“This side your village, then, all this day until sundown, none of your people venture.”
“But our camels go to graze that way.”
“Not this day. Today yours graze to the eastward.”
“There is poor grazing to the eastward.”
“Nevertheless, whoever ventures to the westward all this day does so in despite of me, and the village pays the price!”
“Allah!”
“Let Allah witness!” answered Grim.
And his face was an enigma; but half the puzzle was already solved because there was no suggestion of weakness there. It was the best piece of sheer bluffing on a weak hand that I had ever seen.
“Will Your Honor not visit my town and break bread with me?” asked Mahommed Abbas.
“If I visit that dung-hill it will be to burn it,” Grim answered. “Send me out that black-faced liar and the Bishareen. I am not pleased to wait long in the sun.”
“If we obey the command do we not merit Your Honor’s favor?”
That was a very shrewd question. A weak man with a weak hand would have walked into that trap by betraying the spirit of compromise. On the other hand an ordinary bluffer would have blundered by overdoing the high hand.
“Consider what is known of me,” Grim answered. “How many have disobeyed me and escaped? How many have obeyed and regretted it? But by the beard of Allah’s Prophet,” he thundered suddenly, “I grow weary of words! What son of sixty dogs dares keep me waiting in the desert while he barks?”
Mahommed Abbas did not like that medicine, especially in front of all his men. But they had ceased circling long ago and were waiting stock-still at a respectful distance; for the name of Ali Higg meant evidently more to them than the honor of their own sheikh—which at best depends on the sheikh’s own generalship. It was a safe bet that if he had called on them to attack that minute they would have declined.
So he gave the dignified Arab salute, which Grim deigned to acknowledge with the slightest possible inclination of the head, and led his men away.
“What would you have done if he had called your bluff?” I asked Grim, as soon as they were all out of earshot.
“Dunno,” he said, smiling. “I’ve learned never to try a bluff unless I’m pretty sure of my man. That guy doesn’t own many chips. As a last resort I’d have to admit I’m a government officer—if they hadn’t killed us all first!”
We sat our camels there for about three quarters of an hour before half a dozen of Mahommed Abbas’ men appeared with Rafiki’s messenger riding the Bishareen between them. His face when they handed him over was the color of raw liver, and if ever a man was too scared to try to escape it was he. Ali Baba’s two sons got one on either side of him without making him feel any better, for he too was a Hebron man and knew them and their reputation. There was nothing improbable about their throwing in their lot with the greater robber Ali Higg.
Then the sheikh’s men tried to load gifts on Grim—chickens, a live sheep, melons, vegetables, and camel milk in a gourd. Grim did not even deign to acknowledge them in person, but made a gesture to Narayan Singh, who promptly took charge of the prisoner himself and sent Ali Baba’s sons back for the presents. They had the good grace to find fault with everything, vowing that the sheep especially was only fit for vultures. However, with a final sneer or two anent the donor’s manners they bore sheep and all along behind us back to camp.
“Is it well?” called Ali Baba, watching on the ridge of a dune, and coming to life like a heron as soon as we drew near.
“All’s well,” said Grim.
“Father of cunning! What now?” the old man answered.
* To call anyone an Egyptian is an Arab’s notion of a perfect insult.
* A synonym for Allah.
* What?
* This is strange!
CHAPTER 5
“Let that mother of snakes beware”
The terms that Grim had imposed on Abbas Mahommed were perfectly well understood by everyone concerned. The Arab is an individualist of fervid likes and dislikes and the thing that perhaps he hates most of all is to be observed by strangers; he does not like it even from his own people. So there was nothing incomprehensible, but quite the reverse, about that requirement that none from the village should trespass in our direction all that day. And, of course, only a bold robber conscious of his power to enforce them would have dared to insist on such terms. But it was a good thing that Mahommed Abbas did not call the bluff.
As it was, we slept all morning undisturbed, with only four watchers posted, relieved at intervals of one hour. And the only disturbance we suffered was from the lady Ayisha, who insisted that the black-faced prisoner was hers, camel and all, and that he should be taken to Petra for summary execution. She threatened Grim with all sorts of dire reprisals in case he should let the man go.
But setting every other consideration aside the man would have been dangerous company on the journey. He was putting two and two together in his own mind, and was not nearly as frightened as he had been. But in Hebron he could do no harm, for once the Dead Sea should be behind us it would not matter how many people knew of Grim’s errand, since we should travel faster than rumor possibly could across the desert.
But if he should get one chance to talk with the lady Ayisha’s men, and even cause them to suspect that Grim might be in league in some way with the British authorities, it would be all up with our prospect of deceiving folk in future. There was danger enough as it was that one of Ali Baba’s men might make some chance remark that would inform Ayisha or her escort.
Grim decided finally to let the man escape and gave Narayan Singh and me instructions how to do it. But first he satisfied Ayisha by giving loud orders to everyone to watch the man, and by telling her that he didn’t care what she did with him after we reached Petra. Then, late in the afternoon, when Mujrim had rounded up the camels, a dispute was intentionally started about an old well, and whether a good trail to the southward did not make a circuit past it. The prisoner was asked, and he said he knew the well. Grim called him a father of lies, which he certainly was, and sent him off on the worst of the camels between Narayan Singh and me to prove his words. Ali Baba kept the Bishareen.
He led us a long way out into the desert among lumpy dunes in which the salt lay in strata, and where no sweet-water well could possibly be, or ever could have been. It was pretty obvious that all he wanted was a chance to escape from us, and he began offering bribes the minute we were out of sight of the camp.
The bribes were all in the nature of promises, however. He hadn’t a coin or a thing except the clothes he wore, Ali Baba’s gang having attended to that thoroughly.
“The wool-merchant—my master—is a rich man,” he urged. “Let me go and he will be your friend for ever after.”
“We have no need of friends,” Narayan Singh answered. “This man and I, being spies in the government service, on the other hand, are men whose friendship is of value. You can serve us in a certain matter.”
“Then give me money!” he retorted instantly. “He who serves the government nowadays receives pay.”
“The way to receive pay,” said I, “is to take this letter to the governor of Hebron, who will then know that a certain man is pretending to be Ali Higg. Thus you will do the government a great service, and may receive the difference