The moon was but a ghost of itself, and a faint rose was beginning
to tinge the pallor of the sky behind the Bakhtiari mountains, when
the motor began to miss fire. Gaston, stifling an exclamation, cut
it off, unscrewed the cap of the tank, and measured the gasoline.
Then he stepped softly forward to the place in the bow where he kept
his reserve tins. Magin, roused by the stopping of the boat, sat up,
stretching.
“_Tiens!_” he exclaimed. “Here we are!” He looked about at the high
clay banks enclosing the tawny basin of the four rivers. In front of
him the konar trees of Bund-i-Kir showed their dark green. At the
right, on top of the bluff of the eastern shore, a solitary peasant
stood white against the sky. Near him a couple of oxen on an inclined
plane worked the rude mechanism that drew up water to the fields. The
creak of the pulleys and the splash of the dripping goatskins only made
more intense the early morning silence. “Do you remember, Gaston?”
asked Magin. “It was here we first had the good fortune to meet--not
quite three weeks ago.”
“I remember,” answered Gaston, keeping his eye on the mouth of
the tank he was filling, “that I was the one who wished you peace,
Monsieur. And that no one asked who you were, or where you were going.”
Magin yawned.
“Well, you seem to have satisfied yourself now on those important
points. I might add, however, for your further information, that
I think I shall not go to Bund-i-Kir, which looks too peaceful to
disturb at this matinal hour, but there--to the western shore of the
Ab-i-Shuteit. And that reminds me. I still have to pay you the rest of
my ticket.”
He reached forward and laid a little pile of gold on Gaston’s seat.
Gaston, watching out of the corner of his eye as he poured gasoline,
saw that there were more than five napoleons in that pile. There were
at least ten.
“What would you say, Monsieur,” he asked slowly, emptying his tin, “if
I were to take you instead to Sheleilieh--where there are still a few
of the English?”
“I would say, my good Gaston, that you had more courage than I thought.
By the way,” he went on casually, “what is this?”
He reached forward again toward Gaston’s seat, where lay the
Bakhtiari’s present. Gaston dropped his tin and made a snatch at it.
But Magin was too quick for him. He retreated to his place at the stern
of the boat, where he drew the knife out of its sheath.
“Sharp, too!” he commented, with a smile at Gaston. “And my revolver is
gone!”
Gaston, very pale, stepped to his seat.
“That, Monsieur, was given me by my Bakhtiari brother-in-law--to take
to the war. When he found I had not the courage to go, he ran away from
me.”
“But you thought there might be more than one way to make war, eh?
Well, I at least am not an Apache. Perhaps the sharks will know what to
do with it.” The blade glittered in the brightening air and splashed
out of sight. And Magin, folding his arms, smiled again at Gaston.
“Another object of virtue for the safe custody of the Karun!”
“But not all!” cried Gaston thickly, seizing the little pile of gold
beside him and flinging it after the knife.
Magin’s smile broadened.
“Have you not forgotten something, Gaston?”
“But certainly not, Monsieur,” he replied, putting his hand into his
pocket. The next moment a second shower of gold caught the light. And
where the little circles of ripples widened in the river, a sharp fin
suddenly cut the muddy water.
“Oho! Mr. Shark loses no time!” cried Magin. He stopped smiling, and
turned back to Gaston. “But we do. Allow me to say, my friend, that
you prove yourself really too romantic. This is no doubt an excellent
comedy which we are playing for the benefit of that gentleman on the
bluff. But even he begins to get tired of it. See? He starts to say
his morning prayer. So be so good as to show a little of the reason
which you know how to show, and start for shore. But first you might
do well to screw on the cap of your tank--if you do not mind a little
friendly advice.”
Gaston looked around absent-mindedly, and took up the nickel cap. But
he suddenly turned back to Magin.
“You speak too much about friends, Monsieur. I am not your friend. I
am your enemy. And I shall not take you there, to the Ab-i-Shuteit. I
shall take you into the Ab-i-Gerger--to Sheleilieh and the English.”
Magin considered him, with a flicker in his lighted eyes.
“You might perhaps have done it if you had not forgotten about
your gasoline. And you may yet. We shall see. But it seems to me,
my--enemy!--that you make a miscalculation. Let us suppose that
you take me to Sheleilieh. It is highly improbable, because you no
longer have your knife to assist you. I, it is true, no longer have
my revolver to assist me; but I have two arms, longer and I fancy
stronger than yours. However, let us make the supposition. And let us
make the equally improbable supposition that I fall into the hands of
the English. What can they do to me? The worst they can do is to give
me free lodging and nourishment till the end of the war! Whereas you,
Gaston--you do not seem to have reflected that life will not be so
simple for you, after this. There is a very unpleasant little word by
which they name citizens who do not respond to their country’s call to
arms. In other words, Mr. Deserter, you have taken the road which, in
war time, ends between a firing-squad and a stone wall.”
Gaston, evidently, had not reflected on that. He stared at his nickel
cap, turning it around in his fingers.
“You see?” continued Magin. “Well then, what about that little Gaston?
I do not know what has suddenly made you so much less reasonable than
you were last night; but I, at least, have not changed. And I see no
reason why that little Gaston should be left between two horns of a
dilemma. In fact I see excellent reasons not only why you should take
me that short distance to the shore, but why you should accompany me to
Dizful. There I am at home. I am, more than any one else, emperor. And
I need a man like you. I am going to have a car, I am going to have a
boat, I am going to have a place in the sun. There will be many changes
in that country after the war. You will see. It is not so far, either,
from here. It is evident that your heart, like mine, is in this part of
the world. So come with me. Eh, Gaston?”
“Heart!” repeated Gaston, with a bitter smile. “It is you who speak of
the heart, and of--But you do not speak of the little surprise with
which you might some day regale me, Mr. Enemy! Nor do you say what you
fear--that I might take it into my head to go fishing at Umm-un-Nakhl!”
“Ah bah!” exclaimed Magin impatiently. “However, you are right. I am
not like you. I do not betray my country for a little savage with a
jewel in her nose! It is because of that small difference between us,
Gaston, between your people and my people, that you will see such
changes here after the war. But you will not see them unless you accept
my offer. After all, what else can you do?” He left Gaston to take it
in as he twirled his metal cap. “There is the sun already,” Magin added
presently. “We shall have a hot journey.”
Gaston looked over his shoulder at the quivering rim of gold that
surged up behind the Bakhtiari mountains. How sharp and purple they
were, against what a deepening blue! On the bluff the white-clad
peasant stood with his back to the light, his hands folded in front of
him, his head bowed.
“You look tired, Gaston,” said Magin pleasantly. “Will you have this
cigar?”
“No thank you,” replied Gaston. He felt in his own pockets, however,
first for a cigarette and then for a match. He was indeed tired, so
tired that he no longer remembered which pocket to fumble in or what he
held in his hand as he fumbled. Ah, that sacred tank! Then he suddenly
smiled again, looking at Magin. “There is something else I can do!”
“What?” asked Magin as he lay at ease in the stern, enjoying the first
perfume of his cigar. “You can’t go back to France, now, and I should
hardly advise you to go back to Sheleilieh. At least until after the
war. Then you will find no more English there to ask you troublesome
questions!”
Gaston lighted his cigarette. And, keeping his eyes on Magin, he slowly
moved his hand, in which were both the nickel cap and the still burning
match, toward the mouth of the tank.
“This!” he answered.
Magin watched him. He did not catch the connection at first. He saw
it quickly enough, however. In his pale translucent eyes there was
something very like a flare.
“Look out--or we shall go together after all!”
“We shall go together, after all,” repeated Gaston. “And here is your
place in the sun!”
Magin still watched, as the little flame flickered through the windless
air. But he did not move.
“It will go out! And you have not the courage, Apache!”
“You will see, Prussian!” The match stopped, at last, above the open
hole. But the hand that held it trembled a little, and so did the
strange low voice that said: “This at least I can do--for that great
lady, far away....”