"Billah, nay!" cried Motlog. "We have taken slaves in this country. They are with us now and some of them will escape. Suppose they carry word to the fendy of this great sheykh that we have slain him? Not one of us will live to return to Beled el-Guad."
"Let us then take him before Ibn Jad that the responsibility may be his," said Fahd.
"Wellah, you speak wisely," replied Motlog. "What the sheykh doeth with this man is the sheykh's business. Come!"
As they returned to where Tarzan stood he eyed them questioningly.
"What have you decided to do with me?" he demanded. "If you are wise you will cut these bonds and lead me to your sheykh. I wish a word with him."
"We are only poor men," said Motlog. "It is not for us to say what shall be done, and so we shall take you to our sheykh who will decide."
The Sheik Ibn Jad of the fendy el-Guad squatted in the open men's compartment of his beyt es-sh'ar, and beside him in the mukaad of his house of hair sat Tollog, his brother, and a young Beduin, Zeyd, who, doubtless, found less attraction in the company of the shiek than in the proximity of the sheik's hareem whose quarters were separated from the mukaad only by a breast high curtain suspended between the waist poles of the beyt, affording thus an occasional glimpse of Ateja, the daughter of Ibn Jad. That it also afforded an occasional glimpse of Hirfa, his wife, raised not the temperature of Zeyd an iota.
As the men talked the two women were busy within their apartment at their housewifely duties. In a great brazen jidda Hirfa was placing mutton to be boiled for the next meal while Ateja fashioned sandals from an old bag of camel leather impregnated with the juice of the dates that it had borne upon many a rahla, and meanwhile they missed naught of the conversation that passed in the mukaad.
"We have come a long way without mishap from our own beled," Ibn Jad was remarking, "and the way has been longer because I wished not to pass through el-Habash lest we be set upon or followed by the people of that country. Now may we turn north again and enter el-Habash close to the spot where the magician foretold we should find the treasure city of Nimmr."
"And thinkest thou to find this fabled city easily, once we are within the boundaries of el-Habash?" asked Tollog, his brother.