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“Leave me alone here, I entreat thee,” said Milhem, as if his teeth were set on edge. “Afterwards, upon land, I will explain all things.”

Shems-ud-dìn withdrew, much hurt. He made no further claim on his brother’s notice, but sat all day long in the company of three Turkish merchants, men of substance and of imperturbable phlegm, who spoke in proverbs between long sucks at the narghileh. At the rising of the night, when the evening prayer was ended, his black servant brought him food, and spread a bed for him beneath the stars. Once, ere he lay down, his ear caught the voice of Milhem at no great distance talking glibly in a foreign tongue, and by the light of one of the lamps he could distinguish his brother strolling amid a crowd of Franks, both men and women. They kept laughing the senseless, heathen laugh that knows not past or future, nor foresees the judgment of the last day.

The faces of Shems-ud-dìn’s companions were lost in night, except when the charcoal in the bowl of a narghileh glowed up redly as its owner drew on it. One said: