may be evil as an
individual; all men are apt to be who strive for gain; but as a
member of a corporation he has pride and honour. With Europeans, it is
just the opposite. They individually are more honourable than their
governments and corporations. The Sheykh of the Thieves, I can assure
you, is the soul of honour. I go at once to see him. He can clear
Rashid.'

'If he does that, he is the best of men!' exclaimed my servant.

An hour later one of the hotel men, much excited, came to tell me that
some soldiers were approaching, who had caught the thief. The host and
all his family ran out into the hall. Rashid and all the servants came
from kitchen purlieus. Four soldiers entered with triumphant
exclamations, dragging and pushing forward--Suleyman!

The prisoner's demeanour had its usual calm.

'I have regained the belt,' he called to me. 'These men were watching
near the house, and found it on me. They would not hear reason. The
man who stole the belt--a Greek--has left the city. He gave the Sheykh
the belt, but kept the money.'

The soldiers, disappointed, let him go.

'How dost thou know all that?' inquired their leader.

'The Headman of the Thieves informed me of it.'

'Ah, then, it is the truth,' the soldier nodded. 'He is a man of
honour. He would not deceive thee.'

I do not claim to understand these things. I but relate them.

CHAPTER IX

MY COUNTRYMAN

One summer, in the south of Syria, amid that tumbled wilderness of
cliff and chasm, shale and boulder, which surges all around the Sea of
Lot, we had been riding since the dawn without encountering a human
being, and with relief at last espied a village, having some trace of
cultivated land about it, and a tree.

Rashid was on ahead. Suleyman had been beside me, but had dropped
behind in order to perform some operation on his horse's hoof. As I
came down the last incline on to the village level I heard angry
shouts, and saw a crowd of fellahin on foot mobbing Rashid. Urging my
horse, I shouted to him to know what was happening. At once a number
of the villagers forsook him and surrounded me, waving their arms
about and talking volubly.

I had gathered, from their iteration of the one word 'moyeh,' that
water was the matter in dispute, even before Rashid succeeded in
rejoining me.

He said: 'I rode up to the spring which flows beneath that arch, and
was letting my horse drink from the stone trough of water, when these
maniacs rushed u