Who worked for nothing, or for the empty honor
of it, in Arabia?
Nobody can pass the reef at night in shallow-draft lateen-sail boats
without having him on board; and though he was never ostensibly paid
for his services, it was understood that he performed pilot service
in return for certain other opportunities that sometimes came his
way. When things happened on the high sea that were not discussed
in public, it was understood that Hassan Ah could have discussed
them as thoroughly as anybody if he chose.
On the whole, then, and within limits that were only more or less
definable, he was something of a personality. Men listened to him
when he raised his voice in argument, and as one who could grant
favors on occasion his words had weight.
The sun was very nearly in its zenith, beating down on dry Arabia
between racing black clouds, when he had finished talking to the local
council in the ramshackle old council-house, skin and mat curtained,
that faced the sheik's where the main street broadened for a hundred
filthy yards into a market-place.
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