'One thing that is remarkable about this gun,' explained the master of the house, 'is that it cannot miss the object aimed at. We have tried it at a target nailed upon a tree—I and my sons—at fifty and a hundred paces—aye, and more! And, by the Lord, the bullet always strikes exactly on the spot at which the gun is pointed, even though that spot be not much bigger than a gnat.'

And then, quite unaccountably, the whole assembly rose and tried to kiss my hands, as if the virtues of my gun were due to me. It was obviously not the moment to reclaim the weapon.

When I got home after that strange ovation, Rashîd received me coldly and observed:

'You do not bring our gun! You feared to ask for it! Did not I know how it would be? Oh, Allah, Allah!'

'I had no opportunity,' I told him; 'but I am going now to write and ask him to return it. Be ready for the letter. You will have to take it.'

'Upon my head and eye, with all alacrity,' Rashîd replied. 'Never did I rejoice so much in any errand. That rascal has been telling everybody that it is your gift to him, and boasting of his gun through all the mountains. No doubt, he counts upon your illness having dimmed remembrance, and hopes that you yourself may be deluded into thinking that it was a gift and not a loan.'

'Why did you not tell me this before?' I asked.

'Was it my business, till the question rose?'

I wrote a civil note to the young man, asking him to let me have the gun in a few days, as I was collecting my belongings for the journey back to England. I thanked him for the care which he had taken of my property, which was much better kept than when I lent it to him, as I had remarked that day. Rashîd received the missive and went off exulting.

Within an hour that young man came to me, without the gun, and in a state of most profound affliction and despair. Having shut the door with great precaution to make sure we were alone, he fell upon the ground and burst out crying, confessing that his passion for the gun had made him dream that it was his each night as he lay thinking ere he fell asleep.