a. Bohannan, seated cross-legged between Captain Alden and the
Master, swore an oath.

"What are these infernal murderers here for?" growled he. "Ask the
Sheik, will you? I thought you and he had eaten salt together! If this
isn't a trap, it looks too damned much like it to be much of a picnic!
Faith, this is a Hell of a party!"

"Silence, sir!" commanded the Master; while Leclair, at his other
side, cast a look of anger at the Celt. "Diplomacy requires that we
consider these men as a guard of honor. Pay no attention to them,
anybody! Any sign of hesitation now, or fear, may be suicide.
Remember, we are dealing with Orientals. The 'grand manner' is what
counts with them. I advise every man who has tobacco, to light a
cigarette and look indifferent. _Verb sap!_"

Most of the Legionaries produced tobacco; but the Olema, smiling,
raised a hand of negation. For already the slave-girls were entering
with trays of cigarettes and silver boxes of tobacco. These they
passed to the visitors, then to the Arabs. Such as preferred
cigarettes, suffered the girls to light them at the copper fire-pans.
Others, choosing a _shishah_, let the girls fill it from the silver
boxes; and soon the grateful vapors of tobacco were rising to blend
with the spiced incense-smoke.

A more comfortable feeling now possessed the Legionaries. This sharing
of tobacco seemed to establish almost an amicable Free Masonry between
them and the Jannati Shahr men. All sat and smoked in what seemed a
friendly silence.

The slave-girls silently departed. Others came with huge, silver trays
graven with Koran verses. These trays contained meat-pilafs, swimming
in melted butter; vine leaves filled with chopped mutton; _kababs_,
or bits of roast meat spitted on wooden splinters; crisp cucumbers; a
kind of tasteless bread; a dish that looked like vermicelli sweetened
with honey; thin jelly, and sweetmeats that tasted strongly of
rosewater. Dates, pomegranates, and areca nuts cut up and mixed with
sugar-paste pinned with cloves into a betel leaf--these constituted
the dessert.

The Arabs ate with strict decorum, according to their custom,
beginning the banquet with a _Bismillah_ of thanks and ending with an
_Al Hamd_ that signified repletion. Knives and forks there were none;
each man dipped his hand into whatever dish pleased him, as the trays
were passed along. The Legionaries did the same.

"Rather messy, eh?" commented the major; but no one answered him. Mo