CHAPTER X.
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS It was dusk when I set out for the missionary's tent, and starlit night before I reached it--so fleeting is the summer twilight in that land.
Rashid went with me, as in duty bound, and insisted on remaining with the servants of the missionary by the cook's fire, although I told him to go back repeatedly, knowing how his mouth must water for the headman's feast.

The dudgeon which he felt at my desertion made him determined not to let me out of sight, and called for the martyrdom of someone, even let that someone be himself.
The missionary called: 'Come in!' while I was still a good way off the tent.

Entering, I found him stretched on a deck-chair, with hands behind his head.

He did not rise upon my entrance, but just smiled and pointed to another chair beyond a little folding table laid for supper.
He spoke of the day's heat and the fatigues of travel and the flies; and asked me how I could endure to sleep in native hovels full of fleas and worse.
I told him that, by Suleyman's arrangement, we were to sleep upon the roof for safety.

He sniffed.
I then related a discussion I had overheard between Rashid and Suleyman as to the best way of defeating those domestic pests, thinking to make him laugh.