me. It
looked as if I had some natural gift that I couldn't identify,
and that got smothered as soon as I put mere brains to work.

"But I see now; they mistook me for the robber, and the reaction
when they found out I was some one less like the devil made them
act like school-kids who think they can guy the teacher. Now I
understand, I'll do better."

"The point is," said I, "that you're established as the robber
now, and here we are riding straight for his den. Can we fight
him and his two hundred?"

"Fighting is a fool's game ten times out of nine," he answered.
"That's to say, it's always a fool who starts the fight. The
wise man waits until fighting is the only resource that's
left to him."

"Why not wait, then, and watch points?"

"Because we're not dealing with a wise man; he's only clever and
drastic. If we wait word's bound to reach him that some one's
posing as himself, and he'll sally forth to make an example of
us--do a good job of it too!

"I'd hate to be caught out in the desert with twenty men by Ali
Higg! He's a rip-roaring typhoon. But the worst typhoon the world
ever saw had a soft spot in the middle.

"You know what the Arab say? `A dog can scratch fleas, but not
worms in his belly!' We've got to be worms in the belly of Ali
Higg, and where the man is there will be his belly also. We've
got to stage what the movie people call a close-up."

Almost every one in the outfit had a different view of the
situation, although all agreed that Grim was the man to stay
with. Narayan Singh, growling in my ear incessantly, scented
intrigue, and his Sikh blood tingled at the thought; he began to
look more tolerantly on Ayisha as a mere instrument whom Grim
would find some chance of using.

"For the cleverest woman whom the devil ever sent to ruin men is
after all but a lie that engulfs the liar. I know that man
Jimgrim. She will dig a pit, but he will not fall into it. It may
be that we shall all die together, but what of that?"

Ayisha, on the other hand, was getting nervous. Grim avoided her.
She was reduced to questioning others, edging the little
Bishareen alongside each in turn. She seemed no longer able to
suffer the close confinement of the _shibriyah,_ but endured the
scorching sun and desert flies with less discomfort than the rest
of us betrayed, camels included.

"What will he do? Is he mad? Does he think that the Lion of Petra
is a camel to be managed with a rope and a stick?

"I have