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Sometimes women would come and ask me for medicine to make them young again, others wished me to improve their complexions, and many wanted me to make them like Sarai of old. I gently reminded them of their ages, and said that I thought that at such a time of life no medicines or doctors could avail. "My age!" screamed one: "why, what age do you take me for?"

He pretended that Sarai was his sister, and was well treated on her account by the princes of Egypt, and not killed, as he feared he would be if she was known to be his wife. The king, afflicted by great plagues in consequence of his attentions to this beautiful woman, sent Abram away, after a stern rebuke for the story he had told, with all his possessions.

From the waters of the Euphrates to the river of Egypt all the lands are promised him, but yet there seems a difficulty with respect to his next heirs. He is eighty years of age, and has no son. Sarai, less trusting in the heavenly powers than he, becomes impatient: she desires, after the Oriental fashion, to have a descendant, by means of her maid.

His beloved wife, who had been called Sarai, "my princess," was in future to be distinguished by the name of Sarah, "a princess," denoting a more extensive honour. If he were to become the Father, she was to be the Mother, of "many nations."

Vexation arises out of vexation. The wife he does not love is fruitful: the beloved one bears no children. The latter, like Sarai, desires to become a mother through her handmaiden: the former grudges her even this advantage. She also presents her husband with a maid, but the good patriarch is now the most troubled man in the world. He has four women, children by three, and none from her he loves.

The next day we crossed the Panjkora River, and I started to ride down the line of communications to the base at Nowshera. At each stage some of the comforts of civilisation and peace reappeared. At Panjkora we touched the telegraph wire; at Sarai were fresh potatoes; ice was to be had at Chakdara; a comfortable bed at the Malakand; and at length, at Nowshera, the railway.

"He came to Haran and dwelt there," or to give the record in full, "And Terah took Abraham, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran and dwelt there."

After hearing this sad narrative, I entreated the old man to accept me as his son-in-law, and if evil be my future doom, then let it come; but the old man would on no account agree to my request. When the evening came, I took my leave of him, and went to the sarai. Mubarak said, "Well, prince, rejoice, God has favoured you, and your labours are not thrown away."

Genesis ix, 24, 25. "But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face. And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence comest thou? and whither wilt thou go?

And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.