But Narayan Singh strode into the breach.
"The Lion's jackals slept," he announced in a voice of righteous indignation.

"There was none to give our great Sheikh Jimgrim as much as Allah's blessing.

Nevertheless, he sends these presents." Without answering that Ali Higg clapped his hands twice, and a woman came around the corner from a near-by cave.

By her bearing she was either a junior wife or a concubine, and she greeted Ayisha like a sister with a great pow-wow of blessing and reply.
But Ali Higg cut all that short.

He was no sentimentalist.
"Find Shammas Abdul," he ordered her.