After these cheerful encouragements the caravan started at one o’clock.  For four hours they travelled.  Then a shout went up—­“Look behind!”

Looking round Forder saw a wild troop of Bedouin robbers galloping after them as hard as they could ride.  The camels were rushed together in a group:  the men of Ithera fired on the robbers and went after them.  After a short, sharp battle the robbers made off and the men settled down where they were for the night, during which they had to beat off another attack by the robbers.

Forder said, “What brave fellows you are!” This praise pleased them immensely, and they began to be friendly with him, and forgot that they had meant to leave his dead body in the desert, though they still told him he would be killed at the Jowf.  For three days they travelled on without finding any water, and even on the fourth day they only found it by digging up the sand with their fingers till they had made a hole over six feet deep where they found some.

In the Heart of the Desert

At last Forder saw the great mass of the old castle, “no one knows how old,” that guards the Jowf[71] that great isolated city with its thousands of lovely green date palms in the heart of the tremendous ocean of desert.

Men, women and children came pouring out to meet their friends:  for a desert city is like a port to which the wilderness is the ocean, and the caravan of camels is the ship, and the friends go down as men do to the harbour to meet friends from across the sea.

“May Allah curse him!” they cried, scowling, when they heard that a Christian stranger was in the caravan.  “The enemy of Allah and the prophet!  Unclean!  Infidel!”

Johar, the great Chief of the Jowf, commanded that Forder should be brought into his presence, and proceeded to question him: 

“Did you come over here alone?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Were you not afraid?”

“No,” he replied.

“Have you no fear of anyone?”

“Yes, I fear God and the devil.”

“Do you not fear me?”

“No.”

“But I could cut your head off.”

“Yes,” answered Forder, “I know you could.  But you wouldn’t treat a guest thus.”

“You must become a follower of Mohammed,” said Johar, “for we are taught to kill Christians.  Say to me, ’There is no God but God and Mohammed is His prophet’ and I will give you wives and camels and a house and palms.”  Everybody sat listening for the answer.  Forder paused and prayed in silence for a few seconds, for he knew that on his answer life or death would depend.

“Chief Johar,” said Forder, “if you were in the land of the Christians, the guest of the monarch, and if the ruler asked you to become a Christian and give up your religion would you do it?”

“No,” said Johar proudly, “not if the ruler had my head cut off.”

“Secondly,” he said to Johar, “which do you think it best to do, to please God or to please man?”