Part 39 (1/2)
They were laughing when they grabbed the dog at last and pulled hiave hihed at hirace when he spat at them in awful frenzy until the spittle entleized
Arabia lies in the hter is not wisdoh ht be unintentional A smile must be deliberate And the Arab's spittle was run dry Creed, custoht of half a hundred co-religionists all watching him from crannies in the wall cobutt to his shoulder withthat was unmistakable
And so, with sorrow that the East should be so lacking in good fellowshi+p, but with the ready instinct of men who have been trained for war, they closed with hiun away And how could even an able seaain?
So far, nobody had done anything intended to be wrong-least of all the dog The Arab was defending institutions; Crothers and Joe Byng were bent on holiday, and full of kind regards for anything that lived; and the dog was living dogfully up to well-bred-terrier tradition It was as if two harlycerin
Deprived of his gun, the Arab drew a knife; and no British sailor lives who does not understand the quick-loosed answer to the glint of steel Fist and boot both landed on the Arab quicker than his own thought served the knife, and the weight of quick concussions jarred hi in ti Curley Crothers to finishknife prize of war Once entling the iron sineith huge paws that could have wrenched theh quick!” he counseled, looking the Arab over andsure the unfortunate had not been too s! Run off to the ood! And next time you meets us, be friendly-see?”
The Arab was too apoplectically angry to comply, but Crothers took hi hi safety ahead and its possible corollary of awful vengeance, he suddenly achieved discretion and scaone to fetch his pals Look out,
”Not 'ih, that's all! We've seen the last of 'i of all was that Crothers believed just what he said-Curley Crothers, to whom Red Sea and Persian Gulf ports were as an open book, and to whoion and reprehensible tendencies were currently supposed to be first-reader knowledge It was he who had proved there were no haree, ”Search an Arab first, and sit on hi Byng to disregard a looted Arab's spittle! There is no accounting, ever, for the ways of shore-leave sailor--he can walk now-and let's see what Adra looks like”
IV
All ht have reached the Puncher again with dignity and grace, had they not entered Adra, past the only jail in that part of Arabia And an Arab jail being rarer and one percentthere is, the two of them quite naturally paused to make its closest possible acquaintance
”Look out for verh the close-spaced iron bars
They forgot the dog The jail, for thesenses, the olfactory by no
Before Crothers could answer hiave warning of the terrier's interest in so himself peacefully a e, he ripped the chain through Byng's hand and was off-chin, back and tail in one straight, striving line-in full chase of a pariah
The yellow cur yapped its agony of fear; the nearest hundred and odd utter took up the chorus; within five seconds of the start there was the Puncher's er, and after hi force of Adra-tongues out, eyes blazing, and theiroverti rapidly
”Not yet it ain't!” said Crothers, grabbing Byng's ar out the 's latent speed, both of thought and movement, but it worked Before Joe could swear, even, Crothers was off like the wind, with Joe after hi of oaths he had ave under him and made him stumble at every other stride
Adra turned out, as a colony of prairie dogs ht from planless burrows; only these had s and came from structural instead of natural, frorown dirt Man, worown men armed, the women veiled in dirt-brown, so) unveiled and unashamed, the little children mostly naked and colored with all the huh a swarat the Arab race was there a procession like it
Behind its uards only the seaward side, Adra straggles quite a distance desertward; and there are winding streets enough to hide an army in, provided that the ar his ut hunt a quite considerable circuit before otherfrom a dozen different directions, set a limit to his unobstructed movement
He knehat he was after, but they did not; they had come to see For a moment they seemed to think that Scauns of a dozen different kinds and dates were aimed at hi froic Eastern brains the si were the real quarry; and-again likefrom chloroform-they did not quite knohat to do Should they slay, there was the Puncher to be reckoned with; and the Puncher's port quick-firers could be seen co Adra by any man who cared to climb the wall