I went that afternoon. The outer office was crowded with the usual set of English and would-be English persons who went there for gossip. My appearance called forth more or less derisive shouts. I was a nice young man to go and buy a village—from a native, too!—without the forethought to secure a title to the property! It was plain that they knew more about the matter than I did myself. I felt ashamed, and must have looked dejected, I suppose, for they changed their tone for one more genial, crying: 'Cheer up, man! We've all been through it. You know now what these devils really are. They'll always do you, if they can. It's no shame to you at your age. They're so devilish clever.'

I did not know then, nor do I know to-day, that I had ever been defrauded seriously, or deceived, by any native of the country, but the legend ran, and doubtless runs, to that effect.

Then I was called into the Consul's presence and strongly blamed by him for running off just at the moment when my presence was most needed. I had written joyously to tell him of my purchase. I now heard that I should have waited for his reply before concluding it. A man does not buy tracts of land like that, I was severely told. And as I was so very young and (he implied it) idiotic, he had intervened to stop the sale, pending inquiries and the discharge of certain formalities which were legally required. If the seller went into the court and had the transfer registered and a proper deed of sale made out, then well and good; but he understood that there was some objection on the seller's part. If not, then he advised me to give up the whole idea. Profoundly conscious of my youth, and mindful of past kindness on the Consul's part, I was, of course, impressed. I thought I had indeed been foolish, even mad; and promised to do all that he required of me. As I went through the outer office, looking more than ever downcast, I was hailed with further adjurations to cheer up, for they had all been through it.

Rashîd was more depressed than even I was when I told him of the sudden downfall of our hopes. He cursed the Consul and the Druzes indiscriminately. But on our journey up into the mountains his reconstructive mind transfigured my misfortunes, making of them an event well calculated to 'exalt our honour.' So great was my consideration in my native country that the Queen herself had written to the Consul-General to take care of me and see that I was not defrauded when I bought my land. The Consul, who had been neglectful of me, and knew nothing of the land I wished to buy, had been afraid of the Queen's anger, hence his mad activity. I did not hear that version at the time, nor from Rashîd's own lips; but it came to my ears eventually, after its vogue was past.

We both hoped, however, that the house and land would yet be ours.

I found the Druze chief prostrate with humiliation and bewilderment. He greeted me with monstrous sighs, and told me how ashamed he was, how very ill. His eyes reproached me. What had he ever done to me that I should loose upon him such a swarm of ignominies. I felt humiliated and ashamed before him, an honourable man who had been treated like a rogue on my account.

'I shall not survive these insults, well I know it. I shall die,' he kept lamenting. 'All my people know the way I have been treated—like a dog.'

I told him that there had been a misunderstanding, and that the shame which he had suffered had been all my fault, because I had been absent for my selfish pleasure at the moment when I might have saved him by a simple statement of the facts.

'I shall not easily recover,' the chief groaned. 'And then that debt which I was so delighted to pay off is once again upon my shoulders.'

I explained then that the Consul's stopping of the sale was not conclusive, but provisional; his only stipulation being that, before I paid, all the legal formalities necessary to the transfer should have been fulfilled.