'Quite mad, I do assure you. Return with us, and I will prove it to your understanding,' cried Suleyman. I added my assurance. They came back with us, but murmuring, and in two minds. I could not but admire the simple piety which prompted them at once to kill a man whose speech betrayed him as an atheist. But I was very much afraid of what might happen, and of the sad impression it would make upon my English friends. And everything depended on the cook's behaviour. 'I tell you he is mad,' said Suleyman, advancing towards the fire. 'It were a sin for you to slay a fellow-creature thus afflicted. Come hither, O Mansur,' he cried as to a dog. The cook rose up and came towards us with a foolish air. 'Lie down before my horse. I would ride over thee.' The cook fell prostrate, then turned over on his back. His mouth hung open idiotically; his tongue lolled out. 'Now rise and kiss my boot.' The cook obeyed. By that time there were murmurs of compassion from the would-be slayers. 'Spake I not truly?' asked Suleyman. 'Aye, O sun of verity! He is quite mad, the poor one,' said the old man who had acted spokesman. 'It were a sin for us to kill him, being in that state. His manner at the first deceived us. Allah heal him! How came the dreadful malady upon him?' 'It came upon him through the pangs of unrequited love.' 'Alas, the poor one! Ah, the misery of men! May Allah heal him!' cried the women, as the group of villagers moved off, contented. Just when the last of them passed out of sight the longest tongue I ever saw in man emerged from the cook's mouth, and the rascal put his finger to his nose in a derisive gesture. Those portents were succeeded by a realistic cock-crow. 'What makes the cook like that, devoid of reverence?' I asked of Suleyman. 'It is because he was born in Jerusalem,' was the astonishing reply. 'He is a Christian, and was born poor; and the quarrels of the missionaries over him, each striving to obtain his patronage for some absurd belief, have made him what he is--a kind of atheist.' Selim, the waiter, who was near and overheard this ending, burst out laughing. 'An atheist!' he cried. 'Your Honour understands? It means a man who thinks there is no God. Just like a beetle!' and he held his quaking sides. Both he and Suleyman appeared to think that atheism was a subject to make angels laugh. And yet they were as staunch believers as those fellahin. CHAPTER XXXII THE SELLING OF OUR GUN