them, in a voice that shook and sometimes broke with rage, their character, their characteristics, the moral standing of their parents and grandparents, the probable fate of their sons, and the certain and shameful destiny of their daughters.  He invited them, with finger on trigger, to advance one step and meet the death that should enable him to give their ill-favoured bodies one by one to the pariahs and the hawks, before he proceeded to sack Ain al Baidah and overcome single-handed the whole of its fighting men.  And, absurd though his rodomontade may sound to Europeans, who read it in cold print, it was a vastly different matter there in the dark of the Plain, when Salam stood, believing he held a loaded gun in his hand, and allowed his fierce temper rein.  The headman and his two attendants slunk off like whipped curs, and we proceeded to feed our animals, replenish both fires, and sleep with one eye open.

[Illustration:  PREPARING SUPPER]

Morning came over the hills to Ain al Baidah in cold and cheerless guise.  The villagers crowded round to stare at us in the familiar fashion.  But there were grim looks and dark scowls among them, and, failing the truculent and determined bearing of Salam and the presence of the kaid we should have had a lively quarter of an hour.  As it was, we were not ready to leave before eight o’clock, and then Salam went, money in hand, to where the thieving headman stood.  The broken night’s rest had not made my companion more pleased with Ain al Baidah’s chief.  He threw the dollars that had been demanded on to the ground before the rogue’s feet, and then his left hand flew up and outward.  With one swift, irresistible movement he had caught his foe by the beard, drawn down the shrinking, vicious face to within a few inches of his own, and so holding him, spoke earnestly for half a minute, of what the Prophet has said about hospitality to travellers, and the shocking fate that awaits headmen who rob those who come seeking shelter, and beat them when they complain.  Ain al Baidah’s chief could not but listen, and listening, he could not but shudder.  So it fell out that, when Salam’s harangue was finished, we left a speechless, irresolute, disgraced headman, and rode away slowly, that none might say we knew fear.  If the village had any inclination to assist its chief, the sight of the blessed one’s weapon, in its fierce red cloth covering, must have awed them.  Some days later, in Mogador, I was told that the Ain al Baidah man is a terror to travellers and a notorious robber, but I made no complaint to our Consul.  If the headman’s overlord had been told to punish him, the method chosen would assuredly have been to rob every man in the douar, and if they resisted, burn their huts over their heads.  It seemed better to trust that the memory of Salam will lead Ain al Baidah’s chief to lessen his proud looks.