At sunrise the next day the caravan started, and met with nothing more terrible than the awful expanse of sand until they encamped. Then it was that a tribe of wandering savages--living like birds of prey upon others--pounced down upon the cavalcade and sought to capture the women and the camels. Mohammed had been a soldier, and his men were all disciplined. Hence the savages could do but little. One of the Arabs was slightly wounded, while three of the savages were killed. A native had been captured and held as prisoner. “What shall you do with him?” asked Max. “Keep him an hour to frighten him and then let him go,” answered the chief. Ibrahim was attracted to the only article of attire the man wore. It was a belt, and strangely like the one worn by Girzilla. The man wore it as a necklet, it being far too small to encircle his waist. Ibrahim interrogated him, but the man could not, or would not, understand. One of the Arabs, however, was able to act as interpreter. “Ask him where he got the belt,” said Ibrahim. The man was smart and cute, and replied by asking what he would get if he told all he knew. He was promised his freedom, and then the man’s mouth was opened and his tongue loosened. He said that his people had met some white men and a girl, and that all had been killed. The belt belonged to the girl, and she was nice. Ibrahim, horrified at the story, asked what had become of the dead bodies. The man pointed to his mouth, and then rubbed his abdomen, indicating that the murdered Girzilla and her friends had been eaten. Ibrahim was so enraged that he forgot his promise. The man was to have his freedom. Ibrahim gave it to him in a way the wretch never expected. In a fit of anger at the revelation made, Ibrahim, with one blow, severed the savage’s head from his body. The blood ran over the belt, and the Persian sickened at the sight. Wiping the belt clean, he kissed it many times, for had it not encircled the waist of the one he loved? When Mohammed heard the story he looked sad, but with the fatalists’ philosophy, he only said: “If Allah willed it, who am I to repine?” Later, however, he called Ibrahim and Max to one side and told them that he did not believe the man’s story. He thought he should please them by telling it, and how was he to know that there were people who would be horrified at the idea of murder? Ibrahim, however, looked on the blackest side, and was fully convinced that his uncle and Girzilla had been converted into juicy steaks or luscious pot roasts, and had served to provide a feast to the tribe of cannibals at whose hands they had fallen. He was inconsolable, and had it not been for the high spirits of Max, who made Ibrahim smile in spite of his misery, the young Persian might never have lived to inherit his uncle’s great property. Mohammed was determined to set the matter of Sherif’s fate at rest, and so continued the journey.