And now he sat overlooking the enigmatic city, and asking himself again what he really knew of his superior. Mr. Blandhorn had come to Eloued as a young man, extremely poor, and dependent on the pittance which the Missionary Society at that time gave to its representatives. To ingratiate himself among the people (the expression was his own), and also to earn a few pesetas, he had worked as a carpenter in the bazaar, first in the soukh of the ploughshares and then in that of the cabinet-makers. His skill in carpentry had not been great, for his large eloquent hands were meant to wave from a pulpit, and not to use the adze or the chisel; but he had picked up a little Arabic (Willard always marvelled that it remained so little), and had made many acquaintances—and, as he thought, some converts. At any rate, no one, either then or later, appeared to wish him ill, and during the massacre his house had been respected, and the insurgents had even winked at the aid he had courageously given to the French. Yes—he had certainly been courageous. There was in him, in spite of his weaknesses and his vacillations, a streak of moral heroism that perhaps only waited its hour.... But hitherto his principle had always been that the missionary must win converts by kindness, by tolerance, and by the example of a blameless life. Could it really be Harry Spink’s question that had shaken him in this belief? Or was it the long-accumulated sense of inefficiency that so often weighed on his disciple? Or was it simply the call—did it just mean that their hour had come? Shivering a little in spite of the heat, Willard pulled himself together and descended into the city. He had been seized with a sudden desire to know what Mr. Blandhorn was about, and avoiding the crowd he hurried back by circuitous lanes to the Mission. On the way he paused at a certain corner and looked into a court full of the murmur of water. Beyond it was an arcade detached against depths of shadow, in which a few lights glimmered. White figures, all facing one way, crouched and touched their foreheads to the tiles, the soles of their bare feet, wet with recent ablutions, turning up as their bodies swayed forward. Willard caught the scowl of a beggar on the threshold, and hurried past the forbidden scene. He found Mr. Blandhorn in the meeting-room, tying up Ayoub’s head. “I do it awkwardly,” the missionary mumbled, a safety-pin between his teeth. “Alas, my hands are not _hers_.” “What’s he done to himself?” Willard growled; and above the bandaged head Mr. Blandhorn’s expressive eyebrows answered. There was a dark stain on the back of Ayoub’s faded shirt, and another on the blue scarf he wore about his head. “Ugh—it’s like cats slinking back after a gutter-fight,” the young man muttered. Ayoub wound his scarf over the bandages, shambled back to the doorway, and squatted down to watch the fig-tree. The missionaries looked at each other across the empty room.