was interesting to hear him curse the Prophet _sotto voce_ while
pretending to vie with those robbers in fervid protestations of
faith in Islam. But more than the Prophet he cursed Ayisha,
praying to his Hindu pantheon to wreak all wrath on her.

It was a diluted pantheon, of course, because he was a Sikh; he
wasn't able to call on as many animal-shaped gods with as many
arms and teeth as a Bengali could have urged into action; but he
did his best with the technical resources at his disposal.

Without pretending to be a judge of other men's creeds, I thought
at the time that he made a pretty workman-like hash of that
lady's prospects, so far as his particular formula could do
it. I jotted down some of his suggestions to the gods for
future reference, and purpose to teach them to the U.S. Army
mule-skinners next time this country goes to war.

While we were eating breakfast in a circle in front of the tents,
all sticking our right hands into a common mess-pan and eating
like wolves--you have to be awfully careful not to use your
left hand, and unless you eat fast you'll get less than your
share--there came five men on camels out of a wady--a shallow
valley that lay like a cut throat with red rocks on its edge
something over a mile away beyond the egg-shaped rock. They were
armed--as everybody is in those parts who hopes to live--and
in a hurry.

Ayisha and her people did not see them, because the great rock
was in the way, but we left off eating to watch, and Grim went
into his tent to use field-glasses without being seen. It is not
unheard of for an Arab sheikh to use Zeiss binoculars, but it
might make a stranger suspicious.

The five men came on at a gallop, sending up the dust in clouds
like a cruiser's smoke-screen. They seemed to take it for
granted that we were friends, for we were in full view and far
outnumbered them, yet they did not check for an instant, and that
in itself was a suspicious circumstance.

They came to a halt ten yards away from Ayisha's tent, and stared
at her in silence, realizing, apparently for the first time, that
they had come within rifle-shot of strangers. We could see her
talking to them, but could not hear what she said. Perhaps that
was as well. I think that even Grim with his poker face in
perfect working order would have been flustered if he had been
given time to think. The surprise, when it came, made him brace
himself to meet it; and, once committed, he played with the s