ue against me at Stamboul, he managed to supplant me, I
swore a solemn oath that I would never recognise the Government nor
seek its sanction so long as he remained its representative. And now
the Consul bids me have recourse to him. By Allah, I would sooner be
impaled alive.'

He paused a moment, swallowing his rage, then added:

'This, however, I will do. I will summon all the chiefs of all my
people--every head of every family--hither to your presence and
command them all to witness that the property is yours. I will make
them swear to defend you and your successors in possession of it with
their lives if need be, and to leave the obligation as a sacred charge
to their descendants. That, I think, would be sufficient to assure you
undisturbed possession if I die, as well I may, of this unheard-of
treatment. And if I live till happier times--that is, to see the
downfall of my enemy--then you shall have the Government certificate
which the Consul deems of such immense importance.'

I now know that the kind of treaty which he thus proposed, laying a
solemn charge on all his people--who would have been, of course, my
neighbours--to defend my right, would have been worth a good deal
more than any legal document in that wild country. The Armenian
gentleman, who was delighted that his mortgage still held good, told
me as much when next I saw him in the city. He thought me foolish not
to jump at it, particularly when the land was offered to me for a
song. But the Consul's prohibition, and the warnings of the English
colony, possessed more weight with me just then than his opinion, or,
indeed, my own, for I was very young.

I told the chieftain it was not enough.

'Then I am truly sorry,' he replied, with dignity; 'but there the
matter ends. I have told your Honour the reason why I cannot go to
court at present.'

Rashid was sad when I informed him of my failure. Once more he cursed
the Druzes and all Consuls. And as we rode back through the mountains
he was wrapped in thought. He came at length to the conclusion that
this, too, redounded to our honour, since anybody less exalted than
ourselves would certainly have jumped at such an offer as the chief
had made to me. But everything, for us, must be performed in the most
perfect manner. We were tremendous sticklers for formality.

There was only one thing he could not get over.

'It is the triumph of our enemy, that Sheykh Huseyn,' he told me. 'I
hate to think of him