be let alone in future. Notice it? The stories from fifty or a hundred miles away are mostly given one kind of twist calculated to calm the Administration’s nerves; from beyond that the twist is exactly reversed. European protection looks best from a long way off. Well, I’m dead set against outside interference. If I could have my way, there’d be no meddling in foreign lands. Each to his own affairs is my creed.” But, like the rest of us, Grim can’t have his own way very often and has to be content with compromise.
* * * * *
One afternoon, about a month after our return from the affair with Ali Higg at Petra, there came a man on camel-back, followed and noisily rebuked by a couple of mounted policemen, who insisted that he should report himself and his business first at police headquarters.
But he had no use for the police, and was much too wise to stop and argue, or to draw his weapons and give them an excuse to call assistance and arrest him. He knew the way to Grim’s quarters and sent his camel along at top speed, stone-deaf to shouts, threats, commands, and all abuse.
He dismounted at the narrow stone gateway without making his camel kneel, and leaving the beast for the police to watch strode straight in unannounced, brushing aside the servant who ran to the door to question him.
Grim and I happened to be playing chess, with the board between us on a stool in front of the fireplace. The man stood watching us in silence for two or three minutes, patient now that he had reached his goal; and Grim didn’t appear to notice him, although the smell of human and camel sweat blended and the fellow’s heavy breathing were remarkable, to state it mildly. It was five minutes before the Arab saw fit to interrupt. “Salaam aleikum, ya Jimgrim!” he said at last. “That game you play there is a slow one. I have brought you word across the desert of a swift one that a man must play between life and death. Ben Saoud summons you!”
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