e desert. Moreover, he had a
capacity for foraging--or foray. The calmness with which he risked his
life for an onion or a water-bag would have done credit to a prince of
buccaneers. He was never flustered. He had dropped a grindstone on the
head of his rival, but the smile that he smiled then was the same smile
with which he suffered and forayed and fought and filched in the desert.
With a back like a door, and arms as long and strong as a gorilla's,
with no moral character to speak of, and an imperturbable selfishness,
even an ignorant Arab like Seti may go far. More than once his bimbashi
drew a sword to cut him down for the peaceful insolent grin with which
he heard himself suddenly charged with very original crimes; but even
the officer put his sword up again, because he remembered that though
Seti was the curse of the regiment on the march, there was no man
like him in the day of battle. Covered with desert sand and blood,
and fighting and raging after the manner of a Sikh, he could hold
ten companies together like a wall against a charge of Dervishes. The
bimbashi rejoiced at this, for he was a coward; likewise his captain
was a coward, and so was his lieutenant: for they were half Turks, half
Gippies, who had seen Paris and had not the decency to die there. Also
it had been discovered that no man made so good a spy or envoy as Seti.
His gift for lying was inexpressible: confusion never touched him;
for the flattest contradictions in the matter of levying backsheesh he
always found an excuse. Where the bimbashi and his officers were afraid
to go lest the bald-headed eagle and the vulture should carry away their
heads as tit-bits to the Libyan hills, Seti was sent. In more than one
way he always kept his head. He was at once the curse and the pride of
the regiment. For his sins he could not be punished, and his virtues
were of value only to save his life.

In this fashion, while his regiment thinned out by disease, famine,
fighting, and the midnight knife, Seti came on to Dongola, to Berber, to
Khartoum; and he grinned with satisfaction when he heard that they
would make even for Kordofan. He had outlived all the officers who left
Manfaloot with the regiment save the bimbashi, and the bimbashi
was superstitious and believed that while Seti lived he would live.
Therefore, no clansman ever watched his standard flying in the van as
the bimbashi--from behind--watched the long arm of Seti slaying, and
heard his voice l