Affair in Araby Part 16

"There's only one thing troubles me," said Jeremy.

"What's that?"

"Narayan Singh got Yussuf Dakmar's shirt night before last. I've had it in for Yussuf ever since we Anzacs went hungry on account of him.

Anyone who scuppers him has got me to beat to him. He's my meat, and I give you all notice!"

It isn't good to stand between an Anzac and the punishment he thinks an enemy deserves.

"All the same," Grim answered, smiling, "I'll bet you don't get him, Jeremy."

"I'll bet you. How much?"

"Mind you, when the game begins, you have a free hand," Grim went on.

"All right," answered Jeremy, who loves freak bets, "if I get him you quit the Army soon as this job's done, and join up with Rammy and me: if I don't I'll stay and help you on the next job."

"That's a bet," said Grim promptly.

So Jeremy went forward to play at being traitor, while Narayan Singh and I kept Mabel company. She fired questions at us right and left for twenty minutes, which we had to answer in detail instead of straining our cars to catch what Grim and Jeremy might be saying to Yussuf Dakmar in the next compartment.

Whatever they did say, they managed to prolong the interview until within ten minutes of Deraa, when the Syrian returned to his companions smiling smugly and Narayan Singh strode after him, to stand in the corridor and by ostentatiously watching them prevent their examining the letter.

Grim and Jeremy, all grins, joined us at once in Mabel's compartment.

"Did you see the devil smirk as he went off with it?" asked Jeremy.

"Golly, he thinks we're fools! The theory is that we two had betrayed you, Rammy, and swapped the letter against his bare promise to pay us in Damascus. He chucked in a little blackmail about sicking his mates on to murder us if we didn't come across, and I tell you we fairly love him! Lordy, here's Deraa! If they open the thing before the train leaves, Grim says the lot of us are to bolt back across the border, send Mabel home to her husband, and continue the journey by camel. That right, Grim?"

Grim nodded. It was Mabel who objected.

"I'm going to see this through," she answered. "Guess again, boys! My hair's gone gray. You owe me a real adventure now, and I won't give up the letter till you've paid!"

We had one first-cla.s.s scare when the train drew up in the squalid station, where the branch line to Haifa meets the main Hedjaz railway and the two together touch a mean town at a tangent; for a French officer in uniform boarded the train and stalked down the corridors staring hard at everyone. He asked me for a pa.s.sport, which was sheer bluff, so I asked him in turn for his own authority. He smiled and produced a rubber stamp, saying that if I wished to visit Beirut or Aleppo I must get a vise from him.

"Je m'em bien garderai!" I answered. "I'm going to see my aunt at Damascus."

"And this lady? Is she your wife?"

I laughed aloud--couldn't help it. All the Old Testament stories keep forcing themselves on your memory in that land, and the legend of Abraham trying to pa.s.s his wife off as his sister and the three-cornered drama that came of it cropped up as fresh as yesterday. There was no need that I could see to repeat the patriarch's mistake, any more than there was reasonable basis for the Frenchman's impertinence.

"Is that your business?" I asked him.

"Because," he went on, smiling meanly, "you speak with an American accent. It is against the law to carry gold across the border, and Americans have to submit to personal search, because they always carry it."

"Show me your authority!" I retorted angrily.

"Oh, as for that, there is a customs official here who has full authority. He is a Syrian. It occurred to me that you might prefer to be searched by a European."

"Call his bluff!" Grim whispered behind his sleeve, but I intended to do that, anyway.

"Bring along your Syrian," said I, and off he went to do it, treating me to a backward glance over his shoulder that conveyed more than words could have done.

"He'll bluff sky-high," said Grim, "but keep on calling him."

"I've been searched at six frontiers," said Mabel. "If it's a Syrian I don't much mind; you boys all come along, and he'll behave himself.

They're much worse in France and Italy. Hadn't one of you better take the letter, though? No! I was forgetting already! I won't part with it. I'll take my chance with the Syrian; he'll only ask me to empty my pockets and prove that I haven't a bag full of gold under my skirt. Sit tight, all, here he comes!"

The Frenchman returned with a smiling, olive-complexioned Syrian in tow --a round-faced fellow with blue jaws as dark as his serge uniform. The Frenchman stood aside and the Syrian announced rather awkwardly that regulations compelled him to submit Mabel and me to the inconvenience of search.

"For what?" said I.

"For gold," he answered. "It is against the law to smuggle it across the border."

"I've only one gold coin," I said, showing him a U.S. twenty-dollar piece, and his yellow eyes shone at sight of it. "If it will save trouble you may have it."

I put it into his open palm with the Frenchman looking on, and it was immediately clear that that particular Syrian official was no longer amenable to international intrigue. He was bought and sold--oozy with grat.i.tude--incapable of anything but wild enthusiasm for the U.S.A. for several hours to come.

"I have searched them!" said he to the French officer. "They have no gold, and they are all right."

The French have faults like the rest of us, but they are quicker than most men to recognize logic. The man with crimson pants and sabre grinned cynically, shrugged his shoulders, and pa.s.sed on to annoy somebody easier.

CHAPTER XII

"Start something before they're ready for it!"

Just before the train started, a handsome fellow with short black beard trimmed into a point and wearing a well-cut European blue serge suit, but none the less obviously an Arab, came to the door of our compartment and stared steadily at Grim. He stood like a fighting man, as if every muscle of his body was under command, and the suggestion was strengthened by what might be a bullet scar over one eye.

If that fellow had asked me for a loan on the spot, or for help against his enemies, he would have received both or either. Moreover, if he had never paid me back I would still believe in him, and would bet on him again.

However, after one swift glance at him, Grim took no notice until the train was under way--not even then in fact, until the man in blue serge spoke first.

"Oh, Jimgrim!" he said suddenly in a voice like a tenor bell.

"Come in, Hadad," Grim answered, hardly glancing at him. "Make yourself at home."

He tossed a valise into the rack, and I gave up the corner seat so that he might sit facing Grim, he acknowledging the courtesy with a smile like the whicker of a sword-blade, wasting no time on foolish protest.

He knew what he wanted--knew enough to take it when invited--understood me, and expected me to understand him--a first-cla.s.s fellow. He sat leaning a little forward, his back not touching the cushion, with the palms of both hands resting on his knees and strong fingers motionless.

He eyed Mabel Ticknor, not exactly nervously but with caution.

"Any news?" asked Grim.

"Jimgrim, the world is full of it!" he answered in English with a laugh.

"But who are these?"

"My friends."