Lying where he had fallen was old Mustafa Beg, his face, always white, now a dreadful colour in the dusk of dawn, contrasting with the orgy of red his body displayed. A knife had entered the pit of his stomach, ripped it for nine inches, and allowed all that was inside to emerge. He lay in a pool of blood into which the bystanders stepped, and which made a little morass around him. He was conscious, but too feeble to do aught except move his eyes and whisper. He had asked for me, and now I had come, and leaned over, ear to his mouth, he whispered to me to undo his belt. This I asked the surgeon to do, and as gently as he could he removed it. This was not all, for the old man had a little to say, which he could only do gradually. I caught the words as they came from his lips: “Geundir Tarabulusda, har- ... bir shai ... var. Allah! Allah! oghlu ... oghlu ... san insanidin ... baqi ... haivanlar. Tav ... akkul ... ullah, Allah, Al ...” His life passed, his last breath calling God. “Send to Tripoli all that there is,” he had said. “God, God ... son! ... son! ... thou wert human ... the rest ... savages ... I resign myself to God ... God...!” Matti, who stood a little distance away, was gulping and weeping, for he had a soft and true heart, and the little Greek snivelled as he began to prepare the body for removal. I sat a space away off and wept, for I had loved the old man. Only the Kurds stood around unmoved: they had seen worse than this, and might do or suffer it any day. The surgeon, who was a capable little man, had already ordered a coffin, and this, hastily prepared, now arrived, and we left the caravanserai to the washers of the dead, who had arrived. We should return when the work was done. Because there is nowhere else to wait, we went to the coffee-house, and there heard how it happened.