ble-owner, who was something of a blood, proposed
that we should ride together out towards Bethlehem. His horse was a
superb and showy stallion, quite beyond his power to manage properly.
My modest steed was fired to emulation, and, once beyond the outskirts
of Jerusalem, we tore away. At a corner where the road was narrow
between rocks, I do not know exactly how, the big horse cannoned into
mine and overturned him. I pitched headlong on some stones.

My first impression was that I had struck a wet spot in that arid
wilderness. Then I saw my horse at a great distance, galloping, and
heard the nephew of the owner saying that he must pursue it, while I
must mount his horse and ride on slowly.

'Not half a mile from here, upon that hill,' he said, 'is Katamun, the
country seat of the Greek Patriarch. There you are certain to find
people who will have compassion. Would God that I had never lived to
see this day! Would God that I were in the grave instead of you!'

He seemed beside himself with grief and fear on my account; and yet
the sense of property remained supreme. His first concern was to
retrieve the runaway.

Bewildered and unable to see clearly, I did not mount the horse, which
would have mastered me in that condition, but led him slowly up the
hill to Katamun. Upon the top there was a grove of trees, above which
peeped some flat roofs and a dome. At length I reached the gate of
this enclosure. It was open, and I led the horse along a sort of
drive, on which were many chickens and a tethered sheep, which,
bolting round a tree at our approach, became inextricably tangled in
its rope.

In a court between a little church and other buildings, a grim old
woman in a coloured head-veil looked at me out of a doorway. I called
to her that I had had an accident, and asked the favour of some
washing-water and a bandage. She stared at me in doleful wise, and
shook her head.

'Water! Bring me water!' I insisted.

She went indoors and fetched a man of the same breed, whose eyes grew
large and dull with horror at the sight of me.

Again I asked to be allowed to wash my head and face.

I heard the woman whisper: 'Shall I bring it?' and the man reply: 'Let
be! This blood-stained form is half a corpse already. He will surely
die. The horse, perhaps, is stolen. There has been a fight. If we
should touch him we might be concerned in it. Wait till the end. Then
we will summon his Beatitude, and have our testimony written dow