My heart was in my mouth then, and I said as firmly as I could: "Ma kattle kum! Ist agel!" Webster chipping in with a quaver in his voice, and the two marines and Griffiths bellowing these words behind and above us. For a moment the Arabs still hesitated, but then they commenced to pass through the gap between Webster and myself. One, two, half a dozen, a dozen panting figures glided through, and more came—twenty or thirty more—and all the time Jaffa’s voice sounded—as calmly as if he were aboard the "_B.A._"—"Khalli bunduk ’ak! khalli bunduk ’ak! Ma kattle kum! ma kattle kum!" Then I heard Griffiths moving among the rocks overhead, probably shifting himself into a more comfortable position, and the fool must have had his finger on his trigger, because his rifle went off, right in our faces, almost blinding us. Of course the approaching Arabs thought that we were firing at those who had passed through the gap, and believed that they were going to be murdered. I cursed Griffiths, and shouted: "Ma kattle kum! ma kattle kum!" Jaffa yelled to us not to shoot—but no more Arabs came. Out of the darkness Jaffa’s voice sounded, higher pitched now: "Khalli bunduk ’ak," and voices at his feet answered him, angry voices, despairing voices; a crowd of Arabs seemed to be collecting all along the path, and people were calling up from below. I realized that they were refusing to part with their rifles, preferring to have a chance for their lives, or to die, if they had to, with them in their hands. We were all shouting: "Ma kattle kum! Ist agel!" The two marines, knowing that something was wrong, ran to us. "Stand by to fire! Be very careful; fire below, and to right of the match, if Jaffa strikes one." There was a very ominous murmur now. Jaffa was haranguing, expostulating; then he stopped. "Stand by!" I shouted, bringing my rifle to my shoulder. A tiny light showed. Jaffa had struck a match. "Fire!" I yelled, and our four rifles went off together. We heard groans, a yell of pain, and a body falling. Some of our bullets had gone home. Jaffa’s pistol flashed once; we fired again; it flashed a second time, and then, with a glare and a startling roar, a shell burst not fifty yards below us, and for a second or two lighted up the whole scene—Jaffa on the rock, and those Arabs, a whole line of them, surging up to him. Wild screams came up from a lower path, and told us that men there had been wounded; and Jaffa began in his old voice of calm assurance, "Ma kattle kum! Khalli bunduk ’ak"—he never once stopped talking. "No shoot," he called to us; "they throw away rifles—they come:" and with the most intense relief from the strain of those few awful seconds I heard the welcome clatter of rifles on the rocks, and that weird procession began again to pass between us. In their hurry to escape this new terror of the bursting shells the Arabs actually swept the two marines back to the farther end of the gap.