Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/197

 we certainly started for it in a very unexpected way."

"Did the sahibs fully observe the stone which was hurled upon the savages?" asked Hassan, who was near us.

Denviers turned to him as he replied:—

"We were in too much of a hurry to do that, Hassan, I'm afraid. Was there anything remarkable about it?" The Arab looked away over the sea for a minute—then, as if talking to himself, he answered: "Great is Allah and his servant Mahomet, and strange the way in which he saved us. The huge stone which crushed the savages was the same with which they have destroyed their victims in the hollowed out mortar in which it stood! I have once before seen such a stone, and the death to which they condemned us drew my attention to it as we pushed it down upon them."

"Then," said Denviers, "their strange monarch was not disappointed after all in his sentence being carried out—only it affected his own subjects."

"That," said Hassan, "is not an infrequent occurrence in the East; but so long as the proper number perishes, surely it matters little who complete it fully."

"A very pleasant view of the case, Hassan," said Denviers; "only we who live Westward will, I hope, be in no particular hurry to adopt such a custom; but go and see if you can find out where our berths are, for we want to turn in." The Arab obeyed, and returned in a few minutes, saying that he, the unworthy latchet of our shoes, had discovered them.