Shems-ud-dìn arose quivering. “Now Allah reckon with thee at the Last Day! Fight while we travel together, and I leave thee without a blessing! Allah witness, it is my last word!”
“Well,” growled Hassan after a long pause, “let there be truce for a day or two till we arrive in El Cûds. There, if they push against us in those narrow streets, I cannot swear to restrain the hands of my followers. But till then, peace. Thy blessing is dearer than the blood of dogs, beloved!”
“Good,” said Shems-ud-dìn; and, wrapped in his white cloak, he lay down to sleep upon the ground before the bower which Mâs had built, where slept the women.
So it befell, on the morrow, that a troop of horsemen overtaken upon the mountain road went unmolested. The men had swarthy faces, dark eyes of a smoldering fire, and they spoke pure Arabic with a husky voice. There was a little friendly rivalry, racing of horses and the like, between them and the Circassians; but that was all.
“What doest thou?” inquired Shems-ud-dìn of Zeyd ebn Abbâs, who rode with his eyes shut, muttering.
“I pray to Allah,” was the reply; and a little later, when they had parted from the tribesmen: “I praise Allah,” he said.
“Thou doest well, O my son.”
At a lonely khan, where the midday halt was made, they found a company of Frankish travelers, taking food from off a white cloth spread upon a flat rock. It was a desert place. Blond crags towered up wan against the rich blue; the world seemed of two plain colors—earth and sky. The Franks made a great clatter with knives and forks upon plates of tin or some other metal. They laughed loud and vacantly, rousing echoes among the cliffs. They stared rudely at the newcomers, the palanquin in particular attracting their curiosity. They pointed with knife and fork at the object of their attention; and one who stood by, having the countenance of an Arab but the voice of a Frank, gave them information in their own jargon.
When the foreigners had done eating, they clambered up among the rocks and began to throw down small stones, laughing consumedly for no reason. Their guide was left alone upon the level space before the little khan. Hassan approached him and entered into conversation.
“Surely the Franks are possessed with devils,” said Shibli to the sheykh excitedly. “See, they laugh at nothing, they throw stones at nothing, yet rejoice in their vanity. They reject the means which Allah has provided, and eat with strange implements hard to manipulate, making of their necessity a game of skill. And their raiment. Saw a man ever such clothes? The women, more especially; if, indeed, they be women! Look now, I beseech thee, O my master.”