l-luck is following. For on his way back to the Hotel,
a knot of boys, lying in wait in one of the side streets, cast stones
at him. He looks back, and a missile whizzes above his head, another
hits him in the forehead almost undoing the doctor's work. Alas, that
wound! Will it ever heal? Khalid takes shelter in one of the shops; a
cameleer rates the boys and chases them away. The stoning was repeated
the following day, and the cause of it, Shakib tells us, is patent.
For when it became known in Baalbek that Khalid, the excommunicated
one, is living in the Hotel, and with an American woman! the old
prejudices against him were aroused, the old enemies were astirring.
The priests held up their hands in horror; the women wagged their long
tongues in the puddle of scandal; and the most fanatical shrieked out,
execrating, vituperating, threatening even the respectable Shakib, who
persists in befriending this muleteer's son. Excommunicated, he now
comes with this Americaniyah (American woman) to corrupt the
community. Horrible! We will even go farther than this boy's play of
stoning. We present petitions to the kaiemkam demanding the expulsion
of this Khalid from the Hotel, from the City.

From other quarters, however, come heavier charges against Khalid. The
Government of Damascus has not been idle ever since the seditious
lack-beard Sheikh disappeared. The telegraph wires, in all the
principal cities of Syria, are vibrating with inquiries about him,
with orders for his arrest. One such the kaiemkam of Baalbek had just
received when the petition of the "Guardians of the Morals of the
Community" was presented to him. To this, the kaiemkam, in a
perfunctory manner, applies his seal, and assures his petitioners that
it will promptly be turned over to the proper official. But Turk as
Turks go, he "places it under the cushion," when they leave. Which
expression, translated into English means, he quashes it.

Now, by good chance, this is the same kaiemkam who sent Khalid a year
ago to prison, maugre the efforts and importunities and other
inducements of Shakib. And this time, he will do him and his friend a
good turn. He was thinking of the many misfortunes of this Khalid, and
nursing a little pity for him, when Shakib entered to offer a written
complaint against a few of the more noted instigators of the
assailants of his friend. His Excellency puts this in his pocket and
withdraws with Shakib into another room. A few minutes af