The Lion of Petra Part 16

"What sort of robber are you that let such loot pa.s.s free?"

"Shall I rob my mother's son?" Grim asked her. "G.o.d forbid!"

Then he turned to me, wondering.

"Can you beat it?" he said.

CHAPTER VII

"You Got Cold Feet?"

We did not have to wait long for Ali Baba, Mujrim, and the camels, for they had not been fools enough to dawdle, with a hundred and fifty balked freebooters within rifle-shot, whose resilient pride was likely to breed anger. You can't lead camels any more than horses as fast as you can ride them; unless stampeded they tow loggily; but the fact that two or three dozen mounted Arabs had elected to follow along behind and watch from a safe distance what might happen to the train had lent Ali Baba wings.

And the same fact gave us wings too. We were up and away at once, headed eastward toward Petra, I perched on top of a baggage beast until Ali Baba could cut across at an angle and overtake us.

So those who watched no doubt confirmed the story of Ali Higg's presence on the scene. Had they not from the horizon seen the train stopped? Did they not with their own eyes see us scoot for Petra? And who else than the redoubtable Ali Higg would be likely to own such a string of splendid camels--he who could take what he coveted, and never coveted anything except the best?

The evidence of ident.i.ty was strong enough for a judge and jury.

Men have been hanged in America on less.

But that didn't help make the rest of our course any clearer than a fog off Sandy Hook. The real Ali Higg was in Petra like a dragon in a cave, and from all accounts of him he was not the sort of gentleman likely to lavish sweet endearments on a rival who had stolen not only his thunder, but his name as well.

"When in doubt go forward" is good law; but which is forward and which backward when you stand in the middle of a circle of doubt is a point that invites argument; and as soon as I could get my own camel I rode up beside Grim to find out whether our leader had a real plan or was only guessing.

But he seemed in no doubt at all, only satisfied, with the air of a scientist who has at last found the key to a natural puzzle. I found him chuckling.

"That explains a hundred things," he said.

"What does?"

"Why, my likeness to Ali Higg. It's evidently so. I've often been kept awake wondering why strangers--Bedouins mostly--would show me such deference until they found out who I really am, and after that would have to be handled without gloves. It bothered me. It looked as if I had some natural gift that I couldn't identify, and that got smothered as soon as I put mere brains to work.

"But I see now; they mistook me for the robber, and the reaction when they found out I was some one less like the devil made them act like school-kids who think they can guy the teacher. Now I understand, I'll do better."

"The point is," said I, "that you're established as the robber now, and here we are riding straight for his den. Can we fight him and his two hundred?"

"Fighting is a fool's game ten times out of nine," he answered.

"That's to say, it's always a fool who starts the fight. The wise man waits until fighting is the only resource that's left to him."

"Why not wait, then, and watch points?"

"Because we're not dealing with a wise man; he's only clever and drastic. If we wait word's bound to reach him that some one's posing as himself, and he'll sally forth to make an example of us--do a good job of it too!

"I'd hate to be caught out in the desert with twenty men by Ali Higg! He's a rip-roaring typhoon. But the worst typhoon the world ever saw had a soft spot in the middle.

"You know what the Arab say? `A dog can scratch fleas, but not worms in his belly!' We've got to be worms in the belly of Ali Higg, and where the man is there will be his belly also. We've got to stage what the movie people call a close-up."

Almost every one in the outfit had a different view of the situation, although all agreed that Grim was the man to stay with. Narayan Singh, growling in my ear incessantly, scented intrigue, and his Sikh blood tingled at the thought; he began to look more tolerantly on Ayisha as a mere instrument whom Grim would find some chance of using.

"For the cleverest woman whom the devil ever sent to ruin men is after all but a lie that engulfs the liar. I know that man Jimgrim. She will dig a pit, but he will not fall into it. It may be that we shall all die together, but what of that?"

Ayisha, on the other hand, was getting nervous. Grim avoided her.

She was reduced to questioning others, edging the little Bishareen alongside each in turn. She seemed no longer able to suffer the close confinement of the _shibriyah,_ but endured the scorching sun and desert flies with less discomfort than the rest of us betrayed, camels included.

"What will he do? Is he mad? Does he think that the Lion of Petra is a camel to be managed with a rope and a stick?

"I have given him his chance; because of my words men already fear him. Why doesn't he plunder, then, and run to his own home?

Why doesn't he talk with me and let me tell him what to do next?

I know all these people--all their villages--everything!"

"All women know too much, yet never what is needful," Ali Baba answered.

He was frankly jubilant. Son and grandson of robbers by profession, father and grandfather of educated thieves, life meant lawlessness to him, and he could see nothing but honest pleasure and the chance of profit in Grim's predicament. He loved Grim, as all Arabs do love the foreigner who understands them, deploring nothing except that unintelligible loyalty to a Western code of morals that according to Ali Baba's lights consisted of pure foolishness. And now, as he saw it, Grim stood committed to a course that could only lead to trickery. And all trickery must pave the way for plunder. And plundering was fun.

His sons and grandsons in varying degree saw matters from the old man's viewpoint, although, having had rather less experience of it, they were not quite so confident of Grim's generalship; but they made up for that by perfectly dog-like devotion to "the old man, their father," whose word and whose interpretation of the Koran was the only law they knew.

What tickled their fancy most was Ali Baba's cleverness in egging on Ayisha to advertise Grim as Ali Higg. Again and again on the march that day, in spite of the grilling heat, and thirst and flies, they burst into roars of laughter over it, chaffing Ayisha's four men unmercifully.

And after a while Mahommed, the youngest of Ali Baba's sons, regarded by all the others as the poet of the band and therefore the least responsible and most to be humored in his whims, made up a song about it all. It called for something more than boisterous spirits; it needed the fire of enthusiasm and ingrained pluck to set them all singing behind him in despite of the desert heat and the dazzling, bleak, unwatered view. They sang the louder in defiance of the elements.

"Lord of the desert is Ali Higg!

_Akbar! Akbar!_ *

Lord of the gardens of grape and fig.

_Akbar! Akbar!_ Lord of the palm and cl.u.s.tered date.

_Mishmish,_** olive and water sate Hunger and thirst in Ali's gate!

_Akbar! Akbar! Akbar Ali Higg!_

"Lion of lions and lord of lords!

_Akbar! Akbar!_ Chief of lances, prince of swords!

_Akbar! Akbar!_ Red with blood is the realm he owns!

Bzz-u-wzz-uzz the blood-fly drones!

Crack-ak-ak-ak! The crunching bones!

_Akbar! Akbar! Akbar Ali Higg!_

"Jackals feed on Ali's trail!

_Akbar! Akbar!_ Speed and strength and numbers fail!

_Akbar! Akbar!_ Swooping along in a cloud of sand, Killing and conquering out of hand Hasten the slayers of Ali's band!

_Akbar! Akbar! Akbar Ali Higg!_

"Camel and horse and fat-tail sheep, _Akbar! Akbar!_ Ali's kite-eyed herdsmen keep!

_Akbar! Akbar!_ Gold and silver and gems of the best, Amber and linen and silks attest What are the profits of Ali's quest!