The Shareef vaulted to the saddle.
"No. But wait a moment. We have time. Your horses are fast."
The beggar drew from somewhere in the ragged folds of his dirty djellab a slender tube the length of his forearm.
"Strike light, saidi!" he commanded.
The Shareef fumbled with flint and steel.
"The fire of your pistol will do!" snapped the beggar. The Shareef fired. Then the sputtering of a fuse, and a shower of sparks, and three red stars hung high above them, flamed ruddily for half a minute, and vanished.
"The Feringhi troops used them to signal," explained the beggar. "I stole a box of them at Beirut."
"Ah!" And the Shareef frowned.
"Old man, whom are you signaling? On your head——"
He leveled his pistol.