Narayan Singh grew as nervous as a hen in the presence of snakes, for he foresaw how Grim’s star would surely wane from the moment any such woman as Ayisha should establish a claim on him; and he did not quite realize the full extent of Grim’s resourcefulness in making the most of a situation. Old Ali Baba’s advice, on the other hand, was just what he would have given to any of his sons.
“Let Ali Higg keep his wives within reach if he hopes to call them his! Wallahi! I would laugh to see the Lion of Petra tearing his clothes with rage for such a matter as this!”
And all the gang agreed.
Ayisha began to question Grim openly about his home and belongings. She wanted to know how many wives he had, and he told her none, which made her all the more determined. If he had affected squeamishness she would have despised him, and that would have been the end of her usefulness; for scorn is very close indeed to hate, and hate to spitefulness in the land where she was raised. But he did nothing of the sort. He was as frank as she was, and did his fencing, as you might say, with a club.
“The desert is full of women!” he told her on one occasion when she made more than usually open overtures.
“But not such as I am!”
“A woman’s heart lies under her ribs, and who shall read it?” he answered.
“A pig can read some things!” she retorted; for he always managed to keep just clear of the point where frankness might have merged into poetry.
Her own four armed attendants seemed to take the whole affair rather speculatively. She was probably in position to have them crucified on her return to Petra in case they should offer unacceptable advice. And it may be they would have looked favorably on the chance to transfer allegiance from Ali Higg to Grim, who had crucified nobody yet; as Ayisha’s servants they would doubtless go with her, should she change owners.
She asked me repeatedly for love potions, to be slipped into Grim’s food or into his drink, and was so importunate about it that, after consulting Grim, I gave her some boric powder. The next morning Grim told her that her eyes were like a young gazelle’s, so my reputation as a hakim rose several degrees.
“Is he mad?” growled Narayan Singh. “Ah, each man has his weakness! He and I have played with death a dozen times, but I never knew him lose his head. So he is woman-crazed? What next, I wonder!”
The girl had lots of encouragement, for, not counting the younger men, who were hell bent for any kind of mischief, and constantly egged her on, old Ali Baba spent half of each day in the tent expounding to Grim the ethics of such situations; and they were as simple as the code of Moses.
“Love thy neighbor’s wife if she will let you. Defeat thy neighbor in all ways whenever possible. On these two hang all amusement and prosperity.”
And Grim was much too wise to pretend to Ali Baba any other motive than expedience. It would not have paid to take the old rascal too much into his confidence, because most Arabs overplay their hand; but he did drop a hint or two; and from what he told me I should say it was Ayisha’s persistent love- making that provided the first suggestion of a plan in his mind for bringing Ali Higg to terms.
But I’m sure the plan did not really take shape until we reached the sun- baked railway-line that drags its rusty length behind wild hills all the way from Damascus down to Mecca.
Some say that the very steel of the rails is sacred because it was built to carry pilgrims to the Prophet’s tomb. But some say not. And those who lost the carrying trade on account of it, and the tribes that used to lie in wait in mountain-passes for the Damascus caravan in the month of pilgrimage, say distinctly not. Between these two opinions there is a third, that of the gentry who declare it is a curse, to be turned back on the heads of those who use it.
During four nights we climbed unlovely hills, avoiding villages—to the disgust of Ali Baba’s gang, who would dearly have loved to pick a quarrel somewhere and loot. They had a thousand excuses for taking another trail, declaring that Grim had lost the way or would lose it; that there was sweeter water elsewhere; or that the hills were not so steep and hard on the camels. But the moon was nearly full by then, and Grim seemed to carry a map of the district in his head.
Whether he went by guesswork, or really knew, we turned up finally a few miles from El-Maan at the exact spot he had aimed for, and pitched camp soon after dawn within fifty yards of the track. There was no water in that place and the gang grumbled badly; but it was not long before the reason of his choice was fairly obvious.
Tracks across the desert have a way of curving from point to point, no more following a straight course than the cow-paths do in other lands. Where there is a rock, or some peculiar conformation of the ground to attract attention, men and beasts will head for it, attracted somewhat after the fashion of a compass-needle by a lodestone or lump of iron.
There was a rock shaped like a flattened egg beyond the track, two or three hundred yards away from us. It stood all alone in a dazzling wilderness that was doubtless green at certain seasons of the year, but now was bone-dry and glittering with flakes of mica. Close beside that ran a track worn by camels and horses, and the shadow of that great rock in a weary land was plainly a halting-place.
Our men wanted to cross over and take advantage of the shade it would give as the sun climbed higher, but Grim refused to let them; whereat Ayisha went into a shrewish rage, and ordered her four men to take up her tent and pitch it over by the rock whether Grim permitted it or not. So they obeyed her, and Grim said nothing.
The rest of us set about cooking breakfast after the morning prayers were over. My prayer-mat was next Narayan Singh’s, and it was interesting to hear him curse the Prophet sotto voce while pretending to vie with those robbers in fervid protestations of faith in Islam. But more than the Prophet he cursed Ayisha, praying to his Hindu pantheon to wreak all wrath on her.
It was a diluted pantheon, of course, because he was a Sikh; he wasn’t able to call on as many animal-shaped gods with as many arms and teeth as a Bengali could have urged into action; but he did his best with the technical resources at his disposal.
Without pretending to be a judge of other men’s creeds, I thought at the time that he made a pretty workman-like hash of that lady’s prospects, so far as his particular formula could do it. I jotted down some of his suggestions to the gods for future reference, and purpose to teach them to the U.S. Army mule-skinners next time this country goes to war.
While we were eating breakfast in a circle in front of the tents, all sticking our right hands into a common mess-pan and eating like wolves —you have to be awfully careful not to use your left hand, and unless you eat fast you’ll get less than your share—there came five men on camels out of a wady—a shallow valley that lay like a cut throat with red rocks on its edge something over a mile away beyond the egg-shaped rock. They were armed—as everybody is in those parts who hopes to live —and in a hurry.
Ayisha and her people did not see them, because the great rock was in the way, but we left off eating to watch, and Grim went into his tent to use field-glasses without being seen. It is not unheard of for an Arab sheikh to use Zeiss binoculars, but it might make a stranger suspicious.
The five men came on at a gallop, sending up the dust in clouds like a cruiser’s smoke-screen. They seemed to take it for granted that we were friends, for we were in full view and far outnumbered them, yet they did not check for an instant, and that in itself was a suspicious circumstance.
They came to a halt ten yards away from Ayisha’s tent, and stared at her in silence, realizing, apparently for the first time, that they had come within rifle-shot of strangers. We could see her talking to them, but could not hear what she said.