and
though the smoke was borne southwards by the wind, a few cloudlets came
over to the boat, choking the sisters and their deliverers.

A large vessel now came towards them from Doomiat and found the narrow
channel barred by the other one. The captain was related to Setnau, and
when Setnau shouted to him that they were engaged in a struggle with Arab
robbers, his friend followed his advice, turned the boat's head with
considerable difficulty, and cast anchor at the nearest village to warn
other vessels southward bound not to get themselves involved in so
perilous an adventure. Any that were coming north would be checked by
the fire and smoke.

The six horsemen left on the eastern shore beheld the spreading blaze
with rage and dismay; however, they had by this time bound the
palm-trunks together, and were preparing by their aid to inflict condign
punishment on the refractory Christians. These, meanwhile, had not been
idle. Every man on board was armed, and one of the ship-wrights was sent
on shore with a sailor, to steal through the reeds, ford the river at a
point lower down and, as soon as the Arabs put out to the attack, to
slaughter their horses, or--if one of them should be left to go forward
on the road to Doomiat--to drag him from his steed.

The six men now laid hold of the slightly-constructed float, on which
they placed their bows and quivers; they pushed it before them, and it
supported them above the shallow water, while their feet only just
touched the oozy bottom. They were all thorough soldiers, true sons of
the desert and of their race--men whom nature seemed to have conceived as
a counterpart to the eagle, the master-piece of the winged creation.
Keen-eyed, strongly-knit though small-boned, bereft of every fibre of
superfluous flesh on their sinewy limbs, with bold brown faces and
sharply-cut features, suggesting the king of birds not merely by the
aquiline nose, they had also the eagle's courage, thirst for blood, and
greed of victory.

Each held on to the raft by one lean, wiry arm, carrying on the other the
round bucklers on which the arrows that came whistling from the boat,
fell and stuck as soon as they were within shot. They ground their white
teeth with fury and nothing within ken escaped their bright hawk's eyes.
They had come to fight, even if the boat had been defended by fifty
Egyptian soldiers instead of carrying a score or so of sailors and
artisans. Their brave hearts felt safe under