“They have determined to take me along with them to prevent me from escaping,” he complained.  “That man on the horse is saying that if more men go with Anazeh than you and two others, there will certainly be fighting.  And Anazeh answers, he has pledged his word.  Can you not say something to persuade Anazeh?”

I would rather have tried to persuade a tiger.  Short of knocking the old raider on the head and standing off his twenty ruffians, I could not imagine a way of turning him from his set purpose.  And at that, I had not a weapon of any kind.  I was the goods, and the game old sportsman intended to deliver me, right side up, perhaps, but all in one piece and to the proper consignee.

“I don’t see anything to worry about,” said I.

“Wait till you hear the bullets!” Ahmed answered.  Nevertheless, bullets or no bullets, I did not see what I could do about it.  Again I remembered Grim’s advice:  “Do what the leader of the escort tells you.”  I had begun to feel sorry for Ahmed in spite of his self-pity, but his fear wasn’t contagious and his advice wasn’t worth listening to.

“Effendi, you are Anazeh’s guest.  He must do as you demand, if you ask in the Name of the Most High.  Tell him, therefore, that you have an urgent business in El-Kudz.  Demand that he send you back, with me, in my boat!”

“You are not his guest.  He would simply shoot you and destroy the boat,” I answered.

It was not more than half-an-hour before I saw horses coming in our direction from the village.  At sight of them the man on the gray horse lost heart.  With a final burst of eloquence, in which he spread his breast to heaven and shook both fists in witness that he was absolved and no blood-guilt could rest on his head, he rode away at top speed straight up the ravine down which he originally came.

The horses proved to be a very mixed lot—­some good, some very bad, and some indifferent.  But again they treated me as honoured guest and provided me a mare with four sound legs and nothing much the matter except vice.  She came at me with open teeth when I tried to mount, but four men held her and I climbed aboard, somehow or other.  As a horseman, I am a pretty good sack of potatoes.

That was the worst saddle I ever sat in—­and Anazeh’s second-best!  The stirrups swung amidships, so to speak, and whenever you tried to rest your weight on them for a moment they described an arc toward the rear.  Moreover, you could not sit well back on the saddle to balance matters, because of the high cantle.  The result, whether you did with stirrups or without them, was torture, for anybody but an Arab, who has notions of comfort all his own.

They put Ahmed on a wall-eyed scrub that looked unfit to walk, but proved well able to gallop under his light weight.  One of Anazeh’s men took my bag, with a nod to reassure me, and without a word we were off full-pelt, Anazeh leading with four stalwarts who looked almost as hard-bitten as himself, six men crowding me closely, and the remainder bringing up the rear.