At last Rashid, awakened by the noise of talking, came out of the stable where he always slept, and with a laugh explained the whole occurrence. Some of the villagers were greatly shocked, and blamed us strongly. But Rashid stood up for us, declaring that the dog belonged in truth to no man, so that no man living had the right to blame his murderer; whereas the valuable sporting bitch of the Casis (our host) was all his own, and it was his duty therefore to defend her from improper lovers. He then cut down the body of the dog, which no one up till then had dared to do; and all the people gradually went away. The coast was clear when we arose towards eight o'clock. Rashid, with laughter, told the tale to us at breakfast. We had been silly, we agreed, to leave the hanging dog; and there, as we supposed, the matter ended. But hardly had we finished breakfast when a knock came at the open door, and we beheld a tall and dignified fellah depositing his staff against the doorpost and shuffling off his slippers at the call to enter. He said the murdered dog was his, and dear to him as his own eyes, his wife and children. He was the finest dog in all the village, of so rare a breed that no one in the world had seen a dog just like him. He had been of use to guard the house, and for all kinds of work. The fellah declared his worth to be five Turkish pounds, which we must pay immediately unless we wished our crime to be reported to the Government. With as nonchalant an air as I could muster, I offered him a beshlik--fourpence halfpenny. He thereupon became abusive and withdrew--in the end, hurriedly, because Rashid approached him in a hostile manner. He had not been gone ten minutes when another peasant came, asserting that the dog was really his, and he had been on the point of regaining his possession by arbitration of the neighbours when we shot the animal. He thus considered himself doubly injured--in his expectations and his property. He came to ask us instantly to pay an English pound, or he would lay the case before the Turkish governor, with whom, he could assure us, he had favour. I offered him the beshlik, and he also stalked off in a rage. We were still discussing these encounters with Rashid when there arrived a vastly more imposing personage--no other than the headman of the village, the correct Sheykh Mustafa, who had heard, he said, of the infamous attempts which had been made to levy blackmail on us, and came now in all haste to tell us of the indignation and disgust which such dishonesty towards foreigners aroused in him. He could assure us that the dog was really his; and he was glad that we had shot the creature, since to shoot it gave us pleasure. His one desire was that we should enjoy ourselves. Since our delight was in the slaughter of domestic animals, he proposed to bring his mare--of the best blood of the desert--round for us to shoot.