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.

I tried him again.  I said that liquor taken in quantity would kill a man.

“So will one bullet!” he answered.  “But, whereas a bullet in the belly causes pain before death, moiyit ilfadda (aqua fortis) causes pleasure; and a man dies either way.”

He turned to go, rattling two rifle-butts against the door, but I had one last try to get on terms and said I hoped to see him at breakfast, or shortly afterward.

“God is the giver both of eyesight and the things to see,” he answered.  “I go to pray.  God will guide my footsteps afterward.”

I did not feel I had really made much headway, but I fared rather better with my host downstairs, who either did not pray with such enthusiasm or else had forestalled the muezzin.  At any rate, he was waiting for me near a table spread with sweet cakes and good French coffee.  After the usual string of pleasantries he became suddenly confidential, over-acting the part a little, as a man does who has something rather disagreeable up his sleeve that he means to spring on you presently.

“I have been busy since an hour before dawn.  I have been consulting with my friend Suliman ben Saoud.  The situation here is very serious.  As long as you are my guest you are perfectly safe; but if I were to send you away, the assembled notables might suspect you of being a spy, and might accuse me of harbouring a spy.  Do you see?  They would suppose you were returning to Jerusalem with information for the British.  That would have most unpleasant consequences—­for both of us!”

Clearly, Grim in the guise of ben Saoud had been busy, and it was up to me to seize my cue alertly.  I was at pains to look alarmed.  Ben Nazir grew solicitous.

“Rest assured, you are safe as my guest.  But Suliman ben Saoud was annoyed to think a stranger should be here at such a time as this.  He took me to task about you.  He is also my guest, as I reminded him, but he is a truculent fellow.  He insisted that the assembled notables have the right to satisfaction regarding your bona fides.  It was no use my saying, as I did repeatedly, that I personally guarantee you.  He asked me how much I know about you.  I had to confess that what I actually know amounts to very little.”