ime.

"Who is this man who looks like Ali Higg?" she asked me suddenly,
and I had a good look at her face; you don't have to answer
questions without thinking, just because they are asked by a
woman in a friendly tone of voice.

Her nose was Roman and very narrow, and her dark eyes looked
straight at you without their pupils converging, which produced a
sensation of being seen through. She had splendid teeth; and her
mouth, which was humorous, turning upward at the corners when she
smiled, had nevertheless a certain suggestion of stealthy
strength--perhaps cruelty. Her chin was firm and practical. So
were her freckled hands. I decided that the less I said the better.

"He is a sheikh," said I pretty abruptly.

She turned that empty information over in her mind for a minute,
and decided to turn her guns on me. Conversation was not easy,
for we were swinging along at a great pace, and my camel was a
lot smaller than hers.

"And you are an Indian? How is it that you speak English?"

"Many of us speak it. We pass our college examinations in English."

"How do you come to be with that--that sheikh?" she asked next.

"It pleases me to follow him. _Inshallah,_ I may help him in case
of sickness."

"You are a _hakim?"_

I admitted that, although secretly pitying any poor devil who
might pin faith to the claim.

"Ali Higg--the real one, who is known as the Lion of Petra--believes
in Indian _hakims,_ like all these Arabs who have no use for
European doctors. And this big man on my left, who is he?"

"My servant."

"An Afghan?"

"A Pathan."

She turned that over in her mind, too, for several minutes.

"And how does Ayisha come to be with you?" she asked at last.

At that Narayan Singh broke silence, and although he denied it
afterward I know that his only motive was to get a little
preliminary vengeance on Ayisha for the names she had called him.
He maintains that he was "casting a stone, as it were, into a
pond to see which way the ripples went."

"Few women will refuse to follow a Pathan when honored by his
admiration," he boomed.

I could not see her face then, because she was staring at
Narayan Singh.

"Do you realize whose wife you are tampering with?" she
asked him.

"Hah! Where I come from a man must guard his women if he hopes to
keep them."

"Where you are going to, such a man as you will find his own life
hard enough to keep," she retorted.

_"Bismillah!_ I have kept it thus far," said N