Whilst we were establishing our influence over the Drayhy, a minor enemy was working in the shade to destroy our hopes and ruin us. There is in every tribe a pedler, who sells to the women various articles he brings from Damascus. The one belonging to our tribe, whose name was Absi, filled besides the office of scribe to the Drayhy; but ever since our arrival he had lost both his office and his custom. He naturally felt a great antipathy for us, and sought every possible means to calumniate us before the Bedouins, beginning with the women, whom he persuaded that we were magicians; that we wanted to carry off their daughters into a far country, and throw a spell round the women that they might have no more children; that thus the race of the Bedouins would become extinct, and that Frank conquerors would come and take possession of the country. We soon felt the effects of his calumnies, without knowing their cause. The girls fled at our approach; the women called us opprobrious names; the elderly ones even threatened us. Amongst an ignorant and credulous people, where the women possess great influence, such a danger might have become serious. At last we found out these intrigues of Absi, and acquainted the Drayhy with them, who would have put him to death on the spot. We had great difficulty in getting him only dismissed from the tribe, which in fact only gave him further opportunity to extend his malice. A village called Mohadan, hitherto tributary to Mehanna, had become so to the Drayhy since his victories. This chief having demanded a thousand piastres that were due to him, the inhabitants, at the instigation of Absi, maltreated the Emir’s messenger, who punished them by carrying off their flocks. Absi persuaded the village chiefs to come with him to Damascus, and declare to the Capidji Bashi that two Frank spies had gained the confidence of the Drayhy, had made him commit all kinds of injustice, and were endeavouring to make him withdraw the Bedouins from their alliance with the Osmanlis. This denunciation was made before the Vizier Solyman Pacha, who sent a chokedar to the Drayhy, with a threatening letter, concluding with ordering him to deliver up the two infidels to his officer, that they might be led in chains to Damascus, where their public execution would operate as an example. The Drayhy, enraged at the insolence of this letter, said to the Mussulman officer, “By Him who has raised the heavens, and lowered the earth, if thou wert not beneath my tent, I would cut off thy head, and tie it to my horse’s tail; and thus should he bear my answer to your vizier. As to the two strangers who are with me, I shall never deliver them up while I live. If he wants them, let him come and take them by the power of his sword!” I then took the Drayhy aside, and entreated him to compose himself, and leave it to me to settle the affair.