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No robbers came except a jackal, that poked his nose into my tent from some motive of rational curiosity. Dthemetri did not shoot him for fear of waking me. These brutes swarm in every part of Syria, and there were many of them even in the midst of the void sands, that would seem to give such poor promise of food.
Dthemetri was in his sphere a true Crusader, and whenever there appeared a fair opening in the defences of Islam, he was ready and eager to make the assault. This tone, which I always disliked, though I was fain to profit by it, invariably succeeded.
Dthemetri, however, on the whole, proved to be a most able and capital servant. On the summit before me was a broad, grey mass of irregular building, which from its position, as well as from the gloomy blankness of its walls, gave the idea of a neglected fortress.
I have reason to fear, however, that he lied transcendently, and especially in representing me as the bosom friend of Ibrahim Pasha. The mention of that name produced immense agitation and excitement, and the Sheik explained to Dthemetri the grounds of the infinite respect which he and his tribe entertained for the Pasha.
Of the two dromedaries which I had obtained for this journey, I mounted one myself, and put Dthemetri on the other. Now, therefore, I was anxious to dart forward, and annihilate at once the whole space that divided me from the Red Sea. Dthemetri, however, could not get on at all. When for the third or fourth time I saw Dthemetri thus planted, I lost my patience, and went on without him.
This I asked with the full certainty that Dthemetri, as a matter of course, would deny the charge, would swear that a “wrong construction had been put upon his words, and that nothing was further from his thoughts,” &c. &c., after the manner of the parliamentary people, but to my surprise he very plainly answered that he certainly had insulted the Governor, and that rather grossly, but, he said, it was quite necessary to do this in order to “strike terror and inspire respect.” “Terror and respect!
I should have been glad enough to put up with the slight privation to which my concession would subject me, and could have borne to witness the semi-starvation of poor Dthemetri with a fine, philosophical calm, but it seemed to me that the scheme, if scheme it were, had something of audacity in it, and was well enough calculated to try the extent of my softness.
The worst of it is, that the needful viands are not to be obtained by coin, but only by intimidation. I at first tried the usual agent, money. Dthemetri, with one or two of my Arabs, went into the village near which I was encamped and tried to buy the required provisions, offering liberal payment, but he came back empty-handed. I sent him again, but this time he held different language.
I well knew the danger of allowing such a trial to result in a conclusion that I was one who might be easily managed; and therefore, after thoroughly satisfying myself from Dthemetri’s clear and repeated assertions that the Arabs had really understood the arrangement, I determined that they should not now violate it by taking advantage of my position in the midst of their big Desert, so I desired Dthemetri to tell them that they should touch no bread of mine.
Sometimes, like marble, the classic face of the Greek Mysseri would catch the sudden light, and then again by turns the ever-perturbed Dthemetri, with his old Chinaman’s eye and bristling, terrier-like moustache, shone forth illustrious.
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