“It is the custom of my country, my mothers,” he said.  “The bride leave with tears the home of her good parents or of her friends; and she speak no word—­only weep—­until she is marriaged.  Ah—­the priest!”

The rest of the story is short and somewhat blurred.  Tish having broken her glasses, Aggie being, as one may say, hors de combat, and I having developed a frightful headache in the dust and bad air, the real meaning of what was occurring did not penetrate to any of us.  The priest officiated from a table in the center of the room, on which he placed two candles, an Arabic Bible, and a sacred picture, all of which he took out of a brown valise.  He himself wore a long black robe and a beard, and looked, as Tish observed, for all the world as if he had stepped from an Egyptian painting.  Before him stood Tufik’s sister, the maid of honor with her baby, the black-mustached friend who had brought Tufik to us after his tragic attempt at suicide, and Tufik himself.

[Illustration:  The real meaning of what was occurring did not penetrate to any of us]

Everybody held lighted candles, and the heat was frightful.  The music ceased, there was much exhorting in Arabic, much reading from the book, many soft replies indiscriminately from the four principals—­and then suddenly Tish turned and gripped my arm.

“Lizzie,” she said hoarsely, “that little thief and liar has done us again!  That isn’t his sister at all.  He’s marrying her—­for us to keep!”

Luckily Aggie grew faint again at that moment, and we led her out into the open air.  Behind us the ceremony seemed to be over; the drum was beating, the pipes screaming, the lute thrumming.

Tish let in the clutch with a vicious jerk, and the whir of the engine drowned out the beating of the drum and the clapping of the hands.  Twilight hid the tin cans and ash-barrels, and the dogs slept on the cool pavements.  In the doorways soft-eyed Syrian women rocked their babies to drowsy chants.  The air revived Aggie.  She leaned forward and touched Tish on the shoulder.

“After all,” she said softly, “if he loves her very much, and there was no other way—­Do you remember that night she arrived—­how he looked at her?”

“Yes,” Tish snapped.  “And I remember the way he looked at us every time he wanted money.  We’ve been a lot of sheep and we’ve been sheared good and proper!  But we needn’t bleat with joy about it!”

As we drew up at my door, Tish pulled out her watch.

“It’s seven o’clock,” she said brusquely.  “I am going to New York on the nine-forty train and I shall take the first steamer outward bound—­I need a rest!  I’ll go anywhere but to the Holy Land!”

We went to Panama.

* * * * *

Two months afterward, in the dusk of a late spring evening, Charlie Sands met us at the station and took us to Tish’s in a taxicab.  We were homesick, tired, and dirty; and Aggie, who had been frightfully seasick, was clamoring for tea.