all--to see,
I suppose, whether the Lion was dead yet--but the minute I caught
her eye she disappeared.

Grim stooped down over Ali Higg, who was sprawling on his stomach
on a Persian rug.

"Has my _hakim_ relieved Your Honor's pain?" he asked.

The Lion managed to sit upright. Three of the women piled
cushions behind him and ran back again to their corner.

"Who are you in my likeness?"

"A friend, _inshallah,"_ answered Grim.

He squatted down cross-legged on the mat in front of him; for
though the Lion's neck was pretty nicely bandaged and the
hypodermic had not lost its power, yet it hurt him quite a
little to look up.

"I had three brothers, but thou art none of them. I had one
son, but neither art thou he. In the name of the All-Knowing,
name thyself!"

"I am he," said Grim, "who brought Your Honor's wife from El-Kalil."

"Oh! And a million curses on the bint! She tried within the hour
to poison me. But for this Indian of thine I were a dead man now.
Stay! Send for her!"

He clapped his hands.

"Let her be flung over the cliff. Go bring her!" But nobody moved
to do his bidding, and it dawned on him a second time that he was
cornered. He wasn't a man who took such a discovery mildly.

"Ayisha shall be dealt with at the proper time!" he snarled. "I
have not accepted those gifts. Take them up! You who have entered
Petra without my leave shall account to my men presently.
Thereafter we will talk of gifts."

"Which men?" Grim asked him blandly. "Surely not the forty and
four who went to raid the Beni Aroun? Nay, I took the liberty of
sending them a message signed with Your Honor's seal. They will
not come for a day or two, so we can make friends undisturbed."

_"Shu halalk?_ With my seal?"

"With Your Honor's seal. Observe; I have it."

"Then--then--Where is she into whose hands I gave it?"

That was the first sign that Ali Higg had given of the slightest
affection for any one. His face looked ghastly at the thought of
losing that strange, half-western wife of his.

He had called Ayisha by her name in front of strangers, out of
disrespect. Jael he would not name, even when confronted by the
proof that she had broken trust and lost his precious seal.

"I took another liberty," said Grim. "I sent word by messenger,
who bore a letter sealed with that same seal, to Ibrahim ben Ah.
He will neither raid El-Maan nor return to Petra."

"He is defeated?" asked the Lion, dumbfounded. "And she--is
she