n of getting the best of an outlaw with two hundred men."

"We can try, can't we?"

"Yes, and die, can't we!"

"Well--we might do worse. I'd sooner croak in harness than have
an eight-horse funeral. But say, if you don't like it you go
back and join those two fellows at the oasis. There'll be no
hard words."

But I felt too afraid of my own opinion of myself to turn back at
that stage of the game.

CHAPTER VIII

"He Cools His Wrath in the Moonlight, Communing with Allah!"

Now the desert at full moon is as light as Broadway, and the only
shadows are those the camels cast, than which there is nothing
more weird in the whole range of phantasmagoria. We looked like a
string of glistening ghosts accompanied by goblins of a fourth
dimension mocking us, and though you couldn't see the details of
men's faces, looking back along the line you could see every
movement and distinguish man from man.

About midnight Ayisha made up her mind to enjoy the _shibriyah,_
more, I suspect, for the sake of annoying the Sikh than because
she really wanted it. So she ranged alongside, and chiefly
because I was curious and chose to be amused, but partly because
of my league with Narayan Singh to keep watch on her, I checked
my protesting camel and let him drop back into place behind them.

I knew Narayan Singh was awake, for I had seen the glow of his
cigarette through the curtains ten minutes before; but he
pretended to be asleep, so that she had to get the camels flank
to flank and put her hand inside the curtains to awake him. Then
he did the obvious thing and seized her hand, and I heard his
bass voice answering her shrill protests. I don't know why, but
the moonlight that made all things clear seemed also to make
words more than usually distinct.

"Ah!" he boomed. "I dreamed of paradise. I awake and find a houri
with her hand in mine! Il-hamd'ul-illah!* I Enter, beloved! Why
waste the moonlight hours?" [* Thanks be to God!]

"Pig!" she retorted. "Father of bristles! Let my hand go!"

"Nay, lovely one! I awake--I see--I understand; thou art not a
houri after all, but that same Ayisha I have loved in secret all
these burning days! I, who had resolved that gold and honor were
as feathers in the scale against thy kisses, am I blessed as last?"

"Cursed by black ifrits, thou son of an Afghan pig! Let me go,
and get out of that _shibriyah!"_

"Such eyes! Behold, the moon is pale beside them, and the stars
mere