who started it. From
inside we heard a regular din of battle commencing--loud shouts
and irregular rifle-fire--and I followed Grim out in a hurry.

There was no enemy in sight. Old Ali Baba was busy reloading his
rifle fifty paces away in front of the temple door, facing us
with his sons, in a semicircle around him, and they were shooting
at something over our heads. Grim laughed rather bitterly.

"My mistake," he said. "I ought to have thought of that."

So I went out to see.

Surmounting the temple front, at least a hundred feet above the
pavement and perfectly inaccessible, was a beautifully carved
stone urn surmounting a battered image of some god or goddess. It
was in shadow, because the cliff wall, from which the temple had
been carved, overhung it; so it was peculiarly difficult to hit,
even at that range; but they were all firing away at it as if Ali
Higg and all his men were hidden behind the thing. There was no
particular need to stop them, for they had made noise enough
already to awake the very slumbering bones of Petra. Ali Baba
advised me to shoot too, and I asked him why.

"To burst the thing."

"But why?"

"That we make a profit from this venture."

"How?"

He paused to reload once more. He had already fired away about
fifteen cartridges.

"Allah! The very dogs of El-Kalil have heard of Pharaoh's treasure."

"I am neither a dog," said I, "nor an inhabitant of El-Kalil, for
which Allah for his thoughtfulness be praised! Tell me what you
and the dogs know."

"This place was the treasury of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, a bad
king and an unbeliever, whom may Allah curse! In that urn are his
gold and rubies. If we can crack it they will come tumbling down
and we shall all be rich."

_"Mashallah!_ You believe that? Why haven't Ali Higg and his men
cracked it, then?"

_"Shu halalk?_* I have told you Pharaoh was an evil king. He was
in league with devils and bewitched the place. The devils guard
it. May Allah twist their tails! Look--see! We shoot, but the
bullets miss the mark each time!"

--------
* What chatter is this?
--------

"Perhaps you haven't prayed enough to exorcize the devils?" I
suggested, and he dropped the butt of his rifle on the ground to
consider the proposition.

"Out of the mouth of an unbeliever has come wisdom before now,"
he said. "There may be truth in that."

And he called all his sons and grandsons there and then to spread
their mats and pray toward Mecca, per