she burst into tears. Turning from her fiancé’s stepmother, she flung herself down on a pile of cushions, and, covering her face with her hands, sobbed as though her heart would break. Just then the curtain swung aside, and Sidi Abd-er-Rahman came in.
“What is this?” he exclaimed, turning sternly on Rucheia.
“The little fool,” said Rucheia, “is crying because she does not want to get married.”
He sat down beside Fatima, and put his arm around her. The sobs ceased. Sidi Abd-er-Rahman still had a wonderfully soothing influence upon his young daughter.
“Leave us,” he said to Rucheia. When she had gone, “You must be married sometime,” he said. “And if you are afraid, the sooner it is over the better. You will know then that in the case of yourself and Abdullah all such fears are vain. With him, too, you may see something of the great world, a thing which does not happen to many Moslem women.”
“O Father,” she cried, clinging to him, “I am not a Moslem! I never have been one since mother died! I am a Christian as she was, and I do not want to marry any man who does not likewise believe in Christ.”
“Enough of this!” he exclaimed hoarsely. “I will not hear such infidelity from the lips of my own child!” And, as if suddenly possessed by some messenger of the Evil One, he broke out into terrible abuse against Christianity, Lalla Christabel, and the weeping, shaking girl in his arms. Then Fatima’s heart failed her. A dreadful sense of faintness crept over her. Suddenly, she let go of her father, and fell.
Sidi Abd-er-Rahman was not prepared for this sudden movement. He caught at the girl to save her, but, instead, only succeeded in giving her a push, so that she fell with her head against the corner of the oak chest which had contained the wedding garments.
To her father’s horror, Fatima lay still. He shouted for Rucheia, who came running.
“She is dead, she is dead!” she wailed, wringing her hands. “You have killed your daughter!”
In a moment, the room was full of women, weeping and wailing, and surrounding Fatima, who lay motionless.
“I am going for the doctor!” shouted Sidi Abd-er-Rahman.
As he rushed down the steps, he almost knocked over a man who was coming up.
“O Sidi, O Sidi,” exclaimed the latter, who, like Sidi Abd-er-Rahman, was breathless and agitated. “I have a message for you, O Sidi!”
“Then deliver it quickly, or by Allah, I will send you rolling down the stairs!”
The messenger took him at his word, and wasted no time in breaking the news gently.
“Abdullah ben Abdullah,” he said, “on the eve of his marriage, has disappeared. Nobody knows where he is, but it is supposed that he has run away to France and become a Christian. Therefore, the marriage of your daughter, O Sidi, cannot take place at present. Here is the letter from my master, the father of the bridegroom.”
Sidi Abd-er-Rahman stuffed it into his burnous.
“Leave me,” he cried. “My daughter is ill! No, there can be no marriage for the present!”
On the day that Fatima was declared out of danger, a visitor was announced at the House of the English. It was an old man, small and frail, with a face the color of parchment, but with fine features and brown eyes that were still shrewd and piercing.
The old man was Abdullah ben Acchour, the father of the vanished bridegroom. The story he told would have sounded strange in some ears, but to Lalla Christabel, who listened to it without a word, it seemed natural enough. Such a difference does it make in the mind of a listener to have been day by day behind the scenes in prayer.
Abdullah was taken into the private drawing-room, which, as he seated himself in the largest chair, his flowing silks filled with a delicate perfume. He said that the night before, as he was sleeping in his own chamber, Saleh had come to him, in a state of great terror. The cause of this was a dream that he had just had; and, walking about the room, in wild and excited tones, he had related the whole thing to Abdullah.
He dreamed that he was back in the days when Abdullah the elder had been in business as a rich merchant, and he Saleh, was seated with him in his counting-house, counting out money, coin by coin, into a great number of linen bags. Presently, he came upon a sack, not of linen like the rest, but of heavy Damascus silk, on which was embroidered in Arabic, “Belonging to the Prophet.” “What!” thought Saleh, “and this villain my brother-in-law, who is already as rich as two men, has stolen the Prophet’s money and placed it in his own treasury! But, by Allah, I will take it and keep it for the Prophet (upon whom be peace), so will the weight of this money bring me great merit at the Day of Judgment!”
So he took the bag, Abdullah’s face being for the moment turned away, and placed it in a dark room in a certain house in the Arab town, locking the door for greater safety, and putting the key in the pouch hanging at his girdle. And he kept returning to the room to see that his treasure was safe. But, one day, just as he opened the door and looked in, behold, the sack of gold rose up before him, and, passing through the window (the iron grill of which did not prevent it) it flew far away over the sea, so that his eyes could not follow it in its flight.
“Then a great trembling seized upon me,” continued Saleh, “as you see it still, my brother, and I was forced to come and tell my story in your ears.”
“And what,” I asked, “do you take to be the meaning of this dream?”
“Truly,” replied Saleh, “nothing but the misery in which I find myself would have induced me to confess to you that, a week ago today, I shut up your son Abdullah in a dark room in the second house of the street of Sidi Okbah.”
“That was the dream,” said Abdullah, stopping and wiping his brow.
“Yes?” said Lalla Christabel, with a far-away and yet intent look in her eyes; and then she waited.
“One thing more I must relate,” went on Sidi Abdullah after a pause, “not only on the day that the sack flew away, but on all other occasions when my brother-in-law went to look at it, he found it labeled, not as before, ‘Belonging to the Prophet,’ but with these words instead, ‘Belonging to the Lord Jesus.’”
“It was a beautiful dream,” Lalla Christabel said. “And what did Sidi Saleh think was the meaning of it?”
“He has no doubt in his heart,” replied Abdullah, “but that he must let my son go free to walk in the way that he himself has chosen, although this is a new way, and not that of our fathers.”
“And you, are you willing also to set Abdullah free?”
“What can I do?” asked the old man pathetically. “Things are changed since I was a boy. Moreover, I see that the way of peace is not with us Moslems, but with Christians such as thyself. Why should not the way of peace be the Way of Truth also? But God knows best.”
“The Way, the Truth, and the Life,” Lalla Christabel answered gently. “All this Jesus claims to be. All this I have proved Him to be. And there are many thousands of others, who can tell you the same thing. All, I think, who having heard the glad tidings, have been enabled to bow their hearts beneath His will; and who, in saying before God, Inshallah, think also of Jesus Christ.”
A sort of tremor passed through the old man’s frame, and Lalla Christabel, leaning forward, just caught the murmured word, “Inshallah!”
But would Abdullah the elder indeed set his feet to walk in the Way? Would Saleh, the immediate effect of his dream over, remain firm in the conviction that he must keep his hands off the young life that had accepted Christ? Lalla Christabel felt that the time was one of crisis, and therefore, of urgent prayer. She did not even ask to see the young Abdullah, but was not surprised when he presented himself a little later the same evening.
“And now, Abdullah,” said Lalla Christabel, when the first glad greetings were over, “I have great news for you concerning your marriage with Fatima. I could not tell you sooner, for it would have made trouble. I had to keep the secret on both sides. But now the path is clear, and there is no need for secrecy any longer. Fatima is a Christian.”
A bewildered look came over the boy’s face. He regarded Lalla Christabel in silence. Then he seemed to look in upon himself, slowly realizing what this news might mean. At last, with a sigh, more of wonder than of regret: “If I had only known!” he exclaimed.
“O, Abdullah,” she replied, “it is so much better as it is! See how the hand of God has been at work upon your father, upon Saleh, and upon yourself, in bringing you to the point where you must acknowledge Christ. Fatima, too, has confessed Him to her father, and I feel sure that Sidi Abd-er-Rahman is convinced of the truth in his heart.”
“Then will I marry Fatima?”Abdullah asked simply. Lalla Christabel smiled.
“Inshallah!” she replied, softly. “I think so, Abdullah!”
At last, a day came when Lalla Christabel felt it would be safe to speak to Fatima about Abdullah. As strength returned, an anxious look had come into the young girl’s eyes. Lalla Christabel believed that Fatima would be quite content to marry Abdullah when she found that he was a Christian. Still she was relieved when Fatima herself opened the subject.
“Lalla Christabel,” she began, in a voice still weak from illness, “they won’t marry me yet, will they?”
“No, indeed,” replied her friend reassuringly. “All your affair now is to grow well and strong.”
Fatima’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to get better,” she whispered, “for then my father will make me marry Abdullah after all.”
“Fatima,” said Lalla Christabel, “if Abdullah were a Christian, would you be willing to marry him then?”
The girl looked up, wondering. “Abdullah and I used to play together when we were little,” she said with a sudden smile. Then a pleading look came into her eyes.
“O, Lalla Christabel,” she said, in the old, trustful childish way, “will you make him to walk in the Way?”
Lalla Christabel bent over her. “Fatima,” she said very quietly, “Abdullah belongs to the Lord Jesus. He is walking in the Way now.”
Fatima opened her eyes more widely than she had ever done since her illness. Then a feeling of shyness crept over her. She flushed and turned her face away.
Lalla Christabel went on stroking the dark hair. She avoided looking at Fatima. Her eyes were resting on an Arabic text that hung on the wall: “This is the Way, walk ye in it.”
“Dear Fatima,” she said at last, “when you were well again, I can wish nothing better for you than that you would become Abdullah’s wife.”
Sidi Abd-er-Rahman came to see Fatima. He found her on the terrasse overlooking the sea. Father and child embraced each other tenderly. But, oh, the joy of his first words!
“My daughter,” he exclaimed, “I see it all now. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God!”
Just then, Lalla Christabel crossed the terrace to her study. “Do not let me disturb you,” she said, and would have passed within, but Sidi Abd-er-Rahman followed her, saying, “I have something to tell you.”
“Come inside,” said Lalla Christabel.
It was the room where little Fatima had first confessed Christ, and where she had been given the little golden heart which was still around her neck, and which, in the past difficult days, had been the only Christian symbol left to her. And still upon the table stood the miniature of the English lady who had sent it, with the blue eyes looking just ready to smile.
“Ever since my daughter was ill,” said Sidi Abd-er-Rahman, “I have been asking God to give me the Holy Spirit! For I knew that your belief was that the love and joy and peace of your life was from Him alone.”
“Yes,” she replied, “I am sure of that.”
“And when I say the Holy Spirit,” he hastened to add, “I do not mean the angel Gabriel (Moslems call the angel Gabriel the Holy Spirit). But I mean, as you do, the Lord Himself.”
“I know,” said Lalla Christabel.
“I am not like you and yours,” Sidi Abd-er-Rahman continued humbly. “But something has happened to me since I have prayed this way, something that I did not expect.” He drew a long breath, and, looking straight in his friend’s face, he said deliberately: “I know now in my heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
Lalla Christabel clasped his hand. “Hamdullah!” she exclaimed, with all the gentleness of a deep joy. “Hamdullah!”
“I cannot tell you how I know it,” went on Sidi Abd-er-Rahman, his face full of an almost childlike wonder, “but I know it, and I would lie to you now if I were to say anything else.”
“Hamdullah!” she repeated.
“That decides all!” said Sidi Abd-er-Rahman, and again he drew a deep breath, as of one whose course is taken and his mind made up. “For if Jesus is the Son of God, then it is He, and not Muhammad our prophet, Who must be Lord and Savior of the world!”
“Yes,” she replied, “that decides all. That decides victory over all the forces of Satan, and of men. ‘The Lord is on my side; I will not fear what can man do unto me?’”
“You are thinking of Saleh,” he said. “He has been too long my master. But I have a new Master now, and He is stronger than Saleh.”
“Stronger than Saleh,” she repeated, “and stronger even than Satan himself.”
“O, Lalla Christabel,” he went on, after a pause, “from time to time I might have seen the truth, but I would not open my eyes. Pride held one eye shut, and fear the other. Can God forgive such sin?”
“God can forgive everything,” she replied, “to those who come to Him in the name of Jesus Christ the Savior. Shall we go to Him together now?”
And putting her arm around Fatima, they knelt down.
... ... ...
Within a few days, Saleh and all his household had packed up their goods and left the town. They were to settle near the edge of the desert, where Saleh had interest in large herds of camels and goats. No particular reason was given for his departure, but, before leaving, he sent his little son to Lalla Christabel with the money to buy an Arabic testament which he said he intended to read in his new home.
Meanwhile, the day drew near on which Sidi Abd-er-Rahman, Fatima, and Abdullah ben Abdullah were to be baptized together in the jama (place of assembly, i.e., mosque) at the House of the English. It was the wish of all three that the baptism should take place before the marriage of Fatima and Abdullah. By the consent of both fathers, the young couple were allowed to see each other several times before the wedding, Fatima being unveiled. Nothing was said about this outside the family. The two met in Lalla Christabel’s roof study. Fatima smiled shyly on her old play-fellow, and each time the hearts of the youthful pair were drawn nearer to one another.
What a deep, calm joy settled over the House of the English, and over these two whose lives were becoming united in both a heavenly and an earthly sense!
To Lalla Christabel it was like sailing, after a night of storm, into calm seas and the glow of sunrise.
It was the day after the baptism, Fatima’s wedding-day. The white pillars and stone benches of the jama were garlanded with flowers from the service of the evening before. The bridegroom, the two fathers, and M. le Cure, who performed the ceremony, were the only men present, but a number of veiled women from the House of the Roses looked on from behind a thin curtain.
The bride was all in white silks, made in the Arab manner, and wore only a little jewelry. She was covered from head to foot with a transparent veil of gauze, and crowned with fresh orange blossoms from Djenan el Ouarda. The golden heart hung around her neck.
Never before, in the memory of living man, had an Arab Christian wedding taken place in that town. Fatima had asked to be married with a plain golden ring, like the lady of the golden heart, who herself had sent the ring from England, and-oh, crowning wonder-an invitation to the bride and bridegroom to visit her in her distant home before settling down for the coming college session in Paris. Fatima was to accompany her husband to the great French capital, where they were to live at first in the house of a devoted couple who were dear friends of Lalla Christabel.
So the service proceeded. The hands of Fatima and Abdullah were joined by the M. le Curé; the ring was placed upon the bride’s finger; the old favorite hymns were sung in Arabic; and then the blessing was pronounced.
Fatima’s cup of joy was indeed full.
... ... ...
The sun was setting over North Africa. The white houses and flat roofs of the Arab town stood out brightly on the hillsides, the lower slopes of which were already darkening. The little French steamer was well on her way north, over the waters of the Mediterranean, crimson with the sunset.
Fatima and Abdullah stood together on the deck. Their eyes were turned, now upon a certain minaret in the Arab town, now upon a white dome among the palm trees, on the hills overlooking the bay.
The minaret, square and white among the cypresses, with its muezzin gallery and faint coloring of ancient tiles, stood between Fatima’s childhood home and the House of the English. The dome was the dome of Djenan el Ouarda, in the rose garden where Abdullah the elder was finding, in a sense better than this visible sunset could bestow, “light at evening time.”
Then Fatima’s eyes turned towards the other side of the bay, where the white stones of the Arab cemetery stood out bright and clear, among cypresses and fig trees. Tears stole into her eyes. Her mother lay there asleep, and she was going far away.
Did Abdullah read her thoughts? “We are going,” he said gently, “to the lady of the golden heart.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling through her tears.
“But you,” said Abdullah, “you are my Lady of the Golden Heart, God’s beautiful gift to me!”
Courtesy of BibleTruthPublishers.com. Most likely this text has not been proofread. Any suggestions for spelling or punctuation corrections would be warmly received. Please email them to: BTPmail@bibletruthpublishers.com.