And he was sick of British women, with their knuckled hands, their splayed feet. Their abominable dressing, too, a bust and a brooch and a hooped skirt--their grocers' conventions, prudish, almost obscene, avoiding of the natural in word, deed, or thought.... He wanted Fenzile, with her eyes, _vert de mer_, her full childish face, her slim hands with the orange-tinted finger nails, her silken trousers, her little slippers of silver and blue.... Her soft arms, her back-thrown head, her closed lids.... And the fountain twinkling in the soft Syrian night, while afar off some Arab singer chanted a poem of Lyla Khanim's: "_Beni ser-mest u hayran eyleyen ol yar; janim dir_.... The world is a prison and my heart is scarred.... My tears are like a vineyard's fountain, O absent one...." And here was Beirut again: here the snowy crest of Lebanon, here the roadstead crowded with craft; here the mulberry groves. Here the sparkling sapphire sea; here the turf blazing with poppies; here the quiet pine road to Damascus; here the forests, excellent with cedars. Here the twisting unexpected streets. Here his own quiet house, with the courtyard and its fountain. Here the hum of the bazaars, here the _ha-ha_ of the donkey boys, here the growling camels. Here the rugs on the wall; here the little orange-trees. Here the two negress servants, clean, efficient. Here color, and peace, and passion. Here Fenzile.... And this damned wrestler from Aleppo must go and spoil it all. Section 4 He might have shipped with one of the great American clippers racing around Cape Hope under rolling topsails, and become in his way as well known as Donald Mackay was, who built and mastered the _Sovereign of the Seas_, with her crew of one hundred and five, four mates and two boatswains. He might have had a ship like Phil Dumaresq's _Surprise_, that had a big eagle for her figurehead. He might have clipped the record of the _Flying Cloud_, three hundred and seventy-four miles in one day, steering northward and westward around Cape Horn. He might have had a ship as big as the _Great Republic_, the biggest ship that ever took the seas. He might have had one of the East Indiamen, and the state of an admiral. He might have had one of the new adventurers in steel and steam. But fame and glory never allured him, and destiny did not call him to be any man's servant. He was content to be his own master with his own ship, and do whatsoever seemed to him good and just to do. If they needed him and his boat anywhere, he would be there. When they needed boats to America, he was there. But if they didn't need him, he was not the one to thrust himself. Let destiny call.