Nuri Shaalan! Today I turn from more recent memories of him to the unforgettable impression he made upon me when I was first a guest in his famous big black booth. More than sixty years old at the time, he was already enough the patriarch to arouse in me a spirit of respect for his age and position; yet obviously not these alone but an indomitable personality made him a leader of men. There was a look in his eye demanding complete subjection to his will. But his face, lined with wrinkles like dry river-beds and pitted with smallpox scars like dry waterholes, lighted up, when he talked, with the gentlest of smiles. As he reclined, his fingers almost absent-mindedly caressed the face of a grandchild, who was leaning on his lap, while the thumb of the same hand did not lose touch with the silver hilt of his khanjar, or curved dagger.

In the raids and feuds of the desert, this fierce Bedouin had caused the death of two of his own brothers and had killed scores of men with his own hands. He was the offender whom the Turks, in 1910, resenting his support of Ibn Saud against Ibn Rashid, had thrust into jail in Damascus and condemned to death. The violent threats and protests of his own tribe, numbering thirty thousand tents, and of allied tribes had finally brought about his release of a few months before, but with it had come an outburst of desert warfare, which was even now making the region thoroughly unsafe. For Nuri and his tribesmen had a score to settle with a brother tribe, the Fidaan, who had been loyal to the Turks during his captivity, and with a rebellious clan of their own tribe, which was supporting Faris, the son of Nuri's dead brother Fahad.

Much as he had to engross him, Nuri treated me with the greatest attention and deprived himself of personal comforts to make my stay with him as agreeable as possible. He loved to talk after the midnight hours, and, though almost comically ignorant of geography and history outside of Arabia and Syria, displayed what seemed to me keen insight into the political situation in the Near East. All that he said or did was informed with his own vigorous personality. He interrupted a conversation without excusing himself and went to pray at the appointed hour, but, returning from his religious duty, said frankly, in the assembly of his people and before guests, that he trusted more in his power of quick decision and his sword or rifle than in the help of Allah, whom he cared to deal with only after his passage from this earthly life. The Amir of the Ruala Bedouins was above all a man of action. He looked unconquerable--and he had been.

The following June, during a second visit, I came to know him much better. As I approached the Ruala encampment, near Adra, on the Damascus-to-Bagdad post-road, well-armed horsemen closed in on me, and only after one of them had recognized me as a friend of the Amir did they allow me to proceed. There was something strange in the air; before I reached my host, I was stopped many times. Among the black booths of the Ruala were no more of the white canvas traders' tents I had seen on my previous visit. I was led, not to the big booth of Nuri Shaalan but to the tent of old Slave Hamar, where, to my surprise, I found Nuri sitting in council.

He rose, we embraced each other and he ordered some of his slaves to prepare a seat for me on the ground next to him. Another slave brought the customary bitter coffee. After we had seated ourselves on the soft, fluffy rugs, Nuri took my hand as if I wee his little child and asked me many questions, and, because my answers contained good news, he patted my hand and face with a boyish delight. When supper was over, he explained to me that he was living in the tent of one of his slaves because a treacherous enemy had been among the traders from Syria.

"Like the other merchants he had set up his white tent not far from my own black one," Nuri said. "He was selling printed cotton goods, utensils for our harem and those less useful things that our people imagine they need when they camp near the settlers and clay-faces.

"Thou knowest that I have enemies, even within the tribe. Several times in one week sharpshooters sneaked near enough to our tents, in broad daylight, to take aim at me, but, thanks be to Allah, I escaped their bullets. Then I began to change tents, actually living with my slaves to mislead the enemy, but they seemed to be informed of my moves.

"One morning it chanced that I called to the young brood playing about and divided among them a bag of dates. Instead of running home with his present in his cloak or shirt-tail, as the other children did, the ten-year-old son of this trader loitered and, just as soon as he thought no one was looking, marked, with a stone tied into a piece of white cloth, the flat roof of the tent where I was. That afternoon fifteen riders on horseback emptied their rifles into the tent at a distance of a quarter of a mile. The boy was caught and questioned and, with his mother, detained as my prisoner, but his father had stolen one of my best mares and was far away. I immediately ordered all the traders to leave the camp. This is why, as thou hast noted, there are no more white tents among our black booths."

Having related these incidents, the old sheikh asked his slaves to remove from a corner of the tent a large pile of bags filled with grain. When they had done so, they took away a rug, which had been thrown over three heavy wooden posts, and out of a hole roughly pulled the body of a city Arab with his hands and feet untied. He looked almost dead and was quite unable to speak. His swollen tongue filled his open mouth, and his eyes were bulging.

"This is the man," Nuri said to me, and noticing my wordless wonder, he continued: "We captured him three days ago. We knew that he would come back to see his wife and child." Then, turning to the man, he said: "Allah preserve thee, O man! Before this Franki I repeat my promise, and thou knowest that Nuri Shaalan's word is true and that what he agrees to will never be changed. Confess to us that thou hast tried to cause my death, reveal the name of those who have paid thee well for this undertaking, and I will moisten thy heart with my forgiveness." But the wretched man only shook his head; his grimaces indicated his terrible fear and doubt.

Nuri got up and ordered that the man should be put back into the hole. As he himself walked out into the warm, starlight night, anybody could perceive his emotion. After a while he called for me. He was standing beside some of his camels and, when he heard my steps, came toward me. Then, drawing me to him and laying one arm over my shoulders, he said: "May God execute his justice! I have always condemned these city-dwellers, but this man has set an example beyond my experience. If he were a strong man, I would ask him to fight, if he were a Bedouin, I would ask him to fight, if he were a Bedouin, I would get a confession from him--though I do not need it, because Faris, the son of my brother Fahad, and his friends have not made peace with me yet--and, if he were one of my relatives, I would not have spared his blood at all. But now he has suffered three nights and three days in this tomb without water or food, and I cannot bear to make him suffer any longer, since his death might revert on me."

Was Nuri Shaalan, proclaimed the most cruel of all desert chiefs, troubled by his own heart and conscience? The typical Bedouin! Admiring courage in his bitter enemy and loving freedom above everything else.

He walked back to his tent and had the bags removed again. While this work was going on, he ordered the wife and son of the prisoner and their camels, their folded tent and all their goods to be brought immediately. So the woman and the little boy were led in by the wives of the slave with whom they were living.

Suddenly, as the woman saw her husband lifted from the hole, she cried out like a wounded animal, tore the veil from her face and fainted. The boy pushed the slaves aside and fell over the lifeless form of his father.

The family never left the camp of Nuri Shaalan again. During my visit two years ago, <1927> when I inquired for this family, Amir Fuaz Shaalan, Nuri's grandson, turned smilingly around and pointed to a tall, young, intelligent-looking Bedouin sitting behind him. "The father and mother both died in the Hamad, but their son has become my chauffeur!" There he was, at twenty-five, driving a car as well as he could ride an Arabian horse.

I did not stay long with Nuri after the release of his prisoner but, accompanied by one of his warriors, rode one hundred and twenty miles further east to visit the temporary camp of his son, Amir Nauaf, at the waterpools of Rukuban. Nauaf had come north from his head-quarters at Jauf to recruit warriors from among the settlers in the deserts of that region. He was entertaining guests from far and near, but chiefly from the neighboring Wuld Ali.

Nauaf was not like his father Nuri: he did not have the personality of the supreme sheikh, the fight to organize and unite the whole tribe under a dominant will. He was rather shy and silent, as if always occupied with secret problems, but seemed at ease in a comfortable corner of a tent with one or two trusted friends. Though a true Bedouin, he had by temperament the longing for a peaceful place to live in and rule over. Yet he was completely absorbed in his plans for Jauf, which he had held for years only by much bloodshed and was now obliged to fight for again. Like his father he was in constant fear for his life and found it advisable constantly to have his neighborhood guarded by warriors.

I saw him go hungry (whether in self-denial or from personal fear, I cannot say) for five days, touching nothing except water and camel's milk, though at the time he was lavishly entertaining hundreds of guests. Also his sons, none then older than ten, though present at the meals, were not allowed to touch anything except camel's milk. They were taught while young to "abide in hunger" courageously, to show hardihood and courtesy in every respect.

Amir Fuaz, the eight-year-old son of Nauaf and his second wife, the almost blind Mishail--Mishail, whom, later, I was to call only khalati, my sister--could not yet read and write. But he was a strong little fellow and very active and gallant. He would sometimes ride out with his camel to help a poor old woman with her load of water-skins or desert brush, or would gather truffles or the semh seeds that are mixed with flour in baking bread and give his spoils to a widow or an old slave. He would churn butter, help in the folding and setting up of the tents or milk goats and sheep, though all these occupations were a disgrace to a boy, who was supposed never to lay his hands on anything a woman or a girl could do. He could milk the nagas, or milch camels, too, and nobody objected to that, since it was a man's job. He rode the camels to pasture; he looked after the mares; he helped to train the falcons and greyhounds. He practised shooting whenever he had collected enough ammunition from his friends. On a hunt his father lent him a rifle and shells.

One afternoon Fuaz and some other boys were practising behind a tent, shooting away in rapid succession at a group of tent-pegs, about eighty feet distant. I happened to come around this tent and, while walking away from it, was hit on the forehead by a rebouncing pebble, so that I fell to my knees and was very dizzy when I got up. Fuaz had hurled this missile, and he was the first to reach me, breathless. He noticed at once the bloody mark on my forehead, and, as I smiled and tried to take him in my arms, he tore loose and, standing before me with his sling in his hand and touching his ighal, or head-rope, he said: "Thou art vieled with the blood, and I shall pay thy price. Repose under my protection."

There was no "Sorry, sir!" or "Pardon me!" Oh, I loved this wild little desert prince--as free and true as the big-eyed gazelle or the noble mare of his barren country. "Let it be so," I said, taking the other boys, who were crowding around us, as witnesses; "I ask as price for my blood thy friendship, O my brother." He stood for a moment bewildered; then he dropped his sling and stepped close to me with uplifted arms as if he were my own child. I lowered myself on one knee and drew him to my heart, and, while we kissed each other on the cheek, he put his fingers into my wound and rubbed one drop of my blood as a similar mark on his own forehead. Thus I became, by the decree of Allah, the "blood brother" of Fuaz.

Two days later I was reposing in the shade of the guest-tent about an hour before midday. Suddenly, in front of my surprised eyes, an enchanting landscape spread out to the south, where for days I had observed only a changing gray and yellowish desert, bathed in heat and light. Often I had seen the sarab the teasing illusion of the Arabian mirage, but never before had it appeared so exquisite in this sun-stricken land. I remembered how it had been explained by an Arab in Egypt, who had told me that, because of special color and light conditions in the ether, creatures of immaterial body, otherwise invisible to the human eye, became revealed to our limited senses. It was as if the master of the universe had drawn a veil from the golden face of the desert and disclosed an Arabian paradise--a most peaceful, dreamily beautiful Arcadia--peopled with creatures of fairylike substance. There was still a thin, finely woven veil, vibrating like the breath of a cool mist. Through the veil was revealed a slumbering lake with slivery-blue waters. Dark islands dotted the surface, and trees and bushes of various shapes, like flaming emeralds, flanked the shore, along which a large caravan of mysterious riders moved slowly on to a garden or fantom oasis of lofty palms, where were hidden white dwellings with shining domes and slender minarets. Pulsating at rhythmic intervals, the picture vanished and reappeared, in the flaming heat, as if a curtain of golden light were drawn over it from time to time.

"Peace be unto thee," said the old Wuld Ali to her, bending down to kiss the long sleeve of her garment.

"And peace be with thee and those I behold with thee."

Mishail, I had been told, could only note the outlines of people and not recognize their features, but she was able to discern clearly very distant objects and was wont to explain in a mystical way the veiled reflections of a mirage.

Rafi ibn Taiyar again addressed himself to her and said: "From the heavenly horizon, the God of our fathers has taken the veil from the hidden, and we can behold with the light of our eyes the holy cavalcade."

A sacred shower of emotion bedewed my soul; for I had heard Bedouins talk of the "holy cavalcade"--as Mishail had poetically named the groups of riders on camels and horses which often appear within the mirage--and of how the blind woman was usually able to give an accurate account of the groups and of the tribes they belonged to and of what was to happen to them in the near future. Mishail, I could see for myself, was not the ordinary Bedouin woman. Not more than twenty-five years of age, she looked physically much older, spiritually almost younger. Her beautiful hair, folded in thick plaits around her face, was quite gray. She carried her head splendidly erect, and there shone from beneath those mysterious, half-closed lids a diffused light that made them almost transparent.

Her words were very slow and very soft and of the purest speech of Nejd as she addressed us: "Behold a vessel of weakness, friends, serving uselessly in dry wells of this life. I cannot be brave and commanding like Aliya, who led our men against Ibrahim Pasha, and I do not possess the spirit of the Lady Turkiyye, my mother, to sit in the council-tent with our chiefs. Yet my people come to consult me, because they say that my soul is a mirror, which holds the image of the future long enough so that my tongue can describe it, though imperfectly only, because spiritual visions cannot be translated into mere human words and Arabic, the language of the angels, contains myriads of words that are understood and mastered only in paradise."

The news that Mishail was about ton reveal mysteries had spread through the camp, and several influential men now came up and greeted her, while the crowd remained in the background and only a few curious ones walked to a neighboring tent and watched us.

"We beseech thy protection O God!" exclaimed Mishail, and in an exulting spirit she lifted her arms toward the mirage and called out the following words very distinctly, almost like soft notes of sacred music: "O Lord, O Most Compassionate! Let me be the bow for thy arrows, O Knower of All Things! I behold the eagle and the many ravens above the holy cavalcade. What Allah has willed, has happened. Our people return with booty and have taken possession of the holy oasis." Every one present called fervently, "Allah, Allah!" expecting a further fortunate prophecy.

"But," she continued, "I behold our husbands and brothers riding under the veil of the Lord. I see the ravens gather and the eagle taking a lone flight, and, alas, I behold the grieving of some who recognize those under the veil, and my heart is saddened and tastes the bitter myrrh of agony as I look upon our dead. There are no tidings of welfare, but the enemy of life hath repulsed the living; the friends of Allah are proceeding toward the depth of the lake and carry with them the precious booty of our beloved and they are riding off toward the south, under the dark mantle of the veil--and with them all the children of Nuri." And, sinking to her knees with closed eyes, she fashioned a circle in the sand before her and raised a round sand-hill in the center and said: "Thus I am told in this sarab: 'Behold the breast of the desert, and her milk is only dust for her thirsty children. There is no gain within this life unless the heavens nourish this dust of which we are built and to which we return.'" And, looking up, I saw that the mirage had vanished completely and a fresh wind had arisen and wafted toward the south a fine sheet of sand.

The old white-haired slave now supported Mishail while she returned to her tent, Fuaz walking by her side and kissing her face as she bent down and pressed him to her heart.

In all my travels among the Arabs I have never known any others who had this kind of mystical experience. Most Bedouins are very matter-of-fact. Not so, Mishail. To me she remains a woman of supersensitive feeling, responsive to unseen influences but not able to control or explain them to herself. As her physical sight had grown dim, her spiritual vision had brightened; it seemed indeed true that she was able to discern the picture in a mirage better than the features of friends. Or was it only her imagination and a vague uneasiness? She feared, as she beheld the sarab, that the power of the Ruala in the desert would be taken away by God as a punishment for the overbearing ways of the Shaalan family and that the family itself would be wiped out--even to the women and children. Nothing so terrible happened; but, shortly afterward, during the World War, Nauaf died suddenly and mysteriously, and two of his sons, also. Fate had decreed that the future leadership of the tribe should be left in the hands of the old Nuri and the young Fuaz.

Nauaf had already, on the fourth or fifth day of my visit, said farewell and ridden south to his headquarters at Jauf, leaving me with his sons, a number of related families and a newly returned raiding party, under the leadership of Rashayd ibn Whafa. One morning, while I was taking my repast with Rashayd and his men, he suddenly jumped to his feet and gazed toward the horizon. Then he seized his darbil (binoculars) and, after a hasty look through them, stepped in front of the tent and signaled to the women near by with the sleeves of his white kaftan.

Rashayd rode ahead of us toward three approaching riders, who were the cause of all the excitement. They and their mares were in a pitiable condition, and with them they led a fourth mare that was all blood-sprinkled from her halter to her empty saddle. They belonged to a scouting party of Nauaf's, which had been reconnoitering in the Hamad. Beyond the pools of Khabub, about eighty miles east of our camp, the twenty-three scouts had been surrounded by the largest party of Shammar seen in this region for a long time, and most of them had been killed.

When the three riders had told their story, Rashayd came and warned me not to join him and his men in their revenge. But I had for a long time desired to ride on a ghazu, or raid, with the Ruala; so I finally persuaded him to let me go and, though no fighter, armed myself with a Mauser. It was an intense surprise to us when the men, rearranging their baggage, saddle outfits and water-bags, at the pools of Khabub on the first night, discovered in one saddle-bag the princely son of their master, eight-year-old Fuaz, sound asleep. He had given no sign that would betray him while he was carried along with us as a blind passenger. Indeed, he had long since become used to such traveling in the days when he was too small to ride and the slaves put him with his brothers into the camel saddle-bags. He confessed that he had watched us and decided not ot miss what might be the greatest adventure of his childhood, a raid against the Shammar.

Though Rashayd wanted to send Fuaz back with a rider, he pleaded so appealingly that I promised to look after him as if he were my own son, and finally he won his case. But the conscientious Rashayd sent a man back on a fast dhalul to let the camp know that the young prince was with us. When nobody else was near enough to hear, Fuaz said to me, "Thou shalt not protect me, but we will defend each other," and silently I pressed his hand. We understood each other.

After the meal he took me over to a camel and tried to reach down into the deep bag on its side. He was searching of for something but could not find it. Then he asked me to help him. I must have been absent-minded, because I did not ask him what he wanted, but, when i could not find anything at all in the bag, I inquired, "What art thou looking for, O brother Fuaz?" In the light of the starts I could see tears in his eyes, and his voice betrayed his emotion: "My poor little dog--my poor little dog!" Fuaz, even if already a hero, was in that moment just like any other boy. I could have laughed, but I felt like crying too.

He told me how he had put the dog into a camel-bag before he slipped into another, bigger one himself. To me it was surprising that he could remember, among so many camels, the particular one he had selected. But he was a Bedouin. When the owner of the camel came over, Fuaz said: "Oh, I know, thou brutal >dib< [wolf], in whom there is no room of grace, thou hast contrived the death of this hero and hast thrown the defender of my mother's house into the wilderness without roads, a prey to the vultures, snakes and panthers." Then he exalted the virtues of his dog in true Bedouin fashion. Though it had escaped the perils of the wilderness, the dog had not had such good luck as Fuaz: it had been thrown out before we left camp.

Next morning, beyond the dry bed of Wadi Malusi, we discovered the tracks of the dry bed of Wadi Malusi, to be at least twice as strong as we, all heading southeast, as was evident from the camel-dung; and we also found their camps. All day we rode across the desert. In the late afternoon we observed vultures near a wadi, wheeling slowly away from some dead bodies. It was the scene of the battle. The sight that greeted us was disheartening. The vultures, hyenas and wolves had done their work: we could not even trace the number of the skulls. Rashayd thought that at least seven men had escaped the massacre, and to his satisfaction he counted more than forty graves of the Shammar, who had been buried. The gunpowder strewn over their resting-places had not kept away the hyenas, which, in spite of the other, unburied human corpses and a large number of dead camels and mares, had dug into the graves, bodies proved. The whole field was a ghastly sight, one never to be forgotten, and the stench was terrible. The vultures and other birds, all too heavy and overfed to soar away, flapped only a few paces, so that many could have been slain with the but of a rifle. Eagles, too, which had been devouring the welcome meat, were not so shy as usual and hovered upon lazy wings above the cruel feast.

Fuaz felt great pity for some of the mares which he recognized by certain markings. With his camel-stick he beckoned to me as he stood beside a bay mare, or what was left of her blood-dyed carcass. "This is Ibn Sumran's war-mare," he said, "the one that the old Frayje would lend me to ride on the chase. I never thought to find her clothed in the scarlet robe of death. Oh, could we but extinguish the flame of bitter memory with the edge of our swords! Let me have thy khanjar, I pray thee. Did not the Prophet, upon whom be peace, say in the Hadith:" 'Weal is knotted in the forelocks of noble horses until the day of judgement'?" And, without tears but with determination, he cut her sacred forelock off, saying "Bismillah"--"In the name of God." then he put long, black, silky hair into the little leather bag around his neck--a gift from his mother, in which he kept the "Hand of Fatima," a few blue beads for protection against the evil eye and another amulet.

I induced him to ride on with me. It was the first time he had looked upon a battlescene of the Shammar. He swore again and again to take vengeance on his enemies. I could understand then how in each generation this age-long feeling of enmity against the Shammar was aroused in the heart of the youth of the Ruala.

Toward evening we noticed on the horizon a large drove of camels, in a line too broad to belong to a raiding party. We could not discern any riders, since above their legs the animals were shrouded in a veil of dust, but finally, through the glasses, I could make out some herders with them, urging on the mother camels and their young ones. We built fires and signaled to the herders our peaceful intentions. One rider finally came up and then, noticing us to be Ruala, tried to remount. Rashayd, however, called to him: "Peace! Thou art before my countenance in the assurance of Allah, thou and all thou hast with thee. I declare thee under my protection."

This man proved to be one of the Amarat, of the subtribe of Ibn Hadhadhal. Had we not been on the trail of the Shammar, his party would have been a rich prey to our riders, since there were more than four hundred camels in the Amarat flock. But now they were safe. Though the Amarat and the Ruala were often to be found raiding each other, both tribes belonged to the great nomad nation of the Anaza and both held the Shammar to be their greatest enemies. The Amarat cameleers were able to give us notice that the enemy, whom they had just barely escaped, were in the broken-up land of Kirban, about thirty miles from us. They killed a camel for us that night and in the morning presented us with several skins of butter from their provisions.

All that day we crossed the pain until finally toward afternoon we reached the uprising land of Kirban. Would this be the land of the dead? Would there be our graves? It was an oppressive day. The heat of the scorching sun was terrible, and instead of rain-showers we felt a sand-storm approaching from the southeast. We had to fight it from noon on and with increasing strength toward evening. We felt desperate, since it spoiled the tracks of the enemy: we did not know that it would save our lives.

The wind ceased almost entirely that night, but about noon of the next day it broke loose worse than ever. We were now in an open plain. But there was no sign of the enemy. Only the storm blowing wave after wave of fine sand over the heads of the camel-riders and a sound in the air as if the Shammar were roaring through the sky above us. The whole desert was a boiling mass whipped not only by the wind from above but also by a thousand little "twisters" that danced madly over the groaning sea of sand and tore in mile-long upright funnels to the misty yellow sky.

I seemed to inhale flames; breathing was almost impossible, and my ears tingled. My efforts to hold with both hands to the saddlehorns weakened me so that I was bathed in seat, together with sharp grit, which simply covered me under my clothes everywhere and filled nostrils, ears, eyes and mouth. I prayed that my companions would stop and let us turn our backs to the wind, since I felt almost lifeless, gasping for a little air. I could see nothing except, from time to time, the two nearest mares and six dhaluls. Silently we plowed through this hell--and there was no end to it! This was one of the longest afternoons of my life. When one of these "twisters" cleared the air and gave us a view in its path for a few hundred feet or so, it allowed us to see almost our entire cavalcade, but the wreckage it wrought made things worse. It lifted our cloaks, tore our >keffiehs,< or head-kerchiefs, loose and threw us into confusion.

Fuaz was hiding away in a camel-bag; with large blanket needles I had pinned over the opening a cover cloth, which he could lift enough to keep from choking, and had given him a small water-skin for his day's supply.

Suddenly Rashayd was riding beside me. He was bleeding from a wound on his right cheek under the eye. "The occasion of strife has arisen. Take thy rifle in thy hand, O brother Aziz, and look after thy cartridge-belts and keep thou an eye on our prince.!"

Forgotten was the purgatory of the sandstorm, forgotten that I had been complaining for the past two hours about heat, sweat, dust, the noise of the elements, and that I had only two hands to hold myself to the camel and the keffieh to my head. I had the Mauser out of the holster and had slung the two heavy cartridge-belts over my shoulder in a trifle of a minute. I threw my right leg with a new determination around the saddle-horn and secured my hold and balance by hooking the toes of my right foot to the right ankle. I pushed the head-gear deeper down and took a mouthful of it between my teeth besides. Now let the storm rage. A more cruel enemy is here--the Shammar!

Their scouts had run into our left wing. Hearing rifle reports near him, Rashayd had ridden to the rescue and found three Shammar dead (one had escaped in the excitement) and five of our own men dead also. It was only the question of an hour or so before the Shammar would have completely surrounded us, since their main troop was very close, probably dismounted, waiting for the storm to cease, and we had encountered their sentinels on the eastern side.

Surprising how the greater danger helped us to overcome the minor one! My eyes and ears ached no longer; nor did sweat and dust prevent me from staining to catch some sign of the enemy amid the roar and pounding of the unfettered elements. But, while we were working our way along, step by step, I suddenly found myself falling, and the next moment I was buried completely in sand. I had kept the leader-line of my camel; so I was able to pull myself out of the hollow in which we had sunk. More than fifty camels and a dozen mares had rolled head on down the invisible slope. One man had his arm broken, and three camels had to be killed because they had broken their legs. In fifteen minutes, however, we were all mounted again, with our water-skins packed. Fuaz had fared well, and, though we had to dig him out too, was one of the busiest in helping the others.

Rashayed, who had recognized this slope as a landmark, now had his bearings. Soon we entered another small plain, where the wind did not have the same strength and we could look further around us. It was a great relief, and everybody praised Allah for the deliverance. The enemy had the wind in their faces now. Also, from our position we could cut them off across any of the wadis, and they would have to go thirty miles in any direction to throw a circle around us. We could keep abreast of them and reach water any time before them; we could also send scouts to the Euphrates, now only one hundred miles distant, or to Amir Ibn Hadhdhal's camp of the Amarat, which was also not more than one hundred miles away.

But the Shammar apparently understood their situation too. Behind us a long row of camel-riders came in sight and through the misty sand-clouds began to fire at us. Rashayd hurried us to a depression two miles from the hill. Our scouts covered our flanks and backs, and we feverishly unloaded our camels, made them lie down and with our carbines defended the edge of the basin. The Shammar attacked in arrow form from three sides, both before and after sunset. But we stood staunch; so they gave it up, since their open position offered a good target to us and we were almost invisible. They had lost heavily, probably thirty men, and we only four.

We had sentries out all through the night. Toward morning one came riding in to report that the Shammar were retreating in the direction of some wells in Wadi Khadaf. This was good news, since it proved that the Shammar needed water. Our supplies were very low, too, but we could risk two days longer.

Suddenly, however, we heard firing within our own camp. Picking up my Mauser, I ran in the direction of the noise, but, when I had gone only a hundred feet, I heard two shots ring out from the place I had just left. Since the young prince was my first responsibility, I turned and arrived just in time to see a Ruala put a Shammar to death beside my own camel.

Fuaz had heard the noise too and had seen me disappear, rifle in hand, in the darkness. As he was instinctively pulling out his carbine, he saw a Shammar slit open four of our waterskins. He fired but missed. The intruder, nevertheless, ran right into the path of our Ruala, who shot him.

There was no more shooting in camp. The Shammar had, however, succeeded in spoiling nearly all our water-skins and had knifed nineteen of our camels. Seven of the enemy were dead, and three were alive in our hands.

The three prisoners were brought before Fuaz, that he might decide what should be done with them. He approached the first and said: "Thou dog, answer for thyself, in what manner dost thou think we shall justly and rightly soothe our hearts and execute vengeance on such a coward as thou art?"

"Consider mercy! Allah is merciful!" the man answered.

"To kill thee is to be merciful unto others!" interrupted Rashayd and continued, addressing himself to Fuaz: "Let me be thy sword, O prince; we have much booty waiting for us after sunrise." With these words he threw the man before the feet of his body-guard, two giant negro slaves who already had their hands on the hilts of their daggers.

Fuaz said: "Let these men, who are separated from life, have one wish before thou allowest them to drink of death; for such was the custom with the prisoners of my father at Jauf."

Their only desire was to die facing the >kiblah< (toward Mecca), which was also the direction of their homeland, and to be buried as Moslems. Each was laid across the neck of a camel that he had killed, and then he had his throat cut in the prescribed way by the indifferent slaves of our commander. With their heels the slaves scratched out depressions on the sand, rolled the naked corpses into them and pushed some sand over them with their bare feet. This was more than they did for the seven other bodies, which also were stripped and left a prey to vultures and hyenas.

We now lacked water for our mares, according to the plan of the Shammar when they cut our water-bags open. They needed water too and had hoped to gain time or prevent us altogether from following them. They could have chosen to fight and, by their double strength, to massacre us had they been willing to sacrifice more than half their own number.

After Rashayd had absolute confirmation of the retreat and removal of the whole enemy camp, he ordered us to proceed at once to a basin only ten miles to the southwest. We found it absolutely dry. Another ten miles to the wells of Haziran. They were a disappointment too. The enemy were gaining forty miles on us today, since we had gone twenty miles south while they went twenty miles north. The worst moment came when we reached the last well. The dung of camels formed a heavy muck around it, and the stagnant morass mixed its stench with that of the corpses of twenty camels, which had died here after a desert fight about ten days before. Some more work of the Shammar! They had massacred three herders of the Amarat and all the camels that did not satisfy them as fast enough mounts.

Yet we had to have water for the mares. Out of the mud and claylike loam our men shaped basins and, having dipped up this ointment of pestilence with some leather buckets, strained it through blankets. But not even our camels would touch the putrid yellowish liquid, and it was not our camels but our horses for which we had come to get water. Our situation was not desperate, however. Our camel-riders could follow the enemy, or we had the chance of three other wells--any one not more than thirty miles away to the south or east. But we had to go north to pursue the enemy. Rashayd had no thought of returning to the west without ultimate success. He therefore ordered eight camels killed and, since they did not yield enough water, six more. We filled eleven skins with water from the entrails of the camels, after it had been strained through two cloaks, and gave it to the mares, mixed with about two gallons of milk, which we were able to draw from some of our nagas.

Our scouts now reported that the Shammar had changed their positions again and were heading for the well of Burdan. This was close to the cultivated land, but we rejoiced, since they had wasted as much time as we in changing their course and we had an opportunity to cut in from the south and lie in their path once more. We did eighty miles that day, riding until our scouts brought the happy message that the Shammar were camping parallel with us fifteen miles distant. In the morning we sacrificed eight more camels and mixed the water of their stomachs with some camel's milk to enable our mares to win the day for us.

Before dawn Rashayd separated all the horsemen and dhalul-riders and asked our eighty horsemen to ride out to attract the Shammar and lead them to an ambush in Wadi Khadaf. We rode in the opposite direction and came back in a half-circle to Wadi Khadaf, which we followed upward until we reached the place of ambush. It was at the curve where the slope of Asibiya touches the dry river-bed and forms a cove, in which all our camels were easily hidden. Above, the slope gave us an elevated position to sweep the wadi and the little plain.

After a long wait, toward the early afternoon, a rider on a chestnut mare came galloping over the plain and was met at once by fifteen of our dhalul-riders, who galloped away. Soon we heard firing in their direction and saw them come back with our eighty horsemen behind them and Shammar horsemen closely following without suspicion of the trap. When they saw us awaiting them, they realized that resistance was useless and so they surrendered. A few riders fought desperately, but they were killed. Two men riding far in the rear turned in time before the trap closed.

When he saw these men turn, Fuaz touched my arm, asking if we should shoot. I called to Rashayd, and, instead of answering, he began to fire. Fuaz fired too, but I watched only. Finally I saw one man drop off his mare. After running a few paces, she stopped, went back to him and remained beside him.

A number of us rode out toward this dead Shammar. He was an elderly man and one of noble blood, probably of the house of Ibn Rashid of Haïl, since he wore a solid silver khanjar of Nejd with a princely turban, or crown, at the point of the scabbard. Rashayd took it off and adorned the young prince with it. He delighted in it a few minutes, parading smilingly before us, and then hung it suddenly at my waist. When I protested, he said: "Rashayd ibn Whafa, thou dost not mind if I present this dagger to thy friend, since he is my blood brother and always he will remember us both when he looks at this Shammar's knife."

Our commander took his arm from my shoulder and said, while he adjusted the belt of the dagger: "Allah has given it to thee--remember thou this day and us, thy brethren."

Presently, while we were still speaking, one of our men sighted several outpost sentries. A minute later we saw our riders coming back from other places near the horizon. Some of the Shammar were close behind them. We turned our horses and galloped to cover. Quietly Rashayd went along the line and gave orders. Our left wing had already begun firing. A few moments later we saw that the whole Shammar troop was drawing up in array to break in from the south, where we were not at all prepared for it. Rashayd took two-thirds of our men and threw them on the other side just in time.

The Shammar now swarmed out like bees to encircle us, and it was not long until about fifty had passed our fire alive and reached the wadi, which was perhaps a quarter of a mile wide at this point. Jumping off their dhaluls, they took sheltered positions and sniped away at our men from the rear, even reaching part of the cove with their bullets. Rashayd and his men, who were still firing at the attacking camel-men, brought a great number down, but the rest of them retreated south. This move was very dangerous to us, since they could cut us off from the Burdan well and gain a higher position above us by night with the help of the little band of snipeshooters, which was in our rear.

The very moment that the camel-men turned their backs, half of us, under Rashayd, galloped our mares as fast as we could along the ravine and up to the little plain and spread out as far apart as possible to clean up the snipers in the wadi. We lost eleven men before we reached the top of the wadi, jumped off our mares and took shelter behind sand-dunes and a few scattered bushes, about a hundred feet higher up than the Shammar. We could overlook the dry river-bed and plain and single out the Shammar, who, as our rapid fire began to take effect, left their positions and tried to reach their dhaluls. But too late! Not one Shammar escaped in the wadi alive. Fuaz and I could count more than thirty dead from our shelter.

We did not dare to climb into the dry riverbed where the dead enemy were scattered, since a new attack of the camel-riders was imminent. Rashayd, however, discovered forty dhaluls almost directly under us at the steep sand walls of the wadi. Eight of our men went out, took two Shammar prisoners and brought the forty camels into the cove by way of the wadi. Eleven of our men and nine mares were dead and about thirty men and forty mares wounded. It was a heavy loss, but, thanks to Rashayd's quick action, we had been spared a great disaster.

The rest of the Shammar, who had watched us from about four miles away, now sent a man over to us, a Sinjara Shammar whom Rashayd knew well. Realizing the hopelessness of further fighting and the danger of an assault in their rear by the Amarat, to whom we had despatched some riders, they asked us to close(sic) peace and to turn our prisoners over to the Amarat in Ibn Hadhdhal's camp and let this tribe decide on the terms for their release. Our party agreed, and Rashayd and the Sinjara Shammar swore before witnesses not to lift a hand against each other until the Shammar had forded the Euphrates River.

For supper the leaders of the Shammar were invited to join us, and everybody behaved in a friendly fashion. The Shammar were greatly surprised to see young Fuaz, and their sheikh asked his pardon that they had inconvenienced the son of the Shaalan, saying with all courtesy: "We would not have defied thee, O prince, if we had known that thou hadst ventured along into a wild land with so many brave men--but we should rather have allowed thy fighters to kill us, instead of making thy journey so unpleasant."

"O generous and prudent sheikh," said Fuaz sarcastically, "thou with thy convoy of a thousand fighters hast lent great interest to our wayfaring and our hearts are appeased. It was our party that would have dared to cut a slice from thy booty, but Allah did not will it to us poor Ruala!"

He was "a real Shaalan." He could not only fight but talk eloquently, an art greatly admired. Though he had exaggerated the number of the enemy, everybody said enthusiastically when he ended: "I believe thee, wallahi!"

Encouraged, Fuaz went on: "I tell thee, O Shammar, I know why thou art sorry, because Rashayd was a wolf on the track of sheep and his feet never got tired and his teeth never let go!"

The Ruala were a little embarrassed, and the Shammar felt the heel of the proud family of the Shaalan. Nevertheless the Shammar sheikh said politely: "The young wolf has to practise with the old one, and the sheep have suffered the loss. Allah allows many things; he even has hunters waiting to kill the wolves!"

To which Fuaz replied: "The Roads of Death are always open, for thee, Shammar, or for any of us Ruala, and we have seen it with our own eyes."

"Thou speakest the truth, my son; it is not only our kismet form Allah but our >adat< --our habit--to fight and to die fighting, and, when we asked for the veil of Allah to hide us, he gave it to thee and thy men instead [he alluded to the sand-storm], because the Merciful has elected thee to be a leader of many."

So, after all, the dangerous conversation was turned into peaceful channels, and soon the young prince of the desert got tired, just like any other boy, and was sound asleep in the arms of his enemy, who carried him to a soft place by his camel-saddle and carefully spread his comfortable camel's-wool >aba< over him.

We had lost fifty-one men--the Shammar admitted one hundred and seventeen--and we had captured fifty-one mares, forty camels and forty-eight prisoners. We moved to the well of Burdan that same night and allowed the Shammar to water their camels and bury their dead. Riders were sent to Ibn Hadhdhal, who took the prisoners into his camp, where the Shammar redeemed them for three hundred camels--including one hundred as a commission for the Amarat to allow the Shammar to pass to the other side of the Euphrates in peace. Thus we ourselves had gained in all two hundred and forty camels, and Rashayd was quite content.

A week later on our homeward ride, however, I heard Fuaz say to him; "Thou hast been brave, but not wise, O Rashayd ibn Whafa!"

"Wilt thou open my door of understanding, O Fuaz?"

"Thou didst not send me with our men and the Shammar ot Ibn Hadhdhal."

"Thou hadst done more already than any of our young men ever did, and I had a sacred respect for thee in my heart."

"Allah knows I was not tired; besides I was covered, in ignorance, when the Shammar surrounded us and we passed them in the sandstorm. But I ask thee, O Rashayd ibn Whafa, does not a prince sit in the council when they decide about the price of a life, even if it is only a Shammar?"

"Thou hast enlightened me, O Shaalan, but the Shammar paid their price--and in full payment too."

"What are two hundred camels more to follow us, when we labored so much and lost so many of our own? If I had been allowed to sit in the council, I would have asked the bloodprice of fifty camels for each of our own men killed, and no matter how many the Shammar lost by their fault, since they surrendered and not we. The Amarat cheated us and the Shammar paid the bribe, but we have only this empty glory and our honor."

Poor Rashayd was enlightened indeed. He kept silent.

After a while Fuaz said: "Rashayd ibn Whafa, desist from silence, mourn not over my words--thou didst fight and command, and we owe our lives and our success only to Allah and to thee. I have done nothing. If thou wilt forgive what I inquired of thee, nobody will remember what I said and my heart will be relieved."

The old warrior leaned over and pulled Fuaz fro from his dhalul to a place in front of his own seat, and Fuaz put his small, strong arms round his friend's neck.

Our return to the western desert was uneventful. Great was the rejoicing when we reached Dumayr, where the desert meets the irrigated land of luxuriant gardens, a day's ride from Damascus. Hundreds of Bedouin tents were staked out, but it did not take us long to find the tents of Nuri Shaalan. Like an alarm, the good news was spread abroad everywhere, and groups of women and children on foot and men on camels and horses joined us from all directions. We had returned in triumph from our ghazu. But the Turks, who objected to our operations near the cultivated district of Mesopotamia, sent Rashayd a summons to appear before their commander. Not liking the thought of a Turkish prison, Rashayd lost no time in riding away to the south, to assist Nauaf in his raids.

As for Fuaz, he brought four fawn-colored camels, taken in the ghazi, and made them kneel down before his mother's tent. The gentle blind women wanted to know who was the stranger come to ask for hospitality, and a Ruala stepped up to her and said, "It is a noble prince to honor thee, O thou blessed daughter."

"And where is his dira, I pray thee, that I may send our old Slave Hamar to announce his name to our neighbors?"

"His name is 'the Eaglet'! His dira extends wherever his eyes reach! It is thy son, O mother of Fuaz!"

In June Carl R. Raswan will tell how he and Amir Fuaz renewed their blood brotherhood in the desert after fourteen years.

CARL R. RASWAN sailed from New York for the Near East in January with W.R.Brown, president of the Arabian Horse Club of America, and Mrs. Brown. Mr. Raswan was eagerly looking forward to seeing his friends of the Shaalan family--Nuri Shaalan, who in his old age has forsaken the desert for the comforts of a house in Damascus, and his grandson Fuaz, now ruling sheikh of the Ruala Bedouins. In "The Eaglet of the Shaalan" Mr. Raswan tells how, as a young man of not quite twenty, aglow with his first interest in Arabian horses, he was entertained by Nuri Shaalan and became the "blood brother" of eight-year-old Fuaz.

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