If Sabron or Miss Redmond could have seen him he would have seemed the epitome of heartless egoism. He was the epitome of wisdom. Instinct and wisdom sometimes go closely together. Solomon was only instinctive when he asked for wisdom. The epicurean Lucullus, when dying, asked for a certain Nile fish cooked in wine. Pitchouné shook out his short hairy body and came out of the oasis pool into the sunlight and trotted into the Arabian village. * * * * * * * Fatou Anni parched corn in a brazier before her house. Her house was a mud hut with yellow walls. It had no roof and was open to the sky. Fatou Anni was ninety years old, straight as a lance--straight as one of the lances the men of the village carried when they went to dispute with white people. These lances with which the young men had fought, had won them the last battle. They had been victorious on the field. Fatou Anni was the grandmother of many men. She had been the mother of many men. Now she parched corn tranquilly, prayerfully. "Allah! that the corn should not burn; Allah! that it should be sweet; Allah! that her men should be always successful." She was the fetish of the settlement. In a single blue garment, her black scrawny breast uncovered, the thin veil that the Fellaheen wear pushed back from her face, her fine eyes were revealed and she might have been a priestess as she bent over her corn! "Allah! Allah Akbar!" Rather than anything should happen to Fatou Anni, the settlement would have roasted its enemies alive, torn them in shreds. Some of them said that she was two hundred years old. There was a charmed ring drawn around her house. People supposed that if any creature crossed it uninvited, it would fall dead. The sun had risen for an hour and the air was still cool. Overhead, the sky, unstained by a single cloud, was blue as a turquoise floor, and against it, black and portentous, flew the vultures. Here and there the sun-touched pools gave life and reason to the oasis. Fatou Anni parched her corn. Her barbaric chant was interrupted by a sharp bark and a low pleading whine. She had never heard sounds just like that. The dogs of the village were great wolf-like creatures. Pitchouné's bark was angelic compared with theirs. He crossed the charmed circle drawn around her house, and did not fall dead, and stood before her, whining. Fatou Anni left her corn, stood upright and looked at Pitchouné. To her the Irish terrier was an apparition. The fact that he had not fallen dead proved that he was beloved of Allah. He was, perhaps, a genie, an afrit. Pitchouné fawned at her feet. She murmured a line of the Koran. It did not seem to affect his demonstrative affection. The woman bent down to him after making a pass against the Evil Eye, and touched him, and Pitchouné licked her hand.