host remarked in comfortable tones that flesh is grass, all
treasure perishable, and that it behoves a man to fix desire on higher
things. Whereat Rashid sprang up, as one past patience, and departed,
darting through the cattle in the yard with almost supernatural
agility. 'Let him eat his rage alone!' the host advised me, with a
shrug.

Having ordered supper for the third hour of the night, I, too, went
out to stretch my limbs, which were stiff and bruised from four
hours' jolting in a springless carriage, always on the point of
overturning. We should have done better to have come on horseback in
the usual way; but Rashid, having chanced upon the carriage, a great
rarity, had decided on that way of going as more fashionable,
forgetful of the fact that there was not a road.

The stars were out. In the few shops which still kept open lanterns
hung, throwing streaks of yellow light on the uneven causeway, a gleam
into the eyes of wayfarers and prowling dogs. Many of the people in
the streets, too, carried lanterns whose swing made objects in their
circle seem to leap and fall. I came at length into an open place
where there was concourse--a kind of square which might be called the
centre of the city.

The crowd there, as I noticed with surprise, was stationary, with all
its faces turned in one direction. I heard a man's voice weeping and
declaiming wildly.

'What is it?' I inquired, among the outskirts.

'A great misfortune!' someone answered. 'A poor servant has lost a
whip worth fifty Turkish pounds, his master's property. It was stolen
from him by a miscreant--a wicked cabman. His lord will kill him if
he fails to find it.'

Seized with interest, I shouldered my way forward. There was Rashid
against the wall of a large mosque, beating himself against that wall
with a most fearful outcry. A group of high-fezzed soldiers, the
policemen of the city, hung round him in compassion, questioning.
Happily, I wore a fez, and so was inconspicuous.

'Fifty Turkish pounds!' he yelled. 'A hundred would not buy its
brother! My master, the tremendous Count of all the English--their
chief prince, by Allah!--loves it as his soul. He will pluck out and
devour my heart and liver. O High Protector! O Almighty Lord!'

'What like was this said cabman?' asked a sergeant of the watch.

Rashid, with sobs and many pious interjections, described the cabman
rather neatly as 'a one-eyed man, full-bearded, of a form as if
inflated in the