e years ago, Aden had been depending for
news of her own protectorate on office files and native report,
especially on that much overrated friend and ally the Lahej sultanate.
The Turks knew all about this, for the leakage of Aden affairs which
trickles through Lahej and over the Yamen border is, and has been for
years, a flagrant scandal.

The invasion at Dhala was a feint just to test the soundness of official
slumber at Aden; the obvious route for a large force was down the Tiban
valley, owing to the easier going and the permanent water-supply.

Our border-sultan (the Haushabi) was suborned with leisurely
thoroughness all unknown to his next-door neighbour, that purblind
sultanate at Lahej, unless the latter refrained from breaking Aden's
holy calm with such unpleasant news.

In May Aden stirred in her sleep and sent out the Aden troop to
reconnoitre. This fine body of Indian cavalry and camelry reported that
affairs seemed serious up the Tiban valley; then inertia reasserted
itself and they were recalled. Also the Lahej sultanate, in a spasm of
economy, started disbanding the Arab levies collected for the emergency
from the tribes of the remoter hinterland which have supplied fine
mercenaries to many oriental sultanates for many centuries.

The watchful Turk, with his unmolested spy system, had noted every move
of these pitiful blunders, and, at the psychological moment, came
pouring down the Tiban valley some 3,000 strong with another 5,000 Arab
levies. They picked up the Haushabi on the way, whose main idea was to
get a free kick at Lahej, just as an ordinary human boy will serve some
sneak and prig to whom a slack schoolmaster has relegated his own
obvious duty of supervision. To do that inadequate sultanate justice, it
tried to bar the way with its own trencher-fed troops and such levies as
it had, but was brushed aside contemptuously by the hardier levies
opposed to it and the overwhelming fire of the Turkish field batteries.
Then a distraught and frantic palace emitted mounted messengers to Aden
for assistance like minute-guns from a sinking ship.

Aden behaved exactly like a startled hen. She ran about clucking and
collecting motor-cars, camel transport, anything. The authorities dared
not leave their pet sultan in the lurch--questions might be asked in the
House. On the other hand they had made no adequate arrangements to
protect him. Just as a demented hen will leave her brood at the mercy of
a hoverin