“Did you ever see a lamb act gaoler to a she-wolf ?” she asked; and at that it was the Sikh’s turn to roar with laughter.
“Man, woman, or child, you are the first who called me a lamb!” he answered. “Blood of Allah, but that is a good one!”
Like most Sikhs, he thoroughly despises the Moslem creed, and made up for having to pretend to be a follower of the Prophet by using the most atrocious oaths. They even set Jael Higg’s teeth on edge, and she was no mealy-mouthed Puritan.
“I’ll set no watch on you, Jael,” Grim went on. “It’s up to you whether you ride straight or not. My game must be pretty obvious. I’m going to pretend I’m Ali Higg. Ibrahim ben Ah, or any of those hundred and forty, would detect me in a second if they saw me by daylight, or even at close quarters in the dark. So what I want you to do is to maneuver them according to orders that I’ll send you by messenger from time to time. They’re plenty used to obeying you, and there’ll be no trouble if you’re so minded. You’ll bear me out that first and last I’ve done nothing to discredit you with Ali Higg, or your men either. Now which is it to be?”
“What’s your plan?” she asked. And I took that for a good sign. If she had intended treachery, she would almost certainly have agreed first and asked for particulars afterwards.
“We’ve got to make the Avenger person believe we’re stronger than we are, and force a guarantee from him, too. I guess you’ve never studied the Duke of Wellington? You’d better do it, Jael, if you hope to succeed at your business. He claimed that he beat Napoleon by not having cast-iron plans. He said, if I recall it right, that the plans of either side were like their mule harness. Napoleon’s mules were all turned out perfectly with fine, strong leather harness; but when the leather busted they couldn’t fix it; and so with their plan of campaign. But the Iron Duke’s mule-harness was all ropes and string; when any part gave out they tied a knot in it and went on. Same with his plan of campaign. Same with mine. I’ve got a good general idea of what to do, but it’s no part of my method to spoil prospects by being too darned definite in advance. You see, if you’ve a tight-drawn plan the enemy can find it out and run a spike into it. I’ve got all this Abu Lissan country in my head, because one of my jobs during the War was to make a map of it. I’ll pass you the word from time to time where to go, where to hide, where to show yourselves, and what to do next; and if you keep your men in hand I think I can guarantee there won’t be one casualty.”
“And you’ll leave me free to return to Petra afterwards?” asked Jael.
“Why not?”
“With all my men?”
“Sure, if they care to follow you.”
“Very well,” she answered. “You’re a fool, James Grim, but I think you’re honest. There’s no such fool as an honest one! I’ll play your game this once. But I give you warning: if you lose it, I’ll leave you in the lurch; and if you win, that’s the end of it and we cry quits. Thereafter, if I ever get you in my power don’t count on my forgiveness! You had your last chance of making a friend of me when you turned down my offer.”
“Sure,” he answered, “I can sympathize with your personal feelings.”
“A cent for your sympathy!” she snapped, and I think she was on the verge of tears, although she was too proud, and too much a termagant to let them fall.
“Suppose you go and sleep, Jael,” he suggested. “We’ll all need our wits tomorrow morning.”
She rose without answering, started for the stepping-stones that led down into the bed of the fiumara, and turned again suddenly.
“What about the woman Ayisha?” she demanded. “Am I to be saddled afterwards with her? I warn you—
Grim laughed and shook his head.
“I allow she’d be more nervous about that than you,” he answered. “No. I won’t saddle you with her. Good night, Jael.”
She didn’t answer, but dropped down into the darkness, finding her footing with the nimbleness and lack of hesitation that typified her mental qualities by which she had established a position in the desert.
As soon as she had gone Grim turned to Narayan Singh and me.
“It hardly seems fair, you fellows,” he said, smiling. “You’re sleepy and tired as I am. But tomorrow I’ve got to have my brains awake or we’ll all go fluey. You’ve got to stand watch tonight between you, and no argument. Better stay up here, where you can get a good view all around. My tent is that one beside the big boulder in the fiumara bed; if anything happens, don’t yell, but throw rocks until I wake and come and join you. You’ll be so ‘all in’ by tomorrow that you’ll be able to sleep on camel-back. Good night, I’m off!”
“Nevertheless, our Jimgrim has a plan all cut and dried,” said Narayan Singh, as soon as Grim was out of earshot. “Only he knows that that she-wolf is the enemy, and will not risk telling her. Moreover, he said stand watch between us. There was nothing about being both awake at once. Have you a coin, sahib? I have only nine piastres and the Prophet of these people couldn’t tell the head from the tail of any one of them. Let us take four-hour watches, turn and turn, and toss to see who sleeps first.”
“I’ll toss you,” said I, “but let’s take half-hour turns. It’s easier to keep awake for thirty minutes than four hours.”
He agreed to that, so I spun a coin, and won the first spell of sleep. Maybe I’m an expert. At the end of six or seven seconds he awoke me, and swore he had allowed me several minutes more than half an hour. Then he took a turn, and when I shook him awake he vowed I wasn’t playing fair.
“Sleeping or waking, I know the length of a second and a half!” he grumbled. But I showed him the watch. When he accused me of having moved the hands I showed him how the shadow of the moon had traveled, and demanded time out, in the bargain, to compensate for the minute we had wasted arguing. It was like a game of cat-naps.
All the same, however short the snatches of sleep seemed, I’m convinced that in circumstances like that short turns are always best. Anything may happen in the night, and it’s better then that each should have slept a little than that one should have had four hours, say, and the other none. Events proved that I was right in that instance, anyhow.
CHAPTER V
“May you deal with your enemies like iron, even as you deal with me.”
We took turns until midnight, when the moon, a day or two past full, was almost overhead, bathing the desert with honey-colored light in every direction. The desert is more full of night sounds than a forest, if you listen intently enough, for the sand creeps musically and there is no rustling of trees to cover up the infinitely tiny noises of the lesser prowlers. After ten minutes or so of sitting motionless a hyena becomes a lumbering rowdy, a jackal a clumsy clod-whalloper, and a mouse seems to make as much noise as a man. But when a man moves, all is instant silence by comparison.
I was making the most of one of my short turns of sleep when Narayan Singh awoke me by the practical expedient of laying his right hand across my mouth. I deduced that he did not want me to swear out loud; so I bit his finger pretty sharply to prove I was awake, and lay and listened.
There was something moving sure enough, and it wasn’t an animal. The sound was too irregular and stealthy for that of any creature with a right to be at large. It was a human, trying not to attract attention—than which there is nothing more compelling of attention in the whole wide world, unless you are one of those folk who live forever in the cities with their ears and eyes shut.
As I lay I could see Narayan Singh sitting absolutely motionless, shrouded