Don't point to it, please! I mean the tree beyond the ditch, and
to the right of two small bushes."
All about them they could see the pigeons quietly perched upon the
branches, spotting the foliage like a purple fruit. Only above the one
tree they circled and timorously called.
"We will draw that covert," said Durrance. "Take a dozen men and
surround it quietly."
He himself remained on the glacis watching the tree and the thick
undergrowth. He saw six soldiers creep round the shrubbery from the
left, six more from the right. But before they could meet and ring the
tree in, he saw the branches violently shaken, and an Arab with a roll
of yellowish dammar wound about his waist, and armed with a flat-headed
spear and a shield of hide, dashed from the shelter and raced out
between the soldiers into the open plain. He ran for a few yards only.
For Mather gave a sharp order to his men, and the Arab, as though he
understood that order, came to a stop before a rifle could be lifted to
a shoulder. He walked quietly back to Mather. He was brought up on to
the glacis, where he stood before Durrance without insolence or
servility.
He explained in Arabic that he was a man of the Kabbabish tribe named
Abou Fatma, and friendly to the English.
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