The Talbot Mundy Megapack. Talbot Mundy

whatever and play those sky-high.

      The result was unfortunate. Suliman followed the party of thirteen to a small shed that stood beside a big one near the farther limit of the town. Into that they disappeared, donkey and all.

      Suliman lurked in the doorway a hundred yards off, and Catesby watched him from a point of vantage behind the awning of a fruit-seller’s shop. From where he stood he could read the name of the Zionist Commission on the door of the big shed.

      At the end of about twenty minutes the donkey and the thirteen men emerged, Jim last again. The twelve went about their business separate ways, but Jim sat down to warm himself, Arab-fashion, in the early sun and lighted a cigarette.

      When the last of the twelve was out of sight Suliman approached Jim with the beggar’s whine again. They talked for about two minutes, and a coin changed hands for appearance’s sake. Then Suliman came up-street to beg from Catesby. There was no one to overhear them—no need to beat about the bush.

      “Jimgrim says you are to go back to Narayan Singh and tell him not to kill the iblis, who is in that place he is watching. He says you should stay with Narayan Singh, so that when Jimgrim wants you he can find you.”

      * * * *

      Now if a Sikh had brought that message Catesby would have accepted it without demur. Moreover, he would have given that hundred-piaster note to a Sikh to give to Jim. But the eight-year-old Arab was different.

      “Go back and say I have something for him. Ask him whether I shall go to him, or will he come to me. Say it’s important.”

      “Give me whatever it is. He told me to come back to him.”

      “Do as I say.”

      There followed a considerable waste of time. Suliman did not dare to go running back with the message, knowing well enough that inquisitive observers might draw conclusions. He had the practical common sense to enter a shop and buy two native cigarettes “for the khawaja sitting yonder in the sun,” as he was careful to explain.

      The shopman was inquisitive, and had to be lied to in extenso, which took up more time. Finally Jim received the cigarettes and returned one to the messenger as gratuity. Thanks to Suliman there was nothing to call for comment.

      But Jim had to sit and smoke the cigarette in order to complete the innocent picture, and it was several minutes before he strolled up the street to where Catesby waiting and went through the forms of pleased surprise and the lengthy Arab greeting of an unexpected friend. After that they strolled side by side, very slowly as befitted Arabs in the circumstances, and that entailed further delay.

      Catesby gave him the hundred-piaster note. Jim examined it and whistled softly—a thing no Arab ever does; but the revelation startled him, and there was no one to overhear. Catesby explained briefly how he came by it; and then they went through the formula of leave-taking for the benefit of onlookers, which consumed another minute or two.

      At last, however, Catesby went off alone to share Narayan Singh’s vigil, and took his time on the way because no Arab ever hurries if that can possibly be helped. So it was twenty minutes more before he reached the deserted village and another five minutes after than before he discovered Narayan Singh.

      The Sikh was lying in a dead man’s tortured posture on the ground, and just beginning to recover consciousness. A stone the size of a coconut lay beside his head. It was ten more minutes before Catesby could get a word out of him.

      “The door opened, sahib, and the iblis showed his head. I ordered him in again. He shut the door, and I watched it. A few minutes after that he showed himself over the top of the wall, and I, having orders not to shoot him, merely observed. Then he threw three stones at me, and the third one struck my head.

      “How long ago did this happen? Soon after I left?”

      “Nay. A long time after you left. I have been stunned—how should I know how long? But I think it happened just a very little while ago.”

      Catesby tried the door, but it was locked. So he set a charred beam against the wall and climbed, to peer in through the window. As far as he could seethe place was empty; and presently, scouting about, he found the imprints of two enormous naked feet in the dust. They were pointed away from the door, and he hardly could doubt they were those of the escaping iblis.

      CHAPTER X

      “Acting on information received.”

      All the ambitious men and women of history have come to grief finally by walking straight ahead into the same old simple trap. It is painted differently for different men, and the bait is big or little as the case may be. The goads that made them restless, so that they move when the trap is ready instead of staying still are pretty much the same in most cases; and, just as in the case of the tiger in his prime, there are usually jackals giving bad advice.

      Jenkins was no exception. Taking advantage of the long-drawn interim between the armistice and the issuing of mandates, he had made of that camp at Ludd a very breeding-ground of politics.

      As a fighter he had obtained distinction by stealing the credit for other men’s successes for himself and by contriving to blame others for his failures. And he had no use for credit except as a means for making profit. So of course he had jackals tugging his heels impatiently, men who admired his disrespect for all the accepted rules of fair play and who would have outdone his methods if they had dared. One of them was Captain Aloysius Ticknor.

      Ticknor likewise had ambitions, and was perfectly ready to sacrifice Jenkins at any moment for their attainment. But for the present Ticknor saw more immediate profit in working for his chief’s advancement, like a man who rears a ladder to climb by, meaning to kick it down afterward or leave it leaning, just as suits him.

      They were not in each other’s secrets, because Jenkins never trusted anyone if he could help it. He preferred to make hints and innuendoes, on the strength of which a subordinate made good, then Jenkins got the credit; if the subordinate failed there was only one more victim on the long list of ruined youngsters “Jinks” had left behind him.

      So Aloysius Ticknor, who would lose money to Jenkins at cards, for instance, and generally win it back with something added from junior subalterns, was exactly in the position of a jackal craving meat who did not know the tiger’s real intentions although sure of the tiger’s hunger. Jackal fashion he diagnosed the brigadier’s nervous restlessness and offered the sort of advice he felt sure would be acceptable.

      He was another pro-Arab, anti-Zionist, of course. You had to be that if you hoped to stay in Jenkins’ good books for a minute.

      “Why don’t you send me into town, sir, to look things over.”

      “Might fall foul of the provost-marshal,” Jenkins answered. “He’s one of those stuffy shits who resent what they call interference.”

      “If you show him up as incompetent by finding a cache of rifles under his very nose—” suggested Ticknor.

      “Hm-m-m! Be a joke, wouldn’t it? Not difficult either. The fool has his eye on Arabs all the time. There isn’t an Arab store or dwelling that he hasn’t searched. If the Arabs had one rifle hidden he’d have found it. He seems to think Jews are gentle angels who wouldn’t do anything secretive if you paid them money for it.”

      “Suppose I look the Zionist quarters over, sir?”

      “I’m not going to give you orders over the provost-marshal’s head, if that’s what you’re driving at. If you can think of another excuse—”

      “Oh, easily. You remember those three condemned huts? They’re to be advertised for sale. I could go and inquire whether the Zionists would like to have them—promise nothing, of course, but offer to use influence.”

      “Yes, you might do that. But be sure you promise nothing. I shan’t need you this morning. You can go for a stroll if you like,” he added. “Buy yourself some souvenirs.”

      And he made a note in his diary there and then that he had given