SHANNA 235

May God reward you, Shaikh 'Abdullah, they replied in
unison. How much is there in the bag ? asked Ibn Ma'addi,
Five hundred dollars, I replied ; whereupon there was much
counting up on hands and some searching of souls. There
would be 30 dollars apiece with 10 dollars short. Well, said
Ibn Ma'addi, Zayid and 'Ali had money the other day from
Shaikh 'Abdullah. Surely it is they that should get less now.
As you please, said Zayid, but cut it allfromme. Have nofear,!
interposed, I will make good the deficiency—come, Abu Ja'sha,
do you divide the swag among them. So little Ja*sha's father
counted out the silver, thirty pieces to each man sitting round
the fire, starting from the right and working round against
the clock till he came to Zayid sitting at his left hand. It was
a tense moment. Give me twenty, said Zayid, and keep
thirty for yourself. Give him his full tale of thirty, I inter-
posed, unwilling that our leader should remain dependent on
my generosity. So they all had thirty dollars but Abu Ja'sha,
who looked a little crestfallen and sheepish under so public a
test of his unselfishness or optimism. I moved away back to
my tent and privily secreted 20 dollars under iny pillow. A
little later I sent for Abu Ja'sha to move out some of my bag-
gage in readiness for the morrow's march—he was the handy
man of the party. Have you had the ten dollars ? they asked
him afterwards. He did not disappoint me, was his evasive
reply, from which they knew just enough to salve their guilty
consciences but not enough to excite their cupidity.

Our future course being thus decided by general agree-
ment, I left the details to Zayid and his fellows with a sugges-
tion that, if they wished, I should have no objection to their
making the proposed attempt on the Empty Quarter without
tents or other heavy impedimenta, which might be sent back
with such of our men and camels as would find the waterless
desert too much for their powers of endurance. That is cer-
tainly what we ought to have done in the circumstances.
Both 'Ali Jahman and the Dimnani guides declared that they
had never heard of any previous crossing of the desert from
Shanna or anywhere in the Khiran district to Sulaiyil or its
neighbourhood. 'All's experience extended to the Qa'amiyat
and Hawaya tracts, whither the Ghafran Murra are wont in