to it, we two facing him in our canvas-backed easy chairs. He refused
the "genuine Turkish" coffee that Will stewed over the primus. Will
drank the beastly stuff, of course, to keep himself in countenance,
and I did not care to go back on a friend before a foreigner, but
I envied the man from Zeitoon his liberty of choice.

"Why do they call you the Eye of Zeitoon?" I asked, when time enough
had elapsed to preclude his imagining that we regarded him seriously.
One has to be careful about beginnings in the Near East, even as elsewhere.

"I keep watch!" he answered proudly, but also with a deeply-grounded
consciousness of cunning. There were moments when I felt such strong
repugnance for the man that I itched to open the door and thrust him
through--other moments when compassion for him urged me to offer
money--food--influence--anything. The second emotion fought all
the while against the first, and I found out afterward it had been
the same with Will.

"Why should Zeitoon need such special watching?" I demanded. "How
do you watch? Against whom? Why?"

He laughed with a pair of lawless eyes, and showed his yellow teeth.

"Ha! Shall I speak of Zeitoon? This, then: the Turks never conquered
it! They came once and built a fort on the opposite mountain-side,
with guns to overawe us all. We took their fort by storm! We threw
their cannon down a thousand feet into the bed of the torrent, and
there they lie to-day! We took prisoner as many of their Arab zaptiehs
as still were living--aye, they even brought Arabs against us--poor
fools who had not yet heard of Zeitoon's defenders! Then we came