"If you value your life," went on the stranger, "you will get out of this as quickly as you can, or the men, who are a bad lot, will kill you. I am a Druze[70] but I pretend to be a Moslem."
"What sort of a man is the Chief of Ithera?" asked Forder.
"Very kind," was the reply. So the friendly stranger went out. Forder listened carefully to the talk.
"Let us cut his throat while he is asleep," said one man.
"No," said the Chief. "I will not have the blood of a Christian on my house and town."
"Let us poison his supper," said another. But the Chief would not agree.
"Drive him out into the desert to die of hunger and thirst," suggested a third. "No," said the Chief, whose name was Khy-Khevan, "we will leave him till the morning."
Forder was then called to share supper with the others, and afterwards the Chief led him out to the palm gardens, so that his evil influence should not make the beasts ill; half an hour later, fearing he would spoil the date-harvest by his presence, the Chief led him to a filthy tent where an old man lay with a disease so horrible that they had thrust him out of the village to die.
The next day Forder found that later in the week the old Chief himself was going to the Jowf. Ripping open the waistband of his trousers, Forder took out four French Napoleons (gold coins worth 16s. each) and went off to the Chief, whom he found alone in his guest room.
Walking up to him Forder held out the money saying, "If you will let me go to the Jowf with you, find me camel, water and food, I will give you these four pieces."