Considering that I had bought a house and land exactly to my taste, and likely, as Rashid declared, to raise our honour in the country, I felt that I had earned the right to take a holiday. Whenever I have done anything decisive it is my instinct to withdraw myself a little from the scene of action and inure myself by contemplation to the new position of affairs. Accordingly, having surveyed the house and land as owner, I set off with Rashid upon a ten days' journey beyond the reach of telegrams and letters. At the end of the ten days we rode into Beyrout, and put up at a little hostelry, which we frequented, built out on piers above the sea. There I found two letters waiting for me, one from the great Druze chief who sold to me my house and land. 'Never,' he wrote, 'have I had to endure such disrespect and ignominy. It is not at all what I expected from your friendship. In obedience to the Consul's order, I wrote express to the Khawajah ----, my creditor, informing him that there had been some error and entreating him to send your cheque in to the British Consulate. I hope to God you have received it safely before this. My health has suffered from this huge indignity. I shall not long survive this cruel shame.' The second letter was from Her Britannic Majesty's Consul-General, enclosing my cheque written to the order of the Armenian gentleman for the amount of the mortgage which he held upon my Druze friend's property, and adjuring me to pay a visit to the Consulate without delay. I went that afternoon. The outer office was crowded with the usual set of English and would-be English persons who went there for gossip. My appearance called forth more or less derisive shouts. I was a nice young man to go and buy a village--from a native, too!--without the forethought to secure a title to the property! It was plain that they knew more about the matter than I did myself. I felt ashamed, and must have looked dejected, I suppose, for they changed their tone for one more genial, crying: 'Cheer up, man! We've all been through it. You know now what these devils really are. They'll always do you, if they can. It's no shame to you at your age. They're so devilish clever.' I did not know then, nor do I know to-day, that I had ever been defrauded seriously, or deceived, by any native of the country, but the legend ran, and doubtless runs, to that effect.