comfort to reflect that he was still technically a
Protestant, so might be taken to have sworn by the sacrament of that
sect which he knew to be without Divine significance. But all the same
his crime was very heinous.

Early in the morning following this grave event, Iskender was engaged
in sweeping out the entrance-hall, when his uncle strode in out of the
sunlight, of which he seemed an offshoot in his splendour of apparel.
More respectable than ever through pride in the command of a company of
high-born English bent on sight-seeing, he addressed his nephew from
the height of condescension:

"O son of my brother, I start this day upon a journey of ten days with
my party, and would say a word to thee before I go. Elias tells me
that both thou and he propose to ride forth with the young khawajah,
and show him something of the land. That is well. Elias, though
sometimes foolish, has experience; and I have told him to instruct thee
fully in our business. Go not too far, for travel in wild places is
too arduous for one so young; and Elias has little acquaintance with
the desert ways, and that little disastrous, he and all his party
having been captured and held to ransom by the Bedu, because he forgot
to pay the tribes their proper dues. Be cautious and observant. In
sh' Allah we shall all return in safety."

"In sh' Allah!" echoed Iskender in great astonishment; for it had that
minute occurred to him that he had no real knowledge of the whereabouts
of the place to which he had undertaken to conduct his patron, beyond
what Elias had implied, that it was somewhere in the neighbourhood of
Wady Musa. His first sentiment on the discovery was one of
thankfulness, because he had not sworn falsely in his oath to Yuhanna.

His next was one of self-abasement before Allah. Was not His mercy
boundless, like His power? During the few days which remained before
the start, he spent much time in prayer, and offered votive candles to
be burnt in Mitri's little church beneath the ilex-tree. Why should he
not find his way to the Valley of Gold, by the blessing of the All
Powerful? Did not his vision of the place, and the strange
concatenation of chances which had led him on to the adventure, seem to
indicate that he was destined to find it? Even if he failed, the Emir,
he told himself, would have had a pleasant outing, and could not in the
nature of things be very angry. Thus he lulled his fears.

The one thing left to