It had been the storm that night that did the work, not we.
We could not burn our dead, for lack of sufficient wood, although we drove the Syrians out of camp to gather more; so we buried them in a trench, and covered them, and laid little fires at intervals along the new-stamped earth and set light to those.

We did not bury them very deep, because a bayonet is a fool of a weapon with which to excavate a grave and a Syrian no expert digger in any case; so when the fires were burned out we piled rocks on the grave to defeat jackals.
The Kurdish chief returned on the fifth day and by that time, although most of us still ached, some of us looked like men again, and what with the plunder we had taken, and the chests of gold in full view, he was well impressed.

He began by demanding the gold at once, and Ranjoor Singh surprised me by the calm courtesy with which he refused.
"Why should my brother seek to alter the terms of our bargain ?" he asked.
For a long time the Kurd made no answer, but sat thinking for some excuse that might deceive us.

Then suddenly he abandoned hope of argument and flew into a rage, spitting savagely and pouring out such a flood of words that Abraham could hardly translate fast enough.
"That pig you gave me for a hostage played a trick!" he shouted.

"He and a man of mine knew Persian.