to the north of the town was now a raging torrent,
he informed them. With his own eyes he had seen ten righteous men torn
off their feet and carried clean away. More than a hundred camels had
been swept far out to sea.

"He is a big liar, sir," Iskender whispered in the ear of his lord, who
appeared unduly stricken by these tidings; and in proof of the
assertion, he referred the matter to the sons of Musa, who said that a
donkey laden with vegetables had been washed away. Elias, in no wise
disconcerted, thanked God that things were no worse. But Iskender
triumphed, informed by the Frank's sneer that he had struck a
death-blow at his rival's influence. That done, he felt all kindness
for the handsome dragoman, now his manifest inferior, and encouraged
him to show off for the Emir's amusement. He even, in the course of
the day, assured his patron that Elias was not a bad man.

That evening the rain diminished sensibly; in the course of the night
it ceased. The dawn next day was cloudless when Iskender set out early
for his mother's house.

CHAPTER VII

"May Allah keep thee! Here is a nice to-do!" His mother, who had
spied Iskender from afar, stood in a gap of the cactus hedge with arms
akimbo. "Was ever woman blessed with such a son? The Father of Ice
was here before the rain, he and the Sitt Jane with him. They spoke
against thee ceaselessly for two hours, till my poor back ached with
standing there and bowing, and my head swam round with listening to
their tiresome iterations. Had I not heard it all before a thousand
times--thy idleness, thy kissing the Sitt Hilda, thy choice of low
companions in the town? And then thy friends--Elias, what a wretch!
Once, years ago, when conducting a party of travellers, he pushed his
horse among the ladies, who were on their donkeys. Unheard-of
insolence! He shouted--actually shouted at English ladies--to make
way; of course, they paid no heed to such impertinence, and then he
rode among them. Ma sh' Allah! And Mitri too! To hear them talk of
Mitri, any one would suppose the poor, good priest some dreadful ghoul.
. . . All that was empty talk, however spiteful, and Allah knows I am
well seasoned to it. But when they came to speak of thy Emir, and
swore to turn his mind against thee, I saw danger. What ailed thy wits
that thou must needs tell Costantin a tale of thy going to the land of
the English to study the art of painting at thy lord's expense? The