Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/91

Rh cousin, he cannot then come and kill the murderer, for the law of revenge is satisfied. One life has paid for the other life.

This seems a terrible law — that of blood for blood; and yet it is perhaps the best law for the desert, for the restraint it imposes on the passions of the people. The Arab knows that the shedding of blood will bring on a family feud, that will not end till the hands of his victim's brother are imbrued in his own blood; that from the instant he sheds blood, there is a mark upon his forehead like that on the forehead of Cain, giving license to whoever meets him to kill him — a retribution hovering round him from which he cannot escape. Though he mount the swiftest dromedary, and flee across the desert, though he hide in the mountains, the avenger of blood is on his track, and sooner or later he must pay the penalty of his deed. The knowledge of this is the most powerful preventive of crime.

This ended our conversation, and the sheikh rose to depart. We shook hands, and assured him of the pleasure it had been to meet him, to which he responded with true Oriental courtesy, and then mounted his camel and rode away, with a dignity that became the lord of the desert.

Nor did we linger long behind. We had enough to think of as we mounted our camels and rode on. Toward the close of the afternoon we entered a valley girt round by awful summits, where by the camel-path stood a huge boulder of red granite, which the Arabs say is the very one struck by Moses out of which the water flowed. The setting sun was tinging the giant heights and precipices of Mount Serbal as we passed through the Vale of Rephidim, in which the Israelites fought with the Amalekites. Soon we perceived by the palm trees that we were entering the oasis of Feiran, the great oasis of the wilderness of Sinai.