We hurried all the faster now because our legs were wet. The
night air on those Moab heights is chilly at any season.
Perhaps, too, we were trying to leave behind us the moat-stench
that the water had merely reduced, not washed away. A quarter of
a mile before we reached the place appointed we knew that Anazeh
had not failed to keep his tryst. Away up above us, beside the
tomb, like an ancient bearded ghost, Anazeh stood motionless,
silent, conning the track we should come by--a grand old savage
keeping faith against his neighbours for the sake of friendship.
He did not challenge when he heard us. He took aim. He held his
aim until Grim called to him. When our goat track joined the
main road he was there awaiting us, standing like a sentinel in
the shadow of a fanged rock. And there, if, Abdul Ali of
Damascus could have had his way, there would have been a fresh
debate. He did not let ten seconds pass before he had offered
Anazeh all the money he had with him to lend him a horse and let
him go. Anazeh waived aside the offer.
"You shall have as much more money as you wish!" the Damascene
insisted. "Let me get to my house, and a messenger shall take
the money to you. Or come and get it."
All the answer Anazeh gave him was a curt laugh--one bark like
a Fox's.
"Where are all the horses?" Grim demanded. I could only see five
of six.
"I wait for them."
"Man, we can't wait!"
"Jimgrim!" said the old sheikh, with a glint of something between
malice and amusement in his eyes, "I knew you in the mejlis when
you watched me read that letter! One word from me and--" He
made a click between his teeth suggestive of swift death. "I let
you play your game. But now I play my game, Allah willing. I
have waited for you. Wait thou for me!"
"Why? What is it?"
Anazeh beckoned us and turned away. We followed him, Grim and I,
across the road and up a steep track to the tomb on the
overhanging rock, where he had stood when we first saw him.
He pointed. A cherry-red fire with golden sparks and crimson-
bellied sulphur smoke was blazing in the midst of El-Kerak.
"The home of Abdul Ali of Damascus," said Anazeh with pride in
his voice. It was the pride of a man who shows off the behaviour
of his children. "My men did it!"
"How can they escape?" Grim asked him.
"Wallah! Will the gate guards stand idle? Will they not run to
the fire--and to the looting? But they will find not much loot.
My men already have it!"
"Loot," said Grim, "will delay them."
"Money doesn't weigh much," Anazeh answered. "Here my men come."
Somebody was coming. There came a burst of shooting and yelling
from somewhere between us and El-Kerak, and a moment later the
thunder of horses galloping full-pelt. Anazeh got down to the
road with the agility of a youngster, ordered Abdul Ali of
Damascus, the shivering Ahmed and me under cover. He placed his
remaining handful of men at points of vantage where they could
cover the retreat of the fifteen. And it was well he did.
There were at least two score in hot pursuit, and though you
could hardly tell which was which in that dim light, Anazeh's
party opened fire on the pursuers and let the fifteen through. I
did not get sight of Grim while that excitement lasted, but he
had two automatics. He took from me the one that I had taken
from Abdul Ali, and with that one and his own he made a din
like a machine-gun. He told me afterward that he had fired in
the air.
"Noise is as good as knock-outs in the dark," he explained, while
Anazeh's men boasted to one another of the straight shooting that
it may be they really believed they had done. An Arab can
believe anything--afterward. I don't believe one man was killed,
though several were hit.
At any rate, whether the noise accomplished it or not, the
pursuers drew off, and we went forward, carrying a cashbox now,
of which Abdul Ali was politely requested to produce the key.
That was the first intimation he had that his house had been
looted. He threw his bunch of keys away into the shadows, in the
first exhibition of real weakness he had shown that night. It
was a silly gesture. It only angered his captors. It saved him
nothing.
Four more of Anazeh's men had been wounded, all from behind, two
of them rather badly, making six in all who were now unfit for
further action. But we did not wait to bandage them. They
affected to make light of their injuries, saying they would go
over to the British and get attended to in hospital. Abdul Ali
was put on Ahmed's miserable mount, with his legs lashed under
the horse's belly. Ahmed, with Mahommed ben Hamza and his men
were sent along ahead; being unarmed, unmounted, they were a
liability now. But those Hebron thieves could talk like an
army; they put up a prodigious bleat, all night long, about
that cash-box. They maintained they had a clear right to share
its contents, since unless they had first captured Abdul Ali,
Anazeh's men could not have burned his house and seized
his money. Anazeh's men, when they had time to be, were
suitably amused.
It was not a peaceful retreat by any means. Time and again
before morning we were fired on from the rear. Our party
deployed to right and left to answer--always boasting afterward
of having killed at least a dozen men. I added up their figures
on the fly-leaf of the pocket Bible, and the total came to two
hundred and eighteen of the enemy shot dead and forever damned!
I believe Anazeh actually did kill one of our pursuers.
By the time the moon disappeared we had come too close to
Anazeh's country to make pursuit particularly safe. Who they
were who pursued us, hauled off. We reached the launch, secure
in its cove between the rocks, a few minutes after dawn. Anazeh
ordered his six wounded men into it, with perfect assurance
that the British doctors would take care of them and let them
go unquestioned.
When Grim had finished talking with Anazeh I went up to thank the
old fellow for my escort, and he acknowledged the courtesy with a
bow that would have graced the court of Solomon.
"Give the old bird a present, if you've got one," Grim whispered.
So I gave him my watch and chain, and he accepted them with the
same calm dignity.
"Now he's your friend for life!" said Grim. "Anazeh is a friend
worth having. Let's go!"
The watch and chain was a cheap enough price to pay for that two
days' entertainment and the acquaintance of such a splendid old
king of thieves. Anazeh watched us away until we were out of
earshot, he and Grim exchanging the interminable Arab farewell
formula of blessing and reply that have been in use unchanged for
a thousand years.
Then Abdul Ali produced his wallet again.
"Major Grim," he said, "please take this money. Keep it for
yourself, and let me go. Surely I have been punished enough!
Besides, you cannot--you dare not imprison me! I am a French
subject. I have been seized outside the British sphere. I know
you are a poor man--the pay of a British officer is a matter of
common knowledge. Come now, you have done what you came to do.
You have destroyed my influence at El-Kerak. Now benefit
yourself. Avoid an international complication. Show mercy on
me! Take this money. Say that I gave you the slip in the dark!"
Grim smiled. He looked extremely comical without any eyebrows.
The wrinkles went all the way up to the roots of his hair.
"I'm incorruptible," he said. "The boss, I believe, isn't."
"You mean your High Commissioner? I have not enough money
for him."