Right then Grim called a halt—none too soon for the camels—in a semicircular space protected by a low cliff that might have been a quarry-face two thousand years ago; what might have been a pit was all filled in by drifted sand. But he had his own mat spread on the top of the cliff, whence he could keep an eye on the surrounding country, and gave none of the prisoners a chance to talk to him.
Nobody helped Jael Higg from her camel, for she jumped down like an acrobat and stood staring about her at Ali Baba's gang, and being stared at as they went about the business of off-loading the complaining beasts. I saw Ayisha get out of the shibriyah, face around slowly, and meet Jael's eyes.
Neither woman spoke for a minute, or made any sign, but you could almost see the alternating current of scorn and hate that passed between them. Then Ayisha fell back on insolence and walked past Jael deliberately, with dark eyes flashing and a thin smile on her lips.
"So you are now a Pathan's light o' love?" Jael sneered in Arabic.
At that Ayisha turned again and faced her.
"Who speaks? She whom the Lion could not trust to go to Hebron? Um Kulsum!"*
—————— * Um Kulsum was a lady in Arabic legend whose immoralities have made her name a byword. ——————
Ayisha passed on with a scornful shoulder movement. Narayan Singh grinned with malicious amusement. And I was just in time to catch two of the men again attacking my medicine-chest. Instead of trying to open it they were dragging it along the ground, and they were as pleased with themselves as two small dogs caught burying a boot.
"She has given us money!"
"Who has?"