Jimgrim and Allah's Peace, Talbot Mundy [ebook reader browser .TXT] 📗

twenty yards along it some one hit the back of his head with a piece of rock. A second later they had pounced on him, and in less than a minute after that he was kicking in the noose of a hide rope slung over a house-beam. I don't know what they hanged him for. No one apparently knew. But they used his carcase for a target and shot it almost to pieces.

I kept on looking for Grim, although the task seemed hopeless. Of course, I could not give a hint of my real purpose. But as Grim knew that the talk about a school-teacher was my passport to the place, it seemed possible that he might use that as an excuse for getting in touch with me. So I told Ahmed to show me the schools.

They weren't worth looking at—mere tumble-down sheds in which Moslem boys were taught to say the Koran by heart. The places where Christian missionaries once had been were all turned into stores, and even into stables for the horses of the notables.

So I returned to ben Nazir's house, and found old Sheikh Anazeh sitting outside on the step, as motionless as a tobacco-store Indian but twice as picturesque. He still had his own rifle over his knees, and the plundered one slung over his shoulder by a strap; he never stirred abroad unarmed.

I asked him what the conference of notables was going to be about, and he told me to mind my own business. That struck me as an excellent idea, so, not having slept at all the previous night, I went upstairs and lay on the bed. There was no lock on the door, so I set the chair against it.

Ben Nazir was a man who had traveled a great deal, and picked up western notions of hospitality to add to the inborn eastern sense of sacredness in the relation between host and guest. It seems that an hour or two later he came to take me down to a Gargantuan meal, but, feeling the chair against the door, and hearing snores, he decided it was better manners to let me lie in peace.

So I did not wake up again until after midnight. The moonlight was streaming through a little high-perched window, and fell on the white-robed, ghostly-looking figure of a man, who sat with crossed legs on the end of the bed. I thought I was dead and in hell.

That is no picturesque exaggeration about a man's hair standing when he is terrified. It really does. I would have yelled aloud, if the breath would have come, but there is a trick of sudden fear that seems to grip your lungs and hold them impotent. The thing on the end of the bed had no eye-brows. It grinned as if it knew all about evil, and were hungry, and living men were its food.

I don't know how long I stared at the thing, but it seemed like a week. At last it spoke, and I burst into a sweat with the reaction.

"Good job you don't know how to fasten a door with a chair. I'll have to show you that trick, or you'll be dying before your time. Sh-h-h! Don't make a noise!"

I sat up and looked more closely at him. It was the Ichwan of the afternoon—Sheikh Suliman ben Saoud. And he was speaking unmistakable American. I began again to believe I was dreaming. He chuckled quietly and lit a cigarette.

"Aren't you wise to me yet?"

"Grim?"

"Who else?"

"But what's happened to your face? You're all one-sided."

"Oh, that's easy. I just take out my false teeth. The rest is done with a razor and some brown stain. I thought you were going to spot me when you first came. Did you? I didn't think so. Did you act as well as all that?"

"No. Looked all over town for you afterward."

"Uh-huh. I thought that was too natural to be acting. Pick up any news in town?"

"Saw a hanging, and met a man who calls himself Mahommed ben
Hamza. He's waiting at the house of Abu Shamah."

"Any men with him?"

"Nine."

"Three more than he promised. Ben Hamza is the most honest thief and dependable liar in Palestine—a cheerful murderer who sticks closer than a brother. I saved him once from being hung, because he smiles so nicely. Any more news?"

"I expect none that you don't know. There's a sheikh named Abdul
Ali from Damascus, preaching a raid into Palestine."

Grim nodded.

"I'm here to bag that bird."

"Where do I come in?" I asked.

"You are the plausible excuse, that's all. Thanks to you old Anazeh got into El-Kerak with twenty men. Two might not have been enough, even with ben Hamza and his nine."

"Then our host ben Nazir is in on your game?"

"Not he! Up at headquarters in Jerusalem we knew all about this coming conference. These folk are ready to explode. The only way to stop it is to pull the plug—The plug is Abdul Ali. We knew we could count on old Anazeh. But the puzzle was how to get him and his men into El-Kerak. When you told me ben Nazir had invited you, I saw the way to do it. There wasn't anybody else except Anazeh that ben Nazir could have sent to fetch you, and the old boy is a dependable friend of ours."

"That did not stop him from raiding two villages on the British side of the Dead Sea," I answered.

"Did he?"

"Sure. I had part of a raided sheep for breakfast."

"Um-m-m! Well of all the—damn his impudence! The shrewd old devil must have figured that we can't get after him for it, seeing how he's playing our game. Bloody old horse-thief! Well, he gets away with it, this time. You'll have to be mighty careful not to seem to recognize me. One slip and we're done for. You're safe enough. If they once get wise to me they'll pull me in pieces between four horses."

"What's your plan?"

"It's vague yet. Got to be an opportunist. I'm supposed to be a member of the ben Saoud family, recruiting members for the new sect—biggest thing in Arabia. I'm invited to the conference on the strength of my supposed connection with the big Ichwan movement."

"D'you propose to murder this Abdul Ali person, then, or have him murdered?" I asked.

"Uh-uh! Murder's out of my line. Besides, that'ud do no good. Worse than useless. They'd all cut loose. Abdul Ali has got them together. What with bribes and a lot of promises he has them keen on this raid. If he were killed they'd say one of our spies did it. They'd add vengeance to their other motives, which at present are mainly a desire for loot. No, no. Abdul Ali has got to disappear. Then they'll believe he has betrayed them. Then, instead of raiding Palestine they'll confiscate his property and curse his ancestors. D'you see the point?"

"More or less. But what good can I do?"

"Do you mind if I use you?"

I laughed. "That's a hell of a silly question. Any use my minding? You've already used me. You will do it again without consulting me. I like it, as it happens. But a fat lot you care whether I like it or not. Isn't it a bit late in the day to ask permission?"

"Oh, well. You know the hangmen always used to beg the victim's pardon. Will you obey orders?"

"Yes. But it might be easier if I know what I'm doing."

"As soon as I know I'll explain," he answered. "Where you can fit into the puzzle at the moment is by rooting for the school idea. The worst robber chieftain from the farthest cluster of huts he calls his home town would like to see an American school here in El-Kerak. If there were one he'd send his sons to it."

"Okay. I'll root like a dog for a buried bone."

"Go to it. That gives you the right to ask questions. That will oblige ben Nazir to introduce you to any one you want to interview. That will explain without any further argument whatever weakness you seem to have for talking to men in the street like Mahommed ben Hamza. It would even explain away any politeness that I might show you in my capacity of Ichwan. For safety's sake, and to create an impression, I take the line of being rude to every one; but I might reasonably toss a few crumbs of condescension to an altruist from foreign parts. At any rate, I'll have to take that chance. D'you get me?"

"You mean, you'll use me as intermediary? Messages to and from ben Hamza and that sort of thing?"

"That's the idea, but there's more to it. Did you bring that Bible along? Are you superstitious? Any notions like Long John Silver's about its being bad luck to spoil a Bible? All right. Keep it in your pocket to make notes in. If you can't get the whole book to me, tear a page out and send that, or give it to me, with the message spelled in dots under the words. Make the dots faint, I've good eyes."

"What sort of notes do you want from me?"

"You mustn't mistake me for the prophet Ezekiel," he answered, grinning. "'Thus saith the Lord' is all right when you know what you're talking about. All I know for certain is that I've got to bag Abdul Ali. If you get information that looks important to you, get it to me in the way I've told you, that's all. Don't be caught talking to me. Don't look friendly. Don't seem interested."

"What else?"

"If you can, keep old Anazeh sober."

"Oh!"

Grim nodded meaningly: "I've known easier jobs!"

"The old sport thinks no more of me than of an express package he'd been hired to deliver," I answered. "Drunk or sober, he'd brush me aside like a fly."

"Well—wits were given us to use. I guess you'll have to use yours. Have you any?"

"How the hell should I know?" I retorted.

"If you find I haven't any, don't blame me."

"I won't," he answered, and I believed him.

"What else besides being dry-nurse to the king of the
Amalekites?" I asked.

"Don't trust Ahmed."

"He's a good interpreter."

"Yeh—and a poor peg. You'll have to use him—some. But don't trust him."

"Does old Anazeh know you in that disguise?" I asked.

"No, and he mustn't. I'll tell you why. All these people are religious fanatics. A horrible death is the only fate they would consider for a man caught masquerading as a holy personage the way I'm doing. But their fanaticism has a way of petering out when the gang's not there to see. In his own village I think Anazeh would laugh if I talked this ruse over with him— afterwards. But if he knew about it here, with all these other fanatics alert and fanning, he wouldn't dare not to expose me. It's a good job you asked that. If I send any message to Anazeh through you, be sure you don't give me away."

"How shall I make him believe the message is from you, then?"

"Begin with 'Jimgrim says.' He'll recognize the formula. But if he questions that, say 'A lion knows a lion in the dark.' That'll serve a double purpose—convince him and jog his memory. He ignored a request of mine—once, and I was able to get back at him. Tell you the story some day. Nowadays he's more or less dependable, unless he gets a skin-full of redeye. Well, make the most of your chance to sleep; you may have to go short later. I'm going to saw off a cord or two myself."

He left the room as silently as a ghost. I don't doubt that