_

But I was the only one who seemed at all distressed by any of
those inconveniences; the others accepted them as in the natural
order of things, and my camel, realizing how I felt, galloped
last in the worst of the dust.

El-Maan itself was a picture of green trees above a mud wall; but
we did not visit it, for the station, with its hideous red
water-tanks, was a mile and a half to the eastward of the
place--a miserable, bleak, unpainted iron roof and buildings,
with a place alongside that had once been a Greek hotel.

At present it looked like a camel-mart; but there were dozens of
horses there too, gaudily turned out like the camels with red
worsted trimmings on saddles and bridles. And as for the fifty
men our five new acquaintances had spoken of, there were a
hundred and fifty if one, all herded in groups, each with
a rifle over his arm or slung across his shoulder. Their talk
ceased as we rode along the track, and those who were on the
platform--about half of them--eyed Ayisha with as much curiosity
as a Bedouin taken by surprise ever permits himself to betray.

She did not give them much time for reflection, and wasted none
whatever on conciliation, but affronted them from camel-back,
having learned that method, no doubt, from her rightful lord and
master. It was obvious from the first that they all knew her
by sight.

_"Wallahi!_ Good meat for the crows ye will all be presently! Has
the Lion of Petra lost his teeth that jackals hunt ahead of him?
Did the men of Dat Ras profit by coming between him and his prey?
Go, look at Rat Das and count the splinters of men's bones! So
shall your bones lie--ye who tempt the wrath of Ali Higg!"

She rode along the line, showing her little teeth like pomegranate
seeds in a sneer that would have made a passport clerk take notice;
and her voice was raised to a shrill, harpy scream that rasped
under the iron roof, so that none could have pretended he did
not hear.

"The Lion claims this train! The Lion of Petra lies in wait for
it at a place of his own choosing! Who dares forestall him? Who
dares slay one passenger, or loot one truck? Who dares? Stand
out, whoever dares, that I may take his name back to the
Lion of Petra!"

Nobody did stand out. They all herded closer together, as if in
fear that any one left on the edge of the crowd might be assumed
to challenge her authority. Yet they looked capable of plundering
a city, that company of stately cutthroats. Perhaps