and talked about Him till ten o'clock at night. As the
headman rose to go to his own rooms Forder offered to him, and he
gladly took, the copy of the New Testament in Arabic to read for
himself.

_Saved by the Mist_

Next morning early, Forder had his horses loaded and started off with
his face to the dawn. The track now led toward the great Castle of
Sulkhund, which he saw looming up on the horizon twenty-five miles
away, against the dull sky. But mist came down; wind, rain, and hail
buffeted him; the horses, to escape the hail in their faces, turned
aside, and the trail was lost. Mist hid everything. Forder's compass
showed that he was going south; so he turned east again; but he could
not strike the narrow, broken, stony trail.

Suddenly smoke could be seen, and then a hamlet of thirty houses
loomed up. Forder opened a door and a voice came calling, "Welcome!"
He went in and saw some Arabs crouching there out of the rain. A fire
of dried manure was made; the smoke made Forder's eyes smart and the
tears run down his cheeks. He changed into another man's clothes, and
hung his own up in the smoke to dry.

"Where are we?" he asked. The men told him that he was about two and
a half hours' ride from the castle and two hours off the track that he
had left in the mist. The men came in from the other little houses to
see the stranger and sip coffee. Forder again brought out an Arabic
New Testament and found to his surprise that some of the men could
read quite well and were very keen on his books. So they bought some
of the Bibles from him. They had no money but paid him in dried figs,
flour and eggs. At last they left him to curl up on the hard floor;
and in spite of the cold and draughts and the many fleas he soon fell
asleep.

As dawn came up he rose and started off: there (as he climbed out of
the hollow in which the hamlet lay) he could see the Castle Sulkhund.
He knew that the Turks did not want any foreigner to enter that land
of the Arabs, and that if he were seen, he would certainly be ordered
back. Yet he could not hide, for the path ran close under the castle,
and on the wall strode the sentry. The plain was open; there was no
way by which he could creep past.

At last he came to the hill on which the castle stood. At that very
moment a dense mist came down; he walked along, lost the track, and
found it again. Then there came a challenge from the sentry. He could
not see the sentry or the sentry him. So h