But we all sat our camels stock-still, and, following Grim's example, kept our rifles slung behind us.
The sheikh was a rather fine-looking fellow, except for smallpox marks.

He had a hard eye, and a nose like an eagle's beak; and that sort of face is always wonderfully offset by a pointed black beard such as he wore.

But there was something about the way he sat his camel that suggested laziness, and his lips were not thin and resolute enough to my mind, to match that beard and nose.

I would have bet on three of a kind against him sky-high, even if he had passed the draw.
He drew aside the curtain of the _shibrayah_ gingerly, as if he expected a trick mechanism that might explode a bomb in his face.
_"Mashallah!_ Where is the woman ?" he exclaimed.
I found out then that I was right as to the way to play that supposititious poker hand.

Grim had doped him out too, and answered promptly without changing a muscle of his face.
_"Wallahi!_ Should I bring my wife to this place ?" "Allah! Thy wife ?" "Whose else ?" "It was Ali Higg's wife according to the tale!" "Some fools swallow tales as the dogs eat the offal thrown to them! By the beard of God's Prophet, whom do you take me for ?" _"Kif ?_* How should I know ?" [* What ?] "Go and ask the kites, then, at Dat Ras!" "You are he?
You are he who slew the--_Shi ajib!_* Now I think of it they did say he was beardless.