Something takes place inside your tympanum, and you act or speak. If the grey stuff functions neatly, you say or do the right thing; then you’re a wise one. If it doesn’t, the temporary lessees of other sorts of cerebellums describe you afterwards as a fool or a poor fish, while someone cashes in on the insurance and the undertaker makes another entry in his ledger. So don’t put me down as a psychologist, for I’m only guessing when I say that keenness on the job has a lot to do with inspiration. To state a case with proper caution, “I’ve observed” that when you’re really keen to help another man you’re more likely to do the right thing than the wrong one, even in the dark.
“Have you heard about Jimgrim?” I asked him, and the question went straight as a bullet into the very centre of his perplexity. So I’m a wise one, even though I did shoot at a venture.
“Heard of him? May Allah change his face!” he snarled. “Aye, I have heard of him. What do you know of him? What is he doing, prowling the desert with twenty men, and sending me messages? They say he resembles Ali Higg, even to the wrappings on his neck. What is his purpose?”
“Tell me what message he sent you, and perhaps I can answer,” said I.
“He sent word to me at dawn today to run no risks, but to wait in this place until he shall speak with the Avenger. What does that mean?”
It obviously meant that the Lion of Petra pretending to be Grim (even as Grim was pretending to be the Lion of Petra) was venturing on the risky course of trading on Grim’s reputation. How he could hope to escape being recognized by the Avenger, whose face he boasted of having spoiled, was past imagining; but it was easy to understand why he should want to keep Ibrahim ben Ah inactive until he should have a chance to try the trick.
“What does his impudence mean?” Ibrahim repeated. But I am too old a bird to be caught airing my knowledge at the first request. Information, like hard cash, is for use, not squandering.
“Why didn’t you catch him and find out?” I asked.
“Wallahi! If I could have caught him I would have flayed the fool alive! I sent two-score men after him, but he was gone. Does the Lion know about him?” he asked with sudden suspicion. “Is Ali Higg employing him to make terms with the Avenger?”
But I hedged again. If I could keep Ibrahim ben Ah from deserting to the other side by stimulating doubt, that looked like good business.
“I am in the Lion’s confidence,” said I. “Tell me what you know of Jimgrim; then—dates in exchange for rice, camels for horses, sheep for wheat—if the trade looks good I will tell what I know in return.”
“Jimgrim,” he said slowly, speaking through his teeth, as a man does when he mentions sacrilege, or anything else that he detests, “is an Amiricani; an infidel, who has been to Mecca, to my knowledge, in disguise. He was useful to Feisul and Lawrence in the Great War, when we Arabs defeated the Turks, and the Allies took the credit and the plunder. He is a bold man, with the cunning of a hundred. And he once saved a day for Saoud the Avenger by getting camels for him when the Turks had captured most of the Avenger’s beasts.”
“So, if Jimgrim should get to the Avenger’s ear, he might listen on the score of friendship?” I suggested.
“Wallahi! That might be. The point is, what will Jimgrim say to the Avenger?”
I nodded; but I knew that wasn’t the point. If there was one dead certainty on earth, it was that the Lion of Petra, whether or not disguised as Grim, would never dare trespass into the Avenger’s camp, for fear of recognition and the inevitably gruesome death that would certainly follow. An Arab doesn’t dub himself “Avenger” and then forgive the mortal enemy detected in the act of tricking him. However, my job seemed to be to keep Ibrahim on tenterhooks.
“Jimgrim is in league with the Lion,” I said, quite truthfully. Following that, I drew hard on imagination. “Jimgrim’s plan is to take camels away from the Avenger for a change. There are men in the Avenger’s camp who will desert at Jimgrim’s bidding, driving off the camels with them.” And having known a little frankness on occasion to leaven a prodigious lot of lies, I added: “The Lion suspects you of intending treachery.”
“Allah!” he exclaimed, trying to cover up alarm with a display of indignation.
“By Allah, yes!” said I. “And if Jimgrim should return from Abu Lissan with a couple of hundred of the Avenger’s best men, it would fare badly with any traitor in this camp.”
At the word traitor the irascible old bandit made a motion as if to draw one of his weapons. But he thought better of it. Narayan Singh’s revolver was too obviously pointed straight, and my own pistol was equally in evidence.
The deuce of it was that, though we held him helpless for the moment, the situation was going to be reversed the moment we should try to escape. We could prevent his men from coming to his assistance easily enough, by threatening to shoot him unless he ordered them away again; but either we had got to sit there watching him until we all starved, or until the god of all improbabilities should produce Grim on the scene, or else I had got to take a one-in-a-hundred-thousand chance.
I took a silver five-piastre piece from the purse in the fold of my waist- cloth, and spun it in the air. It fell on the mat tails uppermost. The long chance had it.
“Will you sit here,” I said to Narayan Singh, “and keep the old bird company, while I take a turn outside.”
Ibrahim ben Ah did not understand a word of that, but he dropped his jaw at hearing me speak English. But surprise gave place to baffled anger as the Sikh answered me in Arabic.
“Surely. I will keep his honor company. Moreover, I speak for his honor Ibrahim, who will sit quietly, as becomes a courteous host, to wait for your return—seeing he is averse to having three holes shot through him with this revolver!” he added meaningly.
Ibrahim ben Ah said never a word. I don’t see what there was he could have said. Barring unforeseen contingencies, we had him corralled for the moment. I got up and left the tent with the notion first of all of finding out just how far Ibrahim’s intention of betraying Ali Higg had taken root among the men.
Seeing one come out leisurely where two had entered the men who happened to be watching drew no conclusions that troubled them. They lay under their improvised shelters, eyeing me with lazy interest, more curious than suspicious. There wasn’t any of that sullen look about them that most Easterns, and all African peoples, wear when they think of betraying their salt. It was a long shot—the longest I ever risked— but I made up my mind to behave as if I knew they were loyal to the last man to the Lion their master.
Don’t forget: I was dressed and shaven for the part of a darwaish —the politico-religious fanatic, who is privileged more or less to air his opinions on any subject, and whose person is theoretically sacred from assault. No theories are fool-proof, and no darwaish should strain his immunity too far, but he had privileges that are more likely to be respected by the ignorant than by their leaders. There was nothing outrageous, or even surprising, in my assumption of an air of superior wisdom and arrogance. Besides, coming straight out of Ibrahim’s tent, it was presumable that I had his authority for whatever I might say or do. They would reason that he would have ordered me to be beaten or murdered otherwise.
There was a big pile of flour-bags in the middle of the bivouac that made a first-class pulpit. I mounted it, with as much of an air of frenzy as a man of my temperament can assume without looking foolish, and stood glaring about me until curiosity brought most of them to their
