t.
Again I remembered Grim's advice: "Do what the leader of the
escort tells you." I had begun to feel sorry for Ahmed in spite
of his self-pity, but his fear wasn't contagious and his advice
wasn't worth listening to.

"Effendi, you are Anazeh's guest. He must do as you demand, if
you ask in the Name of the Most High. Tell him, therefore, that
you have an urgent business in El-Kudz. Demand that he send you
back, with me, in my boat!"

"You are not his guest. He would simply shoot you and destroy
the boat," I answered.

It was not more than half-an-hour before I saw horses coming in
our direction from the village. At sight of them the man on the
gray horse lost heart. With a final burst of eloquence, in which
he spread his breast to heaven and shook both fists in witness
that he was absolved and no blood-guilt could rest on his head,
he rode away at top speed straight up the ravine down which he
originally came.

The horses proved to be a very mixed lot--some good, some very
bad, and some indifferent. But again they treated me as honoured
guest and provided me a mare with four sound legs and nothing
much the matter except vice. She came at me with open teeth
when I tried to mount, but four men held her and I climbed
aboard, somehow or other. As a horseman, I am a pretty good
sack of potatoes.

That was the worst saddle I ever sat in--and Anazeh's second-
best! The stirrups swung amidships, so to speak, and whenever
you tried to rest your weight on them for a moment they described
an arc toward the rear. Moreover, you could not sit well back on
the saddle to balance matters, because of the high cantle. The
result, whether you did with stirrups or without them, was
torture, for anybody but an Arab, who has notions of comfort all
his own.

They put Ahmed on a wall-eyed scrub that looked unfit to walk,
but proved well able to gallop under his light weight. One of
Anazeh's men took my bag, with a nod to reassure me, and without
a word we were off full-pelt, Anazeh leading with four stalwarts
who looked almost as hard-bitten as himself, six men crowding me
closely, and the remainder bringing up the rear.

That is the Arab way of doing things--rush and riot to begin
with. The steepness of the stony ravine we rode up soon reduced
the horses to a walk, after which there was a good deal of
attention to rifle-bolts, and a settling down to the more serious
aspects of the adventure. The escort began to