'Be not offended if we speak our mind before you. We should not do so if we wished you ill. Here, among us, it is not an unheard-of thing for men to kill the creatures they love best on earth; nor do men blame them when, by so doing, they have served the cause of God, which is the welfare of mankind. Thus it was of old the rule, approved of all the world, that every Sultan of the line of Othman had to kill his brothers lest they should rise against him and disturb the peace of all the realm. Was it not like depriving life of all its sweetness thus to destroy their youth's companions and their nearest kin? Yet, though their hearts were in the bodies of their victims, they achieved it. And the victims met their death with the like fortitude, all save a few of less heroic mould. 'Now, I have read some histories written by the Europeans. They do not understand these things at all. They think us merely cruel--just as we, in the same unperceiving manner, think them merely covetous. Yet I disagree with your good servant in the present case. I think that you were right to spare that Nuri.' Rashid, who, with the rest of the assembly, had listened to the old man's speech with reverence, exclaimed: 'It is not just this Nuri or that bag of lentils, O my lord! My master is thus careless always. He never locks the door when he goes out during my absence, though all that we possess is in that room.' 'Thy lord is young.' The old man smiled upon me kindly, and proceeded then to read me a mild lecture on my carelessness, detailing to me the precautions which he took himself, habitually, when shutting up his house or place of business, including pious formulas which he made me repeat after him. While he was thus instructing me, Rashid went off, returning in about three minutes with a face of indignation strangely and incongruously mixed with triumph. Taking his stand before me in the very middle of the seated crowd, he said: 'You left the door wide open even after you had seen that Nuri steal the bag of lentils. I have this minute been to look and I have seen. With our revolver lying in the full light of the doorway! Merciful Allah! What is to be done with you?' The old man, my preceptor, laughed aloud; and at the sound Rashid, whose desperation was not acted, wept real tears. The people round us tried in vain to comfort him. CHAPTER XXX THE UNWALLED VINEYARD One morning, as we rode along, we came to vineyards on a valley-side. Rashid dismounted and began to pick the grapes. Suleyman dismounted likewise, and invited me to do the same. 'But it is stealing,' I objected. 'Allah! Allah!' moaned Suleyman, as one past patience. He hung his head a moment, limp all over, as if the spirit had been taken out of him; then called out to Rashid, who was devouring grapes: 'Return, O malefactor, O most wicked robber! Thou art guilty of a fearful crime. Thy master says so.'