Evidently some woman had been pumping them for information, and Grim made them stand in front of him on the carpet.
"Well ?" They both spoke at once.

Now and then one paused for breath and then the other, but on the whole it was a neck-and-neck race to tell the tale first.
"There was a woman in the _suk_ who had heard of Jimgrim but never saw him, and she bought us sweets and took us to her house, and she asked us questions about Jimgrim, and we told lies, and she asked us what we were doing in El-Kalil, and we said nothing, and she said _wallah!_ That was very little, and then she asked us all over again about Jimgrim.

(_Gasp_) "So we said Jimgrim has already gone back to Jerusalem, and she did not believe; but we swore by the beard of the Prophet, so she said what were we going to do now, and we said we would go to the governorate and beg for bread.

(_Gasp_) "So she said what next, and we said there is a great sheikh here from Arabia, who makes a journey to Petra, and _inshallah_ he will take us with him, and she said why did we want to go to Petra, and we said because our mothers were carried off by the Turks and sold to the Arabs and _inshallah_ we should find them near Petra.

(_Gasp_)" "So far, good!" said Grim.