And the ensign answered:
"He is the Indian Prince of whom I have been hearing since we left Medina."
"What hast thou heard?"
"That being rich, he is open-handed, making free with his aspers as sowers with their seed."
"What more?"
"He is devout and learned as an Imam. His people call him Malik. Of the prayers he knows everything. As the hours arrive, he lifts the curtains of his litter, and calls them with a voice like Belal's. The students in the mosque would expire of envy could they see him bend his back in the benedictions."
"Bismillah!"
"They say also that in the journey from El Katif to Medina he travelled behind the caravan when he might have been first."
"I see not the virtue in that. The hill-men love best to attack the van."
"Tell me, O Emir, which wouldst thou rather face, a hill-man or the Yellow Air?"