'The people here think me the thief,' he told me. 'They say nothing, but I feel it in their bearing towards me. And now you give up seeking for the culprit! Am I to bear this shame for evermore?' Here was a new dilemma! No way out of it appeared to me, for even if we did employ the great detective, our chance of finding the delinquent seemed exceeding small. I was thinking what could possibly be done to clear Rashid, when a familiar figure came into the court and strolled towards us. It was Suleyman! I had imagined him three hundred miles away, at Gaza, in the south of Palestine. Loud were our exclamations, but his calm rebuked us. I never knew him show excitement or surprise. He heard our story with deliberation, and shook his head at the police and the detective. 'No use at all,' he scoffed. 'The one man for your purpose is the Chief of the Thieves. I know him intimately.' 'Ma sh'Allah! Is there then a guild of thieves?' 'There is.' 'The Sheykh of the Thieves must be the greatest rogue. I do not care to have to do with him.' 'You err,' remarked Suleyman, with dignity. 'Your error has its root in the conviction that a thief is evil. He may be evil as an individual; all men are apt to be who strive for gain; but as a member of a corporation he has pride and honour. With Europeans, it is just the opposite. They individually are more honourable than their governments and corporations. The Sheykh of the Thieves, I can assure you, is the soul of honour. I go at once to see him. He can clear Rashid.' 'If he does that, he is the best of men!' exclaimed my servant. An hour later one of the hotel men, much excited, came to tell me that some soldiers were approaching, who had caught the thief. The host and all his family ran out into the hall. Rashid and all the servants came from kitchen purlieus. Four soldiers entered with triumphant exclamations, dragging and pushing forward--Suleyman! The prisoner's demeanour had its usual calm. 'I have regained the belt,' he called to me. 'These men were watching near the house, and found it on me. They would not hear reason. The man who stole the belt--a Greek--has left the city. He gave the Sheykh the belt, but kept the money.' The soldiers, disappointed, let him go. 'How dost thou know all that?' inquired their leader. 'The Headman of the Thieves informed me of it.' 'Ah, then, it is the truth,' the soldier nodded. 'He is a man of honour. He would not deceive thee.' I do not claim to understand these things. I but relate them. CHAPTER IX MY COUNTRYMAN One summer, in the south of Syria, amid that tumbled wilderness of cliff and chasm, shale and boulder, which surges all around the Sea of Lot, we had been riding since the dawn without encountering a human being, and with relief at last espied a village, having some trace of cultivated land about it, and a tree.