"What hast thou heard?"

"That being rich, he is open-handed, making free with his aspers as
sowers with their seed."

"What more?"

"He is devout and learned as an Imam. His people call him Malik. Of the
prayers he knows everything. As the hours arrive, he lifts the curtains
of his litter, and calls them with a voice like Belal's. The students in
the mosque would expire of envy could they see him bend his back in the
benedictions."

"_Bismillah!_"

"They say also that in the journey from El Katif to Medina he travelled
behind the caravan when he might have been first."

"I see not the virtue in that. The hill-men love best to attack the
van."

"Tell me, O Emir, which wouldst thou rather face, a hill-man or the
Yellow Air?"

"The hill-man," said the other decidedly.

"And thou knowest when those in front abandon a man struck with the
disease?"