suspect his wives get all the gossip that's going. Then
he'll have to work fast, because we shall move fast. What
villages does he trade with chiefly?"

"The Beni-Assan and the Beni-Khor."

"Small crowds, both of them. Counting her four fanatics, we'll be
four-and-twenty armed men, and tough in the bargain. Is there any
outlying sheikh who owes old Rafiki money? Who are his wives,
for instance?"

"Now you're on the track," said de Crespigny. "One of his
wives--the third, I think--is the daughter of Abbas Mahommed of
the Beni-Yussuf tribe. Abbas Mahommed is always in debt to him."

"Where's his place?"

"Down near the lower end of the Dead Sea. Right near where you'll
want to pitch your first camp. Abbas Mahommed sells him camel
wool and hides, and goes in debt in advance regularly. This
spring, for some reason, he delivered very little, and is still
heavily in debt to Rafiki."

"How many men has he?"

"Might turn out fifty strong."

"That's where we're due for our first trouble, then," said Grim.
"We'll have to put one over on him. I know one way of spoiling
friend Rafiki's game; old Woolly-wits'll fall sure. Suppose you
go and see him, 'Crep, or send for him, and ask him straight out
to provide camels for the lady Ayisha. He'll send his own men
along with them, of course, and give them private instructions.
Let's see--four men and a woman plus provisions, and he'll
probably send five men with them--twelve camels, eh? Who else can
raise seven good camels in this place?"

"Easy. I know where to get 'em."

"Good. Hire them then. Tie them in two strings and send them out
with two policemen to wait for us ten miles along the road. Be
sure they start ahead of us. Soon as we overtake them I'll
dismiss Rafiki's men, who'll be nothing but his spies, swap the
princess and her four men and their loads on to the fresh beasts,
and leave the police to chase Rafiki's experts home again. Will
you do that?"

It was getting well along toward sunset, and de Crespigny had to
hurry; but one of the advantages of being short-handed as
administrator of a district is that you have to keep in intimate
personal touch with all essentials, and there was not much that
young de Crespigny did not know about getting what he wanted done
in quick time. Within half an hour seven pretty good camels were
sauntering southward out of Hebron, with a couple of phlegmatic
Arab policemen perched on the two leaders, and the noses of the
others t