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El-Maan itself was a picture of green trees above a mud wall; but we did not visit it, for the station, with its hideous red water-tanks, was a mile and a half to the eastward of the place a miserable, bleak, unpainted iron roof and buildings, with a place alongside that had once been a Greek hotel.
She spoke the clean concrete Arabic of the desert, that has a distinct word for everything, and for every phase of everything another speech altogether from the jargon of the towns. "Are they friends of yours?" "Who travels with enemies?" "Did you know them, I mean, before you came with them?" "No." "Then you are not from El-Maan?" "Who said I was?" "I thought you did."
And I have done your name no harm, but good on the country-side." "Allah! How have you saved me from destruction?" "By preventing that unwise raid on El-Maan." "Wallahi! Do you think my men could not have accomplished it?" "Maybe. Do you think the British would be fools enough to let that go unpunished? The El-Maan people would surely have appealed to them.
"I took another liberty," said Grim. "I sent word by messenger, who bore a letter sealed with that same seal, to Ibrahim ben Ah. He will neither raid El-Maan nor return to Petra." "He is defeated?" asked the Lion, dumbfounded. "And she is she a prisoner?" Grim did not answer either question. "And I met a man named Yussuf. You know him?" "Naam." "He has been lying to Your Honor.
"Please tell me where you come from." "From beyond El-Maan." She made a gesture with one hand and her shoulder that suggested illimitable distances. "From which place beyond El-Maan?" She laughed, and you felt she did it not in self-defense, but out of sheer amusement. "Ask the jackal where his hole is! My people live in tents." "Ask El-Kalil. The whole suk talks of me. I have made purchases."
She was obviously not in the least afraid of us. "You are from El-Maan?" asked de Crespigny, and she nodded. "Did you come all this way alone?" "No woman travels the desert alone." "Tell me how you got here." "You know how I got here. I came with a caravan that carried wheat the wife of the sheikh of the caravan consenting."
You've ten seconds before I pull the trigger. Where was this raid headed for?" "El-Maan." "Why?" "That place has become too independent. The tribes meet there and plan raids on their own account." "Uh-huh. That sounds fairly credible. Now, observe I pass my pistol to this Indian." He handed it to me. "He will shoot you dead if you make one false move.
"How do you propose to convey all these things back to Petra?" "Surely it is not difficult now that I am promised Your Honor's protection!" "My district extends half-way to Beersheba and to the eastward as far as the shore of the Dead Sea no farther," said de Crespigny. "I can wait. I must wait for the purchases from Jerusalem. Sooner or later there will be a caravan across the desert to El-Maan.
You may tell her she's not in trouble, but an officer wants first-hand information about El-Maan." "Shall my sons be seen dragging a woman through the streets?" asked Ali Baba. "Let's hope not. But I don't care to send the police. I don't want to put her to indignity, you understand. Suppose you arrange it for me, eh?" "Listen, Jimgrim; that woman is a strange one!
You will tell Ibrahim ben Ah to take all his men at once to that next oasis on the way to El-Maan, and to wait there for yourself and Ali Higg, to wait as long as three days if necessary. Say you will join them there and lead the raid. You understand me?" "Yes." "You understand that you will die immediately if you disobey?" "Yes." "He will ask what the shooting meant just now.
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