The Sheikh, in the eyes of his followers, is not merely a great tribal chieftain. They believe in his hereditary sanctity: and his clansmen are also his devotees. This fact is strikingly exemplified by an incident which had occurred a little earlier, and which was related to us by Mar Shimun, the Patriarch of the Assyrian Christians, who himself inspires equal veneration among his own adherents.[86] A column in pursuit of the Sheikh caught a small boy who had dropped behind the party, and demanded of him with menaces which way the fugitives had gone. But the child was as staunch as steel. "By the Holy Name of the Sheikh I will not tell!" he answered. And that was all they could get out of him either by coaxing or threats. The Turkish Captain was fortunately a kind-hearted fellow, and did not ill-use his small captive; but he did not omit, in releasing him, to draw a moral from his pluck. "We shall not make much of this war," he observed, with a smile to his officers. "You can judge from this example with what sort of folk we have to deal. This child is in my power utterly. None would call me to account if I killed him. And yet, knowing this, he defies me; and swears by his Sheikh as by a god!" It was on the evening of the second day after we had quitted Barzan that we drew near to the hamlet of Suryi, planted in the re-entering angle formed by the confluence of the Oramar river with the Zab. It is a mean little place, consisting of some twenty cabins which spill themselves down the face of a steep brae a little way back from the river; and at the top of the bank stands the castle of the village Agha--a rudely built fortified residence like a second-rate border peel tower. It was here that we looked to meet the Sheikh, for it is a recognized halting-point between Amadia and Barzan; and, crossing the Oramar river, we bent our way towards the tower. It was about five o'clock in the evening that we reached the first house in the village, and the crowd of men and horses which was grouped around the castle was a proof that the Sheikh, "with his tail on," had already arrived from Amadia. News of our approach had preceded us; and we were met by an embassage from his Holiness bearing an invitation (or should we say "command" under the circumstances?) to partake of his hospitality for the night. We dismounted at the castle door amid a throng of wild retainers, and at the top of the rude stone staircase we were greeted by the Sheikh in person; who led us into the "_belai_"[87] (or _belvedere_), which served him as his temporary audience hall, and motioned us to seats on a mattress spread immediately opposite his own.