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.

Rash?d 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 fellah?n on foot mobbing Rash?d. 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 Rash?d 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 up and dragged my horse away, and made this noise. They say the water in the spring is theirs, and no one else has any right to touch it. I offered to make payment, but they would not hear me. I threatened them with vengeance, but they showed no fear. Is it your Honour's will that I should beat a few of them?'

Seeing their numbers, I considered it the wiser plan for us to let them be till their excitement had cooled down, and till Suleyman arrived to help us with advice. Accordingly, I smiled and nodded to the villagers, and rode back up the path a little way, Rash?d obeying my example with reluctance, muttering curses on their faith and ancestry. Then we dismounted and lay down in the shadow of some rocks. It wanted still two hours before the sun would set.

Suleyman came on us, and dismounted at a call from me.

'What is the noise down there?' he questioned, looking at the village with that coolness, like indifference, habitual to his face when meeting problems of importance.

'They will not let us touch the water-curse their fathers!' growled Rash?d. 'Heard anyone the like of such inhospitality? It would but serve them right if we destroyed their houses.'

Suleyman screwed up his eyes, the better to survey the crowd of villagers below, who now sat guard around the spring, and murmured carelessly:

'It is evident that thou hast angered them, O son of rashness. We shall do well to wait before approaching them again with our polite request.'

Therewith he stretched his length upon the ground, with a luxurious sigh, and would, I think, have gone to sleep, had not Rash?d, conceiving himself blamed, thought necessary to relate in full the whole adventure.

'What else could man have done?' he asked defiantly. 'Say in what respect, however trifling, did I act unwisely?'

'By Allah, thou didst nothing wrong, and yet thou mightest have done better, since thy efforts led to failure,' said the sage, benignly. 'Thou art a soldier yet in thought, and thy one method is to threaten. If that avails not, thou art helpless. There are other ways.'

'I offered money,' cried Rash?d indignantly. 'Could man do more?'

'What are those other ways? Instruct us, O beloved!' I put in, to save Rash?d from feeling lonely under blame for ignorance.

'No truly great one ever argues with a crowd. He chooses out one man, and speaks to him, him only,' said Suleyman; and he was going to tell us more, but just then something in the wadi down below the village caught his eye, and he sat up, forgetting our dilemma.

'A marvel!' he exclaimed after a moment spent in gazing. 'Never, I suppose, since first this village was created, have two Franks approached it in a single day before. Thou art as one of us in outward seeming,' he remarked to me; 'but yonder comes a perfect Frank with two attendants.'

We looked in the direction which his finger pointed, and beheld a man on horseback clad in white from head to foot, with a pith helmet and a puggaree, followed by two native servants leading sumpter-mules.

'Our horses are in need of water,' growled Rash?d, uninterested in the sight. 'It is a sin for those low people to refuse it to us.'

'Let us first wait and see how this newcomer fares, what method he adopts,' replied Suleyman, reclining once more at his ease.

The Frank and his attendants reached the outskirts of the village, and headed naturally for the spring. The fellah?n, already put upon their guard by Rash?d's venture, opposed them in a solid mass. The Frank expostulated. We could hear his voice of high command.

'Aha, he knows some Arabic. He is a missionary, not a traveller,' said Suleyman, who now sat up and showed keen interest. 'I might have known it, for the touring season is long past.'

He rose with dignified deliberation and remounted. We followed him as he rode slowly down towards the scene of strife. When we arrived, the Frank, after laying about him vainly with his riding-whip, had drawn out a revolver. He was being stoned. His muleteers had fled to a safe distance. In another minute, as it seemed, he would have shot some person, when nothing under Allah could have saved his life.

Suleyman cried out in English: 'Don't you be a fool, sir! Don't you fire!'

The Frank looked round in our direction, with an angry face; but Suleyman bestowed no further thought on him. He rode up to the nearest group of fellah?n, crying aloud:

'O true believers! O asserters of the Unity! Bless the Prophet, and inform me straightway what has happened!'

Having captured their attention by this solemn adjuration, he inquired:

'Who is the chief among you? Let him speak, him only!'

Although the crowd had seemed till then to be without a leader, an old white-bearded man was thrust before him, with the cry:

'Behold our Sheykh, O lord of judgment. Question him!'

Rash?d and I heard nothing of the conversation which ensued, except the tone of the two voices, which appeared quite friendly, and some mighty bursts of laughter from the crowd. No more stones were thrown, although some persons still kept guard over the spring.

At length Suleyman returned to us, exclaiming:

'All is well. They grant us leave to take what water we require. The spring has been a trouble to these people through the ages because the wandering tribes with all their herds come here in time of drought and drink it dry. But now they are our friends, and make us welcome.'

He called out to the Frank, who all this while had sat his horse with an indignant air, more angry, as it seemed, to be forgotten than to be assailed:

'It is all right. You take the water and you pay them five piastres.'

'It is extortion!' cried the Frank. 'What right have they to charge me money for the water of this natural spring, which is the gift of God? I will not pay.'

'No matter. I pay for you,' shrugged Suleyman.

I tried to make the missionary-for such he proved to be upon acquaintance-understand that the conditions in that desert country made the spring a valued property, and gave a price to every pitcherful of water.

'What! Are you English?' was his only answer, as he scanned my semi-native garb with pity and disgust. 'And who, pray, is that person with you who was rude to me?'

'His name is Suleyman. He is a friend of mine.'

'A friend, I hardly think,' replied the Frank, fastidiously. He was a big man, with a dark complexion and light eyes. 'I am going to camp here to-night. I have a tent. Perhaps you will be good enough to come and sup with me. Then we can talk.'

'With pleasure,' I made answer, taken by surprise.

'Where is your camp?' he asked.

'We haven't got one. We put up in the guest-room if there is one, or under the stars.'

'Well, there's no accounting for tastes,' he murmured, with a sneer.

Rash?d, through all this conversation, had been standing by, waiting to tell me that Suleyman had gone before into the village to the headman's house, where it had been arranged that we should pass the night. Thither we went, when I had finished speaking to the missionary; and there we found Suleyman enthroned among the village elders in a long, low room. He stood up on my entrance, as did all the others, and explained:

'We have a room near by where we can throw our saddle-bags, but it is verminous, and so we will not sleep inside it, but outside-on the roof. For supper we are the invited guests of the good sheykh, and I can tell you he is getting ready a fine feast.'

With deep regret and some degree of shame I told him of my promise to take supper with the missionary. He looked reproach at me, and told the villagers what I had said. They all cried out in disappointment. Suleyman suggested that I should revoke the promise instantly, but that I would not do, to his annoyance; and after that, till it was time for me to go, he and Rash?d were sulky and withdrew their eyes from me. I knew that they were jealous of the Frank, whom they regarded as an enemy, and feared lest he should turn my mind against them.

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