The Talbot Mundy Megapack. Talbot Mundy

glass window set in the partition. He turned to let the light fall on the paper, and suddenly sprang backward.

      The knife missed his stomach by a fraction of an inch. The blow was so savage that Charkas could not check it; his fist swung three-quarters of a circle and drove the knife nearly to the hilt into the wall behind.

      “Nice sort of scorpion, aren’t you! Leave the knife sticking there. Now sit back and tell me your story all over from the beginning.”

      This time Charkas was really convinced of helplessness, and beyond that he lied about everybody else and tried to present himself as a more or less innocent weakling involved in crime unwillingly by Jenkins, told a moderately truthful tale.

      By the time he had finished the brigadier himself came clattering down-street on horseback, jubilant at the news of Ticknor’s discovery. Ten minutes of so later a platoon of British Tommies marched up, sweating freely, and took charge of the Zionist store-shed. Jenkins rode away again, red-faced with triumph, and Ticknor followed him on foot.

      It was not ten minutes after that when Catesby came hurrying in search of Jim. He had shed his disguise and was back in uniform; and he had overtaken Suliman, who was returning tired and breathless for his five piasters from Ticknor. Suliman pointed out the shop door and followed Ticknor back again up-street.

      “What’s new?” asked Jim.

      “Bad news for you. The iblis pretty nearly brained Narayan Singh with a piece of coping-stone, and scooted God knows where. I had to take Narayan Singh back to camp to have his head dressed, and the doctor ordered him to bed. What are you looking happy about?”

      “The prospect of breakfast and sleep. Did you see Jinks?”

      “Yes, looking as pompously pleased as a ripe tomato. The brute didn’t acknowledge my salute.”

      “Never mind. Jinks is his sure-enough name, old man. You’ll be out from under arrest almost before you know it. Too bad about the iblis, but we’ll get him yet. Meanwhile, there’s this critter.

      “Now you understand, Charkas, this officer is going to stay here and watch you until the provost-marshal’s men come, and you’ll go with them under arrest. Take my advice and say nothing. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t answer questions.

      “Let General Jenkins say what he pleases and do what he pleases. Hold your tongue until you see me again. So long, Catesby.”

      He left the shop and strolled up-street toward the camp as leisurely as if the heritage of all Allah were sleeping in his veins. Presently Suliman tagged along after him, grinning with contentment for a five-piaster note.

      CHAPTER XII

      “Good sunny night to you! Sweet dreams!”

      Having faced the iblis in the dark and slept at frequent intervals afterward, Suliman considered the lid on gambling lifted and set forth to stake the five piasters against the capital of certain small boys of the lines, in a mysterious card game that did not call for a complete pack, and of which only he knew the rules.

      Jim got into uniform, found the provost-marshal and then went straight to Jenkins’ office. The brigadier was radiant and red-faced in the center of flattering juniors, pouting his lips as he made little of the morning’s work.

      “Very simple. Obvious to anyone with eyes in his head. I gave Ticknor his instructions, and there you are. Oh, hullo, Grim: Wiped your eyes for you. Didn’t need you after all. I told you we’d find Zionists at the bottom of this. What have you been doing?”

      “Very little, I’m afraid. I arrested Ibrahim Charkas, though, this morning. Left him in charge of Captain Catesby until the provost’s men could come and get him.”

      Jenkins changed colors, flushing redder than ever, so that his ears and the back of his neck resembled rare roast beef.

      “Catesby is under arrest himself,” he snapped.

      “His parole was lifted, sir, to give him opportunity to gather evidence in his own case.”

      “I know that. It was my doing. I wanted to give him every chance. I signed the order releasing him; but that doesn’t give him authority to arrest people and hold prisoners. I shall have to look into this.”

      Jim hoped he would look into it, and held his tongue. Jenkins began to grow more obviously nervous every minute. The flatterers only irritated now, and he turned on them savagely.

      “What are we all loafing here for? Is there nothing to do—no orders? You wait here a minute, Major Grim; I want to speak with you.”

      The juniors remembered urgent business suddenly, and left in different directions. Jenkins, jerking at his buffalo-horn mustache, turned and faced Jim.

      “What did you arrest Charkas for?”

      “On his own confession of his part in stealing the TNT.”

      “Um-m-m!”

      The brigadier paced up and down the narrow room.

      “What did he say?”

      “That this is a full list of the thieves he has been employing.”

      Jenkins seized the sheet of paper.

      “Excellent! Excellent! We can seize all these men and they’ll be implicating one another within ten minutes. But you ought to have brought Charkas here to me before the provost interviews him. If this list is correct Charkas ought to be treated as a king’s witness and released after the trail. However, I’ll send this list to the provost with my compliments; it’ll make him wince. Did you get the iblis?”

      “No.”

      “Pouff!” sneered Jenkins.

      Jim deliberately fed the fires of scorn, judging the man nicely.

      “I thought I’d get some sleep, sir, and then go after him again.”

      “Sleep! Sleep! ’Pon my soul! Is that an American habit, to sleep while your hunted man runs? All right, go to sleep then! I’ll attend to the rest of this myself. Good sunny night to you! Sweet dreams!”

      But Jim did not sleep yet a while. He went first to Narayan Singh in the great hot hospital marquee. The Sikh was fretting in impotent fury at being out of action, lying down because that had been ordered, but tossing like a fritter on a pan.

      “I am all right, sahib. My head hurts, but that is nothing. I was stunned for a few minutes by a stone from the paw of that black ape that calls himself an iblis; but it would take ten such stones all striking in the same place to make me give up the hunt. Catesby sahib, who is a precaution-wallah, ordered me in there and I obeyed.

      “You let me out again, Jimgrim sahib, and turn me loose with a rifle and bayonet. I will bring back that iblis for you like a beetle on a pin.”

      Jim had seen the doctor’s memorandum of the case.

      “Do you want to go after him?”

      “When was I ever chicken-hearted, Jimgrim sahib, that you ask me that?”

      “All right, go to sleep them. When it stands written on your report card that you’ve had five hours’ sleep I’ll fetch you out of here and we’ll see.”

      The Sikh promptly shut his eyes and lay down flat on the cot. But Jim had hardly turned his back before he signaled the Jat orderly.

      “Oh, brother,” he said, “the doctor sahib will ask if I have slept, in order to write the report of it on a card. You know what the answer will be?”

      “Always from me a truthful answer. So and so long you were sleeping—so and so long restless—so and so long talkative—so and so many drinks of water—temperature this and that. I am seeking promotion.”

      “Ah! Do they promote cripples, these dakitars?”

      “Nay. A man needs strength to lift great carcasses like thine.”

      “If