and who shall stay the hand of God?”
“Go and tell them to come here first before they try the jail,” said de Crespigny calmly. “That is all I have to say. Go and tell them.”
”Allah ysallmak! (God save you!)” said the Arab sadly.
”Allah yihfazak! (God keep you!)” de Crespigny replied, and the old man turned and went.
“Doc,” said de Crespigny, turning toward the Scotsman, “there are two camels outside. Better take them. Put Miss Gordon on one and you and she make a break for Jerusalem. This situation looks none too good.”
Doctor Cameron laughed dryly, wrinkling up his eyes as he looked keenly at each of us in turn. He was a big man, with a powerful head and a firm, good- tempered mouth under a scraggly gray moustache. He looked like an old soldier, but had never actually worn any other uniform than the mask and apron of the operating-room.
“Five-and-twenty years I’ve been here,” he replied. “Can you see me running away?”
“But the nurse—Miss Gordon?”
“She’s a fine girl. She’ll stand by. Ask her if you’d rather. I’ll not interfere.”
“Better send her to this place, then.”
“You young Hector! She’s safer in my hospital. They’ll do no murder there; we’re far too useful to them. I stood by them through the war as a Turks’ prisoner; they’ll remember that. There’s hardly a man in Hebron hasn’t been to me for help at one time or another. But what do you lads propose to do?”
“Brazen it out,” said de Crespigny.
“You’ll need all your brass, I’m thinking.” He looked hard at Jones. “That boy’s in no fit state to give the best that’s in him. I brought my bag with me. Let me see that lower jaw.”
He took Jones’ head in capable, enormous hands and tilted it toward the light.
“Open. Wider. Um-m-m! Sit on that stool. Reach me the bag, de Crespigny.”
He unwrapped a lancet and a pair of ugly forceps, then got behind Jones and gripped his head firmly between his knees.
“By rights ye ought to have an anaesthetic for a job like this, but your mother had to endure a lot worse when ye came into the world. We’ll see if you’re half as good a man as your mother. Now!”
It was a bloody business and not convenient to watch, but we all looked on like spectators at a play, pretending not to feel the skin creep up our spines. It was several minutes before the last piece of a broken tooth was tossed into the brass basin that a servant brought.
“Now lie down. If I ever meet your mother I’ll tell the lady that her labor was worthwhile. Ye’ll feel finely by and by. He might have an ounce or two of whisky.”
He wrapped up his tools, turned down his shirt-sleeves, and started for the door.
“If I can be of any further use, my boys, ye’ll know where to find me. The best advice I can give is, always let the Arab know you’re not afraid of him, and make him suspect ye’ve something in reserve. And by the way—ye’d better all join me at the hospital, if things look too bad. I think the rascals will respect that place. There’ll be bad news from Jerusalem before night or my name isn’t Cameron.”
De Crespigny glanced swiftly at Grim. Grim nodded. That was puzzling, for there had been no signs of disturbance that I could see when we came away that morning.
Cameron jerked his head and snapped his fingers in the doorway. “They’d never talk so bold here if they didn’t know of trouble brewing in Jerusalem to keep the troops occupied,” he said, and strode out as if any sort of trouble were the merest commonplace.
I found it utterly impossible, sitting in that quiet room, to believe that we were in imminent danger; but that may have been because I had no official job to lose if everything should go wrong. A man doesn’t fear for his life as a rule until the raw facts stare him in the face; it is economic and administrative problems that cause terror in advance. I thought that even Grim, who hardly ever shows more emotion than the proverbial red Indian in times of stress, looked serious.
And someone else arrived just then, who took no trouble to conceal his feelings. Aaron Cohen had himself announced by the Arab servant and followed him into the room without waiting for an invitation. He did not speak at first, but stood looking from one to the other of us with an expression on his face mixed of comedy and desperation.
“Nice way to bring a feller back to this place!” he said at last. “I went to the hotel and they wouldn’t let me in. Said they’d trouble enough in store without me. Gave me a fine talk, they did. Pogrom—that’s the name of it! Down at that hotel they’re saying all the Jews in Hebron will be dead before morning and they’re blaming me for it. What have I done?” He faced Grim and glared at him. “D’you call that acting on the level, to bring me back to this place when you knew what was in the air?”
“You’d never have reached Jerusalem alive,” said de Crespigny.
“Has that young feller been knifed?” asked Cohen, pointing at Jones on the couch. He was still spitting blood at intervals, so the question was excusable.
“Sit down, Cohen,” Grim answered. “You’re as safe here as anywhere at present. Will you have his bag brought in, de Crespigny? Now, Cohen, you didn’t start this trouble, but your talk brought it to a head. It’s up to us to smooth the thing out if we can, but it’s going to be no joking matter. I’m asking you to keep quiet and to help us if there’s an opportunity. Will you?”
“Sure, I’ll help,” said Cohen. “But what can I do?”
“Dunno yet,” Grim answered. “Captain de Crespigny’s in charge. We’ll see.”
CHAPTER II.
“These are two good boys.”
The Scots doctor’s prognostications were proven accurate sooner than expected. Rumor travels on swallow’s wings in that land and almost as soon as Cohen’s bag had been carried in there came a native policeman looking pallid under the bronze, who saluted precisely and then talked to de Crespigny and Jones with the familiarity of an old nurse to children.
“Word has come that the Jews in Jerusalem are massacring Moslems! Shall ten of us prevent the Moslems here from turning the tables on the Jews? Better let it be known at once that we intend to stand aside. Then let them get the business over with. Afterward will be the proper time to make arrests.”
He looked like a perfectly good policeman, but there had not been time enough yet to educate out of him Turkish notions of convenience.
“Who brought the news?” asked de Crespigny.
“He is outside.”
“Bring him in.”
A burly-looking ruffian with more white to his eye than sheer straightforwardness
