‘It’s murder, absolute murder! Our man wears chain-armour under his clothes. It’s not a fair fight.’ He wanted to ride in between them and stop it; but we weren’t going to have him killed, whoever else was, so we simply hung on to him, and pointed out that as none of us had a spare suit of chain-armour we could offer to lend the Amir, and the Sheikh was probably proud of his foresight in wearing his, and would certainly refuse to take it off, things must settle themselves. He talked about Ivanhoe and the Templar, but we kept him quiet while they rode at one another again. This time we saw that, putting the armour out of the question, the Sheikh was the better man, quicker, more active, in better training--thanks to the desert life, I suppose. He avoided Wilayat Ali’s rush in the neatest way--the sword just shaved his shoulder as it came down--and turned upon him like King Richard in some book or other, standing in his stirrups and bringing down his sword with both hands. It’s a regular Crusader’s sword, by the way, with a cross hilt, and it cut through turban and head both, and the Amir dropped from the saddle as his horse rushed by. Then came the finest thing of all. The Chief was boiling over with rage--wanted to make the Sheikh fight him next, and so on; but on examining Wilayat Ali’s body we found that he had armour on too. They both wore armour, each trusting that the other didn’t know it, but each suspecting that the other wore it too, and that was why they both struck for the head, so that it was a fair fight after all--from an Oriental point of view. The Sheikh was proclaimed victor with acclamations, and Ashraf Ali’s right was acknowledged by most of those present; those who didn’t acknowledge it thought it best to slink away as unobtrusively as possible. Then the Sheikh turned to Keeling, and with the utmost politeness invited him to come to Nalapur as his guest, with an escort--not a force--to witness the youth’s enthronement. No British bayonets to put him on the _gadi_, you see. And we are going.” “But hasn’t Wilayat Ali a son?” asked Lady Haigh. “Yes, Hasrat Ali, who is officiating as governor of the city while his father is away. I imagine he would meet with an early death if we were not going to Nalapur; but as it is, the Sheikh intends to marry him to his niece, Ashraf Ali’s sister.” “Oh, poor Wazira Begum!” cried Penelope. “Is the young man nice?” “Very far from it, I should say; but when it’s a choice between marriage and murder, he will probably look at the matter philosophically.” “I wasn’t thinking of him,” said Penelope indignantly, “but of the poor girl. How can they want her to marry him?” “They want to have a check upon him if he takes kindly to the new state of affairs, and a spy upon him if he turns rusty, and they seem to think they can trust the young lady to be both.”