you, on nothing a month? When the present stock of provisions gives out
I'm not going to order them renewed. And the provision people in
Jerusalem won't honour any one's order for them but mine. This is the
only concern in Syria to-day that pays within forty per cent, of the
wages you chaps are getting. With no pay and no food you're due to find
your strike rather costly. For when the mine shuts down I'm going back
to America. There'll be nothing to keep me here. I'll be ruined, in any
case. You people will find yourself without money or provisions. And if
you go elsewhere for work it will be at a pay that is only a little more
than half what you are getting now. Your lookout isn't cheery, my
striking friend!"

He made as though to go into his tent. After a brief pause of horror,
Najib pattered hurriedly and beseechingly in his wake.

"Howadji!" pleaded the Syrian shakily. _"Howadji!_ You would not, in the
untamefulness of your mad, desertion us like that? Not _me_, at anyhow?
Not me, who have loved you as Daoud the Emir loved Jonathan of old! You
would not forsook me, to starve myself! _Aie! Ohé!_"

"Shut up that ungodly racket!" snapped Kirby, entering his tent and
lighting his lamp, as the first piercing notes of the traditional
mourner chant exploded through the unhappy Najib's wide-flung jaws.
"Shut up! You'll start every hyena and jackal in the mountains to
howling! It's bad enough as it is without adding a native concert to the
rest of the mess."

"But, howadji!" pleaded Najib.

_"Tamán!"_ growled Kirby, summarily speaking the age-hallowed Arabic