' Poor Cavagnari! when he was here last summer,
before leaving on his mission, he said several times he should never
came back. And yet no better man could have been chosen, whether for
politics or fighting; if only they had had the sense to protect him."
Having delivered himself of this eulogy, my friend dropped his exhausted
cigarette, lit another, and appeared again absorbed in the triangulation
of his matrimonial problem. I imagined him weighing the question whether
he should part with Zobeida and Zuleika and keep Anima, or send Zuleika
and Amina about their business, and keep Zobeida to be a light in his
household. At last Kiramat Ali, on the watch in the verandah, announced
the saices with the horses, and we descended.
I had expected that a man of Isaacs' tastes and habits would not be
stingy about his horseflesh, and so was prepared for the character of
the animals that awaited us. They were two superb Arab stallions, one of
them being a rare specimen of the weight-carrying kind, occasionally
seen in the far East. Small head, small feet, and feather-tailed, but
broad in the quarters and deep in the chest, able to carry a
twelve-stone man for hours at the stretching, even gallop, that never
trembles and never tires; surefooted as a mule, and tender-tempered as a
baby.
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