as a robber and murderer and border raider and all-round “bad man,” served only to increase the sensation his arrival had caused.
Even the princess, an Oriental herself, thus used to the, to a European forever inexplicable, but in reality quite logical, turns and twists of Asiatic reasoning, looked puzzled.
“Thy sword?” she demanded. “Thy loyalty and strength and manhood? And what then would I do with them, O thou great and shameless thief?”
“Behold!” said the Arab, with a magnificent gesture, “I give them all to thee!”
“Gidar rakhe mans ke thati”—Ayesha Zemzem cut in—“who would keep meat on trust with a jackal?”
“A wise man would,” retorted the robber.
“What? A wise man?”
“Indeed! After he has caused the jackal to be well fed—exceedingly well fed—as I am well fed!” and he produced a silk purse filled to the bursting point with gold.
He went on to explain that, on his way to the Tartar castle, his dromedary had tripped, fallen, broken a leg, and left him helpless in the desert not far from the village. The tofanghees who had ridden in pursuit had, in consequence, caught up with him, but had again been afraid to shoot.
“For,” he said, “I value life—life which is as uncertain as the trick of the peg to the hand of the unskilled horseman,, and so”—naïvely—“I used the foreign girl as a shield—a soft shield, a warm shield, but a strong shield!”
