As he drew the bolt somebody kicked the door open, sending him reeling backwards.
For a second I thought the Sikhs had come.
But he was nothing like a Sikh who strode in, with a dozen ruffians at his tail and one-eyed Ali bringing up the rear.

He was one of the finest-looking Arabs I had ever seen, although considerably past fifty and wrinkled so that his face was a net- work of fine lines, out of which his big, dark eyes shone with unaged intelligence.

He was magnificently dressed, perhaps in order to do me honour.

Except for the fact that he carried a modern military rifle on his elbow, in place of a shepherd's crook or a spear, he looked like one of those historic worthies who stalk through the pages of the Pentateuch.

The dignity and charm with which he bowed to me were inimitable--unconveyable.
But he turned on my Christian host like a prophet of old rebuking blasphemy.
Arabic when the right man uses it sounds like tooth-for-a-tooth law being laid down.