‘I judged we were in the hands of a band of rebel Moors loafing along shore in search of wreckage; and a man could see with half an eye it was a tight place. I wasn’t more than six feet from Kinjan, and I could tell by the prick of his ears he was understanding the pow-wow; living as he did at “Gib,” he’d been a lot in the country and _sabed_ the lingo well. Lie low was the only game, and I lay and thunk a lot, but all the time I felt kind of certain that if we were coming out of that place, it was Kinjan’s show--and the more so because I knew he was almighty dry. Their chief seemed a venerable kind of a bug, with a long white beard and turban, and he did most of the pow-wowing. Presently they easied off, and after looking us over well, and giving us a kick or two, set two sentinels, and turned in for sleep. The sentries stood out about twenty yards; and when the others seemed fixed pretty quiet, Kinjan gave a gentle roll of his fat carcase towards me, and said, out of his back teeth (I can’t give his accent, but it was real rich): “Thanks be to Jasus, one of me knots is a granny. Praise the pigs, I’ll be out of ut in ten minutes. Tell Torin; and when I give ye the wink, stand by, and I’ll cut ye loose--then grab what ye can and clear the camp; whist!” One of the sentries faced round right there and came towards us; he prodded at me with the butt end of his lance to see that I couldn’t move when he tickled me, and he rolled Kinjan over with his foot; we neither of us budged, so he concluded we were fixed, and mouched back again. ‘I counted the gang; there were fifteen of them. Torin was laying very low about three yards away, but I judged from a sign he made when the sentry vamoosed, that he knew things were about to progress. After what seemed a ’nation long time, Kinjan raised his head, and I saw from his movements he’d succeeded in freeing his hands; presently he came rolling gently on to me, and I felt the point of his blamed knife going in as he cut the thongs; then he handed me the knife, and I rolled on to Torin and hacked him loose; and just as I got through, one of the sentries tumbled to it, and came for us like greased lightning. I saw Kinjan throw out his arm from the ground, and the cuss tripped right over it on to us, and his spear went into the ground through my coat. ‘Kinjan raised a whoop, and got that spear and ran it through the man next him--he was a bloodthirsty little cuss. I laid for the sentry’s pistols--he had two--and drew a very neat bead on the other sentry.