The Talbot Mundy Megapack. Talbot Mundy

changed the outline of his face. Both had that kind of chin with the suggestion of a cleft in it that usually goes along with a deep understanding of human nature.

      Each man’s eyes were large and seated rather deep. Each had a calm forehead, not much wrinkled, and their noses might have been cast from one mold—good, big noses, delicately curved along the bridge, with nostrils of the shape supposed to show good breeding.

      They were the same height, and I don’t believe either man weighed more than a hundred and forty pounds. I weigh nearly a hundred more than either of them. So does Narayan Singh.

      Being dressed as an Indian Moslem from Lahore, with a great brown Bedouin cloak thrown over all, with my head showing shaved under the turban and a week’s growth of nearly black beard sprouting, my disguise was pretty nearly perfect; but I dare bet that if a stranger could have entered that cave suddenly, he would have recognized Grim without hesitation as the man to reckon with; Ali Higg as the villain of the piece; Narayan Singh as a somewhat quarrelsome though loyal subordinate, and me as the looker-on.

      It’s difficult to see yourself as others might, but I expect that air of more or less detachment is hard to disguise when you have no real stake in a venture, except, of course, your life—something we most of us risk more casually than our money.

      * * * *

      Ali Higg watched us with similar curiosity, glancing from one to the other furtively, whereas Grim never shifted his gaze, but eyed the bandit steadily. It is one of the privileges of the East to sit as long as you want to and say nothing; outside on the ledge sat our old friend, Ali Baba with his sixteen sons and grandsons, overlooking the valley like vultures in a row; and nothing was likely to escape their eagle eyes, well fed though they were, and perhaps sleepy after gorging the bandit’s rice and mutton. We had no need to seem in a hurry, and it was Ali Higg at last who spoke first.

      “O Jimgrim, you have promised you will deal with that dog Hassan Saoud of Abu Lissan.”

      “True, O Lion of Petra.”

      “Then either you made that promise in order to trick me into signing an agreement; or else you are a madman! For how shall you, who have but nineteen men, get the better of Hassan Saoud, who styles himself the Avenger and has at least eight hundred?”

      “Did I have the better of you?” Grim asked him.

      “Father of ruses, yes! But you must give me back that agreement unless you keep your promise by smiting the Avenger. And how shall you do it?”

      “Have I smitten you?” asked Grim.

      The robber put some oily seeds into his mouth and chewed the cud on that for several minutes.

      “But unless he is destroyed the Avenger will come and make war on me. If he wins, he will slay me and make some of my men prisoners, adding them to the force he has already.

      “Thus you will have a more difficult man to deal with than I have been. Whereas I have only raided into Palestine a dozen times, he will make a holy war and plunder Jerusalem itself. So you must smite him or return me that agreement.”

      Grim laughed.

      “You’d better help me then! If I fail, you’ll suffer sooner than any one.”

      “Uh-uh!” the robber grunted. “Here in Petra I might defeat him, for the pass is narrow and a woman is the equal of a man. Out in the open I can not prevail against his numbers.”

      It was Grim’s turn to sit silent. I was growing used to his masked changes of expression and did not doubt he knew what he was going to say; but I believe he turns over a sentence in his mind a dozen times before he uses it, on occasions when most men would seek to make an impression by rhetoric.

      “They say I look like you,” he said at last.

      “They speak truly. We might have had one mother. Therefore it is unseemly that you should force a written pledge from me! Give me back that paper I signed, and go in peace.”

      Grim ignored the suggestion.

      “Are you known to this sheikh who calls himself the Avenger?” he asked.

      “Wallahi! Am I known to him? He took the title of Avenger on account of me, when he swore to spill my blood in the dust! In the war I let myself be captured by the British rather than fall into his hands, for in those days I was not yet ready to take the field against him.

      “Am I known to him! Bismillah! It was my knife that made the scar across his cheek! Not only does he know and remember me, but every man of his who sees that scar remembers me!”

      “Then the Avenger will think I am you?” suggested Grim.

      “Aye, and torture you with crucifixion on a dung-heap among the flies, after you have been well beaten.”

      “And my men will be considered your men?” Grim went on.

      “Surely, and tortured too.”

      Grim made another long pause, and Ali Higg smirked in the belief that he had found the weak place in Grim’s courage. But he winced when Grim countered calmly.

      “So whatever my men and I do will be credited to you?”

      “Allah!”

      “So that if I fail I shall have added to the wrath of the Avenger?”

      “As a man who takes a little stone and adds it to a mountain!”

      “You’d better help,” said Grim.

      “As God is my witness, I am afraid to go against Ben Saoud the Avenger,” answered Ali Higg. “Besides, what can I do? You have sent away my men—some in this direction, some in that.”

      “It was you who sent them away,” Grim retorted. “All I did was to postpone their return. Now I’ll give you one last chance to use your men on a campaign. After this once, peace!”

      “Mashallah! What shall I do with peace? How then shall I get new camels?”

      “Breed them.”

      “How shall I get provisions?”

      “Till the oases. Sow and reap.”

      “How shall I make my name feared?”

      “Make it respected. Was not Solomon the wisest man? Did he make war? Rather he held the scales of justice evenly, and men looked up to him.”

      “But the prophet Mohammed came after Solomon, and was wiser. He made war.”

      “I tell you, Ali Higg,” said Grim, “you’ve made the last raid you ever will with impunity. It’s none of my business to ruin you. I’d sooner see you establish yourself as a strong chief—strong enough to keep the peace in these parts, and keeping it fairly. But as Allah is my witness, Ali Higg, if you don’t mend your ways the British will come and end them for you. What is more, I’ll take the field myself against you, and not quit until your bones are bleaching. You may call me friend or enemy, but choose now. Which is it to be?”

      Ali Higg grew fidgety, and his eyes shifted again. I didn’t see what Grim stood to score by extracting a promise of friendship from such an obvious rogue; but you never know what Grim is driving at until it suits him to make it clear.

      “Wallahi! If I say I am your friend,” the Lion of Petra answered presently, “what shall prevent you from going to Saoud the Avenger and saying you are his friend?”

      “True! What shall prevent?” said Grim.

      “And joining him against me? For all men love to take the stronger side.”

      Ali Higg called for his water-pipe, and a woman brought it already filled with tobacco. She lighted it for him, and he ordered her gruffly to get out. He was evidently feeling pleased with himself over that piece of subtle reasoning.

      There was silence for several minutes, during which Grim produced a cigarette, and old Ali Baba, grandfather and captain