Page:Talbot Mundy - Eye of Zeitoon.djvu/356

336 flank. As long as they don't shoot across the road and kill one another it'll be a picnic!"

"How do you know the Turks will walk into the trap?" I asked.

"Ten 'traitors, said Monty, "have let themselves get caught at intervals since noon. One of Kagig's spies has got across to us with news that Mahmoud means to finish the hash of Zeitoon to-night. His men have been promised all the loot and all the women."

"Except one!" Fred added with a glance at Gloria.

"Two! Except two!" remarked Kagig with a glance at the door. We looked, and held our breath.

Maga Jhaere stood there, with a hand on the masonry on each side!

"You fool, Kagig, what you fill this castle full of wood for?" she demanded.

Kagig beckoned to her.

"To burn little traitoresses!" he answered tenderly. "Come here!"

She walked over to him, and he put his arm around her waist, looking up from his seat into her face as if studying it almost for the first time. She began running her fingers through his hair.

"Is she not beautiful?" he asked us naively. Then, not waiting for an answer: "She is my wife, effendim. You would not have me be revengeful—not toward my wife, I think?"

"Your wife? Why didn't you tell us that before?"

Gloria seemed the most surprised, as well as the most amused, although we were all astonished.

"Not tell you before? Oh—do you remember Abraham—in the Bible—yes? She has been my best spy now and then. As Kagig's wife what good would she be?