ith this party or
not, but if either of you find him, kill him not! Deliver him to me!"

"Listen, Master!" exclaimed Rrisa, and thrust the point of his javelin
deep into the sand.

"Well, what now, Rrisa?"

"Shall we, after all, kill these sleeping swine-brothers?"

"Eh, what? Thy heart then, hath turned to water? Thou canst not kill?
They attacked us--this is justice!"

"And if they live, they will surely wipe us out!" put in the
Frenchman, staring in the gloom. "What meaneth this old woman's
babble, son of the Prophet?"

"It is not that my heart hath turned to water, nor have the fountains
of mine eyes been opened to pity," answered Rrisa. "But some things
are worse than death, to all of Arab blood. To be despoiled of arms
or of horses, without a fight, makes an Arab as the worm of the earth.
Then he becometh an outcast, indeed! 'If you would rule, disarm'," he
quoted the old proverb, and added another: "'Man unarmed in the desert
is like a bird shorn of wings.'"

"What is thy plain meaning in all this?" demanded the chief.

"Listen, _M'alme_. If you would be the Sheik of Sheiks, carry away
all these weapons, and let these swine awaken without them. They would
drag their way back to the oases and the black tents, with a story
the like of which hath never been told in the Empty Abodes. The Sahara
would do homage, Master, even as if the Prophet had returned!"

"_Lah_! I am not thinking of the Sahara. The goal lies far beyond--far
to eastward."

"Still, the folk are Arabs there, too. They would hear of this, and
bow to you, my _M'alme_!"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. I can take no chances, Rrisa. The land, here
and to the eastward, might all arise against us. The tribes might come
against us like the _rakham_, the carrion-vultures. No, we must kill
and kill, so that no man remaineth here--none save old Abd el Rahman,
if Allah deliver him into our hands!"

"That is your firm command, Master?"

"My firm command!"

"To hear the Master is to obey. But first, grant me time for my
_isha_, my evening prayer!"

"It is granted. And, Rrisa, _there_ is the _kiblah_, the direction of
Mecca!"

The Master pointed exactly east. Rrisa faced that way, knelt,
prostrated himself. He made ablution with sand, as Mohammed allows
when water cannot be found. Even as he poured it down his face, the
strangely gusting wind flicked it away in little whirls.

CHAPTER XXV

THE GREAT PEARL STAB

The Master began to feel a