Meantime there is to be a great gathering of the village elders to consider whether it is possible to arrange the feud between Sheik Saleh and Kara. One of the uses to which Druse Khalwès, or places of worship, is put, is to discuss every question which is of interest to the village. For instance, should I desire to buy a tract of land from the village held by many proprietors, they would hold a secret council in the Khalwè to discuss the best method of cheating me. What passes at these meetings is considered absolutely secret, and the minority are bound to accept the opinion of the majority, and afterwards to act with it. This imparts a wonderful unanimity to all their proceedings with outsiders, though they quarrel very much among themselves, and these Khalwè meetings sometimes lead to serious feuds and bloodshed. It seems likely to do so in this case, for it has been reported to me that Kara announced that if the decision of the meeting went against him, he would commit such an act as should prevent it—in other words, murder either his own daughter or her betrothed.
I was considering how I could best interfere to prevent such a catastrophe, when I received a few hours ago a visit from Kara himself. The purport of it, as usual, was to borrow money. I told him I could not possibly lend money to a man who first decided to kill his own daughter, and then for no cause divorced his wife. He replied that when he had committed these acts he was possessed of the devil and unconscious of what he was doing. I told him that to lend money to a man who was subject to such demoniac possession was like lending money to the devil himself, and this I declined to do. He assured me that the devil had left him so completely that there was no fear of his getting hold of it. I said I required proof of this, and he could furnish me with it by assuring me of his readiness to allow his daughter to marry her betrothed. He said that was a matter in the hands of Allah. “Then,” I said, “under these circumstances you are prepared, I presume, to accept the decision of the village as the decision of Allah.”
“Yes,” he replied, “if they decide also that Sheik Saleh is to pay me fifty Turkish pounds for my daughter.”
“I am sorry,” I remarked, “that Allah has just decided that I am not to lend you the money you want to borrow from me, and it will depend entirely upon the extent to which you allow the devil to influence you against the will of Allah how I treat you for the future.”
With that he took his departure; but I saw enough of his cowed temper for the present to hope that the matter may be arranged with a little judicious financial management. It does not give an encouraging view of human nature to discover how potent a factor money is in its affairs, even in a primitive Druse village.
In many respects Kara is a superior man, decidedly better than his enemy, Sheik Saleh, who will also have to be dealt with, and who behaved badly in backing out of an arrangement which had already been concluded, for no valid reason. Owing, however, to the position which I occupy financially to the village, they are all more or less under control, and I have it in my power to exercise a pressure which even the Khalwè would find it difficult to resist.
Unfortunately, I shall be obliged to leave instructions with regard to this delicate matter, as my stay in Palestine for the present is about to draw to a close, and with it must terminate this record of my experiences in a country which, in spite of its many drawbacks, possesses in my eyes superior attractions as a residence to any other in which my lot has been cast.
THE END.