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Updated: June 15, 2025
"Follow me," said Maqueda, who all this while had watched panting at my side, and rose to run to the ladder. I thrust her back. "Nay," I shouted. "Follow me, Abati! Shall a woman lead you?" Of how I descended that ladder I have no recollection, nor do I in the least know how the Mountaineers came after me, but I think that the most of them rolled and scrambled down the thirty feet of rock.
Well, I think he has had enough," and suddenly he released the Abati, who, a gory and most unpleasant spectacle, fell to the ground and lay there panting. His companions, seeing their chief's melancholy plight, advanced upon the Professor in a threatening fashion; indeed, one of them drew a knife. "Put up that thing, sonny," said the Sergeant, "or by heaven, I'll loose the dog upon you.
Of the Ghibelline faction were the Uberti, Manelli, Ubriachi, Fifanti, Amidei, Infangati, Malespini, Scolari, Guidi, Galli, Cappiardi, Lamberti, Soldanieri, Cipriani, Toschi, Amieri, Palermini, Migliorelli, Pigli, Barucci, Cattani, Agolanti, Brunelleschi, Caponsacchi, Elisei, Abati, Tidaldini, Giuochi, and Galigai.
Close by, holding Pharaoh by the collar, which we had manufactured for him out of the skin of a camel that had died, stood Sergeant Quick, a look of grim amusement on his wooden face, while around, gesticulating after their Eastern fashion, and uttering guttural sounds of wrath, were several of the Abati drivers. Orme was absent, being, in fact, asleep at the time. "What are you doing, Higgs?"
I lifted my veil, and showed them my eyes, and they believed also what they seemed to see in my eyes, forgetting that I am a woman who can play a part at need. Yes, they forgot that there were others to deceive as well, all the Abati people, who, if they thought I tricked them, would have torn the foreigners limb from limb.
Then Maqueda understood what had happened. "Surely the Abati are a people of rogues," she said. "See now, the officers appointed to store away my corn which I gave them have stolen it! Oh! may they live to lack bread even more bitterly than we do to-day." We went back to our sleeping-place in silence. Well might we be silent, for of food we had only enough left for a single scanty meal.
The officers also, developing the characteristic excitement of the Abati race in this hour of panic, yelled and screamed at them, beating them with their fists and swords till some kind of control was established. Then attempts were made to extinguish the flames, which by this time had got hold in half-a-dozen places. From the beginning the effort was absolutely hopeless.
"What says the Gentile?" spluttered Joshua, whereon Orme, waking up from one of his fits of lethargy, replied in Arabic: "He says that he prays you, O Prince of princes, to close your noble mouth and to keep your high-bred eyes within their sockets lest you should lose them"; at which words those who were listening broke into a fit of laughter, for one redeeming characteristic among the Abati was that they had a sense of humour.
It is indeed a proof of your generosity, and of that of the Abati people which we shall always remember and repeat in our own land, should we live to reach it. Also, we trust that it will come to the ears of the savage Fung, so that at length they may understand that true nobility and greatness lie not in brutal deeds of arms, but in the hearts of men.
Therefore I patted this one on the head, since, after all, he is a clever dog who knows things that we do not know; for instance, how to destroy the idol of the Fung. O great Abati, can any of you really have believed that I, of the ancient race of Solomon and Sheba, I, the Child of Kings, purposed to give my noble hand to a vagrant Gentile come hither for hire?
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