rra Arab, and he had come to love Fielding's waler Bashi-Bazouk as
a Farshoot dog loves his master. And Bashi-Bazouk was worthy of Seti's
love. The sand of the desert, Seti's breath and the tail of his yelek
made the coat of Bashi-Bazouk like silk. It was the joy of the regiment,
and the regiment knew that Seti had added a new chapter to the Koran
concerning horses, in keeping with Mahomet's own famous passage--

"By the CHARGERS that pant,
And the hoofs that strike fire,
And the scourers at dawn,
Who stir up the dust with it,
And cleave through a host with it!"

But Mahomet's phrases were recited in the mosque, and Seti's, as he
rubbed Bashi-Bazouk with the tail of his yelek.

There was one thing, however, that Seti loved more than horses, or at
least as much. Life to him was one long possible Donnybrook Fair. That
was why, although he was no longer in the army, when Fielding and Dicky
mounted for the sortie he said to Fielding:

"Oh, brother of Joshua and all the fighters of Israel, I have a
bobtailed Arab. Permit me to ride with thee." And Fielding replied: "You
will fight the barn-yard fowl for dinner; get back to your stew-pots."

But Seti was not to be fobbed off. "It is written that the Lord, the
Great One, is compassionate and merciful. Wilt thou then, O saadat."

Fielding interrupted: "Go, harry the onion-field for dinner. You're
a dog of a slave, and a murderer too: you must pay the price of that
grindstone!"

But Seti hung by the skin of his teeth to the fringe of Fielding's
good-nature--Fielding's words only were sour and wrathful. So Seti
grinned and said: "For the grindstone, behold it sent Ebn Haroun to the
mercy of God. Let him rest, praise be to God!"

"You were drummed out of the army. You can't fight," said Fielding
again; but he was smiling under his long moustache.

"Is not a bobtailed nag sufficient shame? Let thy friend ride the
bobtailed nag and pay the price of the grindstone and the drum," said
Seti.

"Fall in!" rang the colonel's command, and Fielding, giving Seti a
friendly kick in the ribs, galloped away to the troop.

Seti turned to the little onion-garden. His eye harried it for a moment,
and he grinned. He turned to the doorway where a stew-pot rested, and
his mind dwelt cheerfully on the lamb he had looted for Fielding's
dinner. But last of all his eye rested upon his bobtailed Arab, the
shameless thing in an Arab country, w