"Drop your scimitar," shouted Geoff, covering the fallen chief as he staggered from his saddle and got to his feet. "Now throw your pistols on one side. Good! You'll run in front of me as fast as you can, without looking to either side or behind you; if you fail in this, I have still another bullet to spare for you." Amazement was written on the face of the chief--amazement which was far greater for the moment than his wrath and his disappointment at being made a prisoner. For wrath does not last for long when a man has met with a fair opponent and has been fairly worsted. Moreover, whatever your Arab may be--fierce revengeful, treacherous, a false friend, if you will have it--he is yet a philosopher, a child of the desert, one who takes things as they come, and makes the best of them. "By Allah," he grunted, "but this is a strange thing that has happened. A while ago and I thought that you--a white man, one of the race of unbelievers--were surely in my hands, were surely killed or captive; but a while ago, had a man dared to tell me that I, Suliman, should fall before one of the invaders, and this at the very first encounter, I would have slain him; while, had one dared to say that this fine Arab I ride could meet his match anywhere in the desert, I would have had him stripped and beaten. But now, surely this is fate. Allah is great! and if this is his reward, then why should I be wroth with it? My master, I obey." Quite cheerfully he cast his empty weapons aside and threw his scimitar to a distance; then, with long active strides he set off in the direction that Geoff had indicated, casting not a single glance back at his comrades, content as it were with his fate, and careless of what was before him--a true philosopher indeed, a true child of the desert. Perhaps ten minutes later they came up with Daglish, finding that young officer amazed, delighted beyond words, hugging himself with enjoyment. "My word!" he exclaimed as Geoff rode up beside him; "of all the cheek, of all the dare-devils I ever saw. But what the devil do you mean by it?"