Jimgrim and Allah's Peace Part 14

"He must! Tell him I'll have a prisoner with me; then he'll be curious. But you can bet on old Anazeh when he's sober. But things may turn out so that it's simpler for you to stay and see this through with me. In that case you must persuade him to go without you, after explaining to him just where he's to wait."

"How shall I do that?" I said. "I haven't enough Arabic."

"I'll write it," he answered. "Give me that pencil."

"Say something, too, then about his keeping sober."

Grim nodded, and wrote quite a long letter in Arabic on a page of my notebook.

"The next move," he said, as I pocketed the letter, "is for me to get Abdul Ali's goat: I think-and I hope-he'll try to bribe me. If he does, he's my meat! The whole question of raid or no raid hangs on their confidence in him. If I throw suspicion on him, and he disappears directly afterwards, they'll abandon the plan, confiscate his goods and chattels, and quarrel among themselves instead of raiding Palestine. Get me?"

"Um-n-yes. I've sat on a horse I was warned against-felt safer-and gone to hospital at that."

He laughed.

"No hospitals up here! It'll be soon over if they get wise to us. But I think we're all right; and you're almost certainly safe. But don't be tempted to talk. Well-we've been up here long enough for me to have put you through the third degree. Better look a bit uncomfortable as you go down, as if I'd got under your skin with some awkward questions. You, too, ben Hamza; don't grin; look afraid."

"I am not at all afraid, Jimgrim. But I will try."

Grim studied for a moment.

"Don't forget," he added, "at the first suggestion that you're not wanted, make yourself scarce, and go and round up your men. If you're thrown out pretty roughly, keep your temper and run."

"Taht il-amr!" (Yours to command.)

"Come on, then. Let's go."

The sun was fairly low over the Judean Hills as we turned down the narrow stairs and found Anazeh waiting at the bottom.

Chapter Nine

"Feet downwards, too afraid to yell!"-

Abdul Ali of Damascus was holding the floor again when we returned. He had abandoned the cold air of mysterious authority and secrets in reserve. His claim to backstairs influence having been challenged, he had resorted to the emotional appeal that is the simplest means of controlling any crowd of men anywhere. The demagog who can find a million men all responsive to the same emotion can swing them as easily as a hundred if he knows his business. Loot was the tune he harped, with the old Ishmael blood-l.u.s.t by way of obbligato.

He had them by the heart-strings, and there were long-necked bottles of liquor that smelt of aniseed being pa.s.sed from hand to hand. We returned to our places almost unnoticed, and within the minute some one handed a full bottle to Anazeh; the accompanying cup was big enough to hold any ordinary drunkard's breakfast, and the old sheikh's eyes admired the size of it.

I laid my hand on the wrist that held the bottle. He shook it off angrily, and began to pour. Grim, over the way, looked anxious. It was up to me to play this hand, so I led my ace of trumps.

Suddenly, and very clumsily, I rocked sideways to reach my hip- pocket, contriving to jog his elbow and spill what was already in the cup. He turned his head to curse savagely, and I showed him the folded sheet from my notebook. His name was on it in Arabic:

"Sheikh Anazeh ben Mahmoud, from Jimgrim."

He seized it, setting the bottle down between his feet, where it was instantly reached for by some one else and handed down the line. Reading was evidently not Anazeh's favorite amus.e.m.e.nt, but he knitted his brows over the letter and wrestled with it word by word, while Abdul Ali's fiery declamation made the vaulted roof resound. I could only make out s.n.a.t.c.hes of the appeal to savagery-a word and a sentence here and there.

"Who are you, princes? Men with swords, or slaves who must obey?-Raid over the Jordan twenty thousand strong!-What are Jews? Shall Jews take the home of your ancestors? Who says so? -Let the Jews be buried in the land they come to steal!-You say the Jews are cleverer than you. Cut their heads off, then they cannot think!"

"When did Jimgrim give you this?" Anazeh demanded, folding the letter and stowing it in his bosom.

"That is the message that I told you would come later if you waited."

"Do you know what is in the message?"

"No." That was perfectly true. I had talked with Grim, but had not read what he had written.

"He wishes me to go and wait for him in a certain place"

"Why not do it?"

"Rubbama." (Perhaps.)

"True-believers! Followers of the Prophet! Sons of warrior kings!" thundered Abdul Ali. "Will you do nothing to help Feisul, a lineal descendant of the Prophet? You have helped him to a throne. Now strike to hold him there!"

"Jimgrim says, I may go away and leave you here," growled Anazeh.

"What say you?"

"Ala khatrak. (Please yourself.) Jimgrim is wise."

"He is the father of wisdom. Mashallah! I will consider it.

There will be a banquet presently!"

"And loot! You can help yourselves!" shouted Abdul Ali of Damascus. Then he sat down amid a storm of applause. Suliman ben Saoud-Jimgrim-was on his feet before the tumult died away, and again they grew perfectly still to listen to him. If an Arab loves anything under heaven more than his own style of fighting, it is the action and reaction of debate. I could not understand a word of the mid-Arabian dialect, but Abdul Ali's retorts were plain enough; and from the way that Grim pointed at me and Mahommed ben Hamza it was fairly easy to follow what was happening.

He denounced me as possibly dangerous, and wondered why they permitted me to have an interpreter, who could whisper to me everything that was being said.

"Put out the interpreter!" sneered Abdul Ali, and there was a chorus of approval. Mahommed ben Hamza got up and hurried for the door while the hurrying was good and painless to himself, though it was hardly that to other people; forcing his way between the close-packed notables he kicked more than one of them pretty badly and grinned when they cursed him. I saw Abdul Ali of Damascus whisper to one of his rose-coloured parasites, who got up at once and made his way toward the door, too.

"The fellow is from Hebron," Abdul Ali sneered in a voice loud enough for all to hear. "It is best that he should not go back to Hebron to tell tales! I have attended to it."

My blood ran cold. I tried to catch Grim's eye, but he would not look in my direction. I wondered whether he had heard Abdul Ali's threat. It seemed to me that if Mahommed ben Hamza were either murdered or imprisoned Grim's whole chance of success was gone. The danger would be multiplied tenfold. Anazeh seemed the only remaining hope. The old-rose individual who followed ben Hamza had not reached the door yet.

"How about your men?" I asked.

"They are all right." Anazeh's eyes pursued the liquor bottle.

"Why not go and see?" I suggested.

"Ilhamdul'illah, they are good men. I know them. If there is trouble they will come and tell me."

The door opened softly. The gorgeous old-rose parasite slipped through. I had a mental vision of Mahommed ben Hamza lying face- downward with his new coat stained with blood. There was nothing for it, it seemed, but the magic formula to move Anazeh.

"Jimgrim says, 'See that ben Hamza gets safely away!"'

"Dog of a Hebron tanner's son-let him die! What is that to me?"

"It is Jimgrim's command."

"Wallahi haida fasl! (By G.o.d, this is a strange affair!) Wait here!"

Old Anazeh, with the name of the Prophet of G.o.d on his lips, cast an envious glare at the bottle of liquor and seized action by the forelock. There was nothing to excite comment in his getting up to leave the room. A dozen men had done that and come in again. He strode out, straight down the middle of the carpet. Suliman ben Saoud-Jimgrim-went on talking, and to judge by Abdul Ali of Damascus' increasingly restless retorts he was getting that gentleman's goat as promised. Finally Abdul Ali got to his feet and said that if the Ichwan would see him alone he would show him certain doc.u.ments that would satisfy him, but that it would not be policy to produce them in public. He offered to send for the doc.u.ments, and to show them during or after the banquet.