Page:Oriental Encounters.djvu/21

16 hugged each other, roaring with delight, while the donkey underneath them both jogged dutifully on.

Before a caravanserai in a small valley green with fruit-trees, beside a slender stream whose banks were fringed with oleander, I was sitting waiting for some luncheon when the donkey and its riders came again in sight. The soldier tumbled off on spying me and ran into the inn like one possessed. A minute later he brought out the food which I had ordered and set the table for me in the shade of trees.

“I would not let another serve thee,’ he informed me, ‘ for the love of that vile joke that thou didst put upon me. It was not loaded. After all my fright!

It is a nice revolver. Let me look at it.’

“Aye, look thy fill, thou shalt not touch it,’ was my answer; at which he laughed anew, pro- nouncing me the merriest of Adam’s race.

I refused? It was not loaded. What wouldst thou have done?’
 * But tell me, what wouldst thou have done had

His hand was resting at that moment on a stool. I rapped his knuckles gently with the butt of the revolver to let him know its weight.