“And, Jimgrim, this Ludd must be an evil place, although I like the mules and horses and dogs and men and everything.”
“Well, what’s the matter with it, then?”
“There is an iblis.”
“A devil, is there? What does the devil do?”
“He is captain of the thieves. He dances at night in the hills, and the thieves bring him what they steal. He is abras.”
“A leper is he? Have to start to P.M.O. on his trail.”
“No. They say the chief doctor is afraid of him.”
“Why?”
“Because besides being abras he is mukaddas.”
“Holy, eh?”
“He is a derwish (dervish). They say he bewitches men by dancing, and after that the sentries can’t see to shoot them or kill them with bayonets. I am afraid of the iblis Jimgrim. You will have to let me sleep inside your tent, because it is too dangerous outside under the sky.”
“Tell me some more about the iblis. What is his name?”
“They say he has no name.”
“Where does he live?”
“Nowhere—that is, everywhere! He comes and goes—first men see him in one place, then in another. They say he wears no clothes except a turban, and has beastly great marks of leprosy all over him. They say that if a soldier sees him, he can never shoot straight again, and when a man touches him, that man dies within the day. Oh, Jimgrim, suppose he should come in the night!”
Jim sat down on the “deckchair, officer’s one” provided by a thoughtful War Office, and grinned.
“You’ve given me the right idea, youngster. Just for gambling you shall investigate this iblis.”
“Allah forbid! I would not even go with you to look at him!”
“All right. Then you shall wear girl’s clothes for a year.”
“Aib! Ana bkul la! (Shame! I say no!) Rather I will promise never to gamble again.”
“You’ve promised before. You have gambled again. Now you’ve got to choose—forward like a man to find the iblis, or a girl’s clothes for twelve months.”
“I could run away to some village, Jimgrim. You would never find me.”
“Suit yourself.”
“When you were my age, Jimgrim, would you have gone to look for an iblis?”
“Sure.”
“Kizzab mutkarbik! (You are a big liar!)”
“I hunted one before I was your age and found it was made of a pumpkin, a beanpole and a sheet.”
“That was only an American devil. This is a Palestine one. They are much worse.”
“Nothing’s bad unless you’re afraid of it,” said Jim.
“Not gambling? I am not afraid of that.”
“But you’re afraid of the consequences—girl’s clothes for a year.”
Suliman stamped his foot and swore a steady stream of brimstone Arabic.
“Remember, you’re only allowed ten swears a day!”
“I am a man! I will not wear a girl’s clothes!”
“You’ll find the iblis is a man when you lay hold of him.”
“How can that be?”
“That’s for you to find out.”
At that moment Narayan Singh arrived silently, and saluted in the tent door.
“All the camp is by the ears about a shaitan (devil), sahib. He is said to make thieves invisible and to cast a spell on soldiers so that they can never shoot or stab straight.”
“So I hear.”
“They say he may not be hunted because Moslems think his person is sacred. They say, too, he is a leper; yet the medical officer may not arrest him for the same reason. Yet some say he is captain of the thieves. Shall we two take him in hand?”
“Sure. First thing.”
“Does your honor want him alive? What if I put his sacredness to the test with a bullet?”
“Better investigate him first; there may be others. Be ready to come with me after dark.
“Atcha, sahib. Shall I place Suliman with friends who will look after him?”
“La! (No)” yelled Suliman. “I am a better man that any Sikh! I tell you I go too!”
CHAPTER III
“Now I won’t hear a word from you against Jenkins—not one word!”
From a cursory inspection of that camp, such as any ordinary visitor might give it, the impression would have been gained that Brigadier-General Jenkins was supreme. That was because his brigade command chance to lie nearest to the station, and his notion of the only way to achieve success in life was through advertisement.
Like many a commercial upstart of the type that he admired, advertisement had done a lot for him, and presently turned his head. To carry the metaphor further, he was becoming “overextended,” pyramiding “futures” on the sudden profits of a chancy past. There were others than the administrator in Jerusalem aware of his ambition and the meager grounds for it.
For instance, there was Major-General Anthony V.C. etc., in supreme command at Ludd, whom the public had hardly ever heard of because he cared to serve his country only, not himself. Jim found him in his shirt sleeves in the great marquee that overlooked the whole camp from rising ground at the rear.
“Glad to see you, Grim. Sit down. General Kettle was here this morning. He gave you some orders himself, I believe?”
“I’ve apologized already.”
“Good. You’re in my bad books, though. I was absent in Egypt when that TNT was lost. That gave Jenkins a chance to shift the blame, and he made the most of it. Now, thanks to your recovering the stuff and your block-headed idiocy in falling foul of him, Jenkins gets a new lease.
“Between you and me, Grim, he is one of those—politicians. Friends in the War Office, you know, and all that kind of thing.
“There seems no way of getting rid of him. He reached his present eminence by being recommended for promotion by one C.O. after another, who couldn’t endure him by didn’t want to quarrel with his powerful friends.
“His career is one long story of innocent fellows punished or broke to hide his shortcomings. Now, thanks to your infernal hot temper, he looks like breaking poor young Catesby, who’s an efficient young officer.
“You’re the logical man to have followed up that TNT business. You had it in hand and were successful beyond expectation. If you’d held your idiotic tongue, instead of telling Jenkins what you thought of him, I could have turned you loose down here, and what with his dislike of you and your brains I don’t doubt he’d have tripped himself out of the Army in a week or