ds regard Syrians as wolves regard
sheep.

"Let the prisoners be," said Ranjoor Singh, "but feed those others!
They must help put through the plan!"

So the Kurd ordered our Syrians, whom he thought Turks, fed too, and
we dipped the flat bread (something like our Indian chapatties) into
salt and ate, facing one another.

"Now speak, and we listen," said the Kurd when we had finished. Some
of his men had come back, clustering around him, and we were quite a
party, filling all the shadow of the great rock.

"How much of that gold was to have been yours?" asked Ranjoor Singh,
and the Kurd's eyes blazed. "Wassmuss promised me so-and-so much,"
he answered, "if I with three hundred men wait here for the convoy
and escort it to where he waits."

"But why do ye serve Wassmuss?" asked Ranjoor Singh.

"Because he buys friendship, as other men buy ghee, or a horse, or
ammunition," said the Kurd. "He spends gold like water, saying it is
German gold, and in return for it we must harry the British and
Russians."

"Yet you and I are friends by bread and salt," said Ranjoor Singh,
"and I offer you all this gold, whereas he offers only part of it!
Nay, I and my men need none of it--I offer it all!"

"At what price?" asked the Kurd, suspiciously. Doubtless men who
need no gold were as rare among these mountains as in other places!

"I shall name a price," said Ranjoor Singh. "A low price. We shall
both be content with our bargain, and possibly Wassmuss, too, may
feel satisfied for a while."

"Nay, you must be a wizard!" said the Kurd. "Speak on!"

"Tell me first," said Ranjoor Singh, "about the party who went
through this defile two days ahead of us."

"What do you know of them?" asked the Kurd.

"This," said Ranjoor Singh. "We have followed them from Mosul,
learning here a little and there a little. What is it that they have
with them? Who are they? Why were they let pass?"

"They were let pass because Wassmuss gave the order," the Kurd
answered. "They are Germans--six German officers, six German
servants--and Kurds--twenty-four Kurds of the plains acting porters
and camp-servants--many mules--two mules bearing a box slung on
poles between them."

"What was in the box?" asked Ranjoor Singh.

"Nay, I know not," said the Kurd.

"Nevertheless," said Ranjoor Singh, "my brother is a man with eyes
and ears. What did my brother hear?"

"They said their machine can send and receive a message from places
as far apart as