But Ali Baba did not stand still. Neither did we. The three lone individuals in front of us began to approach.
"Come on!" said Grim. "Now's our chance!"
And at last I saw his idea. I did not know which to admire more, the man who had thought of it in that sudden crisis, or Ali Baba who had understood so swiftly and carried out his part so well. But there was no time for admiration then.
All together—Ali Baba and his men along one side of a right-angle and we from the other—we swooped on the three. And there were nine or ten shots fired before we closed on them, though none by our side.
My camel went down under me twenty yards before we reached them. Two other camels were killed, and one of Ali Baba's sons was grazed. But in another second we had captured two men and a woman, and it was too late for the spectators to do anything, unless they cared to risk killing their own leader.
I thrust my way on foot through the milling camels, for I wanted to be in at the death, as it were, and I saw Grim take the woman's rifle away. She looked more surprised than any one I have ever seen—more so than a man I once saw shot in the stomach who looked suddenly into the next world and did not like it.
"Shout to 'em, Jael!" he ordered in plain English. "Call 'em off, or I'll kill you! Shout to 'em; d'you hear!"
"Ayisha! What does this mean? Ali? Ali Higg? You here? I don't understand!"
"You'll be dead before you understand if you don't call those men off," Grim answered; and his pistol demonstrated that he meant it, for her men were closing in on us.
So she knelt up on her camel and cried out that Ali Higg was there, bidding them keep their distance.