Affair in Araby Part 2

But there was a chance that the brigadier might carry resentment to the point of sending up a provost-marshal's guard to arrest Jeremy on the well-known principle that a bird in the hand can be strafed more easily than one with a medical certificate. The bush was the place for our bird until such time as the P.M.O.'s signature should adorn the necessary piece of paper; so we three rode up in a cab together to the Sikh hospital, and had a rare time trying to get in.

You see, there was a Sikh on guard outside, who respected nothing under heaven but his orders. He wouldn't have known Grim in any event, being only recently from India; Grim's uniform would have pa.s.sed him in, but he and Jeremy were still arrayed as Arabs, and my civilian clothes ent.i.tled me in the sentry's opinion to protection lest I commit the heinous sin of impertinence. An Arab in his eyes was as an insect, and a white man, who consorted with such creatures, not a person to be taken seriously.

But our friend Narayan Singh was in the hospital, enjoying the wise veteran's prerogative of resting on full pay after his strenuous adventures along with us at Abu Kem. There was nothing whatever the matter with him. He recognized Grim's voice and emerged through the front door with a milk-white smile flas.h.i.+ng in the midst of newly-curled black hair--dignified, immense, and full of instant understanding.

Grim said a few words to Narayan Singh in Arabic, which so far as the sentry was concerned wasn't a language, but Narayan Singh spoke in turn in Punjabi, and the man just out from India began to droop like Jonah's gourd under the old soldier's scorn.

In consequence we got a full salute with arms presented, and walked in without having to trouble anybody in authority, Narayan Singh leading with the air of an old-time butler showing royalty to their rooms. He even ascertained in an aside, that the doctor of the day was busy operating, and broke that good news with consummate tact:

"The sahibs' lightest wish is law, but if they should wish to speak with the doctor sahib, it would be necessary to call him forth from the surgery, where he works behind locked doors. Is it desired that I should summon him?"

"Operation serious?" asked Grim, and neither man smiled. It was perfect acting.

"Very, sahib. He removes the half of a sepoy's liver."

"Uh! Couldn't think of interrupting him. Too bad! Lead the way."

But we didn't enter the ward until Narayan Singh and an orderly had placed two screens around number nineteen cot, in the way they do when a man is dying, and had placed three chairs at the bedside contrary to the regulations printed on the wall. Then Narayan Singh stood on guard outside the screens, but didn't miss much of the conversation, I believe.

The man in bed was wounded badly, but not fatally, and though his eyes blazed with fever he seemed to have some of his wits about him. He recognized Grim after staring hard at him for about a minute.

"Jimgrim!"

"Sidi bin Tagim, isn't it? Well, well I thought it might be you," said Grim, speaking the northern dialect of Arabic, which differs quite a bit from that spoken around Jerusalem.

"Who are these?" asked the man in bed, speaking hoa.r.s.ely as he stared first at Jeremy and then at me.

"Jmil Ras, a friend of mine," Grim answered.

"And that one?"

He didn't like the look of me at all. Western clothes and a shaven face spell nothing rea.s.suring to the Arab when in trouble; he has been "helped" by the foreigner a time or two too often.

"An American named Ramsden. Also a friend of mine."

"Oh! An Amirikani? A hakim?"

"No. Not a doctor. Not a man to fear. He is a friend of Feisul."

"On whose word?"

"Mine," Grim answered.

Sidi bin Tagim nodded. He seemed willing to take Grim's word for anything.

"Why did you say a Jew stabbed you?" Grim asked suddenly.

"So that they might hang a Jew or two. Wallah! Are the Jews not at the bottom of all trouble? If a Greek should kill a Maltese it would be a Jew who planned it! May the curse of Allah change their faces and the fire of Eblis consume them!"

"Did you see the man who stabbed you?"

"Yes."

And was he a Jew?"

"Jimgrim, you know better than to ask that! A Jew always hires another to do the killing. He who struck me was a hireling, who shall die by my hand, as Allah is my witness. But may Allah do more to me and bring me down into the dust unburied unless I make ten Jews pay for this!"

"Any one Jew in particular?" Grim asked, and the man in bed closed up like a clam that has been touched.

He was a strange-looking fellow--rather like one of those lean Spaniards whom Goya used to paint, with a scant beard turning grey, and hollow cheeks. He had thrown off the grey army blanket because fever burned him, and his lean, hard muscles stood out as if cast in bronze.

"But for the Jews, Feisul would be king of all this land this minute!"

he said suddenly, and closed up tight again.

Grim smiled. He nearly always does smile when apparently at a loose end. At moments when most cross-examiners would browbeat he grows sympathetic--humours his man, and, by following whatever detour offers, gets back on the trail again.

"How about the French?" he asked.

"May Allah smite them! They are all in the pay of Jews!"

"Can you prove it?"

"Wallah! That I can!"

Grim looked incredulous. Those baffling eyes of his twinkled with quiet amus.e.m.e.nt, and the man in bed resented it.

"You laugh, Jimgrim, but if you would listen I might tell you something."

But Grim only smiled more broadly than ever.

"Sidi bin Tagim, you're one of those fanatics who think the world is all leagued against you. Why should the Jews think you sufficiently important to be murdered?"

"Wallah! There are few who hold the reins of happenings as I do."

"If they'd killed you they'd have stopped the clock, eh?"

"That is as Allah may determine. I am not dead."

"Have you friends in Jerusalem?"

"Surely."

"Strange that they haven't been to see you."

"Wallah! Not strange at all."

"I see. They regard you as a man without authority, who might make trouble and leave other men to face it, eh?"

"Who says I have no authority?"