unconsciously took to my pipe, my only comfort. As I touched the match
to it the whole company came lumbering up and crowding my horse's rump
and flanks. A whiff of smoke drifted back over my shoulder, and--

"The suffering Moses!"

"Whew!"

"By George, who opened that graveyard?"

"Boys, that Arab's been swallowing something dead!"

Right away there was a gap behind us. Whiff after whiff sailed airily
back, and each one widened the breach. Within fifteen seconds the
barking, and gasping, and sneezing, and coughing of the boys, and their
angry abuse of the Arab guide, had dwindled to a murmur, and Davis and I
were alone with the leader. Davis did not know what the matter was, and
don't to this day. Occasionally he caught a faint film of the smoke and
fell to scolding at the Arab and wondering how long he had been decaying
in that way. Our boys kept on dropping back further and further, till
at last they were only in hearing, not in sight. And every time they
started gingerly forward to reconnoitre or shoot the Arab, as they
proposed to do--I let them get within good fair range of my relic (she
would carry seventy yards with wonderful precision), and then wafted
a whiff among them that sent them gasping and strangling to the rear
again. I kept my gun well charged and ready, and twice within the hour
I decoyed the boys right up to my horse's tail, and then with one
malarious blast emptied the saddles, almost. I never heard an Arab
abused so in my life. He really owed his preservation to me, because for
one entire hour I stood between him and certain death. The boys would
have killed him if they could have got by me.

By and by, when the company were far in the rear, I put away my pipe--I
was getting fearfully dry and crisp about the gills and rather blown
with good diligent work--and spurred my animated trance up alongside
the Arab and stopped him and asked for water. He unslung his little
gourd-shaped earthenware jug, and I put it under my moustache and took
a long, glorious, satisfying draught. I was going to scour the mouth of
the jug a little, but I saw that I had brought the whole train together
once more by my delay, and that they were all anxious to drink too--and
would have been long ago if the Arab had not pretended that he was out
of water. So I hastened to pass the vessel to Davis. He took a mouthful,
and never said a word, but climbed off his horse and lay down calmly in
the road. I felt sorry for Davis.