Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/126

 nigger considers he got a right to ack fool at gran' lodge."

Both Britons stared at Zack with stolid faces. The matter was beyond them. Colonel Spottiswoode listened, almost as mystified. Then he began to laugh, and asked, "Zack, what did you take that man for?"

"Take 'im for? I knows. He's Gran' Gardeen o' de Sons o' David. I knowed 'im fust minute I sot eyes on dem clothes."

The Colonel in turn stared at Old Reliable, whose serene smile reassured him. The negro had wriggled from beneath the heel of death without a thought of having been in danger. "Zack, weren't you afraid they might kill you with those spears?"

Zack grinned tolerantly at the Colonel's ignorance, "Lordee, Cunnel, dem stickers can't hurt nobody. Dey ain't nothin' 'cept pasteboard, wid silver paper on 'em."

The American couldn't help it; he threw back his head and laughed. Lyttleton and McDonald promptly hushed him, "Sh! these Arabs might consider that we are making sport of their religion. See, they are passing the news from mouth to mouth—but what was it all about?"

Colonel choked an hysterical merriment. "Go along, Zack, and get something to eat." Lyttleton Bey added a few words in Arabic to Fudl,