“You will do as you like,” said Mansoor.  “I have told you once for ever what I think.  If you wish that I speak to the Moolah, I will do so.  It is the fat, little man with the grey beard, upon the brown camel in front there.  I may tell you that he has a name among them for converting the infidel, and he has a great pride in it, so that he would certainly prefer that you were not injured if he thought that he might bring you into Islam.”

“Tell him that our minds are open, then,” said the Colonel.  “I don’t suppose the padre would have gone so far, but now that he is dead I think we may stretch a point.  You go to him, Mansoor, and if you work it well we will agree to forget what is past.  By the way, has Tippy Tilly said anything?”

“No, sir.  He has kept his men together, but he does not understand yet how he can help you.”

“Neither do I. Well, you go to the Moolah, then, and I’ll tell the others what we have agreed.”

The prisoners all acquiesced in the Colonel’s plan, with the exception of the old New England lady, who absolutely refused even to show any interest in the Mohammedan creed.  “I guess I am too old to bow the knee to Baal,” she said.  The most that she would concede was that she would not openly interfere with anything which her companions might say or do.

“And who is to argue with the priest?” asked Fardet, as they all rode together, talking the matter over.  “It is very important that it should be done in a natural way, for if he thought that we were only trying to gain time, he would refuse to have any more to say to us.”

“I think Cochrane should do it, as the proposal is his,” said Belmont.

“Pardon me!” cried the Frenchman.  “I will not say a word against our friend the Colonel, but it is not possible that a man should be fitted for everything.  It will all come to nothing if he attempts it.  The priest will see through the Colonel.”

“Will he?” said the Colonel with dignity.

“Yes, my friend, he will, for, like most of your countrymen, you are very wanting in sympathy for the ideas of other people, and it is the great fault which I find with you as a nation.”

“Oh, drop the politics!” cried Belmont impatiently.

“I do not talk politics.  What I say is very practical.  How can Colonel Cochrane pretend to this priest that he is really interested in his religion when, in effect, there is no religion in the world to him outside some little church in which he has been born and bred?  I will say this for the Colonel, that I do not believe he is at all a hypocrite, and I am sure that he could not act well enough to deceive such a man as this priest.”

The Colonel sat with a very stiff back and the blank face of a man who is not quite sure whether he is being complimented or insulted.

“You can do the talking yourself if you like,” said he at last.  “I should he very glad to be relieved of it.”