ited guests of the good sheykh, and I
can tell you he is getting ready a fine feast.'

With deep regret and some degree of shame I told him of my promise to
take supper with the missionary. He looked reproach at me, and told
the villagers what I had said. They all cried out in disappointment.
Suleyman suggested that I should revoke the promise instantly, but
that I would not do, to his annoyance; and after that, till it was
time for me to go, he and Rashid were sulky and withdrew their eyes
from me. I knew that they were jealous of the Frank, whom they
regarded as an enemy, and feared lest he should turn my mind against
them.

CHAPTER X

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

It was dusk when I set out for the missionary's tent, and starlit
night before I reached it--so fleeting is the summer twilight in that
land.

Rashid went with me, as in duty bound, and insisted on remaining with
the servants of the missionary by the cook's fire, although I told him
to go back repeatedly, knowing how his mouth must water for the
headman's feast. The dudgeon which he felt at my desertion made him
determined not to let me out of sight, and called for the martyrdom of
someone, even let that someone be himself.

The missionary called: 'Come in!' while I was still a good way off the
tent. Entering, I found him stretched on a deck-chair, with hands
behind his head. He did not rise upon my entrance, but just smiled and
pointed to another chair beyond a little folding table laid for
supper.

He spoke of the day's heat and the fatigues of travel and the flies;
and asked me how I could endure to sleep in native hovels full of
fleas and worse.

I told him that, by Suleyman's arrangement, we were to sleep upon the
roof for safety. He sniffed.

I then related a discussion I had overheard between Rashid and
Suleyman as to the best way of defeating those domestic pests,
thinking to make him laugh. Rashid had spoken of the virtues of a
certain shrub; but Suleyman declared the best specific was a new-born
baby. This, if laid within a room for a short while, attracted every
insect. The babe should then be carried out and dusted. The missionary
did not even smile.

'The brutes!' he murmured. 'How can you, an Englishman, and apparently
a man of education, bear their intimacy?'

They had their good points, I asserted--though, I fear, but lamely;
for the robustness of his attitude impressed me, he being a man,
presumably, of wide experience,