by Talbot Mundy
“Jimgrim prays,” he said sternly. “Let him alone. I have talked with the woman Ayisha. Sometimes women don’t lie, and if the tenth of what she says is true it will take a deal of prayer to get us through to Jmil Ras.”
As he was a professional thief, and all his sons and grandsons were the same, I was curious to know exactly why that thought should trouble him.
“You’ve had your money, haven’t you?” said I. “If you can’t get through, what difference does it make?”
He stroked his beard for thirty seconds before answering, and his wrinkled old face grew reproachful.
“In El-Kalil,” he said at last, with something near grief in his voice, “I named you Harami, but you are Ramsden after all! Under that black beard of yours is only a fool’s face, or you wouldn’t ask such a question. Under that great strength is only a sheep’s heart. You will never make an honest thief! Bismillah! Ask my sons; ask Mujrim — ask Mahommed — Hassan — Achmet — Yussuf — any one of them. Ask what I would do to any one of them who named a price and took the pay but failed to keep faith! You have no understanding, Ramsden; you are only a foreign unbeliever with the strength and the brains of a bull! Jimgrim would never ask such a question. Not even that bull-headed Sikh would ask it. Allah! Am I to be thought a common cheat in my old age?”
How was that for a rebuke? I called him Allah’s pet rascal and tried to jolly him out of his ill temper, but he was as ruffled as a turkey in the wind, and the more I sought to soothe him the angrier he became. So I told him I would forgive him if he liked for that good repeating pistol of mine that he stole on our former trip and, quoting a text from the Koran about unseemly pride, left him to think that over.
It hurts loaded camels to stand still, and our beasts were all kneeling, grumbling of course, and squealing for a bite at anyone who passed them close enough. I went and squatted beside Mujrim in the lee of one of them, for he and I had been great friends ever since I fought and licked him in the Valley of Moses close to Petra. He nodded in the direction of his irascible old father, as much as to say that I wasn’t the only one who got into a bath of anger now and then, but said nothing, and warned me with a gesture to keep silence too.
There were voices coming from the far side of the camel next to us — Narayan Singh’s deep bass, and Ayisha’s alto. I suppose you couldn’t choose a more suitable scene for making love, with the moonlight bathing the desert in honey-colored light, colored stars twinkling almost close enough to be plucked like jewels from a purple pall, and the hills on the horizon looming softly mysterious, sending the vague, spicy scent of Araby toward us on a warm wind.
“O darling!” boomed the Sikh in his best Arabic, that is perfectly grammatical but contains a softer, throatier aspirate than any Arab can accomplish. “O heart of my desire! What does it matter to me that a son of sixty dogs who dubs himself Avenger flatters himself by calling you his fourth wife? I am a Pathan of the Orakzai — a man of violence, whose passion brooks no living rival!”
“You mean you are a pig from the Indian hills?” she suggested without audible emotion.
“Nay, beloved, I mean this: That as I said a thousand times before I say again, I will pull kings off their thrones and fill dry wells with their carcasses until there are no more kings to stand between me and my heart’s desire; but cease I never will until you admit you are mine!”
“Until the moon falls out of the sky then!”
“What are the doings of the moon to me!” the Sikh retorted scornfully. “Let him [the moon is masculine in Hindu mythology] fall, and we shall have good darkness for great deeds! You shall be mine, whatever happens to the moon!”
“Bukra fil mishmish!” she quoted, laughing. It was clear that she was at least amused by his protestations.
“What need have we of moons when two eyes such as thine can burn up night?” he boomed. “I shall see to fight by their radiance! I will make you a necklace out of the milk-white teeth of emperors whom I shall slay for your sake, and all the women in the world shall squint with jealousy! Consider a while, beloved — did I not swear to you before that I would come again to find you? Here I am!”
“Here to clean the boots of Jimgrim,” she suggested.
“Here in obedience to Destiny!”
He almost said Karma, but remembered in the nick of time not to use the Hindu term. Not that it would have mattered, for she wouldn’t have understood what Karma meant.
“And here art thou, O heart’s desire, also at the call of that same Destiny! But you doubt?”
“Surely!”
“Put me to a test then! Come! Let us make a plan together. We Orakzai Pathans are good at plans, and better yet at forcing them through broken teeth down the throats of the fools who oppose us! How about this Avenger now, who thinks he owns you? Shall we make a corpse of him and claim his heritage? How would you like to be queen of this part of Arabia for a beginning — just for a beginning?”
She answered with a low laugh, no such fool as to believe a word of it, but nevertheless delighted; for immeasurable though a man’s desire may be, it is at least a compliment that he should seek to give his lady-love a glimpse of it; and where there is all that smoke an element of fire lies underneath. And who should blame a woman of that incorrigible land who took advantage of a such vainglorious boaster?
* * * * *
HOWEVER, that was as far as the intrigue could go just then, for Grim’s whistle announced that time was up. Ayisha mounted behind me, because her own beast was hardly in fit condition to be towed, so furiously had she ridden to meet Grim. I did not invite her on to my beast, but I put my foot on his neck and swung into the saddle as he rose, and she vaulted up behind me with a rifle in her right hand — not such an easy feat by a long way as it looks on paper.
She knew Grim was an American, but I suppose she had no reason for suspecting me; and maybe I had learned the part of an educated Indian from Lahore fairly well by that time. I couldn’t have fooled another Indian for a minute, but her native shrewdness wasn’t experienced enough to detect any slight mistakes I made from time to time.
And it is a peculiarity of that land that however strong, influential, wealthy or even courageous an Indian may be, the Bedouins regard him as an inferior, whether Moslem or not. Our seventeen thieves were not Bedouins, but men of El-Kalil, who hold themselves superior to Bedouin and Fellahin alike — superior, in fact, to all Eastern peoples and the equals of the conquering white; they drew no such social distinction, and judged men more by personal merit.
They knew me for an American and a trusted friend of Grim, who had beaten their champion Mujrim in fair fight; and they recognized in Narayan Singh a Sikh, who was also Grim’s friend, and a man of parts. But Ayisha knew no such standards of comparison as they, and her attitude toward me was that of a duchess to her confidential butler — if you can imagine a dusty duchess in black cotton, with a rifle in one hand, jumping up on to the butler’s camel.
I was at a disadvantage, having her behind me. I like to watch the face of anyone I’m talking to, the study of faces being a hobby of mine that I have found as expensive in the long run and as profitable in the end as collecting postage stamps or curios. For it takes you a long time to learn what shades of expression mean, and as you back your judgment you pay accordingly; but what you do learn finally can’t be found in books or filched from you by competitors.
She put her left hand over my left shoulder, ostensibly to keep her balance, although she needed that as much as a cat needs crutches on a wall. It was a shapely, slender hand with henna’d nails, and there was a ring on the middle finger with an uncut sapphire set in it that I dare say would bring two or three thousand dollars on Fifth Avenue. I didn’t pay much attention to it until the fingers began tugging at my whiskers that were growing black and unkempt after nearly a week without shaving. It isn’t considered complimentary to play tricks with a man’s beard in Moslem lands, but I let that pass. She tugged until I turned my face half around toward her
before she spoke.
“O Miyan,” she said then, using the rather contemptuous term by which they address all Indians, “you are a doctor, for I have seen you use the knife and give the physic. How much magic do you know? All Miyans know magic.”
It was true I had charge of the medicine-chest, but if ever there was an unqualified surgeon or physician, I am he. I can skin a dead beast, having had experience of that; and when it comes to lancing boils or opening an abscess with a safety-razor blade, I have the stomach for it and can cut deep. But I give copious castor-oil for all complaints, and am seldom twice in demand by the same patient. As for magic — my hands are calloused and not subtle; I can’t even shuffle a pack of cards without making a hopeless mess of it. But it doesn’t always pay to confess ignorance, unless you’re sure of being found out.
“I know magic when I see it. There is magic in your eyes, O lady Ayisha,” I answered guardedly. It is generally pretty safe to pay a compliment when you haven’t any other answer ready.
“To whom are you taking all this baggage?” she demanded next.
Only the enfranchised woman sticks to what a man considers is the point; but I’ve noticed that the female sex does keep a point in mind as a general rule, for all that, and I answered guardedly again —
“Ask Jimgrim.”
“Bah! As well ask the desert! Jimgrim listens and never speaks. I asked one of Ali Baba’s sons, and he said the goods are for someone on a mountain-side. He thought that a clever answer. Jmil Ras lives on a mountain-side; are the goods for him?”
“They are not my goods,” I answered. “How should I know? I go wherever Jimgrim leads.” And thinking to turn the tables on her I asked a question, “Who is Jmil Ras?”
“Jmil Ras is a great magician. I know the goods are for him.” “Some people know what isn’t true. How do you know?”
“Because it is known that that oaf Mujrim came and went, escaping the Avenger’s men by the thickness of the shadow of his camel’s smell. If they had caught him, he would have been made to talk; but spies were sent after him, and it is known that Ali Baba began buying goods at once in El-Kalil. Were the goods not for Jmil Ras?”
“How should I know?”
“Malaish! The Avenger will take the goods. None can prevent, for he lies between here and the mountain where Jmil Ras has entrenched himself.”
“Entrenched?” said I.
“He has dug great ditches. Is there magic among these camel-loads?”
I thought of the quicksilver. Whoever has used that stuff as much as I have, and seen it absorb the gold out of broken quartz, may be forgiven for talking like an old-time alchemist.
“Magic?” said I. “Woman, there is stuff among those loads that at a word from me will either poison the very devils in the pit or turn rocks into money! It is metal, and yet it runs to and fro like water; it is liquid, and yet so heavy that it sinks like lead and will not mix with water! It shines like burnished silver, yet cannot be coined; and a drop of it will make the teeth fall from the jaws of a giant!”
“That is good stuff,” she answered. “Give me some of it!”
You’ll have full right to laugh at me, you fellows, if you see fit, after you have ridden camel-back under the stars with a pretty girl’s hand on your shoulder, her breath in your ear, and her soft voice coaxing you. I’m no Don Juan, nor no Saint Anthony — merely a fellow who has had that rare experience. You may take it from me unreservedly that there are circumstances and conditions in which it is easier to keep your head and to refuse requests.
“What do you want it for?” I countered.
“It is enough that I do want it. Am not I, Ayisha, your friend of old?”
I laughed at that. “You’re the woman,” said I, “who stuck a knife into my leg when I was fighting Mujrim!”
“Oh, as for that — malaish!” she answered. “That is a little thing forgotten. Has the wound not healed?”
“There is only a scar there now,” I assured her. “Do you recognize all your friends by the dagger-marks you make on them?” Her answer to that was unexpected, even if characteristic. She withdrew her left hand, and in less than half a second I could feel her dagger’s point against my ribs.
“Now, Miyan!” she exclaimed with a hard little laugh. “I need thy magic! Does life seem sweet?”
“The magic won’t work without me to give it orders,” I retorted, trying to speak evenly; but that dagger-point tickled as well as pricked.
She pushed it in a fraction of an inch, and the thing was getting beyond a joke.
“Give it your orders, then, Miyan! Put a piece of it in my hand and tell it to obey me!”
“It is necessary first to make a spell,” said I. “Unless I wave my arms to summon devils the magic won’t work.”
“Summon them!”
She pricked me again with the dagger to emphasize her authority, and I think she was rather surprized that an Indian should act as I did then. Did you ever try acrobatic stunts on the back of a pacing camel? It was my first attempt at anything of that sort, but she was at a disadvantage too, in that her perch was even less secure than mine. I spread both arms outward to their full extent, as if to summon devils from all corners of the universe — leaned back, face upward, as if praying to the stars — seized her suddenly by neck and shoulders — and yanked her, heels over head, into my lap so suddenly that she had not even time to drop her rifle or drive the dagger into me.
Having her in both arms then it was a comparatively easy task to take the dagger away, although she bit until her teeth met in my arm; and when I loosed her a little to let her breathe she tried to use the rifle as a club to brain me with.
Meanwhile, the camel didn’t help matters in the least. He objected to acrobatics, and from the way he carried on all the devils I was supposed to have been summoning might have been torturing his stomach. When Narayan Singh rode close and seized the head-rope the silly brute pulled backward trying to jerk his own head off, and kicked out at random, north, south, east and west. However, we got going again; but by that time I brought up the rear of the procession, with Narayan Singh acting escort on the left flank.
“Now, you little cannibal,” said I at last, “suppose you tell me what you want that magic for!”
“Wait till I turn the Avenger loose on you!” she panted.
“All right,” I said, “I’ll wait. Meanwhile, let’s go forward and talk with Jimgrim.”
If Grim was at all aware of what had been happening, he made no sign. It wasn’t unusual for a camel somewhere in the line to start squealing and fighting, and no one took much notice as a rule unless he happened to be too close to the brute’s teeth. Grim, away off in the lead, might easily have failed to notice the disturbance. Ayisha did not propose that he should learn the details of it now. “Peace, Miyan!” she exclaimed, trying to laugh. “I was only joking.”
“Next time you joke, then, do it with your lips, and keep your dagger and teeth for eating with!” said I.
“Give me back the dagger.”
Instead, I whistled and tossed it to Narayan Singh, who caught it deftly by the hilt. She shuddered when I whistled, for most Arabs and all Bedouins regard that as the devil’s music.
“The Pathan shall keep it for a love-token,” I said. “Men of his race would rather have that sort of thing than a kiss. Come on, now, tell me what you wanted magic for!”
But instead of answering my question, she called to her amorous Pathan in the strange, reverberating voice with which Eastern women have spurred their men to fight ever since Cain killed Abel.
“Come closer, if you love me! Come and stick that dagger into this fool! Quick! It is the test!”
I had dropped my riding-stick in the scuffle when I yanked her from behind me, and a camel doesn’t officially recognize any other accelerator; yet flight was obviously the only way to save the Sikh from a predicament. He couldn’t very well pretend to try to kill me without making himself ridiculous, nor refuse without swallowing
his boasts. So I tried to make the beast gallop by kicking and swearing at him, which works occasionally.
But Narayan Singh saw the same way out of the predicament that I did. He circled about and approached from the rear, as if intending to stab me in the back; but it was my camel’s rump that stopped the dagger-point, and no new-fangled racing auto ever leapt into speed more suddenly than that ill-used, ill-tempered mount of mine.
We had overtaken Grim in less than sixty seconds, with the Sikh still brandishing the dagger two lengths in the rear, and to keep up appearances I claimed Grim’s protection. So did she, and Grim transferred her to his camel, which gave Narayan Singh enough excuse to fall to the rear again.
Grim is not given to overlooking bets. He is fonder of listening than of asking questions, and he likes to let events explain themselves rather than render them obscure by being too inquisitive. But not even an Arab could resent interrogation in those circumstances. He held her in his lap the same way I had done, with a quiet eye on her rifle to make sure she should take no pot-shot at me, and without halting — because then old Ali Baba and the gang would all have swarmed about us — asked for my explanation first.
He might as well have wanted pudding before soup, or a seat at a show without the ticket. it couldn’t be done.
“Jimgrim,” she interrupted, “why do you travel with two miserable Indians? Ali Baba and his men are bad enough, but the other two creatures put you to open shame! Take my rifle and shoot that fool, or else let me do it!”