think that we shall be beaten," the latter said, after they had
talked for some time. "There is no reason, brother, why you should take
part in a fight that you think will end badly. Why should you not leave
us, and go out of one of the gates in the morning?"

"I cannot do that, Sidi. I have, of my own free-will, cast in my lot
with your people. It is thanks to them that I have escaped a prison and
perhaps death, and I cannot withdraw now because there is danger. To
tell you the truth, I am more disgusted at the murder of all the
unfortunate shopkeepers than thinking of any personal danger to-morrow.
There is nothing brave or patriotic in slaying unarmed men, and the
deeds done yesterday are rather those of street ruffians thirsting for
plunder than of men trying to shake off subjection to foreigners. Such
doings as these bring disgrace upon a cause."

This view of the case was new to Sidi. In the wars that the Arabs
carried on with each other, or with the tribes of Morocco, there was no
fine distinction between combatants and non-combatants: women as well as
men were killed or carried off as slaves, and that there was anything
wrong in this had never occurred to him.

"But they are enemies," he ventured to protest.

"They were foreigners, but not enemies," Edgar replied. "Many of them
were settled here long before the French landed, and, like my father,
lived peaceably among you. They are not in any way responsible for the
action of the French government, or of Bonaparte and his army. Among
civilized people, save that after the capture of a town by storm, the
soldiers become maddened and behave sometimes like demons, the lives of
peaceful people are never menaced. Soldiers fight against soldiers, and
not against quiet traders or cultivators of the ground. To me all that
has been done to-day is nothing short of a murderous butchery, and
to-morrow I would much more willingly join in a charge on the rabble who
have done these things than upon the French soldiers, who are for the
most part honest fellows and have injured no one since they came into
the town, though they may have looted houses which they found deserted
by their inhabitants.

"However, as my country is at war with them, and I have an opportunity
of fighting them, I shall do so, but I would rather have done it with an
Arab force alone out on the desert than in conjunction with these
blood-stained ruffians. However, the matter is settled now, and at any
r