dare the very rage of Ali Higg!”
He still held her hand. She waited about a minute before answering.
“Which Ali Higg?” she asked at last.
“Any Ali Higg! All Ali Higgs! As lions go down beneath the feet of elephants so shall the Lion of Petra fail before me!”
“One at a time!” she laughed. “There is one Ali Higg who could command you with a word—another who could order your carcass thrown to the vultures. Words first, since your boastings are all words! I say that, for all your brave words, this Ali Higg who rides ahead of us can make you slay me for a word of praise from him.”
“You mean, beloved, you could make me slay him for a word of praise from you!” the Sikh lied glibly.
“But I might not want him slain.”
“Have him made into a cripple, then—a ruin of a man, for daring to displease you!”
“But he pleases me!”
“Aha! I am jealous! By the beard of the Prophet, Ayisha, beware of my jealousy! I am a man of few words but sudden deeds! Is there a man who stands in my way? May Allah show compassion on him, for he is like to need it!”
He was so fervid in his avowals that he almost convinced me—almost made me believe that his private agreement with me had been a camouflage for his real intentions.
There is precious little of which my friend Narayan Singh isn’t capable in the way of romantic soldiering; he ought to have been born two or three hundred years ago as, in fact, according to his reincarnating creed, he was. Perhaps he remembers past lives so vividly that he lives them over again. I wish I could remember a past life or two.
Ayisha was about to answer him when Grim’s shrill bosun’s whistle that he keeps for emergencies whined from in front, and the sleepy-looking line awoke with a start. Every single rifle down the length of the caravan, including mine, was unslung in a second and the click of the sliding bolts was as businesslike as if we had been a squad on the parade-ground. Narayan Singh, rifle in hand, sprang on to Ayisha’s little Bishareen, and she jumped into the shibriyah, like a pair doing stunts at the circus.
So far good. But the rest was amateurish. We milled badly. Grim away in front had halted to let the line close, and we swarmed around him like a herd of steers that smell wolves, and nobody seemed to know which way to look, or what to do next.
I was right in the midst of the mess, with a camel on either side trying to get its teeth into me, and what with Grim’s shouting to get the tangle straightened, and our all trying to obey at once, it was some minutes before I got the hang of things. In fact, I think I understood last.
We were already surrounded perfectly on three sides by camel-men who kept out of reasonable rifle-range and stalked us like dark ghosts from the rear. They resembled a drag-net, drawing us in the direction of Petra, and the only unblocked segment of the circle was exactly in front of us. Every time I tried to count them there seemed more than before, and there were certainly over a hundred.
I got one close look at Grim’s face, and knew he had made his mind up what to do; but all the men were shouting different advice and it was a question whether he would be able to get control before a disaster happened. I said nothing and did nothing but kept fairly close to him. Narayan Singh found his proper place alongside me, with the halter of Ayisha’s camel in his hand; and he said nothing either.
Suddenly Grim reached out and seized old Ali Baba by the shoulder, drawing him close and growling into his ear. I could not catch the words, but he repeated them again and again, and Ali Baba nodded vehemently. Not a shot had been fired yet, for Grim had forbidden it, and the other side showed no disposition to do other than surround us at a safe distance. But I noticed they were reducing their estimate of safety and seemed to be gradually closing in for a concerted rush from all sides at once.
Then two things happened suddenly. Out of the open horizon in front, from between two great mounds that looked like ant-heaps, three figures emerged on camels, apparently all alone and unsupported. The one in the middle on the tallest camel made a signal with a long strip of cloth waved like a semaphore against the moonlight.
Instantly the opposing force began to close in, and Ali Baba proved his mettle. Those sons and grandsons obeyed his order as efficiently as he did Grim’s. They made a feint all in a cluster together straight for the widest gap in the circle behind us.
The enemy drew off to a safer distance, whereat Ali Baba wheeled and charged another segment of the circle, widening it again. Still not a shot had been fired by either side.
Around Grim now were Narayan Singh, Ayisha, and myself with our prisoner Yussuf, and Ayisha’s four. Grim watched his chance and sent me to bring back four of Ali Baba’s men, and by the time I had done that he had lessened the distance perceptibly between himself and the three lone individuals in front. He was leaning low over his camel, peering at the three like a seaman staring from a crow’s-nest in a fog.
It was a weird business—a swiftly played chess game, almost noiseless; for wherever Ali Baba charged the enemy drew off, while the rest came closer until they were charged in turn.
“It’s obvious we’re intended to be made prisoners,” Grim said to me at last. “But I think it’s obvious we’re not going to be.”
Nevertheless, I understood nothing of his plan, except that our little group kept drawing closer to the three, one of whom seemed in command of the other side. At the moment I suspected that Grim was one of those officers who are splendid at intelligence work and at playing a lone hand, but less than ordinary in the field; Ali Baba looked like the man of action.
Why, with all that brave old man’s ability to swing and spur his gang in absolute control, had not the lot of us burst through the circling enemy and made a bolt for it? That was what I should have done.
But suddenly Grim turned and pushed the muzzle of his pistol into Ayisha’s face as she leaned out of the shibriyah to watch. It caught her under the jawbone, so that she could not see what his finger was doing, and did not dare try to move away.
“Now shout!” he ordered her. “Tell ‘em your name Wallahi! Yell, or I’ll kill you.”
She let out a bleat like a frightened goat, that might have been audible thirty yards away if there were no other noise.
“Louder! I’ll blow your brains out if you disobey!”
So she screamed at the top of her lungs, making her voice carry as all desert people can. And after she had called three times she was answered by a clear, contralto woman’s voice.
“Ay-ish-a! O Ay-ish-a!”
“Jael! Jael!” she called back; and at that the rider of the middle camel waved the cloth again.
As fast as they caught sight of it—in tens and twenties— the oncoming riders halted.
But Ali Baba did not stand still. Neither did we. The three lone individuals in front of us began to approach.
“Come on!” said Grim. “Now’s our chance!”
And at last I saw his idea. I did not know which to admire more, the man who had thought of it in that sudden crisis, or Ali Baba who had understood so swiftly and carried out his part so
