By Desert Ways to Baghdad

by Louisa Jebb Wilkins

X was of a peaceable disposition, and I daresay she was laughing at me. She enjoyed seeing me get angry. But it was in our contract that I should do all the manual labour connected with keeping order, so I obediently seized a long pole, and let it descend gently on the offender's shoulder. He turned round and stared, dropping the rope with an astonished grin. The crowd burst into joyous shouts and pointed at the Evil One, who still stood expostulating angrily in their midst.

"Hit him!" they yelled, "he is the one to hit!" and quite believing them I transferred my attentions, along with the end of the pole, to his shoulder.

"Come!" I shouted. It sounds tame, but it was the only Arabic word I knew. The raft slowly drifted down-stream and the Evil One, dashing in up to his waist, clambered on board.

Ali explained to us that he refused to pay enough for his bread, and that the crowd would not let him go until he had done so.

The Evil One grinned, and, diving into the bag, offered me a dirty piece of native bread in his still dirtier fingers. He would share his food with us, though we refused to do so with him; a typical Eastern method of putting one in the wrong.

The waters were still sluggish, and the men seemed determined to do no work.

"I am beginning to think they are in league with some one on shore," said X. "It cannot be to their advantage to be so long on the way, as they are paid a lump sum to get us to Baghdad, and we are not feeding them. I quite expect we shall be held up and robbed before evening."

Finding that orders and threats were of no use and learning from Ali that Jedan, the second kalekji, was afraid of the Evil One, who would not allow him to row, I sat down facing them and produced my revolver.

"Tell the bad kalekji," I said to Ali Chous, "that if he does not row I will shoot him."

The Evil One, greatly to my astonishment, appeared to believe in the possibility of bloodshed and set to work at the oars. All the rest of the day I sat with my revolver at his head. It was a most fatiguing, if effectual, process.