De Crespigny did not hesitate. He vaulted on to the wall, stood on it for a minute to judge the number of the crowd and get a bird’s-eye view of what was happening on its outskirts, then sat down on the wall facing them, with his feet hanging on a level with their breasts. They could have seized him easily. A fool would have stood up and tried to look dignified out of reach.
“Now, don’t all speak at once,” he began. “What do you want?”
Of course they all did speak at once, at the top of their lungs for the most part and he waited until the tumult died.
“Suppose one or two of you speak for the rest,” he suggested at last.
A burly man of middle age took that duty on himself and de Crespigny had to draw his legs up, for the men in front were crushed tight against the wall by those behind who wanted to hear better. So he set his feet on the shoulders of the men beneath him and they seemed rather to like it.
“We are told that the Jews in Jerusalem are murdering our co- religionists!”
“I’ve heard that story too,” said de Crespigny. “If it’s true, it’s bad.”
“Give us rifles, then! We are going to Jerusalem to help our friends!”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. The military might mistake your motive; then there’d be an accident. Let’s find out the truth first; I’m as keen to know it as you are. Tell you what: the wire’s down, so I can’t phone, but see those two camels. Why don’t you choose two men whose word you can depend on, let them take those camels, and bring back word? I’ll write a pass that will get them by the guard outside Jerusalem; and I’ll give them a letter asking the authorities to let them see what’s happening. How about it?”
The sweet reasonableness of that offer was too much even for their fanaticism, but there were men at the back of the crowd to whom it did not appeal for various reasons—the chief of them, no doubt, that it postponed the hour of looting.
“Ali Baba ben Hamza is in the jail on a Jew’s complaint!” they yelled. “Let him out! Give him back to us!”
“Certainly not!” laughed de Crespigny. “I’ve had most of you in the jail at one time or another! Which of you was ever jailed unfairly? Ali Baba ben Hamza stays in until he’s had a fair trial. Anything else?”
“How do we know the Jews in the jail haven’t killed him already?”
“You know quite well I’d never let them. There are only three Jews in the jail, and Ali Baba has a cell to himself. However—choose a committee of five or six of you, and I’ll issue a permit for the committee to visit him and make sure.”
“Let him out! Let him out!”
“Certainly not! Choose your committee if you want to. But you’re wasting time. Send two men to Jerusalem on the camels and bring us all back that news.”
“Kill him!” yelled some one from behind, but no other voice repeated it and the man who had made the suggestion was elbowed further to the rear. De Crespigny pretended not to have heard.
“I could recognize that fellow again,” said I.
“Never mind him,” Grim answered.
“You’d all better go away now and wait in your homes until the camels get back,” said de Crespigny. “I’ll see the head- men inside the city in the mejliss (council) hall half an hour from now. Take care that all the head-men come! Who are going on the camels? What are their names?”
It did not take them a minute to choose delegates, for among Arabs there never seems any doubt as to which man’s evidence is to be preferred before that of others. De Crespigny took their names, vaulted off the wall, and went into the house to write a pass for them. Before he returned with it the crowd had already begun to disperse, relieving the pressure so that he could open the gate this time and go out among them. The pass was written in English for the benefit of British sentries, but he read it aloud to the nearest men, translating into Arabic to satisfy them that they were not being tricked; and the moment the camel-men were off the crowd went too, in the opposite direction. They seemed to have forgotten about Ali Baba ben Hamza in the jail.
“That gives us eight hours’ breathing space at all events,” de Crespigny laughed when we rejoined him in the room downstairs. “Next question is what to do with it. I’ll interview the head-men presently and use strong language, but what after that?”
“Stage a side-show,” Grim answered.
“Easy to say, but what? How?”
“Suppose we call that my end?” Grim suggested.
“All right, sir. That’ll suit me.” De Crespigny turned to Jones. “How’s the jaw now? I think perhaps you’d better show yourself in the city. Walk about the place and show them we’re not panicky; it’ll do our policemen as much good as anyone to see we’re cool and on the job. How many men are on guard outside the jail?”
“Three.”
“Take one away. Tell the other two they’re such fine fellows that two’s plenty. Let the third man walk through the streets behind you, it’ll do his guts good. I’ll stroll about too, after I’ve seen the head-men. Meet here for dinner, eh? Leave you to your own devices, I suppose?” he added, smiling cheerfully at Grim.
“Yes. I shall visit the jail first. So long.”
Cohen heaved a huge sigh as de Crespigny and Jones walked out.
“Eight hours, eh? Well, that’s something! But why, if two o’ them knifers can go to Jerusalem on camels, can’t some other feller go and ask for troops? What this place needs is Sikhs—lots of ‘em, with the corks off the end o’ their bayonets! Why not indent for a regiment quick an’ lively?”
“Because,” Grim answered slowly, “they’ve plenty to worry them just now in Jerusalem without our adding to it. The troops at Ludd are being held in readiness to go elsewhere and all the men in Jerusalem are hardly enough to keep order. If we can’t handle this without the Sikhs, we’re ‘it,’ that’s all.”
“And you’re going out? And him? He going with you? I’m to sit alone in this place? What d’you take me for?”
“A man.”
“Say; I’ll go with you to the jail!”
“Uh-uh! Jews indoors just now! If the Arabs were to fall foul of you and draw blood, there’d be no stopping them. Sit here and read. You’ll be all right.”
I felt strong sympathy for Cohen. Perhaps what Grim had said of him while we were on the way had something to do with that, but I think I would have liked him in any case, not being one of those unfortunates so prejudiced that they loathe Jews simply because there was once a man named Judas. There were and are others.
Grim was obviously working him thoughtfully, no doubt in order to bring to the top the particular quality or mood he then had use for—that being Grim’s way. I have never known him try to convert a man, or waste much time on futile argument; so far as I have been able to analyze Grim’s method from close study of it, I should say he accepts the world exactly as he finds it and then looks keenly for something he can use. He invariably seems to find it somewhere in the heap, although not by any means always on top.
“Doin’ things is easy,” Cohen grumbled. “Sittin’ still expectin’ things to happen is what eats you.”
“All the same, sit here,” Grim answered. “There’ll be plenty for you to