sit Jael*, there is wrath for those who disobey him!”
“Go, taste his wrath then!” she retorted. “There was shooting because of a mistake in the darkness. Good camels were killed. He is more enraged than at the loss of twenty men. He would have it the blame is yours—”
“Mashallah! Mine!”
“But I persuaded him. He cools his wrath in the moonlight, communing with Allah. Better go, Ibrahim, before his mood changes again.”
“But how came he to be here ahead of us? We left him in Petra. How—”
“How old beards love to wag! Fool! Go ask him then! I call these men to witness I have given the order that he told me to give to you. I wash my hands!”
She began to make the gesture of washing hands, but thought better of it, for I might have mistaken that for a signal. Old Ibrahim ben Ah looked straight into her eyes, read resolution there, and bowed like a courtier to a queen. Then he turned on his heel, strode back to his camel, mounted, and returned to his men without another word to anyone. Yet I dare bet that he had counted us, and knew we were all strangers, and dare say his thoughts would fill a good long chapter of a book.
Grim continued to sit his camel motionless until the raiders under Ibrahim ben Ah had formed into four long lines and ridden away westward, towing enough baggage-animals behind them for a week or two’s supplies.
“One hundred and forty men,” he announced when they were gone. “The Lion of Petra can’t have many left.”
* Thanks be to God!
* O lady Jael.
CHAPTER 9
“I think we’ve got the Lion of Petra on the hip!”
Grim is one of those fellows who tell you their principles as grudgingly as they let out facts. He would make the poorest sort of propagandist or politician, for he doesn’t advertise, and hates long arguments. What he knows he knows is so because it works; and he proceeds to put it to work.
Nor is he much of a teacher. He takes people as he finds them and adapts his plans accordingly. So it is only from observation extended over a considerable period in all sorts of circumstances that I can say I believe his first and underlying principle is to look for the positive, concrete usefulness in anyone with whom he is associated, whether friend or enemy. And this I have heard him say several times.
“In secret service you limit yourself if you make plans. The game is to listen and watch. Presently the other fellow always tells his plans or else betrays them.”
And he is no such fool as to be caught in the act of listening, or to forewarn his enemy by seeming to wish to listen.
He gave the order to march at once. Some of the men doubled up uncomfortably on the riding-camels, because of the three that had been killed, and the Bishareen fell to me.
I ranged alongside Jael Higg, with Narayan Singh on the other side of her. At that we were off, Grim leading, well in advance, with Ali Baba and six men in attendance.
The moon was a bit behind us by that time, so that I did not have much chance to observe Jael Higg narrowly until she turned her face to speak to me. But she was not long about doing that—say fifteen minutes— nine hundred seconds; suppressed curiosity can work up a pretty high pressure in that time.
“Who is this man who looks like Ali Higg?” she asked me suddenly, and I had a good look at her face; you don’t have to answer questions without thinking, just because they are asked by a woman in a friendly tone of voice.
Her nose was Roman and very narrow, and her dark eyes looked straight at you without their pupils converging, which produced a sensation of being seen through. She had splendid teeth; and her mouth, which was humorous, turning upward at the corners when she smiled, had nevertheless a certain suggestion of stealthy strength—perhaps cruelty. Her chin was firm and practical. So were her freckled hands. I decided that the less I said the better.
“He is a sheikh,” said I pretty abruptly.
She turned that empty information over in her mind for a minute, and decided to turn her guns on me. Conversation was not easy, for we were swinging along at a great pace, and my camel was a lot smaller than hers.
“And you are an Indian? How is it that you speak English?”
“Many of us speak it. We pass our college examinations in English.”
“How do you come to be with that—that sheikh?” she asked next.
“It pleases me to follow him. Inshallah, I may help him in case of sickness.”
“You are a hakim?”
I admitted that, although secretly pitying any poor devil who might pin faith to the claim.
“Ali Higg—the real one, who is known as the Lion of Petra— believes in Indian hakims, like all these Arabs who have no use for European doctors. And this big man on my left, who is he?”
“My servant.”
“An Afghan?”
“A Pathan.”
She turned that over in her mind, too, for several minutes.
“And how does Ayisha come to be with you?” she asked at last.
At that Narayan Singh broke silence, and although he denied it afterward I know that his only motive was to get a little preliminary vengeance on Ayisha for the names she had called him. He maintains that he was “casting a stone, as it were, into a pond to see which way the ripples went.”
“Few women will refuse to follow a Pathan when honored by his admiration,” he boomed.
I could not see her face then, because she was staring at Narayan Singh.
“Do you realize whose wife you are tampering with?” she asked him.
“Hah! Where I come from a man must guard his women if he hopes to keep them.”
“Where you are going to, such a man as you will find his own life hard enough to keep,” she retorted.
“Bismillah! I have kept it thus far,” said Narayan Singh.
She turned to me again.
“What does the sheikh of yours call himself?”
“Hajji Jimgrim bin Yazid of El-Abdeh.”
“Jimgrim. Jimgrim. Where have I heard that name?”
“The stars have heard it,” roared Narayan Singh loud enough for the stars to hear him boast. “He has taken the Lion of Petra’s shape. He has taken his name. He has taken his wife. And now he will take
