The mention
of that name produced immense agitation and excitement, and the
Sheik explained to Dthemetri the grounds of the infinite respect
which he and his tribe entertained for the Pasha. A few weeks
before Ibrahim had craftily sent a body of troops across the
Jordan. The force went warily round to the foot of the mountains
on the east, so as to cut off the retreat of this tribe, and then
surrounded them as they lay encamped in the vale; their camels, and
indeed all their possessions worth taking, were carried off by the
soldiery, and moreover the then Sheik, together with every tenth
man of the tribe, was brought out and shot. You would think that
this conduct on the part of the Pasha might not procure for his
"friend" a very gracious reception amongst the people whom he had
thus despoiled and decimated; but the Asiatic seems to be animated
with a feeling of profound respect, almost bordering upon
affection, for all who have done him any bold and violent wrong,
and there is always, too, so much of vague and undefined
apprehension mixed up with his really well-founded alarms, that I
can see no limit to the yielding and bending of his mind when it is
wrought upon by the idea of power.
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