r Baalbek gave the world many a saint and
martyr along with its harlots and poets and philosophers. St. Minius,
St. Cyril and St. Theodosius, are the foremost among its holy
children; Ste. Odicksyia, a Magdalene, is one of its noted daughters.
These were as famous in their days as Ashtarout or Jupiter-Ammon. As
famous too is Al-Iman ul-Ouzaai the scholar; al-Makrizi the historian;
Kallinichus the chemist, who invented the Greek fire; Kosta ibn Luka,
a doctor and philosopher, who wrote among much miscellaneous rubbish a
treaty entitled, On the Difference Between the Mind and the Soul; and
finally the Muazzen of Baalbek to whom "even the beasts would stop to
listen." Ay, Shakib relates quoting al-Makrizi, who in his turn
relates, quoting one of the octogenarian Drivellers, _Muhaddetheen_
(these men are the chief sources of Arabic History) that he was told
by an eye and ear witness that when this celebrated Muazzen was once
calling the Faithful to prayer, the camels at the creek craned their
necks to listen to the sonorous music of his voice. And such was their
delight that they forgot they were thirsty. This, by the way of a
specimen of the _Muhaddetheen_. Now, about these historical worthies
of Baalbek, whom we have but named, Shakib writes whole pages, and
concludes--and here is the point--that Khalid might be a descendant of
any or all of them! For in him, our Scribe seriously believes, are
lusty strains of many varied and opposing humours. And although he had
not yet seen the sea, he longed when a boy for a long sea voyage, and
he would sail little paper boats down the stream to prove the fact. In
truth, that is what Shakib would prove. The devil and such logic had a
charm for us once, but no more.

Here is another bubble of retrospective analysis to which we apply the
needle. It is asserted as a basis for another astounding deduction
that Khalid used to sleep in the ruined Temple of Zeus. As if ruined
temples had anything to do with the formation or deformation of the
brain-cells or the soul-afflatus! The devil and such logic, we repeat,
had once a charm for us. But this, in brief, is how it came about.
Khalid hated the pedagogue to whom he had to pay a visit of courtesy
every day, and loved his cousin Najma whom he was not permitted to
see. And when he runs away from the bastinado, breaking in revenge the
icon of the Holy Virgin, his father turns him away from home.
Complaining not, whimpering not, he goes. And hear