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“I have saved thee and those quaint worthies a mejidi apiece. Art thou not grateful?” laughed Milhem, as they issued forth into the morning sunlight.

Instantly their ears were assailed with the shouts of carriage drivers, and a mob of porters pressed on them, shouting also and gesticulating, shouldering one another roughly in the strife for employment. The Bey had one arm round his brother’s neck. With the other he signaled to the most importunate of the carriage drivers, who shook his reins in triumph; the while he continued:

“Praise to Allah, that ordeal is ended. May all the Franks rot painfully, and their fathers be consumed with fire! But it is the will of the Sultàn that we mix with them and learn their ways. For me, to hear is to obey. What am I but a servant?... I proceed to the city Esh-Shâm by the coach this evening. That Greek dog, my secretary, follows with the baggage. There I obtain my soldiers from the Wâly—a hundred only, not half enough to overawe those wild beasts. Go thou, upon arrival in that city, to the khan of Ahmed Effendi, the same who was the steward of our father’s property. I shall seek thee there.... Allah be with thee now and always, O my beloved!”