A brief meal was taken in the open, and we sat with our feet thrust to the edge of the nearest charcoal fire, for the night was cold.  Our animals, tethered and watered, stood anxiously waiting for the barley the chief muleteer had gone to buy.  Supper over, I sat on a chair in the open, and disposed myself for sleep as well as the conditions permitted.  Round me, on the bare ground, the men and the boy from the Sus lay wrapped in their haiks—­the dead could not have slept more soundly than they.  The two fires were glimmering very faintly now, M’Barak was stretching a blanket for himself, while Salam collected the tin plates and dishes, his last task before retiring.  Somewhere in the far outer darkness I heard the wail of a hyaena, and a light cold breeze sighed over the plain.  Half asleep and half awake I saw the village headman approaching from out the darkness; a big bag of barley was on his shoulder, and he was followed closely by the muleteer.  They came into the little circle of the fast falling light; I was nodding drowsily toward unconsciousness, and wondering, with a vague resentment that exhausted all my remaining capacity to think, why the headman should be speaking so loudly.  Suddenly, I saw the muleteer go to earth as if he had been pole-axed, and in that instant I was wide awake and on my feet.  So was Salam.

The headman delivered himself of a few incisive rasping sentences.  The muleteer rose slowly and wiped a little blood from his face.

Salam explained:  his capacity for fathoming a crisis was ever remarkable.  “Headman he charge three dollars for barley and he don’t worth more than one.  Muleteer he speaks for that, and headman ’e knock him down.”

“Ask him how he dares interfere with our people,” I said.  “Tell him his kaid shall hear of it.”

The headman replied haughtily to Salam’s questions and strode away.  “He say,” said Salam, beginning to get angry, “Pay first and talk afterwards—­to Allah, if you will.  He say he wait long time for man like muleteer an’ cut ’im throat.  What he’s bin done that be nothing.  What he’s goin’ to do, that all Moors is goin’ to see.  He come back soon, sir.”

Then Salam slipped noiselessly into the guest-house and fetched my repeating shot gun, from which I had previously drawn all cartridges.  He sat down outside with the weapon across his knees, and the bruised muleteer safely behind him.  I coaxed the charcoal to a further effort and returned to my chair, wondering whether trouble that had been so long in coming had arrived at last.  Some five minutes later we heard a sound of approaching footsteps, and I could not help noting how Salam brightened.  He was spoiling for a fight.  I watched dim figures coming into the area of light, they took shape and showed Ain al Baidah’s chief and two of his men—­tall, sturdy fellows, armed with thick sticks.  Seeing Salam sitting with gun levelled full on them they came to a sudden halt, and listened while he told