That is a fair excuse.' We proffered it upon the morrow, when the Sheykh Yusuf received it with a scarce veiled sneer, seeming extremely mortified.

Directly after we had left him, we heard later, he went down to the tavern by the village spring and cursed the elders who had turned my mind against him in unmeasured terms; annoying people so that they determined there and then to make an end of him.
Next morning, when we started on our homeward way, there was a noise of firing in the village, and, coming round a shoulder of the hill in single file we saw Sheykh Yusuf seated on a chair against the wall of his house, and screened by a great olive tree, the slits in whose old trunk made perfect loopholes, blazing away at a large crowd of hostile fellahin.

He used, in turn, three rifles, which his sons kept loading for him.

He was seated, as we afterwards found out, because he had been shot in the leg.
I was for dashing to his rescue, and Rashid was following.

We should both have lost our lives, most probably, if Suleyman had not shouted at that moment, in stentorian tones: 'Desist, in the name of the Sultan and all the Powers of Europe! Desist, or every one of you shall surely hang!' Such words aroused the people's curiosity.