I had been ill with typhoid fever. Just before my illness, the son of a sheykh in our neighbourhood had asked me to lend him my gun for a few days, since I never used it. There was nothing really which I cared to shoot. The village people rushed out in pursuit of every little bird whose tweet was heard, however distant, in the olive groves or up the mountain side. Jackals there were besides, and an occasional hyaena; and, in the higher mountains, tigers, so the people still persisted in declaring, meaning leopards, I suppose, or lynxes; for ignorant Arabs lump together a whole genus under one specific name, in the same way that they call all wild plants, which have neither scent nor market-value, grass. It was after we had sought those tigers vainly that I put away my gun. The sheykh's son asked me for the loan of it, and I consented in the absence of Rashid; who, when he heard what I had done, defiled his face with dust and wailed aloud. Suleyman, who happened to be with us at the moment, also blamed me, looking as black as if I had committed some unheard-of sin. It is unlucky for a man to lend his gun to anybody, even to the greatest friend he has on earth, they told me sadly; and that for no superstitious reason, but because, according to the law, if murder be committed with that weapon, the owner of the gun will be considered guilty no matter by whose hand the shot was fired. 'How do they know the owner of the gun?' I answered, scoffing. 'For every gun there is a tezkereh,'[8] answered Rashid; 'and he who holds the tezkereh is held responsible for every use to which that gun is put.' It was, in fact, a rough-and-ready way of saying that the gun licence was not transferable. I remarked with satisfaction that I had no tezkereh, but that did not appear to reassure them in the least. They still were of opinion harm might come of it. Then I fell ill and knew no more of daily life until I found myself in a hospital of the German Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, where the good sisters nursed me back to health. Among the Arab visitors from far and near who came to see me as I lay in bed, was the youth who had borrowed my gun, together with his father and his brethren, who wept real tears and prayed for my complete recovery, talking as if they were beholden to me in some signal way. Their manner puzzled me a little at the time; but I had quite forgotten that perplexity when, discharged at last from hospital, I travelled back into the mountains with Rashid. On the very day of my return I got an invitation from that young man's father to dine with him at noon upon the morrow. Rashid made a grimace at hearing of it and, when I asked him why, looked down his nose and said: 'He has our gun.' 'Aye, to be sure, and so he has!' I said. 'To-morrow I must not forget to ask him for it.' Rashid looked big with tidings, but restrained himself and merely growled: