CHAPTER IX
“The butcha speaks wisdom.”
Catesby and Narayan Singh had no more matches; and Suliman had none, for they searched him. They tried to fathom the cave’s recesses in the dark, but gave that up as hopeless; even the Sikh’s eyes could not penetrate the Stygian darkness that began where the faintly reflected starlight ceased, a yard or two from the entrance hole.
So they climbed out, and with Suliman disconsolate on Narayan Singh’s knees held a consultation. Catesby, of course, began it.
“Which shall we do? Return to camp and report Major Grim missing, or hunt about and try to find him?”
But Suliman spoke next, being only a stickler for etiquette when he could score by it.
“I will not go back to camp! If that iblis has eaten Jimgrim, then Narayan Singh must kill the iblis and cut his belly open and let Jimgrim out.”
Catesby laughed, but Narayan Singh knew better. It is not only the children in that land who believe in goblin stories.
“If we go back to camp without him, sahib, half the camp will call us liars and the other half will believe henceforth all the tales about the iblis, and twice as many more tales of their own invention. Moreover, my orders are to bring that Jimgrim back to Jerusalem alive.”
“But where to look?” wondered Catesby.
There was cactus-covered sandy hill and dale in every direction. They might chance on footprints, but likely enough it would be easier and quicker work to follow rumor through Jerusalem city than such a trail by moonlight.
“Let us ask the butcha,” said Narayan Singh, preferring to be charged with talking nonsense rather than seem to rebuke an officer.
Etiquette in his case was something only to be broken in a pinch.
Catesby produced a cigarette, and swore, remembering he had no matches. Narayan Singh, with mutiny in mind if Catesby should insist on going back to camp, proceeded after a fashion of his own to draft a proposition.
“Now Suliman-jee, son of the warrior Rustum, how much have you learned from Jimgrim?”
“Everything.”
“That is a very great deal. Tell me some of it. Where would thieves sell loot, for instance?”
“In the suk (bazaar).”
“That might be. But if they feared to go into the suk, what then?”
“They might run away over the hills to Hebron.”
“In that case we cannot follow them tonight. But if they were going to the suk, would they go by night?”
“No.”
“Why not, father of ready answers?”
“They would be shot. None but thieves enter a town by night.”
“And if they had loot with them, would they wait to be caught with it?”
“They would bury it, or hide it somewhere.”
“And then—what then?”
“One or two would go into the town at daybreak. Later a cart would come, or a camel, or an ox; and the loot would be taken to the suk by daylight, covered up. That is how all the thieves behave.”
“Father of good scouting! And would they hide the loot on this side of the railway track, or beyond?”
“That is a foolish question. If they hid it on this side, whoever came afterward to fetch it would have to carry it across the track by daylight, and the track is always watched.”
“True, father of knavery! Whereas between the track and the town—?”
“Who would search a cart or a camel between the town and the railway line? The car leaves town and returns; that is nothing. It is carts and camels crossing the track that are always searched.”
“True. True. At night thieves could cross the track unseen—”
“Easily.”
“But they could not enter the town unseen. That is so. And if we should watch the open land between the railway and the town at daybreak, we might learn something. Do you hear him, sahib? The butcha speaks wisdom.”
Catesby yawned, and then laughed.
“All right, Narayan Singh. I see your mind’s set on not going back to camp. Suits me. Better a night in the open than a lame tale for General Jenkins! Besides, I like your kind of guts. Come on, we’ll head for the railway line.”
* * * * *
The Sikh carried Suliman, who promptly fell asleep with his head hanging downward over the stalwart shoulder like a dead sheep’s, swinging in time to the stride.
“That kid’s a nuisance,” Catesby commented. “However, I suppose he can’t be expected to wake up and walk in this sand, and we can’t leave him. I’ll carry him turn about with you.”
“Nay, sahib, it is nothing. Let him sleep. In the morning when he wakes he may serve a purpose.”
But full rations ever since Jim had rescued him from starving in the Jaffa Gate had filled out the boy’s stocky frame, and it was no easy matter to carry him for mile after mile across that loose desert land. Even when they came to cultivation the going was still heavy, and Catesby took his turn, wondering after five minutes of it at the Sikh’s endurance.
They had to put the boy down, and wake him, and make him walk when they neared the railway because, being in Arab costume, they were certain to be fired at unless they took cover and watched their chance. Finally, after slinking for half an hour among long shadows, they crawled through a culvert and emerged on the far side without being challenged, although two Gurkas on patrol passed within ten yards of where they hid.
Within three hundred paces of them, then, was a cluster of ruined buildings, shot to pieces in the war and never since rebuilt, but patched here and there as if someone had tried to make them habitable. In the moonlight, they looked like a medieval castle with its upper story gone, for part of what might have been the keep reared jagged and broken above the rest.
“What is that place, sahib?” asked Narayan Singh.
“Nothing much. It used to be an Arab village with a mosque in the middle. Our guns shelled it, and most of it was burned. That tower you see is all that’s left of the minaret. Nobody uses the place now.”
“Hah!”
The Sikh’s one monosyllable suggested a world of reservations rather than assent.
“That place’ll be full of lice and bedbugs,” Catesby warned.
“Aye, and these days the peace have made us fat, sahib. They will have good feasting! The top of that broken tower is the place from which to watch.”
“Come on, then. Let’s get bitten.”
But it was not easy to reach the buildings without risking being seen by sentries on patrol, and they had to crawl under cover of a ridge of sandy earth that held more thorns and insects to the square yard than a brush has bristles. Then a pariah dog smelled them and yelped to the pack, and for five minutes they were the center of abominable noise.
They did not dare shoot, any more than the curs dared come close enough to be killed with a stick. Throwing lumps of dirt and sticks only increased the yelping;