Note 35 — Chapter IV

It is just possible that Saboun may have been ruthless only against his political enemies. The glowing character, however, which I have given complete in the text, is evidently the work of a parasite. The Sheikh has as little respect for human life as a Soudan prince. In a lengthy episode, which I am obliged to omit, he refers to Saboun’s murder of his brother, and says that a man who gets his enemies into his power, and pardons them, prepares for himself dangers which may cost him his life, “for according to the Prophet, on whom be the benediction of God, no wise man suffers himself to be twice stung by a viper;” and then he goes on to tell an illustrative story of Noman the One-eyed.