top the enemy--
whoever they were--took to flight. But that is guesswork. There
were two casualties on our side. One man shot through the arm,
which did not matter much; he was well able to lie about what
had happened and to boast of how many men he had slain before the
bullet hit him. The other was wounded pretty seriously in the
jaw. They came to me for first aid, taking it for granted that I
knew something about surgery. I don't. I had a bad time
bandaging both of them, using two of my handkerchiefs and strips
from the protesting Ahmed's shirt. However, I enjoyed it more
than they did.

When Anazeh shouted at last and we all rode to the hilltop there
was a dead man lying there, stripped naked, with his throat cut
across from ear to ear. One of our men was wiping a long knife
by stabbing it into the dirt. There was also a led horse added
to the escort. Anazeh looked very cool and dignified; he had an
extra rifle now, slung by a strap across his shoulders. He was
examining a bandolier that had blood on it.

We rode on at once, and for the next hour Ahmed was kept busy
interpreting to me the lies invented by every member of the
escort for my especial benefit. If they were true, each man had
slain his dozen; but nobody would say who the opposing faction
were. When I put that question they all dried up and nobody
would speak again for several minutes.

It turned out afterward that there had been a sort of armistice
proclaimed, and all the local chiefs had undertaken to observe it
and cease from blood-feuds for three days, provided that each
chief should prove peaceful intention by bringing with him only
two men. Three men in a party, and not more than three, had
right of way. The engagement may have been a simple protest
against breach of the terms of the armistice, but I suspect there
was more than that in it.

At any rate, we were not attacked again on the road, although there
were men who showed themselves now and then on inaccessible-looking
crags, who eyed us suspiciously and made no answer to the shouted
challenge of Anazeh's men. When the track passed over a spur, or
swung round the shoulder of a cliff, we could sometimes catch
sight of other parties--always, though of three, before and behind
us, proceeding in the same direction.

We sighted the stone walls of El-Kerak at about midafternoon, and
rode up to the place through a savage gorge that must have been
impregnable in the old days