The Talbot Mundy Megapack. Talbot Mundy

her plans I will reckon it beneath my dignity to use a sword on her. So. It is settled. We shall see.”

      You know that warm glow of vanity that sweeps over you when another fellow concedes your plan to be better than his? It is rather like the effect of certain drugs—a highly agreeable sensation while it lasts.

      But it was tempered in my case by that reference he had made to a jackal, and I’m still left wondering how much justice there was in the insinuation. Narayan Singh and I are friends right down to this minute, but I am none the less conscious of a query that seems to spoil confidence a little.

      He, being master of himself by training, and used to sleeping when he saw fit, volunteered to take the first four-hour watch on Ayisha, so I got as much sleep as the flies and the snores of the rest of the gang would permit, and awoke toward evening to the sound of unaccustomed voices outside my tent. There was one voice with a squeak in it like a rusty wheel that I had certainly never heard before.

      It seemed we had made some prisoners. There were three seedy-looking camels kneeling over by Grim’s tent, and three almost as seedy-looking individuals were talking to Grim in the midst of our camp, with most of our gang seated in a semicircle listening. Grim had out his traveling water-pipe for the sake of effect, and was puffing away at it while he meditated on the information that was being drawn forth gradually. Ayisha was seated on the mat beside him.

      The man with the squeak in his voice, who did most of the talking, was a very dark-skinned fellow with a short, coal-black, curly beard. He had little gold rings in his ears, and in spite of the filthy condition of his clothes he wore an opulent look—the sort that suggests intimate acquaintance with the fabled riches of the East. I have seen a Moor, who hadn’t a coin with which to bless himself, create exactly the same impression by simply being dark and handsome.

      He was eating dates while he talked, so I suppose Grim had been to some pains to make him feel welcome. But he hadn’t been there long.

      “Wallahi!” he said as I joined the circle. “But Your Honor is surely Ali Higg, and that is the lady Ayisha! Your Honor is pleased to pretend otherwise, but am I blind? I, who come straight from Petra where Your Honor paid me, am not thus easily deceived!

      “Lo, the good camels! It was easy to make a wide circuit, and reach this place a day ahead of me; but what is Your Honor’s purpose? What do you want with me, O Lion of Petra?”

      “Nevertheless,” said Grim, “I am not Ali Higg, who styles himself Lion of Petra.”

      “Is that not the lady Ayisha?” he retorted. “True, I have only seen you in the dark, but have I not seen her at the least ten times? Was it not she who had my servant flogged on a former occasion because he likened her to other women?”

      Grim said nothing to that. Ayisha drew the embroidered head-cloth over her face, I suppose to hide a smile.

      “For what purpose did you visit Petra?” Grim inquired.

      “Mashalla! Did I not receive payment from Your Honor? I do not understand!”

      “It is I who do not understand,” said Grim. “Repeat to me what you did at Petra.”

      “But Your Honor knows!”

      “Very well. Return with me to Petra. I have reasons for asking.”

      “Wallahi! If it suits Your Honor’s humor to make me tell you a tenth time what I have nine times said already, I have a tongue that wags. But I see that another has been telling tales of me behind my back, making me out a liar for his own purposes. Inshallah, it shall be found that my tale varies by less than the ten-thousandth part of the width of a hair from what I have told already.”

      “Proceed,” said Grim. “I listen.”

      “Thus then: While in Jaffa, having received Your Honor’s letter by the hand of Shabbas Ali, requesting me to spy on the British troops, I made all haste, laying aside my own affairs and journeying wherever the trail of information led me. I asked questions, but was not content with asking. I went and looked. I made friends with subordinate officials, some of whom I bribed to show me written orders removed from the desks of commanding officers.

      “I ascertained all particulars and found this to be the fact: That whereas there are small bodies of troops scattered in certain places, those are needed for local protection of the places where they are; and that whereas there is at Ludd an army of more than twenty thousand men, with guns, great store of supplies, cavalry, and aeroplanes, that army is held in readiness to go to Egypt and cannot for the present be sent against you.Moreover, the long march, so difficult for guns and supply-wagons, from there to Petra, would not be attempted during the hot season. So Your Honor is safe from attack.”

      “Uh! So you say!” Grim grunted.

      You could almost hear the wheels click inside his head as he tried to puzzle out what use to make of this man. One thing was clear enough: the Lion of Petra was well informed. It was nothing less than fact that on no account could an expedition be undertaken against him for a long time. And it was fair, therefore, to presume that in his Petra fastness the robber chief would be feeling confident, and would be that much more difficult to bluff.

      But it is one advantage of that land that you may be deliberate without causing impatience or losing respect. Rather the contrary; the Arab values your decisions all the more for being reached after several minutes of silent thought.

      Neither our own gang nor the prisoner was in the least disturbed by Grim’s taking his time, and only Narayan Singh, still postponing his sleep, was anxious when Ayisha leaned her head close to Grim’s and whispered. Grim did not nod or shake his head or make any recognition of her presence—for a real Arab would not have dreamed of doing so—but it was she who gave him the right suggestion, although her intention was totally different from his.

      “You lie,” he said suddenly.

      “Allah!”

      “There is an army making ready now to march on Petra.”

      “As Allah is my witness, there is no such thing.”

      “You shall return to Petra.”

      “But Your Honor knows I am in great haste. My own small affairs at Jaffa, God knows, have been neglected. How shall I spare time to return to Petra?”

      “And there you shall reverse your story.”

      “Allah!”

      “You shall tell the very numbers and equipment of the army that makes ready.”

      “May He who never sleeps preserve me! Am I mad, or dreaming? In Petra I have told Your Honor a true tale; shall I return to Petra in order to tell you a lie? O Lord of the limits of the desert, listen to me! I have property in Jaffa; I must attend to it.”

      “I know you have. By the wharf where the Greeks land melons from Egypt, isn’t it? Three godowns and a cafe on the corner? A nice property.”

      He paused, and I think he was turning over in his mind just how far it would be wise to go with all those others listening; for every word he let fall was sure to be discussed and discussed again at the next halting-place.

      “Which is better—to return to Petra and obey, or to lose that property?”

      “How shall I lose it? Hah! Your Honor is pleased to joke. You will invade Palestine as far as Jaffa?”

      “For those who live under British protection and yet spy against the British are not so well treated by them as those who spy on their behalf.”

      “Maybe. When they are caught! When they have caught a fox they may skin him.”

      “And I am not Ali Higg, the Lion of Petra.”

      “Then who in the name of the Prophet are you, with the Lion’s wife at your side?”

      “That is none of your business. You come back to Petra with me. No, not your men; they go on. You alone. I have spoken.”

      In