Then he turned to our hosts. "Some natives of Somaliland once ate
my horse for supper, but I learned that lesson. So did they! I
trust I needn't be severe with you!"

There was no furniture in the room, except a mat at one corner.
They were standing all about us, and perfectly able to murder us
if so disposed, but none made any effort to restrain our Zeitoonli.

"Now we're three to their twenty!" I whispered, and Will nodded.
But Fred carried matters with a high hand.

"Send a man down with them to show them where the horses are, please!"

There seemed to be nobody in command, but evidently one man was least
of all, for they all began at once to order him below, and he went,
grumbling.

"You see, effendi, we have no meat at all," said the man who had
spoken first.

"But you don't look hungry," asserted Fred.

They were a ragged crowd, unshaven and not too clean, with the usual
air of men whose only clothes are on their backs and have been there
for a week past. All sorts of clothes they wore--odds and ends for
the most part, probably snatched and pulled on in the first moment
of a night alarm.

"Not yet, effendi. But we have no meat, and soon we shall have eaten
all the grain."