With the setting up of my tripod and umbrella and the opening of my color-box a crowd began to gather—­market people, fruit-sellers, peddlers, scribes, and soldiers.  Then a shrill voice rang out from one of the minarets calling the people to prayer.  A group of priests now joined the throng about me watched me for a moment, consulted together, and then one of them, an old man in a silken robe of corn-yellow bound about with a broad sash of baby blue, a majestic old man, with a certain rhythmic movement about him which was enchanting, laid his hand on Joseph’s shoulder and looking into his eyes, begged him to say to his master that the making of pictures of any living or dead thing, especially mosques, was contrary to their religion, and that the effendi must fold his tent.

All this time another priest, an old patriarch with a fez and green turban and Nile-green robe overlaid with another of rose-pink, was scrutinizing my face.  Then the corn-yellow fellow and the rose-pink patriarch put their heads together, consulted for a moment, made me a low bow, performed the flying-fingers act, and floated off toward the mosque.

“You no go ’way, effendi,” explained Joe.  “The priest in green turban say he remember you; he say you holy man who bow yourselluf humble when dead man go by.  No stop paint.”

The protests of the priests, followed by their consultation and quiet withdrawal, packed the crowd the closer.  One young man in citizen’s dress and fez stood on the edge of the throng trying to understand the cause of the excitement.

Joe, who was sitting by me assisting with the water-cup, gazed into the intruder’s face a moment, then closed upon my arm with a grip as if he’d break it.

“Allah!  Mahmoud Bey!” he whispered.  “Yuleima’s prince.  That’s him with the smooth face.”

The next instant the young man stood by my side.

“The people are only curious, monsieur,” he said in French.  “If they disturb you I will have them sent away.  So few painters come—­you are the first I have seen in many years.  If it will not annoy you, I’d like to watch you a while.”

“Annoy me, my dear sir!” I was on my feet now, hat in hand. (If he had been my long-lost brother, stolen by the Indians or left on a desert island to starve—­or any or all of those picturesque and dramatic things—­I could not have been more glad to see him.  I fairly hugged myself—­it seemed too good to be true.) “I will be more than delighted if you will take my dragoman’s stool.  Get up, Joe, and give—­”

The request had already been forestalled.  Joe was not only up, but was bowing with the regularity and precision of the arms of a windmill, his fingers, with every rise, fluttering between his shirt-stud and his eyebrows.  On his second upsweep the young prince got a view of his face—­then his hand went out.

“Why, it is Hornstog!  We know each other.  We met in Damascus.  You could not, monsieur, find a better dragoman in all Constantinople.”