The fighters had probably gone with the caravan, seen a while before.

There came a little ragged firing; but a round of blanks stopped that, and sent the villagers skurrying back into the shelter of the palms, mimosas, and jamelon trees.
_Nissr_ poised at seven hundred and fifty feet and let down tanks, nacelle, and men.

There was no resistance.

The local _naib_ came with trembling, to make salaam.

Water was freely granted, from the _sebil_, or public fountain--an ancient tank with century-deep grooves cut in its solid stone rim by innumerable camel-hair ropes.