by Talbot Mundy
A couple of points were obvious. Someone had followed us from Petra; for who else could have guessed Ayisha’s whereabouts. She might have made arrangements with one of the Lion’s junior wives or concubines to organize communications as soon as possible after our backs were turned; I was absolutely positive that she had answered a prearranged signal. The other point was that Grim could keep watch on top of the island and be in the best position from which to issue orders, at one and the same time.
So I crept down quietly behind Narayan Singh, and threw a handful of small rocks on Grim’s tent at short range. He would probably have fired at me if I had used any other means of waking him, because, seeing we had arranged a proper signal, he would naturally suppose anyone entering his tent quietly to be an enemy; and I would have had to go quietly for fear of arousing the camp, whose noise would then have disturbed Ayisha. To cut short her interview with that night-prowler might mean depriving Grim of valuable information.
As soon as he thrust his head out of the tent I told him what was happening. He went at once to the top of the island, and I started after Narayan Singh. There wasn’t a sign of the Sikh by that time. I could still make out the camel’s head in the distance, moving rhythmically as the beast belched up and chewed its cud, but there was no trace of a human being anywhere; and as it happened, our camels were making quite a din just then, down in the fiumara — dreaming or something. The brutes usually have bad dreams and let high Heaven know it. Their guttural objections and shuffling were loud enough to drown any reasonable footfall, so I took the simplest course and walked straight forward, taking one sole precaution. The jingle of the rifle-swivel in the night can be safely guaranteed to wake the seven sleepers. I don’t know why, but there’s the fact; I’ve seen many a long stalk spoiled by it, and some men never learn.
By holding that loose swivel I actually stepped on Narayan Singh before he was aware of me, which says something for his skill in taking cover. He was lying in broad moonlight between two ridges of sand on the side of the boulder nearest the fiumara, too busy listening to make a sign of any sort to me; so I went round to the other side and crouched in the short shadow.
I judged the interview was pretty nearly over. The two were conversing in such low tones that you could hardly distinguish Ayisha’s from the man’s voice; but I heard her say:
“And is Jimgrim known so well to the Avenger?”
“Only by name,” the man answered.
“But the Lion knows no English,” she retorted.
“Wallahi! Neither does the Avenger know a word of it.”
“And Jael? Does she know of this?”
“Allah! Has the Lion a trick worth trying that she did not first whisper to him? It was she who thought of it.”
“May Allah do so to me, and more, unless I drive a knife into her heart before tomorrow’s sun sets!” hissed Ayisha. “Go now, or those two fat Indians on the rock will cease snoring and see us.”
But the man would not go. He seemed to put a pretty high value on Jael’s life. I heard him catch at her garments as she started up to leave him, and although she cursed like a wet cat be wouldn’t let go of her.
“Woman, if you kill Jael,” he insisted, “that will be the end of all of us. Better by far slay the Lion himself! Jael is the real leader! We would all follow Jael if the Lion were dead.”
“Into jahannum she would lead you!” Ayisha answered.
“That may be; for what is written shall come to pass. But better into jahannum behind her, than to live here leaderless!”
“Bah! Father of fear! There are other leaders.”
“None fit to touch her garment! You must not kill her!”
“That is my affair!”
“I say you shall not!”
“Son of sixty dogs, let go of me!”
She made a sound between a curse and a scream, as if someone had taken her by the throat, and I judged it time to interfere. It was just two strides around that end of the rock, and I beat Narayan Singh by half a second. The man’s long knife was drawn, and he had his fingers on her throat, as I had guessed. The butt of my rifle sent the knife spinning, the Sikh dragged Ayisha away, and I rushed the fellow before he could draw a second knife. He was prone on his back in an instant, with the weight of my big hams on his chest. Narayan Singh pounced on his rifle, while I searched him diligently for hidden hardware, tossing out a regular armory of weapons on to the sand as I dug them out one by one. When, I was quite sure he hadn’t any kind of weapon left I let him sit up and recover breath.
With his first wind he began to beg for liberty, vowing he had never harmed me, nor intended to.
“May your honors live forever!” he roared out; and I let him roar, for it didn’t seem to matter now whether the whole camp was wakened or not.
Next he offered me a camel as the price of freedom. When I laughed at that, he swore he would pray for me three times daily for a year, if I would let him go. He was dead set on getting away from us; he even offered me his rifle as a souvenir of the occasion. It was too bad to have to entertain such an awfully unwilling guest.
“Come on,” I said, “and learn the worst. Perhaps you won’t be beaten very badly!”
At that he even offered to lie down and let me beat him — anything, in fact, if I would only let him go. On the whole I judged he might prove a pretty important capture, and as he wouldn’t see sense I seized him at last by the scruff of his unwashed neck and forced him along in front of me. He hadn’t strength enough to make me exert myself, but he struggled like a hooked eel all the way.
I felt like a New York cop running in a pickpocket, and the funniest part of it was that Narayan Singh strode along just in front, with his arm around Ayisha’s shoulders, booming titanic love-stuff into her unwilling ears.
“What have I vowed a hundred times, beloved? Hah! If that had been an army hedged in with a sea of fire, I would have jumped the fire and freed you! What are bayonets and guns,” he boomed, “to one who loves as I do! Come closer, jewel of the Desert! Lean on your protector! We Pathans of the Orakzai have hairy arms, but they are strong to nestle in. Let me look into those liquid eyes and see how fairer they are than the moon and stars!”
“Father of pigs!” she retorted. “Get away from me. I choose to walk alone.”
“Nay, beloved; come closer! One danger is enough to run for this night. Next we must face Jimgrim, and you need a protector from his wrath. He will accuse you of treachery while he slept. You must lean on me. You must depend on me to defend you. We Pathans of the Orakzai are wondrous liars. A man’s sword and a man’s tongue should be ready for any occasion, say we. Now put me to the test, O Heart of all Loveliness. What shall we tell Jimgrim?”
But though he called her by a fabulous long string of jeweled names, offered her the hills of Edom for a kingdom and the fairest cities of the earth for plunder, he could get no answer out of her at all, until we came to the brim of the fiumara and were challenged by three separate members of our startled camp. We had to answer the challenge right swiftly, for the click of rifle bolts preceded it. Then Narayan Singh took Ayisha by both arms and swung her in front of him.
“Must I tell him all I heard?” he asked. “Oh, Heart’s Delight, don’t put me to that necessity!”
“Black pig! Let go of me!”
But he held on, and my prisoner — no more aware than I was that the Sikh had not been able to hear the first part of the conversation at all, piped up in support of him.
“I have a tale I shall tell,” he announced. “Listen, Lady Ayisha, this great fellow is a friend of yours. Humor him. He is willing to stand between us and this Jimgrim. Better let me tell the tale, and you confirm what I say. None ever believes a woman, but he will believe me.”
At that Narayan Singh laughed gruffly, and I detected a note of triumph, although he affected defeat.
“Malaish,” he said, with a shrug of his great shoulders and loosing Ayisha’s arms, “there is nothing for it but to tell the trut
h. I shall tell Jimgrim every word I overheard from first to last.” [ No matter]
He had gained his point. Ayisha made up her mind that he had heard everything, and whatever her first intention might have been she decided now to make a virtue of necessity.
“I need no ignorant Pathan to speak for me!” she retorted. “It is I, not you, who will him tell. Get behind me, son of sixty dogs!”
But instead of obeying that command he laughed aloud, picked her up like a child, and carried her down the dark track into the fiumara. She didn’t seem to mind that part of it. In fact, one of the most surprising things anywhere East of, say, the North Sea is the complaisance with which women submit to being seized and carried off. He carried her straight up to Grim, and set her on her feet in front of him on top of the island, and I think that by the time she got that far her private opinion of the Sikh had undergone considerable modification.
I sent my prisoner up between two of our Arabs, and went to have a quiet look at Jael’s tent. There wasn’t a sound. I hardly cared to open the fly and look in, so I counted the camels. The Bishareen dromedary wasn’t there. I returned to her tent, and this time didn’t hesitate to peer inside. It was empty. The sheepskin rug and blankets were gone too.
Several of our Arabs were still asleep among the camels; it wouldn’t have been the slightest use to arouse and question them. The remainder had slept until my prisoner’s bellowing disturbed them, and wouldn’t believe me at first when I said the Bishareen was gone. I went up to Grim with the bad news, but he was aware of it already.
“There she goes,” he said, before I could begin to tell him.
He nodded toward the north-east. The little Bishareen was eating stick and galloping at top speed in the direction of the rock from behind which Ayisha’s visitor had come — silhouetted softly in the moonlight just out of reasonable rifle-shot. It looked exactly like one of those up-to-the-minute motion pictures, especially as there was too much noise in our camp by that time for us to hear the camel’s footfall. Most of our men were clambering out of the fiumara and shouting to Grim to know whether they should open fire or not. He shouted to them to do nothing.
What Jael had accomplished looked remarkably like a miracle to me. It was obvious, of course, now why the camels had been making all that noise when I started to follow Narayan Singh. But how in the world she had saddled that beast and got away without disturbing the men who slept by the picket stakes was the mystery, unless there was a traitor in our camp. The saddle alone was as much as most women could lift. She must have chosen the exact moment when Grim and I were both engaged in climbing out of the river-bed, he in one direction, I in the other, to start up the fiumara and disappear around the nearest bend. The rest would be easy enough; no doubt there were plenty of places higher up where a camel could find footing and negotiate the bank.
We hadn’t a beast in camp that could overtake that Bishareen. It could go like the wind, and Jael was about half the weight of anybody we could mount and send in pursuit of her. So unless Grim chose to try long-range shooting by moonlight, which in ninety-nine percent of cases is a useless waste of ammunition, there was nothing much to do but watch.
She headed straight for that big rock, from behind which a camel’s head still protruded, and presently disappeared.
“Now,” said Grim, “what’s the excitement all about?” He looked cheerful enough to have planned the whole business.
Ayisha squatted down comfortably in front of him, giving the rest of us a good view of her back. That trick is part of a woman’s language; no male could ever contrive it in exactly the same way, suggesting indisputable superiority of intellect, class, knowledge, opportunity, privilege, and everything. Grim waited for her to speak first, and she kept him waiting, while my prisoner trembled in his skin and Narayan Singh stroked his great beard upward with both hands.
“O Jimgrim,” she said at last, “you would better make an end of foolishness and marry me.”
Nobody gasped. Nobody cracked a smile — least of all Grim. There wasn’t really anything to smile about, considering time, place, and circumstances. History was merely repeating itself. For the hundred millionth time a female of the species considered that a man was captive of her bow and spear, and the member of the less-conventional sex was trying to make the most of opportunity.
“Why, O Lady Ayisha?” Grim asked her blandly.
“Am I not fair to look at? This Pathan of yours vows I am fairer than the moon and stars. He ought to know, for he has loved many women in many lands.”
“Shellabi kabir!” Grim answered. “The fellow flattered stars and moon by speaking of them in the same breath. Yet the Prophet said, Ayisha, that the houris wait for us in Paradise. Who should anticipate the joys of that world in the make-belief of this?” [ Extremely beautiful]
“Yet the Prophet did!” she answered. “He had many wives.”
“Truly, but then he was a prophet,” Grim replied. “Can you tell me why I should pause in the midst of happenings to make a marriage. There are twenty lives depending on my judgment. A mistake, a false move, and these friends of mine are dead men.”
“Father of wise answers, that is why you must marry me!” she answered. “No man can find his way out of the net a clever woman weaves. Jael has you in the toils. You need me, I tell you, to help you out of them.”
“It seems, though, that you are not too far away just now to help me if you will,” he suggested.
“Inshallah, if you marry me now, I will help you indeed,” she answered. “You shall rule this country.”
That was two women within a day who had proposed to make a king of him. Wouldn’t you have felt tickled? I know I would, although nobody ever made me the proposal. Bearing in mind Narayan Singh’s method of making love, and allowing a good margin for Eastern hyperbole in general, there was still much more than random flattery in the offer. There are some men who can lead people — who can understand an alien race, deserve their allegiance, and lift them toward progress. Grim undoubtedly had that gift. And how many exceptions are there to the rule in such cases that women have been first to recognize the fact, and to egg the man on in spite of himself? But Grim has less personal vanity than any man I knew, as well as a business instinct for appraising facts in all their bearings.
“‘Between the promise and the deed a man may marry off his ugly daughter,’” he quoted, using the famous Arab proverb. “Tell me what you know and I will listen.”
“You are at Jael’s mercy,” she said, “unless you consent to be guided by me.”
“How then?”
“You gave her too much opportunity. You let her talk with Ali Higg. You left them alone together. Then, like one who has set match to gunpowder, you came away, knowing nothing of what the fire said to the powder. But I listened, and I heard. And what I did not hear, another heard; and this shivering fool came in the night, bringing me word of it.”
“I listen, O Lady Ayisha,” said Grim.
“As a man to a tale that is told between waking and sleeping, or as a man to his wife, do you listen?”
“I have but one pair of ears,” Grim answered.
“Aye, that listen to the she-wolf, Jael!”
“That listen to all voices, whoever speaks. Who am I that should bury my head in the sand like an ostrich?” She held her tongue for a full minute, while an owl hooted weirdly in the darkness up the fiumara. Then: “Unless I speak you are ruined,” she said at last.
Grim considered it his turn to wait. He simply watched her face with interest. The rest of us hardly breathed. At the end of a minute, since he made no suggestion:
“What if I do not speak?” she asked. “And what if I do?”
“If you do not, you are not my friend.”
“And?”
“I have other friends,” he answered calmly.
“None like I am!” she retorted.
“Truly. My other friends drive no hard bargains before they consent to tell me what they know.”
Maybe Ayisha had forgotten Narayan Singh; more extraordinary things than that have happened in the strain of concentration. There was a general once who forgot an army corps. Or perhaps she thought he was so enamored of her that he would hold his tongue. At any rate, she ignored him, which was easy enough while he stood alongside me behind her.
But he bulks big in any kind of light, and she could not pretend not to see him when he strode around behind Grim and stood there facing her, with folded arms and his eyes fixed on her face. He said nothing. He didn’t even cough to draw attention to himself. But it was an ultimatum, and she realized it. I half-suspected by that time that the Sikh was bluffing. It seemed to me that if he had really overheard all that she said to my prisoner, and that the prisoner had said to her, Narayan Singh would have helped Grim out of a predicament and saved time by telling all he knew at once. But if she, too, suspected he was bluffing, she didn’t dare challenge him.
“May you deal with your enemies like iron, even as you deal with me,” she said to Grim at last. “Behold, it is the way of men to devour the women’s harvest; and the women plant again, and reap again, and grind again, that their lords may eat. I will tell all; then, like all women, I will desire my lord’s favor.”
I could see the milk-white of Narayan Singh’s teeth in the midst of his black beard, but if she saw the smile, too, she pretended not to notice it. Grim merely nodded to her to continue.
“In the cave in Petra, Jael said to Ali Higg: ‘Behold, this fellow comes in your guise, letting men believe that he is the Lion of Petra. By a trick he has worsted you, for he is very cunning. In your name he will go against the Avenger, and it is well to let him go, for because of his cunning he will be too much for the Avenger, and will bring him to terms likewise. Thereafter, both you and the Avenger will be as strong men bound, and this Jimgrim will be reckoned a great one. Like honey in his mouth is the success he tastes already. But is honey sweet only to the bees?’”
My prisoner was in as abject terror as I have ever known a man to be. I had my leg against him, so as to be aware of any movement he might make, and he was shivering as if he had the ague. I expect he was thinking of what Ali Higg would do to him if it ever transpired that he had helped betray the Lion’s plans.