dman of them all," she answered. "Very well, I
will speak to him as you say."

Grim mounted his camel and rode to the top of a ridge of sand
about twenty yards away, where he halted and sat motionless. If
he really looked so much like Ali Higg, as seemed to be the case,
no one at that distance could have doubted his identity. I hauled
off two or three paces, so as not to betray the fact that I was
to be Jael's executioner in a certain contingency, and the long
sleeve of my cloak concealed the pistol.

As I am setting down the facts exactly as they happened I may as
well record here that I laughed. She thought I laughed at her in
cold-blooded delight at the prospect of murder, and I think that
tightened her resolution not to give me the least excuse.

But I was not feeling in the least cold-blooded. I was laughing
at myself, who might be forced to shoot a woman after all.

Perhaps Grim gave the job to me because he knew I would not shoot
her in any case. I don't know. Nor do I myself know now whether I
would have shot her; sometimes I think yes, sometimes no. My
guess is that I would have failed to do it, and that Narayan
Singh, who was standing by and heard every word that passed,
would have wiped my eye, as the saying is.

Then Ibrahim ben Ah came striding into our midst like an old-time
shepherd with a modern rifle in place of crook, looking neither
to the right nor the left of him, but fixing his eyes on the man
he thought was Ali Higg on the camel beyond us. He seemed
surprised when Jael Higg stopped him, and told him to take all
his men at once to that oasis, where he was to wait, if
necessary, three days.

"I was told to speak with the Lion himself," he objected. _"Ya
sit Jael,_* there is wrath for those who disobey him!" [* O
lady Jael.]

"Go, taste his wrath then!" she retorted. "There was shooting
because of a mistake in the darkness. Good camels were killed. He
is more enraged than at the loss of twenty men. He would have it
the blame is yours--"

_"Mashallah!_ Mine!"

"But I persuaded him. He cools his wrath in the moonlight,
communing with Allah. Better go, Ibrahim, before his mood
changes again."

"But how came he to be here ahead of us? We left him in
Petra. How--"

"How old beards love to wag! Fool! Go ask him then! I call these
men to witness I have given the order that he told me to give to
you. I wash my hands!"

She began to make the gesture of washing hands, but thought
better of