[Illustration: Bedouin Women and their Children] A smoky lamp without a chimney was brought in which lit up the darkness but also showed the dirt. Many generations of men and insects had lived there, and marked up every space on the walls. When we protested and said we preferred to stay elsewhere, we were told to remain; that we were prisoners, and that we were not permitted to go to any other place. While my husband was led off to the governor by himself I waited. It took him over an hour to try to persuade the great official to allow us liberty, but it was all to no purpose. We must remain in these lodgings which he had provided. There were soldiers on each landing, he told us, and they were warned to protect us and not to let us pass out. So we settled down to the inevitable. The kind Arab from Darain was also in Katif, and later on in the evening he brought the jail-birds some quilts and rags to make them a little more comfortable. We did our best to rest, but it was almost impossible, and we were glad to see the first streak of dawn. Determined not to stay in the house any longer, we prepared a meal from our lunch basket, packed our few belongings and started to find our way to the street. The ragged individuals called soldiers murmured as we passed but did not stop us and we were out in the road and some distance from the governor’s house when our servant whom we had not seen until now came after us and said we must not go; that the governor wanted us and wanted us at once. I began to protest, but was finally persuaded to return and to my great surprise was conducted into a room gorgeously furnished where a nice-looking meal was being set on a small table. The governor arose and received us very politely, inquiring after our health and comfort. We swallowed our wrath and told him in the best Arabic possible that we were quite well and hoped his lordship was also. He then invited us to breakfast and would not accept a refusal. We wondered what would happen next. After we had explained our errand and stated our desire to sell books to the people and talk to them about religion, he said he would permit us to stay with the custom-house officer, but that we must not distribute or sell a single book and that a soldier must go with us wherever we went. It was his belief that the people might do us harm unless we were well guarded, and that as they had never before seen Christians it was entirely unsafe for us to distribute books or sell them among Mohammedans as fanatical as those in this part of Arabia. Thanking him for his kindness and accepting his apologies for keeping us as jail-birds during the night, we left his rooms and started walking through the streets. A soldier guard followed us, but when we refused to pay them for their service as guards and guides, they turned their backs and went away. And so in this land of misrule and intolerance, this uttermost province of the Turkish Empire, we were once more free. XV