"The shoe and its history were given to me by my old friend, Munshi Abdul Aziz, on his deathbed, in return for some slight services which I had rendered him in connection with the annual payment of pilgrim money. He told me that it had been carried, for many years, as a talisman, on the neck of the mare ridden by a former sheik of the Muntafik. How it came into his possession he preferred not to disclose; but he said that it was well known that the mare Shahzadi was shod on the off hind foot with an eight nailed shoe (the near hind, of course, having no shoe). H. J., 8.4.98."
I had already regarded this document as of very great importance, and I now decided that my first object should be to discover Feyzul, and learn what he had to say about the golden belt. It was true that Feyzul might not be alive, and his tribe, in its turn, might have been wiped off the face of the earth; but still it was the only clue, and it seemed to me to be worth while following up. So we left Babil and went off to the town of Hillah, where we imagined we might be able to get the desired information from the Turkish police officer, whose duty it was to keep an eye on the Bedouin tribes of the neighbourhood. The officer was most polite, and, after inspecting my passport and firman, sent for his sergeant, and asked him what was the latest information that he had of the Jelas sheik.
The sergeant, with much pomp and ceremony, produced a note-book from his pocket, and rapidly turning over the leaves, at length came to the page he wanted, when he read out deliberately and in a low voice:—
"Faris-ibn-Feyzul, tribe of Jelas, otherwise Ruwalla, of the Aeniza; 742 men; 428 women; many children; valuable mares and stallions; also camels and sheep. Blood feud with the Salama of the Shammar; constantly fighting. The tribe was driven from the Ndjef marshes by the Turkish troops two months ago, and was reported to have moved about four days south."
"Is that all?"
"It is all that I know, captain, for, as you are aware, I have been out in the northern district for the past month."
"What age do you suppose this Faris to be?" I asked.
"Oh, anything over fifty-five, might be seventy, but rides and fights like a man of thirty."
Then the officer suddenly appeared to become inquisitive, and asked me why I was so anxious to find this particular Arab chief, who had not the best of reputations. For the moment I was rather nonplussed, but I satisfied him by saying that I had been told that he and his tribe knew the ruins of Babylon better than most people, and that they would be sure to know what parts had been explored by previous excavators. In the end the sergeant was told to try and find out where the chief had his headquarters, and during the next few days I and my party were entertained by the police officer, who showed us all the sights of the neighborhood—including the so-called Tower of Babel, or Birs Nimroud.
Before the end of the week Faris-ibn-Feyzul had been discovered, and the sergeant proudly related how one of his men had seen him in the bazaar at Kerbela, and had tracked him for three days and nights out into the desert, and had found his tribe encamped barely two days' ride from Hillah.