The zigzag path was the most extraordinary sight, littered with rifles, bandoliers, water-bags, turbans, and cloaks, showing how hurriedly the poor wretches had tried to escape. It was dangerous work there, and worse still when we reached the camels. Each poor brute thought we were bringing him food, and was furious when he saw we were not, swaying his neck and making an angry rumbling noise somewhere from halfway down his neck, scraping his bundle of rifles or ammunition-boxes against the rock. We had to squeeze past each one very carefully indeed, with an eye on his head and neck and a hand gripping at his bundle. Lower down we came to the villagers trying their best to shift the camels, make them get on their feet if they were kneeling, or turn them round if they were facing upwards. Poor devils, they were only fishermen, and were evidently making a poor job of this. Among them was my old friend the head-man, shouting orders by the dozen. He smiled affably, and gabbled a lot of weird words as I squeezed past him. Jaffa explained that he was comparing me "to the sun for strength and the jackal for cunning". I smiled back, and as Jaffa followed he commenced another long rigmarole, which I did not stay to listen to, but which Jaffa afterwards told me was to the effect that the Bedouin would be very angry, and would come back presently, when the _Bunder Abbas_ and _Intrepid_ had gone away, and kill them all. That was the worst of it. I knew enough about the temper of those gun-running fellows—hadn’t I seen what had happened at Bungi and Sudab?—and the Arabs are no whit less ferocious and revengeful than the Afghans. It seemed such hard luck to get those villagers to help us and then leave them to certain vengeance. These especial people were so simple, and had been so useful, that it would be a shame to leave them unprotected. But what could we do? Neither the _Bunder Abbas_ nor the _Intrepid_ could stay there for ever. Lower down still, quite close to the bottom of the zigzag, I met the commander, very pleased with himself and with me too. "You should get promotion out of this," he said, as I saluted; "it’s the finest haul that’s been made for years—three thousand rifles at least, and more ammunition than we’ve destroyed in the last twelve months." He made me tell him the whole yarn over again, and then ordered me to take my men back to the _Bunder Abbas_. I did not want to go, but had to. At the bottom of the "coffee-cup" I saw the mangled remains of many of the camels which had fallen down the precipice. Rifles from their burst bundles were scattered round them, and some of the _Intrepids_ were still moving about among the boulders, searching for dead or wounded Arabs. Then at the very entrance to the gorge, round the corner where the Arabs had taken up their first position, I found Nicholson busy with the wounded, and showing some natives how to make litters.