At that Ismail took his stand on the bridge and used his final argument. "If that is your last word, now hear mine. These men are my guests now, and have eaten my bread and are in my house. What they did before is nothing to me; and if it were my own brother they had killed I would guard them now. If you dare to attack, I and mine will defend them; and you will have to kill your own chief before you lay hand on any one of his guests." At that the avengers held back and hesitated till night fell; and under that cover, Malik Ismail and his son Shlimun escorted their guests into safety by the tracks over the hills, and led them unharmed to Julamerk. The whole was as fine an act of chivalry as these days can show. With their chivalry goes as is often the case with mountaineers, a vein of what we can call nothing but school-boyishness. The pure lark of a fight appeals to them irresistibly. In the spring of 1912, the men of one particular Christian district known as Salabekan contrived to carry out a most successful raid against their neighbours over the hill, the Kurds of Châl. It was only an episode in a feud that had dragged on for many years, but was executed with some skill; the raiders securing 500 sheep without even waking their late owners! When they were well on their way home, however, it occurred to some young hotheads that there is really no satisfaction in lifting your enemy's sheep, unless you know that he knows who has scored off him! _Now Simmy, Simmy of the side,_ _Come out and see a Johnstone ride!_ sang the old moss-trooper who had looted Crichton's stable; so, agreeably to "the Galliard's" principles, they went back again to the village, there to fire shots and shout contumely till the Kurds were awakened and came out. Then of course a fight resulted, in which three or four men were killed. This excited our wrath; not because we grudged them a Kurd or so; still less the sheep that they had fairly earned, and which were very likely theirs originally anyhow; but because among the Kurdish dead was a policeman (the Agha of Châl being a Government _mudir_ among other things), and we feared that a dead policeman would take a great deal of explaining! However, it all ended happily, the officer not being missed! Still, we thought it only our duty to urge the desirability of making up the feud upon Mar Shimun; and asked him if he could not use his patriarchal influence in that direction. His Holiness quite agreed with us that it was most desirable. "Really, the Christians ought to make peace now. They are three corpses and four guns to the good!"