one save
the little maid sleeping within."

"Ah," said his host, "it is love, is it? I thought it was
commercialism."

"No," said Abdullah; "it is a question of how I can keep the woman I
love, and still keep my commercial integrity. She is consigned to me by
her father, to be delivered to Mirza, the mother of the dancers, in
Biskra. I am the trusted caravan owner between El Merb and Biskra. In
the last ten years I have killed many men who tried to rob my freight
of dates, and hides, and gold-dust. Now I long to rob my own freight of
the most precious thing I have ever carried. May I do it, and still be
a man; or must I deliver the damsel, re-cross the desert, return the
passage money to her father, come once more to Biskra, and find my love
the sport of the cafes?"

The Man who Keeps Goats rose and paced the floor.

"My son," he said, finally, "when the French occupied Algeria, they
made this bargain--'Mussulmans shall be judged by their civil law.' It
was a compromise and, therefore, a weakness. The civil law of the
Mohammedans is, virtually, the Koran. The law of France is, virtually,
the Code Napoleon. The parties to the present contract being
Mohammedans, it will be construed by their law, and it is not repugnant
to it. If, on the contrary, the damsel were a Christian, the French
commandant at Biskra would tear the contract to pieces, since it is
against morals. Better yet, if _you_ were a Christian, and the damsel
your wife, you might hold her in Biskra against the world."

Abdullah sat silent, his eyes half closed.

"Monsieur," he said at length, "is it very difficult to become a
Christian?"

The Man who Keeps Goats sat silent--in his turn.

"My son," he said, finally, "I myself am a priest of the Church. I have
lived in the desert for twenty years, but I have never been unfrocked.
I cannot answer you, but I can tell you what a wiser than I declared to
a desert traveller who put this same question nineteen hundred years
ago."

He took up the book upon the table, turned a few pages, and read--"'And
the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward
the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which
is desert. And he arose and went: and, behold, a man of Ethiopia, a
eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who
had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to
worship, was returning, and sitting in his chariot read Esaias