Puffing at my pipe, I began to think that the time had come when I ought to give our host some idea of our future movements, for I knew that he himself would consider that he would be outraging all the laws of hospitality if he even displayed any curiosity as to our wanderings in the desert. How I was to turn the conversation round to the Golden Girdle I could not see, but I made a beginning by discussing the day's ride, and the relative merits of our horses and the sheik's horses, their paces and staying powers. To my delight I found that the great man gradually unbent, and in a few minutes became voluble. Thinking that I was deeply interested in the subject, he insisted on taking me into his tent to see his two favourite mares, one of whom he fondled, and addressed in the most loving terms.
"She is your favourite, sheik," I said.
"Yes," he replied, "even so. She has carried me in many a bloody fight with the accursed Shammar, and has borne many good colts. Moreover, her grand-dam was my father's much-prized mare, a true Kuhailan, so he always affirmed. He captured her from the Shammar—a fact which I cast in their teeth when I prevail over them by reason of the handiness and swiftness of the mare. She is indeed a bird without wings."
I now had my opening, for of course I remembered what was written in the document wherein mention had been made of the Golden Girdle.
"I have heard of the Kuhailan mare," I remarked quietly.
"Of what mare?" inquired Faris, looking at me intently.
"Shahzadi," I replied, "the daughter of a Kuhailan Haifi, out of the dam Labadah. Was it not so?"
"That indeed was what my father always told me, and the Shammar themselves told him how the mare was bred. How do you, an Ingleezee, know of such matters as these? It may be that you have learned them from the Shammar."
"Not so, Sheik of Sheiks," I replied. "What I know of the mare I have read in my own country."
"Wonder of wonders!" exclaimed Faris. "They speak truly when they say that you Englishmen know everything. Tell me more of what you know."