gate held them up for five minutes and scoffed at the slip of paper he produced. He did not want his movements gossiped all over the camp.
So they were all four submitted to search at the gate as presumptive thieves, by a Sikh jemadar who feared no writing nor regarded words.
His disrespectful fingers uncovered naturally three loaded automatic pistols; and—ace of unexpectedness—a Gurkha kukri from under Suliman’s shirt. That settled it, of course.
“Into the lock-up with them until morning!” he ordered, being one of those priceless guardians who are not afraid of responsibility.
“The luck’s not running my way,” grunted Catesby. “This’ll give Jinks the finest chance the brute could ask for to show me up in a bad light. My name’s Walker!”
“Don’t you believe it. Cut loose, Narayan Singh,” Jim whispered.
There followed an interlude in the Jat dialect that restored Catesby’s normal high spirits, it being one of the conventions of the British Army that an officer of Sikhs must understand the language of his men, whereas the men’s knowledge of English is optional and rather rare. It ended in Narayan Singh disrobing in the guardroom light to show his steel bracelet, the steel dagger in his hair, and certain other peculiarities of Sikh attire to which he is more loyal than a Scotsman to his kilts. Those, the language, and an intimate knowledge of he jemadar’s own personal, private and amusing immortal history proved at last convincing.
But the jemadar kept the kukri. There was not explaining that away.
“How shall I hunt an iblis without that thing?” demanded Suliman, appealing to Jim in the shadow much too wise to argue with the Sikh.
“Where did you get it? Did a Gurkha lend it to you?”
“No. The fool refused. So I stole it while he drank.”
“Come on. We’ve wasted time enough. You must face the iblis with bare hands.”
* * * * *
Now Catesby led, for he knew the lie of the land. Jim followed him, and Narayan Singh brought up the rear in darkness so deep that it was all one could do to keep the leading man in sight. The sky overhead was clear, and the stars shone like scattered diamonds, but they were following a shallow wady (valley) between cactus, and the gloom of the night before the worlds were made seemed to have gathered in it. They went nearly a mile at a slow pace before Catesby stopped to take his bearings. Then Jim missed Suliman.
He did not dare shout for him, for that would have brought to the scene every scrub-haunting thief in the neighborhood. He called once in a low voice, but all the answer was the ghoul-like laugh of a hyena, and a moment later he made out the brute’s green eyes, very low to the ground and moving the way a lantern swings.
“I rather thought it was a mistake to bring that kid,” said Catesby. “Didn’t like to question your judgement of course, but—”
“He comes. I hear him, sahib,” Narayan Singh whispered.
A moment later the hyena snarled and scampered off, looking as big as a lion when his outline showed against the sky. Then they heard whimpering and hard breathing. Something or somebody stumbled, sobbed, and hurried on again toward them. Then Suliman burst into their midst and threw himself face foremost on the earth, heaving for lack of breath. He had something heavy in his hand. Jim picked it up.
“The kukri again! You young luss (robber)! How did you get it?”
“That jemadar gave it to a sentry to hold, and the sentry laid it beside him on the ground where he could feel it with his foot. So I pulled the skirt of his overcoat and took the kukri when he turned. Then I ran.”
“And he didn’t shoot?”
“No, for I took care that he saw me. Sikhs don’t shoot at men of my size, for I have tried before.”
“Now,” said Jim, do you still think I was wrong to bring the kid? Lead on, Catesby.”
* * * * *
They took to the top of a sandy ridge that lead gradually upward to a low hill covered with cactus, from which by daylight there would be a fair view of half the camp, although now they could see little more than scattered lights that made the darkness more confusing. There was a short bare ridge on the hilltop, sandy like the rest but free from cactus.
“Suppose we lie here till moonrise,” Catesby proposed. “Last time I saw the iblis was from just this place. I was waiting for a chance at a leopard and friend leper came instead, scaring everything away for miles around. He pretty nearly scared me stiff. Most awful looking brute you ever saw.
“You see that hill opposite? You can just make out the outline of it against the sky. He danced on that and made me feel so creepy I vowed I’d never dance again. Later he passed along this ridge so close that I thought he’d trip over me. Ugh! I was glad he didn’t. He’s leprous from head to foot. It beats me how he holds together when he dances.”
They lay down on a shoulder of sand that overhung the shallow valley; and now the Arab costume they were wearing proved its virtue, for they could cover faces, hands and ankles from the mosquitoes that attacked in mass formation. Hooded like that under loose robes they looked like dead men. A badger came and sniffed them, then a hyena, then several jackals, remembering perhaps the fat times when men were fighting and the carrion lay thick.
They lay an hour until the moon rose, like a huge blotched lamp beyond the other hill, and by that time Suliman was fast asleep and snoring. Narayan Singh shook him awake—lest he frighten the iblis away, as the Sikh was careful to explain. The notion that the iblis might be afraid of himself was new to Suliman, and he sat up to consider it, fingering the edge of the heavy, curved Gurkha blade.
“The game is to catch this beauty alive if we can,” said Jim, “but above all we mustn’t scare him and let him get away from us. Better watch him for a week than rush in and fail. The next most important thing is not to kill him—bear that in mind, Narayan Singh; even you can’t make a dead man talk, you know!”
“I will plunge this kukri in his belly and discover whether an iblis has entrails if he comes near me!” vowed Suliman.
But a moment later he returned the great knife to its sheath and crept up close to Jim, with the hair raising so that his turban actually lifted.
“Look, Jimgrim! Look! The iblis!”
Naked in the reddish moonlight—framed, in fact, exactly in the middle of the orb that rose behind him, about two hundred yards distant from where they lay across the wady—glistening here and there as if his carcass had been smeared with whitish slime, a tall, lean, muscular man stood motionless, gazing toward the lights that indicated Ludd encampment.
The turban on his head but emphasized the nakedness of all the rest of him. Nowhere in the East is the mere absence of clothes remarkable as a rule, although the Arab likes to drape himself in amble, loose array for the sake of dignity and comfort. But the man’s nakedness was ghastly—impudent—a calculated, sheer affront—deliberate indecency so flaunted that the moonlight and the loneliness could not absorb it, and it shocked grown men.
He was well shaped. No crippled limbs or unnatural abortion helped to horrify. It was
