"Pour l'amour de Dieu, mademoiselle! pour l'amour de Dieu!" came in a terror-stricken voice.
I put down the weapon rather crossly.
"What do you want?" I said.
"Quels sont vos noms," stuttered out Calphopolos in great agitation.
"What on earth do you mean?" I said; "you know our names well enough."
"Pour l'amour de Dieu, quels sont vos noms," he repeated.
"X," I called out, "wake up and tell me what is the matter with Calphopolos—I think his head has been turned by this fright about your name; he is going about jibbering over it."
X had a soothing influence on Calphopolos, and gradually extracted from him that the local Zaptieh had come up for our tezkerehs and wanted to know our names. His agitation over the revolver had been so great that he had been unable to explain articulately that it was our tezkerehs that he had come for.
The next day the whole character of the country changed. The plain gradually oozed away into a more tumbled country and cultivation disappeared. We were about to cross the range of hills which shut out our view to the north.
The Zaptiehs were very much on the alert here; they unslung their rifles from behind and rode with them across their knees. We were told to keep close together and ride quietly without talking.