nd I,
across the road and up a steep track to the tomb on the
overhanging rock, where he had stood when we first saw him.

He pointed. A cherry-red fire with golden sparks and crimson-
bellied sulphur smoke was blazing in the midst of El-Kerak.

"The home of Abdul Ali of Damascus," said Anazeh with pride in
his voice. It was the pride of a man who shows off the behaviour
of his children. "My men did it!"

"How can they escape?" Grim asked him.

"Wallah! Will the gate guards stand idle? Will they not run to
the fire--and to the looting? But they will find not much loot.
My men already have it!"

"Loot," said Grim, "will delay them."

"Money doesn't weigh much," Anazeh answered. "Here my men come."

Somebody was coming. There came a burst of shooting and yelling
from somewhere between us and El-Kerak, and a moment later the
thunder of horses galloping full-pelt. Anazeh got down to the
road with the agility of a youngster, ordered Abdul Ali of
Damascus, the shivering Ahmed and me under cover. He placed his
remaining handful of men at points of vantage where they could
cover the retreat of the fifteen. And it was well he did.

There were at least two score in hot pursuit, and though you
could hardly tell which was which in that dim light, Anazeh's
party opened fire on the pursuers and let the fifteen through. I
did not get sight of Grim while that excitement lasted, but he
had two automatics. He took from me the one that I had taken
from Abdul Ali, and with that one and his own he made a din
like a machine-gun. He told me afterward that he had fired in
the air.

"Noise is as good as knock-outs in the dark," he explained, while
Anazeh's men boasted to one another of the straight shooting that
it may be they really believed they had done. An Arab can
believe anything--afterward. I don't believe one man was killed,
though several were hit.

At any rate, whether the noise accomplished it or not, the
pursuers drew off, and we went forward, carrying a cashbox now,
of which Abdul Ali was politely requested to produce the key.
That was the first intimation he had that his house had been
looted. He threw his bunch of keys away into the shadows, in the
first exhibition of real weakness he had shown that night. It
was a silly gesture. It only angered his captors. It saved him
nothing.

Four more of Anazeh's men had been wounded, all from behind, two
of them rather badly, making six in all who were