let him draw near, and there followed a noisy conference, the man
on the horse calling on Allah repeatedly with emphasis, and
Anazeh and his followers all doing the same thing, but from an
opposing viewpoint. I persuaded Ahmed to go up close and listen.

"The man is from El-Kerak," he said presently, while they all
still fought with words, using tremendous oaths by way of
artillery. "A council of the tribes has been summoned, to meet
at El-Kerak, but each sheikh is only to take two men with him,
because of the risk of fighting among themselves. Anazeh says
there can be no proper council without his being present, and
that he will attend the council; but as for taking only two men,
he has pledged his word to escort you with twenty men to El-
Kerak. He swears that he will carry out that pledge, even should
he have to fight the whole way there and back again!"

Anazeh suddenly cut short the war of words. His gesture
suggested that of Joshua who made the sun stand still. He tossed
a curt order to one of his men, who went off at a run toward a
village, whose morning smoke rose blue over a spur of the range a
mile away. Then Anazeh sat down to await events, and took no
more notice of the horseman's arguments. That did not worry the
horseman much. He kept on arguing. Every few minutes one of
Anazeh's men would go to him and repeat some tid-bit, as if the
old sheikh had not heard it; but all he got for his pains was a
gesture of contemptuous dismissal.

Ahmed kept growing more and more uncomfortable all the time. He
had attended to his boat, making it properly fast and covering
the engine, under the eyes of four men who were at pains to see