of his superior, who reinforced him with a cannon and fifty sea-soned soldiers, and they surprised the caravan at "Tell Abu Shajara." And Abu Salman remembered

the cannon and Sherif Effendi and the ambush, and he laughed and guffawed, and lifted his voice in the chant:

"'Sherif' marshaled the troops on the day of the ambush — neither his cannon, nor fate, nor the soldiery availed him. Your Lord decreed for the Shouf that its lions should guard it, and here are the young men of the Shouf, marching with a caravan."

Yes — the sheikh of the caravan was its poet too. He gave the chant again in a voice that overcame the wind, till a listener would wonder how such a speak-ing-trumpet lay hidden in so lean a body. He remembered "Sherif Effendi" once more and guffawed a second time. For Sherif Effendi's horse, "al-Azraq," was now being ridden by Shahin Qasim Abu Ali. God keep you, Shahin. But for his wound the journey would have been a complete success. And "Abu Salman" consoled himself, saying: God decreed the wound for Shahin, and who has power to turn back what is decreed? When the bullet was poured in the fac-tory, Shahin's name was upon it. And when Shahin was born, there was a hidden mark upon his arm where the bullet now rests. What is decreed steers people in their affairs, and God has foreordained their paths, and the servant's part is only obedience and thanks.

And the sixty-year-old sheikh felt hungry — he had given away his provisions in alms to a poor man at the khan. Walking and cold and emotion had worn him out, and the chanting had strung his feelings taut. The beast sensed the nearness of shelter and quickened her pace, slithering over the ice, checked only by her plowman's arm — and had that arm been an automobile's brakes, it would have tired. The sheikh passed his other hand over his beard and said: Praise God, the house of "Abu Hamad" is near. Yes indeed, the house of Abu Hamad had come near, and there was the lamplight winking on the edge of "Barouk."

So Abu Salman fell silent from his chanting and began to guess what savory dish Umm Hamad had cooked tonight. For it was Abu Salman's custom to be the guest of his friend Abu Hamad on his return from Hauran, and of course Abu Hamad knows his friend returns tonight, so he has made ready and multiplied the kinds of dishes and dried fruits. His picture of the food increased his longing for it, and imagination sharpened his hunger; and the beast, feeling how near she was to her night's lodging, hurried on, and the plowman hurried behind her.

Suddenly the beast stopped, as though an anchor had been made

fast in every hoof, and her ears stiffened; and Abu Salman knew that he was in the neighborhood of an enemy, beast or man. He leaped to seize his rifle, but was halted by a guffaw from behind a bramble, and a voice calling:

"Abu Salman?!"

"Abu Hamad?!"

And the two friends embraced, their fingers interlocking.

For Abu Hamad, in his house standing apart from the village of "Barouk," had seen a shape descending the mountainside, and it made him uneasy. Then he said to himself: if that shape is of "the caravan of Baakline," then likely it is Abu Salman — the sheikh of the

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