line, and heard that. He took the cue and began his song. In a minute the whole line was roaring the refrain, and it broke like volleys on the night:
“Akbar! Akbar! Jimgrim Ali Higg!”
Jael Higg laughed. “He has a fool’s luck and a lusty band of followers,” she said. “It was only because Ayisha called out that he caught me. But a fool’s luck is like a breath of wind that passes—”
Suddenly she sat bolt upright and raised her right hand.
“Oh, this night! This madness! Of all the dreams, of all the hallucinations, this is the wildest! I warned Ali Higg! I told him my foreboding, and he laughed!”
She looked down at me again, and studied me for half a minute.
“Tell me,” she went on, “is that Sheikh Jimgrim of yours mad, or am I mad?”
“If you ask my opinion, as a hakim,” I answered, “you were mad to sit your camel alone, with only two men, within reach of our Jimgrim.”
“What does he think he will do with me at Petra?”
“He thinks silently,” said I.
Whereat she too was silent for a few minutes, and then broke out into a new tirade of exclamations, but this time in a language of which I knew not one word—perhaps Russian, or Slovak, or Bulgarian. I think she was praying in a sort of wild way to long-neglected saints.
She gave me the impression of being mentally almost unhinged by the sudden anticlimax of helplessness after over-confidence. Yet when she spoke again her voice was calm, and not without a ring of rather gallant humor.
“I suppose he thinks he has stolen the queen bee, and so has the swarm in his power. But the swarm can sting, and will come for the queen bee.”
“So they bring their honey with them, who minds that?” Narayan Singh retorted.
He was enjoying himself, acting the part of a bandit’s follower with perfect gusto.
“Oh, so it is honey you are after? And you two are Indians—a Pathan and—”
“From Lahore,” said I.
“Five thousand pounds would buy your services?”
“Five thousand promises would make us laugh,” said the Sikh.
“How much will your sheikh ever pay you? In an hour I will show you a wady down which we three can escape. Agree to that and you shall have five thousand each the same hour that we reach Petra.”
“Wallahi! Doubtless!” laughed Narayan Singh. “Five thousand bastinados each from Ali Higg, while the queen bee laughs at us for fools! Nay, lady Jael, you are Jimgrim’s prisoner.”
“Jimgrim!” she said. “Somewhere I have heard that name.”
And she turned it over in her mind again like a taster trying wine, not speaking again for nearly an hour, until we drew abreast of a chaos of irregular great boulders that partly concealed the mouth of a gorge as dark and ugly as the throat of Tophet.
“There is your chance!” she said. “Will you take it? You shall have employment with the Lion of Petra! Come!”
But neither of us answered, and I kept a bright lookout for a pistol she still might have concealed on her; for she had not been searched— there was none who could do that with decency except Ayisha, who was not to be trusted.
I knew Grim would not halt again before morning because the camels would not feed properly until after daylight, even if you put corn in front of them. We were likely in for a forced march on Petra, and he would not choose to halt twice if it could be helped. And I supposed that when we did halt he would look to Narayan Singh and me for information.
Yet Mrs. Ali Higg number one was hardly a person you could expect to answer questions truthfully; and even until the stars began to grow pale in the east ahead of us I possessed my soul in patience.
Then: “Is it money your Sheikh Jimgrim wants?” she asked at last. “Does he hold me to ransom? If so, I will give him a draft on the Bank of Egypt. I have Ali Higg’s seal here, and I write all his letters.”
I did not answer, but Narayan Singh checked his camel a stride or two to make a signal to me behind her back.
“Hah!” he remarked with an air of triumph. And I took that to mean that in his judgment Jimgrim could find use for Ali Higg’s seal.
But of course she heard him, and she took it to mean that she had guessed rightly. She turned to Narayan Singh; and because in that land, as an almost invariable rule, no business with a chief can be accomplished without bribing his minions, she worked off a little spite and offered largesse with the same hand.
“Arrange good terms for me and you shall have Ayisha.”
“But I have her,” said Narayan Singh with a great laugh.
“Maybe. But you haven’t settled yet with Ali Higg. Arrange good terms for my ransom, and I will see that Ali Higg wipes off Ayisha’s score.”
“We shall see about that; we shall see,” he answered.
“Yes, yes! You go and see! Go to him now!”
“When we halt,” the Sikh answered.
“In an hour it may be too late,” she insisted. “If Ali Higg is prowling and should swoop down on you who would bargain then?”
By that time it was light enough to see clearly at close range, and Narayan Singh caught my eye behind her back. I nodded. If there were any likelihood of Ali Higg being on the prowl why should she be in such a hurry to make terms?
Right then Grim called a halt—none too soon for the camels— in a semicircular space protected by a low cliff that might have been a quarry-face two thousand years ago; what might have been a pit was all filled in by drifted sand. But he had his own mat spread on the top of the cliff, whence he could keep an eye on the surrounding country, and gave none of the prisoners a chance to talk to him.
Nobody helped Jael Higg from her camel, for she jumped down like an acrobat and stood staring about her at Ali Baba’s gang, and being stared at as they went about the business of off-loading the complaining beasts. I saw Ayisha get out of the shibriyah,face around slowly, and meet Jael’s eyes.
Neither woman spoke for a minute, or made any sign, but you could almost see the alternating current of scorn and hate that passed between them. Then Ayisha fell back on insolence and walked past Jael deliberately, with dark eyes flashing and a thin smile on her lips.
“So you are now a Pathan’s light o’ love?” Jael sneered in Arabic.
At that Ayisha turned again and faced her.
“Who speaks? She whom the Lion could not trust to go to Hebron? Um Kulsum!”*
Ayisha passed on with a scornful shoulder movement. Narayan Singh grinned with malicious amusement. And I was just in time to catch two of the men again attacking my medicine-chest. Instead of trying
