up, and there we stood before an abysmal chasm which we should have to cross with the utmost care if we continued toward the hamlet. Jrous advised me to turn back before dark, so as not to be taken by treachery. When we had come out onto a firm level stretch of ground, I bade him farewell, wishing him deliverance, and he bade me farewell, wishing me success.

I walked on alone among the vineyards and the plantings of plum and apple, catching no trace of a living soul except cattle, sheep, and goats grazing on the flanks of the mountains, which were clothed in woods of oak and juniper. With every step I took I felt a heavy stillness pressing on my heart, and I took no comfort until I came upon an aged elder pruning his vine. The moment he saw me he stood up, dumbstruck, not knowing what to do or say. After some silent, nervous motions he began to laugh at me — a violent laugh, finding my dress outlandish — and then said: “And who are you?” I invented a story for him, which did not convince him; rather I saw him about to cry out, so I begged him to be quiet, and asked him to show me the way to the seat of Sheikh Nimrod. He returned to his guffawing, repeating: “You want the Patriarch — ha, ha, ha... you want the Patriarch!”

This confirmed to me what Jrous had said: that Sheikh Nimrod among them is the ruler, the patriarch, and the holder of all authority.

I offered him a cigarette; he glanced right and left, wary lest anyone see him, then took it and smoked it greedily. I asked him the reason for his uneasiness and he said: “I fear my father may see me and scold me harshly.” I said, astonished: “Your father?” He said: “Yes — would that you knew my father: he is jealous and harsh and knows no mercy. Come with me and I will present you to him.” He took me to a house whose entrances branched and wound, and as I passed through them it seemed that in every chink there was an eye watching me, though I heard not a single whisper —

and there I stood before an elder whose beard spilled down to his waist, kneeling bolt upright in the corner, his eyes striking sparks. We did not stop with him, for my guide at once led me out, saying: “He is angry; his father has punished him for some obstinacy he showed.” I said: “His father! You mean your grandfather?” He said: “Yes, my grandfather. Come, let us visit him.” And so he carried me on from elder to elder, until I found myself within a spacious hall whose columns had been hewn in the living rock of a mighty crag, its entrance guarded by two elders bristling with rifles and axes. It seemed Sheikh Nimrod had already learned of my presence in his village, for I saw a chamberlain advance toward me and, without uttering a word, conduct me along a dark gallery to a kind of grotto with ornamented borders, its floor spread with carpets and rugs. At its head rose a throne, on which I made out an old man whose beard straggled over a face like the face of a mummy, in which no trace of life remained but two eyes that glimmered and two lips that moved with the word “Sit.”

I sat down before him, and he opened with a question, without turning toward me: “How did you manage to reach Baakoura?” I answered that I had lost my way and passed through a cave that brought me to his village, and that fortune had led me to appear before his presence. He paid no heed to my courtesy, but said: “That is the first lie. And where have you come from?” I was thun-derstruck at this confrontation, and my limbs began to tremble as I said: “From Beirut.” He said: “Tell me about Lebanon. Have the Franks evacuated Tripoli?” I sup-posed him informed of the events of these days and began recount-ing the news, when suddenly he asked me: “And the Emir Jamal al-Din — does he still tyrannize over his subjects?” I inquired: “Which Jamal al-Din is this?” He said: “Jamal al-Din al-Tanukhi. You live in Beirut and do not know him? Then you are lying.” I felt my blood then run cold in my veins, and I was certain that I stood before a creature living in

the remote past, with no tie to the present world. Every time I spoke to him of the country's affairs as I knew them, he spoke to me of them as he had known them generations ago. Yes, generations ago: he mentioned Crusader names to me, mixing his speech with foreign words. Then he asked me about al-Malik al-Zahir and Sultan al-Mansur; and I tried, by way of exchange, to tell him of the Emir Fakhr al-Din al-Ma'ni the Second, then of the great Emir Bashir al-Shihabi, then of the withdrawal of the shadow of the Ottoman State from the Arab lands, then of the independence of Lebanon. But he would wave my talk aside with a motion of his fingers, as though shaking dust from his robe, to give me to understand that he attached no weight to this information; rather I saw him return to his own reckoning, and I all but melted with dread when he said to me in a tone of menace: “It was we who crushed the Emir Baydara and scattered his men through the wild crags of Kesrouan — but...” and here his voice grew hot and his countenance darkened: “in that battle my father was slain at the hand of the accursed Shams al-Din Sunqur; and after all that, the Maronites betrayed me and conspired against me with the King of France of damnable memory. I shall never forget... and a day will come when I shall take the direst vengeance.” After a short silence it occurred to him to ask me: “And of what communion are you?” I was at a loss what to answer, and said, after brief hesitation: “I am of the Nestorians.” He said: “You have lied a third time. Tell me: who sent you to spy upon us?” Before I could attempt to clear myself of this charge, an elder in monk's habit appeared and offered me, on a silver tray, a glass of red wine. I did not know how to account for this hospitality after the mon-strous accusations that had gone before it, and I began casting about in every direction: perhaps that redness held poison, as my punishment; or perhaps it was the cup of confession, as their custom has it, with which I should bid life farewell. But its fragrance