“‘Well?’ said he.  ’Why not come and see me in the morning?

“‘Sahib,’ said I, ’for the sake of El-Arish, let me in quickly, and close the door!’

“So he did, wondering and not pleased to be disturbed by a Sikh at such an hour.  And I said to him: 

“‘Sahib,’ said I, ‘am I a badmash?  A scoundrel?’

“‘No,’ said he, ’not unless you changed your morals when you left the service.’

“Said I, ‘I am still in the service.’

“‘Good,’ said he.  ‘What then?’

“‘I go listening again in no-man’s land,’ said I, and he whistled softly.  ‘Is there not a roof below your window?’ I asked him, and he nodded.

“‘Then let me use it, sahib, and return the same way presently.’

“So he threw back the shutter, asking no more questions, and I climbed out.  The window of the room where Yussuf Dakmar and the five were stood open, but the lattice shutter was closed tight, so that I could stand up on the flat roof of the kitchen and listen without being seen.  And, sahib, I could recognize the snarl of Yussuf Dakmar’s voice even before my ear was laid to the open lattice.  He was like a dog at bay.  The other five were angry with him.  They were accusing him of playing false.  They swore that a great sum could be had for that letter, which they should share between them.  Said a voice I did not recognize:  ’If the French will pay one price they will pay another; what does money matter to them, if they can make out a case against Feisul?  Will they not have Syria?  The thing is simple as twice two,’ said he.  ’The huntsman urges on the hounds, but unless he is cleverer than they, who eats the meat?  The French regard us as animals, I tell you!  Very well; let us live up to the part and hunt like animals, since he who has the name should have the game as well; and when we have done the work and they want booty let them be made aware that animals must eat!  We will set our own price on that document.’

“‘And as for this Yussuf Dakmar,’ said another man, ’let him take a back seat unless he is willing to share and share alike with us.  He is not difficult to kill!’

“And at that, sahib, Yussuf Dakmar flew into a great rage and called them fools of complicated kinds.

“‘Like hounds without a huntsman, ye will overrun the scent!’ said he; and he spoke more like a man than any of them, although not as a man to be liked or trusted.  ’Who are ye to clap your fat noses on the scent I found and tell me the how and whither of it?  It may be that I can get that letter tonight.  Surely I can get it between this place and Damascus; and no one can do that, for I, and I only, know where it is.  Nor will I tell!’ And they answered all together, ’We will make you tell!’

“But he said, ’All that ye five fools can do is to interfere.  Easy to kill me, is it?  Well, perhaps.  It has been tried.  But, if so, then though ye are jackals, kites and vultures all in one with the skill of chemists added, ye can never extract secret knowledge from a dead man’s brain.  Then that letter will reach Feisul tomorrow night; and the French, who speak of you now as of animals, will call you what?  Princes?  Noblemen?’