pain, and though he
tried to laugh, he was deadly pale in the wan candlelight. "Don't mind
me. I'm all right," he said when Victoria and Saidee began tearing up
their Arab veils for bandages. "Not worth the bother!" But the sisters
would not listen, and Victoria told him with pretended cheerfulness what
a good nurse she was; how she had learned "first aid" at the school at
Potterston, and taken a prize for efficiency.

In spite of his protest, Nevill was made to lie down on the blankets in
the corner, while the two sisters played doctor; and as the firing of
the Arabs slackened, Stephen left the twins to guard door and window,
while he and Rostafel built a screen to serve when the breaking of the
roof should begin. The only furniture left in the dining-room consisted
of one large table (which Stephen had not added to the barricade because
he had thought of this contingency) and in addition a rough unpainted
cupboard, fastened to the wall. They tore off the doors of this
cupboard, and with them and the table made a kind of penthouse to
protect the corner where Nevill lay.

"Now," said Stephen, "if they dig a hole in the roof they'll find----"

"Flag o' truce, sir," announced Hamish at the door. And Stephen
remembered that for three minutes at least there had been no firing. As
he worked at the screen, he had hardly noticed the silence.

He hurried to join Hamish at the door, and, peeping out, saw a tall man,
with a bloodstained bandage wrapped round his head, advancing from the
other side of the barricade, with a white handkerchief hanging from the
barrel of his rifle. It was Maieddine, and somehow Stephen was glad that
the Arab's death did not lie at his door. His anger had cooled, now, and
he wondered at the murderous rage which had passed.

As Maieddine came forward, fearlessly, he limped in spite of an effort
to hide the fact that he was almost disabled.

"I have to say that, if the ladies are given up to us, no harm shall
come to them or to the others," he announced in French, in a clear, loud
voice. "We will take the women with us, and leave the men to go their
own way. We will even provide them with animals in place of those we
have killed, that they may ride to the north."

"Do not believe him!" cried Saidee. "Traitors once, they'll be traitors
again. If Victoria and I should consent to go with them, to save all
your lives, they wouldn't spare you really. As soon as we were in their
hands, they'd burn the