MEETING WITH HASHEM BEY 



a few hours' rest the meeting came about. 

 Haffez walked over, with the Sheikh on his 

 arm, and we met just outside of our own tents. 



Hashem Bey was tall and thin, a young man 

 of thirty-four, or even younger. He was 

 strictly the war type; his eyes were set far 

 back under the bones, without being wide 

 apart. After we had talked for ten minutes 

 and had assured him that it did not seem 

 right that the greatest Sheikh in all the Syrian 

 desert should have ridden a journey of three 

 days to meet us, 5 noticed that there was 

 something lacking in him. 



He was not the big man Akmet Haffez was. 

 He did not possess the latter's fine sense of 

 humor or, indeed, any sense of humor; he was 

 without that indefinable air that immediately 

 suggests gentility and good breeding. He 

 was very evidently not particularly pleased to 

 meet us and the reason for this soon came out. 

 I had called his attention with a great deal 

 of pride to the fact that I was riding his brown 

 Maneghi Sbeyel stallion, the pride of his en- 

 tire people, and a present, by order of him, to 

 the Governor of Aleppo, and the latter's pres- 

 ent to me. His lip curled and he made that 

 motion of his hands, slapping them past each 



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