At Grim’s feet—­dead, with bullets through their heads—­were three Syrian staff officers.  They were the traitors Daulch, Hattin and Aubek.  Grim’s pistol was in his right hand and had been used.

There had been a first-class fight, all over in two minutes; for the traitors hadn’t arrived on the scene without assistants.  Unfortunately for them, Hadad had turned up at the same moment with his loyalists.  Narayan Singh had jumped from the car behind and seized Feisul, thrown him to the floor out of the path of bullets, and tied his arms.  It was actually Mabel, hardly realizing what she was doing but obeying the Sikh’s orders yelled in her ear as he struggled to keep his wiry prisoner down, who tied the king’s feet, using her Arab girdle.

Feisul, of course, was all for dying at the head of a remnant of his men.  That would be the first impulse of any decent leader in like circumstance.  But his loyal friends, eager to die with him if they must, but unwilling to die at all if there were an alternative, were overwhelming him with streams of words and promises.  Suddenly two of them jumped into the car and began to untie his arms and feet.  Grim, looking swiftly to right and left, saw Jeremy and pounced on him so fiercely that an onlooker might have guessed another fight to the death was under way.  Too excited to say what he had in mind, he tugged at Jeremy’s clothes.

“I get you, Jim—­I get you!” Jeremy laughed gaily, and in ten seconds had stripped himself down to his underwear.

Hadad must have been discussing details of the plan with Grim along the road; for he got busy at the same time, persuading Feisul to part with his garments—­not that his consent really mattered at the moment; they were pulled off him by half a dozen hands at once, and Jeremy had the best of that bargain all right, for in addition to silk headdress and a fine black Arab full-dress coat, there was linen of a sort you can’t buy—­better stuff than bishops wear and clean, which Jeremy’s own wasn’t.

The time it takes to read this gives a totally false impression of the speed.  The whole thing took place, I should say, within two minutes from the time when I punched that Syrian’s nose until Mabel and Narayan Singh stood beside me watching Hadad, two more Arabs and Feisul drive away, with a second car crowded full of loyalists in close attendance.

By that time Jeremy was dressed in Feisul’s clothes; and though he didn’t look a bit like Feisul from a yard away, in the mist at ten yards, provided you were looking for Feisul, you’d have taken your Bible oath he was the man; for he had the gesture and mannerism copied to perfection.

However, standing there wasn’t going to increase the real Feisul’s chance of escaping.  The sooner we got caught, the quicker the French would discover that our man had given them the slip.  Our business was to give the French a long chase in the wrong direction, and those bogged autos weren’t ideal for the purpose.