Chapter IV: Part 4

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 quite so high-handed as that.

After a good long look through the door, I suppose to make sure there was no ambush inside waiting for him, he dismounted, and ordered his men to occupy a stable-building across the courtyard, from which it would have been impossible to dislodge them without a siege. Then, when he had seen the last man disappear into it, he led me and Mahommed ben Hamza up the steps.

Ben Hamza was grinning like a schoolboy, beside himself with delight at the prospect of elbowing among notables, as well as inordinately proud of his new clothes and the smell of imported soap that hung about him like an aura. But Anazeh looked like an ancient king entering into his own. Surely there was never another man who could stride so majestically and seem so conscious of his own ability to override all law.

We passed under the shadowy arch and down a cool stone passage to yet another heavy door that barred our way. Anazeh thundered on it with his rifle-butt, for there were no attendants there to do his bidding. There was no answer. Only a murmur of voices within. So he thundered again, and this time the door opened about six inches. A face peered through the opening cautiously, and asked what was wanted.

"What is this?" asked Anazeh. "Is a mejlis held without my presence? Since when?"

"You are too late!"

The face disappeared. Some one tried to close the door. Anazeh's foot prevented.

"Open!" he demanded. The butt of his rifle thundered again on the wood.

There was a babel of voices inside, followed by sudden silence. Anazeh made a sign to Mahommed ben Hamza and me. We all three laid our shoulders against the door and shoved hard. Evidently that was not expected; it swung back so suddenly that we were hard put to it to keep our feet. The man who had opened the door lay prone on the floor in front of us with his legs in the air, and Anazeh laughed at him--the bitterest sign of disrespect one Arab can pay to another.

"Since when does the word of a Damascene exclude an honourable sheikh from a mejlis in El-Kerak?" asked Anazeh, standing in the doorway.

He was in no hurry to enter. The dramatic old ruffian understood too well the value of the impression he made standing there. The room was crowded with about eighty men, seated on mats and cushions, with a piece of carpeted floor left unoccupied all down the centre--a high-walled room with beautifully vaulted ceiling, and a mullioned window from which most of the glass was gone. The walls were partly covered with Persian and other mats, but there was almost no furniture other than water-pipes and little inlaid tables on which to rest coffee-cups and matches. The air was thick with smoke already, and the draft from the broken windows wafted it about in streaky clouds.

Every face in the room was turned toward Anazeh. I kept as much as possible behind him, for you can't look dignified in that setting if all you have on is a stained golf suit, that you have slept in. It seemed all right to me to let the old sheikh have all the limelight.

But he knew better. Perhaps my erstwhile host ben Nazir had understood a little German after all. More likely he had divined Abdul Ali's purpose to make use of me. Certainly he had poured the proper poison in Anazeh's ear, and the old man understood my value to a nicety.

He took me by the arm and led me in, Mahommed ben Hamza following like a dog that was too busy wagging its tail to walk straight. You would have thought Anazeh and I were father and son by the way he leaned toward me and found a way for me among the crowded cushions.

He had no meek notions about choosing a low place. Expecting to be taken at his own valuation, he chose a high place to begin with. There were several unoccupied cushions near the door, and there were half-a-dozen servants busy in a corner with coffee- pots and cakes. He prodded one of the servants and ordered him to take two cushions to a place he pointed out, up near the window close to Abdul Ali. There was no room there. That was the seat of the mighty. You could not have dropped a handkerchief between the men who wanted to be nearest the throne of influence. But Anazeh solved that riddle. He strode, stately and magnificent, up the middle of the carpet amid a mutter of imprecations. And when one more than ordinarily indignant sheikh demanded to know what he meant by it, he paused in front of him and laid his right hand on my shoulder. (There was a loaded rifle in his left.)

"Who offers indignity to a distinguished guest?" he demanded.

The question was addressed to everybody in the room. He took care they were all aware of it. His stern eyes traveled from face to face.

"My men, who escorted him here, are outside the door. They can enter and escort him away, if there are none here who understand how to treat the stranger in our midst!"

There was goose-flesh all over me, and I did not even try to look unembarrassed. A man's wits, if he has any, work swiftly when he looks like being torn to pieces at a moment's notice. It seemed to me that the less insolent I appeared, the less likely they were to vent their wrath on me. I tried to look as if I didn't understand I was intruding--as if I expected a welcome.

"Good!" Anazeh whispered in my ear. "You do well."

There was a murmur of remonstrance. The sheikh who had dared to rebuke Anazeh found the resentment turned against himself. Somebody told him sharply to mend his manners. Anazeh, shrewd old opportunist, promptly directed the servant to place cushions on the edge of the carpet, in front of the first row of those who wished to appear important. That obliged the front rank to force the men behind them backward, closer to the wall, so that room could be made for us without our trespassing on the forbidden gangway.

So I sat down in the front row, five cushions from Abdul Ali. Anazeh squatted beside me with his rifle across his knees. Then Mahommed ben Hamza forced himself down between me and the man on my left, using his left elbow pretty generously and making the best of the edges of two cushions. As far as I could see there were not more than half-a-dozen other men in the room who had rifles with them, although all had daggers, and some wore curved scimitars with gold-inlaid hilts.

As soon as I could summon sufficient nerve to look about me and meet the brown, conjecturing eyes that did not seem to know whether to resent my presence or be simply curious, I caught the eye of Suliman ben Saoud in the front row opposite, ten or twelve cushions nearer the door than where I sat. He did not seem to notice me. The absence of eyebrows made his face expressionless. He didn't even vaguely resemble the Major James Grim whom I knew him to be. When his eyes met mine there was no symptom of recognition. If he felt as nervous as I did he certainly did not show it behind his mask of insolent indifference.

There was still a good deal of muttered abuse being directed at Anazeh. The atmosphere was electric. It felt as if violence might break out any minute. Abdul Ali seemed more nervous than any one else; he rocked himself gently on his cushion, as if churning the milk of desire into the butter of wise words. Suddenly he turned to the sheikh on his left, a handsome man of middle age, who wore a scimitar tucked into a gold-embroidered sash, and whispered to him.

Ben Hamza whispered to me: "That sheikh to whom Abdul Ali speaks is Ali Shah al Khassib, the most powerful sheikh in these parts. A great prince. A man with many followers."

Ali Shah al Khassib called for prayer to bring the mejlis to order. He was immensely dignified. The few words he pronounced about asking God to bless the assembled notables with wisdom, in order that they might reach a right decision, would have been perfectly in place in the Capitol at Washington, or anywhere else where men foregather to decide on peace or war.

At once a muballir* on his left opened a copy of the Koran on a cushion on his lap and began to read from it in a nasal singsong. There were various degrees of devoutness, and even of inattention shown by those who listened. Some knelt and prostrated themselves. Others, including Anazeh, sat bolt upright, closing their eyes dreamily at intervals. Over the way, Jim Suliman ben Saoud Grim was especially formally devout. His very life undoubtedly depended on being recognized as a fanatic of fanatics. [*A Moslem priest who recites prayers.]

But there were three Christian sheikhs in the room. One of them opposite me pulled out a Bible and laid it on the carpet as a sort of challenge to the Koran. It was probably a dangerous thing to do, although most Moslems respect the Bible as a very sacred book. The manner in which it was done suggested deliberate effort to provoke a quarrel.

Mahommed ben Hamza, dividing his time like a schoolboy in chapel between staring about him and attending by fits and starts, nudged me in the ribs and whispered:

"See that Christian! He would not dare do that, only on this occasion they like to think that Moslems and Christians are agreeing together."

The man who was reading to himself from the Bible looked up and caught my eye. He tapped the book with his finger and nodded, as much as to ask why I did not join him. At once I pulled my own from my pocket. He smiled acknowledgment as I opened it at random. Certainly he thought I did it to support his tactlessly ill-timed assertion of his own religion. Very likely my action, since I was a guest and therefore not to be insulted, saved him from violence. Incipient snarls of fanatical indignation died away.

But as a matter of fact my eye was on Jim Suliman ben Saoud Grim. As the reading from the Koran came to an end amid a murmur of responses from all the sheikhs, the crooked-faced Ichwan sat upright. In his sullen, indifferent way, he stared leisurely along the line until his eyes rested on me.

As his eyes met mine I marked the place where the Bible was open with a pencil, and closed the book, suspecting that he might be glad to know where a pencil could be found in a contingency.

He did not smile. The expression of his face barely changed. Just for a second I thought I saw a flicker of amused approval pass over the corners of his eyes and mouth.

So I left the book lying where it was with the pencil folded in it.

Chapter Eight

"He will say next that it was he who set the stars in the sky over El-Kerak, and makes the moon rise!"

Ali Shah al Khassib was the first to speak. He was heard to the end respectfully, none interrupting. But it seemed obvious from their faces that not a few sheikhs were disposed to question both his leadership and most of what he said. Mahommed ben Hamza kept up a running whisper of interpretation, breathing into my ear until it was wet with condensed breath. I had to use a handkerchief repeatedly.

Ali Shah al Khassib made no definite proposal. He said that a man whom they all knew well had brought news to the effect that Emir Feisul was ready to make war on the French in order to drive them out of Syria. That in a case like that, of Moslems against kafirs,* there could be no question on which side their hearts or their interests lay. That several dependable men had brought word of great unrest in Palestine. That in all likelihood the British would send their army to help the French, in which case the Arabs of Palestine were likely to rise in rebellion in the British army's rear. That was the situation. They were invited to consider it, and to decide what action, if any, seemed called for. [*Unbelievers.]

He sat down without having risked his leadership by any statement of his own attitude. He had simply reported facts that he believed to be true--facts that many of the notables plainly did not yet believe, or believed only in part. There followed a perfect babel of argument, during which the servants passed the coffee and cakes around. After that, during every interval between speeches there was more coffee and more cakes--wonderful cakes made with honey and almonds, immensely filling; but the more full an Arab gets of stodgy food the more his tongue wags, until at last he talks himself to sleep.

For ten minutes men were shouting their opinions to one another to and fro across the room. From what I could make of it there was not a man who did not advocate putting the whole of Palestine to the sword forthwith. But it was noticeable that when their turns came to stand up and address the mejlis their advocacy was considerably toned down. Everybody seemed to want somebody else to father the proposal for a raid, although every man pretended to be anxious to take part in one.

Old Anazeh on my right sat in grim silence, quizzing each talker in turn with puckered eyes. The only comment he made was a sort of internal rumbling, suggestive of the preliminary notice of an earthquake.

At the end of ten minutes Sheikh Ali Shah al Khassib brought proceedings a step forward by calling for confirmation of the news of unrest in Palestine. Man after man got up, and, since he was speaking of others, not of himself, painted the discontent of the Palestinians in lurid terms. Each man tried to outvie the other. The first man said they were anxious regarding the Zionists and keen for a solution of the problem. The second said they hated the Zionists, and could see no way out of their predicament but by rebellion. The third said that no Arab in Palestine could eat for thinking of the Zionist outrage, and that the heart of every man in El-Kerak should bleed for his distressed brethren.

To judge by what the fourth and fifth and sixth said, Palestine was in a state of scarcely suppressed rebellion, and every living Arab in the country was sharpening his sword in secret for the butchering of Zionists at the first opportunity. The seventh man said that the Palestine Arabs had never under Turkish rule suffered and groaned as they did under the British, and that their cry was going up to heaven for relief from the ignominious tyranny of Zionist pretensions.

Ali Shah al Khassib chose that ringing appeal as the cue for his next move in the game. He called on Sheikh Abdul Ali, "as well known in Damascus as in this place," to address the mejlis.

There was instant silence. Even the coffee cups ceased rattling. Abdul Ali got to his feet with the manner of a man long used to swaying assemblies. He had just the right air of authority; exactly the right suggestion of deference; the quiet smile of the man with secrets up his sleeve; and he paused just long enough before speaking to whet curiosity and fix attention.

He did not speak floridly or fast, and he indulged in none of those flights of oratory that most Arabs love. There was ample time between his sentences for Mahommed ben Hamza to translate into my wet and itching ear. But every sentence of his speech had measured weight in it, and every word he used was chosen for its poison or its sting.

He began by reminding them of the war and of Emir Feisul's share in it. Of how they, and their fathers, and their sons had fought behind Feisul and helped to establish him in Damascus. Then he spoke of the British promise that the Arabs' should have a kingdom of their own, with Damascus for its capital and borders to include all the peoples of Arab blood in the Near East. He paused for a full minute after that. Then:

"But the French are in Syria. The French, who also promised us an Arab kingdom. They have assembled at the coast an army that already threatens Emir Feisul. The British are in Palestine, where they are admitting a horde of Zionist Jews to displace us Arabs, rightful owners of the soil. The British are also in Mesopotamia, which they have seized for themselves for the sake of the oil which Allah, in His wisdom, created beneath the fertile earth. Feisul makes ready to defend Syria against the French. But the British will march to the aid of the French. Can anybody tell me how much of that promise to us Arabs has been kept, by either nation, French or British?"

So far he was on thoroughly safe ground. A man who preached against the French could hardly be suspected of being hired by the French to do it. There was nobody there but he who could say what Feisul's intentions actually were. You can say what you like against the British anywhere, at any time, and find some one to believe what you say. And it needed no wizardry to prove that the Allies had broken every promise they ever made to the Arabs.

"Are you going to sit idle, and let Emir Feisul and the Syrians fight the French alone?" he asked, and paused again.

There was a great deal of murmuring--not quite all of it, I thought, entirely in his favour.

"What is the alternative to sitting still like camels waiting to be doubly burdened? If you raid Palestine, the local Arabs will all rise to your assistance. The throat of every Zionist from the Lebanon to Beersheba will be cut. There will be plunder beyond reckoning. And you will help Feisul by holding back the British army from marching to the assistance of the French. The question is, are you men?--are you Arabs?--are you true Moslems? --or do you like to look down from these heights of El-Kerak over the home of your ancestors in the hands of so-called Zionists who are nothing but Jews, under a new name?"

He sat down before any one could answer him, and whispered to Ali Shah al Khassib, who called on another man to speak at once. It was a pretty obvious piece of concerted strategy, but he got by with it for the moment. The general feeling seemed to be in favour of a raid if only some one would start it. Nobody seemed to mind much how the decision was arrived at, so long as the responsibility was passed to some one else.

The man now called on was a smooth-tongued, tall, lean individual with shifty eyes, and a flow of talk of the coffeeshop variety. At the end of his first sentence any fool would have known that he had been put up to quiz Abdul Ali, in order that Abdul Ali might have an excuse to justify himself. He attacked him very mildly, with much careful hedging and apologetic gesture, on the ground that possibly the Damascene was ignoring their interests while urging them to take action that would suit his own.

Even with that mild criticism he set loose quite a murmur of minority agreement. For the first time since the speech-making began Anazeh barked approval. I thought for a moment the old man was going to get to his feet. But Abdul Ali was up again first, and launched on the seas of self-esteem.

If I had not listened to equally childish political maneuvers in the States, and seen them succeed for the reason that people who want something want also to be fooled into getting it by special arguments, it would have seemed incredible that a man, who had recently boasted of statesmanship, should dare to make such a public ass of himself. Yet, for fifteen minutes he carried the whole meeting with him, and the warmth of his self-satisfied emotion made him ooze resplendent sweat.

"Now he speaks of you, effendi," Mahommed ben Hamza whispered; and in confirmation of it Anazeh clutched my arm, as if to keep the tide of eloquence from washing me away.

Had the British done anything for the country this side of Jordan? Anything for the people's education, for instance? No! Instead, they had taken away the missionaries. Better than nothing were those missionaries. They had their faults. They undermined religion. But they taught. And the British had called them in, giving some ridiculous excuse about danger. It had remained then for him--Abdul Ali of Damascus and of El-Kerak --the same individual who was now urging them to strike for their own advantage--to take the first step for the establishment in El-Kerak of a school that should be independent of the British. He, Abdul Ali, greatly daring because he had the interest of El- Kerak at heart, had introduced that day into the mejlis a distinguished guest from the United States, whose sole desire-- whose only object in life--whose altruistic and divine ambition was to establish an American secular school in El-Kerak!

He sat down, glowing with super-virtue. And then the fur flew. Anazeh was first on his feet.

"Princes!" he shouted. "That Damascene is a father of lies! It was I, Anazeh, who brought this man hither! That corrupter of honesty, who doles out other people's gold for bidden purposes, seeks to appear as your benefactor!" (It was fairly obvious that Anazeh had not received any of the gold.) "He will say next that it was he who set the stars in the sky over El-Kerak, and makes the moon rise! He is a foreigner, a father of snakes, and a born liar!"

Anazeh refused to sit down again, but stood with rifle on his arm, daring any one to challenge his statements. Abdul Ali flushed angrily, but laughed aloud. The next man on his feet was ben Nazir, my erstwhile host, who had repudiated me. And he repudiated me all over again, accusing me of abusing his hospitality by going over to Abdul Ali, who had never even heard of me before I came to El-Kerak.

There was no making head or tail of the storm of abuse and counter-abuse that followed, except that it did not look healthy for me. There seemed to be four or five different factions, all of whom regarded me as the bone of contention. Rather than betray anxiety I opened the Bible and began to make dots under letters, spelling out a message to Grim to the effect that I had no notion where to find lodgings for the night, and that if Anazeh elected to carry me off I should have to go with him.

I did not know how to get the message to him without arousing suspicion and making matters worse than they were, and it seemed best not to call attention to the fact that I was writing. So I made a few dots at a time, and looked about me. I saw Abdul Ali, laughing cynically, make a gesture with his arm as if he consigned me to the dogs. Then I caught Grim's eye--Suliman ben Saoud's. He, too, was making capital of my predicament.

He had got the attention of the men around him, and was pointing at the Bible while he reeled off a string of an angry rhetoric that sounded like a cat-fight. He shouted at me, and made angry gestures; but I knew that if he wanted me to understand his signals he would never make them openly, so I ignored them.

"The sheikh from Arabia demands to see the book," said Mahommed ben Hamza in my ear.

I passed it over the carpet with the pencil folded in it at the page I had begun to mark; and the men opposite handed it along, with remarks they considered appropriate. Jim Suliman ben Saoud Grim seized the book angrily, glared at it, denounced it, and wrote something on the fly-leaf. He showed it to the men beside him, and they laughed, nodding approval. He wrote again. They approved again. He turned and talked to them. Then, as if he had an afterthought, he wrote a third time. When they wanted to look at that he ran the pencil through it and wrote something else on the other side of the fly-leaf, at which they all laughed uproariously. Presently he tossed the book back to me with all the outward signs of contempt that a fanatic can show for another religion.

I have kept that Bible as a souvenir, with the verses from the Koran written on the flyleaf in Arabic in Grim's fine hand. Underneath them, in Greek characters with a pencil line scrawled through them, is the only sentence that interested me at the moment:

"This looks good. Keep Anazeh quiet and sober."

Anazeh was beginning to hold forth again, shaking his fist at Abdul Ali and making the roof echo to his mighty bellowing. I tugged at the skirt of his cloak, and after a minute he sat down to discover what I wanted. He seemed to think I needed reassurance. He began to flood me with promises of protection. It was about a minute before I could get a word in edgeways. Then:

"Jimgrim says," said I.

"Jimgrim! Is he here?"

"He surely is."

"How do you know?"

"We have a sign. Jimgrim says, 'Be quiet, and drink no strong drink.'"

He leaned across to Mahommed ben Hamza, doubting his ears and my Arabic. I repeated the message, and ben Hamza translated.

"I don't believe Jimgrim is here!" said Anazeh. "I would know him among a million."

"It is true," said ben Hamza, grinning from ear to ear, "for I myself know where he sits!"

"Where then?" Anazeh demanded excitedly.

"Don't you dare!" said I, and ben Hamza grinned again.

"He is my friend. I say nothing," he answered.

Anazeh put in the next five minutes minutely examining every face within range, while the din of argument rose louder and more violent than ever, and suspicion of me seemed to be gaining.

But suddenly Suliman ben Saoud got to his feet and there was silence. They were all willing to listen to a member of the Ichwan sect, for the news of its power and political designs had spread wherever men talk Arabic. He spoke gutturally in a dialect that ben Hamza did not find it any too easy to follow, so I only got the general gist of Grim's remarks.

He said that he had much experience of raids and of making preparations for them. A raid aimed at the Zionists--at this moment--might be good--perhaps. They were better judges of that than he. But it was all-important to know who was in favour of the raid, and exactly why. The words men spoke were not nearly so impressive as the deeds they did. Therefore, when the illustrious Sheikh Abdul Ali of Damascus urged a raid on the one hand, and boasted of provision for a school in El-Kerak on the other, it would be well to examine this foreign effendi, whom Abdul Ali claimed to have introduced. The claim was disputed, but the claim was not made for nothing. In his judgment, based on vast experience of politics in Arabia, motives were seldom on the surface. All depended on the motives of the illustrious Abdul Ali. This stranger from America--he glared balefully at me--should be investigated thoroughly. As a man of vast experience with the interests of El-Islam at heart, he offered respectfully to examine this stranger thoroughly with the aid of an interpreter. He confessed to certain suspicions; should they prove unfounded, then it might be reasonable to credit the rest of Abdul Ali's statements; if not, no. He was willing, if the honourable mejlis saw fit, to take the stranger aside and put many questions to him.

When he had finished you could actually physically feel the suspicion directed at me. It was like a cold wind. Anazeh was just as conscious of it, and muttered something about its being time to go. Abdul Ali got up and asked indignantly why the Ichwan from so far away should have such an important voice; he himself stood there ready to answer all questions. Suliman ben Saoud retorted sourly that he proposed to question the Damascene in public after privately interrogating me.

"They shall not interfere with you! You are in my charge," Anazeh growled in my ear. "I will summon my men at the first excuse."

"Jimgrim says, 'Be quiet!'" I answered.

There was another uproar. Ali Shah al Khassib openly took the part of Abdul Ali. A dozen men demanded to know how much he had been paid to do it. Finally, Suliman ben Saoud beckoned me. I got up, and with Mahommed ben Hamza at my heels I followed him to a narrow door in a side wall that opened on a stone stairway leading to the ramparts. Anazeh' came too, growling like a hungry bear, and after a couple of blood-curdling threats hurled at Suliman ben Saoud's back he took up position in the open door, facing the crowd, and dared any one to try to follow. He seemed to have confidence in Mahommed ben Hamza's ability to protect me, if necessary, on the roof.

The roof and ramparts appeared deserted. They were in the ruinous state to which the Turks reduce everything by sheer neglect, and in which Arabs, blaming the Turks, seemed quite disposed to leave things. The Ichwan led the way to the southwest corner, peering about him to make sure no guards were in hiding, or asleep behind projecting buttresses. Overhead the kites were wheeling against a pure blue sky. The Dead Sea lay and smiled below us, with the gorgeous, treeless Judean Hills beyond. Through the broken window of the hall came the clamour of arguing men.

"O, Jimgrim!" grinned Mahommed ben Hamza when we reached the corner.

Grim turned and faced us with folded arms, leaning his back against the parapet.

Ben Hamza continued: "You are a very prince of dare-devils! One word from me--one little word, and they would fling you down into the moat for the vultures to feed on!"

"I remember a time," Grim answered, "when a word from me saved you from hanging."

"True, father of good fortune! But a man must laugh. I will hold my tongue in El-Kerak like a tomb that has not been plundered!"

"You'd better! You've work to do. Where are your men?"

"All where I can find them."

"Good. You'll get turned out of the mejlis presently. Look down into the moat now."

We all peered over. The lower ramp of the wall sloped steeply, but all the way up the sharp southwest corner the stones were broken out, and a goat, or a very active man could find foothold.

"Could you climb that?"

"Surely. Remember, Jimgrim, when I climbed the wall of El-Kudz (Jerusalem) to escape from the police!"

"Bring your men into the moat between dark and moonrise. Have a long rope with you--a good one. You and two men climb up here and hide. The remainder wait below. Oh, yes; and bring a wheat sack--a new, strong one. You may have to wait for several hours. When you see me, take your cue from me; but whatever happens, no murder! You understand? Nobody's to be killed."

Ben Hamza grinned and nodded. He seemed to be one of those good- natured rogues who ask nothing better than the sheer sport of lawless hero-worship. He would have made a perfect chief of staff for any brigand, provided the brigand took lots of chances.

"You'll be killed, if anybody finds you up here after dark! You realize that?"

"Trust me."

Grim nodded. He was good at trusting people, when he had to, and when the selection was his own.

"Affairs seem to be drifting nicely," he said, turning to me. "It's best not to let Anazeh know who I am just yet, if that can be helped. But if you must, when the time comes, you'll have to tell him. Do keep him sober. After the evening prayer there'll be a banquet; if he gets drunk we're done for. I'm going to make you out an awful leper, if you don't mind. They may yell for your hide and feathers before I've finished, but Anazeh will protect you. If he leaves the hall in a huff, don't make any bones about going with him. Let him ride out of town and wait for me about two miles down the track, at the point where that tomb stands above a narrow pass between two big rocks. Do you remember it?"

"What if he won't wait?"

"He must! Tell him I'll have a prisoner with me; then he'll be curious. But you can bet on old Anazeh when he's sober. But things may turn out so that it's simpler for you to stay and see this through with me. In that case you must persuade him to go without you, after explaining to him just where he's to wait."

"How shall I do that?" I said. "I haven't enough Arabic."

"I'll write it," he answered. "Give me that pencil."

"Say something, too, then about his keeping sober."

Grim nodded, and wrote quite a long letter in Arabic on a page of my notebook.

"The next move," he said, as I pocketed the letter, "is for me to get Abdul Ali's goat: I think--and I hope--he'll try to bribe me. If he does, he's my meat! The whole question of raid or no raid hangs on their confidence in him. If I throw suspicion on him, and he disappears directly afterwards, they'll abandon the plan, confiscate his goods and chattels, and quarrel among themselves instead of raiding Palestine. Get me?"

"Um-n-yes. I've sat on a horse I was warned against--felt safer--and gone to hospital at that."

He laughed.

"No hospitals up here! It'll be soon over if they get wise to us. But I think we're all right; and you're almost certainly safe. But don't be tempted to talk. Well--we've been up here long enough for me to have put you through the third degree. Better look a bit uncomfortable as you go down, as if I'd got under your skin with some awkward questions. You, too, ben Hamza; don't grin; look afraid."

"I am not at all afraid, Jimgrim. But I will try."

Grim studied for a moment.

"Don't forget," he added, "at the first suggestion that you're not wanted, make yourself scarce, and go and round up your men. If you're thrown out pretty roughly, keep your temper and run."

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

"Come on, then. Let's go."

The sun was fairly low over the Judean Hills as we turned down the narrow stairs and found Anazeh waiting at the bottom.

Chapter Nine

"Feet downwards, too afraid to yell!"--

Abdul Ali of Damascus was holding the floor again when we returned. He had abandoned the cold air of mysterious authority and secrets in reserve. His claim to backstairs influence having been challenged, he had resorted to the emotional appeal that is the simplest means of controlling any crowd of men anywhere. The demagog who can find a million men all responsive to the same emotion can swing them as easily as a hundred if he knows his business. Loot was the tune he harped, with the old Ishmael blood-lust by way of obbligato.

He had them by the heart-strings, and there were long-necked bottles of liquor that smelt of aniseed being passed from hand to hand. We returned to our places almost unnoticed, and within the minute some one handed a full bottle to Anazeh; the accompanying cup was big enough to hold any ordinary drunkard's breakfast, and the old sheikh's eyes admired the size of it.

I laid my hand on the wrist that held the bottle. He shook it off angrily, and began to pour. Grim, over the way, looked anxious. It was up to me to play this hand, so I led my ace of trumps.

Suddenly, and very clumsily, I rocked sideways to reach my hip- pocket, contriving to jog his elbow and spill what was already in the cup. He turned his head to curse savagely, and I showed him the folded sheet from my notebook. His name was on it in Arabic:

"Sheikh Anazeh ben Mahmoud, from Jimgrim."

He seized it, setting the bottle down between his feet, where it was instantly reached for by some one else and handed down the line. Reading was evidently not Anazeh's favorite amusement, but he knitted his brows over the letter and wrestled with it word by word, while Abdul Ali's fiery declamation made the vaulted roof resound. I could only make out snatches of the appeal to savagery--a word and a sentence here and there.

"Who are you, princes? Men with swords, or slaves who must obey?--Raid over the Jordan twenty thousand strong!--What are Jews? Shall Jews take the home of your ancestors? Who says so? --Let the Jews be buried in the land they come to steal!--You say the Jews are cleverer than you. Cut their heads off, then they cannot think!"

"When did Jimgrim give you this?" Anazeh demanded, folding the letter and stowing it in his bosom.

"That is the message that I told you would come later if you waited."

"Do you know what is in the message?"

"No." That was perfectly true. I had talked with Grim, but had not read what he had written.

"He wishes me to go and wait for him in a certain place"

"Why not do it?"

"Rubbama." (Perhaps.)

"True-believers! Followers of the Prophet! Sons of warrior kings!" thundered Abdul Ali. "Will you do nothing to help Feisul, a lineal descendant of the Prophet? You have helped him to a throne. Now strike to hold him there!"

"Jimgrim says, I may go away and leave you here," growled Anazeh. "What say you?"

"Ala khatrak. (Please yourself.) Jimgrim is wise."

"He is the father of wisdom. Mashallah! I will consider it. There will be a banquet presently!"

"And loot! You can help yourselves!" shouted Abdul Ali of Damascus. Then he sat down amid a storm of applause. Suliman ben Saoud--Jimgrim--was on his feet before the tumult died away, and again they grew perfectly still to listen to him. If an Arab loves anything under heaven more than his own style of fighting, it is the action and reaction of debate. I could not understand a word of the mid-Arabian dialect, but Abdul Ali's retorts were plain enough; and from the way that Grim pointed at me and Mahommed ben Hamza it was fairly easy to follow what was happening.

He denounced me as possibly dangerous, and wondered why they permitted me to have an interpreter, who could whisper to me everything that was being said.

"Put out the interpreter!" sneered Abdul Ali, and there was a chorus of approval. Mahommed ben Hamza got up and hurried for the door while the hurrying was good and painless to himself, though it was hardly that to other people; forcing his way between the close-packed notables he kicked more than one of them pretty badly and grinned when they cursed him. I saw Abdul Ali of Damascus whisper to one of his rose-coloured parasites, who got up at once and made his way toward the door, too.

"The fellow is from Hebron," Abdul Ali sneered in a voice loud enough for all to hear. "It is best that he should not go back to Hebron to tell tales! I have attended to it."

My blood ran cold. I tried to catch Grim's eye, but he would not look in my direction. I wondered whether he had heard Abdul Ali's threat. It seemed to me that if Mahommed ben Hamza were either murdered or imprisoned Grim's whole chance of success was gone. The danger would be multiplied tenfold. Anazeh seemed the only remaining hope. The old-rose individual who followed ben Hamza had not reached the door yet.

"How about your men?" I asked.

"They are all right." Anazeh's eyes pursued the liquor bottle.

"Why not go and see?" I suggested.

"Ilhamdul'illah, they are good men. I know them. If there is trouble they will come and tell me."

The door opened softly. The gorgeous old-rose parasite slipped through. I had a mental vision of Mahommed ben Hamza lying face- downward with his new coat stained with blood. There was nothing for it, it seemed, but the magic formula to move Anazeh.

"Jimgrim says, 'See that ben Hamza gets safely away!"'

"Dog of a Hebron tanner's son--let him die! What is that to me?"

"It is Jimgrim's command."

"Wallahi haida fasl! (By God, this is a strange affair!) Wait here!"