54 Bedottin Ti'ibes of the Euphrates, [ch. xvm. 



Moreover, yesterday after dinner lie lieard Wilfrid 

 say, by way of accounting for ]\Ir. S.'s non-appear- 

 ance, tliat he thought the Consul must be dead ; 

 whereupon he rushed out of the tent howling, and 

 then sat down on the ground, drew his cloak over 

 his head, and refused to move or speak for the rest 

 of the evening. Now, he has had terrible dreams 

 about his children, whom he has made up his mind 

 he shall never see again, and insists tlmt he must 

 iTO home at once. It is no use arQ;uiiio; with him, 

 poor man, and we cannot be angry, for he has 

 served us three months without a grumble, and put 

 up with all sorts of hardships, and shown an 

 amount of courage which could hardly have been 

 expected of him, mere Christian of Aleppo that he 

 is. He thinks, too, that we have been deluding 

 him all along with false hopes of meeting the 

 Consul, to whom he is attached, and now he says, 

 " You tell me the Consul is dead! Boohoo ! boohoo ! " 



What is really j)i'ovoking is that Ferhan, the 

 faithful Agheyl, who hitherto has done his duty, 

 and more than his duty, without a word of com- 

 plaint, has followed Hanna's suit, and now com- 

 plains of being overworked, and of having been 

 deceived into undertaking a journey he never bar- 

 gained for. Neither he nor Hiinna will go to the 

 Hamad with us. They have had enough of the 

 desert, and propose joining a caravan which is 

 starting for Horns in a few days, and getting home 

 as fast as they can. AVe hardly know what to do 



