Forder leapt down and was so glad to be in Kaf that he ran into some palm gardens close by and sang "Praise God from Whom all blessings flow," jumped for joy, and then washed all the sweat and sand from himself in a hot spring of sulphur water. Lying down on the floor of a little house to which he was shown, he slept, with his head on his saddlebags, all day till nearly sunset. At sunset a gun was fired. The caravan was starting on its return journey. Forder's companions on the caravan came to him. "Come back with us," they said. "Why will you stay with these cursed people of Kaf? They will surely kill you because you are a Christian." It was hard to stay. But no Christian white man had ever been in that land before carrying the Good News of Jesus, and Forder had come out to risk his life for that very purpose. So he stayed. What made Forder put his life in peril and stand the heat, vermin, and hate? Why try to make friends with these wild bandits? Why care about them at all? He was a baker in his own country in England and might have gone on with this work. It was the love of Christ that gave him the love of all men, and, in obeying His command to "Go into all the world," he found adventure, made friends, and left with them the Good News in the New Testament. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 65: Thursday morning, December 13, 1900.] [Footnote 66: Recall Henry Martyn and Sabat at work on this.] [Footnote 67: Passing Es-Salt (Ramoth Gilead), Gerash and Edrei in Bashan.] [Footnote 68: It took the caravan six days to go back.] CHAPTER XXVIII THE FRIEND OF THE ARAB _Archibald Forder_ (Date of Incident, 1901) _The Lone Trail of Friendship_ So the two thousand camels swung out on the homeward trail. Forder now was alone in Kaf. "Never," he says, "shall I forget the feeling of loneliness that came over me as I made my way back to my room. The thought that I was the only Christian in the whole district was one that I cannot well describe." As Forder passed a group of Arabs he heard them muttering to one another, "_Nisraney_[69]--one of the cursed ones--the enemy of Allah!" He remembered that he had been warned that the Arabs of Kaf were fierce, bigoted Moslems who would slay a Christian at sight. But he put on a brave front and went to the Chief's house. There he sat down with the men on the ground and began to eat with them from a great iron pot a hot, slimy, greasy savoury, and then sipped coffee with them. "Why have you come here?" they asked him. "My desire is," he replied, "to pass on to the Jowf." Now the Jowf is the largest town in the Syrian desert--the most important in all Northern Arabia. From there camel caravans go north, south, east, and west. Forder could see how his Arabic New Testaments would be carried from that city to all the camel tracks of Arabia. "The Jowf is eleven days' camel ride away there," they said, pointing to the south-east. [Illustration: FORDER'S JOURNEY TO THE JOWF.]