room, and flung them out. It was after that revolting episode,
when I was really angry for a moment, that Rashid came to me and said:

'You hate this hypocrite; is it not so?'

'By Allah,' I replied, 'I hate him.'

He seemed relieved by the decision of my tone, and then informed me:

'I know a person who would kill him for the sake of thirty English
pounds.'

It became, of course, incumbent on me to explain that, with us
English, hatred is not absolute as with the children of the
Arabs--mine had already reached the laughing stage. He was evidently
disappointed, and answered with a weary sigh:

'May Allah rid us of this foul oppression!'

It was a bitter pill for him, whose whole endeavour was for my
aggrandisement, to see me treated like a menial by our guest; who,
one fine evening, had me summoned to his presence--I had been sitting
with some village elders in the olive grove behind the house--and made
to me a strange proposal, which Rashid declared by Allah proved his
perfect infamy. His manner was for once quite amiable. Leaning back in
a deck-chair, his two hands with palms resting on his waistcoat, the
fingers raised communicating at the tips, he said, with clerical
complacency:

'It is my purpose to make a little tour to visit missionary ladies at
three several places in these mountains, and then to go on to Jezzin
to see the waterfall. As you appear to know the country and the people
intimately, and can speak the language, it would be well if you came
too. The man Rashid could wait upon us all.'

Rashid, I knew, was listening at the door.

'Us all? How many of you are there, then?'

He hemmed a moment ere replying:

'I--er--think of taking the Miss Karams with me'--Miss Sara Karam, a
young lady of Syrian birth but English education, was head teacher at
the girls' school, and her younger sister, Miss Habibah Karam, was
her constant visitor--'I thought you might take charge of the younger
of the two. The trip will give them both great pleasure, I am sure.'

And they were going to Jezzin, where there was no hotel, and we should
have to herd together in the village guest-room! What would my Arab
friends, censorious in all such matters, think of that?

I told him plainly what I thought of the idea, and what the
mountain-folk would think of it and all of us. I told him that I had
no wish to ruin any woman's reputation, nor to be forced into unhappy
marriage by a public scandal. He, as a visitor, would