THE WAITING MENACE "Ah, sure now, but that's fine!" exclaimed the major with delight, his eyes beginning to sparkle in anticipation.

"The best of news! A little action, eh?
I ask nothing better.

All I ask is that we live to reach the committee--live to be properly killed! It's this dying-alive that kills _me_! Faith, it tears the nerves clean out of my body!" "That is a true Arab idea, Major," smiled Leclair.

"To this extent you are brother to the Bedouin.

They call a man _fatis_, as a reproach, who dies any other way than fighting.