n enter his house and drink coffee, then took him
into the church. The door stood open. Iskender caught some fragments
of the priest's discourse, from which it appeared that he was
displaying vestments and a holy relic. When they emerged, the Frank
was thrusting money on the priest, who declined to take it, till
Iskender shouted:

"It is for the poor."

"For the poor, it is well." Mitri smiled and accepted the offering.
Then, with a knowing glance at the son of Yacub, he once more vanished
into the church, to reappear next minute with the great umbrella.
"Thou hast redeemed the pledge, my son," he said, as he restored it to
its lord, and winked discreetly. "But what have we here? By Allah,
thou art a complete painter, a professor of the art! There am I, like
life. There is my house, the church, the palm-trees. O young man,
thou art a devil at this work. A pity thou art a Brutestant, else thou
couldst make a trade of it, and make us pictures of the Blessed for our
churches. Come, O Nesibeh, see the pretty picture."

Iskender fixed his gaze upon the sketch. He dared not look up, for the
girl was at his shoulder. The whole population of the place, his foes
but yesterday, now gathered round him, praising Allah for his wondrous
talent; while the Emir denounced the bad quality of the paint-box, gift
of the Sitt Hilda, and swore to have a proper one sent out from
England. Iskender's heart was like to burst with pride and happiness.

CHAPTER IV

It wanted but an hour of sunset when Iskender parted from the Frank.
His very brain was laughing, and he trod on air as he strode off,
hugging the great umbrella. At noonday he had had his meal at the
hotel (no matter though it was flung to him in the entry as to a dog)
and afterwards had walked again with the Emir, showing his Honour the
chief buildings of the town. Not a few of his acquaintance had beheld
his glory, among them Elias the great talker. No doubt but that the
fame of it was noised abroad. In no hurry to go home, for his mother
had already heard the tidings, he bent his steps towards a tavern where
the dragomans were wont to assemble at that hour.

Leaving the road of red-roofed foreign houses in which was the hotel,
he crossed a stable-yard, and then a rubbish-heap, and passed through
tunnels to the main street of the town, a narrow, shaded way leading
down to the shore. Here, what with spanning arches and the merchants'
awnings, it was dar