Judging by the sound, I should say they fought their way up-hill in skirmish order, and when they got to the top the enemy—­ whoever they were—­took to flight.  But that is guesswork.  There were two casualties on our side.  One man shot through the arm, which did not matter much; he was well able to lie about what had happened and to boast of how many men he had slain before the bullet hit him.  The other was wounded pretty seriously in the jaw.  They came to me for first aid, taking it for granted that I knew something about surgery.  I don’t.  I had a bad time bandaging both of them, using two of my handkerchiefs and strips from the protesting Ahmed’s shirt.  However, I enjoyed it more than they did.

When Anazeh shouted at last and we all rode to the hilltop there was a dead man lying there, stripped naked, with his throat cut across from ear to ear.  One of our men was wiping a long knife by stabbing it into the dirt.  There was also a led horse added to the escort.  Anazeh looked very cool and dignified; he had an extra rifle now, slung by a strap across his shoulders.  He was examining a bandolier that had blood on it.

We rode on at once, and for the next hour Ahmed was kept busy interpreting to me the lies invented by every member of the escort for my especial benefit.  If they were true, each man had slain his dozen; but nobody would say who the opposing faction were.  When I put that question they all dried up and nobody would speak again for several minutes.

It turned out afterward that there had been a sort of armistice proclaimed, and all the local chiefs had undertaken to observe it and cease from blood-feuds for three days, provided that each chief should prove peaceful intention by bringing with him only two men.  Three men in a party, and not more than three, had right of way.  The engagement may have been a simple protest against breach of the terms of the armistice, but I suspect there was more than that in it.

At any rate, we were not attacked again on the road, although there were men who showed themselves now and then on inaccessible-looking crags, who eyed us suspiciously and made no answer to the shouted challenge of Anazeh’s men.  When the track passed over a spur, or swung round the shoulder of a cliff, we could sometimes catch sight of other parties—­always, though of three, before and behind us, proceeding in the same direction.

We sighted the stone walls of El-Kerak at about midafternoon, and rode up to the place through a savage gorge that must have been impregnable in the old days of bows and arrows.  It would take a determined army today to force itself through the wadys and winding water-courses that guard that old citadel of Romans and crusaders.

We approached from the Northwest corner, where a tower stands that they call Burj-ez-Zahir.  There were lions carved on it.  It looked as if the battlements had been magnificent at one time; but whatever the Turks become possessed of always falls into decay, and the Arabs seem no better.