The Double Scoop

Chapter I

May he who coldly scoffs at pangs of love Be straight enamored of yon lark above: May he, despairing, see her gaily rise, To mock his hopeless passion from the skies.

—Sidi Hammo.

FROM the cool of the old-fashioned arch of Wine Office Court a tall young man plunged into the stream swirling down Fleet Street. At the Law Courts he glanced up at the clock and came to an irresolute halt by the curbstone. As he stared idly a girl popped out from behind a taxicab and proceeded to cross the road.

She was of medium height, dark as a Spaniard and walked with the self-reliant swing of the American woman. A cream soft hat, devoid of any decoration save a dark tassel, and her loose Holland costume gave her a cool capable appearance. She saw him when half-way across the road, acknowledged his salute and changed her course as a taxi came whirring up behind her.

He started forward in alarm as the machine bore down upon her, hooting dismally. She glanced over her shoulder as if measuring the distance and increased her pace by a fraction. The cab shot by her with scarcely a foot to spare. He had stepped back on to the pavement hurriedly, sheepishly. She looked up as she held out her hand, her large eyes observing him amusedly, and remarked—

"Well, what's the news?"

"Oh, nothing certain."

"Well, come and have tea with me?" She moved on, leaving him to overtake her in a stride.

"Yes, I'll take you to tea, Miriam."

She glanced at him.

"But 'nobody asked you, sir, she said!’"

"Well, of course it comes to the same thing," he retorted.

"Nothing of the sort! I asked you to tea with me. Don't start that idiotic argument all over again."

"But—but—it's—I've told you; I can't let a girl pay2"

"Rubbish; you're too English! You'd better tea by yourself." He hesitated, frowning.

She looked up at him with a laugh; then her lips tightened.

"It isn't the fact of the things; it's the principle."

"Yes, I know," he said as they turned toward a tea-room in the cool quietude of Clifford's Inn. "You've explained that fact most lucidly, but all the same2"

"You think that because you're a man," she caught him up, "that it's an insult to your dignity. Rubbish!"

"As a matter of fact," she began again as soon as they were seated and had ordered tea, "you have an idea that it is symbolical of the rights of women."

"Oh, Lord!" he groaned.

She laughed.

"Women who earn their own living have a perfect right to equality with men. There are men who are just as incapable, just as inefficient as any woman. But there are women—I, Lordly Creature," tapping him on the shin with a dainty foot, "I am quite as capable of earning my living as you—Salt of the Earth!"

He smiled indulgently.

"Yes; in some cases. But even then it never is the same work as a man does."

"Poof, and why not?"

"Well, as dressmakers, milliners, needle-workers and—and all that sort of thing, and even then men2"

He paused doubtfully, gazing at her twitching lips.

"Sugar, Lordly Creature?"

"Don't be a fool, Miriam!" he said sourly. "A woman's place is behind the shelter of man. He works, fights, conquers, to her gain."

"Are you fighting and conquering for a woman's gain?"

"Just like a woman!" he retorted. "Mere sentimentality."

"Exactly what is sentimentality?"

"Love—and all that."

"Dear me! Really?"

Their glances met. He laughed with the satisfaction of one parrying a dangerous thrust from the enemy.

"Sentimental bosh of the worst description. Plato2"

"Plato is dead! Live and see for yourself. You'll find out one day!"

"I?" He laughed derisively. "My dear Miriam, one of the great points that I value is that we can be pals, that you never expect me—like every other girl—to make love to you."

Her eyes twinkled. She opened her lips to say something, changed her mind and said—

"Have some more tea, Alan?"

"No, thanks," he said looking at his watch, "I must run up to the office. If there's any fresh development in the Moroccan imbroglio I may have to get away immediately. By the way, Miriam, if I should have to leave in a hurry I sha'n't have time to run home, so you might make a point of seeing the mater and—explaining things. She's always absurdly anxious, imagines things2"

"And doesn't understand men's affairs, eh? But supposing I can't get away?"

"Why not? You've only the usual shop to attend to."

"But I might go abroad, too."

He laughed indulgently.

"My dear child, you're a brilliant journalist—for a woman."

"Thank you!" she said with a short laugh.

"But—oh, women are very well within limits but2"

"What limits, pray?"

"Well, you know what your work is—at races, balls, crushes and all that sort of thing—social work, but2"

"Well, but what? Go on."

"Hang it, Miriam, you can't expect to do a man's work."

"Really! Why not?"

"Well, how on earth could you tackle my job? Fancy a woman as a war correspondent! Why, obviously it's impossible."

"How? Why?"

"Oh, don't be absurd, child! How could a woman travel in Morocco alone, get through the tribes or into some blockaded town, for instance?"

"Well? You haven't explained!"

He jerked out his cigaret-case irritably.

"Well?"

"Oh, I can't be bothered to explain the obvious!"

HER EYES glinted angrily for a moment; then she sat back in the chair to watch him light his cigaret. She observed the broad shoulders and huge limbs, the flaxen hair above his long clean-shaven face. He was not bad-looking really, she decided. The high forehead, straight nose, and prominent jaw suggested a horse's head—a nice horse that she wanted to pat. She smiled at the idea and thought it a pity that his eyes were a trifle small as he stared rather sulkily at his boots. A young giant, but lacking … She pulled herself up short and said slowly—

"Alan?"

"Yes?"

"Do you know that you badly need a hiding?"

He smiled complacently, palpably rejoicing in his physique.

"Who's going to give it to me?" he demanded, stretching his arms.

"I'm going to! No, not physically, you (glorious, she had nearly said). "You animal, I'm going to give you a good lesson."

He laughed and stood up.

"Come along, my child," he said moving toward the pay desk.

"No, you don't," cried Miriam and slipped in front of him.

"Miriam, don't be2"

"You dare!" she flashed upon him. He turned away with an impatient sigh to wait while she received change.

"I do feel a fool!" he confided to a print on the wall.

"And you are!" said Miriam as she joined him. "Come along!"

They walked up Fleet Street together. She waited whilst he went into his office. He was away longer than Miriam expected and she began to grow impatient. At last he reappeared smiling restrainedly.

"When're you going?" she asked.

"Tomorrow night—overland to Gib. Just seen the chief," he said endeavoring to curb his school-boy excitement.

"And then?"

"On to Fez, to interview the sultan. Latest news is that General Moinier is leaving from Rabat at the request of the sultan to relieve Fez. It's what I told you would happen months ago."

"D'you think Fez will fall?"

"No. The French'll get there all right—unless some one cuts Hafid's throat. Then the Germans will chip in. Then there'll be a lovely row!" he declared enthusiastically.

"The Germans?" said Miriam thoughtfully. "I hadn't thought of that. I must read up the subject."

"Do!" said Alan. "Then you'll be able to follow my stuff better. I'll write you, too."

"Thanks," said Miriam and laughed.

"What're you laughing at?" he demanded.

"Nothing!"

"H'm. Come and lunch with me to-morrow? Shall be leaving by the evening boat-train and, I say, don't forget the mater, will you?"

"If I have time."

"Course you'll have time."

"Going on the bust this evening I suppose?" she inquired looking him full in the eyes.

"Promised to dine some of the boys," he said grinning.

"H'm—men! Well, good-by, Alan—and good luck. Remember what I told you."

"What you told me?"

"Yes, about a good hiding," she said smiling.

"Oh," said he as one dismissing a trivial question. "My dear girl—but I'll see you tomorrow so2"

"No you won't, I shall be busy."

"Busy! Why?"

"Yes, never mind: you'll know sometime. Good-by—and don't be surprised when we meet again."

"Oh that'll be six months or more—snow and mistletoe at home, eh? Good-by!"

"Good-by, Alan!"

He raised his hat and strode way, his chin a trifle higher, shoulders a little farther back. Miriam watched him for a moment with an enigmatic smile and turning dived into the traffic, making straight to the library of her paper.

She nodded to one of the girls in charge.

"Morocco, please—Revolution, 1908," said Miriam curtly.

The girl went to one of the many lines of pigeonholes containing hundreds of docketed envelopes and selected a large fat one with which Miriam retired to an adjacent desk, sat down and with notebook and pen- cil proceeded to wade through a vast mass of newspaper cuttings on Morocco.

It was after nine o'clock by the time that Miriam left the library to snatch a hurried dinner and finish some articles for the third and fourth editions.

Contrary to her usual custom she arrived in Fleet Street in the morning and requested a personal interview with her editor after the conference. At last she was ushered into the great man's sanctum. Langley was a notoriously difficult man to handle. She exercised great tact in broaching the proposition.

At first he would not hear of it, although he approved of the idea.

"No, no; it's quite impossible. Quite impossible, Miss Vickers, I'm sorry."

"Why is it impossible? Because I'm a woman?"

"Well, yes; obviously."

"Then you're going to send a man?"

"Yes."

"And steal my idea—Agadir?"

"Really, Miss Vickers, you place me in a very awkward position."

"It isn't awkward at all, Mr. Langley, let me go!"

"But you'd never get in, be murdered, held for ransom, or carried off into the—er—interior. You don't understand what might happen."

"Oh, yes, I do; quite. And take the risk. Come, Mr. Langley, don't be so hide- bound by convention. Women can do fine things sometimes. Think, I'm pleading for my sex as well as myself."

"But you ought not to, Miss Vickers. Sex ought not to enter into business."

"Exactly!" cried Miriam triumphantly. "Now you can't refuse!"

Langley smiled grimly.

"Expediency, my dear Miss Vickers. I daren't take the risk of answering to my people if anything happened—to a woman. Think what the public would say."

"Easily got over. I'll use a male nom de guerre. That's a sacrifice, Mr. Langley."

He shook his head and frowned slightly.

"I can not do it, Miss Vickers," he announced in a tone of finality. "I'm very pressed for time."

"You must let me go, Mr. Langley. Now everything is a matter of price I'll go for my expenses only."

"No; the odium—the responsibility would be just the same."

"Wait; I'll go in my own name at my own expense. You pay for stuff published—usual foreign rates. You can't afford to refuse that."

"H'm." Langley paused, pursing his hard clean-shaven lips.

"Use a male nom de guerre and it's a bargain."

"You're close, Mr. Langley, but women and beggars can't be choosers I suppose. I agree."

Chapter II

Be wise, young Jackal, open not by day: Await the somber safer face of night. Be sure that all you meet upon the way Are greyhounds, trained to run you down at sight.

—Sidi Hammo.

SOME three weeks later Miriam rose from breakfast on board the R. M. S. Agadir to see the streak of white foam of the sandy coast-line run out in a gossamer thread into the horizon where, about a point on the port bow, appeared the dazzling white tops of minarets floating in the refraction of the sun's glare.

Steadily the ship throbbed her way through the empty blue seas, lessening the mirage effect of the distant city until the white houses grew above the black rocks, and the funnels and masts of a French cruiser at anchor materialized against the dark of the land beyond.

Lunch was just ending as they steamed through the deep-water passage and swung to anchor alongside the cruiser. From the deck of the steamer the town, a mass of white-topped houses snuggling within the encircling ramparts, nestled half upon the sandy shore and half upon the greeny-black rocks, where the old arched water-gate stood at the brink of the water in dignified challenge.

To the right of the town was a fair stretch of hard sand sweeping up into the dunes which ran on to the southwest into the foothills of the Atlas Mountains; behind the ship stretched a linked arm of small islets, a natural breakwater against the Atlantic seas. In the blue of the sea and sky the Moorish town scintillated and gleamed like a rare jewel set in the gold of the sand, justifying the native name Es-Sueira, The Picture.

Miriam was more than a little excited at having arrived at the beginning of the great adventure which would prove her theory right or wrong, a theory evolved from a careful study of the map that the objective of the Germans in the first move of the international game of chess for the possession of Morocco would be Agadir, the finest seaport on the Atlantic coast and the key to the great caravan route from the south, closed to trade for fifty years by treaty.

Her plans for the moment were chaotic; and a little fluttered by the fear that Alan or some other male correspondent would have happened upon the same idea. An- other British steamer was not expected until the next week; but she had heard that an Italian, French or German boat might turn up any day, all things being erratic and unforeseen in Morocco. Hence her rather flurried determination to make a start at once.

Within an hour Miriam had been baptized in the clinging odor and lazy hum of the Orient once more. At the hotel she had engaged a sharp-faced young guide who spoke a broken English. Feeling that she could conduct inquiries better herself than trust to distortive interpretation she demanded to be taken to the Jewish quarter for although she had no Arabic, she had a sound knowledge of Spanish—archaic Spanish studied as a hobby—which most of the Jews of the Moghreb spoke in the tongue of old Castile, a relic of their forefathers in the peninsula.

She had not as yet formulated any definite plan by which she might gain access to Agadir. The idea of engaging servants and boldly setting out from Mogador was, she saw, quite impracticable; for the one reason that the American consul would never permit her to leave. No; it must be by strategy. The method she intended to investigate was an attempt to approach by water. Failing that, she left the Fates to decide, with the mental reservation that go she would—somehow.

"Tcha Houdi?" expostulated Ahmed in disgust.

Miriam insisted, so with a muttered curse calling the wrath of Allah upon Jews and other infidels Ahmed led the way, seeing many perquisites falling into other pockets than his own.

At the end of the narrow street she came upon the ship-party of tourists, suburban dames, sprawling uncomfortably on the backs of donkeys, with indignant noses and perpetual expressions of nervousness at the unstable nature of their straw saddles at which they clawed with frantic fingers; others struggled vainly to appear at home perched upon the red-flanneled cumbrous saddles of their mules; all in too desperate an alarm to do other than appreciate the variety and pungency of the street smells.

Now Miriam had omitted to make the orthodox farewells in sheer dread of the storm of inquisitive questions which would surely accompany the amenities.

"Why, there's Miss Vickers!" cried the foremost dame and immediately fell off her donkey.

During the ensuing hubbub of shrill laughs, cries of distress, and guttural objurgations of the donkey-boys, Miriam made her escape by turning down the first handy turning, which happened to be a narrow dark alley scarce six feet wide, over which the houses met. Hurrying through this tunnel, wondering whether Ahmed would have the sense to follow her, she came out into a small open space thronged with white-robed Moors, amid the dust and filth of horses, camels, mules, and donkeys, grunting and heehawing.

A group of mountaineers, wild elf-locked Berbers with camel-hair turbans, turned to stare at her, their hawk-noses and fierce eyes questioning, covetous. Miriam turned aside to avoid them and met the dark somber eyes of a Moor at her elbow. That look, inscrutable, yet suggestive of unthinkable vices, sent a thrill of apprehension through her. She knew well the insolent expression of certain types of European men, but they seemed artificial in comparison to the calm assurance and depth of wickedness in those Moorish eyes.

SHE turned away to look up the passage. For the first time she felt a misgiving at the prospect of traveling alone in this barbarous country. There was no sign of Ahmed, but out of the gloom of the tunnel appeared a tall gray-bearded figure, clad in a black pill-box cap and black soutane, a veritable patriarch stepping out of a Biblical picture.

As she stood irresolute, not daring to turn for fear of those hideous glances, he came toward her slowly. He glanced at her curiously and at the motley crowd beyond. Evidently her distress was written upon her face; for he paused in front of her as if desiring to speak, but embarrassed for need of the medium of speech. She saw a kindly dignity seasoned with a touch of cunning at the back of those bright black eyes.

"Where does this road lead to?" she inquired in Spanish.

The old Jew showed no surprise, save by the lighting up of his eyes, as, with a gesture of greeting full of exquisite grace, he saluted her and said:

"This is a fondak (caravansary). The doña has lost her road?"

"No, señor," replied Miriam. "I sought to take a short-cut. I thank you, I will go back."

"If the doña will permit," said the patriarch, "I will conduct her. She has lost her guide?"

"Yes; Ahmed is a fool; he2"

At that moment a scrawny creature clad in rags, with a brown-seamed face like a gargoyle, brushed roughly past her and spat fiercely between them, rasping out a string of curses.

"The beast!" exclaimed Miriam, glaring after him angrily.

But the Jew apparently had neither heard nor seen the insult, for he was saying imperturbably—

"If the doña will follow me?"

His voice was almost drowned by the voluble curses of his aggressor, the loud laughter of the Moors and the muleteers in the vicinity. Miriam's anger merged into a wave of admiration for the calm dignity of the patriarchal Jew. As she turned to follow him he halted, with his back to the fanatic, who was still spewing curses, sheltering her, and with a courtly gesture bade her go on in front. The action and the grace impressed the girl. No one in this generation, she thought, could have survived the incident with the same inimitable dignity: it was medieval.

And the street thronged with donkeys, mules and horses—the jarring note in the shape of the party of tourists had disappeared—the glimpse of the embattled ramparts with the narrow slits in the bastions fashioned for arrows, made her forget her own incongruous clothes. A French naval officer, smartly uniformed and dapper, making his way through the crowd, seemed like some strange being from another century. As she paused for a moment to allow the Jew to overtake her, she felt a sensation of giddiness as her mind escaped the bonds of suggestion and readjusted itself to reality.

At a little distance along her guide turned off down a cobbled lane to the left and presently halted at a narrow blue door. She was ushered into an open courtyard paved with blue and white tiles; the whitewashed pillars and the mattresses ranged beside the walls in a large room opposite, were scrupulously clean. The yellow sun threw the arched veranda into violet shade, cool and restful.

The old man clapped his hands and in response a young girl with prominent dark eyes, and rosy cheeks appeared. She was dressed in a dark-blue caftan; twisted 'round her black hair was a brilliantly yellow kerchief, and in her small ears large gold earrings. He said something in Hebrew, whereat she laughed merrily and moved away, her slippers shuffling over the tiles, to reappear with another woman similarly clad but elderly and stout.

Miriam was soon seated, uncomfortably enough in European costume, upon the edge of one of the mattresses on the floor. Sweet coffee was brought. The old man sat quietly in one corner, his wife and daughter near to Miriam talking politely in Spanish. Their eyes, shyly inquisitive, questioned every article of her attire.

Gradually Miriam began to lose her sense of strangeness and led the talk upon the ways and customs of the country, to the trend of opinion concerning the present sultan and the general situation, gaining copy as a good journalist should. When at length Miriam intimated that she would like to leave they insisted that she must break bread with them. Miriam felt a queer sense of shame in pretending to pro- test that she must go whilst she really wished and intended to stay.

The breaking of bread was a ceremonious affair of many dishes; chiefly cous-cous, an Arab dish of semolina but made in the Jewish style with raisins. Although she soon felt very much at home there was an ever-recurring sense of incongruity. The manipulation of her Parisian-shod feet troubled her; her sun-hat became an abomination and her comparatively loose skirt developed the tentacles of an octopus in cramping her limbs. She longed to throw them away, and envied the cool caftan and bare feet of the little goggle-eyed Jewess. Boots indeed seemed a sacrilege on the smooth tiled floor.

At last she was driven to discard her hat and, scarcely realizing what she was doing, so fumbled with her hairpins that her long black tresses rolled down her back to the admiration of her hostess and daughter.

There seemed an atavistic sense of her natural environment in the air. She was impelled to confide in the patriarch sitting there so wise and dignified. She felt sure that they would not betray her. For a moment she conquered the desire and, to compromise, began to talk of Agadir.

The old man, Musa Ben Ibrahim, described the place to her. She was conscious of exaltation when he announced that he had relatives and many business friends there. He held forth long and earnestly against the tyranny and injustice of the Kaid Gilhooli, chief of the district. Miriam inquired whether it were possible to approach the town by water, saying that she had a friend who thought of going that way. Ben Ibrahim wagged a forefinger in dissent. It would be quite impossible to get a boat of any sort to undertake the trip from Mogador. He advised her friend not to attempt it. The land journey was the usual way, but dangerous even for Moorish or Jewish merchants. Miriam's heart sank.

AT THAT moment little Zara, who had taken a great fancy to Miriam and had seated herself as close as she dared to her, could restrain her curiosity no longer. Her black eyes goggling with excitement she craved permission to see and handle a string of blue Egyptian beads which Miriam wore. Miriam unfastened and handed them to Zara who yelped with delighted admiration, flinging a score of questions. Then Miriam, her disappointment dulled for the moment by the distraction, asked to be allowed to see the girl's hair kerchief.

Zara laughed delightedly at the compliment as she quickly unwound it. Miriam, after admiring the texture, laughingly put it over her own head. Zara, quick to grasp an idea, wriggled over and bound it in the Jewish fashion over Miriam's long hair, and sat back with many "Eh! ehs!" of admiration, pointing a triumphant podgy finger. Miriam glanced at her host. He was staring at her in amazement.

"By Abraham!" he cried. "Look, my woman, she is one of us!"

Miriam flushed and laughed. Zara, with a little cry sprang up and pattered away, she returned, staggering under the weight of a gilded mirror which her father assisted her to rest on the floor. Miriam gave an involuntary cry of astonishment. The bright-yellow kerchief bound about her own raven hair, her own large Latin eyes, olive-tinted complexion and red lips formed the picture of a typical Oriental Jewess, peering amazedly. With heavy gold earrings and the caftan the resemblance would have been perfect.

For a moment or two Miriam was annoyed. Then she gave a gasp and sat back abruptly, staring at the patriarch in the corner. The solution of the problem of entering Agadir had flashed into her mind. In the Jewish garb nobody, not even a Moor, would suspect her American nationality. She felt an almost overwhelming desire to hug the old man, to tear off her boots and European clothes, to dance, sing, laugh, and cry at the same time.

With an effort she controlled herself, smiled and gave back the kerchief to Zara. As a preliminary, she told little Zara to keep the Egyptian necklace, to the little one's wild delight, who, not to be outdone in courtesy, insisted that Miriam should accept the hair kerchief.

Miriam now keen upon business, thanked her absent-mindedly. She reflected that this man had relatives at Agadir and business dealings. He would surely be sending, or having a share, sooner or later, in some caravan going to Agadir. She must persuade him to let her go disguised as a Jewess.

Talking and smiling abstractedly she thought out her plan of action. She had contemplated going as a Moorish woman, but as such great difficulties would have to be overcome; for her liberty would be necessarily restricted, and she had no liking to trust herself in the hands of any Moor. A panic seized her that Alan or some other correspondent might arrive at any moment. She must lose no time but strike whilst the opportunity served. After a short preamble to the effect that she was a woman writer in which she had some difficulty in convincing them—they seemed to think it a great joke and laughed discreditingly—she plunged straight into her proposition.

At first it was received with uplifted palms of horror. It was impossible—if anything happened the American consul would hold him responsible. But when Miriam pointed out that she was prepared to pay well the refusals became less emphatic; and she hinted that there were sure to be other Jews who would not be so timid. After an excited colloquy with his wife amid much gesticulation he agreed. Then came the crux of the argument—the price. For all his patriarchal benevolence and hospitality, the mention of douro—long and gesticulatory was the bargaining, but at length it was completed.

There was no caravan leaving for two weeks, he protested; but in consideration of certain money one should leave on the morrow with Miriam in charge of his son and little Zara as her maid.

The sky was a pageant of scarlet and amber, fading to violet over the dense blue of the sea as Miriam returned to the hotel. Here she discovered the proprietor in a state of incoherent excitement imploring the consul to organize a search-party as Ahmed had returned with the news that Miss Vickers had been kidnaped. Miriam almost laughed herself into hysterics; more at the thought of her success than at the corpulent distress of Boniface.

Chapter III

Bismillah! Here's ink, a fair tablet, a pen, I'll set down the names of your enemies, men. The wandering bees, which betray the rich store; These, these are your foes, and will be evermore!

—Sidi Hammo.

FIVE days later a small caravan wound through a rugged and rocky defile. The glare of the afternoon sun shone straight into the eyes of the travelers. In the van riding sideways upon a decrepit pack-horse, was Yakub Bin Musa, a young Jew, who, with his black cropped hair and small mustache was of a type which, save for the black fez cap and dirty gray soutane might be seen any day in London or New York, immaculately clad in conventional garb.

Behind straggled a small train of pack-donkeys in the midst of which were a party of three men—a boy of fifteen and two ancients—and two women. All were mounted on donkeys astride or sideways upon the straw-filled packsaddles as big as half a sofa. For miles they had plodded along the rugged mountain-side in silence save for objurgatory oaths on the part of the men toward the animals who traveled patiently with the blasé air of their kind, the big ears swaying listlessly.

To the south the land fell away in rough undulations like enormous tumuli, to a vast plain across which meandered a faint broad track, as of an army—the great highway across the Sus from Timbuktu and the Soudan. Scattered at long intervals were a few mud-walled villages, glinting white in the sunlight, and on the horizon the blue of distant hills. Behind the ground rose in jumbles masses of sandy rock and sward losing itself in the brown and blue of the heights of the lower Atlas Mountains, bold and stately.

Presently in a twist of a hill path a group of horsemen appeared: three wore the dignified white robes and hoods of the Moor and were mounted on scarlet saddles; the others in the van were wild-looking Arabs in gray woolen garments, black elflocks peeping out below their camel-hair turbans, long-barreled guns sticking out across their pommels. As they approached, riding in the insolent manner of the conquering race, the Jewish party drove their animals off the track to allow them to pass.