It had been a dreadful night. The company in the kebab restaurant had not been congenial. The spiced oriental kebab had not agreed with the two European stomachs, and to say that it kept repeating during the night would be a euphemism of considerable proportions. About the sanitary arrangements, the less said the better. The beds were ancient, with horse-hair mattresses supported on a rusty spring base. One of the beds had a leg which was loose, and the slightest movement threatened its total collapse. Then there was the muezzin, whose strange, enchanting, melancholic call came during the night and before dawn. Its appeal was lost on the two travellers, who stumbled bleary-eyed out of bed well before their usual hour.

The Westerner peered out of the window overlooking the square, which was already filling with vendors, stalls and produce for the market that day. The Sage sat on the edge of the bed, and sank into a reverie. Perhaps he had set too much store on the Westerner’s theological theories - this obsession with the continuation of the promise to Abraham, the survival of the people of God, the new creation. The river Wey and the soft verdure of Surrey under an English sky now seemed very appealing. Where were their three compatriots, he wondered, whom he had abandoned at Godalming aboard ‘The Pride of the River Wey’?

A sudden knock at the door jolted the Sage out of his reverie.