e he who slew the--_Shi ajib!_* Now I think of
it they did say he was beardless. Nay! Are you--Speak! Who are
you?" [* This is strange!]

"Does your wife wander abroad while you herd cattle?" Grim
asked him.

"Allah forbid! But--"

"Is my honor likely less than yours?"

"Then you are Ali Higg?"

"Who else?"

"And these?"

"My servants."

"Your honor travels abroad with a scant escort!"

"Let us see, then, whether it is not enough! A tale was told me
of a black-faced liar on a Bishareen dromedary who fled hither
from El-Kalil last night to persuade the dogs of this place to
bark in some hunt of his. There was mention made of a woman. My
men pursued him along the road, but fear gave him wings. Hand
him over!"

"Allah! He is my guest."

"Or let us see whether I cannot fire one shot and summon enough
men to eat this place!"

"That is loud talk. They tell me you travel with but twenty."

"Try me!"

You didn't have to be much of a thought-reader to know what was
passing in that sheikh's mind. Supposing that Grim were really
the notorious Ali Higg, he might easily have left Hebron with
twenty men and have been joined by fifty or a hundred others in
the night. Or there might be others on the way to meet him now.
It was a big risk, for Ali Higg's vengeance was always the same;
he simply turned a horde of men loose to work their will on the
inhabitants of any village that defied him. The sheikh was
not quite sure yet that he really sat face to face with the
redoubtable robber, yet did not dare put that doubt to the test.

"Is that all Your Honor wants?" he asked. "Just that messenger?"

"Him and his camel--and another thing."

"What else, then? We are poor folk in this place. There has been
a bad season. We have neither corn nor money."

"If I needed corn or money I would come and take them," Grim
answered. "I have no present need. I give an order."

"Allah! What then?"

"It pleases me to camp yonder."

He made a lordly motion with his head toward the west.

"This side your village, then, all this day until sundown, none
of your people venture."

"But our camels go to graze that way."

"Not this day. Today yours graze to the eastward."

"There is poor grazing to the eastward."

"Nevertheless, whoever ventures to the westward all this day does
so in despite of me, and the village pays the price!"

"Allah!"

"Let Allah witness!" answered Grim.

And his face was an enigma; but half the puzz