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A spasm of fury passed over the face of the Mussulman priest at this public testimony to the failure of his missionary efforts. He turned and said something to the Emir. "Stand up!" cried Mansoor. "For your life's sake, stand up! He is asking for leave to put you to death." "Let him do what he likes!" said the obstinate Irishman; "we will rise when our prayers are finished, and not before."
An instant later the bugle rang out as a signal to mount. "What he says is this," Mansoor explained, as he rode in the middle of the prisoners. "We shall reach the wells by mid-day, and there will be a rest. His own Moolah, a very good and learned man, will come to give you an hour of teaching. At the end of that time you will choose one way or the other.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Mansoor began, with something of his old consequential manner; but a glare from the Colonel's eyes struck the words from his lips, and he broke away into a long, whimpering excuse for his conduct. "How could I do anything otherwise," he wailed, "with the very knife at my throat?"
His crooked finger was laid upon his thick, liver-coloured lips, and his dark eyes glanced from left to right with ceaseless vigilance. "Lie quiet! Do not move!" he whispered, in Arabic. "I will lie here beside you, and they cannot tell me from the others. You can understand what I am saying?" "Yes, if you will talk slowly." "Very good. I have no great trust in this black man, Mansoor.
And leaving Mansoor and the others to be dealt with by subordinates, he led the way up the steep stairs, at a run.
Suddenly, he heard a woman's voice speaking amidst the trees, and thought he distinguished the sound of his own name; so he stepped aside, and, cautiously advancing, beheld a young mother sitting by a fountain of water, dancing an infant on her knees, and singing: 'I have my Ali, I have my child; I am happier than King Mansoor, who has no Ali, no child. The king frowned as black as thunder, and he understood wherefore he was unhappy: he had no child to play on his knee when care oppressed his heart.
On other occasions, the bustle, and the noise, and the jokes they heard, and the accidents that used to happen, were agreeable to King Mansoor; but now he found all things unpleasant, and even became angry when hustled by the porters.
With a shriek of fear the poor wretch threw himself forward upon his face, and clutched at the edge of the Arab's jibbeh, clawing with his brown fingers at the edge of the cotton skirt. The Emir tugged to free himself, and then, finding that he was still held by that convulsive grip, he turned and kicked at Mansoor with the vicious impatience with which one drives off a pestering cur.
Meanwhile, Mansoor had also given orders to stretch an enormous chain across the river between the two parts of his city, so as to prevent all boats from passing until searched for the daughter of the Abyssinian prince; and this is the origin of the name of these mountains.
The chief stood for some minutes, stroking his black beard, while his fierce eyes glanced from one pale face to another along the miserable line of his captives. In a harsh, imperious voice he said something which brought Mansoor, the dragoman, to the front, with bent back and outstretched supplicating palms.
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