The Lion of Petra | Page 7

has been looted to pay for these?" asked Grim.
"Allah! You have put an end to our proper business, Jimgrim. What could we do? We took our money and bought these camels, thinking to take a hand in the caravan trade."
Grim looked into the old rogue's eyes and laughed.
"In the land I come from," he said, "a capitalist with your predatory instincts would pay a lawyer by the year to tell him just how far he could safely go!"
"A wakil?" sneered Ali Baba. "The wakils are all scoundrels. May Allah grind their bones! No honest man can have the advantage of such people."
Grim looked the loads over, but there was nothing that any one could teach that gang about desert work. The goat-skin water-bags were newly patched and moist; the gear was all in good shape, none new, but all well-tested; and there was food enough in double sacks for twenty men for a month. Mujrim, Ali Baba's giant oldest son, picked up the loads and turned them over for Grim to examine with about as much apparent effort as if he were tossing pillows.
Presently Grim laughed again, and looked at the line of fifteen other sons and grandsons, all squatting in the shadow of the wall watching us.
"Which is the chief Lothario?" he asked; only he used a much more expressive word than that, because the East is frank where the West deals in innuendo, and vice versa.
"They are all grown men," said Ali Baba. "There's a woman named Ayisha--a Badawi (Bedouin)--who has lately come from El-Maan with a caravan of wheat merchants."
"How did you know that, Jimgrim?"
"I'm told she has been buying things in the suk* that no Badawi could have use for, and has sent to Jerusalem for goods that could not be obtained here. I want to speak with her. Has any of your"--he smiled at the line of placidly contented sons again--"fathers of immorality made her acquaintance by some chance?" [* Bazaar]
Every one of the sixteen sons instantly assumed an expression of far-away meditation. Ali Baba looked shocked.
"I see!" said Grim. "Um-m-m! Well--none of my business. But one of you go fetch her to the governorate. You may tell her she's not in trouble, but an officer wants first-hand information about El-Maan."
"Shall my sons be seen dragging a woman through the streets?" asked Ali Baba.
"Let's hope not. But I don't care to send the police. I don't want to put her to indignity, you understand. Suppose you arrange it for me, eh?"
"Listen, Jimgrim; that woman is a strange one! Men have spoken evil of her, but none can prove it. I have heard it said she has a devil. `Trust in God, but tie your camel!' says the Book.* The wisest among wise men would be he who let that woman alone!"
------------ * The Moslems attribute all their favorite proverbs to the Koran, whether they are in the book or, as in this case, not. ------------
"I suppose I'll have to get Captain de Crespigny to arrange it for me."
"Tfu!* There is no need for a man like you to appeal to the governor. Taib. It shall be done. Have no doubt of it."
---------- * An exclamation of contempt ----------
"All right. Send her up to the governorate--and no delays, mind! We start tonight at sundown."
On our way back we met Narayan Singh returning from the suk with parcels under his arm. That in itself was a sure sign of the lapse of contact with law and order; in Jerusalem he would have had an Arab carry them, because dignity is part of a Sikh's uniform. You realized without a word said that the uniform would be discarded presently. He looked me up and down as the quartermaster eyes a new recruit, and nodded in that exasperating way that makes you feel as if you had been ticketed and numbered. If Grim had not told me that the Sikh had been first to suggest taking me to Petra I would have insulted him painstakingly there and then; but you learn a certain amount of self-restraint, I suppose, before such a man as Narayan Singh ever approves of you for any purpose.
He undid the parcels on the dining-room table in the governorate, and the next half-hour was spent in rigging me up as an ascetic-looking Indian Moslem, with the aid of a white turban wound over a cone-shaped cap, great horn-rimmed spectacles, and the comfortable, baggy garments that the un-modernized hakim wears over narrow cotton pantaloons.
Over it all they put a loose, brown Bedouin cloak of camel-hair such as any man expecting to travel across deserts might invest in, whatever his nationality; it was hotter than Tophet, but, as the Arabs say, what keeps the heat in will also keep it out. It gives you a feeling of carrying