force had vanished out of hearing.
Then, as the galloping explosions died in the distance the Governorate servant came in with the news that sixteen men were waiting at the gate. Grim told him to admit them and we went into the long hall to await their coming, sitting on a bench at the end like three kings on a throne, Grim, Cohen, and I, with Ali Baba standing like a lord high chancellor beside us.
They filed in one by one, mysterious and curious, peering this and that way in the deepening twilight, strangely heavy-footed in spite of a manner suggesting conspiracy, and not in the least at ease until Ali Baba spoke to them. I noticed that Grim was watching the old man narrowly; if a signal had passed I think he would have known it.
They were led by a giant—a bulky, bearded stalwart about forty years old, in a sheepskin coat that only half-concealed the heft of his shoulders. He wore a long knife in a sheath at his middle, but looked able to slay men, as Samson did, without it. The naked, hairy calf that showed for a moment through a slit in his saffron-colored smock was herculean with lumpy muscle, and he bowed to us with rather the air of a strong man favoring weaker brethren. But his smile—a streak of milk-white in the midst of glossy dark hair—was winning enough, for his brown eyes smiled too and were wide enough apart to look good-natured.
None of the rest was as tall as the first man, or as good-looking, although they were a magnificent gang and quite aware of it. They were used, those fellows, to the middle of the road and the deference the physically weaker pay to athletes who know their strength and value it. They seemed to own the earth they stood on.
There was a one-eyed man among them and one fellow much shorter than the rest, who made up for lack of inches by prodigious breadth and arms like a gorilla’s, reaching nearly to his knees. Almost the last to enter I recognized our old friend Mahommed ben Hamza, grinning good-humoredly as ever, and swaggering with all the old “the world is mine oyster” manner that distinguished him at El-Kerak, when he held Grim’s life and mine for a day or so in the hollow of his hand.
They were a strong-smelling company, but otherwise comforting to meet, since they were not to be enemies. There was a vague suggestion about them of a pack of hound-pups, ready to howl on a scent and tear their quarry in pieces, or to wag their tails and play; whichever might suit the huntsman’s mood.
I dare say the lot of them weighed a ton and a half, and if you had boiled them down for fat you might have harvested a dozen pounds; but excepting that one characteristic of hard condition the only strong family resemblance that they all shared was a certain plastic serenity of forehead and breadth between the eyes.
“Show your respect to the gentlemen,” Ali Baba ordered sternly, whereat they formed in double line across the hall and bowed with great dignity.
“Your father Ali Baba has a word to say to you all,” announced Grim.
“We listen when he speaks,” said the big man.
“Go on, Ali Baba.”
“The Jews are not to die tonight. Jimgrim has spoken. Between us and Jimgrim is a covenant of blood. See ye to it that our honor is whole in this matter.”
“Then the fire-gift? What of that?” asked the giant.
“Use ye the fire-gift as before. Use it this night. I come too, for Jimgrim has done me honor and set me free. But let it be known that it is not written for tonight. Perhaps tomorrow night, but not tonight by any means may Jews be killed.”
There was a murmur of half-rebellion along both ranks, and an exchange of quick glances.
“Jimgrim is our brother,” said the big man, “but who will listen now? They will smite us in the teeth and throw stones if we say now that what we said before was false! Moreover, they will draw their swords in spite of us.”
I rather expected Grim would join in the argument at that point, but nothing of the kind.
“This is your gang, Ali Baba,” was all he said, and sat well back, rather ostentatiously at ease. And the old man took the cue from him.
Never have I seen such fury—such sudden change from patriarchal dignity to blazing wrath; nor ever more surprising meekness in the face of it.
The old man raised both clenched fists and the very hairs of his beard seemed to stand apart and stiffen with the intensity of his frenzy.
“Shall I curse my sons?” he screamed. “Are these the men I got—the children of my loins that sneer in my face like idiots and answer Nay to my Yea? Is my old age a mockery that sixteen louts should dare know better than I? Leave me! I will marry wives and God will give me other sons! I will find me better sons in the suk! Is it not enough to be jailed by an infidel for the sake of a heretic Jew, that my own sons must come and mock my face and my gray hairs? Truly is Allah great and his judgment past discerning! All these years have I nurtured snakes, believing I was blessed in them. And so at last Allah clears my old eyes and shows me the poison in their teeth! Go! Go! I am a childless man! Better the dogs of the street than sons who mock their father! Go, I order you!”
But they did not go. Nor did they take his terrific reproof other than abjectly. They closed up and fawned on him, more than ever like hound-pups, looking more enormous than ever because of his age and comparative frailty —begging, imploring, coaxing him, calling him respectful names, making him promises that would have made Aladdin’s eyes start, even after his experience with the wondrous lamp. Finally the biggest of them put their arms about him and bore him off in the midst of the sixteen, they still fawning and he protesting.
“So that settles that,” said Grim, getting off the bench.
“Call that a settlement?” asked Cohen. “All you’ve done, as far as I can see, is to turn a lot of knifers loose on the town and nothin’ gained but their own admission that they can’t do a thing! They’ll talk that old rooster over as soon as they get outside. Here it is dark already and a pogrom slated for tonight! Seems to me you’re—Say, what do you figure you’ve done, anyway?”
But Grim is not given to explaining things much; he told me more than once he has a notion that discussing half-formed plans “lets off the pressure and drowns the spark.” He looked at Cohen critically, but with that gleam of tolerant amusement that always takes the sting out of a remark:
“We’ve still got Aaron Cohen to fall back on,” he answered quietly. “I’ll bet with you, Aaron—my silver watch against your gold one that there won’t be a throat cut in Hebron as long as you play the game!”
“Me? What game? Call this a game? Here, take the watch! I’ll have no use for it this time tomorrow!”
“I’ll trade with you. There, take mine. Now I’ll bet with you the other way about. My gold watch against your silver one that you daren’t play my game and pull this fat out of the fire!”
“May as well play your game as any man’s!” laughed Cohen. “Are you thinkin’ of issuing rain checks in case the knifing’s put off till tomorrow?”
“I’ve offered to bet you that you daren’t.”
“Daren’t what?”
“Play my game.”
“Blind? All right, it’s a bet! You show me the thing I daren’t do!”
“I’ll try!” Grim answered. “But I’d take
