by Talbot Mundy
“He, sir? He’s the works. You’d better ask him.”
The palace lights went on and glowed like fairyland amid the trees. But the crowd still poured past, yelling with excitement and there was nothing to do but stand still.
“And who are you?” asked the man in riding breeches. “Me, sir? Damned if I know! Ben Quorn’s my name and I wisht I was in Philadelphia. I’d feel a damned sight better if my elephant was hunky-dory. Poor old sucker, he’ll get shot, I reckon.”
“I enjoyed the way you faced him. That took doing.”
“Some folks ‘ud enjoy ‘most anything,” Quorn answered. “I could tame that elephant, God-dammit! Him and me—”
“Suppose you walk up with me to the palace,” said the man in riding breeches. “If the crowd will let us,” he added.
So Quorn followed him.
XXIX
“Rupees A Thousand! Pay Me!”
The new arrival led for as much as ten or fifteen paces, courteously asking sweating men to make way. But he followed Quorn after that. Even in the starlight Quorn was recognized. A wide lane opened up. There was a roar of “Gunga sahib!”
“Pardon me, after you!” said the man in riding breeches.
So Quorn strode forward — a rather small man in a yellow turban, holding an old iron ankus, looking angry; next, a very tall man in a white shirt, looking curious and thoughtfully amused; and then a third man in a solar topee and a white suit, whose peculiarly lonely looking eye suggested nervous self-importance; without knowing what he did, he was using a piece of rubber hose-pipe for a walking stick.
The elephants were in a row before the palace front door, and in their midst was the guilty Asoka, in line, unmounted, decorated with the wreck of flower-beds. His lower lip hung slobbering. He had forced his way into his rightful place and nobody had dared to try to prevent him. The mahouts knew the mood he was in. They shouted warning to the crowd. It was the presence of Asoka, not the babu, that had cleared a wide space in the light from the palace windows. But it was the babu who seized that opportunity. In front of the shut front door, he held forth, fagged and sweaty, but triumphant, leaning forth from the low porch like a Roman orator. His voice was hoarse; and there was tumult, but a gradually gaining silence, and he evidently spoke well-aimed phrases barbed for interested ears. It was in a pause in his speech, as he wiped his face and looked around him with the practised demogogic art which silences a crowd, that he saw Quorn — and then saw the man behind him.
“Oh my God!” he shouted. “Krishna! Jiminy! By — Sahib, this babu is drunk! Or is it true? It is too good to be true! I don’t believe it! Brazenose Blake? Here? Now? In the nick of neck or nothing? Oh salaam — salaam — salaam — before I wake up! If I thought there were a god who gave a damn about the British, I would certainly have prayed to have you sent here! May I shake hands?”
He descended from the porch. He shook hands. There was no way of escaping that, and there was no denying his enjoyment.
“This is crown of my career! It is the accolade of destiny. I love it,” he said grinning.
“You damned old rascal, what have you been doing?” asked Brazenose Blake. He made a certain effort to disguise affection, but his voice was not in key with the effort and the corner of his mouth twitched.
“I? I seized a flood of destiny by short hair and booted it over the top,” said the babu. And then, unexpectedly— “Rupees a thousand! Pay me!”
Brazenose Blake looked puzzled.
“Do you not remember — that day when you told me I am destined to be hanged for too much curiosity — I betted you a thousand rupees I will be a minister of state — a genuine, recognized, prime and trusted minister of state, with seals of office and a letter of appointment? You took that bet. Pay me!”
“Aren’t you just a wee bit previous?”
“I am not! There has been a revolution. There is now a Maharanee of Narada. Floated on the tide of fortune, this babu as minister of state awaits her recognition by the British Government. The former Maharajah is a fugitive from justice.”
“No he isn’t,” said Brazenose Blake. “He is dead. I saw him killed.”
The babu’s face fell. “Dead?” He glanced at Quorn. He looked shocked. “Who did it?”
“An elephant. I believe it was that big elephant. I think the Maharajah hurt him somehow, but it happened very quickly in the darkness. As an eye-witness, I can only swear he was killed by an elephant.”
The babu breathed relief. “I feared,” he said, “that destiny had stuck a thorn, as usual, into the rose of our requiescat! That saves pension money! Did you ever see an elephant drink champagne? You shall see Asoka do it. He shall drink a whole case, paid for from the thousand that you owe me! Your congratulations are in order, sahib.”
“Where are the police? asked Brazenose Blake. “Can you keep order?”
“The police are restoring order, sahib, by refraining from offending prejudices.”
“And the military?”
“Are in barracks. This babu persuaded them that revolution is a civil, not to say a civilized proceeding, capable of being misinterpreted by big majorities in search of somebody to blame for being in the way. They are to have nice new uniforms.”
Brazenose Blake compelled a smile to tremble back into retirement.
“I was told,” he said, “that the telegraph line is out of order. I tried to send a wire the moment I got here. How long—”
“Fifteen minutes, sahib. This prime minister is magically good at mending instruments! You will report all quiet?”
“I will report ‘situation apparently under control.’ But there’ll be a row about this, you understand.”
The babu hesitated. Then he grinned. “Sahib,” he said, “there is trouble enough for the British. When you tell them that her Highness is the lawful heiress, and that this prime minister is capable of guiding her, not only to a throne but also into wise and not too communistic policies—”
“Is she a—”
“She is modern, sahib. She is moral. This prime minister is middle-aged and totally unmoral. Shake hands on it!”
“Dammit, I’m not the Government. I can’t promise anything.”
“But they will listen to you. This prime minister—” The front door opened and the Princess stepped out. For a moment she stood smiling at the crowd that roared a greeting to her. Then she came to the edge of the porch and, leaning forward —
“Chullunder Ghose, who is this gentleman? Present him to me. You should have asked him in at once. What dreadful manners! He will think my ministers are—”
Quorn walked away, unnoticed. Palaces were no place for him anyhow. But Moses lingered, listening. Quorn went to Asoka and stood staring at him, well within reach of the restless trunk.
“I guess your luck’s good after all, old-timer,” he said glumly. “Durn you, I wish mine was. I’ll get marching orders in the morning. Lucky if I don’t get stuck in prison, just for looking like a legend. They’ll be needing a goat.”
He stood for fifteen minutes talking to the big dumb brute. And in the momentary intervals of talking to him he was puzzled, as innumerable other men have been, to know why men, who thought he was a legendary hero come to life, should think it natural to stand around him and not stare too curiously.
“India’s a durned strange country,” he reflected. “Wisht I didn’t have to go home.”
Moses came to him at last, a little spineless, something lacking in him. He drooped like the piece of hose-pipe that he carried.
“You blue, too?” Quorn asked him.
“Nobodee has anee word for me,” said Moses. “Certainlee the babu will be her prime minister. I heard her say that you shall be the Master of the Elephants, because the people will demand that, even if she did not also wish it. But of me they did not speak, although I stood there noticeablee.”
“Your job’s safe if I stay on,” Quorn answered. “Now I’ve learned you how to make the coffee, you’ll do.”
“Rattee is
to be a senior mahout,” said Moses, “and to have his debt paid to the money-lender. It is fitting I should have preeferment also.”
“What do you want?” Quorn asked him.
“Sir, if I may call myself your secretaree — I will cook the eggs and bacon and the curree and the coffee — but I should feel—”
“Okay. You’re my secretary. Hustle along home and have the coffee ready. Time I’ve hitched old Soaker to his picket I’ll be all in. Mind now — only half an egg, and don’t you let it boil over or you’ll lose your new job.”
“Thank you kindlee, sir,” said Moses.
THE END
THE LION OF PETRA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1. “Allah makes all things easy!”
CHAPTER 2. “Trust in God, but tie your camel!”
CHAPTER 3. “Ali Higg’s brains live in a black tent!”
CHAPTER 4. “Go and ask the kites, then, at Dat Rasi”
CHAPTER 5. “Let that mother of snakes beware”
CHAPTER 6. “Him and me — same father!”
CHAPTER 7. “You got cold feet?”
CHAPTER 8. He cools his wrath in the moonlight, communing with Allah!”
CHAPTER 9. “I think we’ve got the Lion of Petra on the hip!”
CHAPTER 10. “There’s no room for the two of you!”
CHAPTER 11. “That we make a profit from this venture!”
CHAPTER 12. “Yet I forgot to speak of the twenty aeroplanes!”
CHAPTER 13. “There is a trick to ruling!”
The first edition
CHAPTER 1. “Allah makes all things easy!”
THIS isn’t an animal story. No lions live at Petra nowadays, at any rate, no four-legged ones; none could have survived competition with the biped. Unquestionably there were tamer, gentler, less assertive lions there once, real yellow cats with no worse inconveniences for the casual stranger than teeth, claws, and appetites.
The Assyrian kings used to come and hunt near Petra, and brag about it afterward; after you have well discounted the lies they made their sculptors tell on huge stone monoliths when they got back home, they remain a pretty peppery line of potentates. But for imagination, self-esteem, ambition, gall, and picturesque depravity they were children — mere chickens — compared to the modern gentleman whom Grim and I met up with A.D. 1920.
You can’t begin at the beginning of a tale like this, because its roots reach too far back into ancient history. If, on the other hand, you elect to start at the end and work backward the predicament confronts you that there wasn’t any end, nor any in sight.
As long as the Lion of Petra has a desert all about him and a choice of caves, a camel within reach, and enough health to keep him feeling normal — never mind whose camel it is, nor what power claims to control the desert — there will be trouble for somebody and sport for him.
So, since it can have no end and no beginning, you might define this as an episode — a mere interval between pipes, as it were, in the amusing career of Ali Higg ben Jhebel ben Hashim, self-styled Lion of Petra, Lord of the Wells, Chief of the Chiefs of the Desert, and Beloved of the Prophet of Al-Islam; not forgetting, though, that his career was even supposed to amuse his victims or competitors. The fun is his, the fury other people’s.
The beginning as concerns me was when I moved into quarters in Grim’s mess in Jerusalem. As a civilian and a foreigner I could not have done that, of course, if it had been a real mess; but Grim, who gets fun out of side-stepping all regulations, had established a sort of semi-military boarding-house for junior officers who were tired of tents, and he was too high up in the Intelligence Department for anybody less than the administrator to interfere with him openly.
He did exactly as he pleased in that and a great many other matters — did things that no British-born officer would have dared do (because they are all crazy about precedent) but what they were all very glad to have Grim do, because he was a bally American, don’t you know, and it was dashed convenient and all that. And Grim was a mighty good fellow, even if he did like syrup on his sausages.
The main point was that Grim was efficient. He delivered the goods. He was perfectly willing to quit at any time if they did not like his methods; and they did not want him to quit, because there is nothing on earth more convenient for men in charge of public affairs than to have a good man on their string who can be trusted to break all rules and use horse-sense on suitable occasion.
I had been in the mess about two days, I think, doing nothing except read Grim’s books and learn Arabic, when I noticed signs of impending activity. Camel saddles began to be brought out from somewhere behind the scenes, carefully examined, and put away again. Far-sighted men with the desert smell on them, which is more subtly stirring and romantic than all other smells, kept coming in to squat on the rugs in the library and talk with Grim about desert trails, and water, and what tribal feuds were in full swing and which were in abeyance.
Then, about the fourth or fifth day, the best two camel saddles were thrown into a two-wheeled cart and sent off somewhere, along with a tent, camp-beds, canned goods, and all the usual paraphernalia a white man seems to need when he steps out of his cage into the wild.
I was reading when that happened, sitting in the arm-chair facing Grim, suppressing the impulse to ask questions, and trying to appear unaware that anything was going on. But it seemed to me that there was too much provision made for one man, even for a month, and I had hopes. However, Grim is an aggravating cuss when so disposed, and he kept me waiting until the creaking of the departing cart-wheels and the blunt bad language of the man who drove the mules could no longer be heard through the open window.
“Had enough excitement?” he asked me then.
“There’s not enough to be had,” said I, pretending to continue reading.
“Care to cut loose out of bounds?”
“Try me.”
“The desert’s no man’s paradise this time o’ year. Hotter than Billy- be — , and no cops looking after the traffic. They’ll shoot a man for his shoe-leather.”
“Any man can have my shoes when I can’t use ’em.”
“Heard of Petra?”
I nodded as casually as I could. Everybody who has been to Palestine has heard of that place, where an inaccessible city was carved by the ancients out of solid rock, only to be utterly forgotten for centuries until Burkhardt rediscovered it.
“Heard too much. I don’t believe a word of it.”
“There’s a problem there to be straightened out,” said Grim. “It’s away and away beyond the British border; too far south for the Damascus government to reach; too far north for the king of Mecca; too far east for us; much too far west for the Mespot outfit. East of the sun and west of the moon you might say. There’s a sheikh there by the name of Ali Higg. I’m off to tackle him. Care to come?”
“When do we start?”
“Now, from here. Tonight from Hebron. I’ll give you time to make your will, write to your lady-love, and crawl out if you care to. Ali Higg is hot stuff. Suppose we leave it this way: I’ll go on to Hebron. You think it over. You can overtake me at Hebron any time before tonight, and if you do, all right; but if second thoughts make you squeamish about crucifixion — they tell me that Ali Higg makes a specialty of that — I’ll say you’re wise to stay where you are. In any case I start from Hebron tonight. Suit yourself.”
Any man in his senses would get squeamish about crucifixion if he sat long enough and thought about it. I hate to feel squeamish almost as much as I hate to sit and think, both being sure-fire ways of getting into trouble. The only safe thing I know is to follow opportunity and leave the man behind to do the worrying. More people die lingering, ghastly deaths in arm-chairs and in bed than anywhere.
So I spoke of squeamishness and second thoughts with all the scorn that a man can use who hasn’t yet tasted the enmity of the desert and felt the fear of its loneliness; and Grim, who never wastes time arguing with folk who don’t intend to
be convinced, laughed and got up.
“You can’t come along as a white man.”
“Produce the tar and feathers then,” said I.
“Have you forgotten your Hindustani?”
“Some of it.”
“Think you can remember enough of it to deceive Arabs who never knew any at all?”
“Narayan Singh was flattering me about it the other day.”
“I know he was,” said Grim. “It was his suggestion we should take you with us.”
That illustrates perfectly Grim’s way of letting out information in driblets. Evidently he had considered taking me on this trip as long as three days ago. It was equally news to me that the enormous Sikh, Narayan Singh, had any use for me; I had always supposed that he had accepted me on sufferance for Grim’s sake, and that in his heart he scorned me as a tenderfoot. You can no more dig beneath the subtlety of Sikh politeness than you can overbear his truculence, and it is only by results that you may know your friend and recognize your enemy.
Narayan Singh came in, and he did not permit any such weakness as a smile to escape him. When great things are being staged it is his peculiar delight to look wooden. Not even his alert brown eyes betrayed excitement. Like most Sikhs, he can stand looking straight in front of him and take in every detail of his surroundings; with his khaki sepoy uniform perfect down to the last crease, and his great black bristly beard groomed until it shone, he might have been ready for a dress parade.
“Is everything ready?” asked Grim.
“No, sahib. Suliman weeps.”
“Spank him! What’s the matter this time?”
“He has a friend. He demands to take the friend.”
“What?” I said. “Is that little — coming?”
Two men in all Jerusalem, and only two that I knew of, had any kind of use for Suliman, the eight-year-old left-over from the war whom Grim had adopted in a fashion, and used in a way that scandalized the missionaries. He and Narayan Singh took delight in the brat’s iniquities, seeing precocious intelligence where other folk denounced hereditary vice. I had a scar on my thumb where the little beast had bitten me on one occasion when I did not dare yell or retaliate, and, along with the majority, I condemned him cordially.