“You’re welcome to my place, Belmont,” said he. “I’ve neither wife nor child, and hardly a friend in the world. Go with your wife, and I’ll stay.”
“No, indeed! An agreement is an agreement. It’s all fair play, and the prize to the luckiest.”
“The Emir says that you are to mount at once,” said Mansoor, and an Arab dragged the Colonel by his wrist-rope to the waiting camel.
“He will stay with the rearguard,” said the Emir to his lieutenant. “You can keep the women with you also.”
“And this dragoman dog?”
“Put him with the others.”
“And they?”
“Put them all to death.”
CHAPTER IX.
AS none of the three could understand Arabic, the order of the Emir would have been unintelligible to them had it not been for the conduct of Mansoor. The unfortunate dragoman, after all his treachery and all his subservience and apostasy, found his worst fears realised when the Dervish leader gave his curt command. With a shriek of fear the poor wretch threw himself forward upon his face, and clutched at the edge of the Arab’s jibbeh, clawing with his brown fingers at the edge of the cotton skirt. The Emir tugged to free himself, and then, finding that he was still held by that convulsive grip, he turned and kicked at Mansoor with the vicious impatience with which one drives off a pestering cur. The dragoman’s high red tarboosh flew up into the air, and he lay groaning upon his face where the stunning blow of the Arab’s horny foot had left him.