“What is your story then, about you and your sixteen working miracles?”
“That is different. That is the fire-gift that we won by entering the tomb of Abraham.”
“You’ve been using it by all accounts to stir up the city for a massacre of Jews.”
“Truly. Fire begat fire in men’s hearts. Shall it now put out the fire it lit?”
“Certainly.”
“Allah! Shi muhal! You speak in riddles, Jimgrim!”
“Not I. Tell your sons and grandsons to repeat their miracle tonight. You’d better go along and help them. See that you all do your best. Only, instead of proclaiming that the massacre should be tonight, you must announce that tomorrow is the great night.”
“And then?”
“Simply this—if a greater miracle than yours should take place tomorrow night, admit it. Confess that it is greater than yours and tell the crowd that it puts yours in the shade and makes the massacre inadvisable. In that way you’ll save the situation and your own reputation as well. Will you do that?”
”Taib.“
As the old man gave his consent, reluctantly and only half-convinced, there came the stuttering ram-or-Goddamn-you roar of a motorcycle from the direction of Jerusalem. It stopped before the gate and in a minute a dusty British corporal stood saluting in the door.
“Dispatch for Captain de Crespigny!” he announced, in the matter-of-fact voice of a postman delivering the mail.
“I’ll take it,” answered Grim.
CHAPTER IV.
“I feel like Pontius Pilate!”
Have you ever had an official dispatch passed to you to read, marked “SECRET,” that has been brought at sixty miles an hour by a grimy man on a motorcycle? It feels good, never mind what serious news it contains. Grim tore open the envelope, glanced at the single sheet and handed it to me; whereat I enjoyed all the sensations that attach themselves to unauthorized participation in events, all the thrills that come of reading tragic news—as if I were a spectator and not actor in a drama—and pride besides, because Cohen, of course, belonged to an inferior breed and might not read it.
“Any trouble on the way?” asked Grim.
“Nothing to speak of, sir. Fired at nine or ten times, but only one bullet through my tunic.”
“Think you can get back all right?”
“Have a try, sir. Sixty mile an hour’s a poor target. Gettin’ dark too.”
“Did you notice any signs of concerted action as you came along?”
“Can’t say I did, sir. I was comin’ that fast I didn’t dare tike me eyes off the road. Them what fired at me was snipers.”
Grim took the dispatch from me and handed it to Cohen. I had to recall deliberately that I liked Cohen. He read it in the manner of a dry-goods dealer opening the morning mail. What was worse, he read it aloud, destroying secrecy and ninety-nine percent of the Romance. What was the use of marking the thing “SECRET” in big black letters if it was to be treated like a newspaper, and in the presence, too, of the corporal who had risked his life to bring it? But the British are a strange race and Grim’s way with some of their conventions was even more surprising.
“‘Jerusalem,’” read Aaron Cohen, “‘is fairly well in hand.’ I suppose they mean by that the Moslems have quit knifin’ for twenty minutes to go an’ say their prayers! ‘Several Jews and Moslems have been killed and a considerable number of both sides wounded.’ You’ll notice there’s nothin’ about British officers an’ Sikhs. They ain’t a side; they’re on top! ‘All gates have been closed and a guard set on the ramparts.’ That’s to keep Jews from escapin’ while the Moslems do the dirty work! ‘There is no reliable news from Hebron and it is therefore assumed that all is well there.’ Say, ain’t that English for you! ‘The present moment is not favorable for sending detachments of troops, small or otherwise, to outlying places and it is therefore hoped that you will tide over the emergency without assistance.’ Hey! I’m going to remember that! That’s a pippin! Next creditor that writes me for something on account, I’m going to answer ‘the present moment is not favorable for sending remittances, small or otherwise, to out o’ town dealers, an’ it is therefore hoped—’ Oh, that’s a lallopolooser! ‘Word from you by bearer would be welcome, with any particulars that you think important.’ Can’t read his signature—looks like a G and an X and three Ws and a twiggly mark. Calls himself staff-major. I call him a genius! That man ‘ud be worth any firm’s money!”
He passed the letter back to Grim.
“Goin’ to answer it? Let me answer it! I bet you I’ll bring the Sikhs here in motor-trucks in two hours! What this Administration needs most is a course in business correspondence. Let me give him some particulars that I think important! I’ll tell him!”
Grim, signing himself as “acting in temporary absence of the governor,” wrote a few lines in a hurry and showed them to Cohen and me before he sealed them up.
Nothing unmanageable here yet, but when available a machine gun might be advisable for demonstration purposes. Expect to be able to carry on meanwhile without assistance, but advise that a company of Sikhs be sent as soon as possible.
—James Schuyler Grim.
“You might be an out-o’-town drummer askin’ the firm for samples!” was Cohen’s comment on that. “What that firm needs is orders—‘Send hardware quick by express and men to demonstrate!’”
“That’s all,” said Grim, handing the corporal the envelope; and the man saluted and was gone. Two minutes later the bark of his exhaust began echoing off the stone walls and in a minute more our last link with civilized force had vanished out of hearing.
Then, as the galloping explosions died in the distance the Governorate servant came in with the news that sixteen men were waiting at the gate. Grim told him to admit them and we went into the long hall to await their coming, sitting on a bench at the end like three kings on a throne, Grim, Cohen, and I, with Ali Baba standing like a lord high chancellor beside us.
They filed in one by one, mysterious and curious, peering this and that way in the deepening twilight, strangely heavy-footed in spite of a manner suggesting conspiracy, and not in the least at ease until Ali Baba spoke to them. I noticed that Grim was watching the old man narrowly; if a signal had passed I think he would have known it.
They were led by a giant—a bulky, bearded stalwart about forty years old, in a sheepskin coat that only half-concealed the heft of his shoulders. He wore a long knife in a sheath at his middle, but looked able to slay men, as Samson did, without it. The naked, hairy calf that showed for a moment through a slit in his saffron-colored smock was herculean with lumpy muscle, and he bowed to us with rather the air of a strong man favoring weaker brethren. But his smile—a streak of milk-white in the midst of glossy dark hair—was winning enough, for his brown eyes smiled too and were wide enough apart to look good-natured.
None of the rest was as tall as the first man, or as good-looking, although they were a magnificent gang and quite aware of it. They were used, those fellows, to the middle of the road and the deference the physically weaker pay to athletes who know their strength and value it. They seemed to own the earth they stood on.
There was a one-eyed man among them and one fellow much shorter than the rest, who made up for lack of inches by prodigious breadth and arms like a gorilla’s, reaching nearly to his knees. Almost the last to enter I recognized our old friend Mahommed ben Hamza, grinning good-humoredly as ever, and swaggering with all