on the face of it. There were plenty of suitable places for ambush, as Alexander of Macedon found out, for instance, when he tried to force that gorge. But it would only have entailed the breaking of Grim’s promise and the absolute reversal of his stubborn principle, that he had no right to impose, and therefore would not move a finger toward imposing, alien rule on Arabia, even in the interest of peace, and indirectly. It was Grim’s notion of duty and enjoyment—and a good one, too, in my opinion—to prevent that very thing by drawing the teeth of contention and giving the Arabs a chance to work out their own destiny.
“Let’s go,” he said; and the only members of the party to grumble at that suggestion were the camels, who object to everything.
When you bear in mind that none of us—not even the women—had slept a wink the previous night, and that we had to face the hot south wind that withers the Arabian desert, and, impinging on the northern wall of that gruesome Valley of Moses, blows like a furnace blast down the ever narrowing funnel, our high spirits were a thing to wonder at.
None of us had more than a vague idea of the danger into which Grim was leading us. My only objection to him is that exasperating way he has of never discussing difficulties until after he has thought out their solution.
In my own way I’m rather a cautious man. I like adventure, but I also like to puzzle out the chances in advance, both of risk and profit, and so be prepared for them. Having anticipated ten per cent or so of the possibilities, I can then devote more attention to the unexpected when it happens.
But the very method that annoyed me was like meat and drink to our rogues of followers. What they did not know didn’t trouble them overmuch. Weaned on knavery, and used to haphazard devilment of any kind at all, all they asked of life was meat and drink, a chance to get away with other men’s belongings, and something new as often as might be, to make up songs about.
To them Grim’s very reticence was all in his favor, since it suggested mystery. And remember, that is the land where the tales now known in the West as the Arabian Nights first stirred men’s imagination. They wouldn’t have enjoyed things half as much if they had known exactly what was going to happen next.
Nor were they the only ones who enjoyed Grim’s method. There was Narayan Singh. He rode his camel beside mine, and occasionally leaned across to boom remarks through the cloth that covered nose and mouth with the un-accomplishable purpose of defeating the hot wind.
“Hah! Sahib, this suits me! This is the true way of a soldier! Here today and gone tomorrow—today a bellyful, tomorrow a fight, and the day after God knows what! I have no quarrel with the law of destiny!”
I may have felt like a man on a wild-goose chase. In fact, I know I did. But you couldn’t for the life of you escape the spirit of the game; and even with bones and muscles sore from Mujrim’s racking, and a cut in the calf of my leg that was beginning to smart unmercifully as it grew stiff and the hot wind dried the bandage, I felt about as merry as the rest did.
* * * *
That Valley of Moses is as savage and as endless as the Khyber; but we emerged from it at last into a waste of hot rock, deep wadi [ravine or valley], and oleander scrub, with rounded, rolling foot-hills all about us, and in places great heaps of human bones all cracked up by the jackals—bones, I dare say, of the Turkish soldiers who had tried to turn Lawrence out of Petra during the great war, the skulls persisting, as usual, long after the other bones had lost their shape. I wonder why a man’s rib-bones disappear first. Has it anything to do with Eve?
Grim called never another halt until near evening, when we found a thing they call a fiumara, which is a dried-up watercourse that winds between hills and widens until it reaches the sea. There isn’t any one word in the English language that translates it, nor for that matter any exactly similar formation elsewhere. Excepting for a week or two in odd seasons of heavy rain they use those fiumaras as roads and camping-places, their winding habit suiting the Bedouin’s wandering taste, and the curves between high banks providing shelter both from hot wind and observation.
Our protesting camels—they always protest at down-hill work—stumbled into the fiumara at a point where a peculiar, flat-topped island split the course in two and storm-water had hollowed out a deep, curving cliff in the near bank. It was a fine place to camp in, for there were three deep holes in the bed of the fiumara with two or three feet of dirty water in the bottom of them; and, in a land where no Bedouin will lead you to water at any price, stuff of the color of soup and the flavor of stale cabbage is a great discovery. Besides, the camels like it better than the sort that bubbles from a clear spring; and after all, the animal that carries you in the teeth of the simuum [hot wind] deserves to be considered first.
The tents were pitched in a jiffy, for everybody craved sleep, and there seemed to be a pretty general impression that whoever could hurry first into the land of dreams would be considered unfit for guard duty when Grim should get around to making his selections. But I glanced at Narayan Singh, and Narayan Singh smiled at me; we both knew Grim by that time. He doesn’t find soft billets for his friends when the watch needs keeping, any more than the wise banker pledges questionable credits.
So the mess of dates and rice was hardly eaten before the tents resounded with snores, those who were not yet really asleep pretending to be with all the more fervor. But as the moon rose over the rim of the hills of Edom, Grim called a conference of Jael Higg, Narayan Singh, himself and me, up on the flat-topped island, from which we had a fair view in the mellow moonlight of most of the country round about for a radius of nearly a mile.
The desert reflected so much of the moon’s rays that at a hundred yards you could actually distinguish the tufts of hair and markings on a scavenging hyena. But down in the hollow where the tents were, all was dark.
We sat facing, in a square, on prayer mats. Jael Higg at first could hardly keep awake; but hers was the kind of intellect that drives its owner weasel-fashion, and it did not take a dozen words to make her forget sleep.
“Now, Jael,” Grim began, and I have heard a doctor lecturing in just the same tone of voice a patient who can pull through if he will hear and use horse sense, “we’re within five miles of the place where we’re to pick up Ali Higg’s hundred and forty men. Twenty miles farther to the south of that is the Avenger at Abu Lissan with eight hundred. If it comes to a fight you can guess as well as any one what our chance is worth. Something less than ten cents, eh?”
She nodded, every faculty alert. I rather liked her just then, for she was brave, whatever conventions she had broken. I know how necessary some conventions are, but Lord! I do admire courage in man or woman; and I never worry much about another fellow’s morals, having all my work cut out to manage my own. I have met many a worse and more merciless woman than Jael Higg in what is called civilized society.
“You understand, don’t you?” Grim went on. “I’m not interested in destroying you and Ali Higg. If the Arabs hereabouts would like you two for rulers, that’s their affair. I’ll not prevent that. I’m hired by the British to help keep the peace. They couldn’t hire me for any other purpose. I want to see Arabia rule itself. That’s my particular bug.
“It’s too late to argue whether I’m right or wrong. We’re facing facts. I’m Hell-bent on just that. And the Arabs haven’t a chance unless they quit cutting up—not one chance in a hundred million.
“I happen to know that the British don’t want to come over here and govern this country, for one reason because they can’t afford it; but you all are busy fixing it so they’ll have to come, because they can afford still less to have a constant state of war along their border. D’you get me?”
She nodded again—hard-eyed. She understood him perfectly. What most altruists don’t understand is that the people they would benefit rather resent it than otherwise, and after profiting as much as possible intend to ditch them at the first chance. But Grim knew all about that.
“I don’t pretend to know what’s going on in your mind,” Grim continued. “But supposing I were you, and you were I, it may be I might feel revengeful. I might think in that case that outside interference of any sort was impertinence to