Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER HI. The Sheikh's Daughter. The two young Englishmen soon found that they had nothing to fear from the Beni Azaleh, who treated them as honored guests, and gave them of the best they had. Presents of kid stewed in milk with spices, butter and coarse sugar mixed together, lumps of dates, greasy sweetmeats, and other Arab delicacies were brought to them by the leading men of the tribe, who were delighted to receive small quantities of coffee in return. There were, however, three men who openly showed ill-will to the guests of the tribe, though it was only by the expressions of their faces. The principal of these was the mullah, whose reason for regarding them with disfavor was probably because they were, in his eyes, infidels and enemies of God. When he happened to meet them he was coldly courteous, but took nofurther pains to hide his feelings towards them. The leader of the party of horsemen whom the travelers had encountered was another man who was obviously unfriendly to them, for he never came to their tent, and would scarcely condescend to return their greeting when they met. They learned that he was the nephew of the sheikh, and also his heir, as the old man had no son, also that he was always spoken of as El Jezzar, or " the butcher," which seemed to be considered a complimentary appellation. They did not understand for what reason he was so ill-disposed towards them, but supposed it was because he would fain plunder them, but did not dare to do so against the will of the tribe. There was one other man who always scowled and muttered malevolently when he saw them ; but as this was only the hideous negro who had been present in the sheikh's tent when they were received by the leading men of the tribe, they did not trouble themselves in the least about him. He bo...