by Talbot Mundy
Making boast of all that might be,
Choosing pleasant ways and crippling
Choice for sake of this or that one
(Strangers nevertheless!)
Thrice and again my karma took me
(None knew who I am!)
Rolling me in red disaster
Till the light o’ loves forsook me
And I cried to careless heavens,
Asking who I am!
Long were the nights I spent in anguish,
Thinking gods would care,
Vowing I myself would hardly
Leave a thing I made to languish.
If I perished who would profit,
How, and when, and where?
Then I struck a rock demanding
Why it towered there,
And, as if the rock made answer,
Dawned upon my understanding
“That is His affair!”
Then I looked from rock and river
To horizon far
Eyeing with a new contentment,
Seeing gifts but not the Giver,
Sun and moon and star,
Stream and forest, time and season,
Fish and bird and beast and man;
None could look into their reason,
None knew what they are!
So there burst illumination
Dissipating fears,
And I sang a song of manhood,
And I laughed at the negation
That is affluent of tears,
Is the sun too long aborning?
Are the planets in arrears?
Who am I?
Whoever knows me
Is the Monarch of the Morning,
Is the Lord of love and laughter,
Is the Owner of the years!
You hardly expect a sporadically dissolute enlisted Sikh to sing that kind of song. But, as the missionaries say, the Sikhs are heathen, and on their way to hell, so we, who don’t believe that laughter and religion and the morning are all one, and who think we know exactly who we are, mustn’t judge them too harshly. Personally I’m not much of a dogmatist. Having pitched my tent in hell a lot of times, I’m not so scared as I used to be. And if there’s a worse hell than I’ve camped in yet, as long as there are Sikhs there like Narayan Singh I don’t believe I’m going to worry much. They’ll sing songs, and we’ll find a way out somehow.
I have only told part of Narayan Singh’s song, that he trolled that morning in a rather nasal baritone, because the censor would object to about two-thirds of it. The East is peculiarly frank in some matters that the West prefers to keep behind a veil of mystery, and there were details concerning light o’ loves that were interesting, whatever else they might be. I got to thinking about India, and the fact, admitting of no dispute, that during all the uncontrollable devilry of the Indian Mutiny of ‘57 there wasn’t a single instance of mistreatment of an Englishwoman by the sepoys. So I asked him about Ayisha, wondering just how far he proposed to go with his mock love-making.
“Would she make a good wife for a soldier?” I suggested.
To my surprise, instead of laughing, he meditated for several minutes before answering. Then:
“The world has this marriage business upside-down,” he said at last. “A woman is either ambitious, and drives a man as Jael drives the Lion of Petra; or else she is a parasite, who halves his joys and multiplies his sorrows. Single, she is sometimes a delight; married, she is torment. As for men: well, sahib, our Jimgrim and you and I are single men. I have not heard him or you complain of it. Nor you me. I have nine piastres and my freedom; show me the woman that can rob me of either!”
But I was still curious. He had not told me yet what I wanted to know.
“She’s in an awkward position,” I said. “What do you suppose is in store for her?”
“Awkward? How so?” he answered. “At the mercy of our seventeen thieves, she would be a baggage to be bought and sold. But there are three of us who would not see her brought to a bad end. Ayisha is like all women: she thinks she has me at her feet, and so despises me, to my no small comfort. She despairs of Jimgrim, and therefore idolizes him, to his discomfort. And she has a woman’s luck; for if I know anything, it is that Jimgrim will contrive good fortune for her.”
“You think he’s the executive of destiny?”
“All men are weapons in the hand of destiny! I am a sepoy — a number on a muster-roll; yet, counting all, I have slain in my day seven and thirty men with cold steel. Was that not destiny? I was born on the bank of the Jumna. I have killed men near the Ganges, near the Kabul River, near the Irrawaddy, near the Seine, near the Marne, near the Rhine — Pathans, Afghans, Hindus, Burmese, Prussians, Saxons, Austrians — having no personal quarrel with any one of them. And here, near the Jordan, I have slain two Syrians and an Egyptian — all with cold steel. Was that not destiny? And am I alone the tool of destiny? Each of us is like a pebble, sahib, dropped into a pool, causing rings of ripples that we cannot check. I am not in the secret of destiny, but I know this: that our Jimgrim is causing a ripple that will set Ayisha on her feet.”
“So you don’t plan to make a ripple in her life?” I asked him.
“There is no need,” he answered. “Besides, I am a man of few plans. My trade is obedience to orders; and as for amusement: I ask no better than a day like this one, with not too many orders, and the unknown waiting to be considered, fifty or a hundred yards ahead.”
Well, I don’t want to be a Sikh, but I can’t beat that for philosophy. The hot wind started and made further talk impossible with any degree of comfort, for we had to cover our faces. But he had given me plenty to think about, and the man who can’t find entertainment in his own thoughts is in a bad way. I suppose we rode three miles in silence — making eight or nine from our starting-point — before anything happened to break the desert spell. Then, in proof that reflection did not limit our faculties, we both spoke suddenly at once.
“Dekko!” said he.
“Shuf!” said I. And we both meant the same thing: “Look!”
More than a score of mounted camels were standing in a group on the horizon, cut off from us by a deep ravine that looked impassable. It seemed as if the men who rode them were holding a consultation; it was a fair guess that they had only just reached the spot. We halted and watched them. After a minute or two they spread out into a long line, and began to come forward at a walk toward the ravine, constantly increasing the distance between them fan-wise, as if scouting. But some of them were not very good scouts, or else the sun was too strong in their eyes, for it was quite a while before most of them saw us.
The first to spot us was a man near the middle of the line, but he made no signal to the others. I knew he had seen us, because he put on speed and slightly changed direction. He rode a nearly white camel — it looked all-white at that distance.
“I would know that beast in a hundred thousand!” said Narayan Singh.
That was, maybe, an exaggeration. We have most of us known men who could pick one horse out of a mob infallibly at the first glance. I have seen cowmen do the same thing with a steer. But camels? Nevertheless, it did look like the Syrian beast that Ali Baba rode, and the action of its rider, forcing the pace, as he did, alone, did not quite suggest an enemy.
It became obvious presently that whoever he was he did not know the lie of the land very intimately. He had to halt at the edge of the ravine and stare under his hand to left and right in search of a place where he could cross.
“That’s our old thief,” said Narayan Singh in a tone of finality. “If we find a place on this side, and he on that, we shall meet the sooner.”
He led off without a word, and it began to look as if we might meet our man in the bed of the ravine without the others being any wiser. But as soon as we got in motion half a dozen of them saw us and shouted to the rest, who whipped to a gallop and headed instantly all in one direction, where the top of a negotiable track lay hidden from our view beyon
d a bulge in the far wall of the ravine.
At that old Ali Baba halted until they had all passed him, and then suddenly began to ride full-pelt the other way. He still made no signal to us, but kept close to the edge of the ravine, and was obviously looking for another crossing higher up. So we followed suit, looking for a track on our side, and what with the irregular curve of the ravine and the speed at which all were moving we soon had several miles between us and the score or so, who probably believed that Ali Baba was still with them.
We had long ceased to hear their shouts in the distance when we found a dangerous descent at last and forced our reluctant camels to risk their necks down it. It was more like a goat’s ladder than a road, but it was evidently used at times by men, for Ali Baba came on its corresponding opening on his side, and took his chance, too. It wasn’t merely dangerous going; the heat of the ravine came up to meet us like fumes off the lid of Tophet, seeming to singe your eyelids, and the camels behaved as if they felt the same vertigo that we did. A camel is a fool at downhill work in any case; he sticks his supercilious nose in the air and paws about with his forefoot as if expecting somebody to come and put a cushion under it; and if there isn’t anything to step on he just yells, and steps on nothing, and lets it go at that. When he lands by luck and ignorance on something solid, he doesn’t know enough to stand there for a breath or two and get his balance, but yells again and goes careering on his way like a devil with the hornets after him. So we had some exciting intervals before we reached the bottom.
The heat down there was so intense that you could hardly see or think. It was one of those infernos that geologists pretend were sucked out by running water two or three hundred million years ago. Knowing no more geology than most prospectors, and not believing half of that, I prefer to think with the Arabs and Narayan Singh that the devil made that place when he slid on his belly for the home plate after stealing two bases in Eden.
It was full of rocks and rugged islands, and several minutes passed before we caught sight of our old friend, who was hunting for us as nervously as we were for him. Even then, there was such a dancing heat-haze in the valley- bottom that we had to look three times before we were sure it was he.
The old man knew us all right. He made his camel kneel, and waited for us in a hollow, over whose rim a man could not be seen standing from twenty paces off.
“Il hamdul’illah!” he exclaimed as soon as we got near him. “It is true that Allah makes all things easy, though an old man’s bones rebel against this kind of work. Ayyee! But my loins ache! How fares Jimgrim?”
I told him’ most of what had happened, while he leaned against his camel’s rump and munched dry dates, spitting out the stones between my feet; but I said nothing about that wrestling bout with Mujrim.
“Taib!” he said at last. “If the she-wolf Jael is in Petra, we lambs have a chance left for our lives! What do you think? That old village- raider Ibrahim ben Ah, who waits where he was bidden wait, vows he will not stir another inch toward Abu Lissan — nay, not for fifty Ali Higgs! The Avenger is on the move, and none knows which direction he is taking. Ibrahim is so afraid that he would not let me go without twenty men — an escort, as he pretended, but a guard, as a matter of fact, to prevent me from betraying him. Now they will be hunting for me in this wady,and I must be gone before they discover me. Go, you two, to Ibrahim ben Ah instead of me, while I take the news to Jimgrim.”
“Did Yussuf get through with his letter?” I asked.
“No. They caught him. He had it in mind to sell that letter of Jimgrim’s. He swore there was a draft in it for fifty thousand pounds, and he offered to trade the lot for ten good camels. But they took the letter from him, being brigands, whereas he was but a sneak-thief; and when they opened it, and found only a letter in English and a second envelope containing nothing, then they knew him for the liar I said he was.”
“Did they read the letter?” I asked.
“No, none could read it. But he offered to read it for them, and judging his life to be in danger he told such a tale about Jimgrim and Jael and Ali Higg as set them all well by the ears. But the fool wasn’t clever enough to stick to the truth. He told such a cock-and-bull story that they could make neither head nor tale of it, and when they asked me, I laughed. So he denounced me, saying I was party to the tricking of Ali Higg, and what with one thing and another Ibrahim ben Ah was at his wits’ end, knowing not what to believe. I thought he would kill the two of us, and was not pleased, for, inshallah, I can die a better death than in one halter with a dog like Yussuf. But Allah makes all things easy. Ibrahim decided at last to obey the order in the letter that I brought seeing that the seal was on it, and to take us both along with him.”
“I will stick that pig Yussuf when I find him!” swore Narayan Singh. “By the Prophet’s body and my beard, he shall learn how a knife in the belly feels!”
“Too late to teach him that!” laughed Ali Baba. “You would have to fight the vultures for his belly. His head lies one way, and his limbs the other. There came two men from different directions. Ibrahim knew both of them, and knew they would not dare lie to him. The one said that Ali Higg, with Jael and Ayisha and a score of men, was camped in a fiumara not far off. The other said that a certain Jimgrim — a person much resembling Ali Higg in general appearance, even to the bandage on his neck — was prowling to the south of us, also with twenty men. That was so contrary to Yussuf’s story that, considering his gold ear-rings and the Army pistol and the camel-trappings — nor forgetting the lie about the draft for fifty thousand pounds — it was decided on the spot that the earth would be well rid of him. He begged like a city thief, and chattered a lot of lies, but they tore him between camels and he talked no more.”
“Killed him for his ear-rings, eh?” said I, not exactly relishing the prospect of a visit to that gang.
“Aye, but I have the ear-rings,” the old fox answered, and showed them in the hollow of his hand.
Well, it doesn’t take much to make you laugh on some occasions. Most of us have giggled in church or at a funeral. The thought of that old rascal being clever enough to steal such loot in the circumstances under the eyes of a hundred and forty bandits was a straw that tickled overstrung nerves past control. Narayan Singh and I sat back on our camel’s rumps and roared with laughter until the tears came. I believe old Ali Baba thought us mad; there was nothing remarkable about the incident to him, barring professional pride.
“What does this mean about Jimgrim and Ali Higg?” he asked when we left off laughing for lack of breath. “What does the sore Lion think he will accomplish by calling himself Jimgrim?”
But we could not enlighten him on that score, and he shook his head forebodingly.
“If this were my expedition, by Allah, I would call it off!” he exclaimed. “The thieves are too much disturbed for an honest man to make a profit. I like the thought of El-Kalil. However, those dogs of Ibrahim ben Ah’s will catch me unless I hurry. Go ye to Ibrahim with them, and tell him any tale you please, so be you keep them off my trail until I reach our Jimgrim. Hark! I hear their voices.”
He was up and away with astonishing agility, riding at top speed up the ravine in search of a better track to escape by. I think if I had been alone I would have followed him, for it didn’t look like wisdom or necessity to “take tea” just then with Ibrahim ben Ah. Our old fox had the news, and until Grim had a chance to pass judgment on it there was nothing much to be gained that I could see by running further risks. But though I’ve often met men who pretended to no yellow streak, and have sometimes envied their ability to fool themselves, I’m disagreeably aware of a phase of fear that has got me into more tight places at different times than I care to recall. Perfectly aware of what was actuating me, I didn’t care, nevertheless, to appear afraid before Narayan Singh.
“We’d better get a move on,” I suggested.
He eyed me sharply once, and whatever his own thought process was, I’m pretty sure he was aware of mine.
“Why not?” he answered, laughing. “As our old king of thieves keeps on saying: ‘Allah makes all things easy.’”
So we rode side by side down the wady to meet Ibrahim’s men, and they weren’t pleased when they came on us and were assured that old Ali Baba had given them the slip. They swore outrageously. Their fear of returning without the old man provided an uncomfortable insight into the character of the other old man we would presently be forced to meet.
But swearing did not get them anywhere, and to have killed us on the spot, much though that would have suited their temper, might have got them into even worse trouble with their irascible commander. They were as tough a crowd of hard-faced cut-throats as ever praised Allah thrice a day, and they hadn’t a camel between them that was half as good as either of our two.
So when they had failed by dint of threats to extort from us the slightest hint as to the direction old Ali Baba had taken, they made up their minds to do the next best thing and ordered us to trade camels with them. But I think I’ve hinted once or twice that I like to make a profit on most transactions. I like to swing my strength into anything that comes along, take my chances with the next man, and get well paid for it. There was nothing that appealed to me in the suggestion to trade two magnificent Syrian riding-camels for a couple of mangy baggage-beasts, especially since the good ones did not belong to me in any case. So I waxed exceeding wrathy. Long experience has taught me to be slow-spoken in anger, giving each abusive word full room and weight, in a voice like a good top-sergeant’s to an awkward squad.
“In the name of the Prophet, on whom be peace,” I thundered, “I can smite nine or ten such dogs as you! As many of you as are left afterwards can return to Ibrahim ben Ah and tell him you met two friends of the Lion of Petra, who proved that jackals are no match for them! Come on!” said I. “Try to take the camels. Ye call yourselves the Lion’s followers. Alley-dogs! Eaters of ullage! Try what the Lion’s friends are like!”
A speech like that might not get you farther than the hospital, if you tried it in a railway round-house in the States, or even on a soap-box, say, on Fourteenth Street, New York, where the rag-tag and bobtail of the universe foregather. But in the desert, where every contour of the landscape is a threat that must be taken seriously — and above all in a company whose leader’s threats mean business — the voice of arrogance is likelier listened to than argument or whining. Add to that that we were two big men, well-armed — that my shaven head and sprouting beard suggested the darwaish and a form of religious sanctity — that we hadn’t betrayed the slightest inclination to run away at any stage in the proceedings — and you can judge their predicament. They had their choice between calling the bluff or mending their manners, and the latter being easiest they chose it.