Page:Talbot Mundy - Eye of Zeitoon.djvu/168

150 able to murder us if so disposed, but none made any effort to restrain our Zeitoonli.

"Now we're three to their twenty!" I whispered, and Will nodded. But Fred carried matters with a high hand.

"Send a man down with them to show them where the horses are, please!"

There seemed to be nobody in command, but evidently one man was least of all, for they all began at once to order him below, and he went, grumbling.

"You see, effendi, we have no meat at all," said the man who had spoken first.

"But you don't look hungry," asserted Fred.

They were a ragged crowd, unshaven and not too clean, with the usual air of men whose only clothes are on their backs and have been there for a week past. All sorts of clothes they wore—odds and ends for the most part, probably snatched and pulled on in the first moment of a night alarm.

"Not yet, effendi. But we have no meat, and soon we shall have eaten all the grain."

"Well," said Fred, "if you need horse-meat, gosh durn you, take it from the Turks!"

"Gosh durn you!" grinned three or four men, nudging one another.

They were lost between a furtive habit born of hiding for dear life, a desire to be extremely friendly, and a new suspicion of Fred's high hand. Fred's next words added disconcertment.

"Where is Miss Vanderman?" he demanded, suddenly.

Before any one had time to answer Will made a swift move to the wall, and took his stand where nobody could get behind him. He did not produce his pistol, but there