But in a few minutes the lights of a low steading appeared far off under poplar-trees, and as he waved his hand towards it he said: “That is my farm.” “Blessed be your farm,” said I, “and all who dwell in it.” To this he made the astonishing reply: “God will give it to you; I have none.” “What is that you say?” I asked him in amazement. He repeated the phrase, and then I saw that it was a form, and that it was of no importance whether I understood it or not. But I understood the next thing which he said as he stopped at his gates, which was: “Here, then, you get out.” I asked him what I should pay for the service, and he replied: “What you will. Nothing at all.” So I gave him a franc, which was all I had in silver. He took it with a magnificent salutation, saying as he did so: “I can accept nothing from you,” which, I take it, was again a form. Then the night swallowed him up, and I shall never see him again till that Great Day in which we both believed but of which neither of us could know anything at all. * * * * * We were born, I cannot tell how many leagues apart, in different climates and for different destinies, but we were two men together in the night, and, for a short time, we were very near each other compared with the distance of the stars, or with the distance that separates any two philosophers. * * * * * [Sidenote: The Goat-Story Again] Many who read this will say they know the Mohammedan better than I. They will be right: then let them explain the story of the goats, for I cannot. I will repeat it to save them the trouble of turning back. A young man of Ain-Yagout, hearing that the Government had carefully planted little cedars on a distant hill, drove his goats fifteen miles to browse upon the same. “Better,” said he, “that I should flourish than the Government, and that my goats should give milk than that these silly little trees should fatten.” They caught him and brought him before the magistrate, where he confessed what he had done, and even that he had lifted the goats laboriously, one by one, over a high wall to get at the Government trees. But when they asked him what good reason he could give for his conduct, he replied: “_R’aho!_ It was the will of God. _Mektoub_, it was written.” Or words to that effect. I will admit that when the full lips, the long uncertain eye and the tall forehead of the true Arab met me in these short travels I was always half silenced and half moved to question and to learn. But I saw such Oriental features rarely, for, in spite of the turban and the bernous, they are very rare. [Sidenote: The Moor]