lift the heat higher. Then some of the Zeitoonli saw the gap, and
began to hurry blindfolded horses through it and in a very little
while the place seemed empty. I saw the Turkish owner and several
of his sons looking on in fatalistic calm at about the outside edge
of the ring of light, and it occurred to me to ask a question.

"Hasn't that Turk a harem?" I asked.

In another second we four were hurrying around the building, and
Will and I burst in the door at the rear with our crow-bars. Monty
and Fred rushed past us, and before I could get the smoke out of
my eyes and throat they were hurrying out again with two old women
in their arms--the women screaming, and they laughing and coughing
so that they could hardly run. Then Will made my blood run cold
with a new alarm.

"The biped!" he shouted. "The Measel in the corn-bin!"

They dropped the old ladies, and all four of us raced back to our
hole in the wall--plunged into the hell-hot building, pulled the
lid off the corn-bin (it was fastened like an ancient Egyptian coffin-lid
with several stout Wooden pegs), dragged Measel out, and frog-marched
him, kicking and yelling, to the open, where Fred collapsed.

"Measel," said Will, stooping to feel Fred's heart, "if you're the
cause of my friend Oakes' death, Lord pity you!"

Fred sat up, not that he wished to save the "biped" any anguish,
but the wise man vomits comfortably when he can, the necessity being
bad enough without additional torment.