'By Allah, right is with thee,' he assented. 'There is none but he.'
Away they went—Jinblâts, Talhûks, and Abdul Meliks—all in clean white turbans, with coloured cloaks a-stream upon the breeze, on horses gorgeously caparisoned. We waited half an hour—in silence, as it seemed; and then we heard the noise of their return, the shouts, the firing. I swear I saw a horse and man surmount a housetop in the village and then leap down upon the other side. At last, with yells and reckless gunshots and a whirl of dust, the crowd of horsemen came full tilt on the meydân. Their leader—in appearance a mad angel—was my friend, Abdul Hamid. Suddenly he drew his rein, flinging the steed right back upon his haunches. In so doing, looking up at me with a triumphant smile, he somehow missed his balance and pitched clear over his horse's head, just at the very moment when a carriage and pair containing the beaming Consul-General and his lady, with a glorious Cawwâs upon the box, arrived upon the scene. I ran to help him, but another person was before me. A tall old man, whose garb bespoke him an initiated Druze, rushed out among the horses and the dust and beat the wretched lad about the shoulders, heaping curses on that lovely head for bringing shame upon an honoured house before such company. It was the lad's own father, the Sheykh Mustafa. I helped to drag the old man off, and would have gone on to console the son; but just then I beheld Sheytân approaching with a broken head-rope. I contrived to catch him and to mount without attending to the girths; and, once on horseback, I was glad to be there; for quite fifty of the tethered steeds had broken loose in the excitement, and were rushing here and there and fighting in a most alarming way. I have always had a dread of horse-fights, and this was not a single fight; it was a mêlée, fresh horses every minute breaking loose to join it. Right in my way two angry stallions rose up, boxing one another like the lion and the unicorn, and a little boy of ten or thereabouts ran in between and, jumping, caught their head-ropes.
I escaped at last and rode down through the village to the bottom of the valley, where a grove of walnut trees cast pleasant shade beside a stream. There Rashîd found me later in the day. He told me that my disappearance had caused consternation and alarm, the Consul-General and his lady having asked for me. Bidding him remain with the two horses, I went back on foot to the castle, where I stayed only the time necessary to pay my respects.
As I was returning towards the valley, a litter borne between two mules was leaving the meydân. Beside it walked the stern Sheykh Mustafa, and in it, I had little doubt, reclined the beautiful Abdul Hamid.
I asked the serving-man who led the foremost mule if his young lord was seriously hurt. He answered:
'Yes; for he has broken his elbow and his shoulder and his collar-bone. But that is nothing, since he has disgraced our house.'
A bitter wail of 'Woe the day!' came from within the palanquin.