pointed out, up near the
window close to Abdul Ali. There was no room there. That
was the seat of the mighty. You could not have dropped a
handkerchief between the men who wanted to be nearest the throne
of influence. But Anazeh solved that riddle. He strode, stately
and magnificent, up the middle of the carpet amid a mutter of
imprecations. And when one more than ordinarily indignant sheikh
demanded to know what he meant by it, he paused in front of him
and laid his right hand on my shoulder. (There was a loaded
rifle in his left.)

"Who offers indignity to a distinguished guest?" he demanded.

The question was addressed to everybody in the room. He took
care they were all aware of it. His stern eyes traveled from
face to face.

"My men, who escorted him here, are outside the door. They can
enter and escort him away, if there are none here who understand
how to treat the stranger in our midst!"

There was goose-flesh all over me, and I did not even try to look
unembarrassed. A man's wits, if he has any, work swiftly when he
looks like being torn to pieces at a moment's notice. It seemed
to me that the less insolent I appeared, the less likely they
were to vent their wrath on me. I tried to look as if I didn't
understand I was intruding--as if I expected a welcome.

"Good!" Anazeh whispered in my ear. "You do well."

There was a murmur of remonstrance. The sheikh who had dared to
rebuke Anazeh found the resentment turned against himself.
Somebody told him sharply to mend his manners. Anazeh, shrewd
old opportunist, promptly directed the servant to place cushions
on the edge of the carpet, in front of the first row of those
who wished to appear important. That obliged the front rank
to force the men behind them backward, closer to the wall, so
that room could be made for us without our trespassing on the
forbidden gangway.

So I sat down in the front row, five cushions from Abdul Ali.
Anazeh squatted beside me with his rifle across his knees. Then
Mahommed ben Hamza forced himself down between me and the man on
my left, using his left elbow pretty generously and making the
best of the edges of two cushions. As far as I could see there
were not more than half-a-dozen other men in the room who had
rifles with them, although all had daggers, and some wore curved
scimitars with gold-inlaid hilts.

As soon as I could summon sufficient nerve to look about me and
meet the brown, conjecturing eyes