The Vizier gazed at him with a wondering benevolence. ‘Surely, my dear sir,’ he said at last, ‘a man of your egregious perspicacity cannot believe these wild tales? His Highness is a most orthodox Sunnite, while the agitators in Herzegovma and those parts, of whom I have heard quite often, are violent Shiites; and they have turned to a notorious Shiite sheikh in Morocco. For them to ask the orthodox Dey to help them at this point passes belief: it is as though a band of Calvinists were to beg for the assistance of the Vatican. Can it be supposed that our Dey would advance their cause, even if he had not hated Bonaparte ever since his vile conduct at Jaffa, Acre and Aboukir, and even if he were not an admiring friend of King George, whose Royal Navy has recently been so successful in the Adriatic – a King whom no Dey of Algiers would ever voluntarily offend?
He will tell you so himself, when you see him; and I believe his bluff, soldierlike frankness will be even more deeply convincing than anything I can say. But come, let me call for a soothing bath and my own masseur to restore the suppleness of your limbs; and then when you are quite recovered we will have a simple meal and go shooting. I have two London guns, very beauti
ful, and there are plenty of palm-doves here, quite tame. Then early tomorrow I will mount you and your dragoman on decent horses and confide you to one of the Dey’s huntsmen, who will take you by His Highness’ private road across the mountain and down through the forest on the other side to the Arpad river that feeds the Shatt el Khadna, showing you all manner of birds, beasts and flowers, or their tracks. It is a vast game-preserve – no ordinary people are allowed into it without a pass; and those who do adventure are impaled. The last Dey had five youths and a hermaphrodite impaled in one session: he thought it a powerful deterrent.’
Very early in the morning Stephen and Amos Jacob rode southward across the oasis, following the very narrow paths between the crops (mostly barley, with some chick-peas). There were still many palm-doves, but this had been an exceptionally dewy night –
the dawn itself was still hazy – and the birds preferred to sit tight, with their bosoms fluffed out. Still many, many doves, for the Vizier had no notion of shooting flying, and as soon as Stephen understood this, he too waited for the occasional bird to perch, peering and gazing down at the sportsmen.
The parting had been quite cordial, although it was so very early and although the Vizier looked so very worn (he had three wives, and an appiicant for high office had recently sent him a Circassian concubine). He told Stephen that he had given the huntsman particular instructions to show everything that might interest a natural philosopher, including ‘le club des lions’; and he sent the Dey all possible expressions of loyal devotion.
They rode on through the damp and even misty dawn, Stephen and Jacob on strong capable geldings, past mark of mouth, the young huntsman on a serviceable pony. At the beginning of the scrub country that came with striking abruptness immediately after the green of the oasis, a spar183
now flew from a thorn-bush. Ibrahim wheeled his pony and called out, ‘Bind! Bird!’
‘He says there is a bird,’ said Jacob.
‘It is unreasonable to expect him to know what is common to Arklow and Algiers,’
said Stephen. ‘Could you perhaps desire him to take notice only of reptiles, quadnupeds, and their tracks?’
This Jacob did, but very kindly: and before they were ten minutes from the oasis, young Ibrahim had shown them the footprints of several jackals, a hyena, and the trace of a very considerable serpent, five to six feet long. ‘I am almost certain that it was malpolon monspessulanus. I had one as a pet when I was a boy.’
‘Was it a satisfactory pet?’
‘There was a degree of recognition, and a certain tolerance: nothing more.’
The road grew steeper, winding up in curves laboriously cut into the rock and embanked: as the sun climbed the men and their horses tired, and at one particular left-handed corner pointed out by Ibrahim they were happy to turn off the road to a small platform where one of those improbable springs sometimes found in limestone flowed from a cleft, its water making a green stripe down the slope for a hundred yards and more.
As they rested they saw another horseman, very well-mounted, toiling up where they had toiled; and while they were still staring, eating dates as they did so, they heard the sound of hoofs on the road higher up. The two riders passed the corner at almost the same moment: they shouted a greeting but did not draw rein. It was evident that they were the Dey’s messengers.
On. Up and up, this time to the very top of the ridge, where the forest began, a fine open forest, and although the trees were somewhat wind-stunted on the brow itself, the road had not descended five minutes before it was winding through noble oaks, with beeches here and there, and chestnuts and sometimes an incongruous yew. And presently,where the path narrowed to thread between tall crags on either side there was a gate with huts for soldiers right and left: a small open plain beyond it.
Ibrahim rode forward and showed the Vizier’s pass. The guards opened the gate, saluting in the elegant Muslim fashion. On the little plain – ten acres or so of grass – the riders stopped to gaze down over the sea of tree-tops to the vast expanse of the Shatt el Khadna. The valley of the stream that fed it was hidden from view by the mountain range,
rising and falling in irregular waves; but the lake itself was a noble sight, and its splendour was increased by the presence of birds quite close at hand and overhead, which added a great deal to the sense of height, distance and immobility on the one hand, and to that of a totally different essence on the other. The birds – vultures for the most part, with two more distant eagles and some trifling black kites – were far above, wholly free in the limitless sky; and the nearer group (all griffons) were in constant smooth motion, mounting and mounting in spirals on a current rising from the warm mountain-side.
‘Ibrahim says that these are the stakes used for impaling,’ said Jacob.
‘Certainly,’
replied
Stephen.
‘And since vultures are in general very faithful to their
sources of supply, I have been wondering whether any of those wheeling above us will drop down for leavings. Not the griffons, I think: they are too cautious. But there is a bearded vulture, a friend of my boyhood, and very glad I am to see him here, together with two black vultures, those bold rapacious creatures. Do you see them?’
‘They all look much the same to me,’ said Jacob. ‘Huge dark creatures sailing round and round.’
‘The bearded vulture is the one on the far right-hand side of the round,’ said Stephen. ‘See, he scratches his head. In Spanish he is called the bone-breaker.’
‘You have an unfair advantage with your perspectiveglass.’
‘He is considering. Yes, yes. He loses height. He drops, he drops!’
And indeed the great bird settled among the scattered bones beneath the stakes, pulled some bare ribs aside, seized a battered sacrum, grasped it in its powerful claws and took off with a leap, wings beating strongly, with the clear intent of dropping it from a great height onto a rock. But he was not fairly airborne before the two black vultures were upon him, one striking his back and the other brushing across his face. The sacrum dropped into an impenetrable thicket, hopelessly and entirely lost.
‘That is perfectly typical of your black vulture: greedy, precipitate, grasping,’ cried Stephen. ‘And stupid. A bird with as much sense as a pea-hen would have hit him fifty feet up, and a handy mate would have caught the bone in mid-air.’
Ibrahim understood not a word, but he did catch Stephen’s disappointment and frustration, and pointing away and away to the north-east he showed another highcircling flight a great way off. Jacob translated: ‘He says there are two or three score mothers of filth over there, waiting for the Dey’s men to finish skinning what he shot yesterday evening: but first he will show you the Shatt, which has countless red birds on it. We are obliged to go down that way, along the edge of the lake and so up the river-bank, partly because the direct slopes are very severe, and partly to avoid disturbing the deer, wild boars, lions and leopards which the Dey preserves entirely for himself.’