e and, since there was no
pursuing launch in sight, could afford to jeer at the Sikhs in
chorus. There were things said about their habits and their
ancestry that it is to be hoped they did not hear, or at any rate
understand, for the sake of any Arab prisoners they might take in
future. It always struck me as a fool game to mock your enemy.
If you fall in his power at any time he would be almost more than
human if he did not remember it. It seemed to me unlikely that
those Sikhs would forget to avenge the Arab compliments that must
have sizzled in ears across that star-lit sea. After that the
only immediate danger was from the wind that sometimes blows down
in sudden gusts from between the mountain-tops. It would have
needed only half a sea to swamp us. But the Dead Sea was living
up to its reputation, quiet, inert, like a mercury mirror for the
stars--a brooding place of silence.

The Arabs' spirits rose as we chugged toward their savage hills.
They began to sing glorious songs about women and mares and
camels. Presently Anazeh improvised an epic about the night's
raid, abortive though it had been. He left out all the
disappointing part. He sang first of the three shore-dwelling
fools whose boats they had stolen. Then of the baffled rage of
those same fools when they should learn their property was lost
forever. Presently, as he warmed to the spirit of the thing, he
sang about the wails of the frightened villagers from whom they
had plundered sheep and goats; and of the skill and
resourcefulness with which the party had escaped pursuit under
his leadership, Allah favoring, "and blessed be His Prophet!"

Last, he sang about me, the honoured stranger, for whom they had
dared everything and conquered, and whom they were taking to El-
Kerak. He described me as a prince from a far country, the son
of a hundred kings.

It was a good song. I got Ahmed to translate it to me
afterwards. But I suspect that Ahmed toned it down in deference
to what he may have thought might be my modesty and moralistic
scruples.

Chapter Four

"I am willing to use all means--all methods."

Ahmed knew the Dead Sea. He knew its moods and a few of its
tricks, so he was suitably scared. He was more of raid of the
treacherous sea than of his captors. They weren't treacherous in
the least. They were frankly disobedient of any law except their
own; respectful of nothing but bullets, brains and their own
interpret