And so he had grown in the warmth of his parents’ love, trained in what we call outdoor sports, but which are life itself to the Arab, until at fourteen no one could surpass him in running or horsemanship or spear-throwing, whilst with rifle or revolver he could clip the hair off the top of a man’s head, the which strenuous accomplishments he balanced in passing his leisure moments in the gentle arts of verse-making and even music, in spite of the latter being condemned by religion; also did he learn to converse in foreign tongues.  Do not think that these qualifications were enumerated with the zest and glorification which usually precede the distribution of dull books at a prize-giving, for the man might have been talking of the sunshine or the sand or the flies or any other part of that which goes to the making up of Egypt, rather than that which had helped to make him the finest man in the country.

And yet another trait which he touched upon lightly, and which had served to make him the subject of comment in the bazaars, and of gossip in the harems.

In regard to his womenfolk there is no man sterner the world over than the Mohammedan, shielding them from harm, and insisting on the absolute privacy of their lives and their bodies.  Upon just this subject, from the first day of his understanding, Hahmed the Arab was stern to fanaticism, intolerant even to injustice.  He disapproved of licence in all things, but especially in speech, food, and religion.  When forced by circumstances, he went to the feasts to which he was invited, eating sparingly as was his wont, taking no more interest in the more or less clothed dancing women than in a set of performing dogs, departing thankfully when the hour came.

Let me recount, in his own words, the happenings of his youth, which served to change the whole tenor of his life, and was to culminate in the high adventure of an English girl.

“At the age of fourteen I was to marry and was content, for the desires of my own woman had come upon me, and I longed to possess the beauty of which my mother told me, and which, save for her father, had been seen by no man.

“My own woman I desired, I say, for bought women were not for me, and I had refrained therefrom, therefore was I unsoiled at the time of my wedding.

“True my marriage had naught to do with my horoscope cast at birth, for it had been read that water would bring me joy, and water would bring me grief, and that water again would bring me everlasting happiness, so I thought with others that it had lied, and was amazed.

“But behold, when after great festival and feasting my bride was in the care of her handmaidens who prepared her for my coming, one came, and casting herself at my feet, covered her head in dust, begging a word with me.

“It seemed she was a master in the art of tinting the fingers the pink which we Arabs love.