n, O my son!' he called out to the
person who had let us in. 'It is true what I have often told to thee.
This Englishman knows all about it. So does all the world, except such
blockheads as thyself and thy companions.'

His son begged to be excused a minute while he put his crops into the
barn. Therewith he dragged a sack out of the room. What crops he may
have grown I do not know; but this I know--the contents of that sack
clanked as he dragged it out.

When he returned, he brought a bowl of eggs cooked in clarified
butter, two slabs of bread, and a great jug of water, apologising for
the coarseness of the fare. We all supped together, the old man
babbling of the days of old with great excitement. His son stared at
me with unblinking eyes. At last he said:

'I like thee, O khawajah. I had once a son about thy age. Say, O my
father, is there not a strong resemblance?'

Thereafter he talked quite as much as the old man, giving me the
history of their emigration from the Caucasus to escape the yoke of
the accursed Muscovite, and enumerating all the troubles which
attended their first coming into Syria.

'We are not subjects of the Government,' he told me, 'but allies; and
we have special privileges. But the dishonoured dogs round here forget
old compacts, and want us to pay taxes like mere fellahin.'

We sat up talking far into the night, while the storm raged without,
and the rain and the sea-spray pounded on the shutters; and never have
I met with kinder treatment. It was the custom for chance comers to
have food at evening only and leave betimes next morning. But our
host, when I awoke in splendid sunlight, had breakfast ready--sour
milk and Arab bread and fragrant coffee--and when I went out to my
horse he followed me, and thrust two roasted fowls into my
saddle-bags, exclaiming 'Zad!'--which means 'food for the road.' And
much to my abashment he and the old man fell upon my neck and kissed
me on both cheeks.

'Good people! The very best of people! They would take no money. God
reward them,' chanted Rashid, as we rode out of the ruins inland
through a garden of wild flowers. The storm had passed completely. Not
a cloud remained.

After an hour we came in sight of a large khan outside a mud-built
village on the shore. Before it was a crowd, including several
soldiers. As we drew near, Rashid inquired the meaning of the throng.

'A great calamity,' he was informed. 'A man, a foreigner, is dying,
killed by hi