It was an ancient thing of Spanish manufacture, heavy as a pig of lead.
"But this can't be of any use," he cried.

"Is the man never attacked ?" Hamet talked with the Arab in a dialect Hillyard did not understand at all; and interpreted the conversation.
"No.

He has only once fired his rifle.

One night--oh, a long way farther to the south--he waked up to see an elephant fighting his little donkey in the moonlight and he fired his rifle and the elephant ran away.

You must know that all these little Korans he carries on his arms and round his neck have been specially blessed by a most holy man." The postman's shoulders, elbows, wrists and neck were circled about by chaplets on which little wooden Korans were strung.