“This is like hunting a partridge among the hills. ‘Here he was a minute since’; and now, behold! he has flitted across the wady. For him but a spread of the wings, for me an hour’s rough walking!” muttered Hassan, wiping his brow. For a pace he strode in silence, frowning moodily. All at once he cried out: “Is that an English physician? I think not, by Allah! The English physician swears by his word, but this dog is a cunning liar. In like manner, seeming most upright, making grave promises, did their knowing ones deliver up our land to the Muscovite. May Allah destroy that nation and blot out the remembrance of it from on earth! Behold us perfectly befooled! May Allah burn that infidel! He received the girl into his house, he made a covenant with us to heal her. He took our gifts, and much money from the Sheykh Shems-ud-dìn. And now he has killed the girl. Doubtless he had deflowered her secretly, and so dared not leave her in life.” From further exposition he was diverted by a cry most bitter, the cry of one struck down by a treacherous blow. “Woe, woe on me!... The pride of my house—that ancient garment! It is made nothing; it is despised, defiled! It is passed from one dog to another!... O dishonor!... O Lord, let me slay that infidel! O Allah, destroy his house with fire this minute!... Him and the black hog, I will kill them both. Have they not earned death?... Ah, woe! woe!” Nesìb the Thief had broken away from the cherishing arm of Ali, his sworn brother, and now stood unsteadily, with hands upraised to a strip of sky, shrieking curses and blubbering by turns. His face was convulsed with anguish. Ali hovered near with soothing words, ready to catch the rocking cripple should he fall. “Right is with the Thief,” cried Hassan loudly. “It is one thing to be fooled by Abd-ur-Rahman—a child of our house; but by an unbeliever, with whom we dealt too honorably, that is quite another. For the name of the Sheykh Shems-ud-dìn, for our own good name, it behooves us to take vengeance. Y’Allah! To his house, O my children.” Already upon the shouting, strange forms had come about them, strange voices asked of the matter. When, at Hassan’s exhortation, they surged onward, a crowd, three parts Christian, of facile sympathizers went with them. The Thief, still weeping passionately, submitted once more to the tender solicitude of his sworn brother. The aged relative of Zeyd ebn Abbâs had disappeared. They had not far to go. One quiet alley and a short tunnel brought them into the way which led past the door of the Frank. In the manner of a stone rolled downward, they gained momentum from the fact of moving. The murmur of their indignation swelled to a roar. Between the high, blank walls, one light, one shadowed, a solitary man was seen running for dear life. It was the sherbet seller who, finding his quiet lane the highway of a yelling rout, had forgotten his stall of cooling drinks.