The Book of Missionary Heroes, Basil Mathews [web based ebook reader txt] 📗
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"I hear the bells of the camels," he said. Quickly Forder's goods were loaded on a camel. He jumped on top. He was led off into the open plain. Away across the desert clear in the moonlight came the dark mass of the caravan with the tinkle of innumerable bells.
Arabs galloped ahead of the caravan. They drew up their horses shouting, "Who are you? What do you want?" Then came fifty horsemen with long spears in their hands, rifles slung from their shoulders, swords hanging from their belts, and revolvers stuck in their robes. They were guarding the first section made up of four hundred camels. There were four sections, each guarded by fifty warriors.
As they passed, the man with Forder shouted out the names of friends of his who—he thought—would be in the caravan. Sixteen hundred camels passed in the moonlight, but still no answer came. Then the last section began to pass. The cry went up again of the names of the men. At last an answering shout was heard. The men they sought were found. Forder's guide explained who he was and that he wanted to go to Kaf. His baggage was swiftly shifted onto another camel, and in a few minutes he had mounted, and his camel was swinging along with two thousand others into the east.
For hour after hour the tireless camels swung on and on, tawny beasts on a tawny desert, under a silver moon that swam in a deep indigo sky in which a million stars sparkled. The moon slowly sank behind them; ahead the first flush of pink lighted the sky; but still they pushed on. At last at half-past six in the morning they stopped. Forder flung himself on the sand wrapped in his abba (his Arab cloak) and in a few seconds was asleep. In fifteen minutes, however, they awakened him. Already most of the camels had moved on. From dawn till noon, from noon under the blazing sun till half-past five in the afternoon, the camels moved on and on, "unhasting, unresting." As the camels were kneeling to be unloaded, a shout went up. Forder looking up saw ten robbers on horseback on a mound. Like the wind the caravan warriors galloped after them firing rapidly, and at last captured them and dragged them back to the camp.
"Start again," the command went round, and in fifteen minutes the two thousand camels swung grumbling and groaning out on the endless trail of the desert. The captured Arabs were marched in the centre. All through the night the caravan went on from moonrise to moonset, and through the morning from dawn till ten o'clock—for they dared not rest while the tribe from whom they had captured the prisoners could get near them. Then they released the captives and sent them back, for on the horizon they saw the green palms of Kaf, the city that they sought.
The camels had only rested for thirty minutes in forty hours.[68] With grunts of pleasure they dropped on their knees and were freed from their loads, and began hungrily to eat their food.
Forder leapt down and was so glad to be in Kaf that he ran into some palm gardens close by and sang "Praise God from Whom all blessings flow," jumped for joy, and then washed all the sweat and sand from himself in a hot spring of sulphur water.
Lying down on the floor of a little house to which he was shown, he slept, with his head on his saddlebags, all day till nearly sunset.
At sunset a gun was fired. The caravan was starting on its return journey. Forder's companions on the caravan came to him.
"Come back with us," they said. "Why will you stay with these cursed people of Kaf? They will surely kill you because you are a Christian."
It was hard to stay. But no Christian white man had ever been in that land before carrying the Good News of Jesus, and Forder had come out to risk his life for that very purpose. So he stayed.
What made Forder put his life in peril and stand the heat, vermin, and hate? Why try to make friends with these wild bandits? Why care about them at all? He was a baker in his own country in England and might have gone on with this work. It was the love of Christ that gave him the love of all men, and, in obeying His command to "Go into all the world," he found adventure, made friends, and left with them the Good News in the New Testament.
[65] Thursday morning, December 13, 1900.
[66] Recall Henry Martyn and Sabat at work on this.
[67] Passing Es-Salt (Ramoth Gilead), Gerash and Edrei in Bashan.
[68] It took the caravan six days to go back.
CHAPTER XXVIII THE FRIEND OF THE ARABArchibald Forder
(Date of Incident, 1901)
The Lone Trail of Friendship
So the two thousand camels swung out on the homeward trail. Forder now was alone in Kaf.
"Never," he says, "shall I forget the feeling of loneliness that came over me as I made my way back to my room. The thought that I was the only Christian in the whole district was one that I cannot well describe."
As Forder passed a group of Arabs he heard them muttering to one another, "Nisraney[69]—one of the cursed ones—the enemy of Allah!" He remembered that he had been warned that the Arabs of Kaf were fierce, bigoted Moslems who would slay a Christian at sight. But he put on a brave front and went to the Chief's house. There he sat down with the men on the ground and began to eat with them from a great iron pot a hot, slimy, greasy savoury, and then sipped coffee with them.
"Why have you come here?" they asked him.
"My desire is," he replied, "to pass on to the Jowf."
Now the Jowf is the largest town in the Syrian desert—the most important in all Northern Arabia. From there camel caravans go north, south, east, and west. Forder could see how his Arabic New Testaments would be carried from that city to all the camel tracks of Arabia.
"The Jowf is eleven days' camel ride away there," they said, pointing to the south-east.
"Go back to Orman," said the Chief, whose name was Mohammed-el-Bady, "it is at your peril that you go forward."
He sent a servant to bring in the headman of his caravan. "This Nisraney wishes to go with the caravan to the Jowf," said the Chief. "What do you think of it?"
"If I took a Christian to the Jowf," replied the caravan leader, "I am afraid Johar the Chief there would kill me for doing such a thing. I cannot do it."
"Yes," another said, turning to Forder, "if you ever want to see the Jowf you must turn Moslem, as no Christian would be allowed to live there many days."
"Well," said the Chief, closing the discussion, "I will see more about this to-morrow."
As the men sat smoking round the fire Forder pulled a book out from his pouch. They watched him curiously.
"Can any of you read?" he asked. There were a number who could; so Forder opened the book—which was an Arabic New Testament—at St. John's Gospel, Chapter III.
"Will you read?" he asked.
So the Arab read in his own language this chapter. As we read the chapter through ourselves it is interesting to wonder which of the verses would be most easily understood by the Arabs. When the Arab who was reading came to the words:
"God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life," Forder talked to them telling what the words meant. They listened very closely and asked many questions. It was all quite new to them.
"Will you give me the book?" asked the Arab who was reading. Forder knew that he would only value it if he bought it, so he sold it to him for some dates, and eight or nine men bought copies from him.
Next day the Chief tried to get other passing Arabs to conduct Forder to the Jowf, but none would take the risk. So at last he lent him two of his own servants to lead him to Ithera—an oasis four hours' camel ride across the desert. So away they went across the desert and in the late afternoon saw the palms of Ithera.
"We have brought you a Christian," shouted the servants as they led Forder into a room full of men, and dumped his goods down on the floor. "We stick him on to you; do what you can with him."
"This is neither a Christian, nor a Jew, nor an infidel," shouted one of the men, "but a pig." He did not know that Forder understood Arabic.
"Men," he replied boldly, "I am neither pig, infidel, nor Jew. I am a Christian, one that worships God, the same God as you do."
"If you are a Christian," exclaimed the old Chief, "go and sit among the cattle!" So Forder went to the further end of the room and sat between an old white mare and a camel.
Soon a man came in, and walking over to Forder put his hand out and shook his. He sat down by him and, talking very quietly so that the others should not hear, said: "Who are you, and from where do you come?"
"From Jerusalem," said Forder. "I am a Christian preacher."
"If you value your life," went on the stranger, "you will get out of this as quickly as you can, or the men, who are a bad lot, will kill you. I am a Druze[70] but I pretend to be a Moslem."
"What sort of a man is the Chief of Ithera?" asked Forder.
"Very kind," was the reply. So the friendly stranger went out. Forder listened carefully to the talk.
"Let us cut his throat while he is asleep," said one man.
"No," said the Chief. "I will not have the blood of a Christian on my house and town."
"Let us poison his supper," said another. But the Chief would not agree.
"Drive him out into the desert to die of hunger and thirst," suggested a third. "No," said the Chief, whose name was Khy-Khevan, "we will leave him till the morning."
Forder was then called to share supper with the others, and afterwards the Chief led him out to the palm gardens, so that his evil influence should not make the beasts ill; half an hour later, fearing he would spoil the date-harvest by his presence, the Chief led him to a filthy tent where an old man lay with a disease so horrible that they had thrust him out of the village to die.
The next day Forder found that later in the week the old Chief himself was going to the Jowf. Ripping open the waistband of his trousers, Forder took out four French Napoleons (gold coins worth 16s. each) and went off to the Chief, whom he found alone in his guest room.
Walking up to him Forder held out the money saying, "If you will let me go to the Jowf with you, find me camel, water and food, I will give you these four pieces."
"Give them to me now," said Khy-Khevan, "and we will start after to-morrow."
"No," replied Forder, "you come outside, and before the men of the place I will give them to you; they must be witnesses." So in the presence of the men the bargain was made.
In the morning the camels were got together—about a hundred
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