“No, Rrisa.  I send no man where I will not gladly go myself.  All three of us, forward!”

Again they advanced, watchful, revolvers in hands, ready for any sudden ambush.  All at once, as they came up over a breastwork of hard clay and gravel that heaved itself into rolling sands, the camp of the Beni Harb became visible.  Dim, brown and white figures were lying all about, distorted in strange attitudes, on the sand beyond the ridge.  There lay the despoilers of the Haram, the robber-tribe of Sheik Abd el Rahman, helpless in blank unconsciousness.

The Master laughed bitterly, as he strode forward into the camp, the long lines of which stretched vaguely away toward the coast where the fire was still leaping up against the stars, now paled with a strange haze.

Starlight showed weapons lying all about—­long rifles and primitive flint-locks; kanat spears of Indian male-bamboo tipped with steel and decorated with tufts of black ostrich-feathers; and jambiyehs, or crooked daggers, with wicked points and edges.

“Save your fire, men,” said the Master picking up a spear.  “There are plenty of means, here, to give these dogs the last sleep, without wasting good ammunition.  Choose the weapon you can handle best, and fall to work!”

With a curse on the heretic Beni Harb, and a murmur of thanks to Allah for this wondrous hour, Rrisa caught up a short javelin, of the kind called mirzak.  The lieutenant chose a wide-bladed sword.

“Remember only one thing, my brothers in arms!” exclaimed the Master.  “But that is most vital!” He spoke in Arabic.

“And what may it be?” asked the Frenchman, in the same tongue.

“I do not know whether old Sheik Abd el Rahman is with this party or not, but if either of you find him, kill him not!  Deliver him to me!”

“Listen, Master!” exclaimed Rrisa, and thrust the point of his javelin deep into the sand.

“Well, what now, Rrisa?”

“Shall we, after all, kill these sleeping swine-brothers?”

“Eh, what?  Thy heart then, hath turned to water?  Thou canst not kill?  They attacked us—­this is justice!”

“And if they live, they will surely wipe us out!” put in the Frenchman, staring in the gloom.  “What meaneth this old woman’s babble, son of the Prophet?”

“It is not that my heart hath turned to water, nor have the fountains of mine eyes been opened to pity,” answered Rrisa.  “But some things are worse than death, to all of Arab blood.  To be despoiled of arms or of horses, without a fight, makes an Arab as the worm of the earth.  Then he becometh an outcast, indeed!  ’If you would rule, disarm’,” he quoted the old proverb, and added another:  “’Man unarmed in the desert is like a bird shorn of wings.’”

“What is thy plain meaning in all this?” demanded the chief.

“Listen, M’alme.  If you would be the Sheik of Sheiks, carry away all these weapons, and let these swine awaken without them.  They would drag their way back to the oases and the black tents, with a story the like of which hath never been told in the Empty Abodes.  The Sahara would do homage, Master, even as if the Prophet had returned!”