ed.... My tears are like a vineyard's
fountain, O absent one...."

And here was Beirut again: here the snowy crest of Lebanon, here the
roadstead crowded with craft; here the mulberry groves. Here the
sparkling sapphire sea; here the turf blazing with poppies; here the
quiet pine road to Damascus; here the forests, excellent with cedars.
Here the twisting unexpected streets. Here his own quiet house, with the
courtyard and its fountain. Here the hum of the bazaars, here the
_ha-ha_ of the donkey boys, here the growling camels. Here the rugs on
the wall; here the little orange-trees. Here the two negress servants,
clean, efficient. Here color, and peace, and passion. Here Fenzile....

And this damned wrestler from Aleppo must go and spoil it all.

Section 4

He might have shipped with one of the great American clippers racing
around Cape Hope under rolling topsails, and become in his way as well
known as Donald Mackay was, who built and mastered the _Sovereign of the
Seas_, with her crew of one hundred and five, four mates and two
boatswains. He might have had a ship like Phil Dumaresq's _Surprise_,
that had a big eagle for her figurehead. He might have clipped the
record of the _Flying Cloud_, three hundred and seventy-four miles in
one day, steering northward and westward around Cape Horn. He might have
had a ship as big as the _Great Republic_, the biggest ship that ever
took the seas. He might have had one of the East Indiamen, and the state
of an admiral. He might have had one of the new adventurers in steel and
steam.

But fame and glory never allured him, and destiny did not call him to be
any man's servant. He was content to be his own master with his own
ship, and do whatsoever seemed to him good and just to do. If they
needed him and his boat anywhere, he would be there. When they needed
boats to America, he was there. But if they didn't need him, he was not
the one to thrust himself. Let destiny call.

Success, as it was called, was a thing of destiny. When destiny needed a
man, destiny tapped him on the shoulder. Failure, however, was a man's
own fault. There was always work to do. And it was up to every man to
find his work. If there was no room for him in a higher work it was no
excuse for his not working in a lower plane. There would be no failures,
he thought, if folk were only wise. If a man came a cropper in a big
way, it was because he had rushed into a work before Destiny, the
invisible infal