"That uniform," said he, "includes the cap of the Christian, made with a straight piece of stiff leather projecting from the front. It is the devil's own invention to prevent men from touching their foreheads to the ground in worship, and "— Here he took a sip

of coffee. The effect was tremendous. Ali Bey sprang to his feet, spat out the coffee, flung the cup and its scalding contents at the head of the unsuspecting cafeji, and roared out, "The ass-headed idiot has sugared it! May ten thousand plagues light upon him and his father and his mother! And he calls himself a cafeji!"

Then the Bey strode to his horse, mounted, and rode away from the scene of so disgusting an adventure.

The other Zeibeks had made a rush with one accord toward the unhappy Greek; but that clumsy bungler was too quick for them, and scurried over the caravan bridge like a hare, having learned at last that Zeibeks take their coffee "straight." The men did not pursue him, but, picking up the shoes which had dropped from the cafeji's feet in his flight, they hurled them after him with a few well-compounded imprecations, and then, mounting their horses, they rode away after their chief.

The next morning Ali Bey and two of his men were riding toward a village perched on the slopes of Mount Tmolus. They had slept three or four hours on the floor of a wayside hut, and now the clear morning air of their own home land had dissipated the traces of whatever discontent they had found in the city. In that fine air Ali Bey was a very different being from the Ali Bey of the streets of "giaour" Smyrna. Even so slight a change of geographical position had brought him into a land where the infidels have no part, and where the very blades of grass seemed more fresh and green for their freedom from the contaminating presence. As his horse jogged along, Ali Bey was

singing a love ditty in a clear voice, hiş eyes lingering tenderly upon the sheep of the great flocks that were busily cropping the short grass.

The place was by no means devoid of beauty, although hardly a tree could be seen on the ridges that stretched away into the east. In the valleys on either hand were black groves of olive; far below, toward the west, the wide plains were dotted with heavy clumps of walnut-trees; here and there on the nearer slopes were patches of bright vineyard, or more compact stretches of wheat that piled up lazily moving billows in the gentle breeze. Yellow butterflies chased each other across the path, and many a caroling songster rose swiftly from the scrubby oak bushes that grew hedge-like along parts of the road. Not far away, in front, the little village of sun-dried brick lay bowered in fruit trees, with a single white minaret to testify to its devout and orderly character. By the roadside, just outside of the village, was a little stone fountain, shaded by two or three terebinth-trees.

eye

As Ali Bey approached this fountain he stopped singing, for his fell upon a girl who was waiting there for her water-jug to fill at the ever flowing-tap. The girl was dressed in a short jacket of sky-blue broadcloth, open in front over a vest of striped cotton. Full trousers of the same red and white striped material, thickly gathered at the waist, fell in copious curves to the ankle, where a tight band, concealed under the overhanging folds, held them up from the bare brown foot. Upon her head she wore a large white kerchief, gayly embroidered on the edges, beneath which, reaching to her waist, was a mass of slender braids of jet-black hair, each separate braid adorned at its extremity with a small gold coin. A string of similar gold coins marked the place where her collar should have been, had the various garments which met at her neck included any such point of definite

termination as is implied by a button or other fastening. The kerchief covered her head and drooped over her forehead; but her black eyes sparkled, and her full, well-colored lips quivered into a smile as Ali Bey's group came up. She quickly drew the kerchief over her mouth and throat, but not so soon as to conceal the glow that suddenly warmed the tint of her round dark cheek.

"Who is in the village, Eminé ? " asked Ali Bey, drawing rein by the fountain.

"Hamid is there," replied the girl. "My father has gone hunting, and the rest are out with the sheep. Most of the girls have gone to get wood." "Are you all well?" asked Ali, with a caress in the glance of his eyes as well as in his voice.

"Praise God," said Eminé, simply, dropping her eyes under the gaze of the Bey.

Ali Bey looked around uneasily at his two companions, who had halted by his side. They understood their chief's moods by intuition, and without a word rode on into the village. Then Ali Bey leaned over toward the girl to whisper the one word "Dearest!"

Eminé looked up quickly, with a bright light in her eyes. Then, turning away, she filled a gourd with water from the fountain and offered it to Ali. But she still held the kerchief closely drawn across her face. Only her eyes smiled up at her lover.

Ali took the gourd, lightly touching, as he did so, the little brown hand. Then he said gently, "Don't hide your face, Eminé. I have n't seen you for so long."

"Yes," answered Eminé, "not for three whole days!"

Her hand relaxed its grasp, so that when she reached up to take the watergourd again, one corner of the kerchief fell away, entirely revealing her face. For an instant she looked up at Ali Bey with a witching expression of surrender;

and then she caught the kerchief together again, and dropped her eyes to the ground.

"Eminé, my heart is torn in pieces. I am in torture every moment that I am away from you. Your father is too hard on us, to make us wait these months and months!"

The girl's brow flushed, and her veiled head bent lower as she slowly said, "What do you think that I feel, then, if you can feel so much for me?" Then, nervously looking around, she added, "But, Ali, you must not stay here. People will talk.”

"What do we care for what the wagchins say? Are you not promised to me? It can't be long now to our marriage day, although I did not succeed in Smyrna."

"But you know father would be very angry if he knew that I have these little talks with you, Ali. He says that we shall have plenty of time to do our talking by and by; and that then he won't have the whole village coming to him every day to ask him what we talk about."

"Well, I shall make you let me see your eyes enough, for once, when that day comes! Do you know that I have a plan to get the other fifty pounds to put with the fifty I have already? That will be all your father asks."

"Father says that Ahmed Bey from Sarikeny has offered him two hundred pounds for me."

your father about a plan. You see, if the giaour merchants invent a railroad to escape paying toll to us, we must invent, too. There they all are, shut up in their boxes. Perhaps we can catch the lot at once, instead of having to lie out night after night on the highway to catch them one at a time. Perhaps we may make this railroad a means to larger profits, after all."

"That is a brave man's plan," said Eminé, earnestly. "God intends all men to have a chance to live. Where he shuts one door he opens a thousand! But you really must go, Ali. Some of the girls will be coming back."

"Dear, if I am blessed in this plan of mine I shall have the gold, and then Ah, Eminé, I shall make your father promise that it shall be within two weeks. Farewell. But first let me see your face once more."

"No, Ali," said Eminé, looking on the ground. "I always feel ashamed of myself for hours after I have let you see my face in this brazen way. Be patient, for I am promised to you," and she turned her soft black eyes full upon him.

The stern law of the veil makes it dangerous to good repute for a girl to be seen talking alone with a young man. Turkish lovers therefore have to content themselves with mere glimpses, hurried words, and a vivid imagination, which, after all, plays the most important part in weaving the entanglements of youthful hearts. With eyes only might these two exchange their farewell salute. Yet, even as he touched spur to his horse, Ali Bey suddenly put forth his hand and laid it caressingly upon the forehead of Eminé. It was only a touch, but she started back, chiding his boldness, and in the quick movement her kerchief escaped her hand once more, revealing, as in a flash, her radiant face. The next moment Ali Bey's horse was taking him up the village street.

Hafiz Effendi, the father of Eminé,

was the chief man of the village. He was a kindly old gentleman, with the dignified air which ponderous motions and a patriarchal beard may impart even to a mountaineer; and his dress was entirely different from that of the less learned members of the community. He might be seen any day, at the hours of prayer, entering the little mosque, his stout form enveloped in a flowing gown of crimson, worn over a close robe of dark green broadcloth. This inner robe, bound at the waist by a girdle of gay cashmere, hung several inches below the skirt of the gown, and well below the knee. Here, however, the old gentleman seemed to have come to the end of his ingenuity or of his material, since he but illy screened his nether extremities from the public gaze by the protruding and crumpled ends of white cotton under-garments that entirely failed to meet a very disreputable-looking and downat-the-heel pair of woolen socks. Broad, low red shoes with upturned points completed the equipment of his feet. To his head more attention was given. First he wore a white cotton skull-cap next his shaven poll, then a second skullcap of felt, and outside of this a thickly wadded and quilted cap of red cotton, which overhung his head at all points, like the eaves of a Chinese pagoda. Outside of all, the badge of learning the thick, white turban was wound in such a way as to leave exposed to view only the flat top of the massive red cap. This arrangement certainly endowed Hafiz Effendi with the appearance of possessing a vast intellectual apparatus, an appearance which might or might not be borne out by the facts, since his philosophy had little to do with any world outside of his own village. Whatever was not of the order of nature familiar to him he was wont to attribute to supernatural causes. All that seemed to him good he used to ascribe to the divine interposition. All that seemed evil, including infidels, foreign

vations, he attributed to the less wholesome but still supernatural influence of a very active and personal devil. He had no interest in such matters, being content to dwell among the flocks on the mountain, to worship God, and to teach the young people a sound morality. His moral code was high, but like some more favored wise men he held that the moral law had no restraints to lay upon the conduct of his people toward strangers, and particularly toward those of a different religious faith. So his people were well behaved and even gentle at home, but did what was right in their own eyes when outside of their village. The good Effendi owed his chief distinction to the fact of his having studied in a Moslem theological seminary somewhere in the misty past. The respect paid to a village priest in nonMoslem communities fell to this old gentleman in this Zeibek village, by reason of the information on all social and religious problems supposed to lie in the magazines outlined by that vast head-dress. It is true that Ali Bey was chief, because he belonged to a line whose blood had known no plebeian admixture since the Seljuk sultans. But to Hafiz Effendi the Bey looked up, as leader in worship and as keeper of his conscience. As to his retainers, the common herd scarce dared breathe in the presence of the lord of their chief.

That evening, after the fifth and last prayer at the mosque, Ali Bey called to sec Hafiz Effendi. He had his plan to propose for extracting revenue from the mercantile community on an entirely new basis. But, feeling somewhat uncertain as to his ground, he also wished the solution of a problem in morals.

Hafiz Effendi felt something like enthusiasm for the young man to whom he had promised Eminé for little more than half what he might have asked as dowry. He had favored Ali Bey because of his high descent and because

He now felt that his confidence was not misplaced, for the enterprise proposed was one that moved his whole heart. Certain ladies of his acquaintance had more than once hinted to him that his teaching was not worth much if it could not lead the men of the tribe to bestir themselves to provide for their families. Scarcity had set in since the opening of the railway had reduced the whole village to dependence on its flocks for its luxuries.

"Good, my son!" said Hafiz Effendi. "You will have no difficulty in catching them all."

"But one thing troubles me. What will the police say? They are becoming less and less friendly. I should not wish to have our village visited by a band of mounted police sent to punish a Bey."

"The police can be managed, if you return with full hands, although the government has fallen so low as to support these new-fangled notions as to freedom of trade. The people hunger because they are not protected. My wife told me yesterday how the people lack clothing, and how they have nothing to eat but the butter and cheese of our flocks. The story which she told would melt a very heart of stone, and cause it to flow as tears from the eyes. It is all wrong!"

"We used to boast that no Christian or Jew could trade in our district, or even pass through it, without giving tribute," said Ali Bey. "Yet while the government frowns on our enterprises, are we right in acting independently? Can we fearlessly take from the railroad which the government has allowed to be built?"

"Leave the government to ruin itself! It is sold to the aliens, like a camel, with its old halter thrown in. This nonsense about equal rights and interests will one day destroy it. The foundation of all prosperity is the principle

that the government should protect the interests and industries of its own people first. The rest of the world has no right to enjoy in this land what our own people have not. Where is the railroad owned by our people? The good of this freedom goes to infidels and foreigners, until every Jew and every Greek is like a lamb with two dams, while any Moslem you meet is as black in the face as a kid disowned by its mother."

"But if the government calls us to account for attacking the railway, could I maintain this principle in the courts?" asked Ali Bey, with a prudent foresight that his daily associates would not have suspected in the fiery young chief.

"No doctor of the holy law could condemn you for such an act of pure self-defense," replied the wise man earnestly. "All authorities agree that the sheep of the flock must first be fed. It is the object in view that settles the morality of the measures adopted. Were it not for this, the faithful would have no freedom. Where choice lies between a Moslem's suffering want and his feeding in the pastures of more fortunate infidels, the Moslem has a right to take measures to secure a division of good things in accord with the evident design for which Providence has created infidels. This, my son, is in accord with the usage of ages among our brethren of the Arabian deserts. They hold it lawful, in case of necessity, to attack with armed force any individual, or any caravan of another tribe, provided only that the attack be made openly and in daylight, as becomes men, and that the victims are left with enough provision to secure them against starvation during a journey to the next town. No court whose judge is a Moslem could censure you for acting on this principle."

"Well, I shall try this thing. You know that it is for Eminé that I do it. Within three days, by the help of the Prophet, I shall claim her under your

promise," said Ali Bey, as he arose to depart.

man.

"Go in peace," replied the pious old "Work by daylight, be not too exacting, shed no blood save in case some miscreant forces you to it in selfdefense, and the blessing of blessings go with you!"

Of course the ladies could not be visible to persons of the opposite sex; but at such evening consultations they generally contrived to be somewhere within earshot. So when Ali Bey had gone forth into the night he was not surprised to hear a slight "Hem!" proceed from the side of the house, as though some feminine creature, there walled up, was preparing to exercise her vocal organs. He went quickly to the place, and found a small window closely covered by a board shutter. A light tap on the shutter showed him that some one was within, and a small crack between two boards offered him a channel of communication. "Eminé!" whispered Ali Bey. "Yes," came from within.

"I am going to try it for your sake.” "Brave, good Ali! Mother says you are of the real old Turkish stock, born to be a hero."

"You must be ready for the wedding next week, Eminé."

"Nonsense! You are crazy. It will take a week to make ready the feast. But I must go back, or father will be coming to look for me. Good-night!" "Open the window a little." "No, I can't. Good-night!" "But, Eminé ". "Well?"

"I am going to insist about the wedding"

66

Why, of course we can't have it so soon. Father will tell you all about it. But go, quick; somebody is coming!"

"Listen, dear: wait for me at the fountain, day after to-morrow, a little after noon."

"Yes. God bless you and give you the success you deserve. Good-night!"