Monty nodded, with a hand held out behind him to warn us to keep still.

"I said you shall shoot many pigs!"

"Lead on, then."

"Turks are pigs!"

Monty dd not answer. To have disagreed would have been like flapping
a red cloth at a tiger. Yet to have agreed with him at once might
have made him jump to false conclusions. The consul's last words
to us had been insistent on the unwisdom of posing as anything but
hunters, legitimately entitled to protection from the Turkish government.

"I would like you gentlemen for allies!"

"You are our servant at present."

"Would you think of holding me to that?" demanded Kagig with a gesture
of extreme irritation. It is only the West that can joke at itself
in the face of crisis.

"If not to that," said Monty blandly, "then what agreements do you keep?"

Kagig saw the point. He drew a deep impatient breath and drove it
out again hissing through his teeth. Then he took grim hold of himself.

"Effendi," he said, addressing himself to Monty, but including all
of us with eyes that seemed to search our hearts, "you are a lord,