All the old men fell to petting and caressing the Emîr, grieving to think that one so young and comely was spoilt for the commerce of life by a deranged intelligence. Iskender, too, they treated as a friend. Their original intention, they confessed, had been to hold his Honour up to ransom; but now they offered gifts instead of claiming them.
Iskender, the moment he could do so with politeness, went out and searched the camp till he regained his sketch-book. Mahmûd, the muleteer, called to him from the mouth of a tent where he was feasting as the guest of a tall Bedawi. He proclaimed the safety of their lives a miracle, attributable solely to the fact that he himself had not ceased to assert the Unity of God from the moment he was taken captive till men came and blessed him. All gave praise to Allah.
CHAPTER XXII
In the morning, Iskender's face had swollen where his lord had whipped it, half-closing one of the eyes. The chiefs of the Arabs cried out at sight of it and asked to know the cause of its disfigurement when their guests prepared to set forth in the morning under the escort of two armed and mounted tribesmen. He put them off with the story of a fall from his horse. The Frank glanced but once at his handiwork; and then looked down and bit his lip, contrition and annoyance at war in his demeanour. After riding long in gloomy silence, he inquired:
"What made them change?"
Iskender, wishing to take all the credit of the deliverance to himself, and at the same time to avoid mention of Wady 'l Mulûk, replied:
"I told them you are mad."
"You told them what?" exclaimed the Emîr from frozen heights of anger.
"That you are mad, sir."