"He Cools His Wrath in the Moonlight, Communing with Allah!"
Now the desert at full moon is as light as Broadway, and the only
shadows are those the camels cast, than which there is nothing
more weird in the whole range of phantasmagoria. We looked like a
string of glistening ghosts accompanied by goblins of a fourth
dimension mocking us, and though you couldn't see the details of
men's faces, looking back along the line you could see every
movement and distinguish man from man.
About midnight Ayisha made up her mind to enjoy the _shibriyah,_
more, I suspect, for the sake of annoying the Sikh than because
she really wanted it. So she ranged alongside, and chiefly
because I was curious and chose to be amused, but partly because
of my league with Narayan Singh to keep watch on her, I checked
my protesting camel and let him drop back into place behind them.
I knew Narayan Singh was awake, for I had seen the glow of his
cigarette through the curtains ten minutes before; but he
pretended to be asleep, so that she had to get the camels flank
to flank and put her hand inside the curtains to awake him. Then
he did the obvious thing and seized her hand, and I heard his
bass voice answering her shrill protests. I don't know why, but
the moonlight that made all things clear seemed also to make
words more than usually distinct.
"Ah!" he boomed. "I dreamed of paradise. I awake and find a houri
with her hand in mine! Il-hamd'ul-illah!* I Enter, beloved! Why
waste the moonlight hours?" [* Thanks be to God!]
"Pig!" she retorted. "Father of bristles! Let my hand go!"
"Nay, lovely one! I awake--I see--I understand; thou art not a
houri after all, but that same Ayisha I have loved in secret all
these burning days! I, who had resolved that gold and honor were
as feathers in the scale against thy kisses, am I blessed as last?"
"Cursed by black ifrits, thou son of an Afghan pig! Let me go,
and get out of that _shibriyah!"_
"Such eyes! Behold, the moon is pale beside them, and the stars
mere drops of sweat on the sky's dull cheek! Such loveliness as
thine, beloved, needs a warrior to worship it--such a man as I,
who would cut the throats of kings for a kind word from thee!"
Don't forget, you fellows who have to call on a girl a dozen
Sunday evenings in succession before she will go to the movies or
condescend to sit out a dance with you, that east of the
fifteenth meridian the situation is reversed, and the man who
wasn't swift about his wooing would stand no chance at all.
Modesty of approach is reckoned a sure sign of unworthiness, and
deference as cowardice that fears to seize an opportunity.
"An Indian lover and a boasting louse are one," she answered;
but she laughed as she said it, and her voice had lost the
shrill note.
"Hah! Try me!" he retorted, tugging at her hand again, and
whether or not she tried really hard to release it she failed.
"Boasts should be put to the test, beloved! We of the North have
a way of understanding our performance. I would burn and lay
waste cities for thy sake! Come!"
Her laugh struck a bell-like note now. There was a hint of
pleasure in it, and more than a hint of thoughtfulness. You know
those overtones of a bell that go fading away into the infinite,
in touch, somehow, with thoughts that haven't reached any of us
yet except the man who made the bell.
"Ah! Afghans are all alike!"
Sikhs say that of Afghans too, and Afghans say the same thing of
the Sikhs.
"You would say anything for me; but as for cutting throats and
laying waste, I myself would be the very first victim. Thy love,
I think, would burn up and be ashes faster than the cities I
should never see."
"Cities! I will take you to all the cities! You shall have your
will of the richest! Covet pearls, and I will burn the feet of
jewelers until they beg you to take their costliest! Covet
rubies, and I will plunder them from the eyes of temple gods!
Covet gold, and I will melt down the throne of a maharajah to
make bracelets for your ankles!"
_"Wallahi!_ You speak like a braggart."
"Braggart? I? Nay, I am a lover whose words go lamely. They are
but chaff blown along the wind of great accomplishment. With thee
to fight for I would dare the very rage of Ali Higg!"
He still held her hand. She waited about a minute before answering.
"Which Ali Higg?" she asked at last.
"Any Ali Higg! All Ali Higgs! As lions go down beneath the feet
of elephants so shall the Lion of Petra fail before me!"
"One at a time!" she laughed. "There is one Ali Higg who could
command you with a word--another who could order your carcass
thrown to the vultures. Words first, since your boastings are all
words! I say that, for all your brave words, this Ali Higg who
rides ahead of us can make you slay me for a word of praise
from him."
"You mean, beloved, you could make me slay him for a word of
praise from you!" the Sikh lied glibly.
"But I might not want him slain."
"Have him made into a cripple, then--a ruin of a man, for daring
to displease you!"
"But he pleases me!"
"Aha! I am jealous! By the beard of the Prophet, Ayisha, beware
of my jealousy! I am a man of few words but sudden deeds! Is
there a man who stands in my way? May Allah show compassion on
him, for he is like to need it!"
He was so fervid in his avowals that he almost convinced
me--almost made me believe that his private agreement with
me had been a camouflage for his real intentions.
There is precious little of which my friend Narayan Singh isn't
capable in the way of romantic soldiering; he ought to have been
born two or three hundred years ago as, in fact, according to his
reincarnating creed, he was. Perhaps he remembers past lives so
vividly that he lives them over again. I wish I could remember a
past life or two.
Ayisha was about to answer him when Grim's shrill bosun's whistle
that he keeps for emergencies whined from in front, and the
sleepy-looking line awoke with a start. Every single rifle down
the length of the caravan, including mine, was unslung in a
second and the click of the sliding bolts was as businesslike as
if we had been a squad on the parade-ground. Narayan Singh, rifle
in hand, sprang on to Ayisha's little Bishareen, and she jumped
into the _shibriyah,_ like a pair doing stunts at the circus.
So far good. But the rest was amateurish. We milled badly. Grim
away in front had halted to let the line close, and we swarmed
around him like a herd of steers that smell wolves, and nobody
seemed to know which way to look, or what to do next.
I was right in the midst of the mess, with a camel on either side
trying to get its teeth into me, and what with Grim's shouting to
get the tangle straightened, and our all trying to obey at once,
it was some minutes before I got the hang of things. In fact, I
think I understood last.
We were already surrounded perfectly on three sides by camel-men
who kept out of reasonable rifle-range and stalked us like dark
ghosts from the rear. They resembled a drag-net, drawing us in
the direction of Petra, and the only unblocked segment of the
circle was exactly in front of us. Every time I tried to count
them there seemed more than before, and there were certainly over
a hundred.
I got one close look at Grim's face, and knew he had made his
mind up what to do; but all the men were shouting different
advice and it was a question whether he would be able to get
control before a disaster happened. I said nothing and did
nothing but kept fairly close to him. Narayan Singh found his
proper place alongside me, with the halter of Ayisha's camel in
his hand; and he said nothing either.
Suddenly Grim reached out and seized old Ali Baba by the
shoulder, drawing him close and growling into his ear. I could
not catch the words, but he repeated them again and again, and
Ali Baba nodded vehemently. Not a shot had been fired yet, for
Grim had forbidden it, and the other side showed no disposition
to do other than surround us at a safe distance. But I noticed
they were reducing their estimate of safety and seemed to be
gradually closing in for a concerted rush from all sides at once.
Then two things happened suddenly. Out of the open horizon in
front, from between two great mounds that looked like ant-heaps,
three figures emerged on camels, apparently all alone and
unsupported. The one in the middle on the tallest camel made a
signal with a long strip of cloth waved like a semaphore against
the moonlight.
Instantly the opposing force began to close in, and Ali Baba
proved his mettle. Those sons and grandsons obeyed his order as
efficiently as he did Grim's. They made a feint all in a cluster
together straight for the widest gap in the circle behind us.
The enemy drew off to a safer distance, whereat Ali Baba wheeled
and charged another segment of the circle, widening it again.
Still not a shot had been fired by either side.
Around Grim now were Narayan Singh, Ayisha, and myself with our
prisoner Yussuf, and Ayisha's four. Grim watched his chance and
sent me to bring back four of Ali Baba's men, and by the time I
had done that he had lessened the distance perceptibly between
himself and the three lone individuals in front. He was leaning
low over his camel, peering at the three like a seaman staring
from a crow's-nest in a fog.
It was a weird business--a swiftly played chess game, almost
noiseless; for wherever Ali Baba charged the enemy drew off,
while the rest came closer until they were charged in turn.
"It's obvious we're intended to be made prisoners," Grim said to
me at last. "But I think it's obvious we're not going to be."
Nevertheless, I understood nothing of his plan, except that our
little group kept drawing closer to the three, one of whom seemed
in command of the other side. At the moment I suspected that Grim
was one of those officers who are splendid at intelligence work
and at playing a lone hand, but less than ordinary in the field;
Ali Baba looked like the man of action.
Why, with all that brave old man's ability to swing and spur his
gang in absolute control, had not the lot of us burst through the
circling enemy and made a bolt for it? That was what I should
have done.
But suddenly Grim turned and pushed the muzzle of his pistol into
Ayisha's face as she leaned out of the _shibrayah_ to watch. It
caught her under the jawbone, so that she could not see what his
finger was doing, and did not dare try to move away.
"Now shout!" he ordered her. "Tell 'em your name _Wallahi!_ Yell,
or I'll kill you."
She let out a bleat like a frightened goat, that might have been
audible thirty yards away if there were no other noise.
"Louder! I'll blow your brains out if you disobey!"
So she screamed at the top of her lungs, making her voice carry
as all desert people can. And after she had called three times
she was answered by a clear, contralto woman's voice.
"Ay-ish-a! O Ay-ish-a!"
"Jael! Jael!" she called back; and at that the rider of the
middle camel waved the cloth again.
As fast as they caught sight of it--in tens and twenties--the
oncoming riders halted.
But Ali Baba did not stand still. Neither did we. The three lone
individuals in front of us began to approach.
"Come on!" said Grim. "Now's our chance!"
And at last I saw his idea. I did not know which to admire more,
the man who had thought of it in that sudden crisis, or Ali Baba
who had understood so swiftly and carried out his part so well.
But there was no time for admiration then.
All together--Ali Baba and his men along one side of a
right-angle and we from the other--we swooped on the three. And
there were nine or ten shots fired before we closed on them,
though none by our side.
My camel went down under me twenty yards before we reached them.
Two other camels were killed, and one of Ali Baba's sons was
grazed. But in another second we had captured two men and a
woman, and it was too late for the spectators to do anything,
unless they cared to risk killing their own leader.
I thrust my way on foot through the milling camels, for I wanted
to be in at the death, as it were, and I saw Grim take the
woman's rifle away. She looked more surprised than any one I have
ever seen--more so than a man I once saw shot in the stomach who
looked suddenly into the next world and did not like it.
"Shout to 'em, Jael!" he ordered in plain English. "Call 'em off,
or I'll kill you! Shout to 'em; d'you hear!"
"Ayisha! What does this mean? Ali? Ali Higg? You here? I
don't understand!"
"You'll be dead before you understand if you don't call those men
off," Grim answered; and his pistol demonstrated that he meant
it, for her men were closing in on us.
So she knelt up on her camel and cried out that Ali Higg was
there, bidding them keep their distance.
"But what does this mean, Ali? And you speak English? Since when?
Oh, I must be mad! You are not Ali Higg! No! I see now you are
not, but . . ."
She turned on Ayisha and spoke in Arabic: "Ayisha, what does this
mean? Answer me!"
But Ayisha said nothing. She chose to get back between the
curtains of the _shibriyah,_ and I saw Narayan Singh on the far
side whispering to her.
"For," as he told me afterward, "the time to persuade a woman you
are her friend is when she is afraid or distracted by doubt. At
all other times she is like a leopard; but then she is like a
lost sheep!"
The silence was at an end now. Every one was shouting; the
real Ali Higg's men wanting to know what had happened, and
Ali Baba's answering them with threats if they dared disobey
and come closer. The effect was exactly as if the figures on a
motion-picture screen could be heard calling back and forth.
The two men whom we had captured with the woman Jael were silent,
staring hard at Grim as if they saw a vision; and Yussuf, the
prisoner we had made at the oasis, tried to talk to them, but
they would not listen to him; the drama was too absorbing. Jael
herself, inclined to be panicky at first, was recovering
self-possession by rapid stages, and grew silent.
She hardly looked like a woman until you came quite close to her,
for she was dressed like a man, in the regular Bedouin cloak and
head-gear, with a bandolier full of cartridges. But her hair
had come unbound, and one long reddish lock of it was over
her shoulder.
She had a good-looking, strong face, badly freckled, and was
probably about forty years old, although that much was hard
guessing in the moonlight; for the rest, she looked like the
incarnation of activity--standing still, but only by suppression.
"Now Jael Higg," said Grim, "we'll have no squeamishness about
sex. I'm in a tight place, and you'll obey orders or take the
consequences. We're going to Petra, the lot of us."
"You! Are coming with me? To Petra?"
"Yes. And we've escort enough. Who commands those men?"
"I!"
"Yes, yes. But who's at the head of them now?"
"Ibrahim ben Ah."
"Call out for Ibrahim ben Ah to come here to speak with Ali Higg,
and watch that he comes alone," Grim ordered, and two or three of
Ali Baba's men went off to obey. "Now, Jael, you do the talking.
Understand me, though; this pistol has a way of going off quite
suddenly when the trigger is pressed. Answer: What village were
you intending to raid?"
"None."
"No use lying. Ali Higg's spy brought word to him that the
British are engaged elsewhere. Raid follows promptly, of course.
Now, out with it! I don't need you at Petra; Ayisha will serve my
purpose there. You've ten seconds before I pull the trigger.
Where was this raid headed for?"
"El-Maan." "Why?"
"That place has become too independent. The tribes meet there and
plan raids on their own account."
"Uh-huh. That sounds fairly credible. Now, observe--I pass my
pistol to this Indian."
He handed it to me.
"He will shoot you dead if you make one false move. You will tell
Ibrahim ben Ah to take all his men at once to that next oasis on
the way to El-Maan, and to wait there for yourself and Ali Higg,
to wait as long as three days if necessary. Say you will join
them there and lead the raid. You understand me?"
"Yes."
"You understand that you will die immediately if you disobey?"
"Yes."
"He will ask what the shooting meant just now. You will answer
that there was a mistake owing to the darkness, and that Ali Higg
is in a great rage, and he had better make himself scarce. If he
asks others questions, curse him and tell him to be off.
"And one last warning, Jael Higg! Obey me exactly, and you shall
see your husband in Petra. Disobey by as much as a word or a sign
and you're dead. Do we understand each other?"
"You really mean it? You will go to Petra?"
"Yes."
"I have seen fools, and men in love, and gamblers, but you are
the greatest madman of them all," she answered. "Very well, I
will speak to him as you say."
Grim mounted his camel and rode to the top of a ridge of sand
about twenty yards away, where he halted and sat motionless. If
he really looked so much like Ali Higg, as seemed to be the case,
no one at that distance could have doubted his identity. I hauled
off two or three paces, so as not to betray the fact that I was
to be Jael's executioner in a certain contingency, and the long
sleeve of my cloak concealed the pistol.
As I am setting down the facts exactly as they happened I may as
well record here that I laughed. She thought I laughed at her in
cold-blooded delight at the prospect of murder, and I think that
tightened her resolution not to give me the least excuse.
But I was not feeling in the least cold-blooded. I was laughing
at myself, who might be forced to shoot a woman after all.
Perhaps Grim gave the job to me because he knew I would not shoot
her in any case. I don't know. Nor do I myself know now whether I
would have shot her; sometimes I think yes, sometimes no. My
guess is that I would have failed to do it, and that Narayan
Singh, who was standing by and heard every word that passed,
would have wiped my eye, as the saying is.
Then Ibrahim ben Ah came striding into our midst like an old-time
shepherd with a modern rifle in place of crook, looking neither
to the right nor the left of him, but fixing his eyes on the man
he thought was Ali Higg on the camel beyond us. He seemed
surprised when Jael Higg stopped him, and told him to take all
his men at once to that oasis, where he was to wait, if
necessary, three days.
"I was told to speak with the Lion himself," he objected. _"Ya
sit Jael,_* there is wrath for those who disobey him!" [* O
lady Jael.]
"Go, taste his wrath then!" she retorted. "There was shooting
because of a mistake in the darkness. Good camels were killed. He
is more enraged than at the loss of twenty men. He would have it
the blame is yours--"
_"Mashallah!_ Mine!"
"But I persuaded him. He cools his wrath in the moonlight,
communing with Allah. Better go, Ibrahim, before his mood
changes again."
"But how came he to be here ahead of us? We left him in
Petra. How--"
"How old beards love to wag! Fool! Go ask him then! I call these
men to witness I have given the order that he told me to give to
you. I wash my hands!"
She began to make the gesture of washing hands, but thought
better of it, for I might have mistaken that for a signal. Old
Ibrahim ben Ah looked straight into her eyes, read resolution
there, and bowed like a courtier to a queen. Then he turned on
his heel, strode back to his camel, mounted, and returned to his
men without another word to any one. Yet I dare bet that he had
counted us, and knew we were all strangers, and dare say his
thoughts would fill a good long chapter of a book.
Grim continued to sit his camel motionless until the raiders
under Ibrahim ben Ah had formed into four long lines and ridden
away westward, towing enough baggage-animals behind them for a
week or two's supplies.
"One hundred and forty men," he announced when they were gone.
"The Lion of Petra can't have many left."