Jeremy’s left fist landed under the peak of his jaw exactly at the moment when he stiffened to launch his thrust.  He fell as if pole-axed and the blade missed my stomach by six inches, but the combined force of thrust and blow was great enough to drive the weapon into the wooden partition, where it stayed until I pulled it out to keep as a souvenir.

There wasn’t much trouble after that.  Grim and Hadad came in and we tore strips from the Syrians’ clothing to tie their hands and feet with.  Hadad went to the rear of the train, climbing along the footboard of the third-class cars to the caboose to throw some sort of bluff to the conductor, who came forward—­called me “Colonel” and Hadad “Excellency” —­looked our prisoners over—­recognized no friends—­and said that everything was “quite all right.”  He said he knew exactly what to do; but we left Narayan Singh on watch, lest that knowledge should prove too original which, however, it turned out not to be.  It was bromidian—­as old as history.  Narayan Singh came back and told us.

“Lo, sahib; he went through their clothes as an ape for fleas, I watching.  And when he had all their valuables he laid them on the footboard, and then, as we passed some Bedouin tents, he kicked them off.  But he seems an honest fellow, for he gave them back some small change to buy food with, should any be obtainable.”

After that he stood flashing his white teeth for half an hour watching Mabel bandage Jeremy and me, for it always amuses a Sikh to watch a white man eat punishment.  Sikhs are a fine race—­but curious—­ distinctly curious and given to unusual amusement.  When Mabel had finished with me at last I stuck a needle into him, and he laughed, accepting the stab as a compliment.

A strange thing is how men settle down after excitement.  Birds do the same thing.  A hawk swoops down on a hedgerow; there is a great flutter, followed by sudden silence.  A minute later the chattering begins again, without any reference to one of their number being torn in the plunderer’s beak.  And so we; even Grim loosened up and gossiped about Feisul and the already ancient days when Feisul was the up-to-date Saladin leading Arab hosts to victory.

But there was an even stranger circumstance than that.  We weren’t the only people in the train; our car, for instance, was fairly well occupied by Armenians, Arabs, and folk whose vague nationality came under the general heading of Levantine.  The car ahead where the fight took place, though not crowded, wasn’t vacant, and there were others in the car behind.  Yet not one of them made a move to interfere.  They minded their own business, which proves, I think, that manners are based mainly on discretion.

As the train gasped slowly up the grade and rolled bumpily at last along the fertile, neglected Syrian highland, all the Armenians on the train removed their hats and substituted the red tarboosh, preferring the headgear of a convert rather than be the target of every Bedouin with a rifle in his hand.