t of punishment for him,'
replied the spokesman of the murderers, with rueful smile. 'But his
brother was the servant of a foreign merchant--a Greek from overseas,
I think it was--who put the business in his Consul's hands, and
so----' The speaker clicked his thumbnail on his white front teeth to
signify finality. 'But the poor man himself does not object; it seems
indeed that he is glad to go with us. Perhaps by labour and harsh
treatment he may be relieved.'

As there were still provisions in our saddle-bags, Rashid, by my
command, divided them among the company, the soldiers and the
murderers alike, who were delighted. It was a merry party which we
left behind, with the exception of the fratricide, who ate the food,
when it was set before him, ravenously, but said not a word.

'May Allah heal him!' sighed the other murderers. 'Our Lord remove
this shadow from his mind!'

Rashid and I pursued our way on an interminable path meandering in
zig-zags down through brushwood, which smelt sweet of myrtle and wild
incense. I tried to make him understand that he had quite misled me by
the term he had applied to men who had been guilty of no more than
manslaughter. The distinction had to be explained with much
periphrasis, because the Arabic word 'Catil' means a slayer, and is
given indiscriminately to all who kill.

He caught my meaning sooner than I had expected.

'Ah!' he said. 'Your Honour thought from what I said that they were
"cutters of the road,"[7] or hired assassins, who kill men for gain.
Those are the greater criminals, whose punishment is death. Few such
exist among us. Here a robber will seldom kill a man unless that man
kills him.' [I translate literally] 'when it is just retaliation; and
as for hired assassins, I have known several of them in my time, and
they are not bad people, but unfortunate, having fallen early in the
power of cruel and ambitious men. Most of the killing in this country
is done without a thought, in anger or mad jealousy.'

'Is it for man to judge them?' he exclaimed, with a high shrug, when I
remarked upon their friendly treatment by the Turkish guards. 'They
are punished by authority down here, so we are better; but afterwards,
when comes the Judgment of the Lord, we may be worse. It is hard upon
those men we met just now. They go to prison, most of them, because
they were not rich enough to pay the sum demanded as the price of
blood. For men of wealth, or who have rich relations,