he look of him, for we
could see his striped silk head-dress even at that distance, and
he seemed to have a modern rifle as against the spears and
long-barreled muskets of the others. There were about two-score
of them, and they rode like the wind in a half circle, with the
obvious intention of surrounding us. Grim led straight on.

They rode around and around us once or twice before the man in
the striped head-gear called a halt. He seemed disturbed by
Grim's nonchalance, and asked our business with not more than
half a challenge in his voice.

"Water," Grim answered. "Did Allah make no wells in these parts?"

It doesn't pay to do as much as even to suggest your real reason
for visiting an Arab village, for they won't believe you in
any case.

"What have you in the _shibriyah?"_

"Come and see."

The Sheikh Mahommed Abbas drew near alone, suspiciously, with his
cocked rifle laid across his lap. His men began moving again,
circling around us slowly--I suppose with the idea of annoying
us; for that is an old trick, to irritate your intended victim
until some ill-considered word or gesture gives excuse for an
attack. But we all sat our camels stock-still, and, following
Grim's example, kept our rifles slung behind us.

The sheikh was a rather fine-looking fellow, except for smallpox
marks. He had a hard eye, and a nose like an eagle's beak; and
that sort of face is always wonderfully offset by a pointed black
beard such as he wore. But there was something about the way he
sat his camel that suggested laziness, and his lips were not thin
and resolute enough to my mind, to match that beard and nose. I
would have bet on three of a kind against him sky-high, even if
he had passed the draw.

He drew aside the curtain of the _shibrayah_ gingerly, as if he
expected a trick mechanism that might explode a bomb in his face.

_"Mashallah!_ Where is the woman?" he exclaimed.

I found out then that I was right as to the way to play that
supposititious poker hand. Grim had doped him out too, and
answered promptly without changing a muscle of his face.

_"Wallahi!_ Should I bring my wife to this place?"

"Allah! Thy wife?"

"Whose else?"

"It was Ali Higg's wife according to the tale!"

"Some fools swallow tales as the dogs eat the offal thrown to
them! By the beard of God's Prophet, whom do you take me for?"

_"Kif?_* How should I know?" [* What?]

"Go and ask the kites, then, at Dat Ras!"

"You are he? You ar