"Tell me about it," the sheik said, his face hardening and his fingers playing with the hilt of the long knife in his sash.
The sheik stood stroking his beard gravely as Sidi spoke. His eyes turned from his son to Edgar.
"Bishmillah!" he exclaimed, when the story was finished, "Allah must have sent you to be Sidi's protector. Without doubt, he would have lost his life had he been alone. Truly it is a wonderful thing this English science that you possess, and that enables you, though but a lad, to knock down strong men, and although unused to a knife, to slay ruffians accustomed to it from their childhood, with their own weapons. More than ever am I beholden to you, Edgar. Twice have you saved my son's life. Had you been alone, these men would not have recognized you, and it was but because he was attacked that, as on the last occasion, you joined in the fray. Show me, I beg you, how you slew this man."
"It was simple, sheik. Had I fought him in his own fashion he would, I have no doubt, have killed me. But my method was as new to him as his would have been to me. Will you draw your dagger and advance at me as if going to strike? Now, if I have my knife in my right hand also, you know what to do; you would try to grasp my wrist with your left hand. I should try to grasp yours in the same way. We should struggle, but with your superior strength you would soon wrench your right hand free, and strike me down. Now, you see, I take my closed knife in my left hand, pointing it straight towards you, with my left foot forward; that is the position in which we stand when we use our fists. You, like that Maltese, are puzzled, and stand, as he did, for a moment indecisive; that would have been fatal to you. As, you see, I leap forward, changing my advanced foot as I do so, catch your wrist, and pull your arm with a sudden jerk towards me, and at the same moment strike you under the arm with my left hand."
An exclamation of wonder broke from the Arabs standing round listening to the conversation, as with lightning speed Edgar repeated the manoeuvre that had been fatal to the Maltese.
"Bishmillah," the chief ejaculated, "but it is wonderful! It is true I should have been a dead man had your blade been opened, and your movement was so rapid that I could not have avoided it."