we were then some way below the village, we did not go back thither,
but rode off along a path through orchards till we found the road to
the ravine.

At taking leave, the eyes of Sheykh Huseyn met mine a moment. They
were large, benevolent, brown eyes, and they expressed much inward
sorrow, while on his lips there broke the smile demanded of
politeness.

'Au refoir, mon cher! Au blaisir!' cried his hopeful son.

Rashid came up behind me as we rode along, and poured into my ear a
wondrous tale of how the Sheykh Huseyn was our ill-wisher and would
do his best to make things lively for us if we took the place. He had
conversed with people of the village while we viewed the house.

'But the majority are in our favour,' he assured me, with grave
satisfaction. 'They do not love the Sheykh Huseyn, who is a miser and
a hypocrite. They say, please God, we shall humiliate him to the very
depth of shame.'

He spoke as if we were at war, and within sight of victory, as if we
were already settled in the place. And I was glad, because it augured
well for my content if I should buy the place, which I was now
resolved to do if I could anyhow afford it.

'The price will be too great, I fear,' was my reply; whereat he
sighed, observing that the place was of a nature to exalt our honour.

Returning to the castle of the chieftain, I was ushered to his private
chamber, where I broached at once the burning question of the price.
He said: 'God knows I wish to give thee house and land since thou
desirest them. But I have a mortgage on some other lands of mine which
vexes me, because, though I can find the interest--which is
exorbitant--each year, I cannot in this country lay my hands upon the
principal. Discharge that debt for me and, God reward thee, take the
house and land.'

He named a sum of money. I could not believe my ears, it was so little
as compared with what I judged to be the value of the property. It was
well within the sum at my disposal. I wished to write a cheque out
there and then; but he forbade me, saying: 'Allah knows I might mislay
the paper or destroy it in a moment of forgetfulness. Do thou in
kindness pay my creditor and bring me the discharge.'

He named an Armenian gentleman of my acquaintance--an amiable, learned
man of modest means, the last person in the country whom I should have
thought a usurer. Nor was he one habitually, for he himself informed
me that this loan to the Druze chieftain was his sole