Chapter Six

"That man will repay study."


I got my first shot at Anazeh at dawn, when the muezzin began
wailing over the city; and I missed badly with both barrels.
The old sheikh looked into my room, presumably to see if I was
still alive, since he had guaranteed to see me safely back again
across the Jordan, before rounding up his rascals for morning
prayer. They prayed together whenever possible, Anazeh keeping
count of their genuflections.

You could tell he had been drinking the night before the minute
he thrust his head into the room. He smelt like the lees of a
rum barrel, and the rims of his eyes were red.

Seeing I was awake he gave me the courteous, full-sounding "Allah
ysabbhak bilkhair," and I asked him where he had dined the night
before. He mumbled something into his beard that I could not
catch, but he could not have told me much more plainly to go to
hell, even in plain English. However, I had to get a foothold
somewhere, so I said that I had heard that the liquor in El-Kerak
was poisonous.

As far as I understood his answer, he implied that it likely
would be poisonous in the sort of place where I would buy it, but
that he, Anazeh, need not be told how to suck eggs by any such a
greenhorn as me.