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pariah dogs when these rushed out in packs to bite one’s horse’s legs, but had never viewed it as a badge of honour till Rashid came to me. To him it was the best of our possessions, marking us as of rank above the common. He thrust it on me even when I went out walking; and he it was who, when we started from our mountain home at noon that day, had laid it reverently down upon the seat beside me before he climbed upon the box beside the driver. And now the whip was lost through my neglectfulness. Rashid’s dejection made me feel a worm.

‘Allah! Allah!’ he made moan. ‘What can Ido? The driver was a chance encounter. I do not know his dwelling, which may God destroy!’

The host remarked in comfortable tones that flesh is grass, all treasure perishable, and that it behoves a man to fix desire on higher things. Whereat Rashid sprang up, as one past patience, and departed, darting through the cattle in the yard with almost supernatural agility. ‘ Let him eat his rage alone!’ the host advised me, with a shrug.

Having ordered supper for the third hour of the night, I, too, went out to stretch my limbs, which