Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/200

 rifle in hand. “Al Nakia's men—they're attacking us!”

“Yes!” Mr. Preserved Higgins turned on Tollemache. “You are a silly plurry ass, aren't you? Told me, didn't you, they was unprepared? My word—of all the …”

“Keep your hair on!” advised Tollemache. “If these are Al Nakia's soldiers, our spies and scouts would have brought us warning.”

“They may have been overpowered, saheb,” suggested “The Basin.” “Look—look!”

For the cloud grew. Rolling on as mercilessly as Fate, it seemed to spread, to jump into a pattern, brown and black, blotched with white and vivid scarlet. The roaring and zumming increased—

A faint neighing of horses. A tinkling of camels' bells. A thumping of kettle-drums.

Then a flash of lance points and sword blades and metal-bossed arm shields. Shrill cries. The portentous thunder of galloping horses. The soft, rhythmic thud of the dromedaries' padded feet.

Tollemache jerked aside the arm of the Arab gunner who was just about to swing the machine-gun on its swivel and rake the oncoming horde with shot. “Stop it!” he cried; and, to his captains who shouted the order down the deployed lines:

“Hold your fire—hold your fire!”—and he despatched a messenger to a camp beyond the main camp where the few pieces of artillery which Mr. Preserved Higgins had shipped through from the Persian Gulf were served by specially trained men.

“Wot the 'ell are you w'ytin' for?” cried the