The Talbot Mundy Megapack. Talbot Mundy

formed the same judgment and decision that I did.

      However, he lay there and barked like a jackal instead. It was very well done. The pests had been snarling and yapping all around us on and off ever since the moon rose, and unless someone had been listening for a signal, or actually watching him as we were, that bark would have got by as a normal night noise. It only differed from a genuine jackal’s bark in its regularity; he made exactly the same succession of sounds four times at equal intervals—a thing a jackal never does.

      And somebody was listening below for just that signal. There was no answer, but he evidently saw somebody move down there in the darkness, for he was satisfied and drew back his head and shoulders.

      Because of our position in the middle of the island we couldn’t see down into the fiumara, but we heard footsteps; and presently the man spoke and was answered. We could hear both voices, but both failed to catch the words, or to distinguish whether the voice below was man’s or woman’s.

      However, we weren’t long in doubt. A head that was unmistakably Ayisha’s emerged above the edge of the bank, coming up the track our camels had used. The man spoke to her again, and crawled away toward a good-sized boulder to his left hand and our right, fifty yards off along the bank. She followed him, bolt upright, walking like a ghost. It takes a woman to ignore the possibilities that scare a man into all manner of precautions. They both disappeared behind the boulder. The single camel’s head was still visible sticking out like a big snake’s from behind the rock in the near distance, and there was no other sign of activity; so Narayan Singh and I dared to breathe normally at last, and speak in low tones.

      “One of us should go close and listen to their talk, sahib,” said the Sikh. “Which of us shall it be?”

      “Both of us,” I answered. “You go ahead. I’ll wake Jimgrim and follow.”

      A couple of points were obvious. Someone had followed us from Petra: for who else could have guessed Ayisha’s whereabouts? She might have made arrangements with one of the Lion’s junior wives or concubines to organize communications as soon as possible after our backs were turned; I was absolutely positive that she had answered a prearranged signal. The other point was that Grim could keep watch on top of the island and be in the best position from which to issue orders, at one and the same time.

      So I crept down quietly behind Narayan Singh, and threw a handful of small rocks on Grim’s tent at short range. He would probably have fired at me if I had used any other means of waking him, because, seeing we had arranged the proper signal, he would naturally suppose any one entering his tent quietly to be an enemy; and I would have had to go quietly for fear of arousing the camp, whose noise would then have disturbed Ayisha. To cut short her interview with that night prowler might mean depriving Grim of valuable information.

      * * * *

      As soon as Jimgrim thrust his head out of the tent I told him what was happening. He went at once to the top of the island, and I started after Narayan Singh. There wasn’t a sign of the Sikh by that time. I could still make out the camel’s head in the distance, moving rhythmically as the beast belched and chewed its cud, but there was no trace of a human being anywhere; and, as it happened, our own camels were making quite a din just then, down in the fiumara—dreaming or something.

      The brutes usually have bad dreams and let high heaven know it. Their guttural objections and shuffling were loud enough to drown any reasonable footfall, so I took the simplest course and walked straight forward, taking one sole precaution. The jingle of a rifle-swivel in the night can be safely guaranteed to wake the seven sleepers. I don’t know why, but there’s the fact. I’ve seen many a long stalk spoiled by it, and some men never learn.

      By holding that loose swivel I actually stepped on Narayan Singh before he was aware of me, which says something for his skill in taking cover. He was lying in broad moonlight between two ridges of sand on the side of the boulder nearest the fiumara, too busy listening to make a sign of any sort to me; so I went round to the other side and crouched in the short shadow.

      I judged the interview was pretty nearly over. The two were conversing in such low tones that you could hardly distinguish Ayisha’s from the man’s voice; but I heard her say—

      “And is Jimgrim known so well to the Avenger?”

      “Only by name,” the man answered. “But the Lion knows no English,” she retorted.

      “Wallahi! Neither does the Avenger know a word of it.”

      “And Jael? Does she know of this?”

      “Allah! Has the Lion a trick worth trying that she did not first whisper to him? It was she who thought of it.”

      “May Allah do so to me, and more, unless I drive a knife into her heart before tomorrow’s sun sets!” hissed Ayisha. “Go now, or those two fat Indians on the rock will cease snoring and see us.”

      But the man would not go. He seemed to put a pretty high value on Jael’s life. I heard him catch at Ayisha’s garments as she started up to leave him, and although she cursed like a wet cat he wouldn’t let go of her.

      “Woman, if you kill Jael,” he insisted, “that will be the end of all of us. Better by far slay the Lion himself. Jael is the real leader. We would all follow Jael if the Lion were dead.”

      “Into jahannum she would lead you!” Ayisha answered.

      “That may be; for what is written shall come to pass. But better into jahannum behind her than to live here leaderless.”

      “Bah! Father of fear! There are other leaders.”

      “None fit to touch her garment. You must not kill her.”

      “That is my affair.”

      “I say you shall not.”

      “Son of sixty dogs, let go of me!”

      She made a sound between a curse and a scream, as if someone had taken her by the throat, and I judged it time to interfere. It was just two strides around that end of the rock, and I beat Narayan Singh by half a second.

      The man’s long knife was drawn, and he had his fingers on her throat, as I had guessed. The butt of my rifle sent the knife spinning, the Sikh dragged Ayisha away, and I rushed the fellow before he could draw a second knife.

      He was lying on his back in an instant, with the weight of my big hams on his chest. Narayan Singh pounced on his rifle while I searched him diligently for hidden hardware, tossing them out one by one. When I was quite sure he hadn’t any kind of weapon left I let him sit up and recover breath.

      With his first wind he began to beg for liberty, vowing he had never harmed me, nor intended to.

      “May your honor live forever!” he roared out; and I let him roar, for it didn’t seem to matter now whether the whole camp was wakened or not.

      Next he offered me a camel as the price of freedom. When I laughed at that, he swore he would pray for me three times daily for a year if I would let him go. He was dead set on getting away from us; he even offered me his rifle as a souvenir of the occasion. It was too bad to have to entertain such an awfully unwilling guest.

      “Come on,” I said, “and learn the worst. Perhaps you won’t be beaten very badly.”

      At that he even offered to lie down and let me beat him—anything, in fact, if I would only let him go. On the whole I judged he might prove a pretty important capture, and as he wouldn’t see sense I seized him at last by the scruff of his unwashed neck and forced him along in front of me. He hadn’t strength enough to make me exert myself, but he struggled like a hooked eel all the way.

      I felt like a New York cop running in a pickpocket, and the funniest part of it was that Narayan Singh strode along just in front, with his arm around Ayisha’s shoulders, booming titanic love-stuff into her unwilling ears.

      “What have I vowed a hundred times, beloved? Hah! If that had been an army hedged in with a sea of fire, I would have jumped the fire and freed you! What are