“Who but a son of a pig and a snake would dream of pulling me from a camel?” he stormed at them. “Who but the offspring of asses and thorns would suspect three men in such a place, riding straight forward, as possible enemies? Are ye the Avenger’s men? Wallahi, he is well served! What will he say when he learns that his invited guest has been put to this indignity by the sons of his dung-hill-builders in the dark under his very walls?”
They were impressed, but still suspicious. They asked him for further information, and he gave it:
“Ye shall be crucified to the last man! Ye shall be flayed and beaten! Ye shall be cast to the kites, without a grave between the lot of you for the jackals to come and desecrate! Who am I? By Allah! Take me to the Avenger, and ask him who I am! Hear what he says, ye sons of promiscuous mothers!”
Whatever his generalship in the field, he knew those ropes all right. They gave him back his camel, and us ours as a natural corollary. They apologized. They begged a blessing from him to offset the curses he had showered so liberally. They promised him protection as far as the Avenger’s door, and implored him to say a kind word for them to their tyrannical master.
Neither Narayan Singh or I said one word during the whole interlude, which I dare say cost us ten valuable minutes, but introduced us without further trouble to the Avenger’s front door. They gave us a guard of a dozen men, who rode before us shouting to the watchers on the walls to hold their fire; and the only opposition we encountered entering Abu Lissan was the snarling of about a hundred scavenger dogs that made enough noise to deafen you.
Ibrahim ben Ah was so careful to ride first, and so short with me when I called out to ask whether he had been hurt in any way when they dragged him from his camel, that I began to suspect him of contemplating treachery. We were going to be hard put to it in that case to find a way of putting through Grim’s plan, to say nothing of the individual risk to Narayan Singh and me. But it was too late then to stop and catechize him, and we rode in through a dark hole that might have been a gap in a wall, or a gate, or the mouth of hell itself, for all you could see of it. There were men on guard there, for we could hear them; and your nose informed you that the dogs hadn’t attended to the sanitation any too efficiently. A backward glance at those reassuring fires of ours was the only comfort to be had.
There wasn’t any reason that looked substantial just then why Ibrahim ben Ah should even regard as treachery the betrayal of Narayan Singh and me. True, he had eaten salt with Grim, not under duress, before witnesses, and likely had too high an opinion of himself to overlook that. But Narayan Singh and I were in different case. We had submitted him to violence, deprived him of his liberty, and—although we had been at pains to save his face for him before his own men—we hadn’t spared his private feelings much on that occasion. He had eaten no salt with us two— an omission for which I felt inclined to blame Grim in the circumstances.
People who attach such high importance to the ceremony are always splitters of fine hairs when it comes to interpreting the spirit of agreements. He might easily consider it within his privilege to denounce us, while going through the farce of loyalty to Grim.
So I did a thing I have often done in advance of awkward situations. I put my pistol out of sight. If Ibrahim ben Ah intended treachery, then I also had a right to my intentions. If any effort should be made to disarm me, I proposed to hand over my rifle, bandolier and knife without any argument. Thereafter, whatever else might happen subsequently, Ibrahim ben Ah was going to get one nickel-coated bullet through the brain.
I would have liked to caution him, as a matter of fair play. But as that would have called his attention to the fact that I had hidden the pistol, it was out of the question. Besides, it was wholly up to him. He was in no kind of danger from me as long as he behaved himself.
I got a chance to whisper to Narayan Singh as we rode through the stinking, narrow streets; but there wasn’t much that I could teach that man about taking care of himself. He had already hidden his revolver.
“If I am to die in this ill-smelling hole, the Avenger and some of his men will journey with me into the beyond, in addition to Ibrahim ben Ah!” he answered.
We halted in front of a stout wooden door set deep in a solid wall; and evidently word had gone ahead of us, for we were admitted without a moment’s delay, and were led up two flights of rickety stairs to a flat roof. The men who had brought us wanted to come, too, but were driven down from the roof by three of the Avenger’s staff with a storm of mixed invective and reproaches.
The Avenger, armed to the teeth, was sitting near the centre of the roof on a big chest covered with a rug. There was a lantern on a chair nearby that showed his features clearly, and the first thing that struck me about him was that he was handsome, and not ill-natured.
The scar, of which Ali Higg had boasted as having spoiled his face, was there, but not nearly so prominent as I expected. Perhaps three inches long, it crossed his right cheek as far as the nose; and though the cartilage of his nose seemed to have been severed, he had either had good luck or else the services of a skillful surgeon, for it had healed pretty neatly.
For the rest, he was a dark-bearded man of middle height, with dark, lustrous eyes and splendid shoulders, who sat upright, with no apparent tendency to take things easy. He had a carved silver cigarette-box on the rug beside him, but no water-pipe; and though his dress was of fine material, there was no display of jewelry—no effeminacy. His hands were strong and well-shaped, moving deliberately without unnecessary twitching of the fingers.
“Salamun alaik!” said Abrahim ben Ah bowing, very dignified.
He murmured something in reply, and asked why we had brought our weapons.
”Who should take them from us? I am Ibrahim ben Ah, commander of the camel-corps of Ali Higg, the Lion of Petra.”
“Do you come in peace?”
“I come under the rules of warfare, relying on your honor’s honor. I come as a friend, if may be; but if my words find no approval, I shall ask permission to return as I came, unmolested.”
The Avenger bowed his head slightly.
“Be seated. No, not in front of me; sit this way. There, now tell me what that means.”
He did not point; in fact, he made no unnecessary gestures. He nodded in the direction of our bonfires in the distance, and I decided that I liked him; there was something fine and manly about his bearing and whole attitude. The members of his staff were watching us from the stair-head with fingers on their triggers; but after that first question about our weapons the Avenger himself never referred to them again, nor acted as if he was aware of them.
“Who laid those fires?” he demanded.
“The Lion of Petra’s men,” said Ibrahim ben Ah.
“How many men has he, then?”
“By Allah, I haven’t counted.”
“He has received a reinforcement?”
“Behold! Surely a reinforcement!”
“Whence?”
“God give your honor long life. I am not allowed to say.”
“Malaish. From El-Kerak, I suppose, or possibly El-Maan. What have you come for?”
“Inshallah, to talk peace.”
“Peace? Why peace, with such an army at your back? Peace is it, or treachery?”
“Your honor has favored me more than once with overtures by messenger. Your honor invited me to cross over with all my men and take service under you.”
“You propose to do that?”
“God forbid! I have eaten the Lion’s salt. Nevertheless, I am not your honor’s enemy. It was fitting in the circumstances that I should carry offers of peace.”
The Avenger glanced once, swiftly, at Narayan Singh and me.
“Why