The next morning I received a caller whom I recognized at once as the stranger I had met in Nazzip. After I inquired how he got to Bagdad so soon, he told me he had joined the horsemen from Nazzip who protected me. I asked him what he meant by saying he knew me. "Were you at Jask, Persia?" he began. "Yes," I said, "Jask is where I saw, in the distance, those rocky, book-like mountains, so beautiful." "Did you go ashore?" "I did." "Did you see me?" "No." "On your return to the steamer did you assist two Mohammedan women?" "I did. Americans always assist the ladies." "Did you go ashore at Bahrein, Arabia?" I said, "Yes, that is where S. M. Zwemer, a missionary from the Dutch Reform Church of Holland, Michigan, rode with us on donkeys to Riggeb-Gem, that ruin more ancient than Babylon." "On the return to the steamer did you assist those women again?" "I did, I stood in the water to my hips and assisted each from their wet donkey to the barge. When on board one gave me a pomegranite, and when she saw I did not know what it was, she took it from me with a laugh and fixed it with sugar so I could eat it." "Those women, stranger, were my wives. Did you know that your frankness gained their affection?" "Your wives! Gee-whiz, were those women at Me-Schwad the same women I met on the steamer? Say, friend, where did you come from, and where are you going?" "My name is Jona. I am a nabob, my home is the desert thirty days journey from Muscat, but we will not burden each other with our history. I have learned that you are bound for Tadmor, and so am I. Now, can you tell me anything more about the last days of Jesus of Nazareth and the last days of Mary Magdalene than is found in your testament, with which I am familiar?" I hesitated, and then said: "I did not come into this country as a missionary, I came to study the people. I would not interfere with your Mohammedan faith." "You Christians mistake our position in regard to Jesus. Jesus, as Mohammed, was a wonderful spiritual teacher from the living God, but until all worshipers of the spiritual God drop their materialism, of which the resurrection of the physical body of Jesus is the most ungodlike, this world will continue to be the abode of ignorance, which is the generator of sin; but enough on that score for now, for I intend to join you on your journey to Tadmor, and I trust you will hereafter pass my wives unnoticed." "If I see one of your wives falling, head downward from a camel, shall I save her from breaking her neck?" "Not if she falls intentionally; but let us return to the object of my call, the story of Mary Magdalene and Jesus in their last days." "Mary Magdalene was all right, friend, but how about your girl wife, who shook me so fondly when I saw her face?" "Oh, she admired your frankness; she is mad, so please pass her unnoticed on our journey to Tadmor. Now to change the subject.