In the market-place they parted. Willard Bent1, after some hesitation2, had asked Harry3 Spink to come to the Mission that evening. “You’d better come to supper — then we can talk quietly afterward4. Mr. Blandhorn will want to see you,” he suggested; and Mr. Spink had affably acquiesced5.
The prayer-meeting was before supper, and Willard would have liked to propose that his friend should come to that also; but he did not dare. He said to himself that Harry Spink, who had been merely a lay assistant, might have lost the habit of reverence6, and that it would be too painful to risk his scandalizing Mr. Blandhorn. But that was only a sham7 reason; and Willard, with his incorrigible8 habit of self-exploration, fished up the real one from a lower depth. What he had most feared was that there would be no one at the meeting.
During Mrs. Blandhorn’s lifetime there had been no reason for such apprehension9: they could always count on a few people. Mrs. Blandhorn, who had studied medicine at Ann Arbor10, Michigan, had early gained renown11 in Eloued by her miraculous12 healing powers. The dispensary, in those days, had been beset13 by anxious-eyed women who unwound skinny fig-coloured children from their dirty draperies; and there had even been a time when Mr. Blandhorn had appealed to the Society for a young lady missionary14 to assist his wife. But, for reasons not quite clear to Willard Bent, Mrs. Blandhorn, a thin-lipped determined15 little woman, had energetically opposed the coming of this youthful “Sister,” and had declared that their Jewish maid-servant, old Myriem, could give her all the aid she needed.
Mr. Blandhorn yielded, as he usually did — as he had yielded, for instance, when one day, in a white inarticulate fury, his wife had banished16 her godson, little Ahmed (whose life she had saved), and issued orders that he should never show himself again except at prayer-meeting, and accompanied by his father. Mrs. Blandhorn, small, silent and passionate17, had always — as Bent made out in his long retrospective musings — ended by having her way in the conflicts that occasionally shook the monotony of life at the Mission. After her death the young man had even suspected, beneath his superior’s sincere and vehement18 sorrow, a lurking19 sense of relief. Mr. Blandhorn had snuffed the air of freedom, and had been, for the moment, slightly intoxicated20 by it. But not for long. Very soon his wife’s loss made itself felt as a lasting21 void.
She had been (as Spink would have put it) “the whole show”; had led, inspired, organized her husband’s work, held it together, and given it the brave front it presented to the unheeding heathen. Now the heathen had almost entirely22 fallen away, and the too evident inference was that they had come rather for Mrs. Blandhorn’s pills than for her husband’s preaching. Neither of the missionaries23 had avowed24 this discovery to the other, but to Willard at least it was implied in all the circumlocutions and evasions25 of their endless talks.
The young man’s situation had been greatly changed by Mrs. Blandhorn’s death. His superior had grown touchingly26 dependent on him. Their conversation, formerly27 confined to parochial matters, now ranged from abstruse28 doctrinal problems to the question of how to induce Myriem, who had deplorably “relapsed,” to keep the kitchen cleaner and spend less time on the roofs. Bent felt that Mr. Blandhorn needed him at every moment, and that, during any prolonged absence, something vaguely29 “unfortunate” might happen at the Mission.
“I’m glad Spink has come; it will do him good to see somebody from outside,” Willard thought, nervously30 hoping that Spink (a good fellow at bottom) would not trouble Mr. Blandhorn by any of his “unsettling” questions.
At the end of a labyrinth31 of lanes, on the farther side of the Jewish quarter, a wall of heat-cracked clay bore the inscription32: “American Evangelical Mission.” Underneath33 it a door opened into a court where an old woman in a bright head-dress sat under a fig-tree pounding something in a mortar34.
She looked up, and, rising, touched Bent’s draperies with her lips. Her small face, withered35 as a dry medlar, was full of an ancient wisdom: Mrs. Blandhorn had certainly been right in trusting Myriem.
A narrow house-front looked upon the court. Bent climbed the stairs to Mr. Blandhorn’s study. It was a small room with a few dog-eared books on a set of rough shelves, the table at which Mr. Blandhorn wrote his reports for the Society, and a mattress36 covered with a bit of faded carpet, on which he slept. Near the window stood Mrs. Blandhorn’s sewing-machine; it had never been moved since her death.
The missionary was sitting in the middle of the room, in the rocking chair which had also been his wife’s. His large veined hands were clasped about its arms and his head rested against a patch-work cushion tied to the back by a shoe-lace. His mouth was slightly open, and a deep breath, occasionally rising to a whistle, proceeded with rhythmic37 regularity38 from his delicately-cut nostrils39. Even surprised in sleep he was a fine man to look upon; and when, at the sound of Bent’s approach, he opened his eyes and pulled himself out of his chair, he became magnificent. He had taken off his turban, and thrown a handkerchief over his head, which was shaved like an Arab’s for coolness. His long beard was white, with the smoker’s yellow tinge40 about the lips; but his eyebrows41 were jet-black, arched and restless. The gray eyes beneath them shed a mild benedictory beam, confirmed by the smile of a mouth which might have seemed weak if the beard had not so nearly concealed42 it. But the forehead menaced, fulminated or awed43 with the ever-varying play of the eyebrows. Willard Bent never beheld44 that forehead without thinking of Sinai.
Mr. Blandhorn brushed some shreds45 of tobacco from his white djellabah and looked impressively at his assistant.
“The heat is really overwhelming,” he said, as if excusing himself. He readjusted his turban, and then asked: “Is everything ready downstairs?”
Bent assented46, and they went down to the long bare room where the prayer-meetings were held. In Mrs. Blandhorn’s day it had also served as the dispensary, and a cupboard containing drugs and bandages stood against the wall under the text: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden47.”
Myriem, abandoning her mortar, was vaguely tidying the Arab tracts48 and leaflets that lay on the divan49 against the wall. At one end of the room stood a table covered with a white cloth, with a Bible lying on it; and to the left a sort of pulpit-lectern, from which Mr. Blandhorn addressed his flock. In the doorway50 squatted51 Ayoub, a silent gray-headed negro; Bent, on his own arrival at Eloued, ten years earlier, had found him there in the same place and the same attitude. Ayoub was supposed to be a rescued slave from the Soudan, and was shown to visitors as “our first convert.” He manifested no interest at the approach of the missionaries, but continued to gaze out into the sun-baked court cut in half by the shadow of the fig-tree.
Mr. Blandhorn, after looking about the empty room as if he were surveying the upturned faces of an attentive52 congregation, placed himself at the lectern, put on his spectacles, and turned over the pages of his prayer-book. Then he knelt and bowed his head in prayer. His devotions ended, he rose and seated himself in the cane53 arm-chair that faced the lectern. Willard Bent sat opposite in another arm-chair. Mr. Blandhorn leaned back, breathing heavily, and passing his handkerchief over his face and brow. Now and then he drew out his watch, now and then he said: “The heat is really overwhelming.”
Myriem had drifted back to her fig-tree, and the sound of the pestle54 mingled55 with the drone of flies on the window-pane. Occasionally the curses of a muleteer or the rhythmic chant of a water-carrier broke the silence; once there came from a neighbouring roof the noise of a short cat-like squabble ending in female howls; then the afternoon heat laid its leaden hush56 on all things.
Mr. Blandhorn opened his mouth and slept.
Willard Bent, watching him, thought with wonder and admiration57 of his past. What had he not seen, what secrets were not hidden in his bosom58? By dint59 of sheer “sticking it out” he had acquired to the younger man a sort of visible sanctity. Twenty-five years of Eloued! He had known the old mad torturing Sultan, he had seen, after the defeat of the rebels, the long line of prisoners staggering in under a torrid sky, chained wrist to wrist, and dragging between them the putrefying bodies of those who had died on the march. He had seen the Great Massacre60, when the rivers were red with French blood, and the Blandhorns had hidden an officer’s wife and children in the rat-haunted drain under the court; he had known robbery and murder and intrigue61, and all the dark maleficence of Africa; and he remained as serene62, as confident and guileless, as on the day when he had first set foot on that evil soil, saying to himself (as he had told Willard): “I will tread upon the lion and the adder63, the young lion and the dragon will I tread under foot.”
Willard Bent hated Africa; but it awed and fascinated him. And as he contemplated64 the splendid old man sleeping opposite him, so mysterious, so childlike and so weak (Mrs. Blandhorn had left him no doubts on that point), the disciple65 marvelled66 at the power of the faith which had armed his master with a sort of infantile strength against such dark and manifold perils67.
Suddenly a shadow fell in the doorway, and Bent, roused from his dream, saw Harry Spink tiptoeing past the unmoved Ayoub. The drummer paused and looked with astonishment68 from one of the missionaries to the other. “Say,” he asked, “is prayer-meeting over? I thought I’d be round in time.”
He spoke69 seriously, even respectfully; it was plain that he felt flippancy70 to be out of place. But Bent suspected a lurking malice71 under his astonishment: he was sure Harry Spink had come to “count heads.”
Mr. Blandhorn, wakened by the voice, stood up heavily.
“Harry Spink! Is it possible you are amongst us?”
“Why, yes, sir — I’m amongst. Didn’t Willard tell you? I guess Willard Bent’s ashamed of me.”
Spink, with a laugh, shook Mr. Bland-horn’s hand, and glanced about the empty room.
“I’m only here for a day or so — on business. Willard’ll explain. But I wanted to come round to meeting — like old times. Sorry it’s over.”
The missionary looked at him with a grave candour. “It’s not over — it has not begun. The overwhelming heat has probably kept away our little flock.”
“I see,” interpolated Spink.
“But now,” continued Mr. Blandhorn with majesty72, “that two or three are gathered together in His name, there is no reason why we should wait. — Myriem! Ayoub!”
He took his place behind the lectern and began: “Almighty and merciful Father — ”
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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acquiesced
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| v.默认，默许( acquiesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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incorrigible
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| adj.难以纠正的，屡教不改的 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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arbor
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| n.凉亭；树木 | |
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renown
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| n.声誉，名望 | |
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miraculous
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| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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vehement
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| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
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lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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missionaries
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| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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avowed
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| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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evasions
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| 逃避( evasion的名词复数 )； 回避； 遁辞； 借口 | |
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touchingly
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| adv.令人同情地，感人地，动人地 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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abstruse
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| adj.深奥的，难解的 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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labyrinth
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| n.迷宫；难解的事物；迷路 | |
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inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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mortar
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| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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mattress
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| n.床垫，床褥 | |
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rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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shreds
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| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
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assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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divan
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| n.长沙发；（波斯或其他东方诗人的）诗集 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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attentive
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| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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pestle
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| n.杵 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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56
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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dint
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| n.由于，靠；凹坑 | |
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massacre
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| n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀 | |
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intrigue
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| vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋 | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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adder
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| n.蝰蛇；小毒蛇 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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disciple
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| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
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marvelled
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| v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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flippancy
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| n.轻率；浮躁；无礼的行动 | |
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71
malice
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| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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