“Come away, Jimgrim; the place is bewitched!” Mahommed ben Hamza whispered.
But Jim was not satisfied until he had worked his fingers under the stone and lifted it to see what might be underneath. For the next three minutes he was busy killing about a dozen of the little deadly vipers that infest the plains of Palestine, using the kukri snatched from Suliman’s hand.
“What did I tell you?” grumbled Mahommed ben Hamza. “Did not I say it is bewitched?”
After that they crawled downhill, scouting extremely carefully because the moon shone on a smooth surface of sand where cactus and shadow were scant. At the foot of the long slope was a winding nullah, and there, because of the shadow, they dared stand upright. Mahommed ben Hamza led along it to a sandy amphitheater a quarter of a mile away, and stopped in front of one of those open tombs with which all Palestine abounds.
“There, that is the place.”
“Inside or outside?”
“We were to lay the loot inside.”
“Go in and see if the leper is in there now.”
“Allah forbid! Besides, Jimgrim, my bargain is finished. I was to lead to the place, that is all.”
“True.”
“Having kept my promise I am now free.”
“Gee, that was foolish of me! I ordered Narayan Singh to keep an eye on you, and then left him behind.”
“So now I go. Good-by, Jimgrim. Don’t shoot, for the dervish might hear—and besides you are my friend!”
“But if I catch you away from Hebron before I visit the place,” Jim answered, “you shall wish I had shot you, do you understand? After all, I think—perhaps—”
He drew his automatic and cocked it very deliberately; but Mahommed ben Hamza was out of sight among the shadows almost before the spring of the pistol clicked.
CHAPTER V
“Aye, father of reprimands, but where?”
Catesby and Narayan Singh waited interminably, watching the moon mount overhead and passing from mere impatient to restlessness to anxiety as more than an hour went by without any sign of Jim. Officer and enlisted man, Englishman and Sikh, they naturally kept their distance, each respecting the other’s prejudices; and they lay low for fear of scouting desert thieves. Once they heard a shot ring out somewhere in the direction of the camp, but that was nothing unusual since thieves had become so busy.
At last Narayan Singh crawled close to Catesby and with an upward jerk of his thumb toward the moon began to speak in that low voice which is so hugely better than a whisper.
“Sahib, I have orders to bring our Jimgrim back to Jerusalem alive!”
“What do you propose, Narayan Singh?”
“My orders to take care of him was from my own colonel, sahib. It is good to obey.”
“We’ll give him ten more minutes. If he doesn’t come then or send the boy for us we’ll try to find him.”
“Good.”
Narayan Singh spent most of the ten minutes examining his pistol and a long, keen knife that he carried under his tunic, arranging both so that he could reach them instantly with either hand. But there remained ninety interminable seconds.
“Let me see your pistol, sahib. I have known these automatics to jam. Sand in the fodder kills mules and horses, but I have seen officers die more quickly for lack of a man to detect sand in their pistol locks.”
Catesby laughed and handed the weapon over. It is only the raw subaltern who is too proud to be nursed by a war-wise enlisted man. Aware that his weapon was spotless clean, he was too wise to discourage the Sikh’s thoughtfulness.
“Now are the ten minutes not up?”
“Thirty seconds,” said Catesby, glancing at his wristwatch. “Pistol all right?”
“A little heavy on the pull. Is it a new one?”
“Yes.”
“Then take care to aim to the left, sahib, if it has to be used in a hurry. Now—?”
“Yes, come on.”
Catesby led, but only for the sake of form. Narayan Singh’s low voice from just behind did all the counseling.
“Jimgrim went first to the place where the shaitan (devil) danced. I saw him.”
The shadows were shorter now, and it was not so easy to keep cover and make rapid progress. On the hilltop they abandoned all effort to conceal themselves. Catesby stooped to examine the tombstone, and discovered some of the snakes that Jim had killed with the kukri. But Narayan Singh had seen them first.
“Beware, sahib! A snake dies slowly; cut in halves they can bite yet for an hour or two.”
He fidgeted until Catesby came away from them.
Now the moon proved friend as well as enemy, for the Sikh’s keen eyes picked up the trail Mahommed ben Hamza made in the sand, crossed once in a while by those of Jim and Suliman hurrying from bush to bush. But at the bottom of the long slope where the footsteps turned into the narrow wady they were confused by those of six or seven more men hurrying in single file in the same direction. In the one spot where the moonlight shone on the bed of the wady Narayan Singh stooped and scooped up a handful of earth. It was sticky. He beckoned Catesby into a hollow on one side of the track.
“Strike a match, sahib. Carefully! A match can be seen for miles. Thus—ah—blood it is, and almost warm—scarcely begun to harden.”
They both examined every inch of the ground for ten or fifteen yards.
“There was no fight in this place. Whoever bled got his punishment elsewhere. Perhaps they carried a wounded man—who can tell in this dim light? See—there is blood again, sahib. Shall we follow?”
There was nothing else they could do in the circumstances. It was surely contrary to all the rules of warfare, civilized or guerilla, for two men in the dark to stalk seven down a narrow, winding wady, around any turn of which the seven might wait and pounce on them.
But Catesby was no whit behind Narayan Singh in eagerness to serve his friend; and to turn back was unthinkable, for instance, as to let the Sikh go first into danger, even if his were the keenest eyes. There are prerogatives that no man willingly relinquishes. Catesby strode forward.
* * * * *
Fifty-four paces down the wady, by his own count, he tripped and nearly fell over an Arab corpse.
For a minute they took cover near the corpse and listened. Then Narayan Singh knelt beside it and his long, brown fingers searched swiftly. Someone had covered up the face with the headdress and bound the covering fast. He tugged it off.
“God be praised, it is not Jimgrim!” he growled. “The body is quite warm—not dead ten minutes.”
His fingers searched inside the clothes and presently found the “emergency exit” through which the man’s life had fled.
“He died by a bayonet, sahib. Come and feel. There is no mistaking that wound. Likely a Sikh did it, for the thrust forced the middle rib apart and broke the lower one. These