The mob swayed and eddied for a moment ere it broke upon the door of the Frank physician. All who could come at it beat upon that door; many more, out of sympathy, beat the surrounding wall. “Open, open, O cursed heathen! Down with the door! The door yields not. Bring fire. Who has fire?” A woman’s voice squealed within. The assailants paused to hear what was said. “What is this, forsooth? Merciful Allah, are these manners? ‘A thousand knock-knock-knocks and no salâm aleykûm.’ Ismaìl is out. I will not open. I shall tell of you to the hakìm.” At that the hammering, the shouts, and the yells redoubled, till of a sudden some one cried, “Look up!” and all eyes sought the roof line. There, leaning on the parapet, was the hakìm himself. He held a gun, not pointed menacingly, but simply, as it seemed, for their inspection. “Go, or I shoot!” he cried. Even as he spoke, a knife whizzed so near as to graze his cheek. The muzzles of a dozen guns commanded him. Then some stones flew up; but by that time he was no more seen. “Ha, ha! He is an old woman, this great hakìm!” shouted Hassan. “Another kind of English led the fight at Kars. This is no better than some skulking townsman. O shame, to bear the insult of such an one.” Derisive laughter mingled with the howl of execration. But, realizing that the business was like to go beyond a frolic, many Christians and other chance allies began to edge away. “Bring fire! Burn the door! Make fire the baw-wâb!” cried one of the Circassians. At once the more zealous of his comrades tried to coax a flame by means of foreign matches and rags torn from their own clothing. But already the more lukewarm were dropping off. The sight of some running made others run. The panic became general. Hassan did not hinder the flight. He considered enough had been done for the present to scare the Frank. “Stop running. Scatter! scatter!” he shouted for their instruction. In a moment, had the watch appeared, they would have found no mob, but divers groups of men walking inoffensively—nay, timidly—in divers directions. Like a sand storm in the desert of the south, the riot had arisen, raged, and was clean gone, all in a short quarter of an hour. “Where is our good fellâh? Where Ali? Where Nesìb?” said Hassan to Shibli, who had clung to him throughout the tumult. “Small wonder if some were swept astray by that sudden blast. Allah pardon! Saw man ever the like of it?” He proceeded to make inquiry of those he saw stationary in the markets, if anyone had seen a tall old man of a noble countenance, attended by one who seemed a beggar, in all respects, saving only that he did not beg. At last one answered: “I have seen the very man; and with them a lean old negro who kept grinning without mirth,” and pointed out which road the three had taken. CHAPTER XXI