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

to ask the way.
Mahommed ben Hamza was lolling on the stone veranda, gossiping
with half-a-dozen men. He came the minute I beckoned him.

"I've seen Jimgrim," I said. "You're to come with me at noon to the mejlis as my interpreter."

He grinned delightedly.

"And see here, you smelly devil: Here's money. Buy yourself a clean shirt, a new coat, and some soap. Wash yourself from head to foot, and put the new clothes on, before you meet me at the castle gate ten minutes before noon. Those are Jimgrim's orders, do you understand?"

"Taht il-amr! (Yours to command)" he answered laughing.

I went and bought myself an awful meal at the house of a man who rolled Kabobs between his filthy fingers.

Chapter Seven

"Who gives orders to me?"

The wonderful thing about Moab is that everything happens in a story-book setting, with illustrations by Maxfield Parrish and Wyeth and Joe Coll, and all the rest of them, whichever way you look.

Imagine a blue sky—so clear-blue and pure that you can see against it the very feathers in the tails of wheeling kites, and know that they are brown, not black. Imagine all the houses, and the shacks between them, and the poles on which the burlap awnings hang, painted on flat canvas and stood up against that infinite blue. Stick some vultures in a row along a roof-top— purplish—bronze they'll look between the tiles and sky. Add yellow camels, gray horses, striped robes, long rifles, and a searching sun-dried smell. And there you have El-Kerak, from the inside.

From any point along the broken walls or the castle roof you can see for fifty miles over scenery invented by the Master-Artist, with the Jordan like a blue worm in the midst of yellow-and-green hills twiggling into a turquoise sea.

The villains stalk on-stage and off again sublimely aware of their setting. The horses prance, the camels saunter, the very street-dogs compose themselves for a nap in the golden sun, all in perfect harmony with the piece. A woman walking with a stone jar on her head (or, just as likely, a kerosene can) looks as if she had just stepped out of eternity for the sake of the picture. And not all the kings and kaisers, cardinals and courtezans rolled into one great swaggering splurge of majesty could hold a candle to a ragged Bedouin chief on a flea-bitten pony, on the way to a small-town mejlis.

So it was worth a little inconvenience, and quite a little risk to see those chiefs arrive at the castle gate, toss their reins to a brother cut-throat, and swagger in, the poorest and least important timing their arrival, when they could, just in advance of an important man so as to take precedence of him and delay his entrance.

Mindful of my charge to keep Anazeh sober, and more deadly afraid of it than of all the other risks, I hung about waiting for him, hoping he would arrive before Abdul Ali or ben Nazir. I wanted to go inside and be seated before either of those gentry came. But not a bit of it. I saw Anazeh ride up at the head of his twenty men, halt at a corner, and ask a question. His men were in military order, and looked not only ready but anxious to charge the crowd and establish their old chief's importance.

Mahommed ben Hamza, not quite so smelly in his new clothes, was standing at my elbow.

"Sheikh Anazeh beckons you," he said.

So the two of us worked our way leisurely through the crowd toward the side-street down which Anazeh had led his party. We found them looking very spruce and savage, four abreast, drawn up in the throat of an alley, old Anazeh sitting his horse at their head like a symbol of the ancient order waiting to assault the new. My horse was close beside him, held by Ahmed, acting servitor on foot.

The old man let loose the vials of his wrath on me the minute I drew near, and Mahommed ben Hamza took delicious pleasure in translating word for word.

"Is that the way an effendi in my care should be seen at such a time—on foot? Am I a maskin* that you do not ride? Is the horse not good enough?" [*Poor devil]

I made ben Hamza explain that I was to attend the mejlis as
Sheikh Abdul Ali's guest. But that only increased his wrath.

"So said ben Nazir! Shall a lousy Damascene trick me out of keeping my oath? You are in my safekeeping until you tread on British soil again, and my honour is concerned in it! No doubt that effeminate schemer of schemes would like to display you at the mejlis as his booty, but you are mine! Did you think you are not under obligation to me?"

I answered pretty tactfully. I said that Allah had undoubtedly created him to be a protector of helpless wayfarers and the very guardian of honour. Mahommed ben Hamza added to the compliments while rendering mine into Arabic. But though Anazeh's wrath was somewhat mollified, he was not satisfied by any means.

"Am I a dog," he demanded, "that I should be slighted for the sake of that Damascene?"

It looked to me like the proper moment to try out Grim's magic formula.

"You are the father of lions. And a lion knows a lion in the dark!" said I.

The effect was instantaneous. He puffed his cheeks out in astonishment, and sucked them in again. The overbearing anger vanished as he leaned forward in the saddle to scrutinize my face. It was clear that he thought my use of that phrase might just possibly have been an accident.

"Jimgrim says—"

"Ah! What says Jimgrim? Who are you that know where he is?"

"A lion knows a lion in the dark!" I said again, that there might be no mistake about my having used the words deliberately.

He nodded.

"Praised be Allah! Blessings upon His Prophet! What says Jimgrim?"

"Jimgrim says I am to keep by Anazeh and watch him, lest he drink strong drink and lose his honour by becoming like a beast without decency or understanding!"

"Mount your horse, effendi. Sit beside me."

I complied. Ben Hamza took the place of Ahmed, who went to the rear looking rather pleased to get out of the limelight.

"What else says Jimgrim?" asked Anazeh.

"There will be a message presently, providing Sheikh Anazeh keeps sober!"

To say that I was enjoying the game by this time is like trying to paint heaven with a tar-brush. You've got to be on the inside of an intrigue before you can appreciate the thrill of it. Nobody who has not had the chance to mystify a leader of cheerful murderers in a city packed with conspirators, with the shadow of a vulture on the road in front, and fanged death waiting to be let loose, need talk to me of excitement.

"Well and good," said Anazeh. "When Jimgrim speaks, I listen!"

Can you beat that? Have you ever dreamed you were possessed of some magic formula like "Open Sesame," and free to work with it any miracle you choose? Was the dream good? I was awake—on a horse—in a real eastern alley—with twenty thieves as picturesque as Ali Baba's, itching for action behind me!

"Abdul Ali of Damascus thinks he will enter the mejlis last and create a great sensation," said Anazeh. "That son of infamies deceives himself. I shall enter last. I shall bring you. There will be no doubt who is important!"

Just as he spoke there clattered down the street at right angles to us a regular cavalcade of horsemen led by no less than Abdul Ali with a sycophant on either hand. Cardinal Wolsey, or some other wisehead, once remarked that a king is known by the splendour of his servants. Abdul Ali's parasites were dressed for their part in rose-coloured silk and mounted on beautiful white Arab horses so severely bitted that they could not help but prance.

Abdul Ali, on the other hand, played more a king-maker's role, dark and sinister in contrast to their finery, on a dark brown horse that trotted in a business-like, hurry-up-and-get-it-done- with manner. He rode in the German military style, and if you can imagine the Kaiser in Arab military head-dress, with high black riding boots showing under a brown cloak, you have his description fairly closely. The upturned moustaches and the scowl increased the suggestion, and I think that was deliberate.

"A dog—offspring of dogs! Curse his religion and his bed!" growled Anazeh in my ear.

The old sheikh allowed his enemy plenty of time. To judge by the way the men behind us gathered up their reins and closed in knee- to-knee, they would have liked to spoil Abdul Ali's afternoon by riding through his procession and breaking its formation. But Anazeh had his mind set, and they seemed to know better than to try to change it for him. We waited until noises in the street died down, and then Ahmed was sent to report on developments.

"Abdul Ali has gone into the mejlis and the doors are closed," he announced five minutes later. That seemed to suit Anazeh perfectly, for his eyes lit up with satisfaction. Evidently being excluded from the council was his meat and drink. He gave no order, but rode forward and his men followed as a snake's tail follows its head, four abreast, each man holding his rifle as best suited him; that gave them a much more warlike appearance than if they had imitated the western model of exact conformity.

We rode down-street toward the castle at a walk, between very interested spectators who knew enough to make way without being told. And at the castle gate we were challenged by a man on foot, who commanded about twice our number of armed guards.

"The hour is passed," he announced. "The order is to admit no late-comers."

"Who gives orders to me?" Anazeh retorted.

"It was agreed by all the notables."

"I did not agree. Wallah! Thou dog of a devil's dung-heap, say you I am not a notable?"

"Nevertheless—"

"Open that gate!"

They opened it. Two of the men began to do it even before their chief gave the reluctant order. Anazeh started to ride through with his men crowding behind. But that, it seemed, was altogether too much liberty to take with the arrangements. Shouting all together, the gate-guards surged in to take hold of bridles and force Anazeh's dependents back. Teeth and eyes flashed. It looked like the makings of a red-hot fight.

"No retainers allowed within the gate! Principals only!" roared the captain of the guard, in Arabic that sounded like explosions of boiling oil.

Anazeh, Mahommed ben Hamza and I were already within the courtyard. Four of Anazeh's followers made their way, through after us before any one could prevent them. At that moment there came a tremendous clattering of hoofs and the crowd outside the gate scattered this and that way in front of about a hundred of the other chiefs' dependents, who had dutifully stayed outside and had sought shade some little distance off.

Whether the sudden disturbance rattled him, or whether he supposed that all the other truculent ruffians were going to try to follow our example, at any rate the man on duty lost his head and shouted to his men to shut the gate again. Before they could do it every one of Anazeh's gang had forced his way through. There we all were on forbidden ground, with a great iron-studded gate slammed and bolted behind us. To judge by the row outside the keepers of the gate had got their hands full.

In front of us was a short flight of stone steps, and another great wooden door set in stone posts under a Roman arch. There were only two armed men leaning against it. They eyed Anazeh and our numbers nervously.

"Open!"

Anazeh could use his voice like a whip-crack. They fumbled with the great bolt and obeyed, swinging the door wide. I thought for a minute that my arrogant old protector meant to ride up the steps and through the door into the mejlis hall with all his men; but he was not