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

off in a shambling hurry.

"You are mad!" exclaimed Scharnhoff. "That man is the next-worst!"

"Grim, are you sure that's wise?" asked Goodenough.

"We can get him any time we want him, sir," Grim answered. "He lacks Noureddin Ali's gift of slipperiness."

He turned to Narayan Singh.

"Follow that man, but don't let him know he's followed. He'll show you where Noureddin Ali is. Get him this time!"

"Dead or alive, sahib?"

"Either."

Chapter Twenty

"All men are equal in the dark."

The first thing Goodenough did after Grim had sent Narayan Singh off on his deadly mission was to summon the sheikh of the Dome of the Rock. He himself went to fetch him rather than risk having the sheikh bring a crowd of witnesses, who would be sure to talk afterwards. The all-important thing was to conceal the fact that sacrilege had been committed. But it was also necessary to establish the fact that Zionists had had no hand in it.

"You see," Grim explained, sitting on the edge of the stone coffin, "we could hold Jerusalem. But if word of this business were to spread far and wide, you couldn't hold two or three hundred million fanatics; and believe me, they'd cut loose!"

"The sheikh must realize that," said I. "What do you bet me he won't try to black-mail the Administration on the strength of it?"

"I'll bet you my job! Watch the old bird. Listen in. He's downy. He knows a chance when he sees it, and he might try to cheat you at dominoes. But in a big crisis he's a number one man."

While we waited we tried to get an opinion out of Scharnhoff about the coffin and the skeleton inside it. But the old fellow was heart-broken. I think he told the truth when he said he couldn't explain it.

"What is there to say of it, except that it is very ancient? There is no decoration. The coffin is beautifully shaped out of one solid piece of stone, but that is all. The skeleton is that of an old man, who seems to have been wounded once or twice in battle. The linen is good, but there is no jewelry; no ornaments. And it is buried here in a very sacred place, so probably, it is one of the Jewish kings, or else one of the prophets. It might be King David—who knows? And what do I care? It is what a man sets down on parchment, and not his bones that interest me!"

The sheikh arrived at last, following Goodenough down the dark passage with the supreme nonchalance of the priest too long familiar with sacred places to be thrilled or frightened by them. He stood in the entrance gazing about him, blinking speculatively through the folds of fat surrounding his bright eyes. Goodenough took the lantern and held it close to the prisoners' faces one by one.

"You see?" he said. "All Syrians. All Moslems. Not a Jew among them. I'll take you and show you the others presently."

"What will you do with them?"

"That's for a court to decide. Hang them, most likely. They were plotting murder."

"They will talk at the trial."

"Behind closed doors!" said Goodenough.

"Ahum!" said the sheikh, stroking his beard. It would not have been compatible with either his religion or his racial consciousness not to try to make the utmost of the situation. "This would be a bad thing for all the Christian governments if the tale leaked out. Religious places have been desecrated. There would be inflammation of Moslem prejudices everywhere."

"It would be worse for you!" Grim retorted. The sheikh stared hard at him, stroking his beard again,

"How so, Jimgrim? Have I had a hand in this?"

"This is your famous Bir-el-Arwah, where, as you tell your faithful, the souls of the dead come to pray twice a week. This is the gulf beneath the Rock of Abraham that you tell them reaches to the middle of the world. Look at it! Shall we publish flashlight photographs?"

The sheikh's eyes twinkled as he recognized the force of that argument. He turned it over in his mind for a full minute before he answered.

"You cannot be expected to understand spiritual things," he said at last. "However," looking up, "this is not under the Rock. This is another place."

Goodenough pulled a compass from his pocket, but Grim shook his head.

"Go on," said Grim. "What of it?"

"It is better to close up this place and say nothing."

"Except this." Goodenough retorted: "you will say at the first and every succeeding opportunity that you know it is not true that Zionists tried to blow up the Dome of the Rock."

"How do I know they did not try?"

"Perhaps we'd better ask the Administrator to come and inspect this place officially and put the exact facts on the record," Goodenough retorted.

"You understand, don't you?" said Grim.

"Everything we've done until now has been strictly unofficial.
There's a difference."

"And this effendi?" he asked, staring at me. "What of him?"

"He is commended to your special benevolence," Grim answered. "The way to keep a man like him discreet is to make a friend of him. Treat him as you do me, then we three shall be friends."

The sheikh nodded, and that proved to be the beginning of a rather intimate acquaintance with him that stood me in good stead more than once afterwards. The influence that a man in his position can exert, if he cares to, is almost beyond the belief of those who pin their faith to money and mere officialdom.

The prisoners were marched out. All except Scharnhoff and the woman were confirmed temporarily in the room in which Grim and I had breakfasted. The woman was taken to the jail until an American missionary could be found to take charge of her. They always hand the awkward cases over to Americans, partly because they have a gift for that sort of thing, but also because, in case of need, you can blame Americans without much risk of a reaction.

Goodenough left a guard of Sikhs outside the street entrance, to keep out all intruders until the sheikh could collect a few trustworthy masons to seal up the passage again. Grim, Scharnhoff and I walked quite leisurely to Grim's quarters, where Grim left the two of us together in the room downstairs while he changed into uniform.

"What will they do with me?" asked Scharnhoff. He was not far from collapse. He lay back in the armchair with his mouth open. I got him some of Grim's whiskey.

"Nothing ungenerous," I said. "If you were going to be hanged
Grim would have told you."

"Do you—do you think he will let me go?"

"Not until he's through with you," said I, "if I'm any judge of him."

"What use can I be to him? My life is not worth a minute's purchase if Noureddin Ali finds me—he or that other whom they let go. Oh, what idiots to let Noureddin Ali give them the slip, and then to turn the second-worst one loose as well! Those English are all mad. That man Grim has been corrupted by them!"

Grim hardly looked corrupted, rather iron-hard and energetic when he returned presently in his major's uniform. You could tell the color of his eyes now; they were blue-gray, and there was a light in them that should warn the wary not to oppose him unless a real fight was wanted. His manner was brisk, brusk, striding over trifles. He nodded to me.

"You sick of this?" he asked me.

"How many times? I want to see it through."

"All right. Your own risk."

He turned on Scharnhoff, standing straight in front of him, with both arms behind his back.

"Look here. Have you any decency in that body of yours? Do you want to prove it? Or would you rather hang like a common scoundrel? Which is it to be?"

"I—I—I—I—do not understand you. What do you mean?"

"Are you game to risk your neck decently or would you rather have the hangman put you out of pain?"

"I—I was not a conspirator, Major Grim. If I had known what they intended I would never have lent myself to such a purpose. I needed money for my excavations—it has been very difficult to draw on my bank in Vienna. Noureddin Ali represented himself to me as an enthusiastic antiquarian; and when I spoke of my need he offered money, as I told you already. I never suspected until last night that he and Abdul Ali of Damascus are French secret agents. But last night he boasted to me about Abdul Ali. He laughed at me. Then he—"

"Yes, yes," Grim interrupted. "Will you play the man now, if I give you the chance?"

"If you will accord me opportunity, at least I will do my best."

"Understand; you'll not be allowed to live here afterward.
You'll be repatriated to Austria, or wherever you come from.
All you're offered is a chance to clean your slate morally before
you go."

"I shall be grateful."

"Will you obey?"

"Absolutely—to the limit of my power, that is to say. I am not an athlete—not a man of active habits."

"Very well. Listen." Grim turned to me again

"Take Scharnhoff to his house. You know the way. When afternoon comes, set a table in the garden and let him sit at it. He may as well read. If nothing happens before dark, take him out a lamp and some food. He mustn't move away. He'd better change into his proper clothes first. Your job will be to keep an eye on him until I come. You'd better keep out of sight as much as possible, especially after dark. Better watch him through the window. And, by the way, take this pistol. If Scharnhoff disobeys you, shoot him."

He turned again on Scharnhoff.

"I hope you're not fooling yourself. I should say the chance is two or three to one that you'll come out of this alive. If you're killed, you may flatter yourself that's a mighty sight cleaner than hanging. If you come out with a whole skin, you shall leave the country without even going to jail. Time to go now."

I slipped the heavy pistol into my pocket and led the way without saying a word. Scharnhoff followed me, rather drearily, and we walked side by side toward the German Colony, he looking exactly like one of those respectable and devout educated Arabs of the old style, who teach from commentaries on the Koran. We excited no comment whatever.

"What will he do? What is his purpose?" Scharnhoff asked me after a while. "If a man is in danger of death, he likes to know the reason—the purpose of it."

I had a better than faint glimmering of Grim's purpose, but saw no necessity to air my views on the subject.

"I'm amused," said I, "at the strictly unofficial status of all this. You see, I'm no more connected with this administration than you are. I'm as alien as you. You might say, I'm a stranger in Jerusalem. Yet, here I am, with a perfectly official pistol, loaded with official cartridges, under unofficial orders to shoot you at the first sign of disobedience. And—strictly unofficially, between you and me—I shan't hesitate to do it!"

He contrived a smile out of the depths of his despondency.

"I wonder—should you shoot me—what they would do to you afterwards."

"Something unofficial," I suggested. "But we'll leave that up to them. The point is—"

"Oh, don't worry! You shall have no trouble from me." It took a long time to reach his house, for the poor old chap was suffering from lack of sleep, and physical weariness, as well as disappointment, and I had to let him sit down by the wayside once or twice. Being in hard condition, and not much more than half his age, I had almost forgotten that I had not slept the night before.