The sheikh and a small band of picked men were in readiness in the desert below the fortress, all well armed, and mounted on the best horses that the tribe possessed. Yeshua and his guide were to be left behind, to give them time to recover from the fatigues of their hurried journey before undertaking another, for the sheikh had promised to conduct the travellers to Damascus by the shortest available route, involving as few halts as possible, and the hardship would be great. In spite, however, of long stages and little rest, with a meagre supply of food and water, the return from Sitt Zeynab proved much less disagreeable than the journey thither had been. The sheikh had banished from his mind the last traces of suspicion and enmity, and was above all things anxious to secure Cyril’s friendship for his tribe, and for his tribe alone. His anxiety lest the Prince of the Jews should admit the Beni Ayub also to a share in his favour found utterance again and again, and was as amusing as was his claim to the entire ownership of the desert between Damascus and Palmyra. He went so far as to invite Cyril to aid him in maintaining his supposed rights by force of arms, but this was merely a rhetorical flourish, not intended to be taken seriously. The first part of the journey, including the crossing of the waterless desert which was the true patrimony of the Beni Ismail, was uneventful, but no sooner had the boundary, invisible as it was to the untrained eye, been crossed, than the party became aware that they were watched. A camel and its rider would suddenly appear on the horizon, only to vanish in a cloud of dust as quickly as they had come. Sometimes these scouts would appear in the direction of Damascus, sometimes to the right or left of the line of march, but for two days they kept the travellers almost constantly in sight, without offering to approach them more closely. “The sons of Shaitan can see us much more readily than we can see them,” grumbled the sheikh, “and they are closing round us. Then they will lie in wait for us in the broken ground before reaching Es Sham.” “How would you shake them off if we were not here?” asked Cyril. “We would lead them astray, O my lord, with feigned pursuit of their scouts, and running fights, until we were either safe on our own land or could slip through them into Es Sham, but that would need many days, and if they contrived to separate us one from another, evil might come to my lord.” “Evil might also come to some of them,” suggested Cyril. “Doubtless, but if their object is rather to delay my lord than to hurt him, they might attain it with little danger to themselves.”