by Talbot Mundy
“Has he posted men on watch?”
“Two, in good positions, but I think they sleep, for neither of them saw me come away.”
“If they are awake can they see in every direction?”
“Yes, except up the fiumara, where none would be likely to come because of the rocks. No camel could pass that way, and the men on watch can’t see because of the turns.”
The Avenger’s brother paused again, and through a gap between the rocks I could see him stroke his heard reflectively.
“If I send men to seize those watchmen, they might see my men first and raise the alarm,” he said at last, and I began to hold my breath with that stupid involuntary effort that is first cousin to driving an auto from the rear seat. “So we must leave the camels and go down the fiumara,” he continued, pausing again to stroke his beard and think. “They are asleep, eh? We can take our time. Do you think they will fight, if suddenly awakened, or are those thieves likely to surrender at discretion?”
“They will fight!” she answered promptly. “They are the worst firebrands out of El-Kalil.”
“Wallahi! That is too bad,” he exclaimed. “Jimgrim must not be harmed on any account, for he travels under my brother’s promise of protection. But nothing was said about those thieves—”
“Who, moreover, seek to carry goods for Jmil Ras — and magic — magic that will turn the mountains into gold and make the Avenger’s teeth fall out! You must capture them.”
“Nevertheless, if we come on them, and they show fight, and Jimgrim takes the part of his friends, as he has the name of doing, how shall we keep him from harm?” he answered, resuming the stroking of his beard. “Wallahi! But this is an awkward business.”
“You would do no harm by seizing Jimgrim first,” she advised him. “That would not break the law of host and guest for you would have saved his life. He could be set free afterward.”
“I wonder what my brother would say to that?”
“He would agree! I know the Avenger.”
“Peace, woman! You have only known him a few weeks — I a lifetime. Let me think.”
I began to breathe sensibly again, remembering how the Avenger and that man in front of me had spared the life of Ali Higg, their deadliest enemy, at a time when they had him completely in the power. The promise to spare his life had been won by a trick, but they had observed the promise without as much as considering the alternative. The habitual takers of human life and prosecutors of relentless blood-feuds are not by a long shot the worst men in the world.
“Jimgrim must be separated from those thieves,” he said at last, “for if not, they will claim his protection, and he ours; whereas, if we get him away from them they can all be in the next world before he knows it. And as for magic — the more of it that Jimgrim can dig out of those loads the better. Let the loads be his, if he claims them, but those thieves have cumbered the earth too long already. Go you back, woman. Waken Jimgrim quietly, and persuade him to return with you to this place, saying that one man waits to speak with him alone. Bring him along the high ground, and my men will use the fiumara.”
“But what if he brings two or three?”
“No matter. I will keep a handful here to deal with any bodyguard he brings. While Jimgrim is kept talking here my men will attend to the other matter. It is time the crows were given a good meal!”
She argued a little yet. I don’t think she relished her job much, or that she was any too sure of luring Grim into the trap. But he cut short her arguments abruptly with a string of sulfurous oaths and turned his back on her to go and instruct his men.
So she began rather slowly and reluctantly to climb back over the tumbled rocks. And as soon as her back was toward me I began very cautiously to follow her, thankful that she went so slowly, because I had the double task of keeping hidden from both front and rear. I was minded to have a talk with her before either of us reached Grim’s tent, but not so soon that she should be able to shout an alarm to the Avenger’s brother.
So we made one turn and the half of another before I called a halt. There was an enormous round boulder in the middle of the fiumara bed at that point, and she was just about to feel her way around it, stepping gingerly from rock to rock, when I called out.
“Ya sit Ayisha!” [“O lady Ayisha.”]
She stopped as if shot, saw me, and made an instinctive dive into her clothes for a weapon. But all she had was a dagger — not the one that I had taken from her and tossed to Narayan Singh, but a Persian thing with a curved blade. She drew it and showed her teeth pretty much as our friend the panther ha behaved an hour before.
It was pretty to watch the changing emotions on her face as I drew nearer. Her first instinctive intention to kill me if she could gave place to realization of the hopelessness, as well as the uselessness of that; next to almost hysterical despair; and then to cunning, and a flashing smile as sweet as sunshine on the morning dew. Lord! But she was pretty when she beamed at you that way. However, I kept both eyes on her and trusted to luck for my footing, for she might have thrown that dagger, and I’ve seen her throw one mighty straight, as I hope to tell one of these days. “Mashallah! Why this secrecy?” she said with a laugh as soon as I drew close. But she kept the dagger in her hand, and if she had been anything other than a woman I would have drawn my pistol. Wisdom and self-respect don’t always seem to run in double harness, do they?
“I knew all along that you were there listening,” she said mockingly. “You made more noise than a frightened horse!”
I knew that wasn’t true, but decided to test it all the same.
“You might have seen me coming out of the tent,” said I, “for it was difficult to hide just then; but after that I thought I followed pretty well.”
“Your magic didn’t work, O Miyan! I looked back and saw you four times between the tents and that tree, and I could hear you coming behind me all the way.”
Well, that was just like a woman. I can’t imagine why she chose to lie about it, unless to reduce my conceit and make me more amenable to argument.
“No matter,” I answered. “I heard what you said to the Avenger’s brother, and what he said to you. That is the main point.”
At that she lied again, remarkably readily. I’m not blaming her any more than Grim did at any time. I like the wench, and dare say she will go far under the new régime just dawning in Arab lands. But she had learned political ambition with no more leaven of redeeming altruism than Grim had been able to teach her in less than a dozen days. Moreover, she had had time, and lots of opportunity to forget the lesson learned from him; so now, caught in a predicament, she lied as her ancestresses always did.
“You must not make trouble between me and Jimgrim,” she said, pleading — but keeping the dagger in full view still. “You are a Miyan and do not understand. There was a plot to capture Jimgrim, and to render him helpless by killing all his men, so that he would have to obey the Avenger whether he will or not. But I love Jimgrim. I am on his side. Wallahi! I would die for his sake. Therefore I pretended to agree to the plot, and came to meet Jimgrim in the desert. Then, this morning, I kept the tryst here to make sure of everything, for fear of losing Jimgrim’s confidence by giving him a false alarm. And now I go to warn him.”
“Bismillah! He ought to be grateful to you!” said I.
“You think so?”
“Why not? But for you the trap might have been set far more effectually. Let us go now and wake the weasel from his sleep lest the rabbits catch him.”
“Are you sneering at me, Miyan? Have a care!”
“Who would sneer at such a beautiful princess?” I answered.
“By the whiskers of the Prophet, it was your cleverness that shed light in a dark place. Come along, let us find Jimgrim.”
But she stood at bay still, with her back against the bulge of the great boulder, and I think she would have stuck her dagger into me if the footing had been better, and I less alert.
“Are you and I enemies
or friends?” she demanded.
“All Jimgrim’s friends are mine,” said I.
“I suspect you,” she answered. “I think you are like an adder lying in the sand that bites the camels’ heels. You are one of those who speak fair and act foul.”
Nothing like seeing yourself as a woman sees you, is there! But I’m better at self-defense with fists than tongue, and rather irreverently prone to laugh at criticism.
“I don’t think you need feel afraid of me,” I said; and she tossed up her chin as if she were the Queen of Sheba putting one of King Solomon’s court attendants in his place.
“Afraid of you? It is you who should fear me, Miyan! I am well able to care for myself, but you are—”
“I have the name of a magician,” I interrupted.
But one of the strangest things in the world is that people who believe in black magic and witchcraft also believe that they can overawe the magician or the witch, much as if a prizefighter with gloves on should threaten a man in an armored aeroplane.
“Use your magic the way I bid you, then, or you shall suffer for it!” she retorted. “Use it to protect Jimgrim now without setting him against me!”
“So be it, O lady Ayisha,” I answered; and I began to make passes with my hands, and to quote about all the Latin I remember from my school-days.
“Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum!” I remarked by way of final emphasis; and there is a sort of galloping thump to that line when you say it properly that commands respect. She was distinctly a shade paler by the time I was through.
“Go along ahead of me now,” I said, “and judge for yourself whether the spell has worked or not. And afterward, if you are satisfied, you must give me credit for obliging you.”
So she went ahead, full of mingled pride, superstitious fear, and curiosity; and I chuckled in her wake, for I was sure of three things — that Narayan Singh had wakened Grim long ago; that Grim had already made arrangements for the protection of Ali Baba and his men; and that Grim was the last man who would “set himself” or be set against Ayisha for any consideration. He isn’t given to petty personalities, or to complaining of his tools, but plays up to the best instincts of friend and enemy alike. But I never suspected how perfectly he had turned the trick for me, nor what prodigious respect Ayisha would have for my magic as the result. Having lost time talking, she hurried down the fiumara, leaping like a doe from rock to rock, and I had a hard time keeping pace. In fact, I failed to do it, and she turned the last corner more than fifty yards ahead of me. There she stopped dead, and when I overtook her she stared at me open-mouthed, saying nothing for about a minute.
Grim was gone. So were the tents. So were the camels. So were Ali Baba and his men, and Narayan Singh. There wasn’t a trace or a sound of them, and except for a few deep scratches in the sand you could hardly tell there had been a bivouac pitched there. I don’t approve of too much crowing over a victory, especially when nine-tenths of it is due to another man’s quick wit; but I couldn’t resist the impulse then.
“Does the spell seem to have worked, princess?” I asked triumphantly.
“Miyan, you are a great magician!” she answered. “You must obey me now in all things, and we will send Jmil Ras to Jehannum. After that I will be a great queen!”
CHAPTER IX. “Ask the camel of Jmil Ras!”
WELL, that was a fine plan of Ayisha’s; but as Grim must have done a heap of swift guesswork and would likely be grateful for hard facts, my first business was to find him. I thought it probable he would hide somewhere and wait for me before deciding on his gambit; but what he actually had done was to stow the men and camels in a hollow about three hundred yards to the left as you stood facing up the fiumara, with Narayan Singh on guard to keep them in there, and to come back himself in search of me. He peered down over the bank from between two rocks just as I was starting off to look for him in the opposite direction — having guessed wrongly that he would follow along old camel-prints in order to gain time by making his pursuers stop and think.
“Are you running away with Ayisha?” he called down.
“Ayisha, I’m surprized; I thought that you and I were friends!”
“Does he seem set against you yet?” I asked her, and she almost purred at me like a fed cat.
We climbed up the bank, and in a hurry I told Grim all I knew of the Avenger’s brother’s plan, giving Ayisha’s version of her connection with it because she was listening and checking me up. But I contrived to wink at him without her seeing, and Ayisha was the only person fooled.
I like to watch Grim make his mind up when he has all the facts. It reminds you of the breech-bolt action of a quick-firing gun that one moment is all wide open waiting for a charge, and the next shuts tight with a click and is ready for instant business. You can almost hear the click. The expression of his face changes very little, and he says less; but you know that a deal has been closed, so to speak, and that nothing remains to do but follow him to the conclusion.
“Coming down the fiumara, eh?”
He cast his eyes swiftly over the landscape, and the general drift of that thought was easy to understand. As I explained, whoever used the fiumara for a road would have to leave it where the boulder-cluttered figure S began and make a detour, which was really a short cut. You could see where hundreds of men had done that very thing; and as humans are like cattle in following the line of least exertion, the track had come to look almost like a road, leading in a wide semicircle along the lowest level. The head of a man on camel-back would hardly have been visible at any point along it to anyone peering over the rim of the fiumara.
“Come on!” said Grim, and led the way to the hollow where the men all waited.
Then he sent Narayan Singh on foot to hide himself on top of the bank where the figure S curved toward us, with orders to signal the movements of the men below. He was to raise his left fist once for each man he could see, and his right fist to mean that they were coming forward. If he raised his rifle that would mean that something unforeseen was happening, in which case Grim would send a messenger to him to learn particulars.
We waited for Narayan Singh to take up position, old Ali Baba fuming impatiently because Grim wouldn’t order a retreat. “By Allah, Jimgrim, hasn’t the Sikh told you that those are the Avenger’s men? They will cut my sons’ throats and steal this merchandise as quick as look at it! We have good camels, man; let us run, and come at Jmil Ras by another way. I have my bargain to keep!”
“You made a bargain to obey me!” Grim answered, and the old man left off talking. His sons and grandsons were as full of fear as he, but perfectly content to fulfill any terms their sire had committed them to. They were tough, and no observers of any commandments that the West pays lip-service to, except the Fifth, and if their days are not long in the land in consequence some sort of explanation should be due them from the missionaries.
Narayan Singh shot up his left fist twenty-nine times, and Grim led forward. Our destination was the blasted tree from which Ayisha had made her signal, although the track we followed re-entered the fiumara at a point considerably beyond that. We brought all the baggage beasts along — went forward, in fact, as if just arriving on the scene after a long march, and I rode beside Grim giving him an exact description of the fiumara where the Avenger’s brother waited.
Even so, it wasn’t quite obvious what he intended to do, although he seemed in no doubt whatever. Narayan Singh’s right fist kept shooting up in token that our would-be murderers were holding their course steadily. They were no doubt going slowly so as to make no noise, surprize being the main element of their strategy; so we went slowly too, in order to have them as far away from us as possible by the time we reached the tree.
As we held the shorter course and were mounted, we went at least two to their one, so that by the time we reached our goal they were about half-way to theirs, well out of call of the Avenger’s brother, but not far enough along to discover our ruse and return or star
t hue and cry, which was about the ideal arrangement. Grim ordered us to dismount fifty yards to the left of the blasted tree and hobble the camels. Then, leaving Ayisha in charge of Mujrim as a precaution against her giving the alarm too soon, he walked to the tree along with me and Ali Baba, and stood still and silent for nearly a minute, smiling as he watched the men who waited patiently below.
We were three to three; or so it must have seemed to the Avenger’s brother when he looked up. He didn’t seem surprized at first, for he expected Grim; and I daresay he thought Ayisha had stayed behind to direct the plunder of our bivouac, which would be about the normal behavior of a princess of that land. Nearly all tribal battles end in the plunder of one camp or the other by the women-folk, whose principal value to their husbands is their ability to garner wealth while the men gather martial laurels and notch their rifle-butts.
He rose and bowed to Grim, smiling handsomely — a regular Paladin making his guest free of all the desert.
“Greeting, Jimgrim! God give your honor long life! May the blessing of the Most High bring you peace and prosperity! My brother sent me to bid you welcome.”
“Greeting!” Grim called down. And then, like the man who met Jehu son of Nimshi in the Bible story— “Is it peace?”
“Peace between us, Jimgrim! Come down here and rest a while.”
“Three men,” Grim answered, “and more than thirty camels? You speak of peace. Is this an ambush or a trap?”
“Allah do more to me, if I would lay a hand on you, Jimgrim! There is a party of miscreants near here, whom my men have gone to settle an account with. As soon as they have attended to that business we will start for Abu Kem, if your honor pleases.”
The Avenger’s brother was looking very hard indeed at Ali Baba, whose face was more than half hidden in the folds of his loose head-dress. He had only seen the old man once before, but seemed to think he recognized him nevertheless. Grim whispered to me without moving his lips much, and I stepped back a few paces to make a sign to our men.