He vowed before God to keep strict watch upon himself, to avoid giving offense to his brother’s piety. But he had forgotten the vow, or recanted, when the day of departure came. Shems-ud-dìn, with other turbaned voyagers, was in the customhouse, patiently enduring the chicanery of a number of small officials whose end was bakshìsh, when Milhem passed down the middle of the great shed, escorted by the mûdìr and a group of high officers. He overlooked Shems-ud-dìn’s salutation, appeared unconscious of his neighborhood. In loud talk with his companions he walked out at the farther doors, through which the dance of violet waves shone twinkling, and his brother was left to conclude his bargain with the customhouse men, when a nod from the Sultàn’s plenipotentiary might have released him. On the steamship, bewildered by the novelty of his situation, alarmed by the pushing of rude Franks, Shems-ud-dìn herded for countenance with a little group of the faithful on the fore part of the deck; nor dared to look round for Milhem. The shores and the fair, great city were slipping fast away, ere he descried the latter standing amidships. He ran to him with intent to embrace, but was checked by the formality of his reception. “Leave me alone here, I entreat thee,” said Milhem, as if his teeth were set on edge. “Afterwards, upon land, I will explain all things.” Shems-ud-dìn withdrew, much hurt. He made no further claim on his brother’s notice, but sat all day long in the company of three Turkish merchants, men of substance and of imperturbable phlegm, who spoke in proverbs between long sucks at the narghileh. At the rising of the night, when the evening prayer was ended, his black servant brought him food, and spread a bed for him beneath the stars. Once, ere he lay down, his ear caught the voice of Milhem at no great distance talking glibly in a foreign tongue, and by the light of one of the lamps he could distinguish his brother strolling amid a crowd of Franks, both men and women. They kept laughing the senseless, heathen laugh that knows not past or future, nor foresees the judgment of the last day. The faces of Shems-ud-dìn’s companions were lost in night, except when the charcoal in the bowl of a narghileh glowed up redly as its owner drew on it. One said: “Allah created different animals. He made no crossbreeds. These latter spring from sin. What can be said of one who, being circumcised and duly shaven like ourselves, yet chooses to sit on a chair at a table with infidels, his hands unwashed, to eat abomination, and to toy with unveiled women whose face is of brass for all men, who know not shame? Shall such an one treat us as dirt, being most likely the son of some pimp or other? May the justice of God overtake him, and that suddenly!” “Now Allah avert that curse, for the man is my mother’s son,” said Shems-ud-dìn sadly.