he saw every item that we removed from the common packs, and sternly
reproved us when we tried to exceed what he considered reasonable.
At that he based our probable requirements on what would have been
surfeit of encumbrance for himself.

"Empty your pockets, effendim!" he ordered at last. "Six cartridges
each for rifle, and six each for pistol must be all. Your cartridges
I know they are. But my people are in extremity!"

When he rode away at last, sitting his horse in the fashion of a
Don Cossack and shepherding Maga in front of him because she kept
checking her gray stallion for another look at Will, he left us no
alternative than to take to the mountains swiftly unless we cared
to starve. We watched Monty's back disappear over a rise, with Rustum
Khan close behind, and then Fred signed to one of the three Zeitoonli
to lead on.

All three of the men Kagig had left with us were surly, mainly, no
doubt, because they disliked separation from their friends. But
there was fear, too, expressed in their manner of riding close together,
and in the fidgety way in which they watched the smoke of burning
Armenian villages that smudged the sky to our left.

"If they try to bolt after Kagig and leave us in the lurch I'm going
to waste exactly one cartridge as a warning," Fred announced.
"After that--!"

"Probably Kagig 'ud skin them if they turned up without us,"
remarked Will.