The horses prance, the camels saunter, the very street-dogs compose themselves for a nap in the golden sun, all in perfect harmony with the piece.

A woman walking with a stone jar on her head (or, just as likely, a kerosene can) looks as if she had just stepped out of eternity for the sake of the picture.
And not all the kings and kaisers, cardinals and courtezans rolled into one great swaggering splurge of majesty could hold a candle to a ragged Bedouin chief on a flea-bitten pony, on the way to a small-town mejlis.
So it was worth a little inconvenience, and quite a little risk to see those chiefs arrive at the castle gate, toss their reins to a brother cut-throat, and swagger in, the poorest and least important timing their arrival, when they could, just in advance of an important man so as to take precedence of him and delay his entrance.
Mindful of my charge to keep Anazeh sober, and more deadly afraid of it than of all the other risks, I hung about waiting for him, hoping he would arrive before Abdul Ali or ben Nazir.

I wanted to go inside and be seated before either of those gentry came.
But not a bit of it.

I saw Anazeh ride up at the head of his twenty men, halt at a corner, and ask a question.

His men were in military order, and looked not only ready but anxious to charge the crowd and establish their old chief's importance.
Mahommed ben Hamza, not quite so smelly in his new clothes, was standing at my elbow.
"Sheikh Anazeh beckons you," he said.
So the two of us worked our way leisurely through the crowd toward the side-street down which Anazeh had led his party.