was so commanding yet persuasive that, when at length he
moved away, not children only but many also of the grown-up people
followed him.

The village was high up beneath the summit of a ridge, and from a
group of rocks within a stone's throw of it could be seen the sea, a
great blue wall extending north and south. We perched among those
rocks to watch the sunset. The village people settled within earshot,
some below and some above us. Presently an old man said:

'Thou speakest well, O sage! It is a sin for them to cry such things
behind a guest of quality. Their misbehaviour calls for strong
correction. But I truly think that no child who has heard your
Honour's sayings will ever be so impudent again.'

'Aman!'[3] cried one of the delinquents. 'Allah knows that our
intention was not very evil.'

I hastened to declare that the offence was nothing. But Suleyman would
not allow me to decry it.

'Your Honour is as yet too young,' he said severely, 'to understand
the mystic value of men's acts and words. A word may be well meant and
innocent, and yet the cause of much disaster, possessing in itself
some special virtue of malignity. You all know how the jann[4] attend
on careless words; how if I call a goat, a dog, or cat by its generic
name without pointing to the very animal intended, a jinni will as
like as not attach himself to me, since many of the jann are called by
names of animals. You all know also that to praise the beauty of a
child, without the offer of that child to Allah as a sacrifice, is
fatal; because there is unseen a jealous listener who hates and would
deform the progeny of Eve. Such facts as those are known to every
ignoramus, and their cause is plain. But there exists another and more
subtle danger in the careless use of words, particularly with regard
to personal remarks, like that of these same children when they cried
to our good master: 'Thou hast come in two,' directing the attention
to a living body. I have a rare thing in my memory which perhaps may
lead you to perceive my meaning darkly.

'A certain husbandman (fellah) was troubled with a foolish wife.
Having to go out one day, he gave her full instructions what to do
about the place, and particularly bade her fix her mind upon their
cow, because he was afraid the cow might stray, as she had done
before, and cause ill-feeling with the neighbours. He never thought
that such a charge to such a person, tending to concentrate the
woman's min