We decided that unless we conformed to the custom of always beating down a bargain-adversary, the Druse would think we could be blackmailed for any amount of money. He might even regard too ready an acceptance of his terms as evidence that we did not mean to pay on arrival at "X." Finally, we told George to place the following terms before the Druse--one hundred pounds in gold on arrival, and fifty pounds paper when we were on horse-back and away from Damascus. For the present, nothing. As for George himself, he should receive fifty English pounds when we reached safety and his job in Australia. Next day George returned from the bazaar with the reply that the Druse would be satisfied with one hundred and twenty-five pounds in gold at "X," and agreed to leave the question of ready money for the horses until we were out of Damascus. He demanded another twenty pounds, paper, however, for the man who was to bring back the horses after we had ridden to the mountains at Deraa. To these terms we agreed, as the withdrawal of the demand for money in advance evidenced the genuine intentions of the Druse. "The Druse desires to spot you," said George, breaking into English. "To-morrow an officer will lead you to public baths. When I say to make attention, observe a man who carry yellow _burnous_ and robe." And so it happened. We had our bath, and, escorted by a Greek doctor in the Turkish army, with several guards and George the inevitable, we walked through the hot streets toward the bazaar. "Honest to God!" said George suddenly--for it had been agreed that this phrase should signal the presence of the Druse. I searched the crowd of Arabs gathered in the road at the corner of a narrow turning, and had no difficulty in picking out, right in the foreground, a tall, fierce-moustached man, with yellow robe and yellow head-dress. One hand rested on the bone butt of a long pistol stuck through his sash, and with the other he fingered the two rings round his _burnous_. He looked at us long and intently, especially at H., with his six feet four inches of magnificent physique; then backed into the growing crowd and disappeared. "Don't look to behind you, my dear," said George, whose inability to control himself had again blanched his face, "or my officer observe."