About Noon Sa'ad The Demon,
After A Furious Rush, Bare-Headed, Through The Burning Sun, Flung The
Two Dollars Down Upon My Carpet:
However, he presently recovered
temper, and, as subsequent events showed, I had chosen the right part.
Had he not been forced to repay his debt, he would have despised me as
a "freshman," and would have coveted more.
As it was, the boy Mohammed
bore the brunt of unpopular feeling, my want of liberality being traced
to his secret and perfidious admonitions. He supported his burden the
more philosophically, because, as he notably calculated, every dollar
saved at Al-Madinah would be spent under his stewardship at Meccah.
At four P.M. (July 24th) we left Suwaykah, all of us in the crossest of
humours, and travelled in a N.E. direction. So "out of temper" were my
companions, that at sunset, of the whole party, Omar Effendi was the
only one who would eat supper. The rest sat upon the ground, pouting,
grumbling, and-they had been allowed to exhaust my stock of
Latakia-smoking Syrian tobacco as if it were a grievance. Such a game
at naughty children, I have seldom seen played even by Oriental men.
The boy Mohammed
[p.277] privily remarked to me that the camel-men's beards were now in
his fist,-meaning that we were out of their kinsmen, the Harb's, reach.
He soon found an opportunity to quarrel with them; and, because one of
his questions was not answered in the shortest possible time, he
proceeded to abuse them in language which sent their hands flying in
the direction of their swords.
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